Episode two of the new Top Chef Las Vegas premiered last night, which means we’ve seen Hollywood Beach Marriott Executive Chef Ron Duprat twice now on the program. Each week, we’re going to recap what happened to the Haitian native Duprat on the show — and maybe point out some…
Carnivores dating vegetarians. They go together about as well as milk and lemon, Alaskan beauty queens and New York liberals, alcohol and text messaging. Which is to say the combination, though horribly problematic, creates something so fiery, so alive with pent-up energy, the sparks could become an alternative to fossil…
This week, it looks like I’ll be eating balls of birdseed. A clear package sits on my desk. The label says Best Quality Bansi manufactured these Rajgira Ladoo. So far, exactly two words on the package make sense to me. The next five words, Les Balles de Rajgira Douces, don’t…
I took a trip to the beach last night and sank into some Pho at Basilic, a Vietnamese restaurant that took over Tedesco’s old spot on Commercial Blvd. The tiny bistro serves a mean bowl of the stuff, fragrant with anise and ginger and loaded with strips of thinly sliced…
Click here for our review of Saffron, this week in Dish.Is it just me, or is papadum and chutney about the best starchy snack you can get before a meal. Think about it: simple bread and butter can be rendered wonderfully, but even at great heights, it can be too…
I’ve been really digging me some Jamaican food lately, so it’s a good thing that South Florida houses so many islander restaurants. Two weeks ago, I mentioned Kelsie’s Place on Sunrise as a great place to get fast, cheap Jamaican classics. But I recently visited the Dutch Pot on 441…
Another interesting week on the blog. Up for a second helping? Here’s the highlights you might have missed.Don’t let those veggies rot away in your fridge – turn them into quiche. If a gun is fired at a Coral Springs bar, and only a blog commenter hears it, does it…
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.It’s hard to call The Amateur Gastronomer anything but a professional. Well, maybe she’s not getting paid for the blog, but with…
The only thing painful about Le Petit Pain is deciding which of its luscious breads, pastries, cookies, tarts, and other confections to take home with you. But one pain that’s pure pleasure is a breakfast bread that, if you’re not of Scandinavian descent, you’ve probably never seen before. “Scandinavian coffee…
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks me. “Getting ready to cook these steaks,” I tell him. “Dude – there’s a grill right outside the door, and you’re heating up a pan? Are you on crack?” Men are supposed to intuitively know how to cook steaks. It’s in our…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
