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That's pretty much all of you, no? Does anyone really dislike olive oil? Perhaps not everyone is so fanatic about it that they'd go to the International Olive Oil Fest this weekend in Fort Lauderdale. We're not sure how large the event is, but we imagine that it's a good opportunity to sample some interesting olive oils from small producers around the world. The website also promises wine tastings and food samples.

In terms of entertainment, it sounds like there will be plenty, from flamenco guitars to belly dancers to opera singers. If you prefer dancing, the Havana Soul Orchestra will be there also to play some mambo, salsa and big band. Several movies will also be shown as part of the event inside Cinema Paradiso. We're intrigued by the olive pit spitting contest, in which Italian rules apply. If anyone can shed light on what exactly these Italian rules are, we'd very much appreciate it.

Tickets are $15 per day in advance or $20 on the day of the event. Children under 12 are free; teenagers will cost you $5.

International Olive Oil Fest [Official Site]

Photo: sweaty photos [Flickr]

The legal status of absinthe in this country is still kind of up in the air, but we now have two producers of the spirit: St. George's Distillery in Alameda, Calif., which began selling it last December, and now the newcomer Sirene Absinthe Verte from North Shore Distillery just north of Chicago. The latter hit the market just this month after debuting at WhiskyFest. Chicagoist has some tasting notes from the event:

The 110 proof white absinthe has a sharp, herbal bite to it. the 124 proof green absinthe is, oddly, smoother than the white. It also has an amazing mouthfeel. With absinthe shaping up as the year's new hot spirit, this should sell well.

Until just last year, the importation of absinthe was prohibited, and the only way to get it was to very carefully hide it away in your luggage and hope that no one in customs felt the need to verify your declaration. In 2007, a few brands were approved for sale, but they had to meet the FDA's ban of thujone in consumable products.

Thujone's the bad guy here, the one that's been blamed for all of the evils supposedly brought about by absinthe consumption. It can wreak havoc on your brain and nervous system if consumed in large quantities. But by the time you've drunk enough absinthe, which can be up to 75 percent alcohol, to experience any effects from the thujone, you're dead from alcohol poisoning.

We're not exactly running out immediately to try absinthe — we've never been particularly fond of anise-flavored foods — but we love the ceremony involved with drinking absinthe. The special spoons, the cube of sugar, and the precise way of pouring the ice cold water over it.

Introducing Sirene Absinthe Verte [North Shore Distillery]
St. George Spirits [Official Site]
Absinthe [Wikipedia]
Sorry, Absinthe Trippers: Scientists Say You're Just Really Drunk [Wired]
Chicagoist at WhiskeyFest [Chicagoist]

It didn't take long, once the new Grand Theft Auto IV was released yesterday, for foodie/gamer/blogger Adam Kuban to take a virtual tour of the game's eateries. He found that many of the spots bear a striking resemblance to actual New York establishments. That's not surprising, as Liberty City is basically supposed to be a virtual New York.

What is surprising is the level of detail with which the game portrays its fictional Big Apple. Unlike previous versions, which included major landmarks, such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Capitol building in GTA: San Andreas, GTA IV gets right into the neighborhoods to portray actual local foodie faves. They've also got hilarious take-offs of other local institutions such as the musical Banging On Trashcan Lids For An Hour (Stomp) Check out the screenshots over on New York Eats.

It's just too bad the virtual world doesn't (yet) include smell and taste. Of course, that would make games such as Cooking Mama a lot more fun, too.

The Real-Life Restaurants in New York City from 'Grand Theft Auto 4' [New York Eats]
GTA: IV [Official Site]
Cooking Mama [Official Site]
Adam Kuban [Wikipedia]

Yes indeed, South Florida has wine country. They may not grow grapes, but Schnebly Redland's Winery bottles up the tropical essence of South Florida in an array of unique flavors. It’s well-known that tropical heat and humidity are death to the fragile chardonnay, pinot grigio or even the warmth-loving malbec, but they are just the thing when growing passionfruit, carambola, mango and guava.

Owners Peter and Denisse Schnebly met while working in the fruit import/export business. Looking to take advantage of all the b-fruits (fruits that due to some cosmetic blemish never make it to retail markets), the Schneblys decided to try their hand at making wine. The result is a unique South Florida product. The winery currently offers tastings ($5) seven days a week and tours ($7) on Saturday and Sunday. Although the winery started out in a double-wide trailer, today it has expanded into a sprawling complex of interconnected chickees interspersed with waterfalls and pavilions crafted out of the limestone bedrock. Following the Schneblys’ philosophy of utilizing natural and organic processes, the ponds and limestone waterfalls are built using local materials and labor. The tropical fruit wines can be served as table wines, especially the oak-aged carambola wine or the lychee wine, or after dinner drinks, like the fragrant guava and mango. The Schneblys tropical fruit wines can be found at grocery stores throughout South Florida, but for the full experience you have to walk through the bee-humming passion fruit vines and see the fermenting process at work.

Schnebly Redland's Winery [Official Site]

You know what marginal group of tens of millions of people are being put at risk for poor nutrition by the global surge in food prices? American's school children! Back in the salad days of 2006 when money grew on houses, glowing accounts abounded on plans to revamp the way kids eat at school, trading the fattening and soulless frozen pizzas and burgers that fueled the childhood obesity crisis (remember that?) for the new religion of local/seasonal/organic.

Now that reality has set in, schools are swapping fresh for canned, seeing higher demand for subsidized lunches, and wondering how they'll cope with 30% to 50% cost increases while the federal per-meal subsidy remains static at an unrealistic 23 cents. Probably not all that well! Our youngest citizens have been historically poor budgetary advocates for themselves, so when their slice of the pie shrinks, that's generally the end of the story. Federal law will see to it that students are provided with a minimum number of calories each day, but that's also true for prisoners.

In this rapidly shifting environment for school meals, you have to wonder, just what are the children eating? Thanks to the wonders of the internet, hundreds of cafeteria menus are available for our inspection. Here's a sampling from around the country of what's being served for lunch today:

• Wicomico County, Maryland — Pork dippers with dipping sauce and dinner roll or hot dog on bun and potato rounds, cole slaw, pears

• Fulton County, Illinois — tortellini, pork tenderloin/bun, baked potato, salad bar, uncrustable PBJ, garlic bread, tossed salad, pineapple chunks, shape up in cup

• Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin — Grilled cheese, chicken noodle soup, raw vegetables and dip, mandarin oranges

• Pinellas County, Florida — Cheeseburger, Cuban pork with yellow rice, cheese stick munch and dip, potato wedges, beans, broccoli, Cuban toast

• Tate County, Mississippi — Salisbury Steak w/Gravy, Baked Chicken Nuggets, Fruit and Yogurt Salad, Ham & Cheese on Bun, Black-Eyed Peas, Straight Cut French Fries, Seasoned Cabbage, Chilled Peach Slices, Mixed Fruit, Fruit Juice, Central MS Cornbread, Rice, Saltine Crackers.

Illuminating! Almost everyone is eating pig products for lunch, and there also seems to be a preponderance of dippable items. Regional themes are clearly in play, like the Cuban toast in Florida and the intriguing "Central MS Cornbread" in Mississippi. It's heartening to see that, however unhealthy the dishes and low quality the ingredients, there's still a nod to culinary heterogeneity. Every school seems to be offering fruit and vegetables in some (unexciting) form, but that's a legal mandate; and besides, one of the articles mentioned that broccoli is now cost-competitive with flour!

But even as our school lunch program is stymied by high costs and crappy product, at least we don't have massive food poisoning outbreaks at our nation's cafeterias! For now, anyway.

Economic crunch seen in school lunch rooms [Bradenton Herald]
Food Crisis Forcing Cafeteria Managers To Try New Menus [AHN]
Food prices take bite out of school lunch menus [Star-Ledger]

[Photo: pingnews/flickr]

• Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer were spotted sharing food recently at Michael's Genuine Food & Drink. We're inclined to agree with cJ that sharing food there doesn't necessarily mean "date." [consumableJoy]

• In case you were looking for a British food market in South Florida, here are a few ideas. [Chowhound]

• Artfish on the Mile gets a couple of rave reviews. [Chowhound]

• Here's an idea for Mother's Day: strawberry squares. Those look so tasty! [Daily Cocaine]

With grain prices skyrocketing, corn doing double duty between the gas tank and the table, and beef still reeling from that gigantic recall back in February, the American food industry seems strained, to put it lightly. This might be a good time for a new, more streamlined meat product to start making inroads in the market.

And, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article re-printed in Restaurants and Institutions, that's just what's happening with goat meat. Would you call it the soccer of meats? Maybe:

"It's the No. 1 consumed meat in the world," said Scott Hollis, a goat specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "It's very popular — except here."

Goat is especially popular with Muslim, Hispanic and some Asian communities, particularly around certain holidays, such as Greek Easter, which was Sunday, Cinco de Mayo, and the end of Ramadan, which comes in the fall.

Until recently, though, it was difficult to find American goat meat. If shoppers found goat in stores, it was likely to be imported frozen from New Zealand or Australia, the world's largest exporter of goat meat.

That is starting to change as American farmers get into the meat goat biz — which, as it turns out, doesn't require all that much.

Goats aren't expensive to buy and don't need nearly the land that larger livestock does. That means more small-scale "hobby farmers" have gotten into the business as word of new demand has spread.

While goat meat burgers may not appear on the menu at McDonalds anytime soon, we're glad to see a more worldly, eco-friendly meat treat gaining popularity. A brief internal poll revealed MP staffers overall like the stuff in curries, Jamaican jerk-style, in burritos and whole on the bone. MP Chicago editor Adam Peltz remembered a particularly transcendent cut he ate in Lima: "so i got this amazing leg of kid — so succulent and flavorful for juvenile meat."

As for us, eight years of vegetarianism stunted our meat discovery growth, but just as it is gaining fans in the American marketplace, goat is on its way to the top of our meats-to-try list. Now, if we could just find a local restaurant that serves the stuff...

THE OTHER RED MEAT? Goats find way to U.S. plates [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
The American Meat Goat Association [Official Site]
Largest Recall of Ground Beef is Ordered [NY Times]
Photo: Mark Verner [Flickr]

Baleen at Grove Isle is known for fine dining and spectacular views of Biscayne Bay. For those looking for a nice place to see and be seen after work on Friday nights, the Monkey Bar is just the thing. The well-stocked bar offers a variety of top-shelf and harder-to-find gins, vodkas, and shares the restaurant’s cellars. We ordered drinks at the bar then took them outside to enjoy the view. The waitress brought out wasabi peas, mixed nuts and red chili peanuts as we sipped our beverages by the fire pit and scoped out the Macarthur Causeway. She also brought out a bar menu with an array of seafood and land lubber offerings. The Kobe beef sliders, three mouth-watering mini-burgers with griddled onions and boursin cheese, are definitely a better deal for your money than the shrimp tempura basket, although the avocado wasabi dipping sauce is surprisingly delicious. The Baleen Burger (pictured) is a sophisticated take on the bacon cheeseburger, bringing together applewood smoked bacon, American cheddar and Black Angus beef.

Baleen [MenuPages]
Baleen [Official Site]

• Rice: food crisis caused by 1) demand 2) distribution difficulties/costs 3) biofuels [IndiaTImes]
• UN: don't forget about commodities speculators! (and the craptastic dollar) [CanadianPress]
• Senate wants to add $200m to the $350m already requisitioned for food aid [NYTimes]
• Following Mars-Wrigley's megadeal, small candy members disheartened [Tribune]
• PM of Thailand, a former cooking show host, to personally make dinner for PM of Myanmar [AP]

It's time, folks: Take a long lunch, get your car/bus/train fare together, buy a magazine or two for the wait. Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day is tomorrow, and the lines will be phoenomenal!

Nah, we're just being dramatic. It's great. Ben and Jerry's feel-good ice cream company has been giving out free cones since it's one-year anniversary in 1979. Now, on it's dirty 30th birthday, the secret has somehow gotten out. Expect a bit of a wait, but it just may be worth it. You can find participating stores here, and a fun little B&J history lesson here.

