10 Ways To Tell You’re A Molecular Gastronomist

1. When you see duck l’orange on the menu, you think about what a neat ice cream flavor it would make.2. You do your grocery shopping at the freeze-dried foods aisle in Target’s camping department.3. The meal you served your cat Missy last night: 9 Lives Tuna & Egg Foam…

1st Avenue Bistro & Bakery’s $5.95 Breakfast Special

The 1st Avenue Bistro & Bakery has been around since 2008 downtown near the courthouse. It is owned and operated by a French couple who opened their first restaurant, Les Trois Petits Bergers, in Izeaux, France, in 1989. They also had a second establishment in Nice called Le Capitole. Their…

Sneak Review: De Rodriguez Ocean

Morsels from next week’s Cafe review of De Rodriguez Ocean:Comfortably cushioned seats surround dark wooden tables; red votive candles, glassware, flatware, and salt/pepper shakers culled from the low-end pages of a Sysco catalogue sit atop. Dinner here is an expensive proposition — ceviches $13 to $23, appetizers $10 to $18,…

Rosa Mexicano Jumps Into South Beach Mex Fray

Rosa Mexicano will be opening on the ground floor of the the funky new 1111 Lincoln Road parking lot. That’s an exclusive Short Order scoop — which we scooped from Ryan at Miami’s Restaurant Power Rankings, who scooped it from Chowhound, which got the scoop from a Craigslist job listing.That…

Short Order Best Buy: Cuisinart Ice Cream Machine for $49.95

A good ice cream machine is a tough thing to find. Go ahead, check Best Buy, Brands Mart, and other appliance pull-out flyers. You’ll see blenders, toasters, milk foamers, and just about anything you can think of sticking a plug on. But no ice cream machine. If you go online,…

Chocolate Wine: Uh-Oh

When I first espied the bottle of ChocoVine on the shelves of Publix — “The taste of dutch chocolate and fine red wine” — I just had to try it. I mean, as the company website puts it: “The right chocolate paired with the perfect wine can create a near-orgasmic…

Food trucks a go go

It’s a chilly Tuesday evening by Miami standards, but that hasn’t stopped some thousand food-loving folks from flocking to Biscayne Boulevard and 109th Street for an outdoor meal. Choices include hamburgers, tacos, fried-fish sandwiches, pork belly bao, more hamburgers, and a handful of other easily handled street foods, all culled…

Taco Bell Hit With Lawsuit: Can Its Beef Be Legally Called Beef?

The Sun Sentinel reported yesterday that a California woman, Amanda Obney, has brought a false-advertising lawsuit against Taco Bell for calling its products “seasoned ground beef or seasoned beef” — when, the suit declares, “in fact a substantial amount of the filling contains substances other than beef.”According to attorney W…

Canyon Ranch Debuts New Carillon Room With 5 for $5 Happy Hour

If you drive by Canyon Ranch Hotel & Spa on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, you’ll see the word Carillon spelled out in baby blue letters against the white backdrop of the Hotel’s rooftop. It’s a leftover from when The Carillon Hotel was a shining symbol of Miami Modern style…

Baja Fresh Opening In South Beach; Let The Mex Wars Begin

The national Baja Fresh Mexican Grill chain has been around since 1990, and has two locations in Miami-Dade: At 1021 S Miami Ave. and at 220 Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. The corner of Washington Avenue and 12th Street in South Beach, former home of Michael Schwartz’s Afterglo, will house…

Free Australian Lamb App

There’s something missing in your life, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is? I’ve got the answer: You’ve been subconsciously yearning for an Australian lamb app for your iPhone and iPad. Yearn no more. Now it’s available for download, free, through the Apple App Store.Stephen Edwards,…

Big Name Consulting Chefs Make Reputations Smaller

It is neither unusual nor unseemly for chefs to provide their names and consulting expertise to restaurants when they ultimately won’t play an integral role. Nobody, for instance, really expects to see Wolfgang Puck twirling pizza dough in the kitchen of one of his 50 Wolfgang Puck Express restaurants. But…

Vinyl & Kai Saturday Breakfast Club Meets 3 a.m. to 9 a.m.

​​Vinyl & Kai, everybody’s favorite South Beach “Gastropub & Rock Spot,” is bringing after hours to South Beach with a weekly Saturday Breakfast Club. A full liquor bar will swing from 3 am to 5 am and then re-open at 8 am. Breakfast is served straight through, and includes items…

Hakkasan Celebrates Year Of The Rabbit

From Thursday, February 2 through Wednesday, February 9, Fontainebleau Miami Beach’s Hakkasan will be celebrating the Chinese New Year by offering five specialty dishes along with the regular a la carte Cantonese menu. The big shebang takes place on Saturday, February 5, when a live lion dance takes place in…

Fart Without Fear Cookbook For “Low Flat” Super Bowl Sunday Snacks

It’s time to start thinking about Super Bowl Sunday. Specifically: What foods to prepare for the event? More specifically, and perhaps more than you really even want to think about: Is there a way to serve refried bean nachos without an odiferous aftermath that makes one yearn for the comparatively…

Where It At? Paella

What it is? Paella Valenciana with mussels, clams, shrimp, calamari, lobster, and chorizo.Where it at? That’s the question I shellfishly ask. Don’t clam up — go for the bait and take a guess in the comments section below. We’ll have the answer on Monday if you don’t get it first.Bonus…

Tagliatelle Dishes Classic Italian South of Fifth

Tagliatelle, a traditional Italian restaurant with an emphasis on seafood, quietly opened November 1 at 124 Collins Avenue in South Beach (in the space formerly…wait, I forgot…oh, right, Amnesia). Restaurateur Matthieu Mineo, from Nice, France, has two restaurants in his home country. Does South Beach remind Mineo of Nice? “The…

American Noodle Bar: tasty and affordable

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic pork belly. He had no one but himself to blame. What did he expect, having inhaled slabs of the fatty pig meat over the past year as if breathing air? He…

Recipe For The Villa’s Clementine-Carrot Velouté

Yesterday we wrote about the dazzling new menu unveiled by chef Jeff O’Neill at The Villa By Barton G. The chef has generously agreed to share his recipe for what he said was becoming a signature of the house: Clementine carrot velouté with peas, mascarpone cheese, and pumpernickel croutons. Here…

Pollo Tropical’s 21-Day Diet Will Make You Slim as a Chicken

January 1, 2011Dear diary,I’m so psyched over Pollo Tropical’s new 3-week diet — “21 days to a new you!” they say, and I can hardly wait. One can only take being called “Old Flabby” by co-workers for so long. I’ve already had the Day 1 lunch and dinner and so…

Will Food Trucks Adversely Affect Miami’s Restaurant Biz? Let’s Hope So

In recent weeks hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people have been tweeting about and lining up at food truck courts to grab a dinner comprised of varied street foods. How will the success of these mobile food courts affect Miami’s brick-and-mortar establishments?As far as fine dining restaurants go, it won’t:…