May 2020 – The Saboscrivner

CLOSED: Mei’s Kitchen

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mei’s Kitchen permanently closed in July 2023.

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Mei’s Kitchen (https://www.meiskitchenorlando.com/) is a brand-new Taiwanese restaurant that opened less than a month ago in East Orlando, in the Publix plaza on University Drive and Dean Road, right off State Road 417. It is two doors down from another restaurant I discovered and reviewed this year, Mark’s Jamaican Bar & Grill. So if you ever can’t decide between Jamaican and Taiwanese food (a situation that most people may never find themselves in, but I have a feeling I will often), this is the place to go.

As usual, friends on The Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps on Facebook were even quicker to discover Mei’s Kitchen, and have been posting tantalizing photos and singing its praises for the last two or three weeks. I have been wanting to make it over there, and finally made it on Memorial Day, a rare Monday off work. I called in our takeout order as I was leaving the house, hopped on the 417, stopped into Publix for a few groceries, and my order was ready and bagged up when I got to Mei’s, about 20 minutes after making the call.

It’s a large and beautiful dining room in the unassuming shopping center, which they spent months completely refurbishing after the previous tenant, Chinese restaurant Pu Yi, closed. Sadly, the dining room was empty, but I was there before 5:00 PM on a Monday, Mei’s is still less than a month old and doesn’t seem to have much word of mouth yet, and of course there are COVID-19 concerns. I don’t plan to resume dining in restaurants anytime soon, but I’m still happy to order takeout to support locally-owned establishments, and I tip like I’m taking up one of their tables. And now for the word of mouth — I’m here to tell you that the food was terrific and a terrific bargain, and they could really use your business.

I had been dying to try the Taiwanese beef noodle soup ($10.95), and it ended up being one of the most delicious and satisfying noodle soups I’ve ever had. I was grateful they packed the broth (with beef) and the noodles (with finely-chopped cilantro and what I believe are pickled mustard greens) separately, so the noodles didn’t become a soggy, gloopy mess on my drive home.

I poured some of the broth and all of the beef into the noodle container with enough room to mix it around, and I still had lots of broth left over (which I’ll add my own noodles to). The beef was very tender, and I’m pretty sure it was brisket — one of my favorite cuts of beef.

It was so satisfying, and not nearly as salty as I expected. I’ve had countless bowls of pho, and I’ve finally started wading into the world of “fancy” (non-instant) ramen, but nothing could have prepared me for the perfection of Taiwanese beef noodle soup. Of course, as a librarian and a nerd, I had to research it further, and I found this Grub Street article that lists the best Taiwanese beef noodle soup locations in New York, with more background about the ingredients and cooking processes that make it so unique and special. The article says “[m]any consider it to be the national dish of Taiwan,” and I can see why!

The Taiwanese sausage fried rice ($7.95) wasn’t that different from other fried rice dishes I’ve enjoyed in the past, but its hard to go wrong with fried rice. I love lap cheong (AKA lạp xưởng in Vietnamese), dried Chinese pork sausage that is chewy and slightly sweet. It is one of my favorite ingredients in fried rice, and one that doesn’t get included often enough. This version of the dish wasn’t overly greasy or salty, and the rice had a nice chewiness to it. It was loaded with scrambled eggs, peas, and diced onion and carrot, in addition to the sausage.

We ordered so much food, I put the fried rice away after a tiny taste, only to devour it the following day after stirring in a little Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp, a versatile Szechuan condiment you can find any any Asian market. But here it is, pre-spicy chili crisping:

I hadn’t had softshell crabs in a long time, so I was happy to see a salt and pepper soft shell crab appetizer on the menu — two crispy fried crabs for $7.95. They were both bisected down the middle and came with a generous helping of delicious spicy mayo, which I love on sushi (and almost anything else) way more than I should. These weren’t greasy either, which is always a nice surprise.

Here’s a close-up of the fried crabs. I really appreciated that Mei’s uses those plastic takeout containers with plastic lids that snap into place. They are recyclable and dishwasher-safe, so we always clean and save these. They are perfect for food storage beyond their original use.

But wait, we aren’t done yet! My wife usually likes fluffy bao buns, so we ordered all three varieties of bao for her, not even realizing Mei’s Kitchen includes two bao in each order! We were expecting one of each kind of bao, so that was a nice surprise.

