Broward Palm Beach Food Blog

Photo by Flickr user Matthew Armstrong

​A little park in Wilton Manors is hosting a feast fit for a king -- maybe several or dozens of kings. For the fourth-annual "Taste of the Island" evening, 48 restaurants and drinking establishments are setting up stalls and offering samples of their food and beverages at the Richardson Historic Park and Nature Preserve (1937 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors).

Rosie's and Georgie's Alibi are taking part along with the Naked Grape Wine Bar, Bravo Gourmet Sandwiches, Cookies by Design, Gold Coast Coffee, and too many more to list. Bacardi will be there making mojitos. Once you've paid your admission of $35 at the door (or $30 in advance), there's no limit to how much you can scarf down and guzzle.

When ancient Rome threw decadent banquets on this scale, Roman philosopher Seneca explained the procedure: "One [slave] wipes up the spittle; another, situated beneath [the table], collects the leavings of the drunks." Caesar was reportedly fond of ritually vomiting after an ample dinner.

At the park, don't let it come to that. The feast is from 6 to 9 p.m. November 2. Call 954-565-1445, or click here.

​As a philosophy, "Love often, laugh a lot" is not half-bad, certainly better than Jon Gosselin's "Loser often a little shit" or David Carradine's "Lonely onanist loves a knot." As a name for a restaurant it's not bad either; nobody gets into the business unless they love it, and if you don't have a sense of humor you'll go around snarling at puppies and flowers like Dick Cheney. 

There's no snarling at puppies and flowers at Wendy Rosano's LOLA, her sleek new restaurant and ultra lounge in Delray, just a few steps away from her hearty Italian Cucina Mio. Inside, the LOLA is all about light and color--ever-changing LED lights and bright, vibrant colors. The lounge features flashing LED lights on a wall and the ceiling, plus live entertainment four nights a week and a roster of modern "mixology" cocktails. The restaurant seats 130 and opens onto an outdoor patio and bar.

​Can the folks behind Rocco's Tacos do for seafood and rum what Rocco's did for tacos and tequila? We're about to find out with the debut of Reef Rd Rum Bar, which opened right across Clematis Street from the wildly popular nouveau taqueria.  

Local moguls Big Time Restaurant Group, Rocco Mangel and nitespot hotshot Cleve Mash are all partners in the deal, taking over the old Clematis Social and turning it into a moderately priced seafood shack with a laid-back Key West-y vibe. It doesn't look a whole lot different than it did as Social. . . some different fabrics on the banquettes, bamboo screening behind the bar and on the ceiling, rough-cut wood paneling along one wall, columns concealed with tiki statues is about it. 

The menus aren't reinventing the culinary wheel either.
 

​•    In our all Todd English, all the time news format, word comes that the Boston top toque's latest foray into South Florida, originally said to be Figs and set to take over the CityPlace spot once held by Italian Oven Café, will now be called Wild Olives and is slated to debut in mid-November. In other developments, the celeb chef is reported to have accused his ex-fiancé of assaulting him with her watch, blackening his eye and leaving him (literally) in stitches. You gotta hand it to the guy, though, he takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

•    Just in time for the holidays, the Scrooges at Boca's oh-so-tony Mizner Park have decided to end free valet parking for its Mercedes-Porsche-Bentley-driving clientele. The reason, supposedly, is the Mizner misers can't afford the cost of stashing an estimated 100,000 vehicles this year while their drivers troll the mall. There will still be valet parking, except as of Nov. 1 it will cost all of $6, which probably means those parkers can kiss their tips goodbye. And you can still park for free in the mall's garages, though it means admitting you're not important enough to have someone open your car door for you.

•   You'd think people who steal shit from restaurants would make off with food, right? Not in Palm Beach County, apparently. A few weeks back some perp made off with not one, but two, statues of the Buddha from a Boca Raton eatery. Now some brain surgeon just got popped for ripping off (alright, allegedly ripping off) two parrots and a cockatoo worth some $15,000(!) from a Mexican restaurant in West Palm. William Forbes (that would be the brain surgeon. . . alleged brain surgeon) was charged with dealing in stolen property when the guy he--I know--allegedly offered to sell them to for a piddly $500 turned him in to the fuzz. At least if he swiped some chicken fajitas he'd have gotten a full stomach out of the deal.

