Desserts – The Saboscrivner

Aurora

To my dozens of regular readers, I apologize for accidentally publishing this piece last week, while it was still an incomplete draft. I unpublished it immediately, but any subscribers would have automatically received an unfinished version, and I regret that. That’s a rookie mistake, and you really hate to see it!

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Aurora (https://aurorarestaurantorlando.com/) is a beautiful restaurant located inside the Celeste Hotel, standing in front of the University of Central Florida in East Orlando, at the intersection of University Boulevard and Alafaya Trail. I recently took my wife to dinner at Aurora, the first time for both of us, and we had an incredible experience that left us yearning for more. Executive Chef Mike Trudnak is a CIA graduate (the good CIA, the Culinary Institute of America), and he has created one of the most exciting menus I’ve encountered in the Orlando area in a long time. We will definitely return and hopefully become regulars, especially since Chef Trudnak changes the menu seasonally.

I had bugged my wife to try Aurora for years, but the impetus for us to finally make it there back in July was Bite 30, the annual midsummer event in which some Orlando restaurants offer an optional prix fixe menu where you can get an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert for the reasonable fixed price of $38. (It started out years ago at $30, hence the name, but I get it, food costs more, and I don’t begrudge restaurants having to raise their prices to stay afloat.) It’s a fantastic way to try new restaurants and sample several different dishes that you might never otherwise order.

I absolutely love that younger generations are drinking less, encouraging more and more restaurants to offer mocktails on their drink menus. Neither my wife nor I drink alcohol, but she likes the experience of getting a nice mixed drink in mocktail form. This was the Asteroid, with muddled blueberries and blackberries, lemon lime soda, and simple syrup, and garnished with fresh mint leaves. She said it was delicious.

Even though it wasn’t part of the Bite 30 menu, I suggested we get the bread service, with fresh, fluffy, pillowy-soft yeast rolls. These were awe-inspiring. If you’ve ever bought frozen Sister Schubert’s yeast rolls or tried the versions at Texas Roadhouse, those are fine, but these are a million times better, and not just because I’ve been eating low-carb lately. I can’t rave about these yeast rolls enough.

The bread service came with honey butter and house herb butter, both whipped for smooth and easy spreading. They were great (show me some bad butter… I’m waiting!), but the rolls were so perfect, they didn’t even need butter.

The beet and goat cheese summer salad was on the appetizer list for Bite 30, but even though there were appetizers that appealed to each of us more, we were both very intrigued by this salad. Our lovely and patient server Alura told us that we could order a half-portion of the salad and the kitchen would even split it for us, so we could each try everything. That was the perfect solution to a first-world problem, and we were so grateful to her for letting us know.

So this beautiful plating is half of the half-portion! The salad contains local baby greens, paper-thin sliced cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, pickled fennel, watermelon radish, baby beets, sorrel, sunflower seeds, hibiscus, and goat cheese puffs, with a wee pitcher of honey thyme vinaigrette dressing. What a masterful salad, as beautiful as it was tasty. We both love beats and goat cheese, and I’m always intrigued by interesting dressings because I eat so many salads at home. This did not disappoint.

The baked puffs, airy and crispy at the same time, really did have goat cheese baked inside!

We both love raw tuna, and my wife chose these gorgeous tuna tostadas as her Bite 30 prix fixe appetizer. They contained ponzu-marinated Ahi tuna, smashed avocado, aioli cabbage slaw, wakame (an edible seaweed), and pickled red onion on the top of the crunchy fried tostada discs. They were a little messy to eat, but so worth it.

As for me, as a middle-aged man, I don’t get that many opportunities to eat an entirely new meat for the first time in my life, so I couldn’t resist the allure of camel empanadas! Yes indeed, these golden-brown empanadas, fried to perfection, contained ground camel meat, seasoned with vadouvan curry, onions, peppers, and garlic. What the heck is vadouvan curry, you ask? Well, I didn’t know either, but I’m a librarian, so I looked it up. As usual, Serious Eats had the answer — a sweet and smoky French-influenced blend of toasted spices, with shallots, onions, garlic (sometimes), fenugreek, chile, cumin, and curry leaves.
They were served with whipped feta cucumber tzatziki dipping sauce. Everything was so good. As Jim Gaffigan once said, there’s no such thing as a bad empanada, and he was right.

Here’s a rare look inside a camel empanada!

My wife ordered the grilled beef filet medallions as her entree, a dish that would have cost $58 just by itself on the regular menu! They were served on a bed of carrot puree with asparagus, fondant potatoes (the two brown puffs at 1:00 and 7:00), and the brown sauce is a peppercorn demi-glace. Her only complaint was that she asked for them rare and they were cooked well beyond rare, but she still liked them a lot.

And since I was having a hard time deciding, I asked her what her second choice would be, so I could order that one. She said she was curious about the tableside finished eggplant parmesan, so of course I ordered it so we could share. The Italian-breaded eggplant cutlet looked a little naked, despite being topped with balsamic spheres and micro basil. The description didn’t mention it came with any pasta, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a bed of thick sheets of (no doubt freshly made) pappardelle underneath it.

But hey, what’s this? A second server came to the table, carefully holding a sizzling skillet of San Marzano tomato vodka sauce topped with melty broiled burrata and parmesan cheeses, meant to pour over the eggplant at tableside!

I never record video on The Saboscrivner food blog, because nobody wants to watch me eat, plus I have a face for radio and a voice best suited for print media. So you’ll have to believe me that it was a nice little production of the sauce and cheese sliding out of that hot pan onto my eggplant, but you don’t get to see it in action. You can imagine, though. I NEVER order eggplant parm at restaurants (I have two talented friends who made the best versions I’ve ever had in their own kitchens), but this was a particularly nice one, especially with the whole “dinner and a show” aspect.

For dessert, my wife got the flourless chocolate torte, with dark chocolate ganache, strawberry sorbet, and fresh strawberries. Me not being a big chocolate eater, it would never have occurred to me to order this, but I tried a small morsel, and I loved not only the rich, intense, chocolatey flavor, but also the smooth texture. It’s gluten-free, too!

