Mystery Number One: With more than half a million Cubans living in South Florida, why is it almost impossible to find a cheap, decent dish of ropa vieja? Or, for that matter, a plateful of Cuban-style pulled roast pork for under a tenner? I’m talking about the kind of joint…
As the waiter put down our appetizers, one called “Balsa Pear with Sesame Oil” and the other a dish called “Beef and Lung in Special Sauce,” he warned us about the latter one. “Be careful. That’s very spicy.” Fuqi feipan, which translates as “married couple’s lung slices,” doesn’t have any…
I’m going to put my cards on the table: I’m not a big fan of steak houses. I have good friends who continuously scan the Internet for airfare deals to New York so they can make their biannual pilgrimage to Peter Luger’s; I know people who’ve stopped speaking over the…
Jorge Luis Fernandez calls himself “The Dali of the Kitchen.” The comparison makes sense, because Fernandez, the chef at La Barraca in Hollywood, is a dead ringer for Salvador Dali in his middle years, before the publicity-mad surrealist went nuts with the mustache wax and took to signing blank canvasses…
Until about six months ago, Chico’s Place (4819 N. Dixie Hwy., Deerfield Beach, 954-420-0088) was a Portuguese bar in the middle of Broward’s Little Brazil. With the addition of Chef Daniel Menezes, some white tablecloths, and a new menu, he and the owners have turned that one room into a…
It’s 10 o’clock on opening night at the Sunfish Grill, and the bar is hip-deep in ladies of a certain age. They’re gussied up in turquoise taffeta sheath dresses with matching purses, in sequined bodices and strappy sandals; they are corseted and perfumed. They’ve had their hair done; it matches…
“Handsome is as handsome does.” Somebody’s wise old grandmother said that. Not my grandma; she was too busy pounding back snifters of cognac and channel-surfing for the latest Ronco electric food dehydrator — and anyway, she was such a sucker for a pretty face. Sometimes, it takes a good many…
I grew up in a part of Connecticut where the favorite local pizzas were what we called Greek-style, a shallow-pan pizza with tangy sauce baked so well-done that the cheese would turn golden brown and toughen in a good way. Chicagoans will rhapsodize about cakey, deep-dish pizza, and New Yorkers…
The girl who serves us our sake is a Sexy Kitty. Her name is Tuesday, she weighs about 80 pounds, and she’s one of a stable of “burlesque” entertainers that West Palm clubtrepreneur Rodney Mayo and his right-hand man, Chris Johnson, have put together. The girls are called Sexy Kittys;…
50 lbs. cornmeal 10 lbs. bran (optional) 200 lbs. sugar 12 oz. yeast 200 gal. water In Eastern Tennessee, that recipe will mix you up 36 gallons of “artisanal” moonshine, a local, sustainable, slow-food beverage cooked exactly so for many generations. You can proof your liquor by adding a bit…
There’s something human beings really hate to do all by ourselves. We don’t like to dine alone. When we venture out to eat, let us have at least one other sentient being beside us at table even if, in a pinch, it turns out to be someone we don’t much…
About ten years ago, I lived in a bustling pan-Muslim neighborhood branching off a couple of blocks of Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens. In a three-block walk, you would pass a café where old men would smoke hookahs and sip coffee, a café where young men would smoke hookahs and…
TGIMS! Or Thank God It’s Mango Season. Some heavenly creature long ago peered down at us suffering fools as we slogged through the swamps, swatting at mosquitoes and no-see-ums, dodging man-eating alligators and man-frying spikes of lightning, and blessed us with the only thing that could possibly make summer in…
In case you’ve missed the saga of Lauderdale Chef Steven LaBiner’s odyssey from riches to rags to riches in the past couple of years (feel free to catch the heart-wrenching audio slide show on the Sun Sentinel’s website), I’ll summarize. Hobo’s Fish Joint, Coral Springs. Nice gig, open ten years…
What do Palm Beach, Abu Dhabi, Madrid, Monte Carlo, Singapore, Mexico City, Dubai, Houston, Amsterdam, and Jeddah have in common? They’re cities where, when you’re feeling lonely, lost, far from home, and hungry, you can hie yourself over to a certain megachain and know exactly what’s on the menu. We’re…
A perfect martini goes a long way toward softening me up. Here’s my totally unprofessional confession: I’m inclined to love the food that follows it in direct proportion to the mastery with which my drink has been mixed. Terrible, isn’t it? Worse and worse, many a food snob would crucify…
They’re from South Jersey. They’re from Queens. They’re from Bari, from Brindisi, they’re visiting relatives in Hollywood. They speak Brooklynese. They speak no English at all. Or only a leetle. They know enough to read this menu: Orecchiette means one thing in any tongue. Pasta e fagioli they know. Saltimbocca,…
“Little birds nest according to their size,” goes the Thai proverb. Or as King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand has repeatedly cautioned his people: Don’t live beyond your means. We Americans could take a page or two from the Thai book, eh? My own addendum to the famous proverb goes like…
I have a friend who’s known among her circle as “The Dream Crusher.” Confide your long-held desire to take singing lessons and she’ll warn you about throat polyps. Announce your pregnancy, she’ll calculate the cost of raising a child to maturity, wondering aloud how you might otherwise have spent that…
If an alien from the planet Persephone landed in Bordentown, New Jersey, and found herself hungry after her light-years’-long journey, she might wander into Mastori’s Diner for a little something to take the edge off. But she might not have the faintest idea what to order or how to eat…
Regular readers of this space know that my territory is roadside taco trucks, fluorescent-lit noodle shops, and little mom-and-pop ethnic restaurants. Celebrity chefs? Subdued lighting? Shirt and shoes required? That’s Shepherd’s turf. Which doesn’t mean I don’t go out for a nice meal sometimes. As a matter of fact, just…
At noon, if you happen to be sitting at the bar inside Capri Blu with owner Amadeo Tasca; his wife, Gracie; or their old friend maitre d’ Mauricio Berni; if you happen to be sipping coffee and watching Italian game shows on the little TV while you’re waiting for the…
