Archive for January, 2010

« Older Entries

Pan Fried Shrimp From Casablanca – River side Miami

Posted: Sunday, January 31st, 2010

One visit to Casablanca Seafood Market and you will be forever inspired (that is if you like seafood). This time I went to get shrimp – they have about 7 types of shrimp by the way – and decided to toss them around with some extra virgin olive oil, chopped garlic, sea salt and fresh ground pepper- just that.

If you wonder about the clay pan I used (shown in the photo), it is a clay pan called “cazuela” and is typical from Spain, in fact they are manufactured in Spain. They are traditional Spanish terra cotta dishes and cookware that can go from stove top to microwave to oven to table. I remember my family used to cook on these type of pans and when I saw them on Sedano’s Supermarket at the Calle 8, I grabbed about 5 in different sizes. The flavor of the food is so much better when cooked in a cazuelita.

shrimp from casablanca fish market

garlic shrimp

Casablanca Seafood Market

404 North River Drive
Miami, Florida 33128
See Map

No Comments »

Coconut Curry Lobster Tail With Zuccini and Herbs

Posted: Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Casablanca fish market has really good lobster tails and the inspiration for this invention

miami food bloggerI am not a good cook by any means but I have my share of successes in the kitchen (as well as disaster episodes which I keep for myself only – no need to embarrass myself here), This recipe invention is one I am happy to share with you because I have to say, I invited over my dear friend for diner and she gave me the thumbs up. And no, my friend is not the type that will say that things are good when they are not – she is a really true friend of mine. So approved by her, safe to share with you.

See those wonderful lobster tails? Definitely a difference from the normal, less complex snacks you’d have while surfing around on partybets.com, but make for a delicious meal at the dinner table. Got them at Casablanca fish market at the Miami riverside. Went home and added a can of coconut milk, extra virgin olive oil, cut some small miniature zucchinis from Lorenzo’s market – all of these elements and ingredients together made this soup one that my friend could not believe there is not much cooking technique in it. The lobster tails definitely make this dish!

Lobster Tail from Casablanca

No Comments »

Hong Kong House Chinese Restaurant in North Miami

Posted: Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Chinese Food – The quest for the best Chinese restaurant

Chinese food take out or delivery is one of those things that I never expect to be a brilliant experience but is a necessity to know which Chinese restaurant has decent food in your neighborhood. There are very few dishes I could have from a Chinese menu because I always think they use the cheapest oil, probably the lethal canola oil so I usually go for dumplings which by the way is one of my favorite foods.

The Hong Kong House restaurant in North Miami is a pretty decent restaurant and cheap so when I do not feel like cooking or when I have one of those oh so bad hangovers, I call this place. They usually deliver pretty quick.

Dumplings In Chicken Broth

Dish Name: Dumplings In Chicken Broth
Price: $5.95

I was not able to finish this soup because I couldn’t stand the thickness of the dumpling dough. It was quite flavorless but it is usually a warm up for the rest of the dishes. At the end of the day the name of the dish is pretty self explanatory, it is a broth. I wonder if they buy it or make the broth themselves.

crispy chinese noodles

What are these crispy noodles for? I always wonder. I wouldn’t soak these noodles in the broth, they would become soft (Eew).

Pork Dumplings from Hong Kong House

Dish: Pork Dumplings
Price: $7.95

This was hilarious because when I tasted that sauce you see on the pic it was actually ketchup! well, ketchup with something, not sure what else it had, but tasting the ketchup was enough for me to never try it again. The pork dumplings were quite nice, juice inside and the dough was perfectly cooked and had the elasticity you expect from a good dumpling.

You are probably wondering where is the soy sauce type of sauce that dumplings usually come with. I think they forgot to add it because I could not find it on the paper bag where it was delivered in. I always have soy sauce at home.

