Eats & Beats

Was great place to try different food, drinks and mingle! We’ll be back next time! :)

no gracias, would not attend this event again, even for free, the line to get in was around two buildings, with at least a hour to step inside, by the time you are inside, the places you want to try which are well known and respected are out and empty, a hour into the event. packed, hot, dirty.
only saving grace was the dope dj

The Moore Building is a unique 4-​story building in the middle of the Design District and an excellent location to throw an interesting party! The venue lent itself well to Eats & Beats. I won VIP tickets through Unilocal (yay! Thank you, Cassie!!!) and was able to get together with one of my best friends to experience it. Overall, we had a great time!
The bottom floor was one of my favorites, hosting a COOL (literally) actual ice vodka bar. This was definitely a really unique addition to the event and I can’t wait to go to the actual bar that will be opening up soon. Brother Jimmy’s BBQ was on point, as usual.
We arrived around 8:30 p.m. and entered through the VIP section, which meant zero lines. However, at 8:30 p.m. a huge line had already formed and circled around the venue. To me, this event was slightly oversold. The bottom floor is comfortable space wise, but floors 2 – 4 do not have the same center area as the bottom floor and became packed, fast! By the time 9:30 p.m. came around, my friend and I could barely navigate through the floors because of the sheer amount of people present. However, big kudos to the vendors for being quick with service! With the amount of people and the commotion, they kept pumping food out fast and keeping large lines from forming!
I know this is only the second year this event has been held and I know it will only get better!

I usually love these type of events. Every time the SOBEWFF comes around I get excited, and look at all the events to see if I can make it to at least one.
Unfortunately, this year, I wasn’t able to but, found this «satellite» event and decided to give it a chance, with my friends.
Local restaurants featuring one of their dishes, wines and spirits flowing, a DJ to dance, and all this at the beautiful Moore Building, it was sure to be an amazing event.
We bought the General Admission ticket… figured, 3.5 hours would be enough time to sample all, at a comfortable pace.
8:30pm, right on time, they started letting us in. Pretty organized, friendly people working the ticket lines, and as soon as you walked in, there was the first station with, what else, drinks. There was also a picture wall and to the other side the LYFT photo booth (these are always fun!)
First floor was more drinks than food but, we did get to try the Pastrami Sandwich from The Naked Lunch which was delicious! Cheese perfectly melted, very flavorful, and very friendly people working their station. Next to them was The Naked Taco serving SX Tequila cocktails and shots. My favorite has to be the coffee flavored one, and they had a Coconut Basil Caipirinha, that was very refreshing.
There was also the Modelo beer station, vodka shots and drinks, and Chef Adrianne’s Vineyard Restaurant. I’ve heard so many great things about this restaurant and, the dish they prepared for the event proved that right. It was some type of Ropa Vieja on top of a flat bread, with corn on top. So tender, and incredibly well seasoned. Definitely one of the best of the night.
Second floor was a bit of a disappointment. First station was for a paella but it was completely done by 9pm. Two stations down, another empty one. Event ran until midnight, still 3 hours to go and they were running out of food. Not a good sign. You must understand why I have to deduct stars from the rating.
We kept sampling floors 2 — 4. Some of the food was unmemorable, unfortunately but, the Rice & Chicken from Nikki Beach stood out, mostly because it was the most substantial dish of the night and flavor was good. Also, the sushi from Green Plate Asian Bistro was one I would go back for. I was happy to see a water bottle station, I mean, drinks are great but water is needed and not all events realize this.
Now we went for desserts, unfortunately these were a little disappointing too. Krispy Kreme is not my idea of dessert, especially at a «foodies» event. Found it comical to see people carrying (dozen doughnut) boxes during the event. Of the few I tried the only one I truly remember, and the only business card I walked out with, was the Guava cupcake from Slice of Art. I’m not a cupcake fan but this one was perfection. The Guava flavor was on point and so fresh.
What’s dessert without coffee, right? Well, Segafredo got you covered. Their Espresso martini was a caffeine junky heaven. Loved it!
At one point the 3^rd floor got really crowded and was uncomfortable to walk by, especially when there’s drunk people being loud and covering the area taking dozens of selfies (thankfully there weren’t a lot of these… nice to see most people knew how to behave at this type of event). Also, the VIP lounge, other than for seating, if you were wearing painful high heels, not worth it at all, in my opinion. It was small and by what I saw, only 1 or two extra drinks there, that was it.
To end the night we went back to the first floor where the DJ was playing great tunes for dancing. We joined in until he started playing some oldies, and that was our cue to say goodbye to the 2015 Eats & Beats.
To be honest, I did enjoy the event but not to the point to pay again to attend.
It’s good to find «new» places but, this can also be done during «Restaurant Month» or Local food festivals during the year that are less expensive.
I think it’s just an OK event to experience once and that’s it. In my opinion, you are better off investing the estra money in one of the official SOBEWFF.

