Caliente Kitchen

Opening a restaurant/lounge in Florida, just like anywhere, takes a great deal of time and effort. Coming up with the next popular “place to see and be seen” in South Florida is especially tough. Which is why when our friends invited us to attend a private grand opening event for a new and exciting restaurant/lounge in Delray Beach, we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Our friend Rob, a true entrepreneur in every sense, along with several business partners, opened Caliente Kitchen, an upscale Mexican eatery and lounge on trendy Atlantic Avenue, in Delray Beach.

This particular night was billed as an intimate, private event for close friends, families and associates to see the restaurant, take in its rustic ambience, and enjoy some cool margaritas while sampling a fixed tasting menu featuring a sample of several items from the regular menu.  Walking in to the restaurant you really do get the sense of being transported into a rustic hacienda in Mexico.  The decor features heavy wood furniture with burnt red leather upholstery and tin light fixtures.  The main focus at the front is a gigantic wood framed mirror that takes up a large expanse of the wall across from the bar.   The pleasing effect makes the front area feel much larger than the actual space.   There are several high bistro tables in this area which are removed later in the evening to allow for a dance floor.  This is where we were seated for the evening.  There was definitely a keen eye for detail in the interior design of the space.

Caliente Tasting Menu

Our server, one of several in this very attractive bar (all bearing “Papi” name tags!) and wait staff, immediately took our drink order and brought us a bowl of fresh tortilla chips and homemade guacamole along with chicken nachos to munch on prior to taking our entrée orders.  Both were delicious and paired well with our large, frosty cold margaritas.  Another round of margaritas later our entrees arrived.  Like the appetizers, they didn’t disappoint. The tacos were generously filled with a choice of marinated, shredded chicken, ground beef and homemade pico de gallo or grilled vegetables and queso fresco; the Dos Equis marinated sautéed chicken breast was probably the most interesting and tasty of the main courses.  We finished the meal by sharing coffee flan and tres leches desserts.  Both were good but the tres leches was by far the favorite of our table.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening.  There were a few minor issues with service and presentation but that is to be expected at a pre-opening event.  The missteps were small,  and the great food, service and atmosphere far outweighed them.   We can’t wait to try the regular full menu once they have gotten into their regular groove.  We didn’t get to partake in the night club aspect of the establishment, but it was a “school night’ after all and even us Wanderlushes have to consider the consequences of overindulgence.   By looking at Caliente’s Facebook page you can tell the nights are already going strong.

The food and drinks were all very good, the service, prompt and friendly…and the vibe is exciting and upbeat. We wish Rob all the best with this latest business endeavor. Though, with Rob’s “Midas Touch” sensibilities and his astute business acumen, we expect Caliente Kitchen will be a great success.

Off centered ales for off centered people...

Several weeks ago we decided to attend a Dogfish Head beer tasting at Morton’s Steakhouse, located in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Blake, a Fresh Beer Inc Rep, craft beer Jedi-In-Training and an all around highly evolved individual, hosted the event.  Having lived in Delaware, we were already very aware of Dogfish and had been lucky enough to visit both their Rehoboth Beach Brew Pub and the Milton brewery.

We were running a little late to the event, but once we arrived we were greeted warmly at the door by Valerie, the event’s coordinator.  We were issued wine glasses (what, no mugs?) and our Dogfish Head tasting was underway.

Midas Touch

We started off with the Midas Touch (9.0% ABV).   Dogfish uses an ancient Turkish recipe that is apparently the oldest-known fermented beverage in the world.   We picked up a definite sweetness with hints of honey along with a slight earthiness.    Notes from Dogfish: Pair with Pan-Asian dishes, risotto, curries, baked fish and chicken.   Wine Comparison:  Sauterne and Champagne

Raison D'etre

Next up was the Raison D’Etre (8.0% ABV).   This is a Belgian-style Brown Ale brewed with beet sugar, raisins and Belgian-style yeast.   There is a slight sweetness again but many more layers in this complex beer.    Notes from Dogfish: Pair with wood-grilled steak.

