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Helen at MP: Chicago got wind earlier this week that Esquire food writer John Mariani, author of the magazine's Best New Restaurants list, was heading to a Chicago restaurant that night, and suddenly her e-mail inbox was flooded with messages from people in the food world who cannot stand Mariani. Among the sins of which he's accused: never paying for meals, sending a list of requirements to a restaurant prior to eating there, and carrying business cards with a daiquiri recipe printed on the reverse, which he hands to bartenders wherever he goes. Today, an Esquire editor comes to his defense in a message in which he corroborates the daiquiri story but denies that Mariani gets comped meals.

Also, a brief note about the allusions to free meals: John (and Esquire) took it very seriously a few years ago when accusations were made about him praising restaurants that comped him. John has worked very hard to make sure that if he even thinks he's eating at a place that might make our list, he pays the full bill. Believe me — I see his expense reports.

Go Joey!: Wynwood neighborhood favorite Joey's is mentioned in the June issue of Food & Wine among a group of "new pizza artisans." It's nice to see that the list isn't totally New York-centric — it's getting easier and easier to get great pizza outside of the Big Apple. [Food & Wine via Short Order]

Oldies But Goodies: Joe's Stone Crab is among the oldest restaurants in America, according to BusinessWeek. Not surprising, of course. What is surprising? The fact that crabs were 75 cents per handful when the restaurant first opened. Oh, how times have changed. [BusinessWeek]

Hell's Kitchen: Paula DaSilva, the executive sous chef at 3030 Ocean, has done quite well on Hell's Kitchen — so well, in fact, that she's made it to the final episode. Find out if she wins at the Harbor Beach Marriott's viewing party on Thursday. There will be free mojitos and caipirinhas between 8 and 10 p.m. and complimentary appetizers during the hour-long episode, which begins at 9 p.m. [The Chowfather]

Another day, another list. Food & Wine is releasing Cocktails '09, a book with more than 150 cocktail and party-food recipes, some of them from well-known bars around the country. Speaking of those bars, the magazine put together a list of the top 100 bars in America; among them is The Florida Room at The Delano on Miami Beach. It's the only South Florida contribution, but as swanky bars with fancy cocktails go, that's certainly a good choice.

Knishes and Corned Beef: Tune in to the Food Network tonight — Flakowitz Bake Shop will be featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. You'll get to see exactly how the restaurant makes its stuffed cabbage, potato knishes and pastrami and corned beef sandwiches. The show airs at 10 p.m. tonight. [Sun-Sentinel]

Helen over at MP: Chicago got to go to the James Beard Media Awards, aka the "Golden Globes of food media," held last night in New York. She's got a full list of winners, plus a rundown of the event, including a mishap in which winners for the wrong category were announced. Oops! Check out her recap and/or live tweet.

We'll be at the Chef and Restaurant Awards tonight, live-tweeting and reporting back on which, if any, South Florida chef will take home an award and what Michelle Bernstein is making for the "Women in Food" reception. [MP: Chicago]

The Food Network Magazine's June/July issue, which hits newsstands on May 5, has a feature on the 50 best burgers across the country, one for each state. Florida's winner is the frita — that wonderfully satisfying fried Cuban burger topped with crispy shredded potatoes — from El Rey de las Fritas. Here's what the magazine says about it:

This spot’s name means “King of the Fried Burger,” a fair claim: The small Miami chain reportedly has family ties to Havana’s first restaurant specializing in the frita, Cuba’s take on a slider. The thin, beef-and-chorizo patties are fried, then topped with shoestring fries and a secret tomato-based sauce.

We had to chuckle a bit when we read that Nina and Tim Zagat visited Cuba recently hoping for good food. They obviously underestimated the toll that communism has taken on the country's cuisine:

And what about the food? We expected to find exciting Cuban cuisine with dishes we've never had before. We didn't. What we ate pretty much boiled down to rice and beans and pork and chicken, with salad being "too risky."

Cuba in a Time Warp [The Atlantic]

Photo: Space Ritual/flickr

This year's hot spots in South Florida are Pacific Time and
Sra Martinez, according to Conde Nast Traveler's Hot List 2009, which lists hot new restaurants, hotels and spas all over the world. Nothing we didn't already know, of course. Check out the list to see where else in the US (and the world) the magazine editors think you should be eating.

Conde Nast Traveler: Hot List Tables 2009 [Official Site]

Our sister site Grub Street tells how Top Chef has reached new heights in shilling: Top Chef-themed flower arrangements from Teleflora. Available soon!

Also in Top Chef news, the Chowfather notes that there are no South Florida representatives in the upcoming Top Chef Masters.

Top Chef Discovers Entire New Level of Shilling [Grub Street]
Top Chef Masters [The Chowfather]

It's list time again! This time, we have Travel and Leisure's opinion on the 50 best new restaurants in the country. The sole South Florida mention is, of course, a New York transplant: Scarpetta, in the Fontainebleau on Miami Beach. Here's what the magazine says:

His sybaritic urban-rustic Italian specials—succulent baby goat, the best pasta al pomodoro this side of Naples—taste even better here, with those beautiful ocean vistas.

If you were making the list, which South Florida restaurants would you add, if any?

50 Best New Restaurants [Travel + Leisure]

Joe's Stone Crab comes in third on a list of the top 100 independent restaurants in the country according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine, with $28,827,328 in 2008 sales, 320,000 meals served at an average of $65 per dinner check. Other South Florida restaurants on the list include Prime 112 and DeVito South Beach.

Top 100 Independents [Restaurants & Institutions]

Food & Wine magazine is announcing its picks for Best New Chefs 2009 tonight. Judging from Dana Cowin's cryptic clues yesterday, we don't really think there are any South Florida chefs among the bunch, but if you're curious, MP: Boston's Leila is live-tweeting the event.

This must be a joke, right?

VERO BEACH — Two times we went to Ruby Tuesday and the wait was longer than 30 minutes, so we left. This time around, the wait was 20 minutes, so we felt lucky and stayed. Surprise! This chain takes reservations. For the most part, the food is fresh and good, with none of the dreaded microwave reheating that usually plagues a chain.

Sadly, a speaker for the canned music was directly overhead, so we were serenaded by elevator music throughout our meal.

Restaurant critic review: Ruby Tuesday breaks the chain of mealtime blahs [Treasure Coast Palm]

Photo: NNECAPA/flickr

Beard Award-nominee Michael Schwartz, of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, will be on The Early Show on Saturday, March 28 during the show's "Chef on a Shoestring" feature, where chefs make a sophisticated meal for four for under $40. Schwartz will prepare a date and orange salad with toasted almonds and lemon vinaigrette; braised chicken with apricots, green olives and couscous; and homemade doughnuts filled with orange marmalade and anise sugar. The show airs at 9 a.m. on CBS.

Despite sometimes lagging a behind other large cities in the dining department, South Florida has managed to be well represented in the reality chef TV world, and even if a chef doesn't do well, it can be a huge boost to his or her career:

'I stopped in West Bumble, Texas, on the way back from L.A., and an old lady at a Cracker Barrel said, `I know who you are. I love you,' '' said Josh Wahler, a contestant on the third season of Fox's Hell's Kitchen. ``The show was huge for my career.''

Wahler, 28, went from being a junior sous chef at Nobu in Miami Beach to running the kitchen at 5300 Chop House at the new Blue Resort in Doral. This, even though Hell's Kitchen host Gordon Ramsay berated him for eight weeks running, then declared him ''f---ing useless'' and kicked him off the show. (''Didn't bother me,'' Wahler said.)

Reality TV smiles upon Florida chefs [Miami Herald]
What you should know if you want to be a chef-testant [Miami Herald]
Celebrity Chef Series: Tom Colicchio [Adrienne Arsht Center]

Check out the New Times' restaurant-themed insert this week, called Taste 2009 if you haven't already. It's mostly ads with a few recipes interspersed between them, but it's the interviews with prominent local chefs that are great. The paper talks to Cindy Hutson of Ortanique on the Mile about being self-taught, Allen Susser of Chef Allen's about reinventing his restaurant, Jonathan Eismann of Pacific Time on how the "pizza-munchers and ice-cream lickers" killed Lincoln Road, Clay Conley of Azul on how Miami compares to other cities where he's worked, Michael Schwartz of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink on being local and sustainable (he employs a forager!), and Kris Wessel of Red Light about the state of independent chef-owned and -operated restaurants. It's a really great read that gives a good sense of what is happening in the Miami dining scene now, and it makes us feel really good about its future.

