Meat – Page 12 – The Saboscrivner

CLOSED: Chain Reactions: Twisted Root Burger Co.

EDIT: I learned in March 2024 that the Twisted Root Burger Co. location in Winter Park had closed.

***

Twisted Root Burger Co. (https://www.twistedrootburgerco.com/) is the latest fast-casual burger chain out of Texas to come to Orlando, after Hopdoddy Burger Bar opened earlier this year in the Pointe Orlando mall on International Drive. But luckily for us, Twisted Root opened much closer to where we live, in a little shopping center on Aloma Avenue and Howell Branch Road that has been brought back to life by an influx of new restaurants, including the adjoining Pho Cali and Quickly Boba, which I reviewed in 2018.

Twisted Root goes for a theme of irreverent, wacky fun, with animal head busts above the counter where you order, letting you know which ones are available to eat on any given day. From right to left:

After you place your order, you can go get drinks. There is a full bar, and more options than usual for the non-drinkers. I love hip hop and my wife loves Law and Order: SVU, so this was a delightful display:

Twisted Root serves its own fountain sodas, all made with cane sugar instead of the usual high fructose corn syrup. I sampled sips of the watermelon Ice-T, cream soda, root beer, and lemonade, and the cream soda was my favorite. A refillable drink is $2.25, by the way. I think that would be worth it for most, just to try their versions of all the different sodas and teas.

Pass the soda fountain and you will encounter the pickle bar. I’ve written before about how I’ve never been a big fan of pickles, but I’m all about trying them now, to grow my appreciation for them. Needless to say, I had to try all five varieties here, especially since they’re free! From left to right: atomic (spicy), sweet & spicy, ranch, bread & butter, and dill. I think I liked the bread & butter pickles the most, and there was only one flavor I really disliked — I think it was probably the ranch. This was a nice feature, especially because I’m not willing to shell out for whole jars of pickles I might not like, the way I do with mustards and other condiments (and new flavors of chips and sodas).

When you order, they give you a buzzer with a pop culture icon on it to alert you that your food is ready to pick up from the counter. We got Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, which was aces with me, because I used to be a huge pro wrestling fan and am slowly wading back into that pool, and also because he elevates almost every movie he’s in. Seriously, The Rock makes decent movies better and terrible movies tolerable.

When our buzzer went off so quickly, I was surprised our food was already ready, since the place was so slammed they had shut down one of their cash registers to give the kitchen a chance to catch up. But it was just my wife’s s’mores milkshake ($6).
Her verdict: it was okay. She thought the marshmallow tasted like lighter fluid. I had some and liked it fine, I think even more than she did. But I could take or leave marshmallows, whereas she is a connoisseur.

It didn’t take that much longer for The Rock to buzz us again, letting me know our food was ready. I ordered the Freedom Melt ($11), served on “Texas toast” with cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onion straws, and brisket on top — a very “me” burger to order. Be forewarned that Twisted Root cooks all burgers MEDIUM WELL unless you ask them not to, and I’m not down with that. I asked for mine medium rare, and it came out between medium rare and medium, but still very juicy. I’ve been spoiled by too much great barbecue brisket, at our well-respected homegrown chain 4 Rivers Smokehouse, and most recently, at the fantastic Git-N-Messy Barbecue in Sanford. So I guess I was expecting shredded (but recognizable) brisket on top of my burger, instead of the finely-chopped (and probably sauced) meat I got. It was tastier than I expected and definitely tastier than it looked, nice and smoky (again, possibly from the sauce), but it reminded me of really tender chopped beef jerky even more than brisket.

I haven’t done a

[Air horn]
RING THE ALARM!
[/Air horn]

feature in a while, but Twisted Root offers fried onion strings ($3), and those count! They were good — never as satisfying or substantial as thicker-cut, beer-battered onion rings, but they added a good dimension to my burger and gave me stuff to dip (more on that later).

My wife ordered a venison burger ($10), one of the special game meats, on “Texas toast,” otherwise served plain. I didn’t get a picture of it, but it looked like pretty much any other burger. She ate the whole thing, which is a good sign that she liked it. She ordered hand-cut potato chips ($2) as her side, a nice-sized order of crispy (not overly crunchy) chips that were just salty enough. I had to help her finish those, happily.

A friendly manager came by to ask us how we were liking everything, and she was really craving honest feedback. The ONLY complaint I had, and it’s a minor one, was that the “Texas toast” wasn’t what we were expecting. I really love getting Texas toast at my beloved Waffle House — thick slices of white Wonder bread, spread liberally with butter and then grilled on both sides. The “Texas toast” both of our burgers came on was just regular white bread: not thick, not square, not Wonder, definitely not buttered or grilled, and barely even toasted. I always hate to complain about anything, but she asked, and it was a minor quibble. I think thicker bread, buttered and grilled, would add so much richness to the burgers. If they don’t change it, I’ll simply order a brioche bun with my burger on my next visit.

I was already digging Twisted Root offering so many choices (sodas, sides, pickles), but their condiment game is also strong. Every table has squeeze bottles of Heinz ketchup and yellow mustard, plus these three beauties. The horseradish Dijon mustard was fabulous (I’d buy a jar), the ancho chipotle ketchup was great, but as much as I love root beer AND barbecue sauce, I thought it was a little too thin and tasted a little too much of molasses.

So this restaurant is a real “get” for our quiet, boring little area where Winter Springs, Oviedo, and Winter Park run together. It was super-busy when we were there, but that was also a Friday night on its opening week. I think they will do very well, especially since the shopping center has returned to life. I liked my burger much more than some of the more popular fast-casual contenders, and I love all the different options and how close it is to our home.

Oh, one last thing: the men’s restroom is wallpapered with silly memes and sayings about the most overrated action movie “star” of all time, which I feel obligated to point out after praising the career of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson earlier in this review. Yes, you can’t wash your hands without being inundated with tall tales of Texas’ own adopted son Chuck Norris, who I don’t think ever made a good movie or TV show. I don’t know how beatifying Chuck Norris became a thing. Sure, he was a legit martial artist, unlike many of the other action actors of the ’70s and ’80s, but Norris was a charisma vacuum, compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, Jason Statham, The Rock, and the vast majority of superhero actors. Heck, even Jean-Claude Van Damme had two great (or at least memorable) movies in his career, and if any Saboscrivner readers think you can guess what they are, then let me know!

