Meat – Page 2 – The Saboscrivner

SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles

Back in 2019, when I took my wife to New York City for our tenth anniversary, one of the many delicious restaurant meals I had was takeout from Xi’an Famous Foods, a casual restaurant specializing in hand-ripped biang biang noodles and spicy braised meats from the city of Xi’an in northwestern China. It was like no other style of Chinese food I’ve ever had before, and I’ve been saying for years that even with Orlando’s breadth and depth of various regional Chinese cuisines, we have desperately needed a place like that. Well, we finally have one!

SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles (https://www.instagram.com/slap.noodles.usa) opened back in November 2025, at 6532 Carrier Dr Ste B, Orlando, FL 32819, right off International Drive, a little north of Sand Lake Road. It has been a popular destination ever since, with influencers aplenty sharing videos of chefs slapping and stretching dough to make perfectly long, chewy noodles from scratch and diners slurping them up. I’ve been wanting to try it ever since it opened, and I finally made it over there yesterday with my best friend, after surviving yet another MegaCon. (We went to The Whiskey two years ago and Fogo de Chao, which I somehow still haven’t reviewed, last year.)

I’ve been so good lately about not drinking my calories, but I figured our food would be spicy, so I treated myself to a sweet drink from SLAP!’s beverage cooler, this interesting-looking honey pomelo drink. After I chose it, I found a small English language label on the back that described it as honey grapefruit tea. It was so sweet and refreshing and delicious, and I loved it, especially as a nice treat after a grueling day.

It was way too hot for bowls of soup, so my friend and I both chose chili SLAP! noodle bowls, sans soup. He got the signature three-way chili SLAP! noodles, which we learned was a combination of three of their other bowls that can be ordered separately: sliced pork, tomato and egg, and vegetable (which included cubed potatoes, celery, and carrots at the bottom. They also included bok choy, bean sprouts, and lots of chili oil and chili powder. It looks fiery, but believe it or not, it was a lot milder than it looks. There were a bunch of those perfectly al dente biang biang noodles under there, don’t worry!

I got the beef short rib chili SLAP! noodles (no soup for me either), because short ribs are up there with oxtails and lamb shanks as rich, flavorful, unctuous cuts of meat I have a hard time turning down. It has the same kind of seasoning and also included bok choy (which I like) and bean sprouts (which I don’t care for, so I’ll know to ask them to hold the bean sprouts on future visits). I loved that they included a pair of kitchen shears for cutting the short rib, which I wish more restaurants would give you. A few well-placed snips separated all the tender meat from the giant bone, and a few more cuts turned it into bite-sized pieces. I got two meals out of this giant portion, which I’m getting so much better at.

I forgot to get a good picture of the actual hand-ripped biang biang noodles at the restaurant, but here they are in my leftovers, back at home. At the restaurant, we only ate with chopsticks. These noodles are awe-inspiring, and the chili seasoning is addictive. I suspect these dishes would still be too spicy for my wife, parents, brother, and in-laws, who hate anything beyond “mild,” but I think most people will find the taste pleasant and the spicy level nowhere close to overwhelming.
By the way, watch how you dress at SLAP!, because it is too easy to splatter a good shirt with that chili oil. I’ve been wearing the same beloved shirt to comic book conventions for 25 years to pose for pictures with comic writers and artists, a running gag that only I appreciate. Luckily, I had the foresight to pack an expendable T-shirt to change into when we got to the restaurant to protect The Shirt.

I was also excited to try one of the “crispy pancake” sandwiches at SLAP!, and I went with cumin lamb. Lamb is probably my favorite protein of all time (not including cured Italian meats), and I still remember the spicy cumin lamb “burger” I got at Xi’an Famous Foods in 2019. In that earlier review, I described it as being served on “a crispy flatbread bun that was like a cross between a pita and an English muffin, in terms of texture.” Here at SLAP!, the flavorful lamb was served on roujiamao, which is more like a flaky paratha or roti, a flatbread I’ve described many times as being the love child of a croissant and a flour tortilla. This roujiamao was much flakier, with more crispy layers, than the typical roti you may have had at Hawkers Asian Street Fare (which you can also buy frozen, as I suspect Hawkers does). This didn’t have that rich, buttery flavor either, but it complimented the cumin lamb very well, and it was fun to eat it.

My friend and I each took a few bites, and we still had some left over that I finished for lunch today. This was a hit, and you can also order the crispy pancakes with braised beef or braised pork. Next time! And yes, there will be a next time.

Finally, we also tried some skewers, because we know how to party, and how often will be able to make it back here? It’s across town from me, and my dude lives in Miami! Homestead, actually! All the skewers at SLAP! are served in orders of four for a very reasonable $5.99 each, but you can’t mix and match. That’s how we ended up with a dozen skewers. The four on the left are Chinese sausage, which was both of our favorites. They were grilled and coated with the same chili spice blend, but they weren’t like the chewy and slightly sweet lap cheong I expected, which I love in fried rice.

The four skewers in the middle are beef, which were also grilled and coated with the same chili spicy powder. They were chewy and not terribly tender, and not juicy at all, but at least they tasted good. The four crispy chicken skewers on the right were disappointing, though. My friend was spot-on when he called them “basic.” I’ve had spicy chicken nuggets from Wendy’s with more flavor, so at least I know to skip them on future visits. The sauce on the right side that looks like it’s about to spill (we didn’t let that happen) was reminiscent of Thai sweet chili sauce, but not nearly as sticky or sweet. That sauce and the chili spice on the left helped make the crispy chicken skewers somewhat more interesting, but I’d still order something else next time. Maybe an order of dumplings, which you can get with lamb, beef and onion, pork and cabbage, or pork, shrimp, and chive.