I chose the lemon and wild berry cake because I always love any citrusy desserts. The small cake was about the size of a hockey puck, rather than a slice from a larger cake. It was topped with blueberry compote, a mountainous dollop of fresh whipped cream, and a beautiful hibiscus flower.

Here’s a better angle so you can see more of the blueberry compote on top and all the berries baked inside.

We went back to Aurora this past weekend for Magical Dining, when Orlando-area restaurants offer a similar fixed-price menu for either $40 or $60, and part of each bill goes to worthy charities like OCA (Opportunity, Community, Ability), which empowers individuals with autism and other developmental differences. (Aurora’s menu was $40.) This event is always scheduled for mid-August through September, historically one of the slower times of the year for restaurants, since kids are back in school and tourism decreases. Just like Bite 30, it’s a great opportunity to try new dishes at new restaurants, or to go back to old favorites, and my wife was excited to return to Aurora. Hopefully after reading this review, you might be excited to go there too, with several weeks left to go during Magical Dining.

The Magical Dining menu was very similar to the Bite 30 menu, but I tried my best to try different things this time. My wife got the beet and goat cheese summer salad for her appetizer again, because she loved it that much, but I got something I hoped she would enjoy as well: the jackfruit “tostachos.” This was a platter of crispy tostones (fried green plantains, not sweet or soft like maduros, which are ripe plantains), topped with shredded, roasted, and barbecue-seasoned jackfruit, pickled red onion, heirloom tomato salad, and adobo mayo ketchup. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like, but it was delicious, and it was a much larger portion than the other appetizer I was considering, the Mexican arancini. There were actually five separate topped “tostachos” (like tostone-nachos, get it?), but I gave my wife one before snapping this photo.
The mayo-ketchup was a nice touch, since that’s a common dipping sauce for tostones at Puerto Rican restaurants. And the jackfruit had a similar consistency to shredded barbecue chicken, even though most people wouldn’t mistake it for chicken. I can see it being a godsend for any vegetarians and vegans who used to eat chicken and miss the whole experience.

My wife was drawn to the same grilled beef filet medallions, but this time, they were cooked perfectly rare, as she requested, and I thought this photo came out better.

But I switched it up and ordered a real Florida Man fusion dish: alligator fried rice, with marinated and cornstarch-fried Louisiana gator, tamari orange sauce, stir-fried vegetables (lots of snow peas in there), and sesame seeds. Alligator sure seems like a novelty food — something tourists have to try when they visit Florida or Louisiana — but I can’t help but be drawn to it every few years, just because I crave novelty just like anyone else. If I didn’t know it was alligator, I’d probably think it was fried chicken, but it is not as tender as chicken. Other than the fried gator nuggets and the sweet orange sauce, this reminded me of the fried rice I make at home, which was somehow a confidence-booster. I’m extra-glad I didn’t get the Mexican arancini appetizer, because that would have been two rice dishes in one meal, and that would be unhinged!

Creatures of habit that we are, we defaulted to the same desserts as last time, because they were so damn good. She got the flourless chocolate tarte with dark chocolate ganache and strawberry sorbet again, and it was just as good this time:

And I got the lemon and wild berry cake again, because it is probably in the Top Five restaurant desserts I’ve ever had. But this time, I was so full, I asked for it to go, and they were kind enough to pack up the fresh whipped cream and blueberry compote in separate little plastic ramekins.

Well, we have every intention of returning to Aurora in the future, even when they aren’t doing special fixed-price menus. I think of it as a “special occasion” restaurant, even though they have perfectly normal menus and even serve breakfast every weekday until 11 AM, plus brunch on the weekends. There aren’t a lot of “nicer” restaurants in East Orlando — just the Cooper’s Hawk chain in Waterford Lakes, the casual Wine 4 Oysters, and Aurora, and this is definitely our favorite. It’s so nice, but not a stuffy or intimidating sort of nice. Bring a date, bring your parents, bring out-of-town guests, and you’ll have a grand time. Just show up for breakfast or lunch on a regular, normal day, and you’ll really enjoy it, but don’t miss that Magical Dining menu. You have a few more weeks to catch the prix-fixe options, and I promise you won’t regret it.

The Corner Pizza Bar

The Corner Pizza Bar (https://thecornerpizzabar.com/) is a super-casual pizzeria and bar in downtown Orlando, located at 150 S Magnolia Ave, Orlando, FL 32801. It is one of the closest restaurants within walking distance to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, and I was on my way to a show when I met a friend, his girlfriend, and another friend of his there for dinner. They were kind enough to invite me to join them, or otherwise, I would have gone straight from work to the concert, skipping dinner and some really pleasant human contact with really pleasant humans. I wasn’t expecting the pizza would be so good, either!

First of all, I liked that The Corner Pizza Bar was kind of dark and somewhat cavernous inside. I love restaurants like this, where you aren’t being blinded by bright light and don’t feel like other diners are right on top of you. This was late June, when the World Cup was happening, so most people in there were watching socc… um, footba… nah, whatever, soccer on the large-screen TVs. We were just there to eat and chat before seeing the brilliant British singer-songwriter-piano player Joe Jackson, an underrated musical legend who has been reinventing himself since the late ’70s. Yes, he’s still around, and he’s still got it.

Since this has been my year of cutting carbs and losing weight, I figured I was at a new pizzeria, so I might as well treat myself and try their pizza. I appreciate any pizzeria that sells slices, so I went with a plain cheese slice. Toppings are fine, but you can really size up a pizzeria and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses by ordering a plain slice and enjoying it on the premises. Well, for one thing, this slice was HUGE. At a glance, it reminded me of Lazy Moon Pizza, that Orlando institution with three locations that I have a lot of nostalgic love for. But I thought The Corner’s slice was much better than Lazy Moon — more like a traditional thin and crispy New York slice.
I appreciated that the crust wasn’t burnt to a crisp, the cheese was melty, and the robust sauce didn’t feel like an afterthought. Of course I fold my slices, and this one flopped a little due to sheer size, but it did not affect my enjoyment at all. It was a lot better than some of the better-known and highly vaunted local pizzerias, I can tell you that.

