For the next ones heading somewhere warmer*, here's some more South Florida tips:
If there is one cuisine, one type of restaurant that symbolizes South Florida......Much more (I believe) than even Cuban, it is the deli. Time and progress, however, have removed the greatest from our reach. A journey down Collins Avenue showed a vacant lot where Wolfie's once reigned and the home of the greatest in the land, the Rascal, has been sadly converted to something called Epicurean. Our beloved North Miami Beach staple, Bagel Bar had been reconfigured and re-occupied by something called Roasters and Toasters, which seemed to be avoided by all just on principle. Still, in the alter kocker land that is Aventura, there are places to be found. On this trip, we hit
Mo's Bagels. Mo's had about all I wanted in a S. Florida bagel shop/deli: gratis little danish, here something called cheesecake souffle, which was like the inside of a cheese blintz fried up; hand sliced "real" lox, comforting staff, deli look and feel. What it did not have was outstanding food. We all found the corned beef hash bland. The whitefish salad came out a bit too sweet, and the bagels were too fat and soft. Maybe your tip should be to see how
Bagel Cove up the street compares.
If you want to experience the pleasant sleaziness that is Federal Highway between the Miami-Dade County line and Fort Lauderdale......The retirement condo ghetto of Aventura ends abruptly, giving way to a stretch of ultra divey motels, 24 hour open air laundromats and other assorted riff-raffaria's. Of course Federal Highway is not the multi-culti eating zone that is St. Rt 7/US 441, but we'll get to that in a moment. Instead, it is a place for Travis MacGee era Florida. Who cannot imagine him knocking back a few beers with a grouper sandwich, wings and some curly fries on the side at
Tark's. Would he mind that the grouper now comes from Asia? Eating fried fish and other seafood at Tark's is like eating hot dogs at Wrigley. It just tastes better because you are there.
A little further up the street is
Jaxson's. It is highly not sleazy in any way, but rather much frozen in time (except for the prices). It is not just nostalgic in decor and feel the way the way that Walt Disney felt nostalgic when he built his first park, it is nostalgic in the way it lacks the tiniest bit of irony. Eat your very large fountain creations damnit. And man are they large. One of my daughters got an ice cream float, where the float part was not a glass but a pitcher. The chocolate chips are especially huge, a house speciality. The prices, actually, are not outrageous because items can (and should) be split. Do not, however, go expecting something like the museum parlor at Science & Industry. The ice cream itself is outstanding.
If you could never duplicate what we were talking about here, about Westminster fried chicken, you can finally get the record corrected......It aint Westminster chicken, it's Westmoreland style chicken. All the time we were down in Florida, the older daughter was gripin' she wanted Westminster fried chicken. Now, I had mentioned it at some point as a good food memory from our last visit, but I think she just was in love with the notion of blank, fried chicken. As in fried chicken's good, but when you make it WESTMINSTER fried chicken, well. And why did I think it was Westminster fried chicken. I guess I had not paid too close attention to the
Aunt I's menu. Westminster, with that English air, just sounded Jamaican to me. It turns out that it was, is Westmoreland fried chicken that Aunt I serves, that is chicken fried and then topped with jerk gravy. And after telling you all that, I'll tell you this, Aunt I's on Sunday afternoon, when nearly all the fare of the day was sold out, and the fish tasted as it should have been market sold out a few days earlier, it did not really mark well to memory.
Aunt I's was the only place we sampled along St. Rt 7/US 441, but I'm telling you this is ultra-prime chow zone. It would take ReneG weeks to get from one end of the Broward County line to the other. **Bonus tips within the tips: ReneG good friend, John T. Edge, gives good props to this 7 place,
Georgia Pig, in his round up of too late for me, S. Florida gems.**
If you want an example of why Miami (and suburbs) happens to be the Northern most city in South America......Not every thing we tried at
La Estancia Argentia tasted great. It seems, for instance, that Argentines have a taste for two Manischewitz style macroons smacked together with a slathering of dulce de leche. I mean it looked good at first. Still, a lot of the baked goods tasted a lot better, especially something that looked like a pinched pancake with dulce de leche on one end and cream on the other. What were these called. Well, that's about the whole point of this place. You have no idea. You have no idea that you're in the USA. Everyone's talking in that Italian accented version of Spanish that is Argentine**. The place is filled with so much stuff you have never seen, pastries and empanadas and finger sandwiches, and it does not make a hell of a lot of difference what does and does not taste good because a plane ride down there costs a hell of a lot more.
And just when you thought we reached par with S. Florida Israeli with Naf Naf and Mizrahi......I'm saving the best for last because as a Jew, I'm preternaturally attracted to anything Israeli. No matter your political or other beliefs, however, you will like this place. Our standard for Israeli food in this country used to be Pita Plus in Aventura. Then, finally, Mizrahi opened in Highland Park, and I'm telling you, we had something here pretty darn close. Close. Then, we got taken to Etzel Itzik on Dixie Highway in Aventura. This
blog post excellently places the international-ness of the place (I love the line about the phone ring). You sit down. You get six or so Israeli salads. It all tastes biblically good, even fusilli pasta salad. OK, the seven salads: two cabbage, beets, pasta, chick pea, corn + pickles and olives. I'm telling ya, everything on our table I loved from grease-less thin "schnitzel" to spicy mergez to something we did not know before called sabich--egg and hummous and a whole scallion and some more in that Israeli pita which, I have to say, is the best pita. And we loved it so much we had to go back for the Israeli breakfast a few days later. It's not a breakfast buffet, too bad, but mostly things we had to say, "what's that," and what's that was variations of beans and hummous. But it's all good. Except for the tomatoes. No place has worse tomatoes than Florida.
If I had more I wanted to say......It was not all good. Le Tub was supposed to be a burger high point, but it rather sucked. There's a few other places, here and there, places you would not care about as a traveler. Regardless of a clunker or two, you will eat well in S. Florida with these tips.
*Very unseasonably cold when we went
**I do not really know this for sure, but I remember once talking with a Colombian cab driver, and he complained about the Italian accented voices (and airs) of the Argentines.
Think Yiddish, Dress British - Advice of Evil Ronnie to me.