Broward Palm Beach Food Blog

​If you've ever wondered why restaurant workers sometimes want to gouge their own eyes out or shave off all their body hair and stow away on a tramp steamer bound for Guatamala, New York restaurateur Bruce Buschel's pair of blog posts that ran recently in the New York Times (part one is here, part two is here) should give you a pretty good idea. 

Titled "One Hundred Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do," it's a seven-page list of no-nos, better nots, and damned well ought-tos, some of them common sense ("Do not make a singleton feel bad," "Do not bring soup without a spoon"), some of them arbitrary and unrealistic ("Saying, 'no problem' is a problem," "If someone likes a wine, steam the label off the bottle and give it to the guest with the bill").  

However sensible or ridiculous Buschel's rules, though, the overall effect is more anal than a boxful of butt plugs and in general gives the idea that waiting tables is like indentured servitude without the benefits of contracts, a free place to stay, and bonking The Mister's frustrated wife while he's away on "business." 

Having formerly worked both front and back of the house as a waiter and line cook at various California restaurants, I really feel for anyone unlucky or desperate enough to take a job at Buschel's restaurant. So I thought I'd draw up a modest list of rules for customers. Not 100; trying to think of a hundred anything makes my hair hurt. But a few rules that diners might follow to help get the kind of service they desire; also to keep your waiter or waitress from hacking up a big loogie in your caesar salad.  

"You wouldn't gather to see me offed, would you?"

​One of the arguments for vegetarianism often comes in the form of a challenge. It goes something like, "If you are able to slaughter an animal yourself, you can feel justified being a meat eater." Little did vegetarians know that carnivores across America would take that challenge so seriously.

One of the newest and most shockingly real trends in the food world is live slaughter, an event where groups of meat-eating bipeds get together to witness the killing and subsequent butchering of an animal in real time. Hosted by trained butchers and cooking schools and held in fields or kitchens, these slaughters endeavor to bring meat eaters a bit closer to the process that puts food on their table.
   

ieatishootipost.sg

​If Palm Beach is known for anything its as an enclave for the rich and powerful, a place where the Rush Limbaughs of the world can duck into their mansions like shells on a crab's back. But halfway across the world, Palm Beach is known as the birthplace of one of Singapore's most unique dishes, chilli crab.

I've never eaten a chilli crab, but based on the reports from Singapore-based blog ieatishootipost.sg, it's a dish I'm dying to try. It's made from hard-back mud crabs that are stewed in a spicy tomato sauce that sometimes has sambal, egg, and crab roe as well. It looks exceptionally delicious, if a little difficult to eat. (It's also given me the idea to ask a Singaporan how to eat Bamboo Fire Cafe's curry crab and stay clean.)

The Singapore Palm Beach is actually a restaurant that started as a shack on the Kallang River in 1956 by Cher Yam Tian and her husband Lim Choon Ngee. The couple named the place "Palm Beach Seafood" for the for the coconut palms that lined the beach nearby.

From YOLO's Facebook page

The tasty-yet-crazy-messy meatballs on YOLO's sliders took second.

​A few days have passed since YOLO's Moonlight, Meatballs, and Martinis event last Thursday, and I'm still blown away by the judging results. It wasn't who won -- Noodles Panini took first, followed by YOLO at second, and Mancini's at third.

But what I couldn't believe: Johnny V's didn't even place.

I say this knowing that we panned Johnny V's most recent opening, Smith & Jones. Still, those meatballs were fantastic. They were made from duck meat and then fried to create a nice crust, then laid on portobella mash, with a berry reduction over the top.

A source at YOLO says the panel of judges didn't appreciate the richness of duck meatballs. And no doubt the combination isn't a crowd pleaser like the red sauce-topped meatballs at every other stand. But I'm not alone in wondering how they didn't finish and in wondering why Johnny Vinczencz doesn't put these things on his menu.

​In one of the most-talked-about moves in food journalism since... well, as long as I can remember, Frank Bruni hung up his silverware at the New York Times in August, leaving a gaping chasm for his successor, the Times' own Sam Sifton, to wedge into. Sifton's very first column -- on Daniel Boulud's punky sausage shop DBGB -- dropped today. So far, so good.

