Category: Cocktails

Guelaguetza (Los Angeles)

Guelaguetza (https://www.ilovemole.com/) is an Oaxacan Mexican restaurant in L.A.’s Koreatown, founded by chef-owner Bricia Lopez.  I first became aware of her as one of the guests on celebrity chef David Chang’s Netflix series Dinner Time Live, where he cooks for famous friends on an actual live (recorded) show from a set somewhere in L.A.  She was vivacious and telegenic, with a big, fun personality.  It almost seemed like she was auditioning for a cooking show of her own without even trying, and she really should get one.  I had never heard of her before, but I thought she had everything it takes to become a household name.  I looked Bricia Lopez up online, found out her parents founded Guelaguetza in 1994, they serve ancient family recipes, and she has even authored two Oaxacan cookbooks.  After reading the menu, I had been wanting to go there ever since.

I actually work and stay in Koreatown on my occasional work trips to L.A., but I mapped out the route, and it was too far to walk from either my work site or my hotel, and public transportation wouldn’t take me there easily.  Plus, I knew if I went there solo, there were so many things I would want to try, and the main thing I wanted would just be too much for a single diner.  I honestly don’t eat as much as I used to, I swear!  But I’m writing this review the day I had lunch at Guelaguetza with two of my wonderful local work colleagues.  I had been bugging them to go out to lunch with me, of course I had a list of suggestions, and this place was the most appealing to everyone.  It was the first time for all of us, and needless to say, everyone was thrilled.

We all ordered sparkling aguas frescas: lemon (left) and passion fruit (right).  I am deeply skeptical of any Mexican restaurants that don’t offer aguas frescas in at least a couple of different flavors.  I admit I like them better when they aren’t sparkling, but they were still nice and refreshing.  No free refills, though.

Freshly fried tortilla chips weren’t salted, but they were nice and crunchy and not too greasy.  They were topped with crumbled queso fresco and a thick, rich dark red sauce I figured was a type of mole.  It wasn’t spicy, but it was very savory and had a hint of chocolate.  More on that later, I swear!

My colleague suggested we order the molcajete de guacamole Oaxaqueño.  It wasn’t made tableside, but that’s really not necessary for me.  It was thinner guacamole than I’m used to, but it was so fresh and bright-tasting, with fresh lime, topped with cilantro, serrano peppers, diced tomatoes, and crumbled queso fresco, and it came with another order of (plain) chips.My well-traveled colleague said an authentic molcajete (the mortar bowl that guacamole and salsa are often mixed and served in, usually made of volcanic basalt rock) would have been in the shape of a pig, but that was news to me.  As a Florida Man, I’ve eaten plenty of Mexican food, but I’ve never seen a pig-shaped molcajete at any of our Mexican restaurants.  Of course, I’ve never found a Oaxacan restaurant anywhere in Florida!

This massive platter was the tlayuda Guelaguetza.  A tlayuda is a 15” crispy corn tortilla, handmade in Oaxaca from heirloom corn and grilled over fire.   It was layered with bean and chicharrón spread (mmmm, pork rinds), shredded cabbage, quesillo (salty shredded Oaxacan cheese), queso fresco (crumbled fresh cheese), pork cecina, pork chorizo, and beef tasajo.  The tlayuda itself was cut into slices like a pizza to make it easier to eat, and we just shared the meats. 

This is the pork cecina, pork loin that is rubbed or marinated in chile paste, pounded very thin, and air-dried before being grilled.  It was a bit dry, but it had so much flavor.

The chorizo sausage on the left may not be the most appetizing-looking, but it was one of my favorite things we tried at this sumptuous lunch.  Each round link was dark red on the inside, firm and slightly crumbly, and they could be easily cut or pulled apart.  It was much less greasy than any other Mexican chorizo I’ve ever had (I love chorizo, but it always drenches everything in orange grease, except this one), and the outer casing had a nice snappiness.  The beef tasajo on the right was salt-cured, pounded thin, air-dried, and grilled.  It tasted like really good carne asada, but was closer in consistency to high-quality beef jerky (just not as dry).

The thing I had been dying to try ever since discovering Chef Lopez and Guelaguetza was the Festival de Moles, a sampler of four different moles, the specialty of the house.  But that would be way too much food for one man, especially staying in a hotel room.  I was thrilled that my colleagues decided to join me, so we could share all this deliciousness.  The moles came on a long wooden serving board in four separate bowls that were all a lot deeper than they first appeared to be.  These first two were laden with pieces of boneless pork spare ribs.  On the left you see mole rojo, a “rich, spiced red mole featuring chilhuacle rojo and ancho chiles, heirloom tomatoes, toasted almonds, peanuts, sesame seeds, and aromatic spices.”  Despite the chiles, it was more savory than spicy.On the right you see mole estofado, a “mild almond-based mole balanced with raisins, olives, and pickled jalapeños, creating a uniquely sweet and savory profile.”  I didn’t fully read these descriptions until after we ate, so I never would have guessed it was almond-based, but I can tell you I’ve never had anything quite like it.  I thought the raisins and olives were interesting additions, especially because both of them end up in Cuban picadillo, a seasoned ground beef dish that otherwise has nothing in common with mole estofado, or any mole.

These other two moles came stuffed with shredded chicken breast.  On the left, you see mole negro, Guelaguetza’s “signature smoky black mole crafted from chilhuacle negro, ancho chiles, toasted almonds, peanuts, sesame seeds, and traditional spices.”  This was another banger.  On the right, you see mole coloradito, the same mole served on our complimentary chips at the beginning of the meal.  It is a “sweet and mildly spicy mole with guajillo chiles, toasted almonds, peanuts, sesame seeds, spices, and a subtle hint of chocolate.”

Damn, son.  I’ve tried a few mole dishes in my lifetime, but only ever thought they were okay.  I’ve even bought a jarred, pre-made version that was terrible.  I don’t think I could even finish the jar, which hurts, because I hate wasting food, but I couldn’t do it.  But these four moles were not just streets ahead, but worlds apart.  They were so rich and complex, I have never tasted anything like them, and I doubt I ever will again.  If you go to Guelaguetza, I strongly recommend ordering one of these moles, or ideally, drag friends and share this Festival de Moles.

Even the veggie rice that came with our Festival of Moles was delicious, although we couldn’t finish it.

My other colleague ordered something else I had my eye on: the memelita sampler with five memelitas, small corn tortillas each topped individually with chicharrón spread and queso fresco, with additional different toppings on each one.  From left to right, they were topped with pork cecina, nopal (cactus) salad, beef tasajo, quesillo (fresh, shredded, salty Oaxacan cheese, with the consistency of mozzarella string cheese), and papa con chorizo (diced potatoes with crumbled sausage), kind of like corned beef hash, but so much more flavorful.   
I ended up eating most of the nopal salad memelita, and it was wonderful. Again, I’ve had pickled nopal cactus from Florida taqueria salsa bars and even out of a can, but these were fresh, and there is nothing quite like them, especially combined with the flavor of fresh diced tomatoes on top.  They reminded me a bit of fiddlehead ferns, but maybe just texture-wise.

My female colleague’s birthday was the next day, so of course I had to mention it to our server.  He brought her a complimentary piece of flan with a candle and three spoons, and we serenaded her with “Feliz cumpleaños a ti” (or “Happy birthday to you” in Spanish).  I’m not a flan guy — never have been, even after growing up in Miami — but even I could appreciate this rich, decadent flan. 

So anyway, that’s how you should do Guelaguetza.  The three of us ordered a lot of food and still ended up with a bunch of leftovers, most of which I schlepped back to my hotel room, since at least I have a fridge and a microwave here.  It wouldn’t have been the same going alone, especially because I would not have been able to try so many of Chef Bricia Lopez’s mind-blowing Oaxacan dishes.  And the way the three of us ordered, I think we really maximized being able to taste as many different things on the menu as possible.  Props to them for having such good taste and being willing to share.  Plus, these two are always great company, and I’m grateful to be able to work with them and see them two or three times a year.

