Saturday and Sunday marked the South Beach Wine & Food Fest’s premier event, the Grand Tasting Village, which cordoned off a huge strip of South Beach the size of three or four football fields and filled it with hundreds of restaurants, distributors, wine vendors, and wineries, all flinging so much…
We’re referring to Mario Batali being “up there” on stage at the SBWFF’s Wines and Food of Spain dinner. You’ve probably heard that he dropped a couple of F-bombs in front of the royal company. And speaking of F-bombs: What the fuck was he even doing on that platform welcoming…
Friday’s Trade Tasting event at the Grand Tasting Village on the Beach brought out salespeople, restaurateurs, and a barrage of folks tenuously tied to the food and wine industry — a frolicking fellowship of flaks, frauds, food bloggers, and so forth. There was no shortage of beverages — coffee drinks,…
Inveterate radio jocks Paul Castronovo and Ron Brewer of Big 105.9 and 97.9 got all up in the SoBe Wine & Food Fest’s businazz this morning, hosting an Iron Chef style cooking challenge live from the Fontainebleau (holy crap, did I spell that correctly?). The pair tested their cooking skills…
The South Beach Wine & Food Festival is already in full swing, and last night, everyone’s favorite quasi-cook and abbreviator, Rachel Ray, hosted the third annual Amstel Light Burger Bash at the Ritz-Carlton, South Beach. Our cameras caught all the beefy action, including celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Michelle Bernstein.However,…
Food & Wine 2009 is almost upon us. You know what that means. The culinary throngs descend on South Florida, feast on its tropical flesh in a media-driven frenzy, and hopefully dump enough money on our shores to keep us goin til next year. Aaron J. Michaels from Culinary Convenience…
I cold-called Escopazzo out of our restaurant database and said, “Hey, I’m from the newspaper, what are you doing for Wine & Food?” Sommelier Rich DiGacomo had great answers for me. He talked about the Food Network, Rachel Ray, Key West prawns and drinking. Here’s what he had to say:…
I cold-called OLA at Sanctuary to find out if they got anything going on for the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival 2009. I spoke to a real cool dude, sommelier Albert Omahen about fish tacos, wine, and the smoker’s palette. Here’s what he had to say:…
Series 2 of Gordon Ramsey’s F Word comes out on DVD on March 17 (you can advance order it here), and the flaks are pushing it as totally uncensored. The claim is about 99.99 percent true. I previewed the show, and in the course of the season chef Ramsey utters…
It is early Wednesday morning, and I am standing in a kitchen area in the Miami-Beach Convention Center, watching some 50 FIU students getting to work on food prep for Friday nights’ Perrier-Jouët BubbleQ event at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. I am not the only one looking…
Eating an oyster is like taking a spiritual log flume ride. The thrill of the plunge takes place within, not outside, the body. An über-plump Island Creek oyster at Area 31, misted with a light sheen of golden balsamic vinegar and olive oil and dotted with specks of alligator peppercorns,…
One of the great joys of my otherwise joyless life is to stride through the front door of a certain local franchise of an Atlanta-based Mexican fast food restaurant chain and be showered with warm greetings: “Welcome to Moe’s!” they ring out in near-unison.And it’s not because I’m special. The…
The YOLO Grill from Miami New Times on Vimeo.I recently spent a couple hours shooting the kitchen at YOLO (You Only Live Once) in downtown Ft, Lauderdale. It’s a real classy joint serving simple American food cooked in a high quality manner using fine ingredients. Check out this grill video…
I decided to spend Valentine’s Day – at least the day part of it – at the Delray Beach Garlic Festival, a weekend-long ode to the clove going down at Old School Square. The fest had a lot going on: there were vendors aplenty, hocking garlic-based sauces, dips, spreads, and…
Chicken Wings are to food what guitars are to rock n roll, essential; and there’s no shortage of eateries serving up these fine morsels of fried poultry flesh in South Florida, but there is definitely a shortage of establishments giving them away free of charge…
We drooled when we tasted Jeff McInnis’ sublime mango sorbet. One spoonful and suddenly he was the “hot chef of our dreams,” knocking Bobby Flay down to number two. So when we found out that he was going to be a contestant on our favorite culinary reality show, we made…
Chef Allen Susser of Chef Allen’s restaurant is a culinary pioneer, a renowned restaurateur and a cool dude. I recently spent several hours in the kitchen of Chef Allen’s restaurant in Aventura. I arrived at four, was provided with a chef jacket and promptly put to work. This was a…
I met Aaron J. Michaels in the back alley behind Pacific Time when his Culinary Convenience truck showed up, parked and invited the kitchen staff in to sample his wares. Culinary Convenience offers a truly mobile shopping experience. Let me reiterate, this guy has an uncramped, walk-in store built in…
Nearly four inches long, the sand dune oyster from Prince Edward Island was so plump it was bulging out of its shell “like a large breast in a small brassiere,” as Rodney Clark, owner of Rodney’s Oyster House in Toronto, puts it. Intensely briny and wonderfully sweet, the fat beige…
John LinnFresh grilled Mahi Mahi finds a home in tacos and burritos at The Whole Enchilada in Fort Lauderdale. According to Gail Shepherd’s Dish column this week, Palm Beach County residents have at least one more joint where they can sate their cravings for authentic Mex (though Ameri-Mex fans should…
Burr’s Berry Farm in the Redland has been cranking out some of South Florida’s best strawberries since 1960 when Charles Raymond Burr “The Strawberry King” planted his first crop. Burr’s Berry farm operates a fruit stand where you can buy fruits, vegetables, and the fine products made from them, fresh…
Welcome to the Nuts About Florida factory tour. The Barnard Nut Company has been roasting, packaging, and distributing nuts from right here in South Florida since 1942. I recently got the factory tour and a free bag of pistachios. I had never seen a nut factory before. There were nuts…
