Burger & Beer Joint - South Beach

When I first heard that a new burger and beer joint in South Beach was being touted as a "concept" - nay, three "concepts": burger joint, sports bar, and lounge - I was a bit dubious. And that it was going to be called "Burger & Beer Joint"? Well, nice to keep it simple and direct anyway. Shows what I know: after hearing multiple reports of hour-long waits for tables, clearly they were on to something, and I put Burger & Beer Joint onto the back burner as a place to go to after the fuss had died down. But this weekend I found myself on South Beach in the middle of the afternoon with nothing better to do and an empty feeling in my belly, and the stars aligned themselves for a visit.

The transformation of this little pocket of turf on the periphery of South Beach is really quite remarkable. For years nothing more than a warren of auto repair and body shops, there are now a number of places worth visiting here, between Joe Allen, Sardinia, its sister restaurant Casale, and now B&B. Both Casale and B&B, right across the street from each other, actually have some nice outdoor seating, even if you do sometimes hear the not-so-mellifluous sound of a fender being set back into place from one of the neighborhood's more longstanding residents.

Inside, Burger & Beer Joint is simple, casual and rugged, with a brick wall on one side being the primary form of "decoration." But if "burger" and "beer" are in the name, it's pretty easy to figure out what to evaluate a place by, and it's not the decor. I went in, found myself a seat at the bar, and scoped out a menu and the beer selection.

While the dinner menu offers either "composed" burgers or a lengthy list of DIY options for assembly, the lunch menu sticks only with the pre-ordained burgers, as well as a selection of snacks and sides. Perhaps against my better judgment, I opted for the "Hotel California": 10 oz. burger, salsa, guacamole, grilled onion, cilantro sour cream, cheddar, fried egg. Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle. It was clear just from reading the menu description that this burger suffered from an Amadeus complex ("too many notes"), but I just wasn't hankering for the bacon & bbq sauce combo offered by the "Thunder Road."

Talavera Restaurant - Coral Gables (updated)

(Note: this was first posted November 3, it's been updated after a couple additional visits to the restaurant). I paid a visit to the now-really-actually-open Talavera Restaurant, a new restaurant in Coral Gables opened by the folks who run Jaguar in Coconut Grove on its opening day, and have now been back a couple more times since. Jaguar has been one of the few restaurants in Coconut Grove with any staying power, thanks to an interesting selection of ceviches (cleverly offered in spoon-sized samples if you like to try several) and what I'd found to be a surprisingly decent grab-bag of Latin American entrees, with something of a focus on Mexican dishes. That focus is explained by the fact that owner Lalo Durazo, managing partner Martin Moreno, and partner-executive chef Oscar del Rivero all came from Mexico City. And their new restaurant in Coral Gables, Talavera, hews more closely to an exclusively Mexican theme.

It seemed like they had been working on a space on Ponce de Leon Boulevard forever, and then just in the past couple months the worksite expanded to include the corner that stretches out to Giralda Avenue. They've made good use of the space, too, with a welcoming bar in the front, some tall bar height seating, a plethora of booths and tables, and an open kitchen behind it all. The room is decorated with Talavera pottery, as well as a series of portraits over the bar ranging from Frida Kahlo to masked Mexican lucha libre wrestlers. It's a big open-feeling space, the only drawback being that noise just seems to bounce all over and it was difficult to hear someone on the other side of the table (apparently I wasn't the only one eagerly awaiting this opening, as the place was packed for lunch on their first day open).

The menu is fairly extensive. In light of Jaguar's success, it should come as no surprise that there are a few ceviches items on offer (though not nearly as extensive or exotic as some of Jaguar's choices). But there are also a number of appetizers and salads, several tortas (Mexican sandwiches), a few moles, and additional main course options. They also have several variations on a "signature" item, a "huarache," which is a toasty slab of corn masa shaped like a flip-flop, crowned with a variety of toppings. We were pleased to find a lengthy list of lunch options all priced at $12.

Given that it was opening day, I'm sure some of the kinks will be worked out, so please keep in mind that some of these comments are solely first impressions. I'll highlight additions from my subsequent visits where clarification is needed.

CSA Week 1 - Callaloo and Momofuku

So here's what I started the week with:


Four ears of corn, a bundle of callaloo, a bag of green beans,a head of lettuce, some cherry tomatoes, a Florida avocado, a bunch of dill, a few stalks of lemongrass, a bok choy, and a bundle of roselle (a/k/a Jamaican sorrel a/k/a Jamaican hibiscus).

