Chicken – Page 2 – The Saboscrivner

Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner

Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner (https://www.moakaidiner.com/) just opened the week before last in the old Mongolorian location at 2217 East Colonial Drive in Orlando, just west of Bumby Avenue. The restaurant is still in its soft opening phase, but it is fully open for business every day except Sunday. Sunday brunch hours will be added in due time. It is owned by the same owner of my beloved Poke Hana (honestly one of my favorite restaurants in Orlando since 2018) and Korean fried chicken joint Chi-Kin, which I still haven’t been to yet.

I love Hawaiian food, and Poke Hana is a big reason for that, since I’ve never actually been to Hawaii. Even before that, there was a short-lived Hawaiian restaurant in Oviedo called Hawaiian Grindz that introduced me to most Hawaiian dishes. Unfortunately, it didn’t last very long, perhaps because the owners seemed to be very laid-back, to the point of not always opening when their posted hours said they would.

Anyway, Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner is a very professional setup with a busy, happy-looking staff, all in festive aloha shirts. It is a classic diner layout with booths along the window, tables, stools overlooking an open kitchen (separated by a plexiglass screen) and more stools at the bar. For my first visit earlier this evening, I sat at the bar and placed my takeout order with the very friendly and welcoming Olivia, the bartender.

While I waited for my takeout, I ordered a POG juice. I remember how popular Pogs were in the early ’90s, especially at the comic book shops I used to frequent, and how quickly the Pog fad came and went. But don’t worry — POG juice is passion fruit/orange/guava juice, and it is so sweet and tangy and tasty. It is surprisingly thick and heavy, as fruit juices can sometimes be, but I already love all tropical fruits, especially passion fruit and guava, so I enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

(That is the ever-patient Olivia’s arm back there.)

After that, I also tried the lychee lemonade, since I am now a lemonade connoisseur. It was also wonderful, and a lot lighter and more refreshing than the POG juice. I would definitely order that again.

I placed a large order, figuring my wife and I would get four total meals out of everything, and it was ready quite quickly.

My wife requested the shoyu poke bowl, with cubes of raw ahi tuna marinated in house shoyu (soy) sauce with Hawaiian salt, shelled edamame soybeans, macadamia nuts, chili flakes, sweet onions, and dried seaweed called ogo. These are all flavors she likes (except the onions, which she figured out after one harsh bite), so she was really happy with it. She said she liked this poke even more than Poke Hana, where we have eaten dozens of times, so that’s high praise coming from her.

I couldn’t decide between a few things, so I ordered an assortment, hoping to share, and if not, knowing I’d have leftovers for tomorrow. These were the kalbi ribs, beef ribs marinated in shoyu and fruit juices, sliced across the bones, and grilled. They had a lot of flavor from the grilling process and were so tender. I always love peeling the flat bone slices out of kalbi and enjoying the almost chewy meat around the edges of the bone. Even my wife liked the piece she had.

All “plate lunches” at Moa Kai come with two scoops of white rice and one scoop of macaroni salad, but you can also choose different sides, and some require a nominal upcharge. I already know I love Hawaiian-style macaroni salad, including from Poke Hana, so I was looking forward to this, but instead of white rice, I got garlic pan-fried noodles, hoping my wife would want to try them. We both loved them! As great as the kalbi and macaroni salad were (and they were), these garlic noodles were the truth. Whenever we return, we will split a full-size order of them.

Kai Asian Street Fare on the edge of Casselberry and Winter Park makes the closest thing in town to these garlic noodles, and theirs are also awesome, just a little more buttery-greasy. But I had a lousy phone camera back then, so forgive the ugly, blurry shots in that early review.

I got a second plate lunch, the mix plate, where you can select two house favorites. For one of my choices, I went with the spicy ahi poke with cubed, marinated ahi tuna, sweet onion, masago, and crushed macadamia nuts in house-made spicy sauce (think spicy mayo), topped with scallions. This was fire! Poke is one of my favorite foods, whether from Poke Hana, Rion’s Ocean Room, or even Costco, and I especially love spicy ahi or salmon poke like this. It was a small serving, but that’s what happens in a sampler platter like this. I could eat this by the bucketful.

The other thing I ended up with was the grilled shoyu chicken, which was a shoyu-marinated, grilled boneless chicken thigh, topped with teriyaki sauce and scallions. It was so tender and juicy and well-seasoned, and I always say chicken thighs are the best part of the chicken, aside from the oysters. Thick thighs save lives! (And if you were intrigued by the garlic noodles above, the full-size order comes topped with this shoyu chicken.)
The only reason I said I “ended up with” it was because I ordered the Korean chicken instead, which sounds like it would have been similar shoyu-marinated chicken, but cubed, battered, fried, and tossed in house-made Korean garlic sauce. I am not disappointed at all that I ended up with the grilled chicken instead. It was a slightly healthier option, and so damn delicious, I would happily order it again. I don’t own a grill, merely because it is so blasted hot and humid in Orlando nine months out of the year, I know I wouldn’t use it much. Knowing myself, that would lead to all kinds of cognitive dissonance and self-resentment, and I deal with that enough already without feeling guilty about buying a grill and not using it often enough. But I always miss the flavor of good grilled meats, and the grilled shoyu chicken thigh was a perfect piece of chicken. WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOYU!

