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.