best dishes of 2018: part 1

This time last year, I felt out of touch with much of the local dining universe: 2017 was the year of the "to-do list" for me, during which the much-talked-about local openings outpaced even my appetite (or at least my schedule). But 2018 was the year of catching up, at least to some extent. After submitting my list of "Top Restaurant Newcomers" for Eater's annual year in review, I realized that several of them had actually opened late last year.^[1] Well, some of us just operate at a different pace.

Speaking of pace, the posting schedule here at FFT has undeniably slowed of late. Sometimes a lack of inspiration can be to blame, but that really wasn't the case during a year in which we ate quite well, both here at home in Miami and on visits to New York, L.A., Chicago, the Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest, and Greece. Short trips, often on short notice, meant fewer "trophy" dining opportunities, but still no shortage of good meals.

Of the 36 dishes I've put on this list, more than half were served here in South Florida. That's a big difference from years past, when usually only a third or so are locally grown. Unfortunately, several of those are from restaurants that no longer exist. Last year saw the demise of several places that were already fond favorites or rapidly joining that category: Proof, Gaijin by Cake, Shelley's, Wabi Sabi by Shuji.^[2] But all is not lost: Justin Flit, the talented chef from Proof, has been doing a pizza pop-up at Taurus in Coconut Grove, and has more things in the works with Ariete's Michael Beltran; Thongsodchareondee Phuket ("Chef Cake") still has the original Cake Thai on Biscayne Boulevard, recently opened a Thai street food stand in the 1-800-LUCKY food hall, and has all sorts of other things in the pipeline; Shelley's chef Cleophus Hethington is working on Ebi Chop Bar, which will focus on the foods of the African diaspora; I'm still crossing my fingers that Shuji Hiyakawa comes back from Japan to reopen Wabi Sabi.

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff. As always, despite the title, there's no pretense here that this list reflects the "best" of anything other than my personal favorites from a year of dining, listed chronologically.

dahi vada, avocado tuna bhel, pani puri - Ghee Indian Kitchen

I'd managed to eat Niven Patel's food several times before he'd opened either the first Ghee Indian Kitchen in Dadeland, or its sibling in the Design District, including via a Cobaya dinner he hosted at Rancho Patel last year. But it took me a little while to get to the restaurants. So Ghee – which opened down south a few months after our Cobaya event, and in the Design District in late 2017 – was on my "Top Restaurant Newcomers" list anyway. It's more than just a top newcomer. It's more than just the best Indian restaurant (for my money) in Miami. It's one of Miami's top restaurants, period.

The combination of Indian flavors with a real-deal farm-to-table ethos – the menu highlights an increasing number of items that come straight from the Rancho Patel farm Niven and his family run in Homestead – is on display in pretty much all the dishes. But I have a particular fondness for the chaats: boldly flavored, intriguingly textured, snack-y items like the pani puri, delicate, crispy little cups filled with sprouted moong beans, diced beets into which you spoon a spiced green juice, or the dahi vada, hearty lentil fritters doused with date chutney and yogurt, or the bhel puri bound with mashed avocado and topped with raw tuna.

potato darphin, Maine uni, jalapeño - Wildair

I did not spend nearly enough time in New York this past year. In fact, I was only in the city once, for an overnight business trip. That was enough time to pay my first, very belated, visit to Wildair, Fabian Von Hauske and Jeremiah Stone's delightful Lower East Side wine bar type spot, and to sample a signature dish. It's no wonder the potato darphin can never leave the menu. It starts with the platonic ideal of a McDonald's hash brown or a Channukah latke, depending on your point of reference: hot, crunchy, creamy all at once. That gets brushed with a thin veneer of spicy pickled jalapeño with a hit of citrus (yuzu kosho?). Then it's topped with a generous mound of silky, mildly briny Maine uni, served cold like the winter ocean, for some contrast against the hot potatoes. That's a great dish, even better with some funky pet-nat wine to accompany it.

fried chicken sandwich - Shelley's

Boy, did I ever have a crush on Shelley's. Chef Cleophus Hethington and barman Brian Griffiths were doing something pretty special in, of all places, sleepy South Miami: a quirky, seafood-centric menu, matched up with an equally eccentric selection of pre-batched or frozen cocktails. I was completely smitten, particularly by the fried chicken sandwich, which mostly played things straight but then threw a curve-ball with a funky fish sauce caramel.

She's relaxed and friendly, but she's serious about her cooking. Like her fried chicken sandwich, one of the best I've ever had. So crispy outside, so juicy inside, layered with pickle chips and fresh greens, on a squishy bun slathered with herb-flecked mayo. But what makes it special is a hit of Vietnamese style fish sauce caramel – a pungent, funky, salty-sweet burst of umami that you don't expect and that keeps drawing you back for more.

Shelley's, I miss you.

