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…
Ft. Lauderdale’s Cafe Martorano and its owner Steve Martorano exert the media-industry equivalent of gravitational pull. He and his restaurant attract attention. Da guy’s a star yaknowwhadamean? He’s got his landmark South Florida headquarters, a joint in Vegas, national tv spots cookin meatballs, Gail Shepherd’s writin’ about him, face on…
Michelle Bernstein returns as host of WPBT’s popular television show Check, Please! South Florida, and Season 2 , which premieres Monday, March 9th, promises to contain almost as many new twists as the latest episodes of Lost. On second thought, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit; there are really only two…
The Third Annual Jupiter Craft Brewers Festival took place on Saturday, and in case you missed out on what was a perfect day of beer sampling and cavorting, check out our slide show here. What made the fest so “gee, shucks” great? For starters, the festival area – the amphitheater…
Jack in the Box is apparently testing a program to outsource their drive-through orders, routing requests for burgers and shakes to call-takers outside the country. The program is getting its first test run in Charlotte, North Carolina, where folks innocently pulling up to the order box are being taken for…
I caught up with Cheech and Chong backstage at the South Beach Comedy Festival. I asked them questions about food and they told me about pussy, roaches, white people, and drinking bongwater. Cheech and Chong are great Americans, even for a Mexican and a Canadian…
Lest you think The Inspector is a hater, this week we won’t bring you the dirt on local routine-food-inspection-reports. Instead we’ll highlight the reports reporting that there is nothing to report. These restaurants were found to be totally violation free on their most recent inspections.Pita Pit – 16323 SW 88…
Another day, another European-style new age trattoria/old world Italian bar/outdoor marketplace/espresso bar/chic urban pizzeria getting set to open. Welcome to RACKS Italian Bistro And Market, owned by Gary Rack, who evidently didn’t like the sound of the name GARYS. Mr. Rack, founder of Boca Raton’s Coal Mine Pizza, sets out…
As far as desserts go, what’s better than a cupcake? Think about it: these morsels of goodness are self-contained, portable, portion-controlled, and, when done right, can taste pretty swell. And now, they’re showing up on Las Olas. Lola’s Cupcakery is a new venture from Toronto restaurateur, Donald Kaplan, and his…
Admittedly this photo sent to us by the folks at Shaka Jon’s isn’t going to draw any comparisons with the work of André Kertész, but luckily Shaka is about food and drink, not photography. The new downtown restaurant, located at 48 East Flagler Street, offers an informal, low-priced menu of…
There’s all sorts of talk about New Deal this and New Deal that these days, which is fine by Heshy Wilensky, proprietor of the New Deal Kosher Market. Located at 1362 NE 163rd Street in North Miami Beach, it is the only butcher shop in South Florida that has operated…
My favorite news item of the week: Swiss researches have discovered a new psychological disorder which they’ve called “Gourmand Syndrome.” Turns out that people who are passionately obsessed with food actually have lesions in their right anterior cerebral hemisphere — lesions which do not appear in people who are not…
You may have noticed that it’s colder than a witch’s teet outside. I mean, I really enjoy these few months where flip flops and Bermuda shorts aren’t required attire lest you suffer heat stroke, but come on… 40s? That’s not what I signed up for, folks. So last night, feeling…
Liberty City Breakfast from Miami New Times on Vimeo. Gus Garcia’s feature story this week explores the world of Basic Training Delivery Academy in Miami’s Liberty City. Here’s a video detailing the Sunday breakfast ritual they offer free to the community. Click here to read the full article…
You either love a guy like Steve Martorano or you don’t. But you’ve got to make up your mind, because Martorano is everywhere. There’s no escaping his pug-faced mug. It’s plastered on the jars of his signature spaghetti sauce. He’s all over YouTube, including a rap video extolling his eggplant…
After a short hiatus, The Inspector is back to keep you abreast of current developments in the routine-food-inspection-report scene. The following information may shock you, but understand we are only providing it because it is totally public information that we all have a right to see. Here are 5 restaurants…
Your intuition is correct: Restaurants dropped like tasered protesters at a Republican rally last year. The not-so-bad news is that new eateries opened in many of the vacated spaces, offsetting our net loss. Read on for a partial and unofficial Short Order list of closings in Broward and Palm Beach…
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…
Chef Ivo Mazzon of Joey’s Cafe in Miami’s Wynwood is from Roncade, Treviso, in Northern Italy, close to Venice. He studied there for five years at a hospitality institute and has been in Miami since April, 2003. He says “I love it here. We’re trying to make something special to…
Ah, the Cuban Pig Roast. There’s no greater cooking method than the outdoor-food-to-fire-method. And with the holiday pig we ate, we gotta start looking ahead to the next one. This kind of cooking is so basic, yet so delicious, it brings out the inner cave person in all of us…
Cookie junkies across the nation simultaneously erupted in joy and floundered in despair when ’09 Girl Scout cookie shipments hit the streets and salmonella peanut butter reports hit the airwaves. But don’t despair, according to MSN Health & Fitness:”The drum roll for recalls of peanut butter products continued without letup,…
This Thursday evening, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will be hosting the Third Annual International Chocolate Festival Kickoff Party. No, I didn’t know about the first two either, but this year’s one-hour shindig (6 to 7 p.m.) features hors d’oeuvres from exceptional chef Edgar Leal of Cacao Restaurant — reason enough…
