This Little Piggy Went to P.I.G.

It's hard for me to believe it's been a year since the inaugeral "P.I.G." (Pork Is Good) event, a celebration of all things porcine by Chef Jeremiah, pilot of the gastroPod. Indeed, a year ago, there wasn't even a gastroPod yet: just a hard-working chef with the slightly crazy-sounding idea of retrofitting a vintage Airstream trailer with a 21st century kitchen, and bringing Miami some creative but budget-friendly mobile food.^[*] We had some good stuff that day: chicharrones, banh mi trotter tacos, pork belly Cuban sandwiches, East meets South pulled pork char shiu bao, home-made hot dogs, a whole roasted pig done in the Caja China, and some moonshine/black cherry cocktails to wash it all down. Some of those items, in one form or another, eventually became gastroPod menu items.

With nearly a year of trucking under his belt, Chef Jeremiah put on the "second annual" P.I.G. event this weekend, at GAB Studio in Wynwood. Though I only had a short time to run in and out and would have liked to have stayed longer, I did get a quick sampling of this year's P.I.G.-fest.

"Prosciutto and Melon" was actually not prosciutto, but rather some country ham from Allan Benton, paired with a cold and vividly flavored melon gelée. Benton's hams, produced in Madisonville, Tennessee and aged between nine months and a year or more, are a ridiculously delicious product and a real treat.

"Tongue in Cheek" was a, well, tongue in cheek take on tongue, and, y'know, cheek. Here, "tongue" = beef tongue, "cheek" = pork cheek, and the unifying inspiration for the flavors was a tongue sandwich from a New York deli. The meats - the tongue thinly sliced, the cheek in a heftier slab - were layered over a slice of pumpernickel bread, with a bright purple slaw and a squirt of deli mustard over the top, and pickled okra standing in for the classic pickle on the side. It was enough to get you thinking that what Jewish delis need is perhaps more pork products.

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To Do List

You may have noticed that the pace here at FFT has slowed up lately. It's certainly not for lack of subject matter, but rather lack of time. In fact, despite the still-sluggish economy, these seem to be relative boom times for Miami restaurants, and not only for casual, modern Asian fare (though there is plenty of that to go around). Just the past couple months have seen a number of intriguing new places open, with more in the pipeline. Plus, there are still remnants of two trips (Maine and Spain) to discuss, including a really pleasant surprise in tiny Lincolnville, Maine (The Edge), some disappointment in another highly regarded Maine restaurant (Primo), and a tapas-fest in Barcelona.

Sometimes when things start to pile up it helps to make a list. So here is my FFT "to-do list." Which surely is going to be subject to any number of distractions along the way. Plus CSA season starts today, which means I may again subject everyone to my stumbling efforts to cook through my veggie share.

Any suggestions for other places that should be on this list?

New & Have to Try:

DB Bistro Moderne
Vino e Olio
De Rodriguez Ocean
Eden
1500°
Cecconi's

Newish, Need to Revisit & Write Up:

Il Mercato
Kantauri

Not So New, Still Worth Mention

Scarpetta
Mercadito
Solea
Canyon Ranch Grill
Xixon
Chu's Taiwan Kitchen

Waiting to Open

Sustain
Pubbelly
Wynwood Kitchen & Bar

Truckin'
(Lots of these I still need to try, or try again)

Fish Box
Yellow Submarine
Latin House Grill
Grillmaster Cafe
Rolling Stove
CheeseMe
Doggi Style
Bites on Wheels
Feverish Ice Cream
Dolci Peccati Gelato

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Gigi - Midtown Miami

Fish is the new steak, and Asian is the new burger. Consider: the past couple years brought us the openings of a multitude of high-end steakhouses - Meat Market, BLT Steak, Gotham Steak, Red the Steakhouse, STK, the reopened Forge. Yet the construction of shrines to carnivorism seems to have slowed (the recently opened 1500° notwithstanding), and instead Douglas Rodriguez opens De Rodriguez Ocean, Blue Door has become Blue Door Fish, even untrendy Luna Cafe on Biscayne Boulevard is becoming Sea Bar.

On the other end of the restaurant market, burgers were everywhere for a time (as if they were using the trimmings from all those new steakhouses)- 8 Oz. Burger Bar, Burger & Beer Joint, Heavy Burger, Flip Burger Bar,^[1] Shake Shack ... But burgers are yesterday's news. Modern, casual Asian is now the order of the day, as Sakaya Kitchen, Chow Down Grill, American Noodle Bar, and Gigi will all attest.

Sakaya (Richard Hales), Chow Down (Joshua Marcus) and American Noodle (Michael Bloise) each started with a chef's own vision, and were very much personal projects. Gigi came about things from the opposite direction: Gigi was a concept in search of a chef to execute it. Amir Ben-Zion, who also runs Bond Street and Miss Yip on South Beach, Sra. Martinez in the Design District, and the Bardot nightclub right down the street from Gigi in Midtown Miami, placed a Craigslist ad looking for a chef about six months before the restaurant's opening. The ad was not lacking for hype:

"Its cutting edge, high performance, Asian inspired and freshly prepared cuisine is affordable, innovative comfort food for the modern educated discerning palate."

It was also transparent about its inspiration:

"Located on the same block as Bardot, gigi is the first Miami outpost of the renaissance in affordable high-end food led by Momofuko [sic] in NYC’s Chinatown and lower East Side."^[2]

Gigi lucked out: whether in response to the ad or otherwise, Ben-Zion managed to snag Chef Jeff McInnis to run the kitchen at Gigi. Chef McInnis, who is probably known as much for his appearance on Top Chef Season 5 as for his work as chef of the Ritz-Carlton South Beach's DiLido Beach Club, has put together a menu that delivers good, fun, flavorful food that carries out the mission statement well.

While Miami's other new casual contemporary Asian outposts have a distinctly D.I.Y. aesthetic, Gigi more clearly bears a designer's touch. On the corner of Miami Avenue and 35th Street, its exterior is wrapped in floor-to-ceiling glass, its interior in lots of blond wood and metal. A long, open galley kitchen stretches about twenty yards down most of the space, with counter seating and backless stools providing a distinctly Chang-ian look and feel.

photo via gigi Facebook page

The menu likewise shows a strong Chang-ian influence. There are buns to be had, filled with a choice of roasted pork, chicken or shiitake mushrooms; there is ramen, likewise served with roasted pork. But much of the rest of the fairly abbreviated menu appears to look closer to home for inspiration, with many items featuring more-or-less Asian spins on locally sourced ingredients. It's divided into sections that have no clearly defined correspondence to starters or mains: "basics" include not only those buns, but also a short rib "meat loaf," a pound of "southern boy" BBQ ribs, or a BLT made with pork belly and pickles; "raw" includes both salads and raw fish dishes; "snack" includes a variety of smaller bites, both vegetable and animal; "noodle bowl" offers the aforementioned ramen, as well as a few other noodle variations; and "rice bowl" seems to feature the most substantial, entrée-like items. Though the sub-heading to the Gigi sign says "noodles * bbq * beer," there are in fact only a few noodles dishes and even fewer BBQ items (like, um, one).

Those buns are a good place to start a meal. The roasted pork version was probably my favorite, though Little Miss F was partial to the pulled chicken variety. On a more recent visit, the latter had morphed into a tandoori chicken, which was a tad dry despite being garnished with a drizzle of yogurt nicely enhanced by some cucumber and mint. Even the pork, though, did not have quite the same explosive depth of flavor as the Sakaya Kitchen pork buns, which remain my local benchmark. The fluffy and lightly toasted bao, however, which I believe are made in-house, may be a notch better.

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