Write to her at lbladholm@miamiherald.com.
WD 555 might sound like the name of a Star Wars robot, but it’s actually a welcoming wine shop and bistro off the beaten track on South Beach.
The Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale turned 75 this year, and as part of the celebration debuted Wild Sea Oyster Bar & Grill in an elegant space that retains Old Florida charm. All the seafood is wild caught except the oysters and Sunburst trout, and much of the produce is locally grown.
Temaris or ball sushi — warm mounds of rice with thin-sliced toppings drizzled in spicy sauces — was almost impossible to find in South Florida until Temaris opened on Brickell.
The small café N-O-A has a few tables out front flanked by bougainvillea and is only open for lunch during the week. Inside there’s a white leather couch to wait for a pickup order, several tables and a L-shaped counter with stools where diners can watch the kitchen action. The cuisine changes with the seasons, offering Mediterranean dishes and specials ranging from grilled grouper with lemon and oregano to sweet potato soup with ginger and orange peel.
What you put on a hot dog reflects where you come from, and for Colombians, it is lots of sauces and potato chips.
The cuisine of Uzbekistan reflects the cultures that passed through Central Asia in caravans on the transcontinental Silk Road, and you can sample it at Chayhana Oasis in Sunny Isles Beach.
The logo at Cecci Italian Peruvian Kitchen is a fish eating a slice of pizza, symbolizing the union of sea and land here. There are pies, pastas and tiraditos, ceviches and saltados (stir-fries) plus creations like pizza a lo macho topped with seafood cream, octopus, shrimp and calamari, and fettuccine in ají amarillo-spiked huancaina cheese sauce served with steak.
There is no sign for Sacha’s Café, but financial district fans are finding it for morning coffee and quick lunches.
A French ice skater and an Israeli developer joined forces to open Montefiore Café & Restaurant in a former Miami Beach bakery. There are still cakes and croissants, but the place is now a kosher-dairy restaurant offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner for locals. The menu includes omelets, salads, panini, fish, pastas, pizza with a chewy crust and crisp bottom and both savory and sweet crepes set in a cozy space with sidewalk dining under an awning.
Spice Galore is new boutique spice shop that carries everything from black truffle sea salt to wasabi powder in a homey space with a counter built from recycled wood. Whole and ground spices, house blends, sea salts, infused sugars and teas are sold by the ounce in glass jars organized on wood shelves. Each big jar has a small one next to it for tasting or sniffing.
Indonesian and Thai cuisines are served at Pembroke Pines’ Indo Quest. They use many of the same ingredients, but Indonesian is less hot with sweet, spicy and salty flavors infused with coconut. The restaurant’s rice table is a great way to sample broadly on the Indonesian side of the menu.
Three Italian buddies opened Gelato-Go on South Beach last month, making their own base daily with fresh ingredients and selling it in cones, cups and takeout tubs. Their dairy flavors use low-fat milk with cream and nut butters, while their sorbetto is made with seasonal fruit.
Maoz Vegetarian has upped the fast-casual falafel game. The bright, clean, eatery opposite Miami Beach’s New World Symphony Park is certified kosher and vegan friendly.
Cured Spanish ham is edible alchemy developed over the centuries. Whole hams in sacks are found dangling in the front window of Jamon Iberico Pata Negra. The small restaurant in a condo is named after the purebred Iberian pigs with black hooves used to make jamon. Wood racks hold bottles of wine and there is a small counter where one can enjoy a few tapas with a glass of vino. Sit at a table to share a big pan of paella, roast suckling pig with garlic aioli or sea bass in lemon caper sauce.
This healthful version updates the classic beef stroganoff by reducing the amount of sour cream and ditching the meat. Its mix of mushrooms and herbs tossed with linguine (instead of heavier egg noodles) creates a main course that seems indulgent.
Fun, flavorful and appealing: Those three words pretty much sum up this dish. A quick marinade of orange and sesame lightly flavors the fish. The bok choy and orange salad (a play on the traditional Italian orange and fennel salad) provides a bright base on the plate.
Zandra Zampieri’s Real Almond Cake is a Valentine that makes a delicious gift all year long.
Miami may be a coffee town but if Michael “Jojo” Ortiz has his way, we will soon be drinking a lot more tea. The tea enthusiast started his company Jojo Tea a year ago, mostly selling to area restaurants after teaching staff how to correctly brew the tea blends he buys from importers who visit the tea estates of China, Taiwan, Japan and India.
Chifa Du Kang restaurant is decorated with Chinese good luck symbols and paintings of Incan ruins. The modest, family-run spot has two menus, both with Chinese food, but the one offering Peruvian-Chinese dishes is the main attraction.
Machiya is a sleek, Japanese-style izakaya (pub) offering ramen, rolls, sushi, sashimi, shui mai, buns, lettuce wraps and seafood. It is named for townhouses in urban centers of Japan with street-level stores, not unlike Midtown.
Iberia meets India at Tasca de España deli, bakery and restaurant with one kitchen for Spanish food and another where North Indian kormas, biryani and tandoori dishes are cooked. Customers at this only-in-Miami place can sit anywhere and order from either menu — or both, sharing tortillas and tikka masala.
Korean food is a yin-yang balance of hot and spicy, cool and mild, in dishes like silken tofu in fermented chile paste or eel glazed in sticky caramel soy sauce. Soo-Woo Japanese & Korean Steakhouse in Hollywood is the newest location of a small local chain that offers Korean specialties along with steaks and seafood teppanyaki cooked on iron griddles, sushi, rolls, noodles and fried rice.
Nabil Hach al-Luch and his wife, Elena Bernatskaya, run Rouge Cine Café with silent movies projected on a wall inside and a garden patio filled with lime trees, blackberry brambles and passion fruit vines with fountains and a fireplace.
Athens and Izmir are on the same latitude across the Aegean Sea, and Greek and Turkish cuisines come together at Meze Aegean Bistro, where the dishes are simple and based on quality ingredients, including lavraki (sea bass) flown in from Greece.
Looking for an out-of-the-ordinary taste of South Florida to share with friends and family over the holidays? Here are a two delicious possibilities.
In a bohemian South Beach space named for Simón Bolivár, the South American liberator who dreamed of uniting the continent, Jairo Hurtado has brought together the flavors of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.
Pupusas are an all-day love affair for the mouth, and there’s no better place to get the thick, griddled corn cakes than La Pupusa Factory in the heart of Hialeah.
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