Miami h(eat) – Part 1

I’m baaaaack!  Sorry for the delay in posts friends, but I had a glorious week in Miami with no regular internet access to enjoy.  Check out a few shots from our amazing hotel, The Mondrian.

It was truly relaxing!  I’ve never been much of a beach vacation person, but what won me over to the beach on this trip were the comfy deck chairs and umbrellas for rent.  That changes everything for me, since I am really fair and burn very easily (despite slathering on 55+ sunscreen).  I did get a little sunburn on day 3, but that was my own fault for going in the ocean and not reapplying – and it wasn’t too serious anyway.

So on to the food: We had a fantastic concierge at The Mondrian (thank you David!) who directed us to some amazing restaurants that we went to on our second and third nights: Indomania and Ola

But first, we hit another place that I want to mention quickly.  For breakfast our second day, we went to Front Porch Cafe at The Penguin Hotel on the famous Ocean Drive. It was swamped that morning, but we only had to wait about 15 minutes for a table.  We opted for one inside to get seated faster and to enjoy the air conditioning (it is HUMID in Miami people!).  I was unfortunately a bit hungover from our previous evening at Opium at The Hard Rock Casino (for more on that story, you’ll have to ask me).  So the idea of eggs for breakfast was not sitting well with me.  Instead, I ordered their Pizza From Hell, which had sausage, onions, mushrooms, black olives and jalapeños and was YUMMY!  Exactly what the doctor ordered.  Todd got the Chicken Satay omelette, which is exactly as it sounds, chicken breast with peanut sauce and I believe it had scallions and bean sprouts too.  I mustered up the courage to have a bit (remember, my stomach was boycotting eggs that morning) and it was very delicious – definitely something I would have wanted to order on another visit.  Great service – our waitress was even wearing glow in the dark Halloween earrings!

Indomania – just off of Collins Avenue on 26th Street

I had never experienced Indonesian food before and was quite curious and excited.  We heard that it was a really small restaurant, therefore we made reservations on the earlier side in order to get in.  The place is quite small, with perhaps 14 or 15 tables of various sizes total and a pretty decent sized bar just as you walk in.  We were the second table to arrive (apparently they had just opened), were seated and ordered a drink while we perused the menu.  Todd had been to an Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam previously and mentioned that they might have what are called “rice tables”, which indeed they did.  Rijsttafel (rice table) comes with one or two bowls of flavored rice (coconut, lemongrass) and then 10 to 15 different dishes to accompany the rice.  It’s like little tastings of almost everything on their menu.  We ordered the Rijsttafel Sumatra and pretty soon, the food came rolling out!  There were so many dishes (check out the website to see them all), so I’ll give you the highlights:

• Shrimp with petch beans in coconut sauce – sweet and slightly spicy, perfectly cooked shrimp, firm beans
• Boiled egg in curry sauce – which was surprisingly, completely delicious – who knew?
• Crispy, spicy green beans – the beans themselves were not really crispy, but firm and had something spicy crumbled all over them – one of my absolute favorites!
• Eggplant stew – my other favorite!  The spiciest dish in the repertoire – great consistency
• Beef stew in thick, spiced coconut sauce – tender and flavorful

Our waiter was Indonesian as well, and gave us a little more detail behind some of the dishes.  We stuffed ourselves that night – we had no other choice as we were surrounded by food and didn’t want to leave any of it behind.  We finally had to stop without finishing the delicious salad with peanut dressing.  But we were pretty successful in eating everything else.  We were so stuffed that we passed on a cab and walked the 20+ blocks home.  Had to get SOME exercise in after that gluttonous meal!!!

Indomania – http://www.indomaniarestaurant.com/

Ola – At The Sanctuary Hotel on James Ave above 17th

Our third night, we walked through the shops and restaurants on Lincoln to get to Ola at The Sanctuary Hotel.  The restaurant was much larger than I expected, quite hip in terms of atmosphere.  We were there again a bit on the early side, so it wasn’t that busy when we arrived.  But there were a steady stream of tables filling up as we were there.  I ordered a Cojito (coconut mojito) and we settled in for what we hoped would be a great meal.

We started with a ceviche, Fire and Ice, which is Cobia marinated in sour orange, thai chilies, cilantro, jalapeño over asian pear granita.  Can I just say, pure heaven?  It was wonderfully tart and spicy – I wanted to lick the bowl when we were done!  Next we had the Smoked Marlin Tacos – rum-vanilla, cured smoked marlin in crispy malanga boats with pickled jalapeños.  I’m not usually a big fan of smoked anything, but these were absolutely delectable!  We received 5 mini tacos and I wanted 5 more.  But I restrained myself and waited for the next course, which was a beef short rib empanada.  This was by far my definite favorite dish – it had a slightly sweet, spicy sauce inside the empanada, which was crispy and chewy at the same time.  I savored each bite.  Finally, we ended with Crispy Pork, which had fried yucca dressed with lemon mojo, black bean broth and cilantro mojo.  The pork was tasty, but not crispy – which was a bit of a disappointment.  The dish did come topped with chicharrones – I’m wondering if that is what they were referring to when they called it “crispy”?  I did enjoy the flavor of the mojos and the yucca was a nice departure as well.  We were tempted to order their Key Lime Pie, which is supposed to be their specialty, but alas, there was no room in our bellies.  So instead we again enjoyed a nice long walk back to our hotel to call it an evening.

Ola – http://www.olamiami.com/

Next post I’m going to tell you about my Sushi Samba experience.  I wasn’t sure what to expect there, as it is a chain and located on Lincoln Ave, one of the popular, trendy places to be in Miami.  I’ll elaborate more next time in Miami h(eat) – Part 2.  Stay Tuned!!!