Otherwise Unavailable, Part 1

I really must dust off some half-written blog material from my recent unproductive past regarding my U.S. return about six weeks back. Remember that trip, to Miami and Houston? Is it surprising that my only notes from the trip concern food? If the following culinary travelogue seems at times…um, mundane, recall that nearly every food item is generally otherwise unavailable through normal channels in Switzerland. Now, I believe I left off just after bedtime in Miami on a Wednesday night after arrival…

That sunny, warm humid Thursday morning required an hour-long drive from Miami north to the West Palm Beach office (by the way, don’t let the name fool you, WPB has plenty of palms but no public beaches). Strange to say--although it certainly ain’t real Mexican food--I was regretting passing Taco Bell for dinner on the prior evening’s short drive from the airport to the hotel. Simply to amuse myself, I rolled into the parking lot at 10am on the outside chance they’d be open. The “restaurant” didn’t open until 11am (rats!) but, lo and behold, the drive-through stays open 24 hours. Of course it does! It’s America! I’d almost forgotten the concept of drive-through. Soon happily eating my pseudo-desayuno, I was suddenly slightly dismayed discovering they’d passed me an iced “tea” as enormous as it was atrociously sweet (they should call it Iced Sugar). I reentered the drive-through (it wasn’t busy) for a trade-in, only to find no unsweetened tea available. I washed down the 7-layer burrito with hot sauce.

After work that day (details unimportant), my new U.S. colleagues led our group to a wildly popular, wildly overrated seafood restaurant on the docks in WPB; the sesame seared tuna was fair but not fantastic. Friday evening saw me solo at some popular WPB sprawling outdoor mall/entertainment complex a short walk from the hotel. I held high hopes for the fancy-ish looking wine bar, but the chef’s special roasted lamb looked much better than it tasted, although the goblets of sauvignon blanc and especially the zinfandel (not white zinfandel please) were excellent. Quite a refreshing change from Switzerland where every restaurant measures wine in exactly 1 deciliter pours, little more than a large mouthful. Alas the two big glasses combined with jet lag hit me like a prizefighter to end that evening early.

WPB hosted a boat show Saturday, filling the hotel and town-at-large with the cream of Florida’s beach loafer crop. A pre-lunch heavy dark beer at the mall’s requisite local brew-pub didn’t jive with the comfortably muggy weather, so I switched to Bud Light but almost mistook it for carbonated European mineral water (ha!). I finally bulls-eyed the beer at lunch, pairing a fantastic 16-oz. diner hamburger--topped with onion rings no less--with a Sam Adams for a mere $9.60, a laughable third of the price at home (when even available).

I partied like a rock star Saturday evening, pocketing a cigar en route to my reservation at the Steph-researched (she never fails) trendy Cuban restaurant on the apparently only happening block in WPB. My sidewalk patio dinner progressed from a mojito to two glasses of awesome Oregon pinot noir with a fantastically delicious starter of stewed mushrooms with Cuban garlic bread (easily individually DOY--Dish of the Year--so far) and a fantastically thin and long Argentinean-style churrasco garlicky steak. Smoking the cigar on the way back to the hopping mall complex, I knocked back a Bud Heavy (much better) listening to the plaza rock band before stumbling into bed. My tongue tasted like asphalt during Sunday’s return to Miami airport, near where I met a Colombian ex-work colleague and hubby for lunch at an old-school Cuban restaurant for house-specialty roasted pork with fried plantains. Nice! Next stop: Texas.

So I’ll finish later with Part 2 (or is it Part 3?) and the Houston portion. Do you know which country is near Houston??