Miami Food Blog

via Mike Torrey

Get high in the Andes.

​Mike Torrey is a San Diego based architectural photographer with a new book out called "Stone Offerings: Machu Picchu's Terraces of Enlightenment."

Mike will be in town for the Miami International Book Fair and will be on a panel with a National Geographic photographer and a pilgrimage organizer on Saturday, November 14, at 11:30 a.m. in room 7128 (building 7, first floor).

Short Order took the opportunity to ask Mike about his food experiences in Peru while he was shooting his book during the June and December solstices.

Here's what he had to say.

"Every time I have walked through the front gate I have become overwhelmed with a sense of contentment...Casa Tua has inspired my mind to new ideas, while at the same time given me a feeling of being welcomed home...I am very excited to journey into the world of Casa Tua on a deeper level and look forward to experiencing the many great things to come with all of you." -- Amanda Harris, yoga teacher and new Director Of Events at Casa Tua

Note to Amanda: This is a restaurant you are writing about -- a place where people come to eat -- not a spiritual quest. Please return to Earth at once. Your parents must be getting worried.

Where the hell's the tv?

​ Aah yes, remember those glorious days when the television was invented and we stopped having to look at and talk to our families while we ate.

Neither do we. As far we know it's always been that way.

Give thanks to the boob tube for giving food companies a way to capitalize on lazy Americanism. According to Wikipedia, Swanson, an early innovator, didn't invent the frozen dinner, but they damn sure marketed the hell out of it under their TV Brand Frozen Dinner moniker. The company sold over 10 million dinners in their first year of production.

Three cheers for American ingenuity. Here are our Top 10 picks for classic frozen dinner meals.

Many thanks to imaginaryworld.com for fair use of several of their pics. The rest came from various other sources.

Jackie Sayet

Aoriika: Japanese big fin reef squid meets Chef Cory's Samurai sword, a high carbon steel knife (preferred over a ceramic blade.)

​You know a destination restaurant is worth the effort when not a drawbridge, cargo train, nor interstate construction can come between you and your meal.

Such was the case when a gaggle of Grove- and Gables-based Tweeters severed the data stream for a few hours to taste real life in the skilled hands of NAOE Chef Kevin Cory.  The hike up to Sunny Isles Beach was never more worth it, despite the City of Miami's valiant effort to the contrary.

Jacob Katel

​

Chad Galiano

O aioli, where art thou

​Remember that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David has a sandwich named after him on his favorite deli's menu, but he's none too pleased with its unappetizing contents?  To add insult to injury, he has no say with the owner as to his namesake's fate and desperately attempts to swap with Ted Danson's much cooler club.

You don't have to subscribe to the Home Box Office to be familiar with this practice: when restaurants name menu items, typically sandwiches or sushi rolls, after customers.  Heck, the Miami New Times even has one at our neighborhood sandwich shop, The Daily Creative Co.  We feel David's cream cheese pain and have sandwich envy of Six Degrees (The Mag,) which we enjoyed yesterday with its salty sweet combo of turkey breast, cranberry chutney, caramelized onions, lettuce, swiss and herb mayo on a baguette. Guess beggars can't be choosers.

But with the Cobaya group Jacob recently covered, this practice is being taken to whole new level of customer menu influence, where "gourmet guinea pigs" focus group new dishes for restaurants experimenting with their menus.  And the founder of that group, known to many as @frodnesor, recently had a recipe of his own inspire a dish on Neomi's Paradigm dinner menu: black garlic aioli.  Chef de Cuisine Chad Galiano explains:

The aioli is spread across the bottom of the plate.  He mentioned making black garlic aioli at home, so we incorporated it into this dish of Korean style bbq pacu ribs, homshemiji tempura, and sesame leaf 'dolma'.  He doesn't want credit for simply mixing black garlic and mayo, but that's how the circle of ideas work.  I'm sure thousands of chefs and others get their daily inspirations from their morning blogrolls.

Frod recalls:

I bought some Korean black garlic at Norman Bros. and was pondering what to do with it, and so tweeted the question. Chad directed me to some resources, and I toyed around with a couple things, including a black garlic "aioli" (my magic recipe: take some Kewpie mayo; mash some black garlic into it). I must have tweeted that too at some point, and Chad took it from there.

Strengthening the two-way street that is the kitchen-customer relationship one emulsion at a time...  Now how's that for food for thought? 

