Although I’ve always thought idiotic the theory that formal food schooling should be required of restaurant reviewers (if the same standard was applied to restaurant chefs, South Florida would be minus major self-taught talents like Norman Van Aken and Ortanique’s Cindy Hutson), an exchange at the recent overwhelmingly successful South…
Remember the way Miss Piggy spoke “French”? Sure vous do! Vous can’t tell me that even 50-year-old readers don’t still sometimes sneak a peek at Sesame Street and Mlle. P’s exuberantly pretentious ventures into zee vaireee heavily accented faique Franglais. Less funny was the sort of faique French food that…
The Miami Design District is a nice neighborhood for strolling. The various antique and design shops contain interesting merchandise to peruse and you don’t have to worry about getting pushed around by a crowd. There never is one. At least not the times I’ve found myself walking here, in what…
Décor dripping with dragons, eye-popping red/green/gold-leafed pagodas, Chinese coolie peasants pulling rickshaws — even the name itself does not exactly scream “21st-century cuisine!” or even whisper the suggestion to savvy diners that authenticity might be on the menu at 67-year-old Fu Manchu, Miami Beach’s oldest Chinese restaurant. One expects not…
When China Grill first opened its doors in the spanking new Thomas Kramer building in 1996, the resultant buzz was so loud it gave other restaurateurs headaches. But the explosively successful opening was not what made this the most influential restaurant in the short history of modern South Beach. Rather…
If I’d wondered why I was vacationing in Curaçao — and friends from northern climes certainly had wondered why someone who lives on one subtropical Atlantic Ocean resort island would leave it for another — the definitive answer came the first night, about one mouthful into my entrée of paneer…
The lovely, ivy-covered Hotel Place St. Michel has graced the Coral Gables intersection of Ponce de Leon Boulevard and Alcazar Avenue since 1926. Back then it was the Sevilla Hotel. Inside this European-style inn is the Restaurant St. Michel, which likewise exudes a simple elegance by way of wooden floors,…
The outdoor lobby of Lincoln Road’s Sterling Building has proved to be a problematic location for restaurants. Pacific Time Café and South Beach Stone Crabs, the prior occupants, had to contend with moviegoers cutting through their dining room for entry into the Alliance Cinema, and the distraction of a large…
Of the many different styles of pizza available in Miami these days (Neapolitan, Roman, Sicilian, Chicago deep-dish, Cuban, and even in one Japanese joint, “Sushi Pizza”), the most difficult to define is New York pizza. The one constant is that, like native New Yorkers, every New York pizza lover has…
These bottom-of-the-page reviews tend to focus on informal, inexpensive dining options that aren’t even restaurants per se. Delicias de España certainly fits that description. Located just off the intersection of Red and Bird roads (next door to the nifty Fifties luncheonette Picnics at Allen’s), this Spanish bakery, café, take-out shop,…
Every cloud has a silver lining, they say … and say, and say. But just because something is a cliché doesn’t mean it isn’t true, as I recently discovered when a small culinary cloud, an embarrassing one-letter typo in a restaurant review, led to my discovering what is arguably the…
If my car hadn’t dramatically experienced two flat tires in front of the huge Tower apartment complex on Indian Creek, I’d never have known about Embassy Peking, even though it’s three blocks from my house. There certainly isn’t any kind of sign out front. When I walked up to the…
One of the lectures I remember most from my days at the Culinary Institute of America dealt with defining a chef’s role with regard to the process of cooking. The instructor told us as chefs-to-be, we would be privy to the finest and freshest produce, meats, and seafood available. Our…
While some people hate eating out alone, I’ve always believed there are few more civilized solitary pleasures than reading over a satisfying meal cooked, served, and cleaned up by someone else. In this context, where one is wallowing in words as much as munchies, “satisfying” most often means simple food…
Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant is an irrepressibly cheery place, the walls sunshine yellow, the rest of the room festively splashed with vibrant colors. The menu is bright and glossy as well, with the three dozen offerings constituting a sort of Mexican “happy meals” program for gringos: tacos, burritos, enchiladas, fajitas …..
Sometimes people do the right things for the wrong reasons. For instance it would have been nice if the owners of the new SoBe restaurant/lounge 6 Degrees had kept the locals of the community in mind when drawing up plans for their venture. They didn’t. Instead, like so many others,…
When you play in bar bands, as I have my entire adult life, the possibility always exists that the club’s patrons will dislike your music so much they will throw tomatoes. But this is not an entirely unwelcome experience; at least it means we get something decent to eat for…
The phrase novelty act usually is used as a diss, implying that the sole thing the entertainment entity in question has going is a gimmick rather than talent or any other kind of solid quality. But this show-biz term actually has respectable, or at least neutral, origins, as I discovered…
Although living on the Beach is fun, it’s a relief to get away occasionally during high season, especially the part of season that coincides with South Florida’s annual two weeks of cold weather. When we shivering goose-down-bundled Beach dwellers are even further chilled to the bone by the sight of…
As you pass by Romeo’s Café on Coral Way, the place appears to be your average neighborhood Italian restaurant, the type with straw-wrapped bottles of chianti on red-and-white-checkered tablecloths. There is nothing about the façade, in other words, that even hints at the unique and extraordinary dining experience lurking behind…
Since I first moved to South Florida in 1993, Ocean Drive has had a reputation as a great place to party but not a great place to eat. Not that there haven’t been notable exceptions. One of the main reasons I originally decided to move from New York to South…
