Bar/Pub – The Saboscrivner

Runabout Brewing Co.

Runabout Brewing Co. (https://www.runaboutbrewing.com/) calls itself a “Kitchen and Raw Bar,” a brewpub that serves an assortment of Southern-accented comfort food (pizza, burgers, sandwiches, salads, oysters, and more) and has 20 beers on tap. Longtime readers know my wife and I don’t drink, but a cool and trusted friend loves this place, so we recently followed her advice and went out there for a Saturday lunch date. It is located at 4721 S. Orange Avenue in Orlando, south of downtown in a district I believe is called Edgewood, between SoDo and Pinecastle. We were among the first to arrive, a little before noon, but the place was pretty slammed by the time we left, probably full of loyal locals.

This hot and crispy jumbo pretzel (that’s what they call it!) is more than enough for two people to share. It has the best crackly texture, almost like it was lightly fried. It is also dusted with Tajin, a chili-lime seasoning that I’m used to having over fruit, not a baked (and fried?) good. My wife doesn’t dig on cheese sauces or dips in general, but I loved the lager cheese fondue dipping sauce.

These were some great onion rings, definitely beer-battered and served with sriracha aioli. I give these a strong and confident RING THE ALARM!

My wife ordered this lovely arugula and spinach salad, topped with feta cheese, Granny Smith apple slices, and sugar-dusted pecans. There is also a lemon vinaigrette dressing on it that she really liked. She added two buttermilk chicken tenders to the salad, which didn’t photograph well, but she seemed to like them. You can also get herb-seared steak, crispy fried oysters, a salmon filet, or three chilled prawns added onto any salad there.

I couldn’t decide between two entrees, but I had not had a good burger in a while, so I ordered this “hot stuff” burger topped with pepper jack cheese, fire-roasted peppers, and crispy fried pickled jalapenos and topped with chili sauce. It wasn’t the largest burger in town, or the thickest, or the prettiest, or the juiciest, but it was still tasty.
The fries were pretty standard — if you’re thinking they would taste like McDonald’s fries, you’d be right, but there isn’t anything wrong with that!

And while it isn’t on the menu on the website, they did offer an Italian sub on the lunch menu when we went, so I ordered it to go. I got some salami, pepperoni, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and vinaigrette dressing on the whitest sub roll ever. It looked underbaked but tasted fine, and it was a solid sandwich.The potato chips were house-made and stayed crispy all the way home, when I separated them from the sandwich so they wouldn’t get soggy.

It is quite a haul for us to get to Runabout Brewing from home, but I’d go back to meet friends there, absolutely. There might be bigger, better burgers and Italian subs elsewhere in Orlando, but I liked these, don’t get me wrong. I was impressed by the breadth and depth of the menu just the same, especially for a brewery-restaurant. Next time I’d probably try some seafood, especially since I love oysters so much, or the marinated and wood fire-roasted wings, since so many places serve wings but so few get them right. The menu on the website now displays collard greens braised with smoked turkey necks, which I didn’t notice at the time (or maybe they weren’t on the menu when we went), but I’ve enjoyed a lot of good collards lately, so I would definitely get those on a return trip. I am just glad to see so many local breweries thriving and serving good food, not just the lowest-effort bar food.

HMS Bounty (Los Angeles)

HMS Bounty (http://www.thehmsbounty.com/) is a beloved dive bar in Los Angeles’ vibrant Koreatown. Named after a British ship where sailors staged an infamous mutiny (you may have seen the 1962 movie Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando), the bar is nautical-themed, but not in a cheesy way. Just don’t let “dive bar” dissuade you, because it’s a cool, dark room with a lot of character (dig those red leather booths, one of my favorite bits of recurring decor in L.A. dining and drinking establishments), history (it opened in 1962 — the year that movie came out! — on the ground floor of an apartment building dating back to 1924), and most importantly, super-solid food.

Before my L.A. work trips, I often consult websites like Eater for recommendations, and they listed HMS Bounty on their lists of The 38 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles (as of this writing, I’ve been to four), 20 Classic Los Angeles Restaurants Every Angeleno Must Try (five so far!), and The Best Dive Bars in Los Angeles. The restaurant was even a filming location in season 1, episode 11 of Mad Men (a fantastic show I loved), where Elisabeth Moss’ audience point-of-view character Peggy Olson went on a date to a seafood restaurant, “La Trombetta.” Season 1 was set in 1962, so the vibes were perfect, like everything else on that show. A different season 1 episode of Mad Men filmed at The Prince, another classic Koreatown restaurant with similar vibes and decor (and surprisingly good Korean food), so they were pros at capturing L.A.’s enduring old-school cool and making it stand in for early ’60s New York City.

After teaching an evening class on one of my L.A. visits, some students invited me out to dinner with them, and I was so honored, of course I agreed. We walked to HMS Bounty (which was their idea, not mine) and proceeded to share several plates while chatting and decompressing from the school day.

Fried calamari was on point, with a nice, light breading and a tender texture. No rubber bands of squid here! I think the sauce turned out to be cocktail sauce rather than marinara, which surprised me in the moment.

As my longtime readers know (the couple dozen of you), I will order onion rings anywhere and everywhere they are available. These were really good, with a completely different kind of batter than the calamari that was crispy, stayed on, and the rings weren’t too thick or too thin. It was a generous portion for $6. RING THE ALARM!

I was blown away by these thick, meaty, tender, well-seasoned hot wings, which were mildly hot, if anything. I’ve written before about my contempt for tiny, dry, crunchy sports bar-style wings, but these were the complete opposite. They were honestly in the Top Ten wings I’ve ever had anywhere.

I don’t think I ever got a piece of fish from this fish and chips platter, and I might have grabbed a single fry, just for the experience of it all. The menu said all entrees (including these fish and chips) were served with mashed potatoes and vegetables, but I honestly don’t remember if they arrived on a separate plate or not. If not, nobody noticed or complained.

But because I always study menus in advance, this is what I really wanted to try: sautéed sand dabs, a kind of fish that I’ve never seen on any menus in a lifetime in Florida, but I’ve already been to two restaurants in Los Angeles that serve them (both old-school places, if that makes a difference). I will review the other one at some point in the future, because I’d still love to return there.
How often do you get to taste a completely new, unfamiliar fish, especially by the time you hit your 40s? These sand dabs were mild and tender (definitely not a “fishy”-tasting fish), probably lightly dredged in seasoned flour. I was so happy to try an all-new, all-different fish! By the way, sand dabs are a flat-bodied fish related to the flounder.

The one thing we didn’t order that we probably should have was the “famous baseball steak,” which the Eater writeups had mentioned. But there was plenty of food to go around, and nobody left hungry or disappointed.

This group of brilliant, ambitious, warm, welcoming students that invited me out was all about sharing food (although I think I was the most interested in the onion rings and sand dabs) and spirited conversation. It was a delightful dinner with even better company, and I was so honored to be there for multiple reasons. I mean, most of my readers have been students at one point or another, but how often have you ever wanted to hang out with your teachers or professors socially? Has that ever happened?

