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Quattro In NYC: And while we're on the topic of Quattro Gastronomia Italiana, it seems the restaurant's New York outpost, slated to open in the Trump Hotel in SoHo, is running into a bit of trouble with the neighbors. The SoHo Alliance is afraid the restaurant will worsen the traffic situation. The Trump representatives disagree, and they say the Quattro menu is an upgrade for New York restaurants. New Yorkers are still skeptical. [Eater]

The founder of RJ Gator's is back in the restaurant business. Tim Timoteo is opening a new 125-seat spot called Berry Fresh Cafe in Port St. Lucie later this month. He sold his Palm Beach County house, bought a smaller place in Port St. Lucie, and pumped the rest of the money from the sale into the restaurant. Interestingly enough, the bad economy pushed him back into the restaurant business; he couldn't make enough money as a realtor in this market, so he went back to what he knew best.

In another sign of a bad economy, Timoteo has already received 600 applications for just 30-35 positions at the new restaurant.

R.J. Gator's founder returns with new place to stop for bite [Palm Beach Daily News]

We absolutely love Southern food, and we did our very best to eat as much of it as possible during our four days in Georgia. Here we present the photographic evidence:

Continue reading "Georgia Eats: A Photo Essay" »

Just in case you might've thought that your Florida legislators are actually spending their time wisely:

A proposed law currently making its way through the Florida legislature might help you with what can be an embarrassing problem. Here's the bottom line, the bill would be a mandate that all eating establishment must have enough toilet paper when you go into the restroom.

The only problem is the bill doesn't dictate how much toilet paper is "enough."

State Senator Victor Crist, a Republican from Tampa, felt the problem was so important, a law must be passed to protect the backsides of anyone in Florida. The measure will also try to regulate the cleanliness of restrooms in eating establishments.

Crist, says in the bill, restaurant inspectors, "should also check the restrooms along with the kitchens to make sure that basic cleanliness necessities are in place."

The Senate Regulated Industries Committee approved the bill, SB 836, on Monday. It has two more stops to go and as long as it's not wiped out before then, it could then go to the Senate floor. A similar measure is currently awaiting passage by the House.

Proposed Law Looks to Wipe Out Problem [CBS4]

LaBelle is a world away from the Florida with which we're familiar, which is perhaps why we were so intrigued by the Swamp Cabbage Festival. We've also got a soft spot for country festivals replete with interesting foods, and this certainly fit the bill.

Never heard of swamp cabbage? Neither had we. It's the heart of the sabal palm, which also happens to be the state tree of Florida. This designation means that you can't just cut down a sabal palm to cut out the heart; there are all sorts of permissions to get and administrative hoops to go through. It's nice that the festival organizers took care of all of that stuff for us.

A full account, with photos, is after the jump.

Continue reading "Saturday At The Swamp Cabbage Festival" »

We're sure you've all heard about the proposed Mississippi bill that would force restaurants to turn obese people away from restaurants with more than five seats. (Small cafes are exempt?) Basically, the state's department of health would set a definition for obese, and restaurant owners would have to refuse to serve food to people who fit the definition. If they didn't, they'd risk losing their permits. The interesting thing is that the representative who proposed the bill, Rep. John Read, is 5'11'' and 230 lbs., so he might run into some problems with the bill himself. Thankfully, another lawmaker has vowed to prevent the bill from ever getting to the floor:

A state lawmaker on Monday promised a quick death for a bill that would prohibit Mississippi restaurants from serving obese people.

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House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Steve Holland announced his intention to kill House Bill 282. The proposed legislation has outraged advocacy groups critical of the legislation and intrigued the national media.

"It's dead on arrival at my desk," Holland, D-Plantersville, said in a news release. "While I appreciate the efforts of my fellow House members to help curb the obesity problem in Mississippi, this is totally the wrong approach."

The bill filed by State Reps. Ted Mayhall, R-Southaven, John Read, R-Gautier, and Bobby Shows, D-Ellisville, would make it illegal for restaurants with more than five seats to serve people who are obese. The criteria for obesity would be set by the state Department of Health, and restaurants that do not comply would have their permits revoked.

The legislation has been referred to a subcommittee, where Holland said he will use a "pocket veto" to kill it. It would have advanced to his committee if it had survived.

The complete boneheadedness surrounding this whole situation boggles the mind. Obesity is a big problem, and it is putting a strain on the state's Medicaid system, but the notion of banning obese people from restaurants .... unbelievable. Can you imagine some poor restaurateur trying to figure out who is obese and who isn't? Would health restaurants be exempt from the law? How would the state even go about enforcing this thing? And yes, there are lots of calories in restaurant meals, but there are also lots of calories in homemade meals and things that can be bought in grocery or convenience stores. This is just not the way to go about it.

At any rate, we're thankful that the bill will soon be dead, and we're hoping that no Florida lawmakers get any crazy ideas in their heads.

Miss. Law Would Ban Serving Obese Diners [New York Times]
Lawmaker: Obesity bill won't make it to floor [Clarion Ledger]

As we know, fishermen aren't happy about the proposed gag grouper fishing restrictions. We just thought we'd add a few more quotes from an article we found today:

Madeira Beach, Florida - The commercial fishing boat Martiza is just back after 10 days in the Gulf. The crew caught 5,000 pounds of fish, mostly brown grouper.

"That will go to the restaurants, the local restaurants," said Dean Pruitt who owns the Martiza.

Pruitt also owns three other commercial fishing boats. He's against federal regulators proposals to reduce gag grouper fishing in the Gulf by 45 percent, which would shut down the grouper fleet the last three months of the year.

"It's going to be a big impact on the restaurants, the people that work in the restaurants, the commercial fishery, the fish house, just anybody that want to eat the grouper," said Pruitt.

