Opinion & Commentary

Mike Mineo fuses reggae, soulful vocals, and fan-chain pulling, computer-monitor slapping, light-switch flipping percussion for his funky and quirky single “Work,” off his upcoming album Eccentricity, due out in late February. Produced by Brent Williams, who produces and plays with local singer-songwriter Cat Shell, “Work” conveys the sense of stagnant imprisonment and monotony associated with middle-class/blue-collar existence. Mineo used a click…

Short Order’s been bothering every restaurant worker we meet for stories from their time working in the restaurant industry. Pen and pad in hand we approach them in kitchens, at bars, in hallways and at hostess stands. Sometimes the stories come to us.That’s how we met twenty eight year old…

According to Hart Baur from SKUM, Grove Cinema “was the only (movie) theatre in Miami that had a liquor license,” which means that if you were old enough to have a drink in 1988 you could have done so while watching The Decline of Western Civilization Part II – The…

Last week, I reported about Sean Casey, a 35-year-old Boston native who is serving a 12-and-a-half-year prison term for allegedly running down and killing an elderly woman on Harding Avenue in Miami Beach, and then fleeing the scene, back in 2001.While awaiting trial, Casey fled the country in 2004 to…

This past weekend was relatively slow for “big” shows… But among the most impressive gigs last week was Thursday night at Propaganda, where local guys Stonefox celebrated the release of their sophomore album. For the occasion, they invited their awesome friends from Atlanta, Dead Rabbits. This band is a brother-brother…

The Banana has a friend named Betty, who earlier this year picked up a two-bedroom condo on Brickell Avenue for $109,000. Betty got the unit at a bargain because it was in foreclosure. But you wouldn’t know that by checking the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser’s online property search database, a…

Chef Tim Andriola has been lauded by food critic John Mariani in Esquire Magazine as a “chef to keep your eye on,” going on to say that he “definitely has the touch of a master.”He started as a kid in Lee, New Hampshire at his family’s restaurant, the Gateway. In…

Model Latina Miami premiered last night on SiTV, a station we’ve never heard of and pretty sure we don’t get, but we browsed through the first episode online. The funny thing is that runways of the world could certainly use a healthy dose of Latina spice. Only a few leggy Brazilian glamazons, such…

The French chef has her own South Florida story.  Growing up I even had the honor to live part of it, attending the tributes that our local chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food would throw her, since my mother was the co-founder. So buckle up and come…

Allegedly foul-mouthed Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg sure pissed off a Navy Commander Jeff Gordon with insinuations about shoving red hot pokers up his ass, for fun!, or something. They both seem like jerks in this situation, but who is the bigger jerk: Gordon or Rosenberg? This is not to say…

In the vaguely menacing gloam of this first dying decade of the 21st century, the people continue to party hard. It’s an obsessive, have-fun-or-die type of mindset that cannot be deterred, no matter the consequences. And to a large extent, Frenchy sensations Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter of Daft…

In the early morning hours of Jan. 8, 2008, in a dark alley off South Glades Drive, a gang member named Andrew James Rolle walked up to a white Ford Taurus and blasted the man inside to death.The driver was an off-duty Miami detective named James Walker, and his murder…

Former Top Chef contestant Howie Kleinberg has a restaurant in North Miami called Bulldog Barbecue (15400 Biscayne Boulevard). Short Order ran into Howie last night at Taste of the Nation, an event that tours the country raising money to end childhood hunger in America. We asked him some questions. Here’s…

Short Order recently walked up to Paula Hiebert and two friends cause we heard her laugh from a mile away. She’s just a random lady I figured would have a funny story. Paula Hiebert wants her first and last name used in this blog so that when her friends from…

This week, in place of our usual fall-off-the-chair funny jokes, we’ve plucked some witty definitions from The Food Snob’s Dictionary by David Kamp and Marion Rosenfeld. Bánh mí-Long an unremarkable if satisfying staple of Asian street food, the bánh mí has recently emerged as a fetish object for Caucasian Sandwich…

This week I would like to talk about how the punk rock and hardcore scene here really has no support anymore. Today, kids see “punk rock” on MTV and channels like that, but the truth is that shit’s not real. The bands you see there are bands that really didn’t…

To read past installments of Notes from the Soundboard, click here. It’s become all too common in our society to mourn the passing of those whose fame has taken them to the heights of international stardom, while all but ignoring others who perhaps lack that same stature. Michael Jackson’s recent…

Miami graffiti artists seem to be having a moment, thanks in part to Jim and Karla Murray’s Miami Graffiti tome (see pictures here). That led to an exhibition at the Mid-City Arts Gallery in Los Angeles earlier this month. Of course, you can’t invite a bunch of graffiti artists out…

It’s been a slow summer for the Miami quartet Mendacity, whose last show was this past March, and in Orlando, to boot, at that city’s stop of the Taste of Chaos tour. A few months’ break is no big deal for this long-running band, though — the foursome came together…

She Found the Right Carrera A canvas writes: Jose Carrera, who was described in “Tattoo U” (Carlos Suarez De Jesus, July 23), is a true artist with a gifted eye and a keen sense of beauty. Despite his past, which I have never given a second thought, Jose is beyond…

This post is mainly to point out that even big-time newspapers (or whatever the New York Post is) make embarrassing headline typos once in a while (I hope the copy editor gets an email from the EIC with the subject “Can We Talk?”). But in a more local angle, it seems Joan…

Luna Cafe, at 4770 Biscayne Boulevard, is now called L’artista Restaurant. Ownership is the same, meaning Tom Billante is still  involved. Besides the name change, the menu has been tweaked upwardly towards a more fine dining experience than the casual Luna Cafe. Seems a curious move at this time, but…