So we got traditional gua bao with braised pork belly, garnished with fresh cilantro, pickled mustard greens, and crushed roasted peanuts ($2.95 for two):

Fried pork belly bao with shredded cucumber and sesame seed dressing ($3.50 for two):

And fried shrimp bao with avocado and more of that spicy mayo ($3.95 for two):

As you can see, the bao came in regular styrofoam boxes.

It was a quite a feast that yielded plenty of leftovers, and this was actually our first time having Taiwanese food. If you like Chinese, you’ll love Taiwanese! I wish Mei’s Kitchen well. Most of Orlando’s best Chinese restaurants are all the way out on Colonial Drive (Peter’s Kitchen, Taste of Chengdu, Chuan Lu Garden), so this is somewhat closer to home. The food is excellent, the portions are generous, the dining room is new and nice, and the prices are extremely reasonable, so here’s that word of mouth Mei’s could definitely use. Give them a chance, and you won’t be sorry. I’d definitely recommend everything we tried, and they have a whole lot more to choose from as well.

Tako Cheena

My wife and I have always been huge fans of Tako Cheena (http://mytakocheena.com/), the creative and bohemian Asian-Latin fusion restaurant on Mills Avenue, north of Colonial, in one of Orlando’s finest foodie neighborhoods, Mills 50. It used to be in a tiny space in a little strip plaza on Mills, with very few parking spaces in front, to the point where we’d often have to circle the block six or ten or twenty times, or more realistically, time our visits for when the place was just opening up. There was a somewhat steep step up that limited the accessibility for my walker-wielding wife, and a tiny, cramped dining room that further limited her mobility inside once I helped hoist her up. The food was always delicious, but it wasn’t the most comfortable surroundings, despite the hip, colorful, artsy decor.

Well, I was recently craving Tako Cheena after a rough week, and to my great joy, they recently moved into a larger building mere steps from their old location. And it has an actual parking lot, plus a spacious outdoor patio. I was just picking up takeout from an outside-facing window, so I didn’t linger or even peek inside to look at indoor seating. However, the new location already looks so much more comfortable and accessible, and that is like a dream come true for us.

The covered patio overlooks Mills Avenue, and you can see it is steps away from the original location:

Since the menu on the website doesn’t have most of their newer menu additions of the last few years, or any prices, this was the best shot I could get of the posted menu. A past favorite, Mary’s Greek Lil Lamb (a gyro in taco form) has never been on their old menu on the website, so I didn’t even think to order one this time, but I was glad to see it has been added to the new menu. The pernil asado, slow-roasted, marinated pork, is pretty darn great too, but I didn’t order that either on my most recent visit.

Since I haven’t even been here since I started this blog two years ago, I ordered a bunch of our old favorites. I got us each a panko-crusted cod “tako” ($4.50), with spicy mayo, shredded cabbage, and scallions on a soft flour tortilla. This was the first time they asked me if I wanted flour or corn tortillas, but they could have started giving customers that choice at any point in the last two or three years. These are my favorite fish tacos in Orlando, and I was sad to learn they were out of the usual sweet and sour onion sauce that goes on them, but they were still delicious. My wife, who always used to love these, thought hers was too spicy, so I ended up eating most of hers too. I love spicy mayo on anything, so they were perfect for me, as usual.

Miami kid that I am, I have a hard time turning down empanadas, those crispy-fried half moon-shaped pastries stuffed with a variety of savory or sometimes sweet fillings, sealed with a crimped edge. Different cultures make different empanadas, but I always prefer a deep-fried, crispy flour pastry shell, and those are the ones they make here. Tako Cheena always offers different beef, chicken, and vegan empanadas of the day ($3.25 each), always rotating creative fusion ingredients in each one. I asked what the beef empanada of the day was, and this one had seasoned ground beef like picadillo with mashed potatoes and sweet plantains. Yes please! I could have easily eaten two of more of those crispy fried pastries, especially since sweet plantains are a top ten favorite food for me, but I stuck to one.

