Drinking Coffee in Fort Lauderdale

OK, I admit, I really like coffee.   And I am always looking for new places to indulge my addiction.   While I don’t often turn down a visit to Starbuck’s, I have been on the lookout lately for smaller, independent venues.   I’ll post at some point on places like Panther Coffee and Pasion del Cielo and other coffee shops in Miami, but today I want to share three great independent coffee houses in the Fort Lauderdale area.

Switchbox is located in a new culinary area in Oakland Park at 3446 NE 12th Street.   It has a nice covered outdoor area and a large, comfortable inside space as well.   They characterize themselves as a farmer to consumer enterprise and have a large number of coffee bean options focusing on ‘smaller, single origin lots of seasonal, current drop coffees’.    It’s a big comfortable quiet place to relax and enjoy a good cup of coffee.

Warsaw Coffee Company, at 815 NE 13 Street, has a bit more frenetic environment and can be somewhat noisy, perhaps primarily due to the large number of people who always seem to be there.   It’s also a large space, perhaps with a bit more of a warehouse feel, but has large number of tables to accommodate the crowds.   In addition to great coffee, Warsaw also serves craft beer and wine, which perhaps helps attract larger crowds.   It’s a great place to hangout and spend an hour or two with friends enjoying their wide selection drink and food.

Revenant Coffee House and Eatery is the newest of the three and is located at 2301 NE 26th Street.   There are a few table inside but the outside area is tremendous right on the water with outdoor booths and tables.   The coffee is great rightdown to the coffee ice cubes.  The shop is co-located with an antique/furniture store and a hydroponic garden where the plants are for sale.  You can even rent a kayak!

All three of these coffee shops are worth a trip or two.  They all obviously care about creating a great coffee drinking experience for their customers and have taken coffee drinking to a higher level.

Avocado Toast in Miami

Avocado toast seems to be a current food rage in Miami.   Almost everywhere I go for breakfast has a version of it.    Some are just avocado, either smashed or sliced, on top of toast, which not infrequently is from Zak the Baker in Wynwood.  Some add a poached or soft cooked egg on top.   Others add additional ingredients such as ham, pickled onion and other condiments.   Here are three of my current favorites: 

All Day at 1035 North Miami Avenue serves the most unusual of the three with pickled red onion, sliced avocado, a poached egg and an advertised seven-grain toast.   All Day is located in a warehouse-like neighborhood just around the corner from a large U-Haul rental facility.   There not many, if any, other eating places in the area, It is a large, two story, bright white clean restaurant with specialty chocolates lining one wall, which I need to go back and try.   There are about a dozen tables and at least half of them were trying the avocado toast on one of the days I was there. 

Puroast is also located on Miami Avenue but on the south side of the Miami River at 632 South Miami Avenue, right on the edge of the Brickell City Center complex in the old Tobacco Road block.   The avocado toast here also has sliced avocado, a poached egg and a pile of chopped ham.  It’s called Rustic Avo Toast on the menu board.   Puroast is primarily a coffee house with a small number of breakfast and lunch items, all of which look pretty good.   Their specialty is coffee with the usual set of espresso and brewed coffee options.  Try their Greca, their ‘signature brew’, for a great morning eye-opening experience.

Threefold Café is the only one of the three that serves their avocado mashed.  Their version also has feta cheese, basil, thyme, butter and chopped roasted mushrooms.  It is definitely the most complicated of the three and is served on a great toasted slice of Zak the Baker bread.   Located at 141 Giralda Street (part of the soon to be completed pedestrian-only block) in the heart of Coral Cables, it is the largest of three restaurants and has the most extensive menu serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.    It’s large and bright and has an extensive espresso and brewed coffee menu that includes an affogato, one of my favorites – a shot of espresso served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (more on my favorite affogato bars in a later post!).  

Try these places and let me know what you think or share your favorite place to get a good avocado toast breakfast.