Far be it from me to critique the writing of a vet like Sifton, but I did enjoy his first offering, even if it seemed to hover over Boulud's backside with a pair of smacking lips. Then again, if the food's that good, Charlie would be the first to pucker up alongside him.

What did you think of Sifton's column? Did it make you pine for the days of Bruni, or is it resounding proof that the Era of Sam is in full effect?

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Who you calling a cupcake, cupcake?

​Tomorrow night's Think Pink Rocks concert at the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater in Mizner Park should be full of cupcakes screaming groupie-style at hip-hop artists AKON and Shontelle. But one cupcake in particular will tower over all the rest: the 1500-pound pink-iced creation that will vie for the title of "World's Largest Cupcake." The outsized confection is a tag-team endeavor by Boca Raton's Passion For Pastry and Big Top Cupcake, an as-seen-on-TV cupcake kit that's now selling for the low, low, LOW price of $19.95 (plus your first born as shipping and handling, of course). Once completed, the cake will stand at four-and-a-half feet high and six-feet-wide. The people from the Guinness Book of World Records will be there to officially hand out the title, and word out of Gainesville is the University of Florida football team is planning on suiting up and "whooping that cupcake's ass in front of the home crowd." Get it? It's a cupcake! Like a cupcake school...uhh... oh, never mind.

Grimace was once evil? No way!

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BY THE BURGER BEAST

Does anyone even know who the McDonaldland and The Burger King Kingdom characters are anymore?

​I can't remember a time when I didn't know who Ronald McDonald or the Burger King were. Sure, the friendly Burger King of the past was nothing like today's creepy King (that guy freaks me out). And Ronald's clownish mug used to be all over the place when I was growing up. But the other characters seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

I was in Downtown Disney not too long and I saw a 10-year-old boy ask his parents who that giant purple creature outside the McDonald's was. What? That's Grimace little dude. Grimace!

Hats off to you, Ron.

​There's no sugar-coating it, folks: This was the episode of Top Chef Las Vegas where Ron cooked his last. After six challenges, a few of which he ended up in the bottom three, Ron was eliminated for his "deconstruction" of paella by a panel of judges that included none other than Michelle Bernstein. We're going to miss Ron on the show, his big, goofy smile and lighthearted nature. But by this episode, it became clear that Ron's simple, seafood-centric cooking style was not making it with the judges. So how did it all go down?

Episode 6:

This one starts off with the chefs talking about Mateen, another contestant they feel was too talented to leave so early. In a show of solidarity, they decide to each wear one of the French chef's signature red bandannas around their necks. Just when you think the move shows loyalty and friendship, a bunch of chefs, led by Mike and Laureen, start laying into Robin, saying she basically sucks and should've gone home instead.
 

​Welcome back to the Ron Duprat recap, where we talk about what happened to Broward's own Haitian chef on the last episode of Top Chef. So far, Ron's survived four elimination and four quickfire challenges. But he's currently hugging the bottom rung of contenders. He's never been in real danger of leaving the show, but he's certainly not doing great. So how did episode five fare for Ron? Read on.

Episode five:

The show starts out with a lot of the chefs feeling uneasy about their positions, especially with a quality chef like Hector going home in the last round. But the quickfire is here fast. The chefs enter the kitchen and find Tim Love inside, chef and owner of the horribly named Lonesome Dove Western Bistro (gah, it hurts my ears!) and guest judge this week. Tim may have horrible taste in nomenclature, but he has great taste when it comes to cacti -- the spiky plant was chosen by fans as this week's secret ingredient.

As might be expected, most of the chefs have no fricken clue how to work with cactus. You see them spooning purees of the stuff around and it looks like snot-ridden baby food. Ron chimes in on his own ineptitude with the plant: "In Haiti cactus is so poisonous, we stay the heck away from them. So I've never cooked cactus before," he says. "I'm using it in a sauce. Can I pull an upset? I dunno." Here's a hint, Ron. If the only way you're using the main ingredient is in a sauce, then no, you have no chance.

​Welcome once again to the Ron Duprat Top Chef Las Vegas recap. If you'd like to catch up, read the first, second, and third recaps while we wait here. Back? Great! Here's what the fourth episode had in store for Hollywood's favorite cooking show reality contestant.