Photo by Bill Citara

​

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

Take one Bean, many boatloads of succulent Maine lobster, and a smart-looking little eatery on Delray Beach's Restaurant Row and you've got Linda Bean's Perfect Maine Lobster Roll, which made its Atlantic Avenue debut a few days back after months of bloggy anticipation.

This first outlet in South Florida will be one of a reported hundred to be rolled out

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.

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

Photo by Flickr user Mia Elliott

​Organic. It's not just for vegetables anymore. It's for wine too, and put both of them together and they're greener than a boatload of Priuses stuffed with free-range tofu.

Which is exactly what Christine Najac and Marci Boland are doing with a tasting of organic wines paired to dishes using organic produce from Ma-rando Farms of Fort Lauderdale. Najac, sommelier and owner of Really Good Cookies of Boca Raton, and Boland,

​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?

Courtesy of WPB Greenmarket.

​

If you've been making do with brown lettuce and rock-hard tomatoes from your local giant-mega-supermarket and counting the days until you could buy produce with real flavor from the people who actually grow it, you have only a few more days to check off.  Most Palm Beach County greenmarkets will reopen for the season by the end of October, so there's no excuse to be dining on potato chips and Lean Cuisine because you don't want to waste precious dollars on sad-looking, over-priced crap. 

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

The second annual Rocktoberfest is a day-long celebration of the twin pillars of American civilization - as in, beer and rock 'n' roll.

It takes place Friday, October 16, from 5:30 to 11 p.m. at the Las Olas Riverfront. More than two dozen breweries will pour suds, along with nibbles from local eateries including America's Backyard and Riverfront Pizza.

The Pretty Faces, Hep Cat Boo Daddies, Stonefox and others will provide the 

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

Photo by Flickr user eastbayjay

​You've probably heard about all hot stuff going on along Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. Linda Bean's (as in L.L.) Perfect Maine Lobster Roll just opened (check back for a First Look next week). David Manero's The Of-fice (in the old Louie Louie Too space) is under major construction, and the long-shuttered Shore just around the corner is slated to become a fish 'n' burgers joint called Surf Sliders.

But one spot that has been getting local foodies hot is a couple blocks north of the town's restaurant row. It's Bamboo Fire Café on northeast 4th Avenue, and the res-taurant has a laid-back, funky charm that's matched by the sweet good humor of its husband-and-wife owners and its riotously flavorful home-style Caribbean fare.

Beverly and Donald Jacobs run Bamboo Fire as "labor of love," she says, which it 

Tired of Chipotle stains? Order Chipotlaway, today!

​•    If Clematis Street weren't smokin' already, it will be by year's end with the debut of Off the Hookah, the second SoFla location for the Fort Lauderdale-based company. We're not talking subtle here. Look for waterfalls, belly dancers and "flair" bartenders to go along with a Middle Eastern-Mediterranean menu and roster of fruit-flavored herbs for smoking, all part of at $1.5 million redo of the old Gallerie space. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

•    The restaurant-eating site at 1198 N. Dixie Hwy. in Boca Raton is getting another meal. This one is Park Avenue BBQ, which hopes to open next month in the space that ate Tom's Place, then Bucky's BBQ, then D. Wade's Place. The Boca eatery will be the 10th in SoFla and will feature all the usual barbecue suspects, as well as fried chicken and catfish and a handful of seafood and steak dishes. 

•    And for a classic "man bites dog" story (or perhaps more appropriately, "corporation doesn't screw workers"), the Chipotle restaurant chain has reached an agreement with East Coast Growers and Packers, one of the top tomato growers in Florida, to increase the wages of tomato pickers. The Coalition for Immokalee Workers has long been pressuring companies to up workers' pay; the agreement boosts the per pound rate by a penny. It doesn't seem like much but it amounts to a 64-percent increase per 32-pound bucket. Actually, it still isn't much, but when you don't have hardly anything, anything more is better than nothing.

