Category: Bread

Adega Gaucha

Adega Gaucha (https://adegagaucha.com/) is an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse located at 8204 Crystal Clear Lane, Orlando, FL 32809, right in front of the Florida Mall, just south of the busy intersection of Orange Blossom Trail and Sand Lake Road.  It opened about two years ago, and it is a single, locally owned restaurant, differentiating it from the similar chains Texas de Brazil (which I reviewed back in 2019) and Fogo de Chao (which I have been to twice, but never got around to reviewing).  I grew up going to all-you-can-eat buffets with my family, and then they helped keep me alive through college and grad school.  Because of my buffet background, I have a great appreciation for the variety and abundance of restaurants like this, even though I could never have afforded the typical decadence of a Brazilian steakhouse as a poor student.  Despite the never-ending parade of patient waiters serving roasted meats on giant swords, my favorite part of this meal is always the sumptuous salad bar buffet, where I can gorge on some of my favorite foods, like cured meats, smoked salmon, and various fancy cheeses and roasted and marinated vegetables.

My wife, on the other hand, is not a buffet person, but she does appreciate a well-cooked (but never well done) steak, far more than even I do.  We both like our red meat as rare as possible, and we share a fondness for marbled ribeye steaks, lamb, tender brisket, and gamey meats like bison.  That’s why these Brazilian steakhouses are a rare and luxurious treat for both of us.  We have gone to Texas de Brazil for a handful of special occasions in the past, and she suggested a return visit as a “last hurrah” before an upcoming surgery and a year where we’re both going to try to eat a little less and a little healthier.  I suggested we try Adega Gaucha as an alternative, and I am so glad we did, because we both liked it even more than the vaunted, venerable old standby.  Now I’m suggesting it to you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, and I will do my best to point out the little differences that set this singular local establishment apart from its chain competitors.

I am happy to report that Adega Gaucha is cheaper than the “big two” chains.  The full churrasco experience for dinner is $55 per person, and lunch on weekdays is $40.  I would much rather eat a big meal like this for lunch than dinner, and ideally on a weekend, because I can’t think of anything sadder than gorging at a nice restaurant like this while worrying about rushing back to work in the afternoon and trying to be productive.  Luckily, Adega Gaucha offers all the same stuff from the dinner menu for their Saturday and Sunday brunch, lasting from 11:30 AM until 3:00 PM, for $45 per person.  To compare to the Orlando Texas de Brazil, weekend lunch from noon until 4:00 PM is $60.  That $15 makes Adega Gaucha seem like a bargain, and I haven’t even gotten into how good the food and service are!

We made a reservation for 11:45 AM on a Sunday, and we were the very first party to be seated and hit the gourmet table (salad bar and buffet), so I was able to pause for some photos.  Here is the charcuterie — pretty standard pepperoni, dry prosciutto and cured ham sliced paper-thin, and genoa salami folded into pretty flowers, atop a mountain of cheeses.  As one would hope, they had glass sneeze-guards in place, to prevent these decadent selections from people’s germs.  I grabbed some of these cured meats, along with the fine smoked gouda in the middle of the cheeses.

I helped myself to some melt-in-your-mouth nova salmon, leaving all the capers behind for diners who like them.  Those white things I cut off are hearts of palm, which I have never developed an appreciation for.

This was beef carpaccio, another decadent delicacy, that I have never noticed at Texas de Brazil or Fogo de Chao. 

My wife liked the sweet potato salad with raisins and dollops of goat cheese in the top left and the quinoa salad in the top right.  I really liked the potato salad in the bottom left and the seafood salad in the bottom center.  We both appreciated the tiny spheres of fresh, soft mozzarella cheese drizzled with balsamic vinegar in the top center.  I am slowly developing a taste for beets, but I was a little too overstimulated to sample what seemed to be beet salad in the bottom right. 

Back at our table, we were greeted by a basket of warm, freshly baked  pao de queijo, Brazilian cheese bread — chewy little buns that my wife always likes a lot.  She said these were better than Texas de Brazil’s version!

Something else Adega Gaucha does that Texas doesn’t is allow the table to select three sides.  My wife chose fried yucca, which I am not into, and I chose caramelized bananas, which I figured we would both enjoy.  They are so delicious.  Go ahead, take those bananas!   

I knew she would dig the sautéed mushrooms, so I let her take those.  She liked them, but she found little marinated mushrooms on the gourmet table that she liked even better than these sautéed ones.   Longtime readers know mushrooms are my Kryptonite, but I never claimed to be a fun guy.

Here is my plate after my first and only venture to the gourmet table, loaded up with some of my favorite foods in the world.  Aside from things I have already discussed, I treated myself to sweet and spicy Peppadew peppers I could eat like candy (and have before), pink pickled onions, roasted red bell pepper, and one of the jewels of the gourmet table, candied bacon, which had a hint of spice and was a huge hit with both of us.

Then we turned our little red cards green to signal the gauchos to arrive with gifts of meat.  (And how about Gaucho?  The last truly excellent album by Steely Dan, if you ask me, but I give Aja a slight edge.)

I lost track of all the different cuts of steak the gauchos brought by our table, but between the two of us, we probably tried them all: filet mignon, top sirloin, the popular Brazilian sirloin cut called picanha, flank steak called bavette or fraldinha, and our beloved ribeye.  Both of us always politely asked for rare, and the gauchos patiently offered us the rarest of the rare.  I was overjoyed that none of the meats were over-salted, which is a major issue for me at both Texas de Brazil and Fogo de Chao, where on top of the encouraged gluttony, everything is ridiculously salty.  I filled little metal ramekins at the gourmet table with fresh chimichurri, that wonderful, pungent condiment of oil, vinegar, garlic, and parsley, and fresh mango salsa that was tasty enough to eat with a spoon by itself.  The mango salsa passed my “Would I eat this over vanilla ice cream?” test.  Yes, it was that good — sweet and spicy and acidic and cool and refreshing and perfect in every way.  I should have gotten a photo of it.  I’m sorry!

But as good as the various cuts of steak were, for me, the highlights were the leg of lamb (also rare), the tender pork sausage called linguica, the roast chicken legs with crispy skin (capturing everything you would hope roasted chicken legs could aspire to be), and our absolute favorite meat at any Brazilian steakhouse, costela, the tender, juicy, marbled beef ribs that the gauchos serve sliced crosswise against the giant bones.  As soon as the first gaucho visited us, we asked for the beef ribs, and you should too.  Before we learned of the greatness of beef ribs at Brazilian steakhouses, we didn’t know to ask for it, and it rarely made appearances when we would dine at Texas de Brazil.  But at Adega Gaucha, ask, and you shall receive.

Below, you can thrill to a later plate with more beef rib slices and two more delicacies that I’ve never had at Texas de Brazil or Fogo de Chao.  You might have noticed the little dark round things at the top of the plate pictured above and the bottom of the plate pictured below.  Those are chicken hearts, and they are wonderful, hearty (heh) fare.  If you think that sounds gross, you are certainly welcome to your opinion, but they are such a delicious protein — dark and rich and slightly chewy, but so flavorful and extremely nutritious.  I have bought chicken hearts before, marinated them in Italian dressing and then sautéed them, but mine always came out a little chewier than I feel they should be.  I’ve had them on skewers, grilled over binchotan charcoal at Susuru and Tori Tori, two local Japanese restaurants that specialize in Izakaya-style pub grub like yakitori.  But I had never had them like this, and I absolutely loved them.  It’s funny that despite having all these different cuts of steak at my disposal, I liked the chicken hearts so much, but I did.

And that beautiful thing on the right is another hallmark of a meal at Adega Gaucha that I have never seen elsewhere: grilled pineapple, rich with butter, sugar, and cinnamon for a crispy, caramelized outer crust, like the best part of a pineapple upside down cake.  This was a huge treat, serving as both a palate cleanser between the rich meats and a dessert.  It was a damn delight, and we could not have been happier to end our meal with a few slices of the grilled pineapple, artfully cut off whole pineapples on the same kinds of swords wielded by the gauchos.

