Long before Chipotle and Moes began hawking burritos in South Florida, hometown favorite East Coast Burrito Factory was constructing gargantuan, one-pound burritos and unleashing them like mini Godzillas on the public. The burritos say East Coast, but the style is distinctly San Franciscan with a Florida twist — Frisco burros…
Chocolate is a lot like sandpaper. It smoothes the rough edges off just about everything. Of course, good handmade chocolate can flatten your budget too, one reason why the deal at Schakolad Chocolate Factory is a treat for your sweet teeth. Through the end of August, the Davie Factory is…
It was the summer of 1989, and my family was on one of our epic, summer road trips. We were just outside of Nashville and were closing in on 15 hours crammed into our beige Dodge Caravan. My father, after reluctantly deciding we’d gone far enough, started looking for somewhere…
Marumi Sushi’s tofu steak is made of pure win — it’s a thin brick of tofu that’s been lightly floured and pan-fried, then topped with about a pound of mushrooms, onions, and silky sake butter sauce. The mushrooms are amazing. There are about seven kinds on top, including regular buttons,…
When it’s my turn to pick something for this weekly post, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not too adventurous. Instead, I’m looking for something that is strange enough to pass as exotic yet not so strange as to give me anxiety thinking about what it will do to…
• Another Italian restaurant comes to Boca Raton with the debut of Rosario’s Ristorante in the tony Royal Palm Place shopping mall. Rosario Lanza, late of La Viola, is serving up a menu of mostly tried and true dishes from the top of the boot to his native Sicily, which…
This week’s dish column is on Ilios, a Mediterranean-inspired tapas restaurant on the sixth floor of the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort. Not much has been written about Ilios in the two years since the Hilton opened, while its contemporaries along the beach — Trina at the Atlantic, Cero at…
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. Downtown Delray Beach borrows a bit of New Orleans festivity with Art & Jazz on the Avenue on August…
You have to take message board user comments with a grain of salt – who knows what motivates people to say the things they do on the Internet. Often, absurd comments are a result of a mixture of anonymity and audience, a variation on the time-tested Greater Internet Dickwad Theory…
I opened up my copy of this month’s Food & Wine this weekend and balked at what I saw in editor Dana Cowin’s opening letter. It appears the magazine is getting in on the reality craze. They’re holding a contest called America’s Home Cook Superstar; I think you can guess…
One thing I can’t stand is having extra ingredients go bad in my fridge. Last week, I was in Oriental Square, a Chinese Market in my neck of the woods that has amazing deals on produce. I buy all types of fresh vegetables and herbs there: they have the best…
“This is an aggressive beer. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory — maybe something with a…
Feel that? It’s your full belly begging for mercy. But you can’t stop now – there’s just a little more on that plate to clean up. Unless you’re planning on taking home some leftovers, better scoop up what you missed this week on Clean Plate Charlie. That there’s some fine…
The Meatist’s post this morning on which supermarket bacon is the best made me excited all over again for my favorite new holiday: Bacon Day. That’s right, September 5 this year will be to bacon what Labor Day is to really cheap beer and barbecue, a day to revel in…
Bacon. Say it with me now: “bacon.” Feel happy? Hungry? Of course you do. Because really, what’s better than bacon? It brings salt to the savory, crunch to the flaccid, “B” to the “L” and the “T.” Could you ask more of anything? I think not. And yet, bacon has…
Although Clean Plate Charlie is the only food blog you really need to read daily, some people just can’t get enough. Here are some highlights of other food blogs.The South Florida page of Dine Mag is packed with news of upcoming chef related events and plenty of reviews of eateries…
One of my favorite Japanese candies is Morinaga HiChew, a sort of white, milky version of Starburst that’s got the consistency of recycled plastic. That doesn’t sound so great at first, but the creamy, fruity chews just sort of melt away deliciously as you gum them – they’re highly addictive,…
I’m certainly not the first person to notice that Taco Bell primarily has about five ingredients: Beef (sometimes ground, sometimes in larger chunks and called steak), chicken, tortillas, rice, and cheese. Every couple weeks, the powers that be at Taco Bell headquarters will come up with a new combination of…
The drag along Sunrise Boulevard east of I-95 is really in a bad way these days. Almost everything is out of business or vacant, except a few automotive-related businesses and a handful of chain restaurants. It’s also a rough area inhabited by many homeless. So it’s inspiring to see people…
If you are or have ever been a cubicle slave, you know a good, cheap lunch that isn’t one more ham-and-cheese or tuna sandwich can bring a tiny speck of light into the daily grind of pounding big rocks into little rocks for The Man. Of course, you don’t have…
Three of us were several pints deep on a Friday night at Brother Tuckers in Pompano Beach when Brandon brought up a theological discussion. We were in a bit of a beer haze at the time, but I remember it went something like: “Is indoctrinating your children into religion from…
The Lodge is Boca’s craft beer answer to the Ale House — a no-frills room with a row of steady-flowing taps and a collection of bottles that would make Charlie Papazian blush. Take a seat at the bar — every last inch of which is covered in wood — and…
