Food Lit: Medium Raw

You knew I would get to Medium Raw. I mean, who can resist a dose of Tony??

This is Bourdain’s follow-up (many years later) to Kitchen Confidential, the book that made Anthony Bourdain a household name for those that love food and travel. Since he wrote that original tome, a lot has changed the life of Anthony Bourdain. He has a new wife, a new child, a new job. Basically he is now quite a different person than he was at the time and Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People who Cook is his coming to grips with his own life change and what some might say is his “mellowing” as he ages.

Love him or hate him, if there is one thing to say about Bourdain, he is a very good writer, much more talented than so many of the authors who try to play in the “Gastronomy” section of Amazon.com. It is a true pleasure to read his words, even when he hates on vegetarians. Eh, I can forgive him since there is so much more about him to appreciate, his love of travel, local traditions and foods just a few of examples.

What I really liked about this book is that Bourdain is opinionated and has no qualms talking about changing those opinions over time. Pig-headed but open-minded. In our politicized America of the moment, there needs to be more people like this (are you listening politicians?). Or maybe it is just a good life lesson for all of us – it’s okay to change and stop picking on each other when we do.

If you love the world of food, you will love this book in all it’s name-dropping and juicy gossip glory. If you have no idea who Mario Batali is and don’t care about Emeril’s fall from the Food Network, leave this one on the e-book shelf.

Sidetrip: Puerto Rico

24 hours in Puerto Rico - GO!

I jumped off the flight from Miami in San Juan and then zipped around the city and to my office there with hardly a chance to breath. We grabbed a sandwich at a shop near the beach and then I was ushered onto the shuttle to take me out to the El Conquistador resort, which is about an hour or so outside San Juan.

Talk about a gorgeous view from a cruise ship of a resort. What does this mean? 900 rooms and 17 restaurant - not exactly the intimate Waldorf-Astoria experience I was expecting. Honestly, I am quite glad I decided to not stay for the weekend. The screaming children in the pool did me in...

I thought I might have a moment to breath now but was instead ushered down to a team dinner at the Stingray Cafe. In order to get there, I had to walk about 1/2 mile, go down elevators, and then go down a funicular. Way to not look all sweaty for the work dinner. Now, despite my obvious now dislike of this hotel, I will give them credit for one thing. The food was quite delicious at this restaurant. I particularly liked the red coconut curry sauce on the appetizer. It made up for all of the running around I did all day to sit down and savor that sauce over risotto cakes. A nice crisp glass of wine on the side...

Ah, to one nice meal in PR. Next day, up, meeting, shuttle and off back to Miami. I need to spend some more time in PR - I am not even sure what I saw or ate that was Puerto Rican at all! I did eat the Coconut M&Ms in the airport. A pass, seriously. But the new pretzel ones are fabulous.

Piola

I'm still sitting here in Miami in an empty apartment waiting for my things to arrive from Minneapolis. Just a few more weeks of air mattress living to go. Consequently there are a few things that I miss about the Twin Cities and highest on that list are my bed and my wireless router (and my car registration since apparently I need that to get a license plate here... wonder where that is...). On the food end of things, I am really sadly missing The Wedge and the Whole Foods at Lake Calhoun. I have a Whole Foods just five blocks from my house here but is is about 1/4 the size and I have yet to see any Florida produce. I thought Florida grew most of the produce in this country? I am so confused! But what I am really craving? Punch Pizza. So I did some research and came up with Piola as a place that might be the solution.

Piola is an Italian (or perhaps Brazilian) pizza chain. Here on South Beach it is a casual sitdown restaurant with a small bar (with Happy Hour) right around the corner from the Lincoln Road Mall on Alton. A smile crossed my face when we walked as I saw the wood-burning oven proudly seated against the back wall. Be still my burning pizza heart! As we were seated, I was impressed with the cheap wine by the glass options. As compared to most places on the Beach, it was a steal!