I have heard the cocktails and desserts at Adega Gaucha are as awe-inspiring as the meats and the gourmet table offerings, but we don’t drink, and we were too full for dessert, aside from that grilled pineapple.  But next time (and there will be a next time!), I am ordering a Brazilian limeade, with fresh-squeezed lime juice and sweetened condensed milk.  That has to be the best thing ever, to go with so many other “best things ever” we enjoyed and will absolutely return to enjoy again.  In the song “Hey Nineteen” on Gaucho, Donald Fagen sang “The Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing.”  For your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner, hopefully less pathetic than the narrator of that song, the beef ribs, leg of lamb, chicken hearts, chicken leg, linguica sausage, smoked salmon, caramelized bananas, mango salsa, and grilled pineapple made our first visit to Adega Gaucha a wonderful thing.

Alma Argentina

Alma Argentina (https://linktr.ee/AlmaArgentina) opened in late 2021, but my wife and I recently ate there for the first time.  It is located at 3607 Aloma Avenue in Oviedo, tucked between Tuskawilla Road and the entrance to State Road 417.  There is also a second, much newer location out in Celebration, but this one is close to home for us.  We were heading for the 417, not sure what we wanted for an early dinner, and when I pointed out that it was there, she said Argentinian food sounded good, so I made a immediate U-turn.  I’m so glad we made a last-minute, game-time decision to try it, because we both loved everything, and I highly recommend it to all.

I did not even know what to expect, but Alma Argentina is a small, sit-down restaurant with table service.  Our server Julieta was extremely friendly and welcoming, and of course I said it was our first time.  She came back quickly with fresh bread for the table, which neither of us expected, but it was a delightful surprise.  This was outstanding bread!  My photo doesn’t do it justice, but it was so soft, with such a nice, yielding, crackly outer crust, and it was served with a wonderful chimichurri for spreading and/or dipping.  Chimichurri is one of the best condiments, especially when it is freshly made, as this almost certainly was.  The blend of garlic, parsley, olive oil, and vinegar was so bright-tasting, it was an ideal complement to the bread, and to the festival of meats that followed.

Alma Argentina offers multiple flavors of empanadas, and you can mix and match in orders of three, six, or twelve.  My wife was interested in the pork empanada, and I wanted to try pretty much all of them, so we settled for three.  Imagine my surprise when Julieta asked if we wanted them baked or fried.  I asked her what was better, and she didn’t hesitate to say “Fried.”  It wasn’t long before she brought out three gorgeous empanadas, fried to perfection.

It was my wife’s idea to try the pork empanada, with slow-cooked pork shoulder, but I ended up eating most of it.  With no other ingredients, I wondered if it might be a little dry or boring, but it absolutely wasn’t.  The pork was so tender and flavorful!  

I figured “When in Argentina, order the Classic Argentinian empanada.”  This one came stuffed with seasoned ground beef and chopped onions, peppers, olives, and hard-boiled eggs.  Magnificent!  It was so juicy, it splattered my favorite guayabera shirt when I took a bite, and I wasn’t even mad.  I liked the different textures in this one, but I am generally a fan of adding hard-boiled eggs to things, whether you’re talking about potato salad, chopped liver, or empanadas.

And this was the osso bucco empanada, with more slow-cooked, tender meat, onions, peppers, and what looked like diced carrots and possibly a pea.  It was almost like stew in there, so it got pretty messy, but so delicious.  These are some of the best empanadas in Orlando, without a doubt.  Despite the wet ingredients, the fried pastry shells held up extraordinarily well.

My wife ordered costillas (beef ribs), and she received a large portion with two thick slabs of tender, marbled meat, cross-cut so you got a few short stubs of bone studded in the meat.  We were both a little surprised when Julieta asked her how she wanted it cooked, since nobody ever asks how you want ribs cooked.  My wife wisely chose medium rare, and it all made sense when they were served in this cross-cut style.  It was the perfect temperature.  When ribs are sliced this way, the meat easily tears off from around the bone, and it is a very satisfying process to pull the meat off by hand.  They reminded me of flanken, an Ashkenazi Jewish dish of braised short ribs cross-cut like this, and you also see them in this style in Korean galbi, just with a sweet marinade.

You can choose a side with the entrees and sandwiches, and she made another wise decision, choosing fries.  These are some of my favorite kinds of fries, twice-fried with a crispy, almost batter-like coating.  Orlando’s wonderful Brazilian restaurant Mrs. Potato serves very similar fries, and these were on the same level.  We shared them, and I was dipping back and forth between ketchup and chimichurri.  Even though I can take or leave a lot of fries, these were something special.

Since the bread was so good, and since we were already trying a few different meats between the three empanadas and the beef ribs, I decided to try a choripan sandwich, which came with two different kinds of chorizo sausages.  I guess I was hoping for Spanish-style cured chorizo, sliced thin and slightly spicy, similar to salami and pepperoni.  Instead, the sandwich on the same delicious fresh bread included two link sausages, both cut the long way.  Their shape made it hard to keep them contained in the sandwich, especially with butter lettuce, sliced tomatoes, mayo, and chimichurri adding to things slipping and sliding.  This was an extremely messy sandwich to eat, but worth the struggle.  

Here’s a look at the inside.  Like I said, both sausages were very savory and kind of greasy, but not spicy, and not cured like Spanish chorizo or your typical Italian salumi.  Still good, though!

And for a side, I chose potato salad, since I have been on a kick of trying different versions of potato and macaroni salads whenever I find them on menus.  It was good, and better once I mixed in the remaining chimichurri that came with our bread, but the fries definitely took the prize.

I feel like a boob — a real boludo — for not trying Alma Argentina sooner, especially since it is so close to where we live.  Everything we tried exceeded our expectations, as did the overall experience of dining in.  We will definitely add it to our regular rotating restaurant repertoire, especially for takeout.  I look forward to working my way through the *19* savory empanada options, and my wife will want to try the three dessert empanadas at some point.  She likes steak even more than I do, so I’m sure she will switch it up and try some of the different Argentinian steaks on future visits.  Maybe we’ll share the parrillada, a mixed grill platter that comes with flap meat, beef ribs, chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage, which I love, but she wants nothing to do with), sweetbreads, and chinchulines (grilled beef intestines, which are tastier than you would think).

Regardless, if you like meat, don’t do what I did and sleep on Alma Argentina for over two years.  It’s a small, family-owned restaurant that is easy to miss if you’re driving by that little segment of Oviedo.  Stop in, and you will be wowed by their hospitality and hearty, flavorful food the way we were.  ¡Che, buen provecho!

D’Amico & Sons Italian Market & Bakery

After a long wait (which probably felt much longer for the owners than people like me looking forward to the opening), D’Amico & Sons Italian Market & Bakery (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093695793933) has officially soft-opened in the Oviedo Mall.  Sometimes I go to the Regal movie theater in that mall, and it desperately needs something else to keep bringing people in.  I am pleased to report that D’amico & Sons should flourish there, if the enthusiastic crowds on the second day of its soft opening continue.   Its hours are 7 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Saturday, and 7 AM to 3 PM on Sunday.

I am thrilled to have another Italian market in town, especially one that is much closer to me than my beloved Stasio’s and Tornatore’s.  It is a much larger space than either, having completely refurbished the old Chamberlin’s health food store, bright and clean and spacious, with plenty of natural light and ample parking.  There is even a covered patio with tables under an Italian flag awning, for those who want to enjoy coffee, gelato, pastries, and sandwiches on the premises.

Like any good Italian market, you can order a variety of coffee drinks.  I am happy to see any locally owned and operated coffee shops to combat the Starbucks stranglehold.

There is a gelato counter too, although it was too crowded today to get a photo of it.  It looked like they might have twelve or 16 different flavors, and I’m sure my wife and I will work our way through them eventually.  Of course I like ice cream (who doesn’t?), but I like gelato even better.  I prefer the texture, the intensity of the flavors (especially fruity flavors), and somehow, it is even healthier (or less unhealthy, if you will).

When I arrived around 12:30 on its second day open, there was a long line just to get up to the bakery counter.  I managed to snap this shot of  beautiful macarons and pastries in a glass case, but there were other cases to behold on each side of it, with cakes to the left and cookies to the right:

Here is another vertical refrigerated case full of gorgeous gelato cakes: chocolate raspberry, triple chocolate, and pistachio.

I ended up bringing home two lobster tail pastries that were so flaky and crispy — the top one filled with rich Bavarian cream, and the bottom one filled with cannoli cream and tiny chocolate chips.  Below that are two zeppoli, fried pastries dusted in powdered sugar.  Those were my wife’s favorites.  

