Comfort food – Page 9 – The Saboscrivner

Prohibition Kitchen (St. Augustine)

This past weekend, my wife and I ventured out to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States, for my first time in almost 20 years and her first visit since elementary school. We were going to a concert on Saturday night, but we decided to get a motel, stay the night, and use the day to explore a bit of the Historic District and grab a late lunch somewhere good. Prohibition Kitchen (https://pkstaug.com/) came highly recommended, and it looked very much like our kind of place — a gastropub with an eclectic menu and a unique retro aesthetic.

Our motel was a real dump (I booked it online), and parking near the Historic District was a nightmare, but we were charmed by the beautiful old buildings and laid-back, touristy vibe of the Historic District once we finally got there and found a parking space. Driving from Orlando, we had definitely built up an appetite, so we arrived at Prohibition Kitchen just in time, on our way to hangry.

It’s a long restaurant that stretches pretty far back, with a long bar along the right side. It was pretty busy when we go in, with a huge crowd gathered for the Florida Gators game. We waited about half an hour for a table, but after how long it took us to park and find the place, we didn’t mind waiting. Luckily, we arrived late in the fourth quarter, and the bar crowd cleared out when the UF game ended and the UCF game began.

There is a stage to the right of the entrance for live music (which they feature many evenings). This is a happening place!

Stairs up to second floor loft section:

We started out with a cup of beer cheese soup ($4), garnished with toasted pretzel crumbles. It was excellent, with a nice texture that wasn’t too sticky or goopy, and not too smooth and uniform like most queso dips. It even had the slightest bit of spice. I would make this at home if I could find a similar recipe; it was that good.

This was the German-style pretzel, served with beer cheese dip ($10). It was light, fluffy, and buttery, with the slightest crispness to the outer crust. I have nothing but love for Auntie Anne’s pretzels — in fact, they are the only thing that redeems my rare trips to malls — and this was similar to those, but on a much grander scale. We have a hard time saying no to any kind of soft pretzels.

However, the beer cheese dip, included in the price, was identical to the separate cup of beer cheese soup I ordered, and the same size, too. Could our server have warned me that if I wanted to try the soup, I’d get a cup with the pretzel, to save me $4? Sure, she could have, and it would have been appreciated. And $4 isn’t going to break the bank for us, but it would have been a perfect opportunity to give me a heads-up. Did I need two cups of beer cheese soup and/or dip? Nope. But did I slurp down two cups? I sure as hell did, since I paid extra for one of them!

My wife made the best choice at this lunch, ordering the Maine lobster roll ($21), which actually came out as a pair of lobster rolls, both on grilled, buttered, New England-style split-top buns. The lobstah meat was in big chunks, cool and refreshing, dressed with mayo, diced celery, chervil leaves, and Old Bay seasoning. She gave me a delicious bite, and because she doesn’t dig on sandwiches, I ended up eating most of both buns, fan of buttered toast that I am.

Having studied the menu in advance, I figured I would go with the Prohibition Kitchen signature burger ($16): a half-pound blend of sirloin, short rib, and brisket, served medium-rare with red onion bacon jam, a fried egg, and Red Dragon cheese, along with the typical lettuce, tomato, red onion, and pickles. Red Dragon isn’t just a Hannibal Lecter novel anymore, but a Welsh cheddar made with whole grain mustard seeds and Welsh brown ale. I’ve only ever had it once or twice ever, but as a fan of cheeses with stuff in them, and especially as a mustard aficionado, I figured I was choosing wisely. I love onion jam and/or bacon jam as burger toppings, too. I even ate all my pickles, and they weren’t bad!

Like BurgerFi, they brand the buns — in this case a fluffy brioche bun, which you can never go wrong with.

The burger was perfectly fine. Greasy, juicy, lots of flavors going on. But on a humid day of walking around pushing my wife in her wheelchair over the cobblestone streets of St. Augustine’s Historic District, and especially with a concert to look forward to that night, I would have preferred the cool, refreshing lobster rolls she ordered to a heavy burger. But I always say she’s the smart one, and that was one more example of why.

For the record, the fries were very forgettable, and neither of us ate very many of them. I could have gotten a cup of beer cheese soup instead of the fries for a $2 upcharge, which would have at least saved me $2 (or gotten me a third cup of beer cheese soup), but I really need to let this go.

Anyway, that was the one meal we got to eat in St. Augustine, although after lunch, my wife bought two kinds of fudge and a big bag of different flavors of saltwater taffy at one of the many ubiquitous candy shops along St. George Street, one of the main drags. We were both charmed by the touristy Historic District and swore to return together, when we didn’t have a concert to take up our evening. We might even stay there next time to explore the history, culture, architecture, and food more, since we sure as hell are never going back to that dingy, decrepit, desolate dive of a motel, and it would be nice not to fight for a parking space every time we wanted to come and go. And while we’d probably seek out other local eateries on a future visit, I’d still recommend Prohibition Kitchen to any St. Augustine newcomers. The lobstah rolls, giant pretzel, and beer cheese soup were all well worth it.

Swine & Sons

So, has anyone heard about any good chicken sandwiches lately?

Let me rewind for a bit. This week the Internet went insane over chicken sandwiches, something I rarely order anywhere. When there’s a burger available, I never give the chicken sandwich a second look. At fast food places, even if I’m not in the mood for a burger, I’m more likely to order the fish sandwich than the chicken sandwich! Even when I go to a fried chicken joint, I’ll usually get a couple of crispy fried thighs, rather than a sandwich. Too often, the classic fried chicken sandwich contains a dry chicken breast, or worse yet, a dry tender or two. I’ve been burned by dry, bland white meat too often, and don’t get me started ranting about dry, bland, boring-ass Thanksgiving turkeys. I always prefer dark meat, and thighs usually hide my favorite morsels of meat on the entire chicken: the oysters, tucked away under a bone, two little perfect bites per bird.

