Portia's: Southern Discomfort Food

I grew up with a Southern stepmother.  She was from Alabama and raised me with grits, biscuits, and award-winning fried chicken (hers won the fried chicken competition one year at the Alabama state fair), as well as boiled peanuts, greens, fried green tomatoes and cornbread dressing (NEVER stuffing).  My stepmother wasn't just a Southerner, she was a white Southerner, and I think it is important to make the distinction, especially when discussing cuisine.  While her cooking wasn't bad, for someone brought into this world amidst the spices and flavors of Latin America, Southern cuisine - at least that of my stepmother - was bland.  Not subtle, like Japanese cuisine or Vietnamese cuisine, or even German cuisine.  It was just bland.  And it wasn't until I had my first taste of soul food that I realized that Southern food could be zesty and flavorful and comforting....food that nourishes the body and the soul, hence the name.  Upon doing research, I discovered that Southern food is essentially African American food, and unless it is made by African Americans, it will usually be missing that essential ingredient: soul.  Non African American Southern food, to me, has always been a toned-down version of the real deal - soul food for white folks.

There are always exceptions, of course, but it seems that when someone else tries to play at Southern cooking they tend to be a little too "creative" with their cooking.  Yes, the inspiration lies in traditional Southern dishes, but the execution utilizes foreign elements.  The results are tasty but never feel authentic and always manage to seem embellished.  I always end up asking myself how a soul food version of a dish is so delicious in spite of its simplicity, while the same dish executed by a white Southerner is either bland or has to include so many extra elements.  Until I shadow a soul food cook, the answer will remain a mystery, and I'll continue to go to a soul food restaurant when I was Southern food because to me, it's like the difference between real Chinese cuisine and Chinese-American.  Once you have the real thing, it's hard to go back to a dumbed down imitation.

Nevertheless, there are good Southern restaurants manned by white cooks/chefs that offer very tasty "nouvelle" Southern cuisine - creative, sometimes gourmet, twists on classics their mamas made for them or recreations of what their most-likely-black cooks prepared in their kitchens.  The food at these restaurants can be subtle, which is definitely a step up from being bland, and when the cook/chef has some sort of culinary background or just a level head on his/her shoulders, the unique creations being served up can be quite glorious.  For instance, adding fresh herbs and garlic to chicken and dumplings - superb idea!  Or adding some bold spices to a fried chicken marinade - ingenious!

Sometimes, however, one has the misfortune of going to a Southern restaurant where the creative ideas are not always well thought out, and the resulting dishes turn out to be both bland and a little disturbing on the palate.  Such was the case during a recent dinner at Portia's, a new restaurant on Oakland Park Boulevard, in Broward County.  The restaurant took over the space of another restaurant, called The Cellar, which served mostly German and central European dishes.  Although I never dined at the old restaurant, it was obvious that some of the old décor remained - embossed copper ceiling panels, tiffany lamps, and romantic, impressionistic portraits.  Portia's own touch was most noted in the presence of paper place mats displaying the image of a pig, which was a kitschy touch, but didn't seem to match the rest of the restaurant.  The lighting was very low inside, but somehow failed to be romantic.  The tables were cheap-looking, as were the chairs.  Paired with the disco soundtrack and the numerous senior citizens dining within, the ambiance was a depressing portrait of a retirement home dining hall for gay men.

The service was friendly.  Our waitress offered us a complimentary bowl of house made pork cracklins, which were good although it would have been nice to have something with which to cut the richness.  Maybe I'm channelling Mexican cuisine, which uses a squeeze of lime and some chile, or Nicaraguan cuisine, which serves them with a vinegary slaw.  It might not be traditional for Southern cuisine, but it sure would be a nice innovation.  While the pork cracklins were a nice touch, it would have been nice to get some biscuits or corn bread or dinner rolls.  No such bread ever arrived at our table, and I think it had to be ordered and paid for.

An appetizer of fried green tomatoes, which our waitress recommended, were just dissatisfying.  There seemed to be something wrong with the tomatoes, as if they were getting ripe or they were pickled.  The flavor was off.  Additionally, they were coated in panko bread crumbs, which I didn't care for.  The remoulade sauce with which they were served was practically inedible and clearly not a remoulade.  It was like a thinned-out tartar sauce with a lot of vinegar and paprika and little chunks of unrecognizable pickled vegetables and onions.  