No, they're not bribing us with any more free ice cream than you get.

Ben and Jerry's [Official Site]
Photo: Cresny [Flickr] Free Cone Day 2007

Add this shocker to the list of things we have in common with Drew Carey: A love of bacon-wrapped hot dogs. During our long tenure in San Francisco, we developed a late-night affection for the singular street-treats while stumbling home from bars in the Mission district.

The pork masterpieces are available from carts in many U.S. cities, as well as all over Mexico, so we know it's not just a local cuisine. Who wouldn't want a grilled, bacon-wrapped hot dog smothered in grilled peppers, onions, salsa, crema and sometimes even guacamole?

For starters, the Los Angeles Health Department, according to this fine piece of reporting by Drew Carey for Reason.tv. Take a look at the saga of an intrepid street vendor and her struggle to give the people what they want. And then try to walk away from this and not stop for a package of hot dogs and one of bacon on the way home. Bet you can't eat just one!

Food Fight: Battle of the Bacon Dogs [Reason.tv]
In Videos: Drew Carey in 'Food Fight: Battle of the Bacon Dogs' [Required Eating]

At the Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead, six dollars gets you a trip around the world and a taste of the freshest possible exotic fruit. Located at the corner of 248th street and 187th avenue, the county owned park was founded in 1944 by the Miami-Dade County Parks and Recreation Department to promote knowledge of local and exotic produce that grows in tropical climates. The result is a 35-acre property that offers a feast for the eyes and the taste buds. Friendly and knowledgeable park staff takes guests on a guided tram tour through sections of African, South Asian, and Caribbean botanicals. Guests can roam the parks on their own, but without much knowledge about the Dr. Seuss-like flora, we opted for the 45-minute tour. While on the tour, our guide explained the life-cycle of bananas, the growing season for Thai garlic, and the secrets of the calabash. She also showed us how to harvest mulberries, jaboticaba, wild Everglades tomatoes, Key apples, and even nasturtium flowers. By the mid-point of the tour, we were well over our five-a-day quota. We particularly loved the super sweet mulberries, the creamy jaboticaba that grows off the branches of the tree (pictured at left), and the spicy nasturtium flowers. The Australian section can be reached on foot, just beyond the baobab trees in Africa, but we decided to continue our adventure at the gift shop where samples of all the parks produce are free for the tasting and locally made jams, jellies, and spreads are available for purchase. If the trip inspires you to plant a little bit of Africa, Australia or the Caribbean in your backyard, the Fruit and Spice Park offers a list of nurseries that carry these exotics.

Fruit and Spice Park [Official Site]

• UN calls meeting with 20 organizations to strategize about food crisis [BBCNews]
• Rice rationing in Vietnam much more serious than Costco's fake rationing [Reuters]
• Sweetened up by Warren Buffett, Mars buys Wrigley's for $23 billion [NYTimes]
• Fat activists working to pass size non-discrimination laws [Tribune]
• 400 lb man slims to 300 lbs in jail; files lawsuit claiming malnutrition [AP]

•The new Clover machines make sure that Starbucks coffee doesn't taste like soil. [MP: Boston]
•The last paragraph of this post contains probably the raunchiest joke ever made on MenuPages. [MP: Chicago]
•No matter how much you love Obama, it's probably unsanitary to purchase his half-eaten breakfast. [MP: Philadelphia]
•OMG, San Francisco has a chain called Pizza Orgasmica! [MP: San Francisco]
•Eating on the sand seems precarious. What if the wind blew it into your food? [MP: South Florida]

America's most exclusive restaurant? It's not what you think. Not Le Cirque or Momofuku Ko or the French Laundry. Nope, the single-table Talula's Table, in tiny, historic Kennett Square, PA, about an hour outside Philadelphia, only accepts reservations one year in advance, and you have to be damned lucky to get one at all.

An upscale market by day, they convert to a restaurant after hours and do one seating a night for their renowned tasting menu. NPR reporter Alex Chadwick visited recently and reports:

A single farm table becomes center stage for one of the country's most exclusive dining experiences. A dozen lucky people gather around it to share an eight-course meal that runs from egg custard with Jonah crab to osso bucco made from pork, all prepared with local ingredients by husband-and-wife proprietors Bryan Sikora and Aimee Olexy.

Because of the restaurant's popularity and its single nightly seating, [proprietor Aimee] Olexy has devised a special system for selecting diners. Though the phone often begins ringing with requests at sunrise, she does not pick it up until 7 a.m. on the dot. The caller is then offered a reservation exactly one year later. Requests for earlier or later are denied, as are attempts to play the VIP card to skirt the procedure entirely.

Talula's: The Toughest Reservation in the U.S.? [NPR: Day to Day]
One restaurant, one table, and a year-long waiting list [Slashfood]
Talula's Table [Official Site]
Photo lifted from Hypsography

We were first introduced to lomo saltado by a Peruvian-Japanese woman who gave us a wonderful recipe for it. The dish, popular all over Peru, is a stir fry of beef, garlic, onions and peppers topped with French fries. The particular version of the dish featured above is from Aromas del Peru. Here are a few other places where you can try it:

• Chalan on the Beach comes well-recommended by MenuPages users. The menu is very seafood-heavy, but the restaurant features a $10 lomo saltado entree. Pair that with a ceviche, and that could be a pretty satisfying meal.

• Las Totoritas on NW 36th St serves a $8.85 lomo saltado. They also have an appetizer of "leche de tigre," which is described as a glass of ceviche juice. We're intrigued.

• At La Granja Parrilla in Hollywood, you can get a single portion of lomo saltado for $11.95 or a family-sized portion for $29.

Aromas del Peru [Official Site]
Chalan on the Beach [MenuPages]
Las Totoritas [MenuPages]
La Granja Parrilla [MenuPages]

Photo: Masala Cha [Flickr]

• The new Raja's Indian Cuisine location inside the Flagler Street Food Court features the same owners and the same food, just a slightly larger homeless population. [Chowhound]

• Sara tells us about the $22 lunch at China Grill. [All Purpose Dark]

• Dining with kids can be an adventure! L2M had success with the under-4 set at Oasis Cafe, Jaguar and Havana Harry's. [Spangdish]

• If you're looking for good recommendations for Key Biscayne, here's a good place to start. [Chowhound]

• Ban Ki-moon laments global food crisis for the bazillionth time [AP]
• The stalled farm bill contains much-needed relief for poor families [Tribune]
• Reuters has two detailed writeups on the food crisis that review the causes and recount the latest woes, of which there are many [Reuters, Reuters]
• Our pretend cousin Nelson Peltz just bought Wendy's for $2.3b [NYTimes]

Psst. Ever wanted to have you own hot dog cart? Maybe you've entertained dreams of making your own dirty water dogs. Maybe you've read A Confederacy of Dunces one time too many. Or maybe you're just a rich person with too much free time on your hands.

Either way, Hammacher Schlemmer is here to help. We just got word that their catalog now features an "Authentic New York Hot Dog Vendor Cart. Here's the word from HM:

"Made of durable food-grade 18-gauge stainless steel, the cart rolls on two 20" pneumatic wheels and a locking caster with two handles that provide easy maneuvering. It has three removable 360" cu. stainless steel steamer trays that can each hold up to 20 hot dogs or sausages. The front of the cart has a storage ring and hook-up for a propane tank (not included); propane provides fuel for the dual burner assembly housed in the rear interior of the cart directly under the three steamers; burners may be individually controlled by knobs in the cart's rear. A top-loading 3,000" cu. ice cooler keeps your beverages and meats cold; a drain plug on the bottom of the chassis allows you to drain meltwater. The front of the cart houses a two shelf storage or display area for drinks, buns, or condiments; additional storage area is located underneath."

The best part? The cart can be used to make Chicago-style dogs as well.

The Authentic New York Hot Dog Vendor Cart [Hammacher Schlemmer]

With the scorching Miami summer just around the corner, now is the time to take advantage of the fine Miami establishments that offer outdoor seating. The evening lows are still in the high-60s to mid-70s, and a fresh breeze keeps the mosquitoes at bay. Here’s a quick round-up of some downtown South Miami establishments where you can grab a drink or dinner

Bougainvillea’s Old Florida Tavern: strictly a watering hole, the bar encourages patrons to B.Y.O.F. (bring your own food) and enjoy the shade of their towering oak trees.

Town Kitchen & Bar: Lounge-style seating and cozy tables on a lower-traffic corner of South Miami’s downtown make this a comfortable place for pizza and bellinis after work.

Casa Larios: Their outside terrace can comfortably seat large groups and the ceiling fans ensure there is always a breeze over your bistec de palomilla.

Martini Bar: Not just a hoppin’ night club, Martini Bar is perfectly located inside Sunset Place for people watching.

Some others to keep in mind: Dan Marino's, Deli Lane Cafe & Tavern

Bougainvillea's Old Florida Tavern [Official Site]
Town Kitchen & Bar [MenuPages]
Town Kitchen & Bar [Official Site]
Casa Larios [MenuPages]
Martini Bar [MenuPages]
Martini Bar [Official Site]

There's a very enticingly titled post from Tuesday on Bon Appetit's editor's blog. It's called How To Start A Cooking Club. That sounds like a great idea. We (densely) never even thought of it before, but it's a club where a bunch of friends get together and cook interesting stuff. Fun, right?

While the body of this particular blog entry doesn't specifically outline instructions on cooking club formation — rather a series of jealousy-inducing photos of the author's own cooking club's latest accomplishments — the author sends readers to the extremely handy Bon Appetite Cooking Club page, which does feature pdf downloads on the basics of starting and organizing a cooking club, as well as monthly menus, including recipes and a game plan.

This is definitely the season for getting out of the house, sipping wine on the fire escape, lollygagging with your friends in the park and destroying the kitchen with way-too-ambitious recipes. Get out there and do it, folks!

How To Start A Cooking Club [Epicurious/BA Blog]
The Bon Appetit Cooking Club [Epicurious/BA]
Photo: Aftermath, by Dishevld [Flickr]

• Most of the Cuban staples at Sazon Cuban Cuisine are merely OK. [Miami Herald]

• Looking to impress a date? Take her to Vita, unless you think she might be offended by getting a menu with no prices on it. [Miami New Times]

• A Fork on the Road stops at Raja's Indian Cuisine for some North Indian specialties. [Miami Herald]

• We don't quite get the reason for the accent on the o in Saffrón. Not like that's a Spanish word. And we're still going to pronounce it as its supposed to be in English. No matter how the name is pronounced, the food sounds wonderful. [Miami Herald]

• Apparently you're not supposed to eat oysters in months without an 'r,' which we did not know. So hurry before May arrives! Except, after what Gail Shepherd wrote about the oysters at The Whale Raw Bar and Fish House, you might not want to try the ones there. She did, however, enjoy the pizza at Giovanni's Coal Fire Pizza across the plaza. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• Two good Mediterranean options with a focus on seafood on Miami Beach: La Marea and Maison D'Azur. [Miami New Times]

• It's "Nantucket meets Key West" at Jeff's Beach House & Grill. [Sun-Sentinel]

• Greenfield's on Atlantic offers a good value for the money. [Sun-Sentinel]

• Our little Sam's Club rice sales limit tagged as "food rationing" [Guardian]
• Japan's butter shortage initiated by dairy cow cull two years ago [Salon]
• More countries (Uganda this time) telling their citizens to garden [AllAfrica]
• FDA to animal feed manufacturers: no more mad cow prions in the mix [Reuters]
• Farm bill, still unresolved, is increasingly out of step with reality [NYTimes]

Eat out on Thursday, May 1 and without spending an extra penny, help raise money for those in the local community affected by HIV/AIDS through Dining Out for Life. Almost 50 restaurants in Miami-Dade and Broward counties are participating in the event; each is donating either a set amount of money or a percentage of the revenue from that night — for most, it'll be 25 percent. So check out the list of participating restaurants and make reservations!

Dining Out For Life South Florida [Official Site]

Just as the country has finally re-embraced carbs after the whole Atkins nightmare, now we're all going to be forced onto low-carb diets by rising food prices. First, wheat. There's the worldwide rice shortage that will soon be seriously affecting us. Now beer prices are increasing because of the scarcity of hops and barley.

