I didn't know until I just visited there that Miami was nicknamed "the Magic City." That seems a little strange when another city in Florida is already associated with one kind of magic and another, but whatever.

I just spent the better part of a week in Miami for work travel. It was my first visit there since I was little, and we barely had time to see much of the city outside of work events (although I had a good view from my hotel room), but I'm still glad that i went.

I'll skip over the boring work stuff and focus on the next most important part, the food! We ate a total of five meals of Cuban food, if you count the lunch served during the conference. The first meal was at a low-key casual restaurant described on their menu as "abuelita-style," which is the first time I have heard that phrase not applied to my driving. I got the mahi mahi, which a coworker freaked out about upon mistaking it for dolphin. The second meal was guava BBQ chicken at the same restaurant, revisited when another coworker heard us raving about it. The third meal was an Elena Ruz sandwich, which is the comfort food that I didn't know I needed in my life until now. And the last was best: We went to Gloria Estefan's restaurant and I got some Cuban risotto, accurately described in that article, and enjoyed a live band playing fantastic Cuban music. What a great experience.

My Cuban coworker goes to Miami every few weekends to see family, and he loves the city. He's proud of his Cuban heritage, often sharing jokes about his people. I think I'll ask him to lunch at a Cuban restaurant in Bradenton to have some further guidance exploring the menu, because so far I can't get enough.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

My Hot Thanksgiving

It may have been a cold Thanksgiving up north, but it wasn't in my mother's apartment yesterday, where the air conditioning was broken and it was 80°. And that was before we turned the oven on for an hour to heat the food. We've ordered pre-made meals before from various businesses like Boston Market and Publix, but this year the only source we could find was Zoës Kitchen, a Middle Eastern chain restaurant. Go »

Illinois 2013

Ten highlights of my just-concluded road trip to northern Illinois with Kelly, in chronological order: - Seeing lots of friends and family at our engagement party in St. Charles, our old hometown. I was glad to be able to talk to everyone there, and also glad that I now recognize almost everyone in Kelly's large family on sight. Go »

Emails!

Does the Internet baffle you? Try Gabe & Max's Internet Thing. Thanks, Marlon. Go »

Thorough Performance Reviews

I'm not around much this week because it's time for the annual performance reviews at work. I'm staying up till the wee hours each night writing the reviews so that the two-day marathon of face-to-face chats at the end of the week will go well. It's a win-win: For the employees doing a great job, it's my chance to offer serious praise without it sounding phony or arbitrary. Go »

Det är inte så farligt

Yesterday, Kelly and I joined friends who had free passes to shop at the new Ikea store in Tampa before it opens to the public. It was our my first time in one of those stores, and it was every bit the harrowing shopping marathon I'd heard it was. For a store that boasts so frequently about how efficient everything is, having you proceed through the store in one long winding line for four hours sure doesn't feel that way, but every store has ways of getting you to buy more than you came for and Ikea has come up with a unique one. Go »

Illinois 2015

Kelly just wrapped up a weeklong conference in Chicago. I flew in to join her for a few days afterwards to visit family and friends around Illinois. Trip highlights: - Adventurous food at the state fair in Springfield: Krispy Kreme donut cheeseburger, deep-fried cheesecake on a stick, Cuban barbecue pork nachos, mmm. Go »