Several publications have named Guelaguetza one of the best restaurants in Koreatown, one of the best Mexican restaurants in all of L.A., and one of the best Oaxacan restaurants in the world, if not the best.  It deserves all of those fabulous superlatives and more, and it’s a huge, festive, fun place — perfect for a celebratory dinner or just a weekday lunch with co-workers you actually like.  Angelenos have no shortage of Mexican restaurants to choose from, but in my three years of traveling out to L.A., I am sure I’ve tried two of the best in the city: Holbox and now Guelaguetza.

Kaya

Kaya (https://www.kayaorlando.com/) is an upscale Filipino restaurant in Mills 50, Orlando’s best foodie neighborhood.  It is owned and operated by Chef Lordfer Lalicon and General Manager Jamilyn Salonga Bailey, who first made names for themselves with Kappo in Orlando’s East End Market food hall, then launched their award-winning omakase sushi restaurant Kadence.  I have not been lucky enough to go to either yet, but I’ve been aware of them for the longest time, and they seem like incredibly nice, hard-working, talented people who deserve all their accolades and local love.  Kaya first opened in 2022, and while I’ve been wanting to try it ever since, I finally made it there for the first time a few weeks ago.  Better late than never, because I had an unforgettable experience that I’ve been replaying in my head ever since.

I was actually meeting a friend for dinner on a rare weeknight I was off work: someone I also consider a mentor and a role model, Amy Drew Thompson, the food writer for the Orlando Sentinel.  This was my second time meeting Amy Drew in real life, and she is a delightful person who is so nice, so knowledgeable, and an amazing writer.  Kaya is one of her favorite local restaurants, and I was thrilled she was willing and able to meet me there.  Of course everyone at Kaya knew her, because she does so much for Orlando’s local food scene.  Jami came by to check on us a few times, and even Chef Lalicon (who everyone calls “Chef Lo”) popped out of the kitchen.  We sat at the bar, and the two bartenders, Daniel and a nice lady whose name I’m blanking on, took wonderful care of us.

They started us out with a mocktail called Hiraya, with white peony and marigold tea, pineapple juice, and lime juice, sprinkled with Sichuan peppercorns.  It was so refreshing!  It started with the unmistakable sweet taste of pineapple, but that quickly faded to something more botanical.  I’ve never tasted anything like those tea flavors, but it tasted like my wife’s shampoo smells (in a good way). 

The first dish to come out was Lumpiang Shanghai, an order of three very long, very crispy spring rolls, stuffed with seasoned pork and chicken and served with hibiscus sweet chili sauce.  I knew these as lumpia, and I’ve had them before (including when a very sweet student made them and brought me some, years ago), but with all due respect to her, I’ve never had anything close to these.  They set the tone for a multi-course meal where each dish was the most interesting thing I had ever tasted, until the next one came along and supplanted it.   

Kinilaw is a raw fish-based dish somewhat reminiscent of ceviche in Latin American countries, except where ceviche uses citrus juices to “cook” the fish, kinilaw utilizes vinegar for a similar purpose.  This gorgeous kinilaw incorporated madai, the Japanese word for red sea bream, a whole new fish I had never tasted before (although some of my research tells me the term is used interchangeably with red snapper, usually when it’s served as sushi).  Delicate raw slices of the madai were served with peaches, paper-thin slices of crunchy radish, coconut, and chili flakes, all arranged artfully on separate little crispy islands of puffed rice.  You can see five little radish slices, each one topping a piece of the madai, and there’s puffed rice under each one.  You would scoop up the whole little stack, and it is a perfect bite of food with so many textures and flavors.  Chef Lo used pinakurat, which is a spiced coconut vinegar (made from coconut sap).  I’ve bought the Suka Pinakurat brand before, at Orlando’s many Asian markets, since I love experimenting with different vinegars almost as much as I love mustards, but I never dreamed anyone could use it to create a dish on this level of complexity and beauty. 

This beautiful dish was Bicol Express mussels, served in a broth of coconut cream, Thai chilis, shallot, garlic, and bagoong, served with thick slices of pandesal toast for dipping in the rich broth.  I love mussels in any form, and this dish was the most unique way I’ve ever eaten them.  Bicol Express is a Filipino dish traditionally made with cubes of pork, rather than one of the best bivalves.

Bagoong, by the way, is a Filipino condiment made of fermented shrimp or krill cured in salt, which makes a  salty, savory, umami flavor.  It sounds intense and funky, but I didn’t notice anything intense or funky standing out to distract from the mussels or their creamy, spicy, coconutty broth.  But I like intense and funky!  (I’ve been told that I AM intense and funky!)

I wrote about pandesal, literally “bread of salt,” when I reviewed the Filipino-American fusion bakery-cafe The Baker’s Son in Kissimmee, this past December.  It is some of the most delicious bread I’ve ever tasted, similar to buttery brioche, Japanese milk bread, and French pain de mie, sharing their subtle sweetness.   As I’ve gotten older, and especially as I’ve cut way back on carbs, sometimes I just really appreciate good toast, and this pandesal toast was no joke, especially when used to sop up the broth and flex a couple of mussels.   

This was Ningang’s rigatoni, a take on the Filipino style of spaghetti, which is traditionally served with cut-up hot dogs and Spam in a sweet tomato sauce.  On my one trip to the Filipino fried chicken chain Jollibee, I was most excited to try a side order of that spaghetti, but I didn’t think it was anything special.  Kaya’s menu describes their version of the dish as “Filipino beef Bolognese, Spam, aged gouda, a touch of sweetness, a lot of love.”  You can taste the love in it, along with in everything else Chef Lo makes.  I love a good pasta dish, especially a meat sauce, and I really loved this rigatoni.  I would have a hard time returning to Kaya and not ordering this every time (among other things, natch).

I’ve written often about how one of my favorite meats is oxtail, whether it’s in Jamaican or Trinidadian cuisine, American soul food, or even in a steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho.  I was curious about trying Kaya’s oxtail kare kare, served in a rich peanut sauce with eggplant, bok choy, and a little dipping bowl of bagoong (in the top right, so you can see it by itself), but I’ve never tried or even seen oxtail like this.  Usually eating it is a messy affair, as you’re holding the irregularly shaped bone segments and chewing the tender meat and unctuous fat off them, and the bones are slippery enough that they can slip right out of your hands and go flying.  If my dad ever dared to eat oxtail, he would probably add it to his list of foods to not eat on a date, including most other hand-held meat with bones, and anything you have to “fight with” too much — crab legs that need to be cracked, shrimp that need to be shelled, and so forth.  But Chef Lo deboned all that rich meat and pressed it into a brick, then seared the outside to crispy perfection.  It was not only delicious and not only gorgeous, like everything else we were experiencing at Kaya, but he made it EASY.The oxtail kare kare was served with a side of buttery garlic rice called sinangag, which you must order separately (for $5) if your entree doesn’t come with it.

Because I was dining with a culinary luminary, Jami and Chef Lo sent us out these gambas: huge Cape Canaveral white shrimp, served with the heads on as well as the tails, in rich garlic butter, kalamansi verde, and preserved lemon.  Now these were messy, but what a festival of flavors and textures and colors! 
Kalamansi (sometimes called calamansi or calamondin) is a small, round citrus fruit, a hybrid of a kumquat and a Mandarin orange, and their juice is used in a lot of Filipino recipes.  Ripe ones are orange, but because the ones used in this recipe were kalamansi verde (green), they added sour notes because they weren’t ripe yet, perfectly balancing the richness of the garlic butter.  My wife says I love sour and tangy flavors more than anyone she’s ever met, which is one big reason I’m so crazy about Filipino cuisine.  (I also jokingly call myself the “acidic Jew” because of this.)  I have enjoyed kalamansi juice in cool, refreshing beverages before, including from the aforementioned The Baker’s Son (not that different from lemonade or limeade), and after a dear friend with a green thumb hooked me up with kalamansi from her own garden, I squeezed enough juice out of them to make my favorite dessert ever, a variation of Atlantic Beach pie.  (If you’re curious, drop me a line, sweet-toothed Saboscrivnerinos!)