I can’t imaging too many L.A. tourists making a special trip to HMS Bounty (but if you do, more power to ya!), but it is definitely a place that locals should pop into at least once. With all that history, timeless cool vibes, and much better food than one might expect, it would be worth checking it off your lists. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I really like dark dining rooms, even if I sometimes need reading glasses to make out the menu. That lovely dinner felt like I was transported to a different time and place, if only temporarily, and that’s what a really nice restaurant experience should be able to do.

Finka Table & Tap (Miami)

Finka Table & Tap (https://www.finkarestaurant.com/) is a Cuban-Peruvian-Korean fusion gastropub in Miami. If that sounds too good to be true, trust me — it’s real, and it’s spectacular. My best foodie friend took me there on my a recent trip to visit him and my family down in Miami. It is one of his favorite restaurants in the city, and he knew I would dig it too.

Finka is probably considered to be off the beaten path in Miami, far from the tony and trendy areas like Wynwood, Brickell, South Beach, and Coral Gables, but tucked away in the West Kendall suburbs. But just like another kick-ass Miami restaurant my friend brought me to, the award-winning, Cuban-inspired barbecue paradise Smoke & Dough, which is only five minutes away, Finka is worth a trip to Kendall to discover and experience for yourself.

It has been a while since our visit, so I didn’t remember what impressive-looking cocktail my friend ordered, but he identified it as a mai tai, one of his favorite drinks. He said it was a particularly good one, too, since Finka uses orgeat syrup.

It was your typical sweltering Miami summer day, and I have become a true lemonade connoisseur. Finka’s lemonade hit the spot.

Finka serve croquetas de jamon from the iconic Islas Canarias Cuban restaurant in West Kendall, and they are the absolute best croquetas anywhere in Miami. If you don’t believe me, my best foodie friend reviews Cuban cuisine and especially croquetas all over the city in his Croqueta Diaries, and he agrees. I admire his focus, and he is an excellent food writer. He’s brought me to the Islas Canarias ventanita before, to try croquetas straight from the source, but it felt like a bonus to be able to order them at Finka. They are never burnt or greasy — just fried to golden-brown perfection, smoky, creamy, and rich. A squirt from the lime wedge brought a nice acidic tang to cut the savory richness.

We set to work sharing those as well as the malanga nachos, crispy malanga (taro root) chips smothered with ribeye picadillo, a three-cheese sauce, maduros (we both love sweet fried plantains), pink pickled onions, leche de tigre sour cream, Fresno peppers, and scallions. It was a fusion feast.
By the way, leche de tigre is the spicy marinating liquid left over from marinating ceviche, so don’t worry — no real tigers were milked for this sour cream. Can you imagine?

I don’t think this is on the menu anymore, but my friend ordered the gochujang noodles, a dish with spicy sweet potato noodles, shrimp, snow peas, bok choy, squash, carrots, and mushrooms. I didn’t try it (I avoid mushrooms), but he seemed to like it.

I got “dak-galbi”-style chicken fried rice, with queso frito (fried cheese!), pineapples, red peppers, seasonal veggies, maduros, sesame seeds, spicy gochujang sauce (which I have become a huge fan of), and pickled cabbage. It was hard to choose, with so many interesting dishes on the menu, but this seemed to exemplify Finka’s commitment to fusion cuisine, while a few other things seemed a little more “normal.”

I know tourists, hipsters, and bon vivants probably avoid Kendall for their grand nights out in Miami, but there are more top-notch, destination-worthy restaurants there than when I left that area for good and moved to Orlando, at the end of 2004. My best foodie friend and I grew up in Kendall. We survived Kendall. Whether you’re a Miami local or just passing through for a good time, if not a long time, you could do a hell of a lot worse than venturing into West Kendall for a memorable fusion feast at Finka. Maybe plan accordingly and hit Finka and the outstanding Smoke & Dough on the same trip — possibly dinner at one place and takeout for lunch the next day from the other!

Nuri’s Tavern

Nuri’s Tavern (https://nuristavern.com/) is a new pizzeria and bar on Pine Street in downtown Orlando, a place I almost never go anymore. It usually takes the temptation of a concert to force me back downtown, but this time, it only took the allure of pizza… and nostalgia. Nuri’s serves thin-crust tavern-style pizza, which you can get at Domino’s, but it definitely isn’t the same. This style of pizza fills me with nostalgia for kiddie birthday party places in the ’80s, with video games, carnival games like Skee-Ball and Whack-A-Mole, cheap prizes, and creepy singing animatronic robots.

We didn’t have Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz Pizza growing up in Miami in the ’80s, but we had a place called Mark Twain’s Riverboat Playhouse in West Kendall, complete with the video games and carny games, a ball pit for kids to play in (absolutely disgusting, if you stop to think about it for a moment), and a dining room with animatronic, anthropomorphic dogs dressed up like a Dixieland band, holding musical instruments, awkwardly herking and jerking to recordings of very non-Dixieland oldies like “Windy” by The Association and “Spinning Wheel” by Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Once per “show,” an spotlight shined on an animatronic of the great American writer and humorist Mark Twain, and he appeared to come to life during the robot dogs’ musical set. I assume he would say something pithy and then disappear off stage.

You might be thinking this is odd on so many levels, and you would be right. For one thing, anyone who knows and loves Mark Twain would know he was a huge fan of cats rather than dogs, and even rented cats from local folks when he traveled, to hang out in hotels with him. But keep in mind this place existed in Miami in the ’80s, where mountains of cocaine were surely commonplace, so there you go. I know Mark Twain’s Riverboat Playhouse survived into the early ’90s, because once my middle school jazz band went there on a field trip as a reward, even though most of us probably felt like we outgrew it. There was an even larger, more mysterious, more magical birthday party play-place called Pirates back in the ’80s, somewhere out on Coral Way. It is also long gone, but it will always exist in my increasingly foggy memories.

Anyway, I bring this up because Nuri’s Tavern gave me major early ’80s birthday party play-place vibes, just meant more for adults rather than kids. Like Primrose Lanes, the Milk District restaurant and hipster bowling alley owned by the same hospitality group, there are hipster bowling alley vibes at Nuri’s, as the founders always aim to create too-cool-for-school, Instagram-worthy destinations.

The walls are light wood-paneled, there are different kinds of cushy booths, vintage pinball machines, an antique telephone booth, a working photo booth (Nuri’s is big on booths), and even a scooter!

While the era of casual family restaurants with “crazy crap on the walls” seemed to peak in the 1990s, Nuri’s really went big with its fun, kitschy, retro decor. It also reminded me of visiting my late, great great-uncle and great-aunt in Canarsie in 1991 (when I was 13) and hanging out in their tricked-out Brooklyn basement, which had a game room/mancave atmosphere long before anyone called rooms like that “mancaves.” As you can see, there is a lot to look at once you order and wait for your food.

By the way, you scan a QR code at your table and then order and even pay on your phone. I will do this (when in Rome, right?), but I admit I’m not a big fan. That said, on both of my visits, a server stopped by our table to offer a print menu and take my order in person. However, the restaurant wasn’t busy on either of these visits, so maybe they count on the QR code ordering process when they get slammed later on.

