Not pizza, fainá.
This baked chickpea flatbread, which goes by a similar name in Genoa, is also known throughout neighboring regions of Italy and France along the Ligurian Sea. At this modestly appointed Uruguayan steakhouse, fainá ($2.90) is offered solo and, in South American style, "a caballo" — "on horseback." My wedge of fainá and oblong slice of pizza mozzarella ($3.90) were divvied into small sections; mounting one on the other was left to me. Compared with pizza, fainá is more peppery, and oilier if not richer, so pairing the two is not so redundant as it might first seem.
Also shown: the restaurant's namesake. Though it's Spanish for "little goat," in Uruguay "chivito" means a sandwich or platter featuring beef; chicken is a common option. One origin story that's widely told, though impossible to pin down, begins at an Uruguayan restaurant, where a tourist from neighboring Argentina requested a sandwich of tender baby goat. The restaurant owner, who was fresh out, instead assembled an elaborate steak sandwich that, one hopes, was presented with appropriate apologies rather than palmed off on the customer. Below is El Rey del Chivito's very tasty basic version, with fries ($9.90); for a late lunch before an early dinner, I didn't dare venture the "super chivito emperador."
El Rey del Chivito
6987 Collins Ave. (69th-71st Sts.), Miami Beach
305-864-5566
www.ElReyDelChivito.com
(From visits in autumn 2012)
