Ale-1-A
Bar Red Beard, 3301 NE 33rd St., 754.223.4665
With a couple notable exceptions, Fort Lauderdale’s craft beer bar boom has mostly been an inland phenomenon. Now though, a new bar is taking craft beer to the east side of the Intracoastal.
Bar Red Beard sits just off A1A on NE 33rd Street in the increasingly popular nightlife area that also includes Blue Jean Blues, Smoke BBQ, Lucca and Bokamper’s, among others. This new entrant offers some live music evenings, sports on the TV – and they do food. The menu offers casual dining options to suit different tastes, from meatballs to a pulled pork sandwich to tater tots with remoulade to “Geraldine’s pizza by the slice.”
Mostly though, what the place offers is a beer selection to rival the city’s top inland destinations. The frequently changing beer menu tends to feature many of the top local and regional breweries including Concrete Beach, Twisted Trunk and, of course, Funky Buddha. For people who just can’t find a beer that suits, Red Beard also tends to have a cider or two. And they also have a solid winelist.
Moon Over Fort Lauderdale
Thai Moon by the Sea, 3026 E Commercial Blvd., 954.772.7766, thaimoonbythesea.com
Creative Thai and Japanese dishes – with a couple unique twists that originate far from Asia – are on offer at the newest entrant in northeast Fort Lauderdale’s growing Asian food scene.
The lunch and dinner menus offer all sorts of sushi and sashimi as well as pad thai dishes, plenty of pork and beef of varying spiciness degrees and plenty of seafood. The expansive menu offers plenty of options, making this a fun place to try with a big group and lots of sharing. Then comes the most unique offering – the restaurant’s “build your own burrito” section. Diners first choose their fish, then select from a list of largely Japanese flavors – seaweed salad, yamagobo (Japanese carrot), etc – and sauces including spicy mayo, wasabi cream and eel sauce. Wrap it up in a rice-based burrito and there you are – a trans-continental concoction. A daily 5-to-7 p.m. happy hour offers several entrees plus plenty of appetizers and treats from the sushi bar.
A Legend’s New Flavour
Kitchen Four Twenty, 420 N. Federal Hwy., 954.900.3107
Christina Wan’s family has been opening restaurants in South Florida for a long time, but her newest venture’s something different. The restaurateur behind Christina Wan’s Mandarin House and co-owner, with nephew Alex Kuk, of Temple Street Eatery, has gotten into something new – traditional American home cooking. Kitchen Four Twenty sits at 420 N. Federal Hwy. (which is surely how it got its name, so quit chuckling back there). It’s next to Temple Street and just a short walk away from Christina Wan’s. But with pancakes, waffles and fried chicken on the menu, this modern take on diner eating is miles away in style and content. That’s not to say the new place just does heavy diner fare. Palliard, black-eyed pea hummus and the, ahem, Kale Caesar salad are among the lighter options. But really, the bulk of the fun here comes from a menu that veers from chicken and waffles to po’boys to lemon ricotta pancakes to bacon Benedict. It’s the sort of menu that will sort out an attack of the munchies – at any time of day.
