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Hola, loyal listeners of La Ventanita, Carlos here. This is bittersweet to write.
After six amazing years at the Miami Herald, I’m leaving for a fantastic, unexpected opportunity. I’ll be the new host of Sundial, the daily mid-day show on WLRN 91.3 FM, our NPR station. My goal: to keep telling the stories that make Miami wonderful and weird.
But before we go, Amy and I say our goodbyes (figuratively, we're buds and will always be buds) and banter one last time. On tap:
"Junior" Biggers, who hand-sliced pastrami at Hialeah's Stephen's Deli for 65 years, is retiring
It's cinnamon roll season at Knaus Berry Farm — and one "fugazzi" way to skip the line
Who is the Key lime pie maker at Blue Collar and Mignonette that filmmaker Billy Corben volunteers as delivery boy?
Hear the "lost Ventanita," the episode with super-chef Massimo Bottura that launched six months worth of podcasts.
It's been real. Peace.
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Vicky Bakery is synonymous with croquetas, pastelitos and Cuban bread in Miami.
And Pedro’s father, Antonio Cao, founded the Vicky Bakery that we know today 50 years ago. Antonio was a baker in Cuba. When he immigrated, he bought a small bakery in east Hialeah, kept the name and turned it into arguably the most famous Cuban bakery in South Florida. Pedro became a master baker and took over the business when his dad retired, franchising it to more than a dozen locations — with more on the way.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure: Carlos' mom was raised with the Cao family, back in the tiny country town of Cárdenas, Cuba. (There may even be video of him dancing with Pedro’s younger sister in a quinceañera. We'll look for it for the video version of the podcast on YouTube.)
Plus! Carlos joins Amy's fit life (almost), Philadelphia Inquirer joins Miami Herald in dropping starred reviews, James Beard awards are open for nominations for 2022.
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The man behind Joe’s Stone Crab is actually a Stephen.
Stephen Sawitz is the great-grandson of Joe Weiss, who founded the Miami Beach restaurant in 1913. Four generations of his family have steered it into icon status. Now it’s Stephen’s turn. He’s the latest steward of Joe’s Stone Crab.
He tells us crazy stories about his grandfather, Jesse, who the restaurant's own website describes thusly: "Jesse was a character. He was a scoundrel, a womanizer to the hundredth degree, a gambler. But everyone who came into Joe's wanted to see Jesse."
He tells us why stone crab claws are boiled the second they come off the boat, whether you can tell frozen from fresh, what his grandparents did to defend Joe's against development, and what it's like to take over a restaurant with $40 million in revenue that is a family legacy and a Miami Beach institution.
Plus: La Planchita's maiden voyage pressing sandwiches, a rom-com themed restaurant and how to help a Hurricane Ian ravaged restaurant in Sanibel Island.
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Antonio Bachour’s beautiful desserts became famous before he did.
Millions of followers on Instagram watch him make the glistening, colorful mirror-glazed desserts for which he has been named the best pastry chef in the world — twice! — at his Coral Gables shop. And Bachour (pronounced like a sneeze!) travels the world over giving away the secrets to his jewel-like treats.
Plus! The moment you've all been waiting for: La Planchita is revealed. Carlos gives us a tour of how his commercial sandwich press went from restaurant workhorse to blinged centerpiece of his kitchen. (Search YouTube for La Ventanita on Miami Herald to see the video and photos.)
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Vanessa Garcia wrote the story of rum.
Her play, the Amparo Experience, told the true tale of the Cuban family behind the real Havana Club Rum — and it became the hottest theater ticket in Miami, selling out show after show for six months.
Vanessa manages to grab people’s attention with her varied work: plays, journalism, fiction, non-fiction and podcasts. Even the pandemic couldn’t stop her. She wrote a radio play and another performed virtually, “Jenna and the Whale,” with my buddy Jake Cline.
And she’s a voice for Cuban artists and dissidents on the island that the government tries to silence.
We talk to her about her newest work, “What the Bread Says,” a children’s book about how an entire country’s story can be told through its bread. Plus an upcoming play that also involves food with the poet Richard Blanco.
Plus! An update on Carlos' Planchita and Amy climbs her backyard tree like an avocado monkey.
Find all Vanessa's work on IG: @vanessagarciawriter
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Angry vegan diners, Miami food halls and why the FDA had to tell people not to cook chicken in cough syrup required an all-banter episode of La Ventanita, the weekly Miami Herald food podcast.
Co-host Amy Reyes, Miami.com’s editor, had barely asked our guest last week, Ani Meinhold. who were the toughest diners to accommodate when she blurted out, “vegans.” Food editor and co-host Carlos Frías grabbed 26 seconds of her answer for a little tease on Instagram Reels, and, hoo boy, did the plant-eating internet get angry about it.