The pizza options are numerous, from traditional pizzas to more forward-looking combinations. As a point of comparison, I looked for something similar to my favorite order at Punch, the Margarita DOC with Eggplant. Here I ended up with the Tarragona, described as smoked mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, eggplants, tomato sauce and mozzarella (a little mozz for ya, huh?). Piola doesn't claim to make Neopolitan pizza, just good pizza so I went with one of their specialties rather than necessarily trying to create a perfect replica.

And then the pizza. It was quite a large delivery for a "pizza for one" - thin crust, cooked but not as distinctively charred in places as one oftens sees from wood burning ovens. On my pizza, the smoked flavor of the cheese was impressively strong but I didn't love the tomatoes. Rather than slices or cherry tomatoes, they were chopped tomatoes, which I felt made the whole thing a little more watery than it should have been. Overall, though, it was a good pizza. But clearly not the best pizza I have ever had. My companion ordered the Funghi Mista (mixed mushrooms) and we both agreed that mine was the better pizza, his lacking any good flavor "oomph".

Everyone I talk to down here points me to Piola but I had a hard time loving it. Pizza is a personal thing, though, as everyone likes their pies done up differently. Just try having the conversations around thin vs think, plain vs dressed up, square cut vs round and you will end up going 'round-round in never ending circles. It probably didn't help Piola either that the fire alarm was going off for a good part of our dinner, strobes, horns and all. Has anyone ever told them wood-burning oven + building attached to the crowded movie theater next store = disaster??

Thumbs Up: Pizza was pretty good, nice modern atmosphere, fun promotions, good wine prices
Thumbs Down: Not the bestest pizza ever, fire alarms in the night

Piola 1625 Alton Rd Miami Beach www.piola.it

Spoon Fed

If there is one thing that can mess you up in life in more ways than not, apparently it is living in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during your formative teenage years. Just think about the books Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides and Grosse Pointe Girl, not to mention Grosse Pointe Blank. And, of course, there is myself and only to find out by reading her memoir, Kim Severson from the New York Times too. Man, what a messed up place. But I guess that Grosse Pointe does make for good inspiration and good writing, because that is what is found in Kim Severson's Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved my Life.

A lot of these memoirs of food writers can start to sound the same: I met so and so, slept with so and so and ate with so and so and boy, wasn't it all fabulous! Nowadays, I actually know who all the so and sos are (you read enough about them, you start to get it) but for most people these books would be a snooze fest of Alice, Julia, James, Edna and Marion. And there is certainly some of this in Severson's memoir as well but I will say that I like the spin she put on it, focusing on her alcoholism and confidence problems and how many of these esteemed cooks helped her learn the lessons of her survival and eventual thriving in this crazy world we live in.

I sit here trying to think about my favorite section of the book but I just can't decide! I loved the section where Severson's basically defends respecting Rachael Ray to no end. Bourdain would have a field day. But then I also couldn't resist the section about her relationship with her mother; it was heart-wrenchingly open and familiar to all daughters. The other parts of the book were good but just not quite as emotionally warming or inspiring, but I suppose that might have been the point with the sections on Marcella Hazan and Alice Waters.

Overall, a good read and a fresh face on the foodie memoir front despite the fact that it is still a lot about some other familiar faces and not just Kim Severson.

Sra Martinez

I stopped and stared.

It was a perhaps a Tuesday and we were wandering the Design District waiting for the reservation time to arrive at Michael's Genuine. But then we rounded the corner and I was struck dumb by the appearance of Sra Martinez. The place is just plain stunning - an old post office completely refurbished with a huge front patio and, as I would find out on my second trip in the same week, an upstairs bar that would make a cocktail lover crow with delight. And then he told me it was a creation from Michelle Bernstein, a chef I had only heard of up to this point, whose James Beard awarded food I had yet to try but now here it was right in front of me. I turned the deer eyes on and looked at my date - perhaps we could stay here rather than go to Michael's? Pretty please? Table for two, please. Thank you!

