Category: Chicken

Chain Reactions: Sixty Vines

Sixty Vines (https://www.sixtyvines.com/) is a nice chain restaurant with 13 locations around the country, including one in Winter Park and one in the Dr. Phillips area of Orlando.  It serves “wine country inspired-cuisine paired perfectly with 60 wines on our sustainable tap system.”  Unfortunately, my wife and I are non-drinkers, so we couldn’t take advantage of the vast assortment of wines from around the world.  But the food was all quite good on all three of my visits with my wife, who had discovered it earlier and dined there once before, with a friend.  I’ve never been to the Sonoma Valley in my California travels, but that’s what I believe Sixty Vines is going for.

For our first of three romantic meals there, my wife started us out with house-made ricotta cheese, which came with little bucket bouquets of flatbread, roasted marcona almonds, and honey with the chewy, waxy comb included.

Here’s a close-up of the cow milk ricotta, served with olive oil that contributed to the silky, whipped, lush richness and topped with fresh-cracked black pepper that did a spectacular job cutting the richness a bit.   We both agreed this was the nicest ricotta we’ve ever had, and it would have been too good to just use in baked ziti or lasagna, where stronger flavors would have overpowered it.

We got the ricotta again on our second visit, and it was just as good:

On our most recent visit, she switched it up and got the Cowgirl Creamery Mt Tam, which is a triple cream brie-style cheese with a “bloomy rind,” named after Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California.  As much as I like cheese, I’ve never been into earthy, funky, sticky brie, so I didn’t even mess with this one.  Plus, the portion is very small, and I even joked “Brie?!  More like WEE, am I right?”  More for her, such as it is.

On our first visit, we decided to get the very bougie-sounding “shared plate” of buttermilk-brined fried chicken topped with dollops of lemon creme fraiche and even tinier dollops of caviar (a indulgence both of us love).  The boneless chicken pieces didn’t have much flavor at all, though.  That batter desperately needs some herbs and spices, and it doesn’t even have to be eleven!  Combining the decadence of fried chicken and caviar is a great idea, one that celebrity chef David Chang definitely approves of, but I’d skip the fried chicken on future visits to Sixty Vines and advise others to do the same.

On our second and third visits, we got the bacon-wrapped, oven-roasted dates, which was appropriate because we were on dates.  I love dates and balsamic glaze, and these were perfect little bites of food.  They only give you three in an order, but I could have eaten about 30 of these.  I have a problem.

Extreme close-up of the dates from a different visit.  Dates taste more like caramel than fruit to me, with a sticky, chewy texture to match.  These are just perfect in every way, with the crackly, crisp, rich smokiness of the bacon, the chewy, rich sweetness of the dates, and the sweet, sticky acidity of the balsamic glaze.  This is a decadent, sexy dish for sure.

The grilled golden beets are another good appetizer at Sixty Vines, and for some reason, The Golden Beets also sounds like a good name for a Japanese wrestling tag team.  I discovered I love beets just last year, and now I’m making up for lost time!  It just never occurred to me to try them before, but I love their earthy sweetness… or is it sweet earthiness?

These beets arrive sliced on a bed of whipped feta, cheese, topped with crushed, toasted pistachios, and are drizzled with an  apricot vinaigrette dressing that is divine.

My wife also loves Sixty Vines’ house salad, comprised of spring mix, candied walnuts, fresh strawberries, paper-thin shavings of peppered pecorino romano cheese, and citrus honey vinaigrette.  I make salads at home and eat them almost every day for lunch, but she has no interest in the salads I make.  But this house salad is a bit more decadent than my salads, with fewer odd pickled things but plenty of ingredients she loves.

On a recent weekend, I picked up a house salad for my wife to enjoy in the comfort of home.  I am pleased to say that they were happy to take my order and did not threaten to call the police, like other semi-upscale Winter Park restaurants (right across the street from Sixty Vines) have been known to do when people request salads to go.

Since that was going to be her lunch, I added on smoked salmon so it could be more of a full meal for her.  It’s a $15 upcharge(!), but at least they were generous with it.  Just so you know, it is hot-smoked salmon added in chunks and flakes, not the thin-sliced nova salmon you’d find at an appetizing store to put on bagels.

Between the citrus honey vinaigrette on the house salad and the apricot vinaigrette that came with the Golden Beets, they definitely do vinaigrette dressings right at Sixty Vines.  I wish they bottled the dressings for all the sad salads I make for myself, but I’d also put them on sandwiches, pasta salads, raw veggies… pretty much anything.  They are so fresh and tangy and sweet, and they really make vegetables sing.

For her entrée on our first visit together, my wife chose the fig and prosciutto pizza, which came topped with white sauce, mozzarella, honey, arugula, and sesame seeds (in addition to fresh figs and paper-thin sliced prosciutto).

After my wife’s first visit to Sixty Vines with a friend, she had told me about how much she loved the pan-seared rainbow trout.  She was torn between ordering the trout again and getting that pizza, so she chose the new thing.  She liked it (and I liked the slice she insisted I try), but she said she would go back to the trout when we returned.

And on our next visit together (the aforementioned date with the dates), she did!  The pan-seared rainbow trout comes with snap peas, pickled fennel, lemon-dill aioli, and marcona almond gremolata.

Trout!  Trout!  Let it all out!  This is a fish she can’t do without!

For our most recent visit, they actually changed the rainbow trout dish completely, to include green lentil ragout, coconut-vadouvan curry, orange, scallion, and cilantro!  They do change the menu every so often, but that didn’t sound as good of a combination to her, so she switched it up.

This was the filet mignon, cooked to a perfect rare and served with roasted winter squash, toasted walnuts, shallots, and fig-balsamic reduction.  She loved it, and I thought the couple of bites she shared with me were damn delicious.  Believe it or not, I don’t eat a lot of steak, and especially not filets, but this was magnificent. 
It should not have surprised me that a wine-centric restaurant is so good with vinegars, but the sweet fig-balsamic complemented the buttery soft, tender filet perfectly.

I am a simple man with simple pleasures, and for my first visit, I figured a nice, semi-upscale restaurant like Sixty Vines would hopefully serve a good, juicy burger, rather than the smashburgers that are so popular right now.  I love a good smashburger, but it feels like it’s getting harder to find a thick and juicy burger in Orlando, especially with The Whiskey so far away from us.

I chose the double cabernet burger, with cabernet smothered patties, white cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, worcestershire mayo, and tomato on a potato bun, served with crispy fingerling potatoes.  The potatoes were fine, especially with ketchup, but the burger was one of the best I’ve had anywhere in a long time (along with smashburgers from Cow & Cheese and Smokemade Meats + Eats and a thicker burger at a hipster place in L.A. I haven’t reviewed yet).