But people are losing their damn minds over this chicken sandwich, which gave me a serious case of the FOMO.* I had to venture forth to see what the hype was about, and so I could blog about it and get some external validation before everyone moves onto the next foodie fad. Wait, did I just write that?

Well, to none of my regular readers’ surprise, I ordered two different chicken sandwiches: spicy and extra-spicy. And I’m happy to report they were the best damn chicken sandwiches I’ve ever had! But they didn’t come from that chain. Nope. And not that chain either. They came from a beloved local restaurant that just happens to be located in a butcher shop. Not that one; the other one!

Swine & Sons (https://swineandsons.com/) started out as the third restaurant in James and Julie Petrakis’ locally-grown empire, following their flagship Winter Park gastropub The Ravenous Pig and their upscale Southern restaurant Cask & Larder. With Chefs Rhys and Alexia Gawlak in charge, Swine & Sons opened in a small space next door to the old Cask & Larder location on Fairbanks Avenue in Winter Park, and I made sure my wife and I were there on the very first day they opened for business. We were some of their first customers through the door on Day One, and they had a good thing going from the onset. It was always meant as a more casual restaurant compared to the others, a quick-service place with sandwiches, house-cured charcuterie, and lots of prepared takeout options. And despite having limited seating and parking, it became a hit, like the Petrakis’ other establishments.

But the only constant is change. In recent years, Cask & Larder moved to the Southwest Airlines terminal at Orlando International Airport, and The Ravenous Pig moved into the space Cask & Larder vacated on Fairbanks, which is much nicer and larger than the old Ravenous Pig location, with more parking. The Gawlaks bought Swine & Sons from the Petrakises, and in March 2019, they moved across the street, into The Local Butcher & Market, an upscale full-service butcher shop. (Da Kine Poke, one of Orlando’s best poke places, also has a counter location inside The Local Butcher.) There are still tables to enjoy the Gawlaks’ delicious food in there, don’t worry. And luckily, there are a lot more parking spaces! Just keep in mind that it closes at 4:00 PM every day, so you’d have to be a real early bird to have dinner there.

Anyway, Swine & Sons is one of the only Orlando restaurants I know of that serves Nashville-style hot chicken, which I was first introduced to at the legendary Hattie B’s in Nashville last year. After the chicken is marinated (often in seasoned buttermilk), breaded or battered, and fried, it is covered in a spice paste that’s heavy on the cayenne pepper, so every surface is spicy. It was amazing, and very different from the popular new fast food spicy chicken sandwich where any heat comes from a spicy mayo-based sauce. At Hattie B’s, I ordered a medium thigh and a hot thigh. They were crispy and crunchy and set my mouth ablaze, and I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
(To avoid any confusion, this photo is from Hattie B’s in Nashville, just in case the cup and the above paragraph didn’t give it away. That’s medium on the left and hot on the right, and the hot was HOT.)

I tried the Nashville hot chicken at Cooper’s Hawk when I reviewed it earlier this year, and even though I liked that restaurant quite a bit, the hot chicken wasn’t that hot or that crunchy. So my quest continued, and I’m so glad that the Great Chicken Sandwich Wars of 2019 led me to Swine & Sons in search of a truly singular spicy chicken sandwich experience.

In fact, maybe with all the chicken sandwich hype and debating, Swine & Sons recently debuted a hotter hot chicken sandwich. Their current menu showed the classic version, referred to as the “Party,” and the newer, hotter model called the “Rager.” The very patient woman working the counter told me they use the same spice blend, but the Rager contains three times the cayenne pepper. They use Bell & Evans all-natural chicken breasts, and she explained that they first brine them, then they smoke them, and then they fry them. I was already on board even before she mentioned smoking, but that would have pushed me over the edge. I love any smoked foods — meat, fish, cheese, fruits and vegetables, salt and pepper, you name it. I was ready for a life-changing flavor sensation, so of course I ordered one of each ($11 per sandwich), intending to eat half the Party and half the Rager there and save the other halves for later.

Party:

Rager:

Both of the sandwiches were served on identical white sandwich rolls, with plenty of sliced pickles and little dipping cups of Alabama-style white barbecue sauce, a mayo-based sauce I have come to really like with my chicken. I’m usually not a pickle person, but I’ve been trying to develop more of an appreciation for pickles, and these were great. Definitely some of the best pickles I’ve ever tried. Surely they were house-made. The chicken breasts with their crunchy breading and oily, spice-laden exterior coating were balanced perfectly with the soft roll and the crispy pickles (not overly sour or “dilly”). I left the cool, creamy white sauce on the side for dipping random bites, lest it overpower the other flavors or cut the heat too much. I would have preferred a soft, rich buttery brioche bun for these sandwiches, which would have both contrasted and cut the heat more than the plain white roll, but it still worked very well.

These chicken sandwiches were CRON-CHY! Each bite had a satisfying crunch that is missing from too much fried chicken. Under the breading, they were also juicy and moist. Even beloved fried chicken establishments have let me down too often — even places I’ve given good reviews to in the past. But these were everything you wish fried chicken sandwiches could be in terms of texture and consistency.

Party:

And what of the heat, you ask? The Party had a pleasant heat that would certainly be too much for my in-laws, my parents, and my wife, but anyone who enjoys spicy food will be fine with it. I didn’t know what to expect from the Rager, but I’ve been pushing my limits with spicy food lately, maybe trying to feel more alive in this scary and unknowable world. My eyes were watering, and I had to blow my nose more than once, but my body reacts like that whenever I eat anything spicy, so those weren’t new and unfamiliar reactions to this heat. Despite all that, I was expecting it to be hotter, to maybe push into a place of unpleasant heat, but it was fine. It was better than fine; it was awesome. And through the heat, you could taste the smoky flavor. They didn’t clash or overpower each other — smoke and fire burning together in crackling harmony.

Rager (see it through my tears!)