The pizza menu is divided into red and white sauce pizzas, and they are all twelve inches in diameter and sliced into rectangles and squares. I’m always a red sauce guy, so for my first solo visit, I ordered the meatball pizza with red sauce, mozzarella and pecorino Romano cheeses, pickled giardiniera vegetables (not nearly enough; I could have used a lot more), oregano, and of course, savory mini-meatballs. It was so light and crispy and delicious — not a heavy pizza like Chicago deep dish (really more of a casserole), Detroit pan pizza with its burnt, caramelized edges, or my beloved Sicilian, but almost more like a snack pizza. Also, I posit that meatballs are the most underrated meat pizza topping.

I raved about Nuri’s Tavern all week and dragged my wife downtown to try it the following weekend. She ordered this mango lime “mocktail” that was really sour, and neither of us liked it much. Also, it was $8!

That time, I ordered the “meat x3” pizza with red sauce, mozzarella and pecorino Romano cheeses, sweet sausage, meatball, pepperoni, and onion. It was also wonderful, just maybe too similar to the first pizza. What really made a difference was requesting a swirl of pesto sauce on that pizza, which I found out about sometime after my first visit, even though it isn’t listed as an option on the menu. I love basil with tomatoes, especially a good pesto sauce, and it totally made that second pizza sing. It would be good on anything!

My wife is a white pizza gal, so she ordered the classic white pizza with mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, black pepper, and lemon. While she doesn’t always like the strong flavors I do, she admitted it was a bit bland, and she probably should have chosen the broccoli pizza instead. That probably would have been more flavorful, with mozzarella, pecorino Romano, and aged provolone cheeses, broccoli, lemon, and chili. Oh well, next time! And there will be a next time. She ended up bringing most of her classic white pizza home, and I ended up eating most of it.

We also shared an order of meatballs, which were fan-freakin’-tastic. I can’t say a single bad thing about these meatballs. They were much larger than the mini-meatballs on the meatball pizza.

And just as good as the pizza and the meatballs was the Caesar salad we shared. They use little gem lettuce (similar to romaine, but smaller and more tender), more pecorino Romano cheese, an excellent Caesar dressing with a lot of good umami flavor that almost certainly comes from anchovies, and the most awesome little “garlic crunchies” that added a lot of flavor and crunchy texture to the salad. I’ve been on a Caesar salad kick lately, and this is one of the best ones I’ve ever had — and not just in Orlando, but of all time.

My wife ended her meal with some soft serve ice cream, which she loved so much at Primrose Lanes. Both restaurants were shaped and formed by the same executive chef, Jason Campbell (formerly of Luke’s Kitchen and Bar in Maitland). We love Luke’s and were also big Primrose Lanes fans, so I wasn’t surprised at all that Chef Campbell crafted the menu at Nuri’s. Anyway, she was crazy for the soft serve here, too. I believe this was a vanilla and pistachio swirl.

So yeah, Nuri’s Tavern is terrific, and I would happily go back anytime. (If anyone ever wants to go, let me know.) Next time, I have to remember to check if those vintage pinball machines actually work, or if they’re just for decoration. And you have to remember to ask for that pesto swirl on whatever pizza you get, unless of course you don’t like basil, in which case, don’t ruin your pizza on my account!

RusTeak

RusTeak (https://www.rusteakthorntonpark.com/) is a nice little “gastropub”-style restaurant in Thornton Park, near downtown Orlando. My biggest gripes about all of Orlando’s “Park” neighborhoods (Thornton, College, Baldwin, Audubon, and Winter) is that there is rarely any parking to be found. But luckily, RusTeak is right next door to a convenient parking garage, and that makes it a perfect choice for dinner out before attending a show at The Abbey, a small concert venue directly across the street, or heading out elsewhere for downtown events. My wife and I almost never go downtown unless we’re heading to a concert, so we tried RusTeak for the first time back in April, on our way to a show at The Abbey. I’m really glad we did.

RusTeak serves a salmon BLT sandwich, but you can substitute the catch of the day fish on the BLT for a $3 upcharge. When we went on an early Thursday evening, swordfish was the catch of the day, and my wife is a mighty big fan of swordfish. She ended up ordering the BLT, which came with grilled swordfish, Applewood smoked bacon, baby arugula, a tomato slice, and lemon Dijon aioli on a toasted brioche bun.

Needless to say, that’s a very nontraditional BLT, but she loved the swordfish, shared the bacon with me, and left the bun and tomato behind, as she often does with sandwiches and burgers. (Me being me, I took the bun and tomato home to make a sandwich the following day with some chicken I had just cooked.) You can choose a side with all the sandwiches at RusTeak, and she went with house-made potato chips. They were pretty simple — crunchy, with just salt, but no weird or wacky seasonings or dips.

I was having trouble deciding what to order, but my wife was facing a chalkboard with daily specials written on it, and she drew my attention to the board. I was facing the other way and would have missed it completely. I don’t even think I was going to get a burger, but one of the Thursday specials was a bacon jam burger served with crispy fried onions and a thick tomato slice on a pretzel bun. The board said that burger was only $7, so I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but our patient server confirmed the price was right. It didn’t come with a side for that price, but I figured my wife would toss a chip or two my way, so I was sold! You can barely get a burger at McDonald’s for $7 anymore, and most gastropubby restaurants in the RusTeak vein would probably charge closer to $20 for a burger of this caliber.
And that $7 burger would have been a bargain at twice the price, I tell you. It was a thick, juicy patty (no smash-style burgers here), cooked to a perfect medium rare, as I requested. The photo makes it look ridiculously tall, but the pretzel bun was soft and nicely grilled, and it squished down as I held it firmly. I was able to take nice bites out of that thing with minimal mess, and it was delicious. The sweet, salty, smoky, stickiness of the bacon jam worked well with the juicy beef, crunchy and salty fried onions, and the hearty bun held up as well as anyone could hope for. That’s a real deal, my friends — not just a tasty burger, but a legit bargain at a restaurant where you might not expect any sort of specials like that.

I have reviewed The Stubborn Mule before, another Thornton Park restaurant literally next door to The Abbey and facing RusTeak, and I believe the two restaurants share the same owners. I should note that I also ordered a burger at The Stubborn Mule when we went there, and while it was bigger, I thought RusTeak’s burger was much better.

Since our concert at The Abbey (a musical stand-up comedy performance by the multi-talented Fred Armisen) was right across the street, we had plenty of time for a leisurely dessert to make my wife happy. She was drawn to the pistachio bread pudding, topped with vanilla ice cream and a white chocolate drizzle. It was HUGE! Bread pudding is kind of like beets — something I never ordered or ate for too many years growing up, only to find out as an adult how awesome it could be. I’m not the biggest pistachio eater (honestly, I could take or leave nuts in general), but my wife loves them.
The bread pudding was rich, thick, and buttery, and the portion was gigantic. Even if we didn’t have a concert to get to, the two of us could not have finished it, so she killed the scoop of ice cream and we boxed up about two-thirds of the bread pudding to go. I would definitely recommend it.

