Catching a movie at CocoWalk always presents a problem. I’m not talking about parking, either, though that is also problematic in Coconut Grove. Where to go for a good pre- or postshow meal is the real dilemma. While the CocoWalk neighborhood is hardly lacking in eateries, the food at the…

The Spanish word chispa means spark, which conveys a sense of excitement even in its most basic translation. But at Robbin Haas’s four-month-old Chispa, the connotation is meant to go beyond that. If you’re a person with chispa, the restaurant’s Website (www.chisparestaurant.com) proclaims, you’re “a hot-blooded firecracker who’s just dangerous…

In the late 1980s diners from the San Francisco Bay Area, the birthplace of French-influenced Chez Panisse — and, from there, the entire New American food revolution — suddenly became disgustingly health-conscious. The rest of America’s restaurants followed. Obsessed with cholesterol and weight, restaurant clientele rejected France’s creamy dishes (Julia…

For a place where the party goes on 24/7, South Beach has surprisingly few restaurants that are open 24/7. Snack joints where one can fuel up on a slice, sure. But real restaurants — where night people can experience real meals — even vaguely comparable in style, excitement, and fun…

Among his recommendations for preparing a career as a truly informed restaurant critic, legendary food writer Craig Claiborne listed — right up there with actually working in top chefs’ kitchens, or extensive reading about food — gourmet world travels, learning by experiencing, and analyzing dishes at their source. When asked…

In 1989, 24-year-old homeboy chef Douglas Rodriguez opened Yuca in Coral Gables and set off a wave of culinary excitement that almost immediately ignited imaginations and tastebuds far beyond Miami’s borders, particularly in other urban centers with large Cuban-American populations. Up in Manhattan, where I then lived, I can remember…

It was only 10:00 a.m., but at the Cuban eatery El Crucero on a recent Saturday, it seemed more like 10:00 p.m. That’s to say that it seemed more like dinner time than breakfast time, judging from the brimming plates of arroz frito con costillas (fried rice with spareribs) in…

Joep Habets, currently the most well-known writer from the Netherlands who writes about Dutch food, claims that there is no such thing. “There are no characteristics to Dutch food,” Habets explains, because cuisine in the little country with the big seacoast, which has historically specialized in both sending out and…

Here in our surreal hometown, foodies who follow local media reports might think the hottest restaurant trend is the sudden explosion of new eateries from national superstar chefs, who, mere centuries after Ponce de Leon, discovered Florida last year. Nope. Out there in the Real World, according to restaurant industry…

Of the many things for which the Forge restaurant has been noted — or notorious — since it was first converted from a real blacksmith’s to a chichi supper club, food has been perhaps the least notable element. First the establishment’s Thirties alter ego as a dance club and casino…

Not that Tutto’s toppings are anything to sneeze at. Ingredients are fresh and adhere to the crust well so there’s no embarrassing topping slippage — meaning that thing that always happens on first dates where you aim your slice down toward your mouth and all the cheese instantly slides off…

In the restaurant reviewing game, food critics with souls sensitive to criticism from readers go work in more polite areas of the country, such as Hell’s Kitchen. Here at New Times, on the other hand, there is absolutely nothing we like better than a good crank letter, unless it’s three…

Certain foreign foods adapt better to Americanization than others, just as certain sit-down dishes adapt better as street eats than others. Pizza, for instance, adapts both ways excellently when the adapted version is at its best, like good New York-style pizza by the slice. Sure, a typical N.Y. “vegetarian” slice…

At New Times we restaurant reviewers basically get to pick our own review victims. Oops, I meant subjects. Anyway, this is a good thing, because when editors get to think up the story ideas, one sometimes ends up writing stuff that is so weird it leaves one’s head reeling. Last…

In the Midwest, diners line up outside frozen custard joints. This may seem strange to East Coast gourmets, who are used to thinking of hot-ticket eats in terms of, say, Emeril’s, not Dairy Queen. This is likely because those of us who grew up along the Atlantic seaboard think of…

In some countries the best typical food is generally found in restaurants; in others the best food is home cooking. But in general the trend in almost every country I know for nouvelle interpretations of traditional cuisine is certainly shifting the “where to find the best” toward where the pros…

Why I originally went to La Fe turned out to be not the reason I ended up rather liking it after several visits. I went because I’d read an ad that claimed the place was an eat-in café as well as a bakery, with salads and sandwiches that sounded hipper…

After three summer shopping spree meals that would be described most kindly as disappointing (more accurately as hideous, and in one case hideously overpriced), my feelings about the food options in the otherwise super-snazzy new Village of Merrick Park mall had settled into Shopper Survivalism. Until the much-anticipated opening of…

It has always seemed to me, to paraphrase an old sentiment, that Kendall is a nice place to live but I wouldn’t want to visit there. Then I somehow find myself in one of the more terminally suburban parts, and realize I’m not so sure about living there, either. Whoa,…

In 1995 China Grill opened to both raves and rabidly raving rants, and it’s been that way ever since. It may take diners arriving after 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. half an hour to get seated (still), but once seated, they are never on the fence; no one, it seems, has…