Middle Eastern – The Saboscrivner

The Cairo Express

The Cairo Express (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577118088141) is a brand-new food truck that first opened last month, on July 12th, 2025. It is always set up in the same place, next to a hair salon at 658 Wymore Rd, Winter Park, right off Lee Road facing the I-4 exit. After a friend brought it to my attention and I looked at the menu online, I went straight there the next day, after seeing the Fantastic Four movie at nearby Winter Park Village. The Cairo Express is a family affair, with a pedigree of serving delicious Egyptian food in Orlando years before opening this truck. When I ordered, I noticed some uncommon menu items that I tried way back in 2019 when I reviewed an Egyptian restaurant called Makani, out on International Drive. I caught up with an old friend and bandmate and had a fantastic dinner there, and we shared several dishes I haven’t seen anywhere since. The fella in charge at the food truck confirmed his mother worked at Makani, and those were her family recipes they prepared there and again here at The Cairo Express. That food was awesome, and I knew I would be in for a real treat, trying it again so many years later.

Here is the menu, kindly provided by The Cairo Express after I forgot to take a photo and reached out to them on Facebook. You can see prices are very reasonable, and I can tell you everything is totally worth it:

This was the beef shawarma, which I devoured in the car while it was hot and fresh. It’s a wrap with beef, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, pickled turnips, and tahini sauce (creamy sesame paste), then grilled on the flattop grill to add some crispiness to the outer texture of the thin flatbread, like the best burritos. I love crunchy, tangy pickled vegetables, and the pickled turnips really made this shawarma something special. I’ve been disappointed by a lot of shawarma with dry, bland beef (or chicken), but this beef was really tender and juicy.

Here’s a cross-section, so you can see that tender beef for yourself. I always say that gyros are to tacos as shawarma is to burritos, in terms of shape and structure. I wouldn’t dare eat a gyro in my car, but the shawarma held up just fine.

I love liver in all its forms, from chopped chicken liver at a Jewish deli to liver and onions at an old-school diner. So I was surprised and excited to see a sandwich with marinated beef liver with green bell peppers, garlic, cumin, coriander, cilantro, and tahini sauce on a hoagie roll. I could not turn that down! Looking in the food truck window, I saw they use Cusano’s hoagie rolls, which I make a special trip to Gordon Food Service to buy. The nearby LaSpada’s Original Philly Cheese Steaks and Hoagies uses them, and I believe Gabriel’s Subs might as well. Great roll, and the entire sandwich was superb. The liver was so rich and tender. I personally would have loaded the sandwich up with onions too — sautéed with the liver, as well as some crispy fried ones — as well as some spicier peppers and/or hot sauce for some acid to cut the salty richness, but that’s just me.

Just as gyros are to tacos and shawarma is to burritos, the lesser-known Egyptian street food hawawshi is to quesadillas — except there is no cheese in hawawshi. Instead, it is spiced ground beef with onions, garlic, and parsley, stuffed into pita bread and grilled on the flattop grill to get that great crispy texture. Hawawshi is magical. You get four equal wedges, and mine came with a little cup of tahini for dipping. The menu mentioned I could have gotten hot sauce instead, which I would have preferred to try, but I was a little overwhelmed when ordering and didn’t think to ask. I had hawawshi for the first time at Makani back in 2019, and it was just as good there. I think the outer texture was crispier, almost like it had been fried, but this was great too.

Koshary is a famous Egyptian street food that I also tried for the first time at Makani. How could I resist a mountain of rice pilaf, lentils, spaghetti, elbow macaroni, tomato sauce, crispy fried onions, and chickpeas? It’s a carb-lover’s dream and a perfect snack for vegetarians and vegans too. The version of koshary from The Cairo Express came with an extra ramekin of tomato sauce and two ramekins of a vinegar sauce. I didn’t add any of either, because I wanted my wife to try it, and she doesn’t care for saucy, spicy, pungent foods (while I, on the other hand, can’t get enough of ’em). Once I ate the tomato sauce and onions off the top, we shared the rest of the koshary, and she enjoyed it as much as I did.

This baba ganoush was my wife’s sole request, since the smoky, creamy roasted eggplant dip is one of her favorite foods. She’s not a dipper like I am, but she will go through it with a spoon! She has high standards for baba ganoush, and she said Cairo Express’ version was one of the best in Orlando. I tried a tiny taste too, and I detected a lot of tahini (sesame paste) in there, while some go harder on the actual eggplant.

