This week on "Check Please South Florida," a spot for delicious artisan cuisine in Fort Lauderdale.

You're gonna go into a place where you're gonna have a great meal.

[Michelle] A husband and wife owned smokehouse in Miami.

It truly was so delicious.

[Michelle] And a cult favorite tucked away in Kendall.

It's very positive, just a really nice place to be.

[Female Spokesperson] Cultural, culinary secrets and global flavors.

We have a passion for blending ingredients and seasonings from around the world.

[Announcer] Additional funding for "Check Please South Florida," is provided by George and Helen Weaver, and the Friends of South Florida PBS.

You just wanted to savor every bit of that dessert.

It's delicious.

The best tiramisu I've ever had.

There's nothing else like that in South Florida that I know about.

You'll pull the cheese and it'll be all the way up to here.

Hello, Michelle Bernstein.

Welcome to "Check Please South Florida."

This show where regular people from over South Florida recommend and review their favorite restaurants.

This is how the show works.

Every week we have three guests.

Each recommends his or her favorite spot, and then the other two gotta check them out and see what they think.

This week, Miami-Dade Placement Specialist, Maria Serralta Valera says that her pick provides fresh food, outstanding flavors, and great prices.

You'll be blown away by the high-quality food, artisanal buns, and farm style decor.

She says you're gonna want to make a stop at this gem in West Kendall.

World History teacher, Richard Quintana has graded his pick as an A plus for their unique dishes, high quality meats and desserts.

They taste like they were all made by He says that this delightful restaurant is your perfect opportunity to indulge in inventive fusions and flavors.

Get ready to be greeted by gracious and friendly staff at this Miami Smokehouse.

But first, Senior Account Manager, Carol Ann Shigo wants you to take advantage of the fresh ingredients, plentiful portions, and great energy at her contemporary pick, serving up delicious and inventive meals.

You won't want to put your fork down at this trendy enclave.

It's located in Fort Lauderdale, and it's called Heritage.

Hi, I'm Rino Cerbone, and I'm the Chef/Owner of Heritage in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Heritage is a concept that's very, very true to me.

I wanted to take some of the oldest recipes I had from my parents and my grandparents, and kind of present 'em in my way.

You know, I wasn't reinventing the wheel, I just wanted to put my spin on things, but not really change the essence of what was really going on.

The menu over here, it's very focused.

It's always a small menu.

It's not crazy large, like you've see in these other places.

The reason for that is because I want everything to be strong.

Instead of having a menu with a lot of things, we have a smaller menu, that everything is executed precise and awesome.

The ambiance of the place is very reflective of my personality.

It's a little bit rough around the edges with the garage doors and the exposed beams, and the concrete, but also very clean lines, casual, fine dining-ish kind of thing.

That was all by design.

You know, it's very reflective of who I am.

The area that we're in is an area called FAT Village, Fine Arts and Technology District.

The location that I'm in now, even when I came up with the concept, it was not the raddest place to be, but I saw the potential, and I knew it was gonna be something special.

What I want my guests to say when they're done dining here is, you know, they really care.

You know, you can tell that there's a lot of care that goes on here.

That's what I want them to take away from it.

You know, when they're in here, and they see it, and they feel it, they get it.

Heritage is a modern Italian restaurant that offers really cool, unique, fare that you're not gonna get anywhere else.

Carol Ann, tell me a little bit about this neighborhood, because it's so funky, right?

It's the Flagler Funky, it's Flagler Village.

It's warehouses that are, it's almost like a phoenix coming from the ashes.

It's neat.

So it has a lot of character.

Richard, what did you think when you walked in?

I found that it's definitely very chic inside.

It had a very industrial look.

It had beautiful black walls surrounded by these black and white photographs.

The mugshots.

Of mugshots, yeah the mugshots is what draws your attention the moment you come in.

You see mugshots of David Bowie and Sinatra.

So you know, you're gonna go into a place where you're gonna have a great meal, but also at the same time have a great, just very eclectic sort of experience at the same time.

So tell me about this last time you went, what you had.

Oh, wow we had a lot.

The squash blossom.

[Michelle] Oh, my favorite food.

Oh my god, it was a stuffed squash blossom, and it was lightly fried.

[Michelle] Did they stuff it with cheese by chance?

Yes, oh my gosh.

The combination was just beautiful.

Every presentation of every dish, everything was meant to be a certain way, and it was beautiful.

You also had a black mushroom arancini.

Yes, very earthy tasting, very substantial.

The presentation, these round black balls came out.

It's a plate with the flowers on top, and so it's [Michelle] So arancini is usually a rice ball.