I thought about that burger for a long time afterwards, and I argue it is one of the better burgers in Orlando.  I liked it so much that I ordered it again on our second visit, even though I usually challenge myself to try different things.  But it’s so juicy, and they cooked it to a perfect medium rare both times, and all the toppings work together in perfect harmony.  I’m guessing the cabernet is a reduction of some kind, but between that, the caramelized onions, and the worcestershire mayo, there is a lot of umami richness and tangy-sweet acidity going on.

I finally moved away from the double cabernet burger on our third visit.  As much as I love raw, smoked, cured, and even tinned fish, I don’t eat a lot of regular cooked fish, and I want to eat more of it in 2025.  I chose the seared halibut, which came with roasted asparagus, crispy prosciutto, and bites of fingerling potatoes in a sea of smoked tomato butter.

It was another decadent dish and a big hit.  The halibut was seasoned and cooked beautifully, and it was tender enough to cut with just my fork.  It melted in my mouth.  I highly recommend this dish, and I would get it again, just for the halibut.

We were too full to get dessert after our first visit, but on our second visit, we shared this olive oil citrus cake with sweet whipped mascarpone cheese.  Olive oil cake might sound a little odd, but like everything else at Sixty Vines, it is top-notch.  (And if you ever have a chance to try it, olive oil gelato is delicious too!)  When it comes to desserts, my favorites involve citrus or tropical fruit, while my wife gravitates toward anything chocolatey, so she surprised me by requesting this.  I was more than happy to go along with it, and it was a great choice.  She got the same olive oil cake again on our third, most recent visit.  That’s how much she liked it!

When I brought home the to-go salad with smoked salmon, she had also mentioned wanting to try the orange morning bread from Sixty Vines’ weekend brunch menu, so I made sure to order it too.  The order included five brown butter cinnamon bites (larger than golf balls), and they included little ramekins of citrus icing and crushed candied walnuts with a “coffee crumble.”  We both thought these would have been better at the restaurant, where they are served warm in a basket, and your server pours the citrus icing and the crushed, crumbled stuff over them.  But the citrus icing was pretty great.

So that’s Sixty Vines, which is probably my wife’s favorite restaurant in Winter Park, and possibly in the entire metro Orlando area.  I fully admit I would never have gone on my own because it seemed:
1.) Wine-centric, and neither of us drink,
2.) Semi-upscale, which is generally not my thing, and
3.) A “chick place” — a restaurant aimed more at female diners than male.

But whenever my wife wants to do something or go somewhere, I always try to oblige to make her happy, and I’m glad we went.  After three times dining in and one time bringing home takeout, all in the past two months, I give it the Saboscrivner Seal of Superiority.  The double cabernet burger, the house-made ricotta, the Golden Beets, those mouth-watering bacon-wrapped dates, the seared halibut, and the various vinaigrettes are all winners, and I know my wife really liked that pizza and loved the filet mignon and the previous version of the rainbow trout.  The only disappointment for both of us was that fried chicken, but luckily, this is Orlando, and there are plenty of places to get fried chicken, even if they aren’t topped with caviar.

The Bayou Kitchen and Lounge

The Bayou Kitchen and Lounge (https://thebayouorlando.com/) is a New Orleans-style restaurant in Longwood, Florida.  I loooove Creole, Cajun, and New Orleans-style food, all tracing back to the four trips I got to take to New Orleans between 1998 and 2001, as a young lad obsessed with music and food.  Sadly, our options here in Orlando are somewhat limited to Tibby’s and Vietnamese-Cajun places like King Cajun Crawfish.  (I still remember the long-gone Crooked Bayou in downtown Orlando and Jockamo’s way out on Sand Lake Road and John Young Parkway!)  So needless to say, I was excited when The Bayou opened, and even more excited to read good reviews.

I recently made it over there on a weekend for lunch with my wife, and we were joined by one of her old and dear friends.  My wife and her friend both ordered cups of gumbo, which looked more like bowls to me.  (A lot of restaurants will give you a really puny cup, but not The Bayou!)  It comes with a scoop of white rice in the rich stew, but my wife’s friend asked for hers with no rice, and this was the better photo of the two of them.  The gumbo wasn’t very spicy (at least I didn’t think so), but it was loaded with chicken, shrimp, crawfish, andouille sausage, and both bowls came with a small crab leg sticking out, for dramatic effect.  (We ended up taking both crab legs home, along with a bunch of other leftovers, where I cracked them open for myself.  There wasn’t much meat, but I often think that even larger crab legs are more trouble than they’re worth.)

After becoming a huge fan of charbroiled oysters at one of my favorite Orlando restaurants, High Tide Harry’s, I thought I was being a cool, sophisticated guy by ordering charbroiled oysters for the table.  However, I ended up eating almost all of them myself.  I guess I can’t complain, even though I really did order them to share.
These were pretty big oysters on the half shell, fully cooked and covered with sizzling garlic herb butter and parmesan cheese, served with slices of toasted French bread dabbed with even more garlic herb butter.  Not exactly health food!

Here’s an extreme close-up of one of the oysters.  Was it delicious?  Yes, of course it was!  Enough garlic butter makes anything delicious.  But it reminded me how much I prefer my oysters raw and chilled, with maybe just a tiny bit of mignonette.  The Bayou doesn’t serve raw oysters, but they are so refreshing that way, and so heavy this way!

Our friend ordered a fried oyster po’ boy sandwich (the Bayou’s menu calls them “poboyz,” which I do not love) with a side of fried okra, and she seemed to really like it.  I was impressed that they bring in French bread from the Leidenheimer Baking Company in New Orleans, which is the best-known and most beloved po’ boy roll out there.  Unfortunately, the menu calls it “Linenheimer,” but I knew what they meant.

I couldn’t resist a po’ boy either, especially since they had the authentic rolls.  I got a combination of fried oysters and fried crawfish, which you are allowed to do.  The po’ boys come dressed with shredded iceberg lettuce, sliced tomatoes and pickles, and creamy, tangy remoulade sauce, as they should.  I got house-made potato chips as my side.

But I also got a side of onion rings, because I am The Saboscrivner, and I try onion rings whenever and wherever they are available.  Ring the Alarm for these big rings!  They had kind of a loose battered coating — not my preferred style, but pretty good nonetheless.  I thought they were very salty, even by onion ring standards.

My wife always loves chicken and waffles, so she jumped at the chance to order it here.  You can choose between jerk chicken and fried chicken strips, so she went with the fried.  It was served over a big pearl sugar waffle, which is definitely the new hotness when it comes to waffles.  While she was grateful she didn’t have to get spicy jerk chicken, we both thought the fried chicken could have used more seasoning,  especially at a restaurant specializing in such a well-seasoned, savory cuisine.

Since we were partying pretty hard (by our standards), she added on a side of fried lobster, which was only $11.  She liked it a lot more than the fried chicken, needless to say.

