The Audacity of Enso

“Enso is an evolutionary solutions workshop which creates the scientific study of deliciousness.” So begins the insanely inventive, thoroughly audacious menu at this new sushi/hibachi/Mediterranean deconstructionist establishment on Lincoln Road. I don’t mean to suggest the public isn’t ready for this, but when I told my wife we would be…

Knaus Berry Farm – In Pictures

Knaus Berry Farm (15980 SW 248th Street Homestead, FL 305-247-0668) is open for business from mid-November to late April every year and has been selling their world famous milkshakes and cinnamon buns for at least 34 years. The farm is owned and operated by the Knaus family who are from…

Lemoni Cafe – Little Haiti Upstarts

                                                                                                         Jacob Katel Assia Dahrouch and Eugenia Pelati opened the doors of Lemoni Cafe (4600 NE 2nd Ave), a  “fresh-Mediterranean-style” joint just nine months ago. They met at a restaurant on the beach where they worked together for four years. Assia, who worked there for 11 years before quitting said, “I’m…

Still No Dinner Plans For Tonight?

For those procrastinators yet to nail down New Years Eve dinner plans, may we suggest dialing 305-893-4211 and making reservations at chef Dewey LoSasso’s wonderful North One 10? There are still seats available, and the cost is a more-than-reasonable $60 ($75 with champagne toast) — especially considering how enticing the…

Mix Your Own Damn Granola

People can talk all they want about the economy falling apart, but when you see an upstart Miami based company stackin paper off selling cereal on the internet (talk about grippin’ grain), you gotta say “hell, America’s back.” Check out this exclusive interview with one of three local cereal pioneers…

Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink

Get ready as Short Order takes you behind the line and into the kitchens of some of Miami’s top restaurants. Today we visit Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink in the Design District. Listen for the random quotes from the kitchen in this exclusive photodocumentary that gives you a one hour…

Revisiting Marumi Sushi

A couple months back, we reviewed Marumi Sushi, a small but very authentic Japanese restaurant hiding in the western wilds of Plantation. I loved it then: nowhere else in Broward can you get this kind of unfiltered, unapologetic view of the food that Japanese folks actually dig into, and nowhere…

Angelo & Maxie’s Mis-Steak?

The three most important considerations when opening a restaurant are “location doesn’t matter, location doesn’t matter, location doesn’t matter”. Or at least that seems to be the operating principle of the folks behind Angelo & Maxie’s Steakhouse, who selected the Mayfair Hotel and Spa in Coconut Grove as the site…

Post Holiday Depression Diet

If you’re like me after the holidays, a person who routinely has trouble pushing herself away from the table**, you’re feeling fat and broke. So I looked up some traditional Depression Era recipes, hearkening back to the days when everybody was skinny because they ate so much cabbage, noodles, beans,…

The 6 Best Chefs To Leave Miami

Criteria is simple:A great chef who made his or her mark in Miami and then moved on. David Bouley doesn’t qualify, as he wasn’t actually doing the cooking at Evolution. Carmen Gonzalez of the departed Carmen’s might make my top ten, but I don’t think of her as being in…

Miami’s Dining Scene Goes Big League

This was the year Miami finally joined the big league of American food cities. A flurry of activity burst across our local restaurant world, delivering bistros, cafés, star-chef driven establishments, humble neighborhood hideaways, midscale chains, upscale chains, burger joints, sushi bars, wine bars, wine fairs, food fests, farmers’ markets, Whole…

Christmas In Qatar

This poem by Calvin Trillin doesn’t have much to do with food — although there is a reference to reindeer cacciatore. We just like to include rhyme from time to time to make the blog seem classy.Christmas In QatarVerse:The shopping starts, and every store’s a zooI’m frantic, too: I haven’t…

A Real Nice Clambake

Coming to a beach near you.This is a weird time of the year for transplanted New Englanders. On the one hand, Florida’s balmy wintertime tropicality is the reason we came here. On the other, wintertime in Florida always feels like a bit of a gyp. We get a little home…

Everything But The Squeal

Pigging Out for the Holidays.Pictured above: The 35 pounds of pork I got in the mail from Heritage Foods USA this week, fully one quarter of a Six Spotted Berkshire hog. Price: $235. I’m determined to cook most of it to feed the extended family over the holidays, beginning of course with…

Red, The Steakhouse Debuts On South Beach, The Corral

Restaurateur Brad Friedlander, owner of Red, The Steakhouse and Moxie, The Restaurant in the fashionable Beachwood, the Suburb, of Cleveland, the City — along with partners Peter Vauthy and Jonathan Bennett — premiered the second Red this week at 119 Washington Avenue in South Beach. What to expect: “A unique…

Burger King Stinker

There are bad ideas, very bad ideas, unspeakably horrible ideas — and then there is Burger King’s Flame, a men’s cologne being touted as “the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat”. The fragrance is currently being sold in New York and online for $3.99, and though the…

Bakin’ & Boozin’: Karen’s Cranberry Loaf, etc.

One of my favorite holiday breads comes from my friend Karen Horan in Key West — handed down from her grandmother. She finally took pity on me and gave me the recipe last year; I guess she got sick of having to bake me a loaf every time I came…

Naked Sushi Model Pickup Lines

 – Ey beautiful, wanna play hide the temaki?- Nice sushi, wanna screw?- Your chopsticks would look better on my bedroom floor.- I wanna put my eel sauce all over your sashimi.- Baby, why you wearin’ wasabi when you’re so hot already?- Why don’t you take some sushi off and get…

Naked Sushi – Smells Like Fish

Nyotaimori, aka naked sushi, refers to the Japanese art of sushi served on a human body. Talk about your food looking at you while you eat — but hey, rich people gotta find some way to liven up their dinner parties. I recently set out on a mission to find…

Joey’s In The Wood

Joey’s is a modern Italian cafe that opened December 1 at 2506 NW Second Ave. It is the first restaurant in the Wynwood Cafe District, a 14-square-block area that city commissioners approved in July. Miami leaders hope it will transform the arts district into something much more. I spoke to…

Ebony, Ivory, and Plantain-Crusted Grouper…

 …is the answer to: What might you find at a Puerto Rican-owned piano bar/café? Merly Velazquez, niece of the late fashion designer David Fernandez, has partnered with Raymond Klein in opening Miami Arts Café across the street from the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (255 NE 14 Street)…

2009: Food Network Says the Year is Greener

I Predict:You will recycle many BaggiesThis time of year we’re all clairvoyant: Everybody is summing up the past and predicting the foodie future, including moi (look for my column next Wednesday here). My inbox is full of this kind of hocus pocus and mumbo jumbo, most recently the Food Network’s top 10 predictions…