February 2020 – The Saboscrivner

Tibby’s New Orleans Kitchen

I was lucky enough to go to New Orleans four times between 1998 and 2001, with different groups of friends every time. Back then, as a young guy in college, I never had much money, but I sure liked good food, good music, history, architecture, culture, adventure, and romance, so New Orleans was the perfect destination for all of those things. (Never did find any romance there, though.) I played an unforgettable gig with my old band once, went to an epic bachelor party with a bunch of my closest friends in the world (and we were all on remarkably good behavior, believe it or not), and even descended on Mardi Gras one time, which was actually too crazy, crowded, and chaotic to be as much fun as it should have been. New Orleans is a legendary party town pretty much any weekend, but even as a senior in college, I thought Mardi Gras was just too much.

Obviously the city has changed a lot over the last 19 years, and especially since Hurricane Katrina devastated it in 2005. I’d love to make it back to see how the city has bounced back and been revitalized, but have no idea when and if that’ll happen. But in the meantime, when I crave the food of New Orleans — Cajun and Creole cuisine — we have a very good option right here in Orlando: Tibby’s New Orleans Kitchen (https://tibbys.com/), a locally-owned restaurant with locations in Winter Park and Altamonte Springs. On my most recent visit, I went with two former co-workers who I grew very close to during my first years at my job. Those were some tough times then, and we all found strength in numbers and looked out for each other. We were long overdue to get together and catch up, so in true Sabsocrivner fashion, I sent them a list of multiple restaurants where we could have a leisurely lunch and hang out for a while, without feeling crowded or rushed. I was relieved and excited when they chose Tibby’s, since I hadn’t been in a few years.

In fact, the last time I had been to Tibby’s was long before I started this food blog, so I realized I had never ordered the onion rings before. That’s right, they offer onion rings as an appetizer ($6.50), which means I had to try them for a little recurring onion ring review feature I like to call RING THE ALARM!

[AIR HORN!]

This was a generous order of thick onion rings (or thicc, as the kids say), with a nice texture from their light, crispy breading. They came with an excellent remoulade sauce for dipping, one of the best condiments to accompany onion rings at any local restaurant. These rings seemed particularly salty, but I still liked them a lot.

My wife and I are huge fans of a wonderful, hilarious comedian named Tig Notaro, who had a short-lived and much-missed show on Amazon Prime called One Mississippi. The theme song was “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” which I only recently found out was written by the legendary, prolific songwriter and country music legend Hank Williams back in 1952. That song always makes me hungry due to the lyric “Jambalaya, crawfish pie, filé gumbo.” (I have a real soft spot for songs about food in general, and there aren’t enough of them.) So when I saw Tibby’s sampler consists of jambalaya, crawfish pie, and filé gumbo ($14.25), I knew it was meant to be.

The jambalaya rice, stewed in a mildly spicy tomato sauce with onions, bell peppers, celery, andouille sausage, and tasso ham, is a classic dish I always love. In college, I ate a lot of Zatarain’s jambalaya made from a box of rice with dehydrated vegetables and salty seasonings, and I’d mix in cheap sausage, chicken, canned sardines, you name it, plus any vegetables I could afford to stretch it out. Even that was tasty back in the day, but real jambalaya with quality ingredients is a delicious meal. The crawfish pie was essentially a crawfish empanada with tail meat in a crispy fried pastry shell. The filé gumbo was on the salty side, but still very tasty, made with chicken and sausage. Filé powder is made from grinding dried sassafras leaves, and it is used as a thickener for the hearty stew and other Creole dishes. The other primary gumbo recipe uses okra to thicken the stew instead.

My one friend ordered shrimp Creole ($12.25), a tomato-based stew with a little island of rice in the middle. She seemed to love it.

My other friend wanted fried shrimp and fried oysters, but not necessarily in a po’boy. Our server was very accommodating, and allowed her to order side orders of both ($12 for the oysters, $6 for the shrimp). I tried one of her fried oysters, and it was delicious… but it’s really hard to go wrong with fried oysters.

She also ordered the sweet potato fries for us to share ($4), and they were a treat — salty and sweet at the same time.

