Sushi Club is located in an area of Miami Beach often referred to as “Little Buenos Aires.” But don’t expect the cutting-edge black and orange décor, loungelike ambiance, valet parking, live DJ, Thai and Vietnamese dishes, or all-you-can-eat sushi offered by the famous Sushi Club chain in, um, Big Buenos…
Big fat Americans like big fat food. That’s why God gave us The Cheesecake Factory. Michael’s Kitchen, a hit in Hollywood before its relocation last month to the Newport Beachside Hotel & Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, is a step above that cheesy chain but shares the same cuisine-as-circus-act sensibility…
When Alice Waters recently appeared at Books & Books to tout her new book, The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution, she was asked if there were any restaurants in Miami that seemed to be following her organic canon. The prophetess of slow food…
One day the country’s learned gastronomes should study the gravitational pull of sushi in Thai restaurants. Is it some sort of sexy come-on? “Hey, big boy, wanna hand roll?” Savvy marketing ploy? “Buy two green papaya salads, get one California roll free! But wait, there’s more!” Out-and-out bribery? “Congressman, I’ll…
What are you gonna do to ring in the New Year? Get drunk? Spend a bunch of money at a club? Shoot a gun in the air? Well fuck you. My man Chris (in the black wife beater) and everybody down on SW 27th street got up at the crack…
In my review last week of S & S Diner at Allen’s Drugstore, I wrote that “way back when our grandparents were eating better/worse than we, it wasn’t unusual to have eateries located within pharmacies”. Tim Hogle, owner of Tantra Restaurant & Lounge, saw the article and forwarded me this…
New Year’s Eve, like Valentine’s Day, is what folks in the restaurant biz refer to as “Amateur Night” — meaning the patrons who frequent eateries on these occasions are not necessarily the most serious diners. That said, some of our local chefs have come up with seriously creative menus for…
Howie Kleinberg and Michael Jacobs have a lot in common. Both chefs are fairly big guys, and have been cooking locally for many a year (Jacobs was originally top toque at Tantra in 1997). Kleinberg started up the kitchen at The Food Gang in Surfside, which for all its glowing…
So many things seemed to go wrong with the Miami dining scene this year. First there were the big-name closures, most notably Norman’s, Pacific Time, Chispa, David Bouley Evolution, and Johnny V South Beach. Then an onslaught of national chains poured in at a pace heretofore not seen in these…
Like the West Coast’s renowned In-N-Out Burger chain, the East Coast’s Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries has distinctive retro Fifties décor. In fact the motif is so similar, down to the red-and-white-checked walls, that the California chain, family-owned since 1948, allegedly once considered a copycat suit against Five Guys…
Where: Hops Grill and Brewery , 1155 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines, (954) 441-4599 What $15 Gets You: Smothered Chicken Marsala, side of vegetables, side of fries, and a drink of your choice. The food at Hops wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. It was standard. Keeping in mind that…
In my restaurant review this week (Two Americas), I wrote that “While a ‘food revolution’ has indeed taken place, only middle-class and wealthy people can afford to purchase the real quality goods (To wit: Last week I swooned at the check-out line upon realizing I’d just paid eight dollars for…
It is, in short, a great time to be an eater.” So writes David Kamp in The United States of Arugula, and as his book’s subtitle suggests, “The Sun-Dried, Cold-Pressed, Dark-Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution” celebrates the availability of comestibles that far surpass anything “our grandparents…
We all know what time of year it is: Lots of sleigh bells tinkling and herald angels singing, ye faithful coming and shepherds quaking, not to mention a downright orgy of fa-la-la-la-la-ing, rum-pum-pum-pumming, and — for Santa’s sake — buy, buy, buying so everyone at the local mall doesn’t wind…
Where: La Estancia Argentina, 17870 Biscayne Blvd., Aventura. (305) 932 6477 What $15 gets you: prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich, your choice of sides, drink, and dessert. La Estancia Argentina isn’t just a restaurant. It’s actually also a general store, which specializes in Argentinean food. The whole concept is strangely inviting,…
A restorative mystery smoothie called a Grape Fizz, dropped off by sympathetic friends on one of those all-work-no-play days, is what originally induced me to further explore five-month-old Lemon Fizz. The remarkably refreshing, rich elixir was possibly the most satisfying smoothie I’d ever downed. An in-person look at the menu…
Juan Mario Maza and Vani Maharaj, owners of the new Alta Cocina in South Miami, have an interesting backstory to tell. Vani, from Trinidad and Tobago, and Juan, from Guatemala, met while studying cuisine at Johnson & Wales University in North Miami. Maharaj went on to work with Michelle Bernstein…
Where: Cheen Huaye, 15400 Biscayne Blvd. North Miami Beach, 305-956-2808 What $15 Gets You: Pollo a la Yucateaca, a side of rice, fried plantains and your choice of drinks (and complimentary chips and salsa). My friend had recommended Cheen Huaye, which served Southern Mexican cuisine (not Mexican Southern, I mean…
COMING IN: *La Boîte à Pizza, on Alton Road in South Beach. First U.S. branch of this French franchise, which is also expanding into China. And why not? After all, the word used to describe fajita pizza, or a pie topped with ground beef, tomato, and fried egg, is the…
When Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, “Less is more,” he wasn’t talking about Graziano’s. This comfortable, unpretentious Argentine steak house spits in the beer of “less.” It flips the bird to “moderation,” body-slams “cholesterol” to the pavement, and jackhammer-stomps “diet” into whining, sniveling submission. As for “vegetarian,” just one…
As the sun serenely sets into the cerulean Mediterranean sea, a familiar refrain can be heard around dinner tables throughout Greece: “Moussaka again?” Sadly the 10 million inhabitants of this country, along with their ancestors, have over many a millennia accumulated only 14 recipes. They are good recipes, mind you,…
Dinner in Paradise, a monthly series of charity-driven feasts at Paradise Farms in Homestead, inaugurates its third season this Sunday, December 2nd. Paradise proprietor Gabriele Marewski and Michael Schwartz co-founded the event, which is set outdoors on the farm. “There is something very special about eating great food and drinking…