Ahhh, what heaven. A patio and a knowledgeable server. They easily walked us through my questions about the Spanish wines by the glass with unpronounceable names and pointed us to the surprisingly large number of vegetarian options amongst the small plate choices. I was starting to get giddy. Everything sounded amazing but we stuck with four small plates between the two of us. Dusk fell and the potted plants creating our garden stretched in a way that made it seem like it they were growing straight from a sandy ground - we were no longer on a quite barren white street in the Design District, but instead perhaps somewhere in the Mediterranean. Our first dish was an Heirloom Tomato Salad with giant caperberries and murcia al vino, a Spanish goat's cheese. It was the weakest dish of the evening. Why? Only because the tomatoes didn't have the summer intense flavor that one wants from an heirloom tomato. I thought Florida was known for its tomatoes? If the tomatoes had been better, this would have been a great salad.

The meal only got better after the salad. I could arguably say that my new favorite thing in the world is Crispy Eggplant from Sra Martinez. It is sliced so very thin, then fried and lovingly sprinkled with sea salt and sweet dark honey (maybe with molasses?). My goodness, eggplant is one of my very favorite foods and the most fascinating food in the world (to little old me) and here I am in Miami being blown away by eggplant. Is this weird? I felt a lot better about my reaction to this dish (which I tried to bona fide hide a bit from my date so I didn't see overly odd) when on my return visit to Sra Martinez the local friend I was with said that it was her very favorite thing on the entire menu. Apparently it is not weird to love crispy eggplant. I will dream about this dish.

On the original date to Sra Martinez, we also delved into the Brussels "a la plancha" with paprika and mustard vinaigrette and the Choclos con Chiles (sweet corn with lime and chiles). These dishes were both vivacious in flavor and just plain delicious vegetable preparations. If only frozen vegetable boxes tasted like these, I could eat only vegetables for dinner every night and have no problem attempting to fit into the Miami bikini body world.

It took all of about three minutes pondering to decide to return to Sra Martinez three days later, this time to sit up at the bar inside, drink cocktails and dive into more of those crispy eggplant chips. The bartenders were awesome - I adored both of my cocktails, the first one of strawberry clipped with jalapeno nuances and the second, called the Buenavista, filled with the heaven that is Hendrick's Gin and cucumbers. They take their cocktails seriously here - you should too! It was also another opportunity to delve into the Sra Martinez menu where this time we came up with a delightful Bibb Salad covered with all sorts of vegetable goodness. Man, this place is good!!

What excitement to arrive in a new city and off the bat discover a place you like - great vibe, beautiful building, fancy cocktails and excellent eggplant. This whole Miami adventure thing is just not going so badly after all...

Thumbs Up: WOW building, great crispy eggplant, finely built cocktails
Thumbs Down: More explanation on the wine list would be helpful - love the idea of more obscure varietals but help me in a loud bar!

Sra Martinez 4000 NE 2nd Ave Miami www.sramartinez.com

Guru

Washington Ave in South Beach isn't known for its high quality cuisine, rather instead for its pizza by-the-slice joints and raucous club scene, where the edibles might be in pill form. It is amazing what a difference, then, a ten foot walk can make. Between Washington and Collins on 12th lies a small but elegant Indian restaurant that I had probably walked by a dozen times but never seen. The windows are covered and the door is subtle but inside Guru is a small bar and cleared wooden tables (no heavy linens!) just waiting to be filled by the surprisingly delicious Indian cuisine on offer.

I am still thinking about the flavors of the two main dishes we ordered - the matter paneer and the channa masala. I have honestly never tasted better curries outside of India. The spice levels were perfect and I could just taste the fresh ingredients and spices. Although both the tomato based Indian cheese dish and the tomato based chickpea dished looked very similar when placed on the table it was shocking how different two such similar-looking dishes could taste. The matter paneer was the better of the two, incorporating a sweet base. The channa masala was excellent though, with a spicier flavor than the paneer. While these flavors were excellent what made it even better was the presentation. We were each served a plate with a beautiful cup of rice, a demitasse of delicious lentil soup and a little salad skewer of fruit and veg. The curries were served separately to plate ourselves at well. The porcelains used were modern rather than the more traditional metal bowls. I liked this vibe! Suddenly the higher prices here for Indian food didn't seem quite so high anymore.