Fishermen speak out against proposed gag grouper restrictions [Tampa Bay 10]
And The Grouper Saga Continues [MP: South Florida]

Florida grouper prices are on the rise, as everyone knows, for a number of reasons, one of which is the dwindling supply of the fish in the Gulf. Studies show that gag grouper (also called black grouper on some menus) are being fished at unsustainable levels, so the feds are stepping in to curb that:

Federal regulators took preliminary steps Tuesday to reduce gag grouper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico by 45 percent, a severe cutback that could cripple commercial fisherman and the charter boat industry.

The proposed restrictions would close down recreational grouper fishing for three months in the winter, just when tourists arrive.

Commercial fisherman would face a quota on gag for the first time, with limits tight enough to shut down the entire grouper fleet every year by October or so -- forcing restaurants and consumers to rely on imports.

The cuts would spill over to other grouper species as well, because grouper swim together, and it's impossible to protect one species without inadvertently cracking down on others.

"This will cost the state of Florida $300-million in direct expenditures,'" said Dennis O'Hern, director of a recreational advocacy group called the Fishermen's Rights Alliance.

With a bag limit of only one gag and only nine months to fish for any kind of grouper, anglers will not sink $20,000 or $30,000 into offshore boats and spend hundreds of dollars in fuel to go bottom fishing, O'Hern said. Tourists will not spend $1,000 to hire a charter boat.

"This is going to kill us," said Tarpon Springs charter boat captain Ed Walker. Migratory fish like king mackerel, cobia and tarpon hang out in warmer southern waters during the winter, he said. Red snapper, another popular offshore bottom fish, is already under tight restriction because of dwindling stocks.

"Essentially they have left us nothing to fish for during the peak tourist season," Walker said.

Continue reading "And The Grouper Saga Continues" »

Ochopee is just a wee bit out of our coverage area, but we enjoy a little snark on a chalkboard in a restaurant as much as the next gal. This chalkboard comes from Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe on Tamiami Trail in Ochopee, just down the street from the smallest post office in the nation. We've driven by this place countless times en route to Sanibel (where our godparents live), but we've never stopped to eat there. Specialties of the house are blue crabs, of course, gator nuggets and strawberry milkshakes. Yum!

Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe, 39395 Tamiami Trail in Ochopee, 239-695-2682

Photo: Flickr

It's taken the Virginia legislature 74 years to come to its senses. That's how long it's been illegal to mix wine or beer with spirits. So ... no sangria.

Since 1934, the state has prohibited mixing wine or beer with spirits. Frances McDonald, vice president of La Tasca Spanish Tapas Bar and Restaurants, found that out the hard way when his Alexandria location was cited for violating the sangria ban in 2006 and fined $2,000.

McDonald and managing partner Shana McKillop appealed their case to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board on Thursday before going to the Capitol to urge legislators to pass a bill legalizing the red wine, liqueur and fruit concoction.

McDonald said his business received no warning about the ban. He said he was unaware of the prohibition and had he known about it would not have located any of his five restaurants in Virginia. "It's like not being able to serve tequila in a Mexican restaurant," he said.

The Alcoholic Beverage Control Department agent who cited La Tasca even ordered restaurant employees to pour its sangria - about 40 liters - down the drain, said Shana McKillop, managing partner at the Alexandria restaurant.

A ruling on the La Tasca's appeal should take two to four weeks, said Kristy Marshall, a spokeswoman for the ABC Department. In the meantime, the restaurant has taken to modifying its sangria recipe. The brandy has been eliminated and the triple sec replaced with a nonalcoholic orange liqueur.

"It's still sangria but not as authentic as we'd like to offer our guests," McKillop said.

Bill would end Virginia's sangria ban [Miami Herald]

Remember that story about a man finding a rare pearl in his steamers at a Lake Worth restaurant? Now, just two weeks later, someone else has found a pearl in his fried oysters in New Jersey:

WASHINGTON BOROUGH, N.J. — Two weeks after a Florida man found a rare pearl in his seafood, it's happened again — this time to a New Jersey man who was eating fried oysters.

Mike McHenry thought he had chomped down on a piece of shell Wednesday night and instead spit out a pea-sized pearl.

"You might break your teeth on it if you crunch down too hard," the 60-year-old Washington Township man said of his discovery at Russo's Ristorante in Washington Borough.

McHenry's find was rare, according to Gef Flimlin, a marine extension agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension, who said 95 percent of pearls are cultured for production, unlike the naturally formed pearl McHenry found.

"It's unusual to find one in this type of oyster," McHenry said. "Like one in a million."

...

Russo's owner, Rick Giacobbe, said McHenry's discovery marked the first time in his 33 years in the restaurant business that a customer found a pearl in an order of oysters. He said the guy he orders seafood from is flummoxed, too.

"He said maybe once in a couple of years his girls will find something and it's a teeny tiny thing," Giacobbe said. "This was half the size of a jellybean."

Granted, it's an upscale restaurant where prices start at $125 per person. But still. It's in Disney. And from now on, no kids allowed:

ORLANDO, Fla. --
The home of Mickey Mouse, Tigger and Tinkerbell has banned kids from its fanciest restaurant.

Beginning this week, children under 10 are no longer welcome at Victoria & Albert's in the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. Victoria & Albert's is Walt Disney World's only restaurant with an AAA five-diamond rating.

"We want to be the restaurant that's available for that adult experience," said general manager Israel Perez.

Only about three families a month ever brought young children to Victoria & Albert's, said Rosemary Rose, Disney's vice president for food, beverage and merchandise operations.

Men are required to wear jackets, and women must wear dresses or pantsuits. The hushed atmosphere features live harp music, and the menu, which changes daily, offers seven-course dinners that can last as long as three hours. Prices start at $125 a person.

