calendar highlights: Taco & Tequila Showdown 11.8.15; P.I.G 11.15.15

You may already know that in addition to the infrequent restaurant reviews, Food For Thought also features "The Calendar" – a list of upcoming dining events that may be of interest to food-minded people. Here are a couple highlights coming up soon on the calendar:

Taco & Tequila Showdown at the Vagabond on Monday November 8 (6pm-9pm). Presented by MIAbites and The Liquid Projects, the event will pair 12 chefs creating signature tacos with 12 bartenders creating signature tequila cocktails. If you don't get into the Cobaya dinner that night, this might be a good Plan B: about half the chef participants are Cobaya alumni. Tickets ($65) available at Eventbrite.

P.I.G. 6 in Wynwood on Sunday, November 15 (3pm-7pm). This shindig in celebration of the pig, orchestrated by Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog of the gastroPod, is always one of my favorites every year. Participants this year include Kyle Foster of Denver's Colt & Gray (and before that, my beloved Talula), Craig Deihl of Charleston's Cypress, plus locals Giorgio Rapicavoli of Eating House, Steve Santana of Taquiza, Todd Erickson of Haven and HuaHua's, Roel Alcudia (formerly Cypress Room), Brian Mullins of Ms. Cheezious, Aaron Brooks of Edge, Brad Kilgore of Alter, James Strine of Café Boulud, and Mike Pirolo of Macchialina and Bazi. Tickets ($50) available through Tock.

By the way: these types of events always get put on the FFT calendar but are usually not the subject of a post – I've tried to use blog posts only for actual content. But if you, dear reader, find these type of posts useful (or conversely, annoying), please speak up. Thanks.

best thing i ate last week: chirashi style squid ink noodles at gastroPod

Some of the most interesting meals I've had in Miami have come out of a truck or shipping container – the various reincarnations of Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog's gastroPod. Its latest iteration – a shipping container stationed on a lot in Wynwood – took a temporary hiatus for a few months on account of permitting issues, but returned this past week. A friend orchestrated a little "welcome back" dinner, and Chef Jeremiah orchestrated the menu, which included ember-cooked, tempura-fried, porcini-dusted sweet potatoes, fancy musubi with "center cut" spam, crispy nori and fish roe, and a salad featuring absinthe-cured salmon belly, among other things.

But my favorite was a pasta course of jet-black squid ink noodles tossed with braised octopus and the octopus' braising liquid, served chirashi style with ama ebi, uni, and ikura cured with sake and soy. The Italian-Japanese hybrid was the best thing I ate last week.

(You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this gastroPod 2.5 flickr set).

Runners-up: the lobster poutine at recently-opened Izzy's Fish and Oyster; the secretive,Texas meets Mexico (but not Tex-Mex) BBQ at Barbacoa (I'm not at liberty to disclose the details); the eggplant-stuffed manti dumplings in a creamy yogurt sauce at Byblos.

best thing i ate last week: soft scrambled eggs at Vagabond

It doesn't sound like much the way it's listed on the menu: "soft scrambled eggs, fines herbes, pecorino, evoo." It looks like even less: a shallow plate of runny eggs that might have been scooped up from some budget hotel's breakfast buffet.

Don't be fooled. This, from the brunch menu at Alex Chang's Vagabond, is luxurious stuff. The eggs are warmed through but still virtually liquid, barely forming any curds. The texture is like silk, the flavor rich and pure. A few more grace notes: a tangle of fresh herbs, a dusting of salty pecorino cheese, a drizzle of good olive oil to sort of round everything out.

I just loved this. It was the best thing I ate all week. And it's only $7. (Pro tip: Vagabond's home made English muffins make a good vehicle for scooping).