Hong Kong House

955 NE 125th St
North Miami, FL 33161
(305) 891-3111
See map for location
Cuisine Type: Chinese

Hong Kong House on Urbanspoon

No Comments »

MaiTardi Restaurant in The Miami Design District

Posted: Saturday, January 30th, 2010

MaiTardi – A choice for Sunday Brunch? Read on my friend, read on…

Miami food criticSo it was Sunday and as every Sunday I start to get happy with the thought of trying a new place for that perfect Sunday Brunch in Miami. My husband in particular loves to go out on Sundays for brunch and so I have the perfect companion – well, not that perfect really because when I take photos he gets a bit uncomfortable, but I always have the attitude of this is for the blog, the blog that I love writing for so nobody is going to ruin that moment for me. I understand him, if you are shy by nature like he is, taking photos and videos of the place where you will be sitting for an hour it is not the ideal situation for the shy type of personality, he makes an effort for me, so I appreciate it.

And so I tell my husband to go to the design District. BTY I really like the design district, is like a place that looks completely abandoned, yet you find the best interior design houses in the city – weird. It is a weird place, I do not know exactly what it is, but if you visit Miami, you have to at least drive around or walk a few blocks there, you’ll know what I am saying.

I like MaiTardi design, ambiance, atmosphere. I have met friends there a couple of times for happy hour and appetizers but have never been for Sunday brunch so I gave it a try. I simply hated it – and here is why

redoro olive oil and balsamic vinegar

The best part of the brunch was the oil and vinegar with focaccia bread they serve as soon as you sit down

Eggs Benedict at maitardi

Eggs Benedict with polenta

Dish Name: Polenta Eggs Benedict
Price: $7.95

This was probably the worst egg benedict I have had in my entire life. Period. First, the dish was cold – please is Sunday brunch, I do not want cold food in the morning that is why I choose a dish that consisted of a half an English muffin, topped with ham, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. I understand that the hollandaise sauce is served warm, but this one was tasteless and cold. My first reaction when I read the description on the menu was, oh what a nice twist, instead of an English muffin they are using polenta – yummy. Well yummy it was not. The polenta was so compact it felt like I was cutting a brick and had no flavor whatsoever. The spinach I think they took a handful from those packages you get at a supermarket and just cooked it enough to make it look like there was some caring put on them, but they were difficult to cut them (this is because they were not cooked well), and again, no taste. Oh gee, the hollandaise sauce was cooked without salt, I can bet money on that one and last but not least, the egg was cold! so cold I did take two bites and I was done with it.

omelette

Dish Name: I do not remember how they embellish this dish on the menu, but here is the omelette
Price: $7.95

My husband asked for the omelet, I mean, how can you get an omelet to be a disaster? Well MaiTardi definitely won the contest for the worst omelet in town (in my opinion). I get it, it looks great on the picture but it was cold! so cold that I wonder if this is their brunch style “here, Miami is hot, so we serve our breakfast cold” Is this done on purpose? I will never know because I will never be back. The potatoes were so hard – I hate eating hard potatoes – that my husband did not even finish them and he is the type that eats anything, but even for him the potatoes were are turn off.

Want to see how MaiTardi looks like? Watch our video

[player
video="/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/MaiTardi-Restaurant-Miami-Design-District.m4v"
splashimage="/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/player-MaiTardi.jpg"
/]

MaiTardi

Cuisine Type: Italian

163 NE 39th St
Miami, FL 33137
(305) 572-1400
www.maitardimiami.com
see location on map

1 Comment »

Lorenzo’s Italian Market in North Miami – Fresh Fruits & Vegetables

Posted: Saturday, January 30th, 2010

For many many years my market of preference was always Whole Foods Market. I used to go to the one in Aventura, FL. Now, I discovered Lorenzo’s Italian Market in North Miami and my world changed (my food world that is). I can not even start telling you the price difference because it is actually so big that is kind of like obscene for lack of a better word. I am so amaze by the price difference and please note the quality of fruits and vegetables is exactly the same or better at Lorenzo’s – or at least I think it is better because you have local farmers delivering the goods right there in front of you.

