Cha Cha Rooster

The Lords Hotel
11th & Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, FL

My husband found a good deal on the restaurant section of: Travel Zoo and decided to buy a gift certificate to this restaurant. Upon calling the restaurant to make dinner reservations, our choices where either 8:30PM or 10:00PM, the host mentioned something about a show, but honestly we didn't pay too much attention to it. That is of course, until the night arrived when we were driving to the restaurant and remembered something about…a mention of a show? At which time, a slight feeling of panic over came us. What kind of show did they say it was? After all, this is Miami, anything can happen...by then it was too late. We had already arrived. When you enter the Hotel there is an enormous Polar Bear sculpture in the middle of the lobby...ok, that was weird. Proceed to the end of the lobby, go down some steps and there it is: Cha Cha Rooster. There is nothing Cha Cha about the place and there are definitely no Roosters. The ambiance felt nice, not too crowded for a Friday night at 10:00PM. Our waiter Eddie (Ediberto) was very sweet. We started with Pomegranate Martini’s and the Tiradito of Tuna (very good but very same). As a main course, I ordered the Braised Boneless Short Rib with truffled celery root puree, caramelized pearl onions, and confit of artichokes (Awesome!). My husband ordered the Pan-Seared Blackened Grouper with clams, baby zucchini, squash and ginger lemongrass broth (Deliciousness!!!). The grouper melted like butter when it touched your tongue (an explosion of flavors to the pallet). Then 10:00PM came around, some random lady started to sign in a red sequenced dress, with red shoes that reminded me of Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz” (definitely NOT a contestant for American Idol). She was accompanied by a gentleman that played both the keyboard and the trumpet, simultaneously, as she sang. This was all very surprising to me! I started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh....I felt as if I was in the movie "Dinner for Schmucks". What happened here (I wondered)? They weren't kidding about the show!! Over all, this was one of the funniest nights of my life. Both the food and the show were, unexpected. I will definitely go back for more.