Tori Tori

Tori Tori (http://www.toritoripub.com/) is an Izakaya-style pub — a laid-back Japanese neighborhood bar that happens to serve amazing food. The menu has some surface-level similarities to Susuru, which I reviewed earlier this year. But unlike Susuru, with its mid-20th Century Japanese kitsch decor, Tori Tori is sleek, sexy, ultra-modern in its design. And unlike Susuru, which is every bit a restaurant, Tori Tori is a bar all the way. That means you place your orders at the bar and then sit wherever you want — either at the long two-sided bar itself that forms the centerpiece of the attractive space on Mills Avenue just south of Pho 88, or at a number of U-shaped booths or smaller tables. There is a nice outdoor patio that should be delightful to hang out on now that it’s finally getting cooler outside, with several tables out there. The whole front of the bar is open, so you can walk in and out, to and from the patio.

They seem to have a large and well-stocked bar, with pages of beers, sake, and cocktails to choose from, but I did not partake in any of those. Having missed out on the frenzy and hype of Tori Tori’s first two months, I finally made it out there this past Saturday night, with one agenda: TO EAT. Preferably A LOT.

I should note that Tori Tori doesn’t open until 5:30 and doesn’t serve lunch. I arrived about ten minutes early because I didn’t want to wait around for it to get too crowded and not even be able to park. It filled up fast, but unlike so many Mills 50 establishments, I am thrilled to report Tori Tori has its own ample parking lot! I sat right down at the bar, had the very friendly Sean (Shawn?) give me a menu and make some suggestions, and then I checked off what I wanted on a small paper menu, kind of like how many sushi restaurants take your order. Shawn (Sean?) kept my credit card like many bars do, to run a tab in case I was going to order more. I didn’t this time (due to over-ordering on my first go-around), but this is the kind of place where a group would probably order multiple rounds of food and beverages, so it’s an organized system for keeping track.

Once Shaun (Sian?) passed my selections to the kitchen, it seemed like my food flew out at top speeds — definitely faster service than I expected, especially since the ~~restaurant~~ bar filled up and got busy almost immediately. This is all traditional Japanese bar food — small plates, designed to be cooked, served, and eaten quickly, and ideally shared with your party. It was all fresh and delicious, and I appreciated that they staggered the appearance of my dishes. By the time I finished something, the next dish was arriving.

I didn’t include the terrible photo I took of the “handie” roll stuffed with delicious otoro, or fatty tuna ($9). It was similar to those cone-shaped sushi hand rolls wrapped in nori seaweed, but this one was more of a burrito shape. It held a thin piece of paper my server instructed me to pull out, separating the rice from the outer layer of nori to keep the nori crisp. (That’s a major design flaw with every other hand roll I’ve ever had — the nori gets really chewy and is often difficult to bite through.) It was really tasty, but also really tiny for the price.

Everything else photographed well:

Tender chicken hearts ($2.50), pierced on a skewer. I’m sure Charles Bukowski would have had something to say about that.

Excellent pork belly gyoza dumplings ($6), served over creamy, tangy, lightly citrus-y yuzu remoulade:

A perfect skewer of crispy, salty chicken skin ($2.50):

Crispy tempura corn balls ($5), reflecting in a pool of spicy, garlicky mayo. Hopefully nobody was burned by a Cornballer while making these.

Skewers of chicken oysters ($3; top) and thighs ($3; bottom), both brushed with tare. All the yakitori (chicken) and other skewers are grilled over binchotan charcoal, and they have that unmistakable grilled flavor I can’t duplicate at my grill-less home.

And this was okonomiyaki ($7), a very traditional dish I’ve never tried anywhere before. It was described as a “pancake” served with several toppings, but it probably looks more like a flatbread or a pizza, and the base was much less firm than any of those. It was a soft, almost sort of mushy base made of Japanese mountain yams, and topped with lots of sauteed cabbage (I love cabbage, but if you don’t, skip this dish). On top of that, it is decorated beautifully with swirls of Kewpie mayo, Japanese barbecue sauce, tangy pickled ginger, and very strong, fishy-tasting, paper-thin bonito flakes. It was a real melange of flavors and textures, but it probably tempered my enjoyment a bit that I ate it quickly while it was still burning hot — temperature-hot, not spicy-hot.

I’m glad I ordered the okonomiyaki, the tempura corn, and the handie roll, but I probably wouldn’t get any of those again. They were perfectly good, but when (not if) I return, I would simply want to try other things. The yakitori chicken, on the other hand, was amazing, and I would probably go back to those favorites on every subsequent visit.

Tori Tori is a very hip, cool place, and a great option in the Mills 50 area for people who don’t want to drive all the way out to the Disney area to go back to Susuru. While some of their menu items are similar, the vibe was very different. There were a lot of happening-looking young people here, lots of couples on dates. It’s kind of a sexy place to bring in curious diners and drinkers seeking novelty and sophistication, but most people will try anything once, your Saboscrivner included. In the end, the high quality of the food, the low prices and shareability factor (and also the drinks, from what I have been assured) will keep them coming back. Just remember: it’s a bar, not a restaurant, so get used to ordering at the bar. (And beat the inevitable crowds by being an early bird like me, but that’s my standard plan everywhere I go.)

CLOSED: Moghul Indian Cuisine

UPDATE: On May 2nd, 2023, I drove by Moghul and noticed a new sign was up, for Royal Southern Kitchen, a new Indian restaurant with a whole new menu.

***

Growing up, we never ate Indian food. My parents generally eschewed anything with even a reputation of being spicy, so no Korean, no Indian, no Thai (we went out for Thai once, and the new flavors literally made my dad ANGRY), and nothing from a Chinese menu with a flame or pepper icon next to it. Back in the ’90s, even Mexican was a rare treat for me, and that usually meant driving through Taco Bell — which helped sustain me through high school and college.

When more adventurous friends introduced me to Indian food, it opened me up to a whole new world of flavors and spices, but it was still a rare event to go out for Indian. I used to eat it once a year at most, usually by myself — sometimes even when I traveled to work conferences out of town. And I’d always seek out Indian buffets to maximize the number of different dishes I could sample and the amount of food I could eat. All-you-can-eat buffets are not only economical, but they are a great introduction to the cuisine for unfamiliar diners.

