Broward Palm Beach Food Blog

Food & Wine showcased their 10 Best Restaurant Dishes under $12 in this issue, and -- wouldn't you know it -- none are from Florida. It's getting to be a pretty common occurrence when America's Dangling Unit gets left off any of these glossy mag "best" lists. But that doesn't mean we don't have dishes that can hang, too.

In fact, many of F&W's picks have strikingly similar South Florida equivalents. Maybe not identical doppelgangers, per se, but close enough -- and good enough -- to make a list of our own.So here they are, our SoFla version of Food & Wine's five best under $12.

​F&W Pick: Lamb-meatball sliders @ Locanda Verde, New York, NY
Our Pick: Meatball sliders @ YOLO Restaurant & O Lounge, Fort Lauderdale 

Verde's dish features lamb meatballs simmered in tomato sauce and plunked on Parmesan and onion buns with a slice of fresh pickle and a wad of what looks like ricotta cheese, a trio of which runs $12. Fort Lauderdale nightspot, YOLO Restaurant & O Lounge, make a similar version with beef and pork meatballs slathered in herbed ricotta and graced with peppery arugula. At $4 each, they command about the same price. The little sliders are also one of the best items YOLO's kitchen makes. They took second place in the local Moonlight, Meatballs, and Martinis competition in October, behind Noodles Panini.
 

Jarret Streiner

RA's signature "RA"ckin' shimp, sweet onion salmon sashimi, RA chips and salsa, and kaisen ceviche in the center.

​By Dori Zinn

The Outback of maki rolls RA Sushi unveiled it's new menu this week. All three South Florida locations - Palm Beach Gardens, Pembroke Pines, and South Miami - will be slinging new dishes, which Charlie sampled at media dinner this Monday. The menu rollout - an annual fall occasion - brings some kinky new names, but not all of them are anything special.

New appetizers - the better part of the added items - included Sweet Onion Salmon Tapas, Ra Chips and Salsa, and Kaisen Ceviche. The sashimi tapas ($7.50) were pretty spectacular: salmon with marinated red onions and a sweet onion dressing. If I had only eaten this the entire night, I would have been perfectly happy.

John Linn

​The poor boy is the kind of sandwich you can't honor in just one meal. It's a hoagie fit for eating standing up in the street, hovering over a bar with a beer, or straight from the fridge to chase away a hangover. So, as an ode to the Po-Boy Preservation Festival, here are a few local joints where you can cozy up to one of the world's best sandwiches.

Rosey Baby Crawfish & Cajun House: A longtime local fav, the Babe makes more than a dozen poor boys, including a fried catfish po' that knocks my socks off every time. I like to exchange the standard tartar sauce for an order of the Babe's garlic-filled remoulade and also plunk some coleslaw on top. But any way you eat it, it's just right.

John Linn

The "BBQ" pork chop dinner at Green Papaya in Coral Springs.

​For a fun, casual take on Vietnamese, Green Papaya Vietnamese Cuisine in Coral Springs is a great deal. The above dinner is called a Hau Giang "barbecue pork chop," but is actually a breaded piece of pork loin that's been seared on a flat top or griddle. The cutesy plate features (clockwise from the top) a bowl of pho-style broth with scallions, salad with sweet vinegar dressing and crispy shallots, the pork chop covered in peanuts and scallion, nuoc cham (sweet dipping sauce made with fish sauce), and white rice. The whole meal cost less than $10, making it one of the cheapest ways to get your Vietnamese fix in West Broward.
 

John Linn

Dyan's pioneer breakfast features chicken-fried steak with country gravy, three eggs any way, home fries, and a bagel for $6.99.

​I've been on the lookout lately for good breakfast places for an upcoming column, but for some reason I had forgotten about Dyan's Country Kitchen, a diner-style breakfast spot in northern Coral Springs. Now the place is firmly locked in my memory as a great neighborhood joint to nab the most important meal of the day. I went there this weekend with my fiance and wanted to order something light. But I couldn't resist "the pioneer," a plate that included chicken-fried steak and three eggs for just $6.99.

Update: Dyan's will be open for dinner starting in December.  

John Linn

Swanky's tops its pulled pork sandwiches with red cabbage and green apple slaw and smoky pork shoulder that's been cooked for 30 hours.

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Now what to top them with...