It was rice, it was very, it's a dense rice.

So it was filling.

[Michelle] I bet, it's kind of like a croquetta with rice on the inside.

Right, we shared a lot.

So we brought a lot home too.

And you had a malfadin bolognese, I believe.

We did, we had the bolognese, which was filled with meat.

The sauce was, I mean, you could tell the pasta was handmade.

Then, we had a chocolate and peanut butter budino.

Okay, budino.

Budino pudding.

Budino pudding, oh my goodness.

[Michelle] An Italian pudding.

Oh, oh my goodness.

I honestly, I can't even tell you, it was made by angels.

It was that good.

Richard, you also started with squash blossoms, correct?

Yes we came with a group of friends, and we decided we were gonna try to order the house in terms of the menu, so we could try a little bit of everything.

The squash blossoms were delicious.

It had like a nice tempura-like crispiness to it.

[Michelle] Any sauce?

It was over a marinara sauce and slightly sweet, but just very creative and inventive, the flavors.

We noticed that with all of the dishes, and we followed that with the calamari, as well.

And that had a sweet and sour sauce.

[Michelle] Adidocci.

[Richard] Yes, fantastic, fantastic.

That was actually one of my favorite orders.

[Michelle] Was it?

Yes, it was good.

[Michelle] And the Calamari was fried, I would guess.

It was, yes, it was fried, plentiful portions.

You definitely will not leave hungry in terms of the size of the portions, it's great.

Right, right well that's always good.

Main course?

So we tried two pizzas and we also had two pasta dishes.

We also had the bolognese, which, very hearty.

It had a nice smokey flavor to it.

And I ordered the bucatini pasta, that was with a clam sauce.

The clams were quite meaty.

[Michelle] That's actually my breaking point.

I love pasta with clams.

[Richard] It was delicious and very hearty portions, and nice garlic flavor to it.

Maria.

So we started off with the Italian chopped salad, which was just amazing.

It had little cubes of salami and provolone, and then all the yumminess, everything just chopped up, and already with the dressing and everything on there.

And then we tried two pastas.

One of them was the gnocchi with the pesto sauce.

That was just amazing.

[Michelle] Was it potato gnocchi, do you know?

[Maria] Potato gnocchi.

Very, very, very good.

Tell me what you think about prices.

I really think that the prices were very fair for the amount of food you got.

I would agree.

I agree.

Definitely.

For the quality ingredients The quality ingredients, the quality of ingredients is totally worth it.

Carol Ann, sum it up for me.

It's just a fun, fabulous place.

You go, you have a good time, you have look at the walls and you leave full.

Richard.

It's a chic restaurant, and if you want a place with hearty portions where you can reconnect with friends, it's the place to go.

Maria.

Fresh, delicious food and excellent service.

Definitely be back.

Well, you can enjoy the contemporary dishes and trendy atmosphere of Heritage, located at 903 Northeast Fifth Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.

They're open for lunch and dinner, Wednesday to Sunday.

Reservations are accepted, where the average price for dinner without drinks is about $50.

Have you ever wanted to make budino, or pudding in your house?

Well, you know, it's not that hard.

You just have to be a little bit sensitive to temperature, and then you can make the most beautiful chocolate budino.

Budino is an Italian pudding, by the way.

All right, so I have some milk and cream warming in this pot.

And this right here, are egg yolks and sugar whisked together until you basically can't feel or hear the granulated sugar anymore.

So the next thing you're gonna wanna do is temper, which is bring up delicately the temperature of the yoke to the temperature of the cream and milk.

So little by little, you'll add some of that cream and milk mixture into the yolk, like so.

Little by little, you never wanna pour it all in at once, or you're gonna have some scrambled eggs on your hands.

And once you feel that the temperature is almost the same of the milk that's in the pot, you'll be ready to pour it in.

Just one more, let's see.

Yeah, I think we're good to go.

So now we are not shocking our yolks anymore.

We're gonna pour it right back into that pot.

So once you've reached 175, go ahead and shut this off, and pour this whole thing over the chocolate that's sitting to my left.

I'm pouring it over a strainer, so that just in case, I have overcooked an egg a little bit and caused a little bit of a scrambled egg, it will stick to the mesh.

Put that back over here.

Now go ahead and allow this mixture to start melting that chocolate that's underneath.

And once it's getting nice and warm, and I can see that the chocolate is just starting to melt, go ahead and start whisking it together.

Once that chocolate totally melts, go ahead and add, if you want to.

Now this is for flavor and I love this, a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, and a bit of salt.