We couldn’t leave without a plate of beignets for dessert ($4.25). These crispy-on-the-outside, soft and flaky-on-the-inside fried pastries are a New Orleans specialty. I’ve had them at the legendary Cafe Du Monde, and nothing really equals that experience of sitting outside, listening to street musicians play incredible jazz and people-watching in the French Quarter… but Tibby’s beignets come close.

I’m really hoping to return to New Orleans for my profession’s big conference this summer, 19 years after my last visit. It’s staggering to think of everything that city has endured in the meantime, especially the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. But it’s an incredible place, like nowhere else in America, with some of the greatest food in the country. If you can’t make it, Tibby’s is like a little piece of the Big Easy right here in Winter Park. You should go there and laissez les bon temps rouler, especially as we celebrate Mardi Gras this coming Tuesday!

Domu

I can’t believe Orlando’s super-hip Japanese restaurant Domu (http://domufl.com/) opened in November 2016, and it took me over three years to make it there! Located in the East End Market in the hipsterrific Audubon Park neighborhood, the very limited parking spaces fill up quickly, and I had been warned about infamous long waits, even during less busy times. Plus, I work late during the week, and Domu doesn’t accept reservations or even allow takeout orders! That’s their prerogative, I guess. I figured being difficult to get into only added to the hype and made it a hotter foodie destination, but considering my wife and I don’t go out to eat as much as we used to, and she often prefers takeout at home, we stayed away, not wanting to deal with the aggravation.

But Domu now opens for brunch at 11 AM on weekends, with mostly the same menu. I knew I could finally try it if I got there right when it opened, so on a recent Sunday morning, I was the first person to arrive, right around 10:30 — already having to park in an overflow lot for the East End Market. (And because it rained and all the enthusiastic Domu diners went to wait under an overhang, about a dozen people got in before me once the doors finally opened.) But I got seated at the bar, had very friendly service from Leah, and I’m glad to report what many of my faithful readers already knew — Domu was worth the wait.

The things I would hear the most about are Korean fried chicken wings and ramen, so in true Saboscrivner style, I ordered both. The wings (an order of six for an extremely reasonable $9) came out quickly, and they were absolute units, thicc with crispy breading that wasn’t heavy or greasy. They were covered with a sweet, sticky, slightly spicy sauce that was a little thinner than the sauce on the huge and crispy Korean wings my wife and I love so much at Hawkers. But these wings lived up to all the hype.

I ate three of them and still had ramen coming, but I was relieved to find out that even though Domu doesn’t allow takeout orders, they will still provide you with a box to bring your leftovers home. (If not, those three wings were coming home in my guayabera pockets, but I’m glad it didn’t come to that.) I happily packed up the remaining wings for my wife, and they were still warm by the time I got them home to her. (This story has a bittersweet ending: she took one bite and immediately decreed them to be too spicy, so I finished them a little later!)

And then my ravishing, rapturous, radical ramen arrived. All the ramen options all sounded good, but I picked a popular favorite, the Richie Rich ($13), named after a hokey old comic book that helped me learn how to read when I was two years old. It comes with fresh, house-made ramen noodles in a miso-shoyu pork bone broth, with chashu pork, an ajitama brulee egg (half a hard-boiled egg, but with a rich, deep orange, almost custard-like yolk, caramelized on its surface with a blowtorch), scallions, fried garlic, black garlic oil, and domudana. (I’m afraid I have no idea what domudana is.) I am very lucky that I mentioned being allergic to mushrooms, because another ingredient, kikurage, is actually the wood ear or “Jew’s ear” mushroom, and Leah was kind enough to warn me and promise they would leave it out. That was a close one. That Jew’s ear would have destroyed this Jew’s stomach!

