Month: April 2023

The Whiskey

Orlando’s “Restaurant Row” is a cluster of upscale restaurants — some chains and some locally owned and operated — along Sand Lake Road in the toney Dr. Phillips area, east of I-4 Exit 74, close to touristy International Drive and the Orange County Convention Center.  I honestly try to avoid this side of town, but I end up  out there from time to time, between catching up with visiting friends staying near the theme parks and my annual trips to nerd Mardi Gras, also known as MegaCon Orlando.

Years ago, I visited one of the more casual restaurants on Restaurant Row and thought it was just fine, but never reviewed it or returned… until recently.  My oldest friend and I staggered out of the busiest day of MegaCon 2023, famished, exhausted, and feeling very middle-aged.  He wanted to get a late lunch somewhere with table service, where we could sit down and be served and relax.  He specifically requested comfort food and a refreshing cocktail, but I would have been content with free refills on soft drinks in air conditioning.  That restaurant immediately came to mind as the perfect choice, and I was excited to give it another chance after all these years.  So we went to The Whiskey (https://www.downatthewhiskey.com/), which specializes in gourmet burgers and cocktails and boasts one of the largest whiskey selections in Orlando.

We were hungry, so we started out with Whiskey chips ($11.50): house-made potato chips topped with chunky smoked blue cheese sauce, smoked blue cheese crumbles, bacon crumbles, balsamic glaze, diced tomatoes, and scallions.  I think I must have tried this on my earlier visit years ago with my wife, because it seemed very familiar.  It was awesome, though.  Totally hit the spot.  I always appreciate fresh potato chips, and I love balsamic glaze and good blue cheese.

All the burgers at The Whiskey are eight ounces, and they are a blend of chuck, brisket, and short rib.  My friend and I were talking about how we each make tasty burgers at home, but we both use ground chuck, and that can’t compare to the blend of different cuts of beef that you get at steakhouses and upscale burger joints like this.  Sometimes it seems like a cop-out to order a burger when there are all kinds of interesting dishes on a menu, but when you see that blend of chuck, brisket, and short rib, you know it’s going to be a next-level burger.  And when you’re at a dedicated burger joint, you just can’t go wrong.

My friend ordered the black n’ bleu burger ($16), a house burger patty cooked to medium, seasoned in blackened seasoning, and topped with arugula, tomato, whiskey onions, smoked applewood bacon, and more of that great chunky smoked blue cheese sauce.  He wolfed it down with gusto.The fries that are the default side that come with the burgers are awesome at The Whiskey.  They are battered, so they have a lightly crispy outer coating, making them one of my favorite kinds of fries.  The menu warns they are not gluten-free, for those who need to know such things.

I’m almost positive I ordered this same burger on my earlier visit years ago: the Southerner ($18.25), a house patty cooked to medium rare on a bed of whiskey onions and arugula, topped with bacon, pimento cheese, and two fried green tomato slices, and drizzled with balsamic glaze.  It’s a perfect combination of things I love — creamy, melty, smoky, crunchy, tangy.  I laid waste to it.

Did I mention how good the brioche-style buns are?  They are lightly toasted on the grill, as all burger buns should be.

I upgraded my side from fries (even though the fries are really damn good) to Whiskey onion rings for $3.25, because I am The Saboscrivner, and I must try onion rings anywhere that serves them.  I even have a recurring feature in these reviews called RING THE ALARM!, where I go into detail about the onion rings I encounter.  I am pleased as punch to say that these are “the good kind” of onion rings — battered, not breaded — that I search for everywhere.  Perfect thickness, consistency, crispness, color, and everything.  When people ask me to recommend restaurants that have good onion rings, I will definitely add The Whiskey to the top of my list.

By the way, my friend loved his old fashioned ($12.50), Don Draper’s favorite cocktail.  The Whiskey makes its version with Single Barrel Jack Daniels whiskey, orange bitters, rhubarb bitters, raw cane sugar, fresh orange, a Traverse City black cocktail cherry, and a rock candy stir stick.  He is an aficionado, so I take his word for such things.

I am now convinced that I was in a bad mood on my first trip to The Whiskey, all those years ago with my wife.  I don’t know what my problem was that day, but I spend too much time in a bad mood, and I deal with depression too, which doesn’t help.  I don’t think I had started this blog yet, but I’m glad I didn’t write a half-hearted review way back then.  Instead, I’m thrilled to write an extremely positive review now, and I really do recommend this place to all.  Even vegetarians can get an Impossible burger here, and there are plenty of vegetarian-friendly apps, sides, and even a few salads.

