There’s a never-ending procession of ducks at King Palace Chinese Bar-B-Q. A row of cooked, shiny auburn birds welcomes you to the squat mustard-yellow building on NE 167th Street. Take a seat at one of the lazy-Susan-topped tables and choose a quarter ($9), half ($13), or whole bird ($23). Soon,…
Don’t do it. Don’t spend another half hour eating and roasting under the office’s fluorescent light as a computer screen melts your eyes out of their sockets. Grab your keys and get outside. Feel that? That’s the sun. Finally your body is getting that Vitamin D it’s been yearning for…
The first time Zoila Castro sunk her teeth into a cheeseburger she was hooked. The year was 1991, and Castro and her family had just relocated from Guayaquil, Ecuador to suburban Los Angeles. The burger was a double chili cheeser from Original Tommy’s Hamburger, a West Coast chain that got…
As riots raged through Liberty City in spring 1980, George Yap’s crayon-yellow warehouse was spared. But it wasn’t a miracle. More than a half-dozen employees from Yap’s bean sprout factory, many of them former drug addicts and ex-convicts who lived in a neighboring halfway house, stood outside the front gate…
At North Miami Beach’s Basilic Vietnamese Grill, the star-anise-laced scent of pho wraps around you like a Burmese python. It seems like everyone in the 96-seater uses a spoon to pierce the coils of steam billowing from porcelain-white bowls. Two women in business attire, all pencil skirts and reading glasses,…
Josh Marcus’ heretically un-kosher Surfside deli has lampooned as a lot of things. It’s been a pizzeria, a barbecue joint, and a blank slate for a handful of Miami favorite chefs. Yet it seems no alter ego has garnered the kind of success and attention Marcus hoped for until now. …
Ever since Carlos Matto and Begoñe Tuya opened Xixon on Coral Way in 2001 they wanted to serve a tasting menu. Unfortunately, the aspiration fell victim to the beloved Spanish institution’s success as it thrice moved into bigger locations to satisfy demand. “It’s something we always thought about and wanted…
The Southeast Overtown/Park West Community Redevelopment Agency voted unanimously Wednesday night to begin negotiating with celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson’s development company to turn a one-time Overtown pool hall into a restaurant, supper club, and lounge. The Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef bested six other applicants. The CRA also voted to keep on…
There’s a strangely familiar way too many meals proceed. The menu offers hardly a clue as to what’s an entrée or appetizer. A bubbly server greets the table, takes the drink order, then proceeds to explain how this restaurant is “a sharing concept because we want you to get a…
Wisps of Cuba hide in everything Michael Beltran cooks. You’ll find them when you push aside the green spigarello leaves and shaved radish curls — a plantain sliver here, a dash of sour orange juice there. Such touches are natural for the stocky, goateed 30-year-old who was raised in Little…
There was once a time when Overtown’s nightlife could put South Beach’s to shame. It was the middle of the 20th century and Clyde “Glass” Killens reigned supreme hosting acts like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, and more at the Knight Beat, the Harlem Square, and other clubs…
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Akbar Malik moved to America in 1963 and washed dishes while attending Florida International University. Eventually, he came to own a handful of IHOP locations across Miami-Dade County. There was a pair up north on Biscayne Boulevard near 128th and 167th streets. Two more, in Homestead…
Two thousands years ago, modern-day Uzbekistan was part of Persia. Then it was seized by Mongol Empire founder Genghis Khan. Next came the Russians and the Soviets. Hence, at Chayhana Oasis in Sunny Isles Beach, a meal can represent thousands of miles of cuisine. Thus, you start with Turkish-style grape…
Brickell Chinese restaurant Da Tang Unique is to reopen in three months following a revamp of its kitchen to expand its menu and handle higher volume, according to its ownership company. Yet whether the place can attract more clientele remains to be soon. The 3-month-old restaurant abruptly shuttered late last…
Crimson lanterns and a giant Buddha statue guide you inside Da Tang Unique. You pass a maze of intricate wooden lattices surrounding lacquered tables set with pearl-inlaid chopsticks and porcelain plates. Walls are crowded with reliefs of mountain landscapes filled with lotus ponds and plum trees. Among them are shadow…
Pie is the perfect food. It’s as good sweet as it is savory. It’s a dish that reinvents itself with the seasons, and easily bounces between high-brow and low rent. Pie doesn’t care if it’s filled with peak of season rhubarb. It won’t judge if you shovel it full of…
Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink’s Niven Patel is parting ways with the James Beard Award-winning chef’s flagship restaurant to take over the kitchen at Islamorada’s Cheeca Lodge while planning a vegetable-centric, Indian-leaning restaurant to open in Miami sometime in the future. “We’re going to be focusing on more vegetables that…
The path for a young cook isn’t what it once was. France had a long tradition of young teens serving as beguiled porters hauling trash, washing dishes, and eventually prepping and cooking. Then came the spread of culinary schools, where young cooks paid tuition to learn the basics, along with…
Two waiters dressed for a Milan runway cover a table with thin sheets of plastic. Around it, they station tiny bowls filled with liquefied sweets. After a few moments, Grant Achatz, mustached and dressed all in white with an expression as serious as a heart attack, appears. He dips a…
Chickens soared Saturday night at the W Hotel South Beach as the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s ode to fried birds and champagne began anew. But first a side note: Very early on, much of the crowd gathered around famed chef Daniel Boulud as he fed his fried chicken…
There was a trickle of bourbon and rye at Yardbird Friday night as Montreal’s David McMillan and Frédéric Morin took over the popular friend chicken spot with southern culinary troubadour Sean Brock riding shotgun. But, given the reputation of these three, the expectation was that there would’ve been an all…
Kelly Gardner just happened to be in Miami during South Beach Wine & Food Festival. The 53-year-old St. Louis sales manager also has Guy Fieri’s spiked platinum blonde hair, goatee, and broad-faced infectious smile, helping him become a de facto celebrity Thursday night at Tacos After Dark at the Loews…
