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…
To paraphrase an old folk song: Where have all the pastry chefs gone? A decade ago, having a pastry chef on staff at a South Florida restaurant was both de rigueur and a badge of honor. It implied that here, at least, dessert was a special enough course to be…
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…
I had it as a chopped steak at Barton G., lying on a pillowy mattress of hash browns and smothered with mushrooms. I sampled it as short ribs during the most recent Chaine des Rotisseurs dinner at the Loews Hotel, braised and falling off the bone. And again at the…
Sure, there’s meat aplenty to be found at this Argentine gourmet market and café, which has a location in Aventura only several months old and another, newly opened, in the Village of Merrick Park in Coral Gables. You can order garlicky, thinly sliced matambre (roasted and rolled flank steak stuffed…
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…
What a difference a decade makes. In 1993 Café Prima Pasta was a 28-seat noodle joint in a dilapidated mid-Miami Beach neighborhood, and owner Gerardo Cea was a first-time restaurateur who seemed to be capitalizing on the success of his cousin-in-law Eloy Roy, who had recently made a splash with…
In gastronomy, there are numerous prestigious awards, but none comes close to the celebrated status of being inducted in the “Choucroute Halles of Fame,” as the Coral Gables-based national magazine The Wine News founder and publisher Tom E. Smith recently discovered. Brasserie Les Halles owner Philippe Lajaunie established the annual…
Three ways to draw unwelcome attention to yourself at Parrot Jungle: Climb the monkey tower, yelling, “I am king of the primate world!” Teach the parrots to squawk, “Come here, little girl. Want some candy?” or simply walk around the exhibits with a young child firmly clasped in one hand…
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…
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…
Don’t believe Disney or the Internet — it’s really not such a small world after all. If it were, surely in my critical life I would have tasted bunya nuts, wattle seeds, bush tomatoes, and the like more recently than this past week. Of course I could have experienced these…
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…
The blare of horns cut like sunlight through smog into the conversation I was having via cell phone. “Where are you?” asked the chef at the other end of the line. “In New York, taking a cab from JFK to Manhattan,” I replied. “What are you doing there?” “Having lunch.”…
When people ask me about my approach to reviewing restaurants, a quizzical look of dismay inevitably crosses their faces as I offer my stock reply: “Everywhere is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.” They’d likely be even more disappointed if I told them E.B. White wrote that,…
A new year and it’s new times at New Times. If you skipped Lee Klein’s review this week, allow me to be the first to tell you: The esteemed Mr. Klein has left the building. But not the corporation — he’s taking on my erstwhile territory of Broward and Palm…
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…
Arnold Pompos, physics researcher at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, has calculated that if Santa Claus were to travel at nearly the speed of light, he could drop presents off at more than 75 million homes in approximately 500 seconds. I wonder whether Emeril Lagasse might bend the time/space continuum…
Small print at the bottom of Zuperpollo’s menu offers a free glass of wine to any diner who can spot seven “orthographic” errors contained within. “I didn’t even know words had bones,” I lamented, but my mood brightened considerably when my wife explained that orthography pertains to spelling. Finding typos…
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…
If you’ve been looking for latkes in all the wrong places, it’s too bad you didn’t visit my daughter’s classroom about a week ago. That’s when I was making some of the worst examples possible in the most unlikely venue imaginable. Trust me, I didn’t volunteer for the job. I’m…
