The Food in Miami is Fantastic (Duh!)

Welcome to Miami Beach!

I feel like this whole post is going to be a series of obvious statements, but that doesn’t mean they should not be said. We trekked to Miami Beach to visit friends and “learned”:

• There’s great South American food to be had!

• The beach and waterways are beautiful!

• It’s freaking hot and humid (even in May)!

Now that I got that out of the way, more details:

Our friends who live in Miami Beach, A&K, invited us to visit earlier in the year so that the weather would be more “enjoyable,” but we couldn’t quite swing it between selling the house and going to New Orleans for JazzFest. We decided we’d be fine, since would have just spent a month in New Orleans, which is also hot and humid at that time of year. See more on Hot and Humid below. On the plus side, getting to Miami from New Orleans is really not as far as it appears on a map - we enjoyed our easy journey there, which you can see via the gallery.

THE FOOD

When asked what we wanted to do, the number one thing was having great Cuban food and other South American food that is not readily available elsewhere*. Oh boy, did we enjoy our food on this visit!

Little Havana, Miami Beach - all the food was amazing.

Craig had the Cubano sandwich - delish.

Next, Aromas del Peru - this is the ceviche special of the day.

Pisco Sour - recommended by waiter and did not disappoint.

OMG the mashed potatoes (the corvina and beans were great too).

Lomo Saltado - a beef stew that was out of this world.

The welcome llama wished us a great day.

* Note: Craig insists that I must mention that Cuba is not in South America - he is correct, but I feel this is an unnecessary clarification.

BEACHES AND WATERWAYS

A&K live on the intracoastal in Miami Beach. The view from their living room is just out of this world and I fell in love with the dock. In addition to that, South Beach is only a short drive away and we got to enjoy a fabulous walk there.

HOT AND HUMID

Craig’s theory is that it’s ok to be somewhere hot and humid as long as you don’t go further than 50 feet from the water. I hate it when I have to say he’s right, but it really does make a huge difference. As a result, the only sight seeing we did other than beaches and food, was a trip to nearby Key Largo. I think most of the land on all the keys is 50 feet or less from water 😜. We enjoyed visiting John Pennekamp State Park - “hiked” a little in the area and spent some time on one of the beaches. We SHOULD have also kayaked, but we were feeling a bit too lazy.

Check out the cool lizard.

Walkin through the woods. There were a lot of HUGE spider webs (the photos didn’t come out).

Another little lizard.

It was so shallow, we could wade all around.

Fishy, fishy.

It was tough to leave Miami Beach. It was fun and we loved spending time with A&K! But, next stop - South Carolina! As a lovely “hasta la vista” to Florida (we’ll be back), we stopped in West Palm Beach for lunch:

Bonus photos - the local botanical gardens are just beautiful:

Supposedly, there are alligators, but thankfully, we did not see any.

Iguana!

Glorious colors on the flowers.