January 2021 – The Saboscrivner

The Pastrami Project

On an episode of Seinfeld, a woman George Costanza was infatuated with once said that “pastrami is the most sensual of the salted, cured meats,” and I think she had a point. As much as I pine for prosciutto and swoon for salami, pastrami definitely holds the title and championship belt as the greatest of all cured meats. If you’ve heard of The Pastrami Project (http://www.pastramiproject.com/) before, you may have already tasted the best pastrami I’ve ever had outside of New York City, or you may have seen the humble food truck featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on the Food Network. No matter what you think of host Guy Fieri’s frosted tips and Smashmouth-inspired sartorial style, he is a real mensch who shines a well-deserved spotlight on local restaurants across the country, just like I attempt on a smaller scale in The Saboscrivner. On a trip to Orlando a few years ago, Guy already raised hometown heroes Se7en Bites and Mrs. Potato to new levels of visibility and fame, and also made a pilgrimage to The Pastrami Project in Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives Season 26, episode 11, “Multicultural Cooking.” I’ve been wanting to try it for years, long before the Triple-D episode, but never made it there until this past week.

You see, self-proclaimed “Pastranomer” (a portmanteau for the pantheon!) George Markward only sets up his food truck behind Cafe Travastere on Magnolia Avenue near downtown Orlando Mondays through Fridays, from 10 AM until 2 PM — perfect timing for a late breakfast or a workday lunch for normal people. But for almost a decade, I’ve been working the very weird hours of 11 AM to 8 PM, so I don’t usually even eat my first meal of the day until after George drives away. Luckily, this past Monday, I took my wife to a doctor’s appointment a mile from the Pastrami Project truck (of course I checked), so we had the perfect opportunity to pick up lunch and bring it home to enjoy. My only regret was not doing this much sooner, like years sooner.

The affable Mr. Markward:

Here’s the current menu with prices. Right-click and open in a new tab for a larger image. You can see George serves breakfast too, if you aren’t craving deli delicacies:

We started out with an order of three potato latkes ($5), served with sour cream. You can also choose applesauce instead of sour cream, but we have applesauce at home. These weren’t flat pancakes like most latkes I’ve had, but thick fritters that were still hot when we got them home, with perfect crispy exteriors and soft, savory insides. I tasted a lot of onion, garlic, and pepper. If you like fries and home fries, do yourself a favor (and a flavor) and try some potato latkes some time. Ideally these.

My wife couldn’t decide between the pastrami and the brisket, and I wanted to try both, so we got a sandwich of each. His sliced beef brisket sandwich ($12) comes with creamy cole slaw, half of a small half-sour pickle, and “donkey sauce,” a roasted garlic aioli that is definitely a tribute to his biggest benefactor, Mr. Fieri. My wife isn’t big on sauces on anything, whereas I love ’em, so George kindly served the sauce on the side. I’ve had plenty of delicious, moist, marbled, flavorful brisket from Jewish delis and barbecue restaurants alike, and unfortunately plenty of bland, dry, sad brisket too. This sandwich was the former. So rich and flavorful! If that rye bread looks good, IT WAS. George bakes his own rye loaves, and it is so soft! The bread is too often an afterthought on deli sandwiches like these. At Katz’s, their underwhelming rye is more like a small, edible napkin, which is why true deli aficionados know to pay the small upcharge to get your sandwich on a club roll. (I once had the opportunity to mention Katz’s club rolls to Phil Rosenthal, the genial host of food and travel show Somebody Feed Phil, and a fellow lover of old-school deli culture. He didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, but now you do, steadfast Saboscrivnerinos!) But anyway, George’s rye bread slices are plenty thick enough to support a heavy sandwich and hold up to the juice, grease, and mustard very well, and I appreciate that he doesn’t go overboard with the caraway seeds in his rye. The seeds add some flavor, but I don’t like too many caraway seeds in my rye, and luckily they are few and far between here.

