Hi - one good option is to park at the south end of South Beach (near or at South Pointe Park), and carry out My Ceviche or Joe's Takeaway, and eat on the beach. For Cuban in the South Beach area, near 7th and Ocean Dr, Puerto Sagua is my go to place. Versailles or La Carreta if you're heading to Little Havana.

Lincoln Road Mall offers nice shopping, great people watching, and a lot of casual restaurant choices (including a Shake Shack!).

If you do decide to have a 'splurge' dinner in South Beach, I recommend The Bazaar at the SLS Hotel. It's a Jose Andres restaurant. Have a great time and let me know if I can offer other suggestions.

In Hollywood, Le Tub has great burgers, Taco Beach Shack, and the donuts at Dandee Donuts.

Liked LeTub, it was super chilly after the rain and very windy so we didn't last long. I think my burger was a bit undercooked for my taste, but that was ok since I wouldn't have gotten through half of it anyway. Service was nothing to write home about.

Had lunch at Puerto Sagua, liked it a lot although I thought the rope vieja was a little chewy/tough, not as tender as I expected. Good flavor though. Medianoche sandwich was excellent, I'd love to go back with some adventurous eaters as my daughter wasn't excited to try new stuff. I don't know if I'm getting crotchety as I age, but I was kinda put off by the gallon of milk that sat on the counter from the time we entered until we left...seems less than sanitary. And handling the food and the money all at the same time...we survived so I will let it go.

Then in the spirit of not hitting a dive (her request) we went to Joe's Stone Crab for dinner and had a fine meal. I was surprised to find it almost exactly like the Joe's here at home, not sure why. Had a weird experience with a nearby diner having a sneezing attack and not leaving the table to spare the people behind him (that would be us). Seriously 25-30 LOUD energetic sneezes--putting his hand up to notify his dining partners he wasn't done yet-- and he didn't make any effort to stand up or leave the table. The waiter and staff observed and commented on our discomfort with the grossness factor and when I mentioned I'd probably be talking about it online, the waiter said it wasn't their fault. A comped piece of pie might've gone a ways to assuage the icky factor. Service was brisk. Key lime pie felt frozen. Overall, just sort of unpleasant, the sneezing guy put a damper on the meal for us. And for that kind of money I was disappointed.

We tried to get to the Taco Beach shack in Hollywood at lunch on Saturday and there was no parking anywhere. Must've driven around for half an hour before we gave up. For dinner my not-adventurous kid wanted italian food, lasagna. We went to Perrone's in downtown. Talk about bad service. We waited quite awhile for a table, as I stepped outside to scope out other places on the street the manager suddenly called us and set us up in a room in the back--next to a table set for 22. We ordered quickly but the waiter was frazzled beyond belief, he had other tables in the front room as well as this huge party and us. The food was quite good, I loved the lasagna although the portion was pretty minuscule IMO. Anyway, we didn't have any desire to try for dessert so we bolted as quickly as possible. I don't blame our waiter, but the owner/manager should've said something to us.

We had breakfast at the Westin as part of the executive lounge perks so we never got out for brunch. I'd love to head back to S Fl with some real foodies, I love my kid and she was a good sport but I'd have done things way differently!

Thanks again for the tips and messages!

After spending the whole day in the Everglades, we decided to hit dinner before we reached our quick motel stay before heading for the keys. We passed a full-looking Tex-Mex place, Casita Tejas, and figured it would be a good choice.

We had no problem getting a table (but were one of the last to do so), but they were slammed on a Sunday night, and our food was very slow to arrive. Salsa was pretty good, chips weren't fresh-fried, though.

I had the chipotle burrito (not on the online menu), which was nicely spicy. SueF had carnitas tacos (also not on the online menu), which were pretty tasty (there was some minor complaint, but I forget what it was).

A decent place to stop in between here and there, but not a destination.

Casita Tejas Mexican Restaurant
27 Krome Avenue
Homestead, FL 33030
(305) 248-8224
http://casitatejas.com

We were very favorably impressed with our visit to Cafe Versaille this weekend. There is a full restaurant and a separate bakery/cafe. We just went to the bakery/cafe and got stuff to go. They offer mostly sweets, some empanadas, a few sandwiches and coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice.

All of the empanadas were fresh and excellent. They had four different fillings available. Among the pastries, the guava in a flakey pastry was quite good, as was a tube like pastry filled with dulce de leche (sort of a Latin cannoli).

The place is very busy, and everything had a fresh from the oven/fryer feel to it. The staff is more comfortable using Spanish, but were very friendly and made their best effort to explain things to us in English.

All in all, a terrific place, well worth a stop. If you want to eat in the bakery/cafe, you order at the counter, get your food, and then find a table.