Moving on to the 90-Minute IPA (9.0% ABV) we were definitely starting to appreciate the Dogfish way.

90 Minute IPA

This beer was hoppy but not as much as you would think.  It had a nice balance of the bitter andsmooth.   Notes from Dogfish: This Imperial IPA was brewed to be savored from a snifter per Dogfish’s website.   A big beer with a great malt backbone that stands up to the extreme hopping rate.    90 Minute IPA was our first continually-hopped beer, which is a method of hopping that allows for a pungent, but not crushing hop flavor.

Palo Santo Marron

The final beer for the evening (and our favorite) was the Palo Santo Marron (12% ABV).  We definitely picked up caramel and vanilla in this brown ale.  Notes from Dogfish: An unfiltered, unfettered, unprecedented brown ale aged in handmade wooden brewing vessels.  This beer comes from the exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood from which these tanks were crafted.  Palo Santo means “holy tree” and it’s wood has been used in South American wine-making communities.   Wine Comparison:  Oak Aged Cabernet   Food Pairing Recommendations:  Steak, chorizzo sausage, cajun cuisine, farmhouse cheddar

Lamb Chop & Assorted Cheeses

Morton’s pass around appetizers to accompany the event were plentiful and very tasty.  We dined on  several mini flat bread pizzas topped with Salmon; grilled lamb chops, tenderloin sandwiches, four beer friendly cheeses and tuna tartar served on thinly sliced cucumber.   Also, a big shout out goes to  our new friend in the biz, Blake.  He was very generous with the pours and offered a lot of background on each of the beers and shared a unique blending of the the Palo Santo and 90 Minute IPA.

Most, if not all, of the guests in attendance appreciated the beer 101, if not the beers themselves.  At the end of the event we had a chance to talk more in detail about beers we enjoy with fellow enthusiasts.   The extra post-event beer pours were much appreciated, too.

Tenderloin Sandwich

Our only “beef” with the event, and it’s a minor one, was how many glasses of unconsumed beer we saw sitting on the tables.  I have no problem with leaving a half-empty mug of Bud or Coors (hell, I’d leave those full). I take umbrage at anyone who would leave a sip, swirl or swig of a fine craft beer like Dogfish Head behind. Are these people crazy? You can’t muster up the will power and stamina to finish even the tiniest bit of beer sitting at the bottom of your glass? That’s blasphemy in our house.  This was a quaint event that had good food, great company and of course, outstanding craft beer.

Las Olas Food & Wine Festival

Events like the Las Olas Food & Wine Festival make us sad, that we as human beings, do not possess a second (larger) stomach, four arms (with 12 fingers) and an auxiliary liver.  And with good reason: with so much great food and wine choices available to us this particular night, a larger than normal capacity for eating and drinking would have been a welcome anomaly, though it certainly would draw attention to us…and not in a positive way.

So Many Wines to Try...

Physiological limitations aside, we thoroughly enjoyed this year’s incarnation of the festival (the 15^th), a culinary gauntlet which meanders its way down Las Olas, the toniest boulevard in all of Broward County, much less South Florida.  The event planners know how to put on a grand fete.  Ticket sales are limited to keep the crowds from bloating (literally) the boulevard.  Restaurants and shops along the street are open for business as usual, but curious patrons hoping to score a free nibble and sip here and there were kept at bay because they didn’t possess the one vital fashion accessory that binds all LOF&W foodies together: the day-glo orange disposable wrist band signifying them as paid attendees.  Simply put, if you don’t pay you can’t play.

Street View

Due to space limitations and the sheer amount of participating food and beverage vendors, stands were spaced apart strategically.  This allowed easier access for everyone to both move about or stand in line, and not feel cramped (though several times throughout the night we were privy to cell phone conversations which, though interesting as they may have been, we could have done without hearing.)