The empanadas come with a very small plastic dipping cup of salsa. When I placed my phone order, the guy asked if I wanted sweet or spicy. I asked if I could try both, and he said yes. Well, my bill had a “GG” next to the empanada at no charge, and an “HJ” that I was charged 50 cents for, so that’s how I learned additional salsas come at a cost. I don’t mind, because I always love trying new salsas. I could be wrong, but looking at Tako Cheena’s website and the menu above, I’m guessing the “GG” refers to ginger guava salsa, and the “HJ” is probably habanero jackfruit salsa, even though they list it as “jackfruit habanero.”

The website advertises “BURRITOS THE SIZE OF BABY’S [sic] ARMS,” and they aren’t exaggerating. I ordered the Korean burrito ($10.75), stuffed to almost bursting with sweet and savory marinated beef bulgogi, kimchi fried rice with mixed vegetables, crema, sriracha, ginger scallion oil, and cilantro. It was a really interesting blend of flavors and textures wrapped in that huge, straining flour tortilla, which is one reason I prefer burritos to tacos. (GASP!) It’s so huge, I saved half for the next day, and even the half is a generous portion. That isn’t something I normally order at Tako Cheena, but I wanted to present more of a variety of options for my baker’s dozens of readers.

Look at how much room it takes up on our now-familiar green plates!

Here’s a shot with burrito and empanada interiors:

Another one of our long-time favorites isn’t listed on the menu on the website, but Tako Cheena has incredible arepas, sweet corn patties stuffed with a variety of ingredients. Our favorite is the four-cheese arepa ($7.50) with a big fried cheese patty, topped with pickled shredded carrots and other vegetables (maybe jicama or daikon radish? Although it looks similar to Filipino atchara, or pickled papaya salad), and spicy mayo.

Picking a favorite item on the whole menu feels like being forced to pick a favorite child, for those who have more than one child, but this arepa might be it:

Cross-section. I should note that the cheese is lightly fried on its exterior, but not battered or breaded like my beloved mozzarella sticks. It’s more like halloumi cheese that way, with a similar texture.

One thing you probably noticed by now, that I definitely appreciated, was how they packed all our takeout food either wrapped in foil wrappers or placed in cardboard boxes. It was nice to see some eco-friendly alternatives to styrofoam.

Even though some restaurants are reopening for dining in, my wife and I are in no hurry to start doing that again anytime soon. But now that Tako Cheena has a parking lot of its own and that convenient walk-up window, I’ll probably order more takeout from them in the weeks and months to come. I’m glad an old favorite is more accessible than ever before, and as good as ever.

College Park Cafe

I’ve written a lot about being from Miami and growing up eating the best Cuban food in the country. If there’s one thing I hope I’ve shown the world on The Saboscrivner, it’s that Orlando has an exciting, burgeoning culinary scene, one that allows us to hold our own against other midsize-to-large cities. We even have Cuban restaurants, but even though some of them are good, very few compare to the plethora of excellent Cuban dining options four hours south of us in Miami. And nowhere is that more clear than with the legendary Cuban sandwich, AKA the Cubano. Plenty of good ones, but nothing that matches the iconic Versailles restaurant, the epicenter of Miami’s Cuban community and a can’t-miss destination for locals and tourists alike. Versailles’ Cuban sandwich is even featured in Jon Favreau’s delightful movie Chef, one of the best food-related movies ever made, which I strongly recommend to all my readers (most of whom have probably seen it already).

Well, dear readers (all those bakers’ dozens of you), I think I’ve finally located Orlando’s finest Cuban sandwich, one that can stand alongside los mejores en Miami, in large part because it’s larger than many of them. It’s at College Park Cafe (https://collegeparkcafe.com/), a humble diner in the College Park neighborhood near downtown Orlando, a place just far enough out of my regular radius that I rarely venture out that way. I’ve been seeing Facebook posts from them and from foodie friends, singing the praises of the Cuban sandwich and other food, so I had to try it for myself, and I’m so glad I did. A sign outside the diner advertises “The Best Cuban Sandwich In Town!”, and they ain’t kidding.

