I suppose I should have expected the question sooner or later. This was the third time I’d taken out a certain couple for dinner and the third time we found ourselves to be the only party in a restaurant I was about to review. “Is it us?” they wanted to…
When you’re seated at the five-month-old French restaurant Le Rescatore, you’re handed a menu, a wine list, and a review from the Boca Point Viewpoint, a community newspaper, lovingly encased in plastic. Presumably, you’re supposed to read it and be impressed by its favorable content. But most likely, before you…
In the more remote corners of Peru, restaurateurs are going to great lengths to win regular customers: They’re requiring the female cooks to practice encantes — culinary spell-castings. These bewitchings aren’t the white-witch, nose-wrinkling sort Samantha Stevens made famous, either. In fact, they’re sort of stomach-turning, not to mention appallingly…
Take note: The Original Fat Cat’s Bar & Grill is actually a copycat. Of course, mimicry is the highest form of flattery, and that’s what Gen-X proprietors Scott Kurland (30 years old) and Dan Kurland (26 years old) intended — an homage to a popular sandwich shop near Rutgers University…
I swear, I will never understand why some restaurants highlight their weaknesses instead of their strengths. Even for the sake of mass appeal. Take the three-month-old Bulgari Ristorante in Hollywood. Just off the I-95 ramps on Hollywood Boulevard, the place bills itself as Italian and Mediterranean. Many consumers will obviously…
Yucatan Mexican Grill
Dining out and being politically correct hardly go hand-in-hand. Not that I don’t try. But really, am I expected to forgo the shark’s fin soup when I visit an authentic Chinese restaurant simply because the fishermen are cruel enough to cut the fin off and return the shark to the…
Chefs and restaurateurs tend to prepare for Saturday nights as carefully as brides primp for their weddings. They check and double-check food deliveries for quantity and quality. They prep the hostess on who and what to expect. They make sure the best servers are on shift for that evening. On…
An unwritten rule about dining out: Don’t eat in an otherwise empty restaurant. Chances are, there’s good reason your party is the only one. Of course, my job doesn’t allow me the luxury of bolting when I’m surrounded by empty tables. As a result, I sometimes have the unpleasant experience…
Like the French, Greeks have specific names for different types of restaurants and the cuisine served in them. In Greece, restaurateurs generally conform to what is expected of their establishments. For instance, an estiatorion, or upscale restaurant, has tablecloths. A psistaria features a spit for barbecuing pork, lamb, and chicken…
When I was living in Southern California, I worked in a seafood restaurant located at the end of a pier. During my shift, I occupied my time with waiting tables, doing sidework, and watching the fishermen bring in their catches of bottom-feeders: rays, crabs, the occasional soda can washed in…
If the anonymous author in The Quotable Cook is correct and it’s true that “The hostess must be like the duck — calm and unruffled on the surface, and paddling like hell underneath,” then we need to turn the hostess at Gary Woo Asian Bistro upside down. As it stands…
People often ask me how I choose the restaurants I’m going to review. I give ’em the old party line: I do extensive research; I vary the reviews by city, ethnicity, and price range; I look for a good back story. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. The…
Talk about the ghosts of future pasts.It’s one thing to go to a new restaurant and be able to remember the eatery that occupied the site before. It’s another to recognize so many elements left over from the previous restaurant that it feels like the second one is haunted. Take…
Is there any point in summing up the past year? It doesn’t seem to matter what we’re talking about — dining, music, politics — all trains of thought lead to the wreck of September 11. For most of us, it’s as if the first eight months of the year didn’t…
You know a social trend is on the way out when the restaurant industry gets hold of it.Remember Smoke in Fort Lauderdale? Probably not. That’s because the steak house-cum-cigar lounge, which intended to capitalize on the newfound joys of sucking on stogies in public dining rooms, opened after the habit…
Tim Zagat is an opinionated man.Perhaps that’s not surprising, given the fact that in 1979, he and his wife, Nina, founded the Zagat New York Restaurant Survey. Started as an informal restaurant rating system, derived from detailed questionnaires distributed among a group of friends (including the Rubell family, of Studio…
Question: How do you score a table at Pearl by the Sea, a popular Russian restaurant and cabaret in Hallandale Beach that also goes by the name Club Pearl? A. Speak Russian or English with a Russian accent, or have a Russian surname. B. Know that “semi-formal attire is required”…
OK, let’s set the scene: It’s Wednesday night, right before Thanksgiving, the start of a long weekend that typically means big tourist business in big tourist hangouts. At Las Olas Riverfront, a pay-to-enter party is being held on the ground floor, pushing regular ol’ customers up to the second floor,…
Forgive me, Armadillo Cafe, for I have sinned. It has been one year since my last supper. Since that time, I have displayed gluttony. I’ve had impure thoughts twice (OK, three times, tops). I have cheated on you. And I have committed the worst culinary crime of all: I lost…
Until recently, I couldn’t remember the last time I walked out of a restaurant without at least sampling the fare. I didn’t stroll out of that little German storefront in Bay Harbor Islands where the chef quit right after we’d ordered and our waiter volunteered to cook our bratwurst. I…
Even before the terrorist attacks, our weakening economy was starting to make us consumers ask some tough questions about dining out. Do we want to spend $35 on an entree in an upscale restaurant, or do we want to use that money to buy the baby’s formula for the week?…
