[Michelle] Finally recruiter, executive recruiter, Carmen Matos recommends that you get ready
for a cultural journey that you've never been on before.
This reservation only spot, is an intimate experience that you share with the chef himself.
As he create what he calls Shushi rolls, to highlight an unexpected combination of cultures
and cuisines.
It's located in little Haiti, and it's called House of Food Porn.
My name is chef Franco Antonio Blanco, we are in the House of Food Porn located in little
Haiti, Miami.
House of Food Porn is something that was born accidentally when I learned to make sushi
at the age of seventeen and then I was trying to get my mother to taste some of my sushi
creations, I got around that whole raw fish environment by taking some her traditional
Cuban food, black beans and rice and pork, and all of that good stuff and creating what
I would call a Cuban sushi roll, which when she tried and loved it and ended up coining
it Shushi, with an H in between the S and the U.
When the guests come here, we just basically take them from the beginning to end, and we
take care of them in such a way where they feel special, and that's really what it's
all about.
But its all centered really around the food.
Which is taking the worlds most popular cooked foods and putting them in some kind of a bite
size roll that I call Shushi.
One of the uniqueness about the House of Food Porn is once our guests reserve, they show
up and the first thing is that they're greeted with the biggest smile from Nikki, our hostess,
my partner, my all of the above.
You know the guests, once they come in, automatically, you know, they feel like they just entered
into their house.
You're going out to eat dinner, no doubt.
And you are going to a restaurant, no doubt.
But once you're in there it's all about just taking you outside of that you know that zone
and just putting you in a comfort area that just makes you feel special and then we just
let you enjoy flavors that you're not used to.
Quite the experience, right Carmen?
Quite the experience.
So I went online and found it just googling experiences, food experiences in Miami, I
was looking for something-
[Michelle] That's how you found this?
That's how I found it.
And what I love about it is, it's not just eating food, it's a cultural journey and it's
an experience.
It's an experience.
[Carmen] You get to taste the food, and try to figure out what's in it and then he tells
you afterward, it's an adventure.
So let's just talk about a couple highlights that you had on your last visit.
So in the last visit, we had a prosciutto wrapped roll, that had Swiss cheese, it had
Picanha, which is beef-
[Michelle] A cut of beef yeah.
[Carmen] And inside humus and on top of that some fish roll.
The colors were spectacular.
It was absolutely visually-
It was beautiful.
Yeah, pleasing.
And the flavors, and you use, oh and you use your hands, so it's very intimate, very sensual.
Tamera?
I have to say that I literally got emotional.
[Michelle] Really, with the food?
I got emotional, with just the whole experience.
Firstly I, um I-
[Michelle] You're getting emotional right now.
Yeah, because they were just so good to me.
You can see Chef Franc's passion and when he's working, he wants to do this for you.
Can you remember, like maybe one of the dishes that you had?
[Tamera] Yes, there was this lamb roll.
And it had anchovies, I hate anchovies, but that was so delicious, everything was perfectly,
you know, just where it needed to be and we had the black Haitian rice-
Oh it was so good.
[Tamera] With the blue fin tuna.
Oh my gosh, it was it was amazing, yeah.
[Rick] Well and it's theatrical in the way it's presented and everything.
You actually buy a ticket, you pay in advance and you buy a ticket and for the four course
tasting you send in your list of food requirements, you know, as far as, my husband's a pescatarian
but he won't eat mollusks, so we put that down, and one of the pieces we ate, the second
course, I bit into it and I said to my husband, this tastes like meat don't eat it yet, and
Franc came out and we asked him about it and it was a smoked cooked corvina?
Corvina.
And it was smoked but it really had the taste and texture of pork.
Carmen, tell me about the pulled pork roll.
It was a marriage of creole, spanish, a little bit of everything, and when you say pulled
pork, you'd think it wasn't a roll, but this came perfectly, tightly wrapped where you
could grab it with your hands and enjoy it and it was fantastic.
You had that as well right?
I don't know if it was the same roll.
I did, I can't really remember whatever I was eating, I just know it was the best thing
I ever ate.
Does he make sweet rolls as well?
He does a couple of desserts, they're not rolls, he but, I love guava, and he gets fresh
guava and he makes the sauce and typically he'll do a flour-less chocolate cake, with
really good vanilla ice cream and a guava sauce.
[Tamera] I only ate half of it, I was so stuffed.
And between them feeding you and then giving you drinks.
So let's talk about the drinks, so is it a tasting flight that goes with the food?
No it comes with your dinner, they serve a house red wine.
I do not like red wine, I love this wine.
Yeah.
But we also have friends that bring their own bottles, so and they're very accommodating.
Do they charge for that?
No so they're very accommodating.
So there's a lot of attention to this, how are the prices compared to what your getting?
It's pricey, for the two of us, I think ours was eighty dollars a ticket, so a hundred
and sixty dollars, but it is an experience, I mean.
I actually took the Uber and when I got there, I got there twenty minutes early, and they
came out and they brought me this nice fruit infused water.
[Michelle] Oh that's nice.
And a rose, so that was nice yeah.
Not only did they take care of you while you were there, do you want to tell them what
they did when you got home?
Yeah, they sent me a text to make sure that I made it home safely and who does that?
Nobody does that.
Wow
I don't do that.
Franc and Nikki do that, they do.
[Michelle] Well Carmen, House of Food Porn was your pick, sum it up for us please.
Just a lovely place with a phenomenal chef, takes you around the world in flavors and
it's always like coming home.
Rick?
A once in a lifetime experience that you should experience more than once in a lifetime.
Lovely, Tamera.
Mind blowing, out of body experience, be ready for it.
Wow, for a unique and intimate dining experience, head on over to House of Food Porn located
at 197 north west 62nd street in Miami.
Open Wednesday through Sunday for dinner.
It's reservation only and walk ins are not accepted.
And the price for a four course tasting with drinks is about ninety dollars.