Even though I try to avoid the International Drive and Dr. Phillips/Restaurant Row area, I would happily return to The Whiskey whenever I find myself down this way.  As tempted as I would be to get that terrific Southerner burger again, I would try other options on the menu, including a smoked brisket grilled cheese sandwich that tempted me, and a camel burger made with actual ground camel meat.  That is one animal I’ve never eaten, but I might have to make a special trip back for it on some future Wednesday.

Because Wednesday is “hump day,” and I would be eating camel.

And we all know that nothing makes a joke funnier than having to explain it, so I guess I’ll stop here.

Crocante Restaurant

I’ve been to Crocante Restaurant (https://crocantekitchen.com/) three times now — twice dining in and most recently for takeout — since it opened in late 2022 in the old Fuddruckers location on East Colonial Drive.  I have been a Fuddruckers fanboy ever since I was about twelve years old, and I was overjoyed when that franchised location opened near my work back in 2017.  Then I was crushed when it closed in 2022, but I hoped whatever opened in its place would be halfway decent.

Well, I am extremely pleased to report that chef/owner Yamuel Bigio’s second Crocante location is far beyond “halfway decent.”  It is the best Puerto Rican cuisine I’ve ever had, and it will enrich the neighborhood and the city of Orlando.  Since I started composing this review, the original Crocante location in Kissimmee, which was apparently much smaller and more casual, has closed.  I get that Chef Bigio might want to focus on this newer, larger space, and anyone who tries it will be able to see the plan paid off.

I went with a friend and co-worker on my first visit, back in December.  This friend appreciates good food on the level I do, and I knew we would make wise choices.  He ordered carne frita encebollada ($17), fried pork chunks covered with sautéed onions.  At the time, it came with two “house sides,” so he chose boiled yuca in mojo sauce and a “specialty side” for a $2.50 upcharge, arroz con gandules, or rice with pigeon peas. 

I’ve never seen a restaurant plate its rice so nicely!  This deserved another photo from a different angle, along with a special shout-out.

I ordered what I had heard was the best thing on the menu, the porchetta de pernil ($18), also known as pork leg porchetta, slow-roasted with garlic and herbs and served with crispy, crackly skin.  I had already seen some diners’ photos of a big, beautiful, thick, round slice of porchetta, but mine came chopped into chunks.  I thought nothing of it, because it was one of the best things I had eaten in a long time.  In fact, it made my list of Top Ten Tastes of 2022 in Orlando Weekly.For one of my sides, I chose the arroz blanco con habichuelas rosadas, white rice and pink beans, which were awesome.  Again, the rice was plated beautifully, and the stewed beans were rich and meaty.  I could have made a filling and satisfying meal of just those.  They seemed to use short grain rice, which I associate more with sushi than Latin food, and it was so buttery.  Latin restaurants always make better rice than whatever I make in my Aroma rice cooker at home.  Could butter be the actual secret ingredient?  It does make everything better!

For my other side, I chose a “specialty side” for a $2.50 upcharge: ensalada de coditos, or pasta salad.  I’m on a kick of trying pasta salad or macaroni salad whenever I find them on menus, and this one did not disappoint.  It was a mayonnaise-based macaroni salad with chunks of cheese and ham, a very pleasant surprise.  I could have also made a meal of this!

About a month later, I returned to Crocante with another friend, an intrepid diner who is usually the first person I know to try any new restaurant, but this was his first visit.  We started out sharing empandillas de bistec encebollado ($9), an order of two steak and onion turnovers.  Of course we each ate one, and they were wonderful.  Comedian Jim Gaffigan once said there is no such thing as a bad empanada, and I tend to agree, even if this particular menu calls them “empanadillas.”  (If that translates to “little empanadas,” they were still a very good size, and delicious.)
I love the attention to detail at Crocante.  The creamy, herby dipping sauce was excellent, and even the garnish of arugula was dressed with a tangy vinaigrette, making it a legit side salad.

For this lunch, my friend and I had both figured out that to get the big, beautiful slice of porchetta — tender pork loin and unctuous, melty pork belly with crispy skin — we had to order the somewhat misleadingly named la kan kan rotisserie, also known as the boneless rotisserie pork chop ($34).  What I got last time was the chopped porchetta de pernil, but this here, at twice the price, is the real house specialty. 
Like most entrees at Crocante at that time, it came with two “house sides,” and my friend chose the same white rice and pink beans I enjoyed so much last time, plus boiled yuca with mojo sauce (and peppers).

