Help finding Sobe's best

[JazzyB]

Planning a 3-4 day escape from our frigid New Orleans weather. Not a breakfast person. We prefer highly seasoned food and are looking for the best in South Beach. Open to anything, low-high, price not an issue. TIA.

[Frodnesor]

Is there a prize for the 100th person to ask generically for South Beach recommendations without reviewing the board first? Here's the last one, which I think was number 542, and is only 13 posts down and still on the front page of the board ->
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/679612
Here's another recent one about 25 posts down ->
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/676783

OK, with the snark out of the way, let's get down to business, focusing on "highly seasoned food" as a cue.

For me, I think the best food on South Beach, hands down, is at Talula. Also fits your bill for highly seasoned (though not necessarily spicy - just great, bold flavors). The tripe cassoulet I just had there this weekend was outstanding (Miami, like your native New Orleans, has been undergoing a real cold snap and it's a great opportunity for hearty fare like this).

I like the Italian food at Sardinia which has a strong regional focus (i.e. the name) which provides some dishes that are different from your run of the mill Italian - spaghetti with bottarga, clams with fregola, roasted suckling pig.

Indomania is a neat little place with Dutch-Indonesian food, the rijstafels, with about a dozen or more dishes, are a lot of fun.

Meat Market on Lincoln Road has been getting a lot of love lately; one of a multitude of steakhouses that have opened up the past couple years, but this one has a little more flair to it. I've only been once shortly after it opened, other more recent experiences were more consistently good than mine.

But c'mon, do a little reading!

www.foodforthought.com

[2top]

I agree with Frod.
Meat Market has some great sea food too. The sauces are wonderfully bold.
I also like Ola, Douglas Rodriguez the "Godfather of Nuevo Latino Cuisine" always pleases. Be sure to have "Oysters Rodriguez" for an app.
Maybe at the low end Bar-B-Que Beach.

[Frodnesor]

Note that Douglas Rodriguez also has a brand new restaurant in South Beach, De Rodriguez in the Astor Hotel, which has more of an exclusively Cuban (contemporary) focus, whereas Ola is more "pan-Latin."

Note also that these responses focus exclusively on South Beach. For some of the best food in Miami you need to get off the beach.