Vegetarians, there aren’t a ton of options for you at this meat-centric restaurant, but you can safely get the vegetable chili SLAP! noodles, vegetable noodle soup, and a couple of different skewers: enoki mushrooms with tofu skin, cilantro with tofu skin, or “fish tofu,” which I’m assuming is tofu reminiscent of fish, and and not a combination of fish and tofu. If you are ovo-vegetarians, you could also do the tomato and egg chili SLAP! noodles or tomato and egg noodle soup.

And since I always check (on behalf of my wife), there are a few half-booths along the side wall at SLAP!, in addition to plenty of tables. Napkin dispensers hang from the ceiling above each table, which you’ll appreciate due to needing a lot of napkins for meals like this, and also for the space they save on the tabletops. (Short people, your mileage may vary).

SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles is definitely worth all the hype. I would have liked to get there sooner, but better late than never. Now I look forward to returning, but I wanted to publish this review as soon as possible, for the handful of you out there who haven’t already jumped on the bandwagon. It’s another treasure for Orlando, especially when the options along International Drive are so chain-centric. As if there was any doubt, SLAP! slaps.

JAWS Toppoki

JAWS Toppoki (https://www.jawsfl.com/) is a Korean street food restaurant in the hustling, bustling food court inside the world’s largest H Mart, the Korean supermarket that took Orlando by storm when it opened in the Pine Hills neighborhood in West Orlando in September 2025.

My wife and I waited three weeks before visiting the sprawling supermarket, not wanting to deal with long lines and crazy crowds. But even though we chose to visit on a weekday midmorning, the lines were still long and the crowds were still crazy. H Mart was a shining example of abundance, but the cramped layout and oblivious shoppers (half of whom were filming themselves, like everyone has to be an influencer) detracted from what should have been a fun experience. Pushing my disabled wife in a wheelchair was an exhausting and nerve-wracking experience for both of us. It could be said that shopping was not a pleasure.

After we were both fed up and hangry, we adjourned to the huge food court, which was just as chaotic as inside the store itself. My wife wanted to eat some sashimi we bought inside H Mart, so I rolled her up to an empty table and went off to decide what to get myself for lunch.

Feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed, I decided on JAWS Toppoki, maybe because it was nearest to our table, or maybe because it had the shortest line. I liked that you could order different combinations of things, which I always appreciate at any restaurant, especially when a lot of the food is unfamiliar. I am getting more of a Korean food education, especially because I stay in Koreatown on my occasional short work trips to Los Angeles. But I looked forward to trying JAWS Toppoki’s take on various popular street foods.

I have had a never-ending tuna craving, so I ordered tuna gimbap to start with. Gimbap looks superficially similar to a sushi roll: various ingredients rolled and wrapped in sesame oil-seasoned rice and a layer of dried seaweed — very similar to Japanese nori — and then sliced. The tuna gimbap included a mayo-based tuna salad, finely shredded carrots, cucumbers, sesame leaf, and sesame seeds. It was a fine little snack, but I couldn’t complain about getting too much tuna. If anything, it was too much carrot and not enough tuna! This gimbap didn’t quite scratch the tuna salad itch I’ve had since having the best tuna sandwich ever on my last trip to Los Angeles, which also included some Korean flavors.

Since our H-Mart visit was annoying and I didn’t expect to return anytime soon, I figured I would order a few different things for the sake of variety, end up with plenty of leftovers, and probably not bother to come back. So I got one of the combo meals called the “Friends Set.” It included a large metal bowl of JAWS toppoki, the restaurant’s namesake dish. Korean restaurants usually list this dish as tteokbokki, but it is pronounced similarly to “toppoki,” hence the name.
The long noodle-looking things are chewy rice cakes, and I assure you they are nothing like the bland, crunchy, hockey pucks our moms ate in the ’80s when they wanted to lose weight, even though those food crimes are what first comes to mind when I think of “rice cakes.” These are chewier than gnocchi or any al dente pasta, and denser as well. They are swimming in a very spicy sauce with thin slices of tofu, and the whole bowl is topped with crispy strips of something or other, sesame seeds, scallions, a quail egg, and half of a fried dumpling called mandu.

The “Friends Set” also came with a paper bag of tempura-fried sweet potato, shrimp, squid, cheese, and another dumpling. I forgot to take a picture of it, but you can see what the “Deep Fried Set” looks like on the menu.

Finally, it came with sundae, but not the kind you’d get at Carvel on your birthday! Sundae is a chewy, savory Korean blood sausage, and this was my favorite part of the meal. Call it morcilla, black pudding, or just plain old blood sausage, I am always a fan of this savory treat, even if it may seem weird or intimidating to the uninitiated. Maybe I have a bit of of Goth in me, but I think it is always delicious, no matter which culture or cuisine makes it. Korean sundae (which I believe is pronounced “SOON-day”) is made with pork blood, glass noodles, and glutinous rice, and it had a moist, almost sticky texture, especially with the chewy natural casing. Sprinkling on the included mixture of salt spiked with dried chili flakes made it even more flavorful. The thinly sliced, light-colored meat in the top right of the sundae tray is intestine, but I’m not sure if it was beef or pork. I ate it, and it was fine, but I’ve enjoyed grilled intestines at Argentinian and Korean restaurants before that ended up with a more pleasant crispy texture from the grilling process.

