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Helen at MP:Chicago will be liveblogging the Top Chef finale tonight over at Time Out Chicago, despite the fact that she's avoided most episodes in which Toby Young appeared. (We can't blame her, really.) The fun starts at 8:30 p.m.

You Must Do This: Tonight's Top Chef Finale Liveblog [MP: Chicago]

• A man was actually selling marijuana from a drive-thru window at a Maryland McDonald's. That's so...brazen. It wasn't too difficult for the cops to find him. [MSNBC]

• If you live in an area with lots of fast food restaurants, you're more likely to have a stroke; in fact, according to a recent study, for every fast food restaurant in an area, the relative risk went up 1 percent. [Los Angeles Times]

• Even the food industry is warming to the idea of more stringent food regulation. [AP]

• Three inebriated men walked into a Berkeley restaurant and demanded free burritos. When they were denied, they flashed a knife and a belt. The restaurant employees, however, weren't scared — they chased the drunks out and beat one of them with a tire iron and metal pipe. All in a day's work. [Mercury News]

• Use less water to boil your pasta and collectively we could as a nation save 250,000-500,000 barrels of oil each year. [New York Times]

Paula Deen was showing the crowd exactly how loose her pants were. Then, they fell, and Short Order caught it on camera. Enjoy.

Video: Paula Deen's Pants Fall Down on Stage [Short Order]

It's National Pancake Day, so head over to IHOP today before 10 p.m. to get a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes. Since you won't be paying for your pancakes, consider making a donation; the restaurants will be giving the money to local charities like the Children's Miracle Network hospitals.

Free pancakes offered at IHOP today for fundraiser [Sun-Sentinel]

• Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack supports Congress's desire to create a single food-safety oversight agency; the current system is excessively bureaucratic and hard to oversee. [AP]

• Additional bags of Northern Star potato products are being voluntarily recalled because of potential contamination. Double-check your freezer stock! [Forbes]

• Washington State sent out food stamp checks to 250,000 recipients in the amount of one dollar each; this idiosyncratic amount is intended to trigger additional federal aid for the state's poor. [SPI]

• Whole Foods' first British grocery store is their overall loss leader, as UK customers are appalled by their high prices and limited parking availability. [BusWeek]

• Manhattan's Moondance Diner was picked up by flatbed truck and moved out of the city a few years ago; after much salvage work it's now doing a brisk business at its new home in Wyoming. [AP/Tribune]

• The LA Times asks why Miami gets to have all the food festival fun. Seems that Lee Schrager has been thinking the same thing: "The festival will be L.A.-bound, promise," he said. "I hope to move this show to California in the next few years." [Los Angeles Times]

• Lee Klein asks a great question: why on earth was Mario Batali up there representing Miami at the dinner on Thursday night? He lists a few local chefs who would have been much better representatives of the city and likely would have kept the language clean. [Short Order]

• Sara has a recap of Sandra Lee's cocktail party on Saturday. Check out the photo of a model covered in metallic silver paint — apparently they were standing on cubes throughout the patio. Odd. [All Purpose Dark]

• jmdhsmiami has some tips on how to work Burger Bash (get there early and start at the back of the tent) and says that Best of the Best was a bit disappointing. [Chowhound]

Coral Gables is losing a tea room. Théine Tea Salon's owners announced this past weekend that they will be closing the shop at the end of the month to start a truffle farm in West Virginia. Seriously. We're a little sad that the tea shop is closing, but, a truffle farm? That is so awesome. Good luck to them.

Théine Tea Salon [MenuPages]
Théine Tea Salon [Official Site]

Parties are great for eating as much food as you can and gawking at celebrities, but sometimes you want something a little more sedate. Enter the wine seminars of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, where you can learn how to pair wine or cocktails with all sorts of different foods. Almost all of the wines used are moderately priced and available locally, although often the organizers will throw in a treat of a very expensive or rare wine. Here are the seminars we checked out this year:

Latin Libations with Tony Abou-Ganim and Roberto Santibañez

Notice the empty glasses. Those were, from left to right: pisco sour, caipirinha, sangria and margarita. We're not big cocktail drinkers, but these just went down so easily. Some tips from Abou-Ganim: use simple syrup instead of granulated sugar; the latter doesn't dissolve easily in cold water. Maintain about a one-to-one ratio of sweet and tart elements, and hold back on the sugar a bit if you're unsure — it's always easier to sweeten it later on.

Click on the jump to see Abou-Ganim's sangria recipe and notes about other seminars.

Sherry & Cheese Pairing with Steve Olson and John Cuevas

Ah, sherry and cheese, the breakfast of champions. While most people were recovering from the previous night, quite a few of us were at the Loews for this 10:30 seminar on Sunday. And it was totally worth it. Both the sherries and the cheeses were excellent. Our favorite sherries were the two on either end: the Lustau Manzanilla, Reserva Papirusa in the glass all the way on the left and the Osborne Pedro Ximenez 1827 all the way on the right. The former looked like vinho verde and had apple overtones, and the latter was incredibly sweet, but it paired beautifully with that creamy cheese in the forefront, the Epoisses de Bourgogne. We liked the pairing so much that we snatched another piece of Epoisses from the empty place setting next to us.

Sizzle and Swirl: Barbecue and Wine Pairing with Alpana Singh and Howie Kleinberg

This was the most disappointing of the seminars, not because of the hosts but because of the crowd. There were few empty seats — it was one of the most popular seminars offered, likely because of Kleinberg's presence. But we got the sense that they were more interested in seeing him than actually learning about how to pair barbecue with wine; throughout the class, there was a constant hum so loud that often neither Singh nor Kleinberg could be heard. And while Kleinberg was very informative and helpful, he just doesn't have the personality to command a large crowd. The 'cue came from his Bulldog BBQ in North Miami, and the wines ranged from a sparkling rosé to a couple of California syrahs. All worked well with the food, although we were particular fans of the syrah and brisket pairing.

Fun fact: Singh had initially proposed a "Wine and Your Horoscope" seminar, but no one signed up for it, so festival organizers suggested teaming up with Kleinberg. She had recently begun pairing wines with barbecue, so she thought it was a great idea.

Tony Abou-Ganim's Sangria
Note: We did the best we could getting exact measurements, but we fell a bit short. Sangria's meant to be adapted anyway, right?

1 orange, sliced
several strawberries, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
a few cinnamon sticks
12 ounces orange juice
12 ounces lemon juice
12 ounces simple syrup
Grand Marnier
Cognac (the only measurement we jotted down was "lots")
2 bottles Rioja wine
7up, Champagne or sparkling water to dilute the mixture

Mix everything together a day before you're planning to drink it. Serve over ice.

• The Obamas hosted their first official dinner on Sunday night, and Michelle Obama gave an exclusive tour of the kitchen beforehand. On the menu? Wagyu beef and scallops favored by President Obama. [NYT]

• Things not faring well in this economy: casual dining restaurants. Consumers are staying in more, and profits are down by almost 50%. [USA Today]

• New England's Stop & Shop supermarket has recalled potato products made by Northern Star Co. over contamination concerns. [Boston]

• Drug-laced brownies at Heaven City, Milwaukee's "third most romantic restaurant," made three very elderly employees very sick. Will the food tainting never end? [MSNBC]

• The British are catching on to using cooking oil to fuel their cars, prompting a joke headline about how they eat so many fish and chips. [NYT]

Yesterday, we hit the Grand Tasting tents as well as a seminar on Latin cocktails with master mixologist Tony Abou-Ganim and Surf and Turk, a dinner celebrating the cuisine of the Turks & Caicos hosted by Clay Conley of Azul. Here are some quick observations about the day.

• Spike HatWatch: We've spotted Spike Mendelsohn at three events so far, and each time he's had a different hat. (We checked our camera just to be sure.) The man must have brought a bag full of them. And some — including the green one he sported at the Grand Tasting — looked like they'd be difficult to pack without crushing.

• Pork!: We had the most delicious piece of pork from Ian's Tropical Grill in Jensen Beach. If that pork is any indication of the food at the restaurant, a visit is in order.

• No sashimi: Apparently one chef who was invited to the BubbleQ wanted to do a sashimi or ceviche at the event, but Michael Moran, who's coordinating FIU's efforts, nipped that in the bud. Thank goodness, because while barbecue might extend to grilled meats, it certainly does not cover raw fish.

• Overworked: We were under the impression that the FIU students worked in shifts. Turns out it's all hands on deck all the time. One manager said he'd worked a couple of 20-hour days. We're exhausted, and we've only had to attend parties, not cook for them!

• FYU?: Speaking of FIU, someone should explain to Guy Fieri that it's not FYU.