I got macaroni salad with this plate lunch too, but instead of the white rice, I got Spam fried rice for an upcharge. Spam is so good, y’all! It is the very definition of a “sometimes food,” as heavily processed and salty as it is, but fried up with rice or noodles and wrapped in rice and seaweed as a Spam musubi, it is tastier than you would believe. The Spam lovers know what’s up, and the squeamish among you will just have to take my word for it. This Spam fried rice didn’t have anything else in it (no eggs or vegetables), but just Spam and fried rice were great by themselves.

But wait, there’s more! That old Hawaiian restaurant in Oviedo introduced me to saimin, a Hawaiian noodle soup similar to Japanese ramen, but with Spam. Saimin soup with Spam is on the menu here at Moa Kai, but we’re still in August, and I couldn’t conceive of ordering soup. But I still had to try some form of saimin, so I got the local style stir-fried saimin noodles with char siu (Chinese-style barbecue pork with a slight sweetness that you may know and love from Kai Kai or Tasty Wok), Spam, sliced kamaboko (cured surimi, similar to the fish cakes in ramen), scrambled eggs, carrots, and scallions, seasoned with shoyu and dashi, a Japanese cooking stock flavored with fish and kelp.
I’m going to enjoy this tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist a few bites while it was still fresh and hot, and it was on point. It reminded me of a Hawaiian version of lo mein (but better) or Filipino pancit bihon. The char siu pork was sweet and tender, and the Spam was sliced into tiny cubes and perfected by the stir-fry process. You could enjoy these local style stir-fried saimin any day of the week, not just on stir-Friday.

My wife had requested an açaí bowl for a bit of a dessert tonight and breakfast tomorrow. This was a huge helping of açaí sorbet blended and topped with fresh strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, and kiwi, shredded coconut, peanut butter, and granola. Knowing it was sorbet, I brought a cooler in the car with a couple of reusable fake-ice blocks to keep it cold on the drive home, but it still got a little melty. The tiny taste I had when she had enough for the night was soooo nice and refreshing, though.

I had never even heard of açaí until a few years ago, when everyone started touting its benefits as a healthy “superfood.” I can’t speak on that, but the dark purple sorbet made from the açaí berries is a nice blend of sweet and tart, especially when mixed with other, sweeter fruits.

And finally, we were both curious about the ube haupia pie, so I guess that makes us pie-curious. I couldn’t resist ordering a piece for us to share. Haupia is coconut pudding, a popular Hawaiian dessert made from coconut milk, sugar, cornstarch, and water, and it is surprisingly jiggly and bouncy like Jell-O. Poke Hana serves haupia in crispy fried spring rolls, which are terrific, but this was different. Moa Kai serves their haupia in pie form with a macadamia nut-graham cracker crust (superb) with a layer of creamy ube pudding in between. Ube is a purple yam with a vanilla-like flavor, common in Filipino and Vietnamese desserts and sweet drinks, and it is as tasty as it is beautiful. Someone call Yam Grier and send me to Yamsterdam, because these were some sweet-ass yams under that haupia, with more bounce to the ounce.

Folks, I am thrilled to report that Orlando has another winner. We first heard earlier this year that Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner was coming, and months passed with no updates. The menu surfaced online back in April, and it all sounded so good, I hoped plans wouldn’t change, since some announced restaurants never see the light of day. It was so worth the wait, and all the time and effort and money they put into it are paying off. You can see we tried many things so I could write a worthy review and share as much information as possible. Yeah, that’s the ticket. The diner setting is going to be a fun, welcoming atmosphere for dining in, and the location, right in our Mills 50 district with so many other fantastic restaurants nearby, will hopefully help keep them busy and garner them the success they deserve. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to beautiful Hawaii, but at least we can all have a taste of it right here in Orlando. Whether you dine in or order takeout like I did tonight, look for Olivia, who might be behind the bar. She is awesome, and even in the brief time I waited for my takeout order at the bar, she made me feel like a valued customer, patiently answered any questions I had, asked if I needed anything, and represented the restaurant so well.

