This is my week for classic Fort Lauderdale restaurants. Tuesday night we went to the soft reopening of the Mai-Kai. The food was OK (as I remembered it) and the drinks were excellent, though I sent back my Floridita Daiquiri - described as Hemingway's favorite from the Floridita Bar in Havana - because it arrived frozen. When I complained (I don't think Hemingway drank frozen cocktails) I was told that all the Mai-Kai's daiquiris are frozen. We were seated outside, as the dining room was not yet open, and after the meal we went in to look at the bar, which was as atmospheric as I remembered it, though I seem to recall the old one had windows with water continuously running down the outside panes, giving the feeling of being inside a waterfall. But it was good to see the place beautifully restored.
Last night, I went with some friends to Cafe Martorano. I had heard it was loud, and it was; a bit like eating in a disco - there is a disco ball over the bar - except that nobody was dancing. The chef-owner doubles as DJ. As Max Beerbohm once said: "For people who like that sort of thing it's just the sort of thing that they like."