• Mas Tequila: Fieri had the best spot in Saturday's lineup: the final demo of the evening, right after the Grand Tasting tents closed and people were too drunk to go home. It guaranteed a large, rowdy crowd, which he loved. Very little cooking was accomplished. Things that did happen: Fieri requested Sammy Hagar's "Mas Tequila" three times, the crowd almost caused a stampede when free margaritas were offered, and Michael Schlow and Rachael Ray joined Fieri onstage for tequila shots.

• Pork, Any Way You Like It: Adam Perry Lang (of Daisy May's BBQ in New York) is a chameleon. For BubbleQ, it was Cuban-style pork with mojo. At Surf & Turks, he made a jerk pork that was the highlight of the meal.

• Can't Stay Sober: Last year we did not do so well on the sobriety front, and we were determined to keep the inebriation at bay. Somewhere between the pisco sour and the margarita during "Latin Libations," we gave up.

Photo: Guy Fieri backstage checking his prepped ingredients shortly before the start of his demo. Check after the jump for more photos.

The entrance to the Grand Tasting Village.

The offering from Andú: a tamarind-braised short rib with pickled papaya.

The host for the Surf and Turks dinner, Clay Conley of Azul.

Adam Perry Lang of New York's Daisy May's BBQ serves his jerk pork. To the left is some excellent coconut rice.

And that rib at which she snubbed her nose was good. It was the best of the multiple offerings from Tom Colicchio, who was there handing out plates of pulled pork sandwiches, ribs, baked beans and macaroni and cheese. Colicchio organized quite a party: at one moment, you're standing in front of Myron Mixon's whole smoked hog, receiving helpings of baked beans and pulled pork just like at a backyard cookout. But turn around and there's a bar overflowing with champagne served by beautifully chiseled models.

While most chefs went with the "grilling" definition of barbecue, there was plenty of smoking and slow cooking going on. Adam Perry Lang of Daisy May's BBQ won points with the locals for cooking his mojo-marinated pork in Miami favorite La Caja China.

Former Grub Street editor Josh Ozersky nailed the portion size with a one-bite piece of grilled lamb, as did Marcus Samuelsson with his tiny, no-plate-needed grilled salmon tacos. Each gave just enough for us to get a taste (both were very good) without feeling guilty about tossing half the plate.

Three large portions we made sure to finish: Hill Country's brisket, as moist and delicious as ever; Chris Lilly's ribs, which came off the bone with almost no effort; and the grilled ribeye from Pacific Time's Jonathan Eismann. The latter wasn't 'cue in the traditional sense, but the ribeye — encrusted with shiitakes and bathed in an Indonesian-spiced sauce — was one of the best pieces of food we tasted that night.

• Try out for the Food Network's Amazing Race knockoff! [MP: Boston]

• Represent Arab food at Taste of Chicago! [MP: Chicago]

• Leave us an aggressively shilly review! [MP: Philadelphia]

• Start a web series about your local food scene! [MP: San Francisco]

• Hype your restaurant as being "off the beaten path!" [MP: South Florida]

The Perrier-Jouet BubbleQ starts tonight, but prep for the event began on Monday, when students from FIU's School of Hospitality started doing the behind-the-scenes chopping, slicing, and marinating. Over 800 students volunteer during the festival, doing the little things that help to make all of the events run smoothly.

We met up with the students in the kitchen of the Miami Beach Convention Center on Thursday afternoon, where several were busy crumbling an obscene amount of bacon. A student told us it was for Chris Lilly’s potato salad; if that much bacon is going into one potato salad, then we are definitely making a beeline for it tonight.

The students worked from a master book that lists the dishes, ingredients and instructions for each chef participating in the BubbleQ. In the day or two before the event, chefs will drop in to see how everything is going; Adam Perry Lang of Daisy May's BBQ in New York was there Thursday afternoon directing the students who were injecting large chunks of pork with Cuban mojo. “We’re doing a pulled pork Cuban style,” he said. “We always try to do something different each year.”

Mixon, who’s at the festival for the first time this year, is a self-described “barbecue and Crown Royale guy,” although he’s happy to show off his ‘cue at the champagne event tonight. “Barbecue’s gone more upscale now,” he said. “Ten years ago, none of these guys, except for Bobby Flay, were doing barbecue. Now they’ve even got some good places in New York.”

The Perrier-Jouet BubbleQ [Official Site]
FIU School of Hospitality & Tourism Management [Official Site]
Daisy May's BBQ [MenuPages]
Jack’s Old South Bar-B-Que [Official Site]

On the list of things you should not do in front of royalty, we'd say cursing is pretty high up there. Someone please inform Mario Batali, who shocked the queen with his language during his introduction of José Andrés at last night's ¡Viva España! event:

''The most motherf------ stars of any Spanish restaurant in the U.S.,'' Batali said. Those who were seated near the royal couple said the queen blanched.

Observers said Batali, who also grabbed Andrés' butt, was, well, crocked.

Andrés kept his cool: ''This is what food and wine from Spain will do to you,'' he told the crowd of 400. ``It will lift your spirits.''

New Times is asking readers to vote for its Best of Broward and Palm Beach issue, and this year, the magazine promises to count your votes. In the food categories, vote for your favorite bar, restaurant, hamburger and pizza. Vote here!

"Best of" Readers' Poll [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

Head on over to sister site Grub Street for our recap of last night's Burger Bash at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, complete with a slide show of the burgers on offer. Spike Mendelsohn of Good Stuff Eatery emerged victorious with his slider doused in chipotle barbecue sauce.

The two best local offerings came from Michelle Bernstein, who topped her steak burger with bacon, grilled onions, blue cheese and balsamic, and Michael Schwartz, who won our vote for the evening. With a well-seasoned thick patty, Vermont cheddar, bacon, lettuce and heirloom tomato, it was the most satisfying and balanced flavor-wise of the many burgers we tried.

As for that sweet and spicy red pepper relish ice cream from Jaxson's, well, it was interesting and certainly very creative. We kept having to remind ourselves that it was a dessert.

Top Chef's Spike Wins SoBe Burger Bash [Grub Street]

Photo: Michael's Genuine Bacon Cheeseburger

• Snapple is losing the high-fructose corn syrup and getting a sleek new makeover. [City Room/New York Times]

• For the first time since at least 1959, beer sales have been negatively effected by the economic climate. [FiveThirtyEight]

• Food bank demand rose 30% in 2008, and pantries are scrambling to keep up with the newly poor. [New York Times]

• The Council of Fashion Designers of America will release a cookbook this fall featuring recipes from a hundred designers. [Women's Wear Daily]

• Nespresso, Nestlé's premium coffee pod line, is the company's fastest-growing brand. [New York Times]

The South Beach Wine & Food Festival kicks off tonight with its most popular event: The Amstel Light Burger Bash hosted by Rachael Ray.

On the menu this year: a wagyu burger from Morimoto, a vegetarian version from Ubuntu, a lamb burger with a Greek twist from Michael Psilakis, a barbecue empanada burger with manchego from Bistro One LR, and a queso fundido burger from Frontera Grill, among many others.

Quite a few local representatives will be there, although we're most excited about Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlor, which is immensely popular locally but virtually unknown outside of South Florida. According to general manager Jerry Smith, the restaurant isn't entering its burger into the competition, but will be providing the ice cream instead. "We developed a new flavor just for the event: sweet and spicy red pepper relish ice cream," Smith said. "It tastes a lot better than it sounds."

Katie Lee Joel will be there to defend her title, which she won at last fall's Burger Bash in New York City with what many called a patty melt. Radius in Boston took the title at last year's South Beach festival away from the Shake Shack, the winners at the first Burger Bash in 2007.

This year there's a new twist: a side dish competition sponsored by the Idaho Potato Commission. Ten of the contestants — including Masaharu Morimoto, Katie Lee Joel, and Randy Garutti of the Shake Shack — will vie for the best potato side dish.

Who will win? There will be lots of fancy burgers, but the voters have clearly sided with more classic, comforting burgers in the past.