Taste 2009 [Miami New Times]

The second season of Check Please! South Florida begins on Monday, March 9 with new guests, new restaurants and the same host, Michelle Bernstein. This time around, there's a new IKEA-furnished set, a focus on places that offer good values, and a quick-fix recipe demonstrated by Bernstein. There's also a new contest for gift certificates to featured restaurants — check the show's website each Saturday for a question, watch the show later that week, and e-mail the answer to info@checkpleasefl.com. All correct answers will be entered into a drawing for a gift certificate.

The show airs Mondays and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. on WPBT.

Check Please! South Florida [Official Site]

Photo: Courtesy of WPBT

Looks like Guy Fieri wasn't just down here for the parties — he was spotted filming a segment for his Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show at Whale's Rib in Deerfield Beach. No word yet on when the episode will air.

First Rachael Ray, Then Guy Fieri, Wonder Who’s Next? [Blair Candy Blog]
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives [Official Site]
Whale's Rib [Official Site]

We just found Charles Passy's take on last week's Burger Bash, and we could not agree more:

Lesson No. 2: A famous chef can make a really bad burger. At the Rachael Ray-hosted Burger Bash, one of the festival's most popular events, chefs from all over the country vie for the honor of top dog (er, burger).

Among the big names on hand: Bobby Flay, Katie Lee Joel (wife of Billy), Masaharu Morimoto. But it often seemed as if the bigger the name, the bigger disappointment of a burger they served. Take Bobby Flay's over-the-top rendition with a bleu cheese sauce and crumbled potato chips. There was so much going on flavor- and texture-wise that I had to ask, "Where's the beef?"

Lesson No. 3: An unknown chef can make a really great burger. Not that I'd call Miami's Michael Schwartz (of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink) a complete unknown, but he's hardly a household name outside South Florida. And yet, he had the best burger - in my book, at least - among the 20-plus competitors at the Burger Bash. The secret? He kept to the classic bacon cheeseburger formula (why mess with success?), but just upped the quality of the individual ingredients, from heirloom tomatoes to a thickly cut bacon that he prepares himself. Bravo!

Five lessons (culinary and celebrity) from South Beach festival [Palm Beach Post]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [MenuPages]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [Official Site]

Grub Street asks Rachael Ray about her diet this past week, which of course happened to include the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. She actually managed to get a bite of each of the 22 burgers at the Burger Bash. Very impressive. She also had steak with chimichurri at the Raleigh Hotel and gave up dinner at Escopazzo (one of her favorite places, apparently) to order in from Lime Fresh Mexican Grill for a quiet evening on the hotel rooftop.

Rachael Ray Has Been in a ‘Meaty Mood’ Since SoBe [Grub Street]

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]

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

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]

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]

Want to read more about the departure of Chef Jeff McInnis from Top Chef? Check out our sister site Grub Street's interview with him:

Between the three of you, do you have any idea who made the worst dish? Did you get to taste the other ones?
Yeah, we all got to taste everybody’s food. In my opinion, obviously mine was better. I definitely think it was better than Fabio’s. We all looked at Fabio’s and how well-done it was, and there were definitely thoughts that it was going to be him.

Top Chef Exit Interview: Episode Ten [Grub Street]

Last night's Top Chef episode was tough to watch. About halfway through, I had a bad feeling that Jeff McInnis, of DiLido Beach Club and this season's sole South Florida representative, was doomed. Sure enough, he was told to pack his knives and go, after he lost to season two's Josie Malave-Smith in a head-to-head football-themed competition. Both had to create a dish that reflected the cuisine of the Dolphins' hometown, and both came up with variations on rock shrimp ceviche.

Chef McInnis was gracious enough to answer a few questions this afternoon about the episode, his life as a minor celebrity and how his cooking has (or hasn't) changed.

MP: What was it like watching last night's episode?
Jeff: It definitely brought back some old feelings. I wasn't happy about the outcome, but what can you do?

MP: You said in your exit interview that you serve that same ceviche dish at your restaurant. Is it still on the menu?
Jeff: Right now, it's not with rock shrimp, but I do it with mango and a sangria sorbet. Right now, I'm making it with hog snapper. It's a line-caught fish with a mild, nice flavor to it.

Continue reading "Ask The Chef: Jeff McInnis" »

Things I learned from today's tribute to Versailles in the Herald (picked up from the U/Miami News Service):

• The restaurant is "a focal point of Cuban-American dissent, protest or celebration."
• Multiple presidents have eaten there.
• Cuban comfort food is served there.

Groundbreaking stuff, isn't it?

Little Havana's Versailles is more than a restaurant [Miami Herald]
Versailles [MenuPages]

Photo: JimNice/flickr

Well, even if you would, good luck getting a local sushi restaurant to serve it to you. Jacob Katel at the New Times made a few phone calls to sushi spots in the area to see if a) they served it and b) if they didn't serve, if they could procure it for him somehow. Given that you can die from eating this fish if it's prepared by someone who doesn't know what he's doing, that's a bit scary. The responses were pretty amusing:

Sushi Rock Cafe - (305) 305-532-2133
- Oh nah bro, that's really hard to serve that I don't know bro. It's really dangerous. I know they do that in Japan, but you gotta have a license for that here.

Matsuri Japanese Restaurant - (305) 663-1615
- Whats a bluefish

By the way, in case you aren't familiar with the details of tetrodotoxin, the poisonous stuff inside the pufferfish, here's what Wikipedia says about what that stuff can do to you:

The symptoms from ingesting a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin may include dizziness, exhaustion, headache, nausea, or difficulty breathing. For 50% to 80% of the victims, death follows within four to 24 hours. The victim remains fully conscious throughout most of the ordeal, but cannot speak or move due to paralysis, and soon also cannot breathe and subsequently asphyxiates. If the victim survives the first 24 hours, he or she usually recovers completely.

Searching for Fugu [Short Order]
Fugu [Wikipedia]
Sushi Rock Cafe [MenuPages]
Matsuri Japanese Restaurant [MenuPages]
Morimoto [MenuPages]
Restaurant Nippon [MenuPages]

We're a little confused by this Miami Herald story. Not quite sure what to make of it. Here's the first few paragraphs:

Long gone are the days in South Florida when the term ''dinner party'' meant a cheap bottle of Pinot and a few prepared dishes from Whole Foods, all in hopes of impressing friends with your new IKEA table in that nifty loft rental.

Now, everyone from sophisticated socialites to young hipsters are showing up at top restaurants and resto-lounges in hopes of turning dinner into an all-night party.

''Dinner parties are fun, especially when you mix in Miami's hip and sexy crowd,'' says Lance Tinkler, owner of B.E.D. in Miami Beach. ``People love to socialize and eat with others. It will always be that way. Who likes to eat alone? No one.''

Then again, we might be clinging to our apparently antiquated notion of a dinner party, in which the host prepares a meal and invites people to share conversation, etc. over said meal. What this article describes as a dinner party is a meeting of friends for a meal followed by drinking/dancing/debauchery in the same restaurant/club. Is there a "host" who pays for all of his or her friends' meals and drinks? (Not likely — that would get very expensive very quickly.) Or is everyone just meeting together and paying his or her own way? If that's the case, we're not sure how this is new; our friends have been doing that for years. Clearly, we're trendsetters.

Eats and beats: South Florida's dinner party trend mixes food and nightlife [Miami Herald]

Morimoto is, apparently, too cool for the press. Someone from The New Times called to make a reservation, but was told that no reviews were necessary.

Last week we made a call down to the resort to see if we could snag a table at the month-old sushi bar and restaurant, Morimoto. Normally, one would have to be either a member of the Boca Resort or a guest of the hotel to dine there. But we were hoping with a drop of a business card here and a wink of the eye there we'd be able to leverage our supreme press status into a couple seats at the bar. Turns out that we're not so special. A representative of the resort informed us that Morimoto doesn't need to be reviewed, nor should it be, because it's essentially not open to the public.

Good news: Check, Please! South Florida will be back on the air in March 2009 with Michelle Bernstein as host. Keep an eye out on the show's blog for information on how to suggest restaurants or be one of the lucky few who get to go on TV.

Check, Please! South Florida -- Season 2 [Channel 2]

Chef Jeff McInnis is a busy guy. The chef de cuisine at DiLido Beach Club in the Ritz-Carlton is on the next season of Top Chef (which begins airing on Wednesday, November 12). Aside from his day job, he's got all of the press activities for Top Chef, plus he's working on a cookbook that he's "praying will be out in December."