I returned to The Cairo Express the following Saturday because they had a weekend special that was another dish I was introduced to at Makani. These are mombar (pronounced with the emphasis on the “bar” rather than the “mom”), savory sausages made of rice seasoned with various herbs and spices, stuffed into a chewy lamb intestine. I swear I tasted cinnamon and clove in them. I believe the mombar are boiled and then fried until their texture is lightly crispy but also chewy. They are so delicious and fun to eat.

And I got a little piece of baklava that was good, because you can never go wrong with baklava!

On my second visit to the truck, I met Gigi, the matriarch of the family who cooked at Makani for years, then left after new owners took over, and is back in action at The Cairo Express. She was so sweet, and her son was very affable when I met him on my first visit. I’ll definitely be back. You should check them out too, as soon as possible. Even if you like Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food, the unique Egyptian dishes they offer like hawawshi, koshary, and mombar may be completely new to you. I think people will especially love the hawawshi and koshary (and vegetarians and vegans, don’t sleep on the koshary!). You can also try familiar favorites like shawarma and falafel and compare them to other versions you’ve eaten elsewhere. I highly recommend The Cairo Express and wish this lovely family all the good luck in the world.

Istanbul Grill

I love Turkish food. It might be my second-favorite cuisine of all time, after Italian, and the insidious social media algorithms are always sending me reels of the most amazing-looking Turkish street foods that always make me hungry. Unfortunately, Turkish restaurants don’t always last here in Orlando. I was a big fan of Beyti and Cappadocia, but they didn’t survive. Luckily, I have a new favorite, Istanbul Grill (https://istanbulgrillorlando.com/), but unfortunately, it isn’t close to home like Beyti was or close to work like Cappadocia was (especially because my work and home are now one in the same). It is way far south on Orange Blossom Trail, south of the Florida Mall, south of the 528. It’s a haul — about 45 minutes each way in good traffic on a weekend during the day. But I’ve brought home takeout twice from Istanbul Grill, and it was so worth it both times.

It is a big attention-getter to order lavas bread in a Turkish restaurant. They walk it out to your table, this big, beautiful bread puffed up with hot air like a football, and then you stab it with utensils to deflate it (and watch out for the hot steam escaping). It is very soft, and you rip off pieces and use it for dipping and scooping. Of course, if you get lavas bread to go, it deflates on the long drive home, but if you’re lucky, it stays warm and may stay soft overnight if you have any left.

And why do you need soft bread for dipping and scooping? For this mixed appetizer platter! Almost every Turkish restaurant offers a variety of cool, fresh, refreshing dips, and you can usually order some kind of assortment. My favorite is spicy ezme in the top left, almost like Turkish salsa — a combination of fresh tomatoes, onions, parsley, green and red bell peppers, hot peppers, garlic, tomato paste, and lemon juice. My wife wants nothing to do with ezme, so I get it all. In the top right, the tabouli salad is all hers — crushed bulgur wheat, parsley, scallions. and tomatoes with olive oil and fresh mint. She told me this is her favorite tabouli from any restaurant, Turkish or otherwise.In the bottom left, we have baba ganoush — fresh smoked eggplant puree with tahini (sesame paste), olive oil, labneh (strained yogurt thickened into a cheese-like form), mayonnaise, garlic, and lemon juice. We both love this one, but it is her absolute favorite. In the cup in the middle, we have cacik — a dip of creamy yogurt, shredded cucumber, mint, dill, and garlic, perfect for cutting spice and mellowing out rich meats. And in the bottom right, we have the old classic hummus — chick peas, tahini, olive oil, garlic and cumin.

As great as this mixed appetizer bounty is, I do wish Istanbul Grill served two more dips that I rank even above ezme: soslu patlican (eggplant sauteed with tomatoes, onions, and peppers, like a spicy ratatouille) and taramasalata (a creamy dip made with salted, cured fish roe).

For my first visit, I made sure to order lahmacun, one of my Turkish favorites. These thin, round flatbreads look like pizza without cheese, but they are much thinner than even tavern-style pizza and not as crispy, and aren’t sliced. They are topped with a delicious mixture of ground lamb, tomatoes, onions, and peppers, and then baked. Here you get three in an order.
I’ve made lahmacun from scratch before, and I think I’m going to have to do it again soon, since I have ground lamb in the freezer and want to use it up before hurricane season gets hot and heavy. Mine are pretty awesome, but not quite as perfect as Istanbul Grill’s.

