African – The Saboscrivner

Jiko – The Cooking Place

To celebrate our 17th anniversary, my wife and I finally made it to a restaurant we had always wanted to try: Jiko – The Cooking Place (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/animal-kingdom-lodge/jiko-the-cooking-place/menus/dinner/). Jiko is a high-end African restaurant located inside the sumptuous Animal Kingdom Lodge hotel at Walt Disney World, so you don’t need to pay admission to enter the Animal Kingdom theme park to eat there. I strongly encourage diners to make a reservation, though. I’ve been to this hotel once before, to eat at a different restaurant, Sanaa (home of the epic bread service).

Jiko turned out to be a real splurge meal, with each of us ordering an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert, and it wasn’t even Magical Dining! We don’t do that very often, but anniversaries only come once a year, and we had a lot to celebrate, including my wife surviving a near-death experience (with an extended hospitalization) this past summer.

I’ll never turn down bread being delivered to our table, and Jiko specliazes in giraffe bread, soft and fluffy and slightly chewy on the inside, but the exterior has these beautiful crispy, crunchy patterns that make it delightful and fun to eat. The soft whipped butter is blended with baobab, a gourd-like fruit that naturally dries on the branches of gigantic African trees known as the “tree of life.” It gives the butter a tangy, slightly sour taste, which I thought was yogurt at first.

For her appetizer, my wife chose this duck confit and honey-raisin flatbread, not that dissimilar from a small, thin-crust pizza, topped with preserved duck, arugula (it’s a veg-e-table!), toasted chickpeas, mozzarella cheese, raisins, harissa (the Moroccan spice that explains it all), and spiced honey.

I almost didn’t order an app for myself, but we both had our eyes on the braai’d wild boar tenderloin, so I’m really glad I splurged just a little bit more than I intended at first. (A braai is a South African wood or charcoal grill, or the style of grilling meats, comparable to how Americans barbecue meats at low heat for a long time, using smoke.) We both love game meats, which will be a trend throughout this sumptuous feast. The wild boar was extremely tender, and it was served on top of creamy pap (very similar to grits or polenta, but with a smoother, creamier consistency), tomato chakalaka (a South African relish made with tomatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, and ginger), and drizzled with herb-smoked oil. That intriguing bubbly thing on the left was a crispy pork rind, but more cracker-like than super-crunchy and hard like some chicharrones.

The game meats continued. My deer… um, dear wife ordered seared venison loin, which the chef at Jiko cooks to medium rare. It was so tender, and she has a happy childhood memory of trying venison in her kindergarten class when a kid’s father, a hunter, brought some in for the kids to sample, and she loved it. This venison was served over herbed goat cheese pap (again, similar to grits or polenta), topped with chermoula, a North African marinade or relish similar to Latin chimichurri. The menu said it was supposed to come with petite mustard greens, but I’m not sure if that was the bit of green on top, or if that was the chermoula.

One thing the venison loin dish included that the menu did not mention was a whole pile of mushrooms, on the left side of the plate, next to the frizzy, leafy garnish. I’m glad I didn’t spear one of those when she invited me to try anything on her plate, or it would have cut our lovely date night tragically short!

I ordered her second choice of entrees, but these two were my top two as well. This was oak-grilled braai bison strip, which I requested rare. I love making little sliders out of ground bison, and I always cook it rare at home. It has such a rich, beefy taste, but I had never had actual bison steak before, until this dish. It was delicious, especially topped with chocolate-red wine demi-glace, but it wasn’t as tender as the venison loin she ordered.

It came with four-cheese macaroni that I had been excited about, since I usually love mac and cheese, but that was a letdown for both of us. It looked and tasted like something simple, off the chidrens’ menu, without anything to make it special or unique or exciting. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all. There was a roasted tomato slice topped with some kind of herbs and a bit of roasted red onion, but right below that tomato was… guess what, folks… another pile of mushrooms that nobody mentioned! Perhaps those were the “seasonal vegetable,” even though mushrooms are not vegetables or even plants. My wife mentioned it to our server, who offered to remake the plate, but I didn’t want that food to be wasted. My wife ate all the mushrooms, and at least I’m not going to be poisoned if they touched my plate or even my other food — I just can’t eat them myself. (Man, now all my enemies know how to incapacitate me, like how every supervillain in the DC Universe knows about Kryptonite!)

For dessert, my wife chose the potjie pot, a beautiful, multicolored, sphere-like sculpture containing layers of lemon-olive oil cake at the bottom, chocolate custard in the middle, whipped caramel on top, cocoa nib crunch like a fascinator hat on top and around the base, and some dark cherries. The little “happy anniversary” sign was made of paper-thin chocolate.