Howlin’ Ray’s (Los Angeles)

Howlin’ Ray’s (https://howlinrays.com/) is a beloved Los Angeles institution for Nashville-style hot chicken, which is one of my favorite styles of fried chicken. I got to try the iconic Hattie B’s Hot Chicken on my first and only trip to Nashville back in 2017, and I am a HUGE fan of Chicken Fire and JAM Hot Chicken, our two beloved Nashville hot joints back home in Orlando. I crave Chicken Fire a lot, but fried chicken and fries are the very definition of “sometimes foods,” so I rarely go.

I’ve been hearing raves about Howlin’ Ray’s ever since I started making these occasional work trips to L.A., and I swore I would try it on my most recent visit. From all accounts, it is one of those much-hyped places that actually lives up to all the hype. It started out as a food truck in 2015, founded by former fine dining chef Johnny Ray Zone (who sounds like a psychobilly musician or a cyberpunk protagonist) and his wife Amanda Chapman. A year later, they opened their first permanent location in Chinatown, which is the closest to my job, but not close enough to walk to. I figured it would be a good place to have delivered to work on my longest day, when I was staying late to teach part of a nighttime class. I don’t usually like getting food delivered, but it would be a lot more convenient than making it over to a place that doesn’t even have seating in my very limited time in the city.

I started out with a quarter chicken that was a leg and thigh, since I always prefer dark meat. I went with the hot flavor as a benchmark, to see how hot Howlin’ Ray’s hot actually is, and to also gauge how much I could take. It was delicious, tender, juicy chicken under that intense seasoning, fried to perfection. But holy moley, that seasoning! It definitely made my eyes water, nose run, lips tingle. It was hot, but tasty, and that’s the most important thing. I’m not a masochist — not totally, anyway — but as much as I love spicy food, I want flavor, not just pure pain. And this delivered plenty of delicious flavor!

At Hattie B’s, I ordered a medium thigh and a hot thigh to figure out a similar benchmark, and I have no regrets about either order. Like at Hattie B’s, Howlin’ Ray’s hid a slice of white bread underneath that quarter bird, and I was so glad to find it under there. Chewing it helped with the burning sensation.

I don’t go hotter than the hot level at any of these Nashville places, but I also wanted to scale back. And while they had chicken sandwiches that I’m sure are wonderful, I eat a lot of sandwiches, and I’ve even eaten sandwiches on this same L.A. trip. I wanted to try a few things from the menu, and Howlin’ Ray’s has a concoction called Mario Style that combined a few of them. This is a mountain of “shake fries” (crinkle-cut fries with spicy seasoning shaken over them), topped with chopped chicken breast at the flavor/heat level of your choice (I chose medium-plus, a half-step between medium and hot), vinegar slaw, pickles, creamy comeback sauce, and more of that shaken seasoning. I think there might have even been some cheddar cheese in there, but maybe not.
I figured I could eat this mess with a fork at my desk, but of course I dropped one piece of chicken that hit one of my favorite ties in three different places on its way down to also hit my crotch.

Here’s another pic showing you that there actually were fries underneath there. Mario Style was a huge portion of food, more than enough for a full meal. And assuming there was cheese in there, or if there was any dairy in the comeback sauce, then all four food groups are covered!

I can’t go to a restaurant that serves collard greens and not try them! These tender greens were braised with onions and also tomatoes, which is a new one for me. They were so good, I slurped the “pot likker” broth when I was done with the greens. And before I could check my teeth for rogue greens, two students chose that moment to come to my office to chat. (I checked after they left, and thankfully I didn’t have anything stuck in my teeth, but the timing really was impeccable.)

As I’ve said before, I also can’t go to a restaurant that serves macaroni salad or pasta salad and not try them! This cool and creamy macaroni salad included diced green bell peppers, piquillo peppers (an impressive touch), and a lot of fresh dill, which was interesting. I saved it for last to cool things down, even though it didn’t help with my burning lips.

This was all a huge treat. I loved it! The menu was very similar to Hattie B’s in Nashville, and I’d say Howlin’ Ray’s is on the same level, flavor-wise and overall quality-wise. I still have nothing but love in my heart for Orlando’s own Chicken Fire, and I appreciate a slight sweetness in the hot chicken from Chicken Fire, maybe due to a drizzle of honey. But my favorite thing about Howlin’ Ray’s compared to our beloved Orlando establishments is that they serve bone-in chicken, which Chicken Fire and JAM Hot Chicken do not do. That thigh and leg I had were straight fire — no pun intended — and totally worth the temporary pain. The chicken itself was fried to perfection, and people like my wife who don’t like spicy food would probably love their country style, which is even more mild than their mild. This is delicious food that I highly recommend to Angelenos and tourists alike, but I’m glad I ate it alone in my little office at my L.A. job site, so nobody else saw me tearing up and blowing my nose… except those two students who caught me mid-meal. They might have seen my tears of discomfort, but they were also tears of joy. I guess I am a little masochistic after all.

