There are no menus handed out at Macaluso’s, a smart-looking Italian restaurant sitting almost secretly in a ministrip mall off Alton Road in South Beach. Instead most of the ten appetizers and seventeen main courses were rapidly enumerated by our waiter, a practice that I believe unfairly punishes those of…
Since there’s no dance music blaring over this humble luncheonette place, it’s hard to figure why Disco Fish is named that. Perhaps the reference is intended to suggest fish so fresh they’re still party animals boogying direct from boat to plate. However, though the eatery co-bills itself as a fish…
The first time I dined at Gusto’s, with Victoria, was the evening after she’d put the family cat in the clothes dryer. “The cat went in by hisself,” Victoria disagreed, demurely. “Yeah,” grimaced Victoria’s grandmother Marci. “Luckily she couldn’t figure out how to turn the thing on.” Victoria is three,…
This summer, my Livingston, New Jersey hometown newspaper, the venerable West Essex Tribune (yes, I have a subscription), embarked on a very important series: comparing towns, also named Livingston, from other areas of the country. How does their quality of life rate against that in our beloved suburbia? How can…
This week, the news is big. Really, truly huge. So titanic that it is, for lack of a better word, on par with el mundo. On second thought, make that MUNDO. While the former means the world, the latter spells Norman Van Aken’s officially announced new restaurant, due to open…
Is August really the dog days of summer? Not bloody Mary likely. In Miami the second half of August is shaping up to be more like the hair-of-the-dog days of summer. To wit: Restaurants like Café Del Mar in Miami Shores and Titanic Brewery and Restaurant have both reached seemingly…
In 1975 President Gerald Ford dodged Squeaky Fromme’s bullet, South Vietnam surrendered to the communists, Sonny and Cher called it quits, and House of India opened on Merrick Way in Coral Gables. “I hope they’ve given it a paint job since then,” I said to my wife on the way…
“Jaboticaba.” Johnny Vinczencz says the word as if he’s chewing it, standing in what can only be described as Delray Beach’s topmost tropical Eden. “Jaboticaba.” Or, in retrospect, as if he’s getting used to uttering it. The latter’s probably the more apropos metaphor, since he’s now picking that particular fruit…
“Little man felt very bad/One meat ball was all he had/And in his dreams he hears that call/’Ya gets no bread with one meat ball.'” –“One Meat Ball,” Depression-era song written by Louis Singer & Hy Zaret. I’m not saying our economy is going to stay down in the dumpster…
When two Indian restaurants in London won Michelin stars (only rarely bestowed upon ethnic eateries) last year, it initiated a spate of stories in American food publications about not just the goat cheese samosas on fresh pear chutney and other modernized neo-Indian dishes featured at the starred spots, but also…
With even Publix serving up subs using premium-brand cold cuts, it’s clear there’s no shortage these days of sources for sandwiches with pretty respectable interiors. What’s almost always a disappointment is the exterior — the bread. That’s what makes year-old Taste Bakery Café’s concept so appealing: Unlike umpteen other cafés,…
When Gary Danko’s eponymous restaurant opened in San Francisco three years ago, it won the James Beard Foundation’s “Best New Restaurant” award and received the first of three Five-Star ratings from Mobil. At the same time Chef Danko, previously selected as one of the ten best new chefs in America…
In Argentina “eat” means meat (per capita consumption is the world’s highest), and “meat” means beef. At least so I’ve heard. I’ve never actually been to Argentina. And actually, before some recent visits to Angus Grill I’d never even been to one of Miami’s growing number of Argentine parrillada restaurants,…
Summertime is locals’ dining time — prix-fixe menus, all-you-can-eat specials, two-for-one deals, half-priced bottles of wine. But aside from saving money (except for the bucks you’ll have to spend on a bigger bathing suit), you couldn’t be less thrilled with the culinary scene at the moment. It’s just plain boring…
Fritas are Cuban-style hamburgers, a beef patty seasoned with paprika and onions, griddle-fried, and stuck in a bun with a thatch of canned shoestring potatoes. It’s the ultimate Cuban street food, eaten on the go from stands, and wolfed down in lieu of hot dogs at ballparks. It is the…
French doors of mahogany and glass front the big, bistroish 150-seat Orsini, the restaurant’s tables, chairs, and sizable bar crafted from the same dark wood. Rose-shaped milk glass chandeliers hang on decoratively tiled walls, as do large mirrors and hundreds of old photos of famous and semifamous people; the floor…
I’ve been bothered ever since I read Al Martinez’s essay, “Confessions of an Ice Cream Fanatic,” published in the August 2000 issue of Gourmet magazine. At first I couldn’t pinpoint the source of my distaste, but after two years of reflecting on the article’s thesis — that the “Statue of…
I can’t say I’m surprised the Florida Motor Vehicle Department rejected my suggestion to change state license plate tags to read “Land Of Mediocre Bakeries”; it is, after all, a lot of letters to fit on a plate. In retrospect maybe it would be more appropriate as a motto for…
“I feel like I’m on vacation!” exclaimed one of my three workaholic dining companions, looking slightly puzzled. Perhaps vacations had been so few and far between recently that she’d merely forgotten what they feel like. But in fact a few things make a meal at Snappers Seafood Restaurant feel more…
“First need in the reform of hospital management? That’s easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef.” — Martin H. Fischer (1879-1962) I have no idea who Martin H. Fischer is, except possibly, given his birth date, the world’s oldest electric guitar player, because when…
Next time you find yourself craving vegetarian kosher Italian food prepared by a French chef, don’t panic — Cine Cittá Caffé serves just that. Many people associate kosher restaurants with dowdy mom-and-pop operations that cook up dumplingesque dishes topped by sour cream, or falafel joints festooned with travel posters of…
Amazing what you can learn about your own town just by leaving it. For instance I doubt I would have known that the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau has both a marketing partnership with American Express and a serious promo in the works: Miami Spice Restaurant Month. During August,…