This week's episode was clearly one aimed at the hardcore foodie segment of the viewing audience. It was light on the inner kitchen drama, but heavy on world famous chefs and exotic foods. The episode began in Daniel Boulud's (who evidently needed no introduction as the contestant's collective jaws dropped open upon his introduction) Las Vegas restaurant Daniel Boulud Brasserie. The quickfire challenge of the week involved figuring out the best way to cook snails. The stakes were raised considerably when the contestants were told the loser of the quickfire challenge would not only suffer humiliation before a famous chef, they'd have to pack their knives and go home.

John Linn

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​Welcome back to the Ron Duprat Top Chef Las Vegas recap, folks. To take a peek back at episodes one and two, click the links. Otherwise, read on to find out what episode three had in store for our Haitian homeboy.

Episode three:

The show starts off with the cast commiserating on what's gone down so far, mainly their last challenge. The girls are still pissed off about the whole battle of the sexes thing, especially Jennifer. There's a lot of anger brewing, and that seems to be the general theme of this episode. But the show doesn't linger there in "slowly exhale and count to 10 land" for long; it's on to the quickfire challenge.

Out comes chef Mark Peel of Campanile in California. A former student of Wolfgang Puck, Peel isn't just a catchy name -- he claims to have spent his tutelage peeling vegetables for the big man. And so the top chefs realize that they must take a mountain of potatoes, complete with several dozen varieties, and turn them into something memorable.

​Two weeks ago, former Atlanta Falcon's superstar Michael Vick appeared on 60 Minutes to give his first interview after his release from jail. For those of you living under rocks and sustaining yourselves on grubs and nightcrawlers, Vick was charged in December 2007 with running an illegal dogfighting operation out of a Virginia property where, in addition to staging bloody fights between dogs, he and his cohorts killed dogs through electrocution, shooting, drowning, and hanging. During the interview, Michael Vick told interviewer James Brown that what he did was wrong -- that he's indescribably sorry for the pain he caused through the mistreatment of animals, and is doing everything he can to amend for it, even partnering with the Humane Society.

What Vick did was disgusting, there's no doubt about it. Cruelty toward animals should not be tolerated at all in our society. Which is why, after the interview was over, I felt ashamed that here we were, making an example out of this football star, when the much more grave injustices toward animals that occur every day are not even being talked about. Hundreds of thousands more animals suffer at factory farms, where they spend their meager existences in constant pain. We pump our farmed animals full of antibiotics so they can survive the squalor of their wretched living conditions. And then we kill them, in many of the same ways that Vick killed his dogs, and process their bodies to ship into our grocery stores at low, low prices.

Yet, because Vick killed some dogs (again, a serious offense), everyone is in an uproar. The Humane Society, with the help of Vick, is spending an inordinate amount of resources to combat dogfighting in America. A noble cause, no doubt, but wouldn't their resources be better-served fighting for stronger legislation against animal cruelty in our food system?

Well, ESPN columnist Gregg Easterbrook agrees. He had this to say about Vick and his predicament in his weekly Tuesday Morning Quarterback column:

John Linn

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Duprat with Gail Simmons and some dude at the SoBe Wine & Food Festival.

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OK, after our encore Ron Duprat recap of Top Chef Las Vegas episode one, it's time to move on to episode two. Maybe we'll see some more of Ron's jolly ways this time around? I'll settle for some more of him cooking. Now on with the show.

​Episode two of the new Top Chef Las Vegas premiered last night, which means we've seen Hollywood Beach Marriott Executive Chef Ron Duprat twice now on the program. Each week, we're going to recap what happened to the Haitian native Duprat on the show -- and maybe point out some funny stuff too. I'll try not to focus too much on the non-Ron stuff, but so far the action has been a little removed from him. And, of course, we're going to root for our hometown boy, despite our last review of his restaurant. Also, this week, since I missed the first episode, I'm going to cover both. Now on with the show. 

John Linn

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Pop a cap in that yolk.

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You  have to take message board user comments with a grain of salt - who knows what motivates people to say the things they do on the Internet. Often, absurd comments are a result of a mixture of anonymity and audience, a variation on the time-tested Greater Internet Dickwad Theory. Other times, comments are born of fact.