And adding to this wild, uninhibited festival of fried food and heavy carbs, we all shared an order of beignets for dessert.  It seemed like the thing to do.  These fried dough balls, topped with enough powdered sugar to look like they were partying in the ’80s, are similar to doughnuts, and they are a major treat in New Orleans, especially at iconic establishments like Cafe du Monde.

So that was everything we had at The Bayou, which turned out to be quite a lot.  I thought the food was better than Tibby’s and certainly different from the Vietnamese-influenced food at King Cajun Crawfish.  I did wish The Bayou had a muffuletta sandwich on the menu, but I wish every restaurant had those.  Nothing ever seems to compare to the food I enjoyed with dear friends in New Orleans almost 25 years ago, but for Orlando and its surrounding suburbs, this was pretty fine.  Plus, The Bayou is the kind of unique, locally owned operation we should all strive to support, especially on a day like today, which happens to be Small Business Saturday.  Tell them The Saboscrivner sent ya, and I guarantee you’ll have a great meal, but they will have no idea what you’re talking about!

The Taproom at Dubsdread

I moved to Orlando almost 20 years ago, the day after Thanksgiving in 2004, so I feel a bit like a local.  I like to think I know the best places to eat, even though there are always new hotspots and a handful of old classics I have yet to visit.  One of them, one of the oldest and most classic Orlando restaurants of all, is The Taproom at Dubsdread  (https://taproomatdubsdread.com/), the 100-year-old restaurant at Dubsdread Country Club, nestled between Winter Park and downtown Orlando.  I had always heard great things about the food, but I avoided it for the better part of my two decades here, despite loving old, historic restaurants.  In a city that isn’t known for its history, you’d think I would have checked it out long before now, but the whole “country club” thing kept me away.

I fully admit to being a bit of a class warrior, taking pride in my middle class origins and silently (or sometimes not so silently) judging and resenting the wealthy.  Growing up listening to punk and hip hop and watching the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and “slobs versus snobs” comedies like Trading Places, Caddyshack, and Animal House probably had a lot to do with that.  My parents were even more influential on my class consciousness — two career public school teachers who lived simply, refused to spend beyond their means, felt like they had nothing to prove to anyone, and rarely treated themselves to anything.  To me, a restaurant at a country club felt like another world I probably wouldn’t be welcome in (and that my parents would probably disapprove of anyway), so I rejected it before it could possibly reject me.  I spent all my time in Orlando avoiding the beloved landmark Taproom at Dubsdread until a work colleague and friend who I think the world of invited me to lunch there.  I figured this would be my chance to finally check it out and write an unbiased review for my blog.  As the guest of a classy, professional woman, I would be less likely to get into trouble with a snooty maitre d’, a judgmental valet, a surly golfer, or a society matron who resembled Margaret Dumont.

And it was a perfectly nice restaurant, much warmer and more welcoming than I expected.  If anything, it was a lot less pretentious and highbrow than Hillstone or Seasons 52, those upscale chains.  They didn’t even have valet parking, and the hostess and server were really nice.

My colleague ordered the fresh apple and bacon grilled cheese sandwich, which came with Tillamook cheddar, Emmenthaler Swiss, almonds, and fig preserves, plus a side order of fries.  It looked really nice, and it inspired me to invite her to the incredible La Femme Du Fromage later on, since I already knew she liked fancy grilled cheese sandwiches. 

We must have met for lunch on a Wednesday, since that is the day they offer a chilled lobster and shrimp roll sandwich as a lunch special.  I always appreciate a good lobster roll.  I had the best one ever twelve years ago at Neptune Oyster in Boston’s North End neighborhood, and I’ve been chasing that high ever since.  This one didn’t quite reach those euphoric heights, but it was still really nice and refreshing, served on the traditional split-top bun and served with a side of onion rings — the “good kind,” as far as I’m concerned, with their golden beer battered exterior. So RING THE ALARM, constant readers — you can get a side order of really good onion rings at a country club restaurant, and for only $4!  They’re on the menu and everything; I wasn’t like that rube in the commercial who said “Would ya please pass the jelly?”, embarrassing himself at a fancy dinner party, asking Chef for something lowbrow that they normally wouldn’t serve.  Great lunch, great company, great restaurant.  I thought even my in-laws might like it, and they don’t like most places.

I returned to the Taproom at Dubsdread more recently during Magical Dining Month, when many Orlando restaurants offer a reasonably priced prix fixe menu with a few different appetizer, entrée, and dessert choices to mix and match, where a portion of the final bill goes to help local charities.  This time I went for dinner with two very cool friends, a truly glamorous couple who share my love of good food, but we hadn’t had a chance to get together in years.  They were great company, as always, and even challenged me to take better food photos than I usually take.  We’ll see if their coaching and constructive criticism helped here — you tell me, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!

We started with bread for the table, which I didn’t know about when I met my colleague for lunch, but now I know… and knowing is half the battle.  The bread was like ciabatta, and the butter was whipped for easy spreading, which I always appreciate.  Nobody likes frozen butter that can’t be spread!
Being true foodies, we shared everything throughout this magical meal.

These were buffalo shrimp (not mine), served with some celery sticks.  I forgot if the dip was bleu cheese or ranch, but the shrimp were nice, with a slightly crunchy exterior and that mild acidity you get from buffalo sauce.

These were Italian meatballs (also not mine), but the owner was very generous and willing to share.  I would have been happy to have meatballs like this over a bowl of pasta or in a sub, and I liked that the tomato sauce was chunky and not watery. 

I ordered house-made potato chips topped with crumbled bleu cheese, scallions, and balsamic glaze, a delicious dish that was perfect for sharing.  The chips were crunchy, not limp, overly greasy, or even overly salty.  Of course, balsamic glaze makes everything better, and I’ve really gotten into bleu cheese lately.

For our entrees, someone ordered a bone-in pork chop that looked good:

And two of us, myself included, ordered prime rib.  I like my steaks and prime rib RARE, and I was thrilled that the Taproom at Dubsdread took me seriously.  Too many places blast a beautiful piece of meat far beyond rare because they don’t believe us and think we’ll send it back for being underdone.  Nope, this is how I like it, especially with lots of creamy horseradish sauce for dipping — the more fiery and sinus-clearing, the better. The mashed potatoes scooped beneath were pretty nondescript.  They could have used sour cream and/or cream cheese, bits of the potato skin, onions, or something else to liven them up, but sliding them around in the meat drippings helped resuscitate them a little.

The late, great Russell Jones, aka Big Baby Jesus, aka Dirt McGirt, aka Ol’ Dirty Bastard, famously warbled, “Oh baby, I like it RAAAAAAW!”  Well, this prime rib was rare rather than raw, and oh baby, that’s how I like it.