Rose noted that there are plenty of dining options for families at Disney, which World has 97 other full-service restaurants.

UPDATE: We just found a far more in-depth article about it in the Orlando Sentinel. Our favorite part was a quote from Norman Van Aken:

Norman Van Aken, owner of another top Ritz-Carlton restaurant, Norman's in Orlando, said banning children is not something he would consider. "I'd rather kick out the parents that can't control their children than kick out the kids," Van Aken said from Key West, where he is opening another restaurant.

Disney World restaurant bans children [Miami Herald]
Walt Disney World's swankiest restaurant bans kids [Orlando Sentinel]

Looks like one of the Orlando McDonald's is getting a 1950s-style makeover, in hopes of attracting more diners. And we must say, those big arches along the sides definitely look cooler than your average McD's. According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel, it costs 20 percent more to build one of these retro McDonald's than a regular one. Funny how it's expensive to make stuff look old, huh?

The eye-catching restaurant on East Colonial Drive is slated to open Wednesday. It will be the first of its kind in Metro Orlando and among a handful of 1950s-style stores throughout the country.

The store includes hallmarks of early McDonald's restaurants such as a slanted roofline, glass-plated storefront and sweeping golden arches on the sides of the structure. Strong sales at existing throwback stores persuaded franchisee Gilchrist Enterprises Inc. to replace its aging McDonald's on East Colonial near Primrose Drive and invest in a new restaurant.

"We've had our eye on this building design," said Howard Hughes, director of operations for Gilchrist Enterprises, which operates seven McDonald's in Central Florida including two at Orlando International Airport. "It seems to be a hit with customers and really has an excellent track record for improving sales," Hughes said.

McDonald's franchisees typically pick up the tab for building or remodeling a store. Hughes said the retro-style costs about 20 percent more than a typical McDonald's store design.

His store will also include the company's new R Gym, touted as an exercise spot for children with climbing walls, basketball goals and slides. Hughes said the East Colonial location also will be among the first in the region to sell McDonald's new drinks, including cappuccino and latte, starting in mid-February.

Anyone else amused by the idea of cappuccinos and lattes in a '50s-style diner?
McDonald's golden arches go retro in Orlando [Orlando Sentinel]
Photo: Flickr (of a similar retro McDonalds in Maine)

When we first read this story, we thought, wow, whatever marketing genius at McDonald's headquarters thought this was a good idea should be fired. There was no way this wouldn't bring about some bad press for the fast food chain. But then we realized that it was a local franchisee who made a deal with the Seminole County school district. It turns out that a dozen large food companies agreed not to run ads that specifically target children under 12, in an effort to curb the obesity epidemic in this country; these limits, however, apparently do not extend to children's report cards.

The Florida flap started after Susan Pagan's daughter, Catherine, a 4th grader at Red Bug Elementary School, recently came home with her report card. "She was so excited because she was on honor roll," Pagan said. "She looked at me and said, 'I'm entitled to a reward.'"

Pagan looked at the envelope and saw that students who got all A's and B's, or who had good attendance or citizenship records, were entitled to one Happy Meal, with either a hamburger, cheeseburger or Chicken McNuggets.

"It kind of shook me," Pagan said. "I had to explain to her, we don't eat at these places. I was placed in the position of being the bad guy." She took her concerns to the Seminole County School District, which includes 27,000 elementary school students in the Orlando area.

Bill Vogel, the district's superintendent, said Pagan's was the first such complaint he's heard, even though a similar report card program had been in place for about 10 years. Pizza Hut, which offered a personal pan pizza for good grades, dropped out this year, replaced by McDonald's.

McDonald's food-for-grades prize criticized [Sun-Sentinel]

The University of Florida is mourning today, after the death yesterday of Dr. J. Robert Cade, the man who in 1965 invented Gatorade, which has subsequently brought the university lots and lots of money. And it all began with a rather, um, interesting question posed in infantile terms:

Now sold in 80 countries in dozens of flavors, Gatorade was born thanks to a question from former Gators Coach Dwayne Douglas, Cade said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press.

He asked, "Doctor, why don't football players wee-wee after a game?"

"That question changed our lives," Cade said.

Cade's researchers determined a football player could lose as much as 18 pounds - 90 to 95 percent of it water - during the three hours it takes to play a game. Players sweated away sodium and chloride and lost plasma volume and blood volume.

Using their research, and about $43 in supplies, they concocted a brew for players to drink while playing football. The first batch was not exactly a hit.

"It sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner," said Dana Shires, one of the researchers.

"I guzzled it and I vomited," Cade said.

UF doc who invented Gatorade dies at 80 [Miami Herald]

Photo: Gainesville Sun

We didn't do a user review roundup last week because of the holiday, so we'll make up for it now by offering quite possibly the most entertaining review we've ever read, although it wasn't for the South Florida site. This one came in for our New York version, for a restaurant called Re Sette:

i was invited to re sette to have dinner whith my freinds and whith had bat time food was good but service was terible they have waiters what they dont speak inglish at all. its berry sad that this type of restaurant dont have service.

Re Sette [MenuPages]
Re Sette [Official Site]

We just came across a feel-good story from the Times-Picayune about a couple, Luis Bernhard and Sandra Bahhur, whose dream to own a New Orleans restaurant finally came true. They came close, were wiped out by Katrina, moved to Miami, realized they really wanted to be in New Orleans, returned, and had their dreams saved by a $10,000 gift. It's all very moving, really. But we were intrigued by what they said about Miami:

"How do we leave?" Sandra asks. "We had unfinished business here. I mean, Miami is gorgeous; really gorgeous. But when we'd go out to dinner, we'd realize how much we missed New Orleans, how much we missed the friendly environment of the city's restaurants, and the variety of life here. In Miami, every restaurant is high-end Italian. And, truthfully, Miami is pretty high strung."