Please if you are looking for a fashionable place to do your groceries, do not go there because you will be disappointed. You will not find polished tomatoes to perfection nor it will smell like you are at a spa, this is a place where you go buy and go out (no people watching either, at least not the type of people I like to watch), but the variety of fruits and vegetables is great and the prices are again, amazingly cheap compared to Whole Foods. I have discovered so many tropical fruits I have never seen before in my life! And there are some vegetables I also never heard or cooked before. But slowly but surely one of the reasons I write for this blog is to start discovering each of these unknown (to me) fruits and vegetables and report to whoever reads this blog. In fact the Yucca post is one of those roots I saw there for the first time (I know they are pretty much everywhere in Miami, but guess what, not at Whole Foods). I have tons of images from all the fruits and veggies at Lorenzo’s and I will share them with you.

Lorenzo’s Italian Market is separated into two buildings. One one side you have the fruits and vegetables market and on the other side you have the regular market with prepared foods, fish, pastas, and a whole lot of stuff that you would never find anywhere else in Miami. If you are a foodie, you must visit this market in North Miami. Plus I want to promote them! because they have really fair prices and I want them to be here forever!

Lorenzo’s Fruit & Veggie Market – Watch the Video!

[player
video="/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Lorenzos-Italian-Market-.m4v"
splashimage="/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ItalianMarket.jpg"
/]

Lorenzo’s Italian Market

2211 Northeast 164th Street, North Miami Beach, FL‎ – (305) 948-1188‎ see location in map

3 Comments »

Olives and French Bread – A Match Made in Food Heaven

Posted: Saturday, January 30th, 2010

olives and french bread

Yep, there are some addictions that are hard to brake, there is cocaine addiction, alcohol addiction, relationship addictions and then there is Olives and French Bread addiction, and I have it, and I can not brake it.

I probably go to Whole Foods Market in Aventura once a week to just buy the medium size container of Olives (yes, note that I write Olives with a capital letter at the beginning, this is because for me is like a religion, a monument, etc.).

My favorites are the Kalamatas. “This tangy green to black olive is cured in red-wine vinegar and is soft but not mushy. Varieties grown in California are denoted by spelling with a ‘c’ rather than a ‘k’. Kalamatas are wonderful on pizzas, with feta or blended with cream cheese and fresh garlic for a tangy dip.”

I also buy the Greek mix Olives. They are absolutely divine. I can literally live on Olives and French bread, if I have to choose one last meal, this is what I would choose. If I have to eat one thing for the rest of my life, yep again, this would be my choice. I am not sure what exactly is about Olives and my body, I think I am addicted to the vinegar they have, I even went to the extend of researching if they are actually added something that is addictive to humans (I couldn’t find anything), still I think they have something.

I also buy a variety of Olives that are huge (green ones) at Lorenzo’s marketplace in Miami. They mix the Olives with hot chilly peppers. Once you try these Olives you are hooked for life.

Then it comes the bread! The bread has to have a crispy crust on the outside and be light in the inside, otherwise the effect of vinegar is not as strong, trust me. When you take one bite of bread and one Olive, or at least me, is like I am in heaven, in Food Heaven.

No Comments »

A little treasure at the Publix in Miami Shores – Coco Con Leche La Cubanita

Posted: Saturday, January 30th, 2010

coconut bar from La Cubanita

I remember as a little girl growing up in Argentina that I had neighbors who they immigrated from England, yep they used to speak only in English to their children. Aeelen was the mother of the family and they had 4 daughters – but what I remember the most from this family was that Aeelen used to make this amazing coconut bars fresh from scratch.  It is a flavor I have never experienced again, I grew up, moved to the States and Aeelen, well, I do not know what happened to them – but the other days I was at Publix in Miami Shores walking pretty fast (I do not love Publix, I just go there, grab what I need and run out), and as I was walking to the cashier I stumbled upon this coconut bar and grabbed it. It was $3 something.

I think they are very Latin, better to say, they are eaten by people from South and Central America I would suppose because the wrapping paper had English/Spanish wording.

