The bookstores have let you know about it with displays of hardcover tomes that feature grinning males spanking lobsters with tongs. The department stores have clued you in, too, selling Dad’s Day with special markdowns on steak knives and spatulas. And the supermarkets have gotten into the act — with…
One of the primary objections to the existence of food critics is that no two critics operate alike. Some review anonymously; others do not. Some accept freebies; others do not. Some visit a restaurant numerous times; others do not. When the range of practice varies so widely, restaurateurs want to…
Every once in a while, I’m reminded that the rest of the nation’s food media simply don’t understand the South Florida eating scene. For instance, a couple of seasons ago, Epicurious.com contacted me about reporting on our farmers’ markets for a special countrywide feature that would run from May to…
The Best of BrowardPalm Beach issue: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee for the breadth and depth of your pages, for your biblical proportions, for your wise(-ass) advice. I love thee to the level of everyday’s most quiet need to find the best…
Perhaps it’s the Miamian in me, as I reviewed restaurants for Miami New Times for five-plus years before taking on Broward and Palm Beach. Or maybe it’s the purist in me, or the nitpicker in me, or even the snob in me. But when I walk into a Latin-American restaurant…
Some people pooh-pooh the notion of big-name chefs lending their expertise and big names to luxury hotels, cruise ships, airplanes, Vegas, Disney World — any venue that offers enough money. Personally I’d lobby these culinary wonder boys to apply their golden touch even to the food concessions at sports arenas…
Now here’s a first: Just about anything I can complain about my most recent dining experience is most likely my fault. For instance, I didn’t appreciate the lack of ambient dining music during this meal. While I’m never overly fond of, say, loud house beats vibrating my plate — and…
I’m always wary when I call a new restaurant to inquire about its cuisine and whoever answers the phone says something like, “Uh, hang on a minute” and passes the phone to someone else. A stunt like that usually means one of two things. Either the quicker-picker-upper on the other…
The bare midriff is making me insane. I admit I first thought the trend of displaying tight, tanned little tummies, with or without belly ring installed center stage, kind of cutely risqué. But after pop princesses like Christina Aguilera took it to such extremes that they now present themselves naked…
So you’re youngish, you think you’re pretty darn cool, and you’re shopping for dinner at the Publix in the Village Square Plaza in Boynton Beach when you notice Sonoma Grille. You’re surprised, because the high-ceilinged bistro, with its widely spaced oil paintings on the walls and closely spaced tables on…
Dinner. Mezzanotte. CityPlace. Ohmygod. Dinner being the meal we like to eat in the evening. Mezzanotte being the sixth installment of a popular Italian restaurant that got its ’80s start in a groundbreaking South Beach location where models once spontaneously danced on the tables (and snorted coke in the bathrooms,…
Aloha,” says the valet attendant. “Aloha,” says the hostess who pulls open the door. “Aloha,” says the busboy who fills your water glasses even before you sit down. If you haven’t figured out where you are by now, let me give you a few more hints: The ukulele. The lei…
In our seasonal, fickle dining market, a high-end restaurant opening to unanimous rave reviews is usually an accomplishment in itself. When said restaurant is credited with revitalizing or turning around a neighborhood, well, that’s flattering too. And when, after several years in business, it has developed such a loyal crowd…
The waitress at Moon Thai & Japanese, a month-old restaurant in Coral Springs, approached us as we were still getting settled in our bistro-style seats. “We don’t have white tuna tonight,” she informed us, looking directly at my father-in-law. My husband and I laughed — his father, Joel, is addicted…
Picture a prototypical tavern. Envision the dark, scarred wood, the frayed seat cushions, the rotund bartender pulling a draft. Smell, through your mind’s nose, the cigarette smoke vying with char-grilled burgers and ancient fried onions. Listen to the squawks and yawps of casual, unrestrained conversation. Are you there? Good. That…
Nation’s Restaurant News, a restaurant-industry magazine, runs a whimsical bit every week: It features a “clever, funny or bizarre restaurant name” as “Name of the Week.” Winners have included operations the likes of the Barking Frog and Thai One On. The column is good for a chortle, and the eateries…
Back when I worked in restaurant kitchens, my husband became an expert at guessing what the specials of the night had been. All he had to do was take a whiff of my clothes. “New England clam chowder,” he’d say, sniffing. “Grilled pork loin.” Sniff. “Filet mignon with,” sniff, “a…
Whenever my family went to New York’s Chinatown for dinner or dim sum, my neat-freak mother would choose the restaurant with the dirtiest floor. When her astonished children would point out the grains of rice and chicken bones littering the peeling linoleum tiles, she would just smile, shrug, and let…
Sushi bars in South Florida are almost interchangeable. Each offers a ton of selections, including a roster of inventive, multi-ingredient rolls with funny names. Each serves some other kind of Asian food (usually Thai) along with the Japanese stuff. And each carries some of the freshest fish around — as…
If you need tangible evidence of the plunging economy, take a drive along Pines Boulevard and stop where it intersects North University Drive. Of the four shopping centers that sentry the corners, at least three are half empty. I haven’t seen so many “available” signs since touring the red light…
If any decade of the last millennium should be written off for eternity, it’s the ’70s. The trends were horrific — feathered hair, tube tops, the Hustle. Not a saving grace among ’em. In fact, with the exception of the emergence of certain supergroups like Styx (hey, don’t begrudge me…
Years ago, when I taught writing and composition to college students, I used a culinary term as an example of an oxymoron: jumbo shrimp. The kids seemed to grasp that example more quickly than any other. If I were teaching these days, I’d cite a different illustration: clean dive. A…