UPDATE: We just finished the article (yes, we posted before reading the entire thing), and man, waterworks. Again. Seriously, we're not sure what's wrong, but this is the second day in a row. Newspaper reporters just keep hitting us with these sappy restaurateur stories. But it is such a moving story, and we know what it's like to have to rebuild after a devastating hurricane. Good luck to you Luis and Sandra.

A stranger's kindness makes a restaurant dream come true [Times-Picayune]

A McDonald's in Pensacola is digging 55 holes 350 feet deep in the ground to tap into some geothermal energy. The idea is to use the Earth's constant temperature for heating and cooling.

Geothermal technology is proven to cut heating and cooling costs by as much as 50 percent by using the earth's constant, mild temperature to heat or cool water through underground loops. The loops simply use the water to move heat from the earth to the building in the winter and from the building to earth in the summer. In comparison, traditional commercial air conditioning systems are often installed on the roof top where temperatures may soar on a hot summer day. The significant energy savings of the geothermal system - as well as the projected life of the loops of more than 50 years - offsets the higher initial cost of the loop system.
Owned by John and Susan O'Connor, this will be the first McDonald's restaurant in Florida with geothermal heating and cooling when it opens later this year. Gulf Power Company and McDonald's Corporation will monitor the system the first year of operation to determine specifications for the most energy efficient system to meet McDonald's needs as well as energy savings.

Local McDonald's digging deep to go green [Gulf1]

Despite Bud Selig's and Jeffrey Loria's claims that stadiums bringing economic prosperity to blighted areas, it's not true. (A college professor who spent most of his time studying the economic effects of stadiums on cities and neighborhoods taught us that.) Just look at what's happened to St. Petersburg's Dome District:

"I know since I opened there's been 24 restaurants or sports bars that opened up and then closed in this two block area," said Mark Ferguson, owner of Ferg’s Sports Bar & Grill....

Ferguson says he and many other business owners in the dome district think they'll be better off if Tropicana Field is redeveloped into affordable housing, offices and stores.

"And that's day in day out business, rather than having 81 games where there's parking problems and other problems to go along with it," said Ferguson.

Many dome businesses support new waterfront stadium [Tampa Bay 10]

It's business Monday over here at MenuPages today. First, we wondered whether or not the Canadians will be descending upon our fair state. Now, we're marveling at the way that Miami-Dade, even with the condo glut and the looming economic problems, is bailing out the rest of the state:

While the rest of Florida has seen dramatic declines in consumer spending, Miami-Dade went in the opposite direction, with spending jumping between the summers of 2006 and 2007. The increases were enough to raise the amount of annual sales taxes collected in Miami-Dade by $118 million, to a total of $2.58 billion.

While tax collections in Miami-Dade grew by 4.8 percent, Broward County’s tax collections grew by 1.6 percent, and such tourist meccas as Orange and Osceola counties saw 1 percent growth.

The good news out of Miami-Dade contrasts to spending declines all the way from Pensacola to West Palm Beach to Naples. It’s a downturn that forced lawmakers to slash $1 billion from the state budget during an October special session. And more cuts could soon be on the way: This week, state economists are expected to project a $2 billion budget shortfall for the coming year.

That shortfall would be much worse if it weren’t for Miami-Dade. Florida’s 6-cent sales tax is the lifeblood of the state budget, producing more than $20 billion a year for lawmakers to spend on everything, including schools, prisons and healthcare for the poor. Nearly 12 percent of all state sales-tax collections during the fiscal year that ended June 30 came from Miami-Dade.

Miami-Dade economy helping bail out state [Miami Herald via Real Estate Miami blog, because the Herald's website is sucking right now]

Behold, the future of the comment card. Most paper comment cards are filled out by only 1-5 percent of diners; this contraption, however, has gotten a 75 percent return rate from diners at a mongolian barbecue restaurant in the Tampa area. The man behind the contraption, Ken Todd, came up with the idea after a bad experience at a restaurant; he wanted to convey his displeasure without making a fuss.

Todd started a business, got a patent in 2000 and ended up partnering in 2002 with Dallas-based Long Range Systems, a producer of restaurant paging systems. The idea is simple: At meal’s end, your check arrives on a black clipboard with a keyboard embedded in it. Hmm, that’s fun. Feel like taking a quick survey? Sure.

Survey pads are placed in a docking station, the data is downloaded every night and the restaurant is sent a pdf of the results the next morning. “A lot of measurement devices don’t isolate individual servers,” says Todd. “We generate a report every day that rates individual servers on whatever the restaurant is trying to measure. A restaurant can instantly react, and servers can be coached and counseled.”

Survey Says... [The Mouth of Tampa Bay]

There's been a lot of uproar over the state of Florida's health inspections, and to be honest, it's beginning to bore us just a little. The latest news comes from a progress report by the Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability (with such a long name, we're sure the committee actually accomplishes very little). We'll sum it up for you in easy-to-digest bullet points:

• The Division of Hotels and Restaurants, which conducts the restaurant inspections, has made improvements in terms of boosting staff and making the website more consumer-friendly, but more still needs to be done.

• The department needs more money. It can either a) beg the legislature for more money or b) charge offending restaurants re-inspection fees.

• The committee is advising that the agency add 39 new inspector positions for 2008-2009.

So here's a question for all of you readers: have any of you ever tried to look up a restaurant's health inspection records? And how important is this information when you're making a decision to eat out? We have to admit that we don't really think about these things much, probably because we're young, healthy, and blessed with a strong stomach. Let us know what you think!

