The official name of Bangkok, deemed lengthiest in the world by Guinness World Records, is Krungthep Mahanakhon Amorn Rattanakosin Mahintara Yudthaya Mahadilok Pohp Noparat Rajathanee Bureerom Udomrajniwes Mahasatarn Amorn Pimarn Avaltarnsatit Sakatattiya Visanukram Prasit. Bangkok likewise boasts the largest Chinatown outside China, is sinking at an alarming rate of two…
There was one line in there that hit me hard,” Michelle Bernstein said, her cutting board directly opposite mine at the far end of the long, narrow kitchen at Michy’s. “And it has stuck with me ever since.” She was referring to my review of Azul when it opened at…
In 1994, when South Beach was a sleeping giant just beginning to stir, Sport Café became the first budget Italian restaurant to set up shop. We forget how quickly times have changed: Sport’s location, Washington Avenue just off Fifth Street, was still considered an iffy place to walk around after…
When Martini Bar Restaurant opened in the Shops at Sunset Place this past December, I read various press notices about how consulting chef Frank Jeanetti would bring fine cuisine to South Miami. Jeanetti has been cooking it up around town for a while — at the Biltmore Hotel, Pacific Time,…
Houston’s, T.G.I.Fridays, Tarpon Bend, City Cellar Bar & Grill. Blame Dennis Max for the glut of casual-upscale restaurants threatening to overrun every privately owned casual and upscale eatery in Coral Gables. After all, it was his formula of posh interiors and accessible, reasonably priced contemporary American food that made him…
La Cofradia is a gorgeous new 78-seat restaurant in Coral Gables. The contemporary cuisine, with Mediterranean and Peruvian accents, is fresh and cooked with aplomb. The wine list features more than 180 bottles (beginning at $40) and 37 wines served by the glass, ranging from $9 to $25. A full…
As diners enter Heads or Tails Seafood, they are greeted by a smoky fish-fry aroma and the scent of raw fish emanating from the retail market located immediately to the right. Some pause and peer at the fishmongers furiously filleting sundry snappers, groupers, and other carcasses of the sea before…
Truth be told, the Happy Wine shop’s concise menu of tapas and pressed sandwiches is no match for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s feast, nor will its rambling inventory of amazingly priced wines equal the bevy of boutique bottles brought by the participating wineries. But this is one…
The Seven-Minute Chicken Look at Rachael Ray. Isn’t she cute? And quite a “chef” too, with her top-rated $40 a Day and 30 Minute Meals Food Network programs, best-selling cookbooks, national talk show…. Hey, look out! Bam! Ha, ha! It’s Emeril! What a gig he’s got: TV star, cookbook author…
Stupendous tents that compose the Grand Tasting Village have been constructed on the Beach. Barbecue pits are being assembled for the BubbleQ, flatware is being polished for the Ferran Adrià Tribute Dinner, sugar is being spun for the poolside dessert party, and a small army of the culinary world’s movers,…
Diners ascending into o-R-o during presunset hours — with its lofty white ceilings, luminous white walls, white linen tablecloths, white ostrich-skin upholstery, and island of white U-shape booths — might be forgiven for temporarily thinking they had entered in Heaven’s dining room. Adding to the celestial airiness of the 175-seat,…
A pair of corner restaurant sites bookend Ocean Terrace, a two-block stretch of mostly Deco structures that runs from 73rd to 75th Street between Collins Avenue and the beach. Various dining venues have occupied these two spaces over the past decade, but only Baraboo, despite its overwrought, overrated, and overpriced…
On a few occasions since my mother’s death, I have attempted to re-create her renowned kugel. You would think a clearly written recipe for noodle pudding would be easy to replicate, and in fact it is. I even resist the temptation to deviate a bit — say, for instance, substituting…
Firefighters fight fires, and crime fighters fight crime, so what do freedom fighters fight? Why are French sex comedies neither sexy nor funny? If love is blind, what makes lingerie so popular? And why has a spirited scene such as Coconut Grove been perennially bereft of worthwhile places to eat?…
With Big City Tavern in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, City Oyster Bar in Delray Beach, and the new City Cellar Wine Bar & Grill in Coral Gables, Big Time Restaurant Group has shown itself to be city-slick in picking the right real estate for its entries into the burgeoning…
When first told that NASA incorporates Peruvian foods into the inflight meals of American astronauts, I pictured bowls of ceviche floating gravity-free through a spaceship, and lime wedges trailing nearby in very slow motion, lazily bumping into free-tumbling tamalelike humitas. Upon snapping back from my reverie, the rationale became clear:…
Those in Miami who keep kosher diets are privy to a wide diversity of ethnic dining establishments: Chinese (China Bistro at The Waterway Shops, Aventura), Japanese (Aoba Japanese, 13185 Biscayne Blvd., North Miami Beach), Mediterranean (New Time Moroccan and Spanish Restaurant, 2120 NE 123rd St., North Miami Beach), Mexican (La…
Wine bars have quietly become big business in Miami. Among the better of our relatively recent arrivals are D’Vine District Restaurant and Wine Bar in the Design District, Vine Wine Shop on Biscayne Boulevard and 77th Street, and the cozy Xtreme Cafe in South Beach (which misleadingly sounds like a…
The plates placed before us each contained two thin, bloody red strips of duck magret draped over an ever-so-slightly sweet risotto, rife with cooked cubes of Granny Smith apple and teeny flecks of pancetta. “Pace yourselves,” I said to my dinner companions, for this was the first serve of a…
One of the things I like about Mexico is that the Eiffel Tower isn’t there. Nor is the Colosseum, Big Ben, or any other “must-see” attraction that might distract from a more immediate bonding with the country’s present-day culture — by which, of course, I mean indulging in the indigenous…
Restaurants come and restaurants go. Some, like Prezzo Restaurant and Martini Bar, come, go, and come back again. It first opened in Loehmann’s Fashion Island in 1992, was rechristened Martini Bar and Grill a few years ago, and then in February, as if by magic — presto! — Prezzo reappeared…
Restaurants, like politicians, have to play to their bases. Two new Miami Beach dining venues — Sam’s Deli and Grill on 41st Street, and Clarke’s, an Irish-style pub located south of Fifth Street in SoBe — are doing just that, and both seem well suited to satisfying the distinctly different…
