Destination Dining: Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, Miami

The Yolk's On You

One of the perks of my job is that I get to travel all over the country dining and drinking in great restaurants--all in the name of research.  We are always looking for new concepts, potential chef partners, menu items we can steal that inspire us, etc.  I know I am lucky I get paid to indulge in my passion for food, but it does present a challenge maintaining this chiseled, slim physique. My secrets are small portions, no dessert, lots of exercise, and on occasion, a wee bit of purging. Easy Peasy!  I have a wonderful comrade named Joe who sometimes says "it does not suck being David Wood."  In all matters culinary, love, friendship and the two best dogs in the universe, I am in total and grateful agreement.

Suction Cups

This week was a long one away from home, with three days in Orlando and two in Miami.  Worse, I woke up with a rotten cold on Thursday, the day we traveled to Miami, and had to walk around with toilet paper purloined from public toilets in my pockets all day to staunch the tide.  So it is a testament to how truly fine Michael's Genuine Food & Drink is since it was one of the most memorable and enjoyable meals I can remember even though I was very sick and really tired.

We drank a couple of doses of medicine at the bar before dinner and I felt almost human.  We were seated at a small two top next to an equally small two top.  Approximately one inch of space separated the tables, but as in NYC, that inch apart creates a Berlin wall of isolation for each dining couple (as long as voices are kept in moderate, dulcet tones and you never, ever make eye contact.)  Our cheerful waiter welcomed us with a wide smile and asked if we knew what we wanted as he tap watered us.

Peaches On Pizza--
Who'da Thunk?

We had been studying the menu at the bar so we knew we were going to try a bunch of items.  The menu is divided into sections called Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large, and we had figured out that meant the plates, not the body size of the intended recipient.  (That medicine in the bar had obviously made us absolutely brilliant.)

We started off with a couple of Puffer's Wellfleet Oysters with classic mignonette, plump and briny, and a terrific item called Wood Roasted Double Yolk Farm Egg with cave aged gruyere, roasted tomatoes, chives and a sourdough crostini.  It came in a ramekin, and it was sort of like a cheesy omelet spread.  The gruyere had melted over the top of the vessel in the oven like you sometimes get with the best French onion soup.  We spread it on the crostini and sank our teeth into its gooey goodness.  I felt like taking two Crestor tablets and just eating the rest with a spoon.

Beet Me Up, Scottie

Loved the Beet and Quinoa Salad with grapefruit, mint, pistachio, heart of palm and zesty orange dressing.  (Quinoa is top trending at the moment, surmounted only by kale. Thankfully, the everything bacon and pork belly fad is quickly fading.)

Then a perfectly Chargrilled Octopus atop a salad of gigande beans, roasted peppers, tomato harissa, green olives, and torn herbs slithered out of the kitchen and suctioned onto our faces, like that scene in Alien. Yum.

Steamed Mussels were also perfect, if perhaps the least imaginative item we ordered. We finished up with a Salumi Pizza--what a great idea!  House-cured meats on Fontina with roasted peaches, red onions and arugula on a wood-fired blackened and blistered cracker thin pizza crust.  O sole mio!  I was too full to eat more than two wedges so I scraped the toppings off the crust and crammed them into my mouth with my fingers.  (Not really, but I wanted to.)

My grammarly sister saw my check-in on Facebook and scoffed that I was eating "real" food.  In this case "Genuine" food means authentic, free from pretense, affectation, or hypocrisy; sincere.  Those awful Kardashians are real but certainly not genuine.  If you find yourself in Miami, hie thee to Michael's, it's the real deal.

Destination Dining: Villa-O

I don't usually write about restaurants we operate since I don't want to compromise my enviable status as an amateur, unpaid, wannabe food blogger by expressing opinions that could be viewed as slightly less than impartial.  Although I pride myself on integrity and truthfulness, I also need to get paid at my real job so reviewing our own concepts could find me tiptoeing up a slippery slope of stifled snark--or worse, scribing an overly enthusiastic paean to the glorious creations whipped up by the dazzlingly talented Bronwen Weber at Frosted Art Bakery & Studio. (See?  I just Freudian slipped that one in out of sheer force of habit.  I love Bronwen, and if you haven't seen her work go to Facebook right now and like her page, then prepare yourself for amazing displays of pure-D genius.)

This week we had a group of managers travel to Dallas for a training class, and on Tuesday night we made a caravan down crowded McKinney Avenue, with its hip boutiques and millennial bars to the slightly more laid back Knox Henderson area of town and arrived at our newest acquisition in the Dallas dining scene, Villa-O.

I was not a fan of Villa-O when it opened several years ago.  We tried it a couple of times, and while it wasn't bad, it was just meh and we let it wander off our radar like a an old high school acquaintance we never had much in common with (and with whom I am still not confirming as a Facebook friend all these years later.)  But the company I work for bought the place late last year and we've tinkered with recipes and presentations and now there's only one word to describe the food there:  wowza.



You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish

Able-bodied assistant manager Mark and his trusty sidekick Heather took great care of us.  They brought out several Fred Flintstone-sized heaping platters of appetizers for us all to share which included crispy portobello mushroom fries, spicy calamari, some aromatic wood-oven baked focaccia and ice cold tuna crudo with avocado that was as good as any I've ever had.  (I snuck a hunk off the platter and stuck it in my pocket for later.  That's probably a better ploy for tater tots than sushi-grade raw tuna.)

After we ordered entrees, I looked around the handsome

Mmmm, Chicken Lasagnette

room and noticed a plethora of UDYPs (Uptown Dallas Young Professionals.)  They all have the same overall appearance regardless of gender: blemish-free, sun-burnished skin, tousled hair, 6-days-a-week-at-the-gym bodies, designer labels, and really, really  smart phones.  Phones so smart they were texting each other without instructions from their owners, who were too busy gesturing "hashtag" before saying something to notice.

My entree was so good it made me want to develop an eating disorder.  It was Fennel Crusted Sea Scallops with Wild Arugula and Sweet Basil Vinaigrette, and I wanted to binge on it and then purge forever in an endless cycle of fulfillment and regret.  Another standout was the Chicken and Artichoke Lasagnette with Italian Cheeses, Pesto and Bechamel Tomato Sauce.  Decadently rich but you could sort of pretend you were eating healthily since there was chicken and vegetables in it (admittedly smothered in high fat dairy products.)  The only other dish I sampled was Beef Short Rib braised in Red Wine & Vegetables with White Polenta, Portobello and Porcini Mushrooms.  Mamma Mia!  Somebody kiss the chef for me pronto!

I skipped dessert but my tablemates shared a ridonculous platter that included a layered chocolate cake (so tall it had earned an honorary membership in the mile high club), an almond cheesecake and a tiramisu.  From the decibels of the audible moans around me, I finally understood why the restaurant was named Villa Big-O.