Chef Allen’s Allures in Aventura

I’m not saying Chef Allen’s décor used to be dull, but when I first reviewed the restaurant, one of my dinner guests fell asleep at the table. Granted she was only nine years old. And she was medicated owing to an allergic reaction. But still — the place wasn’t exactly…

Event: Cooking with Les Dames d’Escoffier

There’s nothing like a dame, particularly if the dame cooks good. And no dame cooks as good as Les Dames d’Escoffier, an international group devoted to supporting and mentoring women in the culinary professions. The new cookbook Les Dames have just published was almost enough to make me get off…

Latest Sign of the Apocalypse: $4 Beers at Zeke’s

Say it ain’t so, Zeke’s. After weeks of terrifying financial news every day — The Dow is down 800! The NASDAQ has plummeted 30 percent! Jim Cramer’s brain has literally melted! — I’ve started to get a little burned out on the whole recession business. Until it affects my life,…

The Great Voodoo Tiki Tequila Taste Test

Two frosty bottles of Voodoo Tiki. Drink up. We have a tradition around the New Times offices called Beer Fridays, where we basically reserve the last two hours of a workweek to drink in excess. It’s a good tradition, as you might imagine, and it was upheld this past Friday…

A lot of beer and nobody to drink it: Bayfront Oktoberfest

Ah, Oktoberfest: beer, greasy food, and brawny men in tight overalls dancing the higglety pigglety. We had a few local fest options this weekend, but we went with beer company Hoffbrau’s Bayfront Park shindig because its website has tinny accordion music and many typos, thereby convincing us of its authenticity…

Drinking Our Way Through the Miami International Wine Fair

Lee Klein The 2008 Miami International Wine Fair, at the Miami Beach Convention Center, featured the usual aisles of wines and wine sellers, and the usual throngs of wine enthusiasts, and the usual clique of ink-stained wretches such as me who were there to scribble some notes while, of course,…

Booze Hound – BYOBooze

I know it’s been awhile since you BYOBed -– like in high school, back when you used to sneak-sip Special Brews on some public beach on Key Biscayne while discussing the ever-important topic of whether to get a belly-ring, a fairy tattooed on your lower back, or just blow all…

Food Without Fire: Raw Food at Whole Foods

Bathed in a homemade sauce, I scarf down my “raw fajita”. The vegetables are crunchy and fresh, the collard green in place of a tortilla holds the succulent flavor of the red peppers, avocado and portobellos. To think just minutes ago this was a few vegetables sitting on the table,…

Miami’s Slow Lamb

Getting ready for a slooooow night. I managed to get the world’s worst photos of the lovely Navajo Churro lamb dinner hosted by Slow Food Miami on Wednesday night at the Standard Hotel, so I’ll have to rely on whatever powers of description I have left. The dinner was one…

Eismann Enters The Pizza Biz

Come January, chef Jonathan Eismann of Pacific TIme fame will be opening Pizzavolante (“flying pizza”) at 3918 N. Miami Avenue, in the Design District. According to Eismann, the contemporary-styled 900 square foot space will be offering “creative wood-oven pizza” with organic and local ingredients, and “some gluten-free products”. Emphasis will…

SoBe Wine/Food Fest Tix Go On Sale

Tickets for the 2009 South Beach Wine and Food Festival go on sale this coming Monday, October 27. We mention this because in past years tickets have sold out very quickly — especially for the more popular events, such as Rachel Ray’s Burger Bash ($200), Bubble Q ($350), and Wine…

Herald Health Tips

This past week the Miami Herald’s “Diet and Nutrition” page featured a “Nutrition Quiz” that touted the benefits of niacin. These include raising “good” HDL cholesterol by as much as 35% — “plus, it purportedly helps your skin and hair”. What specific foods does this quiz — which “purportedly” is…

Cheap Kosher Eats at Sara’s Vegetarian Café

“Shalom, y’all” might sound like the start of a Southern politician’s stump speech in Boca Raton, but it is in fact one of the mottos posted at Sara’s Vegetarian Café in North Miami. So is “good, hot, and a heckuva lot,” which likely refers to the hefty portions but could…

Pizza Rescues Earth!

“Saving the Earth, One Pizza at a Time” is the motto of Pizza Fusion, the first ever organic pizza franchise that is getting set to open at 14815 Biscayne Boulevard in mid-November. The Fort Lauderdale based restaurant chain offers pizza, ciabatta sandwiches, salads, desserts, and organic beers and wines, all…

Fair Food, Latin Style

Fruit and veg, for display only The pretty display of fruits and veg courtesy of La Reina supermarkets was the only healthy food you were gonna get a look at Saturday at Lake Worth’s Hispanic Fest. Otherwise the groove was decidedly meat-centric…

Friday Wine Flights at Josef’s

We have more reason than ever to get our drunk on this weekend, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it with a little class. Josef’s in Plantation, New Times’ favorite Austro-Italian restaurant, debuts its Friday night wine flights this evening, with tastings of Austrian, Spanish, and Italian wines and…

And Britain’s Worst Fast Food Nightmare

Rat: It’s What’s For Dinner From today forward, whenever I’m worrying about the questionable sanitation practices of my local restaurants and fast food chains, I’ll only have to remember today’s breaking story of the Wolverhampton Pappu Sweet Center. The owner was discovered by police broiling up some kebabs while the…

America’s Best Fast Food Drive-Thru

QSR Magazine has completed its’ 2008 Quick-Service Drive-Thru Performance Study, and Chick-fil-A took home the gold as America’s Best Drive-Thru 2008. Sherri Daye Scott, editor of QSR, explained the reasons behind the chicken chain’s success: “No bells and whistles, no out-of-the box training systems. Just a strategy focused on getting…

Palm Beach County Greenmarkets Open

The illusion of plenitude, at least We’ve got a breeze. Hurricane season’s almost over. And the Greenmarkets are opening again. It’s everybody’s favorite time of year, and starting this Saturday we’ll be getting used to the quaint sight of folks tottling along our streets with a loaf of bread under…

More on Michelle’s Spanish Joint

Michelle Bernstein Michelle Bernstein hopes to have her new tapas place open “before Art Basel”. She says the menu is “almost done”, and will include items such as boquerones, tortilla española, and artesanal Jamón Serrano. “We’re going to do blood sausage and stuff like that, and I’m playing with all…

Nemo Is Still Swimming on South Beach

Change might carry a lot of currency these days, but Nemo is having none of it. When co-owners Myles Chefetz and Michael Schwartz opened the artsy neighborhood café in 1995, it was the hottest haunt in town (and Esquire magazine’s pick for one of America’s best new restaurants). It looks…