South Beach Wine & Food Festival [Official Site]

• Gluttony is the rule at Red. The pastas and appetizers don't sound too appetizing, but the steaks are exactly as they should be — well marbled and perfectly cooked. [Miami Herald]

• Rather than offer the same old overfished species, Area 31 highlights sustainable fish like Spanish mackerel, mangrove snapper and wahoo. [Miami New Times]

• Anise is owned by a couple with Greek, French and Italian heritages, and the (mostly Greek) food is cooked by an Argentine chef. Only in Miami. [Miami Herald]

• We'd go to da Campo Osteria just to watch the server make mozzarella tableside. Few things in life are better than a slice of super-fresh mozzarella. [Miami Herald]

• It's one big cocktail party at Clematis Social with trendy drinks and small plates like sliders and mac and cheese. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• And back at Clematis Social: Charles Passy has similar observations. It can be more of a party — especially after 9 p.m. — than a restaurant. Oh, and the burger sounds great! [Palm Beach Post]

• Just as we had hoped, the Obamas' social inclinations are helping stimulate Washington, D.C.-area restaurants. They actually eat out! [Bloomberg]

• A woman in Florida is arrested for allegedly poisoning baby food jars in a Ft. Myers-area grocery store. Yikes. [MSNBC]

• Fast food chains generally do alright during economic downturns, but one report suggests they're now out to compete with casual "sit-down" restaurants, which are suffering. [CNN]

• Turns out no less a food figure than Tom Colicchio has to deal with finicky children. No matter how you prepare it, many kids just don't like broccoli. [New York Times]

• Two brothers who are gay twins have sued a Vermont restaurant, alleging sexual harassment. [ABC]

We just got word that Norman Van Aken is returning to Coral Gables — he's taking over the old Hoja Nueva spot in the Colonnade Hotel. The restaurant's name, Norman's 180, is a nod to the location's address: 180 Aragon Avenue. We hear he'll be offering a small-plates menu.

Norman Van Aken [Official Site]

This week's winner, from The Orchard, in New York, got denied because it is not about the restaurant at all, but rather about the reviewer's date. We have a feeling there won't be a second date with these two. Here's what one party had to say:

Took a date to this restaurant. She was totally flummoxed by not recognizing anything on the menu as Italian food.i still can't make up my mind if it was her lack of culinary knowledge or Anorexia.

The Orchard [MenuPages]
The Orchard [Official Site]

We're taking a page from sister site Grub Street's Two For Eight feature to gauge exactly how busy local hot-spot restaurants will be this weekend with the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Basically, we called and asked about availability for two people this Saturday night at 8 p.m. or as close as possible to it. Here's what we found out:

• Michael's Genuine Food & Drink: Only 5:30 and 9:45 available
• Meat Market: 7:00, 7:45, 9, 9:15, 9:45
• Philippe: 7:00, 7:30, 9:00, 9:30
• Tuscan Steak: 8:30
• Prime 112: 10:30
• Table 8: 6:30 or 9:30
• DeVito South Beach: no answer
• Casa Tua: Fully booked
• Kobe Club: 7:15 or 7:30
• Scarpetta: 11:00
• Gotham Steak: 7:30 or 10
• The Forge: 8 is available!

"It's here, and it snuck up on us. Like a bad girlfriend who happens to be totally hot... you despise her yet can't give her up. As unknown chefs, we are the bastard stepchildren of this event."

– Chef Chad Galiano on the South Beach Wine & Food Festival

sobe wine and food 2009 [chadzilla]

A Black Book list of off-the-beaten-path restaurants in Miami caught our eye earlier today because we think it's got lots of great suggestions for finding where the locals eat: Dolores, but you can call me Lolita, Ariston Restaurant, and Red Light, among others.

But we were surprised to see Brosia, Sra Martinez, and Fratelli Lyon. How off-the-beaten-path is the Design District these days? Locals flock there, and any tourist who's even remotely interested in food knows about the area, and those restaurants in particular.

So here's our question: at what point should the Design District be removed from the "off-the-beaten-path" lists, at least when it comes to restaurants? Or should anything outside of the 33139 zip code be perpetually lumped into that category? What do you think?

Miami: Top 10 Restaurants Off the Beaten Path [Black Book]

Photo, of the fare at Sra Martinez: kthread/flickr

We just called a restaurant in Coconut Grove to request a menu, and the following conversation ensued:

MenuPages: Hi, can you fax me a menu?
Restaurant Manager: You're speaking to the manager. My name is Julio.
MP: Hi Julio. Could you fax me a menu?
RM: You want a menu?
MP: Yes.
RM: Where are you located?
MP: Westchester.
RM: Hmm, well let me get your address. Is that a business?
MP: I don't want to place an order for delivery. I would just like a menu.
RM: Yeah, but we can just drop it off.
MP: You don't have a fax machine?
RM: Yes, of course. Oh, you want me to fax it?
MP: YES.

• Opening a small restaurant in LA and dealing with the permit process sounds pretty nightmarish. [Los Angeles Times]

• Pizza for breakfast? We don't mean last night's leftovers; check out this polenta, spinach and pancetta pie that makes a good first meal of the day. [New York Times]

• Now Texas is considering a statewide indoor smoking ban. The idea is to simplify the rule for everyone; currently, a number of cities and counties have bans while others don't. [MSNBC]

• A federal appellate court ruled against the New York State Restaurant Association's challenge to the law requiring chain restaurants to list calorie counts. [New York Times]

• Forward Foods, which makes Detour energy bars, has filed for bankruptcy protection. The company had to recall all foods made with peanuts from salmonella-tainted Peanut Corporation of America; unfortunately, those energy bars accounted for 75 percent of the company's sales. [Bloomberg]

The Madoff scandal is beginning to hit us where it really hurts: ice cream. Sloan Kamenstein, owner of the four ice cream parlors in Palm Beach county, is on the list of Madoff investors — as are his sister and parents. Here's hoping the ice cream parlors stick around.

Sloan's Ice Cream owner on the Madoff list [Palm Beach Post]
Sloan's [Official Site]

Photo: miami fever/flickr

The Jupiter town council is making an effort to fashion the town's waterfront into a Key West-style area of restaurants, stores and public boat docks called Jupiter Inlet Village. Seems that it's been at least fairly successful, as now residents are complaining about the noise coming from Guanabanas and Square Grouper. Who knew that becoming more like Key West would lead to lots of noise?

Jupiter Inlet Village: relaxed nightlife or noisy nuisance? Depends on who you ask [Palm Beach Post]
Guanabanas [MenuPages]
Square Grouper [MenuPages]
Square Grouper [Official Site]

If you didn't heed our advice and get your two-for-one tickets to the South Beach Wine & Food Festival already, you may be out of luck. The deal expired this past Sunday night, according to this Herald article. Sure enough, a quick check of a few events revealed that prices are back up to normal, although tickets to a number of events are still available.

If you're willing to wait until the last minute, you might be able to get good deals through other means:

The discounts are nice, but Erinn Corrigan is hoping to do even better. Last year, she scored last-minute, half-price tickets for the Grand Tasting Village and Paula Deen's Casino Night, one outside the venue and the other online.

''I'm a clearance girl,'' said Corrigan, 28, who lives on South Beach. ``I want them half off. I got them last year. I'm positive I can do it again.''

• Despite what might seem like media saturation, most consumers still aren't aware of what food products might be tainted and have been recalled. [NYT]

• It's not fair to put all the blame for rising obesity on restaurants — portion sizes and calorie counts from cookbook recipes have been steadily increasing over the years, too. [Tribune/AP]

• In a change of pace from all the layoffs elsewhere, KFC is planning to open 200-300 new restaurants in the UK, hiring about 6000 new jobs. [AFP]

• Artificial sweeteners still have vocal naysayers, even with the introduction of an "all-natural" stevia-based product to the market. [WaPo]

• The Obamas celebrated their first presidential Valentine's Day at Chicago's Table 52, and now reservations are near-impossible to get. [Tribune]

• A prescription for the single and drunk. [MP: Boston]

• A heartfelt letter of appreciation for one departing food writer. [MP: Chicago]

• An anti-anti-Valentine's Day polemic. [MP: Philadelphia]

• A guide to Valentine's Day for hippies. [MP: San Francisco]

• An overview of some couples dining options for the rich folks of Palm Beach. [MP: South Florida]

"No we don't have any specials. What you gonna do with pizza, heart shaped pepperoni?"

– The pizza girl who answered the phone at Andiamo, on whether the restaurant will be doing anything different for Valentine's Day

A Valentine's Restaurant Survey [Short Order]
Andiamo [MenuPages]
Andiamo [Official Site]

Here's an unorthodox Valentine's Day idea: head to the Delray Beach Garlic Festival, which starts today and runs through Sunday. Just make sure to bring the breath mints. Check out the list of foods available on "Gourmet Alley:" blackened garlic mahi mahi, flaming garlic shrimp scampi, garlic curry chicken kebabs, garlic roast pork sandwich, roasted garlic pizza, roasted garlic bruschetta, and many more creations featuring the stinking rose.

There's also music, a children's education area, and Garlic Chef Stadium, where chefs will demonstrate garlic recipes and compete in a two-day garlic cook-off.

