Food Editor: What I’m craving, loving, ordering. Plus pizza obsessions + a new high tea
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A fresh month has rolled in with new bites to savor, restaurant events to explore and food news to know about. But first, a cup of tea and a bit of time travel.
Time travel is the essence of the new high tea service at Proper Grit in downtown West Palm Beach. The new daily afternoon event at The Ben hotel’s main restaurant pays homage to the adventurous, pioneer-era author Byrd Spilman Dewey, whose Lake Worth shore-side estate the Ben Trovato inspired the hotel’s name.
Proper Grit’s “Dewey Daily Tea Party” serves a menu that’s both old-timey and new. Expect a multi-tiered presentation of finger sandwiches, scones and other pastry bites by the hotel’s head pastry chef, Maria Brown.
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Menu highlights include smoked trout finger sandwiches with cucumber, sweet onion and lemon-zested butter on whole grain bread. There’s also a ham, Brie and apple sandwich with Dijon mustard and soft butter on French bread. Add to that pistachio cream puffs, chocolate dulce de leche tarts, orange scones and macaroons.
To drink, there’s a variety of teas, both “proper” and “improper” (as in boozy), as the menu describes them.
Throwback tidbit: Don’t plan to scroll Instagram while you sip your tea. The hotel will “invite” you to put your cellphone away in a wooden case.
Hours and price: The Dewey Daily Tea Party, which costs $45 per person, is offered Monday through Friday at 2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 3 p.m. Reservations are required 48 hours in advance.
Also at The Ben: the $100 Bloody Mary that puts the brunch in boozy brunch drinks.
Proper Grit at The Ben: 251 N. Narcissus Ave., 561-461-0040, ProperGrit.com
Tasting notes
What I’m craving: The steak sliders at Lewis Steakhouse’s happy hour in suburban Jupiter. Steak with balsamic onions and gorgonzola mayo on a slider bun – how’s that for a weekday cabernet-paired bite? The sliders are among the eight sandwiches I featured in Wednesday’s “Best New Sandwiches” story.
What I’m loving: The Vikki Vallencourt cocktail at Voodoo Bayou in Palm Beach Gardens. It's refreshing with a hint of bitter. A pretty shade of melon, this sip mixes pressed cantaloupe juice, lemon juice, vodka, orgeat syrup and aromatic bitters. It was delicious with our shared bites, especially the barbecue jumbo shrimp with garlic and the wood-fired oysters with chili butter. Voodoo Bayou is at Downtown Palm Beach Gardens plaza, 11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Ave.
What I’m ordering: Chinese-American takeout. This is the perfect weekend to satisfy our lo mein whims – Saturday is National Chinese Takeout Day. While it always seems a challenge to find the romanticized, old-school Chinese-American takeout dishes we may remember from childhood, there is a revival of sorts happening locally. I just re-read my recent story about what's driving this mini-wave of new Chinese-inspired concepts, and now I want dumplings.
Breakfast at the West Palm Beach GreenMarket
Here’s a new walking tour to put on your staycation list: a Saturday morning breakfast swing through the West Palm Beach GreenMarket. And organizers promise there’s “no waiting in line” for tour participants.
The Mornings in the Market Food Tours offer a front-of-the-line, VIP experience, say organizers, who are the same folks that brought the popular West Palm Beach Food Tours to the city.
What to expect at this new market tour? A hefty (and varied) breakfast. The tour stops at the vendor stands selling Cider Donuts, TocToc Arepas, Havana pastelitos and café, La Gringuita cookies, Chef Luc French Bakery items, Jerry’s Here guacamole and other bites.
“Food tastes better when you know the person who made it, and you know where it came from,” tour company founder Kristl Story said in a written statement. “That’s what this tour is all about.”
The Mornings in the Market Food Tours take place Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m. and run through April. Tours are limited to 12 participants per week. Tickets are $69 and are sold at WestPalmBeachFoodTour.com. Pro tip: wear comfy shoes (and stretchy pants!).
Seafood markets on the move
Two of the county’s top seafood markets are moving. But loyal customers won’t have to drive too far to shop at them. Both Captain Clay and Sons of Delray Beach and Outclaws of Lake Park are moving about a mile from their current locations.
Captain Clay’s, the Delray Beach market owned and operated by commercial fisherman Clay Brand and his sons, will move just north on Federal Highway, a couple of blocks north of George Bush Boulevard.
“The space is definitely a little bigger,” says market employee Travis Kirk. “The boys are just upgrading.” He told me the move is expected to happen in December.
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Outclaws, the Lake Park wholesale and retail seafood market that’s famous for its fresh stone crab claws, is moving this month to the former Pizza Hut waterfront space on Northlake Boulevard in North Palm Beach.
“It’s a bigger space, a free-standing building with plenty of parking,” says Outclaws owner Jason Brown, who hopes to move into the new space around Thanksgiving time.
He told me he’s particularly excited to have about 250 feet of waterfront space on the property, which will house a full retail market with prepared foods, seafoods, meats and produce.
“We’ll have an area to sit outside, a deck on the west side on the water,” says Brown, who plans to have about 50 seats for customers who’d like to enjoy their grab-and-go meals with a water view onsite.
Now open: cult pizza shop
The innovative, pizza-loving minds behind downtown Delray Beach’s Death by Pizza pop-up opened their first brick-and-mortar, takeout pizza shop this week.
The concept’s founder Koby Wexler, who started the wildly popular pop-up in August 2020, specializes in thick, square-edged Detroit-style pizza, the kind with crisp edges and an infinity of melted cheeses.
Here’s how Death by Pizza started and why it became one of the city’s pandemic obsessions.
Death by Pizza: 528 NE 2nd St., Delray Beach, Death by Pizza Delray on Facebook
Storytellers take on the holidays
The Post’s Storytellers series returns to Lake Park’s Black Box Theater Nov. 16 with a focus on the holidays. As a “teller” in our September show on food and family, I can tell you the energy in the room is wonderful to experience.
Please join us for some soul-warming stories. Here’s what to know about the show, the storytellers and where to get tickets.
Read recent columns by Liz Balmaseda
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◾ Goodbye to a beloved and iconic pizzeria's final location.
Liz Balmaseda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network. She oversees The Post's daily food coverage. Follow her on Instagram and Post on Food Facebook. She can be reached by email at lbalmaseda@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Food Editor: Delray Pizza restaurant, West Palm high tea, Jupiter steak
