Best food news: A new Southern Sunday brunch, Instagram-loving noodles, hot Irish bar bites

March is the month to noodle it up at Kapow, the popular restaurant with two Palm Beach County locations. At the start of the month, the East/Southeast Asian-inspired restaurant kicked off what it calls its “Month of Noods”. It’s kind of a tour of noodles, featuring a batch of specialty dishes each week during National Noodle Month.

This week, it’s Shanghai fried noodles, spicy Korean gochujang noodles and Korean japchae (glass) noodles. The month’s specialty noodle dishes are priced between $17 and $35.

There’s a contest element to this noodle extravaganza: The chance to win $100 gift cards or free drinks if you hashtag your Kapow noodle meal #kapownoods on Instagram. Order the specialty dishes and you’ll get a “Little Black Book of Noods” to stamp for a possible $500 gift card.

Kapow Noodle Bar: In Boca Raton at Mizner Park, 402 Plaza Real; in West Palm Beach at 519 Clematis St., KapowNoodleBar.com  

The Boulud Effect:How a world-famous chef helps transform the county's dining scene

Restaurants with sparkling water views: Best outdoor dining near Jupiter Inlet

Get your green ready! Best St. Patrick's Day events, parades, Irish pub specials in Palm Beach County

New Southern brunch

Star chef Lindsay Autry brings back her popular Southern brunch this Sunday, a destination-worthy spread that will be a new Sunday fixture at her West Palm beach restaurant, The Regional. And there’s much to love about this new brunch:

It offers the best of both worlds. You can hit the buffet, which includes chilled and hot stations, including Autry’s famous fried chicken and biscuits with honey and hot sauce, deviled eggs are Southern banana pudding. Or you can order one of her specialty dishes, which will be brought to your table from the kitchen. The made-to-order dishes include loaded grits topped with crispy bacon, hoop cheddar, roasted jalapeño and grilled scallions, a fried green tomato Benedict with smoked hollandaise and country ham and a petite smash burger patty melt. Both, the buffet and the made-to-order dishes, are included in the brunch price.

The price is nice. The Regional’s new brunch costs $55 per person, $25 for children age 12 and younger.

The Bloody Mary has pimento cheese-stuffed olives. That peppery drink ($14) is one of several a la carte brunch cocktails offered. There are mimosas and Bellinis ($13 glass, $48 carafe) and a bourbon sweet tea ($15) as well.

The new Sunday brunch is served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.-ish.

The Regional Kitchen: 651 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach, 561-557-6460, EatRegional.com

Luck of The Seagate

If the name of the new culinary director at The Seagate Hotel in Delray Beach sounds familiar, that’s because veteran executive chef Gordon Maybury served as top chef at the PGA National Resort from 2010 to 2013. The Dublin-born chef comes to Delray Beach from a recent post at the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort in Aventura. Maybury’s extensive resort experience includes leading positions at the Arizona Biltmore, Manhattan’s Peninsula Hotel and the Hyatt Regency in Grand Cayman.

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, Maybury will give Seagate bar patrons a taste of Irish flavors in two specials: He’ll feature corned beef empanadas at the hotel’s bar this Saturday. And next Friday, St. Patrick’s Day, he’ll offer corned beef Reubens at the bar.

Exactly 12 years ago this week, Maybury gifted our readers with his Irish shepherd’s pie recipe, a beloved family dish that gets its deepened flavor from Guinness dry stout. I’ll share it here as a holiday toast to the talented returning chef.

Maybury Family Shepherd’s Pie

This vintage family recipe, which makes 10 servings, takes chef Gordon Maybury, Seagate Hotel culinary director, back to his native Ireland. 

For the meat filling:

1 stick butter

1/2 cup finely diced onion

1/2 cup finely diced carrot

1 minced garlic clove

5 pounds lean ground beef

1 cup Guinness Irish dry stout

1/2 cup tomato sauce

1 cup demi-glace

Dash Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper

1/2 cup peas

For the mashed potato topping:

2 pounds peeled potatoes

1 cup heavy cream

1 stick of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Make the filling:

1. Melt butter in a heavy pot over high heat. Add in onion, carrot and garlic and sauté quickly. Add in beef and cook until nicely browned.

