Miami is a town of many charming, unique, evocative neighborhoods with very few charming, unique, evocative neighborhood restaurants. Why is this? We can venture a few guesses. Miami is a city with no real culinary tradition, at least if you exclude stone crabs and restaurants that shear tourists like sunburned,…
What do a Russian kebabery, a student-run restaurant, and a Oaxacan taqueria on wheels have in common? Nothing except delicious food, which speaks a universal language. Lula Kebab House owners Sofia and David Shifrin are from Minsk (now the Republic of Belarus). Francisco Perez and his brother-in-law Moises, proprietors of…
Unlike its predecessor, the well-loved Japanese restaurant Tani Guchi’s Place, there’s nothing kosher about Maleewan Thai and Sushi. The specials board sports something that looks like a six-point Star of David, but it’s actually the six-petal vine flower from which Maleewan takes its name. Silk flowers are now a main…
There are three sections to the 145-seat Ishq (pronounced ish): a row of tables lined up on the sidewalk of Ocean Drive, a thinly foliated rectangular outdoor courtyard that serves as dining area and link between street and recessed restaurant, and the interior, consisting of a bar inlaid with semiprecious…
Cancun Grill is everything that’s wrong with Mexican cuisine in South Florida. Most Mexican restaurants in these parts are about many things — cheap prices, expensive margaritas, quick service, raucous entertainment, faux SoBo (south of the border) ambiance. Rarely are they about the food. What sets Cancun Grill apart is…
Korean cuisine can be a conundrum. Relatively few westerners are familiar with the culinary specialties of the isolated peninsular nation (shaped not unlike Florida), compared to that of, say, Korea’s higher-profile neighbor, Japan, which is often wrongly cited as the nation from which Korean cuisine is derived. The mystery of…
I was sitting alone in the spanking-new Rosa Mexicano dining room, finishing up my chicken enchiladita appetizer. Actually I was already done eating the two small, soft corn tortillas wrapped around succulent shreds of pulled chicken, chorizo sausage, and meaty red beans, and at the moment, using the tines of…
It used to be easy to differentiate between a fine-dining establishment and a neighborhood restaurant. The former’s tables would be draped in white linen, the patrons in elegant attire, and the host — referred to as “maitre d'” — would likely be wearing a tuxedo. Further clues might be ascertained…
It’s difficult not to sympathize with business owners along the stretch of Biscayne Boulevard between NE 67th and 87th Streets. Owing to seemingly endless construction, access to shops is greatly reduced and the neighborhood looks like a war zone. Local businesses have failed under similar circumstances; common sense suggests the…
Miami diners consider certain money-driven variables pluses in deciding where to go on a night out: the flashy swordsmanship show of a Brazilian rodizio restaurant; the lavish steaks of an Argentine parrillada; the cutting-edge East-West fusion creations of a contemporary Peruvian eatery. Not a plus on any occasion would be,…
While traipsing around New York last month, my wife and I seemingly passed one Chipotle Mexican Grill after another — some spaced just blocks apart. It reached a point when I wondered aloud: “Who do they think they are, Starbucks?” Curiosity compelled us to walk into one and take a…
Sit at the sushi bar. That’s the advice I generally give in regard to eating raw fish at restaurants, but it is especially true at David Bouley Evolution. For one thing, the main dining room is closed until November, so there really isn’t much choice. Those who arrive seeking sushi…
If cooking is an art, the hamburger is a blank canvas. Make it very big or very small. Paint it with ketchup, mustard, mayo, sun-dried tomato aioli. Texture it with lettuce, tomato, cheese, bacon, coleslaw. Frame it with a sesame seed bun, ciabatta roll, hunk of sourdough, crusty baguette. Whether…
At famous uptown NYC venues like the Lenox Lounge and the Cotton Club, entertainers such as Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington’s big band were sophisticated, and the soul food was scrumptious. The same has been true of the numerous new Harlem supper clubs that have opened since the neighborhood’s revival…
Pascal Oudin, born in Bourbon-Lancy, France, was working in professional kitchens at age 13. Within a few years he was being recognized as a wunderkind apprentice chef. Then came further training under Alain Ducasse, three-star Michelin masters Roger Vergé and Joseph Rostang, and the late, great Jean-Louis Palladin, who mentored…
I just recently noticed that Fifty Restaurant on Miami Beach’s Ocean Drive, home of chef Roly Cruz-Taura’s progressive American cuisine, is now 444 Ocean. As evidenced by the menu, it appears to have downgraded into another of that street’s many meccas of mediocrity. But enough naysaying. Local food commentary, mine…
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, and by the cover of Les Halles, the judgment is: We are sooo French. French as the 35-hour workweek, French as 10,000 handmade cheeses and gloriously crusty baguettes, French as sipping a glass of rustic red wine at a cute little…
I was a young man, alone, in Amsterdam. The third item on my to-do list, after visiting the Heineken brewery and Anne Frank’s house, was to partake of a rijsttafel. I knew nothing about food back then, but the tourist guides insisted that sampling this Dutch-Indonesian specialty was a must…
Certain kinds of eateries are irresistible to certain types of restaurant reviewers. What I can’t pass up is weirdness — places that serve unlikely, usually global combinations. This siren song somehow persists perennially for me, even though decades of exploration (in joints ranging from New York’s first Japanese/French restaurants to…
Ten Misconceptions About Barbecue: 1. Grilled and barbecued foods are ideal for summertime. I don’t think so. I mean it sure doesn’t feel ideal standing over a hot outdoor grill in simmering midsummer Miami. In fact it feels pretty gritty and more than a little insane. And fatty, smoky, heavy…
Oh, Lord, not another Italian restaurant!” “Yes, Bill, another Italian restaurant. But be of good faith and despair not, for verily and forsooth I say unto you that you will not have to consume one more crappy caesar salad — I can see Julius rotating in his grave already —…
If there could be such a thing as an upside to war, it would be the exchange of culinary ideas that takes place between clashing nations. Had our soldiers not developed a taste for pizza while they were stationed in Naples during World War II, who knows if those Italian…