They also sell these Italian wedding cookies and black and white cookies, which I highly recommend.  I have bought this brand of black and white cookies before (Bakery Boys of New York), but I brought home the Italian wedding cookies because she loves those, and she was really happy with them.  I don’t think they sold individual Italian wedding cookies at the cookie counter, but one would not have been enough!

There are plenty of savory foods to choose from too, including golden-brown arancini, rice balls coated in bread crumbs and lightly fried, for a texture that is crispy-crunchy on the outside and soft and yielding inside.  If you’ve ever had a papa rellena from a Cuban cafe or bakery, these are similar, but with rice instead of mashed potatoes inside.  There are original, cheese, and cheesesteak arancini to tempt you.  D’Amico & Sons definitely have a lot of balls.

I brought an original rice ball home for my wife.  The thing is the size of a baseball!

A butcher case of fresh sausages was tempting, but I passed on this first visit.  I’ll definitely be back to try some.

They also offer pizzelles, which are pizza-like flatbreads, sold by the slice (and possibly also whole).  They looked great, but I treated myself to a pizza yesterday and still have leftovers.

You can also get sandwiches made to order, and I took great care to get a legible photo of the hanging menu, since it is not listed on the Facebook page yet.  Right-click this image and open it in a new tab for a larger, more legible photo.   
I was really surprised they don’t offer a traditional Italian sub with salami, ham, and other deli meats, plus the typical provolone cheese, veggies, and a vinaigrette, so I ordered what seemed like the closest approximation: the Italian Cubano, with Boar’s Head prosciutto Riserva, porchetta, Swiss cheese, pepperoncini peppers, tomato, deli mustard, and Boar’s Head Pepperhouse Gourmaise (a really good mayo-based condiment) on a sub roll.  It was ready pretty quickly, despite how slammed they were at the deli counter.

This is the Italian Cubano sandwich, unwrapped back at home.  I would have preferred the pepperoncini peppers to be sliced or chopped rather than whole, but at least they removed the stems.  The bread, prosciutto, and Pepperhouse Gourmaise really made this sandwich, but it was a little light on ingredients, and the bread was not fully sliced all the way across, so the ends didn’t have any of the good stuff on them.  I didn’t get a taste of the porchetta by itself, but at least I saw it in there.  I wonder if they would consider getting a sandwich press for more of a traditional Cubano experience.

I would absolutely try other sandwiches from here, even if they’re not going to dethrone Stasio’s (and my favorite sandwich in the city, the namesake Stasio) anytime soon.

There is a separate counter next to the gelato for ordering fresh-baked bread, and I wisely bought two different loaves to bring home.  The sub roll was great, but this sesame seed-studded semolina loaf was even better — warm and fluffy inside, crackly crust outside, and so wonderful when spread with some of our room-temperature butter back at home.

I also bought a pull-apart olive batard, which didn’t have a crunchy, crackly outer crust, but was also warm and fluffy and full of salty, chewy, pungent black olives, baked in.  I’m not the biggest olive guy in the world, but I like them as olive salad on a muffuletta sandwich, and I liked them in this bread.  My wife really loved this one, and olive her.

Over by the pizzelles, there is a refrigerated case brimming with different Italian cheeses, including ricotta, fresh mozzarella, and even some delicious-looking smoked cheeses.  I abstained this time, but I’m glad to know they have all this variety.

And since I am infamous for documenting my love of sardines with my ‘Dines List reviews, I could not leave without a can for this Cuoco brand Seasoning for Macaroni with Sardines.  I’ve made the Sicilian dish pasta con le sarde before, with fresh fennel, but I look forward to trying this ready-made combination of sardines, oil, fennel, onions, raisins, and salt the next time I cook up some high-quality imported pasta.  Of course I will review it in a future installment of The ‘Dines List!  Good for Kaley Cuoco for choosing to diversify, selling sardine seasoning while still performing the animated voice of Harley Quinn.  Beauty, talent, and business savvy!

While D’Amico & Sons does not have a full-service Italian restaurant next door like Tornatore’s (probably my favorite Italian restaurant in Orlando), and while the sandwiches may not be Stasio’s quality just yet (definitely my favorite sandwiches in Orlando), Central Florida’s newest and most spacious Italian market, bakery, cafe, and deli is already off to a terrific start, and Seminole County residents are lucky to have it.  I know I am.  I strongly encourage all my regular readers to make a pilgrimage out here ASAP and consider getting Christmas and New Year’s Eve goodies for any entertaining you have planned.  Heck, Hanukah celebrators should find a lot to love here too!

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.  Sanaa serves African food with Indian influences,

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.)

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.

King Cajun Crawfish

It has been over five years since I’ve eaten at King Cajun Crawfish (https://kingcajuncrawfish.com/), the Vietnamese-Cajun restaurant in Orlando’s Mills 50 district, one of our best and most diverse neighborhoods for dining.  I have always loved it, being a fan of New Orleans and its culture and culinary traditions, so I don’t know what took me so long to return.  At least I’ve been there more recently than I’ve been back to the Big Easy itself (not since 2001, sadly).

You may already be familiar with the Cajun and Creole dishes of Louisiana, but I will be didactic and point out that Cajun food is rustic and rural, a spicy stewpot of French-Acadians who left Nova Scotia and settled in the bayous of Louisiana along with Southern influences, while Creole food is more continental “city food” from New Orleans, influenced by Caribbean and European flavors, especially French.

Vietnamese-Cajun is a unique offshoot — a fusion of a fusion — and we are lucky to have several Viet-Cajun restaurants here in Orlando.  I believe King Cajun was the first, so it has always been my favorite.   Food & Wine offers a nice history of the fusion cuisine, which started with Vietnamese refugees who worked in the seafood industry in Gulf Coast Texas and Louisiana.

I recently invited a beloved professional mentor and friend out to lunch, something we’ve been meaning to do for almost 15 years but never gotten around to.  She is a sophisticated and brilliant woman who hails from New Orleans, so I figured King Cajun would be a good choice.  I see it as pretty authentic, but I was glad she said the same, without any prompting.

King Cajun Crawfish specializes in seafood boils, messy pots of excess featuring crawfish, shrimp, and crab in savory, spicy broths with potatoes, corn, and Andouille sausage.  However, those are so messy, you really have to dress down for a meal like that, or you’ll ruin your clothes.  Just an FYI: a meal like that might not be the best choice for a date, unless you’re planning to disrobe later, in case it could end up being an inspired choice.  My colleague and I played it safer, selecting with other menu items less likely to splatter, splash, and stain, but for future reference, those seafood boils are delicious, especially if you go with the house specialty “ShaBang sauce” (a blend of their traditional, lemon pepper, garlic butter, and “Rajun’ Cajun” seasonings).

My mentor started out with hush puppies, seasoned dough balls fried to crispy, golden perfection, yet savory and soft inside.  These were terrific dipped into some thick, tangy remoulade sauce, and the leftovers heated up perfectly in my toaster oven later that night.

She also ordered a cup of jambalaya, which is a rice dish in a thick, tomatoey sauce with Andouille sausage, chicken, shrimp, onion, and celery.  We both liked the little we tried, and I brought the rest home for my wife, who overcame her skepticism and absolutely loved it.

I got seafood gumbo for us to share, which my wife and I both always enjoyed at King Cajun in the past, and this was no exception.  My mentor and I requested it at medium heat, because there was hot sauce on the table to punch it up if it was too mild.  I could have taken it hotter and been fine, but it was great as is, with plenty of plump shrimp, sausage, chicken, rice, okra, and the “trinity” of Cajun and Creole cooking: onion, celery, and green bell peppers, all cooked in a flavorful roux (stirring flour into butter or some other fat to thicken sauces).  Needless to say, we did not roux this day!  Gumbo is more like a soup or stew than jambalaya, just in case you have confused them in the past.  Both have similar ingredients, but gumbo always has more of a broth, with white rice on the bottom of the cup or bowl.

The hot, fresh French bread at King Cajun is awesome — perfectly crusty on the outside and fluffy, soft, and warm inside.  A small loaf, more than enough for two people to share, is only $2.  You must get it, whether you order the seafood boil or something else saucy, like gumbo, jambalaya, or crawfish étouffée (for next time).  The po’boy sandwiches come on the same bread, but when you order the loaf, it is scored to pull apart easily.