CLOSED: Candee Lee’s Soul House

EDIT: I learned that Candee Lee’s Soul House permanently closed in October 2025, barely two months after I wrote my review! What a damn shame. The food was really good.

***

Candee Lee’s Soul House (https://candeeleessoulhouse.com/) is the dream of Chef Tony Tone Blakey, a Culinary Institute of Virginia alumnus, a former chef at Walt Disney World, and a personal chef. Inspired by his mother, the titular Candee Lee, he opened his soul food restaurant in a touristy stretch of Irlo Bronson Highway in Kissimmee, Florida, in March of 2025, and I had been wanting to make it down there to try it for a long time.

Anyone who knows me and my family would not be surprised to learn I did not grow up eating soul food, but it a nostalgic treat to me every time. I discovered soul food the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. As a teenager obsessed with the TV series ER, I thought I might study to become a doctor, and somehow I scored a prestigious(?) internship at the University of Miami School of Medicine in downtown Miami. I felt like such an accomplished and sophisticated adult, taking the Metrorail from suburban Kendall into downtown every morning and home every evening, even though I was placed in a hematology research lab and assisted with mundane experiments that never seemed to cure any diseases. A lot of the time, they drew my blood to use as the “control” for the daily experimentation, adding insult to injury for this young, unpaid intern. The highlight of those long and frustrating internship days was eating lunch in the med school cafeteria, where every day they offered a cheap daily special that was usually soul food.

That summer internship made me realize I had no future as a medical researcher or a patient-facing doctor, but I fell in love with ham hocks and collard greens, fried cabbage and yams, and my beloved oxtails — one of my favorite meals to this day. I looked forward to those nourishing lunches so much, knowing my days would be halfway over at that point, and I still think about that cafeteria soul food today. It could be said that I’ve been chasing those tastes ever since.

Anyway, there have never been many soul food options in Orlando. I loved Nikki’s Place when I reviewed it a few years back, a historic restaurant located in Parramore, near downtown Orlando. But when I learned Chef Tony Tone had opened his own restaurant, I couldn’t wait to try it, even though it was much further from home. Well, while Nikki’s Place has the old-school atmosphere of the soul food restaurant from The Blues Brothers, Candee Lee’s Soul House is modern, full of natural light and bright red and blue painted walls, and located in a suburban strip plaza, looking a bit like a fast food spot. I had a rare Wednesday off work this week, so I drove down there with a friend to try it for the first time.

I took the liberty of photographing the menu displays on the wall, since they didn’t quite match up with the menu on the website. You can choose between lunch plates with one entree and one side (only Monday through Thursday, from 12 to 3 PM) or dinner plates with one entree and two sides (any day, anytime). The entrees include chicken (either fried wings or garlic and herb-roasted leg quarters), boneless fried catfish filets, and fried bone-in pork ribs (three for the lunch or six for the dinner).
There are also chicken or fish sandwiches which are supposed to come with coleslaw, homemade pickles, and one side, which I did not read carefully at the time. (More on that later.) The chicken and fish sandwiches ($12 and $15, respectively) are half-price on Wednesdays, which was one of the reasons I timed my first visit for a Wednesday.

Here is the menu of sides and drinks. I wanted to try most of the sides, and between my friend and I, I got to try five, which isn’t bad at all.

My friend and I didn’t have the sheer numbers necessary to order the Family Box (which serves 4-5) or the Big Mama (which serves 7-8), but here is the information, for anyone who might live or vacation down that way with a large group:

At this point I should note that it is a long, thin restaurant space, where you order on the far end of the counter and pay closer to the door, and the only seating is a series of red stools along a long counter on the opposite wall. There aren’t any tables, and I’m sure a lot of people get their food to go.

My friend, a Mississippi boy, ordered the fried catfish dinner, which came with two huge filets. He let me try a piece, and it was excellent. I loved the breading. It is definitely some of the best fried catfish I’ve had anywhere around here (up there with my favorite seafood restaurant High Tide Harry’s, and of course the iconic Nikki’s Place).
For his sides, he got the collard greens with smoked turkey and the “Better than ya mama’s” grits. I’m not a big grits guy, but I tried a bite of his, and it was definitely better than any grits I’ve tried anywhere else. They were buttery and rich and a bit gritty, and definitely not instant grits (as no self-respectin’ Southernah uses instant grits). Chef Tony Tone definitely takes pride in his grits.

The whole reason I planned to take a Wednesday off work just to drive the hour each way to Candee Lee’s Soul House was to try their oxtails, which are only served on Wednesdays. We got there a few minutes after they opened at noon, but when I asked for the oxtails, they said it wouldn’t be ready until 1:00. Okay, okay, that’s not a problem. We would still eat, and I’d order other stuff and get the oxtails to go. No problem, right?