But beyond the brisket, the star of the show is definitely the pastrami. The regular pastrami sandwich is also $12, or you can pay an additional $9 for double the meat, which is what we did. Hey, when we went to the iconic Lower East Side institution Katz’s Delicatessen in 2019, the gargantuan pastrami sandwiches cost $23, so George charging $21 for a nearly Katz’s-sized double-meat sandwich on better bread with cole slaw and the pickle is reasonable.

You can also get it made as a Reuben, grilled with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing, or as a Rachel, grilled with cole slaw, Swiss, and Russian dressing, for an additional $2 either way, but me being me, I already had sauerkraut and Russian dressing at home.

I asked George about his creative process, and he took me through how he makes his pastrami from scratch. He takes the big briskets and cuts them to fit in his storage containers, then pierces them with hundreds of tiny holes before curing them for a week. Then he rubs on his spice rub, smokes them, refrigerates them to make them easier to hand-slice, and finally steams the thick slices on a steam table before building his sandwiches. I mentioned that his pastrami is the best I’ve ever had in Florida, and the only thing that has come close to the legendary hand-sliced pastrami at Katz’s. George said Katz’s final step is boiling their pastrami, which surprised the hell out of me, because that would wash a lot of the spice and flavor out, as opposed to his method of steaming the slices. Clearly his process is long and involved, but makes a huge difference.

In fact, these photos came from our first visit a week ago on Monday, and we liked that pastrami so much, my wife asked me to return for another double-meat sandwich on Wednesday! So spoiler alert: of course I did. I have a hard time disappointing her in any way. The second sandwich was even bigger and prettier, so naturally I forgot to take a photo of it. FYI, George automatically adds mustard to his pastrami sandwiches, so if you don’t like mustard (like my wife) or you have a giant mustard collection of your own to experiment with back at home (like me), make sure to ask him to hold the mustard or put it on the side.

Finally, my wife always appreciates a bit of dessert, and I saw George was selling black and white cookies ($2), another New York City specialty that she loves. If you’ve never had one, the best black and whites are more like a soft but firm sponge cake than a crumbly, crunchy cookie, and they are quite large. When I showed her this one from Daisy’s, from a New Jersey bakery that supplies many NYC restaurants, cafes, and stores, she exclaimed “This is a really good brand!”, which sounds like something I would say. George told me he could bake his own, but they wouldn’t be as good as this.

To wrap this up, even if you don’t believe your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner after all this time, trust in Guy Fieri. He does so much good, spreading the word about beloved local restaurants on his show that seems to be on cable as often as Law & Order reruns. He helped make Trina Gregory-Propst of Se7en Bites into a camera-ready culinary sensation, featured Rafaela Cabede and her wonderful restaurant Mrs. Potato, and brought more business and well-deserved acclaim to George Markward and The Pastrami Project. On our first visit, while we were waiting for our order, two dudes on their way back to Nashville, Tennessee, were just picking up theirs, to eat on the long drive home. That speaks volumes, that a humble food truck is a now a can’t-miss destination for tourists. So if you’re an Orlando local, especially if you’re anywhere near downtown during the week, don’t wait as long as I did.

Pastrami, that most sensual of the salted, cured meats, really is kind of like sex — even if it’s just okay, it is still AWESOME. But sometimes it can be mind-blowing and unforgettable, like the pastrami from The Pastrami Project. And then you’ll probably crave it all the time.

Edward’s Gourmet Confections and Fine Coffees

EDITOR’S NOTE: When I first published this review, just over 24 hours ago, I announced that Edward Hawk Neal-Paci would be partnering with Donut Central and Fuelpresso in Winter Park to make his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts available for sale there throughout the week. Unfortunately, after a trial week, that won’t be happening after all, and I have edited my review to reflect that. I don’t want any potential or returning fans to go to Donut Central looking for those perfect pastries and end up disappointed in your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner, or especially in Edward.

***

Okay, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos. I’ve found another dessert to add to my pantheon of all-time favorite desserts. We are lucky and blessed here in Orlando to be surrounded by so many incredible bakeries, including my two personal favorites, Se7en Bites and Sister Honey’s. But I’ve discovered another talented master baker, on the same high level as Se7en Bites’ Trina Gregory-Propst and Sister Honey’s Evette Rahman. And just like both of them, he’s a really friendly and nice person, a prince among men, a real mensch. (I’ve never met a jerk-ass baker, though. Have you? Maybe you have to be sweet to create sweets.) His name is Edward Hawk Neal-Paci, and his new business is called Edward’s Gourmet Confections and Fine Coffees (https://www.edwardsgourmet.com/).

