Best Doughnuts 2000 | Krispy Kreme Doughnuts | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
Navigation
Support Us
Search

Best Doughnuts

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

Doughnuts are sin. You cannot yield to the temptation of a low-fat or sugar-free doughnut. Such abominations are not doughnuts. Therefore, brothers and sisters, he who eats of the glazed, powdered, cream-filled, and all other manner of deep-fried dough, make damn sure it's worth sinning for. Can I get a witness? When you're out there hungering in the depths of your gut for a chocolate frosted, drive thou not into a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot, for that way leads to perdition. No, my children! Hold out for the worst sin! The very anti-halo! A still-warm glazed doughnut fresh from the Krispy Kreme kitchen! What is it, you may ask, that the Krispy Kreme people put in those doughnuts to render them so meltingly soft? So dangerously delicious? Oh, ye of little faith! Shut up and start sinning!

Best Bakery

Moises Bakery

As the neon sign reads inside, everything in this bakery is made with "chispa Venezolana." The bread comes to you fresh out of the oven in all shapes and sizes. The cakes are topped with fresh strawberries, kiwis, and peaches. The meat, chicken, and cheese empanadas go a long way. Be sure to wash down the dough-wrapped lunch-in-a-pocket with a Frescolita ( a cherry-flavor Venezuelan soda in a glass bottle). Have a bomba (a pastry stuffed with cooked condensed milk) for dessert, or a flaky mil ojas (1000 leaves) covered in powdered sugar. They even have something to cure the lethargy that comes from eating too much.

Best Food Court

Lincoln Road and Euclid Avenue

The mallification of the once-distinctive Road is now complete. Just like every other mall, it has: (1) a Williams-Sonoma, and (2) a food court. Though restaurants are strung along its length, the culinary heart of the Road is at the artificial grassy knoll where skaters and homeless folks rub shoulders with the world's best-looking mall rats. What more could you want in generic upscale eatin'? There's the Joffrey's Coffee shop, the Thai/sushi place, the ... other Thai/sushi place. Okay, okay, there's no Cheesecake Factory, but there's the Nexxt best thing. And for dessert you've got the packed-to-the gills Gelateria Parmalat. All within striking distance of real.life.basic. Coming soon, just down the street: Victoria's Secret! Just like every other mall.

Best Chain Restuarant

Cheesecake Factory

You may want to call us predictable, common, okay even cheesy, but as far as chain-restaurant food goes, the Cheesecake Factory stands alone. We've even heard that other restaurants like to pick Cheesecake items straight from the menu and serve the delicious dishes themselves. That's the same menu that features page after page of tasty selections, like the sweet-corn tamale appetizer, Sheila's favorite blackened chicken pasta (hot, hot, hot), or the Chinese chicken salad. Leave room after the gargantuan portions for a slice from one of the Factory's 30-plus cheesecake selections. And leave some time to get your fill: You'll probably have to wait up to a half-hour on evenings and weekends.

Best Smoothie

Athens Juice Bar

Take a look on the other side of the counter in either one of these locations, and what you see could very well be a picture from a local agricultural promo. The fruits and vegetables are so fresh and ripe they look as though they belong on a billboard rather than in a blender. That's the way it's been for 58 years at the original Athens on Collins Avenue (the second location opened in 1997). As far as smoothies go, forget about the elaborate menus with clever names you'll find at other establishments. When ordering at Athens, simply rattle off whatever combination you want and it's yours, all for the same price: about three bucks for a medium cup. How do they do it? While other smoothie places choose to go with some frozen material or use bottled juice, the folks at Athens get up early every morning and select their produce from a stable of local farmers or the farmers' market in Homestead. But during September, take your thirst elsewhere; that's the low season for most of the local produce, and rather than work with inferior merchandise, Athens just closes shop.

Best Restaurant In South Beach

Pacific Time

Unfurling waves of hot-shot eateries have recently been splashing into South Beach, but this is nothing new. Big-money ventures and top-drawer chefs have been dashing onto our shores for years now, only to crash on the rocks of financial reality and roll quietly back out again. One, Pacific Time, has ticked consistently along like a fine-tuned watch since stunning locals with what was then radical for these parts: pan-Asian food. That was back in 1993, when PT was the only place to go for fine dining on Lincoln Road. Now, with cafés cluttering every corner and cranny, many maintain it's still the only place. Pacific Rim favorites like Szechuan grilled black grouper have been around from day one but the ever-evolving menu manages to keep surprising. Desserts, too, are legendary. Owner/chef Jonathan Eismann's steady presence and talent have kept Time like a Rolex in a neighborhood of Swatches.