First things first: the red petals of the roselle were steeped along with a stalk of the lemongrass and some fresh ginger to make a tea:


The dill became a tzatziki, after being chopped and mixed with some Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, garlic and lemon juice:



I know, so far we're not winning any James Beard awards.

From there, I drew much of my inspiration this week from the Momofuku cookbook, after being immensely pleased with my first experiment with the bo ssäm recipe.



Some more lemongrass found its way into these pork sausage ssäms, as did the lettuce for the wraps:


I liked this Vietnamese-flavored spin on the Korean ssäm (basically, a wrap) idea, and it was "easy peasy" as Jamie Oliver might say. But first a general comment: I am horrible with recipes. I cook by look, feel, smell, sound and taste, am not big on measuring, and often regard printed recipes the way Captain Barbossa regards the Pirates' Code - more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.

Notorious P.I.G. [Pork Is Good]

This past Sunday was the P.I.G. (Pork Is Good) fest by Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog at Harvey's By The Bay, east of Biscayne Boulevard off 64th Street, and a good number of VIPs (Very Important Pigs) turned out for the occasion.

Our group of about 25 took over the bay-windowed back room of Harvey's for the afternoon, when we weren't outside monitoring the progress of the whole boned-out piglet cooking away in Chef Jeremiah's new-fangled high-tech caja china. While the pig roasted, we were given samples of a number of his other pork-centric creations. The underlying theme was to revel in all the glories of the porcine, with dishes created from just about every part of the pig. Belly, butt, skin, and trotter were all well represented (I saw a headcheese, too, though I didn't see where it ended up). Some of the dishes may be previews for the menu of the gastroPOD, a shiny Airstream trailer Jeremiah is retrofitting with a high-tech kitchen to bring mobile cuisine to Miami.

Sadly my camera batteries died about midway through so I don't have pictures of everything, but I did get to taste it all and there's some other good recaps at Tinkering With Dinner and Jean-Marc's blog. All my pictures are now up on flickr.


Chef started us off with some nice chicharrones, dried and fried pork skin cracklings, crispy with just a little hint of chew to them, along with a little moonshine-black cherry soda, frothed on the spot in an iSi canister.



Next round was some southern-style char siu bao, a nice cross-cultural mashup which took the fluffy, dense dough of the traditional Chinese steamed dumpling, but instead of filling it with the typical Chinese "bbq" pork (with its sweet sticky glaze), these were filled with rough-chopped smoked dry-rubbed pork butt.


If they were a little dry for you, you could dose them with a little dropper of shoyu. Chef also kept out on the table some sriracha sauce (a/k/a "ketchup" he said, and I agree) if that was more to your tastes. These were good, and I thought the East Meets South thing worked well. I would have liked to have seen it carried even further, maybe with a BBQ sauce variation instead of the shoyu (something strongly vinegar-based may have hit the spot).


No pix of the next few items, so we'll have to rely on my meager descriptive powers (and the pictures taken by other VIPs). For whatever reason, Chef's panini press was the final straw that tapped out all the available power in Harvey's back room, and so there was a brief struggle to find a working outlet to finish the next course. When that glitch was overcome, Chef Jeremiah handed out some pressed Cuban sandwiches filled with sliced pork belly, home-made pickles and spread with Dijon mustard. I liked the tender pork belly, all slippery and soft rather than crisped up (more in an Asian style).

CSA Week 1 - the beginning

Yesterday began the season for the Community Supported Agriculture program run by Bee Heaven Farm. The "subscription agriculture" program offers the opportunity to buy directly from local farmers by paying in advance for a season's worth of their produce, delivered each week to several drop-off points around Miami-Dade County.

One of the challenges of CSA programs is figuring out what to do with your share. This isn't shopping at the supermarket, where you make your shopping list and pick it up. Rather, you get whatever happens to be growing and ready for harvest at local farms at that time. From what I've heard from people that have participated in prior seasons, this often involves a lot of callaloo. Fortunately there are some good resources out there. Bee Heaven has its own blog, there's Redland Rambles, which will be giving a preview of the box contents every Friday, and more: Tinkering With Dinner, Eating Local in the Tropics, and, hopefully, Miami Dish.

For my first season, I started modestly with a half-share instead of a full share, to see how it goes. The Week 1 box (contents pictured above) came with four ears of corn, a head of lettuce, a bunch of callaloo (it starts!), a pound of green beans, a pint of cherry tomatoes, a Florida avocado, a few stalks of lemongrass, a bunch of dill, and a bundle of roselle (also known as Jamaican sorrel or hibiscus flower). I also grabbed a bok choy from the "extras" box.

