Wine Dinner at 5300 Chophouse

OK - a few words of caution before I put this one up: (1) I do not watch Hell's Kitchen, don't get to Doral that often, and so had never heard of 5300 Chophouse or its chef Josh Wahler; (2) $125 seems a bit steep for a restaurant and winery I've never heard of (as for the wine, my guess is that Sunbox Eleven is a Crushpad custom crush thing, not that there is anything wrong with that); and (3) the shill quotient seems high, what with a New Times blog entry generating 21 comments and about 10x that many exclamation points. But having said all that, both the menu and wines look somewhat interesting, so here it is - the 5300 Chophouse / Sunbox Eleven wine dinner, to happen on May 28, $125 per person inclusive of tax and tip.


5300 Chophouse
5300 NW 87th Avenue
Miami, FL 33178
1.877.748.2583

Pizza Showdown

OK. After I was given some grief for questioning whether a place could be dubbed the "best pizza in South Florida" within 24 hours of putting out some pies for an opening party, I've realized it's only fair to put the question to the test of public opinion. Indeed with the influx of new pizza places, some further investigation would seem to be in order. In the span of a week, we've got Racks in North Miami Beach opened, Sosta on Lincoln Road opened, and Jonathan Eismann's Pizza Volante opening in the Design District. Not so long ago Joey's Wynwood (recently recognized in Food & Wine), Blu Pizza e Cucina in Mary Brickell Village and Pizza Fusion in North Miami Beach opened their doors. A new pizza place from the owners of Sardinia called Casale is in the pipeline, and stalwarts like Spris, Piola and Pizza Rustica on South Beach and Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza in Aventura are still plugging along.

As if more inspiration was needed, Jonathan Alan Richman (sorry, Modern Lovers on the brain) just came out in GQ with his list of the top 25 pizzas in the country - and no, there are no Miami places listed. This summary from Serious Eats is almost as good a read as the original.

So which Miami pizza really is the best? Help me decide:

(1) Some wise person suggested a pizza crawl to try out the contenders. A brilliant idea. I'd propose it start on Lincoln Road where newcomer Sosta and old-timers Spris, Piola and Pizza Rustica can go face to face (and Casale if it's open). Then perhaps a Downtown/Wynwood/Design District trek with Blu Pizza, Joey's and Pizza Volante. And finally a trek up north to Pizza Fusion, Anthony's and Racks. Who's in? Send me an email (link is in the profile above) or better yet, join the Miami Chowdown Google Group to work out logistics.

(2) I've started a poll over on the right column listing the candidates. Once you've tried, cast your vote.

Timo Restaurant - Sunny Isles

Tourists usually think South Beach is the only place to go in the Miami area. Locals going out to dinner may have figured out that some of the best dining is now in the Design District and along the "Biscayne Corridor" where nationally known chefs like Michael Schwartz and Michelle Bernstein now ply their trade. But there are still other places where good eats can be found, and Timo, up toward the northern reaches of Miami-Dade County in Sunny Isles, is one of them.

"Timo" means "thyme" in Italian, but I believe it's also a combination of the first names of the restaurant's owners, Chef Tim Andriola and General Manager Rodrigo Martinez. Chef Andriola's resume has some of the most distinguished names in local and national kitchens - Mark Militello (exec chef at Mark's South Beach), Alan Susser (chef de cuisine at Chef Allen), stints at Chez Panisse, Charlie Trotter;^[*] and Rodrigo Martinez likewise came in with some solid experience, having served for some time as the GM and beverage manager at Norman Van Aken's restaurant in Coral Gables. About 5-6 years ago they opened Timo and have been putting out great food ever since.

The restaurant is of the simple modern school of design, with lots of wood, glass and brown leather and a quietly elegant but completely unstuffy feel. There is a bar with about a dozen seats as well as about a half-dozen high-rise 2-tops, which is where we usually happily end up when showing up without reservations. (Gentlemen, and lady sports fans, a hint here: there is one flat-screen behind the bar which usually is tuned to an appropriate sporting event; pick your seat wisely and be discreet when looking over your date's shoulder). The place has a strong following among the Sunny Isles / Aventura / North Miami Beach crowd and is usually busy without being packed.

The menu has a mild but not overly pronounced Italian / Mediterranean bent and is updated fairly often (something I am convinced is key to maintaining a local following). There are usually about a half dozen salads and soups, another half dozen or so "small plates" (something they were doing before MGF&D was even a glimmer in Michael Schwartz's eye), several "gourmet" pizzas that come from a wood-burning oven, a handful of pasta dishes, and about a dozen entree choices with roughly half of those of the piscine variety. There's also a good selection of vegetable sides to choose from. Prices for starters generally range from $9-15, and almost all the entrees stay in the mid-$20s. They also offer a 4-course "tasting menu" which is a very substantial amount of food for $58. Sometimes we will do one tasting menu and add a couple additional small plates and split everything, or just order several small plates to split.

A sampling of "small plates" from a recent visit:

• Calamari, presented as four whole baby calamaris stuffed with minced Italian hot sausage, daubed with a spicy tomato sauce and served over a bed of rich polenta. The calamari were perfectly cooked, the sausage and spice added a nice dose of heat, and the polenta made for nice ballast.
  