I also adored the "bread basket" that came to the table. Rather than pappadams, we had sliced naan with a spiced cucumber raita yogurt sauce for dipping. I dove right in to the hot bread and cool sauce, barely able to surface to place the order for the curries. After our bread we had ordered a starter called the Indian Chaat. Unfortunately this plate of little savory snacks was a bit too fried bready for our taste but we felt good vibes from it thanks to the use of fresh vegetables as accompaniments rather than pickled or chutneys. I forgive the chaat, though, because we were truly blown away by the curry.

So, some great Indian food in South Beach. Who knew? But to no surprise maybe because of the location, the place did have a bit of a weird vibe. The staff was a little off and harried as we were switched between a couple of servers. Also, the room is full of four tops and most of them were filled with couples, with people waiting in the wings for tables. Why would you do that at a restaurant and not simply have two tops? It was so odd that we actually noticed is - the restaurant was full... but not.

Regardless of the quirky seating arrangements and mediocre service, I will be back for more of that matter paneer.

Thumbs Up: Great flavors, excellent modern presentation
Thumbs Down: Chaat starter, weird service

Guru 232 12th Street, Miami Beach www.gurufood.com

Hosteria Romana

I am a bit intimidated by Miami dining. Here I come from the “big” city of Minneapolis and I am suddenly thrust into the mayhem of South Beach. Sobe is outfitted with a unique combination of celebrity chef cuisine, tourist bars and drunk eats. Some locals have been telling me it is quite the culinary wasteland. But I figure I better taste it myself in order to figure it all out. Yet, it stresses me out!! Do you want to risk your hard earned dollars just to end up with mediocre food? Of course not. But sometimes you find yourself in a situation where weather helps steer you to a table and you just cross your fingers and hope.

Of course, I didn’t set myself up for success on this one.

July 4th, it basically poured all afternoon. My cousin and his friend come down for dinner and while we waited around hoping the rain would stop for the fireworks we decided to kick off a little South Beach fun by going on what I believe will be the first of many “mojito” tours of South Beach. How fortunate that I moved to the city that specializes in my favorite cocktail! We started at Bice at Hotel Victor where we dove into our first $20 mojito of the day. Their classic mojito was quite good and not overly sweet – the best mojito we had of the day. Our next mojito over at the Cardozo Hotel patio. Beautiful hotel but the mojito was over-limed. Sad. Two large mojitos in and the rain seemed to be finally stopping. However, the problem with being two mojitos in is that we were HUNGRY now! Rather than traipsing the our original goal way over on Alton, we instead dipped onto Espanola Way in search of Italian.

At that brings us to Hosteria Romana.

Two days prior I had tried out a yoga studio next door to this restaurant and felt visually groped by the waitstaff and seriously disliked the cat-calling out onto the street to get passing people into the restaurant. Basically, that is the sidewalk hell of Ocean Ave and, let’s just say, I don’t want to support it down Espanola. But here we were hungry, wet and tired so we allowed the Roman-costumed man to lead us to a sidewalk table. We were then immediately upsold on everything – not just a mojito, but a special strawberry mojito. Then we absolutely must try the tomato and mozzarella special appetizer. I never saw the check but I am guessing these weren’t even close to cheap add-ons, especially after reading a review on Yelp where a customer claimed to have the same appetizer special (pretty long ago so how special is that?) and that it cost $23. Honestly the app was pretty mediocre for $23. The cheese wasokay, the tomatoes only so-so and there was a prosciutto or something like it on the plate that hadn’t been mentioned and that I didn’t really want to see near my cheese. Then the strawberry mojitos arrived and they were shocking – ostentatious and difficult to drink, with the three foot sugar cane risking bopping you on the head with each sip. My goodness, way to feel like a tourist.