I got into my car and on the way back to my house I just opened it and cut a little piece, I felt like I was an addict of a substance and I quickly needed to taste the potency – I was really looking to see if it tasted just like Aeelen’s coconut bars – and wow – yep, it  was! Unbelievably fast I was transported to Argentina, to the town where I was born and I was able to remember Aeelen bars so vividly. This  Coco Con Leche La Cubanita bar is absolutely amazing and you have to try it if you like coconut. It tastes like condense milk with slow roasted coconut, it is very sugary but the sugar dissolves pretty fast in your mouth and then the coconut flakes kicks in. I love coconut in food, I hate it on body creams.

Cheers,

No Comments »

Sushi Maki Restaurant in Coral Gables

Posted: Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Miami doesn’t have great Japanese, Chinese, Thai cuisine restaurants – actually let me correct that, Miami doesn’t have great Asian food restaurants at an affordable price. In my own experience, for less than $10 you can have amazing Pad Thai Noodles in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, LA, but in Miami that same quality will cost you double. I think this is due to the fact that the Asian population in Miami is not as big as other cities in the States, but really, I don’t know why – or maybe I will find a great Asian food restaurant at a reasonable price and then be writing another different post, but again, for now I stand by what I just said.

So Saturday I am meeting my friend to try for the first time the restaurant Sushi Maki in Coral Gables. My friend comes to Sushi Maki all the time, and so I trusted him that my time would not be wasted. Oh boy it did.

paso del sol chilean wine

Wine Name: Paso Del Sol Sauvignon Blanc From Chile
Price: $26

Pale straw colour with green tinges, fresh, grassy nose with notes of green apple, quince and melon. Crisp refreshing palate with good persistent finish, hints of quince and apple. The wine is well going with fish, white meat and with other light, spicy dishes at 8-10°С.as a pretty good wine, light

tom yum koong soup from sishi maki in coral gables

Dish Name: tom yum koong (traditional thai soup with shrimp in a tangy & spicy lemon grass broth)
Price: $6.95

The bowl came pretty quickly after ordering – and it was a very large one. Really the ratio between liquid vs solid was too high, too much liquid and I believe I got 3 shrimps on this soup and a random mushroom here and there. There was no lemon grass flavor whatsoever, quite a disappointment and I do not think they should serve such a large bowl as I kept drinking and drinking and it never ended. By the time I said to myself “give up on this soup, it’s just not worth it to keep paddling” (I had flashes of canoe paddling), I was so full of really nothing that I did not order another dish. Don’t get me wrong, this dish is $6.95, not too much of an investment, but I would recommend Sushi Maki to bring the liquid ratio down if they want to sell a main course after this lagoon.

Want to see how Sushi Maki looks like inside? Watch the video

[player
video="/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/sushi-maki-restaurant-in-coral-gables.m4v"
splashimage="/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/SushiMaki.jpg"
/]

Sushi Maki

2334 Ponce de Leon Blvd, Coral Gables (305)-443-1884 see location in map

Sushi Maki on Urbanspoon

No Comments »

Chicken Croquettes – The Perfect Latin Snack

Posted: Saturday, January 9th, 2010

chiken croquettes

miami food bloggerChicken croquettes are a great snack. These croquettes were my dinner last time, it has been a long time since the last time I ate croquettes…I decided to shoulder up and eat away!

If you have chicken leftovers, this is easy to make, usually you will have many pieces, so you can freeze them and keep them for any unexpected event that may occur at the last minute.
Here you have a simple croquette recipe made with chicken and white sauce. It is easy to prepare, with no risks of loosing your mind or getting bored, but you have to take into account that it is required to leave it many hours in the fridge (patience anyone?).

In this version, I use chicken legs and thighs meat, but it can also be made using breasts. It is important that the white sauce becomes thick instead of liquid in order to melt well the ingredients. To achieve this, it is important to measure correctly the quantity of milk.