The other thing I ordered was my other go-to at any pizzeria: a Sicilian slice. I love Sicilian pizza more than anyone else I know, again due to nostalgia. I would always get one of these thick, rectangular slices at Cozzoli’s Pizza at the Dadeland Mall food court as a kid in the ’80s, and I’ve been chasing that high ever since. It is nothing like Chicago-style deep dish pizza, and it is less greasy than the rectangular slices of a Detroit-style pan pizza with its caramelized cheese “frico” edges. I love that the Sicilian crust is crispy on the bottom, but underneath the mozzarella cheese and thick tomato sauce, it is pillowy soft. This was a fantastic Sicilian slice, especially in a city where not enough pizzerias offer this option. I have no complaints, no nitpicks.

My friend and his girlfriend ordered this calzone to share with each other, but when they started getting full, they asked if I wanted any. Since we were all heading to the concert, I took it upon myself to finish it, and I have no regrets for stepping up. I don’t always go crazy for calzones, but this one had a nice, light crust brushed with garlic butter. Some places overbake them so the crust becomes a bland, dry impediment, rather than an enjoyable component of the finished product. They chose meatballs to go inside, along with the mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, and I forget what else, but you can’t ever go wrong with meatballs at an Italian restaurant. I honestly prefer them to pepperoni or sausage as a pizza topping — either sliced or crumbled. And if you don’t know, now you know!

I have to admit, I avoid going to downtown Orlando whenever possible, after two hectic years of working down there, twenty years ago. The parking can be a nightmare, although I paid extra for guaranteed parking in a garage for the Joe Jackson concert, and that put me mere steps away from The Corner Pizza Bar. The nighttime crowds can be intense and intimidating, but this was a quiet Monday night. It’s just a schlep in general, or else I would consider returning to The Corner Pizza Bar somewhat regularly. But next time I attend a concert downtown, I will absolutely go back for a pre-show dinner. The pizza and calzone were better than they had any right to be, the good conversation with friends old and new elevated the entire meal even higher, and then I got to see a musical legend perform for the first time. The Corner Pizza Bar helped make that a memorable, magical Monday.

Kaya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can tell you three of the others right now:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bachour (Coral Gables)

Bachour (https://antoniobachour.com/) is a beloved bakery-cafe-restaurant in Coral Gables, a historic and tony area of Miami. I was down that way back in May, visiting my family in Kendall for the first time in far too long. I also spent some quality time with my best friend (going back to elementary school) and his amazing girl, taking advantage of their generous hospitality and visiting parts of Miami I never ventured out to when I grew up down there. The last day I was in town, we had brunch at Bachour, and his mom — who just happened to be my first-grade teacher! — joined us. We had a great time, despite getting rained on while we ate in a semi-covered outdoor alcove. The food, which combined French and Latin influences, was magnificent.

Founded by Puerto Rican-born Chef Antonio Bachour, Bachour is known for gorgeous pastries, arranged artfully in glass display cases:

We started out with an order of arepa fritters, one perfect crispy fried sphere for each of us, stuffed with cotija cheese and held in place with avocado puree underneath.

We also got an order of tequeños, small pastries made of long, flat strips of dough wrapped around salty queso blanco and baked or fried. (These were fried.) They were served with cilantro garlic aioli dipping sauce, which was so good, I kept it for whatever was coming next.

This stunning swirled pastry is Bachour’s version of a cinnamon roll. Look at those crispy, light, flaky layers of laminated dough. It was a work of art.

My boy’s mom ordered this creme brulee French toast with vanilla custard and mascarpone creme as her entree, even though that’s a dessert in my book.

His lovely ladyfriend got this breakfast sandwich with scrambled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, aged cheddar, truffle butter, and arugula (it’s a veg-EH-ta-ble) on a soft brioche bun.

She also ordered a side of crispy home fries with it.

My friend got the Bachour crispy chicken sandwich, with butter lettuce and creamy, crispy slaw on a brioche bun, and he said it was one of the best chicken sandwiches he’s ever had. He chose fries as his side instead of a salad, which makes me think of John Mulaney’s routine about ordering a chicken sandwich and choosing between the two most different foods in the universe.

And as for me, your friend and humble narrator, one of those foods that always tempts and tantalizes me is smoked salmon, so I got something I normally never order anywhere, a club sandwich (a triple-decker sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on white toast) with smoked salmon and a bit of avocado added in. Club sandwiches often slide apart, or the toasted bread crumbles under the architecturally unsound structure of its fillings, but I am a grown man, and I promise you I did my best.
Even though I really have been trying to eat healthier, I kept the server from removing that delicious cilantro garlic aioli from earlier, so I ordered fries instead of a salad too, figuring I would share them with everyone else at the table to assuage my guilty conscience (another Mulaney bit).

I brought home two croissants for my wife. This one was pistachio:

And this one was almond. She loved both, but I don’t think she mentioned a favorite between them.

All in all, it was a nice visit back home, and a highlight of the trip was this wonderful brunch shared with some of the best people I know. I had heard of Bachour before, but just like 90% of places I hear about in Miami, I never thought I would actually go there. Well, on this recent trip down, I scratched a few of those semi-mythical spots off my list. This was a great meal, and the company couldn’t be beat.

Seby’s Pizza

Seby’s Pizza (https://www.sebyspizza.com/) opened in 2025, in the same tiny plaza that is the home of the wonderful Kai Asian Street Fare, in the southwest corner of the intersection of Semoran Boulevard and Howell Branch Road, where Casselberry fades into Winter Park. Pizzaiolo Sebastian “Seby” Donofrio, a third-generation Italian-American, runs a small, casual pizzeria that specializes in New York style pies, something with no shortage of local options but very few that achieve greatness.

We usually order garlic knots from most pizzerias to see how they come out, almost like a quality benchmark. These were nice and fluffy, and the exteriors didn’t get scorched, which happens more often than it should.