Jackie Sayet

Sidewalk caffe

​What is it with downtown Miami and old world-style Italian restaurants?  And good ones, at that?  We think these diamonds in the rough may be a sign of good things to come for this metropolitan center, as long as all the businesses in the area don't go bust before they have a fighting chance.

But devoted patrons, there is no shortage.  A poetic tribute to one such enclave, Fratelli Milano, was slipped under our door anonymously from a reader, and we just had to share it.  You also could go to Yelp's page on this gem to know that this Italian restaurant is no joke, but what's the fun in that?

We felt so inspired after reading this love letter, we had to check it out for ourselves, and it seems like we are late to the pasta party on this one.  But better late than never...

Here's the poem, some facts you may not know about Fratelli, and the resulting lunch visit in pictures.

Jacob Katel

​ The weekend's International Bullriding Championship presented by Joana Bueno at the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds in Davie, Florida taught us many important lessons.

For one, we learned that Brazilian cowboys, against whom a U.S. team were pitted for bullriding supremacy, take the sport quite seriously.

We also saw that standing too close to the fence is dangerous, a bucking bronco may smash his horns through and knock your beer out your hand.

But why were the bulls so angry? Short Order thinks it had a lot to do with their proximity to the churrasco that was being butchered and grilled just yards from their pens for a crew of bloodthirsty human sportsfans. 

Check out the following image sequence for a clear depiction of the relationship between bull aggression and human consumption.

Jackie Sayet

The commuter-friendly 'grab and go' counter is the first of its kind for Publix in Miami

(To the tune of Adam Sandler's Lunch Lady Land)

Open up at 6 a.m.
Got on my sage green polo
Served croquetas de jamon
Con un poco de amor
Got no clue why we sell gallon jugs of milk
Just know everything's doing fine
Down here at the Publix Cafe stand

Jackie Sayet

Ma..ri...a!

Yes I wear this net on my head
Porque food safety standards apply
I wear these clear disposable gloves
It's all for your peace of mind
You want your morning joe and tostada
But there's no reason to bark
Everybody gets their comida
Down here at the Publix Cafe stand

Jackie Sayet

Sandwiches are most popular for lunch, but wraps, sushi and salad are also available

Cafe con leche, cafe con leche, cafe con leche, cafe con leche
fruit salad, fruit salad, fruit salad, fruit salad
Cafe con leche, cafe con leche
Fruit salad, fruit salad
Pan Cubano
Pastelito, past', pastelito
Pastelito, past', pastelito
Pastelito, past', pastelito
Pastelito, past', pastelito

Jackie Sayet

Value meal

Jacob Katel

Que rico es capitalismo!

Funny things happen when you set three alarms at two minute intervals on your cellphone and you snooze each one. High velocity REM sleep dreams.

Two days in a row I dreamt I called Castro's office to interview him for Short Order.

This morning I got through to his secretary. I thought she was an answering machine at first, but then she started responding to the message I was leaving ("Hola, habla Jake de Miami New Times calling to see if I can speak to Castro....).

"Halo, si? Castro no esta en la oficina ahora. Can I help you?"

I took the opportunity to ask her about Fidel Castro's eating habits. I wasn't nervous, but I was unprepared, so the first thing that came to mind was Hot Pockets.

"Does Castro eat Hot Pockets?" I asked. Somehow the call got conferenced to another secratary, so now I had his two main office help on the line, both women, one with curly hair. I could see em talking on an old rotary telephone each. The kind with a yellowish handset.

"Hod Pockes, que'seso?" (dreaming in Cuban translation: Hot Pockets, what's that?)
"Tu sabes. Con the pepe-roni." I replied (I pronounced pepperoni like pepe roni)
"Ay si, he love those," they answered in unison.
"Oh cool, does he drink coke?"
"Yeah he like coke, but he drink more juice."
"What about watermelon?"

Then I woke up and forgot the other great questions and answers I got out of the interview, although they hinted he was up in the mountains spending his last living moments on earth. One thing is certain though, Castro loves hot pockets.

I read somewhere that Castro spends a lot of time on the Internet and he has google alerts set for every time his name is mentioned in the media, So Castro, if you're reading this, leave a comment dude, the people wanna know what you're eating.