I can’t believe we had never made it to RusTeak before, but like I said, we rarely venture into Thornton Park or downtown Orlando in general. The only reason I haven’t raced back is because it’s just out of our general radius (especially now that I work from home, further from downtown and all the “Parks”), although I wish it wasn’t. Whenever I do make it back, I’d love to try the Calabrian mussels, maple bacon brussels sprouts, and cauliflower pancetta casserole. Oh yeah, and the house-made ricotta with spinach-almond pesto, candied cherry tomato jam, and naan bread (that’s all one thing!). I’d also be really intrigued by whichever burgers are future Thursday specials, since the one I tried was so good. If you’re a fan of Winter Park’s venerable Ravenous Pig, maybe the first hip gastropub to open in the Orlando area back in 2007, you would love this place.

But especially if you’re going to a show at The Abbey, you can’t beat RusTeak for convenience, especially if you park in the Air Garage right next door, on Pine Street. By the way, parking was only $10, which also seems like a bargain for anything near downtown, and you pay with your smartphone. I have no idea what non-smartphone-havers like my parents or brother would do, but they wouldn’t be going to a fun dinner out followed by a concert near a major urban downtown area anyway.

The Prince (Los Angeles)

The Prince (https://www.instagram.com/theprincela) is a classy, old-school Los Angeles Korean restaurant and lounge that is most famous for appearing in multiple movies and TV shows over the decades, including Chinatown (one of the greatest L.A. movies, neo-noirs, and movies in general of all time), Mad Men (one of my favorite shows of all time), and New Girl (where it was the characters’ regular hangout). I’ve never actually watched New Girl, but now I am imagining Zooey Deschanel with bangs and glasses, singing a silly old song (maybe “Dream a Little Dream of Me”?) and strumming a ukulele in this dusky, dark red hipster hangout.

Back in November, I was on a work trip to L.A. and had a chance to join some of my amazing co-workers for dinner. I always stay in Koreatown, where my employer is located, and where there seem to be hundreds of Korean restaurants to choose from, at all different styles and price points. I am still very new to Korean food, but the more things I try, the more I feel inspired to branch out and try more. The Prince was walkable from our campus, so since I was already aware of its cinematic résumé and timeless cool décor, I convinced this small group to trust and follow me.

I must apologize in advance for the photos that follow in this review. It’s a gorgeous room, dark and anachronistic, but as soon as I took my first photo to set the scene, a server yelled at me to not use flash photography inside. So I did my best, such as it is, to share the red vinyl booths, the dark wood, the dim lighting, and even these hale and hearty knights standing guard.

Also, I swear I saw Spike Jonze, director of super-creative movies and iconic music videos, dining there, but I wasn’t 100% sure it was him. As much as I wanted to thank him for “Sabotage,” Adaptation, and Jackass, I didn’t want to be That Guy who disturbed his dinner… especially if it wasn’t Spike.

Anyway, our group was a mix of adventurous and unadventurous eaters, so we picked five things that looked good to everyone, and we all shared them. That is my favorite way to dine with friends.

These are the onion rings (RING THE ALARM!) and cheese balls, because you know if I go anywhere and see onion rings on the menu, I have to order them. They were crowd-pleasers, and it was not the first time I had really good onion rings at a Korean restaurant. The cheese balls were even better — perfect, golden-fried, golf ball-sized orbs with melty cheese in the middle, under the breading. I should have tried to get a shot of a bisected cheese ball to show you their molten, sticky, creamy centers, but they went fast!

When you’re introducing Korean food to unfamiliar diners, beef bulgogi is one of those perfect gateway dishes. Bulgogi is a dish of thin-sliced beef (often sirloin steak), marinated in a savory-sweet sauce, and then grilled or stir-fried with onions and green bell peppers. The bulgogi marinade contains soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and pear juice, which tenderizes the meat. There is nothing spicy or “weird” to scare off the unadventurous diner, so it was another hit at our table. Just FYI: “bul” is Korean for fire, and “gogi” means meat.

We also ordered galbi (sometimes called kalbi), a very similar dish but with beef short ribs sliced cross-wise against the bones, rather than thin-sliced steak. It has a similar flavor due to the marinade, but I already love short ribs in any form — not just the flavor, but the wonderful texture. I especially like the chewy part of the meat right around the bones, which you can just pull off with your fingers if you don’t want to gnaw it off. This was served over onions and scallions, and there wasn’t a morsel left.

I didn’t have any input in choosing this garlic shrimp dish, served with fresh, raw, shredded cabbage, but I was happy to try a couple of the shrimp, which came in their shells and had to be peeled. It was delicious — different from scampi or any other garlic shrimp dish you might be envisioning, but still very satisfying.

I did choose this dish, though: thick, perfectly al dente udon noodles served with mixed seafood: shrimp, mussels, squid, and tiny crab legs (more trouble than they were worth to crack open). The menu describes it as coming in a spicy broth, but it could be served mild upon request. I honestly don’t remember what we decided as a group, but I think we went with spicy and almost everyone still loved it.

Real Korean food aficionados might be rolling their eyes, disappointed that we made relatively staid and familiar choices, but that’s often what happens in a “family-style” group dining situation. I would have loved to try the soondae, since I always love blood sausage in all its other forms, from Argentinian morcilla to British black pudding, but nobody else was on board with this one. It’s all good!

I have no regrets or complaints about The Prince, especially because it is such a part of Los Angeles and Hollywood history. I would not be surprised if there are better Korean restaurants in L.A.’s Koreatown, but the vibes at The Prince are unmatched. Every time I make it out there for work, I try to visit at least one historic, iconic L.A. landmark, whether it’s a tourist attraction, a restaurant, or both. So far, I’m making quite a list. I love my job, and I love L.A.!

The Moderne

I guess I haven’t published a new review in about a month, since work has been keeping me so busy. Working from home, I also haven’t been able to go out to eat quite as often, which means I’m cooking more and saving money (yet not losing any weight). But this review is long overdue, from a date night about a month ago at one of the prettiest, swankiest, sexiest restaurant/bar/lounges in Orlando, The Moderne (https://www.themodernebar.com/) in the foodie dream district of Mills 50. I’m sure a lot of my regular readers have already been here, but this was our first visit to The Moderne. I had been wanting to try it for a while, since it features an eclectic menu of small plates — mostly pan-Asian dishes, but some include other international influences, ranging from Italian to Peruvian.

This was my wife’s beautiful mojito mocktail, served with a dehydrated lime slice as a garnish. I tried a sip, and it was delicious. The Moderne features an enticing cocktail menu, but we were both happy to see a few mocktail options for non-drinkers like us. I guess you could call this one a “no”-jito. My wife reminded me to mention that she first asked for a simple Shirley Temple, but the gorgeous, well-stocked bar did not have any grenadine syrup, something we both thought was odd at the time.

Our order of duck wontons came out first. These hand-folded wonton wrappers were stuffed with shredded duck seasoned with Chinese five-spice powder and fried until crispy. They were served with chili oil peanut sauce. We both wished they had been served with more duck inside, even though they tasted good and were surprisingly not that oily.

