We chose to go to Sugarcane in Midtown Miami on our second last night. I’d seen an Instagram of some pretty nice looking bone marrow and seafood dishes and made a note of it. After doing some research I discovered they are part of the Sushi Samba group (hmmm, good or bad?) and get some pretty good reviews. We were primarily interested in seafood and not going to South Beach. The idea of not going to NYC chains was a bust, since this would qualify! Not to mention we broke down and hit Daniel Boulud’s db bistro moderne our final night!

I think we enjoyed our meal at Sugarcane the most. While every single dining experience was good, this one had a combination of great food, presentation, service (Rolly), atmosphere (we dined outside) and price.

Sugarcane specializes in Rum and has a nice cocktail, wine and beer list as well. We’ll start there as we tasted a nice selection!

Specialty Cocktails
Eden. Japanese cucumber juice, fresh cilantro, Corzo Silver tequila, aromatic celery bitters.
This was like a cilantro mojito with tequila. Sweet but good.
Leche de Tigre. Coconut milk, yuzu, Kappa Pisco, simple syrup, fresh cilantro
This was served in a copper mug like a Moscow Mule, so Steve gave it a try. It was quite unique and tasty. Not too sweet.

We also each had a glass of the white Sangria to start, which was tasty but there were quite a few other interesting options on the menu. Steve particularly enjoyed a Beer Cocktail called the Gold Coast with Velvet Falernum, lemongrass infused rum, fresh lemon and Stella Artois.

We selected items from Snacks, Raw Bar, Crudos, Tapas and the Robata Grill. We were told there are 3 kitchens preparing foods – raw bar, tapas/hot foods, and the Robata grill so items would arrive as ready. Rolly requested raw bar and Crudos first, followed by the hot stuff. The only disappointment there was getting snacks in the middle of our meal!

First up, jumbo shrimp cocktail. These were by far the most reasonably priced and most jumbo shrimp we’ve seen. A few NYC establishments serve some meaty shrimp for a pretty penny. Nothing like this! After all, proximity to the Gulf will get you awesome gulf shrimp! Just like we get the best oysters.

jumbo shrimp cocktail $4

Next we had two Crudos. Our waiter Rolly warned us against bitterness on the grouper and Meyer lemon one, but that’s exactly the flavor we were looking for – ceviche-like! The scallops were awesome. Quite different from the ones we had at River Seafood & Oyster Bar. Head to head, the $$ is on The River in Brickell.

scallop, apple, black truffle, lime, jalapeño $12

grouper, Meyer lemon, olives, sea salt $13

Along came our snack. Pig’s ear, a favorite of mine difficult to find. Used to love one at Lowcountry in NYC but the owner keeps flipping concepts and now they are Louro, which is now Portuguese instead of Southern. I digress.

pig ear, BBQ spice

Our next dish was the Robata Grilled Octopus. It was amazing but too small! Loved the presentation, which was to slice the tentacle and put it back together on the skewer.

octopus aji panca $9

By this point I am full. The pig’s ear really put me over the edge and next up is the heavy! A huge pile of fresh bread arrives first, followed by giant beef bones topped with BBQ. Yikes. I’d say they’d be better seved to skip the meat on the top. Rolly did tell us the best way to eat it was set aside the top!

bone marrow, veal cheek marmalade $15

OMG. We still have pork belly on the way. It is served on top of mango slaw, so I am looking forward to some veggies at this point! Too bad I’m stuffed as this was a nice crispy serving and the mango dish was refreshing.

crispy pork belly, spicy mango salad, shaved cabbage $13

After all of this we thought it would be fun to go out for drinks. Our waiter Rolly sent is to the Wynwood Arts District. We never quite made it there not realizing Miami has a 2nd Ave on either side of N Miami Ave. and if there’s one thing we read it was don’t wander around Midtown. Saw some awesome graffiti though.

After asking a guy in a liquor store behind bullet proof glass where we went wrong we decided to pack it in. Luckily a cab driver was getting gas at a station across the street. He was off duty by was kind enough to take us down to the Viceroy. And we got there just in time to see the fireworks from the pool deck. Spectacular!

But the sky exploded with rain moments later. The wind whipped and deck chairs started to fly. People started running and screaming. Steve and I got nailed with chairs in the legs. We are no worse for the wear save for some nasty black and blue marks. We were standing at the glass rail looking out at the hundreds of boats scattering so we didn’t see them coming.
We got inside the building to find a line of 50 people at the elevator. So we asked an employee where we’d find the stairs. I ask, will we be able to get back in? They didn’t know, so a guy came with us. Ha. A labyrinth in there! And you can’t get out. Another adventure. We eventually exited on the side of the building at the ground floor in torrential rain. By then the elevators were clear and we went back to our room. At this point going out would be silly after two random guys saved our asses twice in one night. Total riot! We had a guardian angel.