I opted for different sides with my la kan kan rotisserie/porchetta, as much as I loved the sides from my first visit.  This time I got maduros (sweet fried plantains; one of my favorite foods of all time), and the “specialty side” of arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas) that my co-worker raved about last time, for a $2.50 upcharge.

Here are two sauces that our server brought us.  The one on the left was a slightly spicy, tangy vinaigrette with chili peppers floating in it, and the one on the right was creamy, a little spicy, and extremely garlicky.   

I want to show you these huge rolled porchettas on display in their raw state, before being roasted to tender, juicy perfection:

And here is one with that crispy, crackly skin, just waiting to be sliced and served.   

Most recently, I finally ordered morcilla when bringing home a takeout order on St. Patrick’s Day, because I had been wanting to try Crocante’s version of blood sausage.  It sounds gross, but I always love sausages and organ meats.  It might be offal, but it was far from awful!  In fact, it was delicious, with a crispy casing and soft, savory, yielding interior.  It was a lot less crumbly and sticky than other versions of morcilla I’ve had before.  This was a half-pound portion that didn’t come with any sides, but you can also order it by the pound.   

I also brought la kan kan rotisserie home for my wife to finally try, after I’ve spent the last two months raving about it being one of the finest pieces of meat you can eat in Orlando.  She loved it, which did not surprise me at all.  We have both eaten plenty of dry roast pork from all kinds of restaurants, including other Puerto Rican restaurants’ versions of the “chuleta kan kan” that were fried until they were dried out.  We’ve also ordered too many chicharrones that were too crunchy and hard to chew, that made us feel like our teeth were in danger.  But this was a masterpiece, even finer than the ones my buddy and I enjoyed dining at Crocante not that long ago.  It was still warm and perfect, even after driving it home to Casselberry.  And the two of us barely made a dent, so it was just as good the next day. This time, it came with a small corn muffin, that was moist and sweet and delicious — one more pleasant surprise and great little detail from Crocante.  I like sweet cornbread, but it is dry and crumbly at a lot of places, including some Southern restaurants and barbecue joints that should know better.

I ordered the arroz con gandules again for my wife to try, since she always likes rice and pigeon peas.  We both marveled at how much meat was in it, so vegetarians beware.  (Unfortunately, Crocante would not be a fantastic restaurant for vegetarians in general, with how meat-centric it is.)

I also ordered maduros, but when I arrived and saw the printed receipt, I noticed I had been charged $4.50 for them.  When they brought me my takeout order, I pointed out that the menu online said that the la kan kan rotisserie came with two sides, not just one.  Furthermore, the person I spoke to on the phone didn’t tell me there would be a charge for the second side.  They argued and said the new policy is entrees come with one side plus the little corn muffin.  Very politely, I said that I looked at the menu on their website when I called it in, and it was the same as it ever was, showing entrees came with two sides.  They said they would let the owner know to change the menu on the website, but they did not offer to refund me the $4.50.  Dear readers, as much as I love this restaurant and still recommend it, that pissed me off.  Not cool, Crocante.  $4.50 isn’t a huge amount of money, but it would have been such an easy thing for them to make right.  It’s the principle of the thing, and it left a bad taste in my mouth, after all my previous praise.  They did not handle that well.

Crocante is five minutes from my work, and the food has been terrific every time.  Despite that one annoying lapse, I would still go back because it is the best Puerto Rican restaurant I’ve ever been to.  Please check it out for yourself, especially if you like pork and want to try what might be the best pork dish ever.  Just remember to order only one side, despite what the menu on the website still says, a whole month after that interaction.

Mr. J Hand-Pulled Noodle

A month or two back, I found myself in Ocoee, an area of West Orlando I never end up in, so I invited a work colleague who lives out there to meet me for lunch at Mr. J Hand-Pulled Noodle (https://www.mrjhandpullednoodle.com/).  I had heard lots of praise about the new Chinese restaurant, one of the only ones in Florida to offer Lanzhou-style hand-pulled noodles called lamien, served in halal Chinese Muslim beef noodle soup.  I was excited to try it, and so was my foodie friend.

Mr. J (which I can only hear in Arleen Sorkin’s New Jersey-inflected Harley Quinn voice) opened next to a Publix in a little shopping plaza at 1688 East Silver Star Road in Ocoee.  The sign for the previous restaurant, Crab & Wings, was still up when we visited.  It is a relatively small dining room, with are four tables for parties of four, three tables for parties of two, and a counter in the back with four additional seats (stools), where we sat.  You order at the counter, and they bring your food to you when it is ready.