I definitely like the oil-based spice rub on Nashville-style hot chicken compared to most other kinds of spicy chicken. Don’t get me started on typical sports bar buffalo wings, which never do anything for me. It might be the funkiness of the vinegar-based hot sauce, but those wings are often too crunchy, whether they are breaded or not, and they’re simultaneously dry and greasy. And even though I couldn’t begin to identify the spices in the Swine & Sons chicken sandwiches (aside from the obvious cayenne pepper), at least they don’t have to increase the heat to ludicrous levels for macho bragging rights, with ridiculous names like “Atomic Hellfire,” “Habanero Apocalypse,” and “Ass-Blaster 5000.”

There was a slight sweetness emerging from the heat in both of these sandwiches, making me wonder if there was some sugar in the spice blend. I loved it. They were exactly what I wanted, exactly what I had been craving and chasing since hitting Hattie B’s in April 2018. The smoky flavor made it through, so there were a lot of unique tastes and textures going on at once. I have to say I preferred both of these chicken sandwiches to the two thighs I had back in Nashville. Were they the best chicken sandwiches I’ve ever had? In a week where people are getting passionate about chicken sandwiches, I’m going to do the same and say YES, yes they were. As I write this review, far too late on a work night, I am so excited that I still have the other halves in my fridge, waiting for me… maybe even taunting me.

While I was there, I also ordered Swine & Sons’ macaroni and cheese, which I hadn’t had in several years. It was $4 for a decent-sized side order, and it was very rich. The cheeses (cheddar and fontina) were melty and the pasta was al dente, so I was more than content. There was also a nice crumb topping made from cheddar-chive biscuit crumbs. A lot of places bake their mac and cheese so the whole thing comes out dry, sacrificing that nice meltiness for overly-crispy edges and noodles you can barely chew anymore, but that was definitely not the case here.

I’ve ordered other sandwiches at Swine & Sons on my handful of previous visits over the years, including a good Southern-inspired take on the classic Cuban sandwich. I think I even had a house-made hot dog there once, although it has been so long, I don’t even remember how they served it. But today, in my first visit to their new location inside The Local Butcher & Market, Swine & Sons showed me the great heights a fried chicken sandwich could reach in the right hands, from the right kitchen. It was hot, but all that heat was pure flavor, not just burning, tingling pain and regret. It was crunchy, but not so hard that I felt like I was going to break a tooth. It wasn’t dry, and it sure wasn’t bland. It was a chicken sandwich all others should aspire to be.

I don’t know if they could serve a non-spicy version of the sandwich for the some who don’t like it hot, but right now I’m convinced Swine & Sons can do anything. And while it is more expensive than the fast food chicken sandwiches making headlines and stirring up strong feelings, you get what you pay for. I think these were dramatically, exponentially better than any chicken sandwiches I’ve ever had, and I hope my readers will feel the heat sooner rather than later. The Gawlaks are like culinary royalty in Winter Park and Orlando, and this place isn’t exactly a secret. But despite all that, you shouldn’t have to worry about long lines and sandwiches selling out, as transcendent as they are.

*Fear Of Missing Out.

I’m so ashamed.

Chain Reactions: Krystal (the all-you-can-eat adventure)

When it comes to food, almost everyone has a guilty pleasure. Maybe yours is Cadbury Creme Eggs (wisely bought on sale after Easter and saved in the depths of your freezer so you can enjoy one every month of the year that follows when nobody else has any), or trashy frozen French bread pizzas that remind you of hanging out at your friends’ houses in high school, or possibly even intimidating sandwiches you painstakingly assemble using two of those French bread pizzas in place of a sub roll, like a true sandwich artiste (particularly going for that self-destructive streak too many artists share). It might be something as simple as ice cream, or fries, or fries dipped in said ice cream. You might have a love-hate relationship with these foods. Indulging might make you feel bad physically after the initial rush of excitement and joy, but you can’t help yourself. Or they might bring you to a happy and comfortable place at the time, but then you feel shame or depression later on, like so many dysfunctional relationships.

After a disastrous attempt at the keto diet back in 2017, I now firmly believe we should eat whatever we want, just maybe a little bit less of it at each sitting, and maybe not indulge quite as often. But life is full of pain and suffering and misery and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly. I say we should just take our pleasures where we can find them — ideally with some modicrum of moderation — and not feel too guilty.

Of course, that’s easier said than done when when of your (by which I mean my) guiltiest food pleasures are cheese Krystals, tiny little cheeseburgers served with mustard, onions, and a pickle slice on soft steamed buns. Krystals (sometimes colloquially referred to as “sliders”) are the signature item from the fast food chain Krystal (https://krystal.com/). If this sounds familiar, you might be thinking of White Castle, a fast food chain located throughout the Northern U.S. We don’t have White Castle here (and I’ve never had a chance to go to one), but Krystal is the Southern equivalent. Founded in 1932 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Krystal’s website claims it is the second-oldest fast food restaurant. Locations are decorated in white and red and have a bit of a retro feel to them, and they’re usually sparkling clean and bright.

As you might guess, the Krystal burgers are very cheap (being a product of the Great Depression), remaining one of the better fast food values today. They are meant to be consumed in mass quantities, and as you might also guess, they are not exactly health food. I usually only go to Krystal once or twice a year, and luckily I have to drive out of my way to go to one, keeping it a rare indulgence. When I go, I usually order a dozen cheese Krystals, and each soft little slider is lovingly tucked into a cardboard sleeve with one open side. I’ll reach into the bag on my passenger seat and wolf down several of them before I even make it home. Hey, I’m not proud.

But perhaps in an attempt to reach out to people like me, Krystal recently instituted an all-you-can-eat deal, offering unlimited Krystals and fries for $5.99. (This deal is for dining in only. You can’t get it to go, and you can’t leave and come back later and hope to get more.) I had to try it, for the sake of this food blog and my dozens of vaguely-interested readers. I figured I would live-blog my experience as I ate more and more sliders, perhaps chronicling my physical and mental decline, and to see how long I could stay in the restaurant, how many they would be willing to serve at a time, whether I could beat my previous Krystal record of eating twelve, and whether or not I’d wear out my welcome before I tapped out. I love the state of journalism in 2019, don’t you?