Delray Beach Garlic Festival [Official Site]

Photo: Iburiedpaul/flickr

The long list of nominees for this year's James Beard Awards is out, and a handful of South Florida restaurants and chefs made the initial cut. The list will be trimmed to five nominees per category on March 23 in time for the May 4 event. Here are the local spots doing South Florida proud:

• Best New Restaurant: Sra Martinez

• Outstanding Wine Service: Palme D'Or

• Outstanding Service: Palme D'Or

• Best Chef, South: Zach Bell of Cafe Boulud, Edgar Leal of Cacao Restaurant, Dean James Max of 3030 Ocean, Douglas Rodriguez of Ola, Philippe Ruiz of Palme D'Or, and Michael Schwartz of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink.

For the full press release and list of nominees, check out the report from MP: Boston.

Beard Awards Long List Released: Did Your Favorite Chef Make The Cut? [MP: Boston]
James Beard Foundation [Official Site]

• With all the fuss about contaminated food, it's good to remember that most food contains anything from maggots to mouse poop. There, now don't you feel better? [New York Times]

• The price of cocoa is skyrocketing and, while confectioners are keeping prices down through Valentine's Day, your chocolate could be costlier next week. [Wall Street Journal]

• Starbucks will begin selling "soluble" (read: instant) coffee in selected stores next month. [Crain's]

• More Peanut Corp. of America peanuts are being recalled, this time from the company's Texas plant. [LA Times]

• Breaking: people are spending less on food these days. [Wall Street Journal]

MP: Philadelphia did some research and found 14 egregious ripoffs of either the Pinkberry or Red Mango names. Locally, we've got Blissberry and Red Kiwi, but check out the list of other copycats all over the country.

The Multitude Of Pinkberry And Red Mango Imitators [MP: Philadelphia]
Blissberry [Official Site]
Red Kiwi [MenuPages]

The new Butterfinger Buzz tastes like a regular Butterfinger, but watch out: it's loaded with sugar and caffeine, reports MP: Chicago. Beware of fluttery blinking and an inability to focus.

Butterfinger Buzz: The Caffeinated Candy Bar [MP: Chicago]

We've got quite a few restaurants scheduled to open in March on our radar. Here are the ones in Miami that we're keeping an eye on:

• The Sports Exchange, which promises to be "Miami's largest" sports bar, is opening mid-March at 45 Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Expect lots and lots of plasma TVs.

• The popular Taste Bakery Cafe

• Can we ever get enough steak? The Grill Club Rodizio & Boteco, a Brazilian churrascaria, is coming in late February to 2 Aragon Ave in Coral Gables.

• Crazy Pianos, a piano bar/restaurant from The Netherlands, is opening its first U.S. location in the old Tu Tu Tango spot in Coconut Grove. It's set to open mid-March.

• Also coming to the Grove sometime in March: an Asian tapas and sushi restaurant called Koi in the old Señor Frog's location at 3480 Main Hwy.

Paging Alfred Portale! Get to Miami Beach, and fast. Victoria Pesce Elliott completely pans Gotham Steak in today's Miami Herald. She has few good things to say about the food, but the service is what's really nightmarish:

Large tables of drunken, nametagged guys monopolized the attention of the clueless waiters on one visit. And on both, most of the staff's English was sub-par. Still, it was an arrogant young sommelier who made our last meal there surreal. We flagged him down for help negotiating the 500-bottle list with an eye to finding a good value under 50 bucks. Instead he sneered, stepped back as if we suddenly stank and spat, ''You're on a buh-jet?'' In the end, he steered us to a Sicilian Nero'dAvola $10 above our limit.

Gotham's service, food fail to meet expectations [Miami Herald]
Gotham Steak [MenuPages]
Gotham Steak [Official Site]

• The company at the middle of the salmonella-tainted peanut scandal shipped its products before getting results of contamination tests, according to investigators. [NY Times]

• All that tainted peanut butter is bringing about changes in the way those and other food products are inspected and controlled. [AP]

• Two Ann Arbor restaurateurs have been sentenced, one to prison time, after they were found guilty of harboring illegal immigrants. [Mlive]

• A complaint letter detailing a sub-par meal on Virgin airlines has taken the web by storm, and airborne caterers have taken notice. But some say airline food isn't necessarily as bad as all that. Oh, really? [CNN]

• Could there be a glimmer of hope for restaurants? Three U.S. chains did better than expected last quarter, but the jury's still out on whether we've seen the bottom. [Reuters]

Welcome to Review of the Week, where we highlight some of the more unusual reviews left by MenuPages users across the country.

This gem arrived Monday afternoon as a two-part series titled "Wonder Bread and Chocolate Pudding," in which the author describes her experience at a New York City restaurant in great detail. Far too much detail. Here's an excerpt:

As an olive oil lover, I was looking forward to dining at [name redacted]. However, upon walking into this giant meatpacking-district restaurant, my gut told me to turn and run. I immediately panicked that 1) there was no way such a large establishment could produce consistently good food and 2) the mass of cheesy patrons waiting for tables (slicked back hair and black shirt/white tie combos) indicated that food was not a priority. The hostess asked if we wanted to check our coats and when we replied affirmatively, she directed us to the closet instead of taking them herself (there were 3 people standing idly at the hostess podium).

If you'd like to see what a 554-word review looks like, the review in its entirety is after the jump.

“Wonder Bread and Chocolate Pudding”

As an olive oil lover, I was looking forward to dining at [name redacted]. However, upon walking into this giant meatpacking-district restaurant, my gut told me to turn and run. I immediately panicked that 1) there was no way such a large establishment could produce consistently good food and 2) the mass of cheesy patrons waiting for tables (slicked back hair and black shirt/white tie combos) indicated that food was not a priority. The hostess asked if we wanted to check our coats and when we replied affirmatively, she directed us to the closet instead of taking them herself (there were 3 people standing idly at the hostess podium). The restaurant is large and open with understated decor. The walls are lined with white canvas banquettes, which, while comfortable, are a poor choice in terms of both appropriateness (better suited for the Hamptons) and practicality (scuff marks abound). After settling into our prime corner table, we eagerly dove into a tasting plate of the restaurant's famed olive oil. While the oil was good, I can only describe the bread that accompanied it as "Wonder bread disguised in baguette form." For the life of me, I cannot understand why a restaurant that touts (and sells) its olive oil would ever ruin it with such inferior bread. Hoping for redemption (i.e. thicker, crustier bread) we ordered an assortment of crostini (manchego/fig, prosciutto/fig, shrimp/avocado, salmon/ricotta). Our hearts sank as they arrived on the same Wonder bread, which, when toasted, assumed the taste and consistency of Melba toast. The toppings were mediocre and lacked any outstanding flavor, balance or originality (the fig spread overwhelmed and the salmon was bland at best)...

“Wonder Bread and Chocolate Pudding (continued)”

...In order to save room for the chocolate soufflé that our waitress raved about, I opted for the mushroom and truffle soup; my date ordered the grilled lamb skewers with couscous. I love mushrooms and truffles, but my soup was so oily that I gave up after three spoonfuls and mooched a lamb skewer off my boyfriend. The lamb was perfectly cooked (medium rare), although it unfortunately lacked any spices that could have made it memorable. The couscous was room temperature, and while I've eaten it cold many times, it did not pair well with the hot lamb and peppers. Still, the lamb skewers were the highlight of our meal (I love yogurt sauce). Hungry after my inedible soup, I attacked the chocolate soufflé when it arrived. But on my first spoonful, I discovered that the dessert was not cooked. When I pointed this out to our waitress, she explained that they make their signature "soufflé" with a gooey inside. I begged to differ, showing her that the entire ramekin was filled with a pudding-like mess and that none of it had, in fact, risen like a proper soufflé. She didn't seem to understand the concept, so we gave up, finally defeated by our abysmal meal, and asked for the check. As she left to get it, I thought of sticking my finger in that gooey chocolate mess and finger-painting exactly what I thought of the food (and our waitress) all over the white banquette (hey, it was already dirty)…but then my self-restraint kicked in and I decided to post my thoughts on menupages instead…

We wondered how the tanking economy — coupled with steep ticket prices — would affect this year's South Beach Wine and Food Festival. Well, it appears the purchase page has provided the answer; just one week out, there are still plenty of tickets available for wine seminars and even a handful of big-ticket items. The best part: most of the wine seminars are half off.