So I decided to get the fried ribs lunch special, with three ribs, a side, a sauce, and a drink. I love ribs in all their forms, but I’ve never had fried ribs before, and neither had my friend. I gave him one, because this is how we roll. The spareribs were a generous size, and they were definitely meaty. They had a pleasantly crispy exterior, and they were still tender and juicy, luckily not dry at all. I would have been really disappointed if they were dried-out and both crunchy and greasy at the same time, like how way too many sports bars ruin their wings in the fryer, but these were really good. The meat didn’t exactly fall off the bone (which is a good thing, texture-wise), but it was tender enough to easily munch off the bone without leaving shreds behind. By the time I finished my two ribs, it looked like a piranha had gotten to them.

These ribs came unsauced, unlike most restaurant ribs, but Candee Lee’s offers a few different house-made sauces in little ramekins, and I tried three of them. There was an Angry sauce, which is a house-made hot sauce, there was another sauce that was sweet and spicy with a honey base, and then there was an Oooh Baby sauce that was their barbecue sauce. The ribs were tender enough to tear off little chunks with my fingers and dip them in the various sauces to try them all, which was nice. They were a good blank canvas, and all three of the sauces slapped.

For my side, I ordered the double meat baked beans, which were dripping out of the styrofoam box, but every drop was worth saving and savoring. According to the website, these baked beans are slow-cooked in molasses and spices with ground beef and smoked sausage. According to me, your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner, these are the best barbecue-style baked beans I’ve had anywhere in the Orlando area. I absolutely loved them. 10/10, chef’s kiss, no notes. (Spoiler alert: that will become a trend with the other sides.)

In an attempt to both kill time so we could get the oxtails and go, and also to try as many things as possible on the menu, I also ordered the chicken sandwich, which is half-price on Wednesday. It included a large chicken thigh, breaded and fried to perfection, on a soft bun. It was an awe-inspiring piece of fried chicken. My only disappointment was realizing later that the sandwich did not include any coleslaw or house-made pickles, as promised. I thought it seemed a little minimalist, but the chicken itself was so good, and I enjoyed dunking it in the three aforementioned sauces after giving my friend a piece, so I got distracted. It didn’t occur to me until after we left that we missed out on the coleslaw and pickles, and therefore got an incomplete chicken sandwich experience at Candee Lee’s.

This time, my side was the “million dollar” mac and cheese, which was so rich and buttery and cheesy that I had to pace myself to get through the modest scoop. I don’t mind telling you, constant readers, that this might be the best macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had in the Orlando area. It’s different from my previous favorite from Pom Pom’s Teahouse and Sandwicheria (which no longer lists mac and cheese on its menu after reopening in Sanford), but it is everything you dream of good mac and cheese being. Truly the stuff that cheesy, buttery, carby, gooey dreams are made of.

By the time we got our food, chatted a lot, finished everything, and watched the restaurant get pretty damn busy during its first hour of operation, it was almost 1:00, so I asked if the oxtails were almost ready to get an order to go. I paid, got a refill of the delicious lemonade (from a company called Tractor that I had never heard of before), and resumed talking with my friend. By this point, they were even more slammed. I asked for an oxtail update again at about 1:45, not out of patience yet, but starting to get close. They eventually brought out the oxtails and two sides, and we finally hit the road for home closer to 2:00. I know oxtails take a long time to cook, but if I had known they wouldn’t be ready when the restaurant opened at noon, I definitely would have timed our visit to arrive later.

These were HUGE oxtails, not like the small pieces in a dark brown gravy I’m used to from Jamaican restaurants, or even the ones I’ve had in the past from Nikki’s Place. These slow-roasted oxtails had an orangey-red mirepoix gravy on them (comprised of onions, carrots, and celery, for those who were wondering), and the tails themselves were much longer segments of bone than I am used to, with rich, unctuous, fatty, tender meat clinging to them. They were delicious, just different.Once I got home and started writing this review, I saw photos on Candee Lee’s Facebook page that the oxtails were supposed to be topped with a generous portion of fried onions. I love fried onions, so much so that I obsessive-compulsively sample onion rings anywhere I can find them and make a special point to review said onion rings on this very blog. I even have a catch-phrase: RING THE ALARM! I was so sad and disappointed that once again, a key component had been left out of something I ordered, with no notice or warning.

But I cheered up a bit once I tried the same collard greens with smoked turkey that my friend got with his catfish. Just like with the baked beans and the million dollar mac and cheese, these smoky, savory greens were the best collard greens I’ve ever had in my life. Better than Nikki’s Place, better than 4 Rivers Smokehouse from 15 years ago, when you could always count on them to have great barbecue and sides, better than anywhere. These are the greens you’re looking for!