This was the fried oyster platter (my choice), which I thought was only supposed to come with six fried oysters, but it came with far more than six.  They were also fried perfectly in a cornmeal batter.  I think I prefer raw or charbroiled oysters most of the time, but these were delightful.  You can also get them in a po’boy sandwich, but we already had French bread, and I felt like getting some sides.All the fried platters come with two sides.  I chose potato salad and onion rings, so long-time Saboscrivner readers know this is also a RING THE ALARM! feature.  The potato salad was cool and refreshing, tangy with a little yellow mustard the way Southern potato salads often are.  The onion rings were breaded rather than battered, but they didn’t have those jagged crags that cut up the inside of your mouth, and the onions inside were at a reasonable temperature, not molten and scalding.  I dipped the oysters and onion rings in the included cocktail sauce, but the remoulade (not pictured) was the best dipping sauce for both.

A side of cole slaw was crispy, cool, creamy, and refreshing, but not too heavy with mayo.  Like the potato salad, it was nice to cut all the richness of the fried stuff we had been eating.

And for dessert, you can’t leave New Orleans or King Cajun Crawfish without an order of beignets (pronounced “bin-YAYS”), puffy triangles of fried dough covered with so much powdered sugar, it looks like they just left a bachelor party in Miami… or let’s face it, any party in Miami.
King Cajun Crawfish serves Café du Monde coffee, a New Orleans classic that is an ideal combination with these beignets (especially with condensed milk added), but we both passed.  I’m not a coffee drinker, and even I’ll tell you that is some damn fine coffee with its flavoring from the chicory root.  Then again, condensed milk makes everything better, and now I’m thinking about requesting some to drizzle over the beignets or dip them in it next time.

This was a long overdue lunch with one of the best people I know, and we could not have picked a better restaurant.  It made me happy she liked it and considered it authentic (better than Tibby’s, she said!), and I wondered how and why it had been so long since my last visit to King Cajun Crawfish.  Next time I return, I will have to go with a group and dress down to enjoy some boiled crawfish and shrimp in ShaBang sauce without ruining my work clothes.  I don’t think that’s too shellfish of a request.

Zorba’s Greek Restaurant

Zorba’s Greek Restaurant (https://zorbasgreekfood.com/) is located at 115 East 1st Street, in the quaint, picturesque, historic section of Sanford, about half an hour north of downtown Orlando.  1st Street is lined with great restaurants (including the beloved Hollerbach’s German Restaurant, Christo’s diner, and the nearby St. Johns River Steak & Seafood), bars, breweries, and cute shops.  There is an excellent ice cream parlor (Wondermade, one of my two favorites in Central Florida) and a very cool new food hall, Henry’s Depot, which I recently visited for the first time and will definitely write about in the future.  There is a German grocery store (Magnolia Square Market, owned by the Hollerbach family), a shop that specializes in hot sauces and everything spicy (Spice is Nice, which I also plan to review), and a farmer’s market every Saturday.  It’s one of the most underrated foodie areas around, so I am thrilled to review another restaurant in the neighborhood that quickly became one of my new favorites.  In fact, after two visits, one for dining in and one for takeout, I might go out on a limb and call Zorba’s my favorite Greek restaurant in the Greater Orlando area.

Funny enough, my wife and I ended up there completely accidentally, after first driving to Sanford intending to go to Hollerbach’s on a day it turned out to be closed.  We had been passing Zorba’s for years, and since it is mere steps away, we went there instead, and were so glad we did.  We were hungry, so we did our usual over-ordering thing, knowing we would have plenty of delicious leftovers to last us for days, which would heat up well at home.

We started out with eggplant garlic spread, which came with warm,  soft, lightly grilled pita bread wedges for dipping and/or spreading.  I am relieved to report the pita bread was really good, because I hate the Toufayan brand of pita they sell at Publix, near the deli section. 

The eggplant garlic spread was savory and creamy, as the menu promised.  It was my wife’s idea to order it, but I think it was so garlicky, I ended up liking it more than she did.  But it was really awesome, and I would definitely recommend it as a nice starter.

She chose the octopus from the list of mezethakia, or Greek appetizers, to be her main course.  We all have our favorite dishes we can never turn down when we see them on menus, and octopus is one of hers.  You never know quite how restaurants are going to serve it, but Zorba’s served one large, marinated, char-grilled tentacle with tomatoes, kalamata olives, lemon, and some of the best feta cheese either of us have ever had.  I’ve had so much rubbery, chewy octopus that I don’t seek it out anymore the way she does, but she insisted I try it, and it was outstanding — easily some of the best I’ve ever tried anywhere.  Really meaty and flavorful, possibly from being tenderized by an acidic marinade that includes vinegar.  

Since my wife doesn’t cook, I suggested she order something else that she could eat over the next day or two, once I was back at work.  She chose papootsakia, which is really fun to say.  The menu describes it as half an eggplant stuffed with seasoned ground beef topped with creamy Bechamel sauce and baked, but as you can see, it looks like they served her a double portion!  This was another banger.  We both tasted cinnamon in the ground beef, and I suspected they use the same recipe for the moussaka (casserole with ground beef, eggplant, potatoes, and Bechamel) and some other dishes.  My wife named this one of the best things she has ever eaten in her life, and she doesn’t toss around superlatives as freely as your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner!Needless to say, the papootsakia (hehe) lasted her a few days, and like so many saucy, savory dishes, it kept tasting better and better after every day in the fridge.

Just like octopus and eggplant are two of my wife’s “trigger dishes” that she always feels compelled to try anywhere, slow-braised and stewed meats in sauces are one of mine.  I noticed Zorba’s offered a lamb shank and a pork shank, both braised and baked in a tomato sauce.  I had a hard time deciding between the two, but our patient server suggested I try the lamb shank for my first visit, and so I did.  This really is one of my favorite meals, period.  I loved the braised lamb shanks at Cappadocia Turkish Cuisine (and listed them as one of my Top Five favorite things I ate in 2018 in Orlando Weekly), and now I’m pretty great at making them myself, using this recipe.   Well, I’m happy to say that the lamb shank from Zorba’s is as good as any of the other versions I’ve tried or made, if not better.  The tomato sauce is so rich, it really puts it over the top.  The meat was fork-tender and so savory and flavorful.The rice pilaf was already soft and buttery, but I mixed all the tomato sauce I could into it, making it even better.

As if that wasn’t enough food, I ordered one of my favorite Greek dishes, pastitsio, which is kind of like Greek baked ziti or lasagna — a baked casserole with layers of seasoned ground beef (with more of that cinnamon) and long, uncut ziti noodles tossed in beaten egg whites and feta cheese after boiling to help the noodles stick together, topped with more creamy Bechamel that browns when baked.  It is a delicious, hearty dish that is different enough from the Italian versions that you absolutely have to try it, if you never have had it before.  And the pastitsio at Zorba’s is absolutely the best version I’ve ever had.  They knocked it out of the park.

It’s so pleasing to the eye too, when the chef gets all the ziti noodles facing the same way, so it creates that honeycomb-like pattern when slices are cut out of it.

All the entrees came with a choice of a lovely Greek salad tossed in a housemade viniagrette dressing with more of that terrific feta (so much better than the kind I’ve been buying at Aldi), or a soup.  The salad turned out to be a much more refreshing choice.

The soup was avgolemono, a hearty Greek chicken soup with orzo pasta and lemon.  We wanted to try both the salad and the soup, but it’s just too blasted hot to enjoy most soups, here in the hottest summer recorded in human history.

The entrees all come with fresh-baked rolls studded with sesame seeds.  It seems like an unnecessary inclusion, but these are really damn good rolls, especially when you have such delicious sauces and juices to mop up.  Don’t leave them behind!

And my wife said we couldn’t leave without trying the baklava for dessert, so who was I to argue?  It was good baklava, although I have never had bad baklava.

Here’s a look at it with the thin, crispy phyllo dough “roof” removed:

On my second visit to Zorba’s, this past weekend, I brought home the lamb chop lollipops for my wife.  I asked for them rare, but they came out closer to medium.  These are a lot thinner than the thick lamb loin chops I buy at Costco for roasting, so it was probably harder to rescue these while they were still rare.  These were served over more rice pilaf and dressed salad greens.