Here's what's available in terms of big-ticket items. These aren't half-off, but the fact that there are tickets available a week out is pretty amazing:

• ¡Viva España! The Wines and Food of Spain
This is a surprising one, given the star quality of the chefs involved — José Andrés is heading a crew of some of Spain's best chefs — and the fact that the king and queen of Spain will be attending. Perhaps it's the $1,000 per head price tag that's putting people off.

• Perrier-Jouët BubbleQ hosted by Tom Colicchio & Friends and Wine Spectator’s “Best of the Best"
These are the kinds of really big-ticket items that should be sold out but aren't. There are no VIP spots left for the BubbleQ, but you can still get general admission tickets. Check out the list of chefs participating in the "Best of the Best" event — it's pretty impressive.

• Oscar Night® America Sobe Style hosted by Bobby Flay and Stephanie March
Half off! Seriously! At $200 per couple, this is actually looking reasonable.As Paula pointed out in the comments, this one is not half off; the price is still $200 per person for the event. And proceeds benefit the Miami Beach Film Society and Cinematheque.

• Barilla Interactive Cooking Lunch hosted by Ilan Hall & Hung Huynh and Cocktail Time with Sandra Lee!
We are shocked to see that events hosted by two of the most unpopular Top Chef contestants and the woman who makes the worst food on television are not sold out. What are you waiting for? Get your tickets already!

South Beach Wine and Food Festival [Official Site]

Yep, they've got all-you-can-eat pizza at Che Sopranos Pizza & Pasta for $10 every Monday night. The bad news: all but one of the personal-sized pizzas are regularly $8-10, so it's only worth it if you've got a really large appetite. The good news: the all-you-can-eat deal applies to every pizza on the menu, so it might be a good time to load up that pizza with toppings like prosciutto and hearts of palm.

Thinking of heading there tonight? All bottles of wine are half off every Wednesday. Now that might yield some significant savings.

Che Sopranos Pizza & Pasta [MenuPages]
Che Sopranos Pizza & Pasta [Official Site]

• Restaurateurs in northern Virginia, until yesterday the last haven for smokers in the District, worry that business might decline once the smoking ban takes effect. [Washington Post]

• Speaking of smoking bans, a bill currently in the Oklahoma legislature would ban smoking in restaurants statewide. A recent poll suggests that it's a popular idea. [MSNBC]

• In a bad economy, people tend to save by forgoing restaurant meals and turning to grocery stores instead. But now competition is so high among grocery stores that profit margins are disappearing as stores engage in price wars. [CNNMoney]

• The Peanut Corporation of America, the company that brought you this salmonella scare, just closed another plant in Texas after it showed signs of possible salmonella contamination. [New York Times]

• Change is all around at restaurants as they figure out how to weather the recession, but some are a bit more creative than others. [Houston Chronicle]

MP: Chicago reports on the New York Observer's decision to stop running restaurant reviews for financial reasons and the demise of newspaper restaurant criticism in general. So, declining ad revenue, no editorial support, and a lack of any anonymity these days means the outlook is not good for restaurant reviews printed on dead tree. It's a sad state of affairs.

The Increasingly Perilous State of Old-School Restaurant Criticism [MP: Chicago]

If you're willing to eat a bit later than your fellow Palm Beach residents, you can save a bit of cash at Taboo: make a reservation for a seating between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. and get 25 percent off the food portion of the bill with this coupon. It's good until the end of the month, so start making those reservations. The promotion is valid on Valentine's Day, and there's still limited availability at 9:30 p.m. for dinner that night.

Taboo [MenuPages]
Taboo [Official Site]

Need ideas for Valentine's Day? We're here to help. Check out these prix fixe deals offered by local Palm Beach County restaurants on that special night. Reservations are required for all of them, so make sure you call beforehand.

• For the big spenders out there, L'Escalier has a three-course prix-fixe menu for $145 per person. Ladies receive a long-stemmed rose.

• Forte Di Asprinio will serve a special Valentine's Day menu that's not prix fixe, but includes lots of options for appetizers, salads, pastas, entrees and desserts.

• Want to go out for lunch on the big day instead? Check out the deal at 264 The Grill: your date's entree is free.

• The Morton's locations in West Palm Beach and Boca Raton will be offering dinner for two for $99.99. The three-course menu includes a salad, a seafood dish, and a dessert. Want steak? Then the price is $55 per person.

• The Crab House is offering three Valentine's Day specials in addition to the regular menu: a lobster crusted Chilean sea bass with crab orzo; a grilled ribeye steak with a lobster tail; and for dessert, a chocolate covered cheesecake with white chocolate shavings and raspberries.

• At the Ritz-Carlton, Angle and Temple Orange are both offering three-course prix-fixe menus for $140 and $100 per couple, respectively. Want to eat at home? The Ritz's executive chef will prepare four-course menus for two to go for $150.

• Cafe Joley will definitely be offering both the regular menu and a special menu, but the chef was very cryptic about what was going to be on said menu. Seems it hasn't been set yet.

• Saba will have a $75 per couple menu that includes two each of appetizers, entrees and desserts. Entrees include a "swimming angel" (lobster tail with garlic-lemon butter sauce); a New York steak; and a dish of "two birds" (duck and chicken with a chile sauce).

Palm Beach restaurants offer Valentine's Day specials [Palm Beach Daily News]

• The FDA used to perform three-quarters of all food inspections; now they barely do half — the rest is done by underfunded state programs. Someone's dropping the buck. [AP]

• It's official: Virginia has become the latest state to ban smoking in restaurants and bars. [WaPo]

• A restaurant in Australia is being investigated after a man died from eating their asparagus sauce. [ABC/au]

• Nadya Suleman, the now-infamous single mother of 14 fertility treatment-aided children, turns out to have been on food stamps — giving rise to general public outrage and calls for increased scrutiny of the program. [Houston Chronicle]

• An Ohio teenager ordered $37,000 worth of candy online and tried to bill it to his former high school. He's been charged with fraud. [Tribune/AP]

MP: San Francisco reports on a new feature in its recently released dating guides: suggestions for the best places to break up with your significant other. The guides suggest to look for a comfortable and crowded restaurant where said significant other would be less likely to make a scene. And being near public transit is a good idea for a quick exit. Coconut Grove might be a good place to start; even if he/she were to make a scene, chances are the drunk co-eds from UM are making an even bigger one.

Where To Dump Your Date In SF [MenuPages: San Francisco]
New York City Dating (& Dumping) Guide [Zagat]

[Photo: Via Zagat]

Welcome to High Five, a new feature where we let you in on some of the most popular restaurant listings on MenuPages in the past month, as determined by what you (yes you!) click on. Today: the top Peruvian restaurants in the entire area.

1. La Granja Parrilla (Boca Raton)
2. La Granja Parrilla (Pembroke Pines)
3. Ceviche 105 (Miami)
4. La Granja Parrilla (Hollywood)
5. Chalan on the Beach (Miami Beach)

Need ideas for Valentine's Day? We're here to help. Check out these prix fixe deals offered by local Broward restaurants on that special night. Reservations are required for all of them, so make sure you call beforehand.

• At Cantina Laredo, the full dinner menu will be available, as well as a three-course $35 pre-fixe meal. Get a tequila cocktail pairing for an extra $15.

• You could save a bit of money by eating early at Trina; from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., the "Lovebirds" special is $39 per person. After 6:30 p.m., the "Menu of Love" is available (with additional offerings) for $59 per person.

• Morton's, The Steakhouse will be offering dinner for two for $99.99. The three-course menu includes a salad, a seafood dish, and a dessert. Want steak? Then the price is $55 per person.

• For those who want a meatless meal on Valentine's Day, there's Sublime's four course menu for $75 per person.

• Tequila Sunrise starts celebrating the holiday early; the lovebird specials begin tomorrow night and continue through the weekend. There's filet mignon with chocolate sauce, lobster tail enchiladas, and a skillet grill combo for two which comes with skirt steak, mahi-mahi, shrimp and scallops in a poblano chile sauce.

Here's a little reminder of exactly how crazy this state we live in is:

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. — Authorities in South Florida say a man was arrested after calling 911 to complain that a fast food restaurant had run out of lemonade.

Boynton Beach police say Jean Fortune, 66, has been charged with abuse of 911 communication.

Police say Fortune called the emergency telephone number and told authorities that a Burger King in Boynton Beach did not have any lemonade.