I opted for a large pizza for myself, planning to get four meals out of it (two large slices each). I treated myself to the Soho pie, with homemade tomato sauce, a blend of shredded mozzarella and provolone cheeses, soppressata, capicola, fresh garlic, and crushed Italian hot cherry peppers. I think I was hoping for actual pickled cherry peppers, maybe chopped up, but I recall a bit of disappointment that it was just the red pepper flakes that most pizzerias have in little shaky-jars on the table, or in tiny packets. And they went really light on them, too (see below), but I have a huge shaky-canister of red pepper flakes at home, so there was plenty of spice to go around… eventually. As much as I love soppressata and capicola, while these bougier cured meats were a nice alternative to the standard pepperoni, I still prefer all cured meats served cold in a sandwich or on a charcuterie platter rather than baked on a pizza until they’re crispy and greasy. I feel like they all lose something that way.
Speaking of which, while it was good New York-style pizza, pizza always loses something on the drive home. That New York style crispiness fades in the car as it steams in the cardboard box. I’m sure I would have had a better first impression if I ate it right there in the restaurant (and yes, they do have a small seating area).

This was the small Little Italy, Seby’s version of a classic margherita pizza, with house-made tomato sauce, fior di latte fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and a dusting of Pecorino Romano cheese. I got this with my wife in mind, who sometimes likes red sauce but sometimes doesn’t, but I ended up eating most of it too. (And in 2026, the year I’m finally eating healthier and losing weight, that’s why I hardly ever order or eat pizza anymore.)

These were honey garlic jumbo Buffalo-style wings, which my wife requested. She’s a bigger wing fan than I am, especially honey garlic, but I think I ended up enjoying them more than she did. I recall her complaining they were a little too garlicky, and in return, I posited that I would have preferred them with much more garlic. We’re the original odd couple!

This was another choice my wife made, toasted almond amaretto cream cake, made with amaretto-soaked Savoiardi ladyfinger cookies covered with creamy, rich mascarpone cheese and finished with a toasted almond crunch topping. Like a lot of pizzerias probably do, Seby’s brought this dessert in from Brooklyn. Several of their sumptuous-looking desserts are listed as coming from either Brooklyn or Italy!

People have been raving about Seby’s Pizza, and I get it, I truly do. It’s nice having another solid New York-style pizzeria so close to home, especially since my absolute favorite in Orlando, John and John’s – A Pizza Shop, is almost 45 minutes away. But while Seby’s was solid enough, if I want that style of pizza without schlepping through Orlando traffic, I feel like the excellent Dough Boyz Pizzeria in nearby Oviedo might edge it out. Seby’s fans (and I know there are many of you) — what should I try next time? And how do YOU, the stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, rank Orlando’s local pizzerias? I’ve reviewed many over the years, but which local landmarks am I still missing?

New York Bakery Boys

New York Bakery Boys (https://www.nybakeryboys.com/) is connected to a New York bakery called Bakery Boys of New York. (Whew!) They sell fresh bagels (some of the best bagels I’ve had in the Orlando area), sandwiches, cookies, and pastries out of two locations in Oviedo and Celebration. The prepackaged cookies are labeled from the Bakery Boys of New York facility in New York, but the other baked goods seem to be baked in-house.

I visited the Oviedo location for the first time last year and ordered two sandwiches, so I got four meals out of them. Okay, three. These were hearty heroes on thick semolina bread with sesame seeds.

The first one was that New York bodega classic that has become a lot more popular and trendy in recent years, the 104th Street chopped cheese. A chopped cheese is the extroverted love child of a burger and a Philly cheesesteak, with burgers cooked on a flattop grill, then chopped up, as opposed to thinly sliced steak. Cheese is added so it melts, along with lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, and ketchup. It’s a very satisfying sub… sorry, HERO.

You can see how thick the semolina hero rolls are in this cross-section! This was a hit. I had a very different chopped cheese a few years back at Ray’s Deli and More, the closest thing Orlando has to an NY borough bodega, where they pressed the entire sandwich on the flattop grill like a Cuban sandwich. I’d say both are valid, but I don’t pretend to know which presentation is more “authentic.”

I also ordered the Italian special, because come on, bro. I love Italian subs/hoagies/heroes, so how could I not? The New York Bakery Boys make theirs with ham, salami, pepperoni, prosciutto, provolone cheese, roasted red peppers, and “Boar’s Head Deli Mix,” which is a special sandwich dressing (or sandwich lubricant, if you will) made of extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, herbs, and spices. This was another tasty sandwich, but I found myself missing lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. One reason I love Italian subs so much is because I like to top them with a whole damn salad so I can pretend I’m eating semi-healthy and absolve myself of a bit of guilt. Plus, all those fresh vegetables add so many more flavors and textures and add a lightness to what feels like a heavier sandwich without them.

On my second visit, I bought a half dozen bagels to go with some nova salmon, cream cheese, fresh tomatoes, and red onions I pickled myself. I got three everything bagels, one egg everything bagel, one pumpernickel bagel, and one blueberry bagel that my wife requested, but it went stale before she ever got around to it. I tried slicing it a few days later, but by then, it was hard as a rock, and I cut my thumb kind of badly. Oh well, nobody’s fault but my own.All the other bagels were delicious. They were fresh, fluffy, and still warm when I first brought them home, and I made wonderful sandwiches with them. I wish New York Bakery Boys had bialys when I went there, because I surely would have gotten a couple. They may make them and were just out at the time.

I should note that New York Bakery Boys also offers several breakfast sandwiches, not just heroes. You can get nova and cream cheese there, or your typical bacon/sausage/ham with egg and cheese, or even “The Great Jersey Debate,” a sandwich with Taylor ham, also known as pork roll. Sandwiches come on your choice of bagel, a kaiser roll (this is the bodega way), or a hero roll or wrap for a small upcharge.

Since my wife was with me, she got a big black and white cookie, another New Yawk classic that she always loves. Those cookies are always cake-like, with the slightest hint of lemon under the heavy frosting that reminds us, “We’re not so different, you and I.” And she got a container of really tasty cannoli cookies with the same cake-like consistency, light frosting, and slight lemon and anise flavors. I liked that all the cookies were soft, because I don’t like hard, crunchy, crumbly cookies.

