​In its 35th year, Art Deco Weekend kicks off today, January 13, at noon and then continues until 11pm January 15. It  will highlight the second annual ADW Fashion Show and music performances. More >>

All photos by Laine Doss

Yardbird Souther Table and Bar was packed for its pre-opening celebration

​Jeff McInnis manages to give us a smile as he's supervising what seems like dozens of kitchen chefs to get more and more food plates out to the hungry throngs that filled every inch of space at Yardbird Southern Table and Bar last evening for the restaurant's pre-opening shindig for friends and family.

Yardbird's dining room, which features white brick walls, mason jar chandeliers, communal tables and round booths, was maxed out as industry, friends and the curious thronged to get a taste of the much buzzed-about southern bistro.More >>

Photo by Daniel Treiman

A sample of what the fare at Phuc Yea!, an upcoming modern Vietnamese pop-up restaurant, will look like.

​It's like something out of a Food Network reality drama; at 3 p.m., a daytime eatery flips the 'closed' sign, and three young chefs and restaurateurs frantically transfer paintings from some hidden space to the restaurant's walls. They drape gauzy, makeshift curtains over the windows, strip and re-dress the tables, and drag art installations to the corners of the room. They haul sprouts, rice paper wraps, pork bellies and lemon grass from the back of the walk-in, where they're nestled beside the European cheeses and meats that belong to the daytime eatery. And the dapper semi-celebrity host laughs, "The word popup makes it sound so easy, doesn't it?"

This is a dramatization of what Phuc Yea! (pronounced fook-yay, but who's seriously gonna call it that?) -- a new temporary "restaurant installation," or pop-up restaurant -- will look like. It's coming September 8 for dinner five days a week to the space Crown Bistro (19 SE Second Ave., in the northwest corridor of the Ingraham Building) uses to dole out its gourmet sandwiches to the lunch crowd. The fruit of collaboration among Anièce Meinhold (front of house, sommelier), Cesar Zapata (head chef, formerly of Blue Piano), and Daniel Treiman (chef with New York schooling and experience and Short Order contributor), Phuc Yea! will bring a progressive rendition of southeast Asian cuisine in an experimental dining environment.
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Courtesy of Fox

​Doreen Colondres is the woman behind the website, La Cocina no Muerde (The Kitchen Doesn't Bite). It's in Spanish, but she's starting an English version next year.

Since she started La Cocina two years ago, she's become food editor for Siempre Mujer, started a cooking segment for Fox en Español, and scored gigs as a spokesperson for General Mills, Archer Farms for Target, and California Raisins. In that whirlwind time, she's also returned to school for culinary training and to get her sommelier certification, "but I don't like to talk about it because people get scared and intimidated. I don't like to be considered a chef because it makes people think you need to be a chef to be able to cook."

After the jump: Where are the seafood empanadas?
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Photo by Performa

Jennifer Rubell

​Artist Jennifer Rubell, named one of Food + Wine's 40 Big Food Thinkers Under 40, makes food her medium. She currently lives in New York City, but she lived in Miami for years, and so I grandfathered her in for this week's Scene Eating.

Rubell and the rest of her art-loving family co-created boutique hotels in Miami. She's a writer of numerous food, travel, and lifestyle articles in magazines like Vogue, Food + Wine, and the Miami Herald's home and design magazine. She is also the author of the cookbook Real Life Entertaining.  

"The genesis of what I do began with a very full career writing about food and it slowly evolved into what I do now, which is completely immersed in the contemporary art world," says Rubell.

Interview after the jump...
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Courtesy Carmel Ophir

​Carmel Ophir is well known as a nightlife veteran in Miami, DJ, co-owner of The Vagabond (with DJ John Digweed), and owner of Creations production company. Ophir's life is all about music, but it's also all about food. Like a musician who's riffing, once Ophir gets started talking about food, it's hard for him to stop. So we let him spiel.

Ophir also wants to offer you some post-Thanksgiving relief.Perhaps next Thursday, you'll eat way too much, wake up from a tryptophan nap, and realize you need to move your bones or risk forever lapsing into a food coma. Or you may suffer from cabin fever after spending too many consecutive hours with your family.br />
Come by The Vagabond (30 NE 14th Street, Miami) November 25th for their second annual Thanksgiving Charity for the Community Partnership for the Homeless.John Digweed headlines and local DJ hero Craze will be there too. Doors open at 10 p.m. Ophir says one hundred percent of the proceeds go to the charity, which is just down the street from the Vagabond: "We don't forget our own backyard." Get tickets here.