Here’s a twist: I don’t think Krystal’s fries are anything special, so perhaps for the first time in the very short history of their all-you-can-eat deal, I asked them to hold the fries and just give me cheese Krystals. (The incredulous cashier said “Are you sure? The fries are included!”) Just so ya know, the cheese is a $2 upcharge, but I think it’s totally worth it, as long as we’re indulging. I also ordered a drink, a Sprite slushie for $1. Hey, big spender!

So instead of giving you a tray laden with a precarious leaning tower of burgers like an old Jughead comic book cover, they start you out with four at a time. If I had wanted fries, they would have given me a regular order of fries to begin with as well.

Well, these sliders slide down real easy, so it wasn’t long before I went back to the counter and asked for a re-up. Luckily they weren’t busy. You can tell some time has passed because I drank about a third of the Sprite slushie with the first round. Here’s round two: four more cheese Krystals.

I took my time with those soft, squishy, oniony, mustardy, cheesy little monsters, but I wasn’t ready to surrender to the sweet embrace of oblivion yet. Like I said, my record for Krystals consumed had been twelve — sadly my usual order for the once or twice a year I drive through. Whatever happened, I wanted to at least top that. Why, you ask? I couldn’t really tell you, dear Saboscrivnerinos. Bragging rights? I hardly think this is anything to brag about.

So I asked the nice lady for an order of five more, just so I’d have thirteen in all, and I could reevaluate my options after that. She didn’t even argue with me. I was clearly a man who came to play, who meant business, who could hold his sliders with the best of them. Here they are, the Furious Five with no Grandmaster Flash in sight, and one-third of the slushie remaining.

In case there was any doubt remaining, I inhaled them.

And you know what? After that, I made what might have been the smartest move I made that day — I called it a day. Walked away while I was still on top (so to speak), quit while I was ahead (arguably), didn’t foolishly try to hit some arbitrary new Krystal milestone like 20, or doubling my old record with 24.

I ate thirteen of those things, and they were delicious, and I got it out of my system (pun very much intended). I don’t need to return to Krystal for a while now — I’m good! By the time I make it back, this dangerous all-you-can-eat deal will probably be over, and that’s fine with me. I did the unthinkable that day, fearless readers, and lived to tell about it. It was an intense 15 minutes that afternoon, let me tell you!

Washington D.C. Part 1: Ben’s Chili Bowl (RING THE ALARM!)

I am very lucky to be able to travel to professional conferences in different cities once in a while. My profession has two major annual conferences: a huge national one in July and a smaller Southeastern conference in the spring. In a really good year, I get to attend both. Some years, my employer doesn’t have the budget to send me to either. But each and every conference I attend is a gift. I love them, because I get to visit and explore new cities, attend programs to help me improve at my job, learn from the best people in our field, catch up with my frolleagues (colleagues who have become friends), and eat at new restaurants along the way.

Our latest conference was in Washington D.C., and people are always shocked when I told them I’ve never been to our nation’s capital before. Well, better late than never! Even though this was a particularly busy conference, I was able to arrive a day early to play tourist.

That first day in D.C. was long and exhausting, but I credit a big breakfast at Reagan International Airport for giving me the strength to make it through. I arrived so early, I figured I should kill a little time before even taking the Metro to check into my hotel. And instead of the usual airport chains, I found a location of the Washington D.C. institution Ben’s Chili Bowl (https://www.benschilibowl.com/), a favorite of locals, tourists, celebrities, and even President Obama.

Of course, most people opt for the historic location on U Street, founded by Ben and Virginia Ali in 1958. While that would have been a lot more atmospheric, I couldn’t beat the convenience of passing right by it on my way out of the airport. And I had wanted to try Ben’s anyway, so it worked out perfectly.

So this was my healthy, balanced breakfast, around 9 AM after getting three hours of sleep the night before:

A spicy chili half-smoke sausage, grilled and served on a warm steamed bun with mustard, onions and Ben’s spicy homemade chili sauce. The tomato-based chili con carne was very thin, with finely-ground beef — a pretty-standard hot dog chili, but that’s the best kind to put on a dog.

The sausage itself had a nice bit of heat, but best of all was the snappiness it had, due to what was probably a natural casing. This is definitely the kind of thing to eat with a knife and fork, but of course I didn’t. Here’s a cross-section:

My long-time readers know I order onion rings whenever I can, to see if they match my very high standards. It’s a little recurring feature I like to call

[AIR HORN!]
RING THE ALARM!
[/AIR HORN!]

For maybe the first time ever, I was a little disappointed that Ben’s served such a large portion of onion rings. I never eat breakfast, I was still tired, and I was steeling myself for a really busy, physical day, so I knew I couldn’t eat them all, and I would make myself sick trying. Luckily, they weren’t my absolute favorite kind of onion ring — instead of the golden beer battered rings I always seek, these had a crispy bread crumb coating that peeled off pretty easily. Not awful by any means, but not my favorite onion rings ever. I didn’t feel too guilty leaving some of them behind, since I knew they wouldn’t be worth dragging back to my hotel room to eat cold later.

And since this meal came with a huge, early morning blast of fat, salt, spice, and grease, I ordered a pineapple milkshake too, because I love pineapple anything, and I figured it would be cool and soothing after the spicy sausage, chili, and rings. It was very thick and refreshing, but I wish it had been more pineappley. It might have saved me from getting some acid reflux later on, so no regrets from me.

After that, I never made it to the original Ben’s Chili Bowl location for that historic D.C. dining experience, but I was content. I had always heard great things about Ben’s, and I’m glad I got to try the food for myself, even if it was in an airport location. This wasn’t bad at all, but the meals I ate in Washington D.C. only got better from here.