Florida regulators' oversight of restaurants still falls short [Sun-Sentinel]

As many of you who surf popular food websites know, Advertising Age ran a story on Monday about how the fact that more moms are opting out of the workforce and choosing to stay home would affect the restaurant and supermarket businesses. Here's a brief excerpt to get you all caught up:

The decades-long rise of women in the work force -- and the related rise of meals bought from restaurants -- has ground to halt and begun to reverse since the turn of the millennium. The numbers have gotten little attention, and they fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but their ramifications are huge for restaurant, supermarket and food marketers.

Women's participation rate in the paid U.S. labor force topped out at just above 60% in 1999 and again in 2001 but has fallen since then, according to the Labor Department. Restaurant meals, fueled for decades by the migration of moms to the work force, also topped out at 211 per person per year in 2001 according to NPD and likewise have been bouncing lower since, hitting 207 this year.

For restaurants, it means an end to a demographic gold mine that fed decades of growth. For supermarkets, it means a reversal of a trend that fueled decades of decline and may even help savvier operators gain an edge in their long-losing battle against Wal-Mart. And for package-food companies, the trends offer a chance to gain ground on restaurants for the first time in decades.

Continue reading "Stay-At-Home Moms And The Restaurant Industry" »

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]

Florida lawmakers announced yesterday that the state's minimum wage will increase 12 cents to $6.79 per hour as of January 1, 2008. It's about a 1.8 percent increase. Tip earners will see a greater increase as percentage of their salary, from $3.65 to $3.77 per hour.

The interesting thing is that business owners, including restaurateurs, in Southwest Florida aren't even paying attention, since the market dictates a higher base salary over there:

According to that survey, the median wage for housekeepers — typically among the lowest paid workers in the work force — was $8 an hour in Southwest Florida. Dishwashers, another typically low-paying, entry-level job, earn a median wage of $7.15 an hour.

Joe Murgalo, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa in Estero, said the competitive market sets the pay in Southwest Florida, not the minimum wage laws.

"We couldn't hire anyone at minimum wage," Murgalo said. "It's been decades since it mattered what the minimum wage was here."

Florida's minimum wage will be $6.79 [News-Press]

We found an interesting article in Florida Today, farther up the coast, about the state of the shrimping industry in Florida. While most articles about today's fishing industry inevitably mention overfishing and declining populations, there's nothing about that here. The problems seem to be condos replacing fish houses along the coast, increased regulation and security, and higher fuel prices. Plus there are the cheap imports, which are killing the local shrimp industry; wild-caught shrimp can't possibly compete price-wise with the cheap shrimp coming from farms in Southeast Asia:

John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance in Tarpon Springs, just returned from testifying before a House Ways and Means subcommittee on food-safety issues of imported shrimp.

"The United States is like a magnet for garbage," he said. "We're inspecting less than 1 percent of all these imported products, especially seafood."

When the European Union, Japan and Canada clamped down on shrimp imports, importers turned to America, Williams said.

"In 2000, 2001, the European Union, Japan and Canada banned imports from Pakistan, and Pakistan just turned around and shipped them to the United States," Williams said.

The U.S. food-service industry threw down the red carpet for these low-priced imports, now a mainstay at restaurants and grocery stores, he said.

"Check out the boxes in the Dumpsters behind restaurants," McCoy said. "A majority of the shrimp that is served in restaurants, including local restaurants, and that is sold in the local grocery stores, is not always a wild-caught product, but imported."

Shrimping flounders [Florida Today]

This article ran on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 29, but as we were on the West Coast at the time, we didn't see it, so we're going to pretend it's more timely. At any rate, the issue is still a current one. The headline poses the question "Is Florida Over?" and the accompanying article basically says that people in the rest of the country aren't finding Florida so attractive anymore, mainly because of the high cost of living. Oh yes, and the hurricanes.

We aren't losing people yet, but we aren't attracting them at the same rate that we once were, which is fine, because the state surely could not handle 80 percent population growth of the boom years of the 1960s. And the population is still growing, mainly because of the 100,000 immigrants who move to Florida each year from other countries.

And of course, there's a bit of gloom and doom about a possible recession, driven by the fall of the housing market. We never quite understood how a glut in the housing market could cause a state-wide recession, but then we saw the figures. According to the article, one in three new jobs over the past few years are related to the housing market, from the mortgage brokers to the real estate agents to the guy stocking plywood at Home Depot. So it makes sense that a downturn in the overall market would lead to a huge loss of jobs.

What's this mean for restaurants in Florida? Well, costs are already impossibly high, making being in business difficult. A statewide recession would mean more people trying to scrimp and save and cutting out luxuries, among them restaurant meals. Then again, we imagine the mom-and-pop places that have been around for ages will be able to weather the storm, and the fancy places on Ocean Drive will be buoyed by tourist dollars. Perhaps we'll lose a steakhouse or two or seven...

Is Florida Over? [Wall Street Journal]

We're a little jet-lagged and tired, and we have hundreds of e-mails to sort through, so you may have to give us an hour or two. In the meantime, we'd like you to reflect on the photo above, of lamb "popsicles" in a fenugreek cream curry, which was the most delicious part of our excellent meal on Friday night at Vij's. If any of you are planning a trip to Vancouver, you absolutely must eat there. On Saturday, we discovered that the owner published all of his recipes in a cookbook recently. Naturally, we immediately purchased it.

Vij's [Official Site]

Photo: Flickr, because we haven't yet had time to upload our own photos

And we thought we were enterprising for selling Cuban coffee in our Chicago dorm during college. It was great; there were no startup costs (we'd received a stovetop cafetera as a going-away gift, and mom and dad had sent the coffee and the little plastic espresso cups that are impossible to find outside of Miami), so all of the 50 cents we got for each shot was pure profit. But we ran a small operation, only selling coffee during midterms and finals.

