Audit juice

Notice the high speed scanner in the background. The piece of paper
is our lunch menu which is a close second to scanning 50 pages/minute
and creating massive PDF files.

Quick Indian potatoes and Roti

This may be my new favorite way to eat fried potatoes, thanks to my friend Shilpa. Very easy and filled with taste. Also had a roti with some Garlic Pickle. Can't wait to get back to the Indian store to get try some other varieties of pickles.

Add cumin seeds to hot oil

Cook potatoes half way

Then add garam masala, red pepper, coriander, and salt

Nachos

Big giant plate of cheesy Nacho heartburn at Speak Easy in GSO.

Alianca Vinho Verde

Super light wine from Portugal. Excellent choice for this nice spring
weekend.

Morton's

Best deal in Miami. After 9:00, Morton's has $5 appetizers. The list is pretty much all inclusive including these sliders pictured below. Also had some fillet sandwiches, crab cakes, spinach crab dip, lettuce cups, chicken strips w/some fancy French name, and several bites of Molten Chocolate Lava Cake. Overall ordered 10 appetizers for 4 people. This is way too much food, don't think of doing that you will feel like a grease ball for the whole night and next day. Limit yourself to two at most w/room for some Key Lime pie which is much better than the chocolate cake thing.

Arepa

Here is the arepa I got from the company cafeteria yesterday. This one
is filled with cheese and was huge for my normal breakfast intake.
Plowed through about three quarters before giving up.

Chimichurri Sauce

Had this Argentinian sauce on my Churrasco at lunch today. The sauce
is made mostly of olive oil, parsley and garlic. Great on steak, but
definitely spooned the rest out on my rice to get every last drop.

Samuel Jackson

Nice cold Samuel at the CLT airport.

Chicken Nachos

Chicken Nachos at the Miami Heat game.

Nordstrom Bistro

These are the best fries. All I have to say about this place is best fries, especially when dipped in the olive aoli.

Haitian Food - Tap Tap

Happened upon this Haitian restaurant in South Beach yesterday. Never tried Haitian food, so wasn't too sure what to expect. Ended up being a Caribbean style with creole sauces and different curry variations. Food was also heavily influenced by French and African cooking, or so I read. I had the shrimp creole which was had a very distinct garlic flavor and great creole sauce. Also tried a piece of fried goat meet, little like pork really, but very good. Other cool thing about the place was the truck parked out front, can't get this paint job just anywhere I'm sure.

Bently, Porche, Bently, Rolls Royce

The cars ouside this pizza spot in the Miami Design district were
probably better than the pizza, but the bar was set pretty high. We
sat outside since the weather was perfect, and there were tons of
people out on the street enjoying the night.

Mojito

Starting with a pretty nice Mojito at this Haitian restaurant in SB.

Caf lunch

Anytime you see onion rings on top of a sandwich that's a good sign. I initially intended to eat a little light today after gorging on several pounds of meat last night, but after seeing this thing that was no longer an option. Keep in mind, this is a corporate cafeteria that's making this. That in itself is amazing having seen some superb crap at corporate cafs. The sandwich was great and the perfect size. If that's not enough, there are some fried plantains behind you can't see.

Texas de Brazil

This place is a Brazilian style steak house. The waiters bring countless different types of meat to your table on skewers and cut off pieces for you. Obviously there is no choice but to over eat and mostly on meat. If you don't feel like there is a small child in your stomach, you can eat more. They do have an excellent salad bar, but the meat is what this place is about. Pretty dark, so hard to get any good pics, but here is one of the meat and one of a big plate on Heart of Palm from the salad bar.

Shoji Sushi

Great sushi spot in South Beach. Best though is the Mango Tini, and tonight the seviche. Seviche had hamachi, avocado, pear, and red onion. The seviche was one of the best I've had, lime was not too strong and everything blended together great. It was also not over marinated so the fish was just right.

Panera breakfast sandwich

After a great night of excellent Indian food, why not revert to some seriously Americanized commercial chain food. Mostly because they have a good spot to read the paper, their hazelnut coffee is great, and the sandwich is the best bagel sandwich I've had. That's saying a lot by the way since I baked bagels for about five years. It's just good, not much else to say about it.

Indian Dinner Main Course

After stuffing ourselves with tons of apps, here's what we downed for the main course. For dinner it was Chicken Chettinade, Chole, Potatoes, and Roti of course. I could probably eat roti every day from here on out. My friend Shilpa helping cook used to have these for breakfast in India or packed as lunch with potatoes. It really is disheartening to think that some kids here are eating lunchables and vending machine snacks when there is stuff like this out there.

Chole or chick peas with several different spices, onions, and tomatoes.

Fried potatoes. I'll add recipe once I find my paper I wrote it on. Very close to best potatoes ever though.

