Cocktails – Page 2 – The Saboscrivner

Summer House on the Lake

My latest review is of one of the newest restaurants to open at Disney Springs, the part of Walt Disney World devoted to shopping and dining, where you don’t have to pay a hefty admission fee or even pay for parking. We end up out there a couple times a year, often to meet visiting friends, but this trip was just a daytime date with Dr. Professor Ma’am, my beautiful and brilliant better half.

I had told her about the mid-December opening of Summer House on the Lake (https://www.summerhouserestaurants.com/disney-springs/), part of a restaurant chain that boasts “California-style cuisine and breezy beach vibes.” It also sounds like the title of a horror movie, if you ask me — at one point I referred to it as Last House on the Left. My wife’s graduate school was based in Santa Barbara, and she relished her occasional trips out there, just as I’m slowly falling in love with Los Angeles, after two visits to my new employer out there. She loves the emphasis on fresh ingredients and lighter dishes in Southern California dining, so it sounded like a restaurant made just for her. It is owned by a corporate restaurant group called “Lettuce Entertain You,” so even though I was skeptical, I always appreciate a pun.

I believe we arrived for lunch on the third day Summer House on the Lake was open. It was a huge space (I believe in the old Bongo’s location, and yes, right on a manmade lake at Disney Springs), and the dining room was full of light wood and natural light. It looked like any number of hotel lobby restaurants to me, but I can definitely see the California influence, sure!

The menu features small plates, sandwiches, tacos, and salads, as well as pastas, pizzas, and a burger, but it didn’t strike me as the kind of place to order pasta, pizza, or burgers. It also highlights an in-house bakery with plenty of cookies to choose from, lots of cocktails, and a “signature Rosé Cart.” This confirmed my suspicion that Summer House on the Lake is the kind of restaurant my beloved Uncle Jerry once referred to as a “chick place,” meaning the kind of restaurant women are the most likely to love. (He was referring to the chain restaurant Mimi’s Cafe at the time. If you know, you know.) Seated at our booth, I improvised a bit of comedy about a bunch of bros wanting to hit up Summer House on the Lake to watch the game, pound some beers, demolish some nachos and wings, and hit on moms who are “being so bad” by quaffing rosé and nibbling cookies, and my wife continued to put up with me.

Anyway, we started with ahi tuna and watermelon tostadas, which came with Hass avocado and Thai chili on crisp corn tortillas. We got a plate of five, and while they were beautiful and delicious, with the slightest bit of heat, I did not detect any watermelon anywhere.

I am a sucker for raw tuna in sushi and poke, and they were pretty generous with the tuna on these tiny tostadas. i could have eaten about twenty of these myself, easily and happily. They were my favorite thing we had at Summer House on the Lake, and I would definitely recommend them to fellow raw fish fans.

For her main course, my wife ordered a Costa Mesa salad, with queso fresco, corn, pico de gallo, avocado, quinoa, and crispy tortilla strips. She asked for dressing on the side, and while they brought her chipotle crema in a little ramekin, we were confused if the other ramekin of dressing was the lime vinaigrette from her salad or the herb vinaigrette that was supposed to come with my salad. (More on this in a bit.)
She opted to add seared ahi tuna to her salad as a protein, I guess to stick with the tuna theme of our lunch. You can see they served her a beautifully seared slab of ahi, with a gorgeous pinkish-purple center. Other protein options, all available for an upcharge, are grilled or crispy chicken, salmon (unfortunately cooked, rather than sushi-grade raw), and steak.

I figured that as long as I was at a “chick place,” I might as well get a salad too, which is a rarity for me at a restaurant. I do make and eat salads quite often at home, believe it or not! But after chuckling at the house salad called “a nice house salad” on the menu, I chose the Buena Vista Cobb salad for myself, with avocado, egg, corn, cucumber, tomato, bacon, blue cheese, and herb vinaigrette (that might have been in that ramekin on the side, or might have been completely absent). I always forget that Cobb salads are full of delicious things I like. I would make them at home, except I never have bacon or blue cheese on hand.
This was actually quite good, and the eggs were a lovely soft-boiled consistency I have tried to duplicate at home over the past two weeks. I think boiling for eight minutes produces creamy, glistening yolks like this.

After we were so good with our salads, it was time to be so bad with dessert. My wife ordered this seven-layer chocolate cake with vanilla chantilly cream. I wasn’t terribly interested in it, so I didn’t even try a bit. She said it was just okay.

After we paid our check and left, we discovered the cookie bar in the front of the restaurant, with huge cookies on display behind a glass counter. If you have tried the cookies from Gideon’s Bakehouse in Orlando’s East End Market or at Disney Springs, these are along the same lines — huge, decadent, chewy (a little under-baked, which I prefer to over-baked), and ridiculously rich. We got three cookies to go, which we enjoyed at home later. According to her, they were better than the chocolate cake, but so rich and heavy that they were almost too much.

My wife chose a chocolate chip cookie topped with chunks of their brown butter crispy rice treat, which are essentially posh Rice Krispies treats. They also sell the treats separately, but didn’t have any when we were there. It was good, because how could this not be good?

She also chose this fudge bomb cookie, a moist and chewy sugar cookie topped with thick, rich, fudgy frosting. I ended up eating most of this later, because she didn’t like it as much as she expected to. It reminded me a bit of a classic New York black and white cookie, only the cookie was more buttery and less “cakey,” without that slight lemony flavor, and the frosting was softer and lacking that glossy shine. If we return, we would try different cookies next time.

But on a rare occasion when I chose a dessert for myself, the lemon cookie did not disappoint. My wife lacks my obsession with citrusy desserts, but this had a nice, bright flavor and a slightly tart tang to balance the buttery richness and the sticky sweetness of the glaze. Like the other cookies, it came close to being too much, but I liked it much more than the other two. It tasted like a perfect summery confection, perfect for a summer house on a lake. But at the end of the day, I would sooner choose cookies from Heartsong Cookies, baked by the delightful Kathy Paiva, than any of these.

I also don’t know when and if we will return to Summer House on the Lake. Over my 19 years in Orlando, I’ve eaten at most of the restaurants at Disney Springs and certainly had good meals, but nothing ever bowls me over, knocks me out, leaves me raving and craving more there. I’m glad we tried a new restaurant, and I absolutely recommend Summer House at the Lake, especially to my female readers in search of a “chick place.” That said, whenever my wife and I end up at Disney Springs again for a concert at the House of Blues or meeting out-of-town friends, we would probably try something new next time.

CLOSED: Outpost Kitchen, Bar, & Provisions

EDITOR’S NOTE: On November 9th, 2023, The Outpost Kitchen, Bar & Provisions suddenly closed, apparently evicted from its Maitland location after falling $64,000 behind in rent payments. Staff were not given any prior notice. See https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/11/10/outpost-kitchen-evicted-from-maitland-city-centre-records-show/.

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After years of attempts, my wife (Doctor Professor Ma’am) and I finally had the most outstanding dinner last night at Outpost Kitchen, Bar, & Provisions (https://www.outpostkbp.com), a restaurant in suburban Maitland, nestled between Casselberry and Winter Park, surprisingly close to home. It seemed like life kept conspiring to keep us from dining there, with all kinds of illnesses, injuries, and random emergencies forcing us to cancel previous reservations, but once we made it, it was totally worth the wait.

