The Seven-Minute Chicken Look at Rachael Ray. Isn’t she cute? And quite a “chef” too, with her top-rated $40 a Day and 30 Minute Meals Food Network programs, best-selling cookbooks, national talk show…. Hey, look out! Bam! Ha, ha! It’s Emeril! What a gig he’s got: TV star, cookbook author…
Truth be told, the Happy Wine shop’s concise menu of tapas and pressed sandwiches is no match for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s feast, nor will its rambling inventory of amazingly priced wines equal the bevy of boutique bottles brought by the participating wineries. But this is one…
Diners ascending into o-R-o during presunset hours — with its lofty white ceilings, luminous white walls, white linen tablecloths, white ostrich-skin upholstery, and island of white U-shape booths — might be forgiven for temporarily thinking they had entered in Heaven’s dining room. Adding to the celestial airiness of the 175-seat,…
When one fantasizes about a perfect fish house, certain criteria are universal: waterfront location, preferably with an outdoor dining deck; fun décor; friendly “no shoes, no problem” ambiance; and a fresh fish market component, which imparts a certain confidence that the food is supremely fresh. Captain Nate’s, which opened about…
A pair of corner restaurant sites bookend Ocean Terrace, a two-block stretch of mostly Deco structures that runs from 73rd to 75th Street between Collins Avenue and the beach. Various dining venues have occupied these two spaces over the past decade, but only Baraboo, despite its overwrought, overrated, and overpriced…
During the era when Og the caveman speared a woolly mammoth, hacked the carcass into chunks, and carried his kill back to Ug and their cave-rats, there was only one known method of preparing the meat: Toss it into a roaring fire. After all, Emeril Lagasse had yet to arrive…
On a few occasions since my mother’s death, I have attempted to re-create her renowned kugel. You would think a clearly written recipe for noodle pudding would be easy to replicate, and in fact it is. I even resist the temptation to deviate a bit — say, for instance, substituting…
Roughly 50 zillion locales in Paris bear signs saying salon de thé. Yet one finds serious tea — the loose-leaf kind, precision-brewed by the establishment, in a pot — at only a handful of these spots. More often than not, patrons are offered a serious-looking, snazzily decorated box displaying an…
Firefighters fight fires, and crime fighters fight crime, so what do freedom fighters fight? Why are French sex comedies neither sexy nor funny? If love is blind, what makes lingerie so popular? And why has a spirited scene such as Coconut Grove been perennially bereft of worthwhile places to eat?…
If great concepts were personified by guacamole, Taco Max would be able to fill Miami City Hall with mashed avocado mixed with cilantro, onions, and the juice of several thousand limes. But a great concept is not personified by guacamole. So where does that leave Taco Max? We’ll get to…
With Big City Tavern in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, City Oyster Bar in Delray Beach, and the new City Cellar Wine Bar & Grill in Coral Gables, Big Time Restaurant Group has shown itself to be city-slick in picking the right real estate for its entries into the burgeoning…
There’s good Chinese food, and then there’s bad Chinese food — the latter being something in which Miami-Dade County specializes. Sadly, though, this category also includes a whole subgenre of food that isn’t necessarily bad at all. It is sneered at merely because it is Chinese-American rather than authentic regional…
We make the BEST sandwich on the island.” Such was the claim I noticed, while cruising food Websites one day, of a place I normally would have cruised right past in my car, given the island in question. Key Biscayne is, to put it kindly, not exactly a worth-a-special-drive destination…
When first told that NASA incorporates Peruvian foods into the inflight meals of American astronauts, I pictured bowls of ceviche floating gravity-free through a spaceship, and lime wedges trailing nearby in very slow motion, lazily bumping into free-tumbling tamalelike humitas. Upon snapping back from my reverie, the rationale became clear:…
In the old days, prior to the advent of the digital universe and 24/7 shopping, people barely had time after work to run to the store, pick up a pound of ground beef, rush home, slap it on the grill, and cram it down before falling into bed. Today we…
Those in Miami who keep kosher diets are privy to a wide diversity of ethnic dining establishments: Chinese (China Bistro at The Waterway Shops, Aventura), Japanese (Aoba Japanese, 13185 Biscayne Blvd., North Miami Beach), Mediterranean (New Time Moroccan and Spanish Restaurant, 2120 NE 123rd St., North Miami Beach), Mexican (La…
Eating your way through the creations served in Miami’s restaurants is a lot like picking wild berries. Sometimes what you’re faced with are immature and not ready for consumption. Sometimes they’re plain rotten. Sometimes — Ouch! — they’re surrounded by thorns; just being near them hurts. But other times they’re…
Wine bars have quietly become big business in Miami. Among the better of our relatively recent arrivals are D’Vine District Restaurant and Wine Bar in the Design District, Vine Wine Shop on Biscayne Boulevard and 77th Street, and the cozy Xtreme Cafe in South Beach (which misleadingly sounds like a…
The plates placed before us each contained two thin, bloody red strips of duck magret draped over an ever-so-slightly sweet risotto, rife with cooked cubes of Granny Smith apple and teeny flecks of pancetta. “Pace yourselves,” I said to my dinner companions, for this was the first serve of a…
When in Rome, fourth-century Italian Saint Ambrose advised Saint Augustine, do as the Romans do. In terms of food, that would mean eating appetizers such as supplì al telefono (mozzarella-filled, deep-fried rice balls); entrées like abbacchio alla Romana (milk-fed suckling lamb sauced with garlic, rosemary, anchovies, and vinegar); hearty panzanella…
One of the things I like about Mexico is that the Eiffel Tower isn’t there. Nor is the Colosseum, Big Ben, or any other “must-see” attraction that might distract from a more immediate bonding with the country’s present-day culture — by which, of course, I mean indulging in the indigenous…
When you go to your typical local steak house, the beef isn’t the only thing that gets trimmed. Whether mammoth national chain or home-grown meat market, these places can bone out your wallet faster than an ambidextrous butcher with a head full of methamphetamine and hands full of razor-sharp blades…
