My wife has more than once accused me of being narrow-minded when it comes to the hot-button topic of immigration. She has even called my main talking point on the issue simplistic. I admit nothing of the sort, although I acknowledge the slogan “No Mexican immigrants, no Mexican restaurants —…
Maybe it’s the typically drab décor of neighborhood Chinese restaurants that puts you off. Perhaps it’s the frustration of not being able to translate the menus on the wall or comprehend the nightly specials as inventively enunciated by your Chinese waiter. Is it possible you are creeped out by murky-water…
Despite many mediocre meals and the occasional dangerous one — food poisoning is an occupational hazard — food-writing is fun. Rarely does a dish move me to thoughts of murder and mayhem. That level of ire generally seems a more appropriate reaction to, say, our president than an equally clueless,…
We hear it over and over: Americans are too fat. Even the numbers are becoming familiar: 64 percent of the population is overweight, 30 percent of whom are obese. A recent 136-page report blames the nation’s 900,000 restaurants and food-service establishments. The paper, prepared by an education group called the…
Less is more — or is it? With apologies to modernist architect Mies van der Rohe, less seems more like loss, at least with regard to the removal of the humongous high-heel shoe sculpture that formerly occupied the Melin Building’s courtyard. Thanks to this festively mirror-festooned, two-story-tall, Cinderella-like slipper —…
An instrumental version of “Send in the Clowns” was playing as we entered Casa Nostra, an Italian restaurant at the intersection of Mary and Oak streets in Coconut Grove. It’s the sort of schmaltzy song you might hear in a neighborhood Italian joint in Brooklyn or Jersey, which is what…
Some of the best tapas in Miami can be found at a gas station. “Right,” you say. “I want some of what he’s been smokin’.” My response is simple: Yes, that’s right. And, no, you can’t have any. If you don’t believe me, then join the sludge of traffic oozing…
The good old days ain’t what they used to be. Take Fox’s Sherron Inn. Created in 1946, its scruffy, blue-collar ambiance; midnight-in-an-inkwell lighting; and jukebox full of tunes by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, and Patsy Cline say “bygone era” the same way Dick Cheney’s lip-curling death leer says war-mongering greedhead…
Lounges that serve food provide one-stop shopping for those interested in dinner, drinks, and a high-spirited evening of socializing without having to get into and out of automobiles in between. Staying put in one place saves time. It saves gas. It also prevents the heartache of abandoning a prize parking…
A debuted two months ago on the northern fringe of Miami’s Design District. It is named for the train line that traverses three boroughs of New York City. The moniker makes sense in light of the original A being located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, but the spare and funky…
Since opening a few months ago, Lost & Found Saloon has lived up to its name: Lost behind bulldozers and mounds of street construction, this tiny Southwestern-theme neighborhood eatery/wine-and-beer bar has been difficult to find. But those who have waded through the clouds of construction dust have discovered what the…
Those who relish a waterfront disaster need not rely on the silver screen’s Poseidon: Just head to Café Sambal for dinner. Well, perhaps that is a bit harsh. The sushi bar tenders a first-rate array of pristine maki rolls, nigiri sushi, sashimi, and temaki (cones) — even the California roll,…
If you really want to bitch-slap a restaurateur, taste his food and then say, “It’s not authentic.” The words should be delivered with an audible sniff, as if someone launched a particularly foul cloud of gas in your direction. The tone should be haughty, dismissive, condescending — the same tone…
If the comprehensive story of hotel dining is ever written, it should be titled Upstairs, Downstairs, Downstairs. Upscale restaurants are generally located upstairs, often on the top floor. (If it’s a Hyatt, the room might even rotate.) Informal eateries tend to be situated at street level, thus easily accessible from…
Claiming to make “the best damn sandwich on the planet,” as Big Slick’s Deli does, is no small feat, considering the competition. In Manhattan, Craft’s famed New American chef Tom Colicchio recently opened Witchcraft, where the tuna fish sandwich is an innovative — and high-quality — combination of Sicilian tuna,…
When it comes to contests, the number six has historically portended unexpected outcomes. The sixth Summer Olympics, for instance, were to take place in Berlin in 1916 but were canceled because of World War I. Cavalcade copped top prize at the sixth annual Academy Awards in 1933, and nobody has…
Expectations are a bitch. Take Creek 28. Before coming to the cozy little restaurant in the off-the-eatin’-path Indian Creek Hotel, chef Kira Volz made the Abbey Dining Room — in the almost as obscurely located Abbey Hotel — into one of the best least-known dining spots on the Beach. It…
Jafar Shabani, who formerly owned The Fifth Street Market and La Factoria on Collins Avenue in South Beach, says Persian food is what he wanted to do all along. Jafar, born in Tehran and raised in Toronto, fulfilled this ambition by opening Rice House of Kabob on the Beach a…
One little-known fact about food writers: The background of many American restaurant reviewers does not include a stint at culinary school. Rather, these critics including the New York Times’ Eric Asimov, Gourmet’s Jonathan Gold, the Village Voice’s Robert Sietsema, and many more — were musicians. The connections between expertise in…
If I tell you Spiga’s dining room is one of the most beautiful and romantic in town, take the praise with a grain of salt: I put my two cents into the design. The man directly responsible was Peter Hawrylewicz, one of Miami’s premier architects. It was 1994, and having…
There is something endearing and a little scary about The Bamboo Shak, as if you went to dinner at your neighbor’s house and found he had built a fully operational 767 out of matchsticks and discarded washing machine parts. But you really have no idea until you step inside the…
The Japanese traditionally consider a huge variety of ingredients appropriate for use in sushi: pieces of egg omelet, a myriad of pickled or fresh vegetables, and most anything that swims in salt water, excepting foods that do not pair well with vinegared rice, such as oysters. In the Western world…
