Since virtually all of the regulars on what it amuses me to refer to as my “Restaurant Review Victims List” (food criticism is one of the world’s most interesting jobs, but it’d shock you to learn how often reviewers end up with job-related ailments ranging from food poisoning to just…
Perhaps you’ve noticed the large murals and conspicuous neon lights of Taquerias El Mexicano while driving through Little Havana toward downtown. Located at Fifth Avenue and Calle Ocho, that neon conspires with a thickly gated exterior to give the place a forbidding, down-and-out appearance. Lurking behind those gates, however, is…
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, stumping in Philadelphia, stopped by the landmark Pat’s King of Steaks for a “common folk” photo-op, and proceeded to place an order for their famous Philly cheese steak sandwich — “with Swiss cheese.” Philadelphians cringed at the faux pas, as did, I’m sure, Kerry’s campaign…
Driving past you’d never notice this bar/restaurant in the Argentine enclave around 71st Street and Normandy Drive; indeed the first three times I cruised by deliberately looking, I missed it. But I wasn’t surprised to think the eight-month-old spot had already folded. I’d become aware of Il Romanaccio Caffe through…
I should start by stating my general disdain for fast-food chains, which I believe exist mainly to provide pseudonutrition for those who don’t like to put a lot of thought into what’s going into their stomach. Still it’s only proper that I keep abreast of national dining trends, and I…
When a good restaurant has been around for a good fifteen years and, what’s more, is the only eatery of its kind in the region — in this case, the only source, as far as I know, of Danish food in South Florida — one would expect it to be…
Ago is no Spago, though it does serve thin-crust, wood-fired pizzas, and as the trendy California eatery relied in its heyday on the buzz of the Hollywood now crowd, so too does Ago draw social minglers from the current SoBe scene. Ago is also no Nobu, but shares the same…
Now there are shopping mall food courts. But once all the classiest department stores used to have their own lunchrooms, featuring food like iceberg lettuce wedges with old-fashioned white boiled salad dressing — polite food that didn’t stain the white gloves, light food for those with lots of leisure time…
It’s not unusual for a couple to give birth a year or two after getting hitched — unless the couple is a couple of award-winning young chefs, like Andrea Curto-Randazzo (formerly of Wish) and Frank Randazzo (the Gaucho Room), and they decide to almost simultaneously give birth to a child…
While sitting at a table draped in a blue and white checkerboard cloth, in the Jerusalem Market & Deli (which is tucked into the same North Miami strip mall addendum as the Mexican restaurant Paquito’s), I came up with a “Road Map for Better Mideast Food.” What makes me so…
The street scene in Gili’s neighborhood may be super glam when the new Performing Arts Center a few blocks east is up and running someday, probably in our lifetime. It’s already somewhat hip during nightlife hours, with Club Space and I/O drawing crowds, and if rumors that crobar or Automatic…
Some may say it’s only sixteen words, but exaggeration, deception, and dishonesty are just plain wrong regardless of how few syllables are used. What’s that? Oh, no no no — this has nothing to do with Bush’s State of the Union address. I’m speaking about the menu at Pescado, a…
There are few desserts easier to prepare than key lime pie, which necessitates only the pouring of egg yolks, key lime juice, and sweetened, condensed milk into a graham cracker crust that’s really just crumbs mixed with melted butter. You don’t even have to bake the darn thing, although nowadays…
Of all the benefits Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro imagined might result from his midsixteenth-century destruction of Peru’s great Inca empire, a culinary revolution producing what many chefs consider the most sophisticated cuisine of any South/Central American nation probably was not foremost in the sword-swinger’s mind. Yet the cross-cultural criollo race,…
Citronelle is the latest of a number of new restaurants cropping up along the corroded corridor of upper Biscayne Boulevard. Situated in a corner location, its large plate-glass windows look out upon a mostly infelicitous street scene. Peering inward: a modern, minimally decorated 40-seat room with sleek, dark wood tables,…
When Biscayne Bar-B-Q opened last winter in the same building as the Cactus gay bar — with, according to its ads, an outdoor poolside cookout on Saturday nights till 2:00 a.m. — I was pretty intrigued, because friends had been telling me for the whole ten years I’ve lived in…
According to a note on the menu of Mapalé Colombian Grille, the folk dance for which the restaurant is named, which was originally brought to the north coastal city of Cartagena;a by African slaves from New Guinea, is considered Colombia’s most erotic dance. The one time I saw el mapalé…
Einstein Bros bagels are round, chewy breads with holes in the center, and tasty in tandem with sandwich fillings, but have little in common with true bagels. Mostly they lack the proper color and texture — bagel crusts should have more golden brown crunch to them than these pale softies…
It doesn’t intrigue me that much when people report excitedly on new Mexican restaurant finds that have great red or green salsa. Sure I love the stuff, but great Mexican tomato/tomatillo salsas don’t depend on the kind of precision, balance, timing, and educated know-how that a great French sauce does;…
The Park Central Hotel on Ocean Drive used to have a cool Deco lobby replete with pool table. Now, as a dining room for Quinn’s, it is filled with linen-covered tables that extend onto a comfortable outdoor patio and up the crowded street. Alfresco dining on this pedestrian thoroughfare always…
If you enter a restaurant in China and ask for “egg foo yung,” a puzzled look will most assuredly cross your waiter’s face. The term is meaningless in that country, the dish nonexistent, yet it’s long been a popular staple in Chinese-American eateries. At Sang’s Chinese Restaurant in North Miami…
On a recent evening at Pan-Asian restaurant Soco, all of the half-dozen nightly specials were Italian except for one appetizer. Which was Spanish. At the bottom of the regular menu — which features dishes like a Thai fish hot pot, a Chinese Peking duck spring roll, and a Japanese sushi…