Since I liked the lamb shank so much last time, this time I ordered the pork shank, which was an even bigger hunk of meat with the bones still in.  Like the lamb shank, it was baked to fork-tender perfection in the same rich tomato sauce, over more rice pilaf.  I didn’t even eat this until the day after I brought everything home, but I suspect it got even tastier in the fridge overnight.   No matter which shank you choose, you can’t go wrong.   Zorba’s prepared both perfectly.   

I could not help ordering a regular gyro for us to share, just to see how Zorba’s stacks up to other gyros around Orlando.  It was really good, with the garlicky, salty lamb slices still tender (some places throw them on the grill after carving them off the spit, drying them out), nice, thick, creamy, garlicky tzatziki sauce, and a properly grilled pita.  If you’re in the mood for a gyro in Sanford, you absolutely can’t go wrong.  BUT — and this is not a complaint about the quality at all — nobody in the Orlando area makes a better gyro than Mediterranean Deli on Fairbanks Avenue.  If they do, I haven’t found it yet.

So that’s Zorba’s Greek Restaurant.  If Sanford wasn’t such a schlep from home, we would become regulars for sure.  As it is, I’ll still make the trek to bring it home when we’re in the mood, because it is that damn good.  You can tell everything is homemade, fresh, and authentic.  The service was great when we dined in, and it’s a nice little spot that would be fine for  casual family dining, but nice enough to bring a date.  There are so many great dining options in Sanford these days, but this is one that may not be as new or exciting or “sexy” as some of the other restaurants along 1st Street.  Don’t sleep on it, though.  It was one of our favorite discoveries of 2023, and it will probably become one of yours too.

Zeytin Turkish Cuisine

Let’s face it — dining out is usually an impersonal, almost mechanical experience where you pay for food, you get your food, you eat, you leave, and you go on with your life.  That’s the bare minimum of what we expect, and sometimes that’s what we crave.  But how often do any of us visit a restaurant where you feel a warm welcome, like you’ve stepped into someone’s home and they are legitimately happy to see you?  There are a few places like that around Orlando — Mediterranean Deli and Se7enbites immediately come to mind.

Another one is Zeytin Turkish Cuisine (https://www.facebook.com/ZeytinTurkishCuisine), a restaurant that has been around for eight years, but I only recently discovered it for myself.  I’ve been a late bloomer throughout my life, but finally trying this wonderful food, prepared with skill and love and accompanied by some of the kindest, warmest hospitality I have ever encountered, I wished I had made to this College Park eatery long ago.

This was the lavas bread ($4.95), which you have to order at any Turkish restaurant, and especially at Zeytin.  It usually arrives to your table in a dramatic fashion, huge and round, puffed up with hot air, which you then pierce with forks and knives to deflate.  Then you tear off pieces of the warm, soft bread (kind of like a pita, but so much better) and dip it into various dips.  It was packed in a brown paper bag and mostly deflated by the time I got home, but still just as good as we’ve had before, from elsewhere. 

The main reason I went to Zeytin was because my wife was craving babaganush, that smoky, creamy dip made from roasted eggplants, sometimes with garlic, tahini paste, and olive oil added to it.  She asked me to find the best babaganush in Orlando, and I received several helpful suggestions on the Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps!, the burgeoning community of local foodies founded by the civic-minded mensch Ricky Ly.  One suggestion stood out to me, from Michele Bourassa, a familiar name from the Foodie Forum.  She was the co-owner of Zeytin, and she invited me out to finally try her restaurant.  How could I refuse such an offer?  I had read great reviews for years and always meant to try it, but I’m rarely out in the College Park area.  I called in my order on the way there, and it was all ready by the time I arrived.  Michele could not have been nicer, and the babaganush ($8.50) could not have been better.  Seriously, I’ve never had its equal, and my wife was over the moon with happiness.

But Michele (a true ray of sunshine and the perfect “front of house” person any restaurant would be grateful to have) and her husband, chef and co-owner Zeynel (everyone calls him “Z”), threw in some extras for us, which they did not have to do!  Despite just ordering babaganush, they sent us home with the equivalent of their mixed appetizer platter, with multiple dips to accompany our lavas bread.  (I tipped above and beyond, the least I could do for her unheralded generosity.)

This container held their two creamy, yogurt-based dips: cacik, yogurt blended with cucumbers, garlic, dill, and fresh mint, and haydari, thicker yogurt blended with crushed walnuts, garlic, and dill.  Both were so refreshing, but I personally preferred the haydari.The word “Zeytin” is Turkish for olive, a favorite delicacy of Chef Z, and we noted that each dip was topped with a kalamata olive.  I made sure my wife ended up with all of those.

This container held two separate dips as well: esme on the left, a spicy melange of tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, onions, cornichons, parsley, garlic, crushed walnuts, lemon juice, and olive oil, and soslu patlican on the right, my personal favorite Turkish dip, with sauteed eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic.  My wife isn’t into anything spicy or overly tomatoey, so I got to enjoy both of these myself — and let me tell you, I enjoyed them.  That was such an unexpected and unnecessary bonus, and we were both so grateful.

Because I wanted to try a meat dish and see how Zeytin handled one of my  favorite Turkish dishes from elsewhere, I also ordered the Iskender kebab ($24.95), ground lamb mixed with seasonings, shaped into a loaf, broiled, and served as thin slices.  Unlike the more common doner kebab, which uses the same meat, the slices in the Iskender kebab are served over cubes of sautéed, buttered bread so the juices and spices saturate the bread.  Normally it is topped with tomato sauce and yogurt, but I figured that might make the dish a soggy mess by the time I got it home.

I asked for both the tomato sauce (see above) and the yogurt (see below) on the side, so I could apply my own, and also my wife could enjoy the sliced lamb plain, free of tomato-based sauces, as she always prefers.  The yogurt was cool and creamy, and they gave us so much of it!  Back at home, the cubes of bread crisped back up very nicely in our toaster oven, and I chopped some pickles and sprinkled some Penzey’s Turkish seasoning blend into the yogurt.  Whatever yogurt I didn’t use with three separate servings of the Iskender kebab, I enjoyed with some chicken later in the week.

I asked if the Iskender kebab came with rice, and it does not, because of the crouton-like cubes of crispy bread underneath.  But I figured the rice would be really good at Zeytin, so I asked for a side order of rice.  As my wife and I both hoped, it was a buttery rice pilaf with chewy orzo pasta, much like the rice from the dearly departed Beyti Mediterranean Grill, our friendly neighborhood Turkish restaurant that opened in 2020 and closed in 2022.  Even when my wife didn’t feel like eating meat, she would send me to Beyti to bring home lavas bread, babaganoush, and that rice.  This takeout meal from Zeytin was like revisiting some old friends who were a little different, but had become even better.

Michele also included four pieces of freshly made pistachio baklava for us, a truly sweet and unexpected treat that wowed us in every way possible.  It was some of the best baklava we’ve ever had, and not just in Orlando, either.

The following weekend, I took my wife to see an awe-inspiring stage production at Orlando’s Renaissance Theatre, Josephine, a one-woman show about the incredible life of American icon Josephine Baker, starring a local icon, triple-threat (actress-singer-dancer) Tymisha Harris.  Afterwards, we headed on to dinner at Zeytin, a mere week after bringing home that bountiful takeout order.  I had forgotten that you need to make a reservation for the small dining room, but we were so lucky a table was available, and Michele was able to seat us right away.  I introduced Michele to my wife, who quickly and rightfully pointed out that she loved Michele’s kind heart.  The only reason you wouldn’t agree is because you haven’t met her yet.

The dining room was pretty full when we arrived that Sunday evening.  It seemed like a lot of the crowd was made up of regulars, and we could both understand why.  Natural light streamed in and reflected off the beautiful hanging lights made of multicolored glass mosaics, which Chef Z had gotten from Istanbul.  There was a fish tank near the entrance, close to our table, and we entertained ourselves throughout our dinner watching the aquatic antics of a tiny turtle.

Michele asked her husband to get our lavas bread ready even before we placed our order.  As great as our feast was at home the previous week, most restaurant food is so much better consumed hot and fresh in the dining room itself, and Zeytin was no exception.  Here was the steaming, soft lavas bread, fully puffed and fluffed up, ready to be deflated, dipped, and devoured.  