If you’ve been following our blog then you know the rule of thumb at these events, as is par for the course at any large food and wine gathering, is to pace yourself accordingly.  We had a well thought-out plan to try specific foods and wines along the way.  If something looked or smelled tantalizing, we stopped and tried it.  If there was a significant wait at a particular station, be it for food or wine, we simply kept walking.  The crowds were quite relaxed and friendly this night, which makes an event of this kind easier to stomach (pun intended).

A view inside the Bombay Sapphire Lounge

There was also live entertainment to help set the mood.  On one side of the street Bombay Sapphire had set up a chill lounge, complete with DJ, couches and bar tables, and of course, loads of free samples to try.  We enjoy a nice cocktail every now and then, but with our stomachs reaching near bursting proportions at that point in the night we decided to decline the hard stuff and opted for water instead.  Just temporarily, of course.

As the event started winding down, the VIP lounge set up earlier on the grassy plain where O’Hara’s Lounge and Café Europa once stood for so long was now converted into a large gathering area for festival goers, complete with a DJ spinning all the overplayed cruise ship/wedding/bar mitzvah tunes you could stomach (again, pun intended).  We used this time to settle down and drink copious amounts of water to maintain our sobriety and help digest all the incredible food we sampled that night.   As we stood at the table, groups of ladies started forming on the dance floor,  which elicited the usual hoots and cries from those gathered around. Clearly they didn’t care, and I can’t say I blame them.  Events like this are all about letting loose and enjoying yourself.

Chima Brazilian Steakhouse Grilling Station

The Las Olas Food & Wine Festival is most definitely Wanderlush approved.  The food, wine, beer and the overall atmosphere made for a very enjoyable Saturday night.  The only thing we would like to see next year would be more elegant choices in food and presentation by some of the restaurants.  Come on Mangos, pita chips & hummus, really?

We will definitely be back next year.  Kudos to the planners for the best run event we have attended this year.

Our Wine/Beer Highlights of the Night:
Alexander Valley Vineyards Merlot
Buehler Russian River Chardonnay
Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
Hook & Ladder The Tillerman
Lange Pinot Gris
Leth Gruner Vetliner
Peter Lehmann Layers
Southern Tier Raspberry Wheat Beer

Our Food Highlights of the Night:
Burgers from Charm City Burgers
Various Grilled Meats from Chima Brazilian Steakhouse
Pasta w/Veal Ragu from Valentino’s

The Venue

Some glaring facts of the “Brew At The Zoo” beer festival held May 1st at the Miami-Dade Metro Zoo: there was a giant fence surrounding all the inhabitants (non-electrified, thank God); frequent, loud and beastly cries were heard coming from this “cage”; there were security officials everywhere maintaining order.  Oh, and there were some choice odors wafting through the late afternoon Miami air—not all of them good.

Wanderlushing

Welcome to the “Brew At The Zoo” Beer Festival, presented by the Miami New Times, the first beer festival of its kind ever to be held at the Miami-Dade Metro Zoo.  And judging by the attendance, it probably won’t be the last.  But that’s not saying the Wanderlushes considered it a smashing success (some slurring, wobbly-kneed attendees proved our point) but it was an experience.

Due to liability concerns the actual festival was held outside of the zoo—after closing hours.  We can fully understand the zoo’s reluctance to hold an event of this kind inside the zoo’s perimeter.  Just imagine a bunch of drunk, “civilized” humans interacting with all those “wild” animals.  We don’t want to see anything flying through the monkey cages.  Monkeys are a clean bunch, for the most part, and don’t need to suffer such an indignity at the hands of inebriated humans.

