Best To-Go Food for the Super Bowl: From Mini-Corn Dogs to Meatball Pizza

Categories: Food, Holidays
Mini Corn Dogs.jpg
Facebook
Burger & Beer Joint's mini corn dogs.
It's almost time for the honored tradition of American pigskin played on a super scale, and if you you are entertaining at home this Super Bowl Sunday, the most important menu item to have on hand, obviously, is beer. Lots o' beer. And it's going to make you hungry, because those tricky brain receptors demand munchies when inebriated, so better plan ahead for cravings. Pretzels, Doritos, chips and dip...sure, it's easy to toss the stuff in a bowl, but these are not the satisfying snacks you seek.

Deep frying chicken wings seem a bit beyond your kitchen reach? Need a suggestion when it comes to the football feeding frenzy? Save yourself the hassle and get it to go. Here's our top five favorite menu items from local restaurants prepared to box it up for you on game day.
More >>

King Mango Strut Hits Coconut Grove On Saturday: Know Your Tailgating Options

Categories: Food
This year's official Mango Strut poster.
It's time for Coconut Grove's annual, end-of-year street party and parade, the King Mango Strut, with the 30th Anniversary Strut kicking off this Saturday, December 31st at 2 p.m. The satirical parade takes humorous shots at the year's biggest stories, with organizers this year promising to "keep you laughing longer than Kim Kardashian's marriage."

To get ready for the parade, Short Order got in touch with organizer Antoninette Baldwin for some tips on tailgating and getting in the Mango spirit. "What else do you have to do New Year's Eve Day?" she asks. "You should end your year laughing at the highlights of the past year."
More >>

Eight Great New Year's Day Brunches In Miami

Categories: Food
Your New Year's resolutions can wait another day with brunch like this on tap.
Technically, on January 1 your resolutions to live healthier, better and wiser in 2012 should kick in. But the truth is, most of the world wakes up on New Year's Day with a hangover (which, usually comes paired with a tinge of regret) and a craving for comfort food. So why not start off the year with a novel, amazing brunch and then start the six-pack abs program on January 2?

A number of Miami restaurants have intriguing New Year's Day offerings, from 3 a.m. biscuit-and-gravy feasts to ossobucco benedicts to bottomless mimosas for some hair-of-the-dog therapy. Click through for our favorites.
More >>

El Bulli Film Showing This Weekend at O Cinema

elbulli_film.jpg
Alive Mind Cinema
Ferran Adrià
El Bulli: Cooking In Progress is a 108-minute film documenting the dissection and study of food at the lab of Ferran Adrià's revolutionary Spanish restaurant. El Bulli, considered by many to be the greatest restaurant in the world, closed its doors this past year -- but the painstaking research continues, and is put to video by Germany director Gereon Wetzel.

It is obvious from the very (slow) beginning of the film that Wetzel is no Scorcese or Ken Burns or even Jacob Katel, who showed more flair with the camera in his Behind the Line shots for Short Order. Then again, the dry, quiet cinematic approach does fit in stylistically with the dry, quiet action in the lab. Dialogue is in Catalan, with English subtitles.
More >>

A Foodie Hurricane Survival Kit

Categories: Food
hurricane pate.jpg
All photos by Laine Doss
Keep pate instead of Spam in your hurricane kit.
​Tropical Storm Emily is churning her way through the Caribbean and, according to the National Weather Service, Miami is in the "cone of death", with Emily predicted to affect us around Friday evening.

Everyone in south Florida is supposed to have a hurricane survival kit filled with batteries, flashlights, water, and cans of soup and tuna. Take it from a Hurricane Andrew survivor who had to subsist on Pop-Tarts and Army K-Rations for two weeks: prepare thyself for the dark days ahead. There are plenty of good-tasting non-perishable foods available at your local grocer.

We took a trip to Milam's in Coconut Grove to shop for our own hurricane survival kit and found some positively edible food that requires no refrigeration.

More >>

Five Things To Do With a Watermelon

Categories: Food
Thumbnail image for watermelon.jpg
Watermelon - more versatile than you think.
Watermelon and summer just go together, don't they? There's nothing like sitting in the backyard or the porch with a slice of cool, crisp watermelon after a long day at the beach.

The trouble with a watermelon is that they're so big and intimidating in the store or on the back of a truck. Once you get that toddler-sized fruit home - is there anything you can do with it besides just slicing it up? I mean, can you really, you know, use a watermelon in recipes and...stuff? The answer is absolutely. Here are five easy things to do with a watermelon.

