Ben N.
Yelp
In town for a conference at the nearby Hyatt and having arrived in town a few hours before my coworkers, I was searching downtown streets early on a Tuesday evening for solo-appropriate dining. I hadn't been in Miami for a quarter-century and had recently heard much about ever-increasing Miami glitz and wealth and tech-bro invasions. But these forlorn, sleepy blocks sure weren't where that was happening. In fact, not much was happening around here at all; most food spots apparently served downtown workers for lunch and were already closed (as were almost all the shops), and the few souls on the streets drifted about seemingly aimlessly.
In these circumstances, Dumplings Mi Amor seemed like a score.
It's a tiny shotgun-style pan-Asian storefront, with a long counter and just a handful of tables. And suitably for its small working space, a relatively small menu, too: Per the restaurant name, a few dumpling offerings, of course, plus some apps and salads, and then some rice and noodle bowls. Shrimp shumai were beautifully plated and put together; they were good but, honestly, they could have used bit of a flavor bump. The shoyu ramen was a bit bolder, if pretty basic: soft-boiled egg, pickled bamboo, braised pork belly, and kamoboko, plus nori. It seemed fussed over, though, which is what you want, and it was nicely done.
Anyway, Dumplings Mi Amor served its purpose quite well on this evening. And it also served as a preview that dining in Miami, at least in the central area, ain't for the budget-minded: The food above, plus a draft Sapporo and tax and tip, clocked in at $42. (A bargain, though, compared to a $26 sandwich-and-Diet-Coke food-truck lunch a couple of days later and a few blocks south in Brickell. Jeebus.)