Miami Beach, FL
If there's one thing that's going to put you off an American-sized breakfast it's watching joggers, cyclists and rollerbladers pounding past while you pile another piece of applewood-smoked bacon into your gob.
Fortunately not being born with a side-order of Catholic guilt means that my fork to mouth coordination is unaffected as Coman and I cheerfully tuck in, seated at a restaurant helpfully named Kitchen - although the pace of service suggests their actual kitchen is situated in a different building altogether.
Across the road in the open-air gym in Lammas Park, which separates Ocean Drive from the beach, various preening men engage in almost homoerotic displays of athleticism. We can but watch as the only exercise we'll be indulging in today is flexing the plastic.
Once we've supped the last of our coffee we wander up to Lincoln Avenue, the main shopping drag in South Beach. Coman is in search of footwear while I focus upon the main event, our belated Christmas present to ourselves; an iPad.
Substantially poorer but grinning like fools our next stop is Soho Beach House on Collins Avenue. As expected it's beautiful and elegant and after we've explored all the floors and restaurants we base ourselves at the ground floor pool which leads out to its own strip of beach.
Coman stretches out in the sun while I grab the shade and play with our new toy, uploading far more things to Facebook than I intend in the process. Oops! I blame the mojitos.
After lunch we head up to the eighth floor pool which is adults only, and settle down next to a well-known '90s DJ who's catching the rays. Praise him!
By sunset there's a little nip in the air so we jump in a cab back to the Park Central and dress for dinner. Claudia, one of the staff at Soho House, had recommended a restaurant called SushiSamba which is the buzziest place on South Beach. A mixture of Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisine it's all the rage, with sister restaurants in Chicago, New York, LA and soon to open in London. It's all about Peru this year apparently...
When we arrive at SushiSamba it's thronged. Tables with huge orange umbrellas spill across the pavement and despite it being a Monday night the place is rammed. We introduce ourselves to the Maitre'd and explain that Claudia sent us. She'd actually told us "mention my name and they'll really look after you. I used to work there and they love me!"
The Maitre'd isn't quite so enamoured it seems. "Who? Claudia? Oh yes, I remember her. She sent you?!? Well we haven't got any room for but you can wait at the bar and maybe we'll have a table for you soon "
So we pull up stools and have a look around. This place is quite something. Funky low-lighting and chilled out music, an open kitchen in the centre of the room houses chefs slicing, chopping and rolling all sorts of sushi. Vats of ice house buckets of seafood, gorgeous smells emanate from the clatter and drama and one look at the cocktail menu tells us it should be worth the wait. There's stuff here we've never even heard of.
After 20 minutes we're led outside to an empty table amongst the crowd and within minutes our food appears - crispy yellowtail taquitos with shiso, avocado, roasted corn miso, fresh lime and spicy aji panca sauce; salmon gunkan with ikura and cilantro which is similar to nigiri sushi and utterly delicious; Green Envy samba roll with wasabi pea crust, tuna, salmon, asparagus and aji amarillo-key lime mayonnaise and Ezo soy marinated salmon, asparagus, chive, sesame, tempura flake, yellow soy and wasabi.
This is an exquisite meal, each mouthful a completely unique experience - a whole new approach to food, all served with Japanese elegance but bringing subtle South American differences and flavours to the fore. Roll on the London opening - it's definitely going to be worth a visit!