And I had no intention of getting a dessert, but with my wife’s newfound love of food and trying new things, I figured it was a rare opportunity to sample something else. Our server, Susanna (from Rome, Italy) suggested her other favorite was the malva pudding, a South African dessert of amarula-infused malva cake, caramel-sea salt gelato, kataifi (super-fine, crispy strands of phyllo dough), dark chocolate ganache, and drops of sweet shiraz gelée around the plate. That “flying V” shape on the top was also paper-thin chocolate, along with the anniversary sign.

Our little area of the dining room was walled off, so we couldn’t see any of the African animals out the windows, and then it was dark by the time we finished dinner, but oh well. We dressed up because it was a special occasion at an upscale restaurant, but most diners showed up in t-shirts and shorts, drenched in sweat, presumably after a day at the parks, so keep in mind that dress codes are nonexistent.

All in all, we had a beautiful anniversary dinner at Jiko, even with surprise mushrooms and disappointing macaroni and cheese. But we both agreed this was a “one-and-done” for us, a singular experience we wouldn’t need to repeat, much like Bern’s Steak House in Tampa (which we liked) and other expensive Disney restaurants like California Grill and The Boathouse (which we did not).

Selam Ethiopian and Eritrean Cuisine

A while back, I went to a Transformers convention here in Orlando with one of my closest friends. We went to high school together in Miami, and he was in town for the show, visiting from Tampa. He is a vegetarian, so afterwards, I suggested lunch at Selam Ethiopian and Eritrean Cuisine (https://www.ethiopianrestaurantorlando.com/), located at 5494 Central Florida Parkway in Orlando, just off International Drive and close to the Sea World theme park. I’ve only ever had Ethiopian food once before, a long time ago, at Orlando’s only other Ethiopian restaurant, Nile, which I need to get back to. But I had been hearing great things about Selam for years (including a Michelin recommendation), and it lived up to every bit of hype.

We started our epic lunch by sharing this order of two lentil samosas, fried to perfection in their thin, crispy shells. These were flatter triangles than the pyramid-like Indian samosas most of us are probably used to, with lighter, thinner shells that were more like spring roll wrappers than the empanada-like exteriors of Indian samosas. They were stuffed with a blend of lentils (a legume I love), onions, jalapenos, and herbs. Selam also offers samosas with minced beef or chicken, as an alternative to these vegetarian ones. The chunky hot sauce was absolutely delicious. I’d say it had a medium-hot spice level, so too much for my wife, parents, and in-laws, but not hot enough to make people run to the bathroom or beg for a glass of milk.

We each ordered lunch combination platters that are served on injera, which is a thin, sourdough-based bread that you rip apart with your hand and use it to scoop up or dip into various stewed meats and vegetables. It’s a similar concept to Turkish lavas bread and Indian naan, but the injera is much thinner, more like a crepe or a very thin pancake, and almost spongey in consistency. I’m always a little surprised Ethiopian food hasn’t caught on more as a mainstream cuisine, because Americans do love dipping things into other things. Be prepared to scoop and dip, because there are no utensils! The cuisine offers some of the most delicious vegetarian dishes I’ve ever tasted, and I say that as a committed omnivore.

This was my meat combination platter, which included four different meats. The green vegetables on the left are gomen besiga, a dish of sautéed collard greens with beef, ginger, garlic, onions, and jalapenos. I am a huge fan of collard greens, even though I didn’t grow up eating them, but now I am delighted to try every version I can, usually on barbecue and soul food menus. But these were like nothing else. To the right of the greens is ye beg wot, chunks of lamb stewed with onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric. I love lamb and stewed meats in general, and that had so much flavor. The redder chunks of meat in the middle are beef wot, a similar stew made with beef that was a little spicier. (If I mixed up the lamb wot and beef wot, I apologize to everyone!) The dark red dish on the right with the hard-boiled egg (a pleasant surprise) is doro wot, a spicy chicken stew flavored by seasoned butter called niter kibbeh and a pretty spicy spice blend called berbere. After this meal, I bought a little thing of berbere at Penzey’s Spices, and I need to experiment with it more. That is homemade cottage cheese in the top right. I loved everything. I’m always excited to explore a new cuisine, and whenever a restaurant offers some kind of combo to let me sample multiple dishes and flavors, I will take that opportunity.