My game plan - for now - will be to do a post each week showing what's in the box, and then - hopefully - a follow up at the end of the week with what I've managed to do with it. This could be interesting, or it could be a train wreck. We'll see.

I'm off to a good start though. I took the roselle - which could easily do double-duty as a flower arrangement - and pulled off the red petals, then steeped them with a stalk of the lemongrass and some ginger to make a nice iced "tea." My first recipe met with Little Miss F's approval. Let's hope it's not all downhill from here.

Straight Outta the Hamptons

The next culinary trend? Forget fried chicken and food trucks. Rap is where it's at.

I'll give credit to the good Mr. Sifton for getting this party started in his first New York Times review, wherein he said of Daniel Boulud:

His food game, as they say in rap precints, is tight.

Word.

Now everyone's getting in on the act. None other than Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart are proclaiming their hip-hop allegiance, as picked up by Eat Me Daily this morning.

Though I genuinely feared viewing the video might prompt a reaction similar to the "entertainment" from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, I was able to safely screen the first few minutes without going catatonic; enough, at least, to experience this exchange quoted at EMD:

Martha: Puffy's having his birthday party next week... and I got an invitation. Did you?
Rachael: No I didn't...
Martha: ....All those rappers are cute. Don't you think?
Rachael: I think they're all pretty darned cute. The ones that have come by my show... but it didn't get me invited to anyone's birthday party.
Martha: I think I have something on you. They like me for my wherewithal.

So when did "wherewithal" replace "badonkadonk" in the Urban Dictionary?"

Here, look how cute they are!

Sifton Through Some Things

While it was perhaps not nearly so momentous to me as it may have been to some New Yorkers, I followed the changing of the guard for the New York Times' food critic post with some interest. Despite all the sturm and drang of late over the decline of printed media, the NYT remains one of the most powerful reviews in the country, with the perception still holding relatively firm that the doling of stars can have a profound effect on the success - or failure - of a restaurant.

The scouting reports on the new guy, Sam Sifton, seemed promising, and from reading some of his earlier work it was clear he could turn a phrase or two. His first reviews upon taking over the job seemed to engender mostly enthusiastic responses. Hey, he has a working knowledge of 1970's punk rock and can sure make Daniel Boulud's food sound really good (wait, is that so hard?). He'll venture out to Queens for Cantonese food. He looks just like that dude from Shaun of the Dead (do you think Simon Pegg is wondering why he keeps gets multiple dishes "from the chef" and such obsequious service every time he goes out in New York City these days?). And no doubt, the reviews of DBGB, Marea, and Imperial Palace prompted that "I want to go to there" reaction from me.

And yet ... certain things have nagged at me.

1. Phrases that initially sound so elegant, but upon further reflection signify little or nothing:

- A restaurant that "bears masculine charms atop its cool concrete floors." Can a restaurant bear charms atop its floors? Maybe it's that in a fit of dyslexia, I keep thinking that the restaurant charms masculine bears atop its floors. Which would be pretty cool indeed, actually.

- A burger that arrives "as if a passenger on an old Cunard ship, with confitted pork belly, arugula, tomato-onion compote and a slab of Morbier". Is that what the dress code on those old cruise ships was like?

- A dish that "offers exactly the sensation as kissing an extremely attractive person for the first time - a bolt of surprise and pleasure combined." That sounds witty, but you know what? Some extremely attractive people kiss like cold fish.

- Geoduck that "explains in one bite why men would dive amid huge swells to retrieve the things from the angry Pacific." "Huge swells"? The "angry Pacific"? Do they harvest them on "dark and stormy nights"? But perhaps more significant: geoducks are harvested from mud flats. About the worst thing that can happen is you get your pants dirty:



- "A hunk of striped bass acting as pack animal for a load of sturgeon caviar"? Actually, that doesn't sound at all elegant. And that was for a dish that he liked!

- "Sable served sizzling over more black bean sauce, like a special at Nobu or a gift from a friend." What? A gift ... of fish?

2. "food-obsessives"

This is apparently the Timesian translation of "foodie," and variations on it appeared in each of Mr. Sifton's first three reviews:

- "More food-obsessed mouths, however, will desire sausages."

- The wine list at Marea "may run unfamiliar to nonobsessives."

- "Among the food-obsessed in New York, interest in Cantonese food has faded as it has risen in the spicy (and tasty!) flavors of China's interior."

Enough obsessing over the "food-obsessives."

3. "meh"

Firstly, "meh" is no more a "New York expression" than, say, "yummy" or "delish" or "FAIL". Secondly, like those others, it has no place in any serious restaurant review. And a "Your mileage may vary" too, in the same review? Why not just "YMMV"? OMG! Please: never again.