I don’t think I’ll return to JAWS Toppoki anytime soon, but that’s mostly because I have no desire to return to H Mart anytime soon. It is probably worth visiting once if you’re the least bit curious, but even though it’s a really nice Asian supermarket, Orlando is very lucky to have many other nice Asian supermarkets, and none of them are as crowded and chaotic. Lotte Plaza Market has a (much smaller) food court, but was probably the largest and “nicest” before H Mart opened. My usual go-to, iFresh Market, is the current home of the wonderful Meng’s Kitchen. And then we also have Enson Market, New Golden Sparkling Market, Phuoc Loc Tho (my first-ever Asian market from when I first moved to Orlando in 2004), the “OG” Dong A Market, Eastside Market, and even more.

And even if you’re craving Korean street food, we have plenty of other local restaurants where you won’t have to navigate that intense, insane food court.

Selva Rosa Cocina and Bar

Selva Rosa Cocina and Bar (https://soon.selvarosa.com/) is a gorgeous new Mexican restaurant with some Japanese fusion elements, located in Maitland. It took over the old location of Teak, a casual restaurant we loved at first, but the quality faltered over the years until it closed. (This may become relevant later, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos.) It is on one corner of The Village apartment complex on 17-92 (not to be confused with the infamous Villages elsewhere in Central Florida), with Lim Ros Thai Cuisine on the opposite corner.

The interior is very modern and pretty, with plenty of pink neon signs and fake plant walls, designed to be trendy and Instagrammable for photo ops. They are going for sexy, sophisticated style. More about that later, I promise.

We have been there twice now, and they always bring out thin, crispy tortilla chips that are well-salted and are not greasy at all, along with a simple, tasty table salsa.

I took photos of the menu, because they still aren’t available on the shell of a website. You may want to right-click on these to open them in new tabs and then expand them:

My wife ordered a black sesame latte on our first visit, perfect for our early lunch on a chilly Saturday. She said it was delicious.

I ordered this pair of Ensenada-style tacos, one for each of us, with fried grouper, shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, and habanero salsa on soft flour tortillas. I love a good fish taco, and they are surprisingly hard to come by in Orlando. This was excellent, in part because grouper is one of the tastiest fish… and also surprisingly hard to come by in Orlando.

My wife ordered pollo a la brasa, half of a deliciously marinated and grilled chicken, served artfully on a banana leaf with avocado crema and fresh cilantro on top, with a mound of the best Mexican rice I’ve ever tried anywhere and excellent black beans topped with queso fresco.

I was going to go with something else, but mentioned to our server David that I had a hard time deciding and would have to return soon. He suggested one of their most popular dishes, the short rib taquiza, a sizzling fajitas-sort of setup with a giant beef short rib, prepared with birria-style seasoning and a huge bone that slides right out. I know he was trying to upsell me, because this is a $38 dish, but I am a sucker for slow-braised, tender meats on the bone, and I already like short ribs, so I changed my order. No regrets. This thing was a beast, and it came out smoking and sizzling to beat the band. Even I got three meals out of this massive meat, but believe it or not, I am consciously trying to eat less, and also to eat healthier when I can. Short rib isn’t health food by any stretch, but at least I didn’t devour the whole thing in one sitting. (I always joke that my mom doesn’t approve of ordering fajitas at restaurants because people shouldn’t draw attention to themselves with those sizzling platters, but the main reason is because she doesn’t like Mexican food.)

The short rib taquiza came with another mound of that terrific Mexican rice (did I mention it’s the best I’ve ever had?), a bowl of rich, thick beans with chunks of unctuous pork belly, and a salad of shredded iceberg lettuce mixed with sliced tomatoes, raw white onion, and a little guacamole.It also came with warm, soft, handmade corn tortillas, probably the best corn tortillas either of us have ever had in Orlando, but I failed to get a photo of them. My wife and I loved the corn tortillas so much, we planned to get more on our next visit.

My wife ordered this dessert after her first choice (something with pistachios) was sold out. It looked cool, but she didn’t care much for it, and I had no interest in something chocolatey. It didn’t look appetizing to me at all. By the way, that was a shortbread-like cookie underneath it, not a layer of frosting or whipped cream.
It had raspberry puree in the middle, which she didn’t like or want. Back at home, I performed a bit of surgery, slicing it open and removing the raspberry filling for her. It wasn’t anything mind-blowing, and neither of us would ever get it again.

We returned the following weekend for a later lunch on “Superb Owl” Sunday, figuring the restaurant would not be too busy. We were right. But even though it wasn’t busy at all, it was a very different experience. What a difference a week makes!

She ordered another sesame latte, which was served in an attractive glass this time:

This time, we made it a point to arrive after 1 PM so we could hopefully try one of their sushi or similar raw fish dishes, since the menu said they do not serve them before 1. Instead of a sushi roll, my wife chose the ahi tuna truffle appetizer for us to share, with a mound of raw ahi tuna over diced avocado with red onion, cilantro, and their sweet soy truffle sauce, served with crunchy fried cassava chips and crispy tostadas. I am not a truffle fan, but this whole dish worked really well together. Ahi tuna is one of my favorite things to eat in the world, and she liked it too. By the way, all our food — apps and entrees alike — came out at the exact same time. Not ideal, but not something that would usually annoy me. Stay tuned, true believers.