If only there was a way to actively separate the two, maybe there would be a couple fewer people with bullet holes in them this morning. Around 2 a.m. this morning, an argument erupted outside of Bamboozles Bar and Grill in Coral Springs resulting in two people being shot. The cause of the argument is unknown, but both people are reportedly in stable condition.

But that's only the half of it. Bamboozles is a fairly new establishment that occupies the same space that previously housed family bar J.J. Muggs. The user board attached to its website sports a number of anonymous comments decrying the restaurant's food, service, and cleanliness. But one comment posted on July 25, 2009 complained of frequent gunshots outside the bar. Says user Anonymous:

The palce (sic) is a complete JOKE!!! Check out the Bathrooms !!! PUBLIC RESTROOMS ARE CLEANER!!! VERY DARK GLOOMY,FILTHY DIRTY, AND GANGSTER LOUD!!! REPORTS CLAIM GUNSHOTS HAVE BEEN FIRED SEVERAL TIMES OUTSIDE THE PLACE!! THEY HAVE NO CLUE ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT BAMBOOZLEING YOU!!!! BE CAREFULL (sic) !! BRING SANITIZER!!

Coral Springs Public Information Officer Sergeant Joe McHugh confirmed that the department had received a complaint approximately "a month, a month-and-a-half ago" of gunshots fired outside the establishment. When police arrived, however, there were no witnesses at the scene and those still at the bar denied seeing or hearing anything. No charges were filed.

Moral: sometimes it pays to listen to user comments. I, for example, will be avoiding those bathrooms from now on. Oh, and staying the hell away. That too.  

You don't really want to be this Guy, do you?

​I opened up my copy of this month's Food & Wine this weekend and balked at what I saw in editor Dana Cowin's opening letter. It appears the magazine is getting in on the reality craze. They're holding a contest called America's Home Cook Superstar; I think you can guess the premise. Essentially, they are accepting submissions via their website to find the best home cook in the country, who they'll name in March 2010. The reasoning? "This is the year of the home cook," says Cowin. "The lessons from TV chefs, the better-than-ever availability of incredible (often local) ingredients, the thrill of amazing restaurant meals -- plus the rotten economy -- have converged to inspire talented amateurs to raise their ambitions and try new flavors and techniques in the kitchen."

I agree with Cowin on most of those counts. I think people are cooking more at home and using better ingredients with an onus on local goods. Home chefs have also realized, through television shows and magazines like Food & Wine, that cooking restaurant caliber meals is actually easy, cheaper, and more rewarding than simply dining out. But I'm really against the idea of crowning an individual as America's Best Home Cook. I think it flies in the face of what home cooking is meant to be.

​In case you missed the gallons of ink spilled over the opening of the Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. in Delray Beach by the Sun Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post (where it was 1A news), allow us to get you up to date: a bagel shop in Delray Beach opened on Monday. They make their bagels with water passed through a high-tech filtration system which, supposedly, makes it identical to Brooklyn tap water. Because of this, OBWBC claims it makes the most authentic New York bagels outside of Flatbush. You know this because the owner is from New York, and New Yorkers are the penultimate authority on baked goods like bagels and pizza.

OK, count me among the many who think this clever marketing scheme is a crock of whipped, spreadable you-know-what. I'm not saying the Bagel shop's water, once filtered, isn't different from Florida tap water. But really, enough with the New York obsessions. If the hundreds (thousands?) of delis around the Big Apple were somehow impervious to making a bad bagel just because of the water they used, then New York tap would tradeable on the commodities market (say, not a bad idea). But I submit there are far too many other factors involved to boil success down to a difference in the tap: the oven, the temperature, the recipe, the relative humidity, the waxing of the moon, etc. Maybe OBWBC just makes great bagels and it has nothing to do with the water? Or, maybe the make bad ones? Maybe --gasp-- New York is not the center of the culinary universe? Crazy talk!

Of course, the place is already looking to franchise the concept. I can see it now: Brooklyn bagels, coming soon to Topeka, Spokane, and Boise.

Now everyone rush out and get some bagels.

Update: Local blogger Jeff Eats gives his take on the shop. "Now for the results...the bagels were very good-were they the best that I have had down here in South Florida? No!..but they were very good." Trust him: this guy eats a lot of bagels.