I caught up with him at one of these press activities, where I managed to monopolize his time for 10 minutes. The Bravo publicity folks were milling about, ready to swoop in the moment they saw someone pull out a notebook, so we talked mostly of non-Top Chef-related things. (The one thing he was allowed to tell me: It was "exciting" and a "great experience.") Like how so much of the dining scene in Miami is shifting from South Beach to Brickell and the Design District. About his stages in Egypt, Istanbul and the Greek Isles which influence the way he cooks at DiLido. So the food has a Mediterranean bent, although he steers clear of Italian, since so many others on Lincoln Road do it. And we talked about the five farms throughout the state from which he buys produce. He even found a local farm — The Little Farm in Goulds, which is "like a petting zoo, but they kill the animals" — to supply him with goat cheese.

In between presentations, televisions blared Top Chef promos for the upcoming season. Not one featured McInnis, which makes me think he's either told to pack his knives and go in an early episode, or he quietly stays out of drama and just gets the job done. After spending 10 minutes talking to him, I'm inclined to believe the latter. He came off as soft-spoken and friendly, and just didn't seem the type to get involved in drama. Think the anti-Howie Kleinberg.

As McInnes is the only local chef in this year's competition, we're squarely in his corner. Go Jeff!

DiLido Beach Club [MenuPages]
DiLido Beach Club [Official Site]
Top Chef [Official Site]

The New York Times ventured around the country to check out how restaurateurs are coping with the economic downturn in a few big cities. South Florida and Southern California, which both have taken hard hits in the housing market, are, not surprisingly, faring the worst of the bunch. Here's what the paper had to say about Miami:

Restaurateurs here say that in the past few weeks, conversations have turned from beaches to budgets.

Ms. Bernstein, 38, the chef and a partner at Michy's, said her business is down about 20 percent from the same time last year.

Diners, she said, now buy one bottle of wine instead of two, and often order fewer items from her menu, which includes full and half portions. Rising prices have added to the squeeze.

“Flour is up 85 to 100 percent,” she said. “We can’t raise our prices because we can’t lose you.”

On Lincoln Road, the main restaurant row of South Beach, owners and managers described wild swings from night to night.

“Some days we’re off by $100,” said Vinny Cartiglia, a manager at Balans, where the most popular item is the sea bass ($22.95). “Some days it’s by $2,000 or $3,000.”

Restaurants with predictable food at decent prices seem to be doing better. Bars with football fare (burgers, wings, quesadillas) report that business has stayed roughly even since last year, as do the South American cafeterias that dot most Miami neighborhoods.

Some restaurants with more sophisticated offerings have tried to adjust.

Icebox Cafe in Miami Beach, which offers New American fare with a focus on seafood, wine and layer cakes, now offers a “recession cruncher” menu that includes a stuffed red pepper with a beef and rice filling for $12. The owners have also had some success with new, affordable family take-out: a loaf pan of meatloaf, with nine servings, goes for $18.

But perhaps no one understands the city’s stomachs — and wallets — better than Myles Chefetz. He owns four restaurants here.

In an interview at the sleek steakhouse Prime One Twelve, he rattled off his sales numbers. The Big Pink diner was flat. Nemo, an American bistro that has been open for 14 years: down 10 percent. Shoji Sushi: down 13 percent.

And Prime One Twelve, where the average check is $105? Up 6 percent over last year.

To explain why, Mr. Chefetz walked into the restaurant’s softly lighted, crowded dining room. He pointed to a powerful developer who could still afford expensive wine. Mr. Chefetz walked outside. A $200,000 Bentley was parked near the curb. He said he planned to open a high-end Italian restaurant across the street later this year.

“The people here with a lot of money,” he said. “They’re still going out.”

Across the Country, Restaurants Feel the Pinch [New York Times]

Project Runway is enjoyable, but it's high time to put away the dresses and bring out the souffles. Top Chef is starting soon (well, not that soon: Wednesday, November 12), and Miami's very own Jeff McInnis, chef de cuisine at DiLido Beach Club on South Beach (and known as "the hot chef of our dreams" over at Riptide), will be competing for the top prize of $100,000.

The Panhandle native is a Johnson & Wales grad and has worked at San Francisco's Azie and Five Star Orient Express in Virginia. Before being named chef de cuisine at DiLido, he worked with Norman Van Aken. He was also named a "rising star" by Star Chefs.com earlier this year. Here's an excerpt of his interview with the magazine:

AB: What ingredient that you like do you feel is underappreciated or under-utilized?
JM: Edible flowers – they give color, appearance, flavor, and a sensation on the plate that works with my surroundings. I also like verjus a lot. It’s not as sharp of a flavor as vinegar and gives a soft acid flavor that works better with wine. I love cooking with vinegar, but the over-use of vinegar can make wine pairing difficult.

AB: What are a few of your favorite flavor combinations?
JM: I love sweet and spicy. Chinese char siu pork. Umami and sour is another one. Also, I like using texture combinations that are not flavors but still excite everyone - crispy and soft, hot and cold.

AB: What’s your most indispensable kitchen tool? Why?
JM: I like my Pacojet – it allows me to make quick small batches of sorbets. We also keep a tank of liquid nitrogen on hand in the kitchen. Between these two pieces of equipment we are able to make some interesting and original items like parmesan ice cream, goat cheese sorbet, and cucumber sorbet. Because my dining room is outdoors in the hot Miami weather I like to serve dishes topped with a cold, crisp, flavorful accompaniment. When the bar is busy I like to take the liquid nitrogen to the bar and make nitrogen cocktails.

Top Chef Season 5 [Official Site]
Chef Jeff McInnis [Star Chefs]
DiLido Beach Club [Official Site]

Has anyone seen the latest issue of Florida Monthly magazine? The "Best of Florida" list for 2008 is out, and it's a looooong one. There are some puzzling categories (the Castillo de San Marcos in St Augustine won "best historical landmark" for the eighth year in a row, because really, how often do new historical landmarks pop up to challenge the leaders?) as well as some puzzling results (Pleasure Island wins "best nightspot" over South Beach? Seriously?). It should be noted that the winners are voted on by the magazine's readers, so the editorial staff cannot be blamed for that nightlife gaffe. The entire list is here, but if you're only interested in the food-focused ones, they're after the jump.

Continue reading "Florida Monthly Releases Best Of Florida 2008" »

There's no way to make a definitive list of the best anything in America, but magazines will always keep trying, which is fine, because it gives us something to write about. This time around it's Esquire's list of the best bars in the country, and Miami's own Churchill's Pub claims the #1 spot. This is great, except I'm thinking the guys over at Churchill's probably aren't keen on the idea of a bunch of people showing up because they read about it in Esquire.

Despite the pub's spot at the top of the list, the writeup for Churchill's is surprisingly short:

When? Morning, when the game's on. Premier League soccer in the day, punk bands at night, British round the clock.

Read the brochures and you'd think Miami has a mineral purity to it: gold beaches, platinum towers, quartz hotels, turquoise seas. Bull. The earthy funk of mildew and swamp, the acetylene heat of the subtropical sun, the rifle cracks of thunderstorms and the thundercracks of rifles: That's Miami. Mineral? Nah: animal. There are iguanas in the trees. Alligators in the swimming pools. It's not a city; it's a hallucination. But the hallucination has faded. Maybe it's a surplus of seriousness, maybe a lack of imagination, but these days only a chemical boost can bring the Technicolor dreamworld flooding back. Thank God, then, for Jimbo's. Tucked among mangrove trees beside a lagoon on an island in the middle of Biscayne Bay, it's not just in Miami but of it. Shrimp boats pull in at the dock. Herons poke around the garbage bins. Locals set up grills out front. And in the shack that is the bar itself, cans of beer chill in barrels while the day's catch cures to bronzed perfection in the smoker. Sure, you'll eat that fish with your fingers. But Jimbo's is quiet and friendly, and it fits the land so right, it's easy to forget that the platinum city exists at all. Sip your beer and listen. That's not the wind in the trees; it's the iguanas.

Mac's Club Deuce made it onto the list in the #3 spot; Zeke's and Tap Tap Haitian Restaurant are also included. Not a bad showing for the Magic City.

The Best Bars in America [Esquire]
Churchill's Pub
Jimbo's
Tap Tap Haitian Restaurant [MenuPages]
Mac's Club Deuce (222 14th St in Miami Beach; 305-531-6200)
Zeke's (625 Lincoln Rd in Miami Beach; 305-532-0087)

Do you have a spare $250 lying around? How about a decent knowledge of wines? Apparently that's all you need to get an Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. No actual restaurant necessary. Robin Goldstein, author of The Wine Trials, made up a restaurant and sent in an application to the magazine, in a sort of experiment to see exactly how they come up with these awards.