No Lemonade Caused Florida Man To Dial 911 [WPBF.com]

• In a move clearly meant to ramp up the competition with Starbucks, McDonald's has wrangled a deal with New York City's Fashion Week. Although the McCafé launch isn't until May, it will be the official drink of Fashion Week. [Advertising Age]

• An ever-growing number of new farmers are people who are doing it for the lifestyle change, though they're not making enough money at it to quit their day jobs. [NYT]

• This weekend, over 5,000 runners competed in the Krispy Kreme Challenge in NC. The race involves eating a dozen donuts per person, which sounds like a recipe for death if there ever was one. [AP/San Francisco Chronicle]

• In other strange food news, a literal ton of frozen chicken was abandoned outside of an old auto factory in Detroit. Investigators are on the case! [AP/Chicago Tribune]

• As with many of the past year's food contamination stories, the salmonella outbreak can be attributed to "holes in the food safety," including ones as egregious as leaking roofs. [NYT]

Welcome to High Five, a new feature where we let you in on some of the most popular restaurant listings on MenuPages in the past month, as determined by what you (yes you!) click on. Today: the top five Mexican restaurants in Broward County.

1. La Bamba (Plantation)
2. El Mariachi (Coral Springs)
3. Taqueria Doña Raquel (Pompano Beach)
4. La Bamba (Oakland Park)
5. El Mariachi (Coral Springs)

• Put in your drink order without knowing what you're going to get! [MP: Boston]

• Custom-blend your ice cream using liquid nitrogen! [MP: Chicago]

• Spit in the eye of the economy and open two more restaurants! [MP: Philadelphia]

• Put dirty-sounding words on your menu! [MP: San Francisco]

• Steal $14,000 from your employer! (Actually no, don't do this one.) [MP: South Florida]

Need ideas for Valentine's Day? We're here to help. Check out these prix fixe deals offered by local Miami restaurants on that special night. Reservations are required for all of them, so make sure you call beforehand. On Monday we'll list dining specials for Broward and Palm Beach.

• Chef Allen's is offering a five-course $75 dinner that features stone crab; tomato bisque or lobster mac and cheese; caesar or hearts of palm salad; oxtail, grouper or roasted duck breast; and a dark chocolate trio for dessert.

• Nikki Beach Club's four-course prix fixe menu is filled with the usual aphrodisiac suspects: oysters, asparagus, figs, chili peppers and chocolate. Prices are $80 per person or $65 for Nikki Beach Club VIP cardholders.

• Vita Restaurant & Lounge is hosting a fashion show and offering a five-course dinner for $150, including a bottle of champagne. And 10 percent of all proceeds from the restaurant that night go to Care Resource, a local HIV/AIDS charity.

• The Morton's locations in Miami, Coral Gables and North Miami Beach will be offering dinner for two for $99.99. The three-course menu includes a salad, a seafood dish, and a dessert. Want steak? Then the price is $55 per person.

• Gotham Steak doesn't have many reservations left for Valentine's Day, but if you're willing to eat early or late, they might be able to squeeze you in for the four-course $95 meal.

• The $95 prix fixe menu at Scarpetta includes options like scallops, rib eye, veal chops, and black cod.

• Head to Christy's for a $60 per person three-course menu.

• The regular a la carte dinner menu will be available at Cantina Beach; add $16 for a special chocolate buffet for dessert.

• At Le Bistro, you can get the Valentine's Day menu on Friday, Saturday or Sunday night; in fact, you'll have to if you go on one of those nights — the a la carte menu won't be available. The five-course menu, which includes ahi tuna, crab cakes, filet mignon, Key West pink shrimp, and a chocolate parfait, is $50 per person.

• Both the North Miami Beach and Key Biscayne locations of El Gran Inka are offering a $49.95 per person three-course meal. Entree options include pan-seared corvina, lomo saltado, and a dish of prime tenderloin with Pacific sea bass. The meal includes one glass of Chilean cabernet sauvignon and one pisco sour.

• Two separate prix fixe menus will be on offer at Area 31. For him: seafood ceviche, cavatelli in a tomato and parmesan broth, beef short ribs, and chocolate timbale. For her: tuna sashimi, ricotta gnocchi, yellow eye snapper, and frozen raspberry timbale. Price is $95 per person.

• You get a complimentary glass of champagne at Andu Restaurant & Lounge; after that, there's a special romantic drink menu with cocktails for $8. The prix fixe menu is $80 and includes fig tortellini and prime rib options.

Remember way back in November 2007 we wrote that former Top Chef contestant Howie Kleinberg's Bulldog BBQ would be open in two or three months? Three months turned into 15 months; the restaurant finally opens its doors, after a year of renovations and delays, on Monday at 11 a.m. Kleinberg expects the place will be swarmed:

We’ve had such an overwhelming — and exciting — response. Over the last couple of weeks, my staff and I have been in here daily prepping for the opening. We must have a dozen people stop in each day to ask if we’re open yet. I’ve had to reorder To Go menus twice!

Ask The Chef: Howie Kleinberg [MP: South Florida]
Howie Embraces Bulldog Status, Plans BBQ Restaurant [MP: South Florida]
Bulldog BBQ [MenuPages]
Bulldog BBQ [Official Site]

• Lawmakers in Virginia cross the aisle to support a restaurant smoking ban in that state. [Washington Post]

• Manhattan has been "plagued" by wafts of maple syrup smell for a few years now. Turns out it was coming from herbs used in a New Jersey plant that makes food flavors. [CNN]

• Restaurants are getting hit just like everybody else in this economy. Many are just trying to hang on for the next few months. [MSNBC]

• At least one person is dead and six wounded after two gunmen opened fire on a coffee shop in San Gabriel, Calif. [LA Times]

• And it looks like those tainted peanuts not only went to FEMA, they went to schools, too. Scary. [Washington Post]

MP: Philadelphia reports that not only are cupcakes more popular than ever here, but they are also now spreading to Europe; it appears that the Italians love the whimsical miniature cakes.

Craving cupcakes? Check yesterday's post about where to find one locally.

Cupcakes: Just Becoming More Popular [MP: Philadelphia]
The Cupcake Explosion [MP: South Florida]

Welcome to High Five, a new feature where we let you in on some of the most popular restaurant listings on MenuPages in the past month, as determined by what you (yes you!) click on. Today: the top five Thai restaurants in Palm Beach County.

1. Thai Grand Palace Restaurant (Jupiter)
2. Thaicoon Restaurant (North Palm Beach)
3. Sala Thai (Jupiter)
4. Orchids of Siam (West Palm Beach)
5. Lanna Thai Restaurant (Jupiter)

And from this list, we can infer ... that local Thai restaurants need some help in the naming department.

We caught up with Restaurant Gal this afternoon, the Washington, D.C. native whose blog became a popular read in South Florida for her tales of working at a fine dining establishment in Fort Lauderdale (the name of which she won't reveal) and daring to enter the local dating scene. Just last month she moved to a quiet place in the Keys, where she now waits tables at a place where she can wear a tank top and jeans to work.

Name: Restaurant Gal
Age: Old Enough
Occupation: Waitress
City: Somewhere in the Keys (no, not there...and not there either!)

MP: How long have you been blogging, and why do you do it?
RG: I've been blogging for three years. As a nonfiction writer/reporter for several decades, I missed writing on a regular basis. My then-husband suggested I start blogging and set it up for me. I wrote for three months and no one — NO ONE — read any of my writing, I am sure. Then I contacted Waiter on Waiterrant.net, not knowing he was one of the biggest bloggers in the biz, and said we had some experiences in common — haha. In the next few days the comments started coming in on my blog. I had no idea why. Turns out, Waiter had linked to me and literally put me on the blogger map. The blog has evolved a lot since then, and it's now more about the changes and challenges in my personal life — my move away from certainty and into the unknown that is at once exciting and terrifying. But I try to keep a restaurant reference to my posts, for the most part.

MP: You recently went from a fine dining restaurant in Fort Lauderdale to what you describe as a dive in the Keys. Was the adjustment difficult?
RG: It has not been difficult at all. Guests are guests, food is food, expectations are expectations. Serve them well, get 'em fed, and you'll meet their expectations. I just wish some would tip more than 10 or 15 percent when I do meet their expectations!

MP: What are your new customers like?
RG: The locals are wonderful. The best. The others are like guests anywhere else. Snowbirds are snowbirds, tourists are tourists, great folks are always great, angry folks are no less angry. Gleaming china and silver and crystal, or diner-style plates and napkins — in the end, it's not so different at all, except the check amount.

MP: Did you have any favorite restaurants in Fort Lauderdale, and have you found any yet in your new home?
RG: I was supposed to go to a supposed great Italian place in Fort Lauderdale on Federal, but the guy broke the date. Actually, that happened twice with two different guys. I have no idea if the place is any good or not, but everyone raves about it! Should have just taken myself there on my own! Oh well....