My friend did the same thing by ordering the vegetarian combination platter. That’s a little side salad on the left, followed by ye timatim fitfit, which is the injera bread chopped up and sauteed with fresh tomatoes, green chilies, onions, garlic, and herbs. It was cool to see how versatile the injera is, and kind of a meta thing to use the flat injera to scoop it up with, like dunking Oreos into cookies and cream ice cream. The next one over, the yellow-orange dish, is ye kik alicha wot, which is mild split peas stewed with onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric. After that, the dark red is ye misir wot, with pureed split red lentils simmered in chopped onions, garlic, ginger, vegetable oil, and berbere sauce, so it was spicier than the split peas next to it. Next up is atakilt (vegetable) wot with the most delicious potatoes, carrots, green beans, onions, cabbage, and ginger, all stewed together. Finally, the vegetarian combo platter had ye gomen (collard green) wot on the right side, which was probably similar to my gomen besiga, only with no beef in this one.

My friend, who is always a generous guy, let me sample all of those, and I have to say that as tasty as my meats were, and how exciting it was to try all those unfamiliar flavors, the vegetarian combo blew them away with depths of flavor. If I was skilled enough to cook Ethiopian and Indian recipes well, I could probably go vegetarian, or at least eat vegetarian more often than I do, which is not as often as I should. But I recommend this highly to everyone, whether you eat meat or not, to demonstrate the absolute wonders and miracles you can achieve with vegetables and spices.

In fact, two years before I published this review, I listed Selam’s vegetarian combination platter in Top Tastes, where I listed my favorite local restaurant dishes of 2023 in Orlando Weekly, back when I was writing those every year. (Somehow we skipped 2024, and who knows what’s going to happen this year.)

I hardly ever drink coffee, but if you go to an Ethiopian restaurant, it almost feels like a necessity to do the traditional coffee ceremony, so we did. While I don’t pretend to be a coffee connoisseur, this was really delicious and strong coffee, with a depth of flavor I never notice in plain black American-style coffee. That said, I’ve never been into plain black coffee, and here at Selam, I needed some sugar in mine to mellow it out.

While this meal goes back a while, I remember it like it was yesterday. I kept holding off on publishing this review because I was hoping to return, ideally with other friends to try other dishes. Unfortunately, it is far from home, and Ethiopian food is a hard sell for most people I know (including my wife, who was brave enough to try it with me that one other time, 16 years ago, but it wasn’t her thing). But I give Selam my highest possible recommendation, whether you are familiar with the cuisine or completely uninitiated and a little intimidated. Don’t be intimidated! Everything was a hit, and it’s FUN. It would actually be a fun place to take a date, because you eat with one hand, which is kind of sensuous, and you share everything. But if any of my friends ever want to go to there on a weekend, I’m your huckleberry!

Sanaa

This is a review of a wonderful meal I ate back in May, with five wonderful former co-workers. (I started a new job six weeks ago, so I’m still getting used to referring to the job I held for 15 years as my old job, and my co-workers as former co-workers.) After attending the lovely graduation ceremony for our students every May, we had a nice unofficial tradition of going out to lunch somewhere afterwards, usually a fun place somewhere on Disney property, where we would never have the time to go on a normal workday.

Last year we had an awe-inspiring lunch at Jose Andres’ huge Jaleo restaurant at Disney Springs, and this year we went to Sanaa (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/animal-kingdom-villas-kidani/sanaa/) at Kidani Village, part of the beautiful Animal Kingdom Lodge resort hotel. You do not need to purchase admission to the Animal Kingdom theme park to eat here, or I probably would have skipped out on this one.

Like everything at Walt Disney World, the theming of the restaurant is beautiful. It is a popular place, and my Disney-experienced colleague booked a reservation for our party weeks in advance, which was a wise move. You can actually see zebras, giraffes, and other wild animals out those windows… just not in my photo. (Sorry.)

Sanaa serves an eclectic menu of Indian and pan-African cuisine, with lots of curries to choose from. If you ask me, the highlight of dining at Sanaa is the Indian-style bread service. This is a dream for vegetarians and people who are at peace with consuming carbs. It costs $21, and you get five different breads and a whopping nine different accompaniments. The six of us shared everything and were very polite about it, but in the future, I would totally order this just for myself, possibly even as my main meal. If you come to Sanaa and don’t order the bread service, you are missing out on something spectacular.

The five breads are supposed to be traditional naan, garlic-ginger naan, spiced naan, onion kulcha, and paneer paratha. I only see four in the photo below, and I could not possibly begin to guess which one was which, but trust me when I tell you that they were all fluffy, soft, buttery heaven. If you haven’t had naan or roti or paratha or kulcha before, I encourage you to find the closest Indian restaurant on your way home from wherever you are and pick some up to go, even if you don’t order anything else! Imagine the softest, fluffiest pita bread, and you’re still not even close to how good these clay oven-baked flatbreads can be.