Instead of eating lahmacun like pizza, you are supposed to roll it up and fill it with sliced tomatoes, red onions, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze of lemon juice. It is so refreshing and light, much moreso than you would think a pizza-looking thing would be.

My wife ordered “mosakka” (often called moussaka on other restaurants’ menus), an oven-baked dish of eggplant with ground beef and tomato sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese. If you’ve made it this far, you might be more familiar with the Greek version of moussaka, which is often assembled in layers and topped with a bechamel sauce, but both of us really love the tomatoey Turkish variant. I tried a bite, and folks, you have to try this some time! This is actually my preferred moussaka/mosakka.

It was hard for me to choose, but I made the game-time decision (standing at the counter placing my order) to go with lamb adana, grilled kebaps of ground lamb seasoned with red bell peppers. Think of it as a grilled meatloaf with a firmer texture. These were fine, especially when I added some of the house-made hot sauce, but I was hoping they would be a little more exciting, flavor-wise. I almost always gravitate toward lamb dishes at Turkish, Middle Eastern, and Greek restaurants, but I probably would have been happier with the special beef adana, grilled ground beef shoulder kebabs tender seasoned with mint, red bell pepper, onions, chili flakes, and cumin. There seems to be more going on in that one. Leave it to me to choose the lesser adana! Or maybe I should have tried a different lamb dish. Luckily, there would be a next time. They came on a bed of rich rice pilaf (which gets so much better with all the meat drippings soaking in) with a small salad and crunchy pickled red cabbage.

My wife had asked me to pick her a dessert, so instead of baklava, I brought home this kunefe, because she is in her pistachio-loving era. This Middle Eastern dessert is a large “patty” of very fine shreds of dough that almost look like vermicelli strands, often with a sweet cheese filling, soaked in a sugary syrup and topped with crushed pistachios. It looks a bit dry in this photo because the sugar syrup came in a separate little ramekin (not pictured) for us to pour over the kunefe when we got it home. That definitely improved its looks, texture, and most importantly, its taste. I didn’t try it, so I don’t know if this one had cheese inside or not, but she liked it, so that made us both happy.

For our second visit, we got Istanbul bread instead of the fluffy, puffy lavas (that is actually quite thin once you rip it apart). This was very similar to a thicker pita bread or a good pizza crust, minus toppings, and much thicker than the lahmacun. It held up well dipping and scooping the mixed appetizer platter I brought home again.

My wife asked for an order of falafel, which came with four decent-sized discs and a little cup of tahini, which really surprised me when I took a big dip, expecting it to be hummus. I like hummus (who doesn’t?), but straight-up tahini, not so much. These looked darker than your average falafel, so she thought they were burned and ended up not having any after all. I ate them a few days later, so I can vouch for them not being burned and actually being delicious. I made them into two separate sandwiches (two falafels in each) on onion naan bread with homemade pickled cabbage, homemade pickled red onions, tomatoes, Istanbul Grill’s own hot sauce, and Flavortown Secret Sauce from my giant collection of condiments. I should have taken a picture of one of those, because they turned out pretty.

One thing my wife ate with gusto was this order of four beautiful grilled lamb chops, seasoned to perfection. I asked them to grill them as rare as possible. Despite being very thin (much thinner than the thick lamb loin chops I buy at Costco), they were delicious, and seasoned so well. The rice pilaf underneath them got better and better as it soaked up all those savory drippings. She actually got four separate meals out of this, with one lamb chop and a little rice in each portion!

She surprised me by taking a big bite of the grilled pepper on the left, before I could warn her it would be too spicy for her. It was. She won’t do that again! And I ate all the crunchy red pickled cabbage, of course.

This was my lamb shank, a tender, braised chunk of meat barely clinging to a large bone, which was stewed in a tomatoey gravy. This is one of my favorite dishes to order at Turkish or Greek restaurants, but because I love it so much, I learned how to make braised lamb shanks myself at home, and my sauce is a lot thicker, spicier, and more robust overall, especially since I braise mine in the oven for five to six hours. This was perfectly good, but just like I’m exceptionally picky about restaurant lasagna because I love my homemade version so much, I also like my lamb shanks a lot more than this one. Sorry, Istanbul Grill. It’s not you, it’s me.

It came with a big styrofoam container of rice pilaf, which I dumped into the lamb shank’s somewhat thin gravy to soak it up.