Chain Reactions: Waffle House

“It is indeed marvelous. An irony-free zone, where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. Where everybody, regardless of race, creed, color, or degree of inebriation, is welcomed. Its warm yellow glow a beacon of hope and salvation inviting the hungry, the lost, the seriously hammered, all across the South to to come inside. A place of safety and nourishment. It never closes. It is always, ALWAYS faithful. Always there FOR YOU.”

Those were the wise words of the late, great Anthony Bourdain, from his Parts Unknown episode where he visited a Waffle House restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina.

The man did so much for broadening people’s views about food, between his brilliant books, like Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour, and his fascinating food shows, like No Reservations and Parts Unknown. He encouraged us to experiment and try new things in new places with new people, to step out of our culinary comfort zones, challenge our sensibilities, and open ourselves up to new, potentially life-changing experiences. As a food blogger, he is one of my greatest influences, in terms of his unique voice (both his writing style and his soothing TV show narration), his curiosity and empathy, and his sense of adventure.

Bourdain knew a good meal when he saw it, whether it was five-star fine dining or some dirty, dangerous dive halfway across the globe. I always appreciated that he spoke so highly of Waffle House (https://www.wafflehouse.com/), that ubiquitous-yet-humble chain of 24-hour Southern diners, and highlighted it on his show.

I also unironically love Waffle House. It is practically synonymous with a “greasy spoon,” and sometimes infamous for unsavory late-night antics. But the truth is, you can get a delicious, hearty, affordable meal there at any time of the day or night, prepared right before your eyes in an open kitchen. I am lucky enough to live near the best Waffle House location ever — always spotless, fast, and friendly no matter when you show up, with impeccable, satisfying, soul-nourishing food. Scoff all you want — if you’re still skeptical, that just means you’ve been denying yourself one of the greatest comfort food experiences to be had in the South.

I’ve been composing this Waffle House review and compiling photos for months, over the course of several separate visits with my wife. But today was Anthony Bourdain’s birthday, so it felt like the right thing to do to go back tonight, to reminisce about the life and legacy of one of the greatest foodies of all, to indulge our senses and think about all the entertainment and education the man provided us over the years. We were also joined by some members of the Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps, a Facebook group that has also broadened my culinary horizons and introduced me to some amazing new friends. It felt right to commune with these fellow foodies and Bourdain fans, and to talk and laugh and share food with them, tonight of all nights. We learned all the right lessons.

Even if you aren’t familiar with the glory of Waffle House, you may have heard of their flawless hash browns and all the different ways you can order them:

Smothered with grilled onions
Covered with melted cheese
Chunked with grilled smoked ham
Diced with grilled tomatoes
Peppered with pickled jalapeno peppers
Capped with grilled button mushrooms (more for y’all!)
Topped with Bert’s chili
Country with sausage gravy

I am perfectly happy to eat my hash browns straight up with ketchup, but I do love them smothered and covered as a special treat. My wife prefers hers plain, as usual. Tonight one of our dinner companions ordered hers covered, chunked, and peppered. (I hope you’re writing this down, I’m gonna test ya later!)

The All-Star Special is a bargain and also a challenge: fried eggs (you can get them in other styles), accompanied by smothered hash browns (dig the grilled onions) and buttery white toast. Tonight I was feeling like a big shot, so I got cheese on my eggs with a specific purpose in mind:

A picture from an earlier visit, this time with no cheese on the eggs, and thicker grilled and buttered Texas toast, superior to the white toast:

We both love their very crispy bacon, which is my wife’s go-to breakfast meat at any time of day:

You can choose between bacon, sausage, and ham for this All-Star Special, or pay a slight upcharge for a large cut of rich, salty, bone-in country ham, bursting with far more flavor than the “everyday” ham. The country ham is my new favorite. Obviously the texture is totally different, but it always reminds me of prosciutto, one of my favorite foods in the whole world.

As if that wasn’t enough, the All-Star Special also includes a plain waffle, which I believe is made with Golden Malted waffle and pancake mix, the best commercial mix I’ve ever found. It isn’t the hardest thing in the world to make waffles or pancakes from scratch at home, but I buy that mix now to try (in vain) to recreate the perfection of a Waffle House waffle. The outside is always crispy, the inside is always fluffy. Anyway, if I ordered this one in the photo, it would soon be doused in syrup:

Here’s a waffle topped with peanut butter chips, from another visit. You can also get chocolate chips and even pecans. They have even offered peach waffles in past summers, which is a pro-tier move from this Atlanta, Georgia-based company. I’m looking forward to peach waffle season.

Grits! Not my favorite, but my wife sure loves ’em with some butter and salt. We all know that no self-respecting Southerner would make instant grits, but I’m not sure if these are “real” or instant.

And she turned me onto the grilled, split, soft and buttery biscuits, which she likes instead of toast, with a little butter and jam. You can also order a biscuit sandwich with eggs, cheese, and the breakfast meat of your choice.

This is another one of my favorites, the Texas sausage, egg, and cheese melt, on grilled and buttered Texas toast, with added grilled onions. I like mustard on my eggs, mmmm hmmmm. Pure breakfast perfection at any time of day (or night), but I hate eating in the morning. We’re much more likely to go there for dinner.

Tonight, another one of my adventurous friends ordered something I’ve never tried before: the new Cheesesteak Melt Hashbrown Bowl, which is pretty self-explanatory: a large order of hash browns covered with melted cheese and topped with cheesesteak and grilled onions. Everything a growing boy needs, it’s the breakfast of champions, even at 8:30 on a Tuesday night.

But Waffle House is about so much more than just breakfast food! I actually love their burgers.

This is my standard: the $2 double “original” Angus cheeseburger that comes with two patties, melted cheese, and grilled onions on a grilled, buttered bun, with pickles and a packet of delicious WH Sauce, which is similar to chipotle mayo. (It is a Heinz product, and I wish they sold it in bottles!) It’s very much like an old-school diner burger, like the burger you imagine being served at a diner in a Tom Waits song. It is better than just about any fast food burgers. DID I MENTION IT IS $2? It may be the best $2 you’ll ever spend on food.