That said, India is a huge country — a whole subcontinent! — with many different regional styles of cooking. This really became apparent when I attended a festive weekend lunch at the Hindu Society of Central Florida’s temple earlier this year and enjoyed a vegetarian feast full of giant dosas and other unfamiliar offerings, all South Indian specialties. With that in mind, Indian buffets are going to stick to the most popular, familiar dishes that American palates are used to, and probably nothing too intimidating or spicy. There are a lot of lamb dishes in Indian cuisine, which is great if you love lamb like I do, but since it’s a more expensive meat, I’ve never found a buffet that offered lamb. That’s too baaaaaaaad.

Since I started working with a particular colleague at the beginning of 2013, we’ve gone out to lunch at a nearby Indian restaurant for lunch more times than I can count. She’s vegetarian and loves Indian food, and I’m always happy to get out of the office and hang out with her. She is not only a legitimately good person who I’m honored to call a friend, but she’s amazing at her job, and I’ve learned so much from her over the years. I’m a better librarian and professor because of her ideas and influence, and thanks to our occasional lunches out, I’m also way more familiar with Indian food than I would be otherwise.

That restaurant is Moghul Indian Cuisine (http://www.moghulindian.com/), located on the east side of busy Semoran Boulevard, between Aloma Avenue to the north and University Boulevard to the south. Moghul has a very affordable lunch buffet ($8.95), but also a longer menu full of delicious dishes you can’t get from the buffet. I have recently decided to broaden my horizons and order a new entree on each subsequent visit.

Here’s a look at the all-you-can-eat lunch buffet, which I have ordered from countless times, but decided to forego on my most recent two visits, which I’m reviewing here:

Since I started ordering off the menu, I get thin and crispy pappadams served at our table, the same ones available on the buffet. They come with spicy tomato and onion chutney, sweet and tangy tamarind chutney, and cool, creamy, and slightly spicy coriander and mint chutney.

I love samosas, but in all my lunch visits to Moghul where I ordered off the buffet, I had never ordered them. I decided to order the vegetable samosas ($3.95) on these two recent trips, and I realized I should have been ordering them all along. You get two in an order, so on both of these visits, I had one and gave the other to my vegetarian co-worker. The fried shell was very light, airy, and flaky — not greasy at all. The lightly curry-seasoned potatoes and peas inside were tasty, and that shell was really something special.

A look inside that samosa:

This was a non-vegetarian friend’s trip to the buffet. Looks like she got butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, and saag paneer (the stewed spinach in the top right), among other things — all Indian buffet classics.

And my vegetarian colleague got all this good stuff, including eggplant, pakoras (vegetables breaded in chick pea flour and fried until crunchy), and naan bread.

On one recent visit I ordered the Goan dish lamb vindaloo ($13.95) for the first time ever, and I was brave and ordered it HOT. Not “Indian hot,” because I still had to go back to work, but not my usual, safe medium either. And I am relieved to report I could handle it just fine. Moghul’s menu describes vindaloo as “lamb marinated with vinegar, chilies and spices,” and it definitely had an acidic tang to it, no doubt from the vinegar.

Apparently vindaloo has Portuguese roots, and historically it called for meat to be marinated in wine and garlic. Along the way, and especially as the dish rose in popularity in British Indian cooking, palm vinegar replaced the wine. But I love vinegar, so it’s all good!

On my second, more recent trip, I ordered a different lamb dish, the Kashmiri dish rogan josh ($13.95), also HOT. Once again, it was delicious, and once again, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to handle the heat. The menu describes this dish as “lamb cooked in curry sauce with yogurt, tomato and spices.” This sauce was richer and thicker than the vindaloo — not as tangy, despite the addition of tomato. I liked it so much I slurped up all the leftover sauce with a spoon after finishing the chunks of tender lamb, no additional rice required! Despite my pledge to try new things every time, I would totally order the lamb rogan josh again.

Since these entrees don’t come with bread, I ordered onion kulcha ($3.50) for the first time ever with my vindaloo, as an alternative to the standard naan. Like naan, kulcha is a bread baked in a tandoor (a clay oven), and this one is stuffed with onions, cumin, and cilantro. I loved it so much!

Even though I am forcing myself to order a new entree every time, I had to get that onion kulcha again on my second recent visit, to accompany the rogan josh. It was so rich and buttery and soft and fragrant. I just love sauteed onions and soft, fluffy, buttery bread. They probably use ghee in the kitchen at Moghul; I am happy to clarify that.

I drive by Moghul almost twice a day on my way to and from work, and it sure is tempting to order just onion kulcha every night on my way home. I can’t do it, but have I thought about it?

YUP!

(What I’m really going to have to do is learn to make my own onion kulcha at home, and maybe regular naan bread too, if it can be done without a tandoor. But I’m going to leave the rest of this deliciousness to the professionals.)

The good news is Moghul is close to work, my co-worker loves Indian food even more than I do, and I have every intention of returning often to keep expanding my palate, both in terms of new dishes and spice levels. Just keep in mind that Moghul is closed on Mondays.

CLOSED: Makani

EDIT: I don’t know when Makani permanently closed (maybe in 2024?), but I found out about it in March 2025.

***

Almost a year and a half after starting The Saboscrivner, I can’t say this blog has become a big breakthrough success. I choose to not use Instagram, always preferring a thousand words to a single picture. I don’t use that website that rhymes with “help,” and I’ll never become “help” elite. I’m the furthest thing from an influencer, since nobody wants to look at photos of me posing, trying to look cute while holding up the delicious foods I eat, trust me. I have literally DOZENS of followers, but at least I’ve made a mint off my food writing — one night, I got a single peppermint after paying my bill.

But my life is still better for it, because now when old friends pass through Orlando, they are much more likely to send me a Facebook message, inviting me to catch up over dinner, figuring I’ll pick a good restaurant. At least my reputation has grown that way, and I’ve been able to see and reconnect with good people I miss, who I haven’t seen in far too many years. Best of all, we can go to nicer places than I could afford back in the day.

This past week, I heard from an old friend from my college days in Gainesville. We hadn’t seen each other in over 15 years, and probably closer to 20. Back then he was one of the coolest people I had ever met, and he helped change my life for the better when I played in a band with him (and another friend I caught up with over a similar dinner at Chuan Lu Garden early this year). I always looked up to this guy as a fascinating punk rock poet and general badass, and now he’s even cooler as a tireless advocate and activist for the homeless in Gainesville. He was in town for a conference and staying down near International Drive, so I made a list of restaurants near there that I thought he might like, that I’ve also been wanting to try. That’s all the way across town from me, and I don’t make it down there very often.

