Living Raw, Sex, and the City

This girl here, livin’ somewhere in Miami, name of Suvine, pictured above, has a public, online diary documenting her life as a  fruitarian. What’s that mean? According to Wikipedia, “Fruitarians (or fructarians) eat in principle only the fruit of plants.” No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fish, nothing cooked,…

Miami Spice Braces For the Cold

The effects of the economy are being felt in every industry imaginable, most of all the ones that entertain and nourish us. The restaurant industry, from celebrity chefs right on to busboys, dishwashers, and even food producers and farmers are more than feeling the pinch. Fine establishments in Coral Gables…

Miami Restaurant Musings

*After years of my pooh-poohing parsley-speckled plate rims and mindless squiggles of mango and raspberry purees on dessert plates, it seems that both fads have faded into oblivion. Thank you, but please hold your applause until after the column is finished. *Norman Van Aken has laid low of late, no?…

Second Chance For SoBe Wine & Food Tix

This coming Monday morning, January 12th, a second block of tickets for previously sold out events will go on sale. So if you were bummed at being shut out of Rachael Ray’s Burger Bash or The Best of the Best at the new Fontainebleau, you’ve been given a second shot…

Karu & Y Tries Again

I could never get it straight: Was Karu the restaurant and Y the lounge, or vice versa? No matter now, as the reopened venue’s newly christened restaurant name is Seecomar’s at Karu & Y, which I thought was a misspelling of Seacomber’s until I saw that the new owner’s name…

Mazie’s Soul Food Shines in Liberty City

Mazie’s Soul Food Restaurant and Take-Out is, at first glance, not much to look at. It appears to have once been a Dairy Queen-like operation — a stand-alone box painted orange-toned yellow and brown and fronted by an angled take-out window. This is a poor part of town, and some…

Put a Burka on that Gin Bottle!

Here’s one for my “Oh for fuck’s sake!” files:Legislators in Utah are pushing to restrict restaurants that make mixed drinks in full view of minors, arguing that all those pretty, glittering bottles and delicious-looking garnishes behind the bar constitute a sore temptation, one that could lead youngsters to an unquenchable craving…

Ten Restaurants Lost In The Hubbub

The din of our dynamic new wave of dining establishments has diverted attention from some solid stalwarts of Miami’s restaurant scene. These veteran eateries keep their rooms packed with that portion of the public that hasn’t forgotten, but one hardly ever sees their names in print anymore; the media has…

Abokado KO’d

A call to Abokado, the sushi-ceviche restaurant located in downtown Miami’s Mary Brickell Village, yields a message saying “We are temporarily closed”. Their website adds this: “We look forward to bringing you additional information on re-openings and new locations in the new year.” This first restaurant casualty of 2009 is…

Cheese Fingers Invade Local Shelves

Using the specialty-cheese section of a supermarket on NE 2nd Ave around 20th St. in Miami as a demographic indicator for downtown, Short Order sees a burgeoning community of Central Americans in the urban core. Click through to the jump to see what dairy’s got in store for you, er,…

Dinner at Morimoto Sushi Bar

Ever since Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto unveiled his latest restaurant, Morimoto, in Boca Raton Resort & Club, Short Order has been dying to go. I mean, the man is an Iron Chef, both on the original Japanese program and the new Food Network creation, Iron Chef America, and this restaurant,…

Are You a Leg Man?

Just a reminder to mark your calendars: The Fellsmere Frog Legs Festival kicks off on January 15th and runs through the weekend to a grand finale at the Sunday Croaker Run. For my money Saturday the 17th looks like the best day to show if you’re feeling competitive: three contests include Leap Frog,…

Slave Grown Tomatoes – Happy New Year From Immokalee

If you buy your tomatoes at a major supermarket or eat at McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell or Subway, then you may well be biting into the blood-and-sweat product of forced- labor-induced plantation agriculture, a.k.a. slavery, from the fields of Immokalee, where crack-cocaine meets whips and chains.The Coalition of Immokalee…

Football & Margaritas

Football and margaritas. There is less than one month left of football season; less than one month to transform your culturally bankrupt, Dorito- and Budweiser-filled Sundays on the couch into something genuinely awesome. And for that purpose, we suggest Moquila the classy nu-Mexican joint in Mizner Park, Boca Raton. An…

Food Stamp Nation – Florida Leads The Pack

The Miami Herald reports that “In the last two years, the number of Floridians on food stamps has increased more than 40 percent to 1.7 million. That increase is the highest in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”The numbers read like this, 356,000 food stamp recipients live…

Speaking of Stone Crabs….

Evidently I’m not the only one fantasizing about Stone Crab claws the size of baseball mitts. Slow Food Miami, in conjunction with Friends of the Everglades, is planning an event Saturday January 31st that ought to help sate your desire, at least temporarily, for things that scuttle sideways: The Stone Crab Eat…

Jimbo’s Place – Smoked Fish In Pictures

                                                                            Smoked Tuna – Jacob KatelJimbo’s Place is a Dade County institution. If you like smoked fish, cold beer, bocce ball, redneck-rock-n-roll, fishing, manatees, graffiti, choppers, hot rods, kayaks, wave runners, nature trails, family outings, drunken brawls, feral cats, wild roosters, music videos, film shoots,  bikini models, chess games, sunsets,…

New Chef At Fratelli Lyon

Alejandro (Alex) Pinero has just been named chef de cuisine at Fratelli Lyon, the great regional Italian bistro that opened last May in Miami’s Design DIstrict. Pinero, 35, is a Miami native who graduated Johnson & Wales University with honors. Between 1996 and 2004 he worked his way through the…

And You’ll Get Lobster in Delray

Linda Bean, granddaughter of Maine’s L. L. Bean, is bringing us lobster. Though new to the foodie business, she’s got her own warf, her own fishermen, and now her own concept: lobster rolls, each with a full ¼ of meat, fresh and perfect and dripping butter on your grateful lap,…

Why Buy Local When You’ve Got Monsanto?

Here’s a bit of the ammunition you’ll need for a lively debate with slow food organizer Diane Campion at this Sunday’s panel discussion “Why Buy Local?” Campion, heirloom tomato farmer Walt Ross, and Cafe Boulud Chef Zach Bell are hosting a seminar at the Boca Raton branch of Whole Foods from 1…

I Got Crabs in Everglades City

Wow, I am so ashamed of myself. I’ve lived in South Florida for 15 years, and until last weekend I’d never been to Everglades City, stone crab capital of the universe. This little one-horse town is a seafood-lover’s wet dream, and it’s barely two hours drive from the door of…

Tap Tap Sunday

This Sunday evening, recording artist Farah Juste will be at Tap Tap Haitian Restaurant on South Beach for “a CD signing and celebration”. Ms. Juste’s career as a passionate singer of Haitian folk songs took off with her debut solo album in 1977, and since then she has performed from…