As part of the research for an academic paper I’m currently working on about standards for wine awards, I submitted an application for a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. I named the restaurant “Osteria L’Intrepido” (a play on the name of a restaurant guide series that I founded, Fearless Critic). I submitted the fee ($250), a cover letter, a copy of the restaurant’s menu (a fun amalgamation of somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes), and a wine list.

Osteria L’Intrepido won the Award of Excellence, as published in print in the August 2008 issue of Wine Spectator. (Not surprisingly, the Osteria’s listing has been removed from Wine Spectator’s website since I posted this.) I presented this result at the meeting of the American Association of Wine Economists in Portland, Oregon, on Friday, August 15.

It’s troubling, of course, that a restaurant that doesn’t exist could win an Award of Excellence. But it’s also troubling that the award doesn’t seem to be particularly tied to the quality of the supposed restaurant’s “reserve wine list,” even by Wine Spectator’s own standards. Although the main wine list that I submitted was a perfectly decent selection from around Italy meeting the magazine’s numerical criteria, Osteria L’Intrepido’s “reserve wine list” was largely chosen from among some of the lowest-scoring Italian wines in Wine Spectator over the past few decades.

Lee Klein has quite a long story in today's New Times about the whole bottled water controversy .... What struck us is exactly how expensive bottled water is. Here are a few choice quotes from the article:

Jonathan Eismann, chef/owner of Pacific Time, can't fathom why "people are complaining about gas being $4.50 a gallon. Meanwhile they're paying nine bucks a gallon for water."

"A family of three who rely exclusively on bottled water will, by the time the first child is 18, have already spent the equivalent of that child's college education in a public university on that water."

Dasani's Florida stock comes from Broward County, which buys its water from the City of Hollywood Water Treatment Plant, which secures its supply from the Biscayne and Floridan aquifers. It has been estimated that the average bulk cost paid for public water is between one and two cents a gallon. At a Publix supermarket in Miami Beach, a 20-ounce single-serve bottle of Dasani costs, with tax, $1.50 — or $10 to $20 a gallon, about 500 to 1,000 times the price.

Bottled Water Gets the Boot [Miami New Times]
Photo: Wikimedia

The internets were abuzz yesterday after WPLG's Dirty Dining blog took a stroll down Giralda in the Gables and found plenty of health code violations.

There's the usual stuff, like grease accumulation on the floor of Randazzo's (which is probably more of a hazard to the cooks than to diners), a few dead roaches at Archie's Gourmet Pizza, which might make us think twice about eating at these places but probably won't compel us to avoid it altogether. But here's what really angered us, from the entry for Las Vegas:

“Identity of food product misrepresented. selling SWAI for GROUPER”

A stroll down Giralda. Part 1 [Dirty Dining]
The Cooler [South Florida Daily Blog]
Dirty Dining Series Takes on Giralda Ave. [Coral Gables]

Photo: Dirty Dining

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]

There's a short interview with Michael Schwartz on US News & World Report's "Inside Job" blog that's pretty entertaining. They give him the beginning of a sentence, and he has to finish it. Our favorite:

1. My job title should really read... "camp counselor and head baby sitter."

We imagine our parents laughing while reading New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov's article over whether or not to let his 16- and 17-year-old sons drink wine with dinner. He consults experts, some of whom tell him to give them sips, others who advise enforcing a strict no-alcohol policy until 21. (One even wishes the drinking age were 25!)

This was one issue that our parents never thought twice about, which is why, perhaps, Asimov's hand-wringing seems a little silly. Alcohol was never forbidden; if we wanted a sip of something, we could have it. For as long as we can remember, we had our own wine glass at dinnertime — it was just a lot less full than the other glasses. We were never offered beer or cocktails until we were 18 and had returned from college.

The other MenuPages editors had similar stories. MP: Boston's Leila was allowed a glass of wine with dinner throughout her teenaged years. Adam of MP: San Francisco was still in elementary school when he started taking sips from his parents' cups, although he didn't begin drinking wine or beer with dinner until he was 18. Neal of MP: Philadelphia was 14 when he was allowed a glass of wine on holidays and special occasions, and Adam of MP: Chicago wasn't all that interested in wine when he was first offered it at 14 or 15, but by 17 he was drinking wine with dinner and by 20 was sharing scotch with his parents.

So it's not exactly a representative sample, but it's telling that none of us has had any real drinking problems. Sure, we all drank more than we should have in college (didn't everyone?), but there are no stomach-pumping incidents or DUIs to report. Just a few bad hangovers. Which makes us think that Asimov should just chill out and let his kids have a glass of wine.

Can Sips at Home Prevent Binges? [New York Times]

Photo: gakrid [Flickr]

Today's South Florida Business Journal has a good story on how the sputtering economy is affecting the restaurant industry; it's worth reading if you've got a few minutes. Restaurateurs, like everyone else, are taking a hit, and it all goes back to the housing market (doesn't everything?):

And the slump at the dining table is also starting to take a bite out of state coffers at a time when lawmakers face huge budget cuts due to the housing bust.

Sales tax revenue collected on restaurants, bars, motels and entertainment activities is declining, according to Amy Baker, chief economist for the state House and Senate. "By the time we finish our estimates [for the year], we could probably be below last year's level. We believe that although it isn't officially called a recession yet, we will be in one. That affects all the other industries."

She said the real estate downturn is now leaking into other sectors.

"For most people, their home is their biggest asset, and when the market was doing well, people spent more and ate out more," Baker said. "When the housing market came out of the bubble and the national economy took a downturn, they didn't feel as wealthy and weren't as confident in spending."

Baker said she expects sales tax collections to fall even further.

This basically means that mediocre and bad restaurants are going to get weeded out. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. The good ones should be able to ride out the storm.

Restaurants starved for customers [South Florida Business Journal]

Fourth. Not too shabby for Michael Schwartz, considering the really great restaurants he beat out. Here's what New York Times food critic Frank Bruni, who listed his top 10 best new restaurants outside of New York, had to say about Michael's Genuine Food & Drink:

And yet genuine is how this restaurant comes across. Once it leaves the dictionary behind, there are few games, no nonsense: just refreshingly straightforward cooking by a chef, Michael Schwartz, exercising an impulse shared by many peers these days. He’s ditching the haute for the homey and focusing more on sourcing than on saucing.

Don’t get me wrong: you most certainly can’t do this at home. You don’t have time to round up the range of ingredients that Mr. Schwartz has, especially the Florida black grouper, swordfish and pompano. And you’re highly unlikely to be equipped with a wood-fired oven, which is what he uses for a whole snapper ($15 a pound) with bulbs of fennel and, separately, a fat onion stuffed with cinnamon-scented ground lamb and apricots ($14).

But Mr. Schwartz is indeed going for the warmth and robustness of home cooking, along with its guiltiest, least sophisticated pleasures: chips (potato) and dip (onion) are on the menu, and you’d be lunatic not to order this ($6).

4. Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [New York Times]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [MenuPages]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [Official Site]

The accolades keep pouring in for Michael's Genuine Food & Drink. This time, it's from New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, who recently did some restaurant research across the country. Michael's is on his top 10 list, although we won't know exactly how it'll rank for another couple of weeks since it's a four-part series. But here's what he had to say about it on his blog:

I can’t imagine Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink anywhere but Miami, and that’s not just because there are scattered palm fronds around the tables in its spacious outdoor area, usable even on an early February night.

It’s because of the prevalence and quality of the citrus in dishes, the freshness of the whole red snapper, and the adulatory attention servers draw to this fish.

Coast to Coast, Restaurants That Count [New York Times]
What New Yorkers Are Missing [Diner's Journal]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [MenuPages]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [Official Site]

We just read on Deborah Hartz-Seeley's blog that Steve Petusevsky, who writes the Vegetarian Today column for the Sun-Sentinel, will be filming a pilot for the Food Network. He's also the author of The Whole Foods Market Cookbook.

We imagine it'll be a show focused on health and nutrition. Will it be exclusively vegetarian? As far as we know, they don't really have a meat-free show, so he could really fill a void there. At any rate, we're excited to see the pilot.