Two ingredients — hops and malted barley — are behind much of the price increases.

Hops produce the chemicals that give beer its distinct flavor. Some varieties are used to bitter the drink. Others impart its floral aromas. Most commercially grown domestic hops come from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

After water, malted barely is the next-biggest ingredient in beer. It provides the sugars that turns into alcohol when the beer is fermented.

Barley prices have risen because of worldwide demand for grains, including wheat, corn and rice. Philip Sutton, owner of Skyscraper Brewing Co., a small brewery in El Monte, said the price of a 50-pound bag of malted barley had jumped to $22, or 57% higher than a year ago.

Hops prices are soaring even more. Sutton paid $3.40 to $4.70 a pound for hops a year ago. The least expensive hops he has found this year were $12.63 a pound, and he's paid all the way up to $22.45. But that's only if he can find them.

"The hops that we like to use just aren't available," Sutton said. That has forced him to substitute other hops in some of his beer recipes "and that makes a different beer. It's still good but isn't what we would ideally have," said Sutton, who has raised his prices 20% to 30%.

Rising beer prices hard to swallow [Los Angeles Times]
Asia limits rice exports as prices and uncertainty rise [Christian Science Monitor]

Photo, of barley: Shandchem [Flickr]

After reading yesterday's item in trade mag Restaurants and Institutions about a drive-through dispute that resulted in a double stabbing in Texas (!?), we got just curious enough to Google the term "fast-food rage" (but without the quotes).

Turns out there are all kinds of examples of idiots wailing on one another while in line or in the parking lots of fast food restaurants. Usually, it seems to have to do with vehicular disputes, more like road rage that happens to be taking place in the parking lot of a McDonalds, though there is this one case in Georgia back in August where a woman got so mad at perceived line-jumping inside the store that she tried to run down a couple outside. Yikes!

But none of these fights seem to stem from the one behavior in fast food restaurants that makes us seriously consider throwing a punch: the jerk who takes too long at the self-serve coffee machine. Seriously, if you don't drop that cream in and mix it as you're walking away so the rest of us can get our fix, we think manhandling you out of there should be a viable option.

But a Google search for "coffee rage" (with and without quotes) turned up only this incident in Boston, to speak of, when a couple of customers got into it in the drive-through of a Dunkin Donuts. Again: road rage, not coffee rage.

People, hear this now: You're spinning your wheels fighting each other over French fries and drive-through windows. If a state of terror existed around the self-serve coffee dispenser, the world would be a better place.

Fast food drive-through rage leads to double-stabbing [Restaurants and Institutions]
Fast food flare-up: Possible road-rage at McDonald's [KTVB Idaho]
Angry Woman Gets Revenge At McDonald's [Associated Press]
Food Fights Across Boston [Universal Hub]
Photo: Coffee Rage album cover, lifted from Mad Blasts of Chaos

• PETA offers paltry $1m for construction of artificial meat lab [AP]
• Bad press forces meat industry to support banning downer cows [PE]
• Another cause of the food crisis: structural adj. programs [AllAfrica]
• Congress mad at USDA for sucking, in wake of herapin scandal [VOA]
• In sign of times, McD int'l sales way up, US sales way down [Tribune]

The Business Improvement District of Coral Gables is launching a restaurant week beginning Monday, June 2. We don't have too many details yet, but we do know that the following restaurants are participating: Cacao Restaurant, Caffe Abbracci, California Pizza Kitchen, Fleming's Prime Steakhouse, La Cofradia, La Dorada, Ortanique on the Mile, Caramelo, Tarpon Bend, Sushi Maki, Benihana, Artfish on the Mile, Two Sisters, Fritz & Franz Bierhaus, Hoja Nueva, John Martin's and Por Fin Restaurant.

We also learned that the Morton's that's coming to Miracle Mile will be opening sometime during restaurant week, although the restaurant won't be participating.

Business Improvement District of Coral Gables [Official Site]
Morton's [Official Site]

A torrent of articles from around the country have made certain what we noticed anecdotally the other day at the supermarket: America is in the grips of a severe matzo shortage. While there was just enough to go around for seders on Saturday and Sunday nights, observant Jews are scrambling to find supplies of the unleavened bread to sustain them for the rest of Passover, another five or six days of dietary restriction.

Theories for why this is happening this year abound, but are ultimately limited in scope. The aforementioned articles have pointed to recalcitrant retailers like Trader Joe's who have declined to carry matzo this year, stymied suppliers like Manischewitz that couldn't make Tam Tam mini-matzos because of equipment failures, and cantankerous consumers who didn't plan ahead and rushed to buy the limited cache of matzo all at once.

But these explanations ignore the reality that, while matzo is certainly a niche product, what this amounts to, more or less, is a bread shortage. As people around the globe are increasingly — and for many, painfully — aware, the price of wheat has DOUBLED in the past year. Matzo, as you may or may not know, is made of NOTHING BUT wheat! So it costs more to make, and less was made. We're merely implying causality here, but let's put aside our lack of hard evidence and consider the following:

All of a sudden, the people of the developing world are rapidly increasing their average daily calorie intake while the land, water, and energy resources used to grow food products are rapidly diminishing in quantity and quality. The wealthiest ten percent of the world has been materially unaffected by this imbalance, but billions are forced to sacrifice and hundreds of millions are on the brink of starvation. It is unfortunate that the richest decile of the world's population — the people who are in the best positions, politically and economically, to address the food crisis — have little in the way of structural incentives to make the sort of wholesale systemic changes to the global food/energy system that is necessary to ensure sufficient, reliable and equitable supplies of foodstuffs.

Earth Day and Passover are just the kinds of navel-gazing opportunities we need to encourage us to consider how to go about feeding ourselves in this new era of unprecedented high demand and low supply. While many await a technological panacea to rescue us from our present conundrum, no real solution is possible without a shift in attitude by the world's producing class (that, or we could start eating a hell of a lot less meat). The matzo shortage story may not exactly be a warning shot across the bow, but it's certainly a sign that no one's entirely immune to global commodities turmoil.

It’s Passover. Who’s Hiding the Matzo? [NYTimes]
Matzo in short supply for Bay Area Passover [SFGate]
Hit or miss with finding matzo as Passover looms closer [MercuryNews]
As Passover nears, matzo in short supply [Contra Costa Times]
Matzo shortage at many Reno stores looms for Passover [Reno Gazette-Journal]
Price Volatility Adds to Worry on U.S. Farms [NYTimes]
In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo [NYTimes]
Rising Demand for Meat Takes Toll on Environment [NPR]

[Photo: no more matzo, in any language (missapril1956)]

N.B. Special bonus! There's also a shortage on Kosher-for-Passover margarine because farmers planted ethanol corn in lieu of cotton last year. Hope you like your flourless chocolate cakes dry!

When you come to Sundowners on the Bay (mile marker 104), the hostesses greet you with the traditional restaurant question “Indoor or Outdoor?”, but add the not-so-traditional: “On the Deck or the Sand?” Intrigued at the possibility of more beach side dining, we promptly responded, “Sand!” The friendly hostess then directed us to a sweet table ten feet away from the water. The sun began its descent as the waiter took our order. We ordered drinks while we drank in the sunset: a Key lime martini for us that tasted exactly like Key lime pie and even had a graham cracker rim, and a Peroni for the fiancée.

After perusing the menu, we both decided to go for the Friday night fish fry: all-you-can eat dolphin fingers, fries, corn, and coleslaw. For $16, this dinner surely left us satisfied, but we saved enough room to try the white chocolate crème brulèe with raspberry sauce, a sweet finish to a stunning evening. Although, we think we had the best seat in the house, there isn’t a bad place to sit at Sundowners. The restaurant faces west towards the bay and floor to ceiling windows ensure that even those sitting inside feel the nearness of the water. The indoor part of the restaurant also sits on higher ground which slopes downward to accommodate a bar and the sandy seats. The stadium effect ensures that everyone has a clear view of the sunset and the boats coming into the adjacent marina.

Sundowners on the Bay [MenuPages]
Sundowners on the Bay [Official Site]

As America gets ahold of itself in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit, the time has come for parsing and analyzing every little thing His Holiness did while abroad in our native land. Not the least of these is what he ate.

Last week, former Cardinal John Ratzinger visited the United States for the first time since becoming the Catholic church's 265th pope in 2005. While in New York City, celebrity chef, local restaurateur and cookbook author Lidia Bastianich, along with a team of high-profile chefs cooked for His Holiness. Bastianich emigrated from Italy in 1958, when she was 12, with the help of Catholic Charities. From the New York Daily News:

Bastianich was asked two months ago if she would like to cook for the Pope, and didn't even believe it at first. "I looked around behind me, to see if they were talking to someone else," she says. "The Pope even looks like my father, and I kind of feel as if it's my father coming to dinner. For me, it is an opportunity to welcome someone as family and make the Pope feel comfortable."

You can take a look at the full menu on Serious Eats, as well as some recipes on ABC's website. There's also a website dedicated to the visit with a full roundup. We simply can't imagine the pressure Bastianich must have felt, but she seems to have pulled it off. Congratulazioni, Lidia!

Bastianich plans a meal fit for the Pope [NY Daily News]
Cooking for the Pope: Lidia Bastianich Comes Full Circle [Serious Eats]
Recipes: Cooking For The Pope [ABC]
United States Papal Visit 2008 [Official Site]
Lidia Bastianich [Official Site]
Photo: Nuncatrezeamesa [Flickr]

• Fast food calorie listing rolls out in New York to yawns [NYTimes]
• Food safety art project terror professor's case dismissed [TimesUnion]
• Federal crackdown on raw milk not sitting well with farmers [Tribune]
• WFP: 100m more people on food assistance than six months ago [BBC]
• Slow Food movement looks for a hook in Asia's fast lane [Reuters]
• Matzo shortage raises more questions than it answers [NYTimes]

see more crazy cat pics

Omg, lolcatz are soooo cute. You know who agrees? Jones Soda. They luv the little guys so much they haz contest for label! And you can vote!

For the uninitiated (anyone, anyone?) lolcatz are the hilariously cute photoshop jobs where people make "capshuns" of pictures of animals &mdash usually cats &mdash in lolspeak, "teh furst language born of teh intertubes." They come from the site icanhascheezburger.com.

Now the way hip marketing staff over at way hip Jones Soda (known for using customer-submitted snapshots on its labels) has this very fun idea to make lolcatz labels for its bottles. They did a call for submissions, and now there's a post up where you can vote on the favorite. It is, no surprise, getting a lot of hits, but the funniest part is the ire raised in hardcore lolspeakers posting comments about how their submissions didn't get picked:

i uhgri meh copeez have ben owevrluked. maybeh dis kitteh site needz mawr hutzspa awl mai cheezez neber make it wen i iz lauffin 2 much at mai own. theez wunz nawt sew hyoomoruss

The Hungry Man informs us that the CityPlace location of the famed Columbia Restaurant is closing its doors. In fact, it's already been deleted from the company's official website; the West Palm Beach location is no longer listed on top. Here's what Charles Passy had to say about it:

I can’t say I’m surprised. Or disappointed.

I made it only once to the West Palm Columbia. I loved the airy space — and I loved the wine list (probably the deepest collection of Spanish wines in all of the Southeast, if not all of the United States) — but the food was no great shakes. A Spanish restaurant lives and dies by its paella. Columbia’s version was middling at best. In fact, it wasn’t as good as the paella I’ve had at Cabana, the hip Cuban eatery in downtown West Palm.