5. Blend It: Because watermelons have so much sweet juice, they make great coolers. Simply cut your watermelon into small chunks (make sure you get all the seeds out or use a seedless variety) and pop it in the blender with some ice and agave syrup for a cool watermelon slushie. Add vodka or rum for an alcoholic slushie, fresh berries for a sweeter drink, or mix with lemonade for a tangy take on the all-American classic.

More >>

Egg Cream on South Beach? U-Bet! What It Is and How To Make It

Categories: Food, Obscurity
rsz_ubet_opt.jpg
Lee Klein
​Now that egg creams have come to South Beach, you may be wondering: What exactly is it? The short answer is that it's a beverage made from milk, chocolate syrup, and seltzer water. But that's also a deceptive answer: If you try mixing the three any old way, you will get fizzy chocolate milk, not an egg cream.

Here's the long answer: Louis Auster, a Jewish immigrant who came to New York in the 1890s, created the drink and sold it in his candy store at Stanton and Cannon streets in lower Manhattan -- and later at his second shop at Third Street and Avenue D. According to his grandson Stanley, Louis was "fooling around, and he started mixing water and cocoa and sugar and so on, and somehow or other, eureka, he hit on something which seemed to be just perfect for him." It proved to be appealing to lots of other people as well: Louis would sell up to 3,000 egg creams a day.
More >>

Vita by Baoli Serves Classic Tournedos Rossini

Categories: Food
rsz_tournedosrossini_1.jpg
Serious culinary students learn about tournedos Rossini the way aspiring rock 'n' rollers pick up the licks to "Johnny B. Goode." It's a classic. On the other hand, you see tournedos Rossini on contemporary menus about as often as you hear the Chuck Berry tune on contemporary radio. But these things have a way of making comebacks.

Vita by Bâoli in South Beach recently appointed Marc Debas as executive chef, and his new Mediterranean menu encompasses dishes such as artichoke and lobster salad, homemade whole-wheat spaghetti pomodoro with cherry tomatoes, whole fish du jour in champagne sauce, and a fetching rendition of tournedos Rossini: beef tenderloin topped with foie gras and truffles.
More >>

Let's Hear It for Pig Ears

Categories: Food
l.jpeg
Michelle Z.
Michael's crispy pig ears
​​"It sells pretty good," Todd Webster says of the pig ears available on the menu at Michael's Genuine Food & Drink. "They're a pretty popular bar snack," echoes Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill's sous chef Travis Starwalt.

Webster, the butcher and self-described "sous chef in training" at Michael's, describes the process: "We braise them in chicken stock with basic mirepoix for about four to six hours, depending on how long it takes for the cartilage to get nice and soft and pliable. After the first batch, we save the stock and use it to braise the following batches. Then we put them on a sheet rack to cool down, cut them into pretty thin pieces, and fry them until they're nice and crispy on the outside."
More >>

UPDATED: Marlins Concession Foods: BYOF

Categories: Food
rsz_bbdog2.jpg
Lee Klein
An $8 foot-long dog
Update: Bob Pascal, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Centerplate, confirmed to us that low attendance does affect how many different types of food get sold.

"The attendance on that particular night was under 4,500, so not all of our stands were open," said Bob.   "We try to avoid equipment redundancy. This (low crowds) poses a challenge to our ability to provide the breadth of variety while managing waste. This is something we'll continue to look at, to see how we  can better protect the variety available on any given day." 


At the beginning of last baseball season, I wrote disparagingly of the foods served at Sun Life Stadium. The vendor, Centerplate, had brought in all sorts of interesting new foods to other sports venues around the country. "And what did Marlins fans come out with at Sun Life Stadium? 'Extensive facility upgrades include a new general concessions area, kitchen equipment, and refurbished carts'." I soon heard back from the Centerplate folks, who put me in touch with executive chef Orlando Morales. He claimed that the exciting changes in concession food at Sun Life had occurred earlier, to time it with the Super Bowl.

"There used to be hot dogs, popcorn, and burgers. Now it's a beautiful Stadium with lots of new flair: Latin cuisine, open flame grills, carving stations, pulled pork smoked in-house at Everglades BBQ, Carnegie Deli, a more open feel... ."

Maybe somewhere in the ballpark there is an Everglades BBQ, but sure didn't see it at last night's ballgame. All I saw were the same old overpriced hot dogs, chintzy nachos, and Papa John's pizza -- along with a few shlocky snacks sold elsewhere.
More >>
Sign up for free stuff, news info & more!

Tools

Find A Coupon

Popular Coupons