Knowing we would have plenty of leftovers to enjoy over the next few days, I selected another pair of tacos, since we were both intrigued by this combination. These were the tacos bacanos, with ropa vieja (a Cuban dish of shredded beef stewed in a savory, tomatoey broth), black beans, avocado, and salty crumbles of queso fresco. These particular tacos were supposed to come on “plantain tortillas,” which I expected might be like tostones, but fried into a curved taco shell shape. As far as I could tell, these were pretty typical corn tortillas. Once I got home and started writing this review, I realized the menu said these tacos should also include avocado crema (so good on my wife’s grilled chicken on our previous visit) and pickled onions, but ours didn’t come with either. Missing or switched ingredients would be a recurring theme this time around, leading to more perplexing disappointment.

My wife loves a good steak, and she ordered the churrasco al carbon for her entree, figuring she would get multiple meals out of it. The grilled angus skirt steak arrived looking beautiful, topped with a little chimichurri and a few hot pink pickled onions. The kitchen cooked it rare as she requested, something that some other trendy restaurants just couldn’t get right. It came with yuca fries, black beans, and “seasonal vegetables” — mostly roasted squash.

This time I got the fajitas I almost ordered last time, when David recommended the colossal short rib instead. This was the asado Selva Rosa, a sizzling setup that was supposed to come with guajillo lime chicken, adobo grilled chicken, achiote shrimp, and one of my favorite Mexican meats, chorizo sausage. Since I’m trying to eat more protein and fewer carbs, it seemed like a nice way to try multiple things, but I fully admit that the chorizo was the deciding factor for me. So I thought it was a little odd that our new server asked how I wanted the meat cooked. Chicken, shrimp, and crumbly chorizo? I was surprised, so I hesitantly said “medium, so the chicken is cooked all the way through.” I just wasn’t expecting that question. I like my steak rare, but not my chicken!
So when it arrived, I couldn’t differentiate between two different types of chicken, the chorizo was noticeably absent, and there was also some steak that was tough and overdone. The menu didn’t say anything about steak, and if I had known steak would be involved, I would never have asked for it medium, because as I said, I like my steak rare. The hits just kept on coming! Honestly, I wonder if someone in the kitchen mixed up “churrasco” (steak) and “chorizo” (sausage).

It came with the same side salad, refried beans (not as good as last time, with no big chunks of pork belly or any other meat), and Mexican rice (also not as good as last time, when I told ya it was the best Mexican rice I’ve ever had).

This time I remembered to take a photo of the fresh corn tortillas when I unwrapped them from the foil, soft and steaming. But these looked different — certainly not as good. I gave them to my wife, who loved them last time, and I think she agreed they weren’t as good.

I asked our server what happened to the chorizo, because that’s why I ordered this dish. She said she would check, then some time passed and she said the kitchen would make me some chorizo, then more time passed and they brought this out. This was definitely not the orangey-red, spicy, savory, greasy, crumbly chorizo I’ve enjoyed in countless authentic tacos, burritos, and tortas. This was a slight step up from a salchicha, not that different from a hot dog, but possibly with a natural casing that got crisped up. Full disclosure: they took $5 off the bill because of this without me asking them to, but all these little things were adding up, and we were both feeling annoyed.

At this point, we had a lot of leftovers and were losing steam (and patience), so I asked our server for the Rosa en Fuego dessert they were out of last time, as well as some boxes. She brought us two boxes for all this food, so we had to go back and forth a couple of times to get enough boxes to pack everything up, and then a separate request for a paper bag to carry everything in. I refuse to leave expensive food behind at restaurants, even if more and more places are starting to act weird about offering to-go containers. It was starting to feel like a comedy sketch, and I imagined a domineering manager berating the wait staff about giving customers too many to-go boxes, and that’s costing them money. It really felt like that could be happening behind the scenes, and I’m a pretty chill, patient, conflict-averse guy, but it all seemed so unnecessary and ridiculous.

This was the Rosa en Fuego, a pretty large and attractive dome.
I never even saw the dessert menu, but my wife wanted to try it because it included pistachio and rosewater, two ingredients she loves. I joked that Pistachio and Rosewater sounds like a law firm for elves, and we riffed for a while about how they practiced enchanted forest law, like toadstool landlord/tenant issues, lily pad eminent domain, and zoning ordinances for businesses inside holes in tree trunks.

What we didn’t realize was that this would be a whole production, with some kind of alcohol set ablaze with a torch:

Then poured onto the dome, flames and all (hence the “en fuego”):

The sugary dome started to burn and melt away:

And it ended up being this little melty, shriveled thing with a light green bit of pistachio cake underneath. I was never interested, and she said it tasted like kerosene (probably butane, to be more accurate). I’m sure the influencers will go gaga over it, posting video of the burning, the melting, and their inevitable reaction shots.

As an aside, I noticed the men’s restroom looked surprisingly luxurious, with gleaming black urinals and fancy faucets for the sinks, but when my wife returned from the women’s restroom early in our meal, she looked upset. The toilet in the one accessible stall (which her rollator could not fit inside) was clogged and overflowing, and she said it made her lose her appetite. That kind of set the mood for our entire lunch. On the way out, after I paid our bill and tipped well, she told the manager about the restroom situation in a polite and diplomatic way, and we both looked into the eyes of a man who had no fucks left to give.

