I ate at Little Saigon on Christmas Eve. Little Saigon is this hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant in North Miami Beach where the wait staff treats you with the impatience and affectionate contempt they shower on their exasperating Americanized grandchildren. It's cheap (cash or check only!) and the menu is good reading. You know, chicken feet and stuff like that. I like how clean, light and fresh the flavors are in this type of cuisine. Growing up only knowing Asian food through disasters like heavily breaded chicken doused in honey sauce, it's been quite a revelation. I definitely need to get a Thai or Vietnamese wife, so she can cook for me and walk on my back with her tiny feet.
Dinner was good but I really missed having the typical Noche Buena dinner: roast pork made in the Caja China, black beans and rice, yuca, flan, etc., etc. I even miss having that pathetic little pig defrosting in the tub for days, and watching the old folks fight over pig ears and brains.
A good antidote to missing being part of a Cuban family (and the food is the only part I miss) is having American Friends to teach about the highlights of Cuban cuisine. Like El Rey De Las Fritas. GS and I had: Fritas Originales, I had a batido de trigo (which kind of blew his mind...Honey Smacks, in a shake???) and he had a batido de mango. A frita is one of the two things I'd want to eat as my last meal on death row. But the frita would have to be from there. They are the king, after all.
I'm in the mood lately (which can change unexpectedly-without warning...know thyself) to give consumable gifts lately, rather than clutter up the lives of my loved ones with more, you know. Clutter. I went to Robert is Here to get my mom some edibles for Christmas, and for some other people...and for me, too, of course. Like I'd leave myself out. Robert is Here sells all types of jams, jellies, preserves, pickles, sauces, chutneys...depending on how adventurous your taste buds are you can stick with the safe choices (berries) or try fun stuff like fig preserves with ginger or pickled garlic. They also sell fresh fruits and vegetables at good prices, as well as awesome milkshakes that are worth the drive alone (I got chocolate and cantalope) and they have a little farm area with animals that probably eat better than I do.
What else was good? Try the Iced Green Tea at Shibui...
