‘Roadfood' warriors document discoveries

There is no bumpy back road, clogged city street or interminable stretch of highway they haven't endured in their three-decade search for the highest expression of you name it: triple-patty cheeseburger (Houston's Lankford Grocery and Market), apple fritter (Chicago's Old Fashioned Donuts) or New England clam chowder (Manhattan's Pearl Oyster Bar).

But even with all their cred _ the couple write an award-winning column for Gourmet magazine and are heard weekly on public radio's "The Splendid Table" _ one does not easily buy that they managed to home in on the very best Cuban sandwich, Key lime pie or conch chowder in South Florida. After all, there are so many contenders. But the Sterns profess to have found paramount examples of each in their forthcoming book, "500 Things To Eat Before It's Too Late" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $19.95).

Nobody can beat the Cuban sandwich at the no-frills Las Olas Cafe on South Beach? We checked out the claim. From the first bite of hot, perfectly pressed sandwich, crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside with melted Swiss cheese, mojo-infused pork and salty ham, you learn to take the Sterns seriously.

"Cuban sandwiches have become like Buffalo wings," Michael Stern says from their home in Connecticut. "They have gone way beyond their natural habitat, which is Tampa and Miami. I eat them whenever and wherever I find them... .

"The Cuban sandwich at Las Olas is a great classic. What we've learned about sandwiches over time is that you can have all the same ingredients, but so much of it has to do with the way it's assembled. That's true of a Cuban sandwich, a hoagie, a grinder."

What takes the Las Olas' Cuban ($4.50) over the top is the fresh pork loin, roasted and sliced on the premises each morning. Unlike most others, in this version the bread gets a slathering of real butter, not the fake stuff, before it goes in the press. And it goes in open-faced first so that the ingredients warm and meld and the cheese gets a bit of baked-on flavor at the edges. Pickles are plentiful and the yellow mustard isn't overpowering.

"Grilled long enough in the sandwich press known as a "plancha" for all the ingredients to sound a single, sensational chord of flavor, this is unquestionably among the greats," the Sterns write.

Their on-the-money assessments make you hopeful about the Key lime pie at Quinn's, an upscale steak house inside Ocean Drive's Park Central Hotel.

'ONE-TWO PUNCH'

"Its graham-cracker crust is buttery beyond belief; its one-two punch of sweet and tart is dazzling," write the Sterns, who also give props to the Key lime pie with ginger snap crust at Key West's Louie's Backyard as well as the versions at Key West Key Lime Pie Co. and Joe's Stone Crab. (Joe's gets the stone-crab nod, too, of course, along with Keys Fisheries in Marathon.)

The pie at Joe's is tried and true. But what about the one at Quinn's? A quick bite or two and you start thinking you need to pack the Sterns' new book whenever you travel in the States. The secret?

"We use only fresh Key limes, never the stuff from the bottle," says chef de cuisine Jay Daigle. "And yes, there's some good butter in the crust."

The Sterns do their own legwork, but they also rely on suggestions.

"We are only two people. Sometimes we just stumble onto a place and it turns out to be just wonderful. But when we travel we go armed with a list of tips from other people," says Michael.

3 BREAKFASTS A DAY

He and Jane are both 62. When they're not flying across the country and then jumping into rental cars to get to far-flung eateries, they're tooling around in their own hybrid Lexus. They are no strangers to indulging in three or four breakfasts or lunches in one day.

"When we started this, there was no Internet. People would write us letters. Now we have roadfood.com and people are constantly sending suggestions. 'You think "that" Cuban sandwich is great, let me tell you about an even better one.' People get passionate.

"About 90 percent of the places we write about offer inexpensive, informal, roll-your-sleeves-up fare. People will really fight for what they consider the best barbecue, the best fried chicken, the best Key lime pie. Especially when there are regional differences. Somebody who likes a New York hot dog can go to Chicago and not even recognize what they offer there as a hot dog at all."

The title of the Sterns' new book, which is scheduled for publication June 4, may suggest they see the country's pockets of culinary distinctiveness vanishing, but as they continue driving and tasting, they're feeling more and more optimistic.

"Some of these foods are in danger because of the kind of homogenization happening everywhere. But there are new foods making their way across the country," Stern says. "We have an incredibly diverse national cuisine. And it's cuisine that's impossible to codify. Tex-Mex, Italian-American. It's unruly, and you can never imagine that kind of codification that says 'This is the proper was to make this dish' that exists in other countries. Here, everybody has their own take and it can be messy and chaotic, but that can make it so good."

In the past decade, Stern says, Brazilian, Salvadoran and Chilean restaurants have multiplied around their Connecticut neighborhood as the area's population has become more and more Latin American.

"They are opening in places that used to be diners and cafes serving meatloaf and mashed potatoes," Stern says. "And it's kind of wonderful."

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© 2009, The Miami Herald.

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