This beautiful dish was the tuna kobachi, with spicy cubed tuna, avocado, Japanese-style marinated cucumbers, scallion, red tobiko, micro cilantro, and a dish of ponzu sauce for dippin’ and dunkin’. I loved it so much. I could eat this every day of my life and never get tired of it, although I’d hate to think of what my mercury levels would be. It was my favorite dish that we tried, a perfect 10/10.

Next came our chashu quesadillas, which were plated beautifully. Quesadillas are the easiest thing to make at home, but my homemade ones never feature chashu pork, (like the kind of pork you get in a bowl of “real” (not instant) ramen), shredded cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, Japanese Kewpie mayo, chili amarillo sauce, and pickled onions. Well, mine would have the cheeses and Barbie Dream House-pink pickled onions, but that’s where the similarities begin and end.

This was another hit with both of us: yellowtail (hamachi) ceviche, with cubes of cool, refreshing yellowtail in mango wasabi lime sauce, diced onion, serrano, red tobiko, micro cilantro, all encased in perfectly thin, crispy, delicate spheres of pani puri, the Indian street food classic (see my Bombay Street Kitchen review for authentic pani puri). It was a gorgeous fusion experience that dazzled all of our senses.

My wife chose these miso cream noodles, which sounded like something she would love. The dish featured thin pasta (like angel hair or vermicelli), that chashu pork again, mushrooms, miso, fried garlic, toasted bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, and scallions. She admitted not really being into it and said it was both very rich and on the bland side — an interesting dichotomy, kind of like fettuccine alfredo from the Olive Garden (although this definitely had more flavor than that)! She picked at it and brought most of it home, where I happily finished it after picking the mushrooms out. I’m a pretty tolerant guy, but I have this unfortunate intolerance to mushrooms, and chefs freakin’ love throwing them into things.

I chose a different noodle dish for myself that seemed like another fragrant fusion feast: seafood pappardelle, with pappardelle pasta (wide, flat noodles that are wider than fettuccine), shrimp, tamarind Nikkei sauce (Nikkei being a Peruvian-Japanese fusion due to all the Japanese immigrants in Peru), carrots, red peppers, onions, peanuts, and a cilantro-heavy “Asian herb salad.” It was okay. The sauce was a little sweet and tangy, not as spicy as I had hoped, and very thin. I thought it was odd that the dish was called “seafood pappardelle” when the only seafood in it was shrimp. This was a last-minute choice when the server was already taking our orders, but I think I would have enjoyed one of the other noodle dishes more. Oh well, you live and you learn!

So that was our first experience at The Moderne. I liked it and would go back, but my wife admitted it was not one of her favorite restaurants. Oh well, people have different tastes and like different things — that is no surprise. My favorites were the two dishes with raw fish, which is usually one of my favorite things to eat. (This also explains why The Moderne’s neighbor a few doors down, Poke Hana, remains one of my favorite restaurants in all of Orlando all these years later.) I might get those again, or other raw fish options, and I would definitely try a different noodle dish on a second visit. Plus, after dinner at The Moderne, you can go next door and have some of Orlando’s finest ice cream at Sampaguita, which is exactly what we did on this date night!

Chain Reactions: V Pizza

Based on a recommendation from one of my closest foodie friends, who I trust completely, my wife and I took a drive across Orlando to Palm Parkway, down near the entrance to Disney World, to try a new pizzeria. The touristy Lake Buena Vista seemed like quite a schlep for pizza, but V Pizza (https://www.vpizza.com/locations/lake-buena-vista-orlando-fl/) ended up being totally worth the schlep. V Pizza is a chain based in Jacksonville, a city that has never held much appeal to me, but this is its first of hopefully several locations in Orlando.

V Pizza uses clay brick ovens made in Italy to bake Neapolitan-style pizza at 900 degrees. The website says the “V” stands for Veloce, Italian for “fast,” because the ovens bake pizzas in as little as 90 seconds. Their pizzas come out with a thin, crispy crust, similar in style to Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza and Orlando’s own Pizza Bruno, two of my favorite pizzerias. All of their pizzas are 13″, so kind of a personal size, but still fine for sharing. Having said that, I think any pizza can be a personal pizza if you believe in yourself.

When you get to V Pizza, you order and pay at the counter, then sit down, and a server walks your food out to you. It is a very casual restaurant, not upscale or fancy, but really, really good. They have an open kitchen, and you can see multiple flavors of gelato on display in a glass case. There is also a bar in the back of the restaurant, and they have trivia nights. (I wish my friends and acquaintances would invite me to a trivia night some time, because we would totally win. But alas, I work until 9 PM during the week, which puts a damper on the Saboscrivner’s social life!)

I ordered one of the house special pizzas, the salsiccia pizza, with San Marzano tomato sauce (made with the world’s best tomatoes, grown in volcanic soil in Italy), provolone and mozzarella cheeses, spicy Italian rope sausage (I couldn’t resist trying an unfamiliar sausage), roasted bell peppers and onions, and a drizzle of Calabrian chili pepper oil. It was so fine. All the high-quality ingredients worked really well together, the sausage was excellent, the crust was perfect (not quite as charred as Anthony’s Coal Fired), and the sauce really sang. It was a top-tier pizza, put over the top by that fresh, bright, robust sauce and tender crust.

My wife and I were both kind of shocked that I ate the whole thing right there, in the restaurant. I didn’t set out to eat an entire pizza; it just happened. It was just so good, and surprisingly light, even with the slices of rope sausage on top. So much for leftovers!

My wife built her own pizza, with mushrooms, black olives, and a whole burrata cheese ball. She demurely ate a slice at the pizzeria, and we took the rest home. You might be wondering “Where’s the burrata?”

It came on the side, in a little metal bowl, rather than plunked on the pizza. In case you haven’t experienced the wonder of burrata before, it is a ball of tender, fresh mozzarella cheese (about the size of a large egg, give or take), but the inside is made of stracciatella cheese curds made from buffalo milk and clotted cream, so it is really soft and stretchy with a rich and creamy center. You can buy it at most grocery stores, but this one at V Pizza was really good, drizzled with a bit of olive oil. She loved it, and I think it was better this way, rather than being baked and melted on top of the pizza, losing its consistency and creaminess.

We also shared a pancetta sandwich that came out before the pizzas, like an appetizer. I have recently won my wife over with the wonders of pancetta as an ingredient in so many dishes, from scrambled eggs to roasted potatoes to pasta sauces. It is similar to bacon, only cured but not smoked. I think of it so much as an ingredient, with unrivaled versatility in the kitchen like anchovies, but better. Restaurants hardly ever offer it as a sandwich meat or even a pizza topping, so we couldn’t refuse!

The pancetta in the sandwich was served warm in slices, with melty fresh mozzarella, fresh tomato, fresh basil, and some drizzled Calabrian pepper oil on a crusty, ciabatta-like roll. It was fine, but I think I still prefer pancetta as an ingredient, and I would prefer prosciutto as a (cold) sandwich, which V Pizza also offers.