The décor is at once both rustic and hipster-modern, full of wooden tables and chairs (no booths), Edison-style hanging light bulbs, and even a retro refrigerator in the dining room, not far from the open kitchen. There is also a large bar, an outdoor patio, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounding the free-standing building that provide plenty of natural light and views of “scenic” Highway 17-92.

Shortly after being seated in that expansive, high-ceilinged, wide open dining room, we met the co-owner, Kevin Casey, who reached out to me on Facebook last year to invite us out to the Outpost. Kevin was jovial and warm and welcoming, and I apologized for it taking us so long to get out there. I can also say that the entire serving staff was top-notch. We received some of the best service we’ve ever encountered at a restaurant in Orlando, not just from our own server, but from her compatriots, who all checked in on us periodically, hoping we were having the best experience. (We were.)

I had not eaten all day, so my wife and I started our decadent dinner with handmade Outpost tots ($12), a wooden platter of eight golden-brown fried spheres, drizzled with Outpost sauce (not as sweet as a barbecue sauce, but thicker and not as hot as a hot sauce) and bourbon ranch. Now, we all know tater tots, but these were nothing like standard tots or the beloved Beefy spuds at Orlando’s iconic Beefy King. Each of these orbs, which were about the size of large golf balls, were more like potato pancakes, also known as latkes — crispy on the outside, but yielding and fluffy-soft and seasoned on the inside.

Kevin told us that these are complicated to make right, because the potatoes are all hand-shredded, and if the kitchen staff took too long, they would oxidize and ruin the batch, but they came up with a method to simplify the process. Whatever they did, it worked, because these are some of the most perfect potato products we’ve ever partaken in. If you ever go to the Outpost, don’t sleep on these not-so-tiny tots!

Something else cool about the Outpost is that they pay homage to Orlando’s culinary past. So many people dismiss our touristy town as “chain restaurant hell,” even though I started this blog just about five years ago to combat that misconception and shine a well-deserved spotlight on some of our best local restaurants. Kevin and Julie Casey are doing the same thing with their series of Memory Lane Menus, recreating classic dishes from beloved and much-missed eateries that closed years or even decades ago. They first did that with Pebbles, a restaurant that I’ve heard about, but it closed before I moved here in 2004, and their current Memory Lane Menu is a tribute to the legendary Ronnie’s Restaurant.

Now I never made it to Ronnie’s either, but my wife has told me all about it, and it would probably have been my favorite restaurant in the city, had I ever eaten there. I’ve seen the voluminous menu, and it looked very similar to another long-lost legend — Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House, a Jewish delicatessen/diner on Collins Avenue in North Miami Beach. Unlike Ronnie’s, I got to enjoy many meals at the Rascal House, first with my family as a kid and a teenager during weekends at the old-timey Art Deco motels right on the beach with names like the Dunes, the Driftwood, and the Desert Inn. Years later, I would visit friends on trips home from Gainesville and catch up with them over late-night overstuffed sandwiches and metal dishes of free pickles and cole slaw. I even got to take my wife to the Rascal House once, in 2007, when we were still newly dating, before the it closed its doors for good. I will always treasure those memories and those meals, especially because the Rascal House was the first restaurant I recall my family traveling out of its way to, trekking from suburban Kendall to Sunny Isles Beach, decades before seeking out the best food anywhere I could find it would become one of my adulthood hobbies.

But back to Ronnie’s now: the Outpost’s Memory Lane Menu for Ronnie’s is available for ONE MORE WEEK, until Saturday, June 10th. They are offering three classic Ronnie’s dishes: cabbage soup made with beef short ribs (which was sadly sold out when we went last night), a chocolate eclair made from an original Ronnie’s recipe, and a corned beef and pastrami platter, which we ordered to share as an appetizer. I had heard stories and fables about Ronnie’s corned beef and pastrami, served with potato salad and sliced tomatoes, and I must be honest, that was what finally spurred us to make it to the Outpost. I’m so glad it got us in the door, because it was amazing, and so was everything else.

Here’s a close-up of the thick, hand-carved slices of mostly lean pastrami, crusted with a delicious, peppery, spicy “bark”:

And as much as I love pastrami (which is a lot), I liked the Outpost’s version of Ronnie’s corned beef even better, because it was marbled with so much creamy, unctuous fat. Even without rye bread and mustard, these deli delicacies were a huge hit. We just nibbled on them at the restaurant, but I finished them in a sandwich earlier today (on a toasted sourdough roll since we didn’t have rye at home, but with good Carnegie Deli dusseldorf mustard).

My wife always likes a good steak even more than I do (I’m more of a sandwich and burger guy), and one thing she always craves is a coffee-rubbed steak. Very few restaurants in Orlando offer them, but the Outpost sure does: the Crusty New Yorker, a peppercorn and coffee-crusted New York strip steak, covered with garlic caper cream sauce and served on a bed of creamy cauliflower rice. She asked for the steak rare, and it was cooked perfectly, beautifully rare, pre-sliced and rich purple-red inside. She also loves capers and cream sauces, so she was in heaven with this dish. She was admittedly skeptical about the cauliflower rice, but we both really liked it. It had a slight crunch that regular rice doesn’t have, but the creaminess and seasoning reminded me a bit of risotto.With the bounty of everything we ordered, she would end up getting three full meals out of this generous portion.

And even though I was tempted by many dishes on the menu, one of the Outpost’s burgers really sang out to me: the Black Cherry Burger, cooked to an ideal medium rare and topped with house-smoked brisket, yellow cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and sliced hot cherry peppers on a brioche bun. I wish it had been a little bigger (only because I wish all burgers were bigger, from White Castle on up), but it was delicious. I would rank it among the finest burgers in the city, without a doubt. It came with really solid fries, which I dipped in a little metal ramekin of house-made barbecue sauce. Good fries, but after those tantalizing, tremendous tots, they were almost anticlimactic.

My wife is a bigger dessert person than I am, whereas I can often take or leave something sweet after a big meal. Still, we were both equally tempted by two different desserts on the Outpost’s masterful menu, and we splurged and ordered both. This was the drunken blueberry bread pudding, served in a small, sizzling-hot skillet. It was made with brioche and sweet Hawaiian bread, bourbon custard, fresh blueberries, tangy orange icing, and blueberry compote. It was really decadent, but not nearly as sweet as you might be thinking. It was spectacular, and a perfect way to end a summer meal. This was my wife’s favorite of the two desserts.

They also offered a pineapple upside down cake special, and even though I bake a mean pineapple upside down cake myself, we were both intrigued by it too. Unlike mine, which is a light, moist pineapple-flavored cake, this one was a denser spice cake, almost like a richer, sweeter gingerbread. It was topped with a roasted pineapple ring and some sweet, sticky caramel glaze, and that is a dehydrated pineapple ring on the side, thin and chewy and sweet and sticky like fruit leather. (Kinky!) The dark pools are a cherry glaze, although i thought they might be balsamic reduction at first. Cherry definitely fit better with pineapple upside-down cake. Our dutiful server told us that this was such a big hit, it would probably become a regular menu item moving forward. You heard it here first, folks!

