Miami Food Blog

Michelle Nemeth

Pickers collect these tickets for each crate they fill with usable green beans, about 30 pounds. Each ticket is good for $3.50.

​Last year, Janine Zeitlin wrote an article for New Times called "Ignored and Cheated: Farm Workers Earn Nada in America's Greenbean Capital."

Yesterday, a South Dade-based Short Order reader Michelle Nemeth recently contacted us with her exclusive images from the green bean fields of rural Dade county in the Redlands. Here is the report she sent us along with her images:

"Leave miami on free bus @ 5am go to random fields. They only get to pick not plant. So when its planting time they stay home & look for other work. They get a paper for every crate (30lbs) of good beans. They collect papers and at end of work day trade them in for $3.50 each. They work 7 days a wk, rain or shine. If they don't want to work in the rain they can stay in the bus.

Some workers just got back from Georgia. Gerard Policard is here from Haiti  until Dec.20th. Gerard lives in Little Haiti. Edward Ceneas is also Haitian and lives in Miami. Both workers were interested in education. Edward said: "I want to better my education. I want more for life than his. How do I go school? I don't know when I get home, sometimes 6, last night 9, today now at noon. I worked 5 in the morning til 9 i get home last night I make only $35". Today I work 7 hours make $10.50. My body it hurts".

Gerard said: "If I move here from Haiti after I finish will I get financial aid to continue?" Gerard and Edward want to be paid by the hour and have a set schedule. It was about 75 degrees out, blue sky, nice breeze.UNIQUE FARM SERVICES:(305) 758-6485 (<--- Info from cash out ticket). In attached photo: Gerard (Left), Edward (Right)."

Here go the rest of her pictures.

Jacob Katel

Lombardi at work.

​The Wynwood Cafe District is a zoning effort on the part of business leaders, residents, artists, real estaters, and local government to promote foodlife and nightlife in Wynwood by allowing liquor license clusters, and waiving parking requirements. Before the Wynwood Cafe District was founded, liquor licenses had to be a certain distance in feet apart from each other -- something like 1,500 -- and restaurants had to have on site parking, a heavy added cost for those converting warehouses to eateries.

Broker David Lombardi says, "We wanted to try and create a synergy, a strength. The center of the district is Joey's. That's where they want everything to pop up. The cafe district is zoned from 22nd to 27th streets between NW Second and Fifth Avenues. On 23rd through 25th Streets, it starts west from NW First Avenue.

"The thing about Wynwood versus the Design District for doing a restaurant is that the rent is so much cheaper here."

But your stake in it is to get people in here, raise the property value and charge higher rent, right?

"Of course. That's not some big secret you uncovered. I'm a capitalist. I been sitting in this fucking neighborhood for nine years. When I got here in 2000, the rents were five or six dollars a square foot. In nine years they've only doubled. That's not such a big jump as the 20 to 40 double that happened in the Design District. It costs the same to build here, but if your rent is a third of the price, then your bottom line is gonna be that much fatter."

A Michael Vasquez painting in Lombardi, a collector's, office.

​

​They had a sign up: the lobsters were flown in. How cruel is that? Think about that -- let's say you're a lobster, you've never been on an airplane before -- what else can you think, but you've won the lobster sweepstakes? ~Richard Jeni

With a wok, in the privacy of your home, you can create your own mediocre Chinese food for 50 cents less than ordering take-out. ~Todd Barry

Something always happens to let you know you're back in New York -- like the way people order in a restaurant: 'Could you take my order before Jesus gets back?' ~Darrell Hammond

Whenever I have food ordered  in, I try to decide what is the worst way to come to the door, and I've decided it's tied to a chair. ~Laura Kightlinger

My favorite cold cereal is Grape Nuts -- except lots of times I forget to put milk on them the night before I want to eat them. ~Frank Prinzi

​Another year, another Beaujolais luncheon, another boast that the current crop is the best in years. "You get a vintage like this every century. Last one as good was 1947," insisted winemaker Stéphane Queralt. I didn't want to say this to Stéphane, but in spite of a positive spin on the 2008 vintage, guests at last year's gathering were grumbling that it would best be used for cooking.  Then he added, "And this time we really mean it,"  and you could tell that this time he really meant it. But how does it differ from, say, last year's batch?