Did you hear? Martha Stewart and Emeril? Steve Petusevsky and the Food Network? [From the Test Kitchen]
Chef Steve's [Official Site]
The Food Network [Official Site]

Adam over at MP: Chicago led us to the James Beard Award ballot. Not the final one, mind you; the names on these lists are the ones that could be nominated for a James Beard Award. The voters will be whittling these down to just a few names, and then they'll vote for winners in each category. There are a few South Florida names on the lists, so we thought we should share. These are the people/restaurants who might be on the official James Beard Award ballots in a few months:

Best Chef: South
Florida is grouped here with Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. There's a whole other 'Southeast' region; we were a bit confused at first to not see Florida there.
• Zach Bell, Cafe Boulud, Palm Beach
• Michelle Bernstein, Michy's, Miami
• Hubert de Marais, The Restaurant at the Four Seasons, Palm Beach
• Ravin Nakjaroen, Four Rivers, Fort Lauderdale
• Douglas Rodriguez, Ola, Miami Beach
• Philippe Ruiz, Palme D'Or, Coral Gables
• Michael Schwartz, Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, Miami
• Tony Sindaco, Sunfish Grill, Pompano Beach

Outstanding Chef
• Allen Susser, Chef Allen's, Miami

Outstanding Service
• Palme D'Or, Coral Gables

Outstanding Wine Service
• Palme D'Or, Coral Gables

Best New Restaurant
• Michael's Genuine Food & Drink

James Beard 2008 nominees (.pdf) [Eater]
James Beard Foundation [Official Site]
Is It Time For The 2008 Beard Award Noms Already? (Nom Nom Nom) [MP: Chicago]

Look at that. South Florida made it onto the list of the nation's best sandwiches, according to Esquire. The editors chose the Cuban sandwich at one of the Latin Americans:

Little Havana’s specialty, an eight-inch roll wet with butter, plus sugar-cured bolo ham, lechon asado (slow-roasted marinated pork), Swiss cheese, and pickle, toasted in a plancha (press). The later the hour, the better it tastes. (9796 Coral Way; 305-663-2600)

Go with the French bread, not the croissant -- it’s appropriately crusty and soft in the middle. And get it to stay -- the seating is outdoors, and the seafood salad (jumbo lump crab, shrimp) goes well with the salty air. (229 Fourteenth Street; 305-532-8934)

The Best Sandwiches in America [Esquire]
La Sandwicherie [MenuPages]
La Sandwicherie [Official Site]

Post columnist Frank Cerabino has a humorous take on how to get the golden arches onto the island, despite the Palm Beach City Council's recent vote to ban chain restaurants. Just imagine: Cafe Ronaldo, with valet parking and McCaviar.

Big Mac can use sneak attack to elbow onto island [Palm Beach Post]
Palm Beach Bans Chain Restaurants, Fun [Palm Beach Post]

Apparently Mark Bittman likes to show love the same way we do: with coffee-chile braised short ribs. We're using bison, he's using beef (the former has less cholesterol, by the way), but it's essentially the same. It made our morning to see the video of Bittman making his short ribs. He's using a different recipe from the one we're following, although we like his use of a chipotle pepper instead of the jalapeño called for in our recipe.

If you're craving short ribs, Michy's does a good version served with mashed potatoes. The ones at The Food Gang come with roasted root vegetables. Tuscan Steak offers chianti-braised short ribs with a chocolate espresso demi-glace. Bistro Ten Zero One makes a braised version (is there any other way?) with garlic and mashed potatoes, and Cafe Sharaku has a short rib stew in red wine sauce on the menu. And finally, one of the specialties at Vincent Restaurant is braised short ribs with wild mushroom gravy and creamy polenta.

Recipe: Short Ribs With Coffee and Chilies [New York Times]
Coffee-Marinated Bison Short Ribs [Epicurious]

Photo: Flickr

Top Chef doesn't premiere until March 12, but Bravo's giving us a chance to get to know the cheftestants early. This time around, there's only one with a South Florida connection: Andrew, who's from Fort Lauderdale and is a graduate of Johnson & Wales in North Miami. He lives in New York City now, where he's a sous chef at an unnamed restaurant. But here's the info on him from the press release:

AGE: 30
HOMETOWN: Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – currently resides in New York City
PROFESSION: Sous Chef in NYC
CULINARY EDUCATION: A.S. Culinary Arts, Johnson & Wales, North Miami
FAVORITE SIMPLE SUMMER RECIPE: Diced strawberries, mango, tomato, cucumber, and jicama. Thai dressing (sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and siracha). Thai basil and mint chiffonade.

For the past two years, Andrew has studied everything from the French cuisine of Raymond Blanc to the molecular gastronomy of Ferran Adria. With food influences that range from African, Spanish, French and Thai to Vietnamese, Japanese, Latino and Indian, Andrew prides himself on being diverse in the kitchen. When Andrew isn’t working, you can find him researching cuisines at a bookstore or shopping for spices that are uncommon and of multicultural influences to adapt to his cuisine. He believes in translating the flavors and techniques from different cultures into innovative interpretations that do not stray far from their origins. His goal is to leave a legacy like the chefs before his time, which shaped him and his fellow chefs minds and refined their techniques. He says he doesn’t make food for mere sustenance, but to create an experience that impacts the soul.

Andrew - Top Chef [NBC Universal]

We're sure you're all excited about Check Please! South Florida, so we thought we'd share the news we learned today about the possible internet expansion:

Once those checks are endorsed, their plan is to fund a new Web site found at www.check please.tv and expand to additional markets.

"Check, Please!," which debuted in Chicago in 2001, will premiere its third edition in South Florida on Monday -- hosted by South Florida celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein -- after first expanding to San Francisco in 2004.

Check, Please! company founder and CEO David Manilow believes the format of the show, which invites three "everyday" people to critique suggested eateries ranging from the exotic and ultra-expensive to the Superdawg Drive-In, is well-suited for the Internet.

"We always knew the idea of people watching shortened video clips of the show in segment form made sense," said Manilow, 48, a lifelong Chicagoan. "But the bandwidth [for video] was not there when we started the show."

'Check, Please!' plans 2nd helping on Internet [Chicago Sun-Times]
Check Please! South Florida [Official Site]

There are some restaurants that won't ever be featured on MenuPages, unfortunately. Romeo's Cafe for instance. Despite the fact that everyone we know who's been there has raved about it, the restaurant doesn't have any sort of menu, which is a problem for a menu directory site. Moveable restaurants, which in addition to having no fixed location also rarely have set menus, fall into that group as well. But the folks over at the Miami Herald have launched a new version of Miami.com, and in it we found a useful guide to food trucks in the area. We've already written about Orale!, but we were happy to learn of trucks that sell Haitian roasted nuts and smoked ribs.

Dashboard Gourmet [Miami.com]
Romeo's Cafe [Official Site]
Bayside Chatter: Tropical Fruit And Street Cart Tacos [Miami Herald]

Via Critical Miami

We thought we'd share this letter we found in the New Times from Josh Woodward, Govind Armstrong's partner in Table 8.

We're here!: Though we certainly don't mind being compared to restaurants such as those run by Michael Mina and David Bouley in Lee Klein's "A Pretty Good Year," (December 27), I have to say that when it comes to a comparison of how much time my partner, Govind Armstrong, spends in Miami, we are not so similar. Govind has been very involved in the Miami community this past year and has spent almost as much time in South Beach as he has in Los Angeles. We were blessed this year that Govind had the opportunity to release his first cookbook, a wonderfully exciting milestone for any chef! This took him all over the world on a book tour, but I can say proudly that our kitchen did not suffer in his absence, because Chef de Cuisine Jason Smith and his kitchen staff are second to none.

When not in our kitchen, Govind could be found all over town participating in local benefits and pitching in for local causes. Our restaurant in Miami is in no way a Vegas-style "licensing deal" where chefs are paid big money to lend their names to faceless businesses. Table 8 is a mom-and-pop operation. We have put our blood, sweat, and tears into our South Beach location. I have moved permanently from Los Angeles and have been in that restaurant day and night for the past year and a half. You wouldn't have to ask around too much to find that Govind and I have truly embedded ourselves in the local community, and won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Letters from the Issue of January 17, 2008 [Miami New Times]
Table 8 [MenuPages]

We came across AOL's list of the top 11 annoying restaurant trends, which we thought we'd reproduce here for you:

1. Recitation of the specials (as opposed to writing them on the board)
2. Recitation of the specials followed by, "sorry, we're out of that last one"
3. Bottled water up-selling
4. Up-selling in general
5. Listing the birthplace of every ingredient
6. The ubiquitous 'tini suffix
7. "Would you like freshly ground black pepper on that?"
8. Trios and duos
9. Over-pouring of wine
10. Prix fixe only
11. Expensive after-dinner tea and coffee

So some of them are a bit annoying, but really, over-pouring of wine? It is definitely not a problem when the waiter comes by to top off my glass. Clearly, the people who write for AOL Food are lightweights. And we enjoy trios and duos; the list writers explain that one part of the trio is clearly going to outshine the others, and you'll end up wanting a full-sized portion of it. But we prefer tastes of multiple dishes to large portions of just one dish. Most of the other stuff, yeah, we can definitely sympathize.

What would you add to the list?

