The Mellow Mushroom - Delray Beach, Florida

I had occasion to go to the Mellow Mushroom with a large group (about 25) after our Worldwide Photowalk in Delray Beach. It is a true place for a Foodies Unite experience!

Our entire visit was outstanding and I have since taken my family back for a great time as well.

The staff is accommodating and everyone smiles!  Even with a large group, they were ready for us - the wait-staff was organized and the food practically flew out of the kitchen.

We munched on pizzas (House Special and Kosmic Karma being two faves), and pretzels (crunchy and soft and awesome!), and calzones stuffed with all manner of high quality ingredients.  One of the girls even ordered more of the stuffed portobellos to take home!

The atmosphere is entertaining with huge murals of the Beatles and other 60's & 70's icons.  Colorful, delightful, a taste bud treat and with a beer selection to make a connoisseur weep – the Mellow Mushroom is a hit!

Mellow Mushroom Site & Menu

Calypso - Pompano Beach, Florida

Calypso Menu

Caribbean style food is in abundance in South Florida but few places do it as well as Calypso in Pompano Beach.

Tucked away in a little strip shopping center, Calypso is cheerful and busy and the service always comes with a smile. The menu is family friendly (so are the prices) and the food is all cooked fresh.

We love the steaming plates of jamaican jerk or curry wings.and  have also  done takeout and wing orders for large parties.

For me, the favorite is the conch – conch fritters, grilled and cracked conch, conch chowder - I have had it every way at Calypso and loved it every way -  Excellent quality, tender and well-seasoned and consistently wonderful.

The kids like the fish and chips or fresh fish sandwiches but I also recommend the cutters and anything seasoned in the jerk.

Calypso is a great favorite to add to your regular restaurants!

Jaxson's Ice Cream - Dania Beach, Florida

Jaxson's has been in South Florida for over 50 years defining the ice cream experience.  They make their ice cream homemade on the premises every day as was explained to my son who was treated to a tour when he asked some questions!

No matter where we have lived in South Florida, we have made the drive to indulge in all of our Jaxson flavor favorites: bubble-gum, black raspberry, double chocolate chip, black cherry, banana – we have yet to find one that was not amazing!

If you are feeling very adventurous, try the Kitchen Sink served in a...kitchen sink!



If you can get past the ice cream, Jaxson's has good sandwiches, burgers and salads and an extensive menu.

The food is delivered with cheerful smiles and the restaurant is an explosion of vintage memorabilia, old-fashioned candy and nostalgia.

All in all – this is one of the best family dining out destinations in South Florida!

Jaxson's Ice Cream & Menu

Anthony Bourdain - 13 Places to Eat Before You Die

13 Places to Eat Before You Die

Anthony Bourdain



Any seasoned traveler can tell you that the "best" meals on the planet are the result of an ephemeral confluence of circumstances. A table at the most expensive restaurant in the world does not guarantee a truly great meal. That said, if you're planning on dying in the near future and want to knock off a list of final, glorious dining experiences, these places would make a very respectable binge. Start with one.

Make a reservation today. Go on an empty stomach. Trust me: This is livin'.




1)  St. John (London) If I had to die with half a bite of anything hanging out of my mouth, it would probably be the roast bone marrow in Fergus Henderson's plain-white dining room at St. John. Scooped out and slathered onto a crust of toasted bread and sprinkled with sea salt, it's simple yet luxurious. The menu is proudly English, a rebuke to anyone still laboring under the impression that English food sucks. Famously pork-centric and focused on traditional offal and game dishes, St. John is as wonderful for what it does as for what it doesn't do: compromise. It specializes in good ingredients from "happy" animals that are treated with love and respect. Henderson has become a reluctant spiritual leader to a whole generation of chefs--and even the old-guard guys love to stop by for crispy pig tails, ham in hay, or a properly roasted bird. This is one of the truly bullshit-free zones on the culinary landscape.

