Something is definitely afoot here. We stuck our snout in the air, took a long whooof, and smelled a trend. I’d say this funky perfume resembled a glass of French Bordeaux and seared filet mignon laced with the odor of a corporate kitchen’s deep fryer at the end of a…
Fire it up Every Friday and Saturday, things get ridiculously tasty at the intersection of SW 62nd Avenue and SW 64th Street. The vacant lot behind St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Miami fills with the town’s unsung gourmands. In the distance, a yard full of dudes plays…
Sometimes I wonder if, back in the roaring 1990s, all those black families who lived in shanty shacks and cracker houses and cement block apartments just outside downtown West Palm Beach put a hex on the city when they moved out. They’d been relocated, evicted, or strongly encouraged to sell…
“Asturias is known the world over for its mountains, for its coal mines, for its fabada and its cider.” — writer Mario Vargas Llosa The latter two were on hand for Miamians to sample this past Wednesday at the great Spanish cafe/market/bakeryDelicias de la España (4016 S 57th. Ave., Miami;…
Two restaurants, two shrimp dishes. The first is a tiny, chic, chef-driven bistro in Plantation, effusively praised by local dailies and the Zagat guide, open for dinner only on Friday and Saturday nights. The menu changes weekly, and it can veer toward the unexpected: Caribbean jerk-rubbed thresher shark with coconut…
I’m sitting in Taste of Chicago (1406 N. State Rd. 7, Margate, 954-984-5858) trying to get a handle on my Italian beef sandwich. The staple of street carts and sporting events in the Windy City, this baby is as unwieldy as a squirming infant — and just as big. As…
After just four months, Alex Patout has left his postion as executive chef of the popular Christabelle’s Quarter in Coconut Grove. “It was an honest difference of opinion about the direction of the menu,” owner John El-Masry told me, and then quickly added words of respect for the departed Patout…
Incredible, edible, and now a Hallmark holiday The Egg News Media Hotline wants you to know that the ninth annual World Egg Day takes place this Friday, October 12th. Spearheading the festivities will be Howard Helmer, the Guinness World Record holder for “World’s Fastest Omelet Maker”. “There’s no better time…
You’d have to have steel cojones, or some mixture of naiveté and optimism, to name your first restaurant Nirvana. You’d be setting the bar in the stratosphere and opening yourself up to some expensive, cutting jokes if you failed to deliver. The word nirvana has a lot of meanings, including…
Those of us who have tuned in to watch Top Chef: Miami this season know why: Seeing the sights. And you know that by sights we mean Padma Lakshmi. But seriously, there has been a lot of local action around the production, which wrapped its stint at the Fontainebleu months…
Following my last Whole Foods post I simply HAD to head back there on Friday after work. The last thing I ever want to do is cook dinner after a long work week, and trying to get a dinner reservation at a decent hour on a Friday evening is practically…
Mmm, beets. Publix is pathetic. And Winn-Dixie’s been wack. Even your neighborhood Milam’s will get a disinterested “meh” from local grocery shopping connoisseurs now. The brand spankin’ new Whole Foods in Coral Gables just opened, and the store owners have spared no expense in making it the most ridiculously awesome…
The first Chipotle Mexican Grill opened just weeks ago in North Miami, and now a South Miami branch is being readied to premier in the former Krispy Kreme doughnut shop on South Dixie Highway….Two Chefs is heading the opposite direction, the landmark South Miami restaurant debuting a second shop in…
I’ve probably given about 30 seconds’ thought to Peruvian food in the past ten years. The culinary wonders of the Andes were totally off my radar. Yeah, I knew the little coastal country had thousands of genetically diverse varieties of ancient potatoes and corn. But spuds and maize do not…
The swank new Regent South Beach hotel, which debuted all of a year ago, is now operating under new management, a group called Vincci Hoteles. Does this mean that the property’s signature restaurant, Table 8, will be deep-sixed? We’ll have to wait and see…….New owners of B.E.D. Miami, which opened…
To hear our waiter tell it, there’s no fish shortage in South Florida. You just drop your baited line or your net full of little pylon oysters off the nearest bridge, and before you can say “abracadabra, bring me some snappa,” you’re hauling in pounds and pounds of the hapless…
Asking for tap water can be touchy when eating at a restaurant that typically exceeds one’s budget. But the waiter at The Restaurant at The Setai on South Beach didn’t even toss us a haughty, “cheapskates” glance when a dining mate asked for “normal water” during our Miami Spice lunch…
Hats off, chef It was standing room only at Starbucks Hear Music Store on Lincoln Road yesterday. Must’ve been 70 or 80 people crowded in to see star chef Marcus Samuelsson and Starbucks’ master coffee blender Andrew Linnemann demonstrate the pleasurable pairing possibilities of coffee and comestibles. Samuelsson is the…
Watching Gordon Ramsey is making me violent. The three-Michelin-starred Scottish chef of the Fox reality show Hell’s Kitchen is the foulest-mouthed, most evil-tempered brute in a business with more monsters than a Ken Russell retrospective. Ramsey has the same effect on my testosterone as too many hours glued to the…
Ishq, the contemporary Indian restaurant whose opening at 530 Ocean Drive, South Beach, has been “highly anticipated” (re:long delayed), will finally start cooking this Friday (September 14). Owners Sham and Kavita Kamlani promise “Bombay street fare in an oceanside setting” and a menu of traditional dishes (samosas, masalas, tandooris) complemented…
In 1994, Two Chefs was a combination cooking school and gourmet retail outlet in South Miami. Two years later chef/owners Jan Jorgensen and Soren Bredahl opened the cozy, 100-seat restaurant at the same site. Soren has since returned to Denmark, the wine list has expanded, prices have gone up a…
Ladies, watch your backs. Three-quarters of the single adult American male population is suddenly out there perfecting the magic art of seduction. They’ve learned their foolproof pickup techniques courtesy of a Boy George clone and erstwhile magician who calls himself “Mystery.” The guy, whose sartorial style runs to black fingernail…