There are eight different noodle shapes to choose from, all made by the chef-owner, Jiqing “James” Meng: flat, thin, small flat, normal, triangle, leek leaf, thick, and thicker.  I half-expected him to be putting on a show for the diners, pulling and twisting and whipping and winding noodles, like a scene out of Kung Fu Hustle, but all the action was taking place in the kitchen, out of sight.  You should definitely come to Mr. J for an awesome lunch or dinner, but don’t expect a show.  That was fine with us — it should end up getting hype and praise for the awesomeness and authenticity of the food, not for any kind of performative aspect.   

The Mr. J’s Hand-Pulled Noodle Soup ($15.95) was a clear, consomme-style beef bone broth that reminded me more of Vietnamese pho than the familiar wonton soup I have ordered countless times at countless Chinese restaurants in Orlando, Miami, and Gainesville.  I could not begin to identify all the herbs and spices that gave it its complex yet subtle flavors, but I know coriander and garlic leaves are involved.  It was not as spicy as I was expecting or hoping, despite knowing a bit of chili oil was in there, but that allowed me to focus more on the thin slices of tender beef and the perfectly soft and chewy “small flat” noodles I ordered.   

Here’s one of those noodle-pull action shots all food bloggers try to do.  I always try to be a cool man of the world and eat my noodle soups with chopsticks, but that just means I splash my shirts, no matter how cool I try to look.  The noodles were much softer than Italian “al dente” pasta, and because they are made with wheat flour, they were also softer than the rice vermicelli in bowls of pho.  But even when I couldn’t finish all of mine and took some home, they kept their shape and firm, springy chewiness.  Note the thin slice of crunchy white daikon radish in the bowl with all the diced leeks, a nice addition.

I figured the noodle soup would not travel well, so I also ordered stir-fried hand-pulled noodles to go ($16.95), to share with my wife at home.  This dish included more of the sliced beef, stir-fried with either “thick” or “thicker” noodles.  I chose “thicker,” because I love ’em thick, and the only thing better could be thicker.  Onions, green and red bell peppers, tomato, and even pumpkin (according to the menu) are stir-fried in the mix too, although I admit I couldn’t identify the pumpkin in with all that other goodness.  The red sauce was tangy and mildly spicy, and it was topped with fresh cilantro.This was another tasty dish, but I would definitely advise first-time diners to go with the soup if they are dining in, if they have to choose between the soup and the stir-fried noodles.  The soup is definitely the house specialty, and it is the most unique dish.  You also have more noodle shape choices if you go with the soup.

I neglected to take a close-up, but in the background, you can see the tea eggs I ordered for my colleague and I to try ($1.50 each), since I had never had a tea egg before.  They were delectable hard-boiled eggs dyed a rich brown hue from tea once we shelled them, and they took on some of that unique flavor.  I eat hard-boiled eggs a lot at home and in my boring work lunches, and the tea eggs inspired me to do more exciting things with them in the future, like this.  There were also “thousand-year-old eggs” on the menu, another kind of egg I’ve never tried before, but I figured I would not push my luck.

Like I said, I am never this far west in Orlando, so I have no idea when I will return to Mr. J, so I’m glad I tried everything I did when I did.  If you make it to Ocoee more than I, you owe it to yourself to try it for yourself.  Chef Meng is a master of his craft, elevating noodles to an art form.  I can safely say you have never tried noodles like these or soup like this in Orlando.  Even though it feels like 2023 has skipped spring and gone straight to summer, get some of his beef noodle soup with these fresh, hand-pulled lamian noodles before it gets even hotter out there, and don’t let the heat and humidity stop you even in the epicenter of August’s armpit.

Sampaguita Filipino Ice Cream

Right before the end of 2022, my wife and I were lucky enough to attend a soft opening preview of Sampaguita Filipino Ice Cream (https://www.sampaguitausa.com/), the newest sweet spot in Orlando’s Mills 50 district, one of our most diverse dining destinations.  Located mere steps from previous Saboscrivner favorites like Poke Hana, Tasty Wok, and across the street from bb.q.Chicken, Sampaguita opened in an ideal central location in a neighborhood that features dozens of awe-inspiring Asian restaurants, tea and dessert shops, grocery stores, and other businesses.

I will note, as usual, that parking can be tricky around Mills 50, depending on your timing, but there is a convenient parking lot behind the Sampaguita/Tasty Wok/Poke Hana/Mamak/Moderne plaza on East Colonial and Shine, along with convenient back entrances to most of those, including Sampaguita.  If you can’t find street parking in the front along Colonial, don’t despair.