It will bring out the flavor in the chocolate, thus making it just even more powerful.

So once that is really well combined, the chocolate totally melts in.

You've whisked that olive oil in completely and it's totally incorporated into this mix.

Go ahead and pour that into your favorite containers, which I've already done here.

So we love these little nifty containers.

You can get like a little glass container with a top.

And once you serve them, go ahead and spoon a little whipped cream right over the top.

And look everybody, you have just made a beautiful chocolate budino.

Now World History teacher Richard Quintana is ready to give you a lesson on how to navigate the remarkable menu of this husband and wife owned smokehouse.

It's located in West Kendall, and it's called Smoke and Dough.

Hi, I'm Michelle Coleman, and I'm co-owner here at Smoke and Dough.

And I'm Harry Coleman.

I'm the chef and co-owner of Smoke and Dough.

We definitely, what we did with the bakery Empanada Harry's, which is what we first opened, was take that traditional fare and turn it into something a little bit special.

Putting like our Miami footprint over a very American fare technically at the end of the day.

We really thought that this area could use a cool restaurant, where you don't have to drive to Wynwood, drive to Coral Gables, where you could still eat and have good drinks, good beer.

And we love this area.

Our best on the menu is brisket.

Brisket is king in Texas, and we wanted to create a brisket here, that was king too, but with our style.

We put our, you know, Cuban cafecito rub on it.

And that just gives it a nice little bark.

We kind of wanted to create here was more of a smokehouse environment, where it's a sit down service.

You can really enjoy the integrity of the meats that take hours and hours to cook.

all the different recipes.

All of the recipes that Harry's putting together.

Smoke and dough is chefdriven barbecue where you're coming in and the sides, desserts, and tapas, taste as good as the meat.

So tell us why you love this place so much.

I know you adore them.

Absolutely, Smoke and Dough started out doing popups for their barbecue during the hard times of covid.

And the owners, Harry and Michelle, they decided to open up a barbecue joint, which is in the West Kendall area.

And what they provide is traditional barbecue with a fusion of Latin favorites together.

Tell me what you ate.

So we started out with the pastrami tequenos, which is another interesting fusion.

The smoked pastrami along with the tequeno cheese, the white cheese, the crust is very flaky, just delicious, very hearty portions, and just a phenomenal dish to order.

We also had the smoked Gouda and ham croquettas, which Miami-Dade is the epicenter for croquettas.

We had those Those were so good.

The person that I went with, he said, he goes, I've lived here since like 1979.

And he goes, these are the best ham and cheese croquettas I've ever had.

They were phenomenal.

[Michelle] Are they ?

Yes, yes.

[Carol Ann] Delicious.

Delicious, absolutely.

[Carol Ann] The texture was amazing.

[Richard] And the portions are just so large that it's meant for sharing.

Speaking of sharing, tell me about the $99 Smokehouse Platter that you got.

Yes, it may seem pricey at first, but if you go with a group, it's definitely very reasonable.

It's a massive platter of smoked meats.

It includes brisket, pulled pork, this interesting sausage called timba sausage, which has guava and cheese together mixed in with the sausage.

And it comes with very moist cornbread, and baked beans and coleslaw, so it's a massive platter.

If you're going with novices, like we came with our friends, a couple of our friends hadn't had the food before.

It's definitely a great introduction to all of the quality of food that they offer there.

He says, novice, I was a novice, because when we went to go order, it was a Saturday and they have the burnt ends.

And we ordered the burnt ends and the truffle mac and cheese and the croquettas and the pulled pork.

And the waitress actually said, that's not enough.

I think you should get the brisket too.

And I had to [Michelle] Did you feel like you needed to get the brisket too?

Oh, I could never not get the brisket ever again.

But you had had leftovers though.

This brisket was rubbed with Cuban coffee, and smoked for 15 hours.

And I feel like I owe my first born to this waitress just for saying to me, you need the brisket too.

I don't know if I should have said that, but okay.

But it was Phenomenal.

Mind blowing.

Maria, other than the croquetta?

Oh, I had the smoked pastrami Mofongo.

Oh my goodness gracious.

Oh my gosh.

So I love Mofongo, and I was lucky enough to walk in on a Saturday, and they have Mofongo Saturdays.

And so I got the wooden mortar thing filled with a mashed green plantain, and then top with chunks of smoked pastrami.

I had never had smoked pastrami.

[Michelle] You're making me full just talking.

Let me tell you, my husband can smoke really good meat.

But we have never tried smoking pastrami.

so I didn't even know it was like a thing.