I first met Edward back in late November, where he was set up at the Longwood Farmers’ Market on a Sunday. That’s where you can find him most Sundays. He also sells his wares at the Audubon Park Community Market on Monday evenings, but I teach a night class on Mondays this semester, so that ain’t happening for me. But before that, I had followed him on Facebook for a few months, salivating over his photos and descriptions of creative, hand-crafted baked goods and getting more and more psyched for my first visit due to the enthusiastic, rave reviews. I’m much more into savory, salty, spicy foods, but I appreciate the sweet stuff as much as anyone, especially pastries made with care and love.

When I finally met up with Edward at Longwood, I tried two of his brioche doughnuts: one strawberry and one cookies and cream. These were light and fluffy, airy, and absolutely gorgeous — not heavy and greasy like far too many doughnuts. As I get older and become more of an anhedonic altacocker, I can’t deal with the acid reflux I get from some oily, greasy foods like doughnuts. It makes me sad that I don’t enjoy them that much anymore, even from bakeries and doughnut shops I once dug. But I assure you that his decadent doughnuts didn’t have that effect on me.

Here’s that strawberry brioche boi. More on the other in a bit. Look at that rich, smooth, shiny icing. It actually tasted like strawberries — like the actual fruit! — rather than just cloying sugar dyed pink.

But I was so lucky to get the main thing I came for that morning — his very last citrus-glazed croissant doughnut. I’m sure you’ve heard of the cronut out of New York City, the beautiful, perfect love child of a rich, flaky croissant and a doughnut. That’s what this is — the thing I mentioned earlier, one of those rare perfect foods — an all-time Top Five dessert in my 40+ years on this big blue ball o’dirt.

Here’s the aforementioned cookies and cream brioche doughnut and the star of this review, the citrus-glazed croissant doughnut:

I would later learn from Edward that the citrus-glazed croissant doughnut includes not one, not two, but five kinds of hand-squeezed fresh citrus juices: orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, and tangerine. And the laminated croissant dough isn’t just plain croissant dough, goodness no (although that would be good enough for most of us), but orange croissant dough, made with rich European butter, in *81* separate layers. I started gently pulling it apart, layer by layer, but couldn’t pick out all 81, although I believe every word the man says. That’s why to me, cooking may be an art, but baking is equal parts art, science, and magic. And this man is the Sorcerer Supreme, the Master of the Mystic Arts, when it comes to doughnuts and croissants.

Here are cross-sections of all three, back at the Saboscrivner’s Sanctum Sanctorum:

Finally, Edward amazed and astonished me with a savory croissant stuffed with three of my favorite things to eat, together or separately: serrano ham, goat cheese, and figs. It was an award-winning combination: salty, sweet, chewy (with the slightest crunch from those fig seeds), and a little funky from the goat cheese, especially wrapped and baked inside the soft, flaky, buttery croissant. It was like a dream.

Of course I have to show you the cross-section:

Apparently I missed out on a beloved apple fritter and sweet potato pie, but I have faith that old favorites will return throughout the year, as Edward also introduces new desserts destined to be classics.

This past week, Edward embarked on a new adventure: an all-too brief period selling his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts and citrus-glazed bites (small cubes about a quarter of the size of a full croissant doughnut) at Donut Central and Fuelpresso (https://www.donutcentral.com/) in Winter Park, on the southeastern corner of Aloma Avenue and Semoran Boulevard. Edward used to work there, so he teamed up with his former employer, providing his citrus specialties for sale alongside their own doughnuts. Unfortunately, he thought he might have a longer partnership with Donut Central, but it didn’t work out. Still, I’m glad I caught him there, for the purposes of this review.