So we decided on Makani (https://www.facebook.com/makaniorlando/), an Egyptian restaurant on International Drive, tucked into a truly international shopping plaza with an upscale steakhouse, a Chinese buffet, a traditional Japanese restaurant, a 24-hour Turkish restaurant/lounge, and a dinner theater that performs an interactive murder mystery every night. With no shortage of choices, I think we made the best possible one. I always love any Middle Eastern food, but had never tried Egyptian before. Needless to say, we feasted like the pharoahs of old, both of us having come a long way from feeling uncomfortable ordering anything at Taco Bell that wasn’t on the extra value menu. It’s nice to go out to eat with people who are up for trying and sharing almost anything.

This was the hawawshi ($17.99), sort of a meat pie with seasoned ground beef, onions, and parsley in a crispy pastry crust, almost like a lightly fried stuffed pita (although it was possibly just baked). I loved it. It came with a metal pitcher of a very hot hot sauce that we learned to treat with caution and apply sparingly. I would happily order this dish every time I return, I liked it that much.

I’ve written before about how I can take or leave fries, but these fries are among the best I’ve ever had. Crispy, crunchy, firm, flavorful, just salty enough — not limp or starchy. Top-notch fries!

I was intrigued by photos I had seen of this dish online, so I had to try it. This was mombar ($12.99), chewy, savory sausages of seasoned rice, vegetables, and herbs, stuffed into cow intestines, fried in oil, and festooned with chewy, sweet sultanas. I loved these, too! They reminded me of dolmas (or dolmades), grape leaves stuffed with tangy seasoned rice, one of my favorite side dishes in Middle Eastern and Greek cuisine, only these were much richer and meatier-tasting. They might sound weird, but I think most people would like them, if you get past the “cow intestine” dread. They were an unlikely favorite of mine, in fact.

This mixed grill ($29.99) arrived at our table on a fancy golden platform billowing hot smoke. It looked a little bit like the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of my Top Five favorite movies of all time, but you don’t want to shield your eyes from this smoke show. It came with a beef and lamb kofta skewer, a beef kabob skewer, a chicken kabob skewer, and a lamb chop, all char-grilled and expertly seasoned. I don’t know which one I preferred more, the kofta or the beef kabob. I like my lamb chops a little more on the rare side, but it still had so much flavor from the char-grilling process, something I just can’t do with meat at home, without a grill. There was plenty for two of us to share everything, especially since we had ordered so many other dishes.

The mixed grill came with a side order of rice that turned out to be a heaping mound of buttery rice pilaf, with vermicelli mixed in.

This intriguing mountain of deliciousness is the koshari ($14.99), a combination of rice pilaf (maybe fried?), lentils, spaghetti and elbow macaroni, topped with tomato sauce and crispy, fresh-fried onions (you could tell they were fresh and not just shaken out of the French’s canister). It would be a dream dish for vegetarians or anyone trying to carb-load, and it worked much better than you might be thinking. It was a wonderful blend of textures, as well as flavors. It also reminded me how much I love lentils, and how I should cook them at home far more often.
The menu said it also included chickpeas, but ours didn’t have any, and I was perfectly fine with that. I love falafel and usually like hummus, but I’ve never been the biggest fan of plain ol’ chickpeas. It also came with a side of garlic vinegar in a small metal pitcher, but we didn’t figure that out until we had already eaten most of it without it.

We were there a while and ordered a lot of stuff, so the friendly General Manager came by to check on us and very generously provided us with this dessert sampler (normally $13.99), completely free! It was an unnecessary gesture, but certainly a welcome and appreciated one.
Most of these desserts were reminiscent of baklava, but the top right and bottom left are kunefe (here called konafa), a Middle Eastern pastry made of finely-shredded dough (almost like more vermicelli) soaked in a sugar syrup over sweet cheese, then baked. It is buttery, crispy, rich, and very, very sweet. The ones in the middle may have been basbousa, which my research tells me is a semolina cake sweetened with simple syrup made with rosewater. And the rolls had the thin, crispy dough I associate with baklava, although I don’t know what this particular dessert is called. We devoured all of it with gusto, though.

This was a great night out, let me tell you. Not only did I get to try an amazing new restaurant (new to me and relatively new to Orlando), but I got to do it with an old friend who I had some real adventures with back in the day. Back then, being in a band with him and four other guys, I went from being a shy and sheltered introvert to a more confident performer. We played gigs all over Florida and as far out as New Orleans, and even recorded in multiple music studios. That was more than half my life ago, but I’ll never forget the excitement of being in a band with my friends, pretty much living my dream. I haven’t played music in far too many years and I miss it terribly, but I owe those five guys a debt I can never repay. I draw on those skills I learned every day, since teaching is just another kind of performing. I looked up to this guy, and I’m glad to say I still do now, just for different reasons. I was so glad to catch up and hear all about his wife, his kids, his continued education, and his heroic work on behalf of the homeless, as the founder and Executive Director of GRACE Marketplace in Gainesville. It’s an organization that could use your support, for anyone interested in donating to a truly worthy cause.

And in the meantime, whether you’re a local or a tourist, visiting our City Beautiful for a conference, convention, or vacation, Makani is one of your best bets along busy International Drive. Why not eschew the usual chains and try delicious Egyptian food, prepared with care and love? One of their signs calls it “Good Mood Food,” and I don’t see how you could eat at Makani and not be in a better mood.

Git-N-Messy BBQ

2021 EDIT: Chef Chuck Cobb of Git-N-Messy BBQ (later rebranded as Red-Eye’s Git N Messy Smokehouse & Tavern and relocated to 855 E State Rd 434, Winter Springs, FL 32708) passed away in a motorcycle accident on April 29, 2021, about a mile from the sports bar he had moved his burgeoning barbecue business into.

He worked his ass off, and all his labors were finally paying off. Everything seemed to be going well. He even received some national exposure, cooking on Live With Kelly and Ryan. But he was still so down to Earth — this big, boisterous guy who always asked how my wife was feeling, always remembered our orders. I’m proud that I wrote one of his earliest reviews right here on The Saboscrivner.