Ingredients (12 pieces)

  • 1 thigh leg of chicken
  • 1 tbspoon of butter
  • 1 tbspoon of flour
  • Milk
  • Flour to coat in
  • 2 eggs
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Nutmeg
  • Chopped Parsley

Preparation

1. Bone the chicken, chop in small cubes and brown in a pan with a trickle of oil.

2. Prepare a thick white or bechamel sauce: put the tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, once it has melt, add a spoon of flour and dissolve over a low flame. Once it is homogeneous, add the milk gradually and mix, if it is necessary add more milk. It would be thick if you raise the spoon and you do not see a liquid trickle.  When it is ready, add salt, pepper and nutmeg.

3. Join the chicken –already brown- in the pan with the sauce and blend it in a mixer until you obtain a paste with no lumps. Stretch on a plate and leave it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

4. To coat in. Put the flour in a plate, beat the eggs in a bowl and add salt, pepper and parsley. Place the breadcrumbs in another plate.

5. Take the chicken paste away from the fridge, and make small balls with your hands. Coat in flour, then in eggs and finally in the breadcrumbs.

6. Once all the balls are made, fry them in oil until they are brown.

7. Serve warm with skewers to have your finger-food.

No Comments »

Cuban Cuisine; a result of the fusion of Spanish, African and Aboriginal customs

Posted: Friday, January 8th, 2010

From its origins, Cuban cuisine is the result of the fusion of Spanish, African and Aboriginal customs, combined with the later Asian and Yucatecan immigration.
The national Cuban dish is the Creole Ajiaco, a group of vegetables and different types of meat cooked together. It varies according to the ingredients used. The typical Cuban dishes, besides the Ajiaco and different combinations with rice, are roasted or fried pork, tostones or chatinos (smashed and fried pieces of green plantain).

Cuban cuisine is based on basic ingredients in which tomato sauce, black beans, tubers (some exotic ones as yucca, malanga and name) and sofrito are the pillars. The sofrito is made of chopped onion, green peppers, garlic, oregano and pepper fried in olive oil, and is part of what entails the typical Cuban flavor.

Cuban food is generally healthy, and fried and creamy sauces are secondary. A typical Cuban breakfast consists of bread slices wet in café con leche, a combination of strong coffee with warm milk. The other two meals, lunch and dinner, usually includes a table full of food with dishes that mix white rice, beans, legumes, meat and salads.

The Spanish, Aboriginal, African and Caribbean cuisines influenced Cuban cuisine.

Some typical ingredients of Cuban food are: sugar, rice, wheat, beans, potatoes, bananas, mango, coffee, garlic, onion and other seasoning.

Besides, in some regions in Cuba, the use of seasoning, cooking types and the food itself show the influence of the French, English, American and Yucatecan cuisine.

The Aboriginal cuisine is still among the residents. In Cuba, Columbus and his sailors discovered for the very first time foods like corn, yucca, peanuts, sweet potato, pumpkins, peppers and yautía (a wild malanga species).

The fruits mostly used in Cuban food are custar apple, soursop, pineapple, caimito, sapote, anon, hicacos, guava and marañón.

From Africa, Cuba received ñame, malanga, plantain, quimbombo and the Guinea chicken. Dished like fufú, funche and tostones (chatinos or smashed green plantains). From African culture, Cubans adopted the custom to eat white rice mixed with other foods, fries and sauces.

The Spanish located at the south of the peninsula were the ones to arrive to Cuba on the first colony century, and also used to fry foods. Andalucía is an area were frying is common. The emigration of Spanish of Catalan culture in S.XIX enforced the consumption of rice in Cuba.

Cuban dishes are based on the large and variety of Spanish cuisine, fusioned with regional cuisine. This phenomenon is common in the Hispanic Caribbean.

The intense connection between the Caribbean lands is reflected in the existence of recipes that come from different areas. Despite congri, Moorish and Christians are really Cuban, the term come from Haiti.

No Comments »

« Older Entries