A Sweet Review for Multi-Culti Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill

Quoting anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz on the ideality of sugar, Victoria Pesce Elliott also thinks Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill is pretty ideal, too. "What could be more satisfying than a gently priced, multicultural collection of tasty, well-executed eats served in a hip warehouse space by good-looking and well-trained staff?" VPE also notes the restaurant's penchant for Tweeting, saying they're "as well-versed in Tweeting as it is in old-fashioned manners," and, as a result, "this place has caught on faster than fire in a dry cane field." Everything on the menu "sounds impossibly alluring. Even the ubiquitous Kobe sliders are ruggedly delicious here." Although there's a full raw bar, "The success of most of the cooked dishes rests on a subtle synchronization of sweet, salty, buttery, crackly and savory."

Although VPE "adored the burrata concoctions," "What's missing at this smart and sexy newcomer are starches beyond a couple of potato dishes and some sticky pork buns. There are no noodles, rices, breads, pastas or even chips. A paper-thin flatbread pizza was about as close as we could get." And about that roast chicken, the one the Twitterverse seemed to plotz over ever since Lee Schrager put out the first Tweet? "A usually-available blackboard special of whole roast chicken threatens to crash the servers on social networking sites. Ours was fairly golden but not all that crispy. What did take my breath away was the stick of butter that had congealed in the take-home container when I glanced at the leftovers the next morning." Although she was "suddenly hungry again" around midnight, VPE concluded, "No worries. I'll be back for more." Verdict? 3 stars. [Miami Herald]