BEST PASTELITO DE GUAVA 2003 | Gallito Bakery | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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BEST PASTELITO DE GUAVA

Gallito Bakery

The key to a great pastelito de guava is the texture. It must be soft, chewy, and flaky all at once. The guava filling must be generous, bear a dark-violet complexion, and have a thick consistency. The worst thing a baker can do to this delicacy is to overcook it. The result of that is a concrete cast with caked guava char in between. Runny, traffic-light red paste means processed preservatives, a no-no. Vendors can disappoint with this snack if it isn't done just so. Gallito's bakery has it down. They're reliably scrumptious. There isn't a pastelito in town as fluffy and moist. Get them fresh from the SW Eighth Street bakery or unwittingly enjoy them at various Miami restaurants that purchase them from Gallito.

BEST PIZZA

Casola's

Big, saucy, greasy, and cheesy, a pizza pie any other way wouldn't be baked at Casola's. The pizza place tucked between Little Havana and Coconut Grove has fattened neighborhood rugrats and late-night bar-hoppers looking for a sobering slice for 21 years. The pizza slices are huge, New York style, and come in pairs for $2.85. Most patrons don't leave full, they walk out bloated. Here, it's all about the cheese -- quality mozzarella with a playful, elastic texture, not drippy or sinewy. Ask for extra cheese and you might not find the crust. Casola's actually stems from an old Boston pizza war. Back in the Seventies, Ramon Casola and Augustine Buñuel were rivals there, but each respected the other's pie enough to open Casola's together. The hungry mouths that congregate around the open-air pizza stand help them get along fine. They have a good relationship with customers too. There's always a plate of free sample pizza squares for those waiting on an order. But watch it: Hands snap toward the complimentary servings like piranhas. If you have your hand in the wrong place you might lose it, and you'll need both of them to handle the slice you're waiting on.

Readers Choice: Casolas

BEST PLACE TO GRAB A BITE OF THE BIG APPLE

New York New York

The twin towers of the World Trade Center still stand under a starry sky -- on the giant mural decorating a wall at New York New York. The other walls, clad with posters of Broadway shows such as Dancin', Sugar Babies, and Les Miserables, facsimiles of New York Times front pages, photo stills from feature films, and a ticker flashing the latest news, provide reminders of the city too, as do the booths boasting names such as Broadway and Times Square. But the items on the menu at the 23-year-old eatery are really what offer South Floridians that true bite of the Big Apple. Hot dogs, plain or topped with chili. Potato knishes. Deli sandwiches, including corned beef, pastrami, roast beef, turkey, and killer chicken salad served with coleslaw and a potato pancake. A variety of hot entrées, breakfast items, and a well-stocked salad bar. Bagels, cream cheese, and the ubiquitous Dr. Brown's soda in black cherry, cream, and Cel-Ray. And a refreshing refreshment known as a lime rickey. Rice pudding, colossal apple pie (à la mode with Häagen-Dazs ice cream, if you like), a decadent dense creation dubbed chocolate beast cake, and of course creamy cheesecake bursting with the kind of calories that could only be walked off in a major city. It's food so fine we had to start spreading the news.

BEST PREPARED FOODS

Whole Foods Market

Whether you're looking to satisfy your craving for vegan fare or for soups that extend beyond the chicken-noodle and clam-chowder variety, Whole Foods Market is the place to go. Besides interesting items such as Mediterranean beef stew and spinach orzo soup, it features an expansive array of prepared vegetable dishes, from tofu pad thai to raspberry tofu diablo to a delightfully tangy eggplant à la napolitiana (red peppers drenched in olive oil and vinegar stuffed into an eggplant). Or if you're into down-home cookin', the market offers healthy portions of piping-hot meat loaf, barbecued and fried chicken, sweet corn, stuffing, steamed vegetables, and lots of other hot foods.

BEST RAW BAR

The River Oyster Bar

The River offers a taste of the ocean from the four corners of the Western oyster world. This bar/restaurant serves the cool freshly cracked ones from the coasts of Washington, Oregon, California, Prince Edward Island, New England, and the Florida Panhandle. A tasty flourish comes with the choice of jalapeño relish, Asian mignonette, and the traditional horseradish with cocktail sauce. Most oysters are $19/dozen; the Apalachicolas (from Florida's Gulf waters) run $10/dozen. They're all half-price during happy hour, 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. During the week the place (located in the Fishbone Grille's old space) is open for lunch and dinner (kitchen closes at about 10:30 p.m.). On Saturday hours are 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. or so. The joint is closed on Sundays, so if you're jonesing for oysters after church, you'll have to hit Shuckers or Smith & Wollensky.