Again, a better photo from a different visit. I think American cheese is the ultimate cheese for burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches, for how nicely it melts. Yeah, come at me, bro.

Here’s one adorned with that WH Sauce:

And here’s tonight’s burger, pre-WH Saucing, side by side with one of those wondrous waffles. Don’t worry, they don’t serve them on the same plate, but we had six people at our tiny table, so I was trying to consolidate:

One day they were out of burger buns, so I asked if they could serve the burger on grilled Texas toast. They happily obliged, and I think it was even better — kinda like a patty melt. Pardon the blurriness.

My wife swears by Waffle House’s grilled pork chops, always with her beloved hash browns. These have supplanted eggs and bacon as her standard order, although she still loves the grits, waffles, and biscuits too. They are surprisingly tender, juicy, flavorful, bone-in pork chops. Ask for the “seasoning” — it is just a salt and pepper blend, but it adds a unique touch, and they aren’t the same without it.

Chops ‘n’ browns:

More chops ‘n’ browns:

And if you decide you want picante sauce for your hash browns, eggs, sandwiches, or burgers, I love that the brand is Senora Jackie’s Casa de Waffle. This was old news to us, but our table-mates got a real kick out of it.

Waffle House usually has good sweet iced tea, and I like my iced tea like I like my women: sweet, strong, cool, and with lemon. But usually I’ll get a vanilla Coke or vanilla root beer there, on top of all those other carbs. They actually squirt real vanilla syrup into the fountain beverage, which makes a nice difference. I can’t speak for the coffee, since I rarely touch the stuff.

Waffle House restaurants all have another beloved feature: a jukebox, loaded up with pop hits, golden oldies, and a surprising number of novelty songs written ABOUT Waffle House. Fun fact: Waffle House even has its own record label! I rarely indulge with the jukebox, which is odd, because I love foisting… uh, sharing my musical tastes with others. But tonight I spared our new friends and the stalwart staff, lest I be tempted to queue up some Tom Jones on repeat.

And one more fun fact about the Waffle House I think you should know: it is often the first business up and running again after hurricanes and other natural disasters! Because it stays open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) refers to the “Waffle House Index” in terms of the severity and impact of the disaster. According to this transcribed National Public Radio interview, “If a Waffle House is closed because a disaster is bad, [FEMA calls] it red. If they’re open but have a limited menu, that’s yellow… And a completely open, full-menu Waffle House is green.” A Waffle House spokesman said “If we’re opening up quickly, that’s a good sign that community is going to come back quickly. If we are on a limited menu, that’s probably because we’re – have some utilities out, so it’s going to take a bit longer for that community to come back.” So as we edge in those scary Southern summer months that occasionally bring hurricanes, maybe pay as close attention to your local Waffle House as you do to your favorite telegenic weatherperson.

The world is certainly not the same without Anthony Bourdain, and I think about him whenever I try a new dish, visit a new restaurant, or explore a new city… and also whenever I end up at my friendly neighborhood Waffle House. Tonight, over a late dinner with my winsome, wondrous wife — the person I love most in the world — and some really great new foodie friends, Bourdain was on our minds and in our hearts. That fellowship, the fact that I found my way onto a local food forum on Facebook, the fact that I started this blog just over a year ago and bother writing about food at all — I can trace all of it back to him. So on his birthday, a year after we lost him, I mourned and celebrated the man, I ate good food with good people, and I thought long and hard about how lucky we all are to be able to do that.

Chain Reactions: Maple Street Biscuit Company

Despite living not too far from Oviedo, I almost never drive all the way east to head out there. Every time I do, I’m always amazed by how much the area has been developed, with so many new restaurants popping up. One of Oviedo’s newest neighbors is the Maple Street Biscuit Company (https://maplestreetbiscuits.com), a small chain that was founded in Jacksonville, Florida, and has since expanded into six Southern states (Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Texas). Despite being a chain, it has a very “down-home” Southern feeling, with everything in the bright, spacious dining room made of wood (or wood veneers).

Maple Street Biscuit Company specializes in fried chicken sandwiches made with fresh, white meat chicken breasts on fresh-baked biscuits, but they have lots of other options. They make their jams and jellies from scratch too, which is not that common anymore.

I ordered the Squawking Goat sandwich, which includes fried chicken breast, a fried goat cheese medallion, and house-made pepper jelly on one of those fantastic biscuits. I loved it. It was awesome. They were generous with the pepper jelly, ladling it on all over the plate, so it was definitely a sandwich to eat with a knife and fork. I thought the goat cheese “medallion” was quite small, but it was so delicious, coated in seasoned bread crumbs, that I craved more.

My wife ordered the Sticky Maple sandwich, with a fried chicken breast and pecanwood smoked bacon on a biscuit, with real maple syrup from the Bissell Family Farm served on the side. (They usually pour it right on.)

We had meant to share the Smoky Mountain Mac n Cheese, a $4 side of macaroni and cheese made with three different types of cheese and topped with a crunchy cheese cracker crumble, but then I think my wife remembered she isn’t the hugest mac and cheese fan. More for me, I thought! But the portion was very small, so it wasn’t that much more for me after all. Still, it was rich and cheesy and gooey and tasty, so how can I complain?

Also pictured above is the iced cinnamon pecan biscuit they were gracious enough to include with our order because it was our first visit. It was delicious — much more of a dessert that something you should eat for breakfast, but I feel that way about most breakfast pastries (muffins, doughnuts, danishes, Pop-Tarts, and their ilk). The icing was very fresh and very thin, like you would find on a cinnamon roll or a good cheese danish.

My wife studied the menu in advance, and she knew she wanted the house-made ganache hot chocolate with steamed milk. She tasted cinnamon and said it reminded her of Mexican hot chocolate, which she always loves.

I rarely drink coffee, but I love anything with vanilla and maple flavors, so I couldn’t turn down an iced maple vanilla latte. Of course it was more like a dessert than anything else, but that’s how I like my coffee (like my women): sweet, smooth, and cool.