The waiter came by one time while we were still working on the appetizer and asked if we were finished. We said no and then waited and waited and waited. At least 30 minutes later we had to call the waiter back over and ask him where our mains were. He rudely told us he was waiting for us to finish our appetizer, with a pointed look that the dish wasn’t empty. A good waiter would instead note that we hadn’t touched it in at least 20 minutes. He harrumphed away and our food came out 10 minutes later or so.

I had ordered the Gnocchi with melted bufala mozzarella and basil in tomato sauce. It was unfortunately nowhere near the best gnocchi I have had. The melted mozz into the sauce was gloppy and I didn’t see a hint of basil going on in the dish. The most I can say is that it was filling and thus a fine balance to all of the mojitos. The pizza that my companions ate looked a lot better, with a nice crispy thin crust.

I feel very little desire to put myself in the path of this restaurant again except MAYBE to try a take-out pizza.

The saddest part about the whole thing is that the wait from appetizer to entrée meant that we missed making it back to the beach for the fireworks. They were just a sound and slight glimpse in the distance…

Thumbs Up: If you want a crazy scene you can find it here, that little bowl of oily, peppery goodness brought to go with the bread
Thumbs Down: If you don’t want a crazy scene then run, food isn’t fabulous and seems quite high priced, yelling out to the street, a loud and VERY annoying website (do not use your volume, especially if you are at work)

Hosteria Romana 429 Espanola Way, Miami Beach www.hosteriaromana.com

Ola

Oooh la la. Ola. It was a fancy, great start to my first full weekend in my new home on the Beach. Attempting to avoid the flooded streets of hot summer rains in South Beach, I let my date escort me to our mystery location, Ola, the restaurant in the very swanky Sanctuary Hotel. It was a posh welcome to Miami and my first venture into Miami's Nuevo Latin Cuisine with famed chef Douglas Rodriguez.

Right up front I will tell you that the food was surprisingly great. We started by sharing the hearts of palm salad with frissee and toasted almonds. It is typically served with a bacon vinaigrette but the moment I mentioned I was a vegetarian, the server immediately said he could replace it with a more traditional vinaigrette. I liked his initiative! The moment of salad truth was an happy awakening for me. I fully expected canned hearts of palm as, to me, that is basically what hearts of palm are, a slightly soggy but tasty canned good. Until this meal, that is, when I learned that fresh hearts of palm don't come from a can. They were crunchy and fresh, reminding me more of jicama than any canned hearts of palms of my past. What a great welcome to tropical Miami!

The food just got better from there. There was one vegetarian entree on the menu and the server quickly told me that they were actually serving a different dish that evening. He rattled it off and I caught very little, knowing that I really had no choice and, of course, not wanting to look extremely particular in front of a date. He doesn't have to know how much I care about my food.... yet. When my dish arrived, it was stunning, almost too gorgeous to eat. A sweet green sauce and a black bean puree were alternating in perfect waves as the base of the dish. On top is what I will call my amazing "latina parmigiana". It was layers of vegetables , cheese and plantains covered with a slightly sweet sauce. It was everything that I love about a great dish - varying textures, layers of flavor and a beautiful sight to the eyes. When no one is looking, I might sneak back alone to Ola just to eat this dish. I am hungry again just writing about it. My date had a beautiful duck dish that was served with a sweet rice with raisins. Latino, not sure. But it also looked like he really enjoyed his food.

While the food at Ola was fantastic, the ambiance wasn't quite as appealing. Nine couples against one wall, all of the women seated facing out and the men in towards the wall. We kept joking that a bell would ring and we would change seats for our next speed-dating round! Off this wall were seated the larger parties. It was all a bit formulaic where instead a mix up would have been much more interesting than the awkward dates happening on both sides of us. The ceilings seemed a bit low too but you can't blame anyone for that other than the Art Deco architect. But wait! I can't figure out if this is a historic property or not. If you go the website for the Sanctuary Hotel and click on history, you hear about the man that started the hotel a few years back, and nothing about any actual history of the property. A bit presumptuous. Ahhh.... South Beach.