I was lucky enough to see him again and meet his charming husband Eric when I popped in this past Saturday, the second day his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts were available at Donut Central. This was when I learned about the different citrus juices, the 81 layers, and Edward’s background as an accountant. (I am a huge proponent of anyone who changes careers and ends up doing what they love the second time around, since I did that too, and it saved my life.)

Here are the citrus-glazed croissant doughnut bites ($6.50 for four). These things totally melt in your mouth.

And here are three (because I couldn’t resist eating the fourth one right away) drizzled with rich, velvety chocolate. Chocolate and orange go together surprisingly well, although I think I prefer them pure and unadulterated.

I planned to just get some of the croissant doughnut bites, but we chatted for a while, fully masked and socially distanced. After 15 or 20 minutes flew by, Edward had a whole batch of fresh citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts ready, and I was able to leave with a whole one ($5), still warm. It was the best one yet.

Some of those luscious laminated layers:

This croissant doughnut sings. First of all, you can see the tiny flecks of orange, yellow, and green zest from oranges, lemons, and limes in the freshly applied glaze. The pastry is crispy and crackly, yet soft and yielding whether you bite in or deconstruct it, layer by buttery layer. It’s sweet (as if there was any doubt), but also surprisingly tart, with the refreshing bite of fresh-squeezed juice(s). There’s a lot going on with this pastry, a lot to unpack — hence all those layers. It is the best of all possible worlds, and it will remind you why, for all of its many problems, we are pretty lucky to live here in Florida.

Edward’s citrus-glazed croissant doughnut reminds me of an infamous contest a few years ago, where local chefs and bakers were invited to submit dessert recipes to be considered as the “signature dish” of Orlando, our City Beautiful. The only stipulation is that they had to include one ingredient, so synonymous with Central Florida and Orlando history. If you guessed citrus, you’d be… wrong! The chosen ingredient was honey, and the contentious contest led to a controversial champion, a precious, fancy dessert most people couldn’t even pronounce, from a single restaurant that has since closed.

I’m always fascinated when I travel to different cities that really do have a distinct local dish, where every restaurant serves their own unique, individual take on it. Think NY pizza or bagels, Philly cheesesteaks (even though DiNic’s roast pork sandwich is better than any cheesesteak), barbecue in Texas and Memphis, Cuban sandwiches in Miami, Cuban sandwiches in Tampa. (That’ll get a debate going!) I think that has to happen organically, over time — and I’m talking decades or longer, not mere years. And it definitely can’t be decided unilaterally, based on a single contest. Marketing helps, but the people have to choose.

Orlando has an incredible culinary scene that I’ve tried to do my part to highlight, but we’re not at a point yet where a single dish can represent our entire diverse dining dominion. This was one of the many topics Edward, Eric, and I discussed while I waited for my croissant doughnut. But that said… if Orlando was to have a single food that represented the city and its history, geography, economics, and culture, a dish that everyone should try because they would love it… this would be the one. I’m calling it.

I’d like to say you heard it here first, you savvy, sophisticated Saboscrivnerinos, but the legend of Edward Hawk Neal-Paci and his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts has been exponentially expanding for months. The man has big plans for 2021, and whatever he does next, I wish him the best of all things. The farmers’ markets, the week-long team-up with Donut Central and Fuelpresso (which ended up being like a pop-up) — I think we’re ogling the outrageous origin of enterprising Edward’s excellent empire. I strongly advise you to follow him on social media and seek out this this delectable doughnut, this crushworthy croissant, this peerless pastry, sooner rather than later, just so you can say “I knew him when.”

Chain Reactions: Sus Hi Eatstation

I am a sucker for extravagant sushi rolls and poke bowls that I get to customize myself, with the ingredients of my choice — different fish, vegetables, toppings, condiments. They’re beautiful to the eye, refreshing, delicious, and you can go as healthy or unhealthy as you want. I’ve reviewed and sung the praises of two of my favorite local restaurants: Poke Hana and Bento Cafe, but I recently paid my first visit to the homegrown chain Sus Hi Eatstation (https://sushieatstation.com/), founded here in Orlando by local couple Robert and Teresa Ly.