In addition to pizza and sandwiches, V Pizza also serves salads, pasta dishes, wings, and even brunch on Sundays from 10 AM to 2 PM.

I would be remiss if I did not mention V For Victory (V4V), V Pizza’s charitable mission to partner with local businesses to provide financial support for area families fighting cancer. The website says “V4V and their business partners provide support throughout the duration of treatment, connecting individuals and families with direct services to meet everyday needs such as lawn care, house cleaning, auto repairs, free meals, and more.” That is a noble goal, and even if I didn’t like the food as much as I did, I would still feel really good about supporting V Pizza and boosting their signal.

There is so much on the menu at V Pizza that I would like to try, and I will certainly return. Our server told us they are planning to open another location in Winter Park, and I will probably wait for that one to open. It should do well there, whereas I was sad to see the restaurant on Palm Parkway mostly empty when we went for a late lunch. There are so many dining options in that sprawling shopping center, including the beloved Japanese izakaya Susuru, the hot new Kung Fu Kitchen (which I tried going to once, but the line was way too long), a Korean barbecue and hot pot place (so trendy right now!), two completely unrelated Irish pubs, and a video game bar. I just hope V Pizza doesn’t get lost amid all those other options, especially not being on some main drag in the touristy side of town, because I loved it, and I have impeccable taste. With that in mind, I think most people will find a lot to love there too, even if it’s a schlep for you to get out there as well. Help the battle against cancer and eat some perfect pizza while you’re at it! That’s a win-win situation if there ever was one.

Primrose Lanes

This may be the most predictable review I have written for The Saboscrivner food blog in a long time, probably because this particular restaurant is the talk of the town right now. Orlando-based foodie social media has gone gaga (or gone to the dogs, if you will) discussing, debating, and deconstructing the $15 hot dog from Primrose Lanes (https://www.primroselanes.com/), the new restaurant and bar from former Luke’s Kitchen and Bar Executive Chef Jason Campbell. I will say that if you haven’t heard about this hot dog, then congratulations — you haven’t been spending much time online, and that is laudable. But if you are familiar with Orlando’s latest obsession, sometimes things that get a lot of hype have earned it and deserve it, and this fabulous, fantastic, first-class, fine freakin’ frankfurter definitely lives up to the hype, hoopla, hubbub, and hysteria.

But Primrose Lanes is not just some hot dog hut. It used to be the bowling alley Colonial Lanes, founded in 1959. It was sold and set to become yet another self-storage facility, and the owners even started ripping apart the bowling lanes. Then the Team Market Group bought the building, refurbished the eight remaining lanes, and worked with Chef Campbell to create a dining and drinking destination far beyond what you would expect from “bowling alley food.” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the pastrami sandwich and house-made potato chips at Brooklyn South Bar at Aloma Bowl, but this is a legit gastropub — a true culinary experience that is far better than anything you’re envisioning. It may not be the cheapest meal in Orlando (although plenty are way more expensive), but as someone who seeks out bargains and hates feeling ripped off, you will definitely get what you pay for at Primrose Lanes, and you’ll leave the restaurant feeling like you just bowled a perfect game.

On my first visit to Primrose Lanes, I went alone and sat on a high-top stool along a beautiful polished wood countertop. I believe a lot of the wood in the restaurant was salvaged from the 24 original bowling lanes that had been destroyed. The restaurant and bar area is a beautiful space, both modern and retro at the same time, with a big glass window overlooking the eight bowling lanes.

I started out with the “Funyun” fried onions, because I review onion rings wherever I find them on menus with a special notice longtime readers know as “RING THE ALARM!” Of course I’m more about the concept of fried onions than the classic ring shape, so I am not a stickler for literal onion rings every time. These fried onions were unlike any other fried onions I’ve ever had, with thin stems serving as handles to hoist the thick, rounded bulbs and dip them into creamy comeback sauce. For a guy who eats a lot of chips and other salty snacks (and reviews them in my recurring Tight Chips features right here on this blog), I almost never eat Funyuns, those vaguely onion-flavored corn snacks, but they made a very interesting coating for these very real onions.

The O.K.C. smashburger was a magnificent double-decker monster, extremely juicy despite the two patties being smashed flat on the flattop grill (hence the name). I always liked thicc burgers (R.I.P. Fuddruckers) and bemoaned the smashburger trend, worried that everyone would be serving dried-out, overpriced hockey pucks. But smashburgers like this one have won me over and give me hope for the future.

This O.K.C. smashburger was dressed with American cheese (still the best burger cheese), mayo, thin slices of delicious house-made pickles, and lots and lots of thin strands of fried onions, which really make a burger for me. Dating back to the Great Depression, Oklahoma-style burger patties are pressed into super-thin strips or slices of onion, which then cook in the heat and the meat juices. It was served on a brioche kaiser roll baked by the Olde Hearth Bread Company, which provides baked goods (no baked bads, ever) to many of the best restaurants in the Orlando area. Even without ketchup, it was a winning burger through and through.

And what about this bougie $15 hot dog? Well, like I said, it surpasses the hype, and anyone who has tried it will probably agree. I rarely order hot dogs when I’m out on the town, because you can pay $7 or $8 for a pack of good-quality Sabretts or all-beef Boar’s Head dogs in the natural casing, so why would you pay that for a single hot dog? But I’m glad I recently treated myself to the brilliant Detroit coney dog at SoDough Square, and I thought I had discovered the best hot dog in Orlando then. It is great, no doubt about it, but Chef Campbell’s hot dog is a triumphant treasure in every possible way.

It is house-made, and I don’t know who else around here goes to the significant effort of making their own hot dogs. It has such a fantastic snap, the way the best hot dogs and sausages do, and I had to close my eyes to savor every bite. In a recent article by Orlando Sentinel food writer (and mah friend) Amy Drew Thompson, Chef Campbell said the hot dogs are made with “Certified Angus. Ribeye, short rib, brisket and chuck in a lamb casing,” and then smoked. That lamb casing is what gives it the satisfying snap, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you need to treat yourself to a higher standard of hot dogs, my dudes. The tangy, zingy relish is house-made too, but I don’t know if the buttery grilled bun is from Olde Hearth Bread Company or baked in-house. The pickle spear next to the burger and the hot dog were delicious too, much to nobody’s surprise. I have no doubt they were also made in-house by Chef Campbell and his team.

Oh yeah, I had heard you could get it topped with smoked trout caviar for an extra $5, and I said “Yes, let’s do that thing.” It added an extra level of decadence to the best hot dog ever (to say nothing of additional salt and smokiness), and I have no regrets. Hey, I’m eating at home more than ever now that I have a remote job, and this was my first trip out of the house in several days, so I felt like living large! WHAT?

Anyway, when I picked up my wife a little later after enjoying that epic meal, she was really hungry and wanted to go to one of her favorite spots for chicken tenders. I was raving about the meal I had enjoyed earlier, and I told her Primrose Lanes had chicken tenders too, as well as a Shirley Temple made with house-made grenadine syrup. I thought for sure she would say “Let’s try it some other time,” but instead she said “That sounds really great, and we’re close, and I’m hungry. Would you mind going back the same day?” And I said “Hell yeah, girl,” and back I went, fewer than two hours later!