​My favorite thing at Park Avenue BBQ and Grill is not barbecue at all -- it's the sweet, deep fried corn fritters ordered a la carte from the menu. Unlike hush puppies or typical corn fritters, Park Avenue's version are cakey and moist and totally absent of rough, corn meal texture.

They're served with three condiments to play with; mixing and matching each different one can lead to dramatic results. Adding honey from a squeeze bottle recalls both carnival food and something vaguely Asian. The combo of powdered sugar and maple syrup suggests French toast. Cut the maple syrup from that equation and you get something shockingly close to a beignet - the dough warm and light; the sugar turning sticky as it clings to the pastry's greasy exterior. At $3.49 for an order of six, Park Avenue's corn fritters are one of the tastiest confections around, dollar for dollar.

​The best thing I ate at my recent visit to Satoro Restaurant and Lounge in Hollywood was dessert. Which is not to say the rest of the meal I enjoyed a few days back was a disappointment -- on the contrary, the meal whipped up by chef Alexander Dziurzynski formerly of Jackson's Steakhouse was exceptional. But I was blown away by the baklava cheese cake infused with goat cheese, a dessert so perfectly constructed it ranks among the finest I've ever tasted.

First, you'll have to excuse the sad press picture to the right -- in my haste, I devoured my own dessert before I had the chance to snap a shot. I instead lifted this pic from Satoro's menu. [See the whole menu here]
 

John Linn

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C. Stiles

​ Here's what New Times wrote about Gran Forno Bakery in our 2001 Best Of Issue:

To find Gran Forno, you could look for the storefront window that displays bakers at work, or you could simply close your eyes (mind your step) and follow your nose. The smell of bread, savory with rosemary, wafts to the street. On weekends Gran Forno is crowded and clubby. Regulars gather in tennis togs to consult maps for their upcoming trip to Tuscany while the owners chime in with advice. Not surprisingly the focaccia, pastries, and biscotti are all excellent, but the best thing about this authentic, family-owned bakery is the way it continually pulls off the unexpected. At Thanksgiving, for example, Gran Forno's beautiful pumpkin pies no doubt upstage many a turkey. And this being Florida, the bakery also makes a key lime tartlet that, while generous, might still be a tad too small (and too delicious) to share.

After all these years, Gran Forno is still going strong. For a glimpse behind the scenes at the iconic bakery, check out our new slideshow.

John Linn

Miso sea bass at Latitudes: Oh, the humanity.

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Last week I checked out Ron Duprat's restaurant in the Hollywood Beach Marriott, Latitudes Beach Cafe. I high hopes for Duprat's food after catching the Haitian-born chef on this season of the Bravo series Top Chef, even if longtime critic Gail Shepherd had once ravaged the place with such a scathing review you can still hear her pounding on the keyboard as you read it. But that was years ago. Certainly the affable Duprat has come a long way since then, enough, at least, to get chosen to appear on one of the only truly real food shows on television anymore?

Sadly, no. As you can see from my capsule review in this week's paper, Latitudes is still not just bad; it's the restaurant equivalent of a David Lynch mind-fuck. Our meal was so awful, my dinner guest and I could do nothing throughout but sit there with our maws agape, just trying to decipher how someone classically trained and who obviously knows how to cook could allow this kind of garbage to pass through his kitchen.

Oh, and laugh. Laugh the pain straight away.

Truth is, though, if papa New Times not been picking up the check -- if I had been an ordinary customer drawn in by the promise of a Top Chef meal -- I would not have been laughing. I'd have been livid.

So, in the interest of those customers plunking down their hard-earned bucks, here's a recap of our experience with Latitude's four-course "Top Chef" prix fixe menu.

John Linn

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​Old-fashioned French cuisine (or "time-honored," depending on how you see these things) got its 15 minutes of fame last month with the release of Julie and Julia, probably the first time anyone under 90 has heard the words "boeuf Bourguignon" and "dinner" in the same sentence. 

Except perhaps at L'Anjou in downtown Lake Worth, where for 33 years the Cela family has been dishing the food that made Julia Child famous. Chicken Cordon Bleu, veal francaise, coquilles St. Jacques, duck a l'orange and, yes, boeuf Bourguignon are all staples of this cozy, quiet and manifestly un-hip eatery, where no one of any age has ever heard the words "DJ" and "dinner" in the same sentence. Which just goes to show that hipness is often highly overrated.