Speaking of dessert, we were about to be blown away by the creativity of Kaya’s talented pastry chef, Chef Clarice Lam.  This was her Silvana Alaska, based on beloved Filipino cookies called Silvanas: two cashew-meringue wafers with a layer of buttercream between them, coated with cookie crumbs.  Chef Lam’s show-stopper was a gluten-free dessert with cashew meringue, ube French buttercream, blueberry compote, a dome-like layer of toasted Swiss meringue (hence the “Alaska” part, like the classic old-timey dessert baked Alaska), tiny cubes of blueberry jellies, and surrounded by a sweet, creamy moat of ube crème anglaise.By the way, ube is a purple yam that is definitely having a moment, being used in all kinds of desserts.  My wife loves the ube soft serve ice cream at Sampaguita Filipino Ice Cream, mere moments away from Kaya, but I’ve never had a dessert of this level of complexity, with or without ube.

Once we split into the meringue dome, this is what the Silvana Alaska looked like inside.  (I think my photo looks like a big fish opening its mouth, with the blueberry jelly cube as its eye, but that was not my intention.)

I am so proud of my wife, who has been trying all kinds of new foods lately.  Even though she wasn’t with us at this dinner (arguably having even more fun than we were, seeing her beloved Tori Amos in concert), I selected another tempting dish to bring home for her to enjoy later.  We both love squid ink pasta (I call it “Goth pasta”), and this was Kaya’s squid ink pancit: house-made spaghetti noodles topped with calamari rings, adobo sauce, black garlic aioli, and pandesal bread crumble.  It was magnificent.  We both sampled it later that night, after I picked her up from the concert, and she got two more whole portions out of it the next day.

Folks, I cannot stress how awe-inspiring this meal was.  I rarely go out to dinner because of my odd work schedule, but if Kaya was open for lunch (it isn’t), I’m sure I would have tried it years ago.  Instead, I’m late to the party, but this was, without a doubt, the absolute #1 best meal I’ve ever eaten in my 22 years in Orlando, and in the Top Five meals of my entire life.

I can tell you three of the others right now:

    • Babbo in NYC for our honeymoon in 2009, before we knew what a shit Mario Batali was,
    • Chef Michael Solomonov’s elevated Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant Abe Fisher in Philadelphia in 2023, which closed not long after our visit up there to see Le Tigre, so I never got around to writing about it, and
    • Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster Overtown in Miami, before seeing De La Soul in 2025.

But I was wowed by every part of the Kaya experience: not just the once-in-a-lifetime dishes my friend/mentor and I shared, but the professionalism of our bartender-servers, Jami’s warmth and kindness, the decor, the unbridled creativity of Chef Lo and Chef Lam, and the way the whole place — the whole experience — feels like a labor of love and a way of sharing a cuisine and a culture that too many Americans have yet to experience.  The website lists Kaya’s values with their names in Tagalog, and I really needed to share these, because you don’t see restaurants with a mission statement all that often, and they really exemplify all these beautiful, noble, lofty ideals:

    • Pamilya: We treat our team and guests like family. We practice radical hospitality so that our guests feel a sense of belonging and ease. We create space to be present for our families.
    • Kapwa + Bayanihan: We care deeply about community. We treat one another with love, look out for each other, and lift one another up. We build a model that allows us to be full, whole humans in right relationship with one another.
    • Utang Na Loob: We respect and honor our community, elders, and ancestors, as well as the land and its resources. We take a no/low-waste, sustainable approach, and we celebrate the beauty and richness of our heritage.
    • Mapanlikha: We move from a place of possibility, learning from the past and our experiences while actively creating our vision for the future. We pay close attention to how we can constantly improve while shaping the narrative of what’s possible.

Nothing about this epic experience was “mid” or forgettable, nor was it snooty or snobby or inaccessible.  Nobody was going through the motions.  Even with my own hang-ups about fine dining (that it isn’t meant for people like me), I never felt like an impostor or a sellout or a disappointment to my parents.  It was a close to perfect as a meal could be, and I had a blast!  Kaya has clearly earned its Michelin Green star for sustainability, and deserves to be in that rarified pantheon of top restaurants in Orlando, if not all of Florida, but I feel like it deserves a regular star as well, if not two.  By the way, according to the website, “kaya” means capable in Tagalog, and “kaya natin” means we can.   They are beyond capable, and not only can they, but they do.

And as much as I hoped to return to Kaya sooner rather than later, I surprised myself by returning just a few weeks later — yesterday, in fact!  But it wasn’t for another dinner, not this time.  Instead, Executive Pastry Chef Clarice Lam hosts an event called Kapé Kaya, a daytime bakery concept featuring her awe-inspiring pastries, every Saturday, from 9:30 AM until 12 PM.  I’ve seen pictures of her past creations, but this was a rare treat: the second of three Kapé Kaya events where she teams up with another local restaurant hero: Chef Tyler Brunache of SmokeMade Meats + Eats, my favorite barbecue restaurant in Orlando that won Michelin Bib Gourmand awards for “good quality, good value cooking” in 2025 and 2026.

This was like when Jack White teamed up with Norah Jones… or when Jack White teamed up with Alison Mosshart from The Kills… or when Jack White teamed up with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest!  Or maybe like the too-rare team-ups between Daredevil and Captain America, a pairing that makes all the sense in the world even though you don’t automatically think of them as obvious partners.  I had to be there, so I arrived around 8:45 AM, and there were already about 30 people ahead of me, waiting in line outside Kaya.  The heat and humidity didn’t get too bad until around 9:30, but they moved things along pretty well inside.  In the meantime, we studied the menu:

Jami came outside to announce when they were finally opening up, and I couldn’t believe she recognized me after meeting me once, a few weeks ago.  (I was also somewhat incognito, wearing sunglasses and my “I Love Research” bucket hat under the baking morning sun, looking like the nerdiest rapper ever, and she still recognized me and gave me a hug.)  When I finally got in, they had all the gorgeous pastries on display on the bar, with labels and prices.  You order and pay up front, then wait for the staff to assemble your order in large pink bakery boxes. 

I thanked Chef Lam on the way out the door, and even though I had considered doing it, I refrained from doing my Anthony Hopkins-as-Hannibal Lecter impression, greeting her with “Hello, Clarice.”  She’s probably heard it before, and Mads Mikkelsen was the better Hannibal Lecter anyway, by far.  (I said what I said.)  I was on my way by 10:15, leaving me enough time to make it to donate blood in Altamonte Springs by my 11 AM appointment time.  As usual, I brought a cooler with me to keep my Kapé Kaya treats safe and cool in this awful summer heat.

Back at home, this is a close-up of my brisket bear claw, which had buttery, flaky layers like the best croissant you’ve ever had.

This was the longganisa sausage bun, and keep in mind this was all one interconnected thing!  I’ve been lucky enough to catch Chef Tyler’s longganisa sausage as a weekend special at SmokeMade, and I love how sweet and savory it is.  All his house-made sausages have a perfect crispy natural casing, and Chef Lam’s dough was kind of like a savory danish pastry, not flaky and layered like the bear claw.

I love macaroni salad and always enjoy the slightly sweet taste of surimi (imitation “krab”) in sushi and poke, so I couldn’t resist the krab macaroni salad puff pastry tart.  It was so refreshing, especially compared to the other two heavier pastries, and the tart shell was flaky and light.

