South Beach

Just got back from short trip to south beach, Miami. Was a very succesful trip, mainly because it got me away from the chaos of my usual homelife. On the food front, there were a ton of restaurants and it was rather difficult to find out which ones were worth visiting. There were a plethora of steakhouses, which do not tend to be my thing. After a long search, I settled on Two restaurants, Wish (contemporary) and D. Rodriguez (Cuban/Nuevo Latino). Without going into too many details on the meals, there were a few ahhh moments for cooking at home.

At Wish, we had pickled shallots as an accompaniment which as far as I can tell are picked in red wine vinegar. This would be amazing on grilled meats or burgers. I had sauteed chicken breasts that had been cooked skin-on with a Kumquat compote which was amazing. A bit tart, but a decidedly citrus flavor that was fantastic with this chicken preparation.

Cerviche at D. Rodriguez was earth shattering. I do like cerviche, and have had what I thought was very good cerviche at Mari Luna Latin Grille (Pikesville). Unfortunately, it just does not hold a candle to what I had at D. Rodriguez. The cerviche had Prince Edward island mussels, bird-beak shrimp, and calamari which were all of high quality, but the brilliance of the dish was in the liquid. A mixture of watermelon juice, lime juice, and Jalapeno, really was fantastic. The Watermelon was the dominant flavor but what a great application of the classic sweet and sour with the perfect amount of heat from the Jalapeno. Also clever was the blanching of the shrimp prior to adding it to the liquid, which I presume gave much better control over the cooking of the shrimp.

Also, after a bit of searching, I found a great place for Cuban coffee. As far as I can tell, when looking for this kind of drink, you need to look for the funkiest place you can and go there. This trip was no exception, the place I found was La Playa market, which had bars over the doors and had shady characters in front. The preparation of the coffee was quite a routine.

First the previous coffee was knocked out of the portafilter by hitting it on a 2X4 board that was sticking out of the trashcan. By the looks of it, the board had been used around a million times before. The coffee is brewed espresso style but with a giant scoop of sugar. A small amount of espresso is brewed, the sugar is added to the espresso and stirred vigorously so a slurry is made, then the rest of the coffee is brewed into the cup. On the top was a light brown crema-type sweet foam. This serving was apparently supposed to be shared, since I was given 6 tiny plastic cups to go with this coffee. The cups were about the size of tiny half and half containers. I gradually drank the whole thing, and definitely felt it between the caffeine and the sugar. A delicious twist on coffee for the low cost of $1.50.