For my entrée, I ordered a pork tenderloin sandwich, which was not a Southern dish, but more of a specialty of Indiana, Iowa, and the surrounding areas, which I guess would kind of go with the "country" theme of Portia's.  What I received were two breaded, fried pork cutlets coated with something I'd never seen before.  This came with a buttered and toasted commercially-made bun of the cheaper variety, an iceberg lettuce leaf, a few slices of tomato, and some cheap neon green pickle chips.  I did not care for the breading one bit!  Upon first looking at it, I thought that it was perhaps comprised of cornflakes.  Upon biting into a piece, it was determined that it was coarsely crunched up saltine crackers; they were not ground nor crumbled but crunched up, meaning that there were 1/4" pieces of crackers soaked in days-old fryer oil surrounding this thin slice of pork cutlet.  I asked the waitress what the breading consisted of, just to be sure, and she said it was a "secret recipe".  Well, that's once secret that Portia's can keep to themselves!  As a side dish, I ordered a side of peanut cole slaw.  Again, maybe I was thinking about a different cuisine, perhaps somewhere in Southeast Asia, because what I had in mind was nothing like what I was served.  I was soon reminded as to what kind of restaurant I was at when I took a bite of the shredded cabbage tossed in mayonnaise, ground peanuts that I couldn't tell were in there at first, and absolutely nothing else.  There really was nothing else in that cole slaw...and it tasted that way.

John ordered the fried chicken, for which the restaurant is supposedly well known.  The chicken is made to order, which means that you can be waiting an average of 20 minutes for your order, which I think is the amount of time we waited.  The chicken was flavorful and juicy with a crispy crust and offered what one would expect from good fried chicken.  The dark meat pieces were characteristically tender, and the breast was surprisingly moist.  Portia's fried chicken is definitely a cut above most places, but definitely not the best.  John's sides, like mine, were abysmal.  His creamed corn should have had quotation marks surrounding it on the menu - a tiny condiment bowl filled with corn nuggets, bacon bits, and milk that appeared as if it was thrown together at the last minute.  His lima beans were satisfactory but also arrived in a minuscule bowl.   Honestly, I believe I've had banchan at a Korean restaurant - those little condiments that come with every dish of Korean barbecue - that were more generous than the side dishes at Portia's.

The only redeeming moment at Portia's came at the end of the meal when John and I partook in a slice of very good coconut cream pie.  If there was one thing that would bring me back to Portia's, it would be that, and just maybe some fried chicken...although it would be awfully tough to come back.  While I'm definitely one to notice good food at a restaurant before anything else, the ambiance at Portia's was just too depressing, and the food just wasn't good enough to warrant a second visit.  Especially considering that Betty's Soul Food is just a little closer in distance from us, there really is no reason, in my opinion, to return to Portia's.

Portia's

199 East Oakland Park Blvd

Oakland Park, FL 33334

Broward's Asian buffets

I really like buffets.  Not so much because they provide diners with the opportunity to gorge themselves on food for one single price....actually, I don't like that aspect at all.  I love buffets because they allow me to sample a little bit of a lot of different dishes.  When it comes to ethnic cuisines, the buffet format is an excellent way to get a much broader idea of what makes that cuisine unique (or not so unique), as well as affording me the chance to sample some more exotic dishes - or dishes with unappealing or boring descriptions - without feeling committed to purchasing a large bowl or platter of it or feeling like I'm taking a risk.  It comes down to a matter of economy.  While I might pass up paying for a plate of stinky tofu or "special meat with good sauce" from a menu, I'll definitely try some on a buffet....that is to say, a good buffet.  While some buffets can be a great catalyst for exploring a new cuisine, many can paint a pretty grim picture of a cuisine and can offer a diner an unfortunate first impression.  Imagine if your first experience with Chinese cuisine was at a $6.99 All-u-can-eat in Hialeah?  Or if your initial foray into Japanese cuisine was picking at a dried-out and grey-colored tuna nigiri at a Chinese-owned sushi buffet?  A buffet can teeter on the edge of a finely sharped knife - one side offering a good representation of a culture's cuisine and the other offering nothing but disgrace to that culture...and possible food poisoning.

The important thing to remember about a buffet is that no matter the quality, it will never be as good as having a dish made to order for you.  A buffet will always be - regardless of price or opulence - about economy.  Whether you're at a $6.99 Chinese buffet or an elegant $150 brunch buffet, the whole point of a buffet is to get the most bang for your buck...or at least feeling like you did.  That being said, if you like a dish you sampled at a buffet, try ordering it from the menu either at that restaurant or perhaps at another restaurant.  Nine times out of ten, you won't be disappointed.