After two visits a week apart, after how much we enjoyed everything the first time and how many corners were cut the second time, our excitement has cooled like that weird melted dessert. My wife put it best: more than the food (which features trends like wagyu and truffle and fusion sushi), Selva Rosa Cocina and Bar is all about the vibes. The decor, the menu options, the presentations, the fact that ingredients are substituted or missing without warning and nobody seems too concerned, the checked-out service — it all feels aimed at trendmongers who care more about how their photos will look than about the overall quality, and most importantly of all, how they look in those photos. For us, that holds no appeal, and yes, I am fully aware of the irony of me taking a lot of photos for the purposes of this review. I realize this is still a relatively new restaurant, so they may be working out kinks and/or bugs, but the colossal downgrade in our experience from one week to the next was noteworthy. It is probably clear that Selva Rosa is not our scene, so I wanted to tell a full, clear, unbiased story so you can determine whether or not it may be your scene. Let me know what you decide.

Rawsha Mediterranean Cuisine

Rawsha Mediterranean Cuisine (https://rawshamediterraneancuisine.com/) is the first Iraqi restaurant I know of to open in Orlando, and definitely the first one I’ve ever tried. It is a very casual restaurant in a strip plaza at 8956 Turkey Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32819, easily accessible from Sand Lake Road, especially if you take I-4 and get off on Exit 74. There are plenty of tables, but no booths. You take a seat and a server will take your order, so there is no lining up at a register to place your order and pay up front.

This is their chicken shawarma, ready to be sliced off this huge rotating vertical spit:

And this is their rotating beef shawarma. More on that later, I promise.

They have their whole mise en place setup for assembling wraps and platters with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, pickles, pickled red cabbage, pickled turnips, olives, and more.

I ordered this hala platter for my wife, figuring she would get two or more meals out of it, but I planned to taste the meats too, for the sake of journalism. It included an Iraqi kebab made of beef and lamb (on the left), a chicken kofte (in the middle; almost like a grilled meatloaf made of ground chicken with savory herbs and spices), and a lamb chop (on the right), grilled to medium. These platters come with two choices of sides: rice, fries, hummus, baba ghanouj, or fatoush. You can see we went with rice as one of the options. I was glad that my wife enjoyed all three meats, but the lamb chop seemed to be her favorite. I didn’t try it, but I can vouch for the Iraqi kebab and chicken kofte being really, really delicious. I enjoyed the char-grilled tomato, onion, and jalapeno later, and I ate the orange-looking flatbread at the top, brushed with their special red sauce and lightly grilled.

Baba ghanouj, that Middle Eastern dip of roasted eggplant and tahini paste, is one of my wife’s favorite things to eat in the world. Normally it takes on a smoky flavor from the eggplant roasting, but Rawsha’s version of baba ghanouj was light on the smoke and heavy on the tahini. Not bad, just different.

I also ordered fatoush, a delicious salad made with lettuce, tomato, red onions, cucumbers, crispy bits of fried flatbread, and I think I tasted parley and mint in there too. The dressing was very light, and may have included pomegranate molasses. I liked this more than my wife did.

This was the beef arabi, something else I expected we would split, but she wasn’t into it. It was a flatbread wrap with beef, red onions, and herbs, crisped up on the flattop grill and sliced into pretty slices, almost like how a sushi roll is served. It wasn’t crispy by the time I got it home, so this is one better enjoyed on premises.

The beef arabi came with a side of a delicious creamy garlic sauce (toom), as well as cole slaw, slices of crunchy, fresh cucumber and carrot, pickles, and pickled turnips. I thought the garlic sauce helped the beef arabi tremendously, but something more acidic inside or on top would have helped it too, like a hot sauce. Luckily, I have a house full of hot sauces.

These fries were limp and cold by the time I got home, which was reasonably foreseeable. I jazzed them up with some spicy Filipino banana ketchup, though.

The main reason I wanted to try Rawsha was to try their “crispy shawarma” that they demonstrated making in an Instagram video. It looked so good in the video, especially with all the ingredients. Even though I arrived right at 11 AM when the restaurant opened, they told me it would be 20 to 30 minutes for the shawarma to be ready. That was fine with me. I drove across town meaning to try that one specific thing, and for a change, I had nowhere to rush off to, so I killed time on my phone. It ended up taking a full hour, but whatever, these things happen (and often to me).

I’m sure the shawarma would have been in its ideal state eaten hot and fresh at the restaurant, but it took so long, and the rest of my takeout order was ready and had been sitting around for a while, so I had them wrap it up to go as well. At least it looked good, having been brushed with the aforementioned special red sauce and crisped up on all its outer surfaces on the grill. It did lose some of its crispiness on the way home, which was inevitable, but I couldn’t wait any longer.

It tasted fine, but it didn’t have any of the cool stuff inside that they included in their video: no pickles, tomatoes, tahini, or pomegranate molasses. It was just the beef sliced off the spit, and that was it. I think those other flavors, especially the acidic flavors and crunchy textures, would have balanced it out much better. Was it worth the wait? Maybe not, but I hope if you go to try it, you won’t deal with a wait like that. I would totally try it again if I could enjoy it crispy and fresh in the restaurant. Otherwise, the next time I’m craving beef shawarma, I think I will return to The Cairo Express instead. And since I visited Rawsha, I found a place that serves the best chicken shawarma I’ve ever had in my life, which I will review soon enough. But I would still return to Rawsha, especially for that Iraqi kebab, chicken kofte, and fatoush salad.

So that’s my first experience at Rawsha, raw(sha) and unfiltered. When you try it yourself (which you should), dining in would be the preferable option, as it usually is. Maybe coming later in the day is a safer bet if you don’t have a cushion of time to kill. When you taste this Iraqi food, you might find yourself singing “Oh baby, I like it RAWSHA!”

