Michy’s got a lot of hype. Famous Iron Chef lady, hip little restaurant, really good food, foie gras and waffles… hype. Did not live up to the hype. Situated in a funky mini strip mall north of downtown, you have to pay five dollars for valet parking. Valet parking in the lot where you pull in. Like, pull in, hand over keys, watch Mr. Valet drive ten yards. Ok, working through it, you can have a jerky valet system if your food rocks. Enter restaurant. Overwhelming girly, with big beachy shell-chandeliers and bright orange and blue wallpaper, lots of shiny things and cutesily mismatched floral bits. Ok, I can get over your weirdo decor for some bomb foods. We read over the menu, feeling a little on stage in the kinda too-open dining room, surrounded by suited Miami business types, then ordered the ceviche and pork belly for apps. Ceviche: very very good. White fish, shrimp, and calamari in a somehow creamy, spicy, smooth sauce, with little cubes of sweet potato and big Peruvian corn-nuts. Really good. Things are looking up. Next, pork belly. Pork belly sounds so hip and tasty, “pork belly… so hot right now.”
Um, so, it’s a big hunk of pork fat. Maybe better repurposed into things for a porky flavor (Jamie O’s lasagna…) but in big two-inch chunks, a little overpowering in the fat department. Especially when these big hunks o’ pig are situated in salty broth with salty soba noodles and salty clams. So, a hit and a miss so far. Entrees arrive. Dad a Florida bouillabaisse, Mom carbonara, Anne prawns and pasta. According to Dad’s report, the bouillabaisse was unimpressive and creepily beefy. The carbonara was good, but extraordinarily ridiculously rich. Mine was tasty, big prawns in a slightly spicy tomato-y seafood broth with sheet pasta and kale. Good. A little unwieldy, having to craft little pasta-prawn parcels out of antennaed creatures, but good. But… not rocking my little socks like Yelp promised me. Dessert menu came, and unimpressed, we passed and were quickly ushered along on our way. “Thank you, yes, come again, ok, bye now.” My dream dinners are slow slow slow, two hours of conversation and happy eating, but Michy’s was all said and done in an hour and fifteen. Disappointing, I said to the smiling portrait of Michy herself as I walked out the back door to pay five dollars to watch a guy walk twenty feet to my car.
(This may be the first mean thing on Annacotta… I feel kinda bad, but it was fun to use new adjectives.)
But then we went back to Miami Beach and kinda snuck into the Fontainebleau and had drinks in their super uber maximum hip lobby bar, which was perfectly Miami-esque and rockin’ and made us feel a bit better about the world after our less than satisfactory dinner.
Drinking my ten-dolla OJ & Seltzer at the FB.
anna cotta 
Bummer. But thanks for saving me a trip to Michy’s.
And don’t feel bad about being mean on your own blog. Besides, I don’t think you were mean.
It’s good to have a little disappointment and/or revelation regarding hype…most of it *is* hype, and you’ll eventually read through that to the facts: glitzy, glammy, o-so-interesting yes, but how was the effin’ food?!?!?! And how will the food be when *I*, a mere mortal, dine? I agree that a good good meal is long and slow and interesting (but not so interesting that you don’t understand it). All the elements must be in play, elsewise it’s a gorgeous room with smug service and mediocre food, or rockin’ food but the hygiene of the shop is suspect, or the people are really nice but the room and the food are both a bit scary. Bitch bitch bitch (I’m very demanding). All the more reason to go to friends’ houses for dinner; a smallish town like Moscow necessitates developing one’s own skills, and some home cookin’ here rivals anything I’ve had in any fancy-schmancy ristorante ANYwhere…but you played this well in having Dad pay. Dads are good at paying 😉
I am so so so sad to read this. Michy’s was my fave when I lived in Miami and I miss it so. Had some truly epic meals there…. the kind that last for hours and leave you so stuffed you can hardly walk. I have always found that their apps are better than the entrees and the best strategy is to just order a bunch of stuff and share. I had these toro wrapped oysters once there that changed my life. I still dream about them.
Glad to see you hit up Michael’s Genuine while you were there… a well deserved James Beard winner in my book.
Let me know the next time you head to South Florida- there are so many great places to go. Missing that FL weather now too.