John Linn

So pretty, it could make the cover.

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C. Stiles

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Check out the full slideshow of Georgia Pig here.
 
You can see it pluming up all the way down Davie Road, and south down 441: It's smoke. Thick ribbons of smoke, reaching up and over the busy highway from the soot-stained chimney of the Georgia Pig. Even with your windows up, you can't drive through that stretch of old State Road 7 and not feel drawn in by its rich scent, the perfume of smoldering oak and slowly rendered pork. 

As far as barbecue goes, it's one of the true purveyors of the craft, far more art than simple cookery. And owners Wayne and Joann Anderson know the trade inside and out -- they've done it nearly all their lives. A Fort Lauderdale institution, the Georgia Pig has remain nearly untouched since Wayne's parents Linton and Frances Anderson opened it on February 13, 1953, more than half a century ago. And it still packs up daily with folks looking for old-fashioned, stick to your ribs food.

Nearly everything is here old-fashioned. The central open pit is stoked every day, early in the morning. The staff is quick and kind and call you "hon" when they drop your pork platters. The walls are lined with black and white photos and yellowed newspaper clippings. The Georgia Pig is a true picture of Fort Lauderdale as it once was, and in some ways, still is.

We sat down to talk with owners Wayne and Joann about the restaurant's amazing history, its legacy, and what it is that makes damn fine 'cue.

​An economy that's gone from filet mignon to meat loaf faster than you can say "greedy Wall Street bastards" has got the attention of even high-flying steak houses. 

One of them, Ruth's Chris, last night unveiled a new "bistro menu" of apps, sushi, soups, salads and sammies priced from $9 to $19, not exactly McCheapskate but a lot less than that USDA Prime porterhouse for two. The lounge of the West Palm/CityPlace RC, one of only four in the country to get this test rollout, was packed with invitees sucking down free cosmos and chardonnay, while waiters bearing bistro tidbits passed them around the room and a guy on electric piano did creditable renditions of jazz standards. 

John Linn

It even looks good cold.

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NT's own John Linn recently took one of my favorite road trips to one of my favorite towns -- the long cruise down U.S. 1 to Key West. The Southernmost City is home to a surprisingly number of seriously good restaurants -- John nailed three of them -- but the rest of the Keys... ah, that's another story.  

Most of the restaurants in the Upper and Middle Keys range from mediocre to I think I need my stomach pumped, and while they may be loaded with funky charm, when you're driving back to civilization with the remains of a crappy, tired-tasting fish sandwich or greasy platter of frozen fried shrimp rototilling your intestinal tract, funky charm isn't nearly as important as the nearest bathroom. 

But there are a few good ones, and having lived in the Upper Keys for several years and made my own recent road trip, I thought I'd do your intestinal tract a mitzvah and give you three of my favorites.

John Linn

The fish tacos at Chini's Burritos in Coral Springs are excellent.

My recent visit to El Zocalo in Margate left me with an unsated craving for some badass tacos -- I felt like Chris Farley in full Chicago Bears regalia (swap the "Polish sausage" for some "chorizo," "Ditka" with "Cutler," and the transformation would be complete). Instead of trolling my usual haunts, I decided to investigate another westerly spot: Chini's Burritos, a hole-in-the-wall in a run-down Coral Springs strip mall. 

The four-table restaurant is barely more than a lunch counter, and the menu didn't seem like much to look at either. I perused the list of "famous" burritos, filled with the usual suspects: taco plates with lettuce, tomato and cheese; quesadillas with chicken and steak' and enchilladas in salsa roja, and felt unimpressed. But the specials board on the wall next to the register listed some more interesting fare. There were chicken empanadas, tamales rajas, chicken with mole poblano, sweet bunuelos with cinnamon sugar, and pork and fish tacos Oaxacan-style. I ordered some fish tacos from the round, smiling lady behind the counter for $6.49, and three of the queso fresco- and jalapeno-stuffed tamales for $5.49. Chips and two kinds of salsa -- a spicy one made from dried red chillies and a mild, green tomatillo -- were $2.49 on the side. Sack in hand, I was good to go.

Photo by flickr user ikes.

Pizza can bring even the most debauched of nights into focus.