He notes that getting so deep a color "after only between four and five days maturation is special." The nose "is complex", and the tannins, which this Beaujolais has in abundance, "are very very soft, like velvet or silk." It is "comfortable", "refreshing", and, most pertinently according to Mr. Queralt, "after finishing a glass you feel as though you want another glass. That's a good point for wine."

This year's theme, Rootstock: Peace, Love, & Beaujolais, meant VW hippie vans filled with recreated hippies accompanied the ritual Biker Chef brigade that arrived to fanfare at Au Pied de Cochon in South Beach (Sean Bernal, Oceanaire Seafood Room; Sean Brasel and Mickey Deshane, Meat Market; Stéphane Hainaut, Barton G The Restaurant; Carla and Luis Lopez, Soyka; Bruno Macazaga and Mustafa Filiz, Villagrande Club at Porto Vita; Kieran Masek, ONE Group-STK; Gerdy Rodriguez, MIA at Biscayne). Belkys Nerey was there too, but she didn't arrive by motorcycle or hippie van. It just occurred to me that I have been living in Miami for a long time -- I spelled Belkys Nerey properly without having to look it up.

The gathered guests enjoyed a sampling of canapes outdoors, with choice of various Georges Duboeuf wines. We especially liked a full, fruity, golden green Pouily-Fuissé 2007. I should mention that this was the first media dinner I have yet been to, wine-based or otherwise, that featured a prolonged Grateful Dead set played over the speakers.  

Jacob Katel

Pollo Pesto Sandwich: Chicken breast, pesto, mozzarella, and tomatoes. $6.50 for sandwich. 8 and change with chips and drink.

​If you were driving south on North Miami Avenue around 2:30 p.m. a couple days ago between 14th and 11th Streets you might have seen Short Order eating a sandwich off the trunk of a dirty Toyota Corolla.

We were checking out Spuntino Bakery & Catering, and they close around 2 p.m. We placed our order at the cash-only lunch counter, dipped to the ATM at Brickell Publix, came back, paid, and picked up as they were shuttering the windows.

The sandwich pictured above is the Pollo Pesto, a solid sandwich. Check the grill marks on the bread, excellent crunch factor.

Spuntino Bakery serves breakfast ($3 - $4.50), salads ($4 - $5.95), pizza by the slice ($3.50 - $4), sandwiches ($6 - $6.50), empanadas ($2), snacks, coffee, drinks, and beer. According to SpuntinoCatering.com they are also the catering arm of Graziano Sbroggio's Tiramesu Restaurant, Spris, Segafredo, and Le Bon. Carlo Donadoni is head chef for Spuntino.

From what we can tell from one sandwich the quality is good and the price is right. We'll be back to 1112 North Miami Avenue, Miami. Call 786-425-1116 for more info.

Across the street from Goldrush on North Miami Avenue. Typoe certified.

​

Whoever smelt it dealt it. Whoever denied it supplied it.

​Cheese may have been discovered accidentally by nomadic Turk tribes in Central Asia when milk stored in a container made from an animal's stomach turned to curds and whey thanks to the rennet in the guts. Rennet refers to the complex of enzymes that all mammal stomachs produce to digest mother's milk. Nowadays, in the vernacular, "cheese" means money. That may have to do with its eons of commercial value. Cheese was already big business by the time of the Roman Empire. Here's what you might have missed this week.

• Critic's roundup = more dead restaurants, new chef named, Beaujolais Nouveau, Mina, meth, and Agassi.
• Girls who can crack stone crabs with their thighs with Chef Tim Andriola of Timo in Sunny Isles.
• Captain Phyl's Seafood Truck makes buying shrimp on the side of the road fun and easy.
• New pizza joint in Upper East has been doin it Neapolitan style since 1968.
• Pauly Shore came to town and ate at Burger & Beer joint on South Beach.
• Burning news anchors on live television with Chef Sean Brasel of Meat Market.
• The Cheese Course, a not-cheap sandwich place in Midtown.
• Picnics Diner in Allen's Drugstore on SW 57th ave and Bird is dead.
• Chef Gonzalo Rivera's new menu at La Marea restaurant at The Tides on South Beach.