BEST RESTAURANT FOR A POWER LUNCH

Gordon Biersch

Power lunch no longer implies Eighties-style business suits meeting over plates of ostrich carpaccio served in white-linen restaurants where the valets earn more than your secretary. If we've learned anything from the dot.com era, it's that sometimes the sweetest deals are scripted in duds that have seen less holey days and sealed not by a slash of the Cross fountain pen but by the clink of two pint glasses topped off with a mousse of India Pale Ale. At Gordon Biersch, one of the only downtown venues to regularly draw the workaday crowd, you can actually find both kinds of players: the stuffed shirt and the beer belly, lunching on pizzas and gourmet salads and fresh-brewed suds. Rest assured they have two things in common -- something on the table and something in the works.

BEST RESTAURANT FOR A ROMANTIC DINNER

Magnum

We're not exactly sure why, but most people prefer to be romantic in the dark. If that's true for you, then Magnum, owned by Jeffrey's proprietors Jeffrey Landsman and Kurt Schmidt (Jeffrey's has been a perennial winner of this award), is shadowy enough for smooching, shady enough for liaisons of the deliciously illicit kind. Not only is the room dimly lighted in an alluring way, a throaty jazz singer and a back-door entrance off a rather deserted alleyway suggest something concealed, something that says speakeasy, something that whispers romance.

BEST RESTAURANT FOR INTIMATE CONVERSATION

Perricones Marketplace & Caf

There's nothing more romantic than a picnic, right? A blanket spread in a secluded seaside nook or beneath a flowering tree. A column of red ants marching across your blanket. Sand flying into your plastic wine glass. And those damn flowers falling into your tuna fish salad. Maybe a picnic's not so romantic after all. You want the greenery, the seclusion, the quiet without all the dirt and pests. And, let's face it, you want a repast that's a little more seductive than what you can cram into a Tupperware tub. So call Perricone's and make a reservation for one of the tables on the back patio. If you really want to get intimate, ask for the wicker chairs beneath the trellis. No one will see you but the waiter when he brings you delectable dishes -- on real dishes. When he's gone, all you'll hear is the whir of the ceiling fans and the sighs of your beloved.

BEST RESTAURANT WHEN SOMEONE ELSE IS PAYINGWhen it comes to subjects of fine-dining debates, La Broche has been a veritable gastronomic epicenter. Just voicing the name of this controversial restaurant is enough to launch earthquakes of opinions, accompanied by tidal waves of whetted appetites and burning fires of curiosity. Indeed the fare that executive chef Angel Palacios prepares at this offshoot of the two-Michelin-star original in Spain can be called nothing less than incredibly avant-garde, highlighted by an array of foams, gelatins, and interesting if not always appetizing parts of animals. When all is said and done -- or eaten, rather -- La Broche isn't any more expensive than the usual prime suspects around town. But when it comes right down to the pork turbot in pea sauce garnished with sea urchin and "empanadas" of trout egg or basil-gelatin lollipops encasing tomatoes and watermelon, which you may or may not find truly exhilarating, you just might be relieved by the saving grace: "At least I didn't have to pay for it."

BEST RESTAURANT FOR KIDS

Big Pink

With a menu of a size that befits its name, Big Pink should be able to satisfy the whims of the most finicky of progeny. Its diner-inspired creations come in gargantuan portions, so you can a) throw junior some scraps off your own plate, b) spare yourself a night's cooking by taking home a doggie bag, or c) order one of the kids' sized options. You may be able to expand their culinary horizons, at least as far as fries are concerned, with Big Pink's scrumptious sweet potato version or the crisp-on-the-outside/creamy-on-the-inside polenta sticks. And you don't have to dress up to do so. Big Pink is supremely casual, and no one will mind if you and the gang troop in wearing flip-flops and bathing suit coverups.

BEST RESTAURANT FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED

Metro Kitchen & Bar

It could be that the noise level is deliberate, a reflection of the urban name, or accidental, a result of the former Astor Place's mod-Italian renovation. But while there may be quibbling about the motive, there's no question over the decibel level -- it's about as high as the two-story ceiling allows. That said -- or shouted -- Metro possesses a great buzz. Like that created by a horde of honeybees feeding on the pollen of flowers that have been grown on a nuclear-waste dumping ground. But a buzz, nevertheless. And on South Beach, louder is always better.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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