I am still new to traditional/”fancy” ramen, after subsisting on cheap Nissin and Maruchan instant ramen noodles for so many years. However, I loved the ramen I tried at Susuru earlier this year, and Domu’s Richie Rich was my latest foray into the exciting world of Big Ramen. It was so delicious, I slurped it all up in record time, even after demolishing those three wondrous wings, and I’ve been craving more ever since. The broth was so creamy! The pork melted in my mouth! That egg was magical! The noodles were streets ahead of any ramen I’ve ever had before (which amounts to the good stuff at Susuru and lots of cheap, unhealthy, instant crap). I don’t know if anyone else in Orlando goes to the trouble of making their own fresh ramen noodles, but Domu is doing something really amazing in that open kitchen. And like I said, I’m late to this party, but many of you already knew that.

The Domu website says its name translates as slang for “a dream come true,” and I’m sure that is true for owner Sonny Nguyen, who is starting his own culinary empire here in Orlando. There is now a second, brand-new Domu location in Dr. Phillips, plus the fast-casual Domu Chibi in Waterford Lakes. His new izakaya pub Tori Tori in the Mills 50 district impressed me when I was there recently, and I know that has quickly become another local hit. After waiting three years, hearing raves about the ramen and whispers about the wings, I had an extremely pleasant and positive experience there myself, without any of the nightmarish waits I had read about. (Saboscrivner Sage Suggestion #1: GET TO RESTAURANTS WHEN THEY OPEN!) So you could say my dream came true at Domu as well.

Mark’s Jamaican Bar & Grill

I really love Jamaican food. Even though I usually go to the Golden Krust restaurant in Waterford Lakes to get my fix, I thought I would try a new place I’ve heard good things about — well, new to me, anyway — Mark’s Jamaican Bar & Grill (http://www.jamaicanbarandgrill.com/). Located on University and Dean Roads, right off the 417, Mark’s is very close to the University of Central Florida, Full Sail University, East Orlando, and Winter Park. It’s a small and casual restaurant in a shopping center with a Publix. They have plenty of tables to dine in, and it seems like a relaxed little oasis. But I ordered takeout on both of my visits.

On my first visit, I decided to finally try the national dish of Jamaica, ackee and saltfish. It was served with boiled dumplings, boiled green bananas, and sweet fried plantains. I’ve had saltfish once before, at Golden Krust, but never with ackee or the boiled sides.

Ackee is actually a fruit! Fresh, it looks like large, shiny black balls (the seeds) popping out of a pale pink apple-like fruit, and it is highly toxic. But if you boil the ackee and then saute it with salted cod, it comes to resemble scrambled eggs, and tasted kind of like them too, but a bit more bitter. I liked it a lot, especially with the onions, bell peppers, and tomatoes mixed in.I have to admit, as much as I liked my first ackee and saltfish, I didn’t love the boiled bananas or boiled dumplings. Both were kind of plain “starch bombs.” The boiled dumplings were incredibly dense, slippery, and chewy. The bananas weren’t sweet at all because they are unripe, kind of like green plantains. But these were more like bland-tains!

Oxtails are one of my favorite dishes to eat anytime, anyplace, any cuisine. I’ve written before about how I like them more than steak. They are so rich and beefy, tender and juicy from stewing or braising them, and from all that gelatin. You can’t possibly look cool while eating oxtails because they’re sticky and slippery, and you have to hold them in your hands, eat the meat off the rock-hard bones (it will be tender enough to pull right off), and then suck and gnaw what’s left, without having them squirt out of your hands and divebomb your clothes or your dining companions.
The oxtails at Mark’s were on point, especially served over rice and peas in their rich, almost slightly sweet gravy (I would have liked even more gravy over the rice), with sides of steamed cabbage and fried sweet plantains, another one of my all-time favorite foods.

After that weekend feast (which I swear I turned into three separate meals), I went back the following Friday and brought back an even larger feast of a lunch to share with two of my co-workers in our break room. We all chipped in for certain dishes — I might be a cool guy, but I wasn’t about to buy all this food myself.

Another round of those delicious oxtails so my co-workers could try it for the first time:

Brown stew chicken, one of my favorite dishes. This was another one I bought to share, but I brought the vast majority of it home and ate it two days later. I suspect it would have been better fresh and hot. I’ve had brown stew chicken from elsewhere that was more tomatoey, maybe from ketchup as an ingredient. This was a mix of different pieces of chicken, both white and dark meat.

