BEST BAR FOOD 2005 | The Bar | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
Navigation
Support Us
Search

BEST BAR FOOD

The Bar

The Bar photo
The Bar is the best of both bar worlds. Dark and cool even at midday and absolutely shadowed at night, it's a great place to drown sorrow or joy in a shot glass of bourbon accompanied by one of the Bar's many boutique beers. But Giralda Avenue is in Coral Gables, after all, and if you're going to have an establishment there, you might as well give the rich folk something to throw their cash at. The Bar's food is bar food, but not of the microwaved-mozzarella-stick variety. It is inexpensive enough for the budget-conscious drinker and fine enough for the discerning bourgeois palate. Chicken tenders, for instance, are strips of chicken breast dipped in a homemade spicy breading and deep fried until crisp. They taste a lot like homemade fried chicken and absolutely nothing like the warmed-over, limp fingers that most bars serve, and you get a plateful (between four and six strips usually) for six bucks. The six-dollar burgers are a steal as well -- juicy lumps of high-quality meat actually cooked to order (as opposed to many bars, where the waitress politely asks how you'd like your burger cooked and returns with something akin to a blackened-carbon sandwich) and dressed any way you like. The eight-dollar steak sandwich -- a healthy slab of grilled London broil topped with melted provolone on a hunk of French bread -- couldn't be better. The menu is pretty extensive, with plenty of sandwich and salad options and the requisite bar-food appetizers, all of them better than you're likely to find at your neighborhood watering hole.

BEST BAR FOOD

The Bar

The Bar is the best of both bar worlds. Dark and cool even at midday and absolutely shadowed at night, it's a great place to drown sorrow or joy in a shot glass of bourbon accompanied by one of the Bar's many boutique beers. But Giralda Avenue is in Coral Gables, after all, and if you're going to have an establishment there, you might as well give the rich folk something to throw their cash at. The Bar's food is bar food, but not of the microwaved-mozzarella-stick variety. It is inexpensive enough for the budget-conscious drinker and fine enough for the discerning bourgeois palate. Chicken tenders, for instance, are strips of chicken breast dipped in a homemade spicy breading and deep fried until crisp. They taste a lot like homemade fried chicken and absolutely nothing like the warmed-over, limp fingers that most bars serve, and you get a plateful (between four and six strips usually) for six bucks. The six-dollar burgers are a steal as well -- juicy lumps of high-quality meat actually cooked to order (as opposed to many bars, where the waitress politely asks how you'd like your burger cooked and returns with something akin to a blackened-carbon sandwich) and dressed any way you like. The eight-dollar steak sandwich -- a healthy slab of grilled London broil topped with melted provolone on a hunk of French bread -- couldn't be better. The menu is pretty extensive, with plenty of sandwich and salad options and the requisite bar-food appetizers, all of them better than you're likely to find at your neighborhood watering hole.

BEST VIP ROOM

The Pawn Shop Lounge

The best VIP rooms are exclusive, far removed from the peasants, and exude cool at all times. In the middle of the unending mayhem here stands a big yellow school bus that serves as the presidential suite, and it meets all of the above criteria. It's functional too. The bus windows are well within eyeshot of promoter Josh Menendez as he does his thing, and from the safety of the school zone, you can look down upon the peons as they become endlessly intertwined with each other. On any given Revolver Friday, the club becomes jammed with party people, becoming so cramped that unless you have the clout to hitch a ride on the bus, you'll be spilling drinks, or having drinks spilled on you, all night. But if you're a true playa who's literally on the bus, it's nothing but fine tablecloths, mood lighting, and champagne, baby.

BEST VIP ROOM

The Pawn Shop Lounge

The best VIP rooms are exclusive, far removed from the peasants, and exude cool at all times. In the middle of the unending mayhem here stands a big yellow school bus that serves as the presidential suite, and it meets all of the above criteria. It's functional too. The bus windows are well within eyeshot of promoter Josh Menendez as he does his thing, and from the safety of the school zone, you can look down upon the peons as they become endlessly intertwined with each other. On any given Revolver Friday, the club becomes jammed with party people, becoming so cramped that unless you have the clout to hitch a ride on the bus, you'll be spilling drinks, or having drinks spilled on you, all night. But if you're a true playa who's literally on the bus, it's nothing but fine tablecloths, mood lighting, and champagne, baby.

