You’ve got your Jewish delis, your Italian delis, even your German delis. But your Polish-Slovak deli? Well, yeah, you’ve got that, too, in Beachway Plaza (896 N. Federal Hwy., Pompano Beach, 954-784-5429). The spacious store stocks a bunch of imported products, including smoked sprats, mushrooms marinated in honey, and chocolate-covered…
A heavyset man rudely pushed me through the doorway of the Old School Bread Company (105 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach, 561-276-0013). A little pissed off, I followed him to the counter, where he bullied his way to the front of a throng of people, all clamoring for a free…
“So what do you think of the peace process in Northern Ireland?” I asked Mark Rohleder, co-owner of Waxy O’Connor’s, the five-month-old Irish pub located on Seventeenth Street Causeway in Fort Lauderdale. It seemed a reasonable question to ask. The news about a possible end to “the troubles” had just…
I still remember the nightmare of my wedding cake. We searched unsuccessfully for a year for someone to make the layers from a white-chocolate batter. We had to settle, instead, for a white cake with white icing. When the big day finally came, the cake didn’t live up to it…
I’ve learned not to take too seriously anything that comes my way via the Internet. Petitions, virus hoaxes, chain letters — not only are they not worth reading, but I would never, as the tag lines suggest, mail the garbage to everyone I know. But then there’s the “Neiman-Marcus Cookie”…
A good arm must be worth a thousand words, because American baseball teams are willing to recruit and train pitchers like Hideo Nomo (L.A. Dodgers), Hideki Irabu (New York Yankees), Livan Hernandez (Florida Marlins), and Hernandez’s brother Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez (New York Yankees) despite an obvious stumbling block: These…
In March, Bon Appetit reported that 70 percent of the students at the French Culinary Institute in New York City are former professionals (lawyers and doctors) looking for a career change. I asked Doreen Nordstrom-Moore, executive chef-owner of the newly opened Palm Beach School of Cooking (25 N.E. 2nd Ave.,…
As a little girl, I loved watching the artists who gave lessons on TV. One flick of a wrist and birds would be flying in a stark-white sky. A swoop here and there and pine trees would appear in the distance. A few more brush strokes and those same trees…
Chef Tony Sindaco called me a couple of months ago to ask me what “peripatetic” means, which is how I’d described him in a review of the now-defunct Cafe Erte in Hollywood, where Sindaco cooked for a while. He thought I was insulting him. “It means you move around a…
Mention feng shui to someone who’s never heard of it, and you’ll most likely get a “Gesundheit” in return. Discuss feng shui with an interior designer, and you’ll receive one of two responses: an enthusiastic nod of recognition or a sigh of exasperation. The ancient Chinese art of placement, feng…
Dim sum, the Chinese dumplings and finger foods served from metal carts, has long been popular for brunch and lunch. But now you can inhale authentic goodies like beef ball with bean curd skin, sticky rice in lotus leaf, turnip pudding, and steamed chicken feet (along with the more familiar…
I was attracted to Jean Claude Patisserie and Cafe (3320 NE 33rd St., Fort Lauderdale, 954-563-5406) by the lace curtains at the window. I stayed for the bargains — entrees, which hover around twelve dollars, are bookended by salad and dessert. But I returned for the sweets. This unassuming French…
It was an Alpine moment. Leggy in lederhosen, the Bavarian leather shorts worn with suspenders, about eighteen guys in their twenties trooped into Bistro Double U, joking with each other in German. Their lean torsos and muscular calves gave away what our server confirmed: that they were members of a…
A funny thing happened on my way to becoming a restaurant critic — friends stopped inviting me over for dinner. It didn’t happen gradually or politely. One day I was a welcome guest who always brought a bottle of wine; the next day I was persona non grata at their…
The garlicky fragrance of home-cured kim chee wafts through the air at Han Yang Oriental Market (8033 W. Oakland Park Blvd., Sunrise, 954-746-0980), inexorably drawing patrons to the refrigerated cases that keep the spicy cabbage cool. And, once attracted, people find it hard to leave without a large jar of…
When I was living in California, back in the early ’90s, the competition for waitressing jobs was tough; the aspiring actors, singers, and dancers had more experience than I did. So when I was offered a position at Ricco’s, a new Italian joint, I broke a cardinal rule by taking…
In Life on Mars, novelist-journalist Alexander Stuart’s nonfiction account of his somewhat bizarre experiences in eclectic South Florida, he dedicates one chapter to the romance of turn-of-the-century train travel. Having “chanced upon a gleaming, polished-bronze, private Pullman carriage from another era… unhitched to any engine” while waiting for a friend’s…
I’m always looking for ways to improve my quality of life while continuing to indulge my laziness. So when I heard about Cyberchefs (www.cyberchefs.com), I thought I’d found the perfect solution to the work-at-home blahs: order lunch through my computer. The Cyberchefs Website downloads complete menus from local restaurants, and…
My wife turns to me and notes that we are walking on grass — noteworthy, I suppose, because we’re inside a restaurant. “If the menu has a Hee Haw theme, we’re outta here,” I tell her. But as the words leave my mouth, I start taking in the room and…
These days, unfortunately, South Florida is known as much for its strip malls as its palm trees. But let’s face it: While some of us bemoan these street-side monstrosities, we’d be hard-pressed to give up the convenience of one-stop shopping and go traipsing all over town in search of, say,…
You’d think with the plethora of New Yorkers down here and the inundation of Italian restaurants that I’d have no problem finding one of my favorite desserts. But cannoli seem to be in short supply, and my longing for the pastries increases with each failed attempt to find one. My…
Forget about picking up a hamburger on your way back to the office. Now you can order an entire diner to go. A snap to assemble, a stainless steel Starlite Diner can be shipped anywhere in the world from Ormond Beach, Florida, where it’s manufactured. Just pour your foundation, put…