Later on, he expanded his menu to include more choices and limited-time specials. I kept going back once he moved closer to us in the Winter Park convenience store, and we enjoyed his giant beef ribs (my wife’s favorite), jalapeño-cheddar sausage, Nashville hot chicken, smoked prime rib, even venison. One day I made a special trip because he was experimenting with fried alligator nuggets! I had been taking photos of all these new offerings, and kept meaning to make it out to the new Red-Eye’s Git N Messy Smokehouse & Tavern (that’s a mouthful!) to write a fully updated review. I missed my chance to eat food he made one last time, to BS with him one last time.

Of course I’ll miss Chef Chuck’s delicious food (although he had been training an apprentice pitmaster, so the ‘cue will continue), but I’ll miss him more. He was married and had four kids, on top of being beloved throughout greater Orlando for being so damn good at what he did, and so affable through all of it. It just goes to show you how impermanent and uncertain everything is. So do what you can WHEN you can. Tell other people how much they mean to you. Eat the food you want to eat. Be kind. Be empathetic. Be patient. None of this lasts, so try to make it as okay as possible for everyone else while we all can.

***

2020 EDIT: Since I originally wrote this review, Git-N-Messy BBQ reopened inside a Citgo station at 4980 Hall Rd, Orlando, FL 32817, right at the corner of Aloma Avenue and Howell Branch Road. I’ve been to this new location multiple times in March and April of 2020, and it is better than ever.

***

I figure most Saboscrivner readers are aware that barbecue is more than just slathering meat with sweet, sticky sauce. It’s the whole process of smoking meat for hours at a time over the right wood, low and slow. When people talk about having a backyard barbecue and grillin’ hamburgers and hot dogs, I cringe, because that’s a cookout. That’s grillin’. And that’s super-cool and good, but that ain’t barbecuing.

There are regional barbecue styles in different parts of the country: Texas, Kansas City, Memphis, North Carolina. And different areas focus on different meats: beef brisket, ribs, pulled pork, and more. Florida doesn’t have its own famous barbecue style, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, because it allows us to draw from the best of everywhere else. That’s a major positive aspect of Central Florida: it’s a real melting pot — an interesting place to live, and a great place to eat.

That said, while we have some perfectly fine barbecue chains around Orlando (some of which used to be better than they are now), I’ve tried a few of them in recent months and haven’t been enthusiastic about writing reviews. I have been searching for a while for some next-level barbecue worth shouting about from the virtual rooftops, restaurants that combine meat, sauce, smoke, time, and even ambience to create something truly special. And I found one the other day in an unassuming Shell gas station in suburban Sanford.

Git-N-Messy BBQ (https://www.facebook.com/gitnmessybbq2/) opened recently in the Express convenience store at the Shell station on West Lake Mary Boulevard, just west of 17-92. Chef Chuck Cobb previously ran an omakase-style sushi restaurant, Zoetic Sushi, that I never got to try, but people on the Orlando Foodie Forum were singing its praises. But after Zoetic closed, Chef Chuck’s next move was to return to one of his prior loves: barbecue. I knew of him from the Foodie Forum, but in person, he is a jovial, jocular personality, happy to chat as he prepared my order.

Inside this convenience store, Chef Chuck has his open food prep area, with three high-top tables and a small bar set up with a few stools. There are four different local beers on tap: two from Sanford Brewing Company and two from Central 28 Beer Company. Yes, you can even get a pint of beer with your barbecue, if you dine in the convenience store! Party boy that I am, I just got a hard-to-find strawberry-kiwi Gatorade to go. I had planned to bring home my food to share everything with my wife, but a guy was hanging out at a table, just chillin’, enjoying the best pulled pork sandwich of his life (his words), after he had just stopped by to fill up his car with gas. I knew I had to try that sandwich, but as usual, I wanted to try everything.

The Carolina pulled pork sandwich ($8) comes with slow-smoked pork that Chef Chuck further chopped into smaller pieces, house-made cole slaw, lots of sliced pickles (which I’m really okay with these days), and a Carolina-style mustard-based barbecue sauce I asked him to leave on the side. The sandwich was huge, and a huge value for that price. Here it is, back at home on a too-familiar plate:

I also got an order of smoked beef brisket ($16), which consisted of four large and generous slices. There was no need to chop them up further or drench them in sauce to obscure the rich-looking marbling or the dark, spicy outer bark. At some restaurants, the brisket is too dry and tough, and at others, it seems like you just get served a pile of greasy fat. Here, it was a perfect blend of tender meat and unctious fat, just perfect.

And then I also got an order of smoked sausage ($8.50), a barbecue item that tends to be underrated, but I always like sausage in any forms. The large link was chopped up into smaller segments, and once we got it home, we especially liked the rich snappiness of the outer casing — something missing in far too many sausages and hot dogs. Even my wife liked the sausage, something she can usually take or leave. It was a generous order, and probably my favorite smoked sausage that I’ve had, at least in a really long time.

The sides I brought home included more of that cole slaw (which I might have gone without, since the giant pork sandwich had so much on it), very good baked beans, and excellent collard greens, of course cooked with meat. I love collards, and I’ve tried to make them at home many times, but mine NEVER come out as good as these barbecue joints, even after spiking them with pepper vinegar.

Chef Chuck loaded me up with five house-made sauces: sweet, mild, hot, mustard-based, and an Alabama white sauce that goes so perfectly with chicken — which is great, because I have a really bland chicken breast in the fridge that desperately needs something to salvage it. That will teach me to stick to buying chicken thighs, the superior cut of chicken! Anyway, they were all good sauces.

I would have loved to try the St. Louis-style spare ribs, but those would not have been ready for another hour, and I couldn’t hang around that long. But I’ll totally go back for them, because everything else was so amazing. I learned that Chef Chuck can also make a Tampa-style Cuban sandwich with his own slow-smoked pulled pork in a house-made mojo marinade, Genoa salami, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard, so that’s also intriguing. Too often, the pork is the weak link in many Cuban sandwiches, either dry or not very flavorful. I know it would be the star in his version of the Cubano.

I really liked everything I tried from Git-N-Messy BBQ, and immediately liked Chef Chuck Cobb, who is working meat miracles in this most unlikely of settings. My readers know by now that too much extravagance and expense make me uncomfortable, and I’m much happier when I’m discovering humble hidden gems, casual restaurants that would be hard to find without a push in the right direction. It doesn’t get much more humble or hidden than some of Central Florida’s best barbecue in a Sanford gas station, so consider this your push and the Saboscrivner your friendly neighborhood pusher. Where else can you fill up your car and your belly at the same time? (Costco, I guess, but Git-N-Messy is really something special!) Just as a final note, Git-N-Messy is closed Sundays and Mondays, as even Chef Chuck needs some time off from smoking and slicing.