Now you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos (my baker’s dozens of regular readers) know that The Saboscrivner takes pride in his journalistic integrity. I am proudly not an influencer (in fact, I still take perverse pride in some rando Redditor referring to me as an “anti-influencer”), and I never go into these restaurants asking for freebies in exchange for a good review. I wouldn’t dare, and I think that is rude and gauche and presumptuous and any number of unprintable terms. That said, since Kevin invited us in so long ago, I let him know we were coming since I wanted to meet him and thank him for reaching out… and he ended up hooking us up, out of the goodness of his heart. I was shocked, and I insisting on paying as much of the bill as they would let me, in addition to leaving a generous tip for our server based on what this large, luxurious meal would have originally cost. It was all so great, I would have written this identical review anyway, minus this paragraph. We loved everything, and we look forward to returning and becoming regulars. But that’s how nice the owner is, even during a time when local restaurants are struggling.

That’s why I am doubling down with my recommendation here. Visit the Outpost! They serve brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, and apparently Saturdays are a lot more chill compared to the busier Sundays. They are even planning to institute a weekday brunch menu, so be on the lookout for that. If you loved Ronnie’s back in the day (or you just love Jewish delis, like I do with all my heart), definitely stop by in the next week for a taste of Ronnie’s classic menu. I will definitely swing back by, hoping for that beef short rib cabbage soup to go! Also, stay tuned for the Outpost’s next Memory Lane Menu, paying homage to Gary’s Duck Inn, apparently the inspiration for the original Red Lobster. I never made it there either, but some locals probably have, and it sounds like something that should not be missed. The Outpost should not be missed, either.

The Whiskey

Orlando’s “Restaurant Row” is a cluster of upscale restaurants — some chains and some locally owned and operated — along Sand Lake Road in the toney Dr. Phillips area, east of I-4 Exit 74, close to touristy International Drive and the Orange County Convention Center. I honestly try to avoid this side of town, but I end up out there from time to time, between catching up with visiting friends staying near the theme parks and my annual trips to nerd Mardi Gras, also known as MegaCon Orlando.

Years ago, I visited one of the more casual restaurants on Restaurant Row and thought it was just fine, but never reviewed it or returned… until recently. My oldest friend and I staggered out of the busiest day of MegaCon 2023, famished, exhausted, and feeling very middle-aged. He wanted to get a late lunch somewhere with table service, where we could sit down and be served and relax. He specifically requested comfort food and a refreshing cocktail, but I would have been content with free refills on soft drinks in air conditioning. That restaurant immediately came to mind as the perfect choice, and I was excited to give it another chance after all these years. So we went to The Whiskey (https://www.downatthewhiskey.com/), which specializes in gourmet burgers and cocktails and boasts one of the largest whiskey selections in Orlando.

We were hungry, so we started out with Whiskey chips ($11.50): house-made potato chips topped with chunky smoked blue cheese sauce, smoked blue cheese crumbles, bacon crumbles, balsamic glaze, diced tomatoes, and scallions. I think I must have tried this on my earlier visit years ago with my wife, because it seemed very familiar. It was awesome, though. Totally hit the spot. I always appreciate fresh potato chips, and I love balsamic glaze and good blue cheese.

All the burgers at The Whiskey are eight ounces, and they are a blend of chuck, brisket, and short rib. My friend and I were talking about how we each make tasty burgers at home, but we both use ground chuck, and that can’t compare to the blend of different cuts of beef that you get at steakhouses and upscale burger joints like this. Sometimes it seems like a cop-out to order a burger when there are all kinds of interesting dishes on a menu, but when you see that blend of chuck, brisket, and short rib, you know it’s going to be a next-level burger. And when you’re at a dedicated burger joint, you just can’t go wrong.

My friend ordered the black n’ bleu burger ($16), a house burger patty cooked to medium, seasoned in blackened seasoning, and topped with arugula, tomato, whiskey onions, smoked applewood bacon, and more of that great chunky smoked blue cheese sauce. He wolfed it down with gusto.The fries that are the default side that come with the burgers are awesome at The Whiskey. They are battered, so they have a lightly crispy outer coating, making them one of my favorite kinds of fries. The menu warns they are not gluten-free, for those who need to know such things.

I’m almost positive I ordered this same burger on my earlier visit years ago: the Southerner ($18.25), a house patty cooked to medium rare on a bed of whiskey onions and arugula, topped with bacon, pimento cheese, and two fried green tomato slices, and drizzled with balsamic glaze. It’s a perfect combination of things I love — creamy, melty, smoky, crunchy, tangy. I laid waste to it.

Did I mention how good the brioche-style buns are? They are lightly toasted on the grill, as all burger buns should be.

I upgraded my side from fries (even though the fries are really damn good) to Whiskey onion rings for $3.25, because I am The Saboscrivner, and I must try onion rings anywhere that serves them. I even have a recurring feature in these reviews called RING THE ALARM!, where I go into detail about the onion rings I encounter. I am pleased as punch to say that these are “the good kind” of onion rings — battered, not breaded — that I search for everywhere. Perfect thickness, consistency, crispness, color, and everything. When people ask me to recommend restaurants that have good onion rings, I will definitely add The Whiskey to the top of my list.

By the way, my friend loved his old fashioned ($12.50), Don Draper’s favorite cocktail. The Whiskey makes its version with Single Barrel Jack Daniels whiskey, orange bitters, rhubarb bitters, raw cane sugar, fresh orange, a Traverse City black cocktail cherry, and a rock candy stir stick. He is an aficionado, so I take his word for such things.

I am now convinced that I was in a bad mood on my first trip to The Whiskey, all those years ago with my wife. I don’t know what my problem was that day, but I spend too much time in a bad mood, and I deal with depression too, which doesn’t help. I don’t think I had started this blog yet, but I’m glad I didn’t write a half-hearted review way back then. Instead, I’m thrilled to write an extremely positive review now, and I really do recommend this place to all. Even vegetarians can get an Impossible burger here, and there are plenty of vegetarian-friendly apps, sides, and even a few salads.

Even though I try to avoid the International Drive and Dr. Phillips/Restaurant Row area, I would happily return to The Whiskey whenever I find myself down this way. As tempted as I would be to get that terrific Southerner burger again, I would try other options on the menu, including a smoked brisket grilled cheese sandwich that tempted me, and a camel burger made with actual ground camel meat. That is one animal I’ve never eaten, but I might have to make a special trip back for it on some future Wednesday.

Because Wednesday is “hump day,” and I would be eating camel.

And we all know that nothing makes a joke funnier than having to explain it, so I guess I’ll stop here.

Reyes Mezcaleria

Reyes Mezcaleria (https://www.reyesmex.com/), a Mexican restaurant in the North Quarter neighborhood near downtown Orlando, is very different from most Mexican restaurants I’ve ever been to. It is truly upscale, to the point of being “fancy.” The dining room is beautiful, something it has in common with the other Good Salt restaurants owned and operated by Jason and Sue Chin, like the seafood-centric Osprey (a favorite of mine for oysters) and the Southern-influenced Monroe in downtown Orlando (which I’ve been to once so far, but have yet to review). The Chins, who are James Beard Award semifinalists, have terrific taste for concepts, décor, food, and talent, like the Executive Chef of Reyes, Wendy Lopez, who started there in 2018.

That happened to be the first year I visited Reyes Mezcaleria with my wife and my best friend — so pretty much my two best friends. We had a lovely dinner after a long day at MegaCon, and I took a lot of pictures with my old cell phone camera that came out awful, making the stunningly plated food look as unappetizing as possible. After some online people joked and complained about my photography, that inspired me to start this very food blog, so congratulations? Thank you? Or possibly, you’re welcome?