We had to order the finest babaganush in Orlando all over again:

And Michele was kind enough to hook us up with small sample dishes of haydari, esme, and smooth, creamy hummus (which I always try to say in a sexy voice like Gal Gadot, but it sounds more like an old man with phlegm caught in his throat, coming from me). 

I suggested we order moussaka ($21.95) to share, figuring we would have leftovers that would heat up well.  The baked casserole of sliced eggplant, ground lamb, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic was topped with a bechamel sauce and molten-hot, melty mozzarella cheese.  It was very similar to lasagna, but with layers of eggplant instead of pasta sheets.  For this reason, I like the tomato-based Turkish version of moussaka better than Greek versions that don’t have the tomatoes.  And while I’ve had a similar version of moussaka at Cappadocia, another Turkish restaurant, Zeytin’s version is definitely my favorite in the city.  The moussaka came with a mountain of that wonderful buttery rice pilaf with orzo, which we both loved.

Since we were dining here on a Sunday evening, I couldn’t resist ordering one of my favorite Turkish dishes: lahmacun ($19.95), a throuple of soft baked flatbreads topped with ground lamb, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices.  I figured I would end up with plenty of leftovers that would heat up well in the microwave at work, but they were so good, they never made it into my workday lunches.  I loved the lahmacun (pronounced “llama-JUNE,” but with a soft “j,” as in “bougie”) from Beyti while it was open, and I have even made it from scratch before.  But Zeytin’s version blew me away, filling a hole in my heart and staving off my regular Sunday evening despondence for a while.   I was impressed that it essentially came with a whole side salad, with chopped romaine lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, and parsley tossed in a very light vinaigrette dressing, which you can roll up inside the lahmacun to eat, like a veggie wrap with meat on the inner wrapping.  But there was so much salad, that even after eating all three lahmacun pieces with it, I was able to pack the rest in my work lunch the following Monday.  (I also ate the lemon wedges like orange wedges, which is what I usually do with lemon wedges.)

Here’s a close-up of one of those decadent discs.  I just loved them.  The thin outer crust was nice and crispy, but not overly crunchy, and the lahmacun dough got pleasantly soft underneath the cooked lamb and vegetables. 

If you put a gun to my head (please don’t) and forced me to name my five favorite world cuisines (excluding regional American foods like barbecue, Jewish-style delicatessens, and Hawaiian), Turkish would definitely make my top five, along with Italian, Mexican, and probably Japanese and Cuban.  That’s a hard decision to make.  What about Indian?  What about Chinese, in all its varieties?  Greek?  Vietnamese?  I love them all, and so many more, but the local restaurants in Orlando made me a true devotee of Turkish flavors, and Zeytin reminded me what I love so much about them.

On top of that, I can’t get over how kind and sweet Michele was.  I didn’t get to meet Chef Z, but he sounds like a pretty amazing person too.  The fact that she reached out to me to invite me to their restaurant was such a nice gesture.  I had been meaning to visit for far too long, but that personal touch is what finally made it happen.  They hooked us up on that first takeout trip — I would be impugning whatever journalistic integrity I have if I failed to admit this — but they did it because they are such nice people, not asking for anything in return except for us to return.  And it only took a week for us to do so, because it was that damn good.

Some Turkish restaurants may have expanded too much in recent years and aren’t as consistent (or as good) as they used to be.  You may find others closed at random times throughout the week when they’re supposed to be open.  But I can’t imagine Zeytin disappointing in any way, not after our recent experiences.  All of their meats are halal, and everything is prepared from scratch — fresh produce, fresh everything.  I am thrilled to consider myself a Zeytin convert now, and the next step is to become a regular.  Please join me in doing the same!

So much of College Park has minimal parking (ironic), especially the stretch of Edgewater Drive closer to Princeton, but this is the north end of College Park, and Zeytin has its own parking lot.  The restaurant is located at 4439 Edgewater Drive, just off Fairbanks Avenue, and very convenient to access via I-4.  It is only open for dinner, and if you intend to dine in, definitely call 407-988-3330 to make a reservation.  Plan your next date night or family dinner here.  The extroverted, effervescent Michele and her  husband, Chef Z, will make you feel like family, or probably even more welcome, depending on what your family is like.

I swore I wouldn’t end with this, but I can’t resist: HAIL ZEYTIN!

Jaleo

Jaleo (https://www.jaleo.com/location/jaleo-disney-springs/) is an upscale Spanish restaurant, founded by the successful celebrity chef, restauranteur, and humanitarian Jose Andres.  When he’s not feeding people in international crisis zones with his World Central Kitchen charity, he runs several other restaurants, including China Chilcano, the Peruvian-Chinese-Japanese restaurant in Washington, D.C., which I ate at and reviewed in 2019.  But Jaleo, featuring the tastes of his native Spain, is probably his most famous, with locations in D.C., Chicago, Las Vegas, and right here in Orlando.

The two-story Jaleo location at Disney Springs is absolute huge and beautiful.  It is almost like sensory overload in there, with so much to look at even before your senses are overwhelmed by the tapas coming your way. 

The design really is busy, but stunning.

Peep these gorgeous hanging hams.  As Michael Jackson might have said, “JAMON!”

This location opened in March 2019, and I had been wanting to go since the beginning.  But with COVID, major medical stuff, a job change, and lots of other life stuff getting in the way, I finally made it to Jaleo earlier this year, back in May, which seems like a lifetime ago.   I went for a leisurely lunch with three colleagues from work, all top-notch librarians I don’t get to work directly with anymore, but I think the world of them.  None of us had ever been here before, so we shared almost everything, which is the best way to do Jaleo — in a group with friends who understand sharing is caring.  Each of us ordered a few dishes and paid our own way, so I will present our epic meal more of less in order of how things came out from the kitchen.

Two colleagues shared this pitcher of sangria, which they seemed to like.  I don’t know how much it cost and didn’t try it because I don’t drink, but it’s Spanish red wine mixed with fruit, so I’m sure you can’t go too wrong.

This is pan con tomate ($14), toasted slices of bread rubbed with fresh tomato, which sounds too simple to be good, and definitely too simple to be worth $14.  But it was worth it, even split four ways.  Better than tomato-rubbed toast has any right to be!  It was so good, another person in my party ordered a second portion for the table.

This was the coca Idiazabal ($10), a handmade rosemary and olive oil cracker topped with membrillo (a jelly-like paste made of the quince fruit, so rich, sticky, and sweet!) and Idiazabal cheese, grated into soft, silky strands.  I had never had quince before, but it reminded me of the guava paste that is ubiquitous in pastelitos and other Cuban desserts from growing up in Miami.  We cracked the coca cracker into quarters as best we could and enjoyed the blend of sweet and salty, crunchy and gooey.   

This was my vegetarian colleague’s manzanas con hinojo y queso Manchego ($13), a salad of sliced apples, fennel, Manchego cheese (a Spanish cheese made from sheep milk), walnuts, and sherry dressing.  I don’t remember much about the bite I got, but I do love fragrant fennel (I like to use it in pasta con la sarde, a dish of pasta and sardines) and salty Manchego.   It would be a great palate cleanser to take bites of between heavier, richer, meaty dishes.   

I definitely ordered this dish, which I swear looked a lot more appetizing in person: the cebolla asada ($11), a huge roasted sweet onion topped with pine nuts and funky-but-delicious Valdeón blue cheese.  Everyone knows how much I love onions, especially when they are marinated and/or caramelized.  This was magnificent, especially with the blue cheese on top.  Part of me imagined enjoying a gigantic, juicy burger topped with this bad boy, but that wouldn’t be Jaleo’s style.

So many months have passed, I think this soup my one vegetarian colleague ordered is the gazpacho de remolacha con queso de cabra ($11), red beet gazpacho with goat cheese, oranges, and pistachios.  It was the only thing on the table I did not sample, but if that’s indeed what it is, it sounds good enough to even win over Lisa Simpson’s gazpacho-mocking family at that one cookout.

Me being the connoisseur of cured meats, I couldn’t go to Jaleo and not order the jamon Serrano ($13), a platter of the most delicious Serrano ham, cured for 24 months.  These paper-thin slices were served with these delightful little crispy bread twists to wrap them around.  Like the best prosciutto, this jamon was salty and unctuous and could melt away in your mouth.  My one male colleague seemed to like it; the ladies wanted nothing to do with it, so more for me!