Chicken Chettinade Recipe - this stuff was great. Check out all the spices this calls for. How did anyone ever come up with this recipe. Seems like it would be hard to just happen to combine all these. Glad they did though.

Indian Food

Here is where you start if you're cooking Indian, well after the wine is open at least. This food requires a wide variety of spices, so you may as well get them all out to start off with. Not to mention it looks and smells great while you're figuring out how in the world you going to use them all. The curry we made actually required 17 different herbs and spices. Our menu was extensive, and produced lots of excellent dishes, pictures, and a fun afternoon. First the appetizers which were tandori chicken legs, shrimp (recipe at very bottom), and samosas. Also made a cilantro chutney to accompany.

1 bag EZ peel Shrimp
1 bunch Cilantro
12-15 curry leaves
1 red onion
1 heaped tbsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 tsp turmeric
11/2 tsp red chilies

Marinade:
Mix ginger garlic paste with turmeric and red chillies. Massage the marinade into shrimp and store in the refrigerator for an hour.

Roast/sauté onion in a pan, when brown, ground into a paste.

Heat shrimp in a pan on medium heat for about 5-8 minutes to semi cook them. Take another pan, add oil and shrimp (discard extra water from the shrimp).

Add onion paste. Sauté for a few minutes. Add curry leave and cilantro. Cover and cook for a 1-2 minutes.

Churrasco

This has got to be one of the best corporate cafeteria meals that will fit onto a plate. Green on top is chimichurri sauce which a mixture of mostly garlic, parsley, and oil. Better have the better part of a pack of gum on hand if you're planning to return to work afterwords. The rice, beans and plantains to accompany were great too. Best though is the churrasco without a doubt. There is probably better out there, but not for $6 at the company caf.

China Grill - continued

Xanadu(ZAN-uh-doo, -dyoo) - an idyllic, exotic place of great luxury. I left off with my Old Fashioned in what I called Xanadu. China Grill while idyllic and luxurious probably isn't exotic. The $50 million yachts parked outside are a different story though. Didn't really care about the exoticness, because it's super tasty and sometimes that's what counts. We had calamari salad, szechuan beef, drunken chicken, avocado fried rice, lobster mashed potatoes, and ice cream cake. All are great and worthy of at least two helpings, or three if nobody's going to finish off the salad.

China Grill

Old Fashion down so far. Stay tuned for more culinary xanadu.

Cantina 27 - in Miami Beach

I've spoke on this place before, and it continues to be fantabulous. I would never use that word on my own, and blushed as I typed it, but it surfaced at dinner tonight and is a fitting adjective. My tongue and curious mind had it out with the entree selection as usual upon a return after something great. Tongue desperately wanted the Lamb Ragu again, curious mind wanted something new of course. Ended up getting the Goat Cheese and Pear Ravioli topped with walnuts in a cream sauce. By the end both tongue and mind were ecstatic. Goat cheese and pears worked great together like Nancy Pelosi and the Devil (well maybe not that good). Anyways, here's a pic and can't wait for my next visit.

Lime

Hope I can live up to the task of describing the best taco/burrito shop east of the Mississippi. Possibly even east of east San Diego, but don't want to rule out several parts of New Mexico and Colorado. I've been to both the Aventura and South Beach locations of Lime many times and neither ever disappoints in their culinary perfection of the quick burrito/taco/or salad. So here goes, some do's and don't of how to run the perfect burrito/taco shop.

1. Don't have some cheesy saying that everyone stops and says when you walk in, like "Welcome to Mo's". I'm here for a burrito, not an ice cream, and we know they really don't give a shit. At Lime you're always greeted by the uber cool Miami chick at the cash register that tries to make you feel like you're barely cool enough to order. And trust me you barely are, it's that good.

2. Customers should not have the choice of what to put on their burrito. This ends up being a giant mess when the cheap ass in front of you gets every single thing, then the kid behind can't roll it up and it breaks, and you get the point.

3. Salsa bar - you gotta have a salsa bar with some balls. They all have to be good, and there needs to be several, but one's gotta scorch your mouth off if you so choose. Lime has an awesome habanaro choice that will oblige. If that's not enough, they have several in bottles that will burn through Styrofoam.

4. Fish tacos - either you have them every day and they're fresh, or you don't. Not much to say here...

5. There must be outside seating where you can enjoy a burrito in 75 degree weather in February.

Here is a pic of my Chicken Fajita Salad I had:

Pork belly slider

Think this is the first time I've had pork belly. The slider was an
appetizer at Lucky 32, and also had BBQ sauce and some peppers on it.
Overall good, but way too much fat for my taste. Pork belly is
probably about 50% fat which resulted in some serious drippage while
eating these.