Miami has the jugo

A weekend away

I found myself in the cacophony of a company kick-off recently. 72 hours of small talk, keynotes, and nursing cold Presidentes at Nikki Beach.

Given I was already heading down that way and the conference culiminated at the start of our 3-day weekend, Tiffany and Cecilia flow down to join me with Tiffany taking on the hero’s journey of a solo plane ride with a baby.

I met them at Cachitos in North Miami Beach for a cortadito and restorative baby snuggle. We popped over to the Sazon Viendita for guava and cheese pastelitas followed by long walk on the beach. Tiffany was taking Cecilia 45 minutes into the suburbs to get her ears pierced and compassionately gave me the afternoon to recover from work which had left me as fried and crispy as a patacone.

I took a snooze on the couch and then made my way to the safe harbor of La Sandwicherie. La Sandwicherie does the very simple thing of putting a salad’s worth of vegetables into a sandwich, with baguette or croissant as your vessel. I went with their signature “Frenchie”, a twisted combination of brie and salame, which somehow works beautifully when paired with not only that pile of veggies, including cornichons and japalepeños, but also their famous dijon vinaigrette. People obsess over this dressing. I went into Reddit and a former employee shared that it is “equal parts strong (good) dijon mustard, olive oil, canola oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper! And that’s itttttttt.”

A sundappled sando

A swim in the ocean had me closer to a full battery which was right about the time we were meeting friends Val, Marsh, their daughter Carmela (15 months), and their buddy Lucas.

Sunny’s Steakhouse is an wildly popular restaurant from the Jaguar Son folks and one of the hardest tables in town, but you can sit in the courtyard for happy hour. Drinks and snacks with no reservations (Bourdain voice).

They lightly dress their shrimp cocktail in fresh horseradish and their parker house rolls are legendary. The oysters were surprisingly from Florida. Locals tasting fresh and clean.

The waitress was incredulous that I didn’t want my martini filthy (ugh!) or even dirty (no thanks!), but we got there eventually and a classic gin martini made it to the table with a nice little side jammer of olives.

We went back to Val & Marsh’s for bedtime (for our babies, not for us) and hung out while playing random games that Lucas and Marsh had picked up in their travels. It is surprisingly entertaining to guess the number of 5s someone has in the serial number on their dollar bill. We fortified with some gyros from Mr. Mandolin and headed home to the hotel.

Maison Felix is a new boutique hotel in North Miami Beach. Unfortunately they went child free in January, but they grandfathered us in because we booked earlier. Everyone working their was incredibly nice and overall North Miami Beach was right up my alley. It is like South Beach Marie Kondo’ed away all the ephemera.

Mornings start around 7am with Cecilia so it was an hour walk on the beach and then breakfast at Sazon for a simple breakfast of cafe con leche, buttered cuban bread with guava jam, eggs and potatoes. A side of avocado for Cecilia as well. She loves avocado so much, she’s got her parents CA/FL genes.

Tiff left for a sprinkle for Val (baby number 2 coming soon); a workout class, followed by treats from Val’s own Peel Soft Serve.

I held it down with Cecilia and she was showing some energy so we made our way to the beach. She was either more tired then she let on, or the water was too cold for her, or it was how the slats in the beach lounge made crawling impossible, or how she really didn’t like sand. She was done. We pulled the rip cord and went back to the hotel where she promptly took a long ass nap.

The baby monitor was still great out by the pool so I was able to make a meaningful dent in Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake, which I quite enjoyed.

Tiff returned and we made our way to Taquiza for their blue totopos, fried grouper tacos, and margaritas (happy hour!). Cecilia was able to get more avocado in her system and also a plain corn tortilla. We tried our hand at the beach again, but had better luck at the pool where Cecilia could crawl long laps along the water’s edge in her new rash guard.

We had exciting plans to go to Recoveco for dinner with Val and Marsh, but there was a childcare snafu. Very thankfully Val and Marsh insisted we press on for dinner while they had Cecilia sleeping in their bedroom in the pack and play.

Recoveco was giving me Four Horsemen energy (complement), an eclectic menu focused on ingredients. Tiffany enjoyed a glass of Le Puy and I had the Peter Lauer, Ayl 1G riesling.

Dinner was lovely with a dynamic offering including green papaya salad dressed like a Caesar, and a stone crab special where the stone crab was served with a buttered milk bread and an “egg cream,” an almost too rich aioli. Combined together, it was a fantastic bite and argued the case successfully for their recent James Beard nomination. A pork chop put us over the top and dessert had to be skipped. We had a lovely bottle of Tavel from Romain Le Bars Vigneron, a Southern Rhône Rosé. It drank more like a perfect light red. Their somm Shannon recommended it as it paired and flexed perfectly with the order. I also got to run into the supremely lovely Yuanbo, one of the most poised people I’ve worked with, enjoying dinner with her fiancé Emmanuel and some old friends. I felt quite thankful that Val and Marsh enabled us to keep our plans as nights out are fewer and farther between.

Being in the radius of Cecilia, where her nap coincided with a long dicey thunderstorm, we needed to stay very close for lunch and found ourselves back at Sazon again. It wasn’t memorable but it did the trick.

Switching gears, Shannon had recommended the Champagne Bar at The Surf Club, a Four Seasons hotel in in Surfside; “best Negroni in Miami.” A 30 minute walk up the beach led us to a stunning room that the press photos below don’t do justice.

I had the Negroni and Tiffany had a pandan old fashioned which was one of the best cocktails I’ve tried in years. It also the best expression of pandan I’ve had since Malaysia. I know that sounds silly, but good pandan is hard to find!

The room was filled with old money energy including presumably the most successful alumni from Indiana. We are probably the only people to ever ask the concierge about the bus schedule.

Two sides of the Champagne Bar

Bedtime for Cecilia meant takeout Sushi Bichi poolside for dinner (that monitor!). It was excellent and made us want to actually eat at the restaurant next time we are in Miami.

With Tiff’s cousins in Miami and the short flight down, will be back. Cecilia has a rematch coming with the sand. The pace might be slower, but we’ll have our bites. We always do. Til next time!