It was insane.

It truly was so delicious.

So the two of you had dessert, you had enough, I think.

Yes.

So what did you all have for dessert?

I had the smoked flan.

[Michelle] Smoked flan.

Smoked flan, so they prepared their flan in the same smoker that they smoked their meats in.

And it of course has a Can you taste the smoking?

Yes, it has a slight smokiness to it.

Very creamy.

I like to say that it would make your Cuban relative blush, 'cause it's that good.

If you're a fan of flan, it's definitely sets the standard in terms of the quality of it.

How creative, that's really cool.

And you?

Well, I had the cornbread for dessert.

[Michelle] Oh, okay.

Yeah, I had to choose.

[Michelle] Did you put butter on that cornbread?

[Maria] I sure did.

Good girl.

And it was so good.

[Michelle] I like that.

[Maria] Delicious.

Well, Richard Smoke and dough was your choice.

Sum it up for us please.

If you want a restaurant that provides unbelievable hospitality with a wonderful fusion of smoked meats and Latin flavors, I highly recommend you try out Smoke and Dough.

[Michelle] Lovely, Carol Ann.

It is a place that nobody should miss.

Maria, sum it up for us, please.

Delicious food, pricing was very reasonable and the portions were large, it was excellent.

Well enjoy delicious brisket and a craft beer at Smoke and Dough, located 4013 Southwest 152nd Avenue in Miami.

Open for lunch and dinner Wednesday to Saturday.

And for brunch and lunch on Sundays.

Reservations are accepted, and the average cost of dinner without drinks is about $40.

And finally, Miami-Dade County Placement Specialist Maria Serralta Valera is ready to get you a table at her pick with unique dishes served at just the right temperature.

She says the presentation and flavor will blow you away.

It's located in Miami and it's called Mr. And Mrs. Bun.

Hi, my name is Vanessa Rivera.

I'm the owner of Mr. and Mrs Bun, and we're located in West Kendall.

We've been established since 2015.

The idea start as we came here to United States to Miami and my partner, which is Gian Carlo Accinelli which is a chef as well.

We're both are chefs.

We try to build the American dream.

Well this is a very twist menu.

We didn't want you to make it like very Peruvian because that's a lot of competition.

So we trying to give it just a little kick or little glitter, little sparkle.

And bring the part of Peru that nobody knows, which was the sandwich.

The most popular dishes probably will be the pork belly sandwich.

Panceta En Caja China.

That's a Peruvian classic sandwich.

We also have the Asado con Palta, which is the eye round roast with avocado and red onions.

Everything here, we made it with love.

That's our phrase.

We put our hundred percent on every single plate that we give to our customers.

So Mr. And Mrs. Bun probably, I would say and describe as.

Worries with bread are Less.

Why is this place so special to you?

Maria, I know you love it.

I love this place.

I've been going there since they first opened many years ago.

And my son was like a year old.

[Michelle] Well, we don't know how old your son is now.

He's eight.

Okay, yes, all right.

They are obviously very small family owned restaurant.

I love that they bake their own buns.

Okay, so every bread you have there is fresh baked by them daily.

[Michelle] Oh, awesome.

Why I love them is because their service and food is consistently good.

You know, there's places that you'll go and the food is great one day, but not so great the next.

I have never in seven years had a bad meal or bad service.

So you went in, you found, I wanna know what you thought about the decor there.

But also tell me about the spice rack.

So the decor is, it's very creative.

They had, first thing that caught my eye was this spice rack with the very spice bottles inside encased in glass.

And it said, "Break glass in case of emergency."

So I thought that was very whimsical.

[Michelle] Cute.

I liked the idea of it, it was great.

And just, it's very homey.

The moment you walk in, it just gives you a kind of a casual feel for a great place to have lunch.

[Maria] It's very positive, just a really nice place to be.

It's warm and inviting.

It's very relaxing.

Yeah, and the service was, I mean it was just spot on.

Well tell me what you had this last time.

So I had the Oriental Crispy chicken sandwich.

It's called Pollo Chi Jao Kai.

Please, I butchered it, I know I did.

It is incredible.

So it's dark meat chicken and it's breaded, but like a crisp, not greasy breading.

And then it's served on their homemade bun with like an oriental sauce.

It is just insane, delicious.

I love that all their sandwiches come out on a wood cutting board with you know, the stamp with their restaurant name.

It's very cute.

Oh, cute.

You had some great starters though.

I did have some great starters, I had Truffle chicharones.

The truffle chicharone.

So the truffle chicharones are delicious.

They're fresh made there.

