In an Orlando Business Journal article published on August 11, the same day Norman Van Aken debuted his eponymous restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, Van Aken is quoted: “Comparing our restaurant opening to that TV show is like comparing the Harvard Law School to the Circus Maximus.” He…
There are few desserts easier to prepare than key lime pie, which necessitates only the pouring of egg yolks, key lime juice, and sweetened, condensed milk into a graham cracker crust that’s really just crumbs mixed with melted butter. You don’t even have to bake the darn thing, although nowadays…
Of all the benefits Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro imagined might result from his midsixteenth-century destruction of Peru’s great Inca empire, a culinary revolution producing what many chefs consider the most sophisticated cuisine of any South/Central American nation probably was not foremost in the sword-swinger’s mind. Yet the cross-cultural criollo race,…
I am sitting in the “relaxation lounge” at the Boutique Spa in the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove, quaffing iced, lime-infused spring water, staring at displays of heirloom zebra and brandywine tomatoes, and wondering just what the hell I’ve gotten myself into this time. Next door my new acquaintances, aesthetician Joana and…
Citronelle is the latest of a number of new restaurants cropping up along the corroded corridor of upper Biscayne Boulevard. Situated in a corner location, its large plate-glass windows look out upon a mostly infelicitous street scene. Peering inward: a modern, minimally decorated 40-seat room with sleek, dark wood tables,…
When Biscayne Bar-B-Q opened last winter in the same building as the Cactus gay bar — with, according to its ads, an outdoor poolside cookout on Saturday nights till 2:00 a.m. — I was pretty intrigued, because friends had been telling me for the whole ten years I’ve lived in…
Forget about one. Nine is the luckiest number. If you’re Klime Kovaceski, that is. The chef-owner of Crystal Café is celebrating his ninth successful season this August. He’s also marking his nineteenth year of cooking on Miami Beach, which makes him just about a native at this point. But don’t…
According to a note on the menu of Mapalé Colombian Grille, the folk dance for which the restaurant is named, which was originally brought to the north coastal city of Cartagena;a by African slaves from New Guinea, is considered Colombia’s most erotic dance. The one time I saw el mapalé…
For a long time while we were dating, my husband couldn’t understand why I was a successful, tip-earning waitress. He knew I could multitask like a CEO, describe food as lovingly as an Italian mama, and grab plates that had been under the heat lamp as long as some of…
Einstein Bros bagels are round, chewy breads with holes in the center, and tasty in tandem with sandwich fillings, but have little in common with true bagels. Mostly they lack the proper color and texture — bagel crusts should have more golden brown crunch to them than these pale softies…
It doesn’t intrigue me that much when people report excitedly on new Mexican restaurant finds that have great red or green salsa. Sure I love the stuff, but great Mexican tomato/tomatillo salsas don’t depend on the kind of precision, balance, timing, and educated know-how that a great French sauce does;…
I’ve always wondered about so-called bad-luck restaurant locations that have earned, after the initial restaurant has departed, a rep for failure. Take the old WPA space on Washington and Eighth or thereabouts. It’s been ten years and about that many different restaurants since that one single — yet brief –…
The Park Central Hotel on Ocean Drive used to have a cool Deco lobby replete with pool table. Now, as a dining room for Quinn’s, it is filled with linen-covered tables that extend onto a comfortable outdoor patio and up the crowded street. Alfresco dining on this pedestrian thoroughfare always…
The future’s so bright I have to wear … a corset. Make that a corsé. I suffered pangs of disappointment when the Michael Schwartz/5061 deal went south for two reasons. Schwartz has been one of my fave chefs since he opened Nemo and Big Pink more than a decade ago,…
If you enter a restaurant in China and ask for “egg foo yung,” a puzzled look will most assuredly cross your waiter’s face. The term is meaningless in that country, the dish nonexistent, yet it’s long been a popular staple in Chinese-American eateries. At Sang’s Chinese Restaurant in North Miami…
On a recent evening at Pan-Asian restaurant Soco, all of the half-dozen nightly specials were Italian except for one appetizer. Which was Spanish. At the bottom of the regular menu — which features dishes like a Thai fish hot pot, a Chinese Peking duck spring roll, and a Japanese sushi…
A million bucks. In this era of dot-com millionaires, most of whom remain just as geeky as they were in high school, it just doesn’t seem so exciting, does it? Not to mention that since our standards have been so inflated, you can become an instant millionaire just by eating…
The upside to our modern-day obsession with food is the increase in availability of all things culinary, from greenmarkets to green-apple martinis to green restaurateurs. The downside is that it is an obsession, and obsessions nearly always turn ugly. We are already dealing with consequences such as rampant obesity, the…
On the Website where I first found Le Petit Bistro, it sounded like a terrific concept. Categorized as French, the eatery touted itself as combining “the convenience of quick service with the tastes and selections found in an upscale bistro.” Since I subsequently noticed two other Miami-Dade Le Petit Bistros…
Now that the scent of rotten mangoes has (mostly) ceased to waft across my yard, thanks to an early peak season, I have begun to detect other aromas in the air: the prix-fixe, all-you-can-eat, kids-eat-free, free-wine-with-entrée, early-birds-get-soup-or-salad, twenty-percent-off-the-total-check, twenty-bucks-off-checks-over-fifty-bucks, buy-one-menu-item-get-one-at-equal-or-lesser-value-free specials. Yup, I can sniff out just about any restaurant’s…
The opening fete of Café Boulud in the Brazilian Court in Palm Beach raised one immediate question: Why didn’t superstar chef Daniel Boulud, proprietor of New York City’s Daniel, Café Boulud, and DB Bistro Moderne, debut his first eponymous venture outside the Apple in the Magic City? The simple answer…
Tap Tap, South Beach’s only Haitian restaurant, has exhibited precipitous ups and downs since opening on Fifth Street nine years ago. What started out as a fun, funky, crowded joint with enchanting island fare turned into a not-so-happening joint with not-so-enchanting fare. Then the place enjoyed an upward tick, followed…