BEST PLACE TO PLAY POOL

New Wave Billiards

Thirty well-kept professional-size tables, fair drink prices, an excellent jukebox, and low prices -- $10 per hour (for the table, not per person) for two players, $12 per hour for three -- are all good reasons to shoot stick at this FIU-adjacent pool hall. Where most places either have cheap prices and terrible equipment (ripped felt, bent cues) or top-notch equipment accompanied by outrageous prices, New Wave strikes the right balance. Plus you can watch the viejos shoot true billiards on the six pocketless tables in the center of the room.

BEST PLACE TO PLAY POOL

New Wave Billiards

Thirty well-kept professional-size tables, fair drink prices, an excellent jukebox, and low prices -- $10 per hour (for the table, not per person) for two players, $12 per hour for three -- are all good reasons to shoot stick at this FIU-adjacent pool hall. Where most places either have cheap prices and terrible equipment (ripped felt, bent cues) or top-notch equipment accompanied by outrageous prices, New Wave strikes the right balance. Plus you can watch the viejos shoot true billiards on the six pocketless tables in the center of the room.

BEST CLUB DJ

DJ Irie

With the exception of Khaled's frequent cameos in Fat Joe's music videos, Irie may be the only local jock who regularly makes it onto network television, which he does via his gig as the official DJ for the Miami Heat during its home games. A more visceral place to hear Irie is at a club, and there are plenty of opportunities for such an experience. His resident appearances at the Hotel Astor on Tuesdays, at Oxygen Lounge on Wednesdays, and at Opium Garden on Sundays burn ears and get feet smoking. He cuts and scratches records with a dexterity atypical of most club DJs: He doesn't just spin records, he performs with them, creating a vinyl solution for those who demand something above the norm from their turntablists.

Readers´ Choice: Matt Cash

BEST CLUB DJ

DJ Irie

With the exception of Khaled's frequent cameos in Fat Joe's music videos, Irie may be the only local jock who regularly makes it onto network television, which he does via his gig as the official DJ for the Miami Heat during its home games. A more visceral place to hear Irie is at a club, and there are plenty of opportunities for such an experience. His resident appearances at the Hotel Astor on Tuesdays, at Oxygen Lounge on Wednesdays, and at Opium Garden on Sundays burn ears and get feet smoking. He cuts and scratches records with a dexterity atypical of most club DJs: He doesn't just spin records, he performs with them, creating a vinyl solution for those who demand something above the norm from their turntablists.

Readers´ Choice: Matt Cash

BEST PLACE FOR COCKTAILS

V Bar and Lounge

Everyone knows that a hotel party is the hippest recreational activity in Miami. Just check out the pages of People and InStyle and you'll see celebrities lifting cocktails to the camera while sitting on comfy sofas and enjoying the opulence and verve of South Beach's finest hotels. You too can sit among the pulchritudinous stars while sipping mango mojitos, cosmopolitans, or vanilla rum and Cokes in the recently reopened Hotel Victor. Romantic lighting, sexy bartenders, and a mesmerizing illuminated tank filled with live jellyfish make the V Bar and Lounge the swanky place to be.

Readers´ Choice: Fox´s Sherron Inn

BEST PLACE FOR COCKTAILS

V Bar and Lounge

Everyone knows that a hotel party is the hippest recreational activity in Miami. Just check out the pages of People and InStyle and you'll see celebrities lifting cocktails to the camera while sitting on comfy sofas and enjoying the opulence and verve of South Beach's finest hotels. You too can sit among the pulchritudinous stars while sipping mango mojitos, cosmopolitans, or vanilla rum and Cokes in the recently reopened Hotel Victor. Romantic lighting, sexy bartenders, and a mesmerizing illuminated tank filled with live jellyfish make the V Bar and Lounge the swanky place to be.

Readers´ Choice: Fox´s Sherron Inn

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