• Scallops - wrapped with duck prosciutto and seared, plated with grilled artichokes and mushrooms, and sauced with a richly flavored and textured mushroom fonduta.
  
• Open faced raviolo of escargot, a big round of silky pasta topped with a ragout of snails and fresh tomato, all drizzled with a pungent garlic butter.

Some other favorite items (some of these long gone from the menu):

• oyster salad, with fried oysters crispy outside but still gooey within, served over a bed of frisee, white beans, and crisped pancetta;


• crispy eggplant, layered with slices of nice mozzarella and prosciutto along with fresh yellow tomato;


• short rib canneloni, super-rich and made even more so with a slather of truffle fonduta;


• a salad of lightly wilted spinach and thinly slivered red onion in a mustardy dressing topped with slices of rosy seared duck breast, with a duck-liver shmeared crouton alongside;


• calamari sauteed with chunks of salami and hot peppers;


• sweetbreads, with bacon, honey and balsamic;


• a great tripe stew served in a bubbling clay pot (haven't seen this one for years, I may have been the only person ordering it!);


• pizzas, with a thin crispy crust and done in several variations (I've liked the one with porcini and sausage, and also the "black and white" with ricotta and shaved black truffles; these are a hit with the kids too);


• fettucine with pulled chicken and mushrooms in a cream sauce was a rich treat;


• grouper with white beans and escarole;


• a nicely done simple skirt steak with a pile of thick steak fries is Frod Jr.'s usual meal.

Some of the vegetable sides are also very good, including the "Roman-style" peas with pancetta and tomato, and the roasted beets tossed lightly in a vinaigrette with a sprinkle of goat cheese. Like many places, I typically prefer the small dishes to the entrees. Given the neighborhood and clientele, I think there's some pressure to have pretty sizable portions (this can still be sort of the "The food was lousy - and the portions were too small!" crowd) and I find that often palate fatigue sets in, though this is mitigated somewhat by several fish options.

The service is worlds apart from typical South Beach incivility or incompetence. Most of the waitstaff have been there for years and are real pros. The wine list is also a real treat, with about 150+ bottles from around the globe, a strong focus on smaller producers and lesser known regions rather than the same ubiquitous names, and typically fairly reasonable prices - things like the St. Jean de Barroux from Cote de Ventoux, or Bodegas El Nido from Jumilla, or a nice reasonably priced Cotes du Rhone like the Deux Albion from St. Cosme. Indeed it's one of the few places where I'd almost never contemplate bringing a bottle, in part because their inventory looks a lot like mine.

Timo
17624 Collins Avenue
Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160
305.936.1008

^[*]Here's something I didn't know. Apparently "Top Chef" Howie Kleinberg worked as a sous chef to Tim Andriola and called Andriola his "greatest inspiration in the kitchen." Make of that what you will.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Gravy?

Rack's Italian Bistro hosted an opening shindig yesterday evening, apparently to much acclaim. I missed the festivities but was sufficiently inspired to take a look at the menu. And something about it triggered a little itch in my head, some stray memory that I could not place. Specifically, it was this menu description: "Meatball - Whipped Impasata + Sunday San Marzano Gravy." My first thought was this:

Isn't it a little goofy to be going all retro/homestyle with the "gravy" reference, while simultaneously going all upscale/snooty with the "San Marzano" reference?

But then the further nagging thought was:

And where have I seen this before? What other place would refer to "San Marzano gravy" on the menu?

After a little searching around I placed it: Devito South Beach, whose menu features an "Original Old School Meatball - Whipped Ricotta, Nonna's Marzano Gravy". Hmph. But that's not all. Consider the following:

Devito: Calamari Devito - crispy calamari, peppers, spicy Marzano tomato sauce
Racks: Calamari "My Way" - Lemon + Spicy Marinara + Cherry Peppers + Basil

Devito: The Original Italian Chop - Salumi, provolone, diced vegetables, tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers
Racks: Italian "Chop" - Salumi + Aged Provolone + Onion + Chick Peas + Tomato + Egg

Devito: Whole Branzino - Spiced tomato jam, aged balsamic vinegar, Olio Verde broth
Racks: Branzino - Tomato Jam + Cracked Olives + Capers + Lemon + Oil Verde

Both also offer their salumi and formaggi (almost identical selections) with accompaniments of truffle honey and amarena cherries.

The Devito menu is much more expansive than the offerings at Racks, yet does not feature the coal-oven pizzas that are provoking oohs and ahhs at Racks, so this is nowhere near the same magnitude as the outright menu-lifting which Nexxt Cafe did from Cheesecake Factory several years ago. And yet there are enough similarities to make me wonder: Is there some connection in the kitchen between Devito and Racks, or did Racks just like what it saw at Devito and try to mimic it? And regardless, can we please just nip this whole "San Marzano gravy" thing in the bud?

Edited to add: I should have also mentioned one other notable difference between Devito's menu and Racks' menu - prices. For instance, Racks' meatball appetizer is $11, while Devito's is a hefty $17 (!!!). That's one *pricy* meatball.

