5 Countries in 5 Blocks - El Rey del Chivito - North Beach

Most visitors coming to Miami, if they think of "ethnic" food, will think of Cuban food. And Miami indeed has plenty of Cuban food. But that one-note school of thinking fails to capture the diversity of Latin American peoples that have come to call Miami home - Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua and many others (without even considering the Caribbean, which is entirely another subject of discussion) all make their presence felt in the culture and cuisine of South Florida. And a good bit of that diversity is reflected in just a few blocks very close to my home.

The city of Miami Beach is situated on a series of man-made islands along the coast of Miami, and the "North Beach" neighborhood is essentially the northern periphery of the city. While tourist-inundated South Beach basically runs south to north from 1st Street to about 23rd Street, and the predominantly residential Mid-Beach area runs up to about 63rd Street, North Beach picks up north of 63rd Street up to about 85th Street, where it yields to the municipality of Surfside. This stretch is not nearly as flashy as South Beach. Most of the beachfront condos are still awaiting updating, and the only substantial incursion of new development is the Canyon Ranch at 68th and Collins Avenue.

This more modest neighborhood has become home to many of Miami's Latin American populations. Argentinians, in particular, many of whom came to Miami over the past ten years amidst economic strife in their home country, have so taken a shine to North Beach that some have dubbed it "Little Buenos Aires", but North Beach is actually a happy melting pot of people from all over Central and South America. Lucky for all of us, they've brought their recipes with them.

The first stop for my "5 Countries in 5 Blocks" tour is El Rey del Chivito. "Chivito," some of you may note, means goat, yet "The King of the Goat" offers no goat on the menu. According to the owner of El Rey del Chivito, the story goes that an Argentine tourist went to a restaurant in Uruguay and asked for a roast goat sandwich. Having no goat, the restaurateur served her a steak sandwich instead, which he began calling a "chivito." As other tourists began asking for additional toppings on the sandwich, they all stayed a part of the recipe, which now typically includes a thin grilled steak, bacon, fried ham, cheese, a fried egg, onions, lettuce, and tomato, all on a lightly toasted bun - slathered with mayonnaise, of course.

It is an over-the-top, heart-attack-on-a-bun kind of a sandwich. It is also absolutely delicious, though clearly something to be consumed in moderation. This is not simply a "This is Why You're Fat" style gross-out fest. The multitudinous components of the sandwich really do make for a truly delectable combination. I just try to limit my intake to about one a year, and recently learned, while paying a visit with National Geographic writer Andrew Nelson as he tweeted his way through Miami, that half a sandwich will actually do just fine. I just can't imagine who is putting away the "Super Chivito Emperador," the super-sized version they also offer on the menu. The fries, unfortunately, are disappointingly limp, though they do serve as a handy vehicle for the greasy goodness that drips off the sandwich.

While the chivito is unquestionably the official sandwich of Uruguay, and apparently unique to the country, Uruguayan food otherwise - at least what's available here - looks much like that of its neighbor Argentina. The menu at El Rey del Chivito also offers typical parrillada items, as well as a grab-bag other things: steaks, grilled chicken, hamburgers with various toppings, a few salads, a couple pastas, pizzas (there is a strong Italian influence to Argentine cuisine). Another curious item you'll see in both Uruguay and Argentina is faina, which is a thin chickpea-based bread customarily served with pizza in both countries. You can order it on its own or on top of the pizza, in which case it's called a "Pizza a Caballo" (on horseback).

This is perhaps more of a curiosity to be experienced than a delicacy to be sought out, as the pizza at El Rey de Chivito was only fair to middling, and the faina didn't really do much to elevate it for me.

But a chivito at El Rey del Chivito is always a fine and immensely satisfying sandwich. Just keep in mind that between the egg and bacon, the ham and cheese, and the steak, it can serve as breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one.

[Edited to add: I just noticed that the first picture of the restaurant wall, above, has some great stuff in it. There's a picture of Elvis, "El Rey del Rock", next to a picture of the owner, Aron, "El Rey del Chivito" wearing crown and robe; and also some diagrams and lists showing where the different cuts of beef come from. I'm going to have to give that a closer inspection next visit.]

El Rey del Chivito
6987 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33141
305.864.5566

CSA Week 2 - the rest

I've already given the gripping account of how part of my CSA Week 2 share became a midnight snack after happily discovering that Mrs. F had cooked off the red chard and dandelion greens. So what about the rest?

I warned you it wasn't going to be that exciting. The romaine found its way into some salads. The garlic chives were perfect in an omelette along with some goat cheese. I did another take on bok choy with Momofuku miso butter - added just a tiny bit of honey, and that did a good job of balancing it out (also didn't add soy sauce to the stir-fry pan this time, as the miso was plenty salty on its own). After staring down My Nemesis (the Florida avocado) all week, I cut it open today only to find that it was still rock hard and unripe. Avocado Fail #2. The black sapotes still don't seem ripe, so they will continue to bide their time on the counter.

And I was glad to have hung onto the zucchini, yellow squash and bell pepper all week, as my Week 3 share included eggplant, tomatoes, and another bell pepper. Ratatouille! The gang's all together now.