MP: One of your funnier posts was about how nervous diners kept calling the restaurant just before Tropical Storm Fay hit and asked you to predict the weather and know whether airports would be open. What other odd or impossible requests have diners made of you?
RG: Not so many odd requests yet, but my favorite is when people are shocked that I have put two kids through college. They get all misty-eyed and sometimes a little arrogant and say, "Well, good for you dear, being a waitress and all." Ha!

One of the more annoying things is when people want to sit outside when it's blowing 20 and the temps are in the 40s — like today! When I explain it's too windy and cold, someone always says, "Not to us, we're from [pick a spot in Canada, Minnesota, or upstate New York]. Can't we pleeeeeeeease sit outside???" Um, no, not if you want to be fed today.

All in all, I love it down here. I love the slower pace, the relaxed atmosphere of my restaurant, and the new folks I find so easy to meet in a smaller town setting. Not looking back, but I am really hoping some of my former co-workers head down this way to visit. They still cannot believe I am slinging eggs!

• No surprise here: Sra Martinez is a hit. There are a few critiques here and there, but overall the food is great. [Miami Herald]

• The steaks are 16 ounces at The Grill on the Alley. A full pound! Definitely a carnivore's place. [Miami New Times]

• Two new chain Mexican restaurants open in Palm Beach County. One is the second location of a Boston restaurant, the other is a branch of a chain in Mexico. The latter restaurant, Las Gaoneras, wins this taste taste in a landslide. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• Here's a good guide to that Miami phenomenon, the restaurant inside the gas station. There are more of them than you might think. [Miami Herald]

• Creolina's Dixie Takeout seems well adjusted to its new location in a Davie shopping plaza; the New Orleans fare is just as good as it was when the restaurant was in downtown Fort Lauderdale. [Miami Herald]

• A tiki hut in downtown Miami's Flagler Food Court where you can cook your chicken skewers on "lava rocks." Seems a bit gimmicky. A little gimmick is all right, however, when the rum runners are two-for-one all day. [Miami Herald]

• The owners of the Peanut Corporation of America, who are responsible for the recent salmonella outbreak, would like you to know that several private inspectors who they hired thought the plant was in ship-shape condition. [New York Times]

• FEMA food kits might contain tainted peanut butter. Whoops. [CNN]

• Joan Nathan on having her life saved by a Heimlich maneuver performed by Tom Colicchio: "Before the party, I had never met Tom Colicchio. Now we are linked for life." [New York Times]

• The Federal Trade Commission is going to wait 30 days before pursuing its antitrust challenge against Whole Foods. [CNN]

• Though it has been critically reviled, ratings for the Food Network's Chopped! are good enough that the show has been renewed for a second season. [The Feed/Time Out New York]

As if Key West restaurateurs didn't have enough to deal with these days. A former employee somehow swindled A & B Lobster House, Turtle Kraals, Alonzo's Oyster House and Half Shell Raw Bar out of a combined $13,900. She apparently began writing checks to herself and depositing checks from the restaurant into her account almost a year ago. She's even admitted to it — well to part of it:

An e-mail allegedly written by the suspect was included in the police report, in which she admits taking $2,128 in March and April.

"I am so sorry for what I have done," the e-mail said. "I was desperate and drowning and I always intended to put it back, but everything just spiraled out of control for me."

She wrote that she wants to pay the company back and "make it right," and asks that the company not involve the police.

Eateries claim $14K embezzled [Key West Citizen]
Turtle Kraals [MenuPages]
Alonzo's Oyster House [MenuPages]
A & B Lobster House [MenuPages]
Half Shell Raw Bar [MenuPages]

Photo of Turtle Kraals: change100/flickr

Welcome to High Five, a new feature where we let you in on some of the most popular restaurant listings on MenuPages in the past month, as determined by what you (yes you!) click on. Today: the top five Cuban restaurants.

1. Blue Sky Food By The Pound (Miami)
2. Polo Norte (Hialeah)
3. Casa Romeu (Miami Lakes)
4. Blue Sky Food By The Pound (Miami)
5. Havana Harry's Restaurant (Coral Gables)

Shocker: Versailles is not on the list. (It actually came in sixth in the click totals.) I was happy, albeit surprised, to see my local Westchester Blue Sky come in first by a huge margin. Clearly, given the fact that there are two Blue Skys in the top five, people are eating a lot of takeout.

Merge "serve" and "serenity" and you get: Servinity, an internet startup with a name that straddles the line between catchy and cheesy. The site itself seems incredibly useful — it's a job posting outlet and scheduling application all rolled into one, born from the frustration of an Atlanta bar owner who had to use multiple websites and means of communication to recruit and schedule his staff. From the Atlanta Business Journal:

The software-as-a service company leverages the Internet, e-mail, cell phone, SMS text messaging and social networks to help restaurants and bars schedule staffing — notifying employees when to be at work, or alerting them when a shift opens up. Servinity also allows eateries to recruit via a job board and offers dynamic resume search and applicant tracking. The social networking component allows staff to interact and upload and share documents.

There is a fee, of course: $100 per month for employers. These days, I'm not sure how many restaurants would be willing to take on that extra expense, especially when they can post for free on Craigslist. That scheduling application might be worth the money for some disorganized restaurants though. Of course, restaurateurs would have to embrace technology, and judging from the state of some local restaurants' websites, that is unlikely to happen.

Attorney launches restaurant staffing site [Atlanta Business-Journal]
Servinity [Official Site]

Have you noticed that cupcakes have exploded recently? Sure, they've been popular already for quite some time, but in recent months it seems like we're moving away from cupcake caterers with websites to cupcake specialists with brick-and-mortar stores. And I'm not talking about places like House of Sweets which has a location in Delray but requires minimum orders of one or two dozen and advance notice. I mean places that have cupcakes ready and waiting for you to walk right in and fulfill a sugary craving. Yes, it seems a little ridiculous paying so much for a cupcake, but have you seen cupcake menus lately? These bear little resemblance to the cupcakes you made for your kid's birthday party. Here's a rundown of some recent additions to the storefront cupcake scene:

• Lola's Cupcakery opened just about a week ago and is definitely trying to capture the high-end cupcake market. They're a bit pricier than most at $3.25, but oh my goodness do they look amazing. Check out the photos on Lola's site and try not to drool.

• Cupcakes Nouveau is another recent newcomer that touts its high quality ingredients and is also trying to market the cupcake as an upscale treat. Check out the Romeo & Juliet: a guava-filled cupcake with a hint of almond and a cream cheese frosting.

• You've probably seen Misha's cupcakes around at local cafes, but the company took it a step further with Misha's Cupcakes Cafe, which has been open since October. Cupcakes are always on the menu, but sometimes the bakery also offers scones, coffee cake and brownies.

• Buttercream Cupcakes & Coffee has been around for almost a year now in Coral Gables. It's a nice spot to relax over a mid-afternoon cupcake with a cup of coffee. It offers six standard flavors every day in addition to two rotating flavors. For example, show up on a Wednesday and you can get chocolate oreo or red velvet.

• Le Vinois Bakery has been showing up at farmer's markets this season in Normandy Village, Surfside and the Upper Eastside. The mobile bakery offers sandwiches, bread and other pastries besides cupcakes, which I hear have excellent frosting-to-cake ratio.

• Sweetcakes, with a store at 84th and Biscayne in Miami, offers lots of different options for cake and frosting combinations, in addition to my favorite "drunken cupcakes:" cupcakes soaked in your liqueur of choice.

Photo: Lola's Cupcakery

We've received a bit of feedback regarding the new "High Five" feature, and after a comment was posted about it yesterday, I thought it might be a good idea to clarify what the list's purpose is. Here's the comment in question:

Common lets be honest you are showcasing the wanna bee's by popularity list as thats what gets hits on the web, nothing to do with quality as there are so many BETTER Italian restaurants throught S Florida yet since they arent as well known (via PR$$$) they are hidden gems...As far as your list, How can a brand new restaurant (Scarpetta) even be considered??? Davito can u say fugetaboutit and I mean for the money and the pretentiousness for get about it!!!! Prime and Bova will give kudos to but not for the money as what $30.00 for a meatball I mean common folks choped meat oly costs 1.29/lb...I think Menu Pages should rethink this list/correct it and have an exit poll rather than base this on a High School popularity contest!!!!! Where is perricone's with Pasta on Thursdays for $10 bucks I mean common!!!

As for the suggestion that we conduct exit polls at, say, every Italian restaurant in Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties, well, we'd need a federal bailout in order to fund that endeavor.