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

​If food is the new pornography, oysters are the new Viagra. So if you're lusting for the sweet-salty caress of a cool, slippery bivalve sliding down your throat or are burning with desire for the pale, golden skin and creamy-dreamy flesh of a crisp-fried love nugget, get in on Legal Sea Food's Oyster Festival before it expires October 17.

All day every day until then, the Boca Raton restaurant dishes up special baked oysters, fried oysters, pickled oysters, plus a half-dozen different specimens on the half-shell at prices ranging from $9.95 to $13.95.

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

Ronnie Brown: a new kind of Dolphin at Bova.

​Why are this year's Dolphins more chum than shark? Is the season dead in the water? Will the Tuna change the team mascot to a flounder? Ask the Dolphins' own Ronnie Brown snotty questions like these at his weekly radio show at Bova Prime.

Every Monday from 7 to 8 p.m., through football season, the swank Las Olas meatery hosts the Ronnie Brown Show on WQAM-AM (560) from its second-floor dining room, which means even if you royally piss him off, he probably can't get downstairs in time to spike your head like a pigskin.

Get there for Bova's happy hour (3:30 to 7:30 p.m.) and you can work up your courage by sucking down buy-one, get-one-free drinks and half-priced apps, or take advantage of the restaurant's $35, three-course prix fixe dinner from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

If dolphin is on the menu, though, think twice about ordering it. Really, the guy's probably had a crappy weekend and doesn't need you adding to it.

Jackie Sayet

Where's the boeuf? Gordon Biersch's new "German Kobe Burger" is one tasty number, but it's neither from Germany nor Japan.

​Bova Prime is one of the busiest restaurants on Las Olas in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Chic, modern cylindrical chandeliers loom over a two-story dining room, which is paneled in long white curtains.

The menu lists three items that, to devotees of fine food, might seem inexpensive: a $38 Kobe skirt steak caprese with tomato, mozzarella, arugula; a $14 Kobe meatballs "polpette," with parmesan brodo, tuscan kale, cannellini beans; and the $21 Kobe beef trio burgers with fontina, grilled onions, house-cut fries, pickle chips.

The problem is that the meat isn't what's advertised. It's not Kobe -- the product of cattle raised in the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan that in some cases drink beer and receive sake massages. Its listing on the menu is an apparent violation of federal standards and state law.

​Okay, Lirim Jacobi isn't John Belushi and Taverna Opa isn't Faber College, but a toga party is a toga party.    

And even U.S. Senator Blutarsky would have to admit that a toga party hosted by WILD 95.5 with DJs, wine tastings, a whole spit-roasted lamb, belly dancing, fire dancing, a belly dancing contest, ice sculptures, free booze shots, tarot card readings and a raffle for a trip to Greece is one helluva toga party. It's also the toga party celebrating the first anniversary of Jacobi's Taverna Opa in CityPlace, set for Thursday evening, Oct. 1.    

The staff at Opa will haul out their old bedsheets and toga up, and so can you; from 10 p.m. to midnight anyone dressed in a toga gets free champagne, which they'll probably need to keep from feeling like complete idiots. Or maybe not.    

Anyway, the party will continue Friday and Saturday with more free shots, deals on specialty cocktails and guest DJs. Dean Wormer would not be amused.

Shamin Abas

​An excerpt from this week's Dish review on the Restaurant at 251, formerly da Francesco's:

Picture this: You've been invited for dinner at a friend's house. He prepared a lovely meal - a salad of baby lettuces and herbs from the garden, and a whole roasted pork loin dressed with sage and thyme. Midway through your pork loin - so juicy and tender - your host gets up. He removes the empty chairs from the room. He licks his fingers, snuffs out the candles on the centerpiece, and turns up the chandelier to its brightest setting. And then he hovers over you, waiting and watching as you chew your last few bites.

There will not be any dessert.

There's nothing worse you can do in a restaurant than make your customers feel unwelcome. Yet that's exactly what happened at the Restaurant at 251, a five-month-old organic Italian restaurant in Palm Beach.