And my second side, which I also enjoyed back at home was the macaroni salad, a side item I am now in the habit of ordering anywhere and everywhere I see it on the menu. Just like my obsessions with onion rings, chili, and Italian subs, I can’t turn down macaroni salad or pasta salad, because everyone’s versions are different, and they’re almost all good to great. Well, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, this macaroni salad was GREAT. Once again, even though you’ve already heard this familiar refrain, this might be the best macaroni salad in the greater Orlando area. There was a bit of yellow mustard in it, along with the mayo, shreds of carrot, and bits of celery and onion, and the elbow macaroni was perfectly al dente. Perfect in every way.

I think Chef Tony Tone should consider offering a side sampler on his menu, where diners can choose anywhere from three to five sides for a fixed price (factoring in small upcharges for the mac and cheese and greens). Maybe someone doesn’t feel like heavy meats but really wants to sample as many sides as possible without paying $5.50 for a la carte portions or just getting one or two sides with a larger meal. I think that would be a big hit. Even though the fried chicken and fried catfish were both excellent, the fried ribs hit different in the best possible way, and the oxtail was on point, I thought all the sides were the stars of our huge and heavy lunch.

With all this said and done, I give a rousing recommendation to Chef Tony Tone and Candee Lee’s Soul House. All the food was a hit, even though I am not thrilled about missing out on the fried onions on top of my oxtails and the cole slaw and pickles on the chicken sandwich. Because the restaurant is an hour away in a direction I never travel in, sadly, I don’t think I will make it back down there, so I’ll never get to try the “complete” versions. But if you’re ever in the area or just craving soul food, I still encourage others to check it out. Just be on the lookout when you receive your food, and don’t hesitate to ask if anything seems to be missing. And if you come for oxtails on a Wednesday, call first to confirm when they will be ready, so you don’t kill two hours waiting around there like my very patient pal and I did.

Kai Kai

This week, I want to talk about Kai Kai (https://www.instagram.com/kaikai.bbq/), Jerry and Jackie Lau’s stall that serves up Cantonese barbecued meats, as beautiful as they are delicious. Kai Kai is located inside Mills Market, the new Asian food hall on East Colonial Drive between Mills and Thornton Avenues in Mills 50, arguably Orlando’s best foodie neighborhood. Last week’s review recipient UniGirl is one of Kai Kai’s neighboring stalls inside Mills Market, and so is former favorite Banh Mi Boy, that Vietnamese sandwich stall sandwiched between UniGirl and Kai Kai.
Before Mills Market opened last year, Kai Kai was located inside of iFresh Supermarket, the Asian market on the corner of East Colonial and Bumby Avenue (next door to Chicken Fire and Lam’s Garden!), but since then, Meng’s Kitchen has moved into the former Kai Kai space inside iFresh Market.

I swear I’m going to move on, but I feel the need to say that Kai Kai is not to be confused with Michelin-recommended Kai Asian Street Fare, one of my favorite restaurants in the Orlando area (just over the Casselberry border in Winter Park). Everybody still with me?

Well, I dare you to walk up to Kai Kai and not be entranced and enthralled by the barbecued ducks and chickens hanging on display… unless you’re a vegetarian, that is.

I appreciate that they have photos of all their dishes on display. I honestly wish more restaurants would do this.

Something else I appreciate about restaurants is when they offer some kind of sampler plate with two or three items to choose from so you can try a few things. I will almost always choose this option, whether it’s an American barbecue joint or a Cantonese restaurant like Kai Kai. If you order a “rice box,” you can choose two or three of the six house specialty meats. I, of course, went with three meats, which only costs $2 more than the two-meat option, so it seems like a no-brainer. I treated myself to roast duck, honey barbecue char siu pork, and soy sauce chicken (from top to bottom in the photo below).

The sliced meats are served over white rice with some garlicky sautéed bok choy, but you can pay a small upcharge for either fried rice or Hainanese garlic rice. I chose the garlic rice, and I have zero regrets. I strongly encourage my readers to do the same. But look at this gorgeous plate of food! It is huge and heavy, so much so that even *I*, chronic overeater that I am, easily got two and a half meals out of it.

Just because this is a feast for all the senses, including the eyes, here is a close-up of that lovely roast duck with crispy, crackly skin, and the tender, sweet, slightly sticky char siu pork beneath it:

And here is that soy sauce chicken, with lightly crispy skin as well.

They also offer honey barbecue chicken, honey barbecue ribs, and “crispy pork,” either in these rice boxes or by the pound or half-pound, but I feel like I made great choices. I’ll have to try the ribs next time, though!