Now onto the buffets....

Bombay Grill

The first one I've completely fallen in love with and has become almost a sinful indulgence with John and me is Bombay Grill, a cavernous restaurant with a full bar, a private event room, and at least 4 flat screen televisions airing Bollywood music videos.  Supposedly they have an à la carte menu, but I've never been offered one, and I've never seen any of the numerous Indian families that dine here ever order from one.  With a South Asian buffet as extensive as that of Bombay Grill, I don't think there is need to order from a menu.  This buffet has to be the largest South Asian buffet that I've been to in the United States - bigger and more diverse than any buffet I've been to in NYC (and I always go to an Indian buffet when I'm in The Big Apple).  Saturdays and Sundays seem to be the best days to go, and if you choose to go, you'll be dining with ladies dressed in the finest shalwar kameez and saris, for a meal at Bombay Grill is a pretty big deal, despite the $14.95 price tag.  On any given weekend, there will be an offering of pani puris, masala dosa and idli from southern India, a vegetarian (usually South Indian sambhar) and a non-vegetarian soup, pakodas, samosas, and the quintessential Bombay street dish of pav bhaji...and those are just some of the appetizers.  There is usually a selection of three types of bread - naan, paratha, and usually a chickpea flour (besan) bathura - along with a huge steamer of fragrant basmati rice scented with whole spices and clarified butter (ghee).  There is chicken tikka, chicken boti, chicken malai, biryani, several dal (beans and lentils) dishes that can include tadka dal and dal makhni, a meat curry and several vegetable curries that often include kadi pakoda, a dish of fritters in a tangy yogurt sauce.  There are usually two desserts - kheer (rice pudding) and gulab jamuns - as well as a tank of hot masala chai.

Most of the food at Bombay Grill is good, and dishes are changed and replenished fairly often.  For an Indian cuisine newbie, this a great place to get a first taste.  The connoisseur will be aware of having sampled better interpretations of a few of the dishes, but I've yet to find anything wrong with anything that they've served.  Like I mentioned before, if you're fond of a particular dish, try ordering it the next time you're at an Indian restaurant and see how it is when it's made fresh for you.

Dragon Buffet

I rarely like to dine at a Chinese buffet.  Some of them have begun serving siu mai and potstickers, and I usually stick to those selections as I can never seem to enjoy the gloppy and soggy entrée selections at most Chinese buffets.  Additionally, after having sampled true Chinese cuisine - the food that actual Chinese (or more correctly, Cantonese) people eat - Chinese American food seems just too heavy and quite boring.   That being said, it was a great pleasure to discover Dragon Buffet located on University Drive just north of The 595 expressway for they actually offer a decent selection of authentic Chinese dishes in addition to Chinese American standards, sushi, and a tepenyaki mongolian barbecue type station for around $17.  John and I have only been there once this past Friday but we definitely plan on going back.

General Tso's chicken, beef and broccoli, and moo goo gai pan were the same as those that you find anywhere and not worth trying.  I'm convinced they were just there to satisfy diners who were either too squeamish or ignorant to sample their selection of nearly 10 different types of dim sum, salt and pepper frog's legs, roasted duck, or clams in black bean sauce.  I immediately gravitated to a platter of char sui bao (baked pork buns), a personal favorite of mine that were soft and overflowing with bits of sweet pork.  Steamed leak dumplings, siu mai, har gow dumplings, and potstickers were all very good.  Crispy fried salt and pepper frogs legs were tender and flavorful.  Thai-style pork chops were also very good, as was their selection of sushi rolls that included hand rolls, stuffed bean curd skins, and gorgeous pickled persimmon nigiri topped with a dollop of smelt roe.  The dessert section cheap red bean ice cream (pass on it) as well as almond grass jelly, rice past cakes, Chinese angel food cake rolls, and lychees.

I tend to shy away from shellfish at a buffet, so I did not try selections from their raw bar except for a piece of frozen-solid stone crab claw.  There were also steamed mussels, king crab claws, and raw oysters.  I guess they're okay as there were many tables going through mounds of them, but I believe that the real draw of Dragon Buffet is the selection of authentic dishes.  

