Miami on Sunday: Happy Brunch!

Brunch. This hybrid of breakfast and lunch leans more towards the former, though alcohol is admissible, especially a morning pickme-up like a Screwdriver or Bloody Mary. You can eat any breakfast food, though the classic dish is eggs Benedictpoached eggs and ham on English muffins (rather like a crumpet), topped with Hollandaise sauce.

Seafood pancakes and chicken à la reine (in a cream sauce with mushrooms) are popular for brunch, too. A lot of Miami Beach and Coconut Grove hotels feature a brunch buffet on Sundays.

Sandwiches
The deli variety includes corned beef, turkey, roast beef, smoked tongue and pastrami (a kind of cured beef) stacked on your choice of bread-white, wholewheat, rye, pumpernickel-or rolls.

Lox (smoked salmon) and cream cheese are a popular Jewish combination, served on a bagel. Pita or Arab flat bread may be filled with tuna (tunny), egg or chicken salads. A club sandwich is a layered collation of chicken, bacon, tomato and lettuce with mayonnaise on toast. You’ll have a job stretching your mouth around a Cuban sandwich -it’s piled so high with sugar – cured ham, pork, Swiss cheese (an American original) and pickles.

Leave it to the Cubans to improve on the hamburger: the frita adds minced pork to the beef, as well as garlic, paprika, vinegar and spices. A cheaper place to eat real Cuban is on Collins Avenue in South Beach at the angle between 14th or 13th.

Soups
Green turtle soup, a clear broth made from the flippers, is typically Floridian, as are spicy chowders that contain conch (a kind of shellfish). Delis ladle out borscht by the bowlful. Try this beetroot soup hot, or cold with sour cream.

Chicken soup is more than a food; it’s the home remedy every Jewish mother prescribes for whatever ails you. Add a matzoh meal dumpling to the clear broth and you have nourishing matzoh ball soup.

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