Central America

Miami's Best Fritangas: Pinolandia, Yambo, and Fritanga Montelimar

Reader Mail: No One Is Worse Than Jeffrey Loria

David Rivera's Missing Pal Ana Alliegro Found Hiding in Nicaragua

Miami Rum Renaissance Festival Moves Off Beach, Expands

Miami Rum Renaissance Festival director Robert Burr is what you might call "rum obsessed." The author of Examiner.com's national rum page has about 900 bottles of rum in his private collection, hosts rum cruises on which fans can tour various distilleries at exotic ports of call, and is hosting ... More >>

Exclusive: Miami New Times Finds David Rivera's Missing Pal Ana Alliegro

In the lakeside tourist city of Granada, Nicaragua, visitors strolling along La Calle Libertad come upon a blue Colonial-style building with a small sign reading, "Salon La Libertad." On a recent afternoon, a slim Cuban-American woman with short blonde hair and intense blue eyes chats on her cellpho ... More >>

David Rivera Hung Out With Communists During His Last Campaign

Throughout his embattled political career, David Rivera used his power to undermine Cuba's communist government at every turn. The Cuban-American Republican was one of the staunchest hard-line crusaders against Fidel Castro's regime. When he was a state legislator, he successfully championed a law t ... More >>

Rusted Root as Part of Virginia Key Grassroots Festival 2013, February 21 to 24

Rusted Root's Michael Glabicki on Jamming, Healing, and Virginia Key Grassroots Festival

Michael Glabicki is 2 and a half years old. His bloody head is on the pavement. Tiny body still. Pupils pointed skyward. Eyes empty. The car that nearly crushed him has finally stopped moving, but the pain is a beating drum inside his skull. And the gleaming light that shines beyond his reach is b ... More >>

Best Balls

Halo-Halo: The Story Behind the Filipino Shaved Ice Dessert

Halo-halo isn't your typical shaved ice dessert. If you consider Panama's raspao, Italy's granita, Dominican Republic's frio frio, or United States' snow cone, then you already know none of these look anything like a layered, vibrant bowl of halo-halo. It might look more like Malaysia's ais kacang ... More >>

Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting in a Panamanian Jail

From Porky's to Panama Prison, Tony Galeota Reveals Miami's Mob-Run Prostitution Industry

In January, I wrote about an amazing high-tech submarine race to the bottom of the ocean. In the story, I mentioned how a Hialeah strip club called Porky's had once been the staging ground for an incredible plot to smuggle Colombian cocaine to California in a Russian sub.Then, at the end of August, ... More >>

Feds Drop Charges Against Miami Doctor Because They've Got Too Much Evidence

Back in 2007, the feds indicted a Miami doctor for allegedly writing bogus prescriptions for hydrocodone and other addictive medicines shipped across the country through an online pharmacy. The case was more than solid; in fact, prosecutors gathered more than 400,000 pages of records to bolster thei ... More >>

Biscayne Blvd Photos Show Immigrants and Freedom Fighters

Bull's Balls at Yambo, Home of Top-Notch Neighborhood Nicaraguan Fare

Open 24/7, Little Managua's Yambo serves large portions of authentic Nicaraguan fare at exceptionally modest prices. Aside from the finger lickin' quality and enormous size of the platters, the ambiance and the décor makes this labyrinth a destination-place -- it feels extremely homey while transpo ... More >>

Granito: How to Nail a Dictator: Guatemalan Justice in the Making

​We felt a bit out of our depth heading into UM's screening of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator at the Bill Cosford Cinema last night. The documentary is a follow-up to When the Mountains Tremble, a doc that courageous young director Pamela Yates produced in the early '80s, exposing the violent gen ... More >>

Tabou Combo's Yvan "Kapi" Andre Talks Voudou, Kompa, and The Rolling Stones

Tabou Combo's Yvan "Kapi" Andre.​Tabou Combo has one of the most revered funk breakdowns in all of musicland. And between the voudou beats, big soul horns, salsa turns, merengue runs, and rockin' drums, this band is the most eclectic kompa crew in the world. The group started in 1968 under the na ... More >>

Smash Face, Repeat

Animal Love Affair: Female Wolf has Crush on Panama City Family's Pet Dog

via News Herald​Someone call up Pixar, because boy do we have a situation definitively calling out for some sort of animated movie treatment here in Florida. You see, a female wolf has been hanging around the  yard of Panama City resident Nathan Didier. The reason? D ... More >>

The River Seafood & Oyster Bar keeps flowing

View photos of the River Seafood & Oyster Bar.