Moreover, I’m not so certain that Columbia’s other locations are worth the hype. I haven’t been to the Tampa original, but I did visit a Columbia in Clearwater once. The food was so bad I ended up writing management a letter of complaint. Methinks there’s been a fair bit of coasting-on-the-legend going on…

Another CityPlace casualty: Columbia crashes [The Hungry Man]
Columbia [MenuPages]
Columbia [Official Site]

This Friday our plans for a pre-concert tailgate at the BankAtlantic Center had to be postponed due to the untimely death of Danny Federici, organist and accordionist for the E-Street Band. With our cooler full of goodies, we headed instead to the quiet splendor of John Pennekamp Park in Key Largo to diminish our sorrows. The Keys did not disappoint. The nearly empty park seduced our senses with a cool breeze and the gentle lap of waves against the mangroves. We drove down to the Far beach, just past the Visitor’s Center and the kayak and canoe rentals, to set our tailgate turned beach-nic up on a shady spot. Top-notch Publix subs hit the spot, as did the Doritos and Krispy Kreme crullers. These made-to-order subs, fresh from the Publix deli, are one of the city’s best kept sandwich secrets. For under $10, the hair-net wearing deli ladies will concoct a twelve-inch monster sandwich using premium Boar’s Head deli meats and all the fixings. Publix is also a great place to get the rest of your tailgate or picnic needs, including beverages and utensils. At the beach, we weren’t the only ones enticed by our Publix products. Pennekamp is populated by some of the most audacious squirrels we had ever seen. The bright-eyed and bushy-tailed little monsters jumped right on the picnic table and seemed schooled by Yogi and Boo Boo in the fine art of stealing picnic baskets. They loved the Doritos, but didn’t seem to care too much for black olives.

John Pennekamp State Park [Official Site]
Publix [Official Site]

Have you ever heard of meat, actual meat, that does not come from an animal? Well, it exists, and according to the New York Times, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants it to take over the food world.

The animal rights group has offered a $1 million reward for the “first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012.”

In vitro meat is the laboratory-grown meat substance based on stem cells taken from live animals. it's been around for a few years, but so far scientists haven't found a way to make its mass-production economically viable.

The attraction to PETA is obvious: Get lab-grown meat main-streamed and you reduce the amount of animals getting slaughtered for actual meat. But according to the Times, the move caused something of a schism in the PETA office.

Lisa Lange, a vice president of the organization, said she was part of the heated exchange. “My main concern is, as the largest animal rights organization in the world, it’s our job to introduce the philosophy and hammer it home that animals are not ours to eat.” Ms. Lange added, “I remember saying I would be much more comfortable promoting eating roadkill.”

PETA’s Latest Tactic: $1 Million for Fake Meat [NY Times]
In Vitro Meat
[NY Times]
Evil Monkey’s Guide to Kosher Imaginary Animals [Ecstatic Days]
Photo: Andreyphoto.com [Flickr]

• Ban Ki-moon issues his daily reminder on the direness of the food crisis [TPA]
• If the food crisis is bad now, what happens when there are 9 billion of us? [CSM]
• For starters, we'll have to give up our opposition to GM crops. Oh well! [NYTimes]
• Meanwhile, crop prices are wreaking counterintuitive havoc on farmers [AP]
• China's new food safety laws carry a maximum punishment of life in prison [Guardian]
• Gullible Australians believe the stupidest food safety myths [SMH]

•"When in France (even though this loaf is not a French native), one must have a nice and crusty bread to have on the counter, in case of emergency (or spontaneous company)." [MP: Boston]
•"Pastries are funny." [MP: Chicago]
•"Philadelphia is every bit as much a hamburger town as New York." [MP: Philadelphia]
•"Discounted drinks and cheap eats; there’s nothing better to get the reluctant tax payer spending again." [MP: San Francisco]
•"Sure, we want restaurants to have sufficient toilet paper in their restrooms, and we like it when they offer up the daily specials' prices. But it's not really something that needs to be legislated." [MP: South Florida]

• There is barbecue behind the Publix at 48th Street and Biscayne Boulevard. And it looks really good. [Daily Cocaine]

• Blind Mind checks out a new restaurant in the Grove. [Blind Mind]

• Sara has fun with chocolate pencils. [All Purpose Dark]

• Lots of good options for West Palm Beach dining here. [Chowhound]

Lan Pan-Asian Cafe [MenuPages]
Lan Pan-Asian Cafe [Official Site]

• The global food crisis and riots aren't going away [NYTimes]
• Guyana's idea: give everyone seeds for gardening [AP]
• USDA brazenly says slaughterhouse oversight sufficient [Baltimore Sun]
• Will the country-of-origin labeling bill go far enough? [LATimes]
• Walmart to pull the plastic baby bottles w/ leaky chemicals [Tribune]

This kind of stuff just strikes us as so silly:

Troubled by restaurants that don't disclose the price of their specials, Aventura Commissioner Bob Diamond is pushing the county to adopt a law requiring eateries to, at the very least, tell diners how much each special costs.

That'll end the nasty billing surprises for consumers who are too embarrassed to ask for a price, Diamond said.

''Many people, particularly seniors, are often hesitant to ask,'' he said. ``I've continued to receive complaints.''

At a Thursday workshop, the city commission agreed to draft a resolution asking the county's Consumer Services Department, which enforces consumer protection laws and business regulations and investigates complaints, to come up with a law.

Diamond said he has received complaints from many Aventura residents. In fact, he has had some personal experience -- like the time a server recommended a bottle of wine to him and some friends, he said. Someone in the group asked for the price: $280.

''I've been fooled a couple of times, I don't want to be fooled again,'' said Diamond.

If the county was to adopt such a regulation, it would be effective in every restaurant countywide, he said.

We've never really had a problem asking for prices of specials — no embarrassment, and waiters have always readily offered them up sans sneer. But we can see how it might get embarrassing if you're, say, treating a large group of people to dinner in a nice restaurant. A good rule is to assume that any specials are about the same price as the most expensive entrees on the menu.

On the menu: Disclosure of daily restaurant specials [Miami Herald]
Fla Legislators Wasting Time On Toilet Paper [MP: South Florida]

Photo of the specials board at the now-departed Rascal House: ponceypix [Flickr]

We headed down last night to Mary Brickell Village for drinks and dinner. Miami traffic was mercifully light and we found a spot right on 10th street a block down from the village. Arriving at 6:30, we just sneaked under the bar for happy hour (daily from 4pm-7pm) and settled into a vodka tonic. A cool breeze made its way across the outside patio and the sun set blissfully on the horizon. Blue Martini's signature atmosphere and three distinct party areas (patio, stage room, and VIP) ensure that everyone can have the kind of evening they are looking for. Wednesday nights are also ladies nights, meaning we didn't have to rush to the Village. All of their signature martinis are half priced. A six-dollar Bellini always tastes better. Last night, the club also ran a free drink promotion for its female guests. With all of these potent libations, we needed some food and fast. Luckily for us, Rosa Mexicano is right downstairs. We were seated within minutes (a first for me at Rosa) and were soon tucking into some hearty guacamole. For an entree, we had the pollo tacos asados. Rosa serves the cheese, chicken and peppers combo on a mini-cast-iron skillet, with terracotta cups of roasted creamed corn, Mexican baked beans, and a mesclun salad with lime vinaigrette. Refried beans, rice, and hand-made tortillas are served family style.

Blue Martini [MenuPages]
Blue Martini [Official Site]
Rosa Mexicano [MenuPages]
Rosa Mexicano [Official Site]

Ah the Jersey Shore, a seaside escapade that offers more than just sand and sun, bringing together piers of entertainment and a boardwalk lined with tasty treats. In the past, Miamians needed a plane ticket and a beach pass to savor these delights, but with the opening of the Boardwalk Tavern & Pizzeria in Coconut Grove, an authentic slice of Jersey pizza is just a short drive away. The pizzeria/bar recently opened up across the street from Le Bouchon du Grove, the former home of Cozzoli's. While the ovens are still the same, the pizza is a huge upgrade. Owner Paul imports the dough daily from NYC, for that true up-state flavor. The Boardwalk Tavern offers traditional bar snacks, like chicken wings and nachos, as well as salads and pasta. The decor is true to the Shore with pictures of Seaside and Belmar lining the walls and arcade games for entertainment and atmosphere.

My advice: Come hungry and bring friends; you will want to order a fresh pie rather than having just one slice.

Boardwalk Tavern & Pizzeria [MenuPages]

• Victoria Pesce Elliott totally pans Cefalo's in the Grove. It merited just one-and-a-half stars, although given what she wrote about it, we're surprised she even gave it that much. [Miami Herald]

• Linda Bladholm discovers an Argentine restaurant in Sunny Isles owned by a husband-and-wife team who used to design women's clothing and model them in Argentina. Seems like they've transitioned to the restaurant business well. [Miami Herald]

• The new Two Chefs Too still needs to work out some kinks. [Miami New Times]

• A roundup of homey Italian places in Broward County. [Miami Herald]

• Your best bets at Fuji are the Chinese or pan-Asian dishes. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• Pizza Fusion is eco-friendly and tasty. [Palm Beach Post]

• The next chapter of the food crisis will be about Asia's lack of water [AlterNet]
• Half a decade into drought, Australia gives up on growing rice [NYTimes]
• Bangladesh, of all places, expects bumper rice crop this year [AFP]
• EU, eager to set an example, to avoid food export protectionism [BBC]
• World Bank/UN food plan puts blame on, opposed by rich countries [Guardian]
• A core inflation figure that excludes food and energy is unhelpful [Union-Tribune]
• Intern takes the heat for McCain recipe plagiarism mini-scandal [AP]

• Check out the smoked fish at Mo's Bagel & Deli in North Miami Beach. [Critical Miami]

• Grilled pizza from the cheesemaker at the Upper Eastside Greenmarket! [Daily Cocaine]

• If you're looking for a good place to eat in Homestead, here's a good list with which to start. [The Citizen Cane]

• Hilda visits Hakan Turkish Grill and has a great time. Try the Turkish wine. [FoodTastic!]

Even food can be divided along party lines! At least so say the pollsters quoted in today's New York Times story about it. Actually, they divide it even further: by candidate. We'll start with cereal. Can you match the cereal to the candidate? (No peeking at the article! Answers are after the jump.)

1. Bear Naked Granola
2. Kashi Go Lean
3. Fiber One

The first thing that comes to mind is the high fiber content of each of these cereals. Go America! Most of you are starting the day right.

As far as beverages are concerned, Republicans like Dr. Pepper, bourbon, scotch and red wine. Democrats like Pepsi, Sprite, gin, vodka and white wine. (Pepsi? Seriously? All the Democrats we know, most of whom are under 30, are Diet Coke drinkers.)

So political strategists actually use your food habits to target you with propaganda for their particular candidates. Which strikes us as amusing, really, because we imagine that food is not exactly the best indicator of the way someone will vote. Especially given the increasing popularity of natural/organic/hormone-free/local foods, which are apparently favorites of Obama supporters. As the article mentions, there are often a number of different reasons for eating natural foods: environmental (traditionally left-wing), health (bipartisan) or quality (also bipartisan — Republicans like local heirloom tomatoes too).

Still, we must admit, this kind of stuff is fun.

What's for Dinner? The Pollster Wants to Know [New York Times]

Photo, of some political cheese at Zabar's in Manhattan: msnyc111 [Flickr]

Answers: 1. Obama; 2. Clinton; 3. McCain

It's hard to improve on the American classic, burgers and fries, without losing the meal's ease and simplicity, but at OneBurger in Coral Gables, this Americana staple gets all gussied up. OneBurger, a hip and trendy eatery, spices up the traditional sandwich by offering a plethora of toppings including goat cheese, roasted peppers, pesto, bacon, cheddar, and mozzarella on your choice of beef, chicken, turkey or veggie burger. Sides aren't limited to plain potatoes, as diners can choose from sweet potato fries, yuca fries, onion rings, soup, or salad. We went for the double decker bacon cheddar burger with onion rings, and the goat cheese and roasted pepper burger with sweet potato fries. The double-decker proved yet again that you can never have too much bacon and cheese, and the neatly stacked onion rings were crispy and light. We weren't quite sure how goat cheese would pair with the smoky burger, but it couldn't have been more delicious. The sweet potato fries were some of the best we have eaten, succulent and salty. OneBurger also makes an Italian inspired burger with buffalo mozzarella, tomato, and pesto. Delicious! Seating is limited at OneBurger, but during lunch hours outdoor seating is available next door at the Globe.

