Mustard caviar. Compressed cucumber. Celeriac mousse. Carbonated grapes. Dill pearls. Roquefort ice cream. These are just a few of the creative and eclectic ingredients on the sassy new menu just released by chef Jeff O’Neill at The Villa By Barton G.O’Neill, who readers will remember from his eye-opening stint at…
1. BathroomsOrganizers should rent a Port-O-San, or some sort of portable restroom. Most of the truck roundups take place in out-of-the-way locales. When you gotta go, you gotta go, and right now that means you gotta go away from the event altogether. Not smart…
Saturday evening brought the first Wynwood Food Truckers Meet Up. It was organized by Richard Hales, chef/owner of Sakaya Kitchen and the Dim Ssäm a gogo truck. Some two dozen gastrowheelers were on hand, including many last seen two evenings earlier at the Biscayne Triangle Truck Court and Truckers Meeting…
Dairy Queen’s Midnight Truffle Blizzard Treat is coming to Miami on Tuesday, February 1. The MTBT is comprised of chocolate truffle pieces blended with dark cocoa fudge and vanilla soft serve. The Blizzard mix-in was introduced in 1985; in 2003, things were organized into Blizzard-of-the-Month flavors. Past faves include Stawberry…
Another night, another meals-on-wheels spectacle. This one took place last evening behind the Publix at Biscayne Boulevard and 47th Street — a temporary move from 81st Street due to some hiccup that is apparently being solved. The crowds were thin relative to recent round-ups, perhaps due to the air having…
Just a sip from next weeks bowl of restaurant review:As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic pork belly…..
What it is: A sandwich of some sort and a dessert.Hint: Each comes from a food truck.Extra hint: But not from the same truck…
Oren Bass, who launched the Slow Food Truck with Zachary Schwartz just over a month ago, wasn’t pleased with yesterday’s post regarding their menu. I had questioned the accuracy of the “Slow Food” part of the truck moniker; Oren politely disagreed over the phone, and told me why. Because the…
The quiet block of 20th Street between Purdy and West Avenues in South Beach has given aspiring restaurateurs nothing but headaches: Bartolome Restaurant (too pricy for what it served), Picnic (poor brunch-for-dinner concept with worse execution), Sea Rock, and Shiso Sushi have all died here. The Asian gastro-pub Pubbelly arrived…
Hundreds of people descended upon last night’s food truck court gathering at Biscayne Boulevard and NE 109th Street. Not only are the crowds getting larger at these events (Look! Up in the sky! It’s Superfad!), but food vendors seem to be popping up overnight as if from sinister alien truck…
…and National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day on Friday. No, I am not making this up. I’ve given you the designations for January 12, 13, and 14. January 15 is Strawberry Ice Cream Day, the 16th is National Fig Newton Day and International Hot & Spicy Day. January 17 is Hot…
By “hashing it out,” I don’t mean to imply that Adrianne Calvo and I got together, smoked hash, and sang Kumbaya with our mouths filled with chocolate chip cookies — although now that I think of it, that would have made a much more interesting post. Rather I had hurled…
Can’t say I’m a big fan of rillettes, a specialty of France’s Loire Valley. It gets made by slow-cooking the meat in fat, then shredding and mixing it with some of the fat and chilling it to a fatty, porky spread for toast or bread. The chilled fat reminds me…
“Pâtés, terrines, and galantines sound exotic and difficult to make, but basically they are just marvelous meat loaves.” So begins the introduction to this 1972 cookbook by Dorothy Ivens (also the author of Glorious Stew; we are still waiting for her Magnificent Meatballs opus). The 229-pager contains more than 50…
From New York to Los Angeles and Cape Town to Tel Aviv, restaurants have been joining the Meatless Monday movement in encouraging numbers — Meatless Monday being a modest proposition for carnivores to forgo their carnivorous habits for that one day, and for restaurants to help by serving only meatless…
Neal Cooper has invited cookbook author Joan Nathan to his wonderful North Miami bistro this Monday, January 10, at 9 p.m. for a book signing and four-course meal called “My Search For Jewish Cooking In France” — the subtitle for Ms. Nathan’s book Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous. The $85 dinner…
A little rendered fat from next week’s meaty Cafe review:”We were mighty impressed by duck-and-pumpkin dumplings, four delicate rounds of melt-in-your-mouth pasta (really more like ravioli), the main ingredient brightened with orange, crushed almonds, and browned butter accented with soy. Similarly round, ravioli-like beef cheek-and-black truffle dumplings, with shiitake mushrooms…
T.H.R.I.V.E. is the name of this little vegan/raw food/juice bar at 1239 Alton Road on South Beach, but you won’t see any indication of it existing if you walk by. Even knowing the address won’t help, and if I tell you that it is within the Garden Center, you will…
Executives at Chick-fil-A had these days circled on their calendars long ago: It was to be Spicy Chicken Biscuit Premiere Week, a public-relations-sparked rollout of the company’s most exciting offering since last year’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Then on Tuesday, Good As You broke the news that the chicken chain is…
Daniel Buss, who has served as executive sous chef and resort chef at Fairmont Turnberry Isles Resort since 2008, has been promoted to the executive chef position. The Canadian-born Buss has 20 years of culinary experience under his belt. He specializes in French-style cuisine, having previously opened the 5-Diamond Fairmont…
The new 1500 Degrees, unveiled in October as the final piece in the Eden Roc Renaissance’s $220 million renovation, dubs its menu “farm-to-table eating, with a heavy steakhouse sensibility.” That’s as good a self-description as you’ll get from a restaurant. Executive chef Paula DaSilva spent a decade as Dean James…
That’s twelve bucks for an entree and choice of chips/salsa and sparkling water, or fruit sorbet and hibiscus iced tea. “In and out in less than one hour” is the claim behind this new lunch deal at the popular Coral Gables Mexican restaurant. Talavera’s signature huarache grill selections will be…
