Once upon a time, the old Testa’s restaurant in Palm Beach was famous amongst the resident teen population for its banana and strawberry daiquiris. Those drinks were dessert with a kick; they suited our untrained palates. And the see-no-evil policies of the managers and bartenders suited the desire of kids…
Sad news, Fort Lauderdale. Christine’s Restaurant announced this morning via e-mail that it has been sold. The dining room cum jazz bar, which earned New Times’ Best New Restaurant in 2008 and Best Romantic Restaurant in 2009, was opened in December 2007 by co-owners Daniel MacMillan and Gregory Rhatagen, a…
Editor’s note: As our new restaurant critic, John Linn, gets ready to take over next week, we offer this leftover from April 2007. My “father-un-law” was in town, and I wanted to take him to dinner. Not that I needed to impress him. Here’s a guy who drove his battered…
This can of breadfruit has been sitting on my desk for nearly a month, and I’m sure it was on a shelf for 20 times longer than that. I haven’t exactly been avoiding it; after all, how bad could it be? It’s got fruit right in the name, the pictures…
Every day after work, I would drive home along Sunrise Boulevard and spot Texas Hold ‘Em BBQ’s big barrel smoker chugging along out front. I got really used to seeing — and smelling — it out there. Occasionally, the fuming stack would churn out a plume of rich smoke so…
I didn’t exactly have high expectations when I was tasked with reviewing Wendy’s new boneless chicken creations. I’ve certainly had a square hamburger or two from the red=headed temptress’ chain, but it’s never the first choice I make. So it’s with a very real sense of dread that I walk…
Although Clean Plate Charlie is the only food blog you really need to read daily, some people just can’t get enough. Here are some highlights of other food blogs.Before you head out for a slice of pizza, you’ll want to check out Worst Pizza. Despite the name, the site reviews…
As a young man, the subtleties of pulled pork were lost on me. Technique, patience, care: pointless wastes of time to my still immature, I-want-it-fast mind. “Grab the pork,” I thought, “and pull it. It’s not rocket science.”With maturity, though, came understanding. And a world of unimagined pleasures. The explosion…
Marylea Moffat was in a pickle. The trucking company she and her husband ran had crashed and burned. Her marriage too. And getting a new job? Well, the way things are nowadays, good luck with that. What she did have was a lifetime of family recipes for pickling just about…
Move over, dinner: Happy hour is coming through. That magical few hours — usually from 5 to 7 p.m. — is a great way to get your post-work liquid intake. But at quite a few places, it’s also a great way to taste some dishes from the kitchen on the…
Editor’s note: We’ve got a new restaurant critic here at New Times. John Linn has been something of a protégé to Gail Shepherd over the years. Now Shepherd’s moving over to become a staff writer for us, and Linn’s stepping into the role of restaurant critic. As he gets his…
Last week’s experiment in trying to eat something delicious and exotic didn’t work out exactly as I’d planned. It wasn’t disgusting, but it was far from a treat that I’ll find myself scouring the aisles in my local grocery store for. Before the sting of my moderate failure could truly…
It’s not hard to find one or two dishes — usually they’re side dishes — for the vegetarian crowd at many restaurants. Vegetarians become accustomed to the plain goodness of rice and beans and house salads and saying “without cheese, please.” Delivery, though? Forget about it. If you’re not ordering…
How does it sound to taste more than 50 wines from around the planet, nibble on munchies, get as much as a 20 percent discount on anything you buy, and walk away with a spiffy German wine glass, all for only $15? Better than a poke in the eye with…
Although I like cranky British Chef Gordon Ramsay, I’m not really a huge fan of his Fox show Kitchen Nightmares. It’s far too formulaic, for one — every episode shares the same story arc, with only the set pieces changing — and it’s 99 percent about drama and only 1…
My mother’s storied Jeannie’s Weenie Supremies guaranteed the hot dog a permanent place of honor in our fridge when I was growing up. The Supremies consisted of a hot dog, split and stuffed with cheddar cheese and wrapped in bacon. My father also had an unnatural love affair with a…
Although Clean Plate Charlie is the only food blog you really need to read daily, some people just can’t get enough. Here are some highlights of other food blogs.Woman’s Day has a great article pointing out what we all already know: Food is always better when it’s stuffed with other…
Leave it to your boss to inadvertently ruin your good mood. After last week’s grass jelly debacle, I decided to take fate back into my own hands and hand-select the food I’d be eating for this week’s post. At my last trip to Publix, I was waiting in the checkout…
Here in South Florida, we’ve accepted the idea that good food can be found in a strip mall. People wait three hours for meatballs at Café Martorano, stand in line at Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor, and eat some of the best rolls around at Sushi Jo — all in shopping…
Twenty-year-old White Apron Catering has accumulated a pretty impressive list of clients: Chanel, Cartier, the Harvard Alumnae Club, Hermes, J.P. Morgan, and Yours Truly. And you can take it from the latter: The $6,000 we spent on a party for a couple of family newlyweds last weekend was worth every…
House of Sweets — the nostalgic cupcake bakery attached to Delray’s House of Vintage — opened its new Cupcake Cafe this Saturday with a host of free giveaways and a cupcake-eating contest that saw one dude devour a dozen of the personal-sized pastries in under six minutes. House proprietors Amanda…
The server was explaining this and that about the dessert tray at Truluck’s in Fort Lauderdale when I made some comment about how perfect they all looked. “They’re not real,” he said. Then he slapped the chocolate cake. It made a sound like smacking a basketball. I swear, I had…