Chain Reactions: Texas de Brazil

Back in the day, when we all could eat more than we can now, my dad was a huge fan of all-you-can-eat restaurants, especially the many Chinese buffets around Miami in the ’80s and ’90s. He knew each one’s strengths and weaknesses: which ones had the best spare ribs, the best fantail shrimp, the best house special fried rice, and so forth. He was a beloved regular at a lot of those places, and even though he wouldn’t consider himself a foodie, it was his quest for the best versions of a dish and the best bargains around South Florida that started your Saboscrivner on my persistent path as a culinary explorer, reporter, and reference librarian.

But beyond the Chinese buffets, the height of luxury was the all-you-can-eat Brazilian churrascaria, Texas de Brazil (https://texasdebrazil.com/), a decadent steakhouse where uniformed gauchos walk a never-ending parade of grilled meats to your table, impaled on giant swords, for you to enjoy until you slip into a meat coma. This was our destination for the most special of special occasions, our most rare and revered restaurant. There were multiple steaks, including filet mignon (some wrapped in bacon!), Brazilian picanha, and flank steak, parmesan-crusted chicken and pork, Brazilian sausage, lamb chops, leg of lamb, and a star player I’m saving for last because it is the best.

Beyond the meats is a sumptuous salad bar, if one could even call it that — one of the most bountiful, bombastic, breathtaking buffets imaginable, where the actual salad is a mere afterthought alongside fancy salami and prosciutto, fresh mozzarella orbs, spreadable Boursin cheese, fancy Spanish manchego (sheep-milk cheese), cold-smoked salmon, chilled marinated shrimp, California rolls, roasted peppers, caramelized garlic cloves, and other roasted, grilled, marinated, and pickled vegetables. You also help yourself to luscious lobster bisque, and the gauchos also grace your table with soft Brazilian cheese buns, mashed potatoes (I usually ignore both of those), and fried bananas served with cinnamon and sugar (big fan here).

Note that all this decadence doesn’t come cheap. The all-you-can-eat dinner is normally $49.99, or you can opt for just the salad bar (which is honestly my favorite part of Texas de Brazil, and would be a fine, full meal on its own) for $24.99. Monday through Friday, lunch is somewhat discounted at $34.99. Still, it’s way too extravagant for us more than once a year (and believe me, we don’t even do this once a year).

But we did last year, and we did again this past weekend, thanks to a very special month in Orlando called Magical Dining. Every September, our official tourism association Visit Orlando sets up Magical Dining with dozens of participating restaurants all over the city, generally mid-to-upscale establishments. Each restaurant announces a prix fixe menu with a few options to choose from: appetizers, entrees, and desserts, and the price is $35. This is a real bargain at most of these restaurants, and it gives people who might not normally treat themselves a chance to try some delicious dishes at new, unfamiliar, and highly vaunted restaurants around town at a discounted price. And best of all, $1 from each Magical Dining bill goes to a number of worthy local charities!

My wife and I rarely take part in Magical Dining. As you can tell from this blog, we generally gravitate toward more casual restaurants, and very few of those participate. At these higher-end places, sometimes there isn’t an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert on the Magical Dining menu that appeal to both of us, and we figure we’d rather hold out for a special occasion and order our top choices off the full menu, not a small, curated list of options. (Of course, you can still order off the regular menu at any of these places during Magical Dining.)

But Texas de Brazil might be the best deal of all, because you get the full salad bar, the full unlimited meats, AND a dessert (which normally costs extra) for the excellent discounted price of $35 (plus tip, of course). That’s a bargain, for all the same stuff plus a dessert! My wife loves steak, we’re both crazy about lamb, and I go nuts for sausages and that spectacular, stupendous, sublime… sensual salad bar. We squeezed in a reservation for the last weekend of Magical Dining, which I strongly recommend you do next year.

We arrived before our 5:00 reservation, in time to hit the salad bar buffet early, before it would be ravaged by ravenous rubes. Dig the artful presentation of beautiful cured meats:

Some of the Saboscrivner’s greatest hits on this buffet plate, even chilled couscous salad in a vinaigrette and some of the best potato salad ever. I am careful not to fill up on carbs, but I can’t make a rare visit to TdB and not load up a plate with these wonders. Rest assured, dear readers — I was a member of the Clean Plate Club.

Meanwhile, the gauchos were coming around, so I was building up a supply of meat to last me some time, while going through my buffet items. This plate includes medium-rare flank steak (left), two lamb chops (top), two slices of picanha (right), part of a sausage (bottom, next to the fried banana). GO AHEAD, TAKE THESE BANANAS!A lot of the meats tend to be more done than we both like, so we always ask for as rare as possible, and end up content with medium rare. I find all of Texas de Brazil’s meats to be extremely salty, so keep that in mind too.

But here’s the star of the show, both of our favorite meat: BRAISED BEEF RIB, sliced right off the giant bones in front of us. If you go to Texas de Brazil, it’s very possible you might not even realize this was one of the meats being walked around. It doesn’t circulate often, probably because it’s an expensive cut that takes a long time to prepare. And as far as I can tell from having had two or three TdB lunches, they don’t offer it at lunch time! Last year for Magical Dining, we learned to very politely request it as soon as we were seated, and then to get at least two slices once it makes its way to us. I love braised, stewed, and other slow-cooked meats even more than grilled steaks, and this beef rib is fork-tender. It seriously shreds apart with just the side of your fork, and then completely melts in your mouth.

I’m proud to say that neither of us wasted any food, but I was stuffed after finishing everything you saw above, and my wife got equally stuffed from a lot less (but she didn’t mess with the buffet like I did, minus a couple of those spicy marinated chilled shrimp). I had ladled us each a bowl of lobster bisque at the beginning, but ended up having hers at the end of my meal, because it’s too good, and it would have been a shanda to waste a drop.

And after all that, we were still entitled to desserts, included in the Magical Dining deal! We got our desserts boxed up to take home, because we couldn’t eat another bite. There were two selections, and we each chose the one you would expect us to choose, if you know us.