And this was the iskender style kebab, a dish I was introduced to a long time ago at Bosphorous, the first Turkish restaurant I fell in love with, and then Cappadocia (RIP) raised the bar even higher. I didn’t eat this until the following day, but it consists of “signature house prepared meat” sliced thin over “garlic bread” (I’m thinking fried Istanbul bread) topped with a tangy, tomatoey “special sauce” and served with yogurt. It is mildly spicy, acidic, and also creamy, and you get the crispiness of the fried bread underneath catching all those meat and sauce drippings. The other Turkish restaurants used their doner kebap meat (think sliced gyro meat, all salty and garlicky usually grilled to make it a little firmer), but this was definitely different from those.

Like I say at the end of too many of these reviews, we both really liked Istanbul Grill, but it is too far from home to return with any regularity, and too far to even drag my wife down there to dine in the restaurant. But I recommend it, and I will challenge myself to keep ordering different things off the expansive menu whenever I return. And FYI, there is a second location in Kissimmee, which is even further from me, but might be more convenient for some.

Caravan Uzbek & Turkish Cuisine

Night and stars above that shine so brightThe mystery of their fading lightThat shines upon our Caravan
–“Caravan,” lyrics by Irving Mills, music by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol

It took me 45 minutes to drive to Caravan Uzbek & Turkish Cuisine (https://caravanhalal.com/) on a late Saturday afternoon, arriving right at 5 PM to pick up takeout that I ordered online at 4:15. The restaurant looked nice inside, but it was too early for dinner, so it wasn’t busy. For this first visit, my wife didn’t feel like driving all the way to South Orlando with me, but I was more than happy to race back home with dinner in my heating bag. I had been wanting to try Caravan ever since I first heard about it some time last year, since we both love Turkish food, and a lot of our old favorites had either closed or let us down. And I’m obsessed with trying new cuisines, so I was even more excited to try Uzbek food for the first time.

Interestingly, the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan isn’t even next door to Turkey. While Turkey straddles Europe and Asia and borders the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the south, Uzbekistan is further east and completely landlocked by five different countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. Since you were dying to know, Uzbek and Russian are the main languages spoken, and like Turkey, Islam is the majority religion, even though both countries are considered secular states. Still, with majority Muslim populations in both Turkey and Uzbekistan, that explains why all the food at Caravan is halal.

We started out getting a mezze platter, the combination of cold dips that is so refreshing and rewarding at almost every other Turkish restaurant we have enjoyed in the past. We got five different dips, all packaged conveniently in separate plastic containers with lids that snapped on tightly, leading to no spills or leaks on the way home, which is always nice. Each dip was topped with a grilled olive, which was a nice touch.

Hummus, which you’ve surely had before, in one form or another:

Babaganush, the smoky eggplant dip that is my wife’s favorite:

Ezme, my personal favorite, which is like a spicy Turkish pico de gallo with finely processed tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, hot red pepper paste, parsley, and lemon juice. This was a terrific version of ezme, like some of the nicest, freshest salsa or pico ever.

Haydari, a creamy, yogurt-based dip with dill, mint, and chunks of walnut:

The website said we would also get spinach sautéed with onions as part of the mezze platter, but instead of that, we got cacik, another cool and creamy yogurt-based dip that is thinner, with cucumber, garlic, and mint. I was curious about the spinach and onions, but the cacik was good, so no complaints from me.

Instead of puffy, fluffy lavas bread like we’ve had countless times from Bosphorous, Zeytin, and the late and lamented Beyti, we ordered a Turkish bread called ekmek. We got two round pieces, dusted with light and black sesame seeds. They were more like standard loaves of bread that hadn’t risen very much, as opposed to true flatbreads like lavas or pita. I ripped off pieces of ekmek to dip with gusto, but my wife wasn’t super-into it.

I also ordered Uzbek bread, but was a little disappointed that Caravan just gave us wedges of store-bought pita, like I have bought countless times at various grocery stores:

The entrees we ordered were all really good, starting with an order of semechki, or lamb ribs, from the shish kebob section of the menu. I love lamb in all its forms, especially braised lamb shanks, but I realized I have never tried lamb ribs, despite being a gigantic fan of beef and pork ribs. The grilled lamb ribs were pretty tiny, without a whole lot of meat on the small bones, but the meat that was there was very tender, with intense flavor from the grill. There were six pieces in the order, and they were served on a soft flour tortilla that absorbed the delicious meat juices.

