Slow Food Truck Vendor Defends His Mission

Oren Bass, who launched the Slow Food Truck with Zachary Schwartz just over a month ago, wasn’t pleased with yesterday’s post regarding their menu. I had questioned the accuracy of the “Slow Food” part of the truck moniker; Oren politely disagreed over the phone, and told me why. Because the…

Pubbelly is pub-perfect

The quiet block of 20th Street between Purdy and West Avenues in South Beach has given aspiring restaurateurs nothing but headaches: Bartolome Restaurant (too pricy for what it served), Picnic (poor brunch-for-dinner concept with worse execution), Sea Rock, and Shiso Sushi have all died here. The Asian gastro-pub Pubbelly arrived…

Food Truck Court’s Most Annoying Vendor

Hundreds of people descended upon last night’s food truck court gathering at Biscayne Boulevard and NE 109th Street. Not only are the crowds getting larger at these events (Look! Up in the sky! It’s Superfad!), but food vendors seem to be popping up overnight as if from sinister alien truck…

Miami Street Food Court Opens Thursday on Biscayne Boulevard

Adding to the dizzying amount of food truck-related gatherings, meet-ups, courts and congregations is the Miami Street Food Court debuting tomorrow on Biscayne Boulevard. Last night, trucks gathered north of the KMart in North Miami and drew hundreds. Tomorrow, they will park at Biscayne Plaza, a shopping center on Biscayne…

Old San Juan Restaurant is a Disservice to Puerto Rican Food

​Japanese and Chinese food buffets are ubiquitous. Latin ones, though are practically nonexistent in Miami. Really. So when I heard that Old San Juan Restaurant had a lunch spread, of course I wanted to try it out.Old San Juan is a Puerto Rican restaurant. Or so it says. I have…

Now Open: Green Table Artisan Kitchen & Bistro

Green Table Artisan Kitchen & Bistro opened its doors to the public yesterday in the small space that Whisk Gourmet called its home for several years. As we wrote in November, owner Monica Rios created a menu using mostly local and organic ingredients. These days, those words get thrown around…

Bulldog Barbecue Expands to Bulldog Burger

Howie Kleinberg, the forceful and ambitious chef known to all as the “Bulldog” persona from Top Chef, is expanding his Bulldog Barbecue empire. The North Miami eatery popular with the university crowd keeps drawing them in with North Carolina barbecue baby back ribs and pulled pork. Later this month, the…

Tonight at EOS: B.Y.O.B With No Corkage

If you’ve been holding on to that bottle of Screaming Eagle until you can muster the courage to dish out a five-star meal, wait no more. The folks at Eos at the Viceroy will pour your wine for you at no corkage fee as part of their B.Y.O.B Mondays. So…

El Gran Inka’s Angeles-Beron Talks Terrorism and Two-Pound Meals

Did you miss our gunea pig and chifa talk with El Gran Inka’s director of culinary operations Javier Angeles-Beron last week? If so, read the first part of this interview here.How would you define Peruvian cuisine now?New Peruvian cuisine is always an evolution. We’re always bringing new flavors in. The…

El Gran Inka’s Javier Angeles-Beron Chews on Guinea Pig

​You might recall a while back we interviewed Chef Christopher Cramer at Panorama about Peruvian cuisine and, for an Irishman, he did seem to know a lot about it. But this time we wanted to chat with the genuine article, Lima-born Javier Angeles-Beron. Don’t let his white collared shirt with…

Sneak Review: Pubbelly

​A little rendered fat from next week’s meaty Cafe review:”We were mighty impressed by duck-and-pumpkin dumplings, four delicate rounds of melt-in-your-mouth pasta (really more like ravioli), the main ingredient brightened with orange, crushed almonds, and browned butter accented with soy. Similarly round, ravioli-like beef cheek-and-black truffle dumplings, with shiitake mushrooms…

1500 Degrees: bland decor, carefully crafted cuisine

The new 1500 Degrees, unveiled in October as the final piece in the Eden Roc Renaissance’s $220 million renovation, dubs its menu “farm-to-table eating, with a heavy steakhouse sensibility.” That’s as good a self-description as you’ll get from a restaurant. Executive chef Paula DaSilva spent a decade as Dean James…

Scenes From Last Night’s Biscayne Triangle Truck Round-up

Dude. Tuesdays at the Biscayne Triangle Truck Round-up are fuckin’ awesome. Lots of trucks. Lots of people. Lots of all different types of food. People brought their dogs. People brought their bikes. The on-duty cops hung out by the doughnut truck all night. It was a cool, beautiful Miami night…

Burger Beast Introduces Street Food Fridays

If you’re not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter, here’s a taste of what you’re missing. Click here to subscribe.Food trucks, food trucks, food trucks. You may be tired of hearing about them, fatigued from keeping up with their every move and still trying to figure out…

S&S Diner Proves That Not All Change Is Good

In this city of cookie-cutter architecture and assembly line cosmetic enhancements, “classic” is usually dismissed as “old.” S&S Diner, appropriately situated inside Allen’s Drug Store in South Miami, is an apple-pie-sweet respite from an otherwise cold, harsh reality…at least for those of us who still consider the word “old” to…

Picnic Is Over: The Backstory

The Picnic is over. The restaurant on 20th Street in the Sunset Harbor neighborhood of South Beach might have been able to overcome its questionable concept (Brunch…It’s what’s for dinner!), and even its weird menu (fried bologna sandwiches, mac & cheese spring rolls with gouda sauce, etc.), had it been…

Miami’s December 2010 Restaurant Openings and Closings

Well, it’s the last day of the year and it’s safe to say Miami saw some great additions to its restaurant scene, including a few notable ones in the last month of 2010. Following are notable openings and closings in December (or before and not included in our November restaurant…

Sneak Review: 1500 Degrees at Eden Roc

A small slice taken from next weeks meaty Cafe review of 1500 Degrees at Eden Roc.Executive chef Paula DaSilva spent a decade as Dean James Max’ chef de cuisine at Ft. Lauderdale’s 3030 Ocean, and, even a greater testament to her endurance skills, toiled for weeks under Gordon Ramsay on…

Vino & Olio disappoints

Vino & Olio is expansive in ambition, extravagant in design, and expensive in price; that’s not what the times demand. Most of the 5,600-square-foot Design District restaurant is elegantly dressed in curvy blond woods, and a large window into the kitchen offers a compelling view of gastronomic proceedings. But the…