Unfortunately, my wife’s chocolate cake was very dry and disappointing:

My Brazilian cheesecake was pretty good, because even bad cheesecake is pretty good, but it was a small sliver:

Bonus pictures of the desserts we took home back in 2018, the last time we were here (also for Magical Dining Month):

Key lime pie that was much better than either of this year’s dessert options:

Bananas Foster pie that was incredible, that I was wishin’ and hopin’ they would offer again this year:

Coconut chess pie that was also spectacular:

I don’t remember which two were included, and which one we paid extra for just to try it, but all three of these were awesome, and far better than this year’s two dessert choices. But then again, I’m a pie guy.

So here are your takeaways:

Magical Dining is a wonderful thing, and you should totally treat yourself next September, whether it’s here or one of Orlando’s other great participating restaurants.
Texas de Brazil is an incredible indulgence, a sensational splurge, a truly unique and celebratory destination for carnivores, gourmands, and just plain old hungry people. Heck, if you’re doing a low-carb diet, it could be a great restaurant to cut loose in, since meat and most salad bar offerings are the star attractions and carbs are supporting players. My wife and I love it, but now we’re good for another year, or probably far longer. We got it out of our systems for a while, and no, that wasn’t a colon-related joke.
Or was it?

Rey’s Cuban Cafe

My wife and I love Cuban food, and I’m from Miami, so I grew up eating some of the best Cuban food in the world. My parents definitely weren’t into exploring new cuisines, but we often feasted on Cuban delicacies, and as a result, I feel like my standards are high. I’m always on a quest for the best Cuban food in Orlando, and my latest discovery has been Rey’s Cuban Cafe (https://www.reyscubancafe.com/), a small and unassuming restaurant in Fern Park, not too far from where we live. Rey’s has about eight indoor tables and a few more on an outdoor patio, but I’ve only ever brought home takeout from there. It’s ten minutes away, so the food is always nice and hot by the time I get it home. I went three times before writing this review.

My wife’s favorite dish from any Cuban restaurant is bistec empanado (which I’ve seen as empanizado on other restaurants’ menus): tender steak pounded flat, breaded, and deep-fried ($9). This is served over white rice with fried yuca.

Here’s her bistec empanado from our second visit. This time it came with garlicky boiled yuca, which she prefers:

I am a sucker for liver dishes, which are rare enough on most menus, but Rey’s has two different versions. This is higado Italiano ($10.99), strips of tender beef liver sauteed with onions and green and red bell peppers in a tangy tomato sauce. I usually order yellow rice instead of white when there is a choice, and I can never refuse maduros, sweet fried plantains, which are one of my favorite foods in the whole world. The onions are from my wife’s steak, since I love them and she most definitely does not.

This past weekend, my wife was craving bistec empanado again, and I had just donated blood, as I try to do every eight weeks. Liver sounded awesome, probably to help replace some of the iron I had just gladly given up, so I ordered the regular bistec de higado, liver steak ($9.99). It was very thin and tender — a perfect consistency. I wish they had really slathered it in onions, like gone to town with cebollas.

I always like to get red beans when I have a choice between black and red. Rey’s red beans are served like a stew, with chunks of potatoes and little bits of onions and pork. I wish they had a little more smoky flavor and spice, but I’ve always gotten takeout, so I add my own hot sauce at home. I realize Cuban food is rarely spicy.

I am a huge fan of Jon Favreau’s wonderful movie Chef, about an L.A. chef who finds new inspiration for cooking after a trip to Miami. He buys a food truck and drives back home with his buddy and his son, selling Cuban sandwiches and bonding as they drive cross-country. I can’t believe I never saw it until this past summer, so I was a little obsessed with Cuban sandwiches that particular weekend in July. I remember stopping by Rey’s for the first time for my own inspiration as I prepared to marinate and roast my own pork shoulder for homemade Cubanos. (That ended up being the best thing I ever cooked.)

But before I made my own, I enjoyed Rey’s Cuban Deluxe ($7.99), with the usual sliced roast pork, ham, and Swiss cheese, plus the additions of salami, Spanish sausage, lettuce, tomatoes and mayo. Did I add one of the many mustards from my collection when I got this sandwich home? Long-time Saboscrivnerinos will know the answer is YES. (My homemade Cuban sandwich was better, but this wasn’t bad at all. I’d skip the lettuce and tomato next time, for sure.)

You can’t go wrong with buttery Cuban toast on the side of any meal:

One of these times I brought home takeout, I was in the mood for good empanadas (although as comedian Jim Gaffigan once said, there’s no such thing as a bad empanada). I ate them too quickly to take pictures of their fillings, but two of them were stuffed with picadillo, or seasoned ground beef, and the other was a pizza empanada, stuffed with hearty tomato sauce and melty mozzarella cheese.

There are many kinds of empanadas, with many Latin-American countries specializing in their own versions. However, Cuban empanadas, with their flaky fried flour crusts, have always been my favorites.

And on our last visit, pastelitos (pastries) were two for the price of one, so I brought home a quesito filled with sweet cream cheese and a pastelito with guava and cream cheese. These were perfectly fine, but not on the level of Versailles and La Carreta from back home in Miami (also known as “The 3-0-5”). I was also craving croquetas de jamon, crispy fried croquettes stuffed with a soft, yielding filling of diced ham and bechamel sauce. Those always hit the spot!

I don’t think Rey’s Cuban Cafe is elevating Cuban food to new levels or putting gourmet twists on anything. It’s comfort food, pure and simple — hearty food that reminds me of home (even though the food was one of the only things I liked about growing up in Miami). My quest for the best Cuban food in Orlando certainly continues, but you could do a lot worse than Rey’s. You can see the generous portion sizes and extremely reasonable prices. Everything is fresh and tasty, and they accomplish everything they set out to do.

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.

Bad As’s Sandwich

Regular readers know I am a huge fan of sandwiches, and one of my favorites for the last two years has been Bad As’s Sandwich (http://badasssandwiches.com/), located on Primrose and Robinson in the hip, foodie-friendly “Milk District” neighborhood east of downtown Orlando. Chef John Collazo is a “sandwich artist” in the truest, purest sense — a culinary visionary who is constantly creating memorable sandwiches, combining ingredients both familiar and exotic. He even bakes his own French rolls, which are soft, but lightly grilled for a perfect crispiness in each bite.

All sandwiches come with house-made kettle chips, or tater tots, chicharrones (pork rinds), or canaritos (sweet plantains) for a slight upcharge. They also offer soups, salads, smaller sandwiches at evening happy hours, and breakfast sandwiches, which I have not been lucky enough to try yet.