"Chuck & Dave's"

All it takes is one visit to Louisiana to become intoxicated with its cuisine, whether it be the spicy rusticity of Cajun cuisine or the urban sophistication of its Creole cuisine.  For people used to cuisines where spices and seasonings are heavily used, Louisiana's cuisines dispel the belief that all food in the United States is bland and uses limited seasoning.  Anyone who loves to cook will find themselves stocking up on cajun seasonings, hot sauces, tasso, andouille, and filé to bring back home in the hopes of trying to recreate those almost ethereal flavors....but it's pretty hard without a grandmère or maman to give you guidance.

One thing that I've added to my ever-growing list of positive things about Broward County's dining scene is the fact that there are actually a few Louisiana-style restaurants here.  Now, there are only 3 that I'm immediately aware of, but that's still more than I was used to seeing in Dade.  Most recently, John and I paid a visit to a place we call "Chuck & Dave's".  It's really Called Shuck n Dive, but upon quickly passing by one afternoon, I misread it as "Chuck & Dave's", and the name stuck.  The restaurant is actually located within a strip mall that houses a couple of other good eateries, including the elegant Christina Wan's and a wonderful coffee house called Brew.

The ambiance is very kitschy and themed so as to feel as if you're in southern Louisiana.  They only serve beer and wine here, so there was no opportunity for a daiquiri, but John started out with an Abita specialty beer.  For appetizers, we shared an order of boudin sausage and fried green tomatoes.  I had fried boudin balls at The Chimes in Baton Rouge and had heard a whole story about this Cajun specialty on NPR's The Splendid Table, so I knew what to expect - a natural casing surrounding a rich and spreadable combination of rice, spices, and often pig's blood.  Their version was true to form and was delicious spread onto saltine crackers and topped with slices of pickled banana peppers.  The fried green tomatoes were also good and arrived drizzled with a generous amount of remoulade, the Creole answer to the spicy mayo found at many sushi bars.

For an entrée, John had the Cajun sausage po' boy with tator tots, which was large enough for two people to share and offered a taste of Louisiana's most popular hand-held food at its best.  The sausage, which is also imported from Louisiana, was perfectly cooked so as to provide the ideal balance of firmness and tenderness.  The tater tots I would pass on, as they reminded me of what I was served at school cafeterias - memories that I prefer not to relive.  I was in rare form that evening and was really craving seafood.  Their selection of broiled and gratinéed oysters looked very tempting, so I ordered a tasting of 3 different varieties (6 in total) - Rockefeller, Bienville, and Black n' Blues (the restaurant's own creation).  I actually ended up with 7 oysters, as the kitchen threw in an extra Oyster Rockefeller.  All of the oysters were gently cooked, almost to the point of being rare, so as to keep their flavor and silky texture intact.  Some of the toppings complimented the oysters better than others, however, and it's no surprise that the more traditional recipes won out over "Chuck & Dave's" own creation.  The Oysters Rockefeller were offered a slight crunch from the parmesan topping and a green note from the spinach, as well as a light anise back note from the addition of the Pastis.  The Oysters Bienville were, by far, my favorite: topped with a cream reduction studded with green peppers and bacon, and topped with parmesan cheese before going under the broiler.  The Black n' Blues oysters were sprinkled with cajun seasonings and topped with crumbled blue cheese.  While not bad, I thought that the blue cheese was too overpowering for the oysters.

The restaurant isn't dirt cheap, but the prices are still pretty reasonable.  With the addition of my iced tea, everything that we had (including John's Abita) came out to $42 before tip, and we both left pretty satisfied.  I'll definitely come back and taste "Chuck & Dave's" red beans and rice, gumbo, and Cajun mixed barbecue consisting of ribs, tasso ham, and sausages.  I'm also looking forward to enjoying their Monday Muffaletta special, which can easily lay claim to being the "king of sandwiches."

Shuck n Dive

650 N Federal Hwy, Fort Lauderdale 33304

(Btwn NE 6th & NE 7th St)

(954) 462-0088

http://southflorida.menupages.com/restaurants/shuck-n-dive/menu

How do you get the taste of curry out of your mouth?

The answer is mukhwaas!

Every South Asian meal should end with paan, but if paan is unavailable, there should be mukhwaas.  This comes after dessert, after chai or coffee, when you've decided that dinner and drinks are officially over.