Here they are on a plate, so you can see a cross-section of the brisket bear claw with all those laminated dough layers and smoked brisket, gouda cheese, pickles, and barbecue sauce inside.  Upon tearing into it, it reminded me of a cross between a croissant and the Cuban pastelitos I grew up eating in Miami, sometimes stuffed with seasoned ground beef called picadillo.

And here are my sweet choices.  One the left, I got the mango coconut croissant bibingka, because I thought it was something my wife and I would both like, whereas I figured the savory pastries above would be all mine.  This thing was so dense and rich, we’re both slowly working our way through it over 36 hours later, a bite or two at a time.  Like so many other Filipino dishes, bibingka is new to me, so I looked it up.  Serious Eats never lets me down: it is a “coconut-flavored, banana-leaf scented rice cake topped with caramelized coconut strips.”  However, not having had prior bibingka experience, I would have guessed it was more like a bread pudding, since that’s what the texture and consistency felt like to me.  I loved the mango puree on top.  It was so good, but a little goes a long way.The same could be said for Chef Lam’s “thick’em cookie,” the one thing my wife actually requested.  This is a huge cookie, even bigger than the ones from Gideon’s Bakehouse.  The edges were crispy, but the rest was soft and yielding, which I always prefer in my cookies.  There were chocolate chunks, corn flakes, and some fancy salt crystals sprinkled on top.  My wife was in heaven, and she has also been nibbling away at the cookie because you can’t just devour it.  This plate was surprisingly heavy with both of these on it.

So that was my amazing Kapé Kaya experience, just weeks after my first dinner at Kaya.  I am posting this NOW because there is one more scheduled Kapé Kaya crossover with SmokeMade Meats and Eats, and that is next Saturday morning, August 1st.  I’ll probably be seeing the next Spider-Man movie before the Internet can spoil it all for me, but all my dozens of readers should do whatever it takes to be at Kaya before the line gets too long and the heat gets too unbearable.  Spider-Man is supposed to team up with the Hulk and the Punisher, but the best team-up in Orlando is going to be happening right at Kaya, and you don’t want to miss it!

Wine 4 Oysters

Wine 4 Oysters (https://www.wine4oysters.com/) is a friendly neighborhood restaurant and bar with a nautical theme and a seafood-centric menu.  It has been on my radar for years, but it’s in East Orlando, at 1957 South Alafaya Trail in the Publix plaza, south of the sprawling Waterford Lakes shopping plaza and State Road 408, in a part of town I NEVER go to, so I had never made it… until two weeks ago.  I timed my visit with my wife for 4 PM on a very rare Friday off, to be there when Wine 4 Oysters opens, snag one of their few booths, and take advantage of their happy hour specials.

This is the counter.  I appreciate any blue decor in restaurants, which I find soothing and comforting. 

Here is the opposite side of the dining room.  There are two half-booths in the very front, up against the front window that lets in lots of natural light, and you can see the one other half-booth in the back. 

We both studied the menu in advance, but my wife was more prepared than I.  She knew exactly what she wanted, and she defaulted to two time-tested favorite dishes.  The first one was baked brie, which came in a ramekin, melty and warm, topped with walnuts.  They served it with toasted bread, cranberry sauce, and apple wedges on the side.  I love cheese, but brie honestly does nothing for me, so this was all her.  She doesn’t eat a lot, so she brought quite a bit of this home to enjoy the next day.

As for me, I love oysters, but they are such a rare treat for me.  I realize I haven’t had oysters in well over a year, but we’ve been dealing with some very stressful health-related situations lately, and I also had some good things happen at work that we haven’t had a chance to celebrate or even acknowledge.  Since we were finally at Wine 4 Oysters during their happy hour, I said “screw it” (actually, I said something a little more adult) and ordered 30 plump Gulf oysters for the excellent price of $35.  My wife doesn’t like raw oysters, so I ate them all myself… and I’d do it again.  They were so cool and refreshing, and so far, I am not regretting it. 

The oysters came with accompaniments: the lemon wedges and cocktail sauce above, plus hot sauce, a French mignonette with shallots in red wine vinegar, a different mignonette with jalapenos and lemon, and grated horseradish in the cylindrical container.  I tried them all in various combinations and permutations, and it was nice.  It was just nice being there, out on a rare Friday date with my wife, who has been through so much lately, enjoying a huge platter of one of my favorite “sometimes foods,” going through the ritual of topping them with various acidic accoutrements to enhance their fresh, briny flavor.

At happy hour (which is 4 to 6 PM, Monday through Friday), in addition to the 30 Gulf oysters for $35, Wine 4 Oysters also offers 30% off James River oysters from Virginia, oyster shooters, and cocktails.  And on Wednesdays, I believe they run an all-you-can-drink wine special, so bohemians, wine moms, and UCF students, just be careful, that’s all I ask.

I am always a sucker for smoked fish dip, that Old Florida standard that has infinite variations, but it’s almost always great.  Like Italian subs, chili, and onion rings, I will almost always order smoked fish dip if I see it on a menu, so I was immediately drawn to the house smoked tuna dip at Wine 4 Oysters.  It was presented as a large scoop over a spring mix salad with wasabi dressing, accompanied by long, thin, unsalted flatbread-style crackers (Sixty Vines serves similar ones).  I was a little disappointed that the “dip” was more like the consistency of tuna salad, rather than a creamy dip.  It tasted good because I happen to like tuna salad a lot, but it wasn’t what I expected or hoped for.  I blame myself rather than the restaurant.  The taste and texture made me think it was made from regular canned tuna fish rather than ahi tuna or some other higher-grade tuna.  I’ve made similar-tasting tuna salad at home, sometimes with a splash (or more) of liquid smoke, so even though it was fine, and I ate every morsel, it didn’t blow me away.

One thing my wife will always order on a menu is octopus.  She loves those tender, brainy cephalopods!  This lemon garlic octopus came with one large, heavily seasoned, super-garlicky tentacle, plus a mountain of white rice with some seasoning on top, a scoop of relatively thin baba ghanoush, and a mixed greens salad with pomegranate dressing, probably made from pomegranate molasses.  She loves baba ghanoush too (and she orders that anywhere it is available), so this was a winning combination for her. That said, since she was pretty full from the baked brie and doesn’t eat that much to begin with, she only tried a tiny bit of the octopus at the restaurant.  We (mostly she) brought home a bunch of leftovers, and she had more of the octopus the following day, just chilled, straight out of the fridge.  She said it was much tastier the following day, eaten cold!

Finally, I thought we would both enjoy the Russian beef pelmeni dumplings, and we did.  They were pretty much what I hoped for, with thin, chewy dumpling wrappers, similar to Chinese wontons and the wonderful, beautiful manty dumplings we enjoyed so much recently at Uzbek restaurant Chayhana, but with seasoned beef filling.  They were served in a pool of melted butter and topped with a dollop of rich sour cream and plenty of parsley.  Both of us enjoyed these quite a bit.  I don’t know if they were handmade (because you can buy frozen pelmeni from multiple brands at Green Hills Supermarket, the huge Russian and Eastern European grocery store in Altamonte Springs), but it doesn’t matter, because they might have been my favorite part of the entire meal. 

I don’t know when I’ll make it back to Wine 4 Oysters, but it’s the kind of place more people should know about, so here I am, boosting the signal.  I love oysters so much, and even though I’ll always sing the praises of High Tide Harry’s and The Osprey, two of my favorite restaurants in the entire Orlando metropolitan area, it is always good to have options.  Wine 4 Oysters is another fine oyster option, especially for people living on the east side of town.

