Fritas are Cuban-style hamburgers, a beef patty seasoned with paprika and onions, griddle-fried, and stuck in a bun with a thatch of canned shoestring potatoes. It’s the ultimate Cuban street food, eaten on the go from stands, and wolfed down in lieu of hot dogs at ballparks. It is the…
French doors of mahogany and glass front the big, bistroish 150-seat Orsini, the restaurant’s tables, chairs, and sizable bar crafted from the same dark wood. Rose-shaped milk glass chandeliers hang on decoratively tiled walls, as do large mirrors and hundreds of old photos of famous and semifamous people; the floor…
I’ve been bothered ever since I read Al Martinez’s essay, “Confessions of an Ice Cream Fanatic,” published in the August 2000 issue of Gourmet magazine. At first I couldn’t pinpoint the source of my distaste, but after two years of reflecting on the article’s thesis — that the “Statue of…
I can’t say I’m surprised the Florida Motor Vehicle Department rejected my suggestion to change state license plate tags to read “Land Of Mediocre Bakeries”; it is, after all, a lot of letters to fit on a plate. In retrospect maybe it would be more appropriate as a motto for…
“I feel like I’m on vacation!” exclaimed one of my three workaholic dining companions, looking slightly puzzled. Perhaps vacations had been so few and far between recently that she’d merely forgotten what they feel like. But in fact a few things make a meal at Snappers Seafood Restaurant feel more…
“First need in the reform of hospital management? That’s easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef.” — Martin H. Fischer (1879-1962) I have no idea who Martin H. Fischer is, except possibly, given his birth date, the world’s oldest electric guitar player, because when…
Next time you find yourself craving vegetarian kosher Italian food prepared by a French chef, don’t panic — Cine Cittá Caffé serves just that. Many people associate kosher restaurants with dowdy mom-and-pop operations that cook up dumplingesque dishes topped by sour cream, or falafel joints festooned with travel posters of…
Amazing what you can learn about your own town just by leaving it. For instance I doubt I would have known that the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau has both a marketing partnership with American Express and a serious promo in the works: Miami Spice Restaurant Month. During August,…
In the interest of full, name-dropping disclosure, I suppose it’s time I made a confession: Henri Krug is my closest companion. That’s right, the venerable head of the House of Krug (established 1843), the fifth-generation winemaker whose motto is “More than just good champagne, Krug is a lifestyle,” is my…
•Of food and the law: Olive’s top pit boss Todd English, who cooked for the Tribute Dinner at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, has been sued by James Cafarelli, a business partner in the Olive Group Corp. Cafarelli claims English mismanaged funds intended for rent on their restaurants,…
The birthday dinner’s entrée had been prepared especially at the request of the honoree, a tri-coastal sophisticate who divided his time among Toronto, Miami, and the French Riviera. But all six guests plus the host qualified as educated and experienced international eaters, vera cucina italiana on top of most everyone’s…
Most workers, regardless of what trade they ply, will accumulate some “tricks of the trade,” the sort of insider shortcuts that only savvy veterans are privy to. One of my favorites in the restaurant-reviewing biz is “the hard-boiled egg trick.” Here’s how it works: Choose a restaurant, like, say, Café…
Located in the St. Moritz tower of the Loews Hotel, the elegant, slightly ostentatious 146-seat Gaucho Room wears its handsome cowpoke décor in a comfortable, cocky, quirkily romantic manner — sort of like John Travolta in Urban Cowboy. Western touches such as rawhide-and-rope table lamps, black-and-white photos of gauchos, a…
When the kosher Original Steakhouse opened this winter in my mid-Beach neighborhood, I was thrilled even though I’m not Jewish — because on 41st Street, nothing ever opens that is not another drugstore or bank. At least almost nothing opens that stays open; the steak house’s casually chic-looking space, for…
We’re always looking for the ideal restaurants to take our loved ones — naturally we want them to be impressed, feel cherished, and compliment our good taste. But what if we have to take someone we dislike out to dinner? Say, unwanted house guests? Meddling in-laws? Fussy colleagues? Where should…
Wood-burning ovens have been around for at least 6000 years, though their astonishing trendiness today could well fool diners into thinking the charismatic crowd-pleasers had come into being around roughly the same time as hip-hop. In Europe these ovens were communal, most often captained by the town’s bakers but shared…
The waiter spilled an entire glass of ice water onto the lap of one of my guests and failed to apologize — or even provide a napkin so she could mop up. Another server, attempting to change the soaking wet tablecloth, sent another glass crashing to the floor. The wild…
•Kenny Rogers is indeed correct: You gotta know when to fold ’em. Jeffrey Chodorow and his China Grill Management team (which again includes director of business development and guest relations George Slover, who had decamped for Touch and Kiss about a year ago) decided not to gamble any longer on…
Yup, it happened again: Miami was compared to New York unfavorably. This time, the comment was from a colleague’s wife, who noted while we were eating sushi at the newly revamped Doraku on Lincoln Road that New York had a much better weekend breakfast/brunch scene than Miami. Normally I’d argue…
At the end of a Coconut Grove street that boasts alfresco Indian and Italian dining, a giant log cabin-styled sports bar, and a Spanish restaurant lavishly designed to replicate the town of La Mancha, Red Lantern stands downtroddenly apart. The French-doored storefront is blockaded by banquettes on the inside, and…
South Beach’s reputedly favorite food may be sushi, and there are ample places to prove it, but let’s face it: Everyone’s real fave food is dessert — not the strong point in standard sushi bars. How many times could any discerning diner be satisfied by a one-trick pony like ice…
“Chick” as a slang word for “female-type person” has always annoyed me, for a reason that anyone else who’s ever lived on a working farm will instantly know — namely that the average chicken has the mental acuity of, roughly, Styrofoam. The corresponding term for “male-type-person,” “cat,” refers to an…