I don’t know why it took me so long. Sus Hi Eatstation has several locations around town, with the “build your own” model popularized by Subway, Chipotle, and so many other successful fast food and fast casual restaurants. They are also vaguely ninja-themed, and as an ’80s kid who grew up loving G.I. Joe and Daredevil comics, I have nothing but love for ninjas (and G.I. Joe, and Daredevil) to this day. If anything, I wish they leaned into the ninja theme even more, especially in this era of everyone wearing masks in public. (But don’t worry, everyone working at Sus Hi when I visited was wearing normal masks.)

I went to the closest location in Altamonte Springs, and I should mention that at least during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sus Hi Eatstation has customers place all orders from a touchscreen kiosk or online through the website. When I got there, I used the kiosk, and they had a pump bottle of hand sanitizer right next to it, so have no fear. At the front of the store, the dutiful staff members (who really could have been dressed like ninjas, I’m just sayin’) are meticulously assembling orders from the mise en place ingredients arranged in front of them, just like so many other fast casual eateries.

I have to admit it was a particular special that drew me in that day. One of Sus Hi’s specialties is sushi burritos wrapped in huge flour tortillas, and for a $1.50 upcharge, you can get them crusted with panko bread crumbs and deep-fried so they have a crunchy outer layer, but the sushi inside is still cool and refreshing. That already sounded amazing — certainly not traditional, but a nice, fusiony presentation. But now, they are running a special where you can get the burrito covered with crushed Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and deep-fried for a $3 upcharge. Yes, I’m not proud, but as soon as I learned that was a current menu option, I had to have it!

The basic burrito is $8.50, and I chose a base of white rice. (The other options are brown rice and lettuce.) When you customize a Sus Hi burrito, you get to select three proteins. I had already studied the menu in advance, and even though they offer steak and chicken, I went to a place called Sus Hi because I wanted sushi. I selected tuna (a 50-cent upcharge), salmon (a 75-cent upcharge), and spicy krab, which is shredded surimi tossed in spicy mayo. I added on cream cheese, cucumbers, shredded purple cabbage, scallions, mango, tempura flakes, sweet potato flakes, and nori seasoning. It was gorgeous!

Sus Hi allows you to get up to three different sauces with a burrito, and I opted for sauces on the side so I could taste everything better. The bright orange sauce on the top left is an additional sauce that comes special with the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos burrito. I thought it was going to be like a spicy queso, but it was more of a very spicy mayo, with the intensity of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. The paler sauce next to it is classic creamy, tangy white sauce. Below we have orange fire sauce, which was like a smoky chili mayo, probably with chipotle flavor added, and the slightly lighter orange sauce on the bottom right is standard spicy mayo, which I unapologetically love with my sushi and poke.

Sus Hi also offers regular and sweet soy sauces, teriyaki sauce, ponzu sauce, sweet chili sauce, mango habanero sauce, regular sriracha (meh), and yellow sriracha (better), among others.

The burrito was HUGE, and I am making a conscious effort to eat smaller portions in 2021, so I got two meals out of it. The Flamin’ Hot Cheetos-crusted outer surface wasn’t quite as crunchy as I expected, nor as flamin’ hot, but I still enjoyed it. It was a novelty, something I’m glad I tried but wouldn’t order again. I suspect the regular panko-crusted burrito will probably have a better texture.

But while I was at Sus Hi for my first time, I figured I might as well try a bowl too. I selected a regular bowl ($9.95) with brown rice as the base, in my half-hearted, conflicted attempt to eat slightly healthier. I usually don’t like brown rice, but theirs wasn’t bad at all! Again, I selected the same three proteins: tuna (50-cent upcharge), salmon (75-cent upcharge), and spicy krab. I kept my toppings pretty similar to the burrito: cream cheese (you can see the little scoop near the bottom), cucumber, purple cabbage, scallions, mango, tempura flakes, sweet potato flakes, and nori seasoning, but I also had them add sliced pickled jalapenos, crunchy noodles, and pickled ginger. Hey, why not, right?

I swear there is tuna, salmon, and krab under all that in the paper bowl. In fact, I was really impressed by the size of the “regular” bowl, and how generous they were with everything they put in it. A lot of places will scrimp on toppings and especially proteins, but I feel like this is a terrific deal — a huge portion of a lot of fresh, tasty food.