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It's 2 a.m., and you're out at the bar, having a good time. Maybe you're only a few drinks in; maybe you're singing Christmas carols on top of the bar. Either way, as you prepare to call it a night, you feel something primal growling deep inside your gut. Then, it hits you: an insatiable urge for the comforting, booze-soaking embrace of lipids. You must have pizza, my friend. You must have pizza forthwith.

Lucky for you, pizza is one food stuff that, even late at night, you can nab in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Say you're out at Riverfront or Himmarshee; well, there's no fewer than three options of cheesy goodness out there to choose from. Or maybe you're at the beach, making like a Girls Gone Wild subject at the Elbo Room. Well, I know a joint just down the road that could get your shirt back on in a jiffy. Now don't get me wrong: At this point, you're not exactly a discerning customer. But good eats is good eats. And among the options are two late-night pizza joints that unequivocably serve the finest greasy slice around: Squiggy's NY Pizza on Second Avenue and Primanti Brothers at Sunrise and A1A. Both are great options, but if distance is not a factor (read: you have a designated pizza driver), then read on to find out which slice you should choose.

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Last week, I took some much needed vacation time and made the three-and-a-half-hour drive down to Key West for a bit of R and R, Conch-style. And what a great trip. I hadn't been to the Keys in nearly 10 years, which is far too long an time for any self-respecting South Floridian with liver intact. But driving down that two-lane strip of US-1, past roadside shacks promising the "world's best Key lime pie" and hand-drawn signs promising whole lobsters for less than $5 a pound, it felt like the Keys hadn't changed at all in my absence. Aside from the construction entering Largo (and what a maddening experience it is to get stuck behind someone going 25 on that stretch), the drive is idyllic and untouched. You pass in and out of these small islands, and the scenery changes constantly, from the Shell Worlds and mega-hotels of Largo to the sleepy docks of Marathon and the long, isolating expanse of the Seven Mile Bridge. Through it all, that sense of Old Florida remains the sole constant -- the leathered, booze soaked vibe that seems to get hauled onto the docks alongside mountains of bountiful sea life. For someone used to heading north through the boring flatlands near the Turnpike, it was a welcome change.

Arriving in Key West, we were determined to hit up all the old stops we missed so: The Southernmost Point, a short step from our eponymous hotel down the road, which overlooked Duval's South Beach. The Hemingway House, where it's impossible not to be in awe of a man, a writer, who understood life as equal parts high adventure and simple pleasure. And the restaurants, a collection of eateries inspired by the wonders of fresh seafood, joie de vivre, and a healthy dose of oddball quirk.

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Mall fast food is a pretty goddamned dismal mouthful, but this little joint in CityPlace has gotten enough foodie buzz for Charlie to put his intestinal tract on the line and check it out. 

Italian Oven Café is the sole and way-slimmed-down survivor of the Pittsburgh-based Italian Oven chain that got up to 100-plus units in the U.S. and Australia before crashing and burning in the mid-1990s. It's a cute place with a sort of generic-moderne décor, done up in soothing earth tones with lots of comfy booths and the look and feel of a semi-upscale café.

Michy B looking dead sexy in the kitchen.

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Last weekend, perhaps Miami's best-known restaurateur, Michelle Bernstein, made the trip up north to Palm Beach and debuted her new restaurant, MB at the Omphoy. From her days at Tantra and Azul to the opening of her flagship restaurant, Michy's, in 2005, Bernstein has long captivated Miami with simple, elegant dishes that draw from her Latino background. In 2007, Bernstein was awarded the coveted James Beard Award for Best New Chef South, only a year after Michy's was crowned Food & Wine's Best New Restaurant and was listed among Gourmet's Top 50 in the country. Last year, Bernstein followed up her successes at Michy's by launching Sra. Martinez, a tapas spot in the Miami Design District that's garnered a host of great reviews.

And now, it's our turn to get a share of the stunning Latino-Jewish chef -- well, not us, specifically, but the well-to-do enclave of Palm Beach Island. Her fourth restaurant is in the brand new Omphoy Resort, a sort of miniature hotel and spa shadowed between the Four Seasons and a private resort along the beach. There hasn't been much released in the way of a menu for MB's. A few news releases sent out have said it would feature largely seafood and Mediterranean-inspired dishes, but if that's not a vague description in South Florida, I don't know what is.

