Don't Eat It - Sir Pizza, 4231 S Le Jeune Rd, Coral Gables, FL (305) 448-4040

by Chef BoyarAndy

http://sirpizzarestaurants.com

Pizza is a commodity. From where I'm sitting typing this on my couch I can name 6 pizza places that deliver to my house and another 4 that are dine in/carry out only...I bet there are another 3 or 4 that I don't even know about.

As somebody that sells a commodity for a living I can tell you that you have exactly 3 ways to differentiate yourself from the competition: price, service and quality. Sir Pizza failed at all 3 for me this weekend.

I was exposed to Sir Pizza by a colleague when they opened their location in Kendall. Think of something somewhere between Papa Johns and Harry's Pizzeria....it's not gourmet but it certainly isn't Little Caesars either.

After tax, delivery charge and tip I dropped $27 on a large "Royal Feast" pizza. Failure on price compared to just about anywhere else. (I probably shouldn't complain about the price since I chose to pay it but it does seem high to me)

"Thank you for ordering online from Sir Pizza - Coral Gables. It’s our pleasure to serve you. Your order has been received, and will be ready in approximately 40 minutes. Please contact your neighborhood Sir Pizza - Coral Gables at (305) 448-4040 for further assistance."

That is the email I received after placing my order at 7:06pm Sunday night.

8:00pm rolls around and we're still waiting (relatively) patiently for our pizza. When I called for further assistance a nice, younger sounding lady answered the phone and apologized for the delay telling me the driver only had 1 other delivery and that her "system" showed the pizza as being 4 minutes away so that if it didn't arrive shortly to call back. I chose not to complicate the conversation by asking what kind of GPS tracking device they used to offer such a specific answer and hung up satisfied that we'd be eating soon.

When I called back at 8:15pm I was told this: "Look dude, I don't know what to tell you. I'm trying to help other people. It left here like 20 minutes ago so if it isn't there in another 20 call back."

Somewhat shocked at the bluntness of his reply I asked his name...he wouldn't give it and hung up.

Failure on service.

At 8:30pm when the pizza finally arrived we discovered it was barely warm and they had ignored our request to substitute tomatoes for mushrooms.  Failure on quality.

The company has clearly experienced some degree of success as of late...a 10 year agreement for Marlins Park, 10 new locations in the past year or so and a high exposure sponsorship with the Hurricanes.

As is generally the case...success comes at a price.  Sadly that price is the experience they are providing to the individual customer.

Tax Day Freebies

Meant to post this earlier but got distracted by the terrible news out of Boston.

http://www.taxdayfreebies.com/

CUBA

Mr. and Mrs. -Z,

Please watch.

-Miami

Chewing Gum Tax

I tried for a while to come up with a clever title, like "Chewing the Fat" or "Chew on This" or something chewing related. I got nothing. I give up. So I'm just calling this "Chewing Gum Tax." Intrigued?

Mexico City is considering a tax on chewing gum, or "chicle," as they call it, to help defray the hefty costs associated with its cleanup. You ever notice all of the small circular black spots on the pavement as you walk down a sidewalk? Gum.

http://www.theworld.org/2013/03/mexico-chewing-gum-tax/

Bleh

Well, you know you're becoming a world class city (or approaching another real estate top) when "starchitects" like Zaha Hadid are designing buildings in your hood. The best part is that the people who get to the top of that profession, much like many other artistic fields, get to keep all of the money while the underlings do all of the work and get paid peanuts while wallowing in obscurity. Kind of like celebrity chefs who spend most of their time talking about food, and not actually making it. It's really like this episode of the Simpsons.

If you don't believe them or me, and the Simpsons would never lie, please check out this sketch she did for a museum she designed.

Here are some renderings of her new downtown Miami "One Thousand Museum Tower," courtesy of Curbed, a hideous building that, at best, belongs somewhere in a tacky Middle Eastern city like Dubai, and, at worst, should be built only in CGI for the next Star Trek movie as a hospital for Vulcans. I don't think it does a thing for our skyline alongside beauties like Chad Oppenheim's 10 Museum Park. Now that is a sight, and it has sexy showers right in the middle of the units.

I could swear I was going somewhere with this. Doesn't have much to do with food, but it's about Miami.

Happy Ultra Weekend #1!

 

I'm pretty excited to have to deal with the suffocating traffic this event causes in my neighborhood. Times 2 weekends! Hooray!

Prince Buys Tortillas

Not much explanation is necessary beyond that title. Thanks to my pal, Tim Shea, for opening my eyes to this - 

http://storiesaboutprince.blogspot.com/2012/12/prince-buys-tortillas.html

Softball Hero

One of my softball teammates invited Chad Johnson to come and play on our team over Twitter, and lo and behold, he showed. You gotta love the love he shows his fans. This one is last night's MVP, Jaime, who won the game with a walk-off triple.

Eat It - Dos Caminos, 1140 Seabreeze Boulevard Fort Lauderdale, FL (954) 727-7090

www.doscaminos.com

I hope it's still there. Have you heard about Ocean Blvd's being washed away by the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy? That sh#t cray. Our entire South Florida economy is pretty much based on beachfront property, so before you get all whiny about having to subsidize other people's property and flood insurance, keep in mind that no one would live here and have cool stuff to experience like concerts, nice restaurants, and LeBron James, if not for the coastal property that's so precariously located within the inevitably likely path of a hurricane or storm surge. If it can happen to New York City, it can damn sure happen here, and it has and it will in the future. In the meantime, try not to let that thought stress you out.