One time grandma's dentures got caught in the turkey drumstick she was eating at Thanksgiving dinner. She pointed at me with the drumstick for laughing, the teeth flew off the leg and hit me in the face. I still have the old lady's bite marks on my forehead. She had a hell of an arm. Thanksgiving is still my favorite holiday. Probably because funny disasters always happen. Don't let your turkey be one of them. Here's our top 10 ways to ruin a Thanksgiving turkey.

10. Forget to defrost it before cooking - Start off your day with a couple Bloody Marys and a some beers and it becomes an easy mistake to make. Cook a frozen turkey and you'll eat a frozen center. Remember to defrost your bird.

Mashup feat. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jelene/ and wikimedia

Thaw your frozen turkey.

​

Paula Niño

​You know the type: Walls lined with South American wines, alfajores and other facturas neatly organized in a glass display, panettone boxes everywhere ('tis the season), refrigerators with ready-to-cook gnocchi, golden-baked empanadas laying out under a heat lamp ... They're hard to resist, those empanadas, and the recently opened Patagonia makes some good ones.

Claiming to offer "Argentinean gourmet," this third outpost of Patagonia, while smaller, is much like the Graziano's Market and La Estancia already in the Gables. But housed in a large space (formerly occupied by Cupcakes Noveau) near Charlotte Bistro and Le Provence, Patagonia is in the middle of it all.

The empanadas go for $1.75. The ground beef and four-cheese were a real treat. The chorizo: not so much.

Patagonia also serves hot and cold sandwiches and the typical grilled steak and milanesa dishes. For the steak sandwiches ($7.99) you can choose your cut of meat between flank, skirt and top sirloin. It comes solo, though. Fries must be ordered separately.

Daily specials such as a parrillada ($9.99) on Fridays and chicken with mushroom sauce ($8.99) on Wednesdays are also available.

Patagonia's concept may not be novel, but the Gables crowd seems to be responding well to its newcomer. You can never go wrong with a good empanada.

Patagonia
305-640-8376
244 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables

Patagonia also has locations in Doral and Key Biscayne.

A Plymouth Gin Aviation

​The evening began with talk of a "vodka backlash" occurring in New York. Too many brands, too much ubiquity, too neutral a flavor. Enter gin, with its' aromatic botanicals and complex flavor -- the ideal antidote to dull cocktails. Or at least that's the world according to Simon Ford, the brand ambassador for Pernod Ricard USA -- whose portfolio is bolstered by the super-premium Plymouth Gin, produced in West England since 1793. And a beautiful world it is, especially after my sixth or seventh cocktail at Eos' gin dinner this past Tuesday evening.

Our first drink was a Floradora, the Plymouth gin mixed with ginger beer, raspberry, and angostura bitters. This is a modern cocktail usually concocted with ginger ale, but Eos' bartender added his own spin by switching to ginger beer. It tasted like a lime rickey to me, even though it contained no cherry or lime. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have guzzled it. Passed hors d'oeurves included a grouper ceviche with essence of gin and more of an essence of chipotle. It was delicious.

My next drink was the classic Negroni, a trilogy of gin, Campari, and vermouth. Kick-ass. Dinner began.

The Burger Beast plotting world domination.

​What's a four-pound burger to a monster? Nothin'. Who can pick a restaurant up by its fry chimney and shake out all its fast food through the drive thru window and into their mouth? The Burger Beast. Who else do you know that can scare a bull into pushing his cow girlfriend into a blazing fire just because the Burger Beast feels like eating some fresh BBQ? Nobody.

The Burger Beast comes from a long line of carnivores whose teeth display traits for flesh tearing and bone crunching. As a human, so do you vegetarian, might as well accept it, embrace it, and head up to Quickies Burgers & Wings in Hollywood (1000 South State Road 7) this Saturday to see the Burger Beast tackle a four-pound burger, and then try to eat it. Here's what the Beast himself had to say about it....

"I been training a lot this week....eating and eating to expand my stomach."

The Beast will also have his personal film crew there. That's because he just scored a deal with Generation ñ, a Latino broadband network where you can also find our friends Sound Theory Live, for his own show. The Burger Beast says: