Breakfast – The Saboscrivner

Aurora

To my dozens of regular readers, I apologize for accidentally publishing this piece last week, while it was still an incomplete draft. I unpublished it immediately, but any subscribers would have automatically received an unfinished version, and I regret that. That’s a rookie mistake, and you really hate to see it!

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Aurora (https://aurorarestaurantorlando.com/) is a beautiful restaurant located inside the Celeste Hotel, standing in front of the University of Central Florida in East Orlando, at the intersection of University Boulevard and Alafaya Trail. I recently took my wife to dinner at Aurora, the first time for both of us, and we had an incredible experience that left us yearning for more. Executive Chef Mike Trudnak is a CIA graduate (the good CIA, the Culinary Institute of America), and he has created one of the most exciting menus I’ve encountered in the Orlando area in a long time. We will definitely return and hopefully become regulars, especially since Chef Trudnak changes the menu seasonally.

I had bugged my wife to try Aurora for years, but the impetus for us to finally make it there back in July was Bite 30, the annual midsummer event in which some Orlando restaurants offer an optional prix fixe menu where you can get an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert for the reasonable fixed price of $38. (It started out years ago at $30, hence the name, but I get it, food costs more, and I don’t begrudge restaurants having to raise their prices to stay afloat.) It’s a fantastic way to try new restaurants and sample several different dishes that you might never otherwise order.

I absolutely love that younger generations are drinking less, encouraging more and more restaurants to offer mocktails on their drink menus. Neither my wife nor I drink alcohol, but she likes the experience of getting a nice mixed drink in mocktail form. This was the Asteroid, with muddled blueberries and blackberries, lemon lime soda, and simple syrup, and garnished with fresh mint leaves. She said it was delicious.

Even though it wasn’t part of the Bite 30 menu, I suggested we get the bread service, with fresh, fluffy, pillowy-soft yeast rolls. These were awe-inspiring. If you’ve ever bought frozen Sister Schubert’s yeast rolls or tried the versions at Texas Roadhouse, those are fine, but these are a million times better, and not just because I’ve been eating low-carb lately. I can’t rave about these yeast rolls enough.

The bread service came with honey butter and house herb butter, both whipped for smooth and easy spreading. They were great (show me some bad butter… I’m waiting!), but the rolls were so perfect, they didn’t even need butter.

The beet and goat cheese summer salad was on the appetizer list for Bite 30, but even though there were appetizers that appealed to each of us more, we were both very intrigued by this salad. Our lovely and patient server Alura told us that we could order a half-portion of the salad and the kitchen would even split it for us, so we could each try everything. That was the perfect solution to a first-world problem, and we were so grateful to her for letting us know.

So this beautiful plating is half of the half-portion! The salad contains local baby greens, paper-thin sliced cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, pickled fennel, watermelon radish, baby beets, sorrel, sunflower seeds, hibiscus, and goat cheese puffs, with a wee pitcher of honey thyme vinaigrette dressing. What a masterful salad, as beautiful as it was tasty. We both love beats and goat cheese, and I’m always intrigued by interesting dressings because I eat so many salads at home. This did not disappoint.

The baked puffs, airy and crispy at the same time, really did have goat cheese baked inside!

We both love raw tuna, and my wife chose these gorgeous tuna tostadas as her Bite 30 prix fixe appetizer. They contained ponzu-marinated Ahi tuna, smashed avocado, aioli cabbage slaw, wakame (an edible seaweed), and pickled red onion on the top of the crunchy fried tostada discs. They were a little messy to eat, but so worth it.

As for me, as a middle-aged man, I don’t get that many opportunities to eat an entirely new meat for the first time in my life, so I couldn’t resist the allure of camel empanadas! Yes indeed, these golden-brown empanadas, fried to perfection, contained ground camel meat, seasoned with vadouvan curry, onions, peppers, and garlic. What the heck is vadouvan curry, you ask? Well, I didn’t know either, but I’m a librarian, so I looked it up. As usual, Serious Eats had the answer — a sweet and smoky French-influenced blend of toasted spices, with shallots, onions, garlic (sometimes), fenugreek, chile, cumin, and curry leaves.
They were served with whipped feta cucumber tzatziki dipping sauce. Everything was so good. As Jim Gaffigan once said, there’s no such thing as a bad empanada, and he was right.

Here’s a rare look inside a camel empanada!

My wife ordered the grilled beef filet medallions as her entree, a dish that would have cost $58 just by itself on the regular menu! They were served on a bed of carrot puree with asparagus, fondant potatoes (the two brown puffs at 1:00 and 7:00), and the brown sauce is a peppercorn demi-glace. Her only complaint was that she asked for them rare and they were cooked well beyond rare, but she still liked them a lot.

And since I was having a hard time deciding, I asked her what her second choice would be, so I could order that one. She said she was curious about the tableside finished eggplant parmesan, so of course I ordered it so we could share. The Italian-breaded eggplant cutlet looked a little naked, despite being topped with balsamic spheres and micro basil. The description didn’t mention it came with any pasta, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a bed of thick sheets of (no doubt freshly made) pappardelle underneath it.

But hey, what’s this? A second server came to the table, carefully holding a sizzling skillet of San Marzano tomato vodka sauce topped with melty broiled burrata and parmesan cheeses, meant to pour over the eggplant at tableside!

I never record video on The Saboscrivner food blog, because nobody wants to watch me eat, plus I have a face for radio and a voice best suited for print media. So you’ll have to believe me that it was a nice little production of the sauce and cheese sliding out of that hot pan onto my eggplant, but you don’t get to see it in action. You can imagine, though. I NEVER order eggplant parm at restaurants (I have two talented friends who made the best versions I’ve ever had in their own kitchens), but this was a particularly nice one, especially with the whole “dinner and a show” aspect.

For dessert, my wife got the flourless chocolate torte, with dark chocolate ganache, strawberry sorbet, and fresh strawberries. Me not being a big chocolate eater, it would never have occurred to me to order this, but I tried a small morsel, and I loved not only the rich, intense, chocolatey flavor, but also the smooth texture. It’s gluten-free, too!

I chose the lemon and wild berry cake because I always love any citrusy desserts. The small cake was about the size of a hockey puck, rather than a slice from a larger cake. It was topped with blueberry compote, a mountainous dollop of fresh whipped cream, and a beautiful hibiscus flower.

Here’s a better angle so you can see more of the blueberry compote on top and all the berries baked inside.

We went back to Aurora this past weekend for Magical Dining, when Orlando-area restaurants offer a similar fixed-price menu for either $40 or $60, and part of each bill goes to worthy charities like OCA (Opportunity, Community, Ability), which empowers individuals with autism and other developmental differences. (Aurora’s menu was $40.) This event is always scheduled for mid-August through September, historically one of the slower times of the year for restaurants, since kids are back in school and tourism decreases. Just like Bite 30, it’s a great opportunity to try new dishes at new restaurants, or to go back to old favorites, and my wife was excited to return to Aurora. Hopefully after reading this review, you might be excited to go there too, with several weeks left to go during Magical Dining.

The Magical Dining menu was very similar to the Bite 30 menu, but I tried my best to try different things this time. My wife got the beet and goat cheese summer salad for her appetizer again, because she loved it that much, but I got something I hoped she would enjoy as well: the jackfruit “tostachos.” This was a platter of crispy tostones (fried green plantains, not sweet or soft like maduros, which are ripe plantains), topped with shredded, roasted, and barbecue-seasoned jackfruit, pickled red onion, heirloom tomato salad, and adobo mayo ketchup. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like, but it was delicious, and it was a much larger portion than the other appetizer I was considering, the Mexican arancini. There were actually five separate topped “tostachos” (like tostone-nachos, get it?), but I gave my wife one before snapping this photo.
The mayo-ketchup was a nice touch, since that’s a common dipping sauce for tostones at Puerto Rican restaurants. And the jackfruit had a similar consistency to shredded barbecue chicken, even though most people wouldn’t mistake it for chicken. I can see it being a godsend for any vegetarians and vegans who used to eat chicken and miss the whole experience.

My wife was drawn to the same grilled beef filet medallions, but this time, they were cooked perfectly rare, as she requested, and I thought this photo came out better.

But I switched it up and ordered a real Florida Man fusion dish: alligator fried rice, with marinated and cornstarch-fried Louisiana gator, tamari orange sauce, stir-fried vegetables (lots of snow peas in there), and sesame seeds. Alligator sure seems like a novelty food — something tourists have to try when they visit Florida or Louisiana — but I can’t help but be drawn to it every few years, just because I crave novelty just like anyone else. If I didn’t know it was alligator, I’d probably think it was fried chicken, but it is not as tender as chicken. Other than the fried gator nuggets and the sweet orange sauce, this reminded me of the fried rice I make at home, which was somehow a confidence-booster. I’m extra-glad I didn’t get the Mexican arancini appetizer, because that would have been two rice dishes in one meal, and that would be unhinged!

Creatures of habit that we are, we defaulted to the same desserts as last time, because they were so damn good. She got the flourless chocolate tarte with dark chocolate ganache and strawberry sorbet again, and it was just as good this time:

And I got the lemon and wild berry cake again, because it is probably in the Top Five restaurant desserts I’ve ever had. But this time, I was so full, I asked for it to go, and they were kind enough to pack up the fresh whipped cream and blueberry compote in separate little plastic ramekins.

Well, we have every intention of returning to Aurora in the future, even when they aren’t doing special fixed-price menus. I think of it as a “special occasion” restaurant, even though they have perfectly normal menus and even serve breakfast every weekday until 11 AM, plus brunch on the weekends. There aren’t a lot of “nicer” restaurants in East Orlando — just the Cooper’s Hawk chain in Waterford Lakes, the casual Wine 4 Oysters, and Aurora, and this is definitely our favorite. It’s so nice, but not a stuffy or intimidating sort of nice. Bring a date, bring your parents, bring out-of-town guests, and you’ll have a grand time. Just show up for breakfast or lunch on a regular, normal day, and you’ll really enjoy it, but don’t miss that Magical Dining menu. You have a few more weeks to catch the prix-fixe options, and I promise you won’t regret it.

Bachour (Coral Gables)

Bachour (https://antoniobachour.com/) is a beloved bakery-cafe-restaurant in Coral Gables, a historic and tony area of Miami. I was down that way back in May, visiting my family in Kendall for the first time in far too long. I also spent some quality time with my best friend (going back to elementary school) and his amazing girl, taking advantage of their generous hospitality and visiting parts of Miami I never ventured out to when I grew up down there. The last day I was in town, we had brunch at Bachour, and his mom — who just happened to be my first-grade teacher! — joined us. We had a great time, despite getting rained on while we ate in a semi-covered outdoor alcove. The food, which combined French and Latin influences, was magnificent.

Founded by Puerto Rican-born Chef Antonio Bachour, Bachour is known for gorgeous pastries, arranged artfully in glass display cases:

We started out with an order of arepa fritters, one perfect crispy fried sphere for each of us, stuffed with cotija cheese and held in place with avocado puree underneath.

We also got an order of tequeños, small pastries made of long, flat strips of dough wrapped around salty queso blanco and baked or fried. (These were fried.) They were served with cilantro garlic aioli dipping sauce, which was so good, I kept it for whatever was coming next.

This stunning swirled pastry is Bachour’s version of a cinnamon roll. Look at those crispy, light, flaky layers of laminated dough. It was a work of art.

My boy’s mom ordered this creme brulee French toast with vanilla custard and mascarpone creme as her entree, even though that’s a dessert in my book.

His lovely ladyfriend got this breakfast sandwich with scrambled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, aged cheddar, truffle butter, and arugula (it’s a veg-EH-ta-ble) on a soft brioche bun.

She also ordered a side of crispy home fries with it.

My friend got the Bachour crispy chicken sandwich, with butter lettuce and creamy, crispy slaw on a brioche bun, and he said it was one of the best chicken sandwiches he’s ever had. He chose fries as his side instead of a salad, which makes me think of John Mulaney’s routine about ordering a chicken sandwich and choosing between the two most different foods in the universe.

And as for me, your friend and humble narrator, one of those foods that always tempts and tantalizes me is smoked salmon, so I got something I normally never order anywhere, a club sandwich (a triple-decker sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on white toast) with smoked salmon and a bit of avocado added in. Club sandwiches often slide apart, or the toasted bread crumbles under the architecturally unsound structure of its fillings, but I am a grown man, and I promise you I did my best.
Even though I really have been trying to eat healthier, I kept the server from removing that delicious cilantro garlic aioli from earlier, so I ordered fries instead of a salad too, figuring I would share them with everyone else at the table to assuage my guilty conscience (another Mulaney bit).

I brought home two croissants for my wife. This one was pistachio:

And this one was almond. She loved both, but I don’t think she mentioned a favorite between them.

All in all, it was a nice visit back home, and a highlight of the trip was this wonderful brunch shared with some of the best people I know. I had heard of Bachour before, but just like 90% of places I hear about in Miami, I never thought I would actually go there. Well, on this recent trip down, I scratched a few of those semi-mythical spots off my list. This was a great meal, and the company couldn’t be beat.

New York Bakery Boys

New York Bakery Boys (https://www.nybakeryboys.com/) is connected to a New York bakery called Bakery Boys of New York. (Whew!) They sell fresh bagels (some of the best bagels I’ve had in the Orlando area), sandwiches, cookies, and pastries out of two locations in Oviedo and Celebration. The prepackaged cookies are labeled from the Bakery Boys of New York facility in New York, but the other baked goods seem to be baked in-house.

I visited the Oviedo location for the first time last year and ordered two sandwiches, so I got four meals out of them. Okay, three. These were hearty heroes on thick semolina bread with sesame seeds.

The first one was that New York bodega classic that has become a lot more popular and trendy in recent years, the 104th Street chopped cheese. A chopped cheese is the extroverted love child of a burger and a Philly cheesesteak, with burgers cooked on a flattop grill, then chopped up, as opposed to thinly sliced steak. Cheese is added so it melts, along with lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, and ketchup. It’s a very satisfying sub… sorry, HERO.

You can see how thick the semolina hero rolls are in this cross-section! This was a hit. I had a very different chopped cheese a few years back at Ray’s Deli and More, the closest thing Orlando has to an NY borough bodega, where they pressed the entire sandwich on the flattop grill like a Cuban sandwich. I’d say both are valid, but I don’t pretend to know which presentation is more “authentic.”

I also ordered the Italian special, because come on, bro. I love Italian subs/hoagies/heroes, so how could I not? The New York Bakery Boys make theirs with ham, salami, pepperoni, prosciutto, provolone cheese, roasted red peppers, and “Boar’s Head Deli Mix,” which is a special sandwich dressing (or sandwich lubricant, if you will) made of extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, herbs, and spices. This was another tasty sandwich, but I found myself missing lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. One reason I love Italian subs so much is because I like to top them with a whole damn salad so I can pretend I’m eating semi-healthy and absolve myself of a bit of guilt. Plus, all those fresh vegetables add so many more flavors and textures and add a lightness to what feels like a heavier sandwich without them.

On my second visit, I bought a half dozen bagels to go with some nova salmon, cream cheese, fresh tomatoes, and red onions I pickled myself. I got three everything bagels, one egg everything bagel, one pumpernickel bagel, and one blueberry bagel that my wife requested, but it went stale before she ever got around to it. I tried slicing it a few days later, but by then, it was hard as a rock, and I cut my thumb kind of badly. Oh well, nobody’s fault but my own.All the other bagels were delicious. They were fresh, fluffy, and still warm when I first brought them home, and I made wonderful sandwiches with them. I wish New York Bakery Boys had bialys when I went there, because I surely would have gotten a couple. They may make them and were just out at the time.

I should note that New York Bakery Boys also offers several breakfast sandwiches, not just heroes. You can get nova and cream cheese there, or your typical bacon/sausage/ham with egg and cheese, or even “The Great Jersey Debate,” a sandwich with Taylor ham, also known as pork roll. Sandwiches come on your choice of bagel, a kaiser roll (this is the bodega way), or a hero roll or wrap for a small upcharge.

Since my wife was with me, she got a big black and white cookie, another New Yawk classic that she always loves. Those cookies are always cake-like, with the slightest hint of lemon under the heavy frosting that reminds us, “We’re not so different, you and I.” And she got a container of really tasty cannoli cookies with the same cake-like consistency, light frosting, and slight lemon and anise flavors. I liked that all the cookies were soft, because I don’t like hard, crunchy, crumbly cookies.

As far as I’m concerned, there can never be enough good places for sandwiches, bagels, and baked goods, so I’m glad New York Bakery Boys exists, as a bit of a hidden treasure in Oviedo (and not even that far from D’Amico and Sons Italian Market and Bakery, which is a real treasure in the Oviedo Mall). One of these days I’ll finally get around to reviewing Cavallari Gourmet too. The address of New York Bakery Boys is 2960 W State Rd 426, Oviedo, FL 32765, and there is another location at 603 Market Street in Celebration. (Celebration, which is a planned suburban community that is part of Disney World, is a weird, weird place, by the way.)

Canter’s Deli (Los Angeles)

Canter’s Deli (https://www.cantersdeli.com/) is a legendary Los Angeles delicatessen, a Hollywood hotspot that has been in business since 1931 and in the same location at 419 North Fairfax Avenue since 1953. The decor is pure 1950s-style Art Deco, which I associate fondly with Los Angeles delis and diners, and with the City of Angels in general. I wish everyplace was decorated this way, including my own home. Like so many other timeless restaurants I’ve enjoyed in L.A. like Langer’s Deli, Philippe the Original, HMS Bounty, The Prince, Bob’s Big Boy, and Pann’s, Canter’s retains all its old-school cool as it approaches its hundredth anniversary. I regret not taking any photos of the interior, but I was a little distracted on my one and only visit.

I visited Canter’s on my second work trip to L.A., where I met an Internet friend for the first time after knowing him online for over 25 years, along with his lovely and talented wife, who many of you may recognize.

These free pickles were delivered to the table, as any good deli should do, and they were great.

Instead of a soda or egg cream, I ordered this chocolate phosphate, kind of like a creamy chocolate soda — so not really that different from an egg cream. I just thought it would be nice to try, like an old-timey soda fountain favorite that you never see on menus anymore. Now that “dirty sodas” are a whole thing, I wish people were willing to go more retro and bring back the whole soda fountain concept. With all the jerks out there, maybe some of them could find work as soda jerks.

My friend’s wife is an actress you would have seen if you watched the first season of The Pitt, the wonderful HBO Max hospital drama that was my favorite show of 2025. She ordered a lox benedict, a classic brunch dish with a toasted English muffin topped with salty, smoky salmon, poached eggs and velvety, creamy hollandaise sauce. I didn’t try any, but it looked like a perfect version of eggs benedict. Personally, I never order benedicts at restaurants, but sometimes I make them in my own kitchen because there is no place like home for the hollandaise. At the top, she chose potato pancakes (also known as latkes) for her potato side. They are usually served with sour cream, applesauce, or in this case, both. I always recommend both.

Los Angeles is a big pastrami city, between its historic delis like Langer’s and Canter’s as well as the pastrami French dip, a more localized sandwich that hasn’t spread out of the city. (I tried one of those at a “deli-adjacent” spot more recently, and I will get around to reviewing it eventually.) Local fast food joints like Original Tommy’s and The Hat even load up burgers and hot dogs with pastrami. Somebody call Randy Newman, because I too love L.A.!

My friend, an accomplished film critic, ordered this terrific-looking pastrami Reuben sandwich with grilled pastrami (my preferred alternative to the traditional corned beef), Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing on rye bread grilled to perfection. It looked perfect, and so did the fries.

I got the Canter’s Fairfax sandwich, with generous portions of corned beef AND pastrami on rye. Just like I did at Sarge’s in NYC and Attman’s in Baltimore, when I visit a deli in a faraway city, I usually order combination sandwiches that allow me to sample as many different tastes as possible. They loaded up the sandwich higher than the pastrami sandwiches (plural!) I tried at Langer’s, but I give Langer’s the edge for the exquisite quality of their thicker, hand-sliced pastrami. Not that this was bad, by any means. It was terrific! That’s potato salad in the background — the Canter’s Fairfax comes with a choice of that or cole slaw. The good conversation distracted me, because for a mere dollar more, I could have ordered the Fresser, an identical sandwich that would have come with potato salad AND cole slaw. Oh well! At least the potato salad was excellent.

Because I’m me, I had to RING THE ALARM and try onion rings while I was at Canter’s, and I’m so glad I did. These are some of the most perfect onion rings I’ve ever had in my life. There’s something about Jewish delis just nailing the batter, the frying process, and onion rings in general. Junior’s and Sarge’s Deli in New York City both serve a very similar style. They all share rich, thick batter that holds up and doesn’t separate from the onions, and they are the perfect light, crunchy consistency that never has any burnt spots.
Yup, those are my Top Three onion rings of all time (and no others even come close): Sarge’s, Junior’s, and Canter’s. I’ve never had any quite like them here in Florida. I guess Jewish delis in major metropolitan cultural centers are the lords of the rings.

I can’t imagine how many famous, talented people have hung out at Canter’s Deli over the past 95 years, although the website drops a few dozen names. (I loved Guns ‘n’ Roses back in 8th and 9th grades, and I know they hung out at Canter’s all the time back in the late ’80s.) It is staggering to think how many genius ideas were born there, how many deals were struck there that helped shape our culture, and how many delicious deli dishes were devoured during those acts of creation and negotiation. We certainly enjoyed the heck out everything we tried. Even though there are other delis I have yet to discover in L.A., I would totally return to Canter’s on a future visit. Whenever I do, what should I try next time? I’m thinking some kind of smoked fish, but it would be hard to turn down those top-tier onion rings again.

Open Market (Los Angeles)

Open Market (https://openmarket.la/) is a sandwich shop in Los Angeles’ vibrant Koreatown neighborhood, where I stay when I travel to the great city for work. It has kind of a “hipster bodega” vibe because they also sell bottles of wine and random fancy foods, like some high-end tinned seafood. But the sandwiches are the main draw.

I always do much more walking in L.A. than I ever do back home in Florida. Of course, just walking back and forth between my hotel and work isn’t a huge distance, but it is decent exercise just the same. Luckily, Open Market is walkable from both.

It was a hot August day on my first visit there, and even though Open Market’s coffee and tea drinks always sound good, I’m not much of a coffee or tea drinker. I am a big lemonade aficionado, though. I started out with this seasonal hibiscus lemonade, as beautiful as it was refreshing.

I ordered the O.M. (Open Market) breakfast sandwich, which is the best breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had, and certainly the most exciting. It includes a house sausage patty, a fried egg, cheddar cheese, arugula, pickled fennel, harissa tomato jam, and paprika aioli on a potato bun. That’s a hell of a way to start your day, but the problem is that the day pretty much peaks there and has nowhere to go but down. Awe-inspiring sandwich, though.

I returned to Open Market a full year later and ordered three sandwiches I’ve been thinking about ever since: for lunch there, for dinner back in my hotel room, and for lunch at work the following day.

I started with the Normandie, which makes a lot of “best sandwiches in Los Angeles” lists, and for good reason. The sandwich includes sliced brisket, provolone cheese, mustard mayo (mixed together, like Mr. Show’s legendary Mustardayonnaise sketch), ginger-pickled radish slices, and scallions on a fresh-baked baguette, served with a cup of au jus for dipping. I had to eat it on the premises while the au jus was piping hot, and that was the way to do it.
The Normandie sandwich felt like a tribute to the French dip, the legendary sandwich invented in L.A. Two iconic, historic restaurants take credit for it: Philippe the Original (where I dined back in 2023) and its competitor, Cole’s, which I think just recently closed. Philippe the Original lived up to all the hype and proved it is not a sad shadow of its former self, like some old-timey restaurants, and the Normandie showed that there is always room to experiment and revamp the classics. The Open Market website even says it was a tribute to the French dip from Philippe the Original (so I was right!) and Yoshinoya’s gyudon beef bowl, which I have not been lucky enough to try yet.

I have been a little obsessed with tuna sandwiches recently, so I also tried the Kenmore, a sandwich of Korean tuna salad (a tribute to Koreatown), cheddar cheese (not melted like a traditional tuna melt), pickled radish, burdock root, gim (dried sheets of edible seaweed used in Korean cuisine, similar to Japanese nori), and perilla leaf, another Korean ingredient that tastes like a combination of mint, basil, and anise.

This lovely sandwich was served on lightly toasted pain de mie, which is sometimes called a Pullman loaf and similar to Japanese milk bread. You can keep your super-crusty sourdough; pain de mie is the perfect bread for a grilled cheese, and it was perfect for this Kenmore sandwich as well.
Best tuna sandwich I’ve ever had? Yes, I think it was, without a doubt.

Finally, I tried the Wilshire, because of my lifelong love and obsession with Italian subs. This baguette sandwich includes soppressata salami, mortadella, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, Calabrian chili, and balsamic vinegar. I ate it the following day, so all those intense flavors had time to meld in my hotel room mini-fridge.

All four of these sandwiches were winners, but Open Market also serves a special every Friday — usually a sandwich, but sometimes other things, like rice bowls. They also do a lot of collaborations with other local restaurants. I hope I catch one of those the next time I’m in town!

West Tampa Sandwich Shop (Tampa)

West Tampa Sandwich Shop (https://www.westtampasandwichshoprestaurant.com/) is a casual and humble Cuban restaurant on Armenia Avenue in Tampa, not too far from historic Ybor City. I was passing through Tampa a few months back, so I decided to stop there for a late lunch instead of going to my old favorite Alessi Bakery. Unfortunately, I arrived at 2:40 PM and didn’t realize the restaurant closes at 3:00. I never want to be “that guy” who shows up right before a place closes and demands to still be served, but they told me it would be okay. As a result, I wolfed down my meal and didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have if I was unrushed, but that’s my fault for bad timing, not theirs.

The first thing they brought out to me was an order of sweet, sticky, lightly caramelized maduros (ripe plantains), which are one of my lifelong favorite foods. It was a sweltering day, and I had soaked through my clothes just driving around, so I treated myself to a rare and refreshing Jupiña pineapple soda, created in Cuba in 1905 and available at most Cuban restaurants I’ve been to throughout Florida (and also at Publix and Key Foods/Bravo supermarkets).

I am always excited to find Cuban frita burgers on any menu. These are a standard in Miami, and the gold standard is available at Little Havana’s iconic Cuban diner El Rey De Las Fritas. (Cuban pizzeria Polo Norte makes one too.) Here in Orlando, I only know one place that serves a frita burger, Black Bean Deli, and they have an almost “elevated,” gourmet take on it. (I love their version!) I couldn’t resist trying the frita burger at West Tampa Sandwich shop, and it was interesting to notice the little differences.

Most frita burger patties are a blend of ground beef and chorizo sausage, and sometimes ground pork is included as well. West Tampa Sandwich Shop uses a blend of all three. They are topped with freshly fried, julienned potato sticks, which are so crispy and salty. Unlike the other places I’ve had fritas, this place used the pre-made kind that usually come in a yellow cylindrical can (think of a Pringles can). The other fritas I’ve had were topped with cheese, onions, and a red sauce that looks like ketchup, smells like ketchup, but brother, it ain’t ketchup. Instead of those toppings, West Tampa went with mayonnaise, shredded lettuce, and sliced tomatoes. I liked these additions but missed the melty cheese, onions, and red sauce. I would have even welcomed ketchup, but like I said, I was rushing through this meal like I was trying to win a prize for finishing fast. Note that the regular white hamburger bun was pressed flat on the plancha, until it was crispy, like how they serve Cuban sandwiches. El Rey De Las Fritas in Miami and Black Bean Deli in Orlando don’t serve their fritas this way either, but I am always fascinated by regional differences, especially with Cuban food in Tampa versus Miami.

I also ordered a Cuban sandwich to take a few bites while it was still hot, then asked for a bag to wrap it up to go, so these patient people could get on with their afternoons. This Cubano included standard thin-sliced sweet ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, yellow mustard, pickles, and the Tampa-specific addition of Genoa salami (from when Cubans and Italians worked together in the cigar factories of Ybor City). They also added mayo, shredded lettuce, and tomatoes, which I don’t think those are Tampa-specific ingredients like the salami, since I’ve had more traditional Cubanos without lettuce and tomato at Alessi Bakery, La Segunda Centra Bakery, and the legendary Columbia Restaurant, all Ybor City icons. Oh yeah, one more thing — this was actually their honey Cuban, so I think they squirted honey onto the outside surface of the Cuban bread when it was pressed, giving it a very slightly sticky feel. This “honey Cuban” was served to President Obama when he visited West Tampa Sandwich Shop, and I figured if it was good enough for him, I might as well try it that way too. The honey didn’t add a lot of sweetness, but it was definitely sticky to hold. Maybe the sweet honey flavor got lost in the mix, since this version of a Cubano already had a lot going on.

I still give the edge for superior Cuban sandwiches to Sanguich in Miami and South Florida mainstay Vicky Bakery here in Orlando, but I am always delighted to get Genoa salami in my Tampa Cubanos (and you will never get that in South Florida or Orlando).

West Tampa Sandwich shop is decidedly unflashy, inside and out. The food I tried was delicious, and I know it is well-loved and respected by Cuban food aficionados. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever make it back, but if I do, I would make it a point to arrive earlier and take in a more leisurely meal. They even serve breakfast, and they have a full menu of Cuban entrees, not just sandwiches. It was too hot for a heavy dish of meat, rice, and beans, plus, like I said, I was forced to eat and run due to terrible Tampa traffic and my own poor timing. I definitely won’t do that again!

Cafe De Wan

Cafe De Wan (https://www.instagram.com/cafedewan_/) is a brand-new Turkish restaurant that just opened a few weeks ago in Casselberry. My wife and I love Turkish food, and we are still sad about Beyti Mediterranean Grill closing during the pandemic, only a year or so after it opened in our neighborhood. We really like Sourdough Bread House, another Turkish cafe in Casselberry, but Cafe De Wan is even closer, with more savory dishes on its menu. But like Sourdough Bread House, just five minutes north on Semoran Boulevard, Cafe De Wan serves an awe-inspiring Turkish breakfast feast.

We started with a spinach and onion borek (left), a flaky pastry filled with seasoned, sauteed (what else?) spinach and onions. On the right is a “Turkish pastry” that was very dense and barely sweet. These arrived at our table sliced up. They were sold separately (not part of the Turkish breakfast), but we were happy to have them, due to so many spreads and dips that were about to arrive.

The Turkish breakfast “plate” (which actually includes many plates) comes with a pot of steaming hot black tea. I am not a big tea drinker, but this was delicious, especially after adding a few sugar cubes and waiting for it to cool. I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed this tea.

Well, here we go! We first received a wooden platter with walnuts, almonds, golden raisins, grapes, orange slices, very nice green and black olives (both kinds had pits), English cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and mixed greens topped with three different kinds of cheese. The top dishes were fig jam, creamy tahini with pekmez, or grape molasses, swirled into it (not date syrup, as I originally thought), and what I thought was ajvar, a thick dip of roasted red peppers blended with garlic and olive oil, topped with a walnut. (Ajvar wasn’t listed elsewhere on the menu, but I’ve had it in jars a few times, and this was more like ajvar than any version of ezme, a spicy Turkish salsa, that I’ve ever tried.) I devoured the fig jam and ajvar, and my wife was crazy for the tahini with pekmez. A reader informed me that the combination is like Turkish peanut butter and jelly, which makes all the sense in the world. Thank you, Ipek! At the bottom, there was Nutella, that chocolatey hazelnut spread that is beloved around the world, and thick honey with decadent clotted cream in it.

The Turkish breakfast plate came with two pieces of this fantastic Turkish bread, which we both liked more than the Turkish pastry above. It was so fluffy!

This plate was menemen, a dish of scrambled eggs mixed with sauteed peppers and tomatoes and topped with a bit of cheese. I devoured the menemen since my wife didn’t want anything to do with it, so that worked out.

The Turkish breakfast plate came with yet another plate with a plain egg, fried over easy with a runny yolk. She ate that egg, and I did not get a picture of it, but I’m sure you are envisioning it in your head right now. This was so much food for $25, but we weren’t even done!

Just like I have go-to dishes that I will order anywhere (Italian subs, onion rings, chili, macaroni salad), my wife is like that with baba ghanoush, the Middle Eastern dip of roasted eggplant blended with tahini, olive oil, and garlic. We were disappointed by another new restaurant’s baba ghanoush recently, one that tasted like straight-up tahini, lacking that smoky flavor that comes from roasting the eggplants, so we were hoping for the best with Cafe De Wan’s version. It was stupendous, and the smoky flavor came through first and foremost. That’s another cured black olive on top.

The baba ghanoush came with yet another type of bread for dipping, this time pretty standard (store-bought?) soft pita bread wedges. I left most of the baba ghanoush for my wife, the true aficionado, but I used the pita for dipping in everything else on the table.

This was the lahmacun combo, one of my favorite dishes at any Turkish restaurant, which I order everywhere and have even made from scratch at home. It looks like a pizza without cheese, but it is a flatbread topped with seasoned ground lamb, onions, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and spices, baked until crispy. Instead of cutting it into slices, you essentially put a salad on top of it (usually sliced tomatoes, onions, and flat-leaf parsley — not cilantro!), squeeze on some lemon juice, and roll it up to eat like a wrap. It is so good, and this was one of the better lahmacuns I’ve tried anywhere. It was definitely the crispiest and thinnest!

This was the “dip sauce” that came with the lahmacun combo. It was kind of like toum, a creamy, garlicky dip with the consistency of hummus. It was great, especially with so many things to dip into it!

In addition to the pot of tea that came with the Turkish breakfast plate(s), my wife ordered a drink called the Crimson Bloom, a combination of hibiscus, cranberry, and clove. She always likes jamaica (hibiscus) aguas frescas at Mexican restaurants, so this was a big hit with her. It also sounds like a superhero, or possibly a villain. The white drink is homemade ayran, a yogurt drink similar to Indian lassi, but this was tangy and sour, rather than sweet like lassi. I would not have ordered it, but it came with the lahmacun combo, which was a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t really into it, but my wife enjoyed it, so that worked out well. Next time (and there absolutely will be a next time), I’ll try Cafe De Wan’s mint lemonade. It is the same price as the ayran ($3.99), so I wonder if they would consider substituting it in the future. I would definitely get that lahmacun combo again!

It is my pleasure to welcome Cafe De Wan to our neighborhood. It doesn’t offer all the savory Turkish entrees you would find on the menu at Istanbul Grill or Bosphorous, but it has more of a cafe atmosphere, for lighter meals. That luxurious Turkish breakfast plate (which deserves to be called a feast or a smorgasbord, considering how many individual plates are involved) is a perfect thing for two people on a date to share, and they offer it all day, not just during breakfast hours. Yes, I asked. I am familiar with the concept of “girl dinner” — eating little bits of this and that, and that’s how I eat many of my meals at home, usually standing up in my kitchen so I’m not away from work for too long. If you like “girl dinner,” you’ll go gaga for the Turkish breakfast plate. My only concern (and it is a small one) is that they didn’t have any of the small plastic ramekin-style containers with lids to take home small amounts of different things, but that’s okay. They had larger containers, and we made do.

Believe me, my wife and I got at least four full meals out of everything we ordered, and you may have already noticed that I eat a lot. (I’m going to try to eat less and eat healthier in 2026, though, so wish me luck! I’m gonna need it.) Please give Cafe De Wan a try, because it deserves our support. Unique restaurants like this don’t always thrive or even survive in Casselberry, and I really enjoyed it, so please help them become a dining destination!

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s (https://thebakersonusa.com/) is a Filipino-American bakery/cafe that first opened in Jacksonville, but opened a second, much larger location in Kissimmee this past Thursday, December 4th. (The address is 4797 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee, FL 34746, in front of the Target.) I have been following its progress, excited about sampling new and unfamiliar sweet and savory baked goods, as well as any drinks and dishes they might serve.

According to the website, owner-operator Jun Valerio is a third-generation Filipino-American baker, and his family owns multiple Valerio’s bakeries on the West Coast. Jun and his wife Kathleen ran Valerio’s locations in California, Seattle, and Canada before opening their own spinoff, the first Baker’s Son location, in Jacksonville, which has a larger Filipino population than the Orlando area. But now that they have opened in Kissimmee, I have a feeling they will have a huge hit on their hands with mass appeal that will reach beyond Filipino locals and tourists.

I finally made the hour drive to the new Kissimmee location on Saturday morning, hoping to beat the lunch rush, but instead I found myself in a slow, serpentine line that wrapped around the entire store. There weren’t any employees directing traffic, but customers walked to the left upon entering to grab any packaged breads and sweets off the shelves, then found their way to the end of the line. I estimate it took me an hour and 15 minutes from entering the store to ordering my food and paying at the front counter, but I chatted with the guy in front of me, and everyone was patient and polite, helping point the newcomers in the right direction.

The full menu is not on the website, so I took photos for my dozens of readers, so you can study in advance. Try right-clicking on these menu photos and opening them in new tabs for slightly larger images.

This is the coffee, tea, boba, and signature drinks menu:

Here is the food menu, with merienda (snacks), rice plates, sandwiches, burgers, healthy eats, and breakfast sweets:

And this is the Cloud Series (The Baker’s Son’s version of milkshakes), plus soft serve ice cream:

The coffee drinks people were picking up from the cafe counter all looked delicious, but coffee makes me feel terrible. I, on the other hand, have never met a cold, refreshing, citrusy drink I didn’t like, so I got the fresh calamansi juice. Calamansi is a fruit that is similar to lime, and its juice adds sour notes to many Filipino recipes. This was similar to limeade — sweet, sour, and so refreshing.

After how long the line took, I didn’t know how long it would take for the food I ordered to be served, so I asked for an empanada when I got to the counter. They looked really good. This was a little smaller than a typical Cuban empanada:

It had a saucy, seasoned beef filling with some raisins, but it was nothing like the picadillo filling I’m used to in Cuban empanadas. It was definitely saucier, and the fried shell had a really pleasant salty-sweet flavor and didn’t taste or feel greasy.

I really wanted to try something with longanisa, a sweet and savory Filipino sausage. They offer a longanisa burger, but since I was planning to eat there after waiting that long, I chose something that would not have traveled well: loaded longanisa fries. These were really crispy fries that any fry lover would love, topped with crumbled longanisa sausage, caramelized onions, creamy garlic sauce (like an aioli), and an over-medium fried egg. It was so delicious and decadent.

I’ve had bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches on my mind recently, so since I didn’t get a burger, I opted for the tocino glazed bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, served with sweet glazed bacon called tocino, scrambled eggs, American cheese, and a crispy hash brown patty on a pillowy-soft roll called pan de sal (literally “bread of salt”) that had been grilled to crisp up its interior. Pan de sal (sometimes stylized as pandesal) is one of the specialties of The Baker’s Son, so I’ll come back to that a little later.

This was sinigang popcorn chicken off the merienda (snacks) menu. I certainly didn’t need it, and it was a bit of an impulse buy, but the guy in front of me said he was going to get it, and I trusted him. He said it should have a sour seasoning sprinkled on it, but even though mine was good, with a crispy, crunchy batter, it didn’t taste sour to me. While writing this, I found out that the sour sinigang flavor usually comes from tamarind.
I ate most of the above food on site, but took most of the chicken home with me, where I will try it with my huge collection of condiments and sauces.

But since I was at a brand-new bakery, I couldn’t leave without buying some bread. I bought the smallest bag of pan de sal they had. These were smaller rolls, like dinner rolls, but they had much larger bags with larger rolls, more like what I had with my bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich (think of typical burger buns). They are made with flour, eggs, yeast, sugar, salt, and powdered milk, so they will be nice and light and fluffy and slightly sweet. They reminded me a bit of Japanese milk bread.

This was pan de coco, more small, fluffy rolls stuffed with a sweet spread made of young coconut. (If any MCs are looking for a new stage name, may I suggest “Young Coconut”?)

And this box of Spanish bread is a bit like buttery, soft brioche, with a sweet, buttery, creamy filing in the center. I would have been fine with one or two, but they only came in boxes of six.

They had so much more to choose from, including a lot of sweeter breads, rolls, and pastries, many of which had lots of icing and/or ube (sweet purple yam) filling. But I knew my wife wouldn’t be terribly interested in any of these, so I reigned myself in. I like to make sandwiches at home, so I could level up my sandwich game with all these different rolls.

I would definitely recommend The Baker’s Son, even though people might want to wait a little longer to avoid the long lines. Most new restaurants will have a certain amount of hype involved, and I did make the choice to go on the third day it was open, but I suspect it will calm down soon enough (and probably be a lot more chill on normal weekdays, rather than the Saturday of its opening week). Most of the people waiting inside with me were Filipinos of all ages, and I could sense their excitement and pride in The Baker’s Son. I couldn’t be happier for them, or for the Valerio family and their staff, or for the rest of us, having a bakery/cafe like The Baker’s Son as an option in the Orlando area. Head down to touristy Kissimmee when you can, and please let me know what you ordered and what you thought!

Pann’s (Los Angeles)

It has been a while since I visited the legendary diner Pann’s (https://www.panns.com/), a Los Angeles mainstay located at 6710 La Tijera Blvd in the Westchester neighborhood, not too far from Inglewood, Ladera Heights, and LAX. Pann’s is a beautiful example of Googie architecture, a “space-age” style that proliferated in L.A. in the mid-20th Century. The Pann’s restaurant building and its iconic neon sign were designed by architects Eldon Davis and Helen Liu Fong, and the restaurant opened in 1958. Think of The Jetsons, or diners and gas stations from the 1950s and early ’60s, and you’ll see it. A previous Saboscrivner review subject, Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, is another Googie time capsule still going strong today. Here’s a good blog article about the history of both Pann’s and its Googie style, and another shorter piece from the Los Angeles Conservancy organization. One of my favorite culinary websites, Eater, listed Pann’s on its 38 Essential L.A. Restaurants, and Los Angeles Magazine wrote about Pann’s in its piece A Love Letter to L.A.’s Eternally Charming Diners and Coffee Shops.

