You all know that the Mango Festival at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is happening this weekend, right? We went last year and had a lovely time, although unfortunately this year we won't be able to make it. It's worth the entrance fee just to see the vast collection of mangos on display, despite the fact that it was difficult fighting the temptation to grab one, peel it and dig right in.

This year's festival theme is "Mangos of Africa," and among the curator's choice selections are two cultivars from South Africa and one from Egypt. There will be different varieties of mango to sample, mango trees to buy for your own backyard, and all sorts of dishes made with mangos by local chefs.

And in honor of the mango festival, we present Chef Allen Susser demonstrating how to best cut a mango:

Mango Festival at Fairchild [Official Site]
Mangos Mangos Everywhere! [MP: South Florida]
Chef Allen's [MenuPages]
Chef Allen's [Official Site]

Aromas del Peru [MenuPages]
Aromas del Peru [Official Site]

Photo: Masala Cha/flickr

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" »

In honor of National Waiters and Waitresses Day, we present "Waiters Who are Nauseated by Food," a skit from the Dana Carvey Show featuring Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell way back in the mid-1990s. On this day in which we honor those who bring us our food in restaurants, let's all thank God that they don't act like this pair.

Waiters who are Nauseated by Food [YouTube]

Jaguar [MenuPages]
Jaguar [Official Site]

Photo: Masala Cha/Flickr

Continue reading "Buenos Aires: A Photoessay" »

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

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

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

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

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

Photo: Masala Cha [Flickr]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo: Nathan Hale

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

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

Citizens Bank Park

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

Continue reading "Ballpark Eats: A Photo Essay" »

Look at the color on that thing. All sorts of seafood and rice in a gorgeous broth. You'll find this moqueca, a Brazilian seafood stew, at Sushi Samba Dromo on Miami Beach, where it comes with shrimp, squid, cod, crayfish, coconut milk, cashews, dende (palm) oil and chimichurri rice. The restaurant offers a lunch portion of the stew for $20 (it's $24 at dinner time). Cacao Restaurant in Coral Gables also features a lunchtime moqueca for $15. And for $14, you can get the catch of the day cooked moqueca-style at Oba Oba in Coconut Creek.

Moqueca [Wikipedia]
Sushi Samba Dromo [MenuPages]
Cacao Restaurant [MenuPages]
Oba Oba [MenuPages]

Photo: Masala Cha [Flickr]

We have no idea what the seared tuna dish shown above tastes like, but we so badly want to sink our teeth into it, mercury levels be damned. You can find this dish, which comes with vegetable wraps, at Abokado in Mary Brickell Village.

We love the concept of Latin/Sushi fusion, although initial reviews have been fairly lukewarm. Here's what consumable Joy had to say about it after a visit this weekend:

All the food was beautifully presented, and it tries hard to be great. It may be trying a little bit too hard. We loved the way the food looked, and we enjoyed getting the plates with multiple flavors. Not all the flavors worked however, some overwhelming their bases they were supposed to be carrying, and others simply not carrying much flavor at all. The "nachos" -- tempura shiso leaf with sort of a tuna tartare on top -- were "pretty good" according to the DH, but "not so-shiso-y" because the batter was a bit too much for the delicate leaf. The rolls were ambitiously designed and fun to eat, but none of them have stuck in the mind enough for us to recall their precise names.

Abokado [MenuPages]
Abokado [Official Site]
First Visit: Abokado [consumableJoy]

Photo: miami fever [Flickr]

Plum took a tour of the Café Bustelo factory and spoke with the family about the operation. Did you know that they're planning on starting coffee shops? The first one is slated to open in the Gansevoort South in Miami Beach. We'd recommend they work on getting a website too. It might help.

Café Bustelo [Plum]
Gansevoort South [Official Site]

This? Is awesome. Thank God somebody over at Required Eating keeps up with Improv Everywhere, because we don't, or at least we haven't been (Welcome to day one), and there's a chance we would have missed this fantastic video. The so-called spontaneous musical takes place in a Los Angeles shopping mall, which is in on the joke and rigged with hidden cameras. The music, according to IE, is piped in through the mall's sound system. Watch and marvel, then click over to IE to get the inside scoop on how they did it.

Food Court Musical [Improv Everywhere]
'Spontaneous' Musical Performed in Mall Food Court [Required Eating]

We've never been a big fan of an enormous, meat-laden breakfast. We love bacon and ham as much as the next guy, but we just don't like how an eggs-and-bacon breakfast tends to sit in our stomach for hours afterward. Buttery crepes, like the ones here from La Riviera at the Sofitel Miami, probably don't qualify as especially light, but paired with some strawberries, they look like the perfect breakfast to us.