She loves Shirley Temples, so she ordered that, and I ordered a lemonade that was nice and cold and tart and refreshing, and not too sweet. She said her Shirley wasn’t as sweet as most, which probably use all kinds of artificially flavored grenadine syrups, possibly bolstered with high fructose corn syrup. She said it was almost “savory,” but I tried a sip and can tell you it wasn’t necessarily savory, but definitely not cloyingly candy-sweet like most. It was also garnished with a dark cherry that definitely wasn’t a bright red maraschino, but maybe an amarena or Luxardo cherry.

She ordered the chicken tendies [sp], which came out darker than either of us expected. I asked if they were burned, and our lovely, patient server Claire, who took care of me on both back to back visits, said they all look like that. The tendies (I still can’t get used to that) came with a ranch dip seasoned with dill and “sha’bang sauce” that was thick and spicy — not exactly buffalo or sriracha, but they could have been involved — with tiny bits of sliced orange in it.

We also shared hash brown bites, perfect potato cubes that were crispy on the outside and soft and yielding inside, dressed with garlic crema and topped with more of that smoked trout caviar. These would be a terrific appetizer to order with any meal, unless you are a vegetarian, and then they could easily hold the trout roe for you. They reminded me of LEGO blocks, the way they were stacked so nicely.

One of the biggest hits of my wife’s first visit to Primrose Lanes and my second was the tuna tartare (her choice), a refreshing portion of diced raw tuna with avocado, spicy mayo, lightly pickled cucumber slices (so good!), sprinkled with regular and black sesame seeds and accompanied by what had to be fried Saltine crackers.

This dish knocked my wife’s socks off. Every ingredient, every taste, every texture worked in perfect harmony. It was my favorite part of my second visit, after all the heavy stuff I ate not that much earlier in the day. It was so cool and creamy and crispy and piquant, especially since I love spicy tuna rolls and poke bowls so much. She was in love with the fried Saltines, which had some kind of mysterious seasoning on them too, and I couldn’t believe nobody else had ever done that before.

And because my wife loves soft serve ice cream, she ordered vanilla soft serve for dessert (because they were out of chocolate) and got it topped with fudge sauce. While I thought the smashburger, the hot dog, and the tuna tartare could not be beat, this was her overall favorite. She looked pensive after the first bite, engrossed in thought, consumed as she consumed it. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She said she had never had soft serve ice cream this good; nothing else had ever come close. She used the word “orgasmic.” Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first.

I could usually do without soft serve ice cream — it tends to be kind of bland and tasteless for me, and rarely tastes like vanilla so much as some kind of plain whiteness. But upon her urging, I tried it, and it was as inspired as the rest of the food on this menu, so far above and beyond what most people might expect, so much better than it even needed to be.

This is the exact kind of restaurant I love to review on my blog. There are countless restaurants where you can get a decent-to-good meal, and if you pay enough money, you’re bound to get something above-average. But I especially love finding good or great food where you don’t expect it, whether it’s a nondescript food truck or trailer or a restaurant inside a place where you wouldn’t go looking for one, and especially wouldn’t dream of finding a good one. I’d say an excellent restaurant in a bowling alley counts for that, even though Primrose Lanes is more of a restaurant and bar with eight really cool bowling lanes than a bowling alley with that serves food.

I don’t mind admitting that I’m a pretty rotten bowler. Because I suck so much, I don’t particularly enjoy bowling, so I don’t do it, and that means I never improve. But if you ever go out for a trivia night with me, you will see me kick all kinds of ass and be impressed, then maybe a little scared, then annoyed, then bored, and then probably round the corner to impressed all over again. And if you ever join me for karaoke, you will find that I am not a particularly good singer, but I will do my damn best and cheer like crazy for my friends who are doing their damn best along with me. Unfortunately, I have yet to find ridiculously elevated food like this at any local trivia or karaoke spots, nor do I have many friends who are ever up for that kind of thing.

The good news about Primrose Lanes is that you don’t have to bowl at all. Plenty of people go just for the food, and you can too. But if you like to eat and bowl, then my stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, this needs to be your next night out with the ladies or the fellas, or your next hot date. Everyone will love it. But if you’re trying to corral 15 or 20 small kids for a bowling birthday party, I would advise against schlepping the little dudes to Primrose Lanes. Children are certainly welcome, but I’d say it is more of a place for adults to have fun. And as a non-kid-haver who ate there twice in one day, adults will likely have more fun there without kids… unless your kids are really cool.

CLOSED: Outpost Kitchen, Bar, & Provisions

EDITOR’S NOTE: On November 9th, 2023, The Outpost Kitchen, Bar & Provisions suddenly closed, apparently evicted from its Maitland location after falling $64,000 behind in rent payments. Staff were not given any prior notice. See https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/11/10/outpost-kitchen-evicted-from-maitland-city-centre-records-show/.

***

After years of attempts, my wife (Doctor Professor Ma’am) and I finally had the most outstanding dinner last night at Outpost Kitchen, Bar, & Provisions (https://www.outpostkbp.com), a restaurant in suburban Maitland, nestled between Casselberry and Winter Park, surprisingly close to home. It seemed like life kept conspiring to keep us from dining there, with all kinds of illnesses, injuries, and random emergencies forcing us to cancel previous reservations, but once we made it, it was totally worth the wait.

The décor is at once both rustic and hipster-modern, full of wooden tables and chairs (no booths), Edison-style hanging light bulbs, and even a retro refrigerator in the dining room, not far from the open kitchen. There is also a large bar, an outdoor patio, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounding the free-standing building that provide plenty of natural light and views of “scenic” Highway 17-92.

Shortly after being seated in that expansive, high-ceilinged, wide open dining room, we met the co-owner, Kevin Casey, who reached out to me on Facebook last year to invite us out to the Outpost. Kevin was jovial and warm and welcoming, and I apologized for it taking us so long to get out there. I can also say that the entire serving staff was top-notch. We received some of the best service we’ve ever encountered at a restaurant in Orlando, not just from our own server, but from her compatriots, who all checked in on us periodically, hoping we were having the best experience. (We were.)

I had not eaten all day, so my wife and I started our decadent dinner with handmade Outpost tots ($12), a wooden platter of eight golden-brown fried spheres, drizzled with Outpost sauce (not as sweet as a barbecue sauce, but thicker and not as hot as a hot sauce) and bourbon ranch. Now, we all know tater tots, but these were nothing like standard tots or the beloved Beefy spuds at Orlando’s iconic Beefy King. Each of these orbs, which were about the size of large golf balls, were more like potato pancakes, also known as latkes — crispy on the outside, but yielding and fluffy-soft and seasoned on the inside.

Kevin told us that these are complicated to make right, because the potatoes are all hand-shredded, and if the kitchen staff took too long, they would oxidize and ruin the batch, but they came up with a method to simplify the process. Whatever they did, it worked, because these are some of the most perfect potato products we’ve ever partaken in. If you ever go to the Outpost, don’t sleep on these not-so-tiny tots!

