Miami Vice

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Oh Miami, how can I quit you? I'm experiencing serious vitamin sea withdrawal after five blissfully balmy days in Miami. Back in New York, it's winter that simply won't quit. So until it lets us out of its chilly grasp, I'll have to count on the memories from our little spring break to keep me warm!

After months of nonstop work, school and thesis research, it was heaven to lie on the beach for days and (mostly) do nothing (ok, I did some grad school reading from my lounge chair but you know what they say about old dogs). We found the perfect quiet little spot near 30th and Collins and parked our towels there practically every day.

We instantly fell in love with the city's long stretches of beach, aquamarine waters and art deco style. Miami is a city full of enticing contradictions: relaxed but also exciting, historic and yet rapidly emerging on the scene.

Strangely enough, the best meal we had was at Indomania, which by some quirk of fate, serves the Indonesian rijsttafel - an Indonesian tasting menu concocted by the Dutch back in colonial times. If there ever was a way to give a Dutch guy and a Southeast Asian girl an existential crisis about why they are living in frigid climates, it's finding a fantastic rijstaffel in a glorious location like Miami.

Further deepening this aforementioned existential crisis, we got a very cool peek at how the lovely people of this city live, thanks to my friend Alida, who has come to Miami by way of New York and Lima. We enjoyed sunset drinks and dinner with a Miami Vice feel at The Standard's Lido Grill, wine in what felt like someone's very cool backyard at Lagniappe, solid Miami-flavored music by Spam Allstars at Hoy Como Ayer in Little Havana, and dinner surrounded by wicked urban art at Wynwood Kitchen & Bar.

But if there was one place that truly stole my heart, it was the Broken Shaker at the Freehand Hostel. While our dutiful consumption of (and subsequent knockout from) the requisite salad bowl-sized mojitos in an Ocean Drive tourist-trap was unforgettable in its own way, it is the Broken Shaker's Thai Tea Old Fashioned that I will be pining for constantly: Old Forester Bourbon stirred with Thai tea reduction and a touch of cream. YUM. The poolside sunset view is not too shabby either.

It was extremely heartbreaking to return to a New York blanketed in a fresh coat of snow after 5 days of summery bliss in Miami, but we were grateful for the chance to get to know this amazing city and look forward to coming back. So goodbye for now, Miami ... pero hasta luego, sin duda!