Culinarily Adventurous Girls

Home

Who are "The Culinarily Adventurous Girls "?

Written by Hilda Alvarez-Strang

The Culinarily Adventurous Girls – and yes, we know “Culinarily” isn’t a word, but we don’t care! – are a group of friends who like to try new and interesting food. As the name implies we are a group of women, but we often have male "special guests" join us in our adventures.

We usually try to go to ethnically diverse restaurants, but sometimes we just go to a new restaurant to try it out. During Miami Spice for example, we will try restaurants to which we normally wouldn’t go even if they aren’t “ethnic”.

Ta-Zin - July 19, 2009

Written by Hilda Alvarez-Strang

At the last Culinarily Adventurous Girls dinner, Cris, Michelle and I went to Ta-Zin Restaurant on Jefferson Avenue in Miami Beach. The place is beautiful inside - and outside there's fake camel at the door! So, needless to say a picture had to be taken. When we arrived we were seated at a big, beautiful booth - decorated with pillows and fringe and candles and Moroccan knick-knacks.

Our server came right over with water and delicious Moroccan home-made bread with seasoned olive oil and a small bowl of amazing potato salad. For appetizers we followed our server’s recommendation and ordered the Salad Sampler which turned out to be a great idea! It was a beautiful tray with many small dishes containing all the salads and dips they make. It included hummus, tahini, baba ganoush olives, more of the potato salad, tomatoes with cilantro and peppers, a stewed tomato dish, and several other items, one of which we were warned was very hot, and it was - so we didn’t eat it. The salad/appetizer platter was accompanied by warm pita bread. We also ordered a Chicken Pastilla, which is phyllo pastry stuffed with chicken, spices, almonds and saffron and topped with sugar and cinnamon - delicious! Our server came by several times asking us if we wanted more bread - we got more Moroccan bread. We accompanied our meal with Moroccan wine, Cris and I had Rosé and Michelle had Red - perfect!