It was time for dessert!  I did not order this brownie sundae, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream served over a warm brownie, but it looked really good.  How can you go wrong with something like this?

Two of us opted for the key lime pie, which is always one of my favorite desserts, and the Taproom makes an excellent version.  The very smooth, shiny topping was more tart than the rest of the creamy filling below, and I loved it.  I go nuts for citrus desserts that are sweet and creamy but also tart, and too often, bakers are afraid to go tart enough. 

So I would definitely recommend the Taproom at Dubsdread for a nice lunch or dinner, whether you’re some kind of jet-setting big shot with a sweater tied around your neck or an anti-establishment outsider who wants to subvert every dominant paradigm you’ve ever encountered.  I’m glad I finally realized that a country club restaurant could be perfectly pleasant, without running into unpleasant stock characters from old-timey slapstick flicks or ’80s comedies from boomer filmmakers.  And enjoying two meals with friends didn’t make me part of any System, so I still feel like the cool(?), nonconformist iconoclast I will always be.

Sherry’s Trini Flavors

Sherry’s Trini Flavors (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090751170325) is a wonderful Trinidadian restaurant set up inside a gas station convenience store at 1200 West State Road 436, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, shortly before Altamonte Springs blends into Apopka to the west.  It is closed Sundays and Mondays, but open every other day from 11 AM until 7 PM.  As you can guess, Sherry’s Trini Flavors is primarily a takeout operation.  The menu is simple, you order at the counter, and they prepare your food to enjoy somewhere else — somewhere you can sit down to fully appreciate its savory flavors.

I appreciate that Sherry’s is a lot closer to home for me than the venerable Singh’s Roti Shop and Caribbean Shack (formerly known as Vindi’s), all the way out in Pine Hills in West Orlando.  I have been there twice now, and I think the food is just as good as those two popular restaurants, and probably even better, despite the smaller menu at Sherry’s.  Singh’s has all those Trinidadian Chinese specialties, and both Singh’s and Caribbean Shack serve oxtails, which I am sad to say Sherry’s does not.  I thought I might have missed oxtails on my first visit last year, but they are not on the menu, and I confirmed on my latest visit this past weekend that they don’t serve them at all.  But as much as I love those tender, unctuous cuts, Sherry’s Trini Flavors offers plenty of other delicacies, including other rich, savory, bone-in stewed meats.

On my first visit, I ordered the stew chicken dinner that came with fried rice (not rice and peas) and delicious, savory, occasionally stewed chickpeas called channa (a name that reminds me of a really cute girl I had a crush on until she went to Birthright and came home obsessed with the IDF soldier she hooked up with over there).  The stew chicken isn’t as sweet and tangy as Jamaican-style “brown stew” chicken, which usually seems to involve ketchup.  Still, the mostly dark meat is seasoned and stewed to perfection, literally falling off the bones.  If you like chicken but have never tried Trinidadian stew chicken, your life won’t be complete until you do, and this would be a perfect place to start.

On my more recent visit, I couldn’t help ordering stew chicken again!  This time I got the roti option that comes with potatoes, channa, and one of two types of roti, which I will talk about soon, rather than the “dinner” that comes with rice.  The chicken was even better than I remembered.  No regrets here.

On my first visit, this was curry duck, which was much spicier than the stew chicken, but not as spicy as you might be worried about.  Apologies for not scooping out a few chunks of tender, rich, bone-in duck meat, but the containers all leaked a bit, and it was a mess at the time.  The meat was easily falling off the bones.

And this was my favorite meat I’ve tried at Sherry’s so far, which I got on my most recent visit: curry lamb.  Goat is much more popular in Caribbean cooking, but my wife really, really adores baby goats, so the least I could do is not bring that meat home to eat in front of her.  Since we have both frolicked with super-cute baby goats in the pasture at Orlando’s Wildflower Farm, I don’t eat goat meat anymore.  But I’ve never met a lamb, so I have no such compunction about eating those guys, possibly my favorite protein of all.  This was tender, braised meat, very easy to separate from the bones, and seasoned to perfection.  It was served with more potatoes and channa. This savory stewed curry lamb was so incredible, I didn’t even miss oxtails.

When you order these proteins as roti, they come with stewed potatoes instead of rice, channa, and your choice of two warm flatbreads that are served folded up like a hot towel, but can be unfolded to be about the size of a large, round towel.  These are the roti, and if you love tortillas, pita bread, Turkish lavas bread, Indian naan, or Malaysian parathas, you absolutely have to try the roti here.  They are very different from other roti I’ve had, which are flakier like parathas (the love child of a flour tortilla and a buttery croissant).  These are big, billowy blankets meant to tear off pieces and dip or scoop them in the rich sauces or create little wraps with the meats and channa.

The yellow-tinted roti is called the dhal puri or daal puri, which is stuffed with tiny granules of ground yellow split peas.  If you’re anything like me, you might create a dust storm of split pea bits all over the table when you tear off a hunk of the dhal puri, even if you’ve had it before.  It is really good, but believe it or not, there’s another roti I like even more.

This roti edges out the dhal puri for me, and it is the only one my wife likes.  Sorry, loves.  And she doesn’t even share my obsession with Trinidadian food!  It has the delightful name of the “bussup” or or sometimes “buss up shut,” Caribbean slang for a tattered, torn, or “busted up” shirt.  It is thicker than a flour tortilla and chewier than most pita bread.  Greasier, too.  But it is soooo good whether you choose to dip, scoop, or wrap with it.   

This was one of the doubles I got on my first visit, served on a plate so I could enjoy it fresh on the premises.  Doubles are a beloved street food from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and one of the most delicious vegetarian foods I can think of.  It is made of two small, chewy, fried flatbreads with channa in between them.  The green stuff you see is a spicy condiment that I just loved, giving these doubles the edge over the ones I’ve tried from Singh’s and Caribbean Shack.  I ordered even more doubles to bring home on both of my visits.  They are somewhat messy to eat (both drippy and greasy), but awesome. 
On my most recent visit, I brought home four doubles and wolfed down two of them while they were still warm.  The others heated up just fine in the mick-row-wah-vey.  You can add any of the proteins to your doubles as an upcharge, but I kinda like them as their own thing.

On my first visit, I also tried the macaroni pie, which is essentially a baked macaroni and cheese casserole with long ziti-like noodles, served in slices.   I’ve had somewhat dry, slightly overcooked macaroni pie elsewhere, but this one had the meltiest, cheesiest texture, and I loved it. 

So after trying this kind of food at three different local restaurants, I absolutely love it and recommend it to all.  Even if it is completely unfamiliar to you, the closest comparison I can make is Jamaican food, followed by Indian food, but Trinidadian is very much its own thing.  I am so glad Sherry’s Trini Flavors exists, and it is a heck of a lot closer to me than the other restaurants in Pine Hills.  I will be returning much more often to treat myself and slowly work my way through the menu.  While Sherry’s menu does not offer as many different dishes as Singh’s or Caribbean Shack, the standards I’ve tried are all top-notch, clearly made with love and care in a tiny operation, hidden away from most, that deserves to be discovered and loved.

Smoke & Donuts BBQ

Not to be confused with the similarly named Smoke & Dough in Miami, Orlando’s Smoke & Donuts (https://www.smokeanddonuts.com/) is a relatively new restaurant that started serving excellent barbecue and beautiful, festive cake doughnuts just over a year ago, right in one of the best foodie neighborhoods in the city, the Milk District.

My wife and I recently had our first meal at Smoke & Donuts, and me being me, I made sure we could sample as many things from their eclectic menu as possible.  The restaurant is open from 11 AM to 9 PM on weekdays, but on weekends, it opens at 9 AM for a brunch menu in addition to the full regular menu.  We figured that would give us even more options to choose from, especially with my weird work hours that prevent us from going out to eat during the week.  Luckily, there was plenty of parking and no wait shortly after 11 AM on a Saturday.

Once you arrive, you take a paper menu to study as you walk down a line where you can see those dazzling, decadent doughnuts on display, then the stations where the staff assembles barbecue bowls, sandwiches, and “boards” (really metal trays).  My wife sat down at an open table while I took the walk toward an extremely patient woman who took our large order at the end of the line.  It’s a familiar setup — you pay at the register, take a number, and then someone delivers your food to your table.

Before I reveal everything we ordered, here are the sauces diners will be able to choose from, since sauces are such an important part of the barbecue experience.  They are all in squeeze bottles over by the self-serve soda fountain, and there are plenty of tiny plastic cups with lids to fill with the six sumptuous sauces.  Over here you have toasted guajillo pepper, KC (Kansas City) sweet, spicy vinegar (it’s a North Carolina thing), and a marvelously thick hot sauce with visible spicy pepper seeds and a touch of sweetness.

Next to them, kept on ice, are Lowcountry SC (South Carolina) mustard sauce (kind of a creamy, herby, tangy mustard, not like bright yellow mustard or overly sweet honey mustard at all) and AL (Alabama) white barbecue sauce, which is creamy, tangy, and sweet.  You KNOW I tried them all!

Here’s my sauce lineup.  Before our food even arrived, as I was assembling our sauces, they brought us each a sample of a perfect, delicately seasoned, crunchy pork rind, which we both liked.  Pork rinds can be heavenly or a pointless waste of calories, and the seasoning usually makes all the difference.  But this one was very light, which was also nice.

My wife ordered a blueberry “MOCK-jito,” a delightful mocktail with fresh mint, lime, and fresh muddled blueberries.  She said it was so refreshing, and it was one of the highlights of this epic brunch.  I am so glad to see more restaurants offering interesting mocktails made with the same love and care as their alcoholic cocktails.  Thank you, Smoke & Donuts!

It wasn’t long before our meals were walked out to the table.  My wife and I each chose a Pit Sampler board, which comes with a choice of three meats and either one side and a piece of cornbread or a glazed doughnut (one of the more basic doughnuts, not the fancier ones).  She chose pork belly (on the left; smoked and prepared in a sous vide water bath), pulled smoked chicken slathered in the Alabama white barbecue sauce, and sliced brisket for her meats.  When I was given a choice of ordering her brisket lean or marbled, I chose marbled, which we both prefer.  With steak, brisket, or pastrami, when in doubt, go for the marbling!

Instead of a side, she opted for a cinnamon sugar cake doughnut.  Those pink strips are pickled red onions, something I love a lot (and make myself at home), but she has no interest in onions at all, or anything pickled.  Needless to say, I got them for myself, along with the rest of the house-made pickles and pickled onions in the top right corner of her tray.

For my Pit Sampler board, I purposely chose three different things, knowing we would offer each other samples of ours anyway.  I got chopped brisket (doused in TG sauce, the toasted guajillo pepper sauce), chorizo sausage, and St. Louis ribs (rubbed in “red chile and brown sugar slather”).
I chose baked beans for my side (see above), which included Kansas City sweet barbecue sauce, caramelized onions, sorghum, and stout.  And you can see my cornbread up there too.  But wanting us both to have a chance to try more sides, I also ordered a side sampler with three additional sides:

French fries, a necessity for dipping in the six different sauces:

Crunchy cucumber and cabbage slaw, shredded and tossed in a sherry and rice wine vinaigrette.  I didn’t even try this until later, when we got home with multiple boxes of leftovers, but I liked it a lot.  What a gourmet, nontraditional take on cole slaw.  It was a bit dry, even with the vinaigrette, but a little Alabama white sauce perked it up.

Rich macaroni and cheese, featuring cheddar, Swiss, Chihuahua, and cotija cheeses and a little lager.  This is definitely one of the best versions of mac and cheese in Orlando, and my far-and-away favorite of all the sides we sampled.

Here’s a close-up of my chopped brisket, which was good, although I think I would definitely opt for the sliced, marbled brisket in the future:

I had no idea how many ribs came in the sampler, but I have to be honest, I only expected one rib (making me think of Chris Rock in I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka, a movie I made my wife watch for the first time recently, still as funny as it was when it came out in 1988).  Imagine my surprise when the guy delivered the trays to our table, and there were three ribs, although he told me he accidentally gave me an extra one.  So normally you would get two in the Pit Sampler, and even that would have been great.  The ribs were my favorite of the three meats I ordered, by far.  They were so tender and smoky and sweet and spicy, easy to pull off the bone, but not exactly “falling off the bone” (barbecue mavens try to avoid that texture).

And from the brunch menu, my wife really wanted to try the biscuits that came with a trio of different flavors of soft, spreadable butter.  It looks like they change these flavors all the time, but today we got  mango, cilantro-jalapeño, and strawberry-basil butters.  My wife really loved the two fruity ones, and I liked all three.  The biscuits weren’t huge, but we also shared my cornbread and still had plenty of these rich, creamy, velvety butters left to bring home in the tiny plastic sauce cups.  Thank goodness for the lids!

We were as interested in those stunning doughnuts as we were in the barbecue, so we ordered more to take home and parcel out over the next few days.  On the left is a blonde blueberry doughnut we intended to share, with vanilla glaze, oat streusel, blueberry compote, and a chewy, buttery blueberry swirl blondie (the triangle “hat” on top, definitely a fascinator).  In the middle is a red velvet doughnut my wife chose, with chocolate glaze, red velvet fudge, and a lightly crispy meringue on top, like a little beret sitting at a jaunty angle.  On the right is a passion petal dancer, the most butch-sounding dessert name ever.  I chose that one as soon as I saw it includes passion fruit cremeaux (I don’t even know how to pronounce that), lemon pavlova, and a dehydrated strawberry.