And finally, because we didn’t have enough carbs and sugar already, they had fresh-baked cookies near the cash register, where you place your order, and we couldn’t resist trying the lemon blueberry cookie. I was surprised my wife suggested it, since I love anything with lemon and with berries, and she usually doesn’t, opting for chocolatey sweets instead. And I think she liked it, but I definitely liked it more. It was obviously very freshly-baked, extremely soft, still warm, and delightfully lemony. We ripped into it so quickly, I almost forgot to photograph it, as you will be able to tell:

Maple Street Biscuit Company closes at 2:00 most days and stays closed on Sundays, so it isn’t the easiest place for us to get to. Still, I’m glad we were finally able to try it. I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back, but I definitely would return to get that Squawking Goat again, and maybe I’ll ask for extra fried goat cheese next time. I’d get that cookie again, too!

Theo’s Kitchen

It feels like a while since I wrote my last review here, and I have a few more in the pipeline. But this one is about a hidden gem here in Orlando, on Curry Ford Road: Theo’s Kitchen (https://www.theoskitchen.com/). It’s in an older, nondescript shopping strip near a Winn-Dixie supermarket, and you might not know it’s there at all unless you’ve been hipped to its existence. Consider yourselves hipped.

Have you ever craved really good, crispy, tender, juicy fried chicken, but also been dying for Greek food? Has that ever happened to you too? Well, you’re in luck, because Theo’s serves what has to be my favorite fried chicken in the Orlando area (The Coop is very good, don’t get me wrong, but not quite as consistent as it used to be), plus they have a whole menu of Greek specialties, when you can’t decide or when you just want to treat yo’self and have it all.

I’ve been to Theo’s twice this summer since discovering it, once again thanks to the local gourmands, connoisseurs, and aficionados on the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook. On my first visit, I met a fellow Foodie Forumite there, a really good guy who is always visiting and recommending restaurants around town. I’ll name him if he’s okay with that, but for now, better safe than sorry. GREAT guy with good taste and a never-ending thirst for adventure, culinary and otherwise.

On that visit, I ordered a gyro (because there’s no such thing as a bad gyro, am I right, you guys?), a chicken thigh so I could sample the legendary fried chicken, and an order of onion rings, because THAT’S RIGHT, THIS IS ANOTHER INSTALLMENT OF RING THE ALARM! (AIR HORN!) My friend ordered the gyro king (same thing but with feta cheese added), a Greek salad, and chicken and rice soup. The gyro was very good, and the onion rings were the kind I love, with a nice beer batter coating, the ideal thickness and consistency.

My friend seemed to love all of his food, and the salad was definitely beautiful.

I don’t mean to downplay any of that, but the chicken thigh was excellent. The crispness was so perfect, but it was almost all in the skin, rather than a heavy, greasy layer of breading or batter. It was very moist and juicy. There wasn’t a lot of seasoning on the chicken — The Coop and even Popeye’s season their fried chicken more — but it didn’t need it, seriously. Theo’s website says “Our Special method of broasted pressure frying in peanut oil makes your Fried Chicken light, evenly cooked and full of naturally delicious flavors.” (See https://www.theoskitchen.com/menu.)

Wait a minute, Mr. Saboscrivner, Sir, you might be thinking. “BROASTED”? Is that a typo? How unlike you! Is that even a THING? No, I promise, I copied and pasted that directly from the Theo’s Kitchen website and cited my source (always cite your sources, folks), but it is a thing. It’s essentially fried chicken that is also pressure-cooked while it’s fried, prepared in special equipment made by the Wisconsin-based Broaster Company.

Because I am a serious food blogger and a researcher by trade, I dug a little deeper to investigate broasted chicken, since now I’m invested, and I’m sure you are too. Here’s a 2004 Washington Post article all about broasted chicken:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/2004/04/21/this-chickens-not-roasted-broiled-or-fried-its-broasted-good-luck-finding-it-though/63ba6fe5-6af4-45bc-b0c3-8a8b26d8ea87/

And a shorter Atlas Obscura article, for the “TL,DR” crowd (although I can’t imagine any of them would still be sticking around my blog!):
https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/broasted-chicken

So anyway, it was awesome. I’ve never had fried chicken quite like it before, but I think it cracked the code for the perfect blend of flavor, freshness, texture, and lack of heavy, nasty, slimy greasiness.

I went back to Theo’s Kitchen more recently with one of my co-workers, who was kind enough to treat me to lunch, even though I had every intention of treating him that day. What a blessing it is to have good co-workers, since that can make or break so many jobs. He ordered a two-piece meal with a breast and a thigh, with some nice, crispy, crinkle-cut fries, and an order of fried mushrooms, which I cannot eat (but I was nice enough to take a picture of them for you).

I had another spot-on perfect broasted chicken thigh:

Also, because I was craving pasta and haven’t had this in years (not since my beloved Patsio’s Diner in Casselberry closed), I ordered pastitsio, which is like a Greek version of lasagna. It is a casserole of uncut ziti noodles and a rich, tomatoey sauce with ground beef and what had to be a fair bit of cinnamon. (This makes sense, because I love Cincinnati-style chili, originally a recipe of Greek immigrants that is made with cinnamon and served over spaghetti.)

The pastitsio even came with one of their beautiful Greek salads, and they were very generous with the feta:

So Theo’s Kitchen is a casual little place in a strip shopping center that looks like hundreds of others, the kind of restaurant you could drive by every day and never notice, or live your whole life in a city and never know about. It is an open room with lots of little tables and natural light from a big glass storefront window overlooking the parking lot. Maybe not anyone’s idea of a “sexy date night” restaurant, but a fine choice for any occasion. It has it all! Greek food? Check. Greek food is good, and often healthy, and there aren’t a ton of Greek restaurants. Fried chicken is good, and not healthy at all, but it’s dry and disappointing too often when you get it from fast food chains and supermarkets. Not so at Theo’s Kitchen, where you get the best of both worlds.