Anyway, my wife and I didn’t make it back to Reyes until this past December, after catching a matinee performance of the musical Hadestown in downtown Orlando. We are so rarely downtown, so it worked out perfectly. We over-ordered, but we ended up with a lot of leftovers that heated up really well at home. We got at least three full meals out of all of this fine food.

This order of guacamole and house-made tortilla chips was $11, but the guac and chips were all excellent quality. The guacamole was extremely fresh, and it was topped with some pickled red onions and crumbled chihuahua cheese. The chips were dusted with a wonderful seasoning.

I requested to add chapulines, since the menu said we could do that for a $2 upcharge, but we were charged $4. Whatever. $2 is nothing, but it’s uncharacteristic for a restaurant of this caliber, and the people have a right to know. I got a generous portion of crispy fried grasshoppers that had a really nutty flavor. I’ve tried chapulines once before, at an upscale Mexican restaurant in San Jose, California, and didn’t like them much, but they were much better at Reyes. I didn’t know if we were meant to sprinkle or stir them into the guacamole, but we just munched on them like nuts, or Chex Mix. Yes, my wife tried a few! She always makes me proud whenever she tries new foods. I recently attended a lecture about the future of food, and one scholar discussed how farm-raised insects are going to be a major protein source in the future, and we had better get on board, because it’s going to have to happen as global resources diminish and current animal husbandry methods rapidly become unsustainable. I have to admit that I feel a little smug that I liked this particular batch of grasshoppers, so now I can be like “Have you embraced eating insects, the protein of the future? I have, and now I’m part of the solution, not part of the problem!”

This was a “shroom” tamal ($12) that my wife ordered, because she loves mushrooms, one of the only foods I can’t eat. The masa corn shell is wrapped around cultivated mushroom, squash blossoms, and poblano peppers, and topped with red onions, salsa verde, and what looked like micro-greens. I ended up trying some of this after she ate all the fungus out of it, and had a really terrific flavor, especially from the poblanos, which I always enjoy in things. I think those poblanos and the salsa verde made the tamal a little too spicy for her, so we both got to enjoy it after all.

This was an order of two Sonoran crispy fish tacos ($14), featuring red snapper, beer-battered and fried to absolute perfection. The fresh corn tortillas were topped with shaved red cabbage for a different kind of crunch, spicy serrano pepper aioli, more pickled red onions, and cilantro. I always appreciate good fish tacos (except for mahi; I just don’t like the texture and never have), and these were excellent. Totally worth the price too, in case you were wondering.

Next up was the esquites ($9), Mexican street corn, served off the cob. This would have been another great dish to share with a group, but I liked it more than my wife did, so I ended up having most of it. The Florida sweet corn kernels were accompanied by hominy, more poblano peppers, pearl onions, lime aioli to give it some creaminess and some citrusy sour tang, and cotija cheese for a parmesan-like umami funkiness. There was a lot going on, but I liked it all.

At this point, we were so full we could barely even touch the main attraction, which I realized was what I ordered way back on our first visit, back in 2018: duck enchiladas de Michoacan ($29). Luckily, this photo and all the rest came out a lot better after this visit to Reyes. We enjoyed this one at home, with slices of seared duck breast over the queso fresco and chihuahua cheese enchiladas (they are underneath, I swear!), accompanied by chile rojo and surprisingly spicy carrot escabeche, with a vinegary kick I loved and my wife wanted nothing to do with. This is a quack-tastic dish, but both of us are fiends for any dishes involving duck. The flaming (hot) carrots were a big hit with me, too.

The creative, gourmet dishes at Reyes Mezcaleria are a feast for the senses. Enjoying them in the lush dining room, maybe with a cocktail or two, would be a true treat for anyone. While I fully admit I prefer my Mexican food “downscale” (bring on the street tacos, burritos, and tortas), I’m so glad there are multiple options across Orlando, with a chef like Wendy Lopez pushing the boundaries of what people think of as Mexican cuisine and challenging them to accept upscale takes on traditional dishes. Price-wise, Reyes remains a “special occasion” restaurant in my book, but I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for something special near downtown and are tired of the same old options. There is no reason Mexican food can’t be luxurious, and Reyes is proof of that.

Au Cheval (Chicago)

My new job sent me to Chicago twice this summer for training opportunities, and I did everything I could to explore and eat my way around the beautiful Windy City as much as I could. I already regaled my stalwart Saboscrivnerinos with my epic excursion to Eataly, and the next really terrific meal I enjoyed in Chicago was at Au Cheval (http://auchevaldiner.com/chicago/). It sounds like a fancy French restaurant, which is really not my thing, but instead it is a really nice, “elevated” diner. Well, that’s how Au Cheval describes itself, anyway.

It was a tight, crowded space with a handful of booths along the windows, and a bustling open kitchen with several barstools open for diners to sit facing the bar. The dining room is relatively dark and full of dark leather and dark wood for a “macho,” masculine feel. I got there in time for an early lunch, and I still waited about 20 minutes for a solo seat to open up at the farthest left corner of the busy kitchen/bar area. I don’t drink, but I was watching expert bartenders slinging some really nice-looking cocktails the whole time I was there.

I fully admit Au Cheval wasn’t on my original dining agenda, but the first two restaurants I attempted to go to in Chicago’s West Loop (an incredible dining destination I strongly recommend to all) were closed for various reasons, so I’m really glad I wandered in there. They don’t accept reservations for lunch or dinner, so I got lucky, all things considered.

The menu isn’t huge, but it consists of pure comfort food, of the delicious, heavy, hearty, and unhealthy variety. They do have two salads and several egg dishes, but I was torn between two different dishes, and since I had no idea when I would be back in Chicago, I ordered both.

First up was seared, chilled, and chopped chicken liver ($14.95), one of the classic foods of my people. It was served with rich, salted butter (almost overkill, given the fatty, savory richness of the liver) and the absolute finest toast I’ve ever had. The bread was thick Texas toast, the kind you can get at my beloved Waffle House and so many other diners, ideal for patty melts and barbecue sandwiches. Rather than being “toasted” in the traditional sense, it was cooked on the flattop griddle and beautifully buttered.

As for the chopped liver, as my students used to say, IYKYK (if you know, you know). It might look like cat food, but it is so rich and savory and tasty, I love it so much as a very rare treat. Most of the chopped liver I’ve had from Jewish delicatessens and appetizing stores is a smooth, creamy, uniform consistency, but Au Cheval’s version was more roughly chopped for a more interesting texture. It still spread so smoothly on the best toast ever, the butter was really kind of unnecessary… but ultimately too good to ignore.

After that, I was watching burger after beguiling burger come out of that open kitchen while I waited for my seat at the bar, so I couldn’t leave without one. I ended up springing for the double cheeseburger ($16.95), since it was only two dollars more than the single, and this string of good decisions continued. Constant readers, I have to tell you that this was the #1 absolute all-time best burger I’ve ever eaten in my damn life, here at Au Cheval in Chicago. I’ve eaten burgers all around the state of Florida and elsewhere along the highways and byways of America, and this left them all in the dust. Perfect in every way, ten out of ten, nothing comes close.It was like an ideal, iconic version of a “smash-style” diner burger, like a burger out of a Tom Waits song, but so much better than that fictional burger would have been in his sad world of late-night, lonely meals wolfed down in Edward Hopper environs. While the menu said “double cheeseburger,” it sure looked like it had three patties to me. What do you think, folks?