CSA Week 2 - Midnight in the Garden

It has been a pretty uneventful week with my CSA share so far, in part because I've barely been home to do any cooking. As a result I am sharing with you a "recipe" for what really amounts to a midnight fridge raid.

After getting home a couple nights ago after midnight without having had any dinner yet, I was thrilled to find that Mrs. F had cooked off the red chard and dandelion greens. My reconstruction (a strong hunch based on the usual methodology for greens in our house) is that she sauteéd off some sliced onion in olive oil, added the roughly chopped greens to the pan with a bit of their water still clinging to the leaves, wilted them till they were tender, and added some pistachios and some dried cherries (plumped first in some warm water).

There was also some leftover steak from Las Vacas Gordas from the night before (I am fairly certain you can reconstruct about 50% of an entire cow from the parrillada there), and one of my favorite leftover vehicles, tandoori naan bread (made by Fabulous Flats and available at your local grocer - this is an unpaid and unsolicited endorsement, I just really love slapping almost anything on top of them and calling it a meal).

I popped the naan bread in the toaster oven to heat up, popped the steak and the greens into a sauté pan to warm through, topped the bread with the greens, then sliced the steak and - voilà - dinner.

It seems some people found their dandelion greens too bitter. I didn't find this at all. Not sure if it's because they were mixed with the chard, but there was enough dandelion to make their presence known if they were that bitter. I note that both of the links to other sites mention blanching the dandelion greens before sauteéng them, a step we never bother with in our household. I can't imagine why blanching would contibute to bitterness, I've just never understood why it's necessary as I find that pretty much all greens will soften just fine in a sauté pan with a tiny bit of water on them (throw a lid on top for a few minutes which will steam them if they need it).

Paradigm Shift

A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.  - Karl Marx

Very generally speaking, I think most of us tend to think of art first and foremost from an aesthetic perspective. Yet it is also in most instances - to a greater or lesser degree - a commodity. The financial success of the recent Art Basel weekend undoubtedly attests to this. By the same token, most people tend to think of food first and foremost as a commodity - nothing more than a thing to be bought and consumed. Yet food also has the capacity to strive for art, aesthetics, even perhaps metaphysical subtleties.

A recent dinner which put together Chefs Kurtis Jantz and Chad Galiano (the guys behind the Paradigm dinners) and artist Stephen Gamson at PH2 provided an opportunity to explore the intersection points of art, culture and dining.

One of the things I so admire about Chefs K and Chad is the seriousness and earnestness with which they take any mission. I recall them telling me that when they did their first menu for the Miami Spice promotional program, they put their heads together to formulate a menu that would use spices to highlight local ingredients - only to be baffled when they saw so many other restaurants just cranking out the ubiquitous farmed salmon, chicken paillard and skirt steak. So I knew when they were asked to do a collaborative dinner with a local artist that they would come up with something inspired.

Gamson's pictures all use the same simple iconography, borrowed from the visual lingua franca seen on bathroom doors around the world. The first dish we had took visual cues from the artworks, roughly duplicating the forms in some "his and hers" stick-figure anticuchos of baby octopus and chicken liver (though I'm not sure which would be "his" and which "hers"). The baby octopus, marinated with green Tabasco sauce and lemon, was paired with a Boscoli olive sauce (a twist on pulpo al olivo). The chicken liver achieved a crispy exterior and a tender, warm interior, the crunchy batter made using Trisol (one of the many items in Ferran Adriá's "Texturas" bag of tricks). The aji panca tartar sauce was nicely brightened by an unexpected bit of fresh tarragon.

Next course, a Surf-n-Turf of "2 Tails": on the left, lobster tail, cooked sous vide, served over a green bean salad dressed with "Jester" vinegar (made, if I heard right, from the remnants of some heavy-duty Aussie Shiraz from a Mitolo wine-pairing dinner), paired with a 30-second microwave corn cake (derived from an Adriá technique which you can see here, with the added bonus of Anthony Bourdain throwing out an oblique René Magritte reference). On the right, an oxtail meat pie, with a wonderful tender buttery crust, topped with some hot pepper jelly which made for a nice contrast to the rich meat filling.

I was not anticipating a "shout-out" but, lo and behold, the next dish was called "Frod's Shrimp Dickles." Months ago, Chef K and I had gotten to talking about pickled shrimp and I'd told him my mom had a great recipe. He asked me for it, and I got it from Mother Frod and passed it along - certainly never expecting to see it turn up on a menu. But there it was, and their adaptation was actually not so far off from the original - though mom surely didn't pair hers with a surprisingly nice brussels sprout slaw (surprising for me, anyway, as I usually don't like brussels sprouts raw) and some home-made cheese-its. (If you really want the shrimp recipe, I'll post it). Chef K will tell you that a "dickle" is a "dill pickle" - that's also Chef K's creation, not Mother Frod's.