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.

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s (https://thebakersonusa.com/) is a Filipino-American bakery/cafe that first opened in Jacksonville, but opened a second, much larger location in Kissimmee this past Thursday, December 4th. (The address is 4797 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee, FL 34746, in front of the Target.) I have been following its progress, excited about sampling new and unfamiliar sweet and savory baked goods, as well as any drinks and dishes they might serve.

According to the website, owner-operator Jun Valerio is a third-generation Filipino-American baker, and his family owns multiple Valerio’s bakeries on the West Coast. Jun and his wife Kathleen ran Valerio’s locations in California, Seattle, and Canada before opening their own spinoff, the first Baker’s Son location, in Jacksonville, which has a larger Filipino population than the Orlando area. But now that they have opened in Kissimmee, I have a feeling they will have a huge hit on their hands with mass appeal that will reach beyond Filipino locals and tourists.

I finally made the hour drive to the new Kissimmee location on Saturday morning, hoping to beat the lunch rush, but instead I found myself in a slow, serpentine line that wrapped around the entire store. There weren’t any employees directing traffic, but customers walked to the left upon entering to grab any packaged breads and sweets off the shelves, then found their way to the end of the line. I estimate it took me an hour and 15 minutes from entering the store to ordering my food and paying at the front counter, but I chatted with the guy in front of me, and everyone was patient and polite, helping point the newcomers in the right direction.

The full menu is not on the website, so I took photos for my dozens of readers, so you can study in advance. Try right-clicking on these menu photos and opening them in new tabs for slightly larger images.

This is the coffee, tea, boba, and signature drinks menu:

Here is the food menu, with merienda (snacks), rice plates, sandwiches, burgers, healthy eats, and breakfast sweets:

And this is the Cloud Series (The Baker’s Son’s version of milkshakes), plus soft serve ice cream:

The coffee drinks people were picking up from the cafe counter all looked delicious, but coffee makes me feel terrible. I, on the other hand, have never met a cold, refreshing, citrusy drink I didn’t like, so I got the fresh calamansi juice. Calamansi is a fruit that is similar to lime, and its juice adds sour notes to many Filipino recipes. This was similar to limeade — sweet, sour, and so refreshing.

After how long the line took, I didn’t know how long it would take for the food I ordered to be served, so I asked for an empanada when I got to the counter. They looked really good. This was a little smaller than a typical Cuban empanada:

It had a saucy, seasoned beef filling with some raisins, but it was nothing like the picadillo filling I’m used to in Cuban empanadas. It was definitely saucier, and the fried shell had a really pleasant salty-sweet flavor and didn’t taste or feel greasy.

I really wanted to try something with longanisa, a sweet and savory Filipino sausage. They offer a longanisa burger, but since I was planning to eat there after waiting that long, I chose something that would not have traveled well: loaded longanisa fries. These were really crispy fries that any fry lover would love, topped with crumbled longanisa sausage, caramelized onions, creamy garlic sauce (like an aioli), and an over-medium fried egg. It was so delicious and decadent.

I’ve had bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches on my mind recently, so since I didn’t get a burger, I opted for the tocino glazed bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, served with sweet glazed bacon called tocino, scrambled eggs, American cheese, and a crispy hash brown patty on a pillowy-soft roll called pan de sal (literally “bread of salt”) that had been grilled to crisp up its interior. Pan de sal (sometimes stylized as pandesal) is one of the specialties of The Baker’s Son, so I’ll come back to that a little later.

This was sinigang popcorn chicken off the merienda (snacks) menu. I certainly didn’t need it, and it was a bit of an impulse buy, but the guy in front of me said he was going to get it, and I trusted him. He said it should have a sour seasoning sprinkled on it, but even though mine was good, with a crispy, crunchy batter, it didn’t taste sour to me. While writing this, I found out that the sour sinigang flavor usually comes from tamarind.
I ate most of the above food on site, but took most of the chicken home with me, where I will try it with my huge collection of condiments and sauces.

But since I was at a brand-new bakery, I couldn’t leave without buying some bread. I bought the smallest bag of pan de sal they had. These were smaller rolls, like dinner rolls, but they had much larger bags with larger rolls, more like what I had with my bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich (think of typical burger buns). They are made with flour, eggs, yeast, sugar, salt, and powdered milk, so they will be nice and light and fluffy and slightly sweet. They reminded me a bit of Japanese milk bread.

This was pan de coco, more small, fluffy rolls stuffed with a sweet spread made of young coconut. (If any MCs are looking for a new stage name, may I suggest “Young Coconut”?)

And this box of Spanish bread is a bit like buttery, soft brioche, with a sweet, buttery, creamy filing in the center. I would have been fine with one or two, but they only came in boxes of six.

They had so much more to choose from, including a lot of sweeter breads, rolls, and pastries, many of which had lots of icing and/or ube (sweet purple yam) filling. But I knew my wife wouldn’t be terribly interested in any of these, so I reigned myself in. I like to make sandwiches at home, so I could level up my sandwich game with all these different rolls.

