That was D’s reaction to the boneless short rib sloppy joe sandwich prepared by North One Ten chef Dewey LoSasso for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival Wine Spectator’s Best of the Best event Friday night. Topped with sliced filet mignon, lobster marmalade and a little Dewey hot sauce to taste, I must concur this was one kick a** sandwich — another one for the locals.
The event is hosted at the suite level of the American Airlines Arena. Each suite hosts a chef and two-to-three winemakers and tasters work their way around the suites tasting what they please. Of the 33 chefs at the event, 14 were from South Florida. Kobe Club’s chef Timothy Nickey served a tasty beef cheek ravioli in a truffle sauce. We weren’t able to taste the food of Andrew Rothschild of Bourbon Steak. When we arrived at their suite at 9:45 (the event ran from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.), there was no food left and no chefs around … guess everyone wanted to get a taste of that.
Of the non-Florida chefs, Jose Garces of Amada & Tinto in Philadelphia, served two delicious dishes. Lamb meatballs in a sherry, foie gras cream and thinly sliced kobe beef with black truffles and a quail egg yolk in beef consomme.
Along the way, we ran into Top Chef’s Howie Kleinberg who told us his restaurant Bulldog Barbecue will hopefully open in three to four months (we know how that goes in the restaurant world, but I’m looking forward to trying it). And D snapped a shot of me with chef Morimoto, who served a whitefish pastrami.
We ended our tasting tour eating slow-braised short rib (braised for 48 hours) with cannelini beans — prepared by Chris Ward of Mercury Grill in Dallas — sitting down looking out into the arena (romantic, huh?). Our feet were tired and I’ll confess by that point we were a little tipsy. It was time to go.
Verdict: I tasted good and not so good things, talked to chefs and drank some great and not so great wines. That, I enjoyed. However, this is a $300 event, which is steep. We did get free parking at the arena, though — a first at this festival.
[...] the crab cakes that were mentioned with them. The sloppy joe was good, though not as good as the one we sampled during the festival. I loved the wings. Paulaner was the selected beer for this [...]
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[...] The last time I went to Best of the Best two years ago, it was held at the American Airlines Arena, and I still remember it as my favorite South Beach Wine & Food Festival event despite its steep price. This year, I was curious about how it would work at the Fontainebleau. Admittedly the arena isn’t as swanky as the Fontainebleau but somehow having one or two chefs with one or two vintners separated into suites seemed to be more conducive to talking with them and learning more about the wines and dishes. Don’t get me wrong, I had excellent dishes and a wonderful time this year, but maybe organizers will consider going back to a similar set up and skipping the speeches and national anthems. Filed in Restaurants, Savory events Tags: south beach wine & food festival You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. [...]