I also brought home an order of beef chow fun — chewy, wide, flat rice noodles (made from scratch by Jackie Lau herself!) wok-fried with tender sliced beef, onions, and green onions in a savory brown sauce. Forgive me for not snapping a “noodle pull” pic, but I ate it too quickly. This is one of my go-to dishes at any Chinese restaurant, especially as a way to evaluate places that are new to me. If they have beef chow fun on the menu, I consider it a good sign, and if they do a good job of it, I feel more confident that anything else that comes out of the kitchen will be equally solid.

Spoiler alert: they did a great job of it.

On top of everything else, Kai Kai also serves Singapore rice noodles (another dish I love, the spicier the better), char siu pork lo mein noodles, young chow fried rice with shrimp, chicken, and pork, duck fried rice, and Chinese sausage fried rice, which I love so much that I will definitely try their version next time. But that’s not all! They also have an entire scratch-made dim sum menu featuring siu mai, multiple dumplings and bao buns, spicy Szechuan wings, and even cucumber salad (regular or spicy) that is probably super-refreshing to balance out all those heavy barbecued and roasted meats and fried noodle and rice dishes.

Obviously I enjoyed the food at Kai Kai, but I’m far from the only one. The latest round of Florida Michelin awards were announced on Friday, April 5th, and Kai Kai received a vaunted Michelin recommendation, alongside its Mills Market neighbors UniGirl and Banh Mi Boy, which both received Bib Gourmand awards. Congratulations go out to Jerry and Jackie Lau, who are absolutely killing it at Kai Kai. I look forward to returning, but in the meantime, there is magic happening in the stall kitchens of Mills Market. Whatever restauranteurs Johnny and Jimmy Tung of the Bento Group are doing to build their brands and spread the word, it is paying off!

Red Rooster Overtown (Miami)

This past weekend, I visited Miami, the city where I grew up but never felt at home, for the first time in a year and a half. I caught up with my parents and brother, then hung out with my best friend. We saw the legendary hip hop group De La Soul (my second-favorite hip hop group of all time, after A Tribe Called Quest), performing at a nice concert hall in downtown Miami. But before that legendary concert, we also ate what turned out to be one of the best meals of my life.

The restaurant was Red Rooster Overtown (https://www.redroosterovertown.com/), one of the many restaurants created by the Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, who opened his first Red Rooster location in Harlem. If you watched the Luke Cage TV series, Harlem’s badass hero for hire Luke Cage took his ladyfriend Claire Temple to eat at the original Red Rooster in season 2, episode 1. Back when that episode dropped in 2018, I looked it up to confirm it was a real place, checked out the menu, and remembered it when I learned a second location opened in Miami in 2019. But this was my first chance to dine there, and I’m so glad we did.

By the way, Overtown is a historic Black neighborhood in downtown Miami that has definitely undergone some gentrification in recent years. The Red Rooster building is literally standing in the shadows of expensive-looking high-rise condos, and we saw a “Museum of Ice Cream” and a Savage X Fenty lingerie boutique nearby. But make no mistake, this esteemed restaurant celebrates the vibrant history of Overtown and Miami’s cultural and culinary histories. The décor inside Red Rooster Overtown features artwork and artifacts on display in the beautiful dining room that celebrate and commemorate Black culture, including original covers and pages from different editions of the Green Book, safety guides for Black motorists, framed near the hostess stand.

Right above our table, I dug a gorgeous accordion, a cool old projector, and a reference book about the Black Panthers (not the superhero, but the unfairly vilified political activist organization that did a lot of good in so many underserved communities from the late 1960s to 1982).

Unlike the original Red Rooster in Harlem, which serves “elevated” soul food, Red Rooster Overtown combines soul food with Caribbean flavors, creating a fusion menu that is a perfect microcosm for Miami itself. Every dish on the menu looked amazing. I literally wanted to try everything, but my dude and I did try a bunch of stuff on our first (but hopefully not last) visit. We went to town!

We started with the best deviled eggs I’ve ever had, and I love deviled eggs. This quartet came sprinkled with Aleppo pepper, used the most in Syrian, Turkish, and Armenian cuisine, and each egg half was garnished with a crispy chicharron, or fried pork skin. We each got two deviled eggs, and like a good sushi roll, they were best eaten in one bite to ensure we experienced all the flavors and textures (soft and yielding, crunchy and crackly) all at once.

Next up, we shared another appetizer: cassava papas bravas. Cassava is probably better known as yuca, a starchy root vegetable that is usually boiled or fried, not unlike potatoes, and papas bravas are a Spanish dish with fried potatoes served with really cool stuff on them, like a spicy red sauce. I’ve tried yuca from countless Cuban and Puerto Rican restaurants, and I must admit I’ve never loved it, especially not when sweet ripe plantains (maduros) or good French fries are available. But this dish changed my mind and made me realize the heights that a talented chef could reach with the humble yuca.

