From LA to Boston, farm to table has taken root. Even the White House is in on it. Shaped by books such as Michael Pollan’s Ominvore’s Dilemma on “why we consume what we consume” and films like Food Inc., many have embraced the mantra and spend dining dollars at farm…
When my foodie friends arrive for a first visit to SoFla, I deceive them immediately. In my old Taurus wagon, I drive them north on I-95. We pass marinas and canals (“Venice of the Americas,” I tell them), cruise onto Andrews Avenue and over the New River (“Have you ever…
The U.S. Coast Guard is the last to acknowledge that people on boats are fatter than they were in 1960. So while cruise ships nixed armrests and installed wider seats years ago, the U.S. Coast Guard has just gotten around to raising the Assumed Average Weight Per Person from 160…
“Service is 60% of a diner’s experience,” a chef said who I’d met at a midweek happy hour. The guy having a couple of beers on his night off is a Brit, a starred Michelin chef who’s now working on a boat. Why? “The money is insane,” he said. I…
Why is Chipotle growing at three times the rate of McDonald’s?…
Following up on this week’s “Should Shark Fin be Outlawed?” I went back to Silver Pond to ask about the soup. “No one really orders it,” said a manager who’s helmed the dining room for the past four years. “It’s way too expensive.”…
Update: follow up article here.The other night while having Chinese at Silver Pond with a friend, we debated about ordering the shark fin soup. “If you were in the ocean, the shark wouldn’t think twice about eating you,” my friend rationalized. He was hell bent on ordering a bowl. His…
The information comes from today’s Planet Money, which reports that many hospitals see burns from instant noodle soup as often as two and up to five times a week, according to hospitals from California to Washington. A design flaw –…
Saturday Night Live has given us an entirely new way to help constipation. In this commercial, we see members of a hair rock band recording their latest track…only something’s not right with one of the band members….he’s constipated.Instead of a pill, he’s encouraged to try New Frozen Mexican Dinner. That…
When Coca-Cola decided to team with the World Wildlife Fund to raise money for endangered polar bears, who would have thought there would be backlash?…
The presidential campaign has a long history of merchandise tie-ins. Bumper stickers, campaign buttons, and T-shirts are all popular memorabilia. Heck, Barack Obama’s campaign had so much crap to buy, his rallies seemed more like shopping excursions.Here now is the perfect gift for the Libertarian/Tea Partier who swings Republican on…
In an obvious homage to stoners disguised as a holiday slumber party, The Chew co-hosts clowns wear pajamas and tumble into communal beds to eat General Tso’s chicken out of Chinese takeout containers. No… we’re not stoned ourselves. It actually happened, and we’ll never be the same after witnessing it…
You know that game where you pick five people living or dead to have over for dinner? We’d love to break bread with Marilyn Monroe, Anthony Bourdain, Ernest Hemingway, Julia Child, and Abraham Lincoln. South African chicken restaurant Nando’s thinks it would be awesome to have a nice holiday dinner…..
Last weekend at a barbecue joint back in D.C., the owner popped over to say hello, bringing by a small bowl of just-cut brisket, three pieces for six people, heat wafting from the meat. He joined us to devour it, ripping apart pieces and handing over halves to friends. Though…
If you thought you ate too much at yesterday’s Thanksgiving feast, ponder this.Extreme eating champion Takeru Kobayashi ate 7.5 pounds of turkey at an eating competition. Kobayashi tore into the bird much like some natural predator would in the wild.This is just a light snack for the world record holder…
At a packed bar that opened recently, eight bartenders cleared glasses, delivered checks, scanned the room, and chatted with customers. Half the customers had full beers. A handful waited next to empties. Among a crowd of maybe 50 people, I counted fewer than five menus. I was starving at 9 p.m.,…
I live with seven other people in a three-story apartment. We’re all 20-somethings with American accents, American habits, steeped in American pop culture. But with one exception, my co-habitants are not American. At least, they wouldn’t be considered American by the kinds of people who worry about our president’s schooling…
What annoys you about restaurants lately? Is it a side of “Sweet Home Alabama” with your sliders? Or when the server ignores you? Maybe the ubiquity of flatbreads makes you want to defect to liquid dinner. After the jump, you’ll find few things that are genuinely puzzling, strange business practices, or…
I found what I want Santa to bring me for Christmas — skydiving with Anthony Bourdain, followed by burgers and beer.Gilt City has just announced the craziest offering that we’ve ever seen — an opportunity to go tandem skydiving with the No Reservations host. One lucky person (the first one…
The commercial starts as the usual 30 second spot for booze. Soft music plays as some liquid silk of a libation is pored into a perfect glass. A narrator with a soft burr (Swedish? Scottish?) says that “for six generations the house of Taman has created an exceptionally smooth experience.”…
Every few years, our elected officials pretend to care about nutrition. This week, Congress is debating whether to keep counting the tomato paste on pizza as a serving of vegetables in school lunches. Makes you nostalgic for the days of mystery meat and rubbery nuggets, doesn’t it?For all the kiddies…
Do people read in South Florida? Scan the Floridian before 10 a.m. and note the absence of someone reading a newspaper, a book, or a magazine — even in digital form. Over at Old Fort Lauderdale Breakfast House, an employee made a comment while I was there a couple of…
