As someone who has earned a living in two pretty damned privileged fields — writing about food and playing rock music — I’ve always felt as if I was getting away with highway robbery, even in months when I can barely pay the rent. One of my grandmothers, after all,…
The version of Thai food one encounters at the King and I restaurant is about as real as the vision of Thai culture one encounters in the Rogers & Hammerstein musical of the same name — which is to say, not very. Not that this is necessarily bad; it just…
A café, bistro, and brasserie are different from one another. In France that is. Here in the States we tend to blur any distinctions, choosing one term over another mostly by phonetics. An informal French restaurant opening in Okeechobee, for example, will likely go with Okeechobee Café rather than the…
Chien Chung Peng from Hong Kong opened the Chung Hing Oriental Mart on NE 163rd Street and Eighteenth Avenue ten years ago. I can’t imagine anything even vaguely Asian that isn’t on some shelf somewhere in the ten aisles of this sprawling, cluttered grocery. The diversity of foodstuffs displayed from…
Before even a short vacation in any foreign country, I always try to learn about the food of the place, in the language of the place — nothing really daunting in terms of grammar or vocabulary but enough to cover the basic amenities and practicalities of negotiating a meal. This…
Tony Chi’s interior design of Café Sambal is chic and sleek, with white walls, dark wood tables, and a black staircase in the center of the dining room leading up to the Mandarin Oriental hotel’s more haute Azul. Sounds coldly minimalist, but seashell-embedded terrazzo floors, woven off-white rawhide chairs, wooden…
Historical Miami, you might say, is a thing of the past. Sure, there are still rickety pockets of the original city to be found, but it’s not easy. Most old structures lay holed up in neighborhoods like bandits with high bounties on their heads. One of the best ways to…
There is nothing like a week in London, home to more than 1500 Indian restaurants, most specializing in dishes never heard of in South Florida, to make a grown-up restaurant reviewer feel as if she’s back in kindergarten. Which is why Imlee sounded so intriguing. Only a year old, the…
Breez currently is blowing a breath of cool fresh sushi and seafood into the northern reaches of Ocean Drive, but as the base of the not-yet-completed, four-level, 40,000-square-foot Billboard Live, it will be hot soon enough with frenetic overflow from the club-and-bars scene of that megaentertainment complex. Ephraim Kadish of…
Just as any Turkish travel guide will remind tourists that when Turks shake their head from side to side as if saying “no” it means “yes,” I believe Miami guides should likewise inform visitors that the word “gourmet” on storefront signs signifies “not gourmet.” As with almost every such eatery…
The first change you notice about the place is its name — part Chinese, part gay, all cute and commercial, as owner Chong Li (a former employee of the Chinese Restaurant Formerly Known As Charlotte’s) well knows: “Hey, that’s the neighborhood, right?” Right. Since opening barely four months ago, the…
A few years ago, while my wife and I were seated at an outdoor seafood restaurant on the island of Santorini, a seemingly frail and elderly lady astonished us by repeatedly rising from her chair and punting puddy cats further than one would have thought possible by someone even triple…
There’s no way anyone who lives in Miami doesn’t know this rustic whitewashed wooden fish house with the knotty-pine-paneled interior. It’s everyone’s neighborhood joint, even for those who don’t live in the neighborhood. Because, besides being on a busy Biscayne corner, it has that look, the one that somehow speaks…
Casa Rolo’s Café has the distinction of being one of Thomas Kramer’s first victims. This was back in 1997, when the über-developer with a penchant for disorderly conduct was in the process of reconstructing the low-rise, low-rent tip of South Beach. Rolo’s had been around since 1986, and I had…
Even a few words into this review you might already be thinking, “Geez, she sounds a whole lot less moronic this week.” And if the strange symbols on the back of the menu at Yakko-San are to be believed, you might be right. Because on recent visits to this restaurant,…
When I read that the Florida Marlins’ brain trust (okay, wrong word, but you know what I mean) had changed concessionaires during the off-season, I didn’t assume it was solely because of my blistering review last year of their ballpark food. “I’d like to think it was my description of…
Located two blocks north of Miracle Mile, informal Italian deli La Gastronomia is easily overlooked. This is not because the food is forgettable but because the casual eatery is relatively small (two rustic rooms); relatively understated (no big sign, no touts out front); and, mainly, buried in a wall-to-wall packed…
To most Americans Danish cuisine means three things: herring, lots more herring, and Tuborg beer. And of the three, only the last really has caught on. Despite the fact that it is said Danes have a different herring preparation for every day of the year, none of the 365 has…
Clarke’s is a new “diner” on South Beach, but there’s something not quite dinerish about the place. Part of the problem might be that it’s located in a historic coral house, which isn’t the sort of backdrop you expect for fare like “Frenchy toast,” “cheesey chicken,” and “I scream sundae.”…
Until recently when one person in a couple wanted Indian food and the other wanted to grab a sub sandwich, the only solution was divorce. For the past two years, though, Silver Spoon Subs & Grill has been putting marriage counselors out of business. Here at this miniscule Indi-Italian (yes,…
Hold on to your hats, especially the flat ones — it’s time for the First Annual Flapjack Flip-Off. Our four contestants: the Original Pancake House and the International House of Pancakes, for obvious reasons; S&S Diner, because it’s the sort of landmark diner you’d expect to have great pancakes; and,…
There is no such thing as authentic Italian cuisine, at least not in Italy. That’s because until about 150 years ago, there was no such thing as Italy. Before political union there were a couple of dozen independent regions, and in terms of food culture, that proud individuality still exists…