Baltimore, Part 2: Dangerously Delicious Pies

When you’re a grown-ass person, you can choose to have dessert for dinner if you want to. Normally that isn’t my ideal meal; I like some sweets, but I’m more likely to crave a good sandwich (almost everything is better in sandwich form), pasta, or salty, crunchy snacks. But when it comes to desserts, my favorite might be PIE. I’ll take pie over cake any day; I love pie, and I’m sad that for the most part, pie isn’t hip or cool or popular. There was a time in the U.S. when pie wasn’t just for Thanksgiving — and true confession time, I think apple and pumpkin may be the most boring, pedestrian pies, and Thanksgiving dinner is boring and bland in general. But that’s a hot take for another blog entry!

There were times past when you could take a date out for coffee and pie after a movie, or convince more people to attend a voluntary meeting if you promised punch and pie. Those days are gone, and what desserts are en vogue now? We’re left with trendy cupcakes, crumbly dry nibbles of cake buried under mounds of sickly-sweet, greasy frosting; macarons, tiny pastel burger-looking things that still look much prettier than they taste; and biscotti, a cruel joke against anyone who likes cookies.

But pie is comfort food, nostalgia, hope — all the good parts of America with none of the bad, the most pastoral of pastries, equally at home cooling on a farmhouse windowsill or resting under a glass dome in a lonely big-city diner straight out of an Edward Hopper painting. I even fulfilled a lifelong dream I never even knew I had earlier this year, when I volunteered as a judge in the American Pie Championship, right here in Orlando. That was an experience I’ll never forget or regret, even though I got stuck with the apple pie category and never need to have apple pie again.

So needless to say, I was thrilled when two Facebook friends alerted me to the presence of a pie restaurant right here in Baltimore, where I’m spending the next few days! Dangerously Delicious Pies (https://www.dangerouspiesbalt.com/) was founded by Rodney Henry, frontman of Baltimore rock band The Glenmont Popes, and apparently quite a baker as well. The restaurant has two locations in Baltimore, and they specialize in sweet AND savory pies! The menu is huge, almost to the point of intimidating, but I figured I’d get a piece of savory pie so I could feel like a functional grown-ass person and have more than just dessert for dinner, but follow it with a sweet slice.

I took a Lyft ride to the scenic Canton neighborhood location with an old friend and one of her work colleagues. It was a cool, funky little restaurant, with walls painted red, some rock ‘n’ roll decor, and a glass case teeming with gorgeous, tempting pies. All savory pies are $7.50 per slice, and quiches and sweet pies are $6.50 per slice. Every pie is baked in a 10″ pie pan, and they are cut into six equal, generous slices.

My friend selected the Hot Rod Potato pie: kind of like potatoes au gratin with potatoes, roasted peppers, cream, cheeses, onions, and bacon. 20180714_192934_resized

Her colleague had just flown into Baltimore and was hungry enough to order two slices: the Cannonball (bratwurst, onions, and peppers roasted in Heavy Seas Loose Cannon beer) and the Polka pie (Kielbasa, sauerkraut, potatoes, and cheese). They were kind enough to let me try theirs, and I did the same.

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I think I panicked from the seemingly-limitless options, because I chose the sausage, tomato, and fennel pie — good, but not as great as all of theirs. I love tomato-based sauces on pasta, pizza, salsa, you name it, but this had chunks of stewed tomatoes that were a little too large for my liking. I think it came down to a texture issue for me, as I’d rather have a smoother sauce without huge chunks when it comes to hot, cooked tomatoes. But my pie included both sweet and hot sausages, and it still tasted really good. It could have used some cheese, though — either melty mozzarella or provolone, or even a gooey white American or cream cheese to balance out the acidic, chunky tomatoes.

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All these pies had the same crust — fork-tender, flaky, buttery, a little salty, chewy yet also crispy, not really sweet. It was a really solid pie crust that got thicker and a little dryer toward the back. Like a lot of dry pizza crusts, I wasn’t too tempted to eat the outer crust pieces, but the tops and bottoms were terrific.

The pies all came with complimentary sides of either a vinegar-based cole slaw with poppy seeds, or a simple side salad. I opted for the cole slaw, which was great, except for the poppy seeds that got lodged between some of my teeth all night. I still contend they need to develop an app that warns you about visible food caught between your teeth.

For her sweet pie, my friend went with the house specialty, the Baltimore Bomb, a vanilla-custardy chess pie with Berger cookies, a local delicacy similar to New York’s familiar black and white cookies, melted and swirled into the custard filling. Berger cookies are smaller than your average black and whites, but they’re comparable “cakey” cookies, covered with rich, thick chocolate icing. It was in the same kind of flaky, buttery crust as the savory pies, but it was almost a sweetness overload.

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I had a much easier time choosing my sweet pie, especially after studying the menu in advance: the Pineapple Right Side Up pie, white chocolate maple chess pie topped with brown sugar and pineapple. As I write more on this blog, you will learn that I love anything with pineapple and anything with maple, but it’s very rare for a dessert to include both flavors. Needless to say, it was delicious, but also ridiculously sweet and rich. I would have liked a little more of a pineapple upside down cake taste mixed throughout (that’s one cake that I’ll always love) and a little less of the rich custard, which was extremely “eggy”-tasting in both sweet pies. And normally I love chess pie!

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Anyway, it was an awesome dinner, a unique restaurant, and a great value. None of us had any regrets, even if I don’t feel like I chose the best savory pie option. I’m so glad some of my hip friends hipped me to the existence of Dangerously Delicious Pies, because I came across as so cool recommending it to my other friend and her friend. Now I can say that almost everything is better in sandwich form AND pie form.

This place opens at 10 AM during the week and 9 AM on weekends, and stays open until 10 PM most days, and midnight on Friday and Saturday. You could literally have pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I strongly recommend you try that at least once.

To quote FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks, one of my favorite fictional characters of all time from one of my favorite shows of all time, these were some damn fine pies.