Nava's Grill - Hollywood, FL

Located at the mouth of the main entrance of the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood Florida is a little middle eastern/Israeli diner nestled next to an "arcade" and porn outlet. We walked in as a large group walked out, patting their bellies and grinning. Simultaneously carrying on a heated conversation in Hebrew with a co-worker, wishing the large, happy group a farewell and welcoming us was the owner, a fiery Israeli woman who exuded all the warmth and strength of an army of mothers. Attentive and friendly, the service was outstanding.
The owner is a bit over the top. She tells us she never forgets the face, and sometimes "that's not so good". She asks if we are Jewish. She knows that I am (you can tell just by looking at me, I guess.) and answers for me. She tells us about how her food is all kosher but the rabbis are mad at her because she's open on Saturdays.

The decor is sparse and chintzy. It has cheap looking tables, a waiter's station crammed in the corner and a wall with a half finished mural that's vaguely Middle Eastern or possibly Italian. The owner is all the atmosphere you need.

Prices are fair, most dishes are about $10. The food was made with care, served extremely hot and seasoned perfectly.

As good as the food is, the menu leans towards the strange for a middle eastern grill. The owner tries to please too many kinds of patrons perhaps, by adding mysterious entries such as yucca fries and plantains. Maybe they are done well, but I wouldn't go to Nava Grill for Latin food.

Immediately after we ordered, we were given 3 kinds of luncheon salad: an egg based potato salad, a purple cabbage slaw and a sour white cabbage slaw. All three were unique and really quite good. Everything was crisp and fresh.

I ordered the hummus and falafel app which was served with two hot fresh grilled pita breads. The pita bread was INCREDIBLE. It was soft, moist and sturdy.

I also tried the kafta kabob pita sandwich, which is ground seasoned lamb. It was mouthwatering. Literally. I drooled a little when I tasted it.

I will definitely go back to try some of the Israeli food on the menu: bourekas, malawach, (breads/pastries) shaksuka, (a tomato based baked egg dish), cholent ( a long simmered strew prepared to get through the sabbath) and some other things I've never heard of.

As ancestrally Jewish, it's probably a shame I never really bothered until now to get to know Israeli foods. I visited Israel once when I was 4 years old but only learned to love hummus during that visit. I think it's about time I got to know it and Nava's Grill seems like a great place to start.

Only because I didn't get to try much and I STILL think Kease's by the beach has the best falafel:

**** (4) Heey, that's pretty good!

Galanga Thai Kitchen & Sushi Bar (Wilton Manors, FL)

"Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.... and such small portions"
- Woody Allen, Annie Hall

I am always wary whenever I see a "sushi and thai" place. China and Thailand are distinctive countries with different cuisines and if you aren't good enough at one to make a go at a restaurant, adding the other never seems to help. Galanga is no exception.

To be fair, I did not try the sushi. And after this experience, I never, ever will.

At the moment, I am on a serious and focused hunt for both a new good high-end sushi joint and a good Thai place in eastern/central Broward area. I read many good reviews of Galanga and was excited to finally try it. We came early, about a half an hour into diner service. The restaurant was completely empty. The place was nicely decorated, but it couldn't quite hide that it was a reclaimed IHOP. It had exposed air piping in it's steeple shaped ceiling, a look that worked. Unfortunately, the piping and vents were dirty and in need of a thorough dusting.

Appetizer - Money Bags

We ordered for an app the Money Bags ($6). The menu states: chicken, crabmeat, corn, sweet potato in a golden bag (crispy rice paper) and peach chutney. My dining partner recalls these little dumplings from his childhood on Staten Island. Arriving at our table were 5 gumball sized slightly over fried wantons stuffed with sweet potato and a small shred of chicken next to a small cup of sweet rice wine vinegar with a few scant cubes of floating red onion and cucumber. They were tasty, but small and not as advertised. There was no peach chutney anywhere to be found, and I'm only 25% sure I encountered one kernel of corn. They were very much like the ones in Staten Island, however. And while they weren't exactly as advertised and a tiny portion, they were tasty.

Main Course - Pad Thai & Delightful Duck

I ordered the Pad Thai ($14) and my dining partner had the "Delightful Duck"($23). His was a crispy, lightly southern fried 1/4 duck next to a molded cup of white rice, green beans, sloppily chopped zucchini and carrot sitting in a shallow, watery pool of orangish brown tamarind sauce. It was okay.

My Pad Thai was drowning in watery peanut oil, thickened slightly with a pinch of cornstarch. The noodles were tiny shreds of broken rice noodles. The peanut shavings gave it a muddy and gravely consistency. It contained 2 shrimp(!) and an entire poorly fabricated dried chicken breast.

The portion was huge. I got about half way through and started feeling notsogood. I figured it was all of the oil, so I asked the waiter to wrap it up for me and I'd take it home, drain the oil and try to eat some more. After all, I spent $14 on it. I guess I didn't say it loud enough because the waiter threw it away. When I asked him about it he seemed really surprised and sorry, but didn't offer anything to remedy the situation. I was really pissed off about having $7 worth of Pad Thai tossed away but I guess he did me a favor because about 25 minutes after the meal, I found myself doubled over in stomach pain. He would have done me more of a favor by never having served me in the first place.

Quick Summary

Ambiance: Modernly decorated, dirty ceilings, suspicious that it was a former IHOP. The music was cheesy, mindless, mid-90s and modern vocorder driven techno club pop.

The service: It was hard to get their attention sometimes, even when we were the only customers in the place. The waiter threw away my left overs, half my plate.

