On the North Side of South Beach

South Beach is like Vegas but with better weather and real palm trees. Oh and pretty people from all sorts of places. However, with all of the high-rollers and the jet-setters partying into the wee hours of the morning, culture gets lost in the shuffle. It's almost the anti-Miami. Sure, there are still people spanning all of the African and Latin Diasporas but the establishments are catered to the high-end set. You can find some tapas, but it'll be white table-cloth tapas. You can get some sushi, but it will be some fusion sushi with Brazilian or Peruvian influences (which was DAMN good by the way).

It was funny though to hear my cousin get perplexed at my request for something "ethnic" after she asked me what I wanted to do about dinner. "Ethnic? This is South Beach. Your choices for "ethnic" are Italian, chinese or maybe steak." None of these sounded like good options to me. How could this be? I had just been deep in the heart of Little Havana and had all sorts of choices far more exotic than lasagna or NY Strip steak.

When I left my client's site, I was on a mission. It wasn't quite dinner time, but it was definitely late afternoon snack time. I was going to do what I always do and stumble upon a Subway or something, since my client was essentially right across the causeway from Miami Beach, but it was North. When I hit Collins Road, I decided to hang a left instead of a right that would've taken me back near my South Beach hotel. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're bracing yourself for me to take this opportunity to invoke the oft cliche'd "road less traveled" by Robert Frost, but I'll spare you.(Oops, i just did...my bad). Well, the North side is where its at!

On the 2nd block that I came up to, it was a veritable cornucopia of exotic (translated Latin anyway you like it) eateries to chose from. On my left was Chilean. On my right, Cuban and Argentinian. I couldn't resist the empanadas in the window and there was a parking spot opening up that I thought just might be big enough for a Hummer, so I had to stop. I ended up having some empanadas filled with beef while I waited on my milanesa (breaded steak) sandwich on a big warm roll/baguette thingy. (Sorry, I don't usually say thingy). Que delicioso! A couple other people that seemed to be regulars rolled up while I was eating, so I knew I was at the right spot.

I gladly reported my findings back to my cousin, and patted myself on the back for once again having a nose for the local spots even when the plastic, mainstream places try to blind you with their repetitive and far too common offerings.