2)  elBulli (Girona, Spain) It's the hardest reservation in the world. And everything they say is true: It's an adventure, a challenge, a delicious and always fun acid trip to the farthest reaches of creativity. Brothers Ferran and Albert Adrià and their team are the most influential and creative people working in food--and this surprisingly casual restaurant on a sleepy cove on Spain's Costa Brava is probably the most important restaurant of our time. Love it or hate it, if you have the opportunity to wangle a reservation, do it. It's like seeing Jimi Hendrix's first show. Forget any preconceptions you might have. Is it good? Yes. More important--is it fun? Yes. Yes. Yes.

3)  The French Laundry (Napa Valley, California)

4  Per Se (New York City) The best sit-down, multicourse, white-tablecloth meal of my life was at the French Laundry. And subsequent meals at Per Se, also run by chef Thomas Keller, were no less wonderful. There's no better way to go than the full-on tasting menu, a once-in-a-lifetime marriage of the best ingredients, creative thinking, and high standards, along with the personal imprint of the most respected chef in the world. How can Keller be at both restaurants at once? It doesn't matter. Pick one. Fast for 2 days, stretch your stomach with water the day of, and then see how they do it at the very top. It's a level of perfection in food and service that few even try to approach.

5)  Sin Huat Eating House (Singapore) It's grimy looking, the service can be less than warm, the beer is served in a bottle (often with ice), and the tables sit halfway into the streets of Geylang, Singapore's red-light district. But the crab bee hoon--giant Sri Lankan beasts cooked with a spicy mystery sauce and noodles--is pure messy indulgence. The whelks, steamed spotted cod, prawns, scallops (in fact, any seafood available that day) are all worth having. Warning: It looks cheap, but it's not.

6)  Le Bernardin (New York City) This is the best fish joint . . . anywhere. And it's relevant and fun, despite its formal service and fine-dining ambience. The grand tasting menu is a stripped-down thing of relatively austere beauty. And whatever they're doing this year or this month is always, always interesting.

7)  Salumi (Seattle) It's a sandwich shop with a couple of tables, and a true mom-and-pop--even if they're the mom and pop of famous chef Mario Batali. Anything cured, anything braised, any of the limited hot specials . . . in fact, anything the Batalis make is worth grabbing with both hands.

8)  Russ & Daughters (New York City)

9)  Katz's Delicatessen (New York City) Russ & Daughters started as a pushcart nearly a century ago, and it now serves some of the last traditional Eastern European Jewish-style herring and smoked belly lox, sable, and sturgeon. And since you're close, walk down a few doors to Katz's to remind yourself how pastrami is done right. This is what New Yorkers do better than anybody else. And here's where they do it.

10)  Etxebarri (Axpe, Spain) Victor Arguinzoniz grills unlikely ingredients over homemade charcoal: baby eels, imperial beluga caviar, oysters. (The fresh chorizo and prawns work, too.) Theoretically you can't grill a lot of this stuff, but a handcrafted series of pulleys that raise and lower each item makes it possible. Eat here, and no one is eating better.

11)  Sukiyabashi Jiro (Tokyo) The best sushi on earth? Maybe. Jiro Ono is more than 80 years old, and he's been doing old-school Edo-style sushi his whole life. Every piece of fish is served at precisely the right temperature and the rice and seaweed alone are blackout good. Ono will ruin sushi for you from anywhere else.

12)  Hot Doug's (Chicago) This place convinced me the Chicago red hot is, in fact, superior to the New York hot dog. And it's home to two great innovations in American gastronomy: the "foie gras dog" and the weekends-only practice of cooking French fries in duck fat. It's proof that food doesn't have to be expensive to be great.

13)  Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue (Kansas City, Kansas) People may disagree on who has the best BBQ. Here, the brisket (particularly the burnt ends), pulled pork, and ribs are all of a quality that meet the high standards even of Kansas City natives. It's the best BBQ in Kansas City, which makes it the best BBQ in the world.

Anthony Bourdain is the host of the Travel Channel's No Reservations.