Bryan Zupon, a senior at Duke, took that idea about 200 steps further by running his own restaurant. In his dorm room. Zupon's dorm seems nicer than most: an apartment-style setup with a standard kitchen, which he has equipped with a vacuum sealer, two refurbished laboratory water baths, and an induction burner. It's out of this small space that he's run Z Kitchen since September of his junior year, with dinner service every weekend except for during midterms and finals.

Our jaw dropped when we saw the photos that accompany the article. Just check out the presentation, and then look at the kitchen with which he's working. Incredibly impressive. We're curious about how much he charges for dinner; we imagine college students can't afford something too expensive. But Zupon's an economics major who's going to join a consulting firm, so he's not doing it as charity either. Two years, multiple dinners every weekend...he's probably paid off that vacuum sealer and then some.

Too Cool for School [New York Times]

This week marks the start of the 12th annual Epcot Food & Wine Festival, for those who like their ethnic food to come with a pair of mouse ears. The event began on Friday and ends on November 11. There will be music (think Little Richard, David Cassidy, and Jon Secada), food, seminars, and themed dinners. For just $210 per person (plus tax, although tip is included), you too can get a seat in one of these five-course dinners, with themes like "A California Landscape," "A Tuscan Renaissance," and "Bordeaux - Inspiration for Anton Ego."

Some other events of note:
• A South African Wine Event on October 12 at 6:30 p.m., which will feature samples from 40 vineyards for $75.
• Odyssey Kitchen Conversations: televised chats with chefs about how they became successful, plus a cooking demonstration and tasting, for $75
• The Cook, The Book, and The Bottle: a demonstration by a noted chef, plus a three-course meal with wine pairings, for $150
• Sweet Sundays: top pastry chefs prepare three sweet treats, served with sparkling wine and a continental breakfast, for $65.

There's no cost (aside from the Epcot admission fee, although that's not required for the themed dinners) to going to the festival, but there is, of course, a charge to eat and taste; appetizer-size portions will be available for $1.50-$4.50 at the restaurants, and each of the seminars costs extra. One could easily drop a lot of cash at this thing. But then, isn't that always the case with Disney World?

The 12th Annual Epcot International Food and Wine Festival "Tastefully Inspired" [WDW Info]

Miami native Josie Smith-Malave, from last season's Top Chef, was beaten and harassed outside of a Long Island bar over the Labor Day weekend. The news is just coming out now, because her lawyer wants the incident investigated as a hate crime.

[Attorney Yetta Kurland] said the trouble started when the women went to Partners bar in Sea Cliff over the Labor Day weekend for a drink and began dancing together. Smith-Malave's sister is straight.

Bar employees escorted the women out a side door after other patrons began making nasty remarks and the mood started getting ugly, Kurland said.

Kurland said as many as 10 "young adults" followed the women out, circled them, screamed anti-gay slurs, spit on them and then punched and kicked them. A camera belonging to one of them was stolen, she said. Nassau police said they were investigating, but had made no arrests.

Yikes! How anyone could beat up on Josie is beyond us. Sure, she's loud, but she was the friendliest and nicest of the cast members last season. Here's hoping those bruises have healed now and that the cops start making some arrests soon.

'Top Chef' contestant in bias attack [New York Daily News]

Ever since we topped the list of food poisoning cases in the country, health inspection reports have been on everyone's mind. This weekend, the Orlando Sentinel unveiled a nifty restaurant inspection database that makes it incredibly easy to get inspection reports for restaurants in Central Florida. Just search by restaurant name, zip code, or city name. Of course, the state already runs a pretty good website that does much the same thing, although perhaps not in quite as clear a manner.

Scott Joseph, the Sentinel's restaurant critic, offers some helpful advice for sifting through inspections:

The inspection reports, much like a restaurant review, are snapshots of conditions present at the time of the inspector's visit.

And what the reports don't tell you is that most infractions are corrected on the spot. If they weren't corrected then and there, they would be corrected soon, followed by another inspection. If not, the restaurant would not be allowed to continue operating. As Joe Friedman, spokesman for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, told me, if the restaurant is open, it has been deemed safe for the public to dine in.

And with the safety and sanitary inspections, you don't get the restaurant's side of the story.

For example, the report for a certain restaurant in downtown Orlando, which will remain unnamed because the inspection was nearly a year ago, lists 39 violations, 26 critical. The details for one of those violations states "chef washed hands on top of calamari." The manager, reached at the restaurant last week, said that wasn't really the case. Instead, he said, the calamari was in a sink designated for hand washing but that no one washed his or her hands while the squid was in the sink.

Basically, don't patronize serious repeat offenders, and cut the other restaurants some slack. Although we tend to draw the line at "rodent activity." Yikes.

Restaurant Inspection Database [Orlando Sentinel]
Our critic has tips for sifting through reports [Orlando Sentinel]
Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation
Food Poisoning To Overtake Sharks As Most Popular Irrational Fear About Florida [MP: South Florida]

You no doubt have heard about the dangers of microwave popcorn by now (and if you haven't, read this). It seems that butter-flavored microwaveable popcorn contains something called diacetyl, which, when heated, can cause "bronchiolitis obliterans," a possibly fatal lung disease common among popcorn workers. But now doctors have found a case of the disease in a consumer; granted, it's a consumer who's eaten at least two bags of popcorn each day for the past decade, but it's still raising some alarm among casual microwave popcorn eaters.