OneBurger [MenuPages]
OneBurger [Official Site]

• Good news: we're 15 years maximum from non-food crop biofuels [Telegraph]
• France up and passes law banning prorexia propaganda, confusing public [WaPo]
• Should we be concerned that China's food prices are up 21% this year? [BBCNews]
• Psychographic pollsters say you vote what you eat. Mmm...granola [NYTimes]
• With Philly restaurant name, tradition trumps empathy and understanding [Tribune]

Yes!

Virtually all of you will be getting a $600 tax refund this spring in an ill-advised scheme to restart the U.S. economy. The myopic goal of the refund is for us to spend the money immediately on consumer products and services, so why not blow it all on one epic restaurant meal?

Let us cast aside the $1000 sundae (gold foil) at Serendipity 3 and the $1000 omelet (ten ounces of sevruga) at Norma's — both in New York — as pure silliness, and instead focus on tasting menus, but sans alcohol. If you added in wine pairings, you could go over $600 on the first sip.

It's remarkable, isn't it, that you can spend $10,000 easy on 750 milliliters of fermented grape juice, but it is extremely difficult to imagine a $10,000 meal that doesn't involve kilos of truffles and caviar and the like. Can a $100 meal provide as much palate pleasure as a $1000 bottle of wine? We'd posit so; the price to quality ratio for wine is logarithmic, but only geometric or maybe even just arithmetic for food. Suffice it to say, a $600 meal is going to be really, really, really good, and a lot less risky of a financial investment than a $600 bottle of wine. So where, on Tax Day 2008, are our $600 meals going to come from?

Well, not too many places in America — sorry, Uncle Sam! Even the most renowned and priciest restaurants in the United States are hard-pressed to get you up to the $600 mark on food alone. French Laundry, Thomas Keller's landmark fresh/seasonal restaurant in Yountville, CA, charges a mere $240. Alinea, Grant Achatz's cutting-edge molecular gastronomy spectacle in Chicago is all of $195 for twenty-odd courses; possibly one of the best deals in the country, and actually worth some fraction of your refund.

Superexpensive restaurants tend to cluster in money cities, which is why Joel Robuchon chose unseemly Las Vegas for his first venture in the United States; his eponymous restaurant in the MGM Grand has a $385, sixteen course tasting menu that's nothing to sneeze at. Right now, the menu includes a dish with abalone (which retails for over $100 a pound) and baby leeks in a ginger bouillon, for example.

America's ultimate money city is, of course, New York. Where else could those aforementioned $1000 dishes exist without shame, and even find customers! The second most expensive restaurant in the city is Per Se, Tom Keller's other restaurant. The prix fixe there is $275, not much of a premium over the rural California version.

Our winner today is Masa, the country's preeminent sushi restaurant (at least if you use cost as your primary metric!) It was opened by Chef Masa (there's a surcharge for the surname) in 2004, with the only menu option being a $350 omakase, exclusive of drinks, tax and a mandatory 20% tip. The prix fixe has only risen $50 in the past four years (only!), but don't fret: you can tack on a supplement of Wagyu beef from Masa's home prefecture of Tochigi to nudge it up to $600, thus fulfilling the mission of wasting your tax refund.

Meanwhile, Wagyu beef is the culprit at the most expensive restaurant in the world, Tokyo's Aragawa steakhouse. There, a twenty ounce cut of some of the best-quality meat in existence runs a shade over $600, depending on the exchange rate. For a single piece of steak! And the service and decor are shoddy! Still, wow.

French Laundry [Official Site]
Alinea [MenuPages]
Alinea [Official Site]
Joel Robuchon [Official Site]
Per Se [MenuPages]
Per Se [Official Site]
Masa [MenuPages]
Masa [Official Site]

[Photo: your tax refund, in meat form (at Aragawa, via dottyguy/flickr]

You'll have to forgive us today for the very light blogging. We have a pretty bad sinus infection, and we just returned from a most unpleasant three-hour excursion to the doctor's office. Now it's off to fill prescriptions. So please bear with us. We hope to resume regular blogging tomorrow.

Since we're all about vacation these days, perhaps it's time to show you this video of a restaurant we're just a tiny bit obsessed with. It's part of the Hilton in Maldives and is, according to this video and others, the world's first underwater restaurant. There's no narration here or anything. Just pretty pictures. Cool, eh?

• American policymakers still in denial about ethanol's role in food crisis [NYTimes]
• The IMF estimates that 100m people are severely affected by food crisis [FWI]
• Bush releases $200m from food fund for immediate stability aid [CNN]
• The World Bank wants to raise $500m for food aid, especially in Africa [MG]
• Haitian food riots, having taken six lives, finally quiet down [VOA]

Adding wine to your meal is the easiest way to run up the tab quickly. So these Monday and Tuesday deals at Cacao are sure to please the penny-pinchers. On Mondays, or "Loco Lunes," the restaurant offers a list of wines by the bottle that are 50 percent off. On "Tuesdays Uncorked," you can bring your own wine — up to two bottles per tables — and there's no corkage fee.

Cacao Restaurant [MenuPages]
Cacao Restaurant [Official Site]

Photo: c00lmarie [Flickr]

We're taking a vacation in Mexico this week — Mazatlan, to be exact — and thought we'd share a few photos of what we'll be consuming. These are all from other people's Flickr photostreams, but they give you a good idea of what's going down the gullet in the Pearl of the Pacific.

There will definitely be plenty of these:

It's especially delicious with a couple of these:

More jealousy-inducing photos after the jump:

You have to be careful of the dangerous and apparently cannibalistic wildlife:

But seafood in Mexico isn't always cooked. Just throw some lime juice on there, marinate and you've got a wonderful ceviche:

You don't always have to eat seafood in Mazatlan. These people got to go to a party back in 1986 that included puerco, a whole roast pig (though they do still make this today). Check the classic apple in the mouth of the dinner and the extra-classic sta-prest pants on the diner.

If you need a bite on the run, you can stop by a taco stand for a snack that will likely cost less than a dollar and taste a million times better than almost any fast food in the U.S.

Finally, for dessert or maybe breakfast, there's got to be a stop at the Panederia. These pan dulces are super good and not too sweet:

There's just barely time to catch the last rays over the Pacific. Awesome:

Photo: Cassadota

Hummus Sandwich: n. a delightful combination of the Middle Eastern chickpea and tahini paste conveniently enveloped by two slices of multi-grain bread. With the addition of crisp cucumber and tomato slices and slivers of roasted red pepper, the hummus sandwich provides the flavorful nutrition of its predecessor, hummus dip, without the risk of “dipper’s wrist” — a rare, but lamentable condition caused by repeatedly engaging in a scooping motion, usually with a chip or pita slice in hand. Served daily at The Cafe at Books & Books in Coral Gables, the hummus sandwich can usually be found in the company of a mesclun salad with the café’s signature Dijon vinaigrette.

The Cafe at Books & Books [MenuPages]
The Cafe at Books & Books [Official Site]

• At global economic conference, food crisis trumps credit crisis [NYTimes]
• France says: the EU really needs to do something about the food crisis [BBC]
• One reason food prices are up: vastly increased farm input costs [WSJ]
• South St. Paul stockyard, once largest in the world, shutters [Post-Bulletin]
• Singles are eating black noodles for love on Black Day in S. Korea [Reuters]

Baseball season is in full swing and the Marlins are sitting pretty in first place in the NL East. (Enjoy it now — that is sure to not last long.) We've become a big fan of a newcomer to the smallish world of Marlins blogging called Bright Orange Seats. It's written by Adam, who grew up a block from the stadium but is only now fully embracing the Fish. We asked him a few questions about his food preferences before, during and after ballgames.

Name: Adam Smoot
Age: 26
Occupation: Art Director/Graphic Artist
City: North Miami (but my heart is still in Miami Gardens)

MP: You grew up a block from JRS/Pro Player/Dolphin Stadium. Where do you recommend eating before/after Marlins games?
Adam: With Denny's being the only restaurant close to the stadium (and even that place is fairly new), my suggestion instead would be to make an entire day/night of the game, if you can. If you're going to grab something to eat beforehand, my suggestion is any outdoor restaurant at Bayside Marketplace. It may be a good distance from Dolphin Stadium, but there's something about spending an entire day outdoors (eating, shopping and then a ballgame) that really seems to make for the perfect baseball experience.

If you're looking for a place to go after the game to grab something to eat, my suggestion is South Beach. Sure, many of the restaurants are over priced, but after a game the last thing you want to do is go home and sleep. Might as well go out and enjoy the Miami nightlife. And at the very least, you might run into some of the players from the visiting team. (I once bumped into a drunk Martin Brodeur while on my way to a Sugar Ray concert at Cameo. And I can't believe I just admitted to attending a Sugar Ray concert...)

MP: Have a favorite sports bar?
Adam: Smokey Bones in Plantation

MP: What kind of food would you like to see served at the new ballpark, assuming it actually gets built?
Adam: Even though I'm not all that into that particular kind of food, I'd love to see the organization embrace the Spanish community and go with a little more of a Latin flavor. It'll give the park an identity, similar to the way they serve sushi in L.A.

MP: Favorite hot dog in the area?
Adam: Whatever kind they're serving at the stadium is great. It's the size of my arm and has a pretty good flavor to it. I've always been partial to ballpark food anyway. I think it's the atmosphere of the game that makes it taste so good... I'd imagine the quality of the food isn't all that amazing, but it still tends to win me over every time I'm there.

MP: When choosing food that can double as both sustenance and ammunition against Mets fans at the ballpark, what do you pick? We're thinking cheap and messy, enough to annoy but not injure.
Adam: Believe it or not, I'm a good old fashioned sunflower seed kinda guy. You get about a half million per pack, it only costs you a couple bucks and you can annoy someone for the entire length of the game. Some people would say that this isn't an annoying enough option, but those people need to work on their accuracy. There isn't a more rewarding moment in life than landing a sunflower seed in the small opening between the collar of someone's shirt and the back of their neck, from three rows away. The best part is, they're easy to conceal, so the person you are bothering keeps turning around to see who it is, but has no chance of ever finding out that it's you.

•Is it really appropriate for a restaurant called Gandhi to offer an all-you-can-eat buffet? [MP: Boston]
•Should certain cuisines always be cheap? [MP: Chicago]
•Can restaurants withhold tips from its workers? [MP: Philadelphia]
•Will there ever be a disagreement-free "best-of" list? [MP: San Francisco]
•Is there anything wrong with a four-egg omelet? [MP: South Florida]

Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q [MenuPages]
Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q [Official Site]

What's the best way to nab that unattainable table or bounce back from a missed reservation? It's not necessarily bribery. An article in Restaurants and Institutions this week indicates that the best solution may be a mix of common sense, basic manners and flexibility.

If you are so late that your table has been given away, apologize and ask, "Is there anything you can do for us?" Most restaurants get far more last-minute cancellations than they'd like to admit, so the chances are slim that there will be nothing available for you all night. Many restaurants also have at least one reserve table that they reluctantly bring out for unexpected situations.

If the restaurant truly cannot offer you a table, try eating at the bar, as you'll get a sense of the restaurant's items and the chef's style, and the food might even be cheaper. As a bonus, you can forge a relationship with the staff, increasing your likelihood of getting — and keeping — future reservations.

But other solutions are equally as practical and more employable. for example:

Problem: The waiter tells you all about the special but doesn't mention the price.

Solution: A good way to get at the question without seeming rude is to ask, "What price point are the specials?" This phrasing is a little less specific and better than saying, "How much is that?" If you are with people you don't know well or are treating someone and don't want to seem stingy, keep in mind that specials are generally the same price as the more expensive menu items.

Experienced diners know all this stuff, but it makes good reading anyway. And even you, savvy MenuPages reader, may pick up a hint or two.

Restaurant Etiquette 101 [Restaurants and Institutions]
Momofuku Ko [Official Site]
Image: Timon [Flickr]

• Sara checks out Creek 28 and loves it. Her review of it (photos included) makes us want to go there. Right now. [All Purpose Dark]

• What Miami restaurants would you put in your top 10 list? [Chowhound]

• Happy hour at Tarpon Bend is a hit. Tere recommends the mamasita martini. [Coral Gables]

• So long, Rascal House. [Daily Cocaine]

Jerry Greenfield, one of the founders of Ben & Jerry's, will be at the Coral Gables ice cream shop (80 Aragon Ave, 305-442-1800) for just one hour on Sunday, April 13, from 3 to 4 p.m., for photos with fans. Kids get free toppings on their ice cream.

