So obviously we are going to be obsessed with any ice cream store that is named in homage to Celia Cruz’s signature phrase and has seats made from guayabera shirts. Azucar Ice Cream (1503 SW 8th St., Miami, FL) is all that and more – and the ice cream is more than good! There is a huge list of flavors written on the chalkboard wall, but only a portion are usually on offer. The flavors that stand out are the tropical varieties: plantain, Cuban coffee and mango, etc., and of course Abuela Maria! This flavor consists of Maria sugar cookies (apparently found all over the world in various forms), cream cheese and a guava swirl. We instantly fell in love. It was just like eating a guava cheesecake; absolutely wonderful. This flavor in particular seemed to be so popular that we saw it on offer at several other restaurants throughout the city. If you are in Miami you have to try it!
Abuela Maria from Azucar Ice Cream
So we first saw this pig on our first visit to Miami in January, and well…. we didn’t know if she’d still be around in February. Made into lechon, we assumed. We didn’t know if she was a pet or dinner! Turns out she is a pet, and her name is “Chucha,” and you can see her and her menagerie any day. It seems like she has a pretty content life. Case in point – we ordered two watermelon jugos one day, and Chucha got the entire watermelon rind, so we like to think we are contributing a little bit to her happiness. There is also a baby pig nearby, but you have to ask permission to see her. We’ll be back whenever we are in Miami – for the ambiance, the drinks, and to visit our favorite animals!
A new country! Miami finally provided us an opportunity to sample Nicaraguan cuisine. We’re sad it took us so long to get here: though there are no Nica places in Chicago, there are a TON in Miami. So, where to eat? The simplest answer is that you can eat at one of the many “fritangas,” a type of Nicaraguan restaurant where home-style food is served, often in a cafeteria setting and under heat lamps. But Cesar Perez and his sister Martha, the owners and operators of Chayito’s Fritanga, offer one better by offering una nueva experiencia en fritanga (“a new experience in fritangas”). The difference? Cesar and Martha make their food to order, as opposed to serving it on a steam table. That means everything is fresh!
While Enriqueta’s Sandwich Shop is in many ways a typical Cuban sandwich joint in Miami, it attracts a loyal and devoted following. A little off the beaten path, Enriqueta’s is a simple lunch counter with one side facing into the restaurant and another side with a window open to the street. Sometimes I wonder how a place like that can ever keep up with orders, but somehow they do, albeit a little slowly. Being from Chicago, I can’t quite ever wrap my head around the concept of an open air lunch counter, or frankly any outside window walk-up, so of course we had to order our food there. When in Rome…
St. Patrick’s Day is here, and while that means that all your favorite foods will be colored green in America. However, a less verdant but perhaps more authentic way to celebrate is with the versatile Dublin dish, coddle. One of the most emblematic dishes from Dublin, Dublin coddle (aka Irish coddle or just “coddle”) is a homestyle (some may say old fashioned) stewed dish made with pork sausage, bacon and potatoes, and 
Ba Le is such an old favorite we can’t believe that we haven’t written about it before. Honestly though, the more often we go to a place, the more often we assume we have already written about the place (as is the case with our favorite restaurant in Madison, Greenbush Tavern). Oops! In any case, Ba Le is certainly someplace you should not overlook. Their specialty is the Vietnamese 
It’s Mardi Gras / Fat Tuesday / Carnaval! Hope you are having a festive time, or at least enjoying some festive treats. We’ve written about many Fat Tuesday goodies in the past including the inimitable Chicago doughnut staple, 
When the word “
East Timor is one of the world’s youngest counties, established only in 2002. However, it is already sending its first athlete to the winter Olympics, skier Yohan Goutt-Goncalves. Seafood is key in the national diet in this island nation, and culinary influence from Portugal and Indonesia is strongly felt. The national dish of East Timor is Ikan Pepes / Pepes Ikan (Ikan means ‘fish’ and pepes is the cooking technique), fish steamed with chili sauce in a banana leaf. Sounds pretty good! Here are two recipes for Ikan Pepes from 
Malta, a Mediterranean island nation. has one competitor in their debut Olympics, skier Elise Pellegrin. Malta’s cuisine is influenced by France, Spain, Italy and even England. The national dish of the country is Stuffat Tal-Fenek, a stewed rabbit dish in a red wine an tomato sauce. Apparently rabbit is hugely popular in Malta, and a dinner where rabbit is consumed is called a fenkata. 
This year, Winter Olympics newcomer Togo has two athletes competing in Sochi, skiiers Alessia Afi Dipol and Mathilde-Amivi Petitjean. We were also super interested to learn that there was a 
Zimbabwe is competing in the Winter Olympics for the first time in Sochi, with Alpine skiier Luke Steyn, and we are excited to learn more about the country’s national dish and cuisine. The national dish of Zimbabwe is widely considered to 
Eating The World 