The good news is that foodies (who've stayed away from the bagged stuff for years because, well, it just doesn't taste as good) are answering the call to help those who now find themselves yearning for puffed kernels of corn without any added chemicals. First up, Mark Bittman, who guest blogs over at Diner's Journal, gives a clear step-by-step process on how to pop your own corn using some kernels, oil, salt and butter. (We do it much the same way, except after watching an episode of Good Eats, we've now taken to salting the oil and kernels before popping so that the salt is evenly distributed.) And if you absolutely must go the bag-and-microwave route, here's a guide to making popcorn in a brown paper bag. It looks pretty simple: place kernels in bag, add butter to one side of bag if desired, place butter-side up in microwave for four minutes. And that's it.

Doctor Links a Man's Illness to Microwave Popcorn Habit [New York Times]
Popcorn, The Old-Fashioned Way [Diner's Journal]
Brownbag Popcorn [Instructables]
Photo: Flickr

The last time we wrote about grouper, we passed along tips from the Florida Department of Agriculture to tell if the grouper at your favorite restaurant is a fake. We didn't quite realize how bad the problem is, however, until an article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune gave us a rundown of the industry.

There are five species of Gulf Coast fish now being overfished, including the wildly popular gag grouper.

Three years ago, a grouper sandwich was priced at about $8.95. Now, it can run you $13 or more, with restaurant owners paying $11 to $13 per pound for fillets.

Just in the last two years, the price has risen nearly $3 per pound, says Wil Stutzman, the general manager at the Dry Dock Waterfront Grill on Longboat Key.

The price of whole grouper -- what fish houses pay to fishermen -- rose about 20 percent from 2003 to 2006, to $2.91 per pound, the Florida Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Seafood and Aquaculture Marketing reports.

This year, area fish house operators say they are paying about $3.20 per pound, representing another 10 percent increase in the last year.

It appears that the prices are only going to go up. There's a bit of blame to go around everywhere: increased regulation (some of it necessary to keep maintain fish populations), waterfront development that's destroyed habitats, an increase in the number of recreational fishermen, and, let's not forget, a few bad hurricanes. The commercial fishermen blame the recreational anglers, and vice versa. All we know for sure is that grouper prices are only going to go up, so much so that the fish may be priced out of most restaurant menus. And if you do find it on a menu for what looks like a really great deal, it's frozen, foreign or not even grouper at all.

Grouper Crisis [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
Grouper, And The Fish That Want To Emulate It [MP: South Florida]
Photo: Flickr

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" »

Remember that problem of empty condos and failing businesses in downtown Miami? Looks like Tampa's having similar problems, on a smaller scale. People who bought condos during the boom are stuck and are having trouble renting them out, and the thriving downtown that was promised — with restaurants, a museum, shopping, basics like a dry cleaner and a grocery store (both currently lacking) — hasn't materialized. From the Tampa Tribune:

Real estate experts say what's happening in downtown Tampa is normal for a city trying to reinvent itself into a place where people live and work. The difficult housing market puts added pressure on people who purchased units, and many could be stuck with mortgage payments for longer than they anticipated. Foreclosures, which are plaguing the single-family market, are likely to seep into the condominium market, and that could drive down prices, said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research in Jupiter.

"Urban renewal and reviving downtowns was a great marketing pitch for condos in Florida downtowns," said Larson, who tracks real estate trends in Florida. "What we're seeing now is that the promise was a little more hype than substance."

Still, he predicts, downtown restaurants and shops plus renewed demand for condos will catch up to the inventory. "People expected a gold rush, and it's more of a trickle."

There are 44 residential loft and condominium projects either under construction, recently completed or planned in the downtown area, according to the city. Fourteen of those are complete.

Sound familiar?

Downtown Miami Needs Warm Bodies To Fill Those Condos [MP: South Florida]
Market Reality Blurs Vision of Downtown [Tampa Tribune]
Photo: Flickr

Controversy in the juice aisle! The St. Petersburg Times reports that the Florida Department of Citrus is cracking down on deceptive labeling of orange juice cartons. At issue are HomeMaker Premium cartons that say "100% Pure Florida Squeezed" at the top; on the bottom, in smaller print, is "Blended with Valencia orange juice. From concentrate."

The department has ordered the juice's maker, TWS Marketing, to remove the logo from HomeMaker Premium cartons. Any cartons with the logo that are still on store shelves must be removed by Oct. 1 or the department will seize them.

"That label is a circus," said Kenneth Keck, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus. "Between fraud and deception, it's all there, we believe."

We're not sure we'd go to the extent of "fraud" or "deception," since it is still stated on the front of the carton, although it's true that most people wouldn't pay attention to it. The article also mentions that Minute Maid gets its juice from Costa Rica and Brazil and that Tropicana blends Brazilian orange juice with Florida oranges. These are listed in really fine print in the back, just below the nutritional information. (HomeMaker uses only Florida oranges.)

HomeMaker has been given until October to redesign its cartons.

Business: Orange juice labels: pulp fiction? [St. Petersburg Times]
Photo: Flickr

Florida tops the nation in food poisoning outbreaks traced to restaurants, according to the website HealthInspections.com. Not surprisingly, the top five states — Florida, California, Ohio, Michigan and New York — also happen to be the most populous, as this wasn't done on a per-capita basis. We doubt this information will make anyone think twice about where to eat out, as the article suggests, but the numbers are interesting:

Florida restaurants were responsible for making more than 300 people sick in 77 separate outbreaks of "food poisoning" – which is the term most people use for getting sick from food.

Seafood and ethnic foods were the leading culprits for making Florida restaurant customers sick.

The Florida outbreaks also raise questions about the cleanliness of those popular all-you-can-eat buffets. They were the third leading cause of food poisoning in the Sunshine state. And half of the outbreaks traced to buffets were cause by "ethnic buffets" according to the CDC.

