I have a love/hate relationship with Stephen Starr restaurants. He's definitely a prolific restaurateur with awesome places like Upland but then he's got terrible places like El Vez and painful trendy places like Buddakan. But I was curious as to what he had going on in the Miami scene, so I decided to check out The Continental while in town. The Continental has a very retro 70's upscale diner feel to it. It's kind of kitschy with a tikki cocktail menu but then the food is weirdly Asian and slightly Caribbean.
I went with Laura and one of her trade association colleagues. We sat outside which is one of the best things about Miami - you can always sit outside and enjoy a good meal. Our waiter was super friendly and nice and recommended a bunch of things for us to share. We started with a basic organic green salad ($10) which was nice since Laura and I had been eating a lot of hotel conference food all week. Based on the rec of our waiter, we got the lettuce wrap ($29), Jamaican Jerk Chicken ($24) and the Pastrami Fried Rice ($16). The salad was very standard - basic fresh mixed greens with a lemon vinaigrette. Next came the fried rice which the waiter raved about - he said it was super unique and different because of the pastrami element and heavy black cracked pepper on it. In all honesty, I've totally had some similar to this somewhere else and I just don't get the trend of using pastrami. But the actual fried rice part was quite tasty in that salty fried rice way. Next we had the lettuce wraps and this was an amazing dish. Incredibly tender and juicy Korean marinated skirt steak with kimchi, pickles and a spicy (sambal?) garnish with very large and fresh pieces of Bibb lettuce. It was fantastic and jam packed with lots of flavor and heat. The other main dish of jerk chicken was equally as tasty (see what I mean about a totally random menu?). The chicken was super moist and tender and served with traditional rice and peas. Awesome dish even if it was kind of a random item. The waiter definitely steered us in the right direction.
Of course, we had to get dessert and got the millionaire's chocolate cake ($11) because any dessert with that name is just begging for you to order it, even if you don't like chocolate. To offset it, we also got the Strawberry Shortcake ($11) because that's one of my favorite desserts. As expected, I loved the shortcake much more. It was the perfect blend of shortcake, creme fraiche and sweet sugar soaked strawberries. This is totally my kind of dessert - still sweet but not rot your tooth sweet. You can find that kind of sweetness with the chocolate cake - it was waaay too much for me. I took one bite and while I fully appreciated it for what it was, I couldn't eat more than 1 bite.
While I didn't love this place as much as I did Upland, it was a very solid Stephen Starr representation. Even though the decor is kind of cheesy and the menu may not make a lot of sense, you'll have a great time and leave with a happy and full stomach. Total bill: $250 for 3 people
Photo Credit: Yelp
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