I got the same three sauces on the side with this bowl: spicy mayo, white sauce, and fire sauce. In the future, now that I’ve tried those sauces separately, I’d be more likely to just order one or more on top of the bowl, for ease of mixing everything together. You can also purchase Sus Hi’s sauces in bottles if you fall in love with any of them. I wish more restaurants would offer their sauces, condiments, and dressings for sale, but it never hurts to ask!

After all these years, I finally see why Sus Hi Eatstation is so popular, with such a devoted following around Orlando. People love sushi, and they love freedom of choice. I’m sure I will return, probably going back for a similar version of everything I tried for this review. I don’t know how long the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos-crusted sushi burrito will last, but if that was on your bucket list, I strongly encourage you to cross it off while you can!

Chain Reactions: Polo Norte (Miami)

The last day I ate a meal in an actual restaurant was March 7th. I was hanging out with my best friend in Miami on my first trip down in over two years, and we made the most of that pre-pandemic day by eating at FOUR restaurants. We started our morning with cafes con leche and Miami’s best croquetas de jamon at Islas Canarias in West Kendall, but then the real challenge began. From there, we made our way to Polo Norte (https://polonorterestaurant.com/), a Cuban restaurant with five locations around South Florida, to sample Cuban pizza and Cuban burgers called fritas.

Feeling invincible, with a long day ahead of us, we started with a half-order of garlic rolls, or pan de ajo ($1.85):

This was a personal pizza con chorizo ($7.95), with finely diced sausage baked under the cheese. The cheese was appropriately melty, the dough was pretty soft with the expected crispy bottom, and the chorizo was salty. Funny enough, it didn’t remind me of Mexican-style chorizo, red and crumbly and and perfect with eggs in breakfast tacos and burritos, nor Spanish-style chorizo, dry, rich, and spicy, like salami meant for the most special of occasions. This chorizo was salty above all else, and the entire pizza was pretty greasy.

We shared that, and we also shared this personal pizza con maduros ($7.95)! Yesssss, since Polo Norte is a Cuban pizza joint, you can get sweet, ripe, fried plantains on your pizza. Maduros are a top ten favorite food of mine in any form.

These Cuban pizzas were okay. Even though my life was more complete, it wasn’t necessarily changed for the better. I’m so glad I tried them, after growing up in Miami and not even knowing these existed for my first few decades, but there are certainly better regional pizza styles to seek out, even when you’re in Miami. (I’m a Sicilian pizza fanboy to this day, after so many slices from Cozzoli’s in the Dadeland Mall food court, growing up in Kendall in the ’80s.)

But while we were at Polo Norte, already the second stop on our day of gorging ourselves around Miami, we each had to get a frita con queso ($3.95 each), a Cuban-style cheeseburger that is famous around Miami and virtually unknown elsewhere. Not only did my best friend and I have our first Cuban pizza experience at Polo Norte, despite growing up in the 305, this was also my first-ever frita.

Since our trip to Polo Norte, I’ve become a little obsessed with the frita burger and researched it a lot. I have experimented a lot more with cooking at home over the last year, especially during this quarantine period, and recreated the frita several times following this recipe from the Three Guys From Miami, to great success.

The burger patties are seasoned in a way that most burgers aren’t, with paprika, cumin, garlic, and onion. Adding so many additional flavors to the meat before cooking it makes it a little like meatloaf, as far as I’m concerned, but I love meatloaf almost as much as I love burgers. But instead of thick meatloaf sandwiches, fritas should still be thin burger patties smashed flat on the cooking surface. A red sauce is often squirted onto it while cooking, adding to the savory flavors. It is tangy, but not spicy, because Cuban food is rarely spicy. Then the burger is served on a bun that has also been lightly griddled (either a Cuban roll or a regular soft hamburger bun) with additional onion, a squirt of ketchup, cheese if you want (I always want cheese), and a mountain of crispy julienned potatoes or commercial potato sticks.

