Audio By Carbonatix
It was a full decade ago that a few Argentine culinary pioneers like Prima Pasta’s Gerardo Cea began transforming Miami Beach’s rundown (often dangerously druggy, at best boring) eastern 71st Street area into a haven for lovers of Argentina’s Italian-influenced fun food in a festival atmosphere. Still the neighborhood didn’t start being referred to as Little Buenos Aires until the new millennium. By then the immigrant population had swelled, thanks in large part to the tanking Argentine economy. And so had support businesses that moved beyond Argentina’s traditional succulent steaks and spaghetti into more nouvelle territory, as well as beyond inland Normandy Circle into the more scenic, semisecret semicircle of Ocean Terrace.
Most notably the circus-themed restaurant Baraboo, which opened in June of 2000 to major media brouhaha, exploited the secluded beachfront setting; it staged alfresco events like periodic full moon ceremonies with beach drumming, combining southern hemisphere carnival with northern 1960s hippie happening. Baraboo recently closed, but Nina, an almost all-outdoor café that opened far more quietly just down the block last year, is trying to keep the spirit — and spiritualism — alive. A recent Thursday night featured tableside tarot readings, and, according to owner Ines Doti, Nina will soon be staging full moon festivities, too.
Unfortunately, though, the better-known eatery’s loss has meant a loss of patrons for Nina. “Baraboo drew into this small street many people, who then found us,” Doti admitted, gesturing at tables that were mostly empty on a recent Saturday night.
Of course it could be simply the season. Nina’s interior contains only a couple of tables, and what South Floridian eats outside in summer? But the smaller spot, since the past winter, has lost more than Baraboo’s runover patrons. Live musical entertainment was a big weekend draw, but their very popular regular Latin rock group has moved on to another club. From a foodie perspective, the menu has lost some star attractions, too, including a “Chino Latino” sushi roll of tuna ceviche and exotic purple rice, a refreshing shrimp summer roll, and an especially missed salad; it is never a wise idea, in my opinion, to disappear anything that combines Gorgonzola cheese, roasted walnuts, and caramelized pears.
A highlight of some recent meals, however, was a newly added dish: duck ham. Admittedly it doesn’t sound spectacular; had our kind and quite convincing server not highly, though non-hypily, touted the house-cured ham, I’d have assumed it was the standard oversalty dried-out jerky that passes as most eateries’ magret, and passed. Fortunately Nina’s delicately sweet, tender pink slices proved similar to the subtlest of imported Italian raw prosciuttos, only slightly thicker and much more moist. A contrasting heap of dressed arugula topped with shaved mild Parmesan turned the charcuterie into a salad generous enough to serve as a main dish. On the other hand, it was tasty enough that I could have happily polished off two or three servings by myself.
A similarly arugula-accompanied salmon carpaccio was suitably fresh but, due to the blandness of its watery, undersalted citrus vinaigrette, nothing special. The same could be said for a Nina’s house salad — whose description sounded mouthwatering: mixed greens, fresh oranges, and roasted beets, with ginger vinaigrette. How could one blow that kind of imaginative combination, when the mesclun mix is crunchy, the orange sections juicy, and the beets are not canned but fresh and firmly cooked? By underdressing it with what might be the world’s most boring ginger vinaigrette; not even a trace of ginger — or soy, or miso, or any other Asian flavoring element — was evident.
A bit more, and more intense, dressing would have easily turned the two above items from okay to excellent. Not so of a daily special, fresh tomato soup that tasted like thick but blah pasta sauce. The impulse to try to overcompensate for underripe tomatoes is understandable, but such heroic efforts are always doomed; better to make a nice cold mango soup and wait for worthy local tomatoes.
A $19 tag seemed stiff for a tapas assortment of five food and two drink items, considering that the dishes had neither high-rent ingredients nor were highly labor-intensive, and the two finos (dry Spanish sherry) were roughly thimble-sized. The offerings were mushrooms in a nice, light puff pastry; odd but tasty vinegar-marinated chicken wings covered with pickled onions; some very fishy, very pickled herring in very salty tomato sauce; shrimp sautéed with not nearly enough garlic; and a crock of pleasantly herbed goat cheese spread with good flatbread. Please, chef, bring back the brandade.
Among entrées, homemade Raviolis Walteroni were huge, perfectly al dente pillows fatly filled with spinach and goat cheese, but the dish’s sun-dried tomato “marinara” sauce was overpoweringly concentrated and salted to oblivion. The menu’s only classic Argentine offering, Entrana a la Parilla, was fine, though the big, ultrachewy rolled skirt steak lacked the juicy wood fire-seared succulence of much of Miami’s parillada meat, and came rare rather than bleu as ordered.
Grilled tuna did come bleu, or so I was told; the few fish slices came buried under so much heavily capered ratatouille, roasted potatoes, and greens that I never actually tasted any. “I’m trying,” a tablemate explained, “but there’s so much shrubbery on the plate I can’t find you any tuna.” Lack of outdoor lamps didn’t help. After-dusk diners who want to see what they’re eating should remember flashlights.
One more warning: Do not skip dessert, though your party’s designated driver should definitely forgo Nina’s bitter chocolate-studded sabayon ice cream; the sabayon (a Frenchification of the Italian zabaglione) flavoring is, in terms of alcohol content, decidedly Creole-style: kicked up many notches. The apple crumb cake, though, is perfectly safe unless one passes out from pleasure at the not-too-sweet filling of firm apples à la mode with rich vanilla ice cream. And the Last Kiss (slices of silky-smooth, elegantly sweet/tart passion fruit mousse, atop an intensely fudgy brownie “Nemesis floor”) is, as all adult evening-ends should be, orgasmic.
