Florida Dining: Announcing the Off The Broiler Meetup Group

If you’re a foodie based in South Florida, don’t miss out on our new Meetup group, Off The Broiler Dining Adventures. My plans for this new group are ambitious — I intend to have group dinners and special food events at least once per month, at restaurants and venues selected by yours truly.

Joining our Meetup group is free. As we did with previous dining events in the NY Metro Area, we’ll be planning dinners in Broward, Palm Beach and Dade County/Miami with set (as well as a la carte) menus and will need to secure reservations, so please be sure to notify the event organizers at least a day before if you need to cancel.

You must participate in this group to be notified of upcoming events and to reserve your places at these dinners, as we have no other way of tracking attendance.

Florida Dining: Zuma

Zuma
270 Biscayne Boulevard Way
Miami, FL (Located in the Epic Hotel)
(305) 577-0277

Web Site: http://www.zumarestaurant.com/zuma-landing/miami/en/welcome

Since I’ve moved down to South Florida I have been concentrating more on the “ethnic eats” rather than the fine dining aspect of food blogging. But as I’ve been having more and more business meetings in Miami, I’m starting to get exposed more towards the high-end cuisine offerings here.

I recently had the opportunity to dine at Zuma, which bills itself as “modern Japanese”. Zuma is part of the Azumi restaurant group, which has branches of Zuma in different parts of the world, including London, Hong Hong, Istanbul, Dubai, Miami and Bangkok.

My understanding is that the original Zuma restaurant in London was a partnership of two very wealthy Indian businessmen who had dined at the London branch of Nobu and decided that they could create a similar concept restaurant on their own. Certainly Zuma is very “Nobu-esque” in its menu format (including the miso black cod that every high-end Japanese restaurant seems to copy from Nobu these days) and also overall presentation.

I will also state I have no idea what anything at this restaurant costs. I was treated to lunch here by a very generous client, and I never saw any prices because I never looked at the menu, someone else did the ordering, and the online menu has no prices either. So if your interest is piqued in dining here, just take that into consideration.

The bar area of the Miami outpost of Zuma. This is one of the few dining room photos I was able to take, as the management got quite annoyed with me after observing me just taking a few casual shots of the general dining area and told me to put my camera away.

Nobu too rich for your blood? Well, so is this. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

Florida Dining: Versailles

Versailles Restaurant
3555 SW 8th St Miami, FL 33135
(305) 444-0240

Web Site: http://www.versaillesrestaurant.com

Full-size photo gallery available on Flickr

If there’s one iconic Cuban restaurant in Miami, and if you ask anyone where the center of activity is for food on Calle Ocho past 9PM, then that place is Versailles.

Like the French palace from which it gets its name, Versailles is a HUGE restaurant. On weekends and in prime dining hours the place gets absolutely packed with people, including large number of out of towners looking for authentic Cuban food.

This is where Cuban food gets real in Miami. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

Florida Dining: El Rey De Las Fritas

El Rey De Las Fritas
Multiple locations in Miami

Web Site (Google+)

Twitter: @reydelasfritas

El Rey De Las Fritas has been a Miami favorite of mine ever since I started this blog back in early 2006. The Cuban-style  family owned and operated burger micro-chain (they have 4 locations in the Miami-area) has recently been profiled on George Motz’s Burger Land on the Travel Channel, and business has been a boomin’.

I recently visited the Calle Ocho location, and brought along my iPhone 5 to take some new photos. Here’s a consolidation of all my visits since 2006. Enjoy.

Miami Calle Ocho Storefront, late at night.

Calle Ocho dining room

The Bird Street location of El Rey De Las Fritas. Note that it has a walk up window, where you can get all kinds of empanadas and croquetas, plus cortaditos and cafecitos, Cuban coffee. Forget Starbucks when you are in Little Havana!

Prepare for burgers, Cuban-style. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

Florida Dining: Yardbird

Yardbird Southern Table & Bar
1600 Lenox Avenue
Miami Beach, Florida
305.538.5220

Web Site: http://runchickenrun.com

Since moving to South Florida in July of 2012, I haven’t really done much with investigating the local fine dining scene. My food blogging activities have been more or less curtailed by my new job, and also by focusing more on technology writing.

But now that things have become a bit less crazy, I’m easing myself back into the food blogger seat again.

There was no better opportunity to do this than with a recent business lunch I had with two like-minded foodie colleagues, who suggested we meet at Yardbird, a modern Southern restaurant in South Beach.

Yardbird, which was a 2012 James Beard Award Semi-Finalist for Best New Restaurant, and was named one of the 50 Best New Restaurants in 2012 at Bon Appetit Magazine, is definitely a destination for anyone looking to indulge in updated, classic Southern American fare.

I would compare Yardbird favorably to places like the very excellent JCT Kitchen in Atlanta, as well as any number of well-known “New South” type places in New Orleans, such as Luke.

The main dining room at Yardbird is bright and warm, mixing southern hospitality with Miami chic.

It’s time to head to South Beach for the winter. Be sure to check out Yardbird. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.