Delano Hotel (For once, not a restaurant review)

January 14, 2012 2 Comments

Besides the glaring whiteness of everything, the first thing you are confronted with, when you walk into your room at the Delano hotel is a solitary Granny Smith apple on a peg.  “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” is etched beneath it.  I’m sure someone, somewhere thought it was a genius idea, original, quirky.  Here is my question though. Most rooms have two occupants right? So why only one apple? Am I supposed to eat half and Hrabi the other half? Or do we alternate, I get it on even days and he gets it on odd?  Who get’s the apple becomes a moot point by day two when several other thoughts occur to me.  Among them; that a Granny Smith is the Pamela Anderson of apples, from a distance you suck in your cheeks and inhale thinking “Wow” but up close there’s way too much plastic and cover up.  Granny Smiths always have too much wax on their skin and are impossible to date ” Are they from this season’s crop? The last one?”.  Tell me, have you ever seen one with a leaf still attached to the stem?  Which brings me to another question…apples?  In the land of citrus?  Does Starck’s design acumen not extend to other fruit?  Or is it that you have to peel them or that there isn’t some pithy (sorry) one liner that goes with oranges.

On to the room which is all white.  Lacquered white floors, white walls, white leather headboard, white table, white lights. My sister says it’s like being inside a Mac. I think it’s more like being inside a toilet cistern because of the hardness of everything.Despite decades of carpets in hotels to absorb sound, the Delano has opted out. I lie in bed and listen to the woman in the room above me clatter around in high heels. Then she drops her lipstick, thunk, clunk, roll – clippity clop, clippity clop, clippity clop; she arrives to pick it up. Read more of this post

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Zuma, Izakaya Japanese, Miami

January 9, 2012 Leave a Comment

I visited Zuma in London a few times when I lived there.  Not frequently because prices were high and portions tiny.  I would end up tallying the beans and working out the price per bean.   Inevitably the value balance would tip into a zone where I just couldn’t enjoy the food any more.  A pity because it is very good food.My father met us in Miami for New Year’s and he treated a bunch of us to dinner at Zuma.  We showed up 45 minutes late for our 6:30 reservation (oooops!) and were punished by being seated at what is probably the worst table in the place, a dark corner table in between two doors across from the check in desk.  It was so dark - the waitress handed us a small flashlight so that we could see what was on the menu.

Miami style is pretty much the opposite of Berlin.  Whilst extensive tattoos and earlobe plugs (to stretch the ear lobes - ya, my thoughts exactly - why, would anyone want to stretch their ear lobes?) are de rigueur there it’s all about diamonds here.  Big diamonds.  The size of a small quail’s egg.  Ok, ok, the size of a quail yolk - which is still large.  On tanned manicured fingers.  Everyone has implants (even the men), long hair, short skirts, impossibly high shoes pose no problem because the wearers arrive by car or even better - yacht.  I keep hearing whispers of Latin America being the next big thing and looking around Zuma in Miami, I no longer find it to be such a far-fetched idea.  The only non-South Americans were the servers and us.

Wagyu beef is sold at $26 an ounce with the minimum order of 6 ounces.   That’s $156 for 170 grams.  (A packet of butter, by the way, is 250g.)  I tried to dissuade my father from ordering it to no avail only to be told that they were out of Wagyu that night (I guess if those ladies are wearing $150,000 diamond rings, they can probably afford a $200 steak.)  My father spots the lobster tempura and orders that instead.  Actually, I don’t think that lobster is suited to tempura but the presentation is arresting.

Most cold dishes at Zuma come in large stone or ceramic plates brimming with crushed ice.  The long sashimi sharing platter looks impressive, my mind is saying “Weeeeeeeeeeee - Wow!!” When I manage to focus on the actual sashimi,  I see that it’s all smoke and mirrors.  The artfully arranged wasabi, flowers and shiso leaves make everything look abundant.  However, all thoughts of stinginess dissolve the moment I bring one of those tasty morsels to my mouth.  Sashimi as it should be.  Firm, chilled from the ice - the salmon and tuna have right angles if you can believe such a thing.  Everyone should experience sashimi like that, not just Latin American oligarchs. Read more of this post

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Yardbird, Southern Food, Miami

January 4, 2012 1 Comment

It will no doubt strike you as odd to know that more often than not, restaurant food scares me. I’ve seen what goes on behind the orderly dining room - a lot of chaos.  A lot of sub standard ingredients (skinless chicken breasts arriving from suppliers in a frozen block) prepared by people who are there because they can’t do anything else but work in madness of a restaurant kitchen.  Pests are another problem, mouse droppings on dry stores are a standard fixture (especially in London).  Personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired.  Let’s say none of those factors are at play, you still have to contend with the richness of restaurant dishes.  Even salads are a minefield of saturated fat.An extended, hotel stay holiday poses plenty of these perils.  I physically recoil as I walk past some of the places on Lincoln Road or Espanola Way.  Large laminated menus are shoved in my face, places with generic names like ‘Oh Mexico!’ (gee, I guess that must be Mexican food.), ‘you get a free margarita cocktail’ the young woman touts pointing to something day glo served in the glass the size of Layla’s sand bucket.The good places, always a needle in a haystack, are usually very expensive and unavailable.  Yardbird is affordable but difficult le to get a reservation at.  All my attempts on Opentable were futile.  I hedged on being able to get a table for dinner if I showed up.  One look at the harassed hostess, dark rings under her eyes, told me my chances were poor.  I was right, nothing, nada, zip.  I liked Gigi so much last year, I went twice during our stay and chef owner Jeff McInnis came from Gigi so I wasn’t going to give up that easily.  I came back for a late lunch and was offered a table outside in the sun which I immediately snapped up.

Yardbird is open all day from 12 with a Brunch menu on the weekend and a Lunch then Dinner menu during the week.  The ‘Farm Fresh Salad of Flat Top Mountain tomatoes, Meyer lemon, Texas olive oil, house smoked sea salt, and Bourbon Sherry vinegar” made me swoon on the spot when I read it, before I had even laid eyes on it and when it came, cut into supersize wedges - they were so sweet.  I closed my eyes and savoured each bite.  Exceptional tomatoes rock my world, if I was stranded on a desert island - tomatoes is what I would take.  My sister ordered the famous savoury waffles and fried chicken.  I got the slow braised short rib sandwich which comes with cubes of watermelon.  Which again - heaven.   Read more of this post

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