Submarines and Cocaine: 56 Members of "Bandas Criminales" Indicted for Trafficking

​More than 50 members of the Colombian "Bandas Criminales" (AKA BACRIM) drug-trafficking organization have been rounded up after a joint operation based out of Miami. It's the biggest bust of the emerging drug-trafficking gang since Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern Di ... More >>

Get Your Panther Coffee Starting This Saturday

Paula Niño​The wait is over. After temporarily opening during Art Basel and Wynwood art walks, Panther Coffee will open for good this Saturday, June 11. Permitting delays kept owners Joel and Leticia Pollock from permanent operation of their coffee shop earlier this year as planned. The P ... More >>

Do That Conga

Miami's Curd Cowboys: Is Cheese the New Cocaine?

​On December 18, 2010, a freighter named America Feeder arrived at the Port of Miami from Nicaragua. Federal agents were secretly running surveillance on one container, marked ARLU 5102167. Five days later, the container was hitched to a truck and driven, with agents trailing, to a cold-stora ... More >>

Greek Out

Viva Arte!

Photos: Redland Market Village Bargain Town Boasts the Original Miami Food Truck Court

​You can easily while away most of a weekend day at Redland Market Village Bargain Town, which is located at the intersection of South Dixie Highway and SW 244th Street. The name, perhaps, sums up the many functions of the indoor/outdoor complex. Yes, it sprawls to nearly the size of a small town, ... More >>

Gaybies: South Florida same-sex couple travels to Central America for a family

Manuel Noriega's Last Days Memorialized In Leaked U.S. Embassy Documents

Manuel Noriega promised retribution against "Panamanian traitors and their U.S. Masters" One week before his ouster, Panama strongman Manuel Noriega was preparing to crack down on his opponents and rally his troops, according to Prudence Bushnell, at the time U.S. Ambassador to Panama.Bushnell's ana ... More >>

Boxing Morena

Mermelada Bunch at La Covacha October 22

Mermelada Bunch Brings Jam Band Insanity and Venezuelan Beer to La Covacha October 22

Don't mess with Mermelada.​A late night with Venezuelan big band Mermelada Bunch feels like a fast-forward trip through the musical looking glass. The uninitiated should expect a wild mish-mash session scattered all across the Latin pop-rock spectrum. One minute, you're being bombarded by electron ... More >>

LeBron James and crazy quotes

Dumb things people have said since the baller signed with the Heat.

Giant Guatemala Sinkhole Still Open; Temporary Protected Status In Limbo

​In May, a tropical storm and a volcano eruption devastated Guatemala, leaving hundreds dead, and a giant sinkhole that swallowed a three-story building in the heart of the capital city. In response to the natural disasters, its government asked the United States to extend Temporary Protected Stat ... More >>

Manuel Noriega, Miami's Favorite Dictator, Gets Seven Years in French Prison

​Poor Manuel Noriega. Sure, it was a rough fall from grace to go from the iron fist ruling all of Panama -- from the Atlantic to the Pacific and all 20 miles in between -- to a jail cell in Miami. But there was some dignity there, at least. Miami and fallen Latin American strongmen go together ... More >>

Rich Gringo, Dead Chica, Case Closed

Update: Tons of Contaminated Cheese Sold in Florida, Texas, California, New York

Alex Izaguirre​Yesterday I described what might have been the largest cheese bust in history. Eighty-five tons of the stuff, most of it contaminated with staph, was sold to at least 30 people. Today I learned some of the cheese made it out of Miami to Texas, California, and New York. The FDA has ... More >>

Face the Crowd

Panama!

See Spanish Royalty Rock

Epic Opening Tonight

Area 31 makes its' debut tonight on the 16th floor of Brickell Avenue's Epic Hotel. Executive chef is John Critchley, who trained under Boston's renowned chef Ken Oringer (Clio) and was known to make a mean morcilla at his own Beantown tapas bar. The sommelier is Emily Wines (from San Franciscos's F ... More >>

Open Wide!

SoBe Wine and Food is baaaack

Disguising the Tentacles

Behold the mighty octopus

Pirates Know Best

Two Types of Tapas

The Purpose of Pupusas

Pig out on Salvadoran pupusa -- but don't forget the loroco!

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR/WEST

Doral Ale House

Best Nicaraguan Restaurant

Madroño Restaurant

Fruity World

Fruit & Spice Park

Best Central-American Restaurant And Club

Yambo