 

Best French Baguette in Miami

Who makes the best baguette in Miami?  I should probably have posted about this event a few weeks, right after it happened, but I guess better late than never.    Did you ever wonder which bakery makes the best French baguette in Miami?   Now we know.   On April 13th, at the National Hotel on Collins Avenue, French Morning and Norwegian presented the second annual Miami Baguette Battle.   Other sponsors included Ile de France, Cacao Noel, Chateau d’Esclans and Three Little Pigs.   The event was held outdoors by the National’s magnificent pool and on a beautiful Miami evening guests were served wine, cheese, pate, charcuterie and, of course, baguette samples from the competing bakeries.   A panel of judges tasted and discussed, followed by a little more tasting and discussing and with a little help from a glass or two of wine, came up with a winner.   The participating finalists included La Parisianne, La Provence, Buon Pane Italiano, Chocolate Fashion and Rosetta Bakery.   I hope this yearly event continues because it was a fun evening where, by my estimate, about 200 people relaxed with some wine and goodFrench food in anticipation of the Battle’s outcome.   And the judge’s decision?   The winner was La Provence!

Great British Food in Miami

I remember seeing Andy Bates on British TV a few years back while I was in Europe on vacation.  He had his own cooking show and while I don’t remember exactly what he made, I remembered his name when I saw he recently landed in Miami and is cooking here now.   This past weekend Andy was cooking at his popup restaurant, The Avenue, located this time at the Midtown Garden Center (@midtowngardencenter on Instagram) at NE 2nd Avenue and 26th Street, in Edgewater.  His menu, while not extensive was all English – scotch eggs, fish and chips, chips with curry sauce, ploughman’s salad and banoffee pie for dessert.   The scotch eggs were perfect; he has two varieties, one made with sausage and a more veggie version made with falafel.   If you don’t know what scotch eggs are, they are perfectly done hard cooked eggs with a coating of sausage or falafel cooked until the outside is nice and crispy.   I only tried the sausage version and it was delicious – crispy outside, cooked sausage and nicely done egg.  The fish and chips was also perfectly done – fresh flaky cod with a thin crispy layer of beer batter all nicely deep fried.    I also had the chips with a great creamy curry sauce with lots of fresh cilantro on top.   Andy has been in the Miami area awhile now and has been cooking via his pop-up at a variety of locations, primarily in the Wynwood area.   He has set up shop at The Miami Flea (@maimiflea on Instagram),  J. Wakefield Brewery (@jwakefieldbeer), the O Miami Poetry Festival (@omaimifestival) at the North Miami Bandshell (2northmiamibandshell) and the new Omni Park (@omniparkmiami).   I understand Andy is looking for his own shop to cookin a more permanent setting.  I hope he finds it soon and expands his menu to include more great English food.    Next time I find him cooking somewhere, I am going to try the banoffee, a gooey pie of bananas and dulce de leche and something I have not tried before – millionaire shortbread, a three a layer treat of shortbread, chocolate and dulce de leche.  You can follow Andy on line at The Avenue Miami, as well as on Instagram and Twiter at @andybateschef and @theavenuemiami, and on Facebook, at The Avenue – British Diner.   

 

Getting Fit in Miami

Next Level Coaching and Fitness (www.NLC.fitness) is the brain-child of Nick Kempen, a Miami-based health and fitness coach who has over 15-years of experience in the areas of fitness, nutrition and lifecycle coaching.   Nick provides one-on-one and on-line training, as well as nutritional assistance.   His website says, ‘my goal is to coach my clients in helping them change and improve their lifestyle through health and fitness’. 

In full disclosure, Nick has been my personal trainer for about the past 7 years and I can say that at age 61, I am in the best shape of my life.    He understands my goals and tailors my workouts to help me achieve them.   My goals are to stay fit, keep my weight under control and try to eat healthier.   I have an arthritic hip due primarily to tennis and Nick gives me exercises that keep the muscles in that area strong to minimize injury and help stem constant aggravation.   Nick is good at listening to my complaints about aches and pains but doesn’t let me cheat in my workouts with him.  He adjusts my routines to my needs and continually advises and checks in with me between workouts about my diet and other lifestyle fitness issues – I really like to run but is that good for my hip?, I really like Key Lime Pie so can I have a piece this week?,  what can I do in between workouts for continued improvements?

Nick, originally from Illinois, has been in Miami for over ten years.   He knows Miami well and is a good ambassador.   He also carries about a dozen certifications that prove his dedication and knowledge.

So go to the Next Level Coaching website and sign up for either an in-person one-on-one training session or an online session with access to exercise videos.  Nick also holds a Saturday morning boot camp at Cure Fitness (www.cure-fitness.com) at 1800 SW 1st Avenue in the Brickell area of Miami at 8am.   It only costs $20 per session and is a great way to start the weekend.  

“What seems impossible today will soon become your warm-up’, Nick says.