Also, don't forget free cone day is coming up! Stop by from noon to 8 p.m. on April 29 for a free cup or cone of ice cream. The chain will also be unveiling its new flavors on that day.

Ben & Jerry's [Official Site]

Photo: Dodger Chick [Flickr]

What is it about formerly McDonald's-owned Mexican chain Chipotle that gives it such a ferocious cult following? Fast Company tried to find out. Apart from commiting the sin of calling Chipotle "the Bono of the fast-food business" (!), they think it comes down to a combination of quality food and a social responsible message:

"Good food wrapped in a socially responsible message has created legions of Chipotle fans -- and a superhot business. Acquired by McDonald's in 1998 when there were only 14 Chipotles, the company went public in 2006 with 500 stores and watched its stock rise from $22 to $110 in 18 months. The now-independent outfit is enjoying an 80% revenue run-up over three years, and by year's end, it will have 840 stores and top $1 billion in annual sales."

Chipotle is influencing America's food supply chain as well — both Burger King and Wendy's have started considering imitating their humane-pork options.

Chipotle [Official Site]
Ode to a Burrito [Fast Company]

[Photo: Carnitas burrito, Flickr: skeptict]

We're big fans of bringing restaurants to Miracle Mile. We like the idea of the street being a dining destination. But lately we've been questioning the types of restaurants moving. And today, we learned that The Cereal Bowl will be opening its second location at some point this summer, right on the Mile. We just don't get the appeal. Anyway, we tried making some phone calls, but no one seemed to know when or where exactly the chain would be moving in. But it's definitely coming.

The Cereal Bowl [MenuPages]
The Cereal Bowl [Official Site]
Opening: Cereal Connection [MP: South Florida]

Photo: cerealfan25 [Flickr]

• Enrique Fernandez finds excellent Spanish cuisine in a Pinecrest shopping center. [Miami Herald]

• So far, the fare at Kafa Cafe in Midtown is California-centric, but the Ethiopian siblings who own the place are hoping to add an Ethiopian menu soon. [Miami Herald]

• Lee Klein returns to OLA and finds the cuisine still relevant. [Miami New Times]

• Three stars for A La Turca, owned by a Turkish man whose family used to run Italian restaurants. Thankfully, they've given up pasta for kebabs and baklava. [Miami Herald]

• Gail Shepherd heads south to the Keys, Little Palm Island to be exact, which is reachable only by sea or air. It's the perfect place to drop lots and lots (and some more even!) cash to impress your sweetie and hobknob with the super-wealthy. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• India Garden in Coral Springs can be hit-or-miss, but hey, at least someone's trying to bring in some interesting, independent non-chain food around there. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• Forte Di Asprinio is different, stylish and accessible, and it's got a hell of a wine list. It still needs a little tweaking, but Charles Passy thinks the restaurant is just what Clematis Street needs. [Palm Beach Post]

We all know how strongly food can affect mood. Ever been hangry? It's not a pretty sight. But in an environment where very little else has the power to elevate, the role of food moves from attitude adjuster to a hook on which to hang your sanity.

This NPR story from Daniel Zwerdling takes a pretty fascinating look at the roll of meals and cooks on possibly the most remote outpost on earth: McMurdo Station, Antarctica. There, according to one worker, the quality of meals can "make or break morale of the whole station."

We've heard of prisoners rioting over the loss of peanut butter or some such dish, but at least they get a few hours of sunlight a day. In Antarctica, when it's night, it's dark for months on end. During that time there is literally no other sustenance than what comes out of the kitchen. From NPR:

Occasionally, diners lose it. Despite all the menu options, the institutionalized feel at McMurdo can often push people's buttons. Ebel, the maintenance worker, says he went "berserk" once in 1994 because he thought the cooks were always flavoring dishes with curry.

"I cleared that galley once, I cleared the whole serving area," Ebel recalls. "They were peeking around the corners at me, 'Mike calm down!' And all the food and plates got in the way."

Think about that as you head to the farmer's market for vegetables. Greens dwindling down now towards the end of the season? It could be so much worse.

Food is Morale Booster or Breaker in Antarctica [NPR]
Photo: Antarctic Sunset #4, Peterkelly [Flickr]

Sunday mornings seem made for brunch, like milk was made for Oreos and kids were made for...well you know. The trouble is Sunday only comes around once a week. At Deli Lane Cafe & Tavern, it can be Sunday everyday with their brunch specials served hot and fresh all week. We recommend sitting outside while the mosquitoes are still in hiding to soak up the South Miami atmosphere. We also recommend anything made with pancake batter; our finely-chiseled waiter told us the batter is mixed daily according to the restaurant's own special recipe and turned into Belgian waffles, pancakes, and French toast. Not in the mood for sweet? Try a savory four-egg omelet. That's right — four whole eggs, or egg whites if you prefer. After perusing the extensive, but not overwhelming menu, we settled on the Deli Lane omelet, a sophisticated brunch treat made with artichoke hearts, leeks, mushrooms and brie cheese and the Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries. If you are in calorie-counting mode, don't despair! Deli Lane also serves up "power" breakfasts, which are high in protein but low on calories.

Deli Lane Cafe & Tavern [MenuPages]
Deli Lane Cafe & Tavern [Official Site]

• As Haitian food riot violence continue, PM urged to step down [AFP]
• US & EU complicit in global food crisis, and must act to mollify it [NYTimes]
• WHAT FOOD CRISIS? Meet the $100k kitchen that's sweeping the nation [NYTimes]
• Defying government regulation, raw milk sales continue to skyrocket [AP]
• Post smoking ban, UK pubs report an increase in food sales [Mirror]
• In display of vulgarity, Seoul to put on Guinness Records food fest [Chosun]
• UK closer to banning food additives linked to child hyperactivity [Telegraph]

• Tonight's the last night for Chef Mark Militello on South Beach; his restaurant in the Nash Hotel is closing its doors. Is this a case of a chef spreading himself too thin? (Militello has three other restaurants in Boca, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm.) The restaurant has a great reputation, but as one chowhound put it, people often forget about it when making reservations or giving recommendations.

• How do you pronounce RA Sushi? We always thought it was "R-A," but when we called today to ask about new locations, we were corrected. It's "rah." At any rate, South Florida is getting two more "Rah" Sushis in the coming months: one in Pembroke Pines, which is already hiring and should be open by early May, and another in South Miami. The latter is taking a bit longer, and we were told the company is hoping for a July opening.

Mark's South Beach [MenuPages]
Mark's South Beach [Official Site]
RA is set to open our 2nd Florida location!! (Pembroke Pines) [Craigslist]
RA Sushi [MenuPages]
RA Sushi [Official Site]

Photo of the lobster pasta at Mark's South Beach: The Blissful Glutton [Flickr]

There's some weird stuff going on in restaurant kitchens these days. In the video (which should be edited down to, say, three minutes, but is still interesting — just ignore the annoying blond woman), chef Stuart Sage of Tang in Dubai demonstrates how he uses liquid nitrogen like a deep fryer to cook food — in this case, a tomato espuma — at ridiculously cold temperatures.

What freaked us out was how he scooped the espuma out of the bowl full of liquid nitrogen and immediately presented it to the woman. We'd be terrified to eat it, for fear that our tongue would immediately freeze and break into 100 pieces, and then how would we taste food. (Shudder.) Of course, the nitrogen had likely evaporated at that point, and besides, we breathe it in and out every day, right? Still. Just a teensy bit scary.

Restaurants - Cooking with Liquid Nitrogen in the Real World [YouTube]

An upcoming vacation has us stocking up on pulp novels, and it was impossible to resist breaking into Ian Fleming's Moonraker a bit early. James Bond novels often include wonderful descriptions of classic meals and this is no exception, starting with dinner at M's mythical Blades card club in London:

"Well," said M. "Caviar for me. Devilled [sic] kidney and a slice of your excellent bacon. Peas and new potatoes. Strawberries in kirsch. What about you, James?"
"I've got a mania for really good smoked salmon," said bond. Then he pointed down the menu. "Lamb cutlets. The same vegetables as you, as it's May. Asparagus with Bernaise sauce sounds wonderful. And perhaps a slice of pineapple."

But that's just our own latest exposure to the vivid descriptions of Bond's culinary escapades. Throughout the series the meals keep coming, including crab legs and pink champagne at "Bills on the Beach" (rumored to be a thinly disguised description of Joe's Stone Crab) in Miami, langouste in France and an endless stream of scrambled eggs and bacon all over the world. He even manages to scare up eggs Benedict and a bottle of Old Granddad on a train in Japan in You Only Live Twice.

Fleming can cook a meal on the page that hits as close to the gut as anything that doesn't actually consist of food. In fact, we would submit that many of his descriptions come off more satisfying than the real thing. We'll take a dining chapter of Bond over a real-life Egg McMuffin any day.

It's unlikely, on our upcoming trip, that we'll enjoy a "delicious lunch served by an even more delicious stewardess" on Continental, as Bond does in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. As long as there is a Fleming novel or two in the beach bag, the real-life menu can't hope to compare. We'll let it try, though.

So What is James Bond's Favorite Drink? [Accidental Hedonist]
James Bond food and eating [The James Bond Dossier]
Joe's Stone Crab [MenuPages]
Joe's Stone Crab [Official Site]
Photo: Pink Champagne (a Bond favorite) by Gareth Lowe1 [Flickr]

Good morning and welcome! If you are new to MenuPages, we have something in common. My name is Carmen Ruiz-Castaneda and I'll be joining the hungry and literate MenuPages bloggers. As a graduate student and artist, I'm always on the lookout for delicious bargains and creative culinary surprises. My home turf currently encompasses the Coral Gables/ South Miami circuit, but my roots are in Westchester, home of Santa's Enchanted Forest and some of the most amazing Cuban food available in the Greater Miami area. Suggestions, feedback, and comments are greatly appreciated as I'm always up for testing my palate. I may be a newbie to the blogosphere, but I love eating, talking, and writing about food, so cheers to you, to me, and to MenuPages. Salud!

• LA's Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles sues Chicago's Rosscoe's Chicken & Waffles [Tribune]
• EU Development Commissioner brashly calls African food crisis a "tsunami" [BBC]
• Minnesota Twins ballpark signature food item to involve walleyed pike? [Star Tribune]
• On farms, environment losing ground to little-known foe called CAPITALISM [NYTimes]
• Food riots in Haiti continue for a third day; UN peacekeepers worried [Guardian]
• Mich. closer to issuing food stamps bimonthly, encouraging produce purchases [MLive]

We drove by the old 5JJJJJ location on Bird Road recently and noticed a large sign advertising the upcoming opening of "El Pimiento Spanish Deli & Wine Shop." We peeked inside — the interior looks about ready for business, but it was still very much closed. So we tried calling the old numbers we had on hand for 5JJJJJ, but those were dead ends. (Oddly enough, those numbers now belong to former employees of the restaurant; we're not quite sure how that worked out.) Finally, we put two and two together: this is the second location of the popular El Pimiento in Miami Lakes. That, but not much else, was confirmed by someone at the Miami Lakes location. No opening date yet, but we'll keep you posted.

El Pimiento [Miami.com]

Potatoes are a terribly versatile starch; you can mash them, smash them, fry them, scallop, dice, puree, bake, roast, gratinate, chowederize and latkefy them...they take well to almost any preparation. Now that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has decided that they are the food of the future by dint of their caloric yield per acre (a critical metric in an era of unmitigated cereal price spikes), there will be opportunity for even more permutations of potato dishes, like some of these exotic specimens:

"Tornado Potato" — as purchasable on the streets of Seoul (superlocal):

After the jump, spuds galore!

