"There are a lot of cow suicides."
By the time you sit down with the Travel Channel’s Andrew Zimmern at Palacio de los Jugos on Flagler Street and Red Road, he has already polished off a plate of roasted lechón with moros and yuca. He has said yes to the most airy tostones in town, yes to those crispy, incomparable chicharrones, yes to the fried pork chunks.
“I know my physical limits,” says the star of Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern, who has ingested everything from squirrel brains in Appalachia to spleen sandwiches in Sicily to herb-infused cow urine in Goa. He is at Palacio with perhaps the joint’s top ambassador, Miami chef Michelle Bernstein, who calls the place one of the most authentic among the endless Cuban eateries in town.
“With almost any food, there is only so much of it you can eat before the body says, ‘We need to get this eggplant, or whatever, out of our system,’ ” he says. “With animal fat, there’s a point where the body just says, ‘No more.’ ”
Zimmern, who was in town to tape a show on some of Miami’s best local eats and returns this weekend for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, pushes away the pile of chicharrones, those salty strips of fried pork rind with layers of fat and meat attached, before his system sends any serious warnings.
Read more at the Miami Herald.