I don’t know if I’ll ever bother to return to Polo Norte on future trips to Miami, just because those visits are so infrequent and short, there are so many great restaurants to try, and my best friend, my family, and I all have our own favorites already. But if you’ve ever wanted to try a whole new style of pizza and find yourself down south, this is one of the leading places to experience Cuban-style pizza, and you should totally get a frita burger while you’re there. I’m reasonably sure nobody serves Cuban pizza here in Orlando, so I’m especially glad I got to try them at Polo Norte last year.

CLOSED: BaanChan Thai Restaurant

EDITOR’S NOTE: BaanChan Thai Restaurant closed permanently over the summer of 2022.

***

I had been hearing about BaanChan Thai Restaurant (https://www.baanchanorlando.com/) for years before finally making it there in December. I brought back takeout for my “lunch bunch” at work, and everyone really enjoyed what they ordered. It’s way out east on Colonial Drive, further east than I usually venture, almost out to Alafaya. But it is easily accessible via the 417 and convenient for anyone in the UCF area.

My one co-worker ordered the BaanChan ramen ($10), with noodles in a spicy lemongrass soup, mushrooms, onions, scallions, cilantro, whole chiles, and lime. It came with a soy-marinated soft boiled egg and several large deep-fried, breaded shrimp. This was a a uniquely Thai take on ramen. They wisely packed the broth, the fried shrimp, and all the other stuff in three separate containers for her. My photo of the broth came out blurry, so I left it out. You’re welcome!

Three of us ordered my go-to Thai dish, drunken noodles ($8.50), at various levels of heat. Because I like to tempt fate and sometimes ruin my afternoons at the workplace, I asked for mine to be hot. Drunken noodles, sometimes called pad kee mow or pad kee mao, are wide, flat noodles stir-fried to an al dente consistency in a spicy sauce with onions, bell peppers, and Thai basil, plus a protein. I chose pork, which was tender and not dried out from the stir-frying. These were much more oily than other drunken noodles I’ve ordered elsewhere, at places like Mee Thai, Naradeva Thai, and Thai Singha, but still had a lot of flavor and A LOT of heat.

Someone’s food came with fluffy jasmine rice, but it went unclaimed. That was a relief to me, because I ate it to cut some of the lingering heat from the spicy, oleaginous noodles. Sometimes carbs can save your life!

I also ordered two small appetizers for myself, so I could make everything last for lunch and dinner. I asked around, and a lot of people recommended the Thai heaven beef ($4.50), which is fried beef jerky! Because it was fried and not just cured like a lot of conventional jerky I’ve had, in addition to being sticky, sweet, salty, and slightly spicy, it was oily and also quite firm and crunchy, which I wasn’t expecting. I can see why this is a popular crowd-pleaser at BaanChan, but I don’t know if I would order it again.

My absolute favorite thing I tried on this first visit to BaanChan was the Thai sausage ($4). It was chewy and savory with a slightly crispy exterior, not spicy at all. It was a terrific sausage, and I loved it. It came with paper-thin slices of pickled ginger like you might get with sushi, and some intimidating-looking whole chiles that I wisely avoided.

You can also see a fried pot sticker that one of my co-workers gave me from her order ($4.50 for four). It was stuffed with ground, seasoned pork and vegetables and was a pretty standard pot sticker, but you can never go wrong with those.

I was glad to finally try BaanChan after reading about it for years. Whenever I make it back, I’ll definitely order that amazing sausage again, and I’ll probably try the pineapple fried rice, chili jam, or larb next time to switch things up.

Orlando Weekly published my Top Ten Tastes of 2020!

I am honored to have one of my end-of-the-year lists included in our wonderful local alt-weekly newspaper, Orlando Weekly, for the FOURTH year in a row. This piece, my Top Ten Tastes of 2020, didn’t make it into the print edition, but it is a blog piece on their website for all to see.

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/top-tastes-2020-the-10-best-dishes-we-tried-in-orlando-this-year/Content?oid=28559241

Here’s a link to my 2017, 2018, and 2019 Orlando Weekly lists.

Happy New Year to all of my dozens of readers! Stay warm, healthy, and safe in 2021. Don’t forget to eat something good — because you deserve it, and because these local restaurants could use all the help they can get.