MIAGuide
7 Restaurants That Make Us Consider Moving To Broward
photo credit: CLEVELAND JENNINGS / @EATTHECANVASLLC
There are Miamians out there who'd sooner move into an efficiency perched atop an active volcano than Broward County. We'd call it a sibling rivalry, but we hope you don't feel the kind of dread about visiting your brother as most Miamians do about driving to Fort Lauderdale. This guide is an attempt to heal our fractured relationship through one thing we can all agree is good: food. Broward has great food. But more specifically, Broward has certain types of food that Miami lacks. This guide consists of those kinds of restaurants—dim sum, African, Vietnamese, Korean, and more. They can be a delicious form of exposure therapy for your Broward phobia.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: Ryan Pfeffer
We’ve got some solid dim sum options in Miami, but nothing like Ten Ten, a Sunrise restaurant that treats a meal of endless shumai and freshly carved peking duck like the grand occasion it is. The red and gold restaurant feels perpetually celebratory, and you’ll get ambushed by carts the nanosecond your butt touches the seat. You want everything on said carts—this is the best dim sum we’ve had in South Florida. The soup dumplings have enough broth inside to fill up a big spoon twice, the fried dishes are crispy and hot, and the pastries are cute enough to trigger aggression. Grab the delicate swan-shaped pastries with a durian filling and a little head you can decapitate with your two front teeth. But make sure to order one of the big entrees, too. The peking duck is carved fresh and has skin that's so shiny, you can see your reflection.
photo credit: CLEVELAND JENNINGS / @EATTHECANVASLLC
We haven’t found a better Thai restaurant in all of South Florida than Fort Lauderdale's Larb Thai-Isan. This narrow, colorful restaurant is making the best versions we’ve ever had of Thai dishes like khao soi, larb, and som tum in an area that’s dense with corporate chain restaurants. Every ingredient in every dish—from each spicy strand of papaya to the tender drumstick that floats in the khao soi—tastes like the perfect form of itself. And it’s also just a pleasure to eat here. Service is friendly and most tables have a view of the kitchen, where you’ll watch cooks pound and chop away. There will probably be a wait, but you can drink beer outside and stare at the Outback Steakhouse across the street to kill time.
photo credit: Ryan Pfeffer
Yes, the pho with silky noodles is every bit as incredible as it should be at a place whose name is 50% “pho.” But everything on the menu at this Vietnamese restaurant would be worth jogging from Coral Gables to Davie on a July afternoon. Start with the grilled mussels and the bánh xèo crispy enough to wake a person during deep REM. Then supplement your pho with a beefy main like the “Vietnamese lomo saltado” or a bò né, a sizzling platter of steak and eggs you can build into your own little breakfast bánh mì. Pho Bar works best for groups, especially if you want to take advantage of the other 50% of the name. Come during daily Happy Hour from 3-6pm to drink "phojitos" and order some combination of noodles and beef. There's also a second location in Pembroke Pines, in case that's more convenient.
photo credit: Mariana Trabanino
South Florida has a surplus of lifeless strip malls with hideous paint jobs that do a good job of gatekeeping restaurants like Dar Tajine. But pay attention to this one. The Moroccan spot next to a Five Below has brass chandeliers, instrumental Turkish music, and pointed arches that all set the mood for a peaceful dinner. Get the lamb shank tagine, which comes with a massive piece of lamb that slides off the bone showing off how tender it is. Then wash it all down with mint tea poured at least ten inches away into a shot glass with perfect accuracy.
Ever since Lorenzo's closed, Miami has been without a great Italian market. That’s not the case just north in Hollywood, where you can find Mimi's Ravioli. This isn’t the biggest market, but they make use of every square inch, filling the place with cheese, pasta, cakes, cannolis, deli sandwiches, and more. Truly, go wild. Fill up a basket with anything that looks good (it will, in fact, be good). But do not leave without the softball-size globs of Mimi's homemade mozzarella. Also, maybe don’t come here if you’re not in the mood to enjoy an entire pound of supple, non-aged dairy for dinner. That inevitably happens on days that involve a trip to Mimi’s.
photo credit: Virginia Otazo
Plantation is known for its suburban lifestyle, its big green golf course, and (after reading this) “monkey gland sauce” and “bunny chow.” For the uninitiated, one is a tangy barbecue sauce unrelated to monkeys, the other is an unsliced bread loaf filled with curry, and you can find both at Dutchy’s in Plantation. The food here is as fun as it sounds, starting with an entire platter of biltong that will make it hard to go back to jerky. But our favorite is that bunny chow, a comforting bread bowl filled with spicy lamb curry, potatoes, and sambal. Enjoy it while watching a rugby match on their big screen. The biltong platter alone is reason enough to move, but for now we’ll just keep paying $10 for a 2oz bag of biltong at Whole Foods before Miami Sharks matches.
photo credit: CLEVELAND JENNINGS / @EATTHECANVASLLC
Miami has so few Korean options that we made an entire guide to Korean restaurants worth driving out of Miami for. And Gabose is the best place in South Florida to do the cooking yourself on a little charcoal grill in the center of the table. That’s why there could be an hour-plus wait here on weekends (and they don’t take reservations). But it’s worth it to watch marinated short rib, thin-as-paper beef tongue, and spicy baby octopus turn into crispy deliciousness before your eyes. The marinades here are so tasty that even the nearly blackened pieces you forgot about for 10 minutes still taste good.