Let's instead focus on the food. It was great.


Thumbs Up: Creative vegetarian option (whatever it was!), fresh hearts of palm, good knowledgeable service
Thumbs Down: Seating arrangements, not up-to-date menu


Ola at Sanctuary Hotel, 1745 James Ave, Miami Beach www.olamiami.com

Sakaya Kitchen

There are some very important activities that one must do when one moves, such as turn on the gas, figure out how to take out the garbage and wait for the cable man. Even before I left the state of Minnesota, though, I had already done the Google to determine where the nearest Target was going to be for those immediate move-in needs (like a shower curtain rod). After hours of wandering the aisles of the Midtown Target here in Miami, I was famished. So I decided to walk around the shopping complex to see what food I could find outside of the Target cafeteria. Was there a Subway? Well, of course, there is always a Subway within ten feet in the US. And then there was a Five Guys. Hmmm... not exactly vegetarian friendly. A burrito place didn't tempt me and then I came to a halt in front of Sakaya Kitchen. Now this looked interesting.

I was attracted to the open kitchen and the menu written up on a chalkboard which included daily fresh specials. Despite the fountain soda machine off to the side and the order at the register routine, this certainly did not look like your typical fast food. An award on the wall made Sakaya at least seem legitimate, also supported by the tables full of people eating food that smelled deliciously savory sweet. I was sold.

But then I waffled. This was no vegetarian-friendly menu. I had been hopeful and I was darn. I wasn't about to give up so I simply pieced together a bunch of sides to make my own completely unbalanced meal. Between all of the ribs, pork and chicken on the menu, I found coconut rice, a daily special side of garlic ginger eggplant and spicy tater tots. While the person that took my order at the counter didn't bat an eye, after each of these dishes, one at a time, arrived at my table, the server said, "You're a vegetarian, huh?". Um. Maybe that will encourage them to throw a vegetarian entree on the menu because the sides were good enough for me to want to justify coming back, and not just to carbload in the future.

The coconut rice was phenomenal. It was a great big bowl of rice sweetly layered in flavor and texture with yummy gummy coconut milk. When my eggplant arrived, there were little eggplants cut up in long slices, cooked to perfection with garlic and oil. It was the perfect compliment to the sweet rice. Honestly, I would have been just fine with only those two dishes but you never know when you just order sides and, let's be frank, how can someone resist the thought of spicy tater tots? Unfortunately, these tots were the lackluster element of the meal. They were just plain old frozen tots sprinkled with a touch of what looked to be siracha and flecked with some green onion or chives.

The sum of the situation is simple: there is simply no reason to go to a boring Subway or Five Guys when you have the unique Sakaya Kitchen to feed you after lightening your wallet at Target. Hopefully someday they will realize that vegetarians are people too who also believe in their mission: "NO Frills just good f'n Food".

Thumbs Up: Great coconut rice, loved the use of fresh eggplant, real flavors
Thumbs Down: Mediocre tots, no simple vegetarian choice

Sakaya Kitchen, The Shops of Midtown Miami on Buena Vista Ave www.sakayakitchen.com

The Miami Adventure Begins

Arriving in Miami and moving in to my new place in South Beach is an assault on the senses. My eyes see such diversity and Art Deco everywhere, my ears hear late-night partiers and the daily patois of international languages, my body feels the intense heat and humidity, the smells in the air are tropical and heavy, and,yes, finally the tastes are as widespread as the tourists are many. Simply put, it is amazing!

I walk down the streets and it is hard to know where to even start with Miami food and restaurants. What is South Florida cuisine? Is there something native to the area, is it perhaps American Southern or is it the combination of flavors brought by immigrants, particularly from Latin America? It is clearly time for me to hit the research books and try to figure out this conundrum (perhaps with a glass of Conundrum wine?). In the meantime, I hope to start to figure it out by simply eating and observing. I have no coordinated plan for this journey other than the rumbling of my tummy and the mood swings of my appetite.

Away we go...