Rare, Exotic Foods Maybe, Sorta, Kinda, Not Really Headed to South Florida

If you haven’t checked out New Times’ own handy restaurant guide, you really should – it’s an excellent resource for sorting restaurants by location, price range, features, critics’ choice, and, of course, cuisine. Plus, most entries in our database contain capsule reviews for those that like a quick read, plus…

The Freakin’ Hott Has the Best Blog in South Florida

Besides seriously rocking the fuck out, directly channeling an imaginary bastard love child of Kimya Dawson and Bob Stinson, and having the best ass and the prettiest face in the club, respectively, Maggie and Aaron also have the funniest, harshest and most deliciously cynical blog in our shitty little awesome…

Lobbying for a Commission Seat

Juan Carlos Zapata, a state representative from the Kendall area, is gunning for Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez’s job. The legislator is going to be termed out of office in 2010, so he’s laying the groundwork for a run at Martinez’s seat in 2012. Already, the first Colombian-American elected to the…

Plantation Man Pleads Guilty To Shipping Military Aircraft Parts to Iran

It’s probably safe to add “shipping military aircraft parts to Iran” to your running list of “Bad Business Plans.”Traian Bujduveanu, a Romanian citizen living in Plantation, learned that the hard way, pleading guilty in downtown Miami federal court today of plotting to ship sensitive military parts to Iran, the U.S…

Letters from the Issue of April 2, 2009

This Little Piggy Pays your taxes: Gus Garcia-Roberts’s March 26 feature story, “Pork Pirates,” misses the point about people on farms who raise pigs, cows, and other animals. They need to make money in order to support themselves and their families. If the writer enjoyed the barbecue pig, he should…

Deal Breakers

So, what exactly is a deal breaker? If you ask Peter, an anxious, sniffling, and sharply suited 36-year-old with a prominent mole that floats above his arched left brow, he’ll tell you it’s “a woman with bad breath.” Fair enough. “Or someone who’s taller than five-three… or well, she needs…

Miami-Based Designer Cast in Bravo’s Project Runway Replacement

Today marks the end of the gayest squabble in TV history since the great Paul Lynde-Charles Nelson Reilly game-show feud of the ’70s. The Weinstein Company and NBC Universal have finally settled their legal battle over Project Runway. The Result? ProjRun’s sixth season will air as planned on cat-lady channel Lifetime, while Bravo…

The Most Effective Birth Control We’ve Seen in a While

In 2007, the Healthy Start Coalition of Miami-Dade reported that certain cultural pockets of Miami-Dade really see no problem with teenage pregnancy. “However, some groups did not acknowledge that teen pregnancy is a problem. Most importantly, they expressed knowledge on frequent births to teens but do not feel that births…

Helio’s Cool $5 Million

OK, so over here, we have the Marlins stadium, the port tunnel, and the Design District cable car. Cost: More than $1 billion. Then over here, we have the paltry $5 million that Brazilian racecar driver Helio Castroneves is trying to get away without paying taxes on. Yesterday in Miami…

Corrections Chief Tim Ryan Can’t Seem To Stop Offending Black Guards

Note to Tim Ryan: Maybe just stay home next February. Ryan, Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation chief since 2006, hasn’t exactly built a mountain of goodwill with his majority black workforce during his three years in charge of one of the nation’s largest prison systems, with a $315 million budget and…

The Week That Was: We Decided To Be A Celebrity Tabloid

Riptide usually tries to stay away from the celebrity gossip stuff, unless it’s amazing. It seems that fate has sent us lots of amazing celeb gossip this week:Paris Hilton tried to get a House/Techno DJ to stop playing House and Techno during the biggest Techno and House event in America,…

Is Race an Issue in SoFla Newspaper Layoffs/Departures?

I’ve just learned that three old friends are leaving South Florida’s daily newspapers: one-time Miami bureau chief David Cazares and columnist Ralph De La Cruz are moving on from the Sun-Sentinel….and editorial page editor Joe Oglesby is retiring from the Miami Herald. That’s on top of editor Manny Garcia, who…

Another Day, Another Caribbean-Based Ponzi Scheme

Forget Edison, Franklin, even Steve Jobs. If there’s one innovator we truly love and respect here in South Florida and the Caribbean, it’s Charles Ponzi.The guy, let’s face it, invented pretty much the best scheme ever. Why do complicated stuff like “invest money” when you can just take it and…

Hallandale Vice Gets Busy in the Champagne Room

On March 7, just a half-hour past midnight, stormtroopers from the Hallandale Beach Police Department and the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco raided the Cheetah gentlemen’s club.The cops busted 16 dancers and two managers, arresting the girls on prostitution charges and the managers for allegedly running a whorehouse…

Letters from the Issue of March 26, 2009

Prison Scared Me Straight Good job: In response to Francisco Alvarado’s “Unequal Justice” on March 19: This is a great article and all true, I’m sure. How do I know this? I turned 18 in jail back in the early ’80s. I was busted with a whole lot of Quaaludes…

Little Havana Doesn’t Trust Miami Marlins

Luis Montealegre poured a café Cubano on Tuesday, paid a delivery guy for croquetas, and peered east a few blocks from his corner cafeteria. There was only blue sky where a $634 million Marlins baseball stadium will soon rise. “This is the poorest part of the city, the one that…

Let me get this straight

So at around the 7:04 p.m. mark of the Miami-Dade County Commission’s nine-hour bull session to approve the Florida Miami Marlins’ new stadium, Commissioner Sally Heyman posed a rather simple business question. She asked what would happen to the ballpark’s projected $1.9 billion cost if the municipal bond interest rates…

Stadium Approved, Good Friggin’ Riddance

My favorite moment in yesterday’s nine-hour discussion of the new $2 billion Marlins Stadium came at 9:27 p.m., when Commissioner “Space Cowboy” Javier Souto began defending himself from concerns that Mayor Carlos Alvarez runs him like an Italian train: “My vote is not for sale, rent, or lease,” Souto said. “Whichever…

Say No to the Stadium

Today the Miami-Dade County Commission will vote to build the Florida Marlins a new stadium. Or not. I hope they don’t. This deal is such a stinker I don’t know how Mayor Carlos Alvarez, the stadium’s chief cheerleader, doesn’t walk around wearing a gas mask every time he is out…

South Florida According to Brooklyn: To My Haters

To read past installments of Miami According to Brooklyn, click here. This week is addressed to my haters. First off, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read my column. Second, the things that I write and talk about are just one man’s opinion. I just throw…

Forget the Stadium. Joe Sanchez Just Won the Mayor’s Job.

If you weren’t paying attention to any news media in town yesterday, you might have missed that Miami commissioners voted 3 to 2 in favor of the new baseball stadium in Little Havana.But even those who were watching probably failed to notice a salient fact: Joe Sanchez basically locked up…