My recent visit to El Zocalo in Margate left me with an unsated craving for some badass tacos — I felt like Chris Farley in full Chicago Bears regalia (swap the “Polish sausage” for some “chorizo,” “Ditka” with “Cutler,” and the transformation would be complete). Instead of trolling my usual…
Pictured: This weekend was Rosh Hashanah, the holiday when Jewish people dip apples in honey, repent their sins, and get tipsy toasting a sweet new year months before the rest of the world. One of the holiday’s traditional dishes is a noodle kugel — or casserole — sweetened with cinnamon,…
If you’re not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here’s a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe. It’s not often that a birthday party warrants appearances from mermaids, acrobats, pirates, and a Madonna impersonator, but Bimini…
Pictured: Baja-style sea scallop tacos with red onion escabeche and Baja sauce.Red onion escabeche: Red onions, sliced. Lime juice. Rice wine vinegar. Salt. 30 minutes.Baja sauce: Plain yogurt. Sour cream. Cilantro. Salt. Pepper. Lime juice.Hand-made flour tortilla: Flour. Water. Salt. Shortening. Knead. Rest. Roll. Griddle.Sea scallops: Ancho chili powder. Salt…
Pinot noir that actually tastes like pinot noir is becoming about as rare as brain cells at a birthers’ convention, as winemakers pimp out this most perfect of all varietals with gobs of fruit and cords of oak and enough alcohol to stir into a martini. Cheap pinot noir that…
Well gawsh darn. This week was a great one on Clean Plate Charlie. We shared laughs. We shed tears. We ate a lot of food. Check out what you missed below.Morton cooks for who? Oh, for us. “Mi amore, take me to El Zocalo!”My trip to Key West yields three…
Although Clean Plate Charlie is the only food blog you need to read on a daily basis, some people just can’t get enough. Here are some highlights of local food blogs.Enjoy reading The Meatist? Of course you do. You should check out his other blog, Bone in the Fan, where…
Last night was New Times’ second annual Pairings event, a food and wine free-for-all at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. I certainly don’t want to toot our own horn too much (toot incoming), but this year’s event was much improved over the last. Actually, Pairings was much better…
Recently, I tried a small exercise in perception. Specifically, sausage perception. As in, what people think of when they think “sausage”. So I called up a friend. “What’s in sausage, do you think?” I asked him. “Sausage? I don’t know – the crap they can’t sell whole? Lips, hooves, ears…
Jacob KatelMaggie Jimenéz enjoys being outside after almost three hours in a meat freezer. Maggie Jimenéz is a rising culinary star with a popular lifestyle cooking show, ¡Qué Sabor!; an endorsement deal with Oscar Mayer; freelance writing gigs; and a cookbook in the works. She is a former fashion model…
It’s 2 a.m., and you’re out at the bar, having a good time. Maybe you’re only a few drinks in; maybe you’re singing Christmas carols on top of the bar. Either way, as you prepare to call it a night, you feel something primal growling deep inside your gut. Then,…
Welcome back to the Ron Duprat recap, where we talk about what happened to Broward’s own Haitian chef on the last episode of Top Chef. So far, Ron’s survived four elimination and four quickfire challenges. But he’s currently hugging the bottom rung of contenders. He’s never been in real danger…
You know those little hexagonally packaged Tortuga rum cakes that people who get off cruise ships and airplanes tend to hand out the way fruitcakes go around at Christmastime? They’re sweet and dry and taste like a distant relative to what someone’s Bahamian grandmother might actually make and hand out…
An unflinching love of Mexican food commands me to do outrageous things to satisfy urges. I’ve chased down street carts, eaten things out of convenience stores that I probably should not, and cut through traffic at the mere sight of a taco truck. Also acceptable: eating standing up in the…
There’s a world of difference between dull, ordinary table bread and the ethereal bodies of wheat born from Giorgio’s time-tested brick oven. Hold it up to your nose and you’ll immediately sense the difference: There’s the sweet, heady fragrance of fresh dough, a yeasty pungency that puts the swirl of…
It was a bit of a challenge finding the new Domenick’s Pizzeria in Weston, only in part because it is hidden in a plaza off a main drag, tucked behind a synagogue and squeezed between a beauty salon and Sylvan Learning center. As of presstime, one website claims it is…
You’ve got to love the Irish. The patron saint of the Emerald Isle, Saint Patrick, is said to have permanently driven the snakes off the island. This is probably the best-known assumption of St. Patrick to this day, despite scientific theories that there never were snakes in post-glacial Ireland.Never ones…
Earlier in the week, Riki Altman cooked up beef tenderloin medalions from the new Morton’s The Cookbook: 100 Steahkhouse Recipes for Every Kitchen. You sampled the recipe, now you can head to Morton’s in Coral Gables on September 23 for a signing by author Tyler Fields III, the VP of…
This one came with a disclaimer. A note on my desk reads: Brett: This may be so hot it kills you. –E. I ponder whether this sticky note disclaimer would hold up in court. Then I realize if something I eat kills me, my family will surely be too embarrassed…
Last week, I took some much needed vacation time and made the three-and-a-half-hour drive down to Key West for a bit of R and R, Conch-style. And what a great trip. I hadn’t been to the Keys in nearly 10 years, which is far too long an time for any…
Ready for another cheap and totally transparent grab at a few more clicks on Clean Plate Charlie? Sweet! We’re offering a pair of free tickets to the second-annual Pairings event taking place September 17. If you don’t know what Pairings is, click the link and educate yourself on the important…
The pozole is undoubtedly the best thing I tasted at El Zocalo Authentic Mexican Restaurant, the subject of this week’s Dish review. The dark red soup has thick chunks of pork and plenty of hominy, large kernels of corn with a potato-like texture. On its own, the soup is spicy…