CSA Week 2 - the beginning

So here's this week's take for my CSA half-share:

A head of romaine lettuce, a bunch of dandelion greens, some red chard (out of the extras box), a bok choy, some garlic chives, a zucchini, a yellow squash, a red bell pepper, a couple of black sapotes, and my nemesis: the Florida avocado (a Monroe cultivar this time).

What with the zucchini, squash, and pepper, I definitely foresee some ratatouille in our future. The greens, especially the chard and dandelion greens, may not need much more than some olive oil and garlic, though they often get along well with their friend the pig. Little Miss F is usually my go-to girl for the exotic fruits (she loves carambola, dragon fruit, mamey, persimmon) and even though I tried to explain that this is in the persimmon family, she was not entirely convinced by the "chocolate pudding fruit" description. I might well take a hint from this guy and break the ice cream machine out. Given the persimmon family relationship, I was thinking about doing some candied persimmon to go with (I've found some nice ones at the grocery store recently, both Fuyu and Hachiya) but Mrs. F and Litle Miss F just started candying some orange peel which might be sufficient. Chives will surely come in handy for something. And that avocado? Well, let's see what happens this week.

What Would Alexander Pope Say?

I am almost nearly at a loss for words over this, wherein local food writer decides to go to war with a new pizzeria and the local charter school for which said pizzeria is doing a charity event: Free Pizza, New Blue Collar Food Blog (make your way down to the comments for the real fireworks). Just two things:

(1) You can read more of Lee Klein's art reviews here on this blog.

(2) Amidst all the kerfuffle over ridiculing schoolkids, it apparently falls to me to note that he also saw fit to use this opportunity to take shots at a blog that hasn't published anything in three years.

It would seem we are clearly on turf where angels fear to tread.

CSA Week 1 - the rest

Before picking up my Week 2 CSA share (no delivery last week over Thanksgiving break), I thought I should wrap up what happened to the rest of the Week 1 share. Sorry to say, not much of interest.

For the corn, my kids decided what to do with it. This is something called "Daddy's Special Pasta" and I have been cooking it for them for years now. It is not exactly Heston Blumenthal material. Rather, it follows what I call the "What Could Be Bad?" principle: if you only use ingredients that taste good on their own, it's pretty likely what you end up with is going to taste good. (This is also why I struggle so much with baking. Baking is the exact opposite of the "What Could Be Bad?" principle. You start with any number of things that don't taste particularly good on their own, yet they come out - if you do it right, of course - delicious).

Depending on how fresh and sweet the corn is, I will either boil it in a big pot of salted water first or just scrape it raw off the cob. This CSA corn, unfortunately, was pretty tough and starchy, and even about 5-10 minutes of boiling didn't soften it up much (I was having recriminations that I'd blown the opportunity for wonderful fresh sweet corn by holding it a few days, letting the sugars convert to starch, but was relieved to see I wasn't the only one to find the corn tough.) Then scrape the kernels off the cobs (I used one per person), and keep that water for the pasta.

I cut bacon (1-2 strips per person) into about 2-inch long pieces (I find it easier to use scissors than a knife for this) and get it about halfway crisp in a sauté pan with a bit of butter on medium heat. Then the bacon comes out of the pan and onto a paper towel to dry. Pour off most of the fat, and put the corn in with the bacon fat to sauté. Now is the time to put your pasta into the boiling water to cook (just about any relatively sturdy shape works here). Meanwhile, if the corn starts to dry out too much, spoon a little pasta water over it. When the pasta is about a minute or two from done, add some cream to the sauté pan and cook to reduce and thicken it some (if we don't have cream in the house, which is often, I have been known to fake it without dismal results by using 2% milk, which we always have, with some TempTee cream cheese to thicken it - seems sort of déclassé, I know).

When the pasta is cooked, drain it and dump it into the sauté pan, throw the bacon in, toss, and give everyone a minute or two to get to know each other. Done. Serve with grated cheese of your choice - parmigiano, pecorino, dry jack are all good. (This all took longer to describe than it takes to make, and probably wasn't worth the effort - the describing, not the making, that is.)

As for the rest of it? The Momofuku book was again the source of inspiration for the bok choy, which I sautéed quickly in an imitation of stir-frying, and paired with a miso butter from the book (basically just white miso and softened butter mixed together in equal ratio; in the book, it's paired with grilled asparagus with an egg on top). This was my first "fail" out of the Momofuku book, as I found the miso flavor overpowering (and I like miso). Not awful, just not very balanced. I'm thinking it perhaps could have been cut with some dashi to mellow it out some, or paired with something with more assertive flavors of its own. Indeed, I saved the rest of it, thinking it will be good as a compound butter to put over a nice grilled steak.

The green beans met an uninteresting fate, and the avocado was even worse. It turned brown and soft before I'd even thought to touch it, which leads to an uncomfortable confession: I just don't really like Florida avocados. They're watery, their flavor is insipid, they lack the buttery richness of a Hass avocado. I know, I should have at least tried it. It looks like the Week 2 CSA Share will have a different cultivar, a Monroe avocado - and this time, I promise to try it. But perhaps someone can tell me why we can't grow Hass avocados here?

On to Week 2.