La Riviera at the Sofitel Miami [MenuPages]
Sofitel [Official Site]

Photo: Flickr

The BLT is one of our favorite sandwiches. It's especially good when we use our home-cured bacon, which we cut in thick, meaty pieces. (Mostly out of necessity; we don't have the equipment necessary for thin slices. But for the purposes of a BLT, thick slices are perfect.) This sandwich, from Marker 88 in Islamorada, takes the typical BLT a couple steps further by adding blackened shrimp. You'll also note that the contents of the sandwich are held together by a split croissant. Because we can always use a bit more butter in our lives.

Marker 88 [MenuPages]
Marker 88 [Official Site]

Photo: Flickr

Oh man, we love beignets, and these from Grand Lux Cafe in Sunrise. The menu lists only that they're served warm with three sauces, but we called and learned that the red one is raspberry, the dark one is chocolate, and the lighter one is a Jack Daniels whiskey sauce. Add a nice espresso to the mix, and we're set.

Grand Lux Cafe [MenuPages]
Grand Lux Cafe [Official Site]

Photo: Flickr

Oh man. Ew ew ew. We're rethinking our lemon-wedge-in-water habit.

Lemon Study [YouTube]

These buttery crabs are making us swoon right now. So the Rustic Inn isn't exactly the typical romantic date place, but it's definitely fun, and that is some good-looking shellfish. A to-go order for a candlelit dinner at home might be a good idea.

Rustic Inn [MenuPages]
Rustic Inn [Official Site]

Photo: Flickr

We know food isn't miami fever's specialty, but his food photos still manage to make us salivate and make us crave whatever it is in the photo. In this case, it's fajitas from Tijuana Taxi Co. According to the menu description, the meat in that skillet is skirt steak cooked with onions, bell peppers and tomatoes and served with cheese, pico de gallo, guacamole and tortillas. Yum.

Tijuana Taxi Co [MenuPages]
Tijuana Taxi Co [Official Site]

Photo: miami fever's Flickr

Damn, that is a lot of food. We're sure it tastes good, but it's like breakfast, lunch and a mid-afternoon snack all rolled into one really heavy meal. Out-of-towners would often ask me if there was the same pressure in Miami to be rail-thin, tanned and beautiful as there is in LA, and while that may be the case in South Beach and certain other parts of the county, it's never far to a place like El Rinconcito Latino, where you can sit down to a bistec a caballo for breakfast and be applauded for your healthy appetite. Our personal preference would be to skip the plate entirely and go for just the tostada cubana dipped in that cafe con leche. With, perhaps, a croqueta on the side. Yum.

El Rinconcito Latino [MenuPages]

Photo: Flickr

That, dear readers, is orecchiette with duck sausage and wilted greens from Michy's. We're particularly fond of the way that the herbed ricotta is just scooped on top, so that the diner can mix it as he or she pleases. Here's the description of the dish from Frodesnor on that "must haves" list on Chowhound we linked to earlier:

Orrechiette - pasta w/ duck sausage, "loxahatchee greens" (wilted arugula?), chiles, pecorino and herbed ricotta. This was excellent - great combination of ingredients, really yummy.

Michy's [MenuPages]
What are the absolute "MUST HAVES" at Michy's to insure a GREAT dinner? [Chowhound]

Photo: Flickr

Check out this menu, likely taken from a Mexican restaurant in Naples that miami fever photographed recently. The licuados we know usually include ice, fruit, sugar and either milk or water. (We prefer the latter.) But these things take the regular licuado several steps further. First there's the Rocky Balboa, with chocolate, egg, vanilla and cinnamon. The Bomba Mexicana also contains egg, as well as orange juice, honey, pineapple, plantain and strawberries. (Does that sound appetizing to anyone? Anyone?) This begs the question: are they actually putting raw eggs in there? Because that could cause some serious problems for the restaurant if, say, a customer were to become ill from a bad egg. Maybe they cook it quickly to kill bacteria. Or maybe they go all the way and hard-boil the sucker and then toss it into the blender. Which...ewww.

Photo: miami fever's Flickr

We saw this photo in miami fever's Flickr recently. Blue ice cream isn't really our thing, but that photo still makes us want to dig right in. We love ice cream, and we always like learning about new places that do it right. You know, the kind of place where the ice cream is thick and creamy and .... mmm. Yum. Anyway, this particular cone comes from Sloan's, which we are ashamed to admit we had never heard of before. The fact that the four-location ice cream chain (all in Palm Beach County) has a Wikipedia page makes us think we probably should have known of it and should schedule a visit sometime soon. Other things we learned, thanks to Wikipedia: Sloan's was ranked #4 in a list of the most unique ice cream parlors in the country and was ranked #10 by the Travel Channel on its list of the top best bathrooms in the world.

The bathroom has clear glass doors that look right into the parlor. When you turn the door handles, the glass fogs up and becomes completely opaque. The doors are made of two panels of glass. Between the panels is a mixture of polymer and liquid crystals. A constant electrical current keeps the crystals in line and the glass transparent. But when the door handle is locked, the current is stopped, the crystals fall, and the glass looks clouded.