As far as I’m concerned, there can never be enough good places for sandwiches, bagels, and baked goods, so I’m glad New York Bakery Boys exists, as a bit of a hidden treasure in Oviedo (and not even that far from D’Amico and Sons Italian Market and Bakery, which is a real treasure in the Oviedo Mall). One of these days I’ll finally get around to reviewing Cavallari Gourmet too. The address of New York Bakery Boys is 2960 W State Rd 426, Oviedo, FL 32765, and there is another location at 603 Market Street in Celebration. (Celebration, which is a planned suburban community that is part of Disney World, is a weird, weird place, by the way.)

Chayhana

Chayhana (https://chayhanaorlando.com/) is an Uzbek restaurant that serves authentic Uzbek and Central Asian food, all of which is halal. It is located at 851 State Road 436, #1027, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, in the long plaza at the intersection of State Roads 436 (Semoran Boulevard) and 434. I’ve had Uzbek food before, at Caravan Uzbek & Turkish Cuisine, but that’s all the way across town from me, in an area I never go. I was excited to finally try Chayhana, which is a lot closer. I’ve brought takeout home twice now, and it was great both times.

My wife is the biggest hummus aficionado I know. She loves hummus to the point where I wonder if I should be jealous of hummus. (With all honesty, I am very secure in our marriage, and I am always glad when she enjoys anything.) Not long after we both discovered the greatness of The Hummus Guy food truck in Maitland earlier this year, we realized Chayhana’s hummus was very different, but also terrific. They sprinkle theirs with some light seasoning, drizzle on olive oil, and top it with a few chick peas. And if I may, what’s the difference between a garbanzo bean and a chick pea? The president has never paid to watch a Russian garbanzo bean. Hey-o!

The hummus came with these warm, lightly grilled pita wedges for spreading or dipping. I consider myself a bit of a pita connoisseur, since there are good and bad kinds, and this is the good kind that gyros are often served on. You can buy the Kontos brand of this kind of pita at some places, like the halal Indian market Apna Bazaar, with locations on South Orange Blossom Trail and on 434 in Longwood.

My wife also loves kasha, or buckwheat (o-tay!), a nutty and earthy grain that is toasted and then boiled until tender, kind of like couscous. I ordered her this grechka, which is warm buckwheat, sprinkled with parsley.

I ordered this pumpkin manty with her in mind. Manty are filled dumplings with a soft, thin, chewy, handmade dough wrapper, kind of like Chinese wontons, Italian ravioli, or Polish pierogi. These manty were much larger than any wontons, ravioli, or pierogi I’ve ever seen, though. And yes, they were stuffed with seasoned pumpkin, onions, and spices for a delicious dish vegetarians would love. Actually, anyone would love these. I thought they might be a bit bland, but they were anything but. And look at the pattern on the outside. They didn’t have to make them look that beautiful, but someone went to the trouble of doing that to all the manty!

This dish is Chayhana’s best-seller, and you can see why. It is plov, a dish of fragrant, buttery fried rice cooked with halal-certified beef and lamb, carrots, onions, scallions, a hard-boiled quail egg, and pomegranate arils. It is gorgeous, isn’t it? It looks like Christmas, with the parsley, scallions, and shiny red pomegranate arils sparkling on top. It’s delicious, too. I preferred it to the similar rice dish at Caravan called to’y osh.I mentioned this in my recent review of Gateway to India, but plov shares its etymology with a more familiar rice dish, pilaf (always so good and buttery from Turkish restaurants like Bosphorous and Istanbul Grill), and they both evolved from Persian pilau, along with Indian biryani, another beloved rice dish. I love that so much.

But that’s not all! I had to try the boso laghman, a dish of hand-pulled wheat noodles, halal beef, thin strips of an egg omelet, sauteed onions and bell peppers, and sprinkled with parsley and sesame seeds, all sauteed together in a savory sauce. Those are the omelet strips on top, not the noodles.

Here are the noodles, and they were so nice and chewy and al dente. The sauce gave everything the slightest smoky flavor. I also ordered laghman at Caravan, and while it was very good, I once again give the edge to Chayhana. I’ve mentioned in a few different reviews that the term laghman was derived from the Chinese lamian (like the wonderful, chewy noodles I reviewed earlier this year at SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles), and that’s how we also got the Chinese lo mein and the Japanese ramen.

Here is my plate. What a bounty! And now you can get a good look at how gorgeous the dough sculpting on that manty was.

After reading the menu, my wife asked me to bring her pistachio cake, which I was happy to do. But when I got there, they had two different pistachio desserts, and I wasn’t sure which one she wanted, so I brought both home. That’s the kind of husband I am.

This dome-shaped dessert was the pistachio cupala, which Chayhana imports from a Michelin-starred bakery in Turkey. I didn’t have any (I’m avoiding sweets, and this didn’t look like my thing anyway), but she seemed to like it.

She preferred this Antep dream cake (topped with finely crushed pistachios above that rich, creamy layer of chocolate). It was not listed on the website, but it was available when I went in. I think it looks more appetizing, personally:

Everything was such a treat, I returned a few weeks later for another round of takeout.

The hummus wasn’t sprinkled with that seasoning or adorned with extra chick peas the second time, but she still liked it a lot:

The plov was still wonderful:

SinceI feel like I ran amok with carbs on our first takeout trip, I resolved to eat a little healthier the second time around. This was the chicken shish, served in small chunks rather than one long skewer so it could fit in a small takeout box. I could tell the chicken was marinated in herbs and spices and grilled, but I most admit, the picture on the website made it look better with the nice caramelization from grilling. I don’t think it lived up to the “golden and smoky” description from the menu. It was chicken breast meat, which is certainly healthier (and it’s what I cook and eat at home all the time now), but I think thigh meat is always more flavorful and feels like more of a treat.