Of course I got a lousy photo of the beautiful dips, sauces, and chutneys, trying to capture them before my colleagues dove in, but they were a real treat for a fan of condiments, sauces, and dips like me. I wasn’t always sure what I was dipping into what or spooning onto what, but there wasn’t a bummer in the bunch. They included cucumber raita (cool and creamy yogurt in the top right), roasted red pepper hummus (top left), mango chutney (second from top right; similar to a chunky mango salsa), tomato-date jam (I loved this one, whichever it was), tamarind chutney, coriander chutney, garlic pickle, red chile sambal, and spicy jalapeño-lime pickle. This was such a crowd-pleaser, and it was definitely the highlight of the meal for me. Like I said, whenever I get around to returning, I’m gonna get this just for myself, and then suggest anyone else I am with share one.

One co-worker ordered samosas, which were plated beautifully. These were potato and pea samosas in what looked like perfect pastry shells, served over mango and tamarind chutney. I didn’t ask to try hers because that is all she ordered for herself, but have you ever had a bad samosa? I don’t think that is possible, kind of like the nonexistence of bad empanadas.

I ordered the potjie (referring to food slow-cooked in small cast-iron pots), which I was drawn to because the menu presents several options to choose from. You may choose one from the “journey” (meat-based dishes): Goan seafood curry, butter chicken, braised beef, or pork vindaloo, and then one from the “harvest” (plant-based dishes): rajma masala, chickpea wat, sukuma wiki, or lentil daal. Our server was very patient, answering our questions and making suggestions.

I can try butter chicken at any number of wonderful local Indian restaurants, since that is my wife’s favorite Indian dish, and even though I love a good vindaloo, I knew our group was headed to Epcot next, so I did not want to ruin a rare, fun afternoon out by sabotaging my stomach with something really spicy. I thought the most interesting and offbeat choice was the Goan seafood curry, so that’s what I got.

It came with shrimp, fish, and scallops in a rich curry that was mildly spicy, probably much more mild than the vindaloo. Luckily, it came with plenty of fragrant basmati rice, and I mixed them together liberally.

My plant-based choice was sukuma wiki, an East African dish of collard greens stewed with tomatoes and spices. I love good collards, and even though these were purely vegetarian (rather than being cooked with any smoked pork, smoked turkey, or ham), they were so full of flavor. No regrets here! Even though this dish is from Kenya and Tanzania, it made me realize it has been more than a decade since I’ve had Ethiopian food (another cuisine that handles collard greens very well). It is also really damn good, and I need to get some again soon.

My one male colleague at the lunch also ordered the potjie, but with completely different options.

He opted for the braised beef, which looked and smelled really fine:

And he also chose rajma masala, a curry dish of kidney beans cooked with onions, tomatoes, herbs, and spices. It looked and smelled great as well, but he was not joining us for Epcot, so the rest of us dodged a big bullet that afternoon.
At this point, I was already pleasantly full, but people in my party insisted on ordering three separate desserts to share. Let it never be said that librarians don’t know how to party!

This was serradura, which was butterscotch pudding, almond coffee streusel, fresh pineapple and mango, and Breton shortbread (which I didn’t try because it looked like a biscotti, God’s joke on people who like cookies). The little spoonful I had was very nice. It was cool, creamy, not too sweet or rich.

This was kheer, a plant-based dessert of coconut-rice pudding with cashew streusel and saffron-poached fruit. I tried a tiny taste because sometimes coconut and nuts betray me, but I liked it more than I expected to. I would never have even considered ordering this dessert, but it was delicious.

And this was a dessert special that was like a fancy version of a chocolate candy bar with nuts. I left that for the other five people to devour, because I was very content at this point.

As my friends and regular readers (the stalwart Saboscrivnerinos) know, I am not what you would consider a “Disney adult.” I have nothing against Disney, but my wife and I just aren’t theme park people. That said, I had a blast at Epcot after lunch with my former co-workers, awesome people I am proud to call friends, as well as professional colleagues. (Frolleagues?) I especially want to thank one frolleague who also left that same institution over the summer, one of the dozens of stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, a wonderful woman who used a guest pass to get me into Epcot. Next time I see you, I’m treating you to something — and you know who you are!

My wife and I end up at Disney Springs every so often, usually visiting people who are staying at or near the parks, since you don’t have to pay admission to go there. There are good restaurants at Disney Springs, but it was a blast to go somewhere new on the sprawling resort property, somewhere I had never been before, and to enjoy new dishes and flavors I had never even tried before. I would strongly recommend Sanaa to any adventurous tourists and locals alike.

While I have favorite Indian restaurants in Orlando (Bombay Street Kitchen chief among them), not a lot of places serve African-Indian fusion dishes, aside from occasional specials at the casual Oh My Gyro in Longwood. There is nothing quite like Sanaa, and especially nothing like that breathtaking bread service. You don’t have to pay park admission to eat here or even pay for parking, so consider adding it to your list of Disney dining destinations.