This was the espinacas a la Catalana ($14), sautéed spinach with pine nuts, raisins and apples.  Once again, I can’t take credit for ordering such a healthy, wholesome dish, but it was so amazing.  I think we had leftovers of a few things at the end of our lunch, including this, and I took them all home because I am shameless.  My wife tried it and loved it, and I attempted a copycat recipe not long after that was okay, but not nearly as good as this.  I mean, look at this!   I do love cooked greens, and the slight sweetness from the fruit made such a difference, especially with the tender crunch of the apples and the chewiness of the raisins (“Nature’s candy,” as my mom would say, trying desperately to convince my brother and I as little kids, and probably herself as well.)

Next up we have the gambas al ajillo ($19), or according to the menu, “The very, very famous tapa of shrimp sautéed with garlic.”  I don’t really care how famous they are, but they were some of the tastiest shrimp I’ve ever had.  I can’t rave enough about how perfectly every dish in this epic lunch was seasoned, and the gambas were no exception.

My mighty colleague ordered this paella of the day for himself, and our patient server warned us it would take about 45 minutes.  It came toward the end of the meal, when we were all visibly fatigued, but I honorably and dutifully helped him get through it.  Constant readers, I wish I could tell you what this exact paella of the day was, but that memory is lost in time, like tears in the rain.  The menu narrows down the kind of rice to “Bomba rice from Valencia or Calasparra from Murcia,” and it definitely included tender chicken, some kind of pork, and also shrimp, with a swirl of garlic aioli on the plate, as if it wasn’t rich enough already.  Not everything is worth the wait, but this paella was.This is where I admit I’ve had bad experiences with paella elsewhere.  Usually you pay a lot and wait a long time, and the rice comes out underdone.  Just disheartening experiences overall, which is why I didn’t order a traditional rice-based paella for myself, even in this temple of Spanish cuisine, with a menu created by one of the greatest chefs in the world.  Because the rice was tender and everything came together, it was probably the best paella I’ve ever had.

This was the last dish I ordered myself: rossejat negra ($32), a different kind of paella made with toasted Catalonian fideos pasta instead of rice, head-on shrimp, squid ink, calamari sofrito, and dollops of creamy, garlicky aioli.  The picture isn’t great, because it looks like some burnt crud on the pan, but that was actually pasta dyed black with squid ink, a gourmet treat that always impresses my wife and me whenever we see it, maybe because we are goths at heart.  I cannot vouch for the placement of the huge shrimp in this dish, but I’m sure there was no ill intent.  The pasta was al dente in places, but the edges that touched the pan were crispy like pegao, the crispy rice from the bottom of the rice cooker that some people dismiss but others (like my wife) love.  The dollops of creamy, garlicky aioli stood out against the blackness of the pasta and the blackness of the pan, reminding me of a line Alan Moore wrote in the comic book Top Ten #8, later plagiarized by Nic Pizzolatto in the first season finale of True Detective, about seeing stars shining in the night sky, and how there is so much darkness out there, but just to see any light at all means the light is winning.  Well, nobody else wanted anything to do with my rossejat negra, which means I was definitely winning!

My colleague who is a huge Disney fan ordered this dessert, and I honestly don’t remember if I tried a bite or not.  It is the Selva Negra ($14), created to celebrate Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary, lasting throughout 2022 and into March 2023.  The menu describes “a decadent mousse made of Manjari 64% chocolate atop a crunchy feulletine base with black cherry chocolate sponge cake and topped with a chocolate glace.”  That’s pretty impressive to me, considering my favorite dessert is a creamy citrus pie in a crust made of crushed Ritz crackers.  This right here is some serious gourmet… stuff.

I don’t know why it has taken me over half a year to finish writing this review.  Needless to say, the four of us ate like royalty this day.  But the fact that it was four generous and mostly adventurous people made it the ideal situation at Jaleo.  The tapas-style portions aren’t gigantic, but most are bigger than you think, definitely big enough to share with a group this size.  And that’s the way to do tapas correctly — to order a bunch of different things and share them.  Share with friends, with family, with dates and mates, even with former co-workers.  A meal like this lends itself to sharing, so as many people as possible can experience the majestic flavors of Spain and the creative brilliance and love of Chef Jose Andres and his talented kitchen staff.  You could go alone and order a couple of dishes, but I don’t know if that experience would be the same.  That’s why it took me so long to finally make it to Jaleo, and why I won’t return until the circumstances are right, and I can bring more people I care about to share with.  Sharing food (and even information about food) is one of my love languages for sure (you’re welcome!), and one of Chef Andres’ too, as he continues to lead World Central Kitchen to feed people at disaster sites and war zones around the world.  He’s a true mensch, and he deserves our support.  You can donate to World Central Kitchen, AND you can also enjoy a sumptuous, unforgettable meal at Jaleo next time you’re down near Disney.

Friends Indian Cuisine

Friends Indian Cuisine (https://friendsindiancuisine.com/) is a new halal Indian restaurant on South Semoran Boulevard, just north of Curry Ford Road in South Orlando, south of State Road 408.  It opened earlier this year (2022) and is building a loyal following due to excellent word of mouth.  The location has hosted a handful of restaurants before, but hopefully Friends is here to stay.  I have dined in twice and brought home takeout another time, so I couldn’t wait on this review any longer.  The short version: Friends is fantastic.  It’s another great recommendation to Orlando’s Indian restaurant scene, which I am slowly but surely working my way through.

From my first takeout trip, I brought home the two dishes I know my wife likes: butter chicken (left; $13.99) and palak paneer (right; $12.99) — both mild, for her sake.  The butter chicken is a delicious dish that was her gateway to appreciating Indian food: shredded dark meat chicken (all leg meat) stewed in a creamy tomato sauce.  It is very similar to chicken tikka masala (also on the menu for $14.99), but I’ve brought both to my wife before, and she prefers the butter chicken.  I love it too.  The palak paneer is cubes of cottage cheese (the paneer part) cooked with spinach in a creamy sauce.  It is another great gateway dish for people unfamiliar with Indian cuisine, especially vegetarians.  I’ve ordered an extremely similar dish called saag paneer at other Indian restaurants, but I just researched the difference: palak paneer is always made with spinach, while saag paneer can be made with spinach and/or any other leafy greens, particularly mustard greens.  Mystery solved!

I ordered lamb karahi ($14.99) for myself: boneless lamb strips cooked with tomatoes, onions, and green bell peppers in a curry sauce, served over basmati rice that came on the side.  Normally I order hot lamb vindaloo at Indian restaurants, but I switched it up to try the karahi for the first time.  I still got it hot, but it was a lot less vinegary and pungent than the vindaloo.   

I brought home an appetizer portion of vegetable pakoras ($4.99), a serving of six mixed vegetable patties dipped in chickpea batter and fried until golden-brown and crispy.  I thought my wife would like them too, but I ended up enjoying them more than she did, especially with tamarind sauce for dipping.

This was an order of tandoori paratha (top; $3.49), which is whole wheat bread layered with butter, and regular butter naan (bottom; $2.49, or you can get it with your entree as an alternative to plain basmati rice).  I wanted my wife to be able to compare and contrast them, but they were very similar.  Both breads were soft and warm from having been baked in a clay oven called a tandoor, and we really enjoyed both.  I am more used to buttery, flaky Malaysian-style parathas than the Indian variety, so this tandoori paratha was much more naan-like.  But trust me — I could eat these naan-stop.

If you don’t feel like ordering off the menu, or if you’re a newer convert to the wonderfulness of Indian food, Friends Indian Cuisine offers a daily all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for $12.99 on weekdays and $14.99 on weekends, from 11:30 AM until 3:30 PM.  I’ve had the lunch buffet twice now, and it is terrific.  The dishes on the buffet are all mildly spiced for a wide range of palates.

Here are all the options from my most recent visit:

You grab your plate near the naan bread, aloo pakora (crispy battered and fried potatoes that were replenished right after I took this photo, of course), a lentil soup, that I did not try, and sweet gulab jamon, a dessert dish of cake-like balls in a sugary syrup.

