Miami Risotto?

Back to Florida last week; new year (professionally we round the sun in April), new team, new management…basically my company has a compulsive need to demonstrate activity. Not progress, not improvement, not striving to smell like metabolized lessons-learned…just flailing arms negating high-dollar consulted practice (where we are advised to not change for change sake), the same ol’ thing again and we’re new. Anyway, went to Miami, and soon to the Orlando orbit…again.

Now if you remember, I went to Ft Lauderdale and had some lifestyle immersion at the hotel bar. Well, this time was mandofunquestered the entire time. Not a bad thing, I have a rowdy crowd of confederates always willing to create a story or two, and shy…well, not many. Took a bus on night one from Dadeland to Perricone’s. Yes, we went to the continental tip of the Eastern seaboard, 600 years a Latin stronghold, thousands of years of native culinary culture before that…to eat Italian. Was bowed up to throw my thin red sauce and overachieved veal-chicken-marsala-picatta-parm into the most convenient planter nearby…but, lo, the food was good. Dynamite bruschette leading, good antipasta (they are also a food market), well-managed fried calamari with zucchini straws, simple salad, the oh-so-traditional vodkatonicawithalime-a(s) …then, a big hunk of sea bass with a tomato-aged balsamic drizzle on risotto that did not suck. Stepped off the bus dubious, but the place disarmed me right away with a large tented garden for casual dining, subdivided with translucent walls, large old trees wrapped in lights twinkling, hidden benches along little paths near the street, the warm, slightly humid feel of Miami alive on a Monday night just a few feet away; in short, my inner-creole-cuban-carib-child was comfortable eating something unexpected. Open mic swiped from the driver on the safe-to-be-drunken commute home, impressions and stories, odd urban vistas, nice.

So, another adventure in a state I hear nothing good about, but much enjoy the multiple times a year I go there. Some of our friendliest teammates there, others who may read this that have kicked some sand around there too. Eventually, I think I run the risk of accepting that it’s all good for a careful, well-heeled tourist in NY South.