The name refers to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Project Administration, the bureaucratic engine set up in 1935 to undertake extensive construction and improvement of roads, bridges, dams, and buildings while providing work for the Great Depression’s vast numbers of unemployed. It was one of the New Deal’s loftiest enterprises and,…
Three years ago, when I sang the praises of the original Casa Larios on NW Second Street near the Mall of the Americas, I deemed its Cuban cuisine some of the most authentic in Dade County, especially taking into account our miserable, multicultural times, when one is never sure which…
If I were forced to pick my favorite literary turn on food criticism, I’d have to go with T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story “Sorry Fugu” from his 1989 collection If the River Was Whiskey, a marvelous sliver of a book I was introduced to — along with the rest of…
Some notable and rather macabre exceptions notwithstanding, it is not the general purpose of this column to survey tragedies, catastrophes, or natural disasters. But a funny thing happened on the way to this forum… A cataclysm of Hurricane Andrew’s magnitude casts a long and looming shadow over the landscape, so…
With the recent closing down of Coral Gables’s El Cenador de la Villa — an upscale Spanish restaurant that, until its last dying breath, vied with the still-open (and even more expensive!) Ramiro’s, located a block down Ponce de Leon Boulevard, for the “Most Outrageous and Pretentious Hispanic Food in…
Notwithstanding some peculiar (and inaccurate) ad hominems directed at yours truly in the letters section this past week, I’m gratified that the subject of food appears to stir such deep passion and allegiance in the reading — and dining — public. For it can only serve to raise standards in…
One of the greatest ever stories of multicultural misconduct was related by Peter Ustinov some years ago on The Tonight Show. A delightful raconteur and sometime wit, the portly Ustinov captivated a spellbound Johnny Carson with the tale of a wealthy Texan family at a Polynesian restaurant. As an intro,…
Not to raise a nasty terminological conundrum, but the last time I pondered the matter, a frog was most often one of two things: a salientian, web-footed, aquatic amphibian whose mug was considered the opposite of a prince’s and whose legs were traditionally hacked, sauteed, and served in the taverns…
First the good news: Though not by any means new, Kebab Indian Restaurant is another plum to add to Dade County’s ever-growing community of creative Indian tandoori kitchens. Located east of I-95 amidst the semi-squalor of NE 167th Street’s low-rent malls, run-down businesses, and adult bookstores, Kebab has been serving…
“The engine which drives Enterprise is not Thrift, but Profit.” You might be tempted to attribute this contention to Ross Perot in 1992, but in fact, the words were written by John Maynard Keynes in 1930. And yet, to take Baron Keynes’s dictum further than the great British economist –…
Writing in his Metamorphoses, Ovid claimed that time devours everything. He could have invented the governing motto for the restaurant industry, because it is hardly news to anyone that, as a vocation and business proposition, restaurants are dicey at best. Indeed, most financial pundits will tell you they’re about as…
One of the most exquisite architectural structures in South Beach is the Marlin Hotel on Ocean Drive, designed in 1939 by the great L. Murray Dixon — one of seven important Miami Beach projects the architect completed that year — and recently purchased and renovated by music magnate Chris Blackwell…
To separate cuisine — or culture, for that matter — by broad geographical parameters is one of society’s most tempting and nauseating tendencies. In America, this pervasive pigeonholing extends to the arts: Consider how writers as contrasted as Tennessee Williams and Eudora Welty are casually branded “Southern,” along with the…
Before getting to the business at hand, an announcement: New Times is looking for a permanent dining critic and food chronicler, someone with matching insights and appetite, an original, stylish writer for whom each restaurant experience is an adventure to be seized upon and savored. Let me say, by way…
Probably the first thing that comes to mind when you hear “cassis” is black currant, which is what the word means in French. Or perhaps the term conjures images of that lovely liqueur from Dijon, Creme de Cassis. But located on the western end of France’s Cote d’Azur is the…
Oddly enough, good Cajun restaurants have been few and far between in Miami. Say maque choux to someone here, and they think you’re cursing them in Creole. It’s a shame, because there’s more to the cuisine than dousing foodstuffs with a finely ground combination of black, white, and cayenne peppers…
During a recent appearance on David Letterman, Vancouver native Michael J. Fox mentioned that he, his wife Tracy Pollan, and their young son loved their visit to the new EuroDisney just outside Paris. The actor noted with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, however, that one of the most pleasurable aspects of the…
You don’t necessarily have to hail from the Deep South, Texas, or the far western perimeters of the Midwest to have stronger opinions about barbecue than politics, but it helps. We cantankerous Americans argue not only about whose barbecue is best, but about the very meaning of the culinary term…
Who could pass up a restaurant that last year ran away with Best Restaurant with a Chef Named Vinnie honors in New Times, and this year was named Best Inexpensive Italian Restaurant? Not me. After all, I spent my crucial years in a beer-and-shot town that boasted an Italian-American Club…
South American cuisine is taking Miami by storm – or perhaps I should say sword. The latest in this exciting turn of culinary events is a Brazilian rodizio called the Rodeo Grill, a carnivore’s paradise where all types of meats – from slabs of sirloin to chicken hearts – are…
Let me say right up front that the Outback Steakhouse is terrific. Or perhaps I should say “bewdie,” which is Aussie-speak for great, according to the menu. Like most theme restaurants, the Outback gets a bit carried away with its shtick. A New York strip is called “The Michael J…
If you haven’t explored Cuban dining recently, you’re in for some surprises. The fare offered in many of the newer restaurants goes well beyond ropa vieja and boliche, and the ambiance is elegante. La Casona, a villa-style restaurant that opened a couple of months ago on Calle Ocho, is a…
