The version of Thai food one encounters at the King and I restaurant is about as real as the vision of Thai culture one encounters in the Rogers & Hammerstein musical of the same name — which is to say, not very. Not that this is necessarily bad; it just…
The cosmopolitan is dead. I know, I know. I enjoy that particular vodka martini too, vibrant as it is like an Art Deco building on Ocean Drive. But the cosmo is so passé it has become an umbrella drink, and you can get a frozen one at, appropriately enough, Big…
A café, bistro, and brasserie are different from one another. In France that is. Here in the States we tend to blur any distinctions, choosing one term over another mostly by phonetics. An informal French restaurant opening in Okeechobee, for example, will likely go with Okeechobee Café rather than the…
Chien Chung Peng from Hong Kong opened the Chung Hing Oriental Mart on NE 163rd Street and Eighteenth Avenue ten years ago. I can’t imagine anything even vaguely Asian that isn’t on some shelf somewhere in the ten aisles of this sprawling, cluttered grocery. The diversity of foodstuffs displayed from…
What, you believe everything you read? Of course not. As a member of the media, I’m very familiar with what kind of jarred pabulum we’re spoon-fed like babies. I do my best not to contribute to it — I try to present a well-researched, critical point of view. But I’m…
Before even a short vacation in any foreign country, I always try to learn about the food of the place, in the language of the place — nothing really daunting in terms of grammar or vocabulary but enough to cover the basic amenities and practicalities of negotiating a meal. This…
A few weeks ago, when I wrote about the 21-and-over policy at Gatsby’s, I asked you to spare me your vitriolic opinions on kids and fine dining. Of course you haven’t. The responses have been pouring in, and in a way I’m grateful; reading the riotous insults is far more…
While the Murphy bed had yet to be installed, the rest of Rumi was indeed finished enough to open last week, only about ten days later than announced. Invitations for the opening festivities — Romero Britto-designed martini glasses, numbered and signed — were hand-delivered, a luxe touch no cosmo-lovin’ gal…
Tony Chi’s interior design of Café Sambal is chic and sleek, with white walls, dark wood tables, and a black staircase in the center of the dining room leading up to the Mandarin Oriental hotel’s more haute Azul. Sounds coldly minimalist, but seashell-embedded terrazzo floors, woven off-white rawhide chairs, wooden…
Historical Miami, you might say, is a thing of the past. Sure, there are still rickety pockets of the original city to be found, but it’s not easy. Most old structures lay holed up in neighborhoods like bandits with high bounties on their heads. One of the best ways to…
There is nothing like a week in London, home to more than 1500 Indian restaurants, most specializing in dishes never heard of in South Florida, to make a grown-up restaurant reviewer feel as if she’s back in kindergarten. Which is why Imlee sounded so intriguing. Only a year old, the…
Miami may be a fabulous place for a free spirit, but it’s a darn tough town for a lady. For one thing table manners and dining etiquette are all but impossible to pursue when the restaurant employees don’t even set silverware properly. So I’ve been shifting a great many forks…
Breez currently is blowing a breath of cool fresh sushi and seafood into the northern reaches of Ocean Drive, but as the base of the not-yet-completed, four-level, 40,000-square-foot Billboard Live, it will be hot soon enough with frenetic overflow from the club-and-bars scene of that megaentertainment complex. Ephraim Kadish of…
Just as any Turkish travel guide will remind tourists that when Turks shake their head from side to side as if saying “no” it means “yes,” I believe Miami guides should likewise inform visitors that the word “gourmet” on storefront signs signifies “not gourmet.” As with almost every such eatery…
The first change you notice about the place is its name — part Chinese, part gay, all cute and commercial, as owner Chong Li (a former employee of the Chinese Restaurant Formerly Known As Charlotte’s) well knows: “Hey, that’s the neighborhood, right?” Right. Since opening barely four months ago, the…
A few years ago, while my wife and I were seated at an outdoor seafood restaurant on the island of Santorini, a seemingly frail and elderly lady astonished us by repeatedly rising from her chair and punting puddy cats further than one would have thought possible by someone even triple…
The experience was humiliating. Along with my kids, my husband, and my in-laws, I was turned away from Gatsby’s, a month-old restaurant in Davie. Indeed the manager refused to allow us to even cross the threshold before informing us we weren’t going to be seated. Why? Not because we weren’t…
I’ve spent so much time lately looking at the restaurants that haven’t opened, readers tell me, it’s almost like I’ve neglected the ones that have. Intrepid new eateries, forgive me. Downtown Italian restaurants La Loggia and La Nota, I didn’t mean to give you the Side Dish boot, even if…
There’s no way anyone who lives in Miami doesn’t know this rustic whitewashed wooden fish house with the knotty-pine-paneled interior. It’s everyone’s neighborhood joint, even for those who don’t live in the neighborhood. Because, besides being on a busy Biscayne corner, it has that look, the one that somehow speaks…
Casa Rolo’s Café has the distinction of being one of Thomas Kramer’s first victims. This was back in 1997, when the über-developer with a penchant for disorderly conduct was in the process of reconstructing the low-rise, low-rent tip of South Beach. Rolo’s had been around since 1986, and I had…
Even a few words into this review you might already be thinking, “Geez, she sounds a whole lot less moronic this week.” And if the strange symbols on the back of the menu at Yakko-San are to be believed, you might be right. Because on recent visits to this restaurant,…
They always say, be careful what you wish for. Who are “they”? Who the hell knows — but screw ’em. Because I may be about to get what I’ve always wanted. Almost exactly a year ago, I publicly entreated our native (or close enough to it) chefs to get out…