Annoying Restaurant Trends [AOL food]
via Slashfood

Preview 1

Preview 2

Preview 3

A visit with Michelle Bernstein

You'll need Quicktime to view the videos, but they're worth checking out. The show debuts on January 28 at 7:30 p.m. on WPBT2.

Check, Please! South Florida [Official Site]
Check, Please! South Florida previews [uVu]

A great article in the Sun-Sentinel about Check Please! in South Florida. The first few episodes have been taped, and the show will premiere in January.

David Manilow, who first created Check, Please! for Chicago's public television station, says it's successful because it's so democratic. Every show includes diverse guest critics and restaurants in different locations with varying price points and every kind of food imaginable. The secret is in mixing it up.

"What the show did was give people a sense of passion," says Manilow. "This is my place. I understand this place. I love this place."

It's great when everyone likes it. Even better TV if they don't.

"It's like, 'Are you calling my baby ugly?'" says Manilow, who was getting ready for a taping of a new episode featuring a "goth chick" and a "silver-haired attorney." She suggested a heavy metal burger bar.

"That's truly the beauty of it," says Manilow.

Everyone's a (restaurant) critic -- on a new show coming to Channel 2 [Sun-Sentinel]

The Palm Beach Post printed the winners of its Thanksgiving pie haiku (pieku!) contest yesterday. They're all pretty great. One of our favorites:

Bless this festive meal.
Please let these Thanksgiving pies
Not go to my thighs.

Blueberry filling
drips from my fork to my shirt
whipped cream will follow.

We asked readers to wax poetic about Thanksgiving pies – in a 17-syllable poem, of course! [Palm Beach Post]

We are geekily excited about this; back when we were in college in Chicago, we used to watch Check, Please! with our roommate all the time. (We watched lots of public television — couldn't afford cable.) The show, which started in Chicago, invites three ordinary people in each episode to name one of their favorite restaurants; then all three visit each restaurant and discuss the establishments afterward. It's become so popular that it's spawned spinoffs in the Bay Area and now in South Florida, which is scheduled to start airing in the last week of January. The South Florida version will be hosted by Michelle Bernstein. (Seriously, how does this woman find the time to do so much?) From the WPBT2 blogs:

Hosted by celebrity chef and local restaurateur Michelle Bernstein, the concept of the show is to allow South Florida residents the unique opportunity to be "food critics-for-a-day." The first four shows featured a variety of restaurants, from barbecue joints to high-end bistros, stretching from Miami-Dade up to Palm Beach county.

The guest reviewers were just as diverse, from a retired New York police officer in West Palm, to a hotel concierge on trendy South Beach, to a skydiving instructor from Ft. Lauderdale.....proof that everyone - from all walks of life - has an opinion on food! And speaking of opinions....when the cameras rolled, the sparks flew, as the guests passionately discussed, debated, and celebrated their dining experiences.

Yep, they're holding a casting call in Miami. (And thanks to Tere for letting us know!). Open call is on Tuesday, Nov. 6 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Metropole on South Beach. Good luck everyone!

The Next Food Network Star Search in Miami [FoodTastic!]
Metropole [Official Site]

Raw kale. Doesn't sound too appetizing, right? And this from a devoted eater of kale.* But according to this article in the New York Times today, if something on the menu sounds really unappetizing, like raw kale, you should order it, because the chef wouldn't dare put it on the menu unless it were really, really good.

THERE are some restaurant dishes that I order because they sound better than everything else on the menu, and there are some I order because they sound worse. My reasoning goes like this: If a chef dares to offer something as unappealing as, say, a raw kale salad, chances are it’s fantastic.
I’ve played this game at restaurants all over the world, with mixed results. But when I score I score big, with a perspective-changing moment that can inspire pure glee.

*Our preferred method of eating kale: take one can of white beans, sautee them in garlic and olive oil, and then spoon over steamed kale, finished with a little sea salt and black pepper.

If It Sounds Bad, It's Got To Be Good [New York Times]

We couldn't quite figure out how to "grab" the video, so we'll just give you a link for the knife skills tutorial that Top Chef Hung gave for New York Magazine. We can watch that man chop onions all day long. It's a thing of beauty. We also learned that the knife he uses for 90 percent of his chopping, slicing and dicing costs $240, although even with the knife, we sure couldn't chop vegetables like that.

'Top Chef' Winner Hung Shows Off His Knife Skills [New York Magazine]

We thought it finished tonight, but we were just informed that we were incorrect. Tonight is the pre-filmed segment of the finale, which takes place in Aspen, and as we learned from the clip above, involves a hot-air balloon ride about which Casey was very apprehensive. The season concludes next week with a live finale in Chicago, where the next season is currently being filmed. Enjoy!

Clip: Bravo

Lisa Petrillo of CBS4 recently did a segment, aptly named "Cheap Eats," on where to find 10 good meals under $10. It's going to be a recurring thing (you can actually suggest places for her to visit), but this list was her first try. And it's not a bad one:

• Little Saigon in North Miami Beach
• Zona Fresca in Fort Lauderdale
• Enriqueta's Sandwich Shop in Miami
• John The Baker in Cooper City and Pembroke Pines
• S&S Diner in Miami
• LaSpada's Original Hoagies in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea
• Good Eats Deli in Miami
• Jack's Old Fashion Hamburger House in Fort Lauderdale
• Dogma Grill in Miami
• Tom Jenkins Bar-B-Q in Fort Lauderdale

The best bang-for-your-buck deals here are Little Saigon (which looked fantastic in the video), Enriqueta's (which is not "smack in the heart of Little Havana," as she claims), and Tom Jenkins. Of course you can always get a sub or a hot dog for under $10, but how often can you get ribs and sides for so little? Regardless, good selections all. We would add Lime Fresh Mexican Grill, Daily Bread Marketplace, Maia's Creole Cafe, and Las Totoritas.

Any other suggestions? Let us know!

South Florida's Cheap Eats: How To Dine On A Dime [CBS4]

Sniffle. Sob. Goodbye CJ.

We had a feeling when we saw CJ narrating so much during the first half of the episode that this was it for him. And it was, much to our chagrin. But oh well. On to the episode...

We're usually very early risers, but even we would not want to be wakened by a shrieking and giggling Padma jumping on our bed at 6 a.m. The cheftestants took that a lot better than we would have. And lucky them, they got to make her breakfast! Using just a small burner and a blender! Despite the difficulties, and spilled truffle oil on the floor (was no one else mourning the loss of expensive truffle oil?), the cheftestants did really well on the Quickfire. We thought Hung was nuts to serve a heavy breakfast like steak and eggs to a thin model who was raised a vegetarian, but then he won, so clearly we don't know what we're talking about.

(Aside: We LOVE condensed milk. Seriously. We always have at least one or two cans in the pantry, and we have been known to develop such serious cravings that we just stick a spoon into the can and have a taste. But it had never occurred to us to put it in a smoothie, as Hung did on last night's episode. In our minds, smoothie = healthy yogurt-and-fruit filled food. Well, we're not afraid of adding some extra sugar to our diet, so this morning we dumped mango, strawberries, half a banana, half a can of condensed milk, and mango juice into a blender. Delicious. Our only regret is that we did not spike it as Hung did.)

Continue reading "Top Chef Bids Adieu To Snarkiest Cheftestant" »

This elimination was a long time coming. One could say it's been coming since the first episode, when Howie failed to plate the second half of his dish. Everyone knew that Howie wasn't going to win the competition; at this point, it was just a matter of how long they'd keep him in for entertainment value. We can only hope that Hung will now step up and fill the role of villain.

Continue reading "Top Chef: Howie Finally Takes His Leave" »

We've been a little spaced out today, so Amuse-Biatch had to bring this Herald story, about tourism bureaus and reality TV shows, to our attention. There's a lot of stuff about shows we don't watch (Beach Patrol, Miami Ink, etc.), but there is some interesting information about the economics behind Top Chef. The first nugget of information, about the Fontainebleau:

The supporting role didn't come cheap for the resort. Fontainebleau executives traded six weeks of free stays at both the $8,000-a-night suite and roughly 100 rooms for producers and support staff.
''We think the value of the publicity more than offset our costs,'' said general manager David Feder. ``Shows like that are much more believable than running a 30-second ad during the program.''

Tourism bureaus try to wedge into popular TV shows [Miami Herald]
Amuse-Biatch Digs the Digs [Amuse-Biatch]
Fontainebleau Miami Beach [Official Site]
Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau [Official Site]

Photo: Bravo, via Miami Herald

We almost missed this New York Times story today about Edible Communities, a magazine group that starts newsletters in different areas that focus on eating local. For example, (and we think this is really cool), Edible Atlanta recently gave readers suggestions on how to use kudzu, otherwise known as "the vine that ate the South." The leaves can be used instead of spinach, kale or grape leaves. It might be a good way to help control the population.