The price: Pretty darn high, App was a rip off.

The food: Not as advertised and I'm darn near certain it made me ill.

I really regret having to give a local business such a poor review but:

* (1) Never, ever again!

The Ambry

The Ambry

3016 E. Commercial Blvd, Fort Lauderdale , Florida

When you arrive at The Ambry, it's obvious the kitsch will be as thick as the sauces and the refinement as thin as the schnitzel. For a German Restaurant, that's probably a good thing. Bavarian culture is the campy, happy Germany that America loves. Quiet, refined Germany can be a little scary, especially for the Eastern European Condo Comandos who come east for our ample early birds and meager parking.

Check out the German Grandma's bathroom they have!:
When the rest of my party arrived, we were instantly seated by a bubbly blonde with feathered hair in an intimate, brick walled, heavily directed in biersteins, beer mirrors & doilies. Seconds later we were happily greeted by an enthusiastic man and solid looking lady who guided us through the meal. The food was well explained and brought to us quickly. Any issues we had, (and we had some picky eaters with us) were promptly attended to. The only thing that bothered me is the way they took the order for the different courses,.

First, the took drink orders. Then the brought us the drinks. (On Draft: Spaten Lager, Warsteiner, Tucher, Weissbeer, Koestrizer Dark. They are all huge pints and about $7 each. I got the Koestrizer, which is a black beer. It was surprisingly light and thin. There are also bottled and various liquors, we ignored them.) We drank the drinks. We looked at our menus. We all finished our enormous beers. We looked hungrily at the salad bar a few feet away. The salad bar comes with the dinners and we would be entitled to it as soon as we put in our dinner order. But not yet, not yet. sip, sip, sip.

Then, they took the appetizer orders. They served the orders to the 3 of the 10 people there while the rest of us clutched our menus with white knuckles. Those who did get apps struggled to find a place to stash their menus for the entree order.

Goulash Soup: One person, an industry insider, at my table exclaimed: "Oh my god this is sweet and sour soup!". He wasn't wrong.

Liver & Dumplings Soup: It is a giant dumping of liver. It looks like a big gray matzo ball of liver. If you like liver, you'll like the soup. If you hate liver, you will hate this soup. It has maximum liveryness.

Escargot: This was the first time I ever had escagrot! It was served in the little special designed escargot server pottery with butter and garlic and with a crusty piece of baguette. It pleased the palate of the French girl who ordered it and had been eating them since she was knee high to a snail. I tasted one speck of grit, but it was otherwise a pretty delicious thing. I have nothing to compare it to, but it was tasty.

Steak Tartar: They give you complete power to decide how you want it. They will add any ingredients you ask to it or they will serve them all on the side for you. It usually comes with a runny egg on top, but the person who ordered it chose to mayonnaise in it instead. In France, she tells us, you either pick the egg or mayo. To have both is redundant.

Finally, after all the soups have been slurped and all the steak tartarred away, the entrees were ordered and we hit the salad bar.

Salad Bar: I love a salad bar, even a bad one. This one was a pretty bad one: Crisp iceberg ( :( ) lettuce, orangey tomatoes, green peppers, vidalia onion slices, radishes, carrots, olives, beets & bacon bits made up the majority of the sad salad bar. I mean, it's fine, for like, a steakhouse in 1975. But for $8.95 a la carte, puh-lease. Don't do it. The only highlights of the salad bar were the german potato salad, coleslaw and meat salad. The german potato salad & coleslaw were sweet and good and proper. The MEAT salad was a soup of mayo & mustard with chunks of ham swimming in it. It was sweet and hammy and a proper thing to use the pumpernickel bread with.

The entrees came quickly after we ordered. What we got were mostly variations on the schnitzel. Schnitzel is a thin pounded out piece of meat (here it's veal) lightly breaded and panfried. It's usually served with vegetables and/or sauces and/or cheeses. Here's some of the varieties we ordered:

* Jaeger Schnitzelw/ homefries (with mushrooms, onion, carrot & bacon gravy)

* Paprika Schnitzel (the sauce held for exactly 60 seconds after service before breaking on my plate. Still, quite tasty. Served with Spaetzle, an extremely light and airy maggot-looking pasta. Despite it's maggoty appearance, it's actually quite delicious.

And finally the Schnitzel of the Day, something-something-black forrest ham, swiss cheese.



The veal was a little dry, the sauces were very flavorful, their accompaniments were exactly what they should have been. The biggest downside to this place is really the price. The schnitzel's were all about $21.95 which is really, really overpriced. IHAUS on Powerline in Oakland Park charges $7.95 for the same schnitzel with an appley cabbage and flavorful mashed potatoes instead of spaetzle. What you're paying for is the atmosphere and the ability to find real german beer on draft. The staff was friendly and knowledgeable. I would go again, but not by my own volition. I left there happy, though. and incredibly disgustingly full.

*** (3) Not bad for what it is.

Room for One More?

Hi, guys. In this over saturated market of food blogs, I figured, what's one more? So here we go.

Nothing thrills me more these days then finding a new gem of a dining spot or market and then sharing it with everyone in earshot. Or eyeshot, as the case may be.

And that's this, one-more-of-too-many-food-blog's goal. I want you all to eat as well as I do!

So shut up and let's eat.Ratings:

* (1) Never, ever again!
** (2)Most definitely not for me.
*** (3) Not bad for what it is.
**** (4) Heey, that's pretty good!
***** (5) So good it hurts.
****** (6) The Best.