And this was one last doughnut for me, back at home: the key lime doughnut, with candied lemonade glaze, ginger snap streusel, key lime pavlova, and meringue.  Good grief, this was so good.         All the doughnuts from Smoke & Donuts BBQ are cake doughnuts, so they are really dense, heavy, and on the drier side, but not crumbly.  If you’re craving the light airiness of yeasty Krispy Kreme doughnuts, then go to Krispy Kreme.  But you’ll miss out on these lovely, luxurious, cakey creations.

We were lucky enough to meet Smoke & Donuts’ chef-owner Ian Russell, a graduate of the only CIA that makes the world a better place, the Culinary Institute of America.  He worked as an actor (appearing in at least one local production with my wife when they were both a lot younger!) and some other interesting careers before founding Smoke & Donuts as a food truck.  After building a reputation there, he then moved into the current space, directly next door to one of Orlando’s most famous and beloved restaurants, Se7en Bites.  I was impressed that Chef Russell went around from table to table, introducing himself and asking his guests how everything was, and that’s when my wife recognized him from when they were in Cyrano together.  Then the lady who had so patiently taken my large order introduced herself as his mother, and she stopped by to check up on us and kvell about her successful son.

I would be proud too.  Chef Russell and his entire staff (including his mom) were wonderful.  We felt very welcome and had a terrific brunch/early lunch that ended up being the only meal we needed for the rest of the day, with plenty of leftovers for the next couple of days.  The ribs and mac and cheese were definitely my favorites of everything we tried, but I would return just for a big ol’ order of fries so I could use them as sauce delivery devices, the sauces were that good.  People are intense (and intensely loyal) when it comes to barbecue.  Orlando is lucky to have some good options (along with Briskets in Oviedo and Smokemade opening a permanent location soon), and Smoke & Donuts is definitely among the best.  The Milk District has another winner, and since they have lasted over a year in this location, I’m sure they aren’t going anywhere.  Come try them when you’re craving meat and sauce, and they even offer smoky jackfruit for vegetarians!

Isan Zaap Thai Cafe

For years, I had been hearing my friends rave about Isan Zaap Thai Cafe (https://isanzaaporlando.com/), unfortunately a little far from home for me, but moments away from another Thai restaurant my wife and I love very much, Naradeva Thai.  You could seriously eat a big meal at one, then still comfortably walk to the other for another meal, they are that close.  But I don’t recommend doing that.

I do, however, recommend Isan Zaap, and I’m not the only one.  Michelin, that tire company that doubles as a restaurant critic organization, awarded Isan Zaap Thai Cafe one of its coveted Bib Gourmand awards, for “good quality, good value cooking,” joining some of Orlando’s finest establishments.  So if you don’t trust your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner’s recommendations by now, you can rely on the Michelin Guide, known for its completely unbiased judging.

While Naradeva’s dining room has a serene wilderness vibe, Isan Zaap is more of a modern dining space.  Their menus are very different as well.  I do not pretend to be an expert on Thai food, but I know they represent different regions of Thailand, with Isan Zaap covering Isan, the Northeastern region of Thailand (similar to another local Thai restaurant, Mee Thai).  According to Isan Zaap’s website, Isan cuisine includes fresh herbs and spices, multiple proteins, and fermented ingredients, which makes sense, because I enjoyed a lot of funky, pungent flavors in the dishes I tried.

On my first visit in late January, I brought a friend with me who I always run into whenever I do anything cool and fun around town.  Whether it’s a concert, a stand-up comedy show, or a comic book convention, this dude is always there with his finger on the pulse of all things cool and good.  We were both riding high after attending a comic art show where I met my all-time favorite artist, so I chose Isan Zaap as a way to prolong the good feelings and rare chance to hang out.

I started my meal with a refreshing, sweet, slightly smoky Thai iced tea.  It was so good, I wanted to gulp it all down, but I knew I would want to save it to cut the heat of whatever food I ordered.

I decided to order larb for the first time ever, after remembering young Peter Parker and his smokin’ hot Aunt May (played by Marisa Tomei) riffing about larb in Spider-Man: Homecoming.  I don’t think they ever explained what larb was in that scene, but it sounded right up my alley, with minced pork, pork skin, pork liver, and “seasoning” with lime juice, herbs, and roasted rice powder.  I asked for it with medium heat, but boy, was it spicy.  I have gotten used to ordering Indian dishes hot, but I eat Thai food so infrequently, medium felt just hot enough.  Man, was this some luscious larb!  Listed under the “Salads” on the menu, it was so bright and tangy, sour and spicy, crunchy and funky, and surprisingly cool and refreshing, while spicy enough to make my lips tingle.  It was served chilled, with thin slices of onion, finely shredded carrot, cucumbers, and lots of mint, and it exceeded all my expectations with its blend of flavors and textures.  I was a little surprised the larb did not come with rice, but what do I know?  Anyway, it made me a larb lover for life.

Because I’m me and I just can’t help myself, I ordered a second dish, figuring I would try it there and finish the rest at home: my go-to favorite that I like to try at every Thai restaurant, stir-fried drunken noodles, also known as pad kee mao (or sometimes pad kee mow).  These are wide, flat, chewy rice noodles sautéed with onions, red and green bell peppers, basil leaves, and a protein (I chose squid, which was a little rubbery, but still tasty), in a sweet and spicy sauce.  I asked for this dish medium as well, and it also brought a pleasant amount of heat. 

My friend chose excellent-looking pad Thai with tofu, another dish you can never go wrong with.  He let me try a bite, which had the nice sweet-and-sour tanginess I always enjoy in pad Thai.  I made a mental note of it, because my wife loves this dish, and I definitely wanted to return with her. 

It was a great lunch and a great hang.  I went home and talked about this meal for damn near three weeks before my wife and I finally made it back to Isan Zaap together, again for lunch on a weekend.  We both ordered Thai iced coffees this time, which I liked even more than the Thai iced tea.  (I almost never drink tea or coffee, but this just goes to show you that if you put sweetened condensed milk in anything, I will consume it.)    

My wife ordered pad Thai, as I figured she would.  She got it mild and chose mixed seafood for her protein.  It came with shrimp, squid, and mussels in the half shell, which she was kind enough to share with me, because I notoriously love mussels and she is ambivalent about those bivalves.  She liked it, and as usual with her, she got two meals out of the dish.

I chose two things again on this trip, figuring we would share them both.  This is a picture of half our order of grilled pork neck, which looked and smelled so good that I uncharacteristically devoured half of it before remembering to take a picture.  It was a very pretty plate of thin slices of perfectly grilled, marinated, tender pork, accompanied by pretty shredded carrots and cabbage on the side and a very spicy Isan dipping sauce that I loved and she wanted nothing to do with.  The grilled pork neck did not come with rice or anything else, so it might not be the most filling dish for a single hungry person.  I would definitely recommend it to share with a group, though — or if someone is avoiding carbs and just wants delicious lean protein.

