Broward Palm Beach Food Blog

Any respectable Frenchman would probably shoot bouillabaisse through his nose at the idea of comparing West Palm Beach's CityPlace and Paris' cancan heyday, but there are a few similarities. CityPlace sure is bumping these days, filled up with touristy types looking to do some high-stepping of their own. And joints like Taverna Opa are doing big business combining the thrill of carnal entertainment with casual dining. But most important, the folks congregating at the juiced-up shopping mall are all sexed up. Decked in short skirts and sparkly muscle T's, nearly everyone is looking to get liquored and riled and, if all goes well, a little lucky too.

In that light, the addition of Carousel Can Can to that caustic soup should make sense. The French-themed brasserie looks out over CityPlace's second floor, its side-show carnival lights humming like bug zappers aimed squarely at your nether region. It's draped in gold and porcelain, and the whole façade practically sports a pair of fishnet stockings. Imagine if P.T. Barnum opened a cabaret in the Moulin Rouge and you've got a decent approximation of its character. Toss in a menu that makes T.G.I. Fridays look like the French Laundry and you've got a decent approximation of its food.

The shrimp and grits in front of me at Creolina's Dixie Takeout in Davie fill the entire white, oval plate. There are almost two dozen plump shrimp bathing in a pool of pink tasso cream sauce so abundant that it's managed to spread underneath the dish of collard greens on the side. At its center is a "cake" of fried grits that looks like a massive cut of filet mignon, three inches wide and nearly that tall.

I crack open the crusted tower like a crème brulee, and gobs of Monterey jack cheese and buttered grits ooze onto the plate. Despite my best efforts to sop up the cayenne-speckled cream sauce with the crunchy/gooey grits and bites of plush shrimp, I can get through only half of it. The sweet young waitress sees me struggling from across the small, yellow dining room lined with ragtime posters and New Orleans memorabilia and offers to box up the rest. When she comes back, she suggests I try a piece of Creolina's famous bread pudding. But I'm way too full to give it an honest attempt.

"Next time you come in, you'll have to try the bread pudding," she says to me assuredly. "It's worth it."

• You know you're a hophead if you have a section of your personal budget labeled "plugs and pellets."
• You know you're a hophead if you identify citrus and pine in your breakfast cereal.
• You know you're a hophead if you've started drinking everything out of snifters, not just beer.
• You know you're a hophead if you jones for Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale like Kanye does stage time.
  

The standard logic here would be to cut the packed burger in half and approach it a little at a time. But that only goes so far. The best tactic is to position your hands opposite your mouth so that when you bite one side of the bun, the fresh-ground patty doesn't go squirting out the back. But that just leads to gobs of freshly sautéed onions and mushrooms running out of the sides. As I bite into mine, the top part of the bun slides off along a thick wedge of tomato lubricated by "Charm sauce" (a sort of spicy thousand island that is hardly charming when it's splotched all over your face). When I shove it back in place, a slice of thick-cut, black pepper-studded bacon tumbles out of one side. I know better than to commit the foolish act of setting this hunk of steer down to readjust; getting it back up again in one piece would be futile. Instead, I attack the weak points strategically, spotting bits of fried egg about to spill out or points where the bun is about to collapse. By the time I finish, bits of burger shrapnel and soaked paper napkins litter the table.