I rediscovered my canister of mukhwaas while rummaging through my cupboard looking for some spice I thought I had, and quickly took a break, sat down in front of the television, sprinkled some into the palm of my hand and had a blissful mouth-freshening moment.  Mukhwaas is a mouth freshener, and after paan (which is almost impossible to find freshly-made in South Florida, but practically omnipresent in NYC or Chicago), it is the most perfect end to an Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lankan/Nepalese/Bangladeshi meal.  There are countless varieties of mukhwaas with all sorts of secret breath-cleansing ingredients, but most mixtures that I've found contain, first and foremost, saunf - fennel seeds.  These can be plain fennel seeds, but are more commonly sugar or candy-coated fennel seeds, which have a slightly medicinal, licorice-like flavor, but with more of a "green" note to to them than licorice or anise seeds.  To the fennel seeds are added a myriad of other ingredients, which can include:  minuscule sugar candies, sprinkles, melon seeds, chopped dates, dried herbs, silver leaf, coconut, betel nut shavings, rose petals, and even little bits of sandalwood or sandalwood essence.  There is nothing that cleanses the palate better after a multi-course Desi (South Asian) feast than mukhwaas.

At any good Desi restaurant frequented by South Asians, you will find a bowl of mukhwaas at the entrance (or sometimes even a jewelry box-looking thing by the hostess stand) with a teaspoon.  Like probably most goras (non-Desis), I had passed by such bowls for years thinking that it was some type of potpourri.  It was only after seeing someone at an Indian restaurant sprinkle a spoonful of the stuff into his right hand and pop it into his mouth that I followed suit and had my post-Indian meal epiphany:  this is the ultimate breath-freshener, and pretty natural compared to all the breath mints and gums out there!

Mukhwaas can be purchased at almost any South Asian grocery either in large pouches for placing into your own bowl at home or in canisters.  My canister has about half a dozen different compartments, each with a different mukhwaas mixture - some consisting of nothing more than sugar-coated saunf, and others consisting of exotic and luxurious combinations of seeds, spices, and dried fruits.  There are also countless brands of single-serving mukhwaas sachets that make excellent additions to lunch boxes as a unique post-lunch refreshment.  So, next time you're at a South Asian restaurant, make sure not to skip the big bowl of mukhwaas.  You're mouth will rejoice...and your dinner date will thank you for it later, I'm sure!

The best place to get a huge selection of mukhwaas, as well as pre-packaged paan and any South Asian foodstuff you could ever want is:

Asia Grocery

785 Miller Drive

Miami, FL 33155

786-268-7700

Sunshine Indopak Grocery in North Miami Beach is probably the next most recommended South Asian grocery.

If you are simply physically incapable of driving down to Miami, Little Market is a less-than-satisfactory alternative in Broward County, although don't expect any help from the shopkeeper, and bring cotton to stuff into your nose as this place always seems to reek of sulfuric-smelling hing (asafetida)

Saigon City...meh

One of the pleasant surprises I've found in Broward County is the ethnic diversity that exists here.  Yes, we all think that Dade is more "ethnic" and Broward is more "white", but I've found that Dade's "ethnicness" is strictly limited to Latin American and Caribbean nationalities, while I've found there to be more East Asian, South Asian, European, and even South African enclaves in Broward County.  Want Romanian food after going to a Romanian church service? Just head over to Hollywood (where you can also get Turkish and Armenian cuisine).  Want Korean barbecue or a jug of kimchee? Just head west on 595 and you have your pick of about half a dozen places.  Chinese bakery, Pakistani pizza, Filipino cuisine, or German schnitzel?  All in Broward County, along with Peruvian sandwich shops, Italian-American red sauce joints, Jamaican patty stores, Haitian bakeries, Trinidadian roti shops, and a few other ethnic eateries.

One thing that there seems to be at least twice as much of in Broward as there are in Dade are Vietnamese restaurants.  Dade County has about three worth mentioning:  Hy Vong (the gold standard), Miss Saigon (the chichi, bougie, rachacha, prissy option), and Little Saigon (barebones, good, and cheap).  In Broward, it seems as if every self-respecting foodie or gourmand that I speak to has his or her favorite Vietnamese eatery, including myself.  This past saturday evening, I had the opportunity to sample Saigon City with some friends who are self-professed Vietnamese cuisine connoisseurs having lived in Houston, which reportedly has one of the largest populations of Vietnamese immigrants.  I had been longing for pho for approximately 3 months, especially pho containing my newfound Asian food obsession, soft beef tendon.

