Best Iced Tea With A Reservation 2000 | Miccosukee Restaurant | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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Best Iced Tea With A Reservation

Miccosukee Restaurant

You can work up a desert of thirst out on the River of Grass, whether you're fishing, enjoying an airboat ride, or watching a man tangle with an alligator at the Miccosukee Cultural Center. A twenty-minute drive west of Krome Avenue, this tribe-owned establishment is the perfect spot in which to rehydrate. Here the iced brew is served the way it's supposed to be. The age-old formula: tall glass full of ice cubes (ice quantity is crucial); real tea, robust and unsweetened (you can take the country boy out of the country but you can't take the sugar out of the presweetened tea); a quarter of a lemon (not a dinky piece like some places); and finally, free refills.

Best Waterfront Dining

Big Fish

This has always been the perfect riverfront location. The view, the feel, are so fine, so Miami: You're practically sitting in the Miami River, but as you lean back and sip your wine, your gaze drifts up to the drawbridges creaking apart to let pass all manner of funky cargo ships. Bright neon lights on the Metrorail tracks point the way through the downtown skyline. Somehow even in the dankest summer heat, Big Fish is just a little cooler and breezier. Or maybe it only seems that way, because you're focused on the pleasures of place and time. Big Fish recently changed hands and its new owners have made it more riverside-friendly, with new decks and roof, and a better view from the indoor dining room. The menu has become more Italian, and the house specialty, tagliatelle Big Fish, receives constant raves. The zuppa di pesce and generous fried calamari appetizer also are favorites.

Best Restaurant For A Romantic Dinner

The Strand

The lighting is dim. The doorways are hung with flowing white linen. The banquettes are squishy-cushy. And the tiger skin on the wall makes you long to take it down and lay it before a fireplace. What this adds up to is sex -- we mean, romance -- of the South Beach kind: decadent, seductive, and plentiful. Executive chef-proprietor Michelle Bernstein's classically innovative cuisine only enhances the mood provided by the décor. After all, it's pretty hard to engage in anything other than sex -- oops, did it again, romance -- when noshing on parfait of tuna tartare layered with caviar, or whole boneless squab stuffed with duck breast and duck pâté and sliced over figs. In other words the fare also is designed to stimulate your appetite for sex -- darn it, romance. Who wants to argue with that?

Best Chino-Cubano Restaurant

Kong Ming Restaurant

Don't be fooled by the menu, which reads "Autentica Comida China." At this Chino-Cubano joint, only the cook is 100 percent Chinese. Even the statuette of Buddha that sits on a counter is guarded by Our Lady of Charity on one side and San Lazaro on the other. Here the won ton soup is better known as sopa de mariposa, the fried rice is called arroz frito, and the beef with bok choy is really just carne de res con acelga china to most of the Cuban clientele. The house specialty isn't Peking duck but palomilla steak with a side of papitas fritas, and pork chops plus arroz and maduros. For the best of both worlds, try the char sue ding: steamed meat chunks with almonds and fresh vegetables.

Best Haitian Take-Out

Chef Creole Seafood Take-out

Sadly the Little Haiti Chef Creole at 77th and NE Second Avenue is no more. New Times can still smell the cinders floating through the air the day after the explosion of a propane canister set off a chain reaction that burned out the insides of this beloved take-out storefront and sent one of the chefs to the hospital. Gone is the floor-to-ceiling mural of fishermen in a Haitian seascape on one wall. Gone, too, the gallery of visiting Haitian celebrities opposite. Although the ambiance is not the same, Chef Creole continues to serve the best fish fresh -- stewed, fried, or grilled -- from their bright and shiny location in North Miami. Here, as at the countless festivals where the Chef sets up his kiosk, you will find flaky, spicy conch fritters, three-alarm conch salad, and tart lemonade. Expect lines out the door at lunch and dinnertime, but your stomach will tell you: It's worth the wait.

Best Cuban Sandwich

Versailles Restaurant

Cuban sandwich and Versailles -- in Miami, they go together like, well, José Martí and poetry. Like most everything on Versailles' extensive menu, this Cuban sandwich is a credit to its cuisine. Lots of ham, generally more than in other versions, and melted Swiss cheese between not-overly-flattened slices of very fresh Cuban bread. No gratuitous grease. The only thing that could make it better: a little less stinginess with the pickles.

Best Barbecue

The Pit Bar-B-Q

"What's new?" I asked the blonde at The Pit's service counter. "Nothing," she replied. "Tommy Little has owned this place for 35 years, and his whole idea is never to change anything." Thank the Lord for small things. The food here is as reliable as guessing that the counter lady's hair color began life in a peroxide bottle. Good meat, slowly smoked over blackjack oak logs. Key lime pies made from scratch. Fresh frogs' legs and onion rings. Plenty of good customers. Laurence Fishburne is crazy about the chicken. Dennis Rodman loves the ribs. Steven Tyler brought the Aerosmith crew to dine. Jim Carrey and Alex Penelas have been known to pile their plates high. Such stars could make you think you're on South Beach instead of in a tiki hut at the edge of the Everglades. But after being sated by the best barbecue, you'll be glad you're swamps away from that sandbar.

Best Caribbean Restaurant

Ortanique on the Mile

Proprietor Delius Shirley and chef-proprietor Cindy Hutson had the right idea when they closed Norma's on the Beach! and opened Ortanique. Their first Miami restaurant, named for gourmet Jamaican chef Norma Shirley (Delius's mom and Cindy's mentor) was a solid, impressive venture that we honored as Best Caribbean Restaurant year after year. But with Ortanique (and with apologies to Norma) the specter of a mother's influence has been removed, not just from the name but from the entire spirit of cookery that infuses the place. In short the coproprietors are working miracles of a pan-Caribbean nature on the Mile, and Hutson has expanded her skills mightily in her colorful new digs. A more extensive menu includes some old favorites such as pumpkin bisque and fried calamari salad, but also ranges from less obvious house specialties like button mushroom ceviche to ostrich burgers to curried rabbit. Followers of the old Norma's needn't fret, though: Ortanique still offers Blue Mountain coffee, which could make espresso look like a regular cuppa Joe, and golden cake soaked in rum. Order them both for two highs in one.

Best Fritas

El Rey de las Fritas

It's ground beef casserole made into a patty and stuffed in a roll. It's like a sloppy joe, only made a lo cubano, topped with melted cheddar cheese, toothpick-skinny French fries, and shaved onions. In Hialeah or Little Havana, if you can stomach all that, munch a frita fit for a king. At El Rey de las Fritas these Cuban hamburgers are the house specialty. For a measly two dollars, El Rey's fritas are packed to the punch. They definitely rule.

Best Place To Dine Alone

S&S Restaurant

Like a street-smart stray with a knack for survival, the S&S has passed unruffled through a handful of owners in its 62-year history in Miami. And it likely has a few of its nine lives left. Across the street from another notable relic, the City of Miami cemetery, regulars at this down-home diner sidle up to stools at the horseshoe-shape counter like alley cats around a Dumpster full of fish, supping on daily specials such as turkey with all the trimmings, brisket, stuffed cabbage, lamb shank, and buffalo wings, served with a choice of side dishes like peas, salad, coleslaw, et cetera. Good-size, tasty portions of familiar fare -- all for less than $12 -- are served by long-time waitresses who seem to know everyone in the place by name. So there's no need to feel alone, even if you're dining that way. Stop by and soak up the atmosphere like a side of mashed potatoes in gravy. Open for breakfast and lunch seven days, and dinner Monday through Friday.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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