There are Edible publications in a number of different parts of the US, but Florida, unfortunately, is absent from the list. The locavore movement has made few inroads in Florida, or South Florida at least; it often seems that the easiest way to find Florida produce is to go to a grocery store in a different state. A newsletter like this might help quite a bit in that department. The owners of Edible Communities list Florida as an "interested region," so it's on their radar screen. Now they just need someone to run it. And that someone needs to have $30,000 and a good amount of free time.

Continue reading "Florida's Late To The Locavore Game" »

Last night, we learned that Casey is something akin to the Angel of Death. As soon as she mentions getting close to someone (first Lia, now Tre), you know that person is going home. Yes, we lost Tre, and it is very sad, because we thought he had the skill to be a top-three contender.

Continue reading "Top Chef: One Executive Chef Wins, The Other Loses" »

We're sure by now you're all familiar with Lazaro Galindo, whose name has been in the papers all week because of his trial. Galindo was accused of murdering a romantic rival, dismembering his body, cutting off his fingers, and dumping him in two garbage cans in 2000. (Interesting note: none of the recent Miami Herald articles mention that Galindo also allegedly ate some of the man's organs. Perhaps it's too much for the print media, but OK for TV?)

Galindo's trial, at which he represented himself, was this past week, and the Miami Herald has run almost an article a day about it, all with the same photo of Galindo. On Monday, we learned that the avowed Satanist had found God. On Tuesday, despite his newfound faith, Galindo seemed keenly interested in learning of potential jurors' feelings about the Prince of Darkness. On Thursday, we learned that Galindo's defense relied upon claiming that a demon named Candelo had possessed his body and promised him special powers if he committed the murder. We were not surprised to learn that it took a jury only two hours to convict Galindo of murder.

Now that you're all up to speed, we'll get to today's news, and the reason we can get away with writing about this story in a food blog. Today PETA sent a letter to Galindo urging him to give up eating all forms of flesh, both human and animal, accompanied by a "Vegetarian Starter Kit":

On behalf of PETA, I am writing to ask that you consider doing something positive and healthy: reject all killing by becoming a vegetarian. Since it is alleged that you have an affinity for flesh, it might help you to know that there is now a terrific selection of vegetarian foods that have the same taste and texture as meat but without the cruelty or cholesterol. Some of our favorites include Boca Chik'n Nuggets, Gardenburger Riblets, and Yves Jumbo Dogs. Your prison may be able to order these products for you if you request a vegetarian meal on ethical grounds.

Um, right. We're sure that's going to go over with the prison guard about as well as the "Candelo-made-me-do-it" defense did with the jury.

PETA Urges Incarcerated Florida 'Cannibal' to Give Up All Flesh and Go Vegetarian [PETA]
Man On Trial For Cannibalism Tells Judge He's Found God [Local 10]
Satanist turns to God as murder trial starts [Miami Herald]
Miami murder has satanic twist [Miami Herald]
Jury rejects demon-made-me-do-it defense [Miami Herald]

Boy were we wrong. In last night's episode, we actually saw Howie working reasonably well with his teammates. And there was no sign of Michael Schwartz, although we didn't complain much about Daniel Boulud.

Continue reading "Top Chef: Restaurant Wars Bring Out The Best In Howie" »

Sara over at All Purpose Dark, a local dining blog about which we have just learned, tells us that Michael Schwartz of the popular Michael's Genuine Food & Drink will be the guest judge on tonight's episode of Top Chef. To say we are excited would be, well, an understatement.

She's also got the first three minutes of tonight's episode posted; unfortunately, it's mostly credits and scenes from last week (Bravo gives up very little), but we do get about a minute's glimpse into what's going to happen tonight. The overarching theme seems to be "everyone hates Howie," which leads us to believe that either a) he's getting the loser's edit and is going to screw up big time in the Elimination Challenge or b) there'll be a big redemption arc when he wows everyone with a spectacular dish. We're hoping for the former, and given that we know tonight is a group challenge (restaurant wars!), we'd put money on Option A. Howie, we know we should be rooting for you, the Miami boy, but really, we cannot wait for you to depart from our television screen.

Top Chef 3 Miami Clippity Clip [All Purpose Dark]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [MenuPages]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [Official Site]

• The Herald's Maddy Marr interviews Govind Armstrong about his Top Chef experience. Casey's chili pepper ice cream was "repulsive, shocking," and that was the first one he tasted. "I was like, oh no, I have like 10 to go," he told Marr. Thankfully, the offerings improved. [Miami Herald Top Chef Blog]

• Frank Bruni interviews Tom Colicchio and learns that ketchup is OK, but don't ever bring micro-greens into Colicchio's kitchen. [Diner's Journal]

Last night we got to see the cheftestants get all gussied up for a night out on the town, only to then witness their crushed faces when they realized they’d have to cook on their “night off.”

We felt badly for the cheftestants, but did they seriously believe they were getting a night off? We’re sure everyone watching at home saw that “curveball” coming from a mile away. That said, while we’re totally OK with producers throwing curveballs, this really was most unfair to the women. The guys could roll up their sleeves — or strip down to an undershirt, like Tre — but there wasn’t any getting around high heels and uncomfortable low-cut tops.

Continue reading "Howie, Your Days Are Numbered. At Least We Hope So." »

• Things we know: RJ Gator's is bankrupt. A company called Golden Restaurants has offered to buy RJ Gator's for $1.65 million, which is $180,000 less than what RJ Gator's owes to creditors. What we don't know: anything about Golden Restaurants. [TC Palm]

• As of today, Frank Crupi of Frankie's Big City Grill is the managing partner of Andiamo Pizza. Soon, Andiamo will be adding some cheesesteaks and other popular menu items from Frankie's. [Miami Herald]

• There's a pretty little feature on Dogma Grill in the Herald, which mentions that there will be a new location in North Miami opening soon. But what really interested us were the comments, none of which was positive towards either the article or the restaurant chain. [Miami Herald]

Restaurant health inspection is the topic of the moment over at the Sun-Sentinel, which ran an article about Florida's confusing reports last week and published an editorial in favor of adopting the letter grading system used elsewhere. We'll quote from the article first:

Consumer advocates said letter-grading or scoring systems offer consumers simple access to restaurant inspection reports that are easy to understand. No organization or federal agency tracks how many states or regions use such programs, but they increasingly are being implemented around the country. Among the places that use restaurant grades or scores: New York City, Los Angeles County, Las Vegas, and North and South Carolina, and soon in Georgia.

Most systems require restaurants to post their latest food inspection reports and use consumer-friendly ratings, where an A (90-100 points) means the establishment was rated excellent, while a B (80-89) means good and a C (70-79) is poor.

Continue reading "The Sun-Sentinel Wants You To Know About Rodent Activity At Your Favorite Restaurants" »

We've been keeping an eye on Plum since they moved into Miami Beach a month or two ago. And so far, they've done some really interesting work. Today, they posted what appears to be the first of a series of neighborhood dinners, in which they create a fabulous meal by having one course at each of a few restaurants in the same area. Today, they're at Sunset Drive in South Miami, where they stop at Marhaba, Trattoria Sole, Dan Marino's, and Martini Bar. Sounds scrumptious!

South Miami is Delicious [Plum]
Trattoria Sole [MenuPages]
Dan Marino's [MenuPages]
Martini Bar [MenuPages]

Joey really irked us in the first few episodes, but he seemed to mellow out somewhat and stopped making references to New York every five seconds, so we were coming around. And after witnessing the tears shed when he was told to "pack his knives and go," we couldn't dislike the guy too much. But he's gone, and Sara M., the other cheftestant we thought had a good chance of going home, stays on for another week.

The whole episode felt like one big Bertolli ad (it didn't help that there were Bertolli commercials during the breaks too), but we can think of worse sponsors. (Anyone remember the Kraft Gourmet Snack Challenge in season two?) We thought the Quickfire Challenge was going to be an actual spelling bee of culinary terms, and we got very excited, as we're wont to do when spelling bees are involved, until we saw Padma place a small dish in front of a cheftestant and instruct him to taste it. Boo. Oh well, it was still interesting. Casey won, with the help of some educated guesses (chayote) and some easy ones (bowtie pasta).

Continue reading "Top Chef Miami: Joey From New York Breaks Down" »

Top Chef is back on tonight, after a hiatus last week. Well, so it wasn't a hiatus. Bravo did actually air something, a reunion show of sorts which we didn't find particularly interesting. At all. So we're excited to get back into the action tonight.