Best Colombian Restaurant

Los Arrieros

Colombian food is comfort food: sparingly seasoned meats, beans, rice, plantains, and of course, arepas. For Miami's Colombian community, Los Arrieros provides an equally comforting atmosphere: walls adorned with quaint little balconcitos (models of Spanish-tile balconies), a life-size balcón for a stage, and a couple of jocular trovadores improvising verses from handwritten audience requests. The restaurant, which moved from its previous, more easterly location some two years ago, specializes in the cuisine of la zona cafetera, the mountainous coffee-growing region of central Colombia that includes the cities of Medellín and Manizales. (Arrieros are drovers who lead teams of coffee-bean-laden donkeys down from the fields.) The menu's highlights include a savory sancocho, a clear soup loaded with gallina (hen), chunks of green plantain, potato, and yuca, seasoned liberally with fresh cilantro. (At $6.50 the large sancocho is a great value.) The bandeja paisa features a tender steak, a strip of delicately fried chicharrón (pork skin), a mountain of white rice, a steaming bowl of red beans, and a fried egg. Spoon on some deliciously bright chimichurri sauce for a little snap in your steak. Wash it all down with a Manzana Postobon soda, and immerse yourself in la experiencia total de la comida paisa.

Best Frozen Yogurt

Yocream

It's hard to believe a society capable of cloning sheep can't produce a decent-tasting nonfat dessert. A fellow frozen-yogurt consumer once said, "It's supposed to taste strange; it's nonfat. It's got all kinds of weird chemicals in it." She then continued contentedly munching the junk, not unlike a cloned sheep. Well it tastes like crap, and I'm not going to eat it anymore! Fortunately science finally has come up with Yocream. This stuff is super rich, extra creamy, and (Seinfeld fans take note) fat free! One-half cup vanilla contains 100 calories and zero grams of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol; one-half cup chocolate has 110 calories with .5 grams total fat (zero from saturated fat or cholesterol). And there's not a trace of the artificial aftertaste common in other nonfat treats. Ingredients include active yogurt cultures, some natural items you'd find in a baker's pantry, plus a few you might not, including the mysterious "sweetener" and "stabilizer," plus cellulose and guar gum. You can find vanilla and chocolate Yocream at Banana Royale ice cream store in Aventura, News Café on South Beach, as well as in shakes and smoothies at Norman Brothers.

Best Homemade Brew

Kremas Mapou

Tucked among the many unexpected treasures in Libreri Mapou are tall bottles of a mysterious ivory liquid. A love potion? A purifying bubble bath? Not exactly, though you could say Kremas Mapou has alchemic properties. Here in this venerable Little Haiti bookstore, the cultural and intellectual heart of Miami's Haitian community, is owner Jan Mapou's homemade contribution to the potable arts. Kremas Mapou is this thick, syrupy drink that doesn't taste quite like anything else. A subtle pang of alcohol -- "sugar cane rhum," as noted on the label -- heats up the rich vanilla-almond-cinnamon mixture just enough to turn it into a deep velvety dream of a cream. A 700-ml bottle costs $13; smaller quantities are correspondingly less, down to a cute little pocket size for $1.

Best Japanese Restaurant

Su-Shin Izakaya

Not just a sushi joint (though the sushi chefs heartily greet all patrons who enter), this bustling lunch-and-dinner spot in downtown Coral Gables offers daily specials -- scribbled in kanji and English on blackboards that run the length of the east wall -- depending on what's fresh. A treasure on the regular menu is the spicy kimuchi ramen, a fiery interpretation of traditional noodle soup, a bright orange broth brimming with sliced pork, bean sprouts, and spicy kim chee. Other noodle dishes are uniformly excellent. The sushi is superb as well, and without the scourge of cutesy nicknames for different kinds of rolls that plagues so many other popular sushi bars. One indicator of the quality: At any given time, the restaurant seems to boast at least one party of Japanese businessmen who have sauntered across the street from the Omni Colonnade.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our terms of use, our cookies policy, and our privacy policy The Miami New Times may earn a portion of sales from products & services purchased through links on our site from our affiliate partners. ©2024 Miami New Times, LLC. All rights reserved.
Do Not Sell or Share My Information
Powered By Foundation