Talay

Talay (https://www.talayorlando.com/) is one of the newer and more upscale Thai restaurants in Orlando, located in the “North Quarter” on 861 Orange Avenue, right before you cross East Colonial Drive into downtown Orlando.  I took my wife there for lunch a few weeks ago, and we had a nice meal in the spacious dining room, which was surprisingly empty.  I’m sure it gets crazy crowded later on, though.  Everything is light wood and creamy colors, making the space feel modern and elegant.  There are some booths inside, and there is even more seating outside, on an inviting covered patio.

As usual, my wife started her with a creamy and refreshing Thai iced tea:

We ordered four different things, intending to share most of them and end up with leftovers.  A few were relatively small portions, so it all worked out.

This was salmon chae nam pla, an appetizer with thin slices of raw salmon (each garnished by a paper-thin slice of pickled garlic), two little clusters of salmon roe, and mint leaves, all displayed on a sea of spicy cilantro chili-lime dressing.  The dressing was too spicy for my wife, so I ended up eating most of these.  I must be part bear (I definitely look like a bear), because I never tire of devouring raw salmon.   

We also shared goong ob woon sen, a dish neither of us had ever tried before, or even noticed on any other Thai menus before.  It included plump shrimp served with their tails on, glass noodles (traditionally made from mung bean or sweet potato starch, which turn translucent), thin slices of bacon, black pepper, sesame oil, celery, ginger, “Talay’s signature wok sauce,” and cilantro chili relish served on the side.  Those leaves in the middle are a tiny celery stick garnish sticking out.   

You wanted a noodle pull?  Well here’s a noodle pull! This was a good dish, and the noodles had a nice chew to them.  I didn’t pick this one, and I didn’t know what to expect (other than “bacon is always good”), but it all came together.

I finally got my wife into my favorite Thai dish that I used to order all the time as a benchmark of any new Thai restaurant, pad kee mao (sometimes spelled pad kee mow, and also known as drunken noodles).  As long as she orders it mild, she loves it as much as she loves her old go-to, pad Thai.  This was Talay’s pad kee mao, a stir-fried sensation with flat rice noodles (always so nice and chewy), green and red bell peppers, Thai basil, chili, and Talay’s spicy wok sauce, which they surely toned down for her.  She chose crispy duck as the protein (for a small upcharge), and the duck was wonderful — tender, juicy, battered and fried to perfection.  We are both big duck fans.   

And as for me, I panicked.  So many things sounded good, and I know for a fact I won’t make it back to this spot very often.  Instead of going with a familiar favorite, I wanted to try something more unique off Talay’s Signature menu, since they have so many elevated dishes you can’t find just anywhere.  I decided to go with something I always love on any menu, whether it’s a seafood shack or a Thai restaurant, soft shell crab.  This was pu nim tod kra tiam, crispy soft-shell crab served with garlic, pepper, and a savory brown sauce.  It ended up being a new twist on an old classic, and it was much less heavy than it looks here.   

It came with white rice on the side, which I mixed in to gather all the sauce under the crab, and I asked to try the roasted chili relish, which costs $3 extra.  All I got was the little ramekin on the right, and it was interesting.  It definitely had some sweetness and funky umami, maybe from fish sauce.

Due to the location, I don’t expect we will become regulars at Talay, especially since I bring home takeout much more often than we dine out.  But Talay is definitely one of the nicer Thai restaurants in Orlando, and it would be a fantastic place for a date or a big night out.  It reminded me of Lim Ros Thai Cuisine that way, another Thai restaurant that is a little more elegant and elevated than usual.  Both feature lush, sexy vibes, rather than the “hominess” of the more old-school Thai restaurants we honestly end up at more often (like Thailicious in Longwood).  But I can’t say anything bad about either of them, and if you already know Talay, I’m sure you can’t think of anything negative about it either.  If I ever do make it back, what should I order next time?  I’m always happy to try anything new!

Lazy Moon Pizza

Lazy Moon Pizza (https://www.lazymoonpizza.com/) was one of the first pizzerias and “cool” restaurants I discovered when I moved to Orlando in late 2004.  The original location opened around that same time, in a small shopping center on University Boulevard and Alafaya Trail, across the street from the massive University of Central Florida in east Orlando.  Almost all the businesses in there were locally owned and operated, including Lazy Moon and Mama Millie’s Jamaican Kitchen, which was my first Jamaican restaurant in Orlando.

That original Lazy Moon reminded me of the divey college town establishments I loved back in Gainesville.  It wasn’t the least bit corporate-feeling, bright, or shiny.  There was a wall covered with stickers, they served pizza by the gigantic slice, and they had a $5 special called “Boxcar Willie,” a slice and a Pabst Blue Ribbon.  (It is $7 now, which isn’t too bad compared to how inflation has hit so many other things.)  Sadly, that shopping center was demolished several years ago to make way for a high-rise apartment building for college students.  The ground floor is full of restaurants, but mostly chains (maybe all chains by the time of this writing).

Luckily, Lazy Moon reopened a few blocks west on University Boulevard, then opened a second location East Colonial Drive in the Mills 50 District (Orlando’s best neighborhood for dining) in late 2016.  Most recently, a third location opened in Maitland, closest to me.  I recently paid two separate visits to that Maitland location, and they were my first tastes of Lazy Moon’s pizza in close to a decade, back when the Mills 50 location had just opened.  I was thrilled to say that the huge slices were as huge and tasty as always, ever since my earliest visits to that dingy dive near UCF 20 years ago.

This was a plain cheese slice I used for a “control”: the basis upon which to evaluate Lazy Moon’s crust, cheese, sauce, and their delicate balance.  If a pizzeria can’t produce a good plain cheese slice, all the premium toppings in the world won’t make it a good pizza.  Luckily, this was as good a pizza as I remember.  Not super-gourmet, which is fine, and similar to a New York-style slice, just a lot larger.  It is so thin and crispy, and it doesn’t flop when you pick it up or fold it.  And if you’re going to pick it up, you almost have to fold it.  My only complaint about Lazy Moon is the thickness of the crust, when they could probably cover more surface area with sauce and cheese.  You can see how large it is compared to a normal-sized plate, fork, and knife.  That’s the normal slice size!

This was a combination of caramelized onions and roasted red peppers, two of my favorite ingredients in anything: sandwiches, salads, pasta, and definitely pizza. 

I noticed Lazy Moon served chili, but maybe they always had, and I was too single-minded to notice.  This time, I tried a bowl.  I love chili and always have to try it whenever it is on a menu somewhere, since every bowl is different and has its own merits.  This was a pretty good, standard red chili with ground beef, kidney beans, tomatoes, and pretty typical chili spices (cumin, paprika, etc.), garnished with shredded cheddar cheese.  It was really tasty and savory, but not spicy by any standard.  I liked it and recommend it, especially now that we finally have some chilly (chili) weather.  In fact, it inspired me to cook a pot of my own chili not that long after.  Fear not, vegetarians and vegans, because Lazy Moon also serves a hearty vegetable chili with zucchini, squash, and beans simmered in “mild chili spices.”  I haven’t tried it, but you may want to.  You can even order giant slices of pizza with either the regular beef chili or the vegetarian chili on them!

On a second visit, I decided to try Lazy Moon’s alternative sauces for their pizza, even though I am usually a tomato sauce purist.  This was a plain cheese slice with their tomatoey, smokey, slightly sweet barbecue sauce, just for the heck of it:

And this right here was the main reason I returned, to try their limited-time French onion slice, with broth-simmered caramelized onions, gruyère, asiago, and mozzarella cheese, and finely diced chives over their mustard base sauce.  It sounded delicious on this chilly day, and it did not disappoint.  It wasn’t drippy or soggy, but held up well and had a nice crisp crunch like all their other slices.  I love French onion soup, and I love mustard, but it had never occurred to me to try their mustard-based sauce before.  The mustard flavor was extremely subtle, probably more like a Dijon than a bright, overpowering mustard.