Today we got into it about why entitled diners — of any lifestyle — are the worst diners. Plus we discussed:
Why the FDA had to tell people not to cook chicken in cough medicine
A Mexican restaurant and Bahamian rooftop bar at the remodeled Mayfair in Coconut Grove
Why Vicky’s House milkshake bar in Coconut Grove was a viral hit but had to close
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You can’t say the word “pop up” in Miami today without thinking of Ani Meinhold, who opened Miami’s first one 10 years ago.
That pop-up was Phuc Yea!, a Vietnamese concept that came alive every night, when she and co-founder Cesar Zapata took over a downtown diner every night and rewrote the menu. Now it’s a Michelin-recognized restaurant.
We also discuss:
Bon Appetit names three of their 50 best new restaurants in Miami, though one is closed indefinitely and the other is a wine bar
My colleague Connie Ogle hates that I put olives in my first post-pandemic sourdough bread experiment
I try to convince Amy to watch "The Bear"
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It's an all-banter show where Amy Reyes and Carlos Frías dig into all the juicy bits of food news to come out of the 305 in the last week. Among the topics:
Who is Larios, what does he have to do with Emilio and Gloria Estefan, and why does it matter that they are cooking Cuban food again
Does Timeout Market South Beach still hold up?
What Amy's trip to Cartagena, Colombia taught her about Miami dining culture
Did you catch Jeremy Ford talking about how he wrestled Anthony Bourdain in jiu jitsu in last week’s episode? We have to talk more about that.
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Miami’s first and only “Top Chef” winner, Jeremy Ford, wrestled Anthony Bourdain.
He wrestled with demons as a Miami chef. And he wrestles with raising three daughters.
Ford has a Hollywood vibe, but he's a down-to-earth guy who gave up cooking for a stretch to look after his diabetic mother. It was her diabetes diagnosis when he was 8 that led him to grow his own food for the family and make "clean eating" a thing long before it was cool.
He talks about how his late mother, who was adopted, found her biological family and Ford learned he had an Italian grandmother — who taught him how to cook Italian food at 14.
It changed his life.
We get into all of it, plus his being awarded a Michelin star at his South Beach restaurant Stubborn Seed, his branching out with new restaurants.
PLUS! And update on La Planchita — sandwich days are coming soon, we hope.
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More than a year ago, Jeff Houck told us he was working on a book that would shock the world’s understanding of where the Cuban sandwich came from.
You always hear Tampa vs Miami. But Jeff and the lead author on this book went beyond the debate. To write “The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers,” they looked at primary sources — advertisements, restaurant menus and newspaper articles, dating back to the 1870s.
The result? Two new cities entered the chat: Havana and New York.
Jeff’s origin story is just as interesting, though. He’s a former food writer, editor and restaurant reviewer for the late Tampa Tribune (pour one out) whose work has been nominated for Pulitzer Prize. He now tells the food stories of Florida’s oldest restaurant, the Columbia.
Plus! Amy returns from a Detroit crab boil and we discuss Miami's version of Buddy's Detroit pizza, Vice City Pizza.
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Rane Roatta’s Homestead farm, Miami Fruit, figured out early on that if they posted videos of the phallic-looking rare exotic fruit they grow, those videos would go viral.
Imagine that — the internet likes phallic things!
Rane and his partner Edelle Schlegel have been growing ultra-rare exotic fruit in the Redland for more than 8 years. They also partner with hundreds of local farmers to sell this fruit strictly online to the tropical-fruit barren places across the country. He’s a talented musician, a competitive cyclist — He’s going to Italy for a championship race soon — and he’s devoted to living an environmentally friendly lifestyle.
PLUS! New fodder for the Cuban sandwich origin debate. Havana (duh!) and New York (yikes!) have entered the chat!
My guest co-host is Alex Harris, the Miami Herald environmental writer and host of the podcast "Smoked," which tells the story of Randy Lanier, who financed a racing team by dealing marijuana(!).
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Randy Alonso took on a tough job recently — resurrecting South Miami's Fox’s Lounge.
He and his business partner, Chris Hudnall, spent the last three years renovating the bar that had been open for 69 years in South Miami, Florida until it closed in 2015. Rather than build a new place and just slap the old neon sign on it, Randy looked at preserving what made it popular — a dark old bar with lots of history and familiar food.
We start with a remembrance of the late "Top Chef" alum Howie Kleinberg, who died in July. And we finish with an update on Carlos' sandwich press obsession.
