Miami Food Blog

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Marc Averette via wikimedia commons

​Short Order is a food blog, so you know we support chicken breasts. But we're also down for lady breasts and are bound by honor to protect them.

Go to Tobacco Road tomorrow night and support the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation when you pay your $7 admission to see the Coffee House Gypsies, and The Bailouts perform live.

And don't forget to get in on the $10.99 all-you-can-eat ribs that are a Tobacco Road staple. Tobacco Road won our Best Bar Food in Miami 1999, Best Chili 2001, and Best Cheap Crustaceans 2002.

Tobacco Road
626 South Miami Ave.
Miami, FL 33130
305-374-1198

Jackie Sayet

Creepy, squiggly, tasty. Gulas, get them in your belly.

​Gulas sound like something you'd more likely find lurking in your neighborhood on Halloween than on your dinner plate.  But last night at Xixon, the Coral Way Spanish tapas restaurant with a New Times Best Of to its name, that's exactly where they were -- swimming in a boiling cauldron of olive oil and crisp garlic shards.

Angulas, real baby eels, go for about 80 Euro a portion in Spain, where they can't get enough of the stuff. 

You need only look for the black eyes to tell the difference from "gulas."  At Xixon, these faux elvers are made of processed surimi (fish from Alaskan waters pressed into blocks on factory ships, according to the New York Times.)  A line of squid ink tints the backs dark like the real McCoy; they just don't peer back you, which may be a good thing. 

Arriving to the table in the traditional terracotta cazuela, the gulas (in "gulas y gambas") are like tender strands of calamari pasta easily twirled on a fork and popped into the mouth.  They have a very mild flavor, the perfect canvas for caramelized garlic.  The three perfectly-cooked tiger prawns in the dish are a bonus.

Next time you feel like ordering "gambas al ajillo" (shrimp with garlic,) opt for the gulas instead.  Xixon is always packed for lunch, so show up for dinner between 6 and 7:00 p.m. to avoid a long wait.  They don't take reservations.

Xixon (pronounced Shi-shon)
1801 Coral Way
Miami
(305) 854-9350

Jacob Katel

NW 7th Ave Suited and Booted

Shantel Lounge, winner of our Best Barbecue Chicken and Best Open Mic Night awards also deserves recognition for their fried fish. Find out why for yourself this and every Sunday as they host their Sunday Fish Fry featuring live blues and real R&B. This past Sunday featured the music of former Harlem South (a.k.a. Overtown before the 95), Sir John Nightbeat (a.k.a. the hottest club in town) house band guitarist Treetop. He was followed by "Honey, Honey" hitmaker David Hudson himself.

The music was great, and the food was on point, here are some more pictures.

The partners of Manny's Steaks were apparently so excited over their downtown restaurant receiving the prestigious award as New Times' Best Restaurant For A Power Lunch that they have split up; the name of the restaurant is now Miami's Chophouse. Philosophically we must recognize that celebrating a New Times' Best Of is much like dealing with the death of a close one -- people have different ways of doing so, and we shouldn't question their approach.

Best Hamburger
8 oz. Burger Bar
1080 Alton Rd.
Miami Beach 33139
305-397-8246
8ozburgerbar.com

Burgers are big -- as in big across-the-board sales during stressed economic times. There are big profits for burger barons, and big-shot chefs putting 'em on their big-price restaurant menus. Govind Armstrong and the folks at Table 8 took things a step further by opening 8 oz. Burger Bar in South Beach. It isn't difficult to locate a great burger in this town -- if someone claimed that Clarke's, Kingdom, or Grill on the Alley made the best one, we really wouldn't argue. But Burger Bar's eponymous eight-ouncer brings a few distinctions to the table. The beef is culled from hormone-free cows; ground in-house from Black Angus sirloin, tri-tip, short rib, and chuck; and grilled over live oak. Then it's plunked onto a soft, fresh brioche bun. House-cured bacon, house-pickled pickles, hothouse cucumber relish, and homemade heirloom tomato ketchup are among a long list of cool accouterments; there are lots of cheeses to choose from too. Price for the signature burger is $10, a dollar or two less for those culled from turkey or Niman Ranch lamb. Burger Bar bops from 5 p.m. to midnight, and until 2 in the morning Thursday through Saturday. You're gonna like this place. Big time.