Potato and Bacon Galette — may look like a pastry, but in reality, so much better (Loua):

Scotch Quail Egg with Purple Potato Salad — presented as a way to use leftovers, but worthy of primacy (Biggie*):

Sweet Potato Green Tea Soft Serve a.k.a Asabu Sabo — because potatoes can do anything (tychenyt):

Tofu Wrapped in Potato — potatoes can act as a powerful exoskeleton (tofu666):

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad — is it chicken? is it croutons? Guess again! (su-lin):

Red Potato Pizza — of course it tastes good (QuintanaRoo):

Potato Candy — these are made with a queen's ransom of sugar (pixchica):

Shimiimo a.k.a. Dried Potatoes — a traditional wintertime preparation in Japan; apparently they taste like mochi when fully dried (mistubako):

What is the strangest thing you've ever done with a potato? Actually, on second thought, maybe we don't want to know.

Potatoes seen as 'food of the future' [Food Navigator]

What is it with Germans reinforcing their own stereotypes? The country known for efficiency and automation, birthplace of the automat, has now debuted a new kind of mechanical restaurant that uses a fantastic series of tracks, screens and conveyor belts to deliver fresh, often locally sourced food. From the BBC:

Supersonic sausages, high-pace pancakes and wine bottles whizzing down to the customers' tables with the help of good old gravity. One pot is spiralling down so fast, it looks like an Olympic bobsleigh (but it's only Bratwurst).

What's more, at the 's Baggers restaurant in Nuremberg, you don't need waiters to order food. Customers use touch-screen TVs to browse the menu and choose their meal....

Up in the kitchen, it is man, not machine, that makes the food. They haven't found a way of automating the chef, just yet...

Then it is put on the rails and despatched downhill to the correct table. Manna from heaven, German-style.

The restaurant is the brainchild of local businessman Michael Mack.

"I wanted to come up with a complete new restaurant system," Michael tells me, "one that would be more efficient and more comfortable".

We don't think the waiters of the world need to worry too much about their job security in the face of this latest development in automated foodservice. It is fascinating, though, and as the BBC reporter (who strangely doesn't get a by-line in this story) points out, there is no need for a tip in an automated restaurant.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., we're working on new ways to hilariously add steps to the food preparation process. What if Michael Mack and the Rube Goldberg competition guys got together on a project? The result could be the most entertaining mechanical comedy of a restaurant ever. We really hope they consider it.

Fast Food, German-Style [BBC News]
's Baggers restaurant [Official Site]
Automat [Wikipedia]
Burgers The Excruciating Way [Menupages Blog]
Bamn! [MenuPages]
Bamn! [Official Site]
Photo from 's Baggers' Website

• Where would you splurge: Michael's Genuine or Joe's Stone Crab? [Chowhound]

• Uva 69 is "stylish but unpretentious." [Miami and Beyond]

• Tere recommends the creamy onion soup at Outback. [FoodTastic!]

• L2M cannot wait until the full menu is unveiled at Red Light. [Spangdish]

• Cloning-for-food moratorium still USDA modus operandi [Reuters]
• Genetically modified taro moratorium in effect in Hawaii [AP]
• Food riots are the new energy, water riots in developing world [UKPress]
• British mildly upset that food additives lower kids' IQs [UPI]
• Also, they throw away $6b worth of fruits & veggies a year [RWM]
• China plans 24/7 monitoring of food factories during Olympics [Guardian]
• Calls for food sovereignty in Canada...sounds like energy independence [SunTimes]

Good magazine just came out with a list of "America's Tastiest Streets," and Miami's very own Calle Ocho made the cut. Here's what they had to say about it:

Little Havana’s main drag, Southwest 8th Street—Calle Ocho to locals—is renowned for its authentic Cuban cuisine and its robust hatred of Fidel Castro. The boulevard’s quaint and walkable blocks run from 14th Street to 18th Street. Disregard the “Viva Bush” stickers at Los Pinareños Frutería and focus on the guarapo (sugarcane juice), fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the recession-proof $3 lunch special. Also, if you time it right (the last Friday of every month), Calle Ocho between 14th and 17th becomes a street fair for Viernes Culturales. Go gallery hopping, catch a show and pause for tapas at Casa Panza, which also features Flamenco dancing three nights a week.

Immigration from Cuba and other Latin American countries has expanded Little Havana from downtown to the edge of the Everglades. As in most of Southern Florida, you’ll need a car to get around. Grab a pair of 75-cent Colombian empanadas at San Pocho Restaurant and continue a few blocks down to Taqueria El Mexicano for bistec a la Mexicana—beef chunks simmered with tomatoes, onions, and jalapeños. For the authentic Miami Cuban experience, dine with the common folk and power brokers at Versailles. Just don’t wear your Che shirt.

Where do you get your cheap eats on Calle Ocho?

America's Tastiest Streets [Good Magazine]

Photo, of the paella at Casa Panza: markaragnos [Flickr]

The April, 2008 issue of Budget Travel includes a wonderful piece on pay-what-you-want restaurants worldwide. We had no idea this was even a trend, but this little roundup gives four examples, including two in the U.S., one in Europe and one in Australia.

The idea is that you go into one of these restaurants, eat like normal and then pay what you feel is appropriate by dropping some cash into a box or using a customer-operated credit card machine. This seems, weirdly, both intimidating and welcoming. It's nice to feel like you're trusted, but it might be intimidating to feel you're essentially rendering judgment on the place by the amount you leave. What if it wasn't that good? Should you stiff them?

While the pay-what-you-like trend reminds us of these underground kitchens that are taking hold in various urban centers, it seems there is much more at stake. The casual dinners thrown at someone's house are simply a nice thing to do and would stop if they weren't fun and/or financially viable.

These restaurants, on the other hand, pin the financial health of the owners and staff on the fair-mindedness and generosity of their customers. It seems to us an experiment that puts a huge amount of faith in humanity and would be very depressing if it failed.

Pay-what-you-like Restaurants [Budget Travel]
Pirates of the Kitchen [Menupages SF]
Photo courtesy of Terra Bite Lounge [Official Site]

The former owner of the Cheeburger Cheeburger restaurants in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Lake Worth pleaded guilty on Friday to stealing $177,390 in sales taxes, according to the Sun-Sentinel:

Paul Darrow, 52, must perform 480 hours of community service and spend the next 20 years on probation, according to court records. He also must repay $177,390.

Darrow owned three Cheeburger Cheeburger restaurants — in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Lake Worth — when in 2006 authorities charged him with failing to file tax returns and pay taxes. The Florida Department of Revenue said that between 2003 and 2005 Darrow failed to send the state all of the sales tax he had collected.

Former restaurant owner owes state $177,000 [Sun-Sentinel]
Cheeburger Cheeburger [MenuPages]
Cheeburger Cheeburger [Official Site]

Photo: dgphilli [Flickr]

For anybody who has worked in a kitchen or watched a professional cooking show, you know efficiency is possibly the most important trait one can bring to the table, er, workstation. Just the opposite in the annual Rube Goldberg competition. This year, contestants built machines whose sole purpose seems to be to make the heads of people like Gordon Ramsay or our old restaurant boss Larry explode in a burst of professional fury. Ha.

The winning entrant and home team at the Purdue University-hosted event took 156 steps to construct a hamburger, using a patty that had already been cooked. Hilariously, the machines seem really bad at making their burgers while taking way too long to do it. But the competition isn't about making burgers, it's about making teamwork and ingenuity, which gets done in spades.

By the time they're done working on these contraptions, the teams in this competition could probably knock out breakfast for a couple hundred people without breaking a superfluous egg. Maybe they can come down to our local diner and give a lesson. Larry should come, too.

A hamburger in 156 easy steps [Slashfood]
Purdue's 156-Step Burger Maker Wins Rube Goldberg Contest [Gizmodo]
Rube Goldberg Contest At Purdue [Purdue News Service]

• Italian food undergoing an (ethnic) identity crisis in Italy [NYTimes]
• Humorous Absolut ad prompts boycott calls from silly Americans [Tribune]
• Embattled Atlantic City casinos cutting food and drink comps [USAToday]
• India's structural economic problems exacerbating food shortages [BBCNews]
• Might the World Bank implement a "New Deal" for African agriculture? [AllAfrica]
• Food riots in southern Haiti leave four dead [Reuters]

•Oxtail obsession: totally justified. [MP: Boston]
•Exemplary empanadas: cheap and tasty! [MP: Chicago]
•Obama's omission: how can you go to Philly and skip the cheesesteak? [MP: Philadelphia]
•Agricultural art: controversial in Mexico. [MP: San Francisco]

FIU doesn't have a culinary school, but it does have a large school of hospitality on the Biscayne campus, and students in the two food prep classes prepare a gourmet three-course meal every Tuesday and Thursday for the FIU Hospitality Management Dining Room. You do have to do a little planning — it's only available when school is in session, and there's just one seating at noon, so it's a good idea to call ahead and make sure they're open.

The entire operation is run by students, so the experience isn't quite as polished as one would expect at a fine dining restaurant, but then again you're lucky if you get an appetizer for $15 at a fine dining restaurant, let alone a full meal. Each meal includes an appetizer, a choice of two entrees, and a dessert, plus wine and coffee. Pictured at left is the dessert served at a recent lunch in the dining room, with blackberries, homemade vanilla ice cream, and a cookie sort of thing on top that was totally addictive.

FIU Hospitality Management Dining Room [MenuPages]

Like many foodies out there, we're always looking for little ways to stymie the onslaught of love handles that comes with our chosen pastime/profession. We'd rather not join the charmingly dubbed Fat Pack. So this headline in the Hot Sauce blog was eye-catching: "Eat hot sauce, lose weight?" Hey, could there really be some kind of slimming magic in that little bottle of capsaicin we love so much?

Yes, it turns out, but it is a terrifying and black magic. In addition to simple appetite suppression and encouraging water consumption, part of the "hot sauce diet" includes Pavlovian-style conditioning:

Hot sauce is toxic and can make your face flush and feel uncomfortable. This discomfort creates a situation of aversive conditioning.

However, part of the plan seems like a stroke of genius. We all get periods of near-uncontrollable hunger, where some outside help seems necessary to supplement the will-power. For us, it's late at night, for Dr. Spiro Antoniades, who developed this hot-sauce weight-loss method, it was right after work, when he would gorge before the family dinner.

Antoniades employed his “pushback” — one teaspoon of hot sauce in a glass of tomato juice — to calm his appetite, pique his thirst and cause him to drink water. He found that, by using his pushback, he was able to eat dinner normally.

Eat hot sauce, lose weight? [Hot Sauce Blog]
The Fat Pack Wonders if the Party's Over [NY Times]
Photo: Fat Kid Sauces [Official Site]

We had lunch recently at Por Fin Restaurant, the most aptly named restaurant ever; the food is tasty, and the lunch is a good deal, but don't expect to get out of there in under an hour and a half.

Our favorite part of the meal was the tuna tartare pictured above. The little pieces of mango interspersed among the tuna were perfect, and the sesame vinaigrette added a nice touch. We've heard the tapa of fried eggs with jamon serrano and truffle oil is fantastic, but unfortunately that's dinner-only. Which means we might have to make a return trip.

Por Fin Restaurant [MenuPages]
Por Fin Restaurant [Official Site]

Photo: Nathan Hale

• When Polish artisanal family farms and EU regulations don't mix [NYTimes]
• Miller to craft-ify their Lite beer, destroying both in the process [AP]
• Corn hit six dollars a bushel yesterday. That's really scary! [Guardian]
• What do Texas, the NFL and award-winning wine have in common? [Tribune]
• World Bank: well, it's possible Asia will survive food price spikes [Reuters]
• Bomb defused near Istanbul McD's could be any number of angry parties [CNN]

Burger King has just licensed out their name for a series of, err, "potato snacks." Not potato chips. Potato snacks.

We just got word from snack makers Intensely Different that they have officially unveiled a line of Burger King potato snacks. The chips/snacks/whatever come in two flavors: "Ketchup & fries" or "flame broiled." Yes — hamburger flavored chips. Are they the American version of British bacon flavored crisps? Who the hell knows. But, because we love you, here's the company's description of the "flame broiled" chips:

The BK™ spin on chips is nothing short of a revolution. Our hearty flavor now packs a crispy punch. A savory bag of crunchy, bite-sized flame-broiled taste whenever you want it.