The problems at 251 aren't limited to what's going down inside the restaurant. Since the beginning of September, the restaurant's owners have been in a bitter dispute with 251 Partners, the group that leases the space. There have been noise complaints, lawsuits, and visits from the Palm Beach police department. And now the restaurant team that launched it as da Francesco's in April is exiled. Even for Palm Beach, this situation is strange and scandalous.

Find out more when Dish debuts tomorrow. In the mean time, check out a little of the backstory here.

​•    Stick a fork in 'em, they're done. Memphis BBQ & Blues, which took over the West Palm location of the late (and inexplicably lamented) Tom's Place, will smoke no more (not that they did that much or that well to begin with). Also gone belly up is Culinary Café in Delray, the Continental-esque eatery of local toque Dominick Laudia. Ditto NexStore Marketplace in Boca, a "gourmet" grab 'n' go eatery that got into a pissing match with food service giant Sysco and never really recovered. RIP.

•    From the "crime doesn't pay, dumbass" file. PBC sheriffs busted a 360-pound Lake Worth man for twice in one week robbing a pair of local restaurants within blocks of his own house. Lawrence Balduf (that would be size 6XL) was said to have confessed to the robberies of a Subway shop and El Churrasco Cafe, where he allegedly (yeah, right) stuck 'em up with his finger under a jacket making like he had a gat, all to feed his addiction to. . . Fatty pieces of cheap steak? Mounds of deep-fried plantains? Those vile-tasting meat- and cheese-like substances that made Jared Fogle into the world's most annoying slop-humping zeppelin? Nah, Roxycodone. Jeez. . .

•    It may seem like the mating of a snake and a hippopotamus but Sixty Minutes and Vanity Fair have teamed up to poll Americans on. . . well, just about any goddam thing. Their first effort revealed that 33 percent of us said the hardest thing to give up during our Great Recession is dining out. It was the highest percentage of any response, which I'm sure will make all the owners and employees of the restaurants that have gone down the shitter lately feel sooo much better. The lowest response, four percent, was "alcohol," presumably because the respondents were already high on Roxycodone. And five percent said installing scales in restaurants would help combat obesity; no word on whether they'd help combat restaurant robberies by obese addicts.

​Not all is well on the sleepy Island of Palm Beach. Owners of the new organic Italian restaurant da Francesco's have filed suit against the restaurant's landlords, 251 Partners.

The complaint was officially submitted to the Palm Beach County Clerk of the Court on September 11, following a strange turn of events at the restaurant that led to the property lessees seizing the restaurant's assets and employees and continuing to operate it under a different name.

Read the full complaint after the jump.

John Linn

So pretty, it could make the cover.

​

​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. 

​

• As part of the continuing Food Writers' Full-Employment Project, another restaurant has announced it's coming to Clematis Street. This one is Don Ramon, the mid-scale Cuban eatery that's pegged to debut in the old Paradise Bar spot in November. There will be no reinventing the wheel here, just all your Cuban favorites, moderately priced, with cocktails and a few specials to cater to the hip (?) downtown crowd.

• A pair of Mexican restaurants responsible for creating two of the world's most iconic dishes have gone under, victims of a universally rancid economy and the reluctance of tourists to get pig flu or have their pale, pudgy bodies well-ventilated by automatic weapons fire from Mexican drug gangs. One is Caesar's in Tijuana, where in 1924 Caesar Cardini first tossed romaine lettuce with croutons and a dressing of egg, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, Parmesan and Worcestershire sauce. The other is Restaurant Moderno in Piedras Negras, where waiter Ignacio "Nacho" Anaya is credited with assembling tortilla chips, cheese and chilies into a dish that makes lovers of authentic Mexican cookery want to shove their heads into a mocajete. 

• This time the mouse catches the cat. That would be Walt Disney World in Orlando snagging Iron Chef Cat Cora, who just opened the Mediterranean-esque Kouzzina (Greek for "kitchen") in the well-scrubbed BoardWalk complex. Proving that branding is truly the wave of the future, the restaurant will feature "Cat's Ouzo-tini" and her own wine lable ("Coranation") to go along with dishes like goat cheese-stuffed grape leaves, cinnamon-stewed chicken and grilled lambburger. Will her cuisine reign supreme? Frankly, who gives a shit...