The inside of Sampaguita is something to behold.  The décor is gorgeous tropical paradise, inspired by the Philippines and also Miami.  I found it very comforting and relaxing inside, almost like we were on vacation at an island resort.  There are comfortable tables and booths, so you can linger with your ice cream in lovely surroundings.  The entire staff was friendly and welcoming, explaining flavors at the counter up front, offering us free samples, and checking up on us once we were seated.

Who wouldn’t want to hang out here?  I am not one of those food bloggers obsessed with ambience, being an “anti-influencer” and all (hey, that’s what they say on Reddit!), but I call ’em like I see ’em, and Sampaguita is a lovely and photogenic place.

They had 16 ice cream flavors available during the soft opening.  Here are the first twelve:

The last four flavors are all vegan:
Buko pandan
Mango float
Rotating sorbet (that means they will rotate different sorbet flavors in and out)
Coffee & biskwit
They also offered two additional flavors of soft serve ice cream (softcream) in both dairy and vegan varieties: vanilla and ube, a purple yam common in Filipino desserts, with a taste similar to vanilla or taro, if you’ve ever tried that.  You can also opt for the vanilla and ube to come swirled together, which my wife was all about.

We sampled several.  Banoffee — a banana/toffee flavor — was excellent, and so was peach mango pie, which I figured was a playful tribute to the hand-held desserts from Jollibee, the beloved Filipino fast food chain, which finally opened in Orlando earlier this year.


If you click the Sampaguita website link above (or here, for your convenience), the menu page offers much more detailed descriptions of every flavor.

You can get a variety of toppings, as well as fresh waffle cones that smell so good, or classic cake cones.

Ultimately, I went with a triple, with a scoop of three different tropical fruity flavors — my Miami upbringing coming through.  I got mango float (a vegan flavor), pineapple cake (similar to pineapple upside-down cake, with chewy cherries in there), and keso guava cheesecake, a very Miami-influenced flavor, recalling all the guava and cream cheese pastelitos you can get everywhere down there.  I opted to have my three scoops topped with a drizzle of pineapple caramel sauce, and I was in heaven.

My wife opted for a triple as well.  She asked if she could get a scoop-sized swirl of the vanilla and ube soft serve as one of her three flavors, and they kindly agreed.  Then she got choco peanut (milk chocolate ice cream with a peanut sauce swirl, a Filipino twist on the classic chocolate peanut butter combo) and the namesake Sampaguita flavor, an almond vanilla bean ice cream base with lychee jelly and a hint of jasmine, based on a favorite childhood snack of Marie Mercado, Sampaguita’s founder and co-owner.  It looked like it would be a good plain, basic flavor, but it was actually quite intense and delicious — far more almond than vanilla.

Marie visited our table to check on us, and she told us, “The Greenery Creamery [her other Orlando ice cream parlor] is an exploration of [her] self expression; Sampaguita is an exploration of [her] self identity.”  Marie wants to validate all the Asian-American kids who were teased and isolated for bringing home-cooked meals in their school lunches, rather than standard American kid foods.  The flavors of Sampaguita are a love letter to her family, her life, and her culture as a Filipina-American.  That love really comes through in every taste, every interaction, and every moment spent in Sampaguita.

It took us too long, but we returned again recently.  My wife was so enamored with the softcream that she got the vanilla and ube swirl again, this time in a fresh waffle cone that tasted better than any other ice cream cone ever, probably.  

I opted for another triple with three new flavors, even though I really loved the first ones I tried.  That top orange scoop is peach mango pie, the yellow-orange scoop on the right is soy sauce butterscotch, and the pale green is creamy buko pandan, with young coconut (buko) and pandan, a tropical plant that smells and tastes a bit like floral vanilla.  As usual, Eater wrote a really good article explaining more about the pandan plant and its place in Filipino desserts.Since you are dying to know, the soy sauce butterscotch tasted sweet and buttery, but there was a salty umami quality that cut through.  If it sounds like a weird or unpleasant combination, you couldn’t be more wrong.  Just think about how sea salt started getting combined with caramel all the time a few years ago, and you’ll be close to this magical combination.

I am so happy Sampaguita exists.  Marie Mercado’s ice cream dream that she shared with our city is already a smashing success, and I’m so happy to see it happening.  From the moment my wife and I first wandered in, I knew people would embrace the concept, unfamiliar flavors and all.  This is, without a doubt, my favorite ice cream parlor in Orlando, and I recommend it strongly.  Whether you crave the conventional or have an adventurous palate and live for trying new things, you will find something cool and sweet to love here — and I don’t just mean Marie and her lovely, patient staff.