​Ethical guidelines amongst restaurant critics has become a hot button topic these days, with outings of high-profile critics who show up to restaurants expecting preferential treatment tumbling down like so many business cards flung at a maître d'. Last week's announcement of long-time New York Times writer Sam Sifton being named the new Frank Bruni raised the question again, but from a different angle: could Sifton, whose picture and profile has flooded the Internet since the announcement, remain anonymous in what is essentially the highest profile critic gig in the country?

Seattle Times food writer Nancy Leson attempted to answer the question earlier this week on her blog with yet another question: in an age where everyone is a critic, capable of posting reviews to aggregate websites and blogs alike, is anonymity even important anymore? I mean,  a restaurant could always assume that there's someone in the house at any given time who may be writing something about their experience. So why is it important if it knows for a fact that someone is?

Yesterday, Seattle Weekly restaurant critic Jonathan Kauffman responded on his blog, stating matter of factly that he will always endeavor to dine anonymous, no matter the popular climate. I, for one, agree with him.

​You may have thought cooking was just a way to get something to eat.  

Actually, it's why homo sapiens developed bodies strong enough to bench-press a dump truck and brains that could create incomprehensible "financial instruments" to sell to widows and orphans and crash the world economy like a drunken NASCAR driver. Oh, and you raw-food types? If our ancestors paid any attention to you, we'd be a bunch of 98-pound weaklings with the energy of a tree sloth and the cognitive powers of a toadstool. 

That, at least, is the theory of Dr. Richard Wrangham, set forth in his new book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Wrangham is no slouch; he's a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology. He got his start studying chimps with Jane Goodall. In a recent interview in the online magazine Salon, he made two intriguing points.

Mark Menjivar

Looks like a party in the making.

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​The world of wine speaks a language all its own.

Urdu, mostly. With a soupcon of bullshit and a faint whiff of pretension. 

So in keeping with Clean Plate Charlie's commitment to calling a spade a goddamned shovel, he presents this modest glossary of wine terms for your amusement, edification, and eventual disposal. Cheers! 

Bouquet, n. Aroma; alternately, stench
Cork, n. An enclosure that ruins almost as much wine as it protects
Corkage, n. The process by which a restaurant inflates the price of a bottle of wine it does

100 years of high drama and hangover remedies: Vi(V)a Testa!

​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 with fake IDs to get pleasantly high in safe surroundings. Now, we hear, after almost 100 years of business, Testa's, which opened in 1921, is in trouble: According to yesterday's article in the South Florida Business Journal, the Testa family is in default on a $2 millon second mortgage from Olympia Palm Beach - ratcheting up the bill, with accrued interest, to a cool $3.1 million. Olympia filed a foreclosure action against the Testa's Inc. on July 13. The Testa family took the mortgage to redevelop the property, but apparently city approval stalled.

The restaurant has been around long enough now to have generated a good deal of drama. But unlike many other Palm Beach boites, it's always had the feel of a down-home diner - maybe because of the ageless waitresses who've worked there forever, maybe because the Testa family, who control one of the town's prime pieces of real estate, couldn't care less about putting on airs. It's been my go-to spot for a hangover remedy for many years -- I can sit at the bar with my back to the room, nose buried in the Sunday Times, and there's nothing to come between me and my Bloody Mary save the odd celery stalk (Testa's starts serving liquor at 7 a.m. every day of the week).

Testa's bartenders have adjucated spousal feuds -- when my significant other and I almost came to blows there over the precise interpretation of a documentary about child molesters, the guy at the bar smoothed things over with a joke and a round of drinks on the house. Many years ago I had a boyfriend who drove his Bentley up the sidewalk in front of Testa's, scattering snowbirds picking at their late night pancakes on the front patio like a flock of disturbed pigeons.

And even in the midst of foreclosure, they make a hell of a she-crab soup.

Oyster beds in Cape Cod.