To whet your appetite for tonight's episode, we thought we'd link to PlumTV's interview with Sara Mair, one of the Miami chefs on the show who also happens to make cheese. We love her for that. Unfortunately, we learned in the interview that she's taken her cheese-making skills back home to Jamaica.

What’s the Miami cheese scene like? There’s not really much of one in Miami, unfortunately. Miamians aren’t interested in cheese, not yet. It’s not a very big cheese culture, it’s not like in New York.

And in Jamaica?
In Jamaica we love cheese, we’re obsessed with cheese.

Top Chef 3: Back in the Kitchen [PlumTV]

Bartow, Florida. We had to look it up on the map (it's close to Winter Haven and Lakeland in Polk County). We imagine that area as a large expanse of citrus groves, but according to a recent Florida Trend piece, blueberries are taking over.

Connecticut investor Stan Phelps is spending millions to convert some of the 18,000 acres of reclaimed phosphate mines he’s bought in and around Bartow to create a blueberry operation. In March, the Wall Street veteran opened a 103,000-sq.-ft. berry packing and distribution center in Bartow. During its first harvest season this spring, the Clear Springs Packing House and Distribution Center processed and packed 1.2 million pounds of blueberries — a quarter of the state’s overall production — for 33 growers. Clear Springs also is expanding its blueberry farm from 150 acres to 1,000.

1.2 million pounds in the first year? Not too shabby. We didn't think blueberries could withstand the heat of a Florida summer — they are popular in Maine, after all — but we learned that blueberries have been grown in north-central and north Florida for quite some time. Now, they're just ramping up production. Between hurricanes and the recent citrus canker outbreak, I imagine blueberries might look appealing to weary citrus growers. And there's a market for them too — Florida blueberries ripen during March, April and May, just after the Chilean imports stop coming and just before blueberries from northern states.

Blueberry fields forever [Florida Trend]
Florida's Commercial Blueberry Industry [University of Florida IFAS Extension]

Photo: Florida Trend

After the Judges' Table, we had a feeling Lia would be the one to go. It was unfortunate, because we'd just started to like her (CJ's still our favorite!), and she'd just rocked last week's elimination challenge. But the poor thing just seemed totally out of her element when asked to make a Latin dish. Maria Frumkin, owner of now-closed Duo and guest judge for the night, seemed to think her lack of familiarity with Latin flavors was unacceptable; we're a little more forgiving in that regard. We would've preferred to see Hung "pack his knives and go," but alas, he makes for good television and has excelled at past challenges, so we have grudgingly accepted the fact that he and his smug attitude will be around for several more episodes.

Continue reading "Top Chef Miami: We'll Miss You Lia" »

We were flipping through the latest issue of the New Times when we noticed a number of irate letters to the editor in response to Lee Klein's recent review of Chef Adrianne's Vineyard Restaurant & Wine Bar. It seems the restaurant has already developed a devoted following.

Food for thought: I cannot believe this review for young chef Calvo. Aside from her true talent, she is a savvy businesswoman trying to succeed in an area where it is not common to find a restaurant like hers. Instead of supporting such positive movements in our community, what Lee Klein is doing is disgusting. Perhaps he is envious. Perhaps it is difficult to accept that a 23-year-old has accomplished what most middle-age men cannot and will not. There is some food for thought.

The comments left on the article's online version are pretty angry too. We haven't been to the restaurant, so we have no idea what the food is like, but we thought the review was appropriately deferent to her crazy list of accomplishments and pretty fair-minded. Most of Kendall apparently disagrees with us. Looks like a trip to the restaurant might be necessary.

Letters from the Issue of July 12, 2007 [Miami New Times]
Fame Game [Miami New Time]
Chef Adrianne's Vineyard Restaurant & Wine Bar [MenuPages]

Royal India in Fort Lauderdale gets three stars from the Sun-Sentinel for its fairly standard Indian menu.

Also featured: Bogart's Bar & Grill, a 21-and-over restaurant on top of a movie theater. You can either dine in the restaurant or somehow take your food into the movie theater. We're thinking that could get messy.

The Palm Beach Post's Scott Simmons takes over for regular restaurant critic Charles Passy, who's vacationing in (and blogging from) New York, and looks favorably upon pan-Asian Jinja Bar & Bistro.

Miami New Times' Lee Klein heads over to Chef Adrianne's Vineyard Restaurant and Wine Bar, deemed "a promising if uneven start" for the the 23-year-old chef by the Herald last week. Klein comes down hard on Adrianne Calvo's food, but in a sort of gentle, encouraging manner. Also, he lists each and every one of Calvo's accomplishments, which leaves us with two thoughts: 1. We are slackers, and 2. Does this woman ever sleep?

Also reviewed: Key West by the Gables, a restaurant that pairs the City Beautiful with the Conch Republic and makes it work.

Continue reading "Review Digest: New Times" »

Two-and-a-half stars go to "sexy, sultry" Grass Restaurant & Lounge, where simple, fresh seafood is best and desserts and the rib-eye are to be avoided. Dining there was hit or miss, but the "unique venue" (which seems very much like many other fashionable lounge-y places in the Design District) is a must-visit, according to the review. We're not sure we'd risk that much money on a hit-or-miss kitchen, although we must say, a chilly mango mojito does sound appetizing.

In Broward, we head over to Moonshadows, which is named either after the Cat Stevens song "Moon Shadow" or the owner Monika "Moon" Steinmann. The Herald never tells us for sure. But it does give the Hollywood spot three stars for its "modernized comfort food," that includes typical bar food (wings, quesadillas), South Florida favorites (seafood gumbo, grouper sandwich), and German dishes (chicken schnitzel, stuffed cabbage). And did we mention the homemade pies?

And in today's Fork on the Road, Linda Bladholm checks out El Manara, a South Miami Middle Eastern favorite.

There's been some heated discussion at the Chowhound Florida board over an article in July's Food & Wine magazine that mentions Miami and Las Vegas as two cities with overpriced wine lists. From the article:

I asked my friend Nick Ramkowsky, a wine importer who does a lot of business there. "Wine pricing in Miami is just a function of what they can get away with," Nick said. His company, Vine Connections, specializes in Argentine wines. One of Nick's producers is Susana Balbo, who makes some great value wines under the Crios label that generally retail for about $15. And yet the 2005 Crios Torrontes costs a cool $49 at Johnny V in Miami Beach—or five times wholesale. When I told Nick what I'd found, he sent back an impassioned reply: "That's more than outrageous. That should be considered a crime."

So what's a diner to do?

Continue reading "The Wine List: Miami's Overpriced Wine" »

America loves having rats in a kitchen. Well, we should clarify. America loves Remy the adorable animated rat in the kitchens of fine-dining restaurants. Other real, disease-ridden rats? That's an entirely different matter.

Ratatouille, the new Disney Pixar flick that stars Remy, led the box office this weekend, grossing $47.2 million.

The movie was probably about as much fun to make as it is to watch. The Pixar staff spent quite a bit of time getting all of the details of a professional kitchen right. Research included taking cooking classes, eating at fine Parisian restaurants, and observing Thomas Keller at French Laundry. Sign us up!

'Rat' rules box office with $47 million [AP via Palm Beach Post]
A Rat with a Whisk and a Dream [New York Times]

Boca Raton chef Micah Edelstein got the knife on last night's episode of Top Chef: Miami for her dry, terrible take on the good old American classic meatloaf and mashed potatoes. After the tears on last week's episode, we knew she'd be going home some time soon. (There are many more tears on the exit interviews, in case you're interested.) And so the second South Florida chef (after last week's elimination of Tantra's Sandee Birdsong) exits.

Edelstein wasn't too happy -- actually, none of the contestants were -- about the Elimination Challenge, which required them to pick a classic, fatty American dish and modernize it. Oh, yeah, and they had to keep the cholesterol in the dish at a minimum. Edelstein made a meatloaf with pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes and raisins and topped it with some mashed potatoes; it was by far the judges' least favorite dish. At the judges' table, she explained that she's from South Africa, and she's never had meatloaf. Which is interesting, because earlier this week some old high school photographs that surfaced on the web show that Edelstein went to high school in Bridgewater, Mass. Apparently she did junior high there too, and she's lived in the States since then. So she's managed to avoid eating meatloaf for at least 15 years. That takes a lot of skill. Also, isn't South African bobotie a meatloaf of sorts?

The good news is that Miami native Howie Kleinberg, formerly of The Food Gang, pulled himself out of the gutter -- he'd finished at the bottom in the last two episodes -- to win the Elimination Challenge with his updated version of pork chops and applesauce.