Lazy Moon makes much of their Cuban sandwich-inspired pizza, with ham, mojo criollo-marinated pork, dill pickles, and mozzarella over that mustard sauce, but I’ve never tried that one.  I like Cuban sandwiches and I like pizza, but it always seemed like kind of a lot.  Even though I really do consider myself a pizza purist, and I greatly prefer tomato-based sauces, this French onion slice was a real winner.  But I’m publishing this review now because it is only available through “early January” (as per their Facebook post on December 22nd, 2025).  So if you are intrigued, get out there ASAP to try it!  By the way, the Mills 50 location did not have the French onion slice today (Tuesday, December 30th), but Maitland did, so maybe call your closest Lazy Moon first, before schlepping out to it.

In addition to the tomato, barbecue, and mustard sauces, they also offer pesto and whipped ricotta sauces for their pizza, which both sound good.

While I don’t think Lazy Moon Pizza will win over the most stereotypically loud and proud New Yawk transplants (because those people can’t lower their standards enough to enjoy any local pizza, probably because of dah watah), it is a fine place to get a huge, crispy slice with some interesting toppings and maybe enjoy a beer or cocktail with friends.  All three current locations are casual and laid-back, with more modern, welcoming ambience than the ’90s college town dive bar vibes of the original, which I do miss terribly.  But I like the new places too, especially the Maitland location.  Regardless, don’t let that French onion slice pass you by, since the clock is ticking on it!  That and a bowl of chili would be such perfect comfort food on a week like this, here at the end of 2025.

Pho Bar Vietnamese Kitchen

Pho Bar Vietnamese Kitchen (https://phobar.co/) has two locations in South Florida and one in Boston, but I didn’t label this review of its relatively new Orlando location with my “Chain Reactions” tag because it doesn’t feel like a chain… at least not yet.  I recently went to Pho Bar for the first time, looked at the menu in person, but ordered everything as takeout to bring home to my wife.

She always wants summer rolls from any Vietnamese or Thai restaurant, so I brought her these two HUGE spring rolls (that’s what Pho Bar calls them, even though I think of spring rolls as the crispy deep-fried ones), with shrimp, pork, shredded lettuce, bean sprouts, and basil wrapped in rice paper and served with a peanut-hoisin sauce for dipping.  These were much larger than most restaurants’ versions of summer rolls, and they came individually wrapped in plastic wrap.  I should have waited for her to unwrap them before snapping this picture, but oh well.

I thought we would both enjoy splitting the grilled satay squid, which is always an impressive dish to me.  The presentation is eye-catching for sure, with the grilled squid sliced into perfect rings and separate tentacles.  It was seasoned with a chili soy marinade, and while I liked it, she didn’t love the flavor of this squid.  It was chewier than we are both used to, and I give the edge to the similar-but-superior grilled squid at Z Asian Vietnamese Kitchen, just a few minutes east on Colonial Drive.   The two sauces that came with the squid are ginger fish sauce, which was on the pungent side, and “green chili sauce,” which I really loved.  It had a kick, but also a cool sort of flavor.  I admit I used most of that sauce on some pork loin I marinated, roasted, and sliced very thin.

Like any good Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Bar packed our pho broth separately, so the rice noodles wouldn’t turn to mush while sitting in the hot brother.  Unlike a lot of pho places, Pho Bar makes their rice noodles fresh in-house, and you can see they are wider than the traditional dried “rice sticks.”  But for purists, they also offer traditional rice vermicelli instead.  My wife always orders pho tai, with beef eye round, sliced paper-thin.  It is always served rare, because it cooks in the steaming broth.  

I will usually order pho dac biet, which comes with thin-sliced eye round, sliced brisket, chewy beef meatballs (nothing like Italian meatballs!), beef tendon, and tripe.  But at Pho Bar, I was tempted by a more expensive option, pho suon bo, with brisket, meatballs, and short rib, which is a cut of beef I always love.  Here’s my bowl before I added broth to it, but the short rib was too large to fit:

That was a whole meal in itself, so I ended up with the short rib standing alone at the end!  It was a huge piece of meat, rich and marbled with fat, and the long bone slid right out.  We had so much extra broth left over, I cooked up some noodles (the knife-cut Taiwanese noodles with fluted edges that I always keep in the pantry, not proper rice noodles for pho) and got a whole extra meal with that giant short rib. 

And as we’re about to experience some unseasonably cold days here in the Orlando area, I still have even more of Pho Bar’s pho broth left over, so I have since bought some rice noodles for when I heat up the rest.  This is going to be perfect weather for pho, which is why I’m publishing this review today, of all days.

I still contend the pho at my beloved Pho Huong Lan is the best in Orlando, and I am more likely to return there than to Pho Bar.  But I’m certainly glad I tried the new place.  It wasn’t bad by any means, even if neither of us loved the grilled squid.  If you’re planning to dine in at Pho Bar, the restaurant itself is much nicer than Pho Huong Lan — less cramped, modern decor, comfortable booths.  I expect it will do well in the Mills 50 neighborhood, even with so much competition within the same few blocks.  It feels like more of a “date place,” complete with full bar (hence the name).  The website lists a whole menu of cocktails in addition to beer, wine, and sake, or as hipster foodie influencers prefer to call it, a “cocktail program.”

Bites and Bubbles

Bites and Bubbles (https://www.bitesbubbles.com/), located in the Mills Park shopping area at 1618 North Mills Avenue in Orlando, serves contemporary American cuisine with European flair.  You might detect a slight French accent (hon hon hon).  It is located right next door to Yamasan, a Japanese restaurant my wife and I loved when we discovered it this past summer.  Now we have two new favorites next door to each other!

Bites and Bubbles is owned and operated by Eddie Nickell and Nicholas Olivieri, two restauranteurs who have had other successes around Orlando over the years.  My wife and I had dined at two of their past restaurants, Prickly Pear (a Southwestern concept in downtown Orlando, bringing a much-needed and now much-missed cuisine to town) and Bananas (a diner that was the previous tenant of the current King Cajun Crawfish space in the Mills 50 neighborhood), and I always liked them.  We never made it to Funky Monkey or Nick’s Italian Kitchen, but those were their places as well, and some of my readers may share fond memories from all of their spots.  But it seems like Bites and Bubbles has been Nick and Eddie’s greatest hit so far, and now I see exactly why.  The menu is incredible, and the service was impeccable.

I had been wanting to come here for several years, but because it is not open for lunch or on Sundays, I work late during the week, and my wife and I rarely go out to dinner (believe it or not), it felt like the universe was conspiring to keep us away.  But finally, with about a week left in Orlando’s annual Magical Dining promotion, we made it for dinner on a weeknight and were able to snag a reservation for a comfortable table indoors.  They also have a covered outdoor patio and rooftop seating that must be lovely in the winter, but it was still too muggy in September, and it also looked like rain.

For those who are unfamiliar, Magical Dining comes around every September, when some of the nicest restaurants in and around Orlando offer a special prix fixe menu where you choose an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert (from a list of three or four of each) for either $40 or $60, and some of the bill goes to support a different charity every year.  This year, the charity is the REED Charitable Foundation, which promotes children’s literacy, specifically reading instruction and educator training.  As if we weren’t already on board with the concept, I’m a librarian, and my wife, Doctor Professor Ma’am, is a college professor, so the cause is near and dear to our hearts.  I’m so glad all these restaurants are helping.

And on top of the charitable donations, Magical Dining is a perfect opportunity to try new restaurants that tend to be more on the upscale side (which we rarely go to), and to sample more dishes than you normally might.  Bites and Bubbles offers a $40 menu, which was definitely easier to swallow than the $60 options elsewhere, and it included most of the decadent dishes on their regular menu.  That’s an offer we could no longer refuse, so it was the ideal time to finally visit.

The interior is a beautiful space with sexy decor, blending baroque and modern styles.  There are plenty of red accents to break up the darker colors, and here in late September, they have put up some tasteful Halloween decorations (note the skull on the bar below).  There are no booths, but we were seated at a table with comfortable chairs.