College Park Cafe is open from 6:30 AM until 2:00 PM, so I planned to get lunch from here, knowing they aren’t open for dinner. I called in my takeout order and spoke to Barbara’s son Juan, who was very friendly and patient. I had to make a few stops on my way there, and Juan called me back to let me know they were out of something I ordered, and called back a second time when I was about five minutes away, to let me know my order was ready. I appreciated the communication. Later, I spoke to cook and owner Barbara Martinez over Facebook Messenger while I was writing this review, and she said her family moved to Orlando from South Florida a year ago and took over the diner in August of 2019. That’s when they added Cuban dishes to the large menu full of American breakfast and lunch classics.

Of course I ordered the Cubano ($10.50) for myself, and I chose one of my lifelong favorite foods, sweet plantains (maduros) as the one side the sandwich comes with.

Opened up to show off all the shredded, marinated, roast pork, thin-sliced sweet ham, melty Swiss cheese, yellow mustard, sliced pickles, and crunchy potato sticks on this sandwich. Potato sticks aren’t typical, but they were a nice touch — says the guy who likes to put chips in almost any sandwich.

And a cross-section, so you can see just how thick this sandwich really is:

Sweet plantains with black beans (more about them below):

I also got a side order of onion rings ($2.50) because this was my first visit to the College Park Cafe, and whenever I see onion rings on a menu, I have to try them. That’s why this review gets a [AIR HORN!] RING THE ALARM! [/AIR HORN!] tag. It was a great value for a generous order of small, mostly uniform onion rings that were still warm by the time I got them home. Served with some ketchup I keep chillin’ in the fridge for such rare occasions, they were a nice accompaniment to that awe-inspiring Cubano.

My wife wanted palomilla steak ($11.50), a thin, marinated, grilled Cuban-style steak, which came with rice, beans (she chose black beans), and salty fried plantains (tostones), which she always prefers to the sweet ones. I always plate the food when I come home with takeout, especially in these pandemic days, and that means I always try a little bite of whatever she ordered. She likes and orders steaks far more than I do, but WOW, I was in heaven after one bite of this thin, flat, tender palomilla. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I was reeling from the excellent seasoning. There was garlic, cumin, maybe the sour orange juice of a mojo criollo marinade. It was an explosion of deliciousness, all from one bite. And because my wife hates onions and I love them, I slid all the grilled, seasoned onions off the top of her steak to enjoy myself.

Tostones!

When I got there, I saw they had a rich-looking chocolate cake under a glass dome, as any good diner should. My wife always loves chocolate, so I got her a slice of that too. It looked like they have flan as well, but I had to save some stuff for future visits.

I would have ordered the Cuban frita sliders, small burgers made with a blend of ground beef and chorizo sausage, usually served on buns pressed in a plancha like the Cuban bread of a Cubano sandwich, and topped with potato sticks and onions. But unfortunately they were out on this visit. I discovered frita burgers relatively late in my life, on my most recent trip back home to Miami in early March, right before the pandemic struck, and I have a review of that restaurant written and ready to run on a week I don’t have anything new to report on locally. I don’t know of anyone in Orlando serving fritas aside from College Park Cafe, so I’ll definitely return to try those. I don’t think anything could keep me from ordering another one of those perfect, overstuffed Cubanos, though. That thing would be a bargain at twice the price. It really is that damn good, and not just by Orlando standards either.

So that’s College Park Cafe, a friendly neighborhood diner with all your timeless diner classics: Reubens, patty melts, Greek omelettes, country-fried steak, eggs Benedict, chili cheeseburgers, anything you can picture in your diner dreams. They even have an unlimited salad for $8.99 (for dine-in only), or $11.99 when paired with a few different entrees. But the Cuban food is the real star of the show, and it’s definitely some of the best Cuban food to be had in Orlando, good enough to hold its own in Tampa or Miami. The Martinez family is so incredibly nice, and I shouldn’t have to remind you that they could really use every bit of support. Plus, normally parking along Edgewater Drive in College Park is kind of a nightmare, but it wasn’t bad at all on a Saturday afternoon during a pandemic. Trust me — if you and the people you’re comfortable being within six feet of can’t decide between breakfast, diner food, and Cuban cuisine, have I got the place for you.

