Juan Mario Maza and Vani Maharaj, owners of the new Alta Cocina in South Miami, have an interesting backstory to tell. Vani, from Trinidad and Tobago, and Juan, from Guatemala, met while studying cuisine at Johnson & Wales University in North Miami. Maharaj went on to work with Michelle Bernstein…
Where: Cheen Huaye, 15400 Biscayne Blvd. North Miami Beach, 305-956-2808 What $15 Gets You: Pollo a la Yucateaca, a side of rice, fried plantains and your choice of drinks (and complimentary chips and salsa). My friend had recommended Cheen Huaye, which served Southern Mexican cuisine (not Mexican Southern, I mean…
When Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, “Less is more,” he wasn’t talking about Graziano’s. This comfortable, unpretentious Argentine steak house spits in the beer of “less.” It flips the bird to “moderation,” body-slams “cholesterol” to the pavement, and jackhammer-stomps “diet” into whining, sniveling submission. As for “vegetarian,” just one…
As the sun serenely sets into the cerulean Mediterranean sea, a familiar refrain can be heard around dinner tables throughout Greece: “Moussaka again?” Sadly the 10 million inhabitants of this country, along with their ancestors, have over many a millennia accumulated only 14 recipes. They are good recipes, mind you,…
Whelks and periwinkles are just two reasons to love Maison d’Azur, the sizzling new seafood brasserie at the Anglers Resort. The former are conchlike in texture, the “winkles” teeny and sweet, yet while de rigueur on seafood platters in France, these spiral-shell sea snails rarely crawl onto stateside menus. Their…
Tis the season! In Miami that means not only the time for Art Basel, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve parties, but also barbecues. While the rest of the country freezes, we get to grill in our swimsuits. Only problem is, after Thanksgiving’s sweating-over-a-hot-stove marathons, we’re all cooked out…
Our arses had hardly alighted upon the seat cushions when a tuxedoed gentleman came by the table with an enormous quarter-wheel of Parmesan cheese and plunked a carved nugget of it on each of our side plates — pausing long enough only to tersely introduce it the way a classical…
If there is a Hell on Earth for small-business owners, its name is Biscayne Boulevard. What’s amusingly termed “ongoing construction” (replace con with de for greater accuracy) has left stretches of Miami’s premier boulevard looking as if they’ve been hit by ICBMs, with surfaces so potholed that even driving over…
To paraphrase an old tag line for Levy’s Kosher Rye Bread: You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Fusion 41. But it helps. I say this not because of the restaurant’s menu, which features fresh fish prepared and presented in contemporary fashion; other than being kosher, it has little…
When a restaurant has been operating since 1975, as House of India has, it’s bound to garner faultfinders as well as fans. The most persistent criticism here has been spotty service — which was definitely at its lowest point one recent lunchtime, when a waiter called Coral Gables cops to…
American Food Writing is not a book to be put down lightly. At 784 pages, it simply can’t be done. It is a book to be put down with a thunk, picked up and read, put down with a thunk, picked up and read, again and again. The anthology serves…
Miami is a town of many charming, unique, evocative neighborhoods with very few charming, unique, evocative neighborhood restaurants. Why is this? We can venture a few guesses. Miami is a city with no real culinary tradition, at least if you exclude stone crabs and restaurants that shear tourists like sunburned,…
What do a Russian kebabery, a student-run restaurant, and a Oaxacan taqueria on wheels have in common? Nothing except delicious food, which speaks a universal language. Lula Kebab House owners Sofia and David Shifrin are from Minsk (now the Republic of Belarus). Francisco Perez and his brother-in-law Moises, proprietors of…
Unlike its predecessor, the well-loved Japanese restaurant Tani Guchi’s Place, there’s nothing kosher about Maleewan Thai and Sushi. The specials board sports something that looks like a six-point Star of David, but it’s actually the six-petal vine flower from which Maleewan takes its name. Silk flowers are now a main…
There are three sections to the 145-seat Ishq (pronounced ish): a row of tables lined up on the sidewalk of Ocean Drive, a thinly foliated rectangular outdoor courtyard that serves as dining area and link between street and recessed restaurant, and the interior, consisting of a bar inlaid with semiprecious…
Cancun Grill is everything that’s wrong with Mexican cuisine in South Florida. Most Mexican restaurants in these parts are about many things — cheap prices, expensive margaritas, quick service, raucous entertainment, faux SoBo (south of the border) ambiance. Rarely are they about the food. What sets Cancun Grill apart is…
Korean cuisine can be a conundrum. Relatively few westerners are familiar with the culinary specialties of the isolated peninsular nation (shaped not unlike Florida), compared to that of, say, Korea’s higher-profile neighbor, Japan, which is often wrongly cited as the nation from which Korean cuisine is derived. The mystery of…
I was sitting alone in the spanking-new Rosa Mexicano dining room, finishing up my chicken enchiladita appetizer. Actually I was already done eating the two small, soft corn tortillas wrapped around succulent shreds of pulled chicken, chorizo sausage, and meaty red beans, and at the moment, using the tines of…
It used to be easy to differentiate between a fine-dining establishment and a neighborhood restaurant. The former’s tables would be draped in white linen, the patrons in elegant attire, and the host — referred to as “maitre d'” — would likely be wearing a tuxedo. Further clues might be ascertained…
It’s difficult not to sympathize with business owners along the stretch of Biscayne Boulevard between NE 67th and 87th Streets. Owing to seemingly endless construction, access to shops is greatly reduced and the neighborhood looks like a war zone. Local businesses have failed under similar circumstances; common sense suggests the…
Miami diners consider certain money-driven variables pluses in deciding where to go on a night out: the flashy swordsmanship show of a Brazilian rodizio restaurant; the lavish steaks of an Argentine parrillada; the cutting-edge East-West fusion creations of a contemporary Peruvian eatery. Not a plus on any occasion would be,…
While traipsing around New York last month, my wife and I seemingly passed one Chipotle Mexican Grill after another — some spaced just blocks apart. It reached a point when I wondered aloud: “Who do they think they are, Starbucks?” Curiosity compelled us to walk into one and take a…
