Category Archives: Miami

My hometown regularly gets written up in travel magazines, especially this time of year. It's usually amusing to see what travel writers choose to emphasize.

Here's one with a particularly odd and sexist leed: Coral Gables – The Hidden Gem of Miami

South Beach might be the party girl that you stay out with until the sun comes up, but its neighbor Coral Gables is much more like the girl-next-door. A bit more quiet and reserved, yet classy and upscale with substance and style, while showing off its classic beauty.

How should one anthropomorphize Coral Gables? Some kind of (sub)urban professional who likes a good time, but in moderation?

[Comments re-opened]

It's sort of a family joke, but every so often — not that often, but every so often, maybe a few times a year — I get a hankering for a Cobb Salad. For the past decade or more, when that happens I've dragged my wife, or sometimes the whole family, off to South Miami's Beverly Hills Cafe. I don't know how long it's been there, but 15 years at least. It wasn't expensive, and if wasn't super-cheap either, well they made up for it with big portions, fast and attentive service, and very nice hot rolls while you waited. And it was usually busy. Sometimes you had to wait. I even forgave them for expanding into the space formerly occupied by Joe's News, which, pre-internet was the best place to get out-of-town and international newspapers and magazines.

I got that Cobb Salad feeling today, and I took myself off to South Miami, just on the other side of US 1 from my neighborhood, but when I got to the Beverly Hills Cafe, so long a feature of Sunset Ave, there was a sign on the door that they're closed due to the recession. I don't know if it's the whole seven-location chain, or just the one near me, but either way, it was a surprise.

Then again, maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise. Most times over the years when I went there for lunch on a weekday, the place seemed full of local business types — especially real estate and banking folks. I guess they don't eat out so much these days.

(The parking lot behind the restaurant that used to have a guard and charge by the hour seems to have been taken over by the City of South Miami, and turned into city metered parking, which I suppose is the only tiny silver lining in the story. But they meter even on Sundays.)

Next best Cobb Salad that I know of in the area is at the Coral Gables Diner, in downtown Coral Gables, but it's further away and harder to park, the salad is smaller, not as nice, significantly more expensive ($15!?!), and their honey mustard dressing is lame.

Not to mention a lot of people must have lost their jobs, as the Beverly Hills was pretty big.

The New Times reports that this could be the Last Year for King Mango Strut? — a victim of red tape and increasing costs imposed by the City of Miami.

The King Mango Strut is a local tradition — a wacky parade for no discernible reason, about not too much, with lots of silly floats and marchers satirizing local politicians and current events. It's good pointless fun.

Dec. 28 at 2pm if you want to catch what might be the last, historic, Strut:

The strut route begins at the corner of Commodore Plaza and Main Highway. It turns left onto Main Highway and then turns left onto Grand Avenue at Cocowalk and turn left again at Commodore Plaza. If we are having too much fun we will go around again until we all fall down. Right after the strut, there will be parties all around the Grove.

So today is the “Winter Solstice”. Apparently in other places that means it is dark and cold. Here, it means that it's warm and sunny.

UM should market itself as the 'Law School in Paradise'….

A pollster called last night, wanting to speak to the “youngest male in the household who is over 18.” Which turns out to be me.

All the questions were about relations with Cuba — should we allow relatives to travel, everyone to travel, relatives to send remittances, foster cultural exchanges etc. The only two somewhat surprising questions were at the end: Would support for relaxing the embargo make me more likely to vote for a Congressional candidate? And, which is more important, the Cuba issue or health care, education and the economy?

They never tell you who sponsored the poll, so I don't know if this was for a news organization, or — it seems much less likely it being so early — for someone thinking of running for Congress in 2010.

In Airlines Cutting Fares for Holiday Season the Washington Post asks,

Nashville for Thanksgiving, anyone? Miami for Christmas?

Yes, Miami for Christmas. That's the ticket for me.