Now, it is curious that a country with a delicately nuanced cuisine such as France would colonize a country with similarly delicate cuisine as Vietnam (or Indochine as it was called back then).  Many people can't seem to find the charm in Vietnamese cuisine because it is so simple and delicate, and if prepared poorly, it can taste pretty bland.  Vietnamese cuisine, like Japanese cuisine, also depends heavily on good quality, fresh ingredients to get optimal flavor and texture.  The embodiment, in my opinion, of the Vietnamese food philosophy lies in a well-made bowl of pho: an umami broth redolent with star anise and black cardamom, chewy rice noodles, onions, and various cuts of meat topped with a measured dose of nuoc mam (fish sauce), sliced chiles, and torn basil and culantro leaves.

Saigon City, while satisfactory, left a bit to be desired.   There was one table of Vietnamese diners, but everyone else - including our South Asian waiter - was non-Vietnamese.  It was more authentic than the chic Basilic located by Lauderdale By The Sea, but the flavor wasn't all there, and the presentation was lacking a little.  Cha gio (fried springrolls) were scrawny and had unappealingly pale wrappers - not the fat, golden-brown morsels that I'm used to seeing at the better Vietnamese restaurants.  Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk came pre-mixed and served in ice - not in a little coffee drip balanced on a glass and dripping into several inches of condensed milk and served with an extra glass of ice to pour everything in once it was finished dripping, as is traditionally done.  

I was happy to see "special" pho listed on the menu, which is known as combination pho elsewhere.  Besides containing strips of raw beef that cook in the hot broth, this type of soup is supposed to contain impossibly thin ribbons of tripe, slices of tendon, meatballs, brisket, and other cuts of meat along with the traditional rice noodles.  The last time I had a combination pho was with a Chinese friend of mine who brought me to Saigon Cuisine in Margate (highly recommended, although Vietnamese coffee was also served pre-mixed), and we partook in a bowl brimming with exotic cuts of meat, some soft, some slightly chewy, others melting in your mouth like gelatin, but nothing even remotely close to being rubbery.  Saigon City's version had me searching for my favorite cuts of meat, and I was rewarded with only two thumbnail-sized pieces of tendon, and two vermicelli-thin strands of rubbery tripe.  The broth was satisfactory, but not memorable and definitely not hot enough (pho should be so hot that you burn your tongue on it if drunken immediately).  John's pork chop was satisfactory, and his banh mi (baguette sandwich) was also okay.  Another friend's lemongrass chicken looked like something out of PF Chang's, and no comments were made about it other than it was really spicy.

While a cut above some Vietnamese restaurants, I wouldn't say that Saigon City makes it to my list of some of the best in South Florida, and judging from the clueless white guy at the table next to us squirting a 1/4 cup of hoisin into his pho, I'd say that this is not a meeting place for the seasoned Vietnamese cuisine aficionado.  However, every cloud has its silver lining, and my experience at Saigon City led me to the discovery of Maxim Oriental Bakery, authentic-looking Silver Pond Chinese Restaurant, and a Vietnamese market within the same strip mall

Saigon City

4301 N State Road 7 (441)

Lauderdale Lakes, FL 33319

South Florida Caterers

Just as my father taught me that Broadway singers were those who couldn't make it in a proper opera, I've come to believe that caterers are those cooks who couldn't make it in a restaurant kitchen.  Working in a doctor's office, we see about a dozen pharmaceutical representatives each day, and almost every day we get lunch catered by one of those representatives.  When I started working at my current job, most of our lunches resembled cheap wedding food: items that were inoffensive to most, and thus lacked in flavor, originality, and too often in quality.  Surprisingly, most of the reps thought the food was "faaaaaabulous", which lead me to believe that a lack of taste buds was a prerequisite for entering the pharmaceutical representative profession.  As a foodie, I had to put my foot down, and I joined forces with the other disgruntled employees to begin suggesting restaurants that we liked.  Our experience with caterers led us to believe that food from any caterer was automatically going to be subpar and more expensive than food from any restaurant, and this fueled us to lead reps away from caterers.  From my experiences, most caterers have no clue as to what they're doing and serve just plain bad food, although in the year that I've been working at this medical practice, I've come across one or two that are excellent and better than many restaurants I've been to.  Still, unless you're having a wedding for more than 50 people, you're better off saving money if you cook the food yourself, or get some relatives to make it for you.