I preferred the lulya kebab, made of seasoned halal ground lamb and beef that was skewered and grilled. This is the kind of thing I will always order at any Middle Eastern or Central Asian restaurant, kind of along the same lines as the lamb adana kebap I ordered at Istanbul Grill or the Iraqi kebab we tried at Rawsha Mediterranean Cuisine. Both kebabs were served with red onions (some raw, some grilled) over very thin flatbread.

We have yet to dine in at Chayhana, but there is a nice little dining room that looks comfortable. When I picked up my takeout orders, it was during the holy month of Ramadan, and smiling Muslim families were just starting to show up for dinners. Everyone looked so happy to be there, and hopefully I’ve communicated why. Chayhana is the very definition of a hidden gem, serving food that may be somewhat familiar, but with unique twists. It makes you think about geography, about how little we (as Americans) know about Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, but how their cuisine has so many similarities with Turkish and other Middle Eastern fare, and how they all evolved from shared origins. That makes our increasingly complicated world seem a little bit smaller, and hopefully gives us all a little hope that we’re not so different, you and I. And for those of us who live in the Orlando area, we are so lucky to have a diverse culinary scene that allows more than one Uzbek restaurant to survive and thrive, even in super-suburban Altamonte Springs.

Barkhaven

“D’ya like dags?”
“Dags?!?”
“Yeah, dags.”
“Dags!”
“Ohhhh, dogs. Yeah, I like dags.”
(Name that movie!)

Barkhaven (https://barkhaven.com/) is a combination dog park, dog grooming facility, restaurant, and bar in Orlando’s Ivanhoe Village area at 724 Brookhaven Drive, Orlando, FL 32803. To put everyone’s minds at ease, don’t worry — there are no dogs in the dining room shedding, drooling, making noise, or trying to steal people’s food. There is a separate entrance for people to bring their dogs outside to the fenced-in dog park, but there are windows to watch dogs romp and frolic while you eat inside the restaurant, or there are outside tables separated from the dog park with a fence.

Full disclosure: we don’t have a dog. I am super-allergic to them, and I am much more of a cat person (more like I’m totally obsessed with cats and want to be best friends with every cat ever). But my wife grew up with Yorkies and one wonderful Yorkie/schnauzer mix and misses them terribly. When I recently found out Barkhaven existed, I thought she would appreciate a chance to watch some dogs make with the romping and the frolicking while enjoying lunch out after a nearby hair appointment.

The restaurant and bar area is a large, wide-open space with tables and a few half-booths up against one wall. All the food is served in disposable paper bowls and plates, with plastic utensils, which is fine with me. It’s a very casual place. The menu says they don’t use any seed oils, and they do all their frying in beef tallow, so look out, vegetarians. I don’t know when seed oils became public enemy #1 or beef tallow started being considered a healthier option, but I remain skeptical. I’m seeing this sentiment so often, I expect it’s some political agenda. Unlike the wonderful smokiness that comes from frying in reserved bacon grease, I don’t think beef tallow adds any particular flavor to foods, just kind of an oppressive heaviness. Would I end up changing my mind after this lunch at Barkhaven? Read on, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos.

My wife is obsessed with hummus, especially since our recent discovery of The Hummus Guy food truck. Aside from the dogs and the proximity to her stylist, the other reason I suggested Barkhaven was because I saw they serve hummus, and I knew she would want to try it. It’s a very nontraditional hummus, though — mixed with balsamic red peppers (I loved ’em, she didn’t), topped with crushed crispy chickpeas (not sure if they were dehydrated or fried in beef tallow?) and paprika, and served with thick-sliced cucumbers and pita chips (definitely fried in beef tallow, maybe a moment too long).

She usually likes wings, and I’ve been thinking a lot about delicious Korean-style crispy chicken wings recently. As a result, we were both intrigued by the honey mustard crunch wings, glazed with fermented honey mustard, sprinkled with green onions, and drizzled with scratch-made ranch dressing. These were meaty wings, not those tiny, sad sports bar wings I hate, but they were a little dry. The wings were suitably crispy without being breaded (there’s that beef tallow again), and as a mustard aficionado, I liked the honey mustard flavor that wasn’t too sweet like so many honey mustards that I call “dessert mustards.” My wife doesn’t like ranch and didn’t care for the ranch being drizzled on, so I ended up eating most of the wings in three separate servings, mostly back at home.

This was definitely the best thing I tried at Barkhaven, the arayas, also known as a Lebanese burger. Rather than a traditional burger patty that might just be sprinkled with salt and possibly pepper, this beef was heavily seasoned with delicious spices, and it actually had some heat, which I enjoyed. It was stuffed into a pita and grilled to get a crispy exterior, then drizzled with garlic tahini and rosemary pineapple hot honey. It was terrific — savory, spicy, and so messy and greasy. It reminded me of a spicier, greasier, messier version of the hawawshi I enjoyed so much last summer at The Cairo Express, although that was crispier because it didn’t have any condiments or sauces on the exterior surface.
The crunchy red cabbage slaw on the side was pleasant, even though I usually prefer the creaminess of conventional cole slaw. And I didn’t realize this arayas was going to come with fries, but I’m trying to be good and avoid fries. These were pretty conventional crinkle-cut fries, despite the beef tallow, so I wasn’t terribly tempted. I dipped a few in the ranch that came with the wings and dragged a couple through whatever tahini, honey, and meat juice dripped out of the arayas, but I left most of the fries behind and only felt a little guilty about the unexpected food waste.

Even though I’ve been eating less and eating healthier (this meal being an exception), and even though I didn’t devour all the fries, I saw Barkhaven offered onion rings, so I had to try them. I try onion rings anywhere and everywhere, since I have a recurring feature on this food blog called Ring the Alarm! These were described as “Thick-cut onions dipped in a crisp, golden beer batter and fried to perfection,” but they were not the kind that I am always delighted to find in the wild, at restaurants like The Whiskey, Christo’s, Build My Burgers, bb.q Chicken, and even Culver’s. The batter on these was dry, kind of tasteless, and had several burnt, scorched spots. Maybe it was the beef tallow.