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Netflix recently launched a new season of their award-winning series, Street Food. The most recent season focuses on the street food in America and Mariano Carranza was the director of the Miami episode of Street Food: USA.
Mariano is a native of Lima, {eru. But he really did his homework when he tried to boil down what street food means in Miami and he had some interesting choices, from things you might expect, like Cuban sandwiches and fritas, the Cuban hamburgers, which finally get a national spotlight. To the unexpected, like the man from Miami Gardens who sells souse out of his house.
Plus we banter about the "fruit influencers" whose Redland tropical fruit went TikTok viral.
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We had very different dining/hangout experiences that we discussed on this episode of La Ventanita.
We tried the high-end food hall in Doral, Shoma Bazaar, that wants to be a destination. Who is this food hall for, with $30 ramen, single-origin coffee roasted right at the food hall, and a clubby bar? Amy and Carlos had thoughts.
Then to the other extreme, Carlos hung out at Paradis Books & Bread, where good wine is cheap and the bread is excellent, with a college coffeeshop vibe.
Plus, what we're excited to try with Miami Spice and new locations for Kendall's FishCo fish market.
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Our guest today is José Mendín.
What we love about José's Miami restaurants is that no two concepts are alike.
He’s opened a gastrobup, a sushi chain, a Sunset Harbour Italian restaurant and a Puerto Rican spot that tied back to his Boricua roots. His gift is mixing and matching flavors from outside a traditional cuisine to make something uniquely his.
He had a little controversy with his last restaurant, La Placita, when they painted the building like Puerto Rican flag. The Boricuas loved it but the city ultimately told him he had to paint it over.
He's a former college volleyball player, so he and Carlos nerded out about that.
We also talked about the scammers leaving one-star Google reviews for restaurants and extorting them for money to take them down. And we touch on Thomas Keller's new Coral Gables restaurant.
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Boy, do we have a lot of food news to catch up on this episode of La Ventanita. Wagons West is being sold. A fire destroyed the popular tiki hut at Golden Rule seafood market and restaurant, which has been open since 1943. And Wood Tavern and Las Rosas bar in Allapattah have both closed as the area bends further toward tourism and away from locals.
Plus, will Amy defeat her White Girl Stomach long enough to attend a secret burger club?
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La Ventanita is off this week. But we want to point you to a special Miami episode of another great food podcast: The Sporkful with Dan Pashman.
The Sporkful aired an episode this week about La Ventanita co-host and Herald food editor Carlos Frías losing his father to gun violence. And how he found solace in a search for Miami's first ventanita.
Check out The Sporkful and give ‘em a follow. We’ll have a new episode of La Ventanita for you July 7.
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Luci Giangrandi is a Miami-raised kid whose star has risen. Specifically a Michelin star.
She co-owns Boia De, a restaurant she opened with her co-chef and partner Alex Meyer in a strip mall in Little Haiti three years ago. They were named co-nominees for the James Beard Award for best chef in the South. And now, their little spot has got a star from the Tire Man.
But she actually started out as an aspiring food writer before training in the Scarpetta kitchen of “Chopped!” judge Scott Conant.
Miami first found out about them when they moved to Miami together and opened a tiny taco trailer in the Design District, La Pollita, where they made a killer chicken sandwich.
She talks to us about eating Vicky's croquetas in Miami Lakes, sharing the helm of a heralded restaurant to her trips with family to Livorno, Italy that shaped her.
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Michael did one of the hardest things a restaurant owner could do: He established a restaurant that everybody loved, that won every award — and then he totally changed it.
But Michael has done that for 25-plus years he’s been in Miami, always gone against the grain. Classic story of going into an unproven neighborhood and helping to make it cool.
Big Pink on South Beach in the mid 90s. Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in the Design District in the mid 2000s. Harry’s Pizzeria at the edge of Midtown after that.
We talk to him about making it through COVID – which he got and he lost his sense of taste for time. We’ll talk to him about the role his kids play in his restaurants and his career. And Michelin's recognition of Miami and his restaurant.
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It’s an all-banter show.
And to help us do that, we’ve invited a professional banter-er, Ryan Pfeffer, the main food reviewer for The Infatuation, the online restaurant guide that bought out the Zagat Guide. Ryan dines out for work more than anyone in Miami. He’s been to the fancy restaurants that could end up with Miami's first Michelin star. And he’s been to the hidden mom and pop restaurants all around Miami.
We talk about Miami's Michelin star possibilities and Carlos shares passionate food-nerd reactions to his list of predictions in the Miami Herald. Plus, we discuss our guide to new Miami restaurants in the Miami Herald.
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