Caterers to avoid:

• From Soup To Nuts
• Just atrocious food!  This is run out of somebody's home kitchen which is probably located in a trailer home somewhere in Davie.  They never bring chafing dishes or serving utensils, the food always arrives cold, and nobody should be partial to a spaghetti and egg casserole, a "moussaka" mystery loaf, or a tiramisu made with cool whip.  Yellow rice has streaks of food coloring in it and arrives as a cold, solidified block.
• Bakers & Grillers
• Inedible breakfast!  corned beef hash sits under 2" of grease, eggs are grayish-green, and almost everything else consist of deep-fried frozen breakfast items.  What's really ironic, is that this is the caterer of choice for a rep selling digestive medications
• Passable lunches.  The company is Uruguayan-owned, and they make a great Chajá cake.
• Corporate Caterers
• If you want a forgettable event, hire these caterers who specialize in forgettable food.  Grilled chicken can be used as a projectile weapon.  Their idea of chimichurri is laughable
• Douglas K Katering
• Just a notch above Corporate Caterers.  I can't really remember anything they serve, although I know they've been to the office several times because they print their logo on the water bottles they bring
• Exquisite Catering by Robert
• Along with the two above it, this one belongs in the category of "forgettable food".  They do, however, have impeccable presentation.
• Paisanne's Catering (or Payzan, or Paysanne, or Paisan, or Pyesan)
• This guy spells it in a creative way, and I just can't remember how, but you should avoid this caterer.  The office spent a weekend with food poisoning after a barbecue and soul food lunch that looked really great when it arrived.  Additionally, this guy's Italian food is a dry and flavorless joke. Breakfast consists of green scrambled eggs and the store-bought rolls.  The guy's well-meaning, but needs to polish up his cooking a bit.

Recommended Caterers:

• Joe Knows Lunch
• ...and boy does he ever!  This place is absolutely phenomenal and pretty affordable.  We had a hamburger lunch that included 1/3 lb burgers, freshly baked rolls, avocado slices, fresh mozzarella, havarti, vegetables, and a well-made salad, just to name of few of the toppings that it came with.  They also offer a mac n' cheese bar with countless toppings.  Their catered breakfasts far outshine anyone else's - oatmeal with a wide selection of toppings, soft scrambled eggs cooked in butter, real sausage links, thick cut bacon, fresh-baked bagels, Greek yogurt, and more.
• Stork's
• If you have the money to spend on it, it's worth it, but make sure you have a crowd that's used to European-style bread and European-style portions.  Their sandwiches are great, and their salads have a good proportion of greens to toppings. Almost everything is extra here, but do splurge on dessert...you won't regret it.
• Howard's Market
• This caterer is based in Boca Raton, and the food can be a little on the bland side (it's in Boca, go figure), but they do serve quality and it is a lot lighter than the greasy and heavy food a lot of the other caterers serve.  Their grilled chicken with lemon beurre blanc and julienned vegetables makes for an elegant meal, and their salad is great with a mixture of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, alfalfa sprouts, and sunflower seeds.  Every order comes with freshly-baked bread, and the cookies are some of the best I've had from a caterer.

A word of warning to anyone ordering food from any caterer:  AVOID THE RICE!!!  Unless you're ordering from an exclusively Latino caterer, every caterer uses parboiled rice that has the consistency of driveway gravel.  Get potatoes or even pasta as a side.

Betty's Soul Food (Breakfast)

Having been in Broward County for only a few months, I've found there to be a lot of differences from Dade County in the gastronomic landscape.  One thing I've noticed that is perhaps lacking in Dade, but in full abundance in Broward, is the presence of places serving good - if not phenomenal - American breakfasts.  John and I wanted to go out for a good last breakfast of 2011.  Our first choice was Old Fort Lauderdale Breakfast House, which serves a fantastic American breakfast with top-notch products and is almost as good as the breakfast served at Roxbury Tavern in Sauk City, Wisconsin.  Of course, it being South Florida, quality usually goes hand-in-hand with a heftier price tag and heftier hype, which is why the only time we've successfully had breakfast at the O-B House was on a Monday at around 7:30 AM.  The combination of this restaurant having a small seating capacity, making everything to order, and having a substantial local following makes it difficult to to get a table on most weekends without waiting a minimum of 20 minutes outside in the South Florida sun.  This particular Saturday morning, we had the added obstacle of the street being blocked off for the Downtown Fort Lauderdale New Year's Eve celebrations, which was the deciding factor for us to change our breakfast plans.