Jerk chicken over white rice with plantains. I had one bite with a nice spice to it, but wasn’t anywhere close to overwhelmingly spicy.

Curried goat (pardon the blurriness). This was another one of my co-workers’ choices. I’ve eaten curried goat before and liked it fine, but as a warning for the uninitiated, it is full of tiny little bones. However, in recent years, my wife has become a huge fan of baby goats, and I’ve taken her to a local dairy farm multiple times to frolic in the field with adorable baby goats that are as soft, cute, funny, and playful as puppies. This has made me take a step back from eating this particular meat, but no judgment from me toward those who like it!

Spicy shrimp fried rice with lots of vegetables. I snagged a shrimp, and it was very tasty.

Callaloo, a bitter, spinach-like vegetable stewed with onions, tomatoes, and green bell peppers. I had only ever tried it once before, at Golden Krust (once again, see that review). I usally love bitter, braised and stewed greens like collards, spinach, and broccoli rabe. But just like the boiled dumplings that came with the ackee and saltfish, I’m glad I tried it, but I probably won’t order it again at Mark’s.

I always like to enjoy a pineapple soda when I have Jamaican food, especially the DG brand, so I brought back a bottle for each of us. Sadly, pineapple isn’t the easiest soda flavor to find, no matter which brand. But these two ladies had never tried ANY pineapple soda before, not even from Fanta! Needless to say, they liked it too.

Finally, I had ordered a roti, a chewy, doughy Jamaican flatbread, to share with everyone, since I liked the one I got at Golden Krust once. But even though I was charged for it, the roti was left out of my takeout order, even though I specifically asked “Is everything here? Even the roti?” I order takeout a lot — much more than I actually eat at restaurants these days — and this happens from time to time. I get pissed, and sometimes I hold grudges. There are a few popular and well-loved local restaurants I’ve never returned to, after being charged for takeout items that weren’t included. And I don’t want to hear that I should have checked. When these places are slammed and my order is already boxed and bagged up next to the register, none of us have time to open every box and bag back up to conduct a roll call.

But despite stewing over the missing roti more than a week later, I realize I need to simmer down, as the legendary Robert Nesta Marley sang. In the end, I liked the food at Mark’s enough to sing its praises here and now. As if that doesn’t count for enough, I will still happily return, as a much closer source for really delicious Jamaican food. Plus, they have something called “Rasta pasta,” and I really want to find out what that is next time!

Mrs. Potato

I’ve been hearing good things about the Brazilian restaurant Mrs. Potato (https://www.mrspotato.net/) for years. Located at the busy intersection of Conroy and South Kirkman Roads, Mrs. Potato opened in 2012, but earned well-deserved national acclaim when it was featured on Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives in 2017. Chef-owner Rafaela Cabede has been a regular, pleasant presence on the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook, and I’ve always meant to make it out there to try it, but it’s pretty far from me. Luckily, on a recent trip to the mall (something I usually dread), my wife and I decided to give it a shot. As a toy collector, I should have taken a photo of their wall of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head figurines, but we were both so hungry, it didn’t even occur to me until it was too late.

There were three things I really wanted to try on Mrs. Potato’s menu: chicken catupiry, carne seca, and calabresa sausage. You can get all three of them stuffed inside rosti potatoes, a Swiss dish that is essentially a giant stuffed hash brown, but I couldn’t possibly eat three separate rostis, much less justify ordering them. (As you will learn, I couldn’t even finish one.) But you can also get two of those things inside Brazilian empanadas called pasteles. I always love empanadas, so I ordered two of those to share with my wife ($4.50 each), and saved the third filling for the rosti. I was pleased that the pasteles have a golden-fried, crispy flour shell, similar to the Cuban empanadas I grew up with, but quite a bit bigger.

The first pastel I cut open was not one of the ones I ordered! It contained ground beef, hard-boiled eggs, and olives, reminding me a bit of Cuban picadillo. I told our server I didn’t order the ground beef pastel, and she whisked it away immediately. I wish I had eaten my half, or at least taken a bite to try it, because I’m sure it ended up in the trash. I hate wasting food, even if it isn’t my fault. Weeks later, and I still feel bad about this.