2. Drain off fat. Add Guinness beer and boil to cook off the alcohol, and reduce.

3. Add tomato sauce, demi-glace, Worcestershire and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 10 minutes over very low heat. Fold in peas. Divide mixture into 10 oven-ready pans, or 1 large casserole dish.

Prepare the potatoes:

1. Cut up potatoes and put to cook in cold, salted water. Bring to boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, until fully cooked. Strain.

2. Mash potatoes with a fork or potato masher. Add warmed cream and butter. Season with salt and pepper.

To assemble: Pipe or spoon mashed potatoes onto warm beef mixture. Place in a hot oven till the potato is golden. Optional: Sprinkle grated cheese on top of pie.

About that sold-out James Beard Awards lunch

It’s not every day that five of Palm Beach County’s best chefs gather in the same kitchen to make lunch. But that’s what happened Monday at Stage Kitchen in Palm Beach Gardens when the five James Beard Award semifinalists cooked together for the first time.

The sold-out, five-course lunch was a landmark occasion, celebrating the first time so many chefs land semifinalist positions on the list for a coveted James Beard Award for “Best Chef” in the South.

Here’s how it went:

•  Chef Jeremy Bearman (Oceano Kitchen, Lantana) kicked off the feast with a well nuanced Nantucket bay scallop crudo that was popping with poppy seeds, chives and lemon, with salty notes from a sprinkling of American sturgeon caviar.

•  Chef Lojo Washington (Queen of Sheeba, West Palm Beach) presented a flavorful and traditional kitfo, a lean-beef tartare with Ethiopian spices and seasoned clarified butter. She added dainty rolls of homemade injera to the plate. The spongey, deliciously sour bread was perfect for scooping up the kitfo and enjoying the combined, perfect bite.

•  Chef Rick Mace (Tropical Smokehouse, West Palm Beach) offered smoked cobia wings in a tamarind glaze that were best when devoured like chicken wings. He served the smoky wings with pit-cooked yams that were topped with tasty pickled onions.

•  Host chef Pushkar Marathe (Stage, Palm Beach Gardens) made a Duroc pork collar dish that was spicy with jerk spices and scotch bonnet pepper, smoky pineapple chunks and black-eyed peas from Indiantown’s Kai-Kai Farm.

•  And pastry chef Cindy Bearman (Ocean Kitchen, Lantana) created the sweet finale: a chocolate-banana-walnut cake with malted ganache, dates and tahini crunch.

The lunch event raised funds for the World Central Kitchen relief efforts and for the James Beard Foundation’s charitable programs.

Have a delicious week!

Read recent columns by Liz Balmaseda

◾ Fish fry-days, a new bottomless brunch and great charcuterie

◾ Five hot restaurants to visit in Lake Worth Beach

◾ Guy Fieri's big 'Diners, Drive-Ins, Dives' event features Palm Beach County chefs

◾ A new Lebanese restaurant, great BBQ + vegan burgers.

◾ From ribs to rotis, Black-owned restaurant favorites to savor

◾ Dine at the farm. Meet the 'Oscars of Food’ contenders in the 561. Find a great croissant.

◾ Celebrate a great cheese melt, from fancy fromage to swoon-worthy Swiss

◾ Try a new brunch or waterside lunch. Sip a spirited mocktail.

◾ What’s hot? New BBQ joint, best restaurant of 2022 + coquito cookies

◾What I’m craving, loving, ordering. Plus pizza obsessions + a new high tea

◾ Best reasons to visit Florida's oldest steakhouse in Palm Beach County. 

Liz Balmaseda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network. She covers the local food and dining beat. Follow her on Instagram and Post on Food Facebook. She can be reached by email at lbalmaseda@pbpost.com. 

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm Beach restaurants: Regional's Sunday brunch; best noodles