Full list of winners June 10 via bestof.miaminewtimes.com, June 11 on newsstands.

Jacob Katel

(New Times Best of Miami issue hits the streets this week. With this post, Riptide 2.0 provides an appetizer. The main course/entire issue will appear on the website Tuesday afternoon.)

Best New Restaurant
Area 31, Gotham Steak, Joey's, Sra. Martinez, and Meat Market

A five-way tie, testament to Miami's rapidly expanding universe of stellar dining options.

Full list of winners June 10 via bestof.miaminewtimes.com, June 11 on newsstands.

Jacob Katel

Best Inexpensive Italian Restaurant
Joey's
2506 NW Second Ave.
Miami 33127
305-438-0488
joeyswynwood.com

The little man felt very bad,
One meatball was all he had.
And in his dreams, he hears that call:
"You gets no bread with one meatball."

Owing to this damn recession, it's appropriate to drag out Depression-era ditties like the one popularized by Josh White in 1944. And it has also reached the point when one meatball for $15 just doesn't cut it anymore. Joey's, a quaint 70-seat Wynwood café, solves this Italian-food-in-tough-times dilemma. For one thing, it doesn't serve meatballs. But it does dish Venetian chef Ivo Mazzon's freshly made pastas -- such as spaghetti pomodoro, which reminds us of the pure, simple aromatic appeal of perfectly cooked semolina with ripe tomatoes, fresh basil, and a hint of garlic and olive oil. And try putting this in your red sauce: A hefty half-order can be relished for $5, and a larger portion is $7. Add a small house salad splashed with fresh orange juice-olive oil dressing for $3. Or splurge and try a grilled sirloin steak with softly braised spinach, fennel, and Swiss chard ($16). A great bottle of wine from a boutique Italian vintner for less than $40? Not a problem, nor is a glass of it for under $10. Honest food, fantastic value, an outdoor patio wrapped in foliage, and convenient hours -- open for lunch and dinner till 10 p.m. weekdays and 11:30 p.m. weekends. Depression? Joey's is the perfect place to fuhgeddaboutit.

Full list of winners June 10 via bestof.miaminewtimes.com, June 11 on newsstands.

(New Times Best of Miami issue hits the streets this week. With this post, Riptide 2.0 provides an appetizer. The main course/entire issue will appear on the website Tuesday afternoon.)

 

Best Chefs
Cindy Hutson and Doug Rodriguez

Past honorees of this lifetime achievement-type award are Norman Van Aken, Mark Militello, Allen Susser, Pascal Oudin, Philippe Ruiz, Michelle Bernstein, and Michael Schwartz. This year's inductees fit right into this privileged pantheon of pioneering chefs, both having forged personal, South Florida-centric cuisines way back when. Doug Rodriguez's stint began in 1991 at Efrain Vega's original Yuca Restaurant in Coral Gables, which led to Nuevo Latino cuisine and its hundreds of imitators. In a city rife with Cuban eateries, Rodriguez was the first chef to adapt the traditional foods into lighter, prettier, and sometimes even tastier contemporary fare. After Yuca, he opened similarly themed restaurants of his own in New York and then came back with a few attempts at OLA; the present incarnation at the Sanctuary on South Beach is the best yet, his cooking as relevant as ever. Cindy Hutson created her Caribbean-based Cuisine of the Sun at Norma's on the Beach, from 1994 to 1999, and then honed the style at her Ortanique on the Mile in Coral Gables. Ten years later, the charming Ortanique is still packing them in and remains a singular oasis for tropical-accented cooking. Each of these chefs has succeeded in deftly translating Central and Latin American culinary traditions into delectable cuisines uniquely their own -- and both continue to do so better than anyone else.

Full list of winners June 10 via bestof.miaminewtimes.com, June 11 on newsstands.

If you haven't done so yet, remember: today is the last day you can vote for Best of Miami Readers' Poll. This is your only chance to give a Best of Miami award to who you think truly deserves it. So vote now!