I would definitely recommend The Baker’s Son, even though people might want to wait a little longer to avoid the long lines. Most new restaurants will have a certain amount of hype involved, and I did make the choice to go on the third day it was open, but I suspect it will calm down soon enough (and probably be a lot more chill on normal weekdays, rather than the Saturday of its opening week). Most of the people waiting inside with me were Filipinos of all ages, and I could sense their excitement and pride in The Baker’s Son. I couldn’t be happier for them, or for the Valerio family and their staff, or for the rest of us, having a bakery/cafe like The Baker’s Son as an option in the Orlando area. Head down to touristy Kissimmee when you can, and please let me know what you ordered and what you thought!

Fiesta Cancun

Fiesta Cancun (https://fiestacancunfl.com/) is a beautiful, festive, casual Mexican restaurant in Altamonte Springs. It is tucked off the beaten path at 260 Douglas Avenue, just off busy Semoran Boulevard (State Road 436) and a minute from I-4 exit 92. You can’t see it from Semoran, but turn onto Douglas, and it will be on your left before you hit the Waffle House on the left and the Cracker Barrel on the right.

The dining room is so colorful and fun, it is hard not to get swept up in a celebratory spirit and feel like you’re on vacation. I blacked out the faces of nearby diners to preserve their privacy, but you can still tell that the vibes are super-festive.

I’ve said this before, but whenever a Mexican restaurant offers aguas frescas, I know we’re going to be in for good, authentic food. I got a passion fruit agua fresca (one of my favorite flavors of anything), and my wife chose jamaica (hibiscus flower). The glass mugs were huge, but our bill said they cost $7.50 each, and refills cost extra! (The menu says they cost $4.25 each, so maybe they did charge us for refills.) As much as I love it, I’ll stick to water in the future and not drink my calories.

The fresh, free tortilla chips were fine after adding a little salt, and the table salsa was fresh and bright-tasting. But even better, Fiesta Cancun offers a salsa bar, which was a real treat to me.I love a salsa bar, and it is one of the many reasons I’m such a fan of Las Carretas. I appreciated that Fiesta Cancun had handwritten signs posted above each salsa explaining what each one was, and what the ingredients were.

Top row:
Sliced onions with habanero peppers, tomatoes, and lime juice
Spicy molcajete sauce with serrano chiles and onions
Spicy taquera sauce with avocado, serrano chiles, onions, cilantro, and mayonnaise to make it creamy

Bottom row:
Spicy red sauce with chiles de arbol, tomatillos, and onions
Non-spicy salsa verde with tomatillo and cilantro (the only one my wife wanted anything to do with)
Spicy Jalisco sauce with chiles de arbol, serrano chiles, tomatillos, and onions

They all looked so good, and of course I tried them all! They have plenty of tiny plastic cups for you to fill.

My wife was craving a good taco salad in a crispy fried shell. This one included shredded iceberg lettuce, a healthy dollop of guacamole, and pico de gallo and sour cream on the side. I availed myself of the pico, since I am a giant fan of the stuff, and she doesn’t care for onions or tomatoes. You can choose between ground beef, shredded beef, and shredded chicken with the taco salad, but I didn’t see any meat in the photo, and I don’t remember which one my wife ordered.

I had studied the large menu in advance, and I was so excited to see that Fiesta Cancun offered cochinita pibil, a dish from the Yucatan Peninsula that is sometimes called puerco pibil. It consists of citrus-marinated, slow-roasted pork with a complex array of spices and flavors, cooked until it is fork-tender. I am always inspired to order it whenever I see it on a menu thanks to the 2003 action movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico, in which Johnny Depp’s antihero also ordered the dish whenever he encountered it. The DVD extras (remember those?) included badass writer-director-composer Robert Rodriguez demonstrating his own recipe for puerco pibil*, which I made for a work potluck once. It was a labor-intensive recipe, and my version came out great, but my old co-workers were a tough crowd that didn’t share my enthusiasm. My old director actually had the audacity to tell me I should not have wasted so much time making it, and she wouldn’t even try it! To make a long story short, the cochinita pibil at Fiesta Cancun was dry! I know, right? I was disappointed, but I still ate it, and jazzing it up with the various salsas helped immensely. The black beans were fine, and I did love the rich Mexican rice and tangy-sweet, crunchy, pink pickled onions. I wouldn’t order it again, but I wasn’t even mad. I was still having a grand time.

I had also ordered a chile relleno off the a la carte menu, intending to have it later, but I busted into it to make up for the dry pork. I apologize for not photographing a cross-section of the battered and fried poblano pepper stuffed with melty cheese, but I honestly liked it a lot more than the cochinita pibil. I would totally come back and try other things on the menu, but I’d get that chile relleno again too.

I couldn’t take my wife to a Mexican restaurant and not order her churros or sopapillas! This time, the churros won out. The fried dough sticks were covered with cinnamon and sugar and came with a chocolate dipping sauce.

So even though I was disappointed by my cochinita pibil, I would still return to Fiesta Cancun and try other things in the future, if I was ever in Altamonte with people who wanted Mexican food and fun surroundings. You might have already noticed how vast the menu is, and how they offer a lot more seafood dishes than most Mexican restaurants, which makes sense, given that Cancun is a coastal city on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. I think it would be a crowd-pleaser for most groups. If you’ve been there before, what are your favorite dishes on the menu, and what should I try next time?

*By the way, I’ve been a fan of Robert Rodriguez ever since I first saw his $7,000 self-financed independent debut El Mariachi back in the early ’90s. As much as I’ve enjoyed most of his movies, his coolest career moment might be when he says in the above video “Not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to fuck.” Spot on. I also love his advice about learning to cook your two or three favorite dishes very well and making a little restaurant-style menu for your kitchen, to the point where you could always offer a few house specialties to guests with minimal notice or prep. That’s entertainment!