They're very fluffy and you bite into them and you can taste all the flavors.

I want some right now.

[Michelle] Tell me about the dumplings.

The dumplings were so good.

It was short rib and cream cheese, and they were deep fried, and they came with a sauce.

Again, no idea what the sauce was, but I could drink it.

Very, very good as well.

Very crisp, and then very creamy filling.

Very delicious.

Richard, tell me what you had.

Two sandwiches, my wife had the same sandwich.

The oriental chicken sandwich.

I'm not gonna say the long name, 'cause I might butcher it as well, but it was wonderful.

My wife commented how crispy the chicken was.

It was with chicken thigh meat.

And I had the Asado sandwich.

The meat was just very soft and tender.

It came with avocado and fried onion on top.

[Michelle] Do you know what cut it was?

It was actually top round.

So it was the Boliche cut, delicious.

Absolutely delicious.

You also had a soup, I think it was tomato basil.

Yes, I couldn't forget the soup.

So they had a tomato basil soup that paired with my sandwich.

One of the best tomato basil soups I've ever had.

I almost wish it was colder in South Florida so I could go just for the soup.

We don't have enough cold days down here, but it was delicious.

Very fresh, you could taste the basil.

Nice creaminess to it, wonderful soup.

Carol Ann, tell me what you had.

Oh, I might need a little bit of refreshing with this.

[Michelle] No worries.

Queso Frito Sliders to start.

Oh yes, those I think, I have to say I think those were my favorite.

These sliders came out, the buns, you are correct.

They are just amazing.

It was like a fried cheese.

[Michelle] Queso Frito.

Oh my goodness.

Good stuff.

[Carol Ann] With the caramelized onions on top, and they had, [Michelle] Can you describe, are the buns, first of all, are the buns all the same bun?

I don't know.

No, they have different ones for different things.

But this bun was, I mean it was, and there was three of them.

[Michelle] And a pork belly sandwich too.

[Carol Ann] The pork belly sandwich was very, very, very, yes [Michelle] It's your favorite.

Yes, it was very good.

That was with the yellow sauce next to it.

So the yellow pepper sauce to it.

And then he came out with the tray of desserts in mason jars.

And I had to go for the traditional dessert, 'cause I'm not a Peruvian food, I didn't have a whole lot of knowledge before I went.

I looked at it a little bit, but it was [Michelle] Lucuma, Lucuma, did you have Lucuma?

[Carol Ann] Oh, it was amazing, it was sweet.

[Michelle] That's one of my favorites.

[Carol Ann] Oh my.

[Richard] That's what I had.

You had a cake.

I had I love their cakes.

So I love, Peruvians have to make the best chocolate dulce de leche cake ever.

And so they had it that night, the day I went.

So I absolutely ordered that.

And it's probably like a four-layer cake.

And it's this moist, very, very fudgey chocolate cake with layers of dulce de leche in the middle.

And it is my absolute favorite.

So it was delicious, again, as usual.

You all had something to drink.

[Maria] I had pisco.

You had pisco.

Whiskey sour.

[Maria] So good, so good.

So we came at brunch time.

So when you're doing brunch, Sangria is the way to go.

So very refreshing.

[Michelle] Was it a white or a red?

[Richard] We had a red, we had a red.

And we loved it, it was great.

Well Maria, Mr. And Mrs. Bun was your choice.

Sum it up for us please.

Consistently good quality food and service.

Absolutely recommend it.

[Michelle] Carol Ann.

Absolutely, I would walk 10,000 miles.

Isn't that the song?

It was far, but it was worth it.

[Michelle] Richard.

If you want a restaurant that offers warm hospitality and massive sandwich portions, then you definitely need to check this restaurant out.

Enjoy the cult favorite dishes of Mr. And Mrs. Bun, located in 15572 Southwest 72nd Street in Miami.

Open Tuesdays to Sunday for lunch and dinner, with brunch offered on Sundays.

Reservations are not accepted, where the average price for dinner without drinks is about $40.

We've had a wonderful time.

I wanna thank my guests, Carol Ann Shigo, Richard Quintana, and Maria Serralta Valera.

For more about the restaurants and recipes featured in the show, or if you'd like to apply to be a guest reviewer, visit us @checkpleaseFL.com.

And as always, you can always find us on Facebook and Instagram.

Join us next time for three new guests recommending three of their favorite restaurants right here on "Check Please South Florida."

What is my name?

Michelle Bernstein, and I will see y'all then.

[Spokesperson] Cultural culinary secrets and global flavors.

We have a passion for blending ingredients and seasonings from around the world.