April Eats

Graphic: Samantha Riepe

 

Valerie Nahmad4/13/2010

Gear up your appetite – a host of new restaurants are standing by to feed your every culinary desire.

• Sate a sweet tooth at South Miami’s Sweetness Bakeshop & Café. Sugar is the house specialty – with an emphasis on exotic cakes and cupcakes, including the signature Guayabera – guava cake with guava filling and cream cheese frosting. Insider tip – don’t overlook the house-made pecan brittle.
• Go local and green at Coral Gables’ La Vie en Raw. The “art-ternative” vegan café serves a raw-food menu and features work by local artists. Look for smoothies, soups, salads and daily specials like lasagna with zucchini noodles, pad Thai and beet rawviolli. Also on tap: live music and poetry and classes on raw food and healthy living.
• Bring comfort food to your lunch box at Aventura’s Bulldog Café. Opened by Top Chef alum Howie Kleinberg, the casual outpost features brisket flatbread and white chili appetizers; chopped and chicken Millanaise salads; and Cuban, club & BLT sandwiches. Dessert skews equally traditional with milk and cookies, molten chocolate cake and fried apple turnovers.
• Tap your Latin American carnivore at Doral Golf Resort & Spa’s new Mesazul. The 160-seat Argentinean-inspired steakhouse is all about the beef. All the beef and chops are aged up to four weeks, broiled at 1600 degrees (to best seal in the juices) and served with traditional, spicy cilantro and roasted red pepper chimichurri sauces.
• Tap a different urge at Pompano’s New York Strip Steakhouse & Cabaret. The steakhouse “celebrates the beauty and sensuality of women” while dishing out beef aplenty.

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