Anyway, I went to Pann’s with my friend and former supervisor for a late lunch/early dinner before an All Elite Wrestling event at the Kia Center in L.A., so AEW fans can figure out how long ago this was. There are plenty of comfy padded booths and seats along the counter, and we grabbed two of those seats. As long as I’m not out dining with my wife, who has back problems (hence my quest for booths at most local restaurants), I usually enjoy sitting at a counter or bar to eat.

My friend is a fried chicken connoisseur, so he ordered this two-piece fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy and collard greens. I didn’t try any of it (not my place to do so), but he seemed to love it.

As hard as I try to not drink my calories, I am a sucker for lemonade, and I couldn’t resist a “home made drink” called a watermelon cooler. It was so sweet and fruity and refreshing, kind of like a Mexican agua fresca or “melonade.” It totally hit the spot, and I appreciated the free refills.

There was so much I wanted to try on Pann’s menu! I love a good diner, and Orlando really isn’t a diner city. But I was full from another good restaurant meal earlier that day (which I still have yet to review), and I didn’t want to feel bloated and uncomfortable heading into a wrestling show that promised to be over four hours long. I didn’t even order Pann’s onion rings, and my longtime readers know I like to try onion rings anywhere and everywhere!

Instead, I played it safe and stuck to breakfast food. I got a hotcake plate with a stack of three pancakes, two eggs fried over-medium, and beef hot links (sausages). It was all so delicious. I rarely order breakfast food anywhere unless I’m at my beloved Waffle House, but this was a wise choice, even with the siren song of fried chicken or catfish or a patty melt. The pancakes were so fluffy; they might have been the best pancakes I’ve ever had. The beef hot links were great too. I figured it would have more flavor and be more interesting overall than the pork sausage patties that were also an option, and I’m sure I made the best possible choice. They were pleasantly spicy (not overly so), and had a nice coarsely ground texture.I am the biggest Twin Peaks fan I know, and I always think of breakfast-loving Special Agent Dale Cooper’s line, “Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham.” While a ham steak was yet another option I passed up on Pann’s menu, do you think I enjoyed the warm syrup coming into contact with the spicy beef sausage? You’d better believe it!

Pann’s is certainly not haute cuisine by any metric, but that has never been my thing. I loved it, and I was so glad we fit it into one of my L.A. work trips. I love a good diner, I’m a sucker for the Googie architecture style, and it was a perfect meal on our way to a memorable evening of choreographed violence. One thing I love about L.A. is how much history and character so many restaurants have (like Bob’s Big Boy, Langer’s Deli, Philippe the Original, The Prince, Genghis Cohen, HMS Bounty, and others I haven’t even reviewed yet), especially compared to living in Orlando, a much younger city. Pann’s is the perfect example of history and character, but it doesn’t coast on its reputation at all. The food they serve is a testament to why it has lasted so many decades.

Black Bean Deli

Black Bean Deli (https://blackbeandeli.com/) is a casual Cuban cafe with two locations: Winter Park and Orlando’s Mills 50 District. It had been years since I last ate there, but on my most recent visit, I met two of my coolest friends, an awesome married couple, for lunch at the Winter Park location.

I’m not a coffee drinker, but I had to order this colada for the three of us to share. Cuban coffee is strong and sweet, but don’t underestimate the strength! That’s why the traditional way to imbibe it is to sip it out of these tiny cups and share it with friends. If I drank the whole big cup, I would have been climbing the walls… or more likely, just miserable from acid reflux and a pounding heart. But sharing is caring!

This was the day that I found out my friends are pescatarian, even though they seemed okay with coming here. Somebody ordered this nice green salad, but Cuban food tends to be very meat-heavy.I’ll never forget a guy at one of the La Carreta locations in Miami trying to order a “green salad” and getting into it with a very confused waiter. (There are salads on the menu there, but nothing specifically called a “green salad.” Dude got big mad and very loud over it!) Anyway, you can get a salad at Black Bean Deli too, with no drama necessary.

I started with an empanada de picadillo, a flaky fried pastry stuffed with seasoned ground beef. You can taste tomatoes, onions, pimento, and cumin, and some cooks add green olives and even raisins to their picadillo. Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it! I, for one, am very pro-raisin.

Many Hispanic countries have their own versions of empanadas. Some are fried, some are baked, some have a cornmeal shell, while others are made of a flour-based dough (including the Cuban style, which is my favorite type of empanada).

Black Bean Deli has a special they only run Fridays through Sundays: a Cuban frita burger, which is a Miami classic. I’ve written about fritas before, when I had them down in Miami at Polo Norte and the king of them all, the legendary El Rey De Las Fritas. The seasoned burger patty (a combination of beef, pork, and chorizo sausage) is served on a brioche bun and topped with onions, mayo, a tangy red sauce (it looks like ketchup, it tastes like ketchup, but brother, it ain’t ketchup!) and crispy shoestring potatoes (papitas julianas). Some places use the potato sticks that come out of a can (which are delicious), but Black Bean Deli clearly julienned and fried their shoestring potatoes fresh to order (El Rey De Las Fritas does this too), and they came out as salty, crunchy, golden-brown perfection on top of the flavor-packed patty.
This seemed like a more “elevated” take on the frita than El Rey, but I wasn’t complaining. I was in burger heaven!

Dig these wonderful maduros, sweet fried plantains, that caramelized during the frying process for a slightly crispy, sticky exterior. These are one of my favorite foods in the entire world.

Obviously, Black Bean Deli serves Cuban sandwiches and their cousin on sweet bread, the medianoche, as well as baked chicken breast and shredded pork marinated in garlicky, citrusy mojo criollo. You can get black, red, or garbanzo beans (I grew up with black but honestly prefer red) with white or yellow rice (I prefer yellow). These are the classics, but I’m glad I deviated from old standards to try that magnificent frita burger. I’ll be back to revisit those iconic Cuban dishes and sandwiches, though.

I always say that Orlando Cuban food can’t compare to the options in Miami and Tampa, but Black Bean Deli is one of those joints where you go in knowing what you’re going to get, and you won’t be disappointed. And sometimes, like with their take on the frita burger, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by something that transcends.