This was one of the ones I ordered: seasoned, pulled chicken with catupiry, a soft, creamy, tangy Brazilian cheese. It was delicious. Chicken and cheese are sure to please.

We both liked this pastel with carne seca, Brazilian cured beef jerky with a bit of cream cheese. It was more like shredded, braised beef than the dry, chewy jerky I’m used to — kind of like the Cuban dish ropa vieja, but not tomatoey like that. It was very good. Guy Fieri raved about the carne seca on his show, and I get it.

My wife loves steak, so she ordered the picanha ($18.99), which is top sirloin, cooked rare. It came out more medium rare, but was still very tender and well-seasoned. Her sides included yucca fries that we both thought were just okay, and also twice-dipped, Belgian-style French fries, which were among the best fries we’ve ever had! I’m not surprised that a “potato house” restaurant would have good fries, but these were better than good. They are definitely among the best fries in Orlando. When you visit Mrs. Potato, don’t miss them, even if you order another potato dish!

Anyway, I ordered another potato dish: the aforementioned rosti ($14). It is huge, and more than a little intimidating! I always argue that Waffle House has the best hash browns anywhere, but the rosti was like a serious gourmet version of those.

After trying the chicken catupiry and carne seca in pasteles, the third thing I wanted to try was the calabresa sausage, so I got that stuffed inside my rosti. The sausage came crumbled inside that mountain of crispy shredded potatoes, along with melty mozzarella and provolone cheeses and thin-sliced sauteed onions. I should have asked about the sausage, since I was expecting slices or larger chunks of an Italian-style sausage, due to the name, not crumbles. But it was tasty, don’t get me wrong. A tomato-based sauce would have worked really well here, but not ketchup. I might put ketchup on my Waffle House hash browns, but these were crying out for a finer caliber of red sauce. It was still delicious — just super-heavy. The rosti, stuffed with sausage, cheese, and onions, is a meal you need a nap after eating, and I only ate about half of it at the restaurant and took the rest to go.

Whenever there’s a new or unfamiliar soda, I have to try it. I’m sure I could have found Guarana Antarctica at Bravo Supermarket (and maybe even Publix), but it was here ($2.75), and I was thirsty. It tasted a little like fruit (but not any specific, identifiable fruit, since I’ve never tried guarana berries on their own), and a little like bubble gum or cotton candy. It was unique, yet strangely familiar. Not sure if I would get it again, but I’m not sorry I tried it.

For dessert, my wife ordered the churros ($4). It came with an order of two, but she grabbed one before I could snap this shot. I took one bite, and it was an okay churro with plenty of cinnamon and sugar dusted on its crevice-covered surface.
However, the warm, rich caramel sauce they came with was one of the most delicious sweet things I’ve ever tried. She wasn’t into it, so that ended up being my dessert, which I scooped up with the teeny-tiny spoon.

I wrote this review on one of those rare Orlando days when we have some chilly weather, and I saw Mrs. Potato is offering an all-you-can-eat Soup Festival in the evenings for $14.99. I was disappointed that wasn’t an option at lunch, because when we were there, I totally could have gone for all-you-can-slurp soups — not so much for eating soup until I’m sick, but because I love trying new things. I reached out to Rafaela on Facebook and asked what kinds of soups are available in the Soup Festival, and she replied that these are the four everyday soups:
• Black Bean Soup
• Portuguese Sausage and Kale Soup (Caldo Verde)
• Creamy Heart of Palm
• Loaded Potato Soup

But on any given day, there would be four other rotating soups, including these and more:
• Creamy Corn, Chicken and Bacon
• Broccoli and Cheese
• Beef and Vegetables Soup
• Peanut Butter Cream (sweet)

Anyway, Mrs. Potato (or Mrs. Po-TAH-to, if you must) serves really delicious Brazilian comfort food, with an emphasis on the potatoes. There are baked potatoes on the menu too, with the same variety of toppings, but I strongly recommend the rostis, since that’s such a unique dish, compared to baked potatoes you could get almost anywhere. And don’t miss the pasteles, those amazing fries, and that caramel sauce!