The twenty-year Miami nightlife veteran on what fuels him....after the jump.
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Janette Valentine

​Barron Sherer is a filmmaker, film archivist, and general curator of cool cultural happenings in Miami. And by film, we mean actual celluloid, not digital.

For a decade, the South Carolina transplant has created and produced film showings throughout town, most notably the Rewind/Fast Forward Video Festival. He helped manage the archives of bizarre, kitschy, and historic South Floridiana at the Wolfson Moving Image Archive. He also curated the old Cinema Vortex series, beloved by cinephiles in Miami.

Now he's doing his own thing. This past Halloween, he and Kevin Arrow put together a Super Eight Super Scary night of pop-up cinema, dusting off his old horror movie collection to play along with appropriately woozy sounds from live theremin and circuit bending.Popcorn is off limits at Sherer's screenings. His favorite film snack is "anything that doesn't make noise."

Humitas, food trucks, and South Carolina mayonnaise after the jump...
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Courtesy Ingrid B

Ingrid B surrounded by fellow Soulcialites.

​Ingrid Bazin, or Ingrid B, is a host and promoter of three weekly events in Miami. She fuses her passions for poetry and soul music into Soulcial Sundays at B.E.D., a live music dinner party and jam session; the Bohemia Room spoken-word night in Midtown Miami; and the Flow Fridays open-mike slam.

The Jamaican-born and Barbados-raised Ingrid B is reserved when she's not working or onstage: "I'm a shy socialite."  Bazin is always cooking up something new to entertain B-Side fans: "My job is a 24-hour challenge of discipline because I'm my own boss. I don't have to get up if I don't want to. I can sleep all day if I choose to, but you can't do that and still make money." The end goal is to get her own venue to house her weekly parties and to feature the national soul acts she brings to Miami via her B-Side Entertainment company.  

This Sunday's upcoming Soulcial party will feature the bold-voiced Nehemie. Keep up with Ingrid B on Twitter.

Ingrid B is one of "100 Creatives" featured in Cultist, our Miami culture blog. In honor of our People Issue, which will hit newsstands and computer screens November 25, Cultist proudly presents "100 Creatives," where we feature Miami's cultural superheroes. Look for it!

Interview after the jump.
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Courtesy of Teddy Gunter

​Teddy Gunter can offer you a dress formerly worn on Sex and the City or a torn up, corpse-bride style gown from the 1930s (just in time for Halloween). Gunter is a stylist and also the co-owner and archivist of Stash Wardrobe Rental, a fashion library of sorts.

She owns the North Miami store with veteran stylist Danny Santiago, who has styled for Vogue and other magazines. Santiago has also worked as a costume designer for TV and movies like Sex and the City, Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Devil Wears Prada, and Burn Notice. When Santiago and Gunter finish working on a project, the clothes often go to STASH. Then, Gunter meticulously catalogs them by look and time period.

Photographers, models, stylists, fashionistas, and vintage lovers can rent clothes or ensembles at STASH. Halloween is around the corner. Need to look like a '70s rock star? Done. Require a 1920s beaded dress to go with your raccoon eyeliner for the Gatsby Gone Goth party (which Danny Santiago is helping throw)? Gunter and the STASH team of stylists will help you put it together.
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Courtesy of ECOMB

​

Bar recycling parties are the kind of thing Luiz Rodrigues does to inject some environmental awareness into the South Beach lifestyle. The Brazilian-born Rodrigues is the executive director of ECOMB, or Environmental Coalition of Miami Beach. ECOMB's "Raising the Bar" promotes recycling at bars both because it's the law, and also because being sustainable can be economical. Purdy Lounge, Abraxas, Waxy O'Connor's and the Catalina have all received ECOMB's stamp of approval. The group is currently working with Mova Lounge and the Mondrian to ramp up their recycling.

Rodrigues has single-handedly steered the organization toward bigger and better, including the opening of a new sustainable center, which will eventually become a green building. Dedicated volunteers and interns help out, but Rodrigues is the man with the plan. He envisions car sharing and shared bike stations in Miami Beach's future.

The group hosts monthly movie showings at Miami Beach Cinematheque. There are monthly clean-ups of smaller isles like Monument Island. This month's clean up is full, but you can reserve ahead for the next one. Another upcoming event is the Fun Day at the Beach Fundraiser/The Big Sweep competition on November 7.

After the jump: More on that Caesar salad, some moqueca from Sushisamba, and an amazing grilled whole fish...
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