Speaking of New York City, Dos Caminos is a chain of Mexican restaurants that began there and lands somewhere in between your usual local Tex-Mex place and the high-end upscale Mexican places like Rosa Mexicano and Maya (NYC). Dos Caminos is an extremely high quality product for the money, and it's worth the drive up to Broward (or will it be Ft. Lauderdale..?) County.

I attended a media event at the Ft. Lauderdale location back in September, and shame on me, it's taken this long to get my post polished and posted. It's a delicate art, and sometimes art just can't be rushed. It's really because I try to do too much with the 24 hours I'm given each day, so I have lists of perpetually pending items that I manage to cross off eventually, but often quite tardily. Boo hoo.

Dos Caminos is located inside the Sheraton Hotel. Pretty standard restaurant location, in a beautiful area called Harbour Isles of Ft. Lauderdale. The decor is homey. It's got just the right amount of lighting that you can see the food you're eating, but it's dark enough that your date will look his or her best. Take a look and you'll see the Mexican inspired interior, with dark pinks and skulls on the walls.

Executive chef, Ivy Stark, was in town for the introduction of Dos Caminos' new menu and was kind enough to present us food writers in attendance with a copy of her new book, which you should really check out. It's called Dos Caminos Mexican Street Food and I've used it several times. It was also a great resource for choosing the dinner menu at my upcoming wedding in Mexico. It's like authentic Mexican street food, but without the Montezuma's Revenge! In case you don't know what Montezuma's Revenge is, it's what happens when you eat food in Mexico because your ancestors were Europeans and are therefore guilty by association with the colonists who invaded Mexico and killed everyone. Montezuma (II) was the Aztec emperor at the time, and now he haunts the bowels of anyone who eats anything even remotely suspect. If you've never had explosive Mexican diarrhea, well, let me tell you, you just haven't lived to appreciate the pleasure that it is not to have Montezuma's Revenge once it's over (usually lasts about a week).

Now, you're probably not crazy about the fact that I mentioned explosive diarrhea in a restaurant review, and neither are the people who operate Dos Caminos, but that's just what you get when you hop in bed with Eat It, Miami. The irreverence is our signature! It's our hallmark! Our touchstone! Along with impeccable grammar and its accompanying lessons, of course! Isn't it interesting that hallmark and touchstone have synonymous figurative meanings but also quite closely related literal meanings? Fascinating. English is such a rich language.

Back to the diarrhea! You won't get it if you eat at Dos Caminos, I bet! I highly recommend the place. They have great staples like chicken flautas, excellent guacamole, cheery service, and great decor.

If you work nearby, they have a an affordable happy hour menu with $4.50 margaritas and $3 tacos. The happy hour guac only costs 8 bucks (usual 2 person order is 14).

Cool.

Eff Yelp

Yet another reason to trust our sassy site is that we are clearly not in it for the money, since I seem to have a talent for liking things that are not profitable. I tend to partake in activities for their own sake. Like my podcast! Or playing squash. Or designing t-shirts. I kind of have the art part down without any of the business savvy. No complaints or whining. Just sayin' is all.

When I have a personal connection to a restaurant I usually refrain from reviewing it myself, as I did when Chef BoyarAndy reviewed Pride and Joy BBQ. I know one of the partners' sisters and I would probably have mentioned that had I been the guy to write the review. So, that's where we're coming from at Eat It, Miami.

In case you were running low on cynicism today, I'd like to point you in the direction of a couple of scathing articles that shed light on the shady sh*t going on at Yelp. I feel like their name should be "Yelp!" Don't you think? These articles were posted by that friend who's connected to Pride and Joy BBQ.

From Forbes -

When I notified County Process Service that I had posted a good review (my first on Yelp), they replied: “We’ll see if yelp filters the review. All of our good reviews get filtered. I’m not sure why yelp thinks our good reviews are fraudulent.”

When I checked a week later, Lo and Behold! My review had been removed. Did Yelp tell me about it? Not one word!

My wife, a Realtor, had a similar experience: “They seem be wary of first-time reviewers. If your first review is negative then they let you post other reviews, but if your first review is positive then they remove it. The same goes if all your reviews are positive.”

She went on: “I called Yelp after a business associate posted a positive review about me which was later removed. They hinted that if I advertised on Yelp this may not have occurred.”

And from East Bay Express (totally gnarly Silicon Valley site, dude, so they like know tech and stuff hella stoked fer sure) -

"Hi, this is Mike from Yelp," the voice would say. "You've had three hundred visitors to your site this month. You've had a really good response. But you have a few bad ones at the top. I could do something about those."

So here's what I propose, since I am a strong advocate of Gandhi's "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Like, if you hate when people drive recklessly, drive cautiously. You hate litter? Don't litter and pick up trash when you see it. Easy enough? If we all do that, we will have a better world. So, you don't think Yelp's bullsh*t is fair? Don't use Yelp. Don't post reviews and don't check it for suggestions.

I pledge today that I will never use Yelp ever again, and if you know me personally, you know I mean it when I say/write sh*t like that.