The Heart Has its Rieslings*

I'll confess I'm not usually a big white wine drinker. But - if I may borrow from the Most Interesting Man in the World - when I do drink white wine, I often prefer Riesling. Somewhat intimidating because of the variety of styles and the difficult-to-decipher German labeling system, Rieslings nonetheless have the capacity for complex hedonistic flavors, while also often having an excellent balance of fruit and acid to make for effective food pairings.

If you're not a big Riesling drinker - or if you are, and are just looking for another excuse - next week is the time to try one, as Wines of Germany and Destination Riesling team up for Riesling Week May 18-24. Restaurants and retailers will be featuring German, Austrian and Alsatian Rieslings with by-the-glass tastings, food and wine pairings, and wine flights. Participating Miami restaurants include Azul, Bourbon Steak, Brosia, Café Sambal, Emeril's, M-Bar, Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, Michy's, Oceanaire, OLA, Ortanique, and Palme d’Or; and retailers include Sunset Corners, W Wine Boutique, and Wine 69.


*With all due credit to Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard for that pun.

La Cofradia Ceviche Bar - Coral Gables

[sorry, this restaurant has closed]

A few weeks ago I gave a preview of the new menu at La Cofradia Ceviche Bar, the reincarnation of a former upscale Peruvian restaurant which closed down a couple months ago. I paid a lunch visit last week on the first day of their reopening to see what was new.

The layout of the space has been reconfigured some, with a few tall tables and barstools in the entranceway along with a new (?) bar. White tablecloths are gone in favor of bare wood tables, though the place still retains many of the upscale trappings from its original incarnation and has a slick (but not uncomfortable) modern look to it. It does feel a little more welcoming and it seems they're trying to make the new bar area in front more of a focal point.

The menu is, as noted earlier, in many ways just a simplified version of its predecessor. There are a few options for ceviches and tiraditos, about a half dozen other appetizer options, about 10 entree choices (some of which, like the sauteed shrimp with tacu tacu, I recall from the original menu), mostly priced in the $15-20 range at lunch and $17-25 for dinner (dinner also adds several saltados or stir fries for $17-22), and daily lunch specials for around $14-15.

Ceviches are offered in four styles: (1) a mix of fish, shrimp and octopus marinated in the traditional citrusy "leche de tigre"; (2) white fish marinated and supplemented with aji amarillo chile; (3) mixed seafood enhanced with red rocoto chile; and (4) tuna done in an Asian style with soy, ginger and sesame oil. You can also get tiradito (thinly sliced fish instead of diced) done in any of the same styles. We got a sampler of all four (for $15; individual ceviches range between $11-$14) and the serving size of each was a bit dainty (three of us splitting it had to be pretty timid in serving ourselves so as not to hog all of one) though collectively it was a decent portion. My favorite, somewhat surprisingly to me, was the Asian style, which came with a little seaweed salad as an accompaniment. A slab of sweet potato and some choclo, more traditional accompaniments, came with the others.

I also tried a shrimp causa appetizer, a traditional Peruvian dish of a round disk of cold mashed potatoes flavored subtly with aji amarillo, topped with cooked shrimp, cubes of avocado and a drizzle of Russian dressing. I know - sounds odd. And maybe it is, a little bit, but it's cool and refreshing while also substantial and filling. La Cofradia's version was decent but not revelatory.

Some of the entrees on the lunch menu are available in half portions, and a half portion of the arroz negro (for $10) worked out just right after an appetizer. The rice, colored and flavored with squid ink, was fairly generously studded with calamari rings and scallops, but it lacked the real depth of seafood flavor that this dish has when done really well (as it is at Francesco, also in the Gables), and the calamari was just a touch rubbery. I've heard it said calamari should be cooked for 2 minutes or 2 hours, and this seemed to be caught somewhere in between.

Given that we were there for literally the first service since they had reopened, it's really not fair to judge the service at all. Our food was just a bit slow coming out but the restaurant staff was acutely aware of it, and plied us with complimentary pisco sours while we waited. It was thoughtful but unnecessary, as the wait time really was not bad considering, and overall service was quite solicitous.

I am mostly a luncher in the Gables and remain concerned that though the food was good, La Cofradia's prices are still too high to be competitive in the current market. They've taken some steps to simplify the menu and make the venue more welcoming, both of which they've succeeded at. But despite offering one daily lunch special for around $15, most entrees still hover closer to the $20 price point. Add a ceviche or an app and you've quickly got a $30+ lunch.

It would seem the most natural point of comparison would be Francesco, the Peruvian stalwart of the Gables, and indeed it seems La Cofradia's prices would compare favorably to Francesco's online menu. But the comparison that instead occurs to me is La Cofradia's neighbor Por Fin across the street. Por Fin has done an excellent job of catering to the Gables lunch crowd, with a lunch special menu that offers a wide range of apps and entrees for a combined price of $19.50-$23.50. Por Fin, whose food I think has improved since they first opened, merits its own post (it is coming), and I think places like La Cofradia ought to be paying attention to what they're doing right.

La Cofradia Ceviche Bar
160 Andalusia Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33134
305.914.1300