I also thought we would both enjoy the chef’s special dish of crab fried rice, after noticing so many crab dishes on the menu.  Again, I ate the vast majority of this, even though it was not spicy or intimidating in any way.  It was solid fried rice, but there wasn’t a lot in it aside from eggs, garlic, a little basil, and the lump crabmeat on top.  I certainly enjoyed it, but next time I will order something more unique and unfamiliar, that’s for sure! 

Unlike our first visit, this time our server brought us a container of four tins of seasonings to spoon onto our food: chilli, sugar, vinegar, and fish sauce.  I used a little bit of the chilli (just a red powder) and a splash of vinegar to jazz up the fried rice, but I did not want to overwhelm any of the flavors.  I know the sugar is meant to cut the heat, but the spiciest thing I had at this second meal was the Isan dipping sauce with the sliced pork neck.   

Last, but certainly not least, I ordered another dish to bring home and enjoy later: the pork liver larb, served chilled and tossed in the same spicy, sour dressing with toasted rice powder, shredded carrot and cabbage, sliced cucumbers, and more herbs on top.  This time I made jasmine rice in my Aroma rice cooker to go with the larb, which may be completely inauthentic, but it worked for me.  I love liver in all its forms, and the pork liver was rich and intense in that offal (but not awful) way, and tender enough to almost melt in my mouth.  It might have been my favorite component of that original larb dish I tried, but I found myself missing the additional textures and flavors of the ground pork and pork skin in the “O.G.” larb.  Again, you live and you learn, or at least I do! As always, I appreciated that Isan Zaap packed my takeout larb in one of those great plastic containers with a clear, locking lid.  These are microwave-safe AND dishwasher-safe, and if you think I keep a collection of them, you’d be right as rain.

So Isan Zaap Thai Cafe was really wonderful after both of my visits, and it ignited my newfound interest in Thai food.  I’ve been to a few other Thai restaurants in Orlando, and a longtime favorite closed in 2023, but I am excited that there is so much more to learn about and experiment with.  I’m no tire company, but I can tell you that Isan Zaap is definitely worth all the hype and praise, whether you eat Thai food all the time or just dabble occasionally, as I do.  I don’t know how often I will make it back to this restaurant, but Isan Zaap serves some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had, and not just in Orlando either.  If you know, you know, and if you don’t, then what are you waiting for?

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.

Eat My Conch

I haven’t checked out any new local food trucks in a while, but I passed the new Eat My Conch Brewery & Eatery trailer two weekends in a row at a Shell gas station at 7095 S. U.S. Hwy 17-92, in front of the Fern Park Lowe’s, and I finally had to stop there yesterday.

Devia and Nyesha, the mother-and-daughter team behind Eat My Conch (https://www.facebook.com/eatmyconch/) briefly had a restaurant in Longwood that one of my friends and food writer role models, Amy Drew Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel, reviewed in December 2022.  I always trust her judgment, so between her glowing review and the praise from a co-worker who went after I recommended it (despite never having visited myself), I was sad when the brick and mortar location closed before I had a chance to try it.  This truck was my chance, and it was totally worth the wait.

Eat My Conch serves Bahamian food, like from the Bahamas.  I am pleased to report (and even more pleased that I came up with this) that the delicious food is like a Bahamian rhapsody for your taste buds and your soul.  I ordered three dishes to take home to share with my wife, but they have a lot to choose from.
By the way, for anyone who might not know, conch is a kind of marine mollusk (a snail), so I appreciated the unintended pun of Eat My Conch setting up at the Shell station.

Without hesitation, I ordered conch fritters ($16).  You can’t go to a place with “Conch” in the name and not try the conch fritters, and they were so good.  These golden-brown spheres are kind of like hush puppies, but so much better.  If you know, you know.  (That’s what my students would say, anyway.)  They had perfect crispy outsides protecting, fluffy-soft interiors with bits of tender, chewy conch, and they were seasoned extremely well without being too spicy for my spice-averse wife to handle.  They went very well with the creamy, slightly tangy mayo-based dipping sauce.

My wife was also curious about Chicken N. D. Bag ($15), which sounds like a cartoon about a coward and a jerk, but instead it’s a hearty plate of perfectly fried chicken wings over really great fries, topped with thinly sliced onions.  The purpose of the onions is to steam over the in the paper bag, which added the slightest oniony essence to everything over my short drive home.  The fries had the lightest batter coating, which I always love, and despite not devouring them on site and even having them steam in the paper bag, they were still crispy and hot when we tore it open back at home.  The breading on the chicken wings stayed crispy too, which is always nice.

I’m assuming it was the Chicken N. D. Bag that came with this really good, creamy cole slaw with sweet, chewy, tangy Craisins, and not the conch fritters.  But I’m always happy to find mystery cole slaw!

The thing I was looking forward to trying the most ended up being both of our favorite: cool, refreshing conch salad ($16), with finely diced conch, tomato, onion, jalapeno pepper, mango, pineapple, and apple.  The fruit was a $3 upcharge, but I love sweet and fruity and spicy and savory flavors together, and I knew it would be well worth it.  I definitely got dehydrated yesterday, first after spending half my Saturday at work and not eating or drinking anything, and then waiting outside in the humidity while my order was being prepared from scratch.  As tasty as the fried items were, I enjoyed that cool conch salad the most.

I’ve never been to the Bahamas or anywhere in the Caribbean, but I have been assured the food at Eat My Conch is as authentic as it is tasty.  I can believe it.  Everything is made fresh to order, so don’t expect, dry, greasy conch fritters or wings that have been sitting around under heat lamps.  Since I wasn’t sure what the menu would include, I didn’t bother trying to call ahead, so I had to wait a while for my food.  But this isn’t a complaint, just a description!  It was totally worth the wait, but you may want to be wary if you’re in a hurry, especially if there is a line ahead of you.  That conch salad totally hit the spot, and everything else was really good too.  I hope you give them a try and enjoy your Bahamian rhapsody too, and I assure you it is real life, not just fantasy.

Chain Reactions: Culver’s

Culver’s (https://www.culvers.com/) is a fast food chain that was founded in in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1984.  I tried it on a short trip to Wisconsin over 20 years ago, to visit the weird, wonderful, and uniquely American roadside attraction The House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  Now we have multiple Culver’s locations across Central Florida, and since I am obsessed with regional restaurants and food trends, I appreciate having more options to choose from, chains or not.

Culver’s is famous for its frozen custard, “ButterBurgers,” and breaded, fried cheese curds.  But even though the ButterBurgers are above average fast food burgers, my wife and I usually return when we’re in the mood for delicious fish, hand-battered and deep-fried.  Culver’s has the best fried fish of any fast food restaurants, and better than a surprising amount of seafood restaurants and Irish and British pubs we’ve been to.