Traditionally, I have preferred thick, juicy burgers, but between Au Cheval and two restaurants here in Orlando that I haven’t had a chance to review yet, that smash style is definitely winning me over. It had so much flavor and wasn’t overdone or dry at all — quite the opposite, in fact. It was dressed simply, with a creamy sauce, a few scant pickle slices, and wonderfully melty American cheese between the patties, and I did put some ketchup on it. The bun was grilled like the toast that came with my chopped liver, which is the best/only way to serve a hamburger bun.

Now I made two mistakes here: I did not order bacon on the burger, because that would have been an extra $6.95, and I felt like I was being decadent enough, with these two heavy, greasy dishes. But Au Cheval serves really thick-cut bacon like some steakhouses do, and I bet it would have been totally worth it. Sometimes bacon on burgers is undercooked, so you can’t get a good bite without pulling out the whole strip, and sometimes it is burnt to a crisp and doesn’t end up adding much to the experience. I’m sure this would have made the best burger of my life even better, but then again, how can you possibly improve on perfection?

Also, I did not order fries or hash browns ($8.95 each), simply because I got plenty of carbs from the perfect toast and the bun from the perfect burger, and that would be a bit insane, even for me. But I bet they would have been spectacular from a restaurant like this. If they had onion rings, I would have been all about those, but they didn’t, so it was a moot point. Regardless, I give my strongest possible recommendation to Au Cheval, and if you ever find yourself in Chicago, I would encourage you to ease up on the pizza casserole and overloaded Vienna Beef hot dogs to indulge here instead.

Chain Reactions: Eataly (Chicago)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cafe Tu Tu Tango

Cafe Tu Tu Tango (https://www.cafetututango.com/) is a beautiful restaurant located in the heart of Orlando’s tourist district on International Drive, near Universal Studios and the Orange County Convention Center. I used to take my wife there for special celebratory occasions back when we were dating, mostly between 2006 and 2008. The restaurant is bright and bustling, its red walls strewn with lovely art that is all for sale. There are local artists painting and sculpting all over the restaurant, dancers are often dancing, and tarot card readers will read guests for a small fee. It’s a very bohemian place — maybe too loud to be intimate, but festive, fun, and as romantic as you want it to be. The menu matches the vibe, with small plates featuring fusion foods from around the world, ideal for sharing.

As cool as that all sounds, we fell out of the habit of going, mostly because it is all the way across town. But we had some wonderful meals and memories there, including two strips of photos we had taken in a photo booth, those completely obsolete but fun and beloved novelties of recent times past.

Well, my wife had a birthday coming up, so I asked her where she wanted to go out. It had been a few months since we had dined out anywhere together, and me being me, I sent her a list of good restaurants — some old favorites, some we had yet to go to together, and a few that we loved but hadn’t been to in a long time. She chose Cafe Tu Tu Tango, and we were both excited to return after all these years. I even wore the same shirt and tie I wore in the photo booth photos (because I hate buying new clothes), hoping to get some updated pics and maybe frame them all together.

Best of all, like its sister restaurant Mia’s Italian Kitchen just up the road, Cafe Tu Tu Tango features an all-you-can-eat weekend brunch on Saturdays and Sundays for $28.22 per person. Like Mia’s, it is not a buffet, but you just order whatever you want off the brunch menu (slightly more limited than the regular dinner menu), and as much as you want, for that fixed price. Back in the day, before I was as gainfully employed, those small plates with their pretty presentations and puny portions could really add up. It is a hell of a bargain to go for brunch and be able to go and sample anything and everything, so that’s exactly what we did.

We started with two “non-spirited frescos,” essentially mocktails, since neither of us drink. My wife ordered the $6 Pollock Punch (named for the artist Jackson Pollock, of course), with pineapple, mango, and cranberry juices, passion purée, Coco Lopez cream of coconut, and almond-flavored orgeat syrup, the necessary ingredient in mai tais and so many other tropical drinks. I ordered the $6 Lichtenstein Lemonade*, a delicious-sounding combination of house-made lemonade, muddled cucumber and basil, strawberry purée, and club soda to make it fizz. Funny enough, once we sipped each other’s drinks, we realized we each liked the other one better. The Pollock Punch (left) was too sour for her, while I love sour, and she preferred the fizz in my Lichtenstein Lemonade (right), so we switched them.
*The Lichtenstein Lemonade is named for the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, who I DESPISE, because he swiped art from underpaid and underappreciated comic book artists, blew their panels up to giant size and got them displayed in galleries, took all the credit, and got rich and famous off their artwork. Screw that guy, but if you want an artist who specializes in Lichtenstein’s mid-century retro pop art style but is a truly iconoclastic original, check out my all-time favorite comic book artist Mike Allred.

Anyway, we went on to order A LOT of food from our sweet and patient server Chelsea, who was absolutely slammed, but had a great attitude and personality. The first thing to come out was the churro waffles (which would normally be $9 if we ordered a la carte) –perfect Belgian waffles with crispy exteriors and fluffy interiors, topped with ‍cinnamon sugar, dulce de leche, vanilla cream, cinnamon whipped cream. There were actually two of these in the order, so we each had one. This was my wife’s first choice, and it was a good one.

I ordered the butter chicken tikka masala (normally $13), a good-sized portion serviced over ‍fluffy basmati rice with pickled red onions, fresh cilantro, roasted corn, and creamy tikka masala sauce. I love Indian food, but my wife is convinced she doesn’t, because most things she has tried have been too spicy for her. I was thrilled that she loved this dish, even more than I did, since she never wants to get Indian food, and now we had a dish we know she likes. The chicken breast meat was very tender, and it wasn’t spicy at all. I tried a little, but was happy to keep it on her side of the table.Since this meal, I have researched butter chicken and chicken tikka masala, two distinct Indian dishes that use similar ingredients, but aren’t the same. We are going to run further tests to see which one my wife actually prefers, since Tu Tu Tango’s “butter chicken tikka masala” may not be the best example of authentic Indian cuisine. It was good, though!

I had never ordered any of the brick oven pan pizzas on our past trips to Cafe Tu Tu Tango, because it always seemed like there were more interesting things to try. But this time I ordered the sausage and peppers pizza (normally $9.25), with Italian sausage, hand-crushed San Marzano tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella, caramelized onions, and roasted red peppers. It was magnificent, and pan pizza usually isn’t even one of the pizza styles I prefer. Perfect crispy edges and a nice, fluffy crust. All the toppings came together beautifully. It was relatively small, like a “personal” pizza, but I always say that if you believe in yourself, any pizza can be a personal pizza.

Next up, my wife ordered the monkey bread (normally $7), a rich, sticky, super-sweet pastry with golden raisins, pecans, dulce de leche sauce, whipped cream, and enough powdered sugar to make it look like it was partying in Miami. Funny enough, the monkey bread ended up being too sweet for her, but I ended up really loving its chewy, sticky texture. It was heavy, and it probably sapped some of my strength and endurance mid-meal, but what a way to go.

I ordered these breakfast tacos (normally $8), with ‍jalapeño jack cheese, huevos rancheros, and crumbled, seasoned beef on two soft corn tortillas. My wife wanted no part of them, but they ended up being among my favorites of the brunch. I really thought the beef was chorizo sausage — it was that kind of savory flavor with just a little spice.

Next up, she ordered the grilled fish tacos (normally $11), with honey-lime escabeche sauce, cotija cheese, crunchy cabbage slaw, and more pink pickled onions on the same soft corn tortillas. We both appreciate good fish tacos, but both agreed the fish was on the “fishy” side. I ended up eating everything except the tortillas, which she wanted for herself. I wouldn’t get these again. Loved the toppings, but the fish — not so much.

Anyone who knows me at all would glance at the menu and predict I would order the Cuban sliders (normally $12), two wee sandwich halves with ‍capicola, genoa salami, pulled pork, pickles, Swiss cheese on pressed bread with a ramekin of the most delicious, vinegary mojo sauce. I’m predictable when it comes to food. I liked these, but the sauce was my favorite part! I thought about how much I might have preferred chilled Italian-style sandwich sliders with the capicola and genoa salami and some pickled vegetables. But don’t get me wrong, I really did enjoy them.

Next, I got the Tango home fries (normally $4), with sautéed red pepper and onion strips, scallions and a house spice blend. These were delicious, but I thought the potatoes could have been crispier. They had a pleasing amount of heat, but not so much that a person who likes things mild wouldn’t enjoy them. I was starting to get full, so I didn’t finish these, and I still feel guilty about that.

My wife ended her meal with one of her favorite dishes of the day, shrimp and grits (normally $12), served with corn relish and scallions. She loves grits, whereas they are not usually my favorite. I didn’t try this, but she ate it with gusto, so it must have been good. I’d say this, the butter chicken tikka masala, and the churro waffle were her favorites.

Next up came the dessert that I thought was going to be my favorite: guava and sweet plantain bread pudding (normally $7), served in a sizzling skillet and topped with Nutella sauce. I wish I had asked them to hold the sauce. Believe it or not, I could take or leave Nutella. Thanks to it, the whole thing ended up tasting like chocolate and muted the flavors of the guava and sweet plantains, two of my favorite things to eat anywhere. I could only eat one of the two pieces, and she wanted nothing to do with it.

Finally, my Southwest Caesar salad arrived (normally $10). It contained ‍romaine lettuce, avocado, crunchy fried tortilla strips, cotija cheese, salsa roja, and chipotle-garlic dressing . I make salads and eat them in my work lunches almost every day, so I rarely order salads at restaurants, but this had a lot of neat-sounding ingredients, and it was included in the fixed price for brunch, so I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did, but I ate all the interesting stuff off the top and tapped out before I could make it through all the romaine lettuce.

So that was it for brunch, and that was pretty much it for the two of us for the rest of the day. But what a way to go. This has to be one of the best values in Orlando, folks. I crunched the numbers, and these eleven small plates we ordered would add up to $102.25 if we ordered them a la carte. Instead, we paid $56.44 for the both of us (minus our drinks) — almost half that price for the all-you-can-eat brunch deal.

Sadly, Cafe Tu Tu Tango got rid of its photo booth at some point before Chelsea even started working there, as I had feared. In this age of camera phones, selfies, Instagram, and “pics, or it didn’t happen” culture, a photo booth taking up space in a busy restaurant or bar seems like less of a sound and necessary investment, but there’s something about printing out those momentous moments on a little strip of paper to cherish forever, in a way that doesn’t seem the same when staring at images on screens. But in the end, we didn’t need new photos. We had each other, we had our memories –both old and new — and we had an epic brunch in beautiful, bohemian surroundings that would tide us over for a while. At least until dinner that evening.

Las Carretas Mexican Restaurant

The first time I ever heard of Las Carretas Mexican Restaurant (https://www.lascarretasmexicanrest.com/), my heart filled with joy and hope, then immediate disappointment. When I first saw a sign that the restaurant was opening soon in the Publix plaza on the corner of University Boulevard and Goldenrod Road in east Winter Park, I was overjoyed, thinking at first it meant an outpost of La Carreta, my family’s favorite Cuban restaurant chain in Miami, was coming to the Orlando area.

But I quickly noticed the sign was pluralized: “Las Carretas,” not “La Carreta,” and that it was going to be a Mexican restaurant, not Cuban. We already have far more good Mexican restaurants here than in Miami, but I got over that initial disappointment and forgot about it for a while. It opened earlier this year, and diners started posting really positive reviews on the Orlando Foodie Forum Presented by Tasty Chomps!, and I started paying attention all over again.

Well, I have eaten there four times now, and I can happily report that Las Carretas is an excellent Mexican restaurant, and we should be happy it’s here. The initial fault was mine for misreading the sign and getting my hopes up. It might not be the beloved Cuban restaurant of my past, but it is the terrific Mexican restaurant of my present and future.

The Las Carretas menu is HUGE, so I strongly suggest studying it in advance. On our first visit, my wife and I started our first meal with a couple of aguas frescas ($4.99 each), sweet, non-alcoholic, non-carbonated beverages that are much tastier and more refreshing than sodas, and much better for cutting the heat of spicy food. I chose horchata (left), sweet, creamy rice milk seasoned with cinnamon and vanilla. My wife chose coco nuez, a rich and creamy agua fresca made with coconut milk, coconut shreds, and crushed pecans. I’m not big on nuts, but I do love coconut, and I liked her drink even more than mine. These are gigantic glass mugs, by the way — think German biergarten mugs. No free refills, though! (Yes, I asked.)

They have a self-service salsa bar! Just use hand sanitizer before and after, and fill the little plastic cups with chilled fresh salsas and pickled vegetables (jalapeños, carrots, onions, nopal cactus strips) to your heart’s content. They will be perfect for the fresh, crispy, thin tortilla chips about to grace your table.

Here are those chips with an assortment of salsas. The white stuff turned out to be a tangy, creamy, cool salad dressing, but it was nice to dip the chips in, and it works well cutting the heat of some of the spicier ones. The dark salsa next to it is a smoky chipotle salsa, blended smooth so it is thin, with no chunks in it. That one was my wife’s favorite by far. They’re all a little bit different, so if you’re anything like me, a self-proclaimed salsaholic, you will want to try little dabs of all of them on your chips. One or two are extremely spicy, but I honestly don’t remember which of these were the spicy ones. I think the orange one on the left was fiery, so be prepared!

My wife ordered table-side guacamole ($8.99), hold the jalapeños and easy on the tomatoes and onions. It was made with care and flair by a nice lady who probably has to make guacamole in front of people all day, pushing her cart around the restaurant like teachers who wanted to show a video in class back in the day. It was some of the freshest, nicest guac I’ve ever had.

For her meal, my wife chose the alambre Mediterraneo ($17.99), a dazzling platter of grilled shrimp, scallops, octopus, squid, and bacon, with grilled peppers and onions, topped with melty oaxaca cheese and sliced avocado, tomato, and radish. She loved it, except for the cheese. She thought it overwhelmed the more subtle seafood flavors. I’ve never noticed alambres on a menu before, but all of the ones at Las Carretas come with five tortillas. She chose corn tortillas with it.
This picture barely communicates the size of the platter and exactly how much food comes on it!

