To judge by sheer number of outlets, sushi has long been South Beach’s favorite food (and I do mean outlets — one day on the beach, years ago, I encountered a guy selling maki rolls from a Jet Ski). And SoBe’s sushi has basically been darned good, too. But until…
You have to admire the arrogance. When McDonald’s unveiled its New Tastes Menu of South Florida about six weeks ago, the response was both immediate and unanimous. Those culinary professionals who actually pay attention to such things — meaning those who aren’t so snobby they ignore fast food altogether –…
So it’s that time of year again, and you’re as stuck as a wooden stick in a Fudgsicle. You simply have no idea what to give the gastronome in your life. Well, relax. I’m here to save your sorry imagination with a list of the wackiest, weirdest, and most useless…
It wasn’t long after chefs Jan Jorgensen and Soren Bredahl (from long-established Two Chefs restaurant) took over Scotty’s gourmet market a year ago August that they realized they had a problem: The addition of a top-end butcher operation was producing a lot of meat scraps. Fancy prime scraps to be…
So what’s the deal with all the CAPITAL LETTERS? Joining B.E.D., SUVA, and KISS, AMMO has just opened on Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables. Perhaps owners Joel Lopez and Leo Scotto and executive chef Alexis Pimentel (formerly of Giacosa) thought we wouldn’t PAY ATTENTION to the cuisine, which…
The Incan word tambo refers to small inns that once populated the mountainous terrain of pre-Columbian Peru. Tambo, the new Japanese-Peruvian restaurant in Miami Beach, resembles neither a small inn nor anything you’d ever stumble across in mountainous terrain. In fact with its mosaic tile floor, sand-color walls, white tablecloths,…
Of the nine countries normally referred to as Southeast Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Indonesia, and, stretching it a bit geographically but not culinarily, the Philippines), the cuisines of the first two are by far the most well-known over here. But despite far more American contact with…
There’s been a lot of talk lately about airline security, but precious little about being able to secure a good airport meal while waiting through the delays that these defensive concerns necessitate. I wouldn’t mind having to bide my time at the Houston airport for an extra hour or two…
With a name like Jacky Chan’s Superbowl, what diners would expect is ramen. And in fact Jacky turns out quite a super bowl of this soup; unlike the cheap, packaged, supermarket ramens that got most of us through our impoverished student days, the broth tastes like real stock instead of…
A fresh piece of fish doesn’t require a lot of dressing up to be alluring. Salt, pepper, drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle of lemon juice, and smattering of chopped herbs are more than enough. For some people. Others like their seafood adorned with additional flavors and textures and sauces and…
Okay, I’ve heard enough. Stop telling me it’s going to be a slow season, that dining aficionados are destined for disappointment, that nightlife connoisseurs will be bored enough to consider day jobs and reasonable bedtimes. If the season’s offerings are so supposedly meager, then why have I been signing my…
If you’re looking for the latest issue of South Florida Gourmet, you might have to look harder, and it’s not because your contact lenses need updating. Editor/publisher Simone Diament has temporarily halted production. She says it’s not about economics or advertising but indirectly cites the World Trade Center attacks. Her…
Since September 11 diners have been holing up at home instead of going out to eat. Not that this survivalist homing instinct has necessarily extended to doing our own home cooking. While formerly hot-ticket restaurants may be relatively empty, many shops selling ready-made gourmet food have found a new market…
On the first day, Mark Soyka declared: “I am opening News Café on Ocean Drive, and a thriving beachside boulevard shall spring up around it.” And that came to pass. Soyka next declared: “I am opening Van Dyke Café on Lincoln Road, and a thriving pedestrian mall shall spring up…
Wearing nothing but a thong, a young woman lay on a table in a seductive pose amid a drift of red rose petals. The open bar was jammed with customers. An extensive buffet offered everything from corn dogs to caviar. So where were we? No, not Miami Gold. Not Porky’s…
South Florida tourist agencies are gauging where the local economy stands by reading lines on comparative graphs. I got to thinking that a more accurate way to assess the matter would be by studying a real line — like the one that forms at Joe’s Stone Crab. Or used to…
Its proper name may be the 1909 Café but everybody calls it the 1909 Sandwich Shop, for good reason — several, actually. One is that “café” is an awfully optimistic description for a totally unatmospheric lunch-counter space in a downscale minimall, with only four or five tiny tables lining one…
So it’s been just about two months since the terror attacks, and I’ve been doing my thing, eating and drinking and chatting up the food folks. And after hearing what the local restaurateurs and chefs have to say — at least until the wine impaired my listening skills — I’ve…
The sign on the door of the little storefront window reads, “A Couple of Basketcases.” That’s the name of Caron Coles’s gift-basket company on 151st Street in North Miami that shares space and uses the specialty food products of her larger enterprise, Foodalicious, to fill those baskets. Upon entering the…
From the Ocean Drive sidewalk, the Tides Hotel looks the way it always does: stately, sedate, reserved. Inside the lobby activities also progress in the usual way. A guest or two checks in. Some folks eat dinner. A few people sip martinis at the bar. The atmosphere is quiet and…
Billboard: Live or Dead. The reaction to my announcement last week that corporate chef Ephraim Kadish had been let go from Breez was intensely unanimous: Fellow chefs are up in arms. At least when their arms aren’t busy chopping onions, apparently. But a few insiders are crying strictly crocodile tears…
If Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s name is less known nationally than Wolfgang Puck’s, it is only because the latter is easier to spell. And also because Austrian-born/French-trained Puck’s rep-building restaurant Spago had already established itself as the spot for rich-and-famous Angelinos years before Japanese-born-and-trained Matsuhisa arrived in la-la land, after a culinary…
