Cobaya Smokers with Chefs Andres Barrientos and James Bowers

We've been on a run of fancier Cobaya dinners lately, inside swanky South Beach hotels and other posh places, some with some very well known chefs. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but for Experiment #67 we were looking to get back to our roots a little bit: a more casual dinner with some guys you may never have heard of, at a place you might not know.

Miami Smokers is a butcher shop and sandwich shop (they call it an "urban smokehouse") in a nondescript stretch of Little Havana run by Andres Barrientos and James Bowers. You may have never been in there, but if you've been eating around Miami for a while, you may well have already sampled Miami Smokers' bacon, which they supply to several local restaurants. They also produce a few different kinds of salumi, several sausages, some other charcuterie items, and a small supply of fresh pork cuts, which come from heritage pigs they're raising at a farm in Clewiston, Florida. They turn out a really nice selection of sandwiches from their products, including a great version of a classic Cubano, which are also now available at the American Airlines Arena.

After they recently expanded their place on 27th Avenue to add more seating, we talked to them about using that extra space for a Cobaya dinner where they could spread their wings a little. Here's what they came up with – a very pork-centric menu modeled after the Cochon 555 events which celebrate heritage pigs by using every bit of them possible.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Smokers with Andres Barrientos and James Bowers flickr set).

They started everyone off with a self-service charcuterie bar, featuring several of their house-made products: a couple different kinds of cured and smoked hams, a silky coppa, a couple different dried sausages. These were accompanied by a complimentary cocktail with a frothy egg-white crown, which struck me as like a whiskey version of a pisco sour.

As everyone found their way to a seat, Andres and James made their introductions and talked to the group about what they do at Miami Smokers: the focus on making everything in-house, using local products and heritage breeds. It's a common refrain these days, but these guys really seem to be walking the walk.

To start things off, a little amuse bouche with some local flavor: bacon croquetas, warm and oozy and barely holding together, served over some house-made guava jam.

(continued ...)

first thoughts: Olla | Miami Beach

I have always had a particularly soft spot in my heart for good Mexican restaurants. I'm not talking about taquerias, though I have another very soft spot for those too. Rather, I mean higher end restaurants that treat Mexican cuisine with reverence and genuine curiosity rather than an excuse to blanket everything in melted cheese and decorate with piñatas and sombreros. I don't remember much about my long-ago college years, but I fondly recall such a place on the outskirts of Atlanta called Mexico City Gourmet.^[1] Even after a couple decades, I can still taste in my mind the outstanding duck fajitas they made at a spot called Las Puertas on Giralda Avenue in Coral Gables, and the gorgeous chiles en nogada that would occasionally turn up as a special.

So when I saw a preview menu for Olla, a new restaurant which opened last week from chef Scott Linquist (who also runs Wynwood's Coyo Taco), I was pretty excited. Far from the garden variety selection of tacos, burritos and enchiladas, here's something creative and different that explores the variety of flavors of Mexico: chapulines and huitlacoche and menudo, a kaleidoscope of chiles, four different kinds of moles. Yes, I could really get into this.

We popped in at noon this past Sunday, just as they were opening the doors, to try it out for a pre-Art Basel brunch.^[2] (You can see all my pictures in this Olla Miami - South Beach flickr set).

The menu leads off with several "tarros," or jars, with a variety of different layered compositions inside. You hear so often these days about dishes "designed for sharing," when they are really nothing of the sort – either a few measly bites, invariably in a number not divisible by the number of diners at the table, or something so preciously constructed as to be impossible to split. These tarros are truly designed for sharing, and do it well.

The "remolacha" has cubes of garnet and golden beets nestled over a walnut cream, topped with jewel-like pomegranate seeds and toasted walnuts, served with spears of pale endive. Scoop some into an endive spear; crunch; repeat. I liked how the combination of walnut and pomegranate echoed the traditional toppings for that chiles en nogada dish ingrained in my memory so many years ago.

Maybe even better was the "ahumado," with hot smoked salmon, chunks of boiled egg, crema, a dark green poblano-tomatillo salsa, and a dollop of salmon roe, with soft toasted bolillo bread soldiers for dipping.

Another section of the menu is given over to masa in various forms (supplied, I believe via masa maestro Steve Santana of Taquiza). We tried the gordita, similar to a Colombian arepa, split and stuffed with duck carnitas rubbed with pasilla Oaxaca chiles, and sauced with an orange-kumquat marmelada which ran a little too sweet for me. There's also a sweetbread sope, a skirt steak huarache, and a chicken tamal with mole coloradito.

"Olla" means "pot" in Spanish, and another section of the menu is given over to more than a half-dozen different dishes all served up in this fashion. Some are stews, like this rich, sticky menudo chock full of tripe, pork, and hominy in a red chile broth, topped with a fried egg and a garnish of chicharrones. There's also frijoles charros – cowboy beans – enriched with pork belly and cheek. There are also vegetables dishes, like huitlacoche (corn fungus) with wild mushrooms, toasted garlic, arbol chiles, queso fresco and epazote; and esquite, seared corn with the typical Mexican accompaniments of morita chile, mayo, cotija cheese and lime.

(continued ...)

deep thoughts: Proof Pizza and Pasta | Midtown MIami

Someone asked me recently^[1] "So, when you are going to write an actual review of a Miami restaurant again? You know, like you used to?" Fair question. Like the food writers I used to berate, I'm probably more than a little guilty of the Magpie Phenomenon – being constantly distracted by the latest shiny object. I try to keep relatively current on Miami dining with the "best thing I ate last week"  and "first thoughts" posts, and I report on our roughly monthly Cobaya dinners; but then the bulk of my more expansive writing lately seems dedicated to "travelogues" or other recaps from "further afield," rather than locally focused.^[2] Mission creep has taken hold.

So let's fix that. And let's start with a place that may not be among the most talked-about restaurants in Miami, but one which I think deserves more attention for what it does: Proof. Chef Justin Flit^[3] opened "Proof Pizza & Pasta" almost exactly two years ago just up Miami Avenue from Wynwood, across from the Midtown shopping center. The name was modest and the spot was too: a basic box with exposed ventilation and simple tables and chairs, not so much "industrial chic" as just plain old "utilitarian."

(You can see all my pictures from Proof in this Proof Pizza & Pasta flickr set).

But while it might have sounded and looked like a utility slice joint, Proof was actually serving gorgeous Neapolitan style pies with toppings like soppressata, n'duja and broccoli rabe, or braised oxtail with black garlic and caramelized onions.

And its pastas – all made in-house – were some of the best in town. The lineup would change often, but has included delicate pillows stuffed with butternut squash, awash in brown butter and sage and dusted with crumbled amaretti cookies, and the fantastic angel hair with crab, Calabrian chiles and lemon breadcrumbs. This latter is a mainstay, too good to take off the menu (I wrote a bit more about it in this "best thing I ate last week" from last year).

(continued ...)