Great Company; Clunker Restaurant

 So we hadn't seen Deb and Norman together for awhile, and last night we had a lovely reunion. We picked the new restaurant at a long loved venue -- the former Redfish Grille at Matheson Hammock, now called Noma.

We had gone several months back when it was run by Chef Adrienne, a local (Kendall) chef of some fame, and the place was mediocre -- so we figured it must have improved under this big shot chef from NYC and Italy, Donatella Something or Other (not Versace). Nope.

The place is beautiful -- right on the gorgeous, WPA built atoll where the Ds spent a lot of their childhoods swimming under the watchful eye of my in laws. Before he moved to Pembroke Pines, Richard would go there daily for long swims, and when D1 came along, he insisted on bringing her there several times a week because she needed "Good air," which he said in his heavy accent.

We ordered cocktails, which were meh, and the handsome Serbian waiter was comically distracted. Deb wanted apps so she wouldn't have her gin on an empty stomach, and the fellow walked away before we could order them. He did that several times. But Wifey was excited -- supposedly they had a custom pizza oven, and she wanted that.

When we ordered, the waiter said "No pizza today -- ran out of dough yesterday. Didn't I mention that?" He had not, and so Wifey settled on grilled calimari, which was rubbery.

The pasta was mushy, and my chicken with a sausage sauce was barely lukewarm. Deb asked if the chocolate cake was flourless. The waiter said it was -- it was not. We joked that we were lucky no one had a gluten issue.

I was particularly critical, since the prices were sky high. The bill for the 4 of us, with only 3 cocktails, was $440.

There are too many great restaurants in Miami to put up with that. We ain't going to Noma, well, no ma. I anticipate they'll have a new manager/chef there early in 2023. They may already be on life support -- it was a gorgeous Sunday evening, and the place was no more than 1/3 full. Hot new places in the 305 are typically packed for the first year -- took us months to get into The Key Club, a steakhouse in the Grove.

But -- the main focus of the evening was the company, and it was grand -- catching up about kids, and in our case, grandkids. 

Dr. Barry had mentioned he and Donna never visited Joe's. Norman has a contact there, and so we're trying to set that up in the coming weeks.

That will be an evening with great company AND great food -- expensive, but worth it.