If you’ve never been to this event, I really do recommend that you go just to experience it and then say «been there done that.»
General admission was at 8:30 but you have to stand in a 30 minute line. So by the time that we actually got into the venue, on the second floor food was already gone! The Paella people had run out of food and so had another booth. That is pretty incredible! Also, there were booths that had booze but ran out of cups. Very poorly organized if you ask me… Especially at $ 100 per person.
With that said, I would like to give Modelo /​Victoria beer, the Ice Bar, and Brother Jimmy’z a shout out because they had food and drinks that ENTIRE TIME! Apparently, this is quite a feat and they accomplished it.
The music was great. Dancing was fun, and the parking was easy, accesible, and cheap. Valet was only 5 bucks and being that I’m a Brickellite, that’s pretty freaking impressive!
People complained it was hot. No s**t sherlock! You’re in a building shoulder to shoulder with a thousand people. I expected it and dressed accordingly so for me, it wasn’t that bad.
So, if you haven’t been, check it out but just know the portions are miniscule, the lines are enormous, and by the time you get in, many vendors have run out of food. With that said, please don’t pay full price. I believe there were early bird specials and I myself got a Groupon for it. My heart bleeds for the people I saw paying cash at the door!
Will I be back? Nope! Am I glad I went? Yup! Because now I can give an honest critique and truth be told, since I went with a large group, we made the best if it and danced our little butts off. But next year I’ll attend another event — not this one. It’s poorly organized and I ain’t down wit dat!

OMG What a grand event!
So typical life probs of an everyday girl, what to wear? After stalking previous year’s photos, I wasn’t sure if it was just the models who were fancy, or if patrons should go all out. Why express my fashion woes, you wonder? Well, in Miami, you always feel unfashionable compared to all others and this event was not an exception. People were dressed to the nine’s…or should I have nine million dollars considering the number of fur coats I witnessed.
A great mix of food places and drinks. I hit up the Unilocal booth. HOLLA! Alex manning the Unilocal booth was
.
A few highlights:
–ice bar… yes, it really was made of ice.
–the eats were arranged beautifully, in cool little spoons. And they weren’t sparse with some places giving out basically entire meals!
–cupcakes galore
–The Moore Building
–VIP…haha two twenty-​two year olds walking around with doughnut boxes. The bouncers apparently thought we were adorable. We were able to arrive at 7:30 and get first dibs on everything and the lay of the land when it was a bit quieter which was a real treat!
–the entire boxes of Krispy Kreme they were giving out. We were laughing at the weirdos with Krispy Kreme boxes… until we were the weirdos with Krispy Kreme boxes. Kaaarma.
Overall, a wonderful Saturday night of which I shall daydream about for the next week. I’ll also remember it by my glorious… no, not hangover, sugar coma! Because… cupcakes!!! Feeling pretty and mingling with other foodies and eating cupcakes. Le Sigh.