Barkhaven also serves wood oven pizzas, fish and chips, salads, a hot dog (natch), desserts that include deep-fried pound cake (I guess they have to put that beef tallow to use!), and a whole menu for dogs. When I saw the combination of “beef, pumpkin, and broccoli” on the menu, along with “frozen carrots,” I thought “those are certainly some choices,” until my wife pointed out that those are options for dogs. But again, the dogs would eat outside. They also have a large selection of beers, wines, cocktails, coffee, tea, and other non-alcoholic beverages, all for humans.

Once we boxed up our ample leftovers, we adjourned outside to watch the aforementioned romping and frolicking for a little while. Those good boys and girls were having a grand time, and we saw some beautiful huskies and even a rascally shiba inu. It was a nice way to decompress mentally and physically after what turned out to be a heavy meal. So that was Barkhaven. If you like dogs, drinking, and beef tallow, you’ll be in absolute heaven!

West Tampa Sandwich Shop (Tampa)

West Tampa Sandwich Shop (https://www.westtampasandwichshoprestaurant.com/) is a casual and humble Cuban restaurant on Armenia Avenue in Tampa, not too far from historic Ybor City. I was passing through Tampa a few months back, so I decided to stop there for a late lunch instead of going to my old favorite Alessi Bakery. Unfortunately, I arrived at 2:40 PM and didn’t realize the restaurant closes at 3:00. I never want to be “that guy” who shows up right before a place closes and demands to still be served, but they told me it would be okay. As a result, I wolfed down my meal and didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have if I was unrushed, but that’s my fault for bad timing, not theirs.

The first thing they brought out to me was an order of sweet, sticky, lightly caramelized maduros (ripe plantains), which are one of my lifelong favorite foods. It was a sweltering day, and I had soaked through my clothes just driving around, so I treated myself to a rare and refreshing Jupiña pineapple soda, created in Cuba in 1905 and available at most Cuban restaurants I’ve been to throughout Florida (and also at Publix and Key Foods/Bravo supermarkets).

I am always excited to find Cuban frita burgers on any menu. These are a standard in Miami, and the gold standard is available at Little Havana’s iconic Cuban diner El Rey De Las Fritas. (Cuban pizzeria Polo Norte makes one too.) Here in Orlando, I only know one place that serves a frita burger, Black Bean Deli, and they have an almost “elevated,” gourmet take on it. (I love their version!) I couldn’t resist trying the frita burger at West Tampa Sandwich shop, and it was interesting to notice the little differences.

Most frita burger patties are a blend of ground beef and chorizo sausage, and sometimes ground pork is included as well. West Tampa Sandwich Shop uses a blend of all three. They are topped with freshly fried, julienned potato sticks, which are so crispy and salty. Unlike the other places I’ve had fritas, this place used the pre-made kind that usually come in a yellow cylindrical can (think of a Pringles can). The other fritas I’ve had were topped with cheese, onions, and a red sauce that looks like ketchup, smells like ketchup, but brother, it ain’t ketchup. Instead of those toppings, West Tampa went with mayonnaise, shredded lettuce, and sliced tomatoes. I liked these additions but missed the melty cheese, onions, and red sauce. I would have even welcomed ketchup, but like I said, I was rushing through this meal like I was trying to win a prize for finishing fast. Note that the regular white hamburger bun was pressed flat on the plancha, until it was crispy, like how they serve Cuban sandwiches. El Rey De Las Fritas in Miami and Black Bean Deli in Orlando don’t serve their fritas this way either, but I am always fascinated by regional differences, especially with Cuban food in Tampa versus Miami.

I also ordered a Cuban sandwich to take a few bites while it was still hot, then asked for a bag to wrap it up to go, so these patient people could get on with their afternoons. This Cubano included standard thin-sliced sweet ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, yellow mustard, pickles, and the Tampa-specific addition of Genoa salami (from when Cubans and Italians worked together in the cigar factories of Ybor City). They also added mayo, shredded lettuce, and tomatoes, which I don’t think those are Tampa-specific ingredients like the salami, since I’ve had more traditional Cubanos without lettuce and tomato at Alessi Bakery, La Segunda Centra Bakery, and the legendary Columbia Restaurant, all Ybor City icons. Oh yeah, one more thing — this was actually their honey Cuban, so I think they squirted honey onto the outside surface of the Cuban bread when it was pressed, giving it a very slightly sticky feel. This “honey Cuban” was served to President Obama when he visited West Tampa Sandwich Shop, and I figured if it was good enough for him, I might as well try it that way too. The honey didn’t add a lot of sweetness, but it was definitely sticky to hold. Maybe the sweet honey flavor got lost in the mix, since this version of a Cubano already had a lot going on.

I still give the edge for superior Cuban sandwiches to Sanguich in Miami and South Florida mainstay Vicky Bakery here in Orlando, but I am always delighted to get Genoa salami in my Tampa Cubanos (and you will never get that in South Florida or Orlando).

West Tampa Sandwich shop is decidedly unflashy, inside and out. The food I tried was delicious, and I know it is well-loved and respected by Cuban food aficionados. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever make it back, but if I do, I would make it a point to arrive earlier and take in a more leisurely meal. They even serve breakfast, and they have a full menu of Cuban entrees, not just sandwiches. It was too hot for a heavy dish of meat, rice, and beans, plus, like I said, I was forced to eat and run due to terrible Tampa traffic and my own poor timing. I definitely won’t do that again!

Colorado Fondue Company

I live right near the Colorado Fondue Company in Casselberry (https://www.coloradofondue.com/), but I had not been there in close to 15 years, not since I was dating my wife. I do love dipping foods in other foods, so it surprises me that I haven’t come here more to get my dip on. The menu features a variety of cheese and chocolate fondues, meant for sharing and dipping, as well as meats that you cook yourself on heated stones on the table.