High Five: High-End Italian [MP: South Florida]
Scarpetta [MenuPages]
Scarpetta [Official Site]
Perricone's Marketplace & Cafe [MenuPages]
Perricone's Marketplace & Cafe [Official Site]

• Hamas raided a UN warehouse in Gaza last night, taking 3,500 blankets and 400 food parcels meant for needy Gazans. [AP]

• One food bank in Texas, facing increased demand and decreased donations, has taken matters into its own hands by starting a vegetable garden. [Dallas Morning News]

• If you'd like to get a sense of what Denny's was like yesterday, check out this Trib feature in which a reporter visited five different Denny's and got a free meal at each one. [Chicago Tribune]

• New York restaurants are "hugging their customers" with dining deals and "extreme solicitousness tinged with outright desperation." [NYT]

• Looks like those grocery store loyalty cards are good for something other than getting deals; stores with loyalty programs are contacting customers who bought possibly salmonella-tainted peanut products by telephone to warn them of the risk. [US News & World Report]

Welcome to High Five, a new feature where we let you in on some of the most popular restaurant listings on MenuPages in the past month, as determined by what you (yes you!) click on. Today: the top five high-end Italian spots.

1. Prime Italian (Miami Beach)
2. DeVito South Beach (Miami Beach)
3. Bova Ristorante (Boca Raton)
4. Da Vittorio (Coral Gables)
5. Scarpetta (Miami Beach)

Not too many surprises here. Prime Italian is on the list again today, and I should mention that the restaurant's numbers dwarf those of any others on the list — it received almost exactly four times as many clicks as DeVito in January.

The sister restaurant of Mamajuana Cafe in New York City is opening in the old Chispa location (225 Altara Ave) in Coral Gables. The menu is very Nuevo Latino with a heavy dose of Spanish influences. MenuPages users seem to like it on the whole, although they complain that the food can be a bit inconsistent and that the brunch could be better. But the portions are large and the appetizers are tasty. A restaurant spokesman just confirmed that the menu for the new location will be very similar to that of the New York restaurant. Opening date is set for February 15.

And in case you're wondering exactly what "Mamajuana" is, here's the definition according to the restaurant's website:

A "miracle" potion created long ago in what was then known as Quisqueya, solely populated by the native Taino Indians, modernly known as the Dominican Republic. Mamajuana is a concoction of various herbs and roots that is mixed with rum, wine, honey and spices and has customarily been used to cure everything from impotency, to a sore throat, to the stomach flu.

HIRING ALL POSITIONS-NEW UPSCALE RESTAURANT in GABLES!!! (Coral Gables, Fl) [Craigslist]
Mamajuana Cafe [MenuPages]
Mamajuana Cafe [Official Site]

MP: Chicago reports that Starbucks is planning to offer some "breakfast pairings" at discounted prices that sound quite a bit like value meals. It seems McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts have both been attracting increasing numbers of coffee consumers; Starbucks' earnings were down 10 percent last quarter and 8 percent the quarter before that.

Starbucks Planning To Offer Value Menu? [MP: Chicago]

Photo: d'n'c/flickr

• Try the osso buco at La Portena, my favorite little Argentine-Italian neighborhood spot, where the dish is served with a saffron risotto.

• At Tarantella Ristorante, the osso buco is served with a rich tomato sauce on a bed of fettuccine.

• The osso buco at Chef Adrianne's Vineyard Restaurant and Wine Bar is supposedly "famous." Not sure how that's possible, since the restaurant hasn't been open that long. Still it sounds lovely — braised with pinot noir, garlic, tomato and herbs.

• You can get osso buco at Il Girasole Restaurant only on Sundays, when it's served in a light red sauce with polenta.

Photo: tannazie/flickr

• President Obama isn't mad at the FDA for failing to prevent salmonella outbreaks before they start; he's just very, very disappointed. [WaPo]

• An uptick in the misdiagnosis of allergies can lead to even more problems than the (theoretical) allergies themselves. [NYT]

• All the food-and-drink-related Superbowl commercials on Sunday were pretty much duds. [LAT]

• Organic farmers are increasingly skeptical of fertilizer producers, and want there to be more government oversight. [Mercury/AP]

• Denny's is offering free Grand Slam breakfasts today to basically anyone who comes in before 2pm today and asks for one. No catch. Probably giant lines, though. [BusinessWeek]

Welcome to Five at Five, a new feature where we let you in on some of the most popular restaurant listings on MenuPages in the past month, as determined by what you (yes you!) click on. Today: the top five overall.

Here, South Florida, are the restaurants whose menus you looked at the most last month. It's an odd cast of characters — some high-end, some wings, and one restaurant that, judging from the number of shilly reviews in the past month, is on this list because of vigilant owners.

1. La Granja Parrilla
2. Dolores, but you can call me Lolita
3. Prime Italian
4. Wings Plus
5. Rock Beach Grill

Don't be surprised if grouper prices shoot up in the coming months. The fish may even disappear from restaurant menus. A recent rule is banishing long-line grouper fisherman — who catch 60 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's commercial grouper — from waters any shallower than 300 feet in order to help the threatened loggerhead turtles. It seems that lots of turtles are getting caught on the hooks laid on the ocean floor, so the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council voted to keep longliners out of the turtles' waters. The problem is that those are the same waters that red grouper like; you'd be hard pressed to find one in 300-foot-deep water.

And another measure limits longlining even further. Here's what the St. Pete Times had to say:

For part of the year, some longliners target "deep water" grouper like yellowedge, speckled hind, warsaw grouper and snowy grouper. Those species have a tight collective quota, which is typically filled about June or July.

After the "deep water" quota is met, longliners still could fish beyond 300 feet for gag grouper, because it lives all the way to shore and is considered a "shallow water" species. But the longliners would also kill a lot of deep water species in the process.

So the council decided to ban all longline fishing in the eastern gulf once the deep water quota is met.

On the upside, turtles will be safer, and now might be a good time to do a little recreational fishing on the Gulf coast. You'll have a lot less competition from commercial boats.

Loggerhead turtle rule will hurt gulf's grouper industry [St. Petersburg Times]

Photo, of a grouper sandwich at Sharkey's in St. Augustine: WordRidden/flickr

Adam over at MP: San Francisco reports that OpenTable, the place to make your restaurant reservations online, is going public and hoping to raise $40 million with the IPO. This would be a big deal in the restaurant world at any time, but it's an especially big deal now — the last time any company went public was in August.

OpenTable is really easy to use with MenuPages. Say you're checking out the menu at Table 8. See the "reserve online" link just below the restaurant's phone number? One click will take you right to Table 8's OpenTable page, where you can plug in the time and date you want and make the reservation.

OpenTable Goes Public [MP: San Francisco]
Table 8 [MenuPages]
Table 8 [Official Site]

• Short Order takes a peek inside the kitchen at Meat Market and provides photos of each station, from the raw bar to the grill to pastry. [Short Order]

• Restaurant Gal is "living the dream" down in the Keys. Or so say some visitors from DC. [Restaurant Gal]

• The Beer Man gives a recap of the Jupiter Craft Brewers Festival. It sounds like a fun event, except it seems to be struggling to manage its own popularity — lines were long, even for people who already had pre-paid tickets. [Jan Norris]

• Balans in Mary Brickell Village has magic glass bathroom stalls that fog up when locked. Kind of cool, except...what if it doesn't work? [All Purpose Dark]

• Blind Mind returns to Michael's Genuine Food & Drink after a month-long absence and is reminded why he fell in love with the restaurant in the first place. [Blind Mind]

• Is the steak better at Red or at Prime 112? Sounds like the steaks are better at the former, but the sides and appetizers are better at the latter. [Chowhound]

• There were many important Bowls yesterday — the Super Bowl, the Puppy Bowl, and Philadelphia's annual Wing Bowl. This year's winner was a scrappy 23 year old who goes by the pseudonym "Super Squib" and ate 203 wings. [Philadelphia Daily News]

• Also in honor of the Super Bowl, a Chicago pizzeria shipped 2,000 pizzas to Illinois National Guard members stationed in Afghanistan. Let no one be denied the American dream of drinking beer and eating pizza and jalapeno poppers on Super Bowl Sunday! [Chicago Tribune]

• Dolphins prepare their cuttlefish before eating it! Scientists have found that they undertake an intensive process to clean out ink and cartilage, resulting in calamari-grade meat. [Reuters/Boston Globe]

• Food irradiation (to prevent contamination outbreaks) has been on the table for the past ten years, but has never taken off. There are many reasons, but the biggest is fear that consumers would probably not react well to food with the label "radiated." [NYT]

• The current salmonella scare seems inevitable in the face of the following: the health inspector who visited the main peanut plant responsible found only two health violations. They were minor, at that. [AP/LA Times]