Light on the Sugar Bakery

I used to joke that living in Casselberry, we almost always have to drive 20+ minutes to get to Orlando’s hottest restaurants in the hipper, trendier areas like Winter Park, the Milk District, and Mills 50. But since we started sheltering in place due to the pandemic, I’ve tried to stay much closer to home the rare times I venture out for takeout, and I’ve come to discover a lot of nearby gems like Alex’s Fresh Kitchen and Tomasino’s Pizza in recent reviews, alongside neighborhood favorites like Bagel King, Waffle House, and Kai Asian Street Fare.

I was overjoyed when my choice for Orlando’s best barbecue, Git-N-Messy BBQ, relocated from Sanford to the edge of Winter Park and Oviedo, much closer to us. And since we started quarantining, I’ve picked up takeout from Git-N-Messy several times. Best of all, there is a relatively new bakery right across the street from Git-N-Messy, in the same shopping center as Pho Cali/Quickly Boba and Twisted Root Burger Co. It’s a small Asian bakery called Light on the Sugar (https://www.lightonthesugar.com/), and it is so good, we’re still in shock that it opened on our side of town and not one of these hipster neighborhoods.

My wife and I first visited Light on the Sugar on our way to have dinner at Tomasino’s for the first time in mid-January of this year, back when you could still linger at restaurants, cafes, and even bakeries without a second thought. We were face to face with glass cases full of beautiful baked goods — cakes, cream puffs, croissants, danishes, and more. The bakery was already getting excellent word of mouth on the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook, so we were excited to be there and trying to take our time deciding what to bring home with us.

Even more choices (pardon the reflections):

Unfortunately, I left this first visit very annoyed, due to an employee who was relentlessly rushing us to make a quick decision. The place was empty aside from us, so it’s not like we were holding anyone else up. And we had every intention of choosing quite a few treats to bring home, so the guy’s rude attitude really got on my nerves. We made our choices and went on to dinner, both turned off by the experience. In fact, I might have not returned at all, except that everything was so amazing. My wife had fallen for these delectable, decadent desserts, so that inauspicious first visit became the first of many over a relatively short time.

This was what we brought home the first time: a cream puff topped with Froot Loops, a slice of their beautiful and intricate chocolate crepe cake, and a plain croissant.

I liked the bites I tried of things, but she just went wild for them. The cream puff is so light and delicate, but the rich cream in the middle is really something special. As you saw in the first photo, they have many different varieties of cream puffs on any given day, including strawberry, matcha, ube (purple yam, taking off in popularity here in the States), and Earl Grey, but she loves her sugary cereals. And the chocolate crepe cake, made of dozens of layers of thin crepes, also wowed my chocolate-loving wife.

On one of my many subsequent visits after picking up takeout from Git-N-Messy BBQ across the street, they didn’t have the Froot Loops cream puffs she loves, but I was able to bring her comparable Lucky Charms cream puffs that were also a big hit at home.

You can tell these baked goods are all fresh and of the highest quality, but none of them are cloyingly, overwhelmingly sweet… hence the name. They are also less heavy than baked goods from some other bakeries (4 Rivers Smokehouse’s Sweet Shop comes to mind) — these are almost ethereal, by comparison.

I’ve also been lucky enough to find a Japanese milk loaf on a few of my visits to Light on the Sugar, and I can never resist bringing one home. This loaf of bread is rich and buttery, like a cross between brioche and challah. It makes great French toast, or it’s perfect to just slice and enjoy with some good salted butter.

I should note that Winter Park’s Bread & Co., another very good Asian bakery, also bakes a Japanese-style milk bread that I love, but my wife prefers Light on the Sugar’s version.

And I should also note that on the multiple visits I’ve made since that first unnecessarily stressful visit with my wife, I have received nothing but friendly and warm service from several female employees. I haven’t seen that one rude guy again since, and he may not even still be there. Since everything is takeout only these days, I’m usually in and out in two minutes, especially now that I know what my wife likes best. But it’s a great bakery and well worth a visit, whether you live in our quieter part of town, or even if you’re surrounded by Orlando’s other good bakeries in the cooler areas. Like every other restaurant we like, I hope they’ve been holding up through this scary and unknowable time. But the best way to save the places and things you love is to actually support them, so stop by Light on the Sugar soon and try a few things. You might even plan your visit around picking up some other takeout at any of the great nearby restaurants, who all need your support as well.