A serving suggestion for our Beer of the Week, Big Bear's Witness: In June, we named Big Bear's bistro burger the best piece of ground meat between two buns in South Florida. Why? Well, you can read about it here, but essentially, it's a perfect combination of great ingredients and quality meat, cooked properly. I'll leave you with these pictures as evidence. Burger fans, you owe it to yourself to try one.

Hit the page jump for the pics.

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I took a trip to the beach last night and sank into some Pho at Basilic, a Vietnamese restaurant that took over Tedesco's old spot on Commercial Blvd. The tiny bistro serves a mean bowl of the stuff, fragrant with anise and ginger and loaded with strips of thinly sliced steak that cooks inside of the steaming bowl. On the side was the traditional salvo of accoutrements: a frock of peppery basil, some crisp bean sprouts, slivers of jalapeno, a wedge of lime, and a dish filled with hoisin and sriracha. The broth was heady and fairly beefy, with grassy notes of scallion and onion mixing with the starch of the rice noodles. I stirred in a little bit of hoisin and a big scoop of sriracha, then squirted some lime and added the vegetables and herbs. It was some fantastic, head clearing pho, and everyone at the table who had some was emitting sniffling noises as their sinuses were vacated.

John Linn

Get used to lifting fork to mouth at the Dutch Pot.

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Long before Chipotle and Moes began hawking burritos in South Florida, hometown favorite East Coast Burrito Factory was constructing gargantuan, one-pound burritos and unleashing them like mini Godzillas on the public. The burritos say East Coast, but the style is distinctly San Franciscan with a Florida twist -- Frisco burros are known for their bulging mass, their baby-like size, and their mess of everything-but-the-sink fillings. East Coast ups the ante by turning their burritos into Floritos, huge flour tortillas that incorporate Caribbean and Cuban elements like black beans and rice, fresh seafood, and jerk sauce. Although jerk sauce on a burrito may sound like a foolhardy proposition, this place pulls it off. That plus a chipotle barbecue burrito, as seen above, that's perhaps the best bit of tubular love flung out in South Florida.
  

John Linn

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Marumi Sushi's tofu steak is made of pure win -- it's a thin brick of tofu that's been lightly floured and pan-fried, then topped with about a pound of mushrooms, onions, and silky sake butter sauce. The mushrooms are amazing. There are about seven kinds on top, including regular buttons, enoki, shiitake, oyster, and cremini. Lightly sauteed, the fungi are tender and the onions are crisp. And the sauce -- oh the sauce -- is slightly sweet, floral with sake, and thickened with butter. It pretty much demands swiping your finger through. For a simple piece of tofu, it's one of my favorite things on the menu. And it's only $7.50.

I decided I would try my hand at re-creating this awesome tofu steak at home. I had to make some concessions right away, however, as I only got my hands on shiitakes and creminis (I didn't like the look of the oyster and enoki mushrooms I found near my house). But the result was damned close. Here's what I came up with.

John Linn

Jerk chicken at Kelsie's Place is exceedingly tender and only slightly spicy.

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The drag along Sunrise Boulevard east of I-95 is really in a bad way these days. Almost everything is out of business or vacant, except a few automotive-related businesses and a handful of chain restaurants. It's also a rough area inhabited by many homeless. So it's inspiring to see people still trying to run local businesses there, like Kelsie's Place, a new soul food restaurant by way of Jamaica just three blocks east of I-95. Kelsie's is one of two open restaurants along that area of Sunrise all the way up to Andrews Ave. that are not fast food chains. And its take on typical Jamaican specialties like jerk chicken, curry chicken, oxtail stew, and rice and peas is worth checking out.

Last week I ordered a couple  of $4.29 lunch specials from the clean, bright white shop. The restaurant looks like a very typical lunch counter inside, with a rather Spartan decor and a small scattering of tables off to the left of the counter. A warming case next to the register contains most of the goods. I had ordered in advance, but the cheerful woman behind the counter held off on assembling my plastic to-go containers of jerk and curry chicken until I got there. (We also ordered hot chicken wings, which were done when I arrived.) I got a choice of white rice or rice and peas -- I got the latter, natch -- and since I ordered the sauceless jerk chicken, she let me choose from any sauce I wanted to top the starch with. She ladled a few thick spoonfuls of dark, rich oxtail gravy over my rice. The tab was less than $20 (and most of that was the wings). I grabbed my collection of bags and took everything to go.