Specifically, they serve North Atlantic cod, which you can get as a sandwich or as a dinner with two or three pieces of fish.  Sometimes my wife and I will split a three-piece North Atlantic cod dinner, which comes with fries, cole slaw, and a roll, but you can select two sides of your choice if you don’t want fries (standard crinkle-cut fries) or cole slaw.  Ring the Alarm!  Culver’s has excellent onion rings, with beer batter coating similar to the battered cod filets.  They are my favorite fast food onion rings.  They are considered a Premium side, so you have to pay a small upcharge for them.  DO IT!

Here’s a close-up of the battered fish from a different visit.  It will make you say “Oh my cod!”

As great as the Atlantic cod is (and it is), Culver’s brings out a different battered, fried fish once a year for a limited time: Canadian Northwoods walleye, which is a very light, buttery fish.  Even though this sandwich is $7.99, which seems expensive for fast food, it is worth every penny.  I added the creamy, crunchy cole slaw on top of the sandwich, too:By the way, the Culver’s website says the tartar sauce includes olives, capers and sweet relish!  I would not have guessed olives or capers, but they list the ingredients right on the peel-off lid of the little dipping cup.

That walleye doesn’t look that different from the cod, but trust me, you could tell the difference in a taste test.  The sandwich comes with a bit of lettuce and tartar sauce underneath the fish, and the bun is buttered and lightly grilled like all Culver’s sandwich buns.  That’s always a nice touch.   

I already said that I think the ButterBurgers are just okay, but Culver’s amazed and astonished when they came out with this limited-time special: the “Curderburger.”  It is exactly what you think — a burger served on the typical bun (buttered and lightly grilled, thank you very much), topped with a “cheese crown.”  Yes, that is a giant breaded and fried cheese curd patty, and it’s the stuff that dreams are made of.  (Because “SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF CHEESE!”)

Here’s a cross-section, with melty, molten cheddar cheese curd leaking out of the fried patty on top of the burger.  You probably shouldn’t eat more than one of these a year, or the Curderburger could become a Murderburger.  Luckily, it is a limited-time menu item. 
I should note that back in the ’90s, my brother and I were enamored with a similar decadent burger from the late, lamented chain restaurant Bennigan’s, the “Wheelhouse burger,” topped with what was essentially a mozzarella cheese stick in patty form instead of stick form.  And I have to give a shout-out to Orlando’s beloved Se7enbites, the Southern restaurant and bakery where Chef Trina Gregory-Propst created the Italian Stallion burger, topped with tomato jam, pesto aioli, and a mozzarella cheese plank.  But I digress!

This is my wife’s favorite Signature side, the pretzel bites, which you have to pay a $1.50 upcharge for if you get them in a combo with a sandwich or a dinner.  But again, like so many things at Culver’s, they are totally worth it.  The outside crust is lightly crackly and crispy and buttery and salty, and the inside is pillowy soft.  They come with a little dipping cup of Wisconsin cheddar cheese sauce for dipping, but they don’t need anything — and I say that as someone who always likes dipping things in other things. 

In fact, I tried a few of the different dipping sauces with onion rings, as you can see.  That’s the Wisconsin cheddar cheese sauce on the left in the unlabeled cup.  The Boom Boom sauce is a little spicy and surprisingly thick and heavy, but the creamy, tangy Culver’s Signature sauce SLAPS.  Those are both recent discoveries from my last trip, and I would definitely get that Signature sauce again.

George’s chili is considered a Signature side too, so you have to pay a $1.50 upcharge for it as well.  I always love chili, and if it’s offered on a menu, I will always try it.  The website boasts that this is “medium-spicy” chili con carne, but keep in mind this is a chain restaurant from Wisconsin, and I found it very mild.  It is made by simmering ground beef (the same stuff the burgers are made of, naturally), diced tomatoes, dark red kidney beans, peppers, onion and celery, and a “secret blend of peppery spices.”  With Culver’s always making a big deal about its Wisconsin roots and all its great cheese, I thought the chili could really use some shredded cheese or the cheddar cheese sauce on top to melt into it. 

I appreciate fast food restaurants that don’t just offer burgers and chicken, but have all kinds of odd, offbeat options.  You may have already noticed Culver’s is cool like that, but they even have a pot roast sandwich made with hand-shredded braised chuck roast.  I have a deep, abiding love of slow-braised and stewed meats, cooked until they are moist and tender and falling apart.  Too many people under-season their pot roast and dry it out, to the point that you can chew it forever and nothing happens, but not so with this sandwich.  It was a tasty, savory alternative to the standard burgers and fried fish, and I would definitely get it again some time.

In addition to the ButterBurgers, the frozen custard is a big draw at Culver’s and a major part of its brand.  It is my wife’s favorite part — even more than the fish.  She usually opts for the chocolate custard with chunks of Butterfinger candy swirled in, but this time she got it with some chocolate syrup, pecans, and a cherry on top. 

I’ve been sitting on this review for the better part of a year, waiting for the triumphant return of Culver’s lemon ice, a summer treat that sadly disappears for the rest of the year.  Summer is my least-favorite season here in hot, humid, sticky, sweltering Florida, but I do love all the sweet, cold, refreshing drinks and treats that come out in the summer.  My favorite is Culver’s lemon ice — in this case, a strawberry-mango lemon ice cooler, which is real slow-frozen lemonade swirled with real fruit.  It is definitely a dessert, not as wholesome and nutritious as a smoothie (although smoothies are also high in calories and carbs), but I love ’em.  Culver’s actually has lemon ice smoothies as well, where they mix the lemon ice and fruit with their vanilla custard, but I like them more tangy and acidic and less creamy.  I drank a fair bit on the drive home before I could take this photo, but they really do fill the cup all the way up.  I’m trying to avoid sweets and desserts and sugary sodas, but I can see enjoying a few more lemon ice coolers before the summer of 2023 ends.

The thing on the right is a chocolate custard with M&Ms mixed in — my wife’s choice, of course.

So that’s Culver’s.  They take longer to prepare your meal than most other fast food establishments, and cost considerably more, but you pay for quality, including fresh food cooked to order every time.  I must admit I always look askance at the receipt on every trip to Culver’s and think “REALLY?”  But the two kinds of fish (the cod and limited-time walleye), the onion rings, the pretzel bites, and the lemon ices never disappoint, and my wife loves that chocolate custard too.  Anyone who has ever read my food blog knows that I don’t consider myself too cool or too sophisticated to enjoy fast food.  I am neither an elitist nor a health nut.  Culver’s is definitely well above average for fast food, so give it a try if you haven’t already.  And if you have, what are YOUR Culver’s favorites?

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.