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

It's not often that a birthday party warrants appearances from mermaids, acrobats, pirates, and a Madonna impersonator, but Bimini Boatyard has called upon that strange pack of people to help celebrate 20 years in business on Friday and Saturday. The two-day extravaganza promises to draw even more crowds than usual to its breezy waterfront, starting with extended happy hours beginning at noon both days.

The revelry heats up at 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday with a steel drum band and backyard barbecue, followed by an '80's dance party at 7 p.m. Friday and a live band on Saturday. Also on Saturday, families are invited to join in a pirate-themed party from noon to 3 p.m. with free eats for kids, a 40-foot pirate ship bounce house, and a surf machine. No word on whether the mermaids (or "Madonna") will also hit the waves.

The birthday party is meant to unveil the eye-catching renovations to Bimini's

​

•    It's hard catching a real bonefish, but catching a Bonefish Grill will get even easier when the Tampa-based chain opens its 43rd Florida restaurant later this month, this one in Plantation. If you've been to one, you know the drill -- scarf some fried "Bam Bam Shrimp"; your fish, get it grilled, add a sauce; swill a glass or two of wine; and tell the kids to STFU while Mommy and Daddy try to eat at least one meal in peace.

•    The old Spoto's Oyster Bar in West Palm has been bought by a couple of local restaurant vets and will be reborn as Gratify, a gastropub with a neo-industrial look. Gene Playter and Scott Helm had the old Samba Room on Clematis Street a few years back and for their new place are planning a menu of affordable small plates. Look for it to open by the end of the year.

•    Ever go to the store for a bottle of wine and see those little stickers or "shelf talkers" bragging about winning gold or double-gold or silver medals at some wine competition and go WFT? Robert Hodgson, a retired professor and owner of a small California winery, did too. So he checked up on the results of 4,000-plus wines entered in 13 major U.S. wine competitions in 2003 and discovered that virtually all (like 98 percent) of the wines that won a gold medal in one competition were voted barely above or below average in at least one other. Which means that wine you're looking at is either the greatest thing since the invention of cork or isn't good enough to wash your socks. You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

​The shithammer continues to fall on local restaurants.  

At CityPlace, the revolving door keeps spinning with the departure of Bar Louie, a somewhat unwieldy blend of pub, sports bar, and midscale café with a menu that offered something for everyone but hardly anyone bothered to sample. That leaves the BL in Boynton's goliath Renaissance Commons complex as the chain's lone local outpost, though the couple of times Charlie stuck his head inside, it didn't seem as if the world were beating a path to its door either.  

As for CityPlace itself, it recently gained Carousel Can Can Café (which Charlie reported on last week), while construction of the coming B.B. King Blues Club in the old Legal Sea Foods site continues apace. McCormick & Schmick's is supposed to make its CityPlace debut "soon" too, but Charlie advises it's probably not a good idea to hold your breath.

If you're not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter for Broward and Palm Beach counties, here's a taste of what you missed this week. Click here to subscribe.

At a lot of tapas places, you can fill your table with pretty little plates only to wind up with a not-so-pretty bill at the end of the night. Chef Alexander Dziurzynski created a menu with the ravenous-yet budget-conscious tapas eater in mind at his new Satoro Restaurant & Lounge at 2050 Hollywood Blvd. At Satoro, the menu boasts as many as 20 items for $10 or less. And you can sample a taste of Greek, Spanish, French, and Italian influences.

Check out the traditional Spanish patatas bravas ($5), grilled colossal shrimp marinated served with a horseradish gazpacho ($10), the red chili chicken ($6), and the ceviche ($8). Dziurzynski says he didn't want to open a high-end place in tough economic times, so he scaled back his menu to lure in crowds with affordable tapas and entrees and regular specials, including free martinis for women from 7 to 9 p.m. Fridays. The no-frills-yet-stylish eatery also makes its own bread and desserts in-house.