I couldn’t resist an alambre either, but I chose the alambre mata hambre ($16.99), which lived up to its name as a true “hunger killer.” It was an equally massive platter of pork loin, al pastor pork, carne asada (grilled steak seasoned with lime), chorizo, bacon, ham, grilled bell peppers, onions, pineapple, melty oaxaca cheese, and topped with sliced avocado, tomato, and radish, and served with five tortillas (flour for me):

The a la carte menu has a lot of options for people who like to sample things, like a single cheese tamale ($3.50), which we both thought was just okay:

This is an a la carte beef burrito ($3.99), served “wet” (smothered in sauce and melted cheese). It’s a classic wet burrito, which is making me reminiscent for Taco Viva, a South Florida fast food chain that predated Taco Bell in the ’80s. They all closed decades ago, but they gave me my first tastes of Mexican food as a kid, igniting a lifelong love affair. I don’t even know if Taco Viva was any damn good by Mexican food standards (probably not), but you know what is? Las Carretas and this burrito right here:

This is a huge a la carte chile relleno stuffed with cheese ($4.99). After I was so disappointed Tex-Mex chain Chuy’s removed chiles rellenos from its menu at some point in the last year and a half, I was thrilled to discover such a good one here at Las Carretas, with a lightly crispy batter that didn’t get soggy under all that sauce, and didn’t fall or peel off.

There were almost too many good choices for dessert, but on this first visit, my wife chose fried ice cream ($5.99). The scoop of vanilla had a nice, thin, crackly coating she liked that reminded me of crushed corn flakes, and that was her favorite part. I preferred the fried flour shell/”bowl,” so that worked out well for both of us. But we had other dessert ideas that would have to wait for our second visit.

My wife and I went back for a second lunch a couple of weeks later (months ago, at this point), and met a good friend there. I ordered the chimichanga ($9.99 on the lunch menu), sort of like a burrito wrapped in a flour tortilla, then lightly fried. It was smothered with a sticky, thick cheese sauce and stuffed with beef tips that ended up being kind of like pot roast. The Mexican rice, guacamole, pico de gallo, and sour cream were nice, fresh accompaniments that kept the beef, sticky cheese sauce, and crispy shell from feeling too heavy.

Our friend got enchiladas rancheras ($9.99) on the lunch menu — cheese-stuffed enchiladas topped with pulled pork, grilled onions, green and red bell peppers, and enchilada sauce. I swear there are enchiladas under there!

My wife went back to the alambre Mediterraneo ($17.99) again, only asked for it without cheese this time. She liked it even better without the melted cheese contrasting against the seafood.

This one cracked me up. I always love tortas, Mexican sandwiches on bolillo rolls, so I ordered the one torta on Las Carretas’ menu, the torta toloqueña ($11.99 on the lunch menu), intending to split it with our friend. The sandwich comes with chicken milanesa (a chicken cutlet, pounded thin, breaded, and fried), ham, oaxaca cheese, pineapple, “vinegar mixed manzano pepper,” tomato, avocado, ketchup, mayonnaise… and salchicha, which I know means sausage. Well, I expecting more like a chorizo-like sausage, and not these hot dogs on top! That’s my bad. I should have known better. All three of us had a good laugh over it, and we still shared the salty, overstuffed torta. It was an unexpected surprise, but it was still a really decadent and satisfying sandwich. This torta toloqueña was the only time in my life I’ve ever been okay with ketchup being anywhere near hot dogs.

We couldn’t decide between two desserts, so we got both! These are the churros ($4.99), served with caramel and chocolate sauces:

And sopapillas ($5.99), fried flour tortilla wedges sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, drizzled with honey, and served with a rapidly melting scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I couldn’t tell you which of the three desserts was my favorite, but they all involved comparable flavors.

On both of these visits, I was thinking about how much my co-workers would enjoy Las Carretas, so a few weeks later, at the first mention of a work lunch, I was quick to suggest this place. When I returned to Las Carretas for my third time, I brought three co-workers with me. None of them are the adventurous eaters I am, so we often end up at Chili’s, Miller’s Ale House, or Gator’s Dockside for work lunches. But I implored them to give this new Mexican restaurant a chance, and they wouldn’t be disappointed.

They weren’t.

My vegetarian supervisor and friend ordered enchiladas vegetarianas ($10.99), three enchiladas stuffed with zucchini, yellow squash, spinach, and mushrooms, topped with ranchera sauce and mozzarella cheese:

Another co-worker, my former supervisor who has since been promoted, ordered this beautiful campeche quesadilla ($13.99), with grilled shrimp, onions, bell peppers, and mozzarella cheese:

I ordered the party tacos ($14.99), because nothing says “party” like a lunch with your current and former supervisors and one other guy, where you talk all about work before having to drive back to work and not fall asleep. Anyway, you get an order of six tacos and can try two proteins in them. Frankly, I would have preferred an option where I could buy six individual tacos, all with different proteins, but I chose wisely: cabeza (tender, moist, fatty beef head; along the top) and al pastor (slow-cooked pork marinated in pineapple juice; along the bottom). Both were so delicious and satisfying, not dry at all like the meats occasionally are at even the best taquerias. This is an incredible dish, and a good deal too.

And another guy got a trio of tacos, but I don’t remember which ones these are. Carne asada would be my best guess.

On my fourth visit with one of the same co-workers, she got queso dip ($3.99) and table-side guacamole ($8.99) to go with the fresh tortilla chips:

And I tried yet another new dish, the Texas burrito ($11.99), a dry burrito (not smothered in cheese and sauce, so you can hold it and eat it), stuffed with crumbled chorizo sausage (another one of my favorite Mexican meats), rice, beans, shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, pico de gallo, and avocado sauce. It was awesome and huge. Look at it on this large, long plate:

And you thought it smelled good on the outside!

So that’s a massive review based on my four meals at Las Carretas, all eaten at the restaurant. With how close it is to both work and home, I expect I will continue to be a regular at this place, especially since they have a large, covered outdoor seating area for when the weather finally cools down (and avoiding people carrying the Delta variant in the meantime). Las Carretas may not be Miami’s La Carreta, but it is one of Orlando’s best Mexican restaurants, and now one of my favorites. I can’t imagine anyone going out to eat here and being disappointed. It’s a real crowd-pleaser in every way.

Tight Chips: New Aldi and Fresh Market potato chip flavors

This week I’m back with another edition of Tight Chips, a recurring feature on The Saboscrivner, where I review new and interesting potato chips and other store-bought snacks.

This time I’m focusing on some new store brand chips I purchased over the last few months at Aldi and The Fresh Market. I’ve raved about Aldi before, and for the last few years, I do most of our grocery shopping there. It’s cheaper than any other grocery store, and it mostly carries high-quality private label products — groceries and other goods produced by other manufacturers (often familiar ones), then rebranded with Aldi’s own store brands. Some of them are “Aldi Finds” that only appear for a week, or as long as supplies last, and then vanish just as quickly. Weekly ads run from Wednesday through Tuesday, so make sure you check the ads online and hit store starting on Wednesday to track down the Aldi Finds while you can.

Most of Aldi’s potato chips and snacks are sold under the Clancy’s private label, including these two delicious new potato chip flavors inspired by cocktails enjoyed at brunch: Bloody Mary and Moscow Mule. Both of these are crunchy, “krinkle-cut” chips, with thicker ridges than Ruffles, and of course they were limited-time Aldi finds.