It is a beautiful restaurant space, designed to resemble a cozy ski chalet in the Rocky Mountains, so it has an upscale-yet-festive atmosphere that would be perfect for a date or a special occasion dinner. It is even nicer around the holidays, since they put a lot of effort into decorating the place like crazy for Christmas. I get depressed around the holidays like clockwork, and I don’t do any decorating or much celebrating myself, but even I was struck by how nice it was on my most recent visit with two former co-workers, now friends. That’s why I didn’t want to wait any longer to run this review, here on Christmas Eve. If I can inspire even one couple, family, or friend group to dine there together while the Christmas decorations are still up, I will have done my job (that I don’t make a dime for), and those people will have a grand time.

In addition to a la carte options, Colorado Fondue Company offers four separate dinner options, which they call “trails,” keeping the mountain ski lodge theme. You really have to get along well with the people in your party, because each of the trails requires two people per order. I guess one ravenous person could go to town, though.

The Beginner trail is the cheapest, and each person gets to choose their own soup or salad, but they have to agree on the cheese fondue and chocolate fondue for dessert. The Intermediate trail includes the choice of soup or salad, a cheese fondue, and a selection of meats, but no dessert. My party of three went with the Expert trail, so we each got a salad, we agreed on the cheese fondue, we got the meats, and we got a dessert fondue. There is an even pricier Extreme trail with more premium meats, but we were content with the Expert options.

This was the seasonal Holiday Harvest salad that one of my colleagues ordered, with chopped iceberg lettuce, roasted pumpkin seeds, Craisins, crumbled gorgonzola cheese, and sliced apples. The website mentions a bacon balsamic vinaigrette dressing, but this looks more like a ranch dressing.

Another colleague got the Mountain Mix salad, with a blend of “harvest greens” and iceberg lettuce (although that looks like all iceberg to me), a “sesame-nut trail mix blend,” and shredded sharp cheddar cheese with honey Dijon ranch dressing. I do love those crunchy, salty sesame sticks.

For my salad, I chose the Southwest Caesar, with romaine lettuce, toasted croutons, and parmesan Caesar dressing, also anointed with a sweet red pepper coulis. I had to look up coulis on my phone (a thin, pureed sauce made from fruits or vegetables), but they had me at “sweet red pepper.” I stirred it into the salad, and it was a perfectly cromulent Caesar.

We shared more than one basket of these garlic-herb rolls, with crackly exteriors and pillowy soft interiors. They were great for dipping in the cheese fondue and various condiments yet to come.

On my first visit to Colorado Fondue Company with my now-wife, we shared the original cheddar fondue, with sharp aged cheddar and Swiss Emmenthaler cheeses, a beer and bouillon base, garlic, and herbs. This time, with my two colleagues, we shared the bruschetta Jack fondue, with fontina, asiago, and Monterey Jack cheeses, roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, basil pesto, and seasoned toast crumbles on top. It was great.

They brought us a basket of various breads and generic tortilla chips to dip in the fondue. The round slices of pretzel bread were my favorites. They were very similar to the frozen Bavarian pretzels I sometimes buy at Aldi, from the Deutsche Kuche brand (which I pronounce “Douche Cooch”).

The cheese fondue also came with broccoli, sliced carrots, apples, and grapes.

Slainte! L’chayim!

Next, we got two burning hot flat stones and this long platter of raw meat and seafood to cook ourselves. It included (from top to bottom): Pacific white “fusion” shrimp marinated in basil and garlic roasted pesto, coconut milk, and salt and pepper seasoning, Pacific Northwest chicken in a citrus soy marinade with mixed herbs, Colorado lodge sirloin in a teriyaki and soy-infused ginger marinade, filet mignon in roasted garlic pesto, soy sauce, lager beer, and crusted peppercorns, and at the bottom, Jamaican jerk-marinated pork tenderloin.
I don’t have any pictures of the cooked meat, but you know what meat looks like while it’s cooking and when it is cooked. If not, take a peek at similar photos of cooking and cooked meats from my trip to GG Korean BBQ earlier this year. I can tell you that all the meats were very tender except the sirloin, which was chewy. I never order filets, but I was impressed by how tender it was, especially since I like my steak bloody rare.

We also got a fondue pot of boiling hot broth to put the ravioli and potatoes in, and there were already random mushrooms and penne pasta in that broth. I was careful to avoid any mushrooms, my old culinary nemesis.

We got these four sauces for spooning onto our plates to dip: a whipped herbed cream cheese, a creamy red pepper sauce that reminded me of thinner thousand island dressing that wasn’t spicy at all, honey mustard, and savory-sweet teriyaki sauce. Me being me, the Condiment King (with all due respect to DC Comics), I probably paid more attention to these sauces than my dining companions did. But since I wanted to let the meats speak for themselves, I mostly dipped the remaining breads in them.

One of my companions, a brilliant professor and scholar, and one of the kindest people ever, chose our dessert fondue: the Winter Caramel Crunch. It combined milk chocolate, salted caramel, and Irish creme (maybe the actual liqueur, which used to be delicious back when I drank), and was topped with crushed pretzels. I can usually take chocolate or leave it, but it was a very good choice. A real crowd-pleaser, in fact. From the name, I’m guessing it is also seasonal, so try it while you can!

The dessert fondue came with this tray of cream puffs, graham crackers, marshmallows, pretzels, cake pieces, Rice Krispy Treat pieces, sliced bananas, and strawberries. Dipping things in the fondue is always fun, but I ate the strawberries plain, since I like them best that way.

It was really nice catching up with these ladies, since I don’t work with them anymore, and the setting and dinner could not have been better. It would have been pleasant even if we went to some dive, but instead, we had a long, luxurious meal in one of the prettiest restaurants in Seminole County, if not the entire Orlando area.

Seriously, get over there ASAP, before they take down all those Christmas decorations! You won’t be sorry. If you get sentimental and nostalgic at Christmas (and I’m one of the few sad weirdos who doesn’t), you’ll be in holiday heaven. And if you don’t want to splurge too much, you can have a totally nice, light dinner date by just going with the Beginner trail: salads, a cheese fondue you all have to agree upon, and a chocolate fondue you all agree upon, with all the accoutrements, for $16.50 per person. Then you can just focus on dipping and good conversation, without having to cook your own meat.