In the beginning, there was the hamburger, a simple round of chopped beef slipped into a soft white bun. And the hamburger begat the cheeseburger, which begat the double cheeseburger with large fries, which begat the turkey burger and the tuna burger, the mushroom burger and the veggie burger. And…

It’s a corporate world and we just live in it. Art, music, literature, film — not to mention daily minutiae such as toothpaste and automobiles — are conceived, packaged, promoted, and sold by gigantic, faceless entities that have all the conscience of a great white shark and all the commitment…

Is there any scarier word on a restaurant menu than healthy? Okay, maybe vegan. “Fat is flavor,” chefs say, which is why a well-marbled steak cuts like butter and tastes like heaven, why a half-pound of butter suspended in an emulsion of acid and herbs is as natural an accompaniment…

The first duty of food is to be really delicious.” Cindy Pawlcyn, one of my favorite chefs in the Napa Valley, made that statement, and it’s God’s own truth. Of course, in our little town, that’s like shouting “Long live Fidel!” from atop the Freedom Tower. Too many local restaurateurs…

We do love our trends here in little old Miami. Unstructured jackets, shoes with no socks? Done that. Velvet ropes, snotty doormen, $300 bottles of crappy vodka? Done that too. Asian-fusion cuisine, Dwyane Wade jerseys, dance music, stupid faux-martinis? We have sooo done all of that. Next up: wine bars…

So here’s my dilemma: I had dinner at Vin Brule the other night. It’s a cute little place — cute as a button, in fact — almost at the downtown Miami end of Coral Way. Nothing fancy, just your classic neighborhood café. Handful of tables on a terra-cotta tile floor,…

I have seen the future of fast food, and it is in Kendall. Kendall? Are you kidding? Kendall. I am not kidding. The future of fast food is a pinhole-in-the-wall storefront in a typically behemoth suburban shopping center a couple of impossibly jammed intersections off Florida’s Turnpike. Bearing the somewhat…

Drive along the turnpike through Homestead and Florida City these days and you cannot help but recall the lyrics to “Little Boxes,” Sixties-era folk singer Malvina Reynolds’s famous tune: “Little boxes made of ticky tacky/And they all look just the same.” Well, yes. For those of us who cannot afford…

Some of the best tapas in Miami can be found at a gas station. “Right,” you say. “I want some of what he’s been smokin’.” My response is simple: Yes, that’s right. And, no, you can’t have any. If you don’t believe me, then join the sludge of traffic oozing…

The good old days ain’t what they used to be. Take Fox’s Sherron Inn. Created in 1946, its scruffy, blue-collar ambiance; midnight-in-an-inkwell lighting; and jukebox full of tunes by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, and Patsy Cline say “bygone era” the same way Dick Cheney’s lip-curling death leer says war-mongering greedhead…

If you really want to bitch-slap a restaurateur, taste his food and then say, “It’s not authentic.” The words should be delivered with an audible sniff, as if someone launched a particularly foul cloud of gas in your direction. The tone should be haughty, dismissive, condescending — the same tone…

Expectations are a bitch. Take Creek 28. Before coming to the cozy little restaurant in the off-the-eatin’-path Indian Creek Hotel, chef Kira Volz made the Abbey Dining Room — in the almost as obscurely located Abbey Hotel — into one of the best least-known dining spots on the Beach. It…

There is something endearing and a little scary about The Bamboo Shak, as if you went to dinner at your neighbor’s house and found he had built a fully operational 767 out of matchsticks and discarded washing machine parts. But you really have no idea until you step inside the…

Maroosh is the busiest restaurant I’ve seen that not one person claims to have heard of. On a recent Saturday evening, it was packed tighter than Lil’ Kim’s silicon-plumped zeppelins. And why not? The food is consistently tasty and well prepared, the portions are huge, and the prices are on…

You would think a sleek, swank wine bar on South Beach has got to be the House of Pretentious Snobs, with cork dorks noisily proclaiming their ignorance and haughty staffers sniffing that you, peasant, couldn’t possibly comprehend the indecent pleasures of this insolent little Bordeaux, which sells for roughly the…

The joy associated with home cooking. Picture Mom standing at the stove, stirring a large pot of soup, waiting for Dad’s arrival. The kids are gathered in the kitchen, inhaling the intoxicating aromas of long-simmered chicken, fresh vegetables, and herbs. The table is set for the family meal, which provides…

During the era when Og the caveman speared a woolly mammoth, hacked the carcass into chunks, and carried his kill back to Ug and their cave-rats, there was only one known method of preparing the meat: Toss it into a roaring fire. After all, Emeril Lagasse had yet to arrive…

If great concepts were personified by guacamole, Taco Max would be able to fill Miami City Hall with mashed avocado mixed with cilantro, onions, and the juice of several thousand limes. But a great concept is not personified by guacamole. So where does that leave Taco Max? We’ll get to…

In the old days, prior to the advent of the digital universe and 24/7 shopping, people barely had time after work to run to the store, pick up a pound of ground beef, rush home, slap it on the grill, and cram it down before falling into bed. Today we…

Eating your way through the creations served in Miami’s restaurants is a lot like picking wild berries. Sometimes what you’re faced with are immature and not ready for consumption. Sometimes they’re plain rotten. Sometimes — Ouch! — they’re surrounded by thorns; just being near them hurts. But other times they’re…

When you go to your typical local steak house, the beef isn’t the only thing that gets trimmed. Whether mammoth national chain or home-grown meat market, these places can bone out your wallet faster than an ambidextrous butcher with a head full of methamphetamine and hands full of razor-sharp blades…

Is sushi the new sex? In the big, bad world out there — to which some refer as the real world — sex is the sizzle that sells the deodorant and hair gel and gas-sucking highway mastodons and watery, gruellike beer that has about as much taste and character as…