Sloan's Ice Cream [Official Site]
Sloan's Ice Cream [Wikipedia]

Photo: miami fever's Flickr

Oh man, we want one of these. We fear it might taste a bit too perfumey, as can sometimes be the case when working with flowers in the kitchen, but just look at that thing. It is so pretty. We're thinking that might be just right for Valentine's Day.

And now, we promise no more photos from Andú. At least not until it actually opens.

Andú Restaurant & Lounge [Official Site]

We got our parents a CSA trial share for Christmas, and they have loved it so much that they're continuing for the rest of the season (well, splitting with our aunt and uncle). Our mom's really enjoyed scouring the internet for ways to use the new fruits and vegetables that appear in her CSA inbox. This week, canistel (or "eggfruit") was a bit of a challenge, as she'd never seen it before, but after a little research, she learned that it's related to mamey and would work well in a milkshake. I'll let her take it from here:

In the process of making the shake I discovered that if I left it very creamy, pudding like, and served it in a small dessert dish, it is like eating a light yogurt. This definitely can be made into ice cream. I poured them into dessert dishes and placed in the refrigerator to get cooler and will serve them after dinner today. Very, very yummy!

Continue reading "Mom's Experiment With Canistel" »

Hey! That's our waiter! We recently went to Le Tub, and we were happy to see the same man who brought us our cheeseburgers and fries in this Plum video. Those burgers are huge. We tried valiantly to finish, but couldn't. About two-thirds of the way through, we dumped the bun and focused just on the ground sirloin, but even then, we couldn't finish those last few bites. Next time, we might share. But, we definitely agree that it was tasty.

Get in Le Tub [Plum]
Le Tub [MenuPages]

Miami Fever answered the call. Here we have a lovely photograph of Taqueria Doña Raquel's menu, which has now been updated online.

Taqueria Dona Raquel [MenuPages]

We Need More Menu Photos. Please [MP: South Florida]

Photo: miami fever

We present to you a heart-shaped peanut, which we happen to think is adorable. Supposedly a farmer in China figured out a way to grow these things, although the general sentiment in the blogosphere is that this is likely an anomaly in a field of regular-shaped peanuts. Still, adorable.

Via Slashfood and YumSugar

In case you were wondering what the new Texas de Brazil on South Beach looks like inside, here's a photo for you. We learned that the menu is much like that of the other Texas De Brazil in Dolphin Mall, but the new one has a sushi bar. Is there a law on the city's books that states that every restaurant on the beach must serve sushi?

Texas de Brazil [MenuPages]
Texas De Brazil [MenuPages]
Texas De Brazil [Official Site]

While checking out miami fever's Flickr photostream, we came across this. Yes, it appears he grilled chocolate-chip cookies. We are impressed and intrigued. There's no reason it shouldn't work, really, especially if you put the cover on the grill. But wouldn't the cookies then taste like whatever savory thing was last put on the grill?

Photo: miami fever's Flickr

Check out the photos from the first day of the Upper Eastside greenmarket over at mango&lime. It looks small, but there seemed to be lots of great-looking produce. Let's hope that it sticks around!

Upper East Side Green Market [mango&lime]

We've mentioned this before, but you should really check out the old Florida postcards in this Flickr collection. They're great. We were especially excited about a postcard with a recipe on it. There aren't really any directions, but we imagine that you just mix everything together, pour it into a pie crust and bake. Not too hard. And we'd add some actual meringue on top -- take those three egg whites that'll be left over and beat them until stiff, then spread on top of the pie before baking.

History Lesson: Leon & Eddie's In Palm Beach [MP: South Florida]

Photo: Flickr

We were amused by a photo we found of a Scion totally decked out in Pollo Tropical advertising. Think that's a private car and someone is getting paid to advertise the restaurant chain? Or do they make deliveries in that thing? And one commenter on the photo posed a good question -- aren't those types of tints illegal?

Pollo Tropical [Official Site]

Photo: Flickr

Yes, it's a little early in the morning for tuna, but we wanted to share anyway. This is certainly an interesting take on the typical spicy tuna roll from Yardhouse in Palm Beach Gardens. The only seaweed seems to be those green shavings, and we certainly hope that the green layer on top isn't all wasabi; it would be ridiculously spicy. We definitely think it looks tasty.

Yardhouse [Official Site]

Photo: Flickr

We used to hate tacos. Our mom made them one time for dinner when we were young -- you know, the hard corn store-bought tortillas, with plate set out of ground beef, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, cheese and a few other toppings that everyone could assemble on their own. We thought it tasted OK, but then we spent the rest of the night leaning over the toilet, so that soured us on tacos for a while. But we've come around since then, especially when we tried some good, authentic tacos. Like the ones pictured above from Taqueria Doña Raquel (793 S Dixie Hwy W in Pompano Beach, 954-946-4490).

Photo: Flickr