They offer a huge wine list (I believe curated by Nick), lots of beers, and a vast selection of cocktails with clever names.  My wife is always happy to see mocktails available, so she ordered this drink called a gingerberry fizz that was spicy ginger beer (non-alcoholic, natch) mixed with cranberry juice and garnished with a slice of lime.  She liked it, and it sounded really refreshing.  She hates spicy food, but loves really spicy ginger beer.  That stuff is nothing like the ginger ale people drink on airplanes!

Our server Julian dropped off the first of many special surprises of the evening: an unexpected appetizer featuring house-made pimento cheese (always a favorite of mine) topped with jammy roasted tomatoes in one bowl, some vegetables in another bowl (fresh carrots, marinated gigante beans, pickled okra, fresh and crunchy carrots, and a slice of grilled eggplant), and some toasted baguette slices and water crackers for spreading and dipping.  I didn’t even know this was an option, and it definitely wasn’t part of the Magical Dining menu!  Note the whimsical Halloween-inspired three-bowl setup, too.

My wife loves winter root vegetables, so she was very tempted by the butternut squash bisque, even though it wasn’t one of the Magical Dining options.  Since we are a fun couple who know how to party, she went for it.  The bisque was thick, rich, creamy, savory, and slightly sweet, and that is whipped cream and some toasted pepitas in the center.  It was a perfect soup for the fall (by which I mean the season, but it would also be a comforting soup to take the edge off the end of civilization).

For her Magical Dining appetizer, she chose the escargot, which I would have definitely ordered if she didn’t.  It was a generous portion of gastropods for this pair of gastronomes, and it was so nice that they were all removed from shells and resting in the thick, savory brandy mustard crème sauce.  (The three shells were strictly decorative, but including the shells is de rigueur for serving escargot, whether you have to dig them out of the shells or not.)  For those who haven’t tried escargot, yes, they are snails.  They are traditionally served in garlic and butter, so they taste like garlic and butter, but these had an interesting flavor, both earthy and ocean-y, plus what they picked up from the sauce.  They have the consistency of mushrooms, a little firmer and chewier than tinned oysters or mussels. Did I use that nice toasted bread to soak up all the brandy mustard crème sauce?  You better believe it.

My Bites and Bubbles-obsessed friend had told me you could order a second appetizer for Magical Dining instead of a dessert, and our wonderful server Julian confirmed that.  I would have loved to try all four of the apps, but we made out like bandits, being able to get three of the four.

This app is their fried goat cheese, which is a large, round patty covered with crispy, golden-brown panko bread crumb and almond breading.  The inside was equal parts creamy and funky, like goat cheese should be.  It was served on a toasted baguette slice, topped with more of those terrific roasted tomatoes, and served with the most delicious fruit salsa, blackberries, fresh basil leaves, and the first fresh figs I’ve had all year.  It was a wonderful combination of sweet, savory, tangy, creamy, crunchy, soft, and sticky, and it was plated like a work of art.  The presentation made me think of the gorgeous dishes food stylist Janice Poon created for the Hannibal TV series, so artful and beguiling even when they were macabre (although this app was anything but macabre).

This was my second app, another beautiful tableau: house-made pork liver paté that was savory and salty and not a uniformly smooth texture throughout, so it was a fun experience spreading it on the toasted baguette slices and water crackers and dipping it in the grainy mustard.  (I am truly, literally obsessed with mustard, so I really should have gotten the name of that mustard they used or found out if it was made in house.)  Like the goat cheese app, this one came with so many accoutrements to make each bite a unique pleasure of tastes and textures: the bread and water crackers, the mustard, house-made cornichons, marinated gigante beans, drops of balsamic glaze, more fresh figs (that paired perfectly with the balsamic glaze), a sprig of fresh dill, and my favorite of all, the balsamic-marinated, grilled cipollini onions at 11 and 3 o’clock.  I’ve only ever seen them in the olive bar at Whole Foods, where they are very expensive, but I could eat those like candy. As much as I love the things that go onto a charcuterie board, I never order them when I’m out at a restaurant.  I’d rather snack on all that stuff at home, and then I always get the thought “Why should I put this on a board when I can put it on bread, which is an edible board?”  And then I recreate THE SANDWICH.  But this pristine pork paté plating restored my faith in charcuterie boards.

With four entrees to choose from, my wife went with the duck confit, a classic French recipe for preparing a duck leg quarter (including the thigh) by curing it with salt and herbs, then slow-roasting it in its own rendered fat.  I tried duck confit for my first time earlier this year at a legendary Los Angeles restaurant I haven’t reviewed yet, and I think this was my wife’s first time.  However, never content to do things the easy or expected way, Bites and Bubbles served their duck confit like an upscale take on a classic Thanksgiving dinner, with country cranberry stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, and duck gravy with diced carrots, served with haricots verts on the side (that’s green beans for you non-Francophiles).

She loved it!  She typically doesn’t like things covered with gravy or any kind of sauce, but she ended up loving the rich duck gravy they used.  She normally doesn’t like Thanksgiving stuffing either, but she said that was her favorite part!  She was also pleasantly surprised that the mashed potatoes turned out to be mashed sweet potatoes, which she greatly prefers.

As for me, I was tempted by all the entrees.  I might have chosen the classic French dish beef bourguignon, which is canonically Superman’s favorite meal in DC Comics (although he likes his with ketchup because he is still that farm boy from Smallville, Kansas).  Unfortunately, that dish includes mushrooms, which, much like Kryptonite is for Superman, are my personal Kryptonite.

So instead I chose one of my favorite meals, a braised lamb shank.  This is one of my favorite things to eat in the world, and I love ordering them at Turkish and Greek restaurants.  In fact, I love braised lamb shanks so much that I learned how to make my own in a rich, thick sauce of crushed tomatoes, onions, roasted red bell peppers, and hot cherry peppers.  My sauce takes on so much rich lamb fat, and it makes a perfect pasta sauce that lasts for days after all the meat is gone.  I usually braise mine for five to six hours until the meat is literally melting off the bone, but I could tell this lamb shank wasn’t cooked quite as long, since it held its form better, clinging to the bone.   It was tender and unctuous in its own tomato broth, and I tasted cumin as the main flavor in there.  it was served on a bed of mashed potatoes (not mashed sweet potatoes this time), with haricots verts and fresh dill on top, and it was lovely.  I ate most of this dish at home the following day, since another distraction arrived at the same time.

One Bites and Bubbles specialty I’ve been hearing about for years is their duck fat-infused burger, and even with all our other delicious food, it was such an ordeal to finally make it there for dinner, we couldn’t leave without sharing it.  I’m so glad we did.  It consists of two smash-style patties cooked in duck fat, shredded lettuce, a tomato slice, thin-sliced pickles, and house sauce on a soft and fluffy brioche bun.  It also comes with Swiss cheese, but my wife doesn’t like cheese on burgers, so Julian brought the two slices of Swiss on the side for me.  In fact, she doesn’t like dressed burgers or buns, so I slid the bottom patty out for her, threw the cheese on the other patty, and ate the burger in the form of an actual burger, as intended.  It was like a fancy version of a Big Mac, especially with the flavor of the lettuce, pickles, and tangy sauce that was reminiscent of McDonald’s “special sauce.”  Of course, long time Saboscrivner subscribers should remember that McDonald’s totally ripped off their Big Mac from the Original Double-Deck burger, the most popular burger from legendary Los Angeles-area diner Bob’s Big Boy, which was once a national chain.Even though I like ketchup on burgers, I didn’t add any, because I wanted to taste the meat and the combination of Chef Eddie’s intended flavors without the strong flavor of ketchup horning in.  The fries were a $4.99 upcharge, but so worth it.  They were Sidewinder fries, which are among my favorite fries due to their crispy, crunchy outer layer.  We were too full to mess with them, but they crisped back up just fine in our toaster oven today.

