By now it’s probably common knowledge that the Miami Herald has undergone yet another redesign, one that includes the September 18 launch (or return) of the Thursday food section. What you may not realize is that Miami New Times is also about to debut some more comprehensive coverage of the…
When a good restaurant has been around for a good fifteen years and, what’s more, is the only eatery of its kind in the region — in this case, the only source, as far as I know, of Danish food in South Florida — one would expect it to be…
Funny how a phrase can change in meaning over the decades. Take “curbside pickup,” for instance. It used to refer to recyclables — glass, newspaper, tin cans. You know, garbage. But in recent years, thanks to chain restaurants like Chili’s and Romano’s Macaroni Grill, it has gained a new definition…
This season the word on the street is “yip.” As in, Jinny Yip, who is opening Miss Yip’s Chinese Café in the former Bambú space. I’ve heard she’s hired a terrific Chinese chef and that we can look forward to authentic cuisine. Let’s keep our collective fingers crossed that her…
Ago is no Spago, though it does serve thin-crust, wood-fired pizzas, and as the trendy California eatery relied in its heyday on the buzz of the Hollywood now crowd, so too does Ago draw social minglers from the current SoBe scene. Ago is also no Nobu, but shares the same…
Now there are shopping mall food courts. But once all the classiest department stores used to have their own lunchrooms, featuring food like iceberg lettuce wedges with old-fashioned white boiled salad dressing — polite food that didn’t stain the white gloves, light food for those with lots of leisure time…
It’s not unusual for a couple to give birth a year or two after getting hitched — unless the couple is a couple of award-winning young chefs, like Andrea Curto-Randazzo (formerly of Wish) and Frank Randazzo (the Gaucho Room), and they decide to almost simultaneously give birth to a child…
While sitting at a table draped in a blue and white checkerboard cloth, in the Jerusalem Market & Deli (which is tucked into the same North Miami strip mall addendum as the Mexican restaurant Paquito’s), I came up with a “Road Map for Better Mideast Food.” What makes me so…
About ten years ago, I started habitually breaking one of the cardinal rules associated with drinking alcohol: I began ordering wine in Asian restaurants. Retribution from the community at large was swift — based on the supposition that only somebody who couldn’t not drink would order Chardonnay with cashew chicken,…
The street scene in Gili’s neighborhood may be super glam when the new Performing Arts Center a few blocks east is up and running someday, probably in our lifetime. It’s already somewhat hip during nightlife hours, with Club Space and I/O drawing crowds, and if rumors that crobar or Automatic…
Some may say it’s only sixteen words, but exaggeration, deception, and dishonesty are just plain wrong regardless of how few syllables are used. What’s that? Oh, no no no — this has nothing to do with Bush’s State of the Union address. I’m speaking about the menu at Pescado, a…
In an Orlando Business Journal article published on August 11, the same day Norman Van Aken debuted his eponymous restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, Van Aken is quoted: “Comparing our restaurant opening to that TV show is like comparing the Harvard Law School to the Circus Maximus.” He…
There are few desserts easier to prepare than key lime pie, which necessitates only the pouring of egg yolks, key lime juice, and sweetened, condensed milk into a graham cracker crust that’s really just crumbs mixed with melted butter. You don’t even have to bake the darn thing, although nowadays…
Of all the benefits Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro imagined might result from his midsixteenth-century destruction of Peru’s great Inca empire, a culinary revolution producing what many chefs consider the most sophisticated cuisine of any South/Central American nation probably was not foremost in the sword-swinger’s mind. Yet the cross-cultural criollo race,…
I am sitting in the “relaxation lounge” at the Boutique Spa in the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove, quaffing iced, lime-infused spring water, staring at displays of heirloom zebra and brandywine tomatoes, and wondering just what the hell I’ve gotten myself into this time. Next door my new acquaintances, aesthetician Joana and…
Citronelle is the latest of a number of new restaurants cropping up along the corroded corridor of upper Biscayne Boulevard. Situated in a corner location, its large plate-glass windows look out upon a mostly infelicitous street scene. Peering inward: a modern, minimally decorated 40-seat room with sleek, dark wood tables,…
When Biscayne Bar-B-Q opened last winter in the same building as the Cactus gay bar — with, according to its ads, an outdoor poolside cookout on Saturday nights till 2:00 a.m. — I was pretty intrigued, because friends had been telling me for the whole ten years I’ve lived in…
Forget about one. Nine is the luckiest number. If you’re Klime Kovaceski, that is. The chef-owner of Crystal Café is celebrating his ninth successful season this August. He’s also marking his nineteenth year of cooking on Miami Beach, which makes him just about a native at this point. But don’t…
According to a note on the menu of Mapalé Colombian Grille, the folk dance for which the restaurant is named, which was originally brought to the north coastal city of Cartagena;a by African slaves from New Guinea, is considered Colombia’s most erotic dance. The one time I saw el mapalé…
For a long time while we were dating, my husband couldn’t understand why I was a successful, tip-earning waitress. He knew I could multitask like a CEO, describe food as lovingly as an Italian mama, and grab plates that had been under the heat lamp as long as some of…
Einstein Bros bagels are round, chewy breads with holes in the center, and tasty in tandem with sandwich fillings, but have little in common with true bagels. Mostly they lack the proper color and texture — bagel crusts should have more golden brown crunch to them than these pale softies…
It doesn’t intrigue me that much when people report excitedly on new Mexican restaurant finds that have great red or green salsa. Sure I love the stuff, but great Mexican tomato/tomatillo salsas don’t depend on the kind of precision, balance, timing, and educated know-how that a great French sauce does;…