These were perfectly chewy little orbs with lightly crispy fried exteriors, almost like the love child of gnocchi pasta and tater tots. They were served with red curry sauce, blistered tomatoes, cotija cheese (a salty, crumbly, dry Mexican cheese similar to feta or parmesan), and lime, so it was a feast of salt, fat, and acid that formed a perfect balance. They were sublime. Chef’s kiss, 10/10, no notes.

My buddy ordered the fried yardbird, because he likes fried chicken even more than I do. It came with three pieces, and I got the leg, which was magnificent. Juicy, tender, fried to perfection, crispy and well-seasoned breading, not greasy at all. Better still, it came with chili butter, house pickles, and braised collards, which I was very tempted to order separately until we realized it came with the fried chicken.
The braised collards are made with smoked turkey, and they were so damn fine — no getting funky on the mic for this batch of collard greens! I always order them whenever I see them on a barbecue or soul food menu, but these were the best greens I’ve ever had. In fact, “the best _____ I’ve ever had” is a running theme for this review.

I don’t know if I am famous for my love of oxtails, but I do love oxtails, and anyone who knows me knows that. However, my friend is not a fan, so I opted against trying the Guyanese oxtail pepper pot with sweet plantains, piquillo peppers, and coconut lime rice, even though that seems like a winning combination. He doesn’t dig on catfish either, so I skipped the Overtown fish fry, with fried catfish, red shrimp, and oxtail fried rice.

But since I have a lot of love for other tender, unctuous, bone-in braised meats, I ordered a new dish that had recently been added to the menu, the smoked jerk short rib, served with butter bean stew and fennel slaw. These short ribs were served sliced on top of the creamy butter bean stew, with with all the bones removed, and tender enough to cut with a fork. They were pleasantly spiced, but not spicy. The fennel “slaw” wasn’t much like any slaw I’ve ever had before — not creamy nor vinegary — but thin, almost shaved shreds of fennel bulb on top of the short rib slices added some crunch and herby-sweet flavor.
We both loved this one. I must admit it wasn’t the best short rib dish I’ve ever had (that was the Montreal-style smoked short rib dish I had at Abe Fisher, an Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant in Philadelphia that closed about a month after my wife and I ate like kings there in 2023), but it was probably the second-best short rib dish I’ve ever had.

We shared a couple of sides, too. We know how to party! The crispy brussels sprouts with shallot vinaigrette, topped with a snow flurry of finely shredded parmigiano reggiano cheese, was a savory, tart, umami adventure. I’m a sucker for anything with an interesting vinaigrette dressing, so that was a hit. I wish my brussels sprouts came out that well, but now I just need to experiment more.

And the charred candied yams with chili crunch (the hottest condiment around these days, rightfully replacing old and busted sriracha) and lime aioli was another feast for the senses, as beautiful as it was delicious, and full of wild flavors and interesting contrasting textures. I never would have ordered this one on my own, but I sure was happy to try it.

Finally, even though neither of us are the biggest dessert dudes, we split the key lime pie, which is always one of my favorite desserts anywhere. Since my wife doesn’t care for it, I never order it when I’m with her, but this pie was yet another platinum hit. It was served as a round tart rather than a typical slice from a larger pie, with a light graham cracker crust and topped with wonderful coconut meringue that went perfectly with the sweet, creamy, tart pie filling. The best key lime pie I’ve ever had is right here in Orlando, at Sister Honey’s Bakery, but this key lime pie/tart was damn fine in its own right.

So that’s my rundown of Red Rooster Overtown. I cannot rave enough about this place. I’ve had a handful of restaurant meals where every dish and every bite is better than the last, culminating in a culinary crescendo. The aforementioned Abe Fisher in Philly (RIP) was one of those for sure. This was another. Normally I would say that nothing could top a meal like that, but then we saw De La Soul, and Posdnous, Maseo, and special guest Pharoahe Monch filled that theater with love and joy. It was a perfect meal for the occasion — soul food before De La Soul. Upon researching more about Red Rooster to write this review, I discovered another connection: De La Soul founded The Spitkicker Collective, a group of Black musical artists and other creative people to engage in social activism, and Chef Marcus Samuelsson — the Red Rooster founder himself — also got involved. So our evening seemed preordained. I wonder if the group hung out and partied at Red Rooster Overtown after the show. Regardless, I’m so glad we went there before the show, and I certainly hope to return with my friend on a future trip to Miami.

And on that note, Red Rooster Overtown also offers a weekend brunch buffet with a DJ spinning, as well as a Sunday evening buffet with live jazz, with both buffet menus on the restaurant’s website (linked at the top of my review). Either of those would be a great excuse to go back, and buffets and jazz are two of my favorite things!

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!