Something else cool about the Outpost is that they pay homage to Orlando’s culinary past. So many people dismiss our touristy town as “chain restaurant hell,” even though I started this blog just about five years ago to combat that misconception and shine a well-deserved spotlight on some of our best local restaurants. Kevin and Julie Casey are doing the same thing with their series of Memory Lane Menus, recreating classic dishes from beloved and much-missed eateries that closed years or even decades ago. They first did that with Pebbles, a restaurant that I’ve heard about, but it closed before I moved here in 2004, and their current Memory Lane Menu is a tribute to the legendary Ronnie’s Restaurant.

Now I never made it to Ronnie’s either, but my wife has told me all about it, and it would probably have been my favorite restaurant in the city, had I ever eaten there. I’ve seen the voluminous menu, and it looked very similar to another long-lost legend — Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House, a Jewish delicatessen/diner on Collins Avenue in North Miami Beach. Unlike Ronnie’s, I got to enjoy many meals at the Rascal House, first with my family as a kid and a teenager during weekends at the old-timey Art Deco motels right on the beach with names like the Dunes, the Driftwood, and the Desert Inn. Years later, I would visit friends on trips home from Gainesville and catch up with them over late-night overstuffed sandwiches and metal dishes of free pickles and cole slaw. I even got to take my wife to the Rascal House once, in 2007, when we were still newly dating, before the it closed its doors for good. I will always treasure those memories and those meals, especially because the Rascal House was the first restaurant I recall my family traveling out of its way to, trekking from suburban Kendall to Sunny Isles Beach, decades before seeking out the best food anywhere I could find it would become one of my adulthood hobbies.

But back to Ronnie’s now: the Outpost’s Memory Lane Menu for Ronnie’s is available for ONE MORE WEEK, until Saturday, June 10th. They are offering three classic Ronnie’s dishes: cabbage soup made with beef short ribs (which was sadly sold out when we went last night), a chocolate eclair made from an original Ronnie’s recipe, and a corned beef and pastrami platter, which we ordered to share as an appetizer. I had heard stories and fables about Ronnie’s corned beef and pastrami, served with potato salad and sliced tomatoes, and I must be honest, that was what finally spurred us to make it to the Outpost. I’m so glad it got us in the door, because it was amazing, and so was everything else.

Here’s a close-up of the thick, hand-carved slices of mostly lean pastrami, crusted with a delicious, peppery, spicy “bark”:

And as much as I love pastrami (which is a lot), I liked the Outpost’s version of Ronnie’s corned beef even better, because it was marbled with so much creamy, unctuous fat. Even without rye bread and mustard, these deli delicacies were a huge hit. We just nibbled on them at the restaurant, but I finished them in a sandwich earlier today (on a toasted sourdough roll since we didn’t have rye at home, but with good Carnegie Deli dusseldorf mustard).

My wife always likes a good steak even more than I do (I’m more of a sandwich and burger guy), and one thing she always craves is a coffee-rubbed steak. Very few restaurants in Orlando offer them, but the Outpost sure does: the Crusty New Yorker, a peppercorn and coffee-crusted New York strip steak, covered with garlic caper cream sauce and served on a bed of creamy cauliflower rice. She asked for the steak rare, and it was cooked perfectly, beautifully rare, pre-sliced and rich purple-red inside. She also loves capers and cream sauces, so she was in heaven with this dish. She was admittedly skeptical about the cauliflower rice, but we both really liked it. It had a slight crunch that regular rice doesn’t have, but the creaminess and seasoning reminded me a bit of risotto.With the bounty of everything we ordered, she would end up getting three full meals out of this generous portion.

And even though I was tempted by many dishes on the menu, one of the Outpost’s burgers really sang out to me: the Black Cherry Burger, cooked to an ideal medium rare and topped with house-smoked brisket, yellow cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and sliced hot cherry peppers on a brioche bun. I wish it had been a little bigger (only because I wish all burgers were bigger, from White Castle on up), but it was delicious. I would rank it among the finest burgers in the city, without a doubt. It came with really solid fries, which I dipped in a little metal ramekin of house-made barbecue sauce. Good fries, but after those tantalizing, tremendous tots, they were almost anticlimactic.

My wife is a bigger dessert person than I am, whereas I can often take or leave something sweet after a big meal. Still, we were both equally tempted by two different desserts on the Outpost’s masterful menu, and we splurged and ordered both. This was the drunken blueberry bread pudding, served in a small, sizzling-hot skillet. It was made with brioche and sweet Hawaiian bread, bourbon custard, fresh blueberries, tangy orange icing, and blueberry compote. It was really decadent, but not nearly as sweet as you might be thinking. It was spectacular, and a perfect way to end a summer meal. This was my wife’s favorite of the two desserts.

They also offered a pineapple upside down cake special, and even though I bake a mean pineapple upside down cake myself, we were both intrigued by it too. Unlike mine, which is a light, moist pineapple-flavored cake, this one was a denser spice cake, almost like a richer, sweeter gingerbread. It was topped with a roasted pineapple ring and some sweet, sticky caramel glaze, and that is a dehydrated pineapple ring on the side, thin and chewy and sweet and sticky like fruit leather. (Kinky!) The dark pools are a cherry glaze, although i thought they might be balsamic reduction at first. Cherry definitely fit better with pineapple upside-down cake. Our dutiful server told us that this was such a big hit, it would probably become a regular menu item moving forward. You heard it here first, folks!

Now you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos (my baker’s dozens of regular readers) know that The Saboscrivner takes pride in his journalistic integrity. I am proudly not an influencer (in fact, I still take perverse pride in some rando Redditor referring to me as an “anti-influencer”), and I never go into these restaurants asking for freebies in exchange for a good review. I wouldn’t dare, and I think that is rude and gauche and presumptuous and any number of unprintable terms. That said, since Kevin invited us in so long ago, I let him know we were coming since I wanted to meet him and thank him for reaching out… and he ended up hooking us up, out of the goodness of his heart. I was shocked, and I insisting on paying as much of the bill as they would let me, in addition to leaving a generous tip for our server based on what this large, luxurious meal would have originally cost. It was all so great, I would have written this identical review anyway, minus this paragraph. We loved everything, and we look forward to returning and becoming regulars. But that’s how nice the owner is, even during a time when local restaurants are struggling.

That’s why I am doubling down with my recommendation here. Visit the Outpost! They serve brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, and apparently Saturdays are a lot more chill compared to the busier Sundays. They are even planning to institute a weekday brunch menu, so be on the lookout for that. If you loved Ronnie’s back in the day (or you just love Jewish delis, like I do with all my heart), definitely stop by in the next week for a taste of Ronnie’s classic menu. I will definitely swing back by, hoping for that beef short rib cabbage soup to go! Also, stay tuned for the Outpost’s next Memory Lane Menu, paying homage to Gary’s Duck Inn, apparently the inspiration for the original Red Lobster. I never made it there either, but some locals probably have, and it sounds like something that should not be missed. The Outpost should not be missed, either.