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SOBE FEST

Highlights from South Beach Wine and Food Festival 2022

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Excited to share my Highlights from South Beach Wine and Food Festival’s Grand Tasting Village, a fantastic fundraiser for FIU hospitality.

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It’s a Fun way to explore new bites and possibly recreate or be inspired to create something similar at home. There were also cocktails and wines! I’m lucky, I can’t really drink.

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I was most impressed with Finless Foods in where Chef developed a “tuna like” looking and texture using Chinese Winter Melon! It was delicious and so refreshing! Currently, only available to food service not consumers yet, boohoohoo!

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Proud of Mac Pub’s build out of beautiful Land Rover for Dos hombres. He’s a master at transforming vintage wrecks into beautiful beverage trucks. He’s also a Wok Star! More about him soon!

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Happy to see local representation like Tabenero hot sauce and Karinat yoghurt and fruit covered chocolates!

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Touching to hear Del Grosso’s, the daughter got choked up about her Dad, Uncle Fred developing the famous Del Grosso marinara sauce.

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Goya Foods put out delicious, chunky tuna on a plantain crisp!

So fun hanging with @epicurean305 as always! Thanks Brustman Carrino PR.

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I’ve included my vote for Yelp’s favorite bite, see if you agree?

Would love to hear which event you attended?

SOBEWFF Dinner at Novikov Miami hosted by Chef Charles Phan

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Food Network Cooking Channel and South Beach Wine and Food Festival (SOBEWFF) are doing a fantastic job with their dinner series, I love their tag line – Eat, Drink, Educate.  Guest chefs from all over the States are matched with Miami restaurants who share similar cuisines. Having dined at both Novikov Miami and The Slanted Door, Charles Phan’s San Francisco restaurant at the Ferry Building back in 2004, I was curious to see how their dishes complemented each other. Seamless and flawless are two words that come to mind! 

I got a chance to chat to Charles Phan before the craziness started and glad we took our photo then, cause I noticed some splashes of what looked like caramel sauce from his delicious Spanish Mackerel, ha, ha!

SOBEWFF just celebrated their 18th year!  It started as a one day affair and now spans over 5 days with 100 events.  Food lovers gather in South Beach from all over the world, so it’s not surprising most events were sold out. 

About Charles Phan in a nutshell…
Phan was an architecture student for 3 years before dropping out to help his mom at her sewing shop prior to becoming a restauranteur with NO KNOWLEDGE of running a restaurant or cooking professionally, the closest thing he did was bussing tables. 1995 was when he opened The Slanted Door in its original location in the Mission, San Francisco.  24 years later, Phan owns and operates 5 restaurants with one opening soon in Las Vegas.  I see he has applied his architecture into styling and cooking his food and into his restaurants.  He enjoys merging modern Chinese, Vietnamese, French food using classic techniques to tell “stories” about his dishes. 

About Novikov…
Head over for the full scoop of my Miami Spice lunch at Novikov here.  

Nothing is ordinary at Novikov Miami, this unique sculpture greets you as you enter!

The ambience with the curved outdoor patio and pendulum lights, the gorgeous breeze coming off Miami River made for a perfect setting.

Top: Phan’s Mung Bean Dumplings and Gau Choy Gow Pan-Fried Wild Shrimp & Garlic Chive Dumplings. I could’ve devoured 100 of them! Paired perfectly with Ferrai-Carano Dry Sangiovese Rose 2017.

From Novikov: Marinated & Grilled Chilean Sea Bass Skewers with Ginger, Jalapeno & Cilantro. I probably had six of these, so good. Paired  with Ferrai-Carano Dry Sangiovese Rose 2017.

From Phan: Refreshing Green Mango & Cucumber Salad, Thai Chile & Garlic Fish Sauce Dressing paired with Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc 2017.

From Phan: Spanish Mackerel with Caramel Sauce paired with Ferrari-Carano Pinot Noir 2016.

From Novikov: Tender morsels of Wagyu Skirt Steak, Yuzu Chimi, Garlic Crisp & Micro Herb Salad. Paired with Ferrari-Carano Cabernet Sauvignon 2015. We sat next to pescatarians so they gave us theirs, ha, ha. Oh our tummies and taste buds were so happy.

From Novikov: Dessert – Crunchy Sesame Ice Cream Cone. Gorgeous end.

NOTE: this was a media dinner but doesn’t sway my judgement.

Lucky Chopsticks 2017, oh what a night!

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Lucky Chopsticks: An Asian Night Market was the ultimate dream for Asian food lovers and the closing event for the 15th South Beach Wine and Food Festival. Over 30 Asian fusion restaurants participated and hosted by Andrew Zimmern, most widely known for his popular TV show, Bizarre Foods.

Thinking of attending Lucky Chopsticks next year?  Here are a few tricks that will help you make the most of it…

  • get the scoop on chefs and what they specialize in PRIOR to the event, proceed to line up for just those!  I did not follow my own advice and sorely regret missing out on Myers & Chang from Boston and Pig and Khao from NYC!
  • be there EARLY and get in as soon as it opens.
  • You have to flit like a butterfly and start lining up while you are eating from the previous booth! 
  • You’ll know which booths are popular AND GOOD by the LONG LINES! 
  • Do not get sidetracked by game booths like Tic Tac Toe, Dim Sum Dumpling Toss or Yao Ming Basketball, at least not till the end when you NEED some exercise to work off the dumplings and baos. 

Fortunately, neither my husband nor I drink alcohol, but if you do, yes, you got it, line for that.  Lining up can have its advantages, I got chatting with quite a few foodies who tipped me which bites to go for next.  And the live reggae music got you bopping. 

Our favs were…

Asabu’s succulent Pork Belly Robata Skewers topped with Ponzu and Yuzu Kosho Sauce and

Black Brick’s Hunan Beef, a tender wok fried skirt steak with cumin spice topped with jalapeño verde.

 

We were already full after visiting one side of the big tent, so we missed Finka (post coming soon, Chef Eileen Andrade whips up Cuban Asian Fusion) and Sarsparilla Club but managed to get a cute selfie with Chef Jeff McInnis.

 

Andrew Zimmern’s Canteen presented a “bizarre” street food that I’m not sure most Americans would appreciate and I confess I am not a fan of Szechuan Fried Chicken Feet with Hot and Sour Flavors. We tried but those claws really bother me.  Here’s a ‘behind the scenes’ shot of 3,000 chicken feet getting the treatment! 

Lucky Chopsticks was definitely a very fun way to try a variety of Asian bites all in one place, try it next year and remember the tricks I shared, you’ll need them.  And if you can break your piggy bank for another one, we really enjoyed Best of the Best.