Here you have plain white basmati rice, palak paneer (which we have already established is awesome), mixed vegetable curry, and aloo cholay, a dish with cubed potatoes and chickpeas cooked in a spicy curry sauce.

Moving down the line, they offer vegetable rice pilaf, chicken biryani (terrific), chicken curry, chicken korma in a creamy cashew sauce, butter chicken (I love this so much), and moist and tender tandoori chicken thighs and legs.

And finally, you can get cool, creamy raita (a yogurt sauce that is perfect for neutralizing spicy dishes), green chutney, tangy-sweet tamarind sauce, intimidating-looking green chili peppers, chopped red onion, lemon and orange wedges, a green salad, and rice pudding, another sweet dish.

This was my first plate, where I sampled a little bit of everything.  The butter chicken, tandoori chicken, palak paneer, and chicken biryani were my favorites from the lunch buffet.

On my most recent trip to the buffet with two work colleagues, I got an order of vegetable samosas ($4.99) for us to share.  These were perfect potato pyramids, with seasoned potatoes and peas in lightly fried, crispy crusts.  They split one and liked it, and I was too full to try mine until the next morning at home, but it was still great then.

Since Friends Indian Cuisine is so convenient to my job, I look forward to becoming more of a regular over the months and years, even as I branch out and continue to try other Indian restaurants throughout Orlando.  My family NEVER ate Indian food when I was growing up in Miami, and I never ate it that often until the last few years, in my quest to discover the best food anywhere and everywhere and share my thoughts on it.  Now I’m making up for lost time, and I’m thrilled to recommend one more great local Indian restaurant to expand my palate and my experience.

And hey, if you were expecting a Friends reference since I always make pop culture references in my restaurant reviews, sorry to disappoint you, but I always hated that show.

Chain Reactions: Eataly (Chicago)

Eataly (https://www.eataly.com/) is like heaven for foodies: a massive Italian food store that contains several restaurants, from sit-down pastarias to wine bars to counter-service bakeries to grab-and-go snack shops.  As a result, it is kind of like a massive food hall, with so much to see and do, smell and taste, experience and indulge.  But most of all, Eataly feels like a temple to Italian food — truly a place of worship — and well worth a pilgrimage at least once.  There are ten Eataly stores in Italy (the first one opened in Torino in 2007), nine in North America, and eight elsewhere in the world.   I don’t know how different they all are, since I’ve only been to the Chicago Eataly (https://www.eataly.com/us_en/stores/chicago/) — first with my wife in 2014, and again on a recent business trip to Chicago.  I had to venture back there, to make sure that first visit wasn’t just a wonderful dream, but the kind of place where dreams come true.

It had been so long since my first visit, I had to explore everything in the store before deciding on my first bit of food.  I made my way to the second floor to a familiar kiosk that beckoned: the land of cured meats and cheeses.  I felt like a weary traveler who had finally made it to my destination, yet also feeling like I was home. 

Since I was just staying in Chicago for two nights, I couldn’t buy anything fresh or perishable or requiring cooking, but I’m sure some fancy Chicago locals bypass the local supermarkets and buy all their meats at this gleaming butcher’s counter.  You can’t see the price labels in this photo, but take it from me: if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.

Here’s a shot of huge tomahawk ribeye steaks, slowly dry-aging to perfection in a clear refrigerated case: 

The seafood counter was equally sumptuous.  On my first visit to Eataly back in 2014, I made an indulgent purchase of bottarga here: the salted, cured, pressed, and dried roe sac of a fish (usually gray mullet, but sometimes tuna).  I had read about bottarga before, and it sounded irresistible to me, as a connoisseur of the cured, a scholar of the smoked, and a professor of the pickled.  So many cultures created their own versions of this delicacy, and I’ve still never found it in Florida.  The bottarga I bought at Eataly made it back in my luggage without any problems, and it lasted months in the fridge, as I finely grated it over so many pasta dishes.  It added a salty, savory, umami flavor to everything, and pretty much melted in my mouth.  If that sounds good and not gross, I highly recommend it.

But all this browsing made me hungry, so I returned to the restaurant my wife and I dined at on our original trip to Eataly here in Chicago: the creatively named La Pizza & La Pasta.  You can’t go to a restaurant like this and not know what you’re getting!  They take reservations, but I arrived relatively late in the day, after a long training workshop and an architectural boat tour down the Chicago River, so I had my choice of seats and opted for a solitary barstool, far from any other diners.

The kind server brought out this wonderfully fresh, crusty bread with olive oil that was much sweeter and more flavorful than the kind I keep at home that regularly goes on sale at Publix.  I’m not sure if every party gets “table bread,” or if it came with the dish I ordered, but if you’re visiting Eataly, hopefully you’re not obsessed with counting carbs, so you should definitely take advantage and enjoy this brilliant bread.   

As a solo diner, I knew I couldn’t justify ordering two entrees, so it was difficult for me to choose.  My server helped me break a tie, so I went with a fresh pasta dish, tagliatelle alla Bolognese ($24), topped with real-deal parmigiano Reggiano, not the shaky-can stuff I’ve bought my entire life.   The fresh tagliatelle pasta was kind of eggy (not in a bad way, just not exactly what I expected), but the savory Bolognese sauce was awesome, with plenty of chunks of meat.  I get that this was a pretty basic choice, and I make “pasta and meat sauce” quite often at home, but it is real comfort food for me, and I wanted to see how Eataly’s kitchen would present such a timeless classic.  They knocked it out of the park, needless to say.

As an aside, here’s a photo I found of the dish I ordered here back in 2014, in those pre-Saboscrivner days: my favorite pasta dish anywhere, bucatini all’amatriciana ($21).  This thick bucatini pasta (long, hollow tubes) was not fresh like the tagliatelle I had just tried, but there’s nothing wrong with good quality dried pasta.  I think I prefer it, in fact.  All’amatriciana is served in a spicy tomato sauce with guanciale (cured pork jowl), and this version from La Pizza & La Pasta was perfect in every way, even better than the tagliatelle from this most recent visit.
I make pasta all’amatriciana at home as a treat once or twice a year, but since guanciale is hard to find, I usually substitute cubed pancetta, which you can find at Trader Joe’s, Publix, and even Aldi sometimes.  If you’re not into bucatini, pretty much any other pasta works well, except for weirdo choices like tri-color wagon wheels.  What is the deal with those, anyway?

After dinner, I wandered around the store a little more and gazed at beautiful Roman-style pizzas on display at the Pizza alla Pala kiosk.  I was tempted, but I had just eaten dinner, and I knew they wouldn’t be that great eaten cold in my hotel room the next morning.

But I saw these gorgeous foccaci farcita sandwiches, with cured speck ham, provolone, and arugula on fresh focaccia bread, and I thought “One of those would be awe-inspiring eaten cold in my hotel room the next morning!”  Maybe because I got to Eataly relatively late in the day, they charged me a much lower price for the to-go sandwich than what you see pictured, more like the price of an individual slice of pizza.   

Here’s an extreme close-up of the lovely sandwich.  Speck is very similar to prosciutto.  I could tell they brushed some olive oil on the bread, but I thought a tangy vinaigrette of some kind would have really put it over the top.  (But I think about that with most sandwiches.)

And to go with my beautiful Italian breakfast, I found an Italian brand of potato chips, San Carlo la Vita e Buona, with a flavor that was too interesting to turn down: mint and chili pepper!  If I recall, this bag was under $3.  Since I love trying new potato chip flavors and reviewing them in this very blog, I felt obligated.  I did it for YOU, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!

San Carlo was a bit stingy with the flavoring, a marked contrast against many American chip manufacturers that really cake it on there, but they tasted very fresh and potatoey, and the mint subtly shined through.  They were barely spicy at all. 

I also brought home a salami from the cured meat counter that sounded amazing (elk, pork, and dried blueberries?!), but it wasn’t worth the price I paid.  I would have loved to try so many more things at Eataly, but again, I was limited by what I could safely store in my hotel room and bring back in a carry-on bag, with TSA’s continuing rules banning liquids.  That said, if you ever find yourself in a city grand and lucky enough to have its own Eataly location, I implore you to make that pilgrimage and try it for yourself.  You will be tempted by all sorts of treasures, and it is just a pleasure to wander around and explore, treat yourself in one of the many restaurants, and bring back mouthwatering mementos, succulent souvenirs, and tasty trophies from your travels.