Here is the nutrition info for the Bloody Mary chips. Bloody Mary cocktails are usually made with worcestershire sauce, a tasty and versatile condiment that adds a funky umami element to anything, in part due to containing anchovies. I love cooking with anchovies. They add even saltiness and umami, especially when you saute bitter vegetables like broccoli rabe (aka rapini) and broccolini (aka baby broccoli). I’ve never had a Bloody Mary, but I can’t imagine they would be as beloved as they are by brunchers everywhere if they tasted like salty cured fish. Seems like an instant ticket to acid reflux, but what do I know? Anyway, vegetarians don’t have to worry, because the ingredients specifically state they use anchovy-free worcestershire sauce.

These were better than I expected. Tangy, tomatoey, a little bit spicy. I love these flavors in general, and especially on chips. They are kind of like barbecue chips, but with a sharper flavor, and less sweet. They would be great dunked in a tangy blue cheese dip or a creamy spinach-artichoke dip, but I didn’t have any.

Next up, we have the Moscow Mule chips, so here is the nutrition info for those. These chips were a pleasant surprise too. I gave up drinking before ever trying a real Moscow mule, but the cocktail contains vodka, spicy ginger beer, and lime juice, and is served in a copper mug. Note that the ingredients list lemon juice powder rather than lime juice powder, as well as citric acid for a sour, puckery punch.

These really do taste like ginger and citrus! They are a little sweet, a little sour, a little spicy, and surprisingly refreshing. Even if you don’t care about the drink, it’s a nice flavor combination that makes me think of a sunny summer day.

Aldi has a different private label called Specially Selected for serious gourmet goodies — everything from fancy preserves and holiday-themed sweets to frozen meals and decadent desserts, plus occasional new chips. These are also Aldi Finds that pop up randomly, and they can be gone, baby, gone just as quickly. I found these Specially Selected Pancetta and Parmesan kettle chips back in early March:

Vegetarians, note that these contain dairy, but no pork or other meat!

These chips were savory and a little smoky, but all the flavors were subtle. They really did smell and taste like pancetta, that wonderful cured Italian meat that is like unsmoked bacon, which can miraculously improve so many recipes. They had a little bit of funky umami flavor from parmesan cheese as well.

Another good grocery store that I don’t shop at nearly as often is The Fresh Market, which is more of an upscale, gourmet supermarket, similar to Whole Foods, but generally a little smaller and a lot less “hippie-ish.” Shopping there really is a pleasure. The stores aren’t overly bright, they pipe in classical music, and they have a lot of delicious food you can’t buy anywhere else. Their groceries tend to be on the pricey side, but they run some decent sales and often put good products on clearance, so you want to be on the lookout and stock up on things when you can. The Fresh Market has its own store brand for all kinds of products, including snacks and even potato chips. I don’t recall being tempted by them before, but All Dressed potato chips recently caught my eye, and I couldn’t resist. This is a terrific flavor that is popular in Canada, but very rare here in the States. Frito-Lay has released All Dressed Ruffles before, but that’s all I can recall, until now.

These are thinner potato chips, very similar to Lay’s, which is my favorite texture and mouth-feel for chips. They went heavy with the All Dressed seasoning, and they are fantastic. The bag doesn’t lie — they are sweet, tangy, savory, smoky, spicy, vinegary, and vaguely tomatoey. They are kind of like a combination of barbecue and salt and vinegar chip flavors, and I think that’s a winning combination. If you like Zapp’s Voodoo chips, All Dressed is similar to those. Tremendous flavor. I highly recommend these!

The three Aldi flavors are almost certainly already gone, but Aldi brings old favorites back throughout the year. I’m always on the lookout for the triumphant return of their Park Street Deli atomic spicy and sweet horseradish pickles and their maple-vanilla whipped cream around the holidays. I’ve seen these chip flavors more than once, so just follow the weekly ads and stay vigilant. I even bought my record player at Aldi, a neat little Crosley knockoff that transforms into a briefcase and even has a USB port for digitizing your vinyl collection, and those tend to show up around Mother’s Day every year.

The Fresh Market All Dressed chips should still be around, and I suggest running, not walking, to get those in your life sooner rather than later… so you can burn calories and allow yourself to eat more Tight Chips!

Mofongo (Miami)

I always remember March 7th, 2020, a date that shall live in infamy. I took my first trip down to Miami in over two years to attend an old friend’s funeral, visited my family for the first time in far too long, and got to hang out with my best friend on an epic foodie adventure day. As you might remember (because it was a year ago today, but also feels like a decade ago, and possibly also last week), this was right before so much of the country started quarantining before the COVID-19 pandemic, so March 7th was the last day I ate any meals in a restaurant. But I went out in style, because we ate at FIVE restaurants that day. I have already shared my reviews of Polo Norte and El Santo Taqueria from that same legendary day, along with my review of the Fort Lauderdale Skyline Chili from earlier in the same trip. But my last Miami visit and my last hurrah going out to dinner with friends culminated at Mofongo (https://www.mofongoscalle8.com/), a popular Puerto Rican restaurant on Miami’s festive, fun, and iconic Calle Ocho, the center of the expatriate Cuban and Cuban-American community.

This evening was the first time I had met my best friend’s girlfriend, who is just the coolest person, and a damn delight. I was so happy to be out with both of them, at last. She started out with some nice sangria:

We shared alcapurrias de carne ($9.50). These are crispy, crunchy fritters made out of either mashed green plantains, grated yuca, or both, stuffed with seasoned ground beef, and deep-fried. They were really heavy, but good. This was my first alcapurria experience!

This was the star of the show: mofongo de carne frita ($16). Mofongo, the restaurant’s namesake dish, is a concoction of green plantains, which are sliced, then fried, then mashed up with garlic, salt, and crunchy chicharrones (pork rinds) in a wooden mortar. Here at Mofongo (the restaurant), they serve mofongo (the dish) in tall wooden mortars that make attention-grabbing centerpieces for every table. The mofongo itself is sculpted into a dome, its apex artfully adorned with awe-inspiring alimentary accoutrements. This was A LOT of food for the three of us to share, especially since my friend and I had been eating literally all day. Somehow our trio made it work.

A close-up of the top of Mount Mofongo, with thick chunks of rich, salty carne frita (fried pork shoulder), translucent pink marinated onions, and colorful herbs over the golden dome.

Finally, the arroz mamposteao ($4.50) ended up being my favorite thing we had at Mofongo! This side order of buttery yellow rice, stewed red beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bell peppers was one of my favorite rice dishes I’ve ever had.

Almost a full year after this legendary night out in Miami, I finally found a restaurant that serves arroz mamoposteao in Orlando: Cafe Madrid, which I reviewed right here, almost two years ago. It was good there too, so now I have a local hook-up.

This meal was the culmination of one of my favorite days ever — definitely my favorite day of the last 365, right before the way we had to live our lives changed forever, to protect ourselves and the people around us. That’s why I’ll always remember the date of March 7th, along with the festive surroundings, the beautiful live music (my best friend’s girl knew all the Puerto Rican songs and explained them to us), the good food, and the wonderful company. Hopefully we’ll be able to do something like this again safely, sooner rather than later, and we can remind our friends how much we love them and missed them over another delicious meal (or five).