Upgrading the Ol’ Grill

I’ve used and abuse my poor Weber (Thermos make) grill over the years — slow cooking pork for hours on end, roasting peppers for bold salsas, and grilling hundreds of steaks, chops, and burgers has taken its toll on the big hunk of metal. So when I set out to…

Balans Branches Out

Balans restaurant, which has been an anchor on the west side of Lincoln Road Mall since 1997, five weeks ago opened its’ second South Florida location in Mary Brickell Village (there are five London branches as well). The interior is modern and minimalist, with outdoor tables spread upon the VIllage…

How Esquire Rates Miami Food and Drink (A Partial Retrospective)

I recently came into possession of a half-dozen back issues of Esquire, a magazine somewhat obsessed with naming the best of this and the best of that. The food section is no exception — three of the issues I thumbed through featured such listings. I took a tally to see…

New Brew: Beer Events and the Fresh Beer Times

I was just reading the latest installment of the Fresh Beer Times newsletter, put out bi-monthly by Fort Lauderdale’s own distributor of fine, hopped products Fresh Beer, Inc, and I have to say that it kicks ass. It comes out on the second and fourth Fridays of each month, and…

The Art Of Food Folds

During this week of welcoming Art Basel Miami, let us take a moment to say goodbye to The Art Of Food. The raw food/vegan counter cafe was located in a cooperative vintage clothing and jewelry shop across the street from Midtown Miami’s Circuit City (which has problems of its own)…

Twinkies and Milk

Until I saw Milk yesterday, the biopic starring Sean Penn as gay activist and San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, I’d forgotten all about the Twinkie Defense. Fellow supervisor Dan White shot and killed Milk and Mayor George Moscone in their offices at San Francisco City Hall in 1978 and…

Restaurant Preview 2

Michelle Bernstein’s Sra. Martinez will be debuting this Monday in the  Design District. On Tuesday the Wynwood hood, which has been quiet as an empty canvas concerning food, will finally have a restaurant: Joey’s, a contemporary Italian café at 2506 N.W. 2nd Avenue. Developer Joey Goldman and well-known father/partner Tony…

More Turkey-Shaped Objects to Drool Over

Every so often, Robbin Slocum, wife of our Managing Editor Ed Newton, treats the editorial department to one of her delicious rum cakes. These things are no joke. First off, they’re doused in enough tasty, fermented cane that if you had a post gustatory smoke after eating a slice you’d…

Conspicuous Consumption

You know me. I’m not a girl to go all giddy over splashy restaurant P.R. Those artfully composed packages, bearing their painstakingly designed logos, arrive in my mailbox pretty regularly, and I greet them with mixed feelings: excitement (hope springs eternal), dismay (the overwrought hyperbole!), and pity for the office…

A Thanksgiving Day Chuckle

Here’s hoping that this classic poem by E.V. Wright helps put you into the proper frame of mind for your family get-together. When Father Carves The Duck    We all look on with anxious eyes    When father carves the duck,    And mother almost always sighs    When father carves the duck;    And…

I’ll See Your Three Animals and Raise you a Fourth…

Corey JamesBy now the Frankenstein monster of Thanksgiving dishes, the turducken, is old news: Stuffing a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey is just sooo Thanksgiving 2007. I mean, three animals? Is that all you got? Well, Corey James over at Bacon Today has you beat, my friend. This,…

Last Minute Thanksgivings

I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for you schmucks who haven’t given one second’s thought to what you’re doing for MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY — since personally my 2008 Thanksgiving has been in planning and development since last May. I’ve ordered (and received) my absurdly expensive Heritage turkey, I’ve…

Next Slow Food Miami Dinner, December 10th

Every dog must have his truffle, and tis the season for the famous fungi, which fruits most prolifically in autumn in Piedmont. Thus, tickets are going fast for the next Slow Food Miami Dinner, which features Terra Madre and the cuisine of Piedmont, famous for its white truffles and mushrooms…

Clay Conley Shoots Down A Rumor And Serves Up A Recipe

In yesterday’s Short Order I suggested that a major unnamed chef would be shortly leaving a major unnamed restaurant. I was alluding to Clay Conley of Azul, in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. When I contacted the chef to see if the rumor was true, he started off by stating “I’m…

Don’t Try This At Home, and other reasons to eat at Lulu’s

Deep frying a turkey can destroy your home, kill your neighbors, and ruin your life. It happened to a friend of mine. This was in Chicago, some years back. He turned on his heating element — something red and dangerous looking, made by a company with a Japanese sounding name –…

Miami Chefs Move, Restaurants Close, People Get Taxed And Die

Heralded French chef Christian Delouvrier is gone from La Goulue in The Shoppes at Bal Harbour. If you log in to the restaurant website for details, it will say: “Coming Soon! La Goulue Bal Harbour”. Executive chef Carlo Macaluso has left the relatively new Cita’s Italian Chop House in Coconut…

Fried, Smoked, Dipped, and Fried Again at the Broward County Fair

The fair is a veritable smorgasbord…                Photos by C. StilesIf there’s one thing to be said about the traditional county fair, it’s that they’re perfect testing grounds for new foods; prime places to push the boundaries a bit, largely in pursuit of an answer to the question, “What doesn’t taste…

Poisoned have Thanksgiving you may

I just got this news release from JusticeNewsFlash.com, a “Pro American Legal Distribution Service,” and it’s just too delicious not to quote directly: Skilled South Florida personal injury attorney, Susan Ramsey, is proficient with consumer health law news and is reminding all Americans that the holiday time is a constant…

2008 Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrive!

Lee Klein I had to take precious time from my Thursday afternoon in order to make it first-hand-official for loyal readers of Short Order (and I mean both of you): The 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived. First I had to mill about, just outside the gates of Casa Casuarina (on…

Culinary Travels in Costa Rica: Part 3

I’m going to wrap up this short little porthole into Costa Rican cuisine talking a little bit about everything — probably in a very rambling, tangential sort of way. Just a fair warning. Native fruit is definitely one of the more unique aspects of eating in Costa Rica. You’ve got…

A Sandwich Makes The Perfect Murder Weapon

Ever since news broke that a Port St. Lucie man beat his girlfriend with a sandwich, we’ve been waiting…waiting…to learn exactly what was his weapon of choice. The Port St. Lucie Police Department is not about to give such clues away. But whatever the sandwich in question was, it failed…

Last Night: Anise Opens in Miami’s Uppereast Side

John Hood Seventy-eighth Street east of Biscayne was like a rock concert parking lot last night, albeit a rock concert full of sophisticates. I’m talking a mob scene the likes that block hasn’t seen since forever. And while the crowd in question wasn’t really there to hear their favorite band,…