The first thing that came to John's brilliant mind was Betty's, a soul food restaurant located on Sistrunk, which is the main thoroughfare of Fort Lauderdale's historically African-American (or Black, if you prefer) neighborhood.  John had seen it from the Tri Rail for over a year now, I've read about it in the Sun Sentinel, a coworker always raves about it, and a new friend at a party couldn't speak more highly of it.  Besides having a reputation for incredible soul food standards, the place is a culinary landmark for a community that arguably knows a lot about great food.  A drive along the newly-renovated Sistrunk (which is quaint and full of character) just past I-95 will lead you to Betty's Soul Food just on your right.  The facade looks like something straight out of the Deep South, which before the throngs of Latin American immigrants and Anglo snowbirds, was what a lot of South Florida looked like.  I loved it at first sight!

The inside of the restaurant is not big, but definitely not claustrophobic.  There is a counter, like any good diner should have, as well as an array of booths and tables.  The owners are very much Afrocentric and take Black pride very seriously, as witnessed in posters of Martin Luther King Jr, President Barack Obama, and a portrait of The Last Supper with important Black ideological figures (Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, Elijah Mohammed, Bob Marley, Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X, and others), which is where we chose to sit under.  The dining room was alive with patrons enjoying breakfast and a good mix of funk classics, Motown hits, and R&B singles.  I started with a cup of regular black coffee, and John had a glass of sweet tea, which had the requisite intense sweetness and almost syrup-like consistency.  If you've never had experience with soul food, this is definitely not a calorie-conscious cuisine, but definitely a flavor-conscious cuisine, and intense sweetness in drinks and desserts is very characteristic.  That being said, the uninitiated might feel as if they might go into diabetic shock while sipping on Betty's sweet tea, but the soul food connoisseur will have a satisfied smile knowing that he/she has got the good stuff.

As for our breakfasts, John ordered the chicken and waffle, and I had the salmon croquettes.  John's breakfast, which came out to just under $8, consisted of a freshly-made, thick and very fluffy round waffle served with two medium-sized pieces of dark meat fried chicken.  I don't get too crazy about waffles, unless they're  Liege waffles, but these were good and offered everything that you'd want from a waffle.  The fried chicken was moist and had an addictive well-seasoned and crunchy crust, although one piece was no more than a glorified chicken wing and didn't offer too much meat.  Regardless, the seasoning and crust more than made up for it in my view.  I'm guessing that if you would like a meatier piece, you can ask for a breast or a drumstick or whatever piece you prefer.  

My salmon croquettes (just under $9), which came highly recommended by my coworker, were fantastically crispy on the outside, just moist enough on the inside, and had an irresistible savoriness to them that was only improved by a few dashes from the huge bottle of Crystal hot sauce present at every table.  My over easy eggs were perfectly fried with golden brown crispiness around the edges and runny yolks that melted onto the plate with the lightest touch of my fork.  While many people find grits to be too plain (and perhaps gloppy) to decipher the good from the bad, Betty's grits are noticeably superior to most that I've tried.  The star of the breakfast spread, however, were the homemade biscuits, which were so buttery and flavorful that they required nothing at all.  The copious amount of butter in them, while keeping them moist on the inside, can turn them quickly soggy on the bottoms if not eaten quickly enough, but the flavor is so good that it would be foolish to nitpick at such a small detail.  

A full (and filling) breakfast for two came out to $20 and came complete with the heady feeling that well-made soul food can give you.  Upon perusing the menu, we found several lunch and dinner options that would definitely draw us back to Betty's, such as fried chicken, ribs (they have their own rib truck parked out front), oxtails, pig's feet, ham hocks, fried fish, souse, and many other classics.  Of course, all the dishes come served with typical sides such as collard greens, macaroni and cheese, okra, and others. Daily specials include neck bones, hog maws, and chitterlings.  And this doesn't include all the different specials tacked onto the walls.  Betty's Soul Food DEFINITELY warrants another visit...and maybe another after that....and then another, and another, and another.  If the quality and service stay the same, this might make my list of regular spots and give one more reason to be happy to live in Broward County.

Betty's Soul Food

601 Northwest 22nd Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311-7756

(954) 583-9121 ‎