Meanwhile, we admit this sounds like an April Fool's kind of post. I mean, hamburger flavored potato chips? But it's not. However, here's a fast food related prank for you.

Intensely Different [Official Site]

• China Grill opened in Fort Lauderdale two weeks ago. Anyone else think it's a little early for a review? Gail Shepherd stops by regardless and enjoys the food and theater of the place. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• The food at the fair sounds so much better than what it was when we were in high school: roast beef sundaes, meat pies, instant ice cream, Belgian waffle sticks with jam, salads and wraps. [Miami Herald]

• Il Gabbiano offers up "a particularly rarefied hybrid of New York style Italian." [Miami Herald]

• The Herald went with an Italian theme this week: Vignetos Italian Grill is awarded three stars. [Miami Herald]

• Avoid the calamari, pizza and chocolate cake at La Locanda; everything else, however, was good. [Miami New Times]

God bless animators with too much time on their hands. They come up with hilarious stuff like the following video. We've enjoyed the combination of hip hop style and food media in the past, but this takes the cake so far. Idolator blogger Anthony Miccio astutely points out that Snoop Dogg's "butternut reduction" line is kind of addictive. Well, you just watch. It's great:

I Cannot Get "Butternut Reduction" Out Of My Head [Idolator]
Akon Calls T-Pain [Superdelux]

• Stem rust scare threatens Asia's wheat crop; it could wipe half of it out! [ATimes]
• Seattle to ban foam containers and tax paper and plastic bags [SeattlePI]
• Food costs make up 1/3 to 1/2 of families' budgets in Asian countries [Bloomberg]
• Argentine farmers, 3 weeks into strike, back to the fields during talks [NYTimes]
• N Korea's food crisis now bad enough to force elites to ration food [RadioNeth]
• Nigella Lawson gains a few pounds and doesn't care. Keep it on, sister! [Telegraph]

We are so happy that baseball is back. We managed to get tickets to Opening Day at Dolphin Stadium; the Marlins lost to the Mets (boo!), but it was still a great time.

To celebrate, we thought we'd present a photo essay of ballpark food from each of our cities. We've actually visited and eaten in each of the parks listed, except for the two in the Bay Area. We'll start with our favorite: Philadelphia.

Citizens Bank Park

We hate the Phillies. But we think their ballpark is great, and we love the fact that we can get a Tony Luke's roast pork Italian sandwich for about the same price as at the restaurant. Whenever we go to a game there, we arrive early to get our sandwich before the game starts, because by the third inning, the place is mobbed.

US Cellular Field

We had to get one of these at every White Sox game (and we went to quite a few throughout our college career), sans ketchup of course. The sauteed onions really were key, and you could smell them as soon as you walked into the stadium.

Wrigley Field

We heard that there were Chicago-style hot dogs at Wrigley Field, but we were never able to find any. Were they reserved for those sitting in the lower level? (We sat there once ... in the bottom of the ninth inning when the Cubs were being blown out.) Every hot dog we had at Wrigley was boring (frankfurter, bun, mustard, maybe raw onions), but the photographic evidence indicates that interesting hot dogs do exist there. So clearly we weren't looking hard enough.

Fenway Park

So there's the Fenway Frank. It's famous. We're not quite sure why. We remember having a hot dog at Fenway, but we don't remember much about it. Conclusion: it was forgettable.

AT&T Park

After a quick image search and a chat with San Francisco editor Adam M, we learned that garlic fries are the way to go in both stadiums. And boy do they look good. The ones above are paired with a Polish sausage that has been ruined with ketchup. We'll never understand that.

McAfee Coliseum

See? More garlic fries. And a Chicago-style hot dog. It doesn't look completely authentic (poppy seed bun?), but hey, they're trying.

Dolphin Stadium

We've been to about 20 times as many games here as at the other ballparks, yet we can't remember the last time we actually purchased food at the park. Two reasons: 1. When you go to so many games, that overpriced food can get expensive. 2. The concession stand money goes to Wayne Huizenga. Not a good thing.
There's a Caribbean food area where you can get Cuban sandwiches and jerk chicken, which aren't bad options. But really, the best option is to bring your grill and tailgate (see above). That's what the enormous parking lot is for.

Photos: tumblebunny, 81timesayear, Thinking Violet, andrewmalone, fancydee, mojo!, nicaorgullo [Flickr]

Aside from April Fools Day, the fourth month of the year carries a few holidays of note: Passover, Thomas Jefferson's birthday, ummmm... Okay, maybe those are the only ones, but what we celebrate around here is National Grilled Cheese Month, which lasts all of April.

Among the cheesy, gooey reverie taking place:
• Registration is now open for the First Sixth Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational, taking place April 19 in Los Angeles
• The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board has a bunch of recipes and tips and even a video up on its site
• Surely, millions of Americans will cook millions of grilled cheese sandwiches all month long without even knowing it's a holiday
• The Grilled Cheese Blog, while so far quiet on the subject, will likely explode, just a little bit, in a fervor of enthusiasm over this unsung celebratory month.

After the jump: A recipe and a very creepy video

First Sixth Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational [Official Site]
Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Sandwiches [WMMB]
The Grilled Cheese Blog [Official Site]
Photo: Esther17 [Flickr]

For us, the best grilled cheese is cheddar on wheat, with a bowl of tomato soup, a pile of dill chips and some brown mustard on the side. In case you are from Mars and don't know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich, here is a recipe for the simplest one ever, from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board:

8 slices firm-textured sandwich bread
Mayonnaise, optional
Mustard, optional
1/2 pound (8 ounces) Wisconsin Cheddar cheese, mild, medium or sharp, grated
3 to 4 tablespoons butter, softened

Cooking Directions:
Spread bread slices with a thin layer of mayonnaise and/or mustard. Evenly divide the grated Cheddar over four slices of the bread. Top with remaining four slices.

Heat half of the butter in a large (12-inch) skillet over medium heat. Place sandwiches in skillet. Spread remaining butter over top slices of bread. Cover skillet. Cook about 3 minutes, until underside is golden brown. Carefully flip sandwiches with spatula and continue cooking, uncovered, 2 to 3 minutes, until cheese is melted and underside is browned. Serve immediately.

Tip: Using 2 to 3 ounces of processed cheese to replace part of the Cheddar imparts a creamy, silky sandwich. Processed cheese was traditionally used in grilled cheese sandwiches.

And, just so you don't think we focus solely on good, wholesome tastes around here, witness one of the creepiest YouTube videos ever, courtesy of the Grilled Cheese Blog, on hideously mocking making the classic sandwich in the microwave. Gross:

The New York Times reports that Quattro Gastronomia Italiana might have a Manhattan location soon:

QUATTRO GASTRONOMIA ITALIANA The Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium, which is to open early next year, has asked Nicola and Fabrizio Carro, twin chefs from Piedmont in Italy, to install a branch of their Miami Beach restaurant, with 150 seats. Diners may never know which brother is cooking in Manhattan and which in Miami Beach: 246 Spring Street (Varick Street).

Off the Menu [New York Times]
Quattro Gastronomia Italiana [MenuPages]
Quattro Gastronomia Italiana [Official Site]

• As conventional farming input prices rise, organic gets competitive [NYTimes]
• Japan, not satisfied by USDA assessment, to study cloned animal safety [Reuters]
• Feed a cold: study shows your immune system is sensitive to diet changes [ScienceDaily]
• Melamine pet food maker starting to settle lawsuits with aggrieved owners [USAToday]
• American Airlines to begin testing on-board a la carte meals [CNN]
• Pernod may have overpaid for Absolut; liquor industry in a tizzy [ Tribune]

Today is the only day besides Halloween when we purposefully make our food appear to be something that it's not. Ironically, unlike on Halloween, April Foods deceptions are actually intended to "trick" the targets rather than simply gross them out. Since the attempts usually aren't that convincing, we settle for mild amusement. To wit:

• "Grilled cheese sandwiches" by seachelle323:

• "Dessert sushi" by Dot D:

Many more appetizing simulacra await you after the jump...

• "Spaghetti & meatballs" by deb33:

• "Fish sticks" by Karrie20:

Karrie20's description of her creation:

"Fish sticks" (Twix bars rolled in toasted coconut), "Mashed potatoes with gravy" (Vanilla ice cream with caramel syrup), peas & carrots (Peanut butter cereal dipped in green candy melts and small caramel pieces dipped in orange candy melts.)

• "Meatloaf cupcakes" by whisperawish:

• "Poo cupcake" by traoki/flickr:

• "Spilled coffee" by Zeroth57:

• "Poissons d'Avril" by rubykhan:

Another kind of April Foods joke we've encountered takes the form of offering someone something spoiled; we think this is more April Cruel than April Fool, and do not condone it.

And remember, the best time to do an April Foods joke is some random day in August. They'll never see it coming!

[Photos: flickr]

• Sara stops by Red Light for a late-night snack. [All Purpose Dark]

• Best burger in Miami? Lots of options here. [Chowhound]

• Trina provides a recap of the Coral Gables Wine & Food Festival, complete with photos. [miami dish]

• Deborah loves the brunch at Pier 66. She's posted a photo of what appears to be a trio of eggs benedict that looks absolutely scrumptious. [From the Test Kitchen]

After always hearing about New York restaurants opening branches in Miami, it's kind of nice to see the process go in the other direction. Rumor has it that Joe's Stone Crab is looking for a spot in Manhattan, according to New York blogger Gluttoness. What do you think? Can Joe's make it in the Big Apple? We're inclined to think they could do very well there.

Best News Ever [Gluttoness]
EaterWire: $81 Burger, Cocoa Bar Sold, and Joe's Stone Crab Expanding to NYC [Eater]
Joe's Stone Crab [MenuPages]
Joe's Stone Crab [Official Site]

Photo: marchdoe [Flickr]

Yes, we know what day it is. Just because it's April 1 doesn't mean every crazy idea you hear is a joke. For example, this video about human cheese (only moderately safe for work--there are two topless shots with the naughty bits blacked out) is obviously a spoof, but the whole concept might not be so crazy.

A friend forwarded a very convincing post on Why Travel To France about a dairy in Singly that apparently specializes in the stuff. We know from precedent here at Menupages that the sale of human milk is legal and that there is some kind of demand for it, so why not?

Also, after a trip through Alta Vista's Babelfish translator, the site for Le Petit Singly sounds very straight-lipped. So is it a joke? Find out after the jump!

Cheese Made of Breast Milk [Trendhunter]
Human Breast Milk Cheese Made In France [Why Travel To France]
Le Petit Singly [Official Site]
Question Of The Day: Human Breast Milk In Restaurants [MP Chicago]
Photo: Why Travel To France

This is what you get if you try to order human cheese (we ran the French text through Babelfish, hence the awkwardly translated English):

Then you, one proposes to you to eat cheese made starting from HUMAN mother's milk and that connects you? A small precision is essential at this stage: ALL the ELEMENTS, EVENTS, NAMES, MARKS, PLACES and LABELS purely fictitious and/or are used in a diverted way. On the other hand, we would be strongly interessés to have your "hot" reactions. Hesitate-therefore not with us to communicate them by e-mail. While waiting, the 5 last gogos to have been made here, have héhé:

The Rascal House is officially closed. They served their last pastramis on rye and egg creams on Sunday, to teary-eyed folk who remembered many a good meal there. There is a small bit of good news; the Epicure Market that is planned for the space will be keeping some of the recipes, which will likely show up in the deli and bakery sections of the store.

Death of a deli: Rascal House closing for good [Miami Herald]
Rascal House Closing In April [MP: South Florida]
Rascal House [MenuPages]
Rascal House [Official Site]

Photo: MMChicago [Flickr]

• Global poor complacent, forgiving of their gov'ts as food prices rise [Reuters]
• American farmers planting just the right amount of corn and soya [NYTimes]
• Study: most Americans haven't noticed food or fuel cost changes [AP]
• Gov't & farmers unite to efficiently and effectively combat global hunger [Reuters]