My wife is much more of a dessert person than I, but I made my choice to go with two apps instead.  Nothing would sway her from the chocolate fudge layer cake, drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with a dollop of whipped cream, a buttery, shortbread-like cookie, and a Pirouline rolled wafer cookie filled with chocolate or hazelnut spread.  Like everything else in this glorious epic dinner, the presentation was stunning, and she said the cake itself was superb.  She brought about half of it home and said it was even better — even more moist — after a night in the fridge! 

And this is when Bites and Bubbles outdid themselves again, bringing out a second dessert that wasn’t even one of the Magical Dining options: their pistachio gelato affogato.  We never saw it coming and didn’t ask for it, so it was the most pleasant of surprises: scoops of pistachio gelato, mini bombolini (like little Italian doughnut holes filled with custard), crushed pistachios, more of the buttery shortbread-like cookies and Piroulines, and dollops of whipped cream.  It was an affogato because it came with a shot of espresso we were supposed to pour over it, but my wife never drinks coffee after 3 PM, or it will literally keep her up all night, which means we would both be up all night.  Instead of pouring the espresso over this lavish, decadent dessert to make it a true affogato, I dunked the bombolini and cookies in the tiny metal cup of espresso to make my own wee, personal affogato. 

I can’t get over the incredible food at Bites and Bubbles, the artful presentations, the intimate setting.  But I have to rave about the service even more.  Julian was one of the kindest, most knowledgeable, most patient servers we’ve ever encountered in Orlando, and Nick and Eddie were the hosts with the most.  They came to our table to personally check on us and did everything in their power to give us one of the nicest dinner dates we’ve ever had, anywhere.

Have you ever seen Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece when Henry Hill (the late Ray Liotta) takes his girlfriend Karen (Lorraine Bracco) on an extravagant date to the Copacabana nightclub, and a long, uncut tracking shot follows them from the kitchen entrance through the bustling restaurant, where everyone is being so nice to them, moving a table right up in front of the stage, doing everything they can to give them an unforgettable, glamorous experience?  Well, that’s how I felt, taking my wife to Bites and Bubbles for the first time.  I don’t think I’m a particularly cool guy, and I always say that I’m no influencer, nor do I want to be.  But they made us feel so welcome and so special, like a couple of big shots, and I’m pretty sure that anyone who dines at Bites and Bubbles, whether Magical Dining is going on or not, will get that kind of warm reception.  I can’t recommend it highly enough or rave enough about this dinner we enjoyed there.

Of course, we returned home with enough leftovers for a few more meals because we went a little wild there, but now that we’ve experienced Bites and Bubbles, I have no doubt we’ll return, and hopefully sooner rather than later.  If you have a hot date, friends in from out of town, dinner with parents (who actually like trying new things, unlike our parents), or something to celebrate, this is probably one of the best restaurants in Orlando for a special occasion dinner to commemorate something like that.  Ask for Julian, and leave yourself in Eddie and Nick’s capable hands.  They will treat you right!

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.

Finka Table & Tap (Miami)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Otto’s High Dive

Otto’s High Dive (https://www.ottoshd.com/) opened over a year ago in what I consider Orlando’s best foodie neighborhood, The Milk District.  The “neighborhood rum bar” quickly earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand award for “good quality, good value cooking.”  It is only open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday, but opens at 11 AM for brunch on Sundays (and is closed Mondays).  Because Otto’s serves oysters and other raw seafood plus Cuban food, I had been wanting to try it ever since it opened, but finally made it in there with my wife on a recent Sunday afternoon.  Neither of us drink, so we skipped the vast selection of rums and beautiful cocktails, but they looked really great, and I’m sure they were.  But we arrived hungry and came to play.

Unfortunately for us, we were seated at one of the tiniest two-top tables I’ve ever seen in a restaurant.  Even though we ordered a lot of food, it became a constant balancing act and rearranging game to make everything fit on the tiny table, to the point where plates were perched precariously as I tried to consolidate and stack everything I could.  It should have been a relaxing and fun lunch, but the space didn’t really allow for that.

My wife ordered a Coke, and it was cool that they brought an icy-cold bottle of Mexican Coke (made with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup) and a glass full of crystal-clear ice cubes with lime wedges.

We started out with the ceviche, with cubes of raw yellowfin tuna, avocado, watermelon, mustard seeds, basil-chili oil, a splash of mezcal, and “leche de tigre.”  Don’t worry, it isn’t real tiger’s milk (who would dare to milk a tiger?), but the citrus-based Peruvian marinade that “cooks” the raw fish in ceviche.  It usually includes lime juice, onion, different chile peppers, salt, and pepper.

This was the crab salad: beautiful fresh crabmeat, chilled and mixed with avocado, pineapple, and lime, and served with long, thin, crispy plantain chips for spreading and/or dipping.

It was a surprisingly generous portion:

This was the bread platter with slices of Cuban bread (not toasted or grilled or anything) and one little plantain muffin.  It was supposed to come with a third thing, but they said they were out of it, so they just left it off.  Spreads include whipped, salted butter and guava spread. and I’m sorry I don’t remember the third.  Neither of us would bother getting this again.

I was perfectly happy with all the seafood and snacks, but the main reason we finally went to Otto’s was because they serve a 14-ounce chargrilled Prime ribeye steak with a spiced coffee rub, and that sounded amazing to my wife.  She ordered it rare, like both of us always order our steaks, and it came out… very much NOT rare.  Neither of us like to be “those people” in a restaurant, but it was an expensive steak, so we politely asked to send it back because it wasn’t rare.

At that point, the chef came out of the kitchen and told us that they use a sous vide machine to cook the ribeye, so it should have been rare, but trust me, it wasn’t, and we told him as much.  Then he offered to cook the skirt steak rare with the coffee rub so it could take on the flavors she was looking for, since I guess they don’t sous vide that cut.  My wife agreed, and she got this huge and lovely coffee-rubbed skirt steak with tostones, white rice, and excellent black beans, plus some pickled onions sliced paper-thin on top that I happily ate. 

I didn’t get a good picture of the interior of the skirt steak until we heated up the leftovers at home, but that’s how we like our steaks to look inside.   
Sadly, my wife still would have preferred the ribeye done to her satisfaction.  That whole exchange shook us both, and even though we didn’t feel great about sending the ribeye back in the first place, a restaurant charging those prices, with a damn Michelin Bib Gourmand award, maybe should not put polite customers on the defensive like that.

This was  rich duck fat bordelaise, garlicky chimichurri, and red pepper sofrito that came with the skirt steak.  All three were delicious, especially with the Cuban bread.

Being a glutton (as well as a glutton for punishment, apparently), I ordered a side of broccolini, one of my favorite vegetables, which was the seasonal vegetable during our visit.  It was charred and topped with a romesco sauce that was really good.

I don’t think Otto’s High Dive has its dessert menu online, so I snapped a photo of it:

We decided on the toasted coconut rum cake, brown butter cake served with coconut lime curd.  It was soaked with rum and set ablaze, which is always fun.  It was delicious, and we chose wisely here, but I remain curious about the Florida orange tres leches too.

And this was a quesito that I hastily added on.  It was a perfectly fine little pastry, but I admit I’ve had better at places like Zaza and Vicky Bakery.

So as if it wasn’t already painfully obvious, The Saboscrivner knows how to party.  The food was good to great, but I admit it wasn’t the best time, and I don’t think I’d go back.  Maybe Otto’s High Dive would be more fun and less stressful if you’re drinking.  Then you might not care if all the plates don’t fit on your table, your steak is overcooked, and the chef gets big mad for politely, diplomatically standing up for yourself.  But the place is a big hit, so try it for yourself and see what you think!  Or don’t.