There's a certain kind of man who never fails to impress me, a guy who does things (apart from the obvious) that I could never do. Vacationing in Cape Cod last week, I met one of them: the contractor who was renovating the upstairs loft in my sister's new house in Chatham. After a full day of putting up sheetrock, this 60-something specimen showed up for dinner freshly showered in a nicely ironed pair of jeans and a black shirt, lugging a cooler full of oysters and clams that he had RAISED in his OWN BEDS, and proceeded to shuck them and serve half raw with a squeeze of lemon and the other half briefly broiled in the toaster oven with a crisp bacon topping.

*Sigh*?!?

Coincidentally, a tome called The Stag Cook Book fell into my hands recently, a charming, testosterone-fueled bible penned in 1922 "For Men by Men." [You can download the PDF here, and I highly recommend it]. Wives will have to swallow both their distaste for silly rhymes and their feminist ire at the opening ditty:

At range and at oven (whisper it) still,
Man is undoubtedly Master;
His cooking is done with an air and a skill,
He's sure as a woman -- and faster!

Well, messier, anyway, right, ladies? But it's hard to stay mad at the sweet lugs (the contributors include Houdini -- deviled eggs; Charlie Chaplin -- steak and kidney pie; Rube Goldberg -- hash; and Douglas Fairbanks -- bread tart) when they've gone to such trouble to write down their homespun recipes for chowders and welsh rabbit and baked beans and -- yes -- cornflakes.

In honor of the good men of Cape Cod, hit the jump for a very simple stag codfish recipe.

As the axiom goes, if there's a way to a man's heart, it's through food. If that man happens to be your father, chances are that pathway is paved with gold foil-wrapped chocolate bricks and snakes in and out of a lush wood, where streams of beer whisper promises and the animals are already done medium-rare. And since Sunday is the holiest of days in which to pay tribute to your epicurean pop, Father's Day, why not get him a present that recognizes his truest passions? Well, Clean Plate Charlie has a few ideas for you so you can save your thinking power for developing a Sunday-night menu that'll leave him sated for the next year.

Maynard sporting a Merkin.

"What if he doesn't show? Are there enough fans for a riot?" asks a 20-something guy waiting in line at a Boca Whole Foods for Tool frontman turned winemaker Maynard James Keenan. He's in town on a promotional tour, signing bottles from his winery, Caduceus Cellars, and vineyard Merkin Vineyards. It's 1 p.m., and a line of about 40 fans snakes around the outdoor herb and pottery section directly in front of the store.

"It's too hot for a riot," responds David Chase, a 31-year-old who's smartly clad in a neutral off-white shirt and shorts. Without a cloud in the sky, the sun beats down on those in all-black, and makeup drips off in that unfortunate Crow/Joker kind of way. Although it's June, the "event requirements" say no "long coats." Who the hell would wear a trench coat in Florida in June?

Valrhona chocolate bread pudding from seductionmeals.com

I just ran across a whole website devoted to great meals to seduce somebody with, seductionmeals.com. And whaddaya know, there's a recipe for oyster po' boy sliders right on the first page (po' boys are also known as "the peacemaker," a factoid I'd never heard before. But makes sense, right? Who could carry on a heated argument with their mouth full?) Hilariously, I think, the recipe at seductionmeals makes 50 po'boy sliders as party food; I guess they have an orgy in mind here and they plan to invite LOTS of participants.

So that got me thinking about the meals I make, or fantasize about making, when I'm in the mood for love. I have in mind at the moment a free-form onion tart appetizer (sweet, savory, handmade, and baked, thus filling house with delicious aromas) and a leg of lamb (meat is the eternal aphrodisiac, but this has lots of finesse), ripped from the pages of Food & Wine a couple of months ago. I always do a green salad full of witchy herbs -- flowers and fennel, tarragon and clover, strange tastes my target can't quite identify exactly but which are guaranteed to interest, amuse, and inspire. And in the same mode, chocolate cookies made with black pepper for dessert. These are a secret weapon, because you take a bite, taste the rich dark chocolate, and then the black pepper rushes up from below about 10 seconds later. It's the weirdest sensation, and I haven't yet met the man or woman who wasn't completely enchanted by it.

So what's in your arsenal? Got a go-to meal or a recipe that never fails to move the heart of your beloved? I'd love to hear 'em.

**Note: I just noticed that we'd also listed CooktoBang.com in last week's blog watch, another site for the amorously inclined chef.