Tea Time At Starbucks

On January 3rd, Starbucks rolled out a quintet of new Tazo full leaf tea beverages that are now available in all stores nationwide. Yesterday the coffee chain hosted “TeaTime events”, which is a civilized way of saying “free samples”. I headed to the most scenic of our Starbucks, at 14th…

Behind the Line at Wish

Chef Marco Ferraro from Wish, winner of Miami New Times’ “Best Outdoor Dining” award in 2007, one of four “Best of’s” we’ve awarded the hotel/restaurant, says “I’m Italian. Our cuisine is contemporary-American with a global influence. We do new-American food with an emphasis on fresh, local ingredients. Local is great…

The McDonald’s Rationalization

“Where you been, bitch?”Last week, I did something bad. Really, really bad. It was Wednesday, and I was very hungry. But I was also very busy, and short on cash. And so I decided, with a sorrowful resignation, to do something I hadn’t done in ages: I went to McDonald’s…

Zimmern at Jimbo’s Cancelled

Short Order has received word that Andrew Zimmern’s show-taping of Bizarre Foods, scheduled to take place at Jimbo’s tomorrow, has been cancelled. …

What Will You Cook in 2009?

A friend just sent me a copy of Julie and Julia, the true story of one woman’s quest to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in the space of a single year. Julie Powell’s incredibly ambitious project, which became a blog, which became a book, which became a movie starring Meryl Streep…

Slow Food Gets Maxed Out at 3030

This month’s Slow Food Glades to Coast dinner, on Thursday January 15, focuses on our local waters with a meal hosted by Chef Dean James Max at 3030 Ocean in Fort Lauderdale. Max, as we know, has a masterly way with anything that sports fins, scales, or claws, and his…

Commission Gets Fat on Avocadoes

If you thought the Federal ethics charges against Mary McCarty and her band of merry Palm Beach County and City Commissioners was scandalous enough, you haven’t heard what the California Avocado Commission has been up to in the past three years. McCarty, after all, only accepted a few free hotel…

Andrew Zimmern Meets Jimbo

Andrew Zimmern, host of Travel Channel’s popular Bizarre Foods series, will be at Jimbo’s on Virginia Key tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday) in order to film part of the show’s upcoming Beach Special.  Be there at 4:30 p.m. or later if you want to take part in the party — and perhaps…

South Pointe Espresso

Segafredo Zanetti Espresso has opened yet another café, this one at 124 Collins Avenue — they already operate one on Brickell, one in Bal Harbour, and about 570 more worldwide. Segafredo South Pointe will follow the same successful formula as the rest: Coffee, snacks, cocktails, a late night lounge scene…

Molecular Gastronomy at Enso

                                                                                                                         Jacob Katel”The exciting part for us is when people break out their cameras before they eat,” says Chef Jacob Durham from Enso. “Food is the only artform made strictly for consumption. Cooking is the oldest profession in the world, so it’s…

Living Raw, Sex, and the City

This girl here, livin’ somewhere in Miami, name of Suvine, pictured above, has a public, online diary documenting her life as a  fruitarian. What’s that mean? According to Wikipedia, “Fruitarians (or fructarians) eat in principle only the fruit of plants.” No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fish, nothing cooked,…

Miami Spice Braces For the Cold

The effects of the economy are being felt in every industry imaginable, most of all the ones that entertain and nourish us. The restaurant industry, from celebrity chefs right on to busboys, dishwashers, and even food producers and farmers are more than feeling the pinch. Fine establishments in Coral Gables…

Miami Restaurant Musings

*After years of my pooh-poohing parsley-speckled plate rims and mindless squiggles of mango and raspberry purees on dessert plates, it seems that both fads have faded into oblivion. Thank you, but please hold your applause until after the column is finished. *Norman Van Aken has laid low of late, no?…

Second Chance For SoBe Wine & Food Tix

This coming Monday morning, January 12th, a second block of tickets for previously sold out events will go on sale. So if you were bummed at being shut out of Rachael Ray’s Burger Bash or The Best of the Best at the new Fontainebleau, you’ve been given a second shot…

Karu & Y Tries Again

I could never get it straight: Was Karu the restaurant and Y the lounge, or vice versa? No matter now, as the reopened venue’s newly christened restaurant name is Seecomar’s at Karu & Y, which I thought was a misspelling of Seacomber’s until I saw that the new owner’s name…

Mazie’s Soul Food Shines in Liberty City

Mazie’s Soul Food Restaurant and Take-Out is, at first glance, not much to look at. It appears to have once been a Dairy Queen-like operation — a stand-alone box painted orange-toned yellow and brown and fronted by an angled take-out window. This is a poor part of town, and some…

Put a Burka on that Gin Bottle!

Here’s one for my “Oh for fuck’s sake!” files:Legislators in Utah are pushing to restrict restaurants that make mixed drinks in full view of minors, arguing that all those pretty, glittering bottles and delicious-looking garnishes behind the bar constitute a sore temptation, one that could lead youngsters to an unquenchable craving…

Ten Restaurants Lost In The Hubbub

The din of our dynamic new wave of dining establishments has diverted attention from some solid stalwarts of Miami’s restaurant scene. These veteran eateries keep their rooms packed with that portion of the public that hasn’t forgotten, but one hardly ever sees their names in print anymore; the media has…

Abokado KO’d

A call to Abokado, the sushi-ceviche restaurant located in downtown Miami’s Mary Brickell Village, yields a message saying “We are temporarily closed”. Their website adds this: “We look forward to bringing you additional information on re-openings and new locations in the new year.” This first restaurant casualty of 2009 is…

Cheese Fingers Invade Local Shelves

Using the specialty-cheese section of a supermarket on NE 2nd Ave around 20th St. in Miami as a demographic indicator for downtown, Short Order sees a burgeoning community of Central Americans in the urban core. Click through to the jump to see what dairy’s got in store for you, er,…

Dinner at Morimoto Sushi Bar

Ever since Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto unveiled his latest restaurant, Morimoto, in Boca Raton Resort & Club, Short Order has been dying to go. I mean, the man is an Iron Chef, both on the original Japanese program and the new Food Network creation, Iron Chef America, and this restaurant,…

Are You a Leg Man?

Just a reminder to mark your calendars: The Fellsmere Frog Legs Festival kicks off on January 15th and runs through the weekend to a grand finale at the Sunday Croaker Run. For my money Saturday the 17th looks like the best day to show if you’re feeling competitive: three contests include Leap Frog,…