GG Korean BBQ

GG Korean BBQ (https://ggkoreanbbq.com/) is an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue restaurant located at 5319 West Colonial Drive in Orlando’s Pine Hills neighborhood. I recently went for the first time with two good friends, including one of my inspirations as a food writer, the illustrious Amy Drew Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel. It was the first time I ever got to meet her in person, and I’m sure I made a great first impression, stuffing my face with delicious Korean food that we cooked ourselves on the tabletop grill.

This was my second time doing all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue ever, after trying it with a friend at Hae Jang Chon in Koreatown in L.A. last year. I was lucky to be dining with two sophisticated, experienced, worldly gastronomes who knew what they were doing much more than I.

GG Korean BBQ offers two options: $27.99 per person for the basic all you can eat experience (seven different fresh and marinated meats), or $39.99 per person for a more premium selection: 18 different fresh and marinated meats, plus two seafood options, shrimp and baby octopus. I was curious about the expanded option, and my friends were both kind enough to humor me and go along with it. Just FYI, your whole party has to choose the same option.

Many Korean meals start out with banchan, tiny plates of sharable side orders. My favorite thing here was the slightly sweet and crunchy yellow pickled daikon radish slices on the bottom left. I am not a fan of bean sprouts, so I left them alone, and as much as I have tried to become a kimchi fan (especially as a lover of sauerkraut and cabbage in general), it hasn’t happened for me yet. I tried a customary piece but left the rest for my colleagues. A sharp-eyed reader told me more about the yellow pickled radish: “The yellow pickle is called Takuan. It is a Japanese pickle that was invented in the 17th century by the Zen Buddhist monk named Soho Takuan. The pickle spread to Korea and very popular.” Thank you so much, bkhuna!

Both dining choices come with a variety of other sides to choose from. This was corn cheese — kernels of fresh corn heated over the grill with shredded mozzarella cheese, and probably some butter too. It looked better when it was done, and it was a decadent hit at our table.

I really liked these japchae, savory translucent noodles made out of sweet potato starch, seasoned with sesame oil. They had a nice al dente chew.

We also tried the steamed egg side, but I didn’t get a good picture of it.

Here were three dips for our barbecued meats. That was a seasoned salt on the left that accented the grilled flavors perfectly. I really liked the sauce in the middle, and the one on the right had its own spicy charm.

When you go out for Korean barbecue, the group orders a few meats at a time. Sometimes the server cooks them for you, and sometimes you get left to your own devices. There can be a lot going on, so every group needs an experienced leader to make sure the meat is cooking but not overcooking, and that everyone has something ready to eat at all times. When you’re all having a nice conversation, that can be distracting, but my friend stayed on top of everything for us.

This mixed grill included beef bulgogi on the bottom (a sweet and savory marinated meat that is a great “gateway” dish for folks who are unfamiliar with Korean cuisine), and I honestly don’t remember if the two long pieces of meat along the sides were beef rib fingers or pork belly. I’m sure we got both, though. That’s a thick slice of onion in the top right and some big slices of mushroom on the left — more for them!

Here’s a close-up of the beautiful, rich, marbled meat that was on top in the above photo. I think this was ribeye, due to that lush, lovely marbling.

More meat! Those off-white thingees on the right are large and small beef intestines. I first tried those at an all-you-can-eat Argentinian-Jewish churrascuria restaurant in Altamonte Springs called Steak in the City, similar to the Brazilian all-you-can-eat rodizio concepts (like Adega Gaucha and Texas de Brazil). Steak in the City closed abruptly over 15 years ago, taking my good friend and former roommate’s deposit for a wedding rehearsal dinner with them. (Luckily, he paid with a credit card, so he was able to get refunded, but the restaurant folks disappeared into the night with his money.) Anyway, the intestines (Steak in the City called them chinchulines) grill up with a crispy exterior, but they are mostly soft and chewy. They don’t have a strong flavor, but I’d say they are worth trying at least once, if you’ve never had them before. They would mostly take on the flavor of a marinade or dipping sauce.

Even more meat! We were all losing steam by this point.
What do you think those thin, wavy, round slices of meat on the right are?

They were fresh beef tongue, sliced almost paper-thin. As a Jewish person, I can’t go somewhere that offers tongue and not try it, whether it’s a Jewish deli, a Mexican taqueria, a Vietnamese pho restaurant, or in this case, a Korean barbecue establishment. These slices grilled up to a nondescript brownish-gray color, so they looked a lot interesting here, before cooking. But they were extremely tender!

Anyway, I’m glad I went with two experienced, worldly gourmets who had done this before, because I trusted my one friend to do a lot of the cooking for us (he’s a team player and a tireless mensch), and I followed their lead. It was a really nice lunch with two of my favorite people in Orlando, but here’s my hot take: I cook at home all the time (although I don’t grill because I don’t have a grill), but if I go out to a restaurant, I would rather rely on the chef to prepare food for me than have to do it myself. Most of the time I go to restaurants these days, I either fly solo or bring home takeout to share with my wife, and you can’t really do Korean barbecue in either scenario, so it’s a moot point anyway. I feel similar about hot pot places – fun with a group once or twice as an interactive activity, but maybe more trouble than they are worth. But if you’re going to do Korean barbecue, especially with a good group, I think GG Korean BBQ would be a fabulous place to enjoy it together.

Pho Bar Vietnamese Kitchen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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