This makes sense. We've got a lot of ocean down here, so seafood's a favorite, and if cooked improperly (or served rare improperly), there can be problems. As for "ethnic" foods, we're not sure what to say about that, except that the term casts a very large net. Perhaps we should be dining only at Applebee's?

We wonder if Florida's high percentage of retirees plays a role in this business, as the elderly are more susceptible to disease from improperly prepared food. Mostly though, we think this is just a function of having so many people here; 300 people out of the millions of residents, tourists and snowbirds isn't bad.

EXCLUSIVE: The Most Dangerous States For Eating Out. Florida Tops The List [Health Inspections]

• A 550-pound Central Florida man is arrested for trying to cheat his way out of tabs using the old "there's a hair in my food" or "these 30 bags of beef jerky are moldy" trick one too many times. [Orlando Sentinel]

• UF students are enthusiastic about the prospect of caffeinated doughnuts. [Gainesville Sun]

• Shrimping off the dock on the St. Johns River in Palatka sure sounds like a lot of fun. [Palatka Daily News]

• A useful quick guide to Latin cheeses. [Tampa Tribune]

We've been big fans of The Great Big Vegetable Challenge for a while now. It's a blog devoted to one mom's struggle to get her son Freddie to eat his veggies. She came up with the brilliant idea of working through the "vegetable alphabet" by introducing one new veggie at a time, prepared a few different ways, in alphabetical order. And the amazing thing is it's working! Freddie now feels obligated to at least try the vegetables, out of a sense of duty to his many online readers, and once he's tried them, he finds that most are pretty tasty.

There were no new veggie recipes posted today; the family has found a new, rainy-day activity with vegetables: making vegetable faces. (We imagine this would work very well as a way to pass the time once the electricity goes out during a hurricane.) This photo made us laugh out loud. We're tempted to run home and make one of our own!

Photo: The Great Big Vegetable Challenge

If you worry about how all of those hours laying at the beach are going to affect your skin in later years, then you might be interested to know that a nutritionist in Italy has come up with an anti-wrinkle pizza:

The "primula" pizza is made up of three times the amount of fibre found in a classic pizza and boasts that it contains more magnesium and iron, thanks to its ingredients, including wholemeal flour, La Stampa newspaper reported Monday.

At least eight vegetables or sauces in the pizza allegedly create the anti-oxidant effects against ageing: tomatoes, rocket, garlic, courgettes, basil, mushrooms, carrots and spinach.

(For those who aren't well-versed in British vegetable terms, rocket = arugula and courgettes = zucchini.) So far, the True Neapolitan Pizza Association hates it, the pope loves it, and it's only available at one restaurant in Italy. But we imagine you could recreate the pizza at home. And then in order to get any real effects from it, you'd have to eat it every day, as we doubt this will work in a once-a-week dose.

To the creator of the pizza, we suggest you franchise an anti-wrinkle pizza chain in South Florida. The demand is huge, and we have none of those pesky pizza purists over here.

New 'anti-wrinkle' pizza causes a stir with pie purists in Italy [Yahoo! News]

• Florida has wineries. Did you know that? We sure didn't. The Sunshine State has 800 acres of vineyards. So we're not going to challenge California anytime soon, but given the rain, bugs, humidity, and hurricanes, that's not too shabby. The grapes are ripening just about now. [St Petersburg Times]

• Kosher vending machines, now available at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Expect them at PBI in another year or so. [New York Times]

• Leaked FTC documents detail Whole Foods' plot to take over the world. Well, maybe not the world, but definitely the high-priced organic food market. In these documents is the name used internally to describe the purchase of Wild Oats: "Project Goldmine." [New York Times]

Today's New York Times article about raw milk is sure to exasperate food scientists everywhere. It seems that demand for milk straight from the cow is steadily increasing:

Still, individual states determine how raw milk is bought and sold within their borders. While its sale for human consumption is illegal in 15 states, New York is one of 26 where it can be bought with restrictions. The chief one is that raw milk can only be sold on the premises of one of 19 dairy farms approved by the state. Clandestine milk clubs, like the one Mr. Milgrom-Elcott joined, are one way of circumventing the law, and there are others.

Raw milk drinkers may praise its richer flavor or claim it is more nutritious than pasteurized milk. No matter why they drink it, the demand for it is booming. In 2000, the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in the San Joaquin Valley near Fresno became California’s first raw milk dairy with certified organic pasture land. This year its co-founder, Mark McAfee, expects it to gross $6 million — up from $4.9 last year.

Continue reading "Raw Milk Is A Trend, So Says The New York Times" »

We're not sure how we missed this last month, but here it is: Books & Books is opening a fourth location in November. In Grand Cayman. You might be wondering what the restaurant connection is here; it's a bit tenuous, but they do have cafes at two of their locations. (The Books & Books at Bal Harbour is without.) And it looks like the Cayman Islands version will indeed offer food:

Continue reading "Books & Books Extends Its Reach Into the Caribbean" »

Americans don't much care about bulk cheese or yogurt, but chocolate, well, that's an entirely different matter, certain to incite riots. An AP story today runs down the battle over a petition introduced last October that would alter the standards for production of 300 different foods. The most important, of course, is chocolate; the petition calls for a bit more flexibility in the fats added to chocolate. Instead of cocoa butter, producers could add less expensive fats like shea or palm oil. Of course, producers have been doing this to chocolate already, but then they can't label the food "chocolate." Chocolate purists already lost the battle in Europe a few years ago, when the EU allowed up to five percent vegetable fat added to chocolate, so now they're hoping to win on this side of the Atlantic. (Not likely, we think.) Our advice: read labels for everything, including chocolate if this petition is given the rubber stamp from the FDA.

Sides Square Off in Chocolate Fight [AP via Washington Post]
Photo: Flickr

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