Florida bonito, soy, Hawaiian ginger, sea salt - Gaijin by Cake

Florida sardine with ginger and scallion- Gaijin by Cake

There was a brief, shining moment in time when Gaijin by Cake, Cake's short-lived izakaya in Midtown Miami, had the most interesting sushi bar in Miami. With a big assist from Denni Cha, who is now up in Orlando at a place called Sushi Pop, Cake was running a sushi menu that featured locally sourced fish and aging programs. Miami had never seen anything like this before. You can see the whole lineup from a March omakase dinner here, from which my favorites were a sashimi of local bonito – a fish you rarely see in restaurants because it tends to spoil quickly, but which has the deep meatiness of really good tuna – and a nigiri of local sardine topped with ginger and scallion, a fish that is typically only used for bait here, but which is absolutely delightful when properly cured.

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Night at the Burger Museum

So here was a fun thing: "Night at the Burger Museum," organized and hosted by Burger Beast a/k/a Sef Gonzalez.

Most folks know Burger Beast as a passionate and voracious blogger of burgers and other comfort foods, or maybe as the organizer of record setting food truck events. Not as many may appreciate that he is also a true historian of the fast food universe, with an encyclopedic depth of knowledge about the genre and its origins. (He's got a book coming out, "All About the Burger," in a few months). Sef has also compiled quite the collection of artifacts and memorabilia, which was first kept in a warehouse in Westchester I visited a couple years ago. It now has a home at the Burger Museum in Magic City Casino, where you can find Bob’s Big Boy hobnobbing with Officer Big Mac.

Earlier this week, Sef launched something new there: Night at the Burger Museum, with the space converted into a dining room, and a menu inspired by some of the dishes that were once served at the places whose knick-knacks adorn the walls.

(You can see all my pictures in this Night at the Burger Museum flickr set).

The idea, and some of the original dish suggestions, came from Sef; the re-interpretation and execution were cooked up by Phil Bryant and Veronica Valdivia , who worked together at Norman’s 180, Yardbird and The Local before starting Heirloom Hospitality as a consulting business.

Here’s what was on the menu:

A root beer rum old fashioned, made with Havana Club Clasico rum, sassafras syrup and bitters, courtesy of the always ebullient Gio Gutierrez.

Inspired by the Burger King Yumbo Hot Ham and Cheese Sandwich: ham croquetas with a cheese center, served with "special sauce." I'll confess, I was alive for the original Yumbo (which Burger King originally offered from 1968 to 1974, then brought back for a limited time in 2014), but I have no memory of it. This recreation was a feat of engineering, a crispy globe encasing a core of minced ham and molten cheese magma.

Inspired by the Wendy's Chicken Cordon Bleu Sandwich and Sizzler's Cheese Toast: a chicken cordon bleu soup topped with crispy, spice-flecked chicken nuggets, with a faithfully recreated tranche of cheese-dusted Texas toast riding sidecar. Here's an ad with Dave Thomas hawking the original version, I'm guessing from the early 1990's.

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Cobaya Le Zoo Makoto with Chefs Julian Baker and Anthony Micari

I'm a big fan of collaborations. When you put two creative minds together, good things are bound to happen. Yet many "collaborative" dinner events turn out to not really involve all that much actual teamwork. Sure, the chefs will communicate about a menu and ingredients, and decide who is going to do what. But more often than not, they're ping-pong-ing courses back and forth, rather than working together to create dishes that are a genuine combined effort.

Which is one of the things that made our Cobaya dinner last week with chefs Julian Baker of Le Zoo, and Anthony Micari of Makoto, so special: each dish seemed to bear the imprint of both chefs, and both kitchens.

They had some advantages in doing so. The French bistro and contemporary Japanese restaurant are neighbors, both housed in the posh Bal Harbour Shops. They are also siblings of a sort, both under the management of Stephen Starr's Starr Restaurant Group.^[1] And they're both Cobaya alumni, in a way: Chef Baker hosted Cobaya Experiment #40 while he was chef at Toscana Divino in Brickell, and Makoto's namesake, head chef Makoto Okuwa, was the host for Cobaya Experiment #32.

For Experiment #75, the two chefs set up a table for thirty of us right between their two restaurants: smack in the middle of the breezeway of Bal Harbour Shops over a glassed-in koi pond that runs through the center. Amidst the shoppers browsing the Dolce & Gabbana couture and Fendi purses, they served a menu that combined, in each dish, the flavors and ingredients and techniques of France and Japan. Here's a recap:

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Le Zoo Makoto flickr set)

Guinea Pigs starting to make their way in for Cobaya Experiment #75.

A snack as guests arrived, and a preview of what's to come: toasted baguettes smeared with a rich, and very French, chicken liver mousse, topped with a zingy, spicy, and very Japanese, yuzu kosho marmalade.

"Toro Niçoise." Chef Micari marinated block cuts of fatty tuna sashimi in soy sauce, toro zuke, style. Chef Baker brought the flavors of the Mediterranean: pickled haricots verts, tomatoes, niçoise olives, slivered radishes, a delicate squash blossom. Someone threw in some fudgy, Szechuan-spiced egg yolk, which was a very good idea. This was a great start.

"Japanese Bouillabaisse." Chef Micari brought some seafood from Tsukiji Market in Tokyo: gorgeous head-on shrimp, silky scallops, delicate baby calamari. It arrived at the table in a bowl with a rice puff rubbed with saffron aioli, the traditional accompaniment to a Provençal bouillabaisse. The dish was then finished with a tableside pour of a rich, heady, spicy seafood stew that had been enriched with red aka miso.

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