Sprint

Sprint is the "Official Sponsor of Now"

Open Table pioneered reservation-making in the Big Apple, and has taken the world byte by juicy byte ever since. Um can we say IPO-oh baby! Miami's catching on.  Some faves have yet to jump on the Internet reservation bandwagon, but many have recently converted to the platform or opened cyber-smartly; these are conveniently bundled them on a dedicated page for your skimming pleasure.  Yeah, it's kinda like the restaurant version of Sprint's catchy "Now Network" commercials.  Did I mention the site also features "Open Table Diners' Choice" lists with as close to real time data as possible in categories like "most-booked," "best overall," neighborhood gem," and "good for groups" based on users' booking habits and recommendations?  It's the age of the instant, people!  Here are the newbies to Open Table as of a slightly-less than-Twitterish NOW.  (Oh, and it's now followable @OpenTable on Twitter.)

If you haven't checked out New Times' own handy restaurant guide, you really should - it's an excellent resource for sorting restaurants by location, price range, features, critics' choice, and, of course, cuisine. Plus, most entries in our database contain capsule reviews for those that like a quick read, plus links to full reviews and any best of awards received. Currently, there are 85 categories of cuisines on our site to sort by; everything from Halal to Vietnamese to a multitude of seafood destinations. It's a huge swath of cuisine choices, no doubt - enough to keep you eating something entirely different each night for more than a quarter of a year. But thanks to our corporate overlords, that list is about to get a whole lot bigger.

Yep, somebody up top must have thought that classifying eats in a mere 85 ways was simply too broad and generic. Just this week, we've added in over 120 more categories by which to filter through the various chow-slingers throughout South Florida, bringing the total to a staggering 208 categories.

Sven Vogtland is the sommelier for the Ritz-Carlton Fort Lauderdale, and a 13 year veteran of the craft who has served bottles in the sunny Virgin Islands and in far-away Vietnam. In this column, Vogtland will discuss the latest trends in wine, from what bottles and regions are blowing up to the newest cocktail crazes.

"This week, we're going to talk about Malbec, and specifically Malbecs made in Argentina. It's a grape that has grown in popularity over the past couple of years, primarily because the prices of French wine have gotten so ridiculous that people are looking to places like South America for bargains. Malbec is inexpensive and easy to produce, so even though not every Malbec you find is going to be a good one, there are a lot more good bottles widely available at a good price. It's because of all this that a lot of wine experts believe Malbec will eventually eclipse Merlot in terms of popularity in America.

9:39 p.m. last night, my friend texted me, "Loving [Lil'] Kim on Dancing With the Stars!"

While he was home watching B & C-Listers do the cha-cha - wasabi, crab and fresh-out-the-water tuna was doing the electric boogaloo on my tongue. Akashi's South Miami outpost is potentially one of the best sushi spots in town, and the spankin' new SoBe location is potentially one of the sexiest. Japanese-inspired graffiti by an artist named Jonas had welcomed me into the restaurant, and an urban chic vibe continued throughout.

I was there for Sushi-Me! Mondays a weekly dinner party where sushi rolls and sake bombs reign supreme. It is all put on by promoter Michael Madd, in conjunction with owner/head chef Larry Chi. "The South Miami location has great food, but no atmosphere. It's kind of like a cafeteria, while this location adds South Beach flair to incredible sushi," said Chi.

Restaurants die, it's as basic as that
As with people you just never know.
Some exist as long as a mountain flat
Others have lifespans like snow.

"High rent and costs," the owners say
"Competition is obscene."
Yet some joints rock both night and day
With a bar scene in between.

So many theories have been passed
But it can be quite simply told:
The best are those that tend to last
And the worst are those that fold.

One of the great joys of my otherwise joyless life is to stride through the front door of a certain local franchise of an Atlanta-based Mexican fast food restaurant chain and be showered with warm greetings: "Welcome to Moe's!" they ring out in near-unison.

And it's not because I'm special. The employees of Moe's Southwest Grill, it is clear, are trained to belt out this refrain to all who walk through that door.

For a long time, however, I have been curious as to what, if any, are the limits to this policy. Specifically, when a Moe's employee is taking a restroom break, is he or she granted an exemption from the requirement to bestow a cheerful greeting? Or is there some kind of alert system within the Moe's restroom that informs the employee when to shout out a welcome, so that he or she can do so even behind a closed door, thereby proving how fiercely they wish to welcome me?

Fortunately, today's lunch break finally brought an answer to this riddle. (Oh hell yes, you're making the jump for this!)