Close to 30 beer vendors offered Dixie cup-sized samples of their brews.  We didn’t mind the cup size as much as we minded the fact that waiting all that time to try some of the beers was like waiting to get on a ride at Disney: it’s a long wait for a short thrill.  While in line we managed to chat up other patient beer lovers like ourselves, so it made the wait tolerable.  Several smart attendees brought two plastic cups in which to sample up to the vendor’s tables.  Two of the beer vendors were tapped out by the time we made it to the event which was around 6:45 p.m.  The event officially got underway at 5 p.m.  There was a large stage set up at one end of the venue.  A band played as we entered and then gave way to a “call of the wild” animal call contest a short time later.

For the hour or so we were there we managed to sample some great craft beers, though a good majority of them we’ve tried in the past or enjoy on a regular basis.  Some stands were out of some of their selections.   Food was available (albeit limited) but we didn’t partake in any of it.

When the sun went down we left in search of real food, in a clean, well-lit place with tables, chairs and generous-sized pint glasses of beer—all away from the maddening crowd.  We found it a short time later at Titanic Brewing Company, in Coral Gables (TARZAN YELL).

Zoo Brew

The Good:
-Great crowd – everyone was happy!
-Good beer – Our Favs:  Titanic Brewery Dubbel Trouble Ale,  Brooklyn Brown Ale, Holy Mackerel Golden Ale & Mack in Black, Zoo Brew (who knew?!)

The Bad:
-Some vendors gone (Monk in the Trunk) or out of some selections early (Raging Bitch) 
-Throw Away Tiny Plastic Cup (Take a lesson from the Jupiter Beer Festival – they had a mini-plastic pilsner with the event info printed on it that you could keep)
-Food Choices – Not bad but not much to choose from.

The Ugly:
-Standard Port-O-Potties – Spring for the upgraded version or move the locale to a venue with real bathrooms.

Chaumes with Roasted Pineapple & Habanero Jam

We tend to burn the candle at both ends in our never-ending journey to see, drink, taste and savor all the delights the world has to offer.  But every now and then we downshift to take time to appreciate good food, drink and friends.  A few Saturdays ago we did just that.

A little bit of background first.   We had attended the SOBE Food & Wine festival and received a flyer about a contest on the Ile De France Cheese website.  We entered and gave another entry to our good friends.    They received a phone call several weeks later that they had won a cheese platter!  We were all expecting a small amount of cheese to share between the four of us.   We were wrong!  The package arrived and there were gigantic slabs of cheese enough for a small army.   What to do in order to not waste all of this amazing cheese?   The plan developed for a “Beer and Cheeeez Party”  with everyone coming up with recipes incorporating the cheese which we would pair with beer and Richard Cheese tunes.  This was the final menu:

St. Agur Blue on Crackers Drizzled with Honey

- St. Agur Blue Cheese drizzled with Cheese Honey on a Table Cracker 
- Cremier de Chaumes on toast points with Roasted Pineapple & Habanero Jam
- Mediterranean Pizza with Goat Cheese, Sundried Tomatoes and Artichoke Hearts
- Pizza with Peppers and Caprice des Dieux
- Deconstructed Blue St. Agur Blue Cheese Burgers 

The Pizza Selections

 There were three choices of pizza on the menu this evening, including an amazing goat cheese, artichoke and sun-dried tomato pie.  It paired quite well with the Flying Dog Raging Bitch on draft.   As if that wasn’t enough, the grill was fired up for the next stage of our gluttony: mini burgers deconstructed and topped with bleu cheese and served on a puff pastry paired with Stone Smoked Porter.    My mouth is watering as I’m typing these words, so you can only imagine how good they tasted as they came sizzling hot off the grill.   

Stone Smoked Porter & Blue Cheese Burgers

With a continually filled plate in one hand and a beer in the other, it’s safe to say we all enjoyed the offerings.   After stuffing ourselves, we retired outside to listen to some music and talk. The weather was perfect: not too hot or cold, with a gentle breeze that kept the tiki torches flickering.

It’s always nice to slow down every once in a while and appreciate what we Wanderlushes have: good food, good spirits…and most of all, great friends to share them with.