“I feel like I’m on vacation!” exclaimed one of my three workaholic dining companions, looking slightly puzzled. Perhaps vacations had been so few and far between recently that she’d merely forgotten what they feel like. But in fact a few things make a meal at Snappers Seafood Restaurant feel more…
“First need in the reform of hospital management? That’s easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef.” — Martin H. Fischer (1879-1962) I have no idea who Martin H. Fischer is, except possibly, given his birth date, the world’s oldest electric guitar player, because when…
Next time you find yourself craving vegetarian kosher Italian food prepared by a French chef, don’t panic — Cine Cittá Caffé serves just that. Many people associate kosher restaurants with dowdy mom-and-pop operations that cook up dumplingesque dishes topped by sour cream, or falafel joints festooned with travel posters of…
The birthday dinner’s entrée had been prepared especially at the request of the honoree, a tri-coastal sophisticate who divided his time among Toronto, Miami, and the French Riviera. But all six guests plus the host qualified as educated and experienced international eaters, vera cucina italiana on top of most everyone’s…
Most workers, regardless of what trade they ply, will accumulate some “tricks of the trade,” the sort of insider shortcuts that only savvy veterans are privy to. One of my favorites in the restaurant-reviewing biz is “the hard-boiled egg trick.” Here’s how it works: Choose a restaurant, like, say, Café…
Located in the St. Moritz tower of the Loews Hotel, the elegant, slightly ostentatious 146-seat Gaucho Room wears its handsome cowpoke décor in a comfortable, cocky, quirkily romantic manner — sort of like John Travolta in Urban Cowboy. Western touches such as rawhide-and-rope table lamps, black-and-white photos of gauchos, a…
When the kosher Original Steakhouse opened this winter in my mid-Beach neighborhood, I was thrilled even though I’m not Jewish — because on 41st Street, nothing ever opens that is not another drugstore or bank. At least almost nothing opens that stays open; the steak house’s casually chic-looking space, for…
Wood-burning ovens have been around for at least 6000 years, though their astonishing trendiness today could well fool diners into thinking the charismatic crowd-pleasers had come into being around roughly the same time as hip-hop. In Europe these ovens were communal, most often captained by the town’s bakers but shared…
At the end of a Coconut Grove street that boasts alfresco Indian and Italian dining, a giant log cabin-styled sports bar, and a Spanish restaurant lavishly designed to replicate the town of La Mancha, Red Lantern stands downtroddenly apart. The French-doored storefront is blockaded by banquettes on the inside, and…
South Beach’s reputedly favorite food may be sushi, and there are ample places to prove it, but let’s face it: Everyone’s real fave food is dessert — not the strong point in standard sushi bars. How many times could any discerning diner be satisfied by a one-trick pony like ice…
“Chick” as a slang word for “female-type person” has always annoyed me, for a reason that anyone else who’s ever lived on a working farm will instantly know — namely that the average chicken has the mental acuity of, roughly, Styrofoam. The corresponding term for “male-type-person,” “cat,” refers to an…
I ran into Ernie, an old acquaintance of mine, when he was recently down in Miami on some business. It was his pasty complexion and rotund figure that back in college days earned him the nickname “Dough Boy”; I hadn’t seen him in many years. Thanks to a daily gym…
Baja Fresh’s menu describes it as “next to Starbucks.” It is not. It is next to my dentist. Who does not believe in pain. Whose dental technicians therefore provide laughing gas even for routine cleanings. Whose dental technicians, I therefore figured, must’ve been testing the tank themselves when they began…
I have been told it takes awhile for contests to ripen into widely publicized, well-respected, duly recognized affairs — believe it or not, the first World Series wasn’t even televised! So I am neither disappointed nor surprised that the topic around South Florida’s water coolers this week hasn’t centered on…
About halfway through my first visit to Coconut Grove’s Chart House, one of my dining buddies, a native Floridian, confessed that he and his family had tried to put the place out of business when it first opened in the early 1980s. Their gripe was not the food, which, he…
When we think of crêpes we think of France — the tantimolles of Champagne, the landimolles of Picardy, the chialades of Argonne, the sanciaux of Limousin and Berry. Well, all right, maybe we don’t think of that, but it is true that all of the really interesting crêpe traditions are…
Suppose you’ve got a foursome from out of town here on a visit, and you’re taking them on the obligatory stroll of Lincoln Road. It is getting near lunchtime, so you’re at the right spot — there are approximately 800 restaurants to choose from, or so it would seem from…
Of all the American writers living in Paris during the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway was one of the few who had to work for a living rather than living on family wealth. This made him a genuine starving artist, hence the source of many of the famous stories of the period…
If the adage “you are what you eat” were true, the Argentine language would consist of just one word: moo. Cambalache, a new Argentine restaurant in Sunny Isles, features, as all Argentine restaurants seem to, the parillada, whose dual translation can imply “grill” as well as “many grilled meats, some…
When chef Fabio Rolandi first arrived in Coral Gables from northern Italy in 1989, Italian food still basically meant mushy spaghetti with meatballs, and similar stuff never seen in Italy. In Northern Italian restaurants, mushy rice was substituted for the mushy spaghetti. Rolandi’s Casa Rolandi restaurant reputedly introduced South Floridians…
There’s a certain kind of eatery that once could be found all over the nation, those places I think of as “hippie hangouts,” and that’s not intended as derogatory. Rather it’s recognition that these casually artsy and creative cafés were more multimedia community centers with food than gourmet palaces, more…
Richard Nixon and Sen. Joe McCarthy wear nervous smiles while seated at one of Christy’s tables, steaks in front of them, a flash of the bulb capturing the moment for black-and-white eternity. Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis, Jr., mug for the camera, each waving a lamb chop in the air;…
