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