Chef John, his lovely wife and partner Jamilza, and their entire staff are always so friendly and welcoming. This is one of the places in Orlando I feel like a “regular,” which is something I always wanted to be, ever since I was a little kid, going with my dad to Chinese restaurants across the Miami suburbs where everybody knew his name.

In addition to the standard sandwich menu, Chef John regularly rolls out weekly specials: creative, exotic sandwiches that are simply too good to last. As great as the regular offerings are, these specials are usually what brings me back. They often run out early in the day, but luckily for me, Bad As’s isn’t too far from work. When I receive word of the weekly specials by following them on Facebook, I’ll often rush over there to catch one while I can.

I went back this past Friday for their weekly special, the ConDorito, with Dorito-crusted herbed chicken, crispy fried jalapenos, house-made cheese sauce (they call it “cheese goo”), shredded lettuce, salsa fresca, and fresh crema. Like so many of the specials, it was an explosion of different flavors, textures, and colors. This was a sandwich that really deserved to be eaten in the restaurant, but I brought it back to work and then wolfed down half of it before remembering to take a picture. And it wasn’t even a good picture.

Here’s their Facebook post with a much more appetizing photo than mine would have been.

Chef John is a civic-minded mensch who does what he can for his community. Over the last two weeks, for every ConDorito special sold, Bad As’s Sandwich promised to donate $5 to Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen disaster relief organization to help the Bahamas relief effort, after the islands were decimated by Hurricane Dorian. He doesn’t have to do that — or anything — but it’s a noble thing to do. Even though I would have wanted to try a Dorito-crusted chicken sandwich regardless, I was thrilled that part of what I paid was going toward a worthy charitable cause.

And they delivered a donation of $700 on September 15th, the day I finally finished writing about Bad As’s. I’ve been working on this review for the better part of 2019, since they keep rolling out new special sandwiches I wanted to write about, but today was a significant day to publish this piece. See this post from the Bad As’s Sandwich Facebook page.

One of my favorite special sandwiches they served in 2018 was the Polpetta, with house-made meatballs in roasted tomato sauce, fried mozzarella (they had me at fried mozzarella!), prosciutto (everything is better wrapped in prosciutto), and fresh baby arugula. Good God, Lemon! Does it get any better than that? Somehow, YES!

Last year, they offered the Poseidon sandwich, with generous chunks of chilled Alaskan king crab and Fuji apple slaw, slathered with spicy gochujang mayo, and topped with beautiful chili threads. It was another one of their numerous creative special sandwiches that only stick around for a week, so I was thrilled to try one while I could. It came with fresh, house-made chicharrones (pork rinds), a delicious snack that is great for low-carb dieters when they’re craving salty, crunchy chips or crackers. Since then, they have put out a similar Poseidon 2.0 sandwich with lobster, like the most badass lobstah roll ever. (I prefer crab to lobster.)

Speaking of pork rinds, sometimes we get lucky and the special sandwiches get added to the permanent menu. This happened in March of this year with the Ya-Mon, a sandwich with jerk chicken, gouda cheese, sweet plantains (one of my food weaknesses), pork rinds, jalapeno pesto, mango jam, and jerk lime mayo. If you missed out on it before, now it’s here to stay.

Another beloved special that was recently added to the menu is the Django, a sandwich that featured house-made sliced ribeye, smoked gouda pimento cheese (YESSSS!), caramelized onions (the best thing you can do to onions), piquillo peppers, and honey horseradish on charred bread. “These are a few of my favorite things!” And (possibly) named after one of my Top Five favorite guitarists, too! Sorry I didn’t get a good photo of this one, folks. I figured I could include the blurry pic I snapped when I enjoyed a Django sandwich back in 2018, but didn’t want anyone to lose their appetites.

My absolute favorite Bad As’s sandwich is yet another limited-time special. It has made a few comebacks since I listed it one of my Top Five Favorite Dishes of 2017 in Orlando Weekly, one of my proudest moments. It’s the Capone, an unique and unparalleled Italian sandwich with pepperoni, serrano ham, chorizo cantimpalo (like a cross between pepperoni and salami), capocollo, soppressata, aged provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickled onions, Thai basil manchego aioli (MAMA MIA!), and spicy vinaigrette to tie it all together — everything a growing boy needs.

It’s a beautiful marvel of a sandwich, and it warms my heart whenever they bring it back. That said, you can order the Capone hot or cold, and I go for cold every time. Italian sandwiches with cured meats and vegetables never taste the same to me hot — the meats get crispy and greasy, and the lettuce and tomatoes get slimy. If you’ve only ever had pepperoni turned into crunchy little grease-bowls on a pizza, try it cold in a sandwich some time. Ideally THIS sandwich. Your life will never be the same.

Close-up on those fresh, crispy kettle chips:

I ordered this particular Capone earlier this year, on an uncharacteristically chilly winter day in Orlando, so I decided to get some soup with it. Bad As’s is well-known for their creamy tomato bisque, so I tried that for the first time and was not disappointed. It came with delicious fresh croutons that unfortunately got soggy in the soup by the time I brought my takeout order back to work, as well as chunks of gouda cheese that created a delightfully-unexpected chewy contrast.

And vegetarians shouldn’t despair, because one of the regular sandwiches is the HHH (Happy Healthy Humans), with a trio of roasted vegetables: zucchini, cauliflower, and mushrooms, plus lettuce, tomatoes, pickled onions, crispy chips, fontina cheese, and sun-dried tomato aioli. When I picked up my ConDorito sandwich the other day, I brought back the HHH for one of my co-workers, only she requested that they substitute saffron aioli for the sun-dried tomato aioli, and they were kind enough to oblige. She loved it so much, she was doing “jazz hands.” I can’t eat mushrooms, but I have no doubt I would have loved it too, if I order one sans ‘shrooms.

My co-worker very patiently opening up her sandwich for me to snap a photo before she could eat it:

Bad As’s isn’t quite three years old yet, but I hope it lasts forever. Chef John, Jamilza, and his badass-but-welcoming crew are definitely running one of my favorite restaurants in Orlando. In fact, with the presence of Bad As’s Sandwich, Stasio’s Italian Deli & Market, Pom Pom’s Teahouse and Sandwicheria, Beefy King, and even Se7en Bites, Orlando’s hip, happening Milk District should strongly consider rebranding itself as the Sandwich District.

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.