​Tag and bag Las Gaoneras, the modestly ambitious and thoroughly delightful Mexican restaurant across the street from the goliath Renaissance Commons complex in Boynton Beach.

The first U.S. outpost of a Mexico-based chain, it didn't even make it a year before folding.  A bit higher up the food chain than the taquerias -- faux and otherwise -- that are as common in these parts as summer thunderstorms, it got good word of mouth (see Gail Shepherd's review here) but suffered from its niche-adverse position in the market (neither fast food nor truly upscale), a crappy strip-mall location a tortilla's throw from a Chipotle and a Chili's, and food that was probably just too... Mexican for a Chipotle- and Chili's-loving audience. 

At Charlie's pair of visits, the bare-bones space -- no bones, actually -- was practically empty, despite a menu of mostly familiar dishes (albeit done better, with the occasional twist) at wallet-friendly prices. Charlie is really gonna miss this place, the small but well-chosen wine list, the killer guacamole spiked with tomatillo salsa, the charro beans as tender and meaty tasting as prime fillet, and the positively wicked "La Mexico" tacos stuffed with sliced tenderloin, chorizo, and chicharron.

It's enough to make him cry in his Negro Modelo.

​Cancan dancers in poufy white tutus, waitresses in red satin bustiers and butt-hugging short black skirts, a DJ station, two bars, a colorful wooden carousel horse suspended from the ceiling... Karim El Sherif is selling the grésiller along with the steak frites at his new Carousel Can Can Café, which debuted recently in West Palm's CityPlace with a couple of rounds of free food and booze. 

Nowadays there's nothing like the word free to get a place packed tighter than any of those slinky bustiers, so a sizable crowd showed up to scarf down nibbles (chicken cordon bleu croquettes, fried calamari, chicken "lollipops" among them) and swig down wine, champagne, and cocktails. (And, of course, there's always one Palm Beach asshole ragging on the overwhelmed staff because this is all about me, me, me.) 

Erik Trinidad

​

• Ever since the old Shore restaurant on A1A in Delray Beach washed up many moons ago, the prime oceanfront space has been an empty eyesore. A failed redo left a gutted building but still no restaurant, something about to change with the purchase of the site by Jim Taube, proprietor of Kee Grill, Bimini Twist, and Jetty's. Coming soon will be Surf Sliders, a laid-back fish 'n' burgers 'n' other casual fare eatery, with no entrée more than $20.

• What Ferran Adria is to haute cuisine, Erik Trinidad is to junk food. Ever think you can get farfalle with chicken and marinara from a Subway footlong sub? Or faux foie gras from a bunch of Nathan's hot dogs? Erik Trinidad can. The Brooklyn-based freelance designer and writer takes the kind of vomity fast food that's making us a nation of lard-assed diabetics and turns it into reasonable (and sometimes unreasonable) approximations of "gourmet" fare. It actually takes a remarkable amount of culinary skill, and though you might not want to eat his creations, they're pretty god damned impressive. Don't believe me? Find out here.

• It doesn't get any cheaper than free, so there's no excuse for not checking out the half-dozen new arrivals at Wine Warehouse in Fort Lauderdale. From 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, September 3, they'll be tasting six new wines -- three reds and three whites -- for the princely sum of... nada. Charlie has already tasted three of the six in his other life as a cork dork, so he can vouch for the J Pinot Gris, Marimar Chardonnay, and Paul Dolan Cabernet Sauvignon. As for the other three, you're on your own.

Don't dumpster dive if you're drowzy. Details after the jump.

​

•    Good for you, good for the environment. That's the idea behind Joey Giannuzzi's The Green Gourmet, a planet and palate-friendly meals-to-go market slated to open in West Delray in late September or early October. Formerly chef at Henry's in Delray, Giannuzzi will be dishing contemporary American comfort food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all with an emphasis on organic, natural and sustainable ingredients. Lots of stuff for vegetarians and vegans too. The same philosophy will extend to the market itself, with energy-efficient kitchen equipment, recycled materials used in construction and biodegradable packaging.