Thanksgiving Day, 5 p.m.: Family members are sprawled on your furniture, belts off, pants unbuttoned, fancy holiday shirts marked by cranberry and gravy spills, making half-assed attempts to argue. Your father-in-law has been in the bathroom for 35 minutes and you’re starting to worry: for him, for your bathroom. You’re…
• The space that once housed Broward’s Best New Restaurant is now a sports bar. Mugs Bar & Grill has taken over where Christine’s used to operate on Oakland Park Boulevard. At one time, Christine’s doled out contemporary American food to the sound of sultry jazz music. Now you can…
When you’re out looking for a sub, and can’t find a local sub or sandwich shop in your area, you’ve got a few chain choices. There’s the company famous for only charging $5, the one that started the whole toasted subs craze, and the lesser known chain that is known…
I’m a sucker for pate — I’ll eat any sort of meat blended into a paste and cured. It started when I was a maybe 10-years-old. My parents would buy Oscar Mayer Liverwurst (yes, there’s such a thing) and spread it on butter crackers. I must’ve ate six tubes of…
Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it: How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find it? But mostly, it’s all about the love of the brew. If you…
By Dori ZinnThe Outback of maki rolls RA Sushi unveiled it’s new menu this week. All three South Florida locations – Palm Beach Gardens, Pembroke Pines, and South Miami – will be slinging new dishes, which Charlie sampled at media dinner this Monday. The menu rollout – an annual fall…
• By Dec. 1, Todd English’s Wild Olives in Boca Raton should be going full bore. The former Opus 5 is currently transitioning to Wild Olives’ Mediterranean-esque menu, with the full dinner menu said to be in place by Tuesday, Nov. 24, and lunch a week later. A few items…
Bash Wine Café is holed up like a dark cave in a drab suburban strip mall in Sunrise, a location born of frugality for owners Nikki Pettineo and Veronica Lopez. A Johnson & Wales grad, Pettineo had lucked into a job as private chef for former Miami Dolphins safety Renaldo…
The only unfortunate thing about this Broward version of the Miami Lakes eatery is the location: Hidden away in a corner of a mostly vacant retail complex, Green Papaya is almost impossible to see from busy Atlantic Boulevard. But the wafting smell of simmering pho will command you to stay…
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, kiddies. Are you ready? There’s a lot to prep for, from getting that Big Bird defrosted to queuing up your side dishes. Not to mention making sure you’re caught up enough at work to take two weekdays off (ack!). If you’re still undecided on…
So we cheated a little last week. With the taste of those yellow cherries still stinging our taste buds, everyone unfortunate enough to taste those decided it was a great time to try out something else. After all, with expectations set so low, anything even digestible would raise our spirits…
The poor boy is the kind of sandwich you can’t honor in just one meal. It’s a hoagie fit for eating standing up in the street, hovering over a bar with a beer, or straight from the fridge to chase away a hangover. So, as an ode to the Po-Boy…
New Orleans’ iconic sandwich is under attack. What’s a poor boy to do? Throw a party, what else? That would be the third-annual New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival, which takes place Sunday, November 22. More than three dozen restaurants will be on hand, slapping fried oysters, shrimp, catfish, soft-shell crab,…
The bons temps will roll into Pompano Beach come Monday, December 7, with the opening of The French Quarter Bar & Grill, a moderately priced N’awlins-style eatery from former Tarpon Bend general manager Gene Beach and local chef about town Michael Buterbaugh. The Quarter adds to Broward’s meager stock of…
If you’re not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here’s a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe. Almost lost in the hype about all the newbies and newbies-to-be heading for Atlantic Avenue and environs in Delray…
This week in dish, we take a look at Bash Wine Cafe in Sunrise. We first looked at the unassuming bistro a few weeks ago on the blog and found its key asset to be well-priced comfort food. Now, here’s an excerpt from our upcoming review:…Perhaps it’s fate, then, that…
For a fun, casual take on Vietnamese, Green Papaya Vietnamese Cuisine in Coral Springs is a great deal. The above dinner is called a Hau Giang “barbecue pork chop,” but is actually a breaded piece of pork loin that’s been seared on a flat top or griddle. The cutesy plate…
Pictured: Wok-sauteed broccoli with garlic and chili. Prep: Clean and trim broccoli into inch-wide pieces. Steam using steamer basket for about 5-6 minutes, or until broccoli becomes bright green and flesh softens slightly. Immediately shock in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking and preserve color. Drain. Dice…
When Piero Antinori produced the first Tignanello in the 1971, it was a real kick in the ass to rule- and tradition-bound Tuscan winemakers, most of whom had long been make Chianti in accordance with government regulation. At first 100 percent Sangiovese, later blended with varying amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon,…
This week on the program:What’s up there, Cupcake? A pretty good, cheap Riesling, that’s what.A nomadic, artisan barbecue cart out of Lake Worth is pulling pork at bar near you.Bad customers are just as awful as bad servers. Don’t be a bad customer.Downtown’s newest barbecue joint is pumping up the…
Although Clean Plate Charlie is the only food blog you need to read every day, some people just can’t get enough. Here are some highlights of other local food blogs worth checking out.Fat Kids Club, aside from having an awesome name, also have a hell of a great idea for…
Chow.com, that home for intrepid foodists popularly known as Chowhound, published the Chow 13 last week, its list of the 13 most influential food fighters of 2009. The article is essentially 13 mini profiles complete with a host of graphic novel-like illustrations. And it’s a really fun read. Among the…