• "One of the most accomplished, respected, and charismatic chefs in the world." Of course you've probably guessed that we are speaking of Miami's own Adrianne Calvo, 24-year old chef/owner of Adrianne's Vineyard Restaurant & Wine Bar. What's that? Never heard of her? Well if you've got $91.99 to shell out, you can go here and purchase Adrianne's autobiography Driven by Flavor, Fueled by Fire -- sequel to her first autobiography, Driven by Ambition, Fueled by Chutzpah.
• I miss Enrique Fernandez of The Miami Herald. He needed a little more seasoning in the fine dining arena, but his personal writing style was unique, and he was great at covering ethnic joints.
• On the other hand, because of an obsequiousness with the packaged products of agribusiness (you know, like all that stuff with salmonella peanut butter in it), The Miami Herald's weekly Food & Nutrition section is to nurturing one's health what Mein Kampf was to nurturing Judaism.
• Blog favorites: MenuPages South Florida is the place to go for menus (duh), and its' MenuPages South Florida Blog covers a wide array of the very latest local, national and world food, beverage and restaurant news -- with lotsa links to cool stories. And the small but articulate cadre of Miami foodies who contribute to the Florida Chowhound board possess a strong knowledge of food, wine, and restaurants; discussions here are congenial in tone and nearly always informative.
• Then again, Jacob Katel's Behind The Line slideshows give Short Order a depth the rest of the food blogs just don't have. And of course I say this objectively.

Just how irrelevant has PETA become? The one-time-animal-rights-organization-turned-ludicrous-marketing-machine long ago gave up trying to reach people with reasoned arguments about the sanctity of all life or the wastefulness of our meat-happy culture. Instead they've adopted a fairly standard marketing strategy with which to convert confused meaties: 1) Create supposedly offensive advert designed to piss off octogenarian censors and bible-belters, 2) feign outrage when said moral authorities reject trite attempt at boundary-pushing, 3) revel in the media backlash that ensues. Well, I'll play ball PETA. Feast on the readers of Short Order!

PETA's latest offering is a whole splash page devoted to their "banned" Super Bowl Ad -- a rock music-filled montage of strapping young ladies getting it on with vegetables. The nut of the ad is an xtreme text blurb that states the following:  "studies show vegetarians have better sex." Apparently, NBC thought the imagery that coincided with that message was too sexually explicit, and thus rejected the ad.

You can read the whole rejection letter here. Basically, NBC wants PETA to remove images like a woman "screwing herself with broccoli" and "asparagus on her lap appearing as if it is ready to be inserted into vagina." That's not asking too much, really. What NBC honestly missed are the two most egregious offenses committed by the ad: The first being that PETA submits no information with which to back up its dubious claim that vegetarians have better sex. The other? Well, the ad is just plain stupid. When did PETA get the idea that best way to get people to stop exploiting animals is to exploit women instead? Like some Buffalo wing-scarfing, Bud-swilling neophyte is going to see this commercial, toss his plate on the ground in excitement and exclaim, "Ya'll know wut? I'z gonna stop eating them thar chicken wangs because, doggonit, I deserve to fulfill mah Earthlee dee-sires as much as them Sex in the City gals do!" No. No, that's never going to happen. Instead PETA is going to get made fun of ad nauseum by everyone -- vegetarians included. Meanwhile, the brainchildren that run that sinking ship will perceive the incoming hits as a success, and in turn produce an ad featuring Mickey Rourke going down on a plate of mashed potatoes. Sends chills up your spine. 

• In light of the upcoming South Beach Wine & Food Festival, I propose a law requiring that no posted photo of any Food Network personality ever exceed the size of a postage stamp.
• Our fine dining establishments are much improved in terms of the quality of cuisine served, but they've still got a ways to go concerning desserts.
• The Shops At Midtown boasts a roster of incoming restaurants, none of which seems to be exactly rushing to open.
• Speaking of Midtown: If anyone wants to start up a really big dining establishment, there's about to be an empty Circuit City space available real soon.
• Root beer is an underutilized food flavoring. How about root beer-braised brisket? Venison in root beer gastrique? A root beer-foie gras float? On second thought, forget I mentioned it.
• Oh Wagamama, where art thou? Or, for that matter, where is any similarly cool, low-priced noodle shop in these parts?
• Every upscale restaurant seems to be serving hamburgers these days. Also macaroni & cheese. The economic downturn is presumed to be the impetus behind this trend, but I don't recall seeing coffee shops and diners adding foie gras and caviar to their menus during heady times.
• I can't help but note that Yoo-Hoo, too, is universally shunned by chefs.