My wife chose the to’y osh, an Uzbek dish of Lazer rice seasoned with cumin, coriander, raisins, sautéed onions, and yellow carrots cooked until they were soft, tender, and sweet. It was topped with shredded beef that must have been braised, because it was really tender too. Like I said, this was our first time trying any Uzbek dishes, but it reminded me strongly of biryani, a popular Indian dish of rice mixed with meat and vegetables that may have Persian origins. The to’y osh was very subtly seasoned, lacking the strong flavors of biryani rice, but it was a heart, savory dish with a nice combination of textures.

Even though we liked everything except the store-bought pita (which I’m still going to salvage by baking it in the oven on the convection setting to crisp it up), the biggest hit for both of us was the fried laghman, the dish I’ve seen almost everyone order in the handful of Caravan reviews I’ve read so far. This was a dish of hand-pulled wheat noodles, and since I am a noodle nerd, the name laghman comes from the Chinese lamian (for hand-pulled noodles, like you would get at Mr. J Hand-Pulled Noodle in Ocoee), which also led to both lo mein and Japanese ramen. These long, chewy, thick noodles were stir-fried in a wok with fresh vegetables and tender strips of beef with a soy-based sauce — almost like lo mein. When I looked it up, I wasn’t far off — laghman comes from the Uyghur people, an ethnic, primarily Muslim minority who live in China (where they are horribly persecuted) and have other communities in Uzbekistan and the other Central Asian countries that surround it. This was also our first experience trying any Uyghur cuisine.

The laghman noodles looked like they would be spicy, and I was hoping they would be spicy, but much to my wife’s relief, they weren’t. The only spicy things we ended up with were the ezme and a chunky hot sauce that came with the lamb ribs. And I was all ready to use the cool, creamy, refreshing haydari and cacik to put out fires in my mouth, too!

This was an interesting first visit to Caravan, one that inspired me to do some geographic research before writing this review. I had been wanting to go there with a group for quite some time, so we could order a bunch of dishes and share everything, but that hardly ever happens anymore. Bringing home takeout to share with my ever-patient wife worked just as well, and we ended up with plenty of leftovers. I have no idea how often I’ll make it back to Caravan, just because it is so far from home, but I feel like we made some great choices for our first trip.

The Dough Show

A month or so back, I made the trek out to East Orlando, near the University of Central Florida, to try a new restaurant everyone is talking about: The Dough Show (https://thedoughshowfl.com/). Despite the name making you think it might be a bakery or a pizzeria, it’s actually an Egyptian restaurant that specializes in savory and sweet baked pies made with flaky pastry dough called feteer meshaltet, or just feteer. A savory, flaky pie sounded pretty awesome, but when I entered the small space, I immediately got distracted by seeing marinated beef and chicken shawarma rotating on vertical spits:

And when I saw all the various fresh vegetables, condiments, and sauces, I was thrown even more:

So I had to start out by ordering a beef shawarma ($11.99), figuring it would be ready quickly, before my feteer pie. It came out of that open kitchen a matter of minutes, wrapped in soft saj bread — almost more like a thin flour tortilla than familiar, fluffy pita bread — that had been crisped up on the flattop grill like the best Mexican restaurants do to their burritos.

It was delicious. I didn’t think to ask for any specific vegetables or sauces in my shawarma, but I probably should have, since it was a bit plain. But the beef was marinated and seasoned really well, so at least it wasn’t dry (although the photo may not be the most appetizing).

At this point, I should point out the absolutely gorgeous custom-made oven The Dough Show uses to bake its feteer pies. It is HUGE, and the iridescent, multicolored metallic tiles glisten, glimmer, and shine in all the natural light that streams in.
Please don’t make my mistake — I was so distracted by my shawarma (and also my phone) that I completely missed the actual “show” from the gentleman rolling and flipping the dough and assembling my pie, but I’ve heard from other, more observant people that it is quite the spectacle.

There are many pies to choose from on the menu, and since this was my first time trying an Egyptian feteer pie, I decided to go for the “Dough Show” — the namesake pie ($19.99). It seemed to include a lot of stuff: “mixed meat, mixed cheese,” tomatoes, peppers, and olives. I’m really not a big fan of olives, but I figured if they were part of the namesake pie, I should give them a chance. Looking over the menu, the meats include sausage, salami, and pastrami, which I assume are all halal versions made from beef (as opposed to pork sausage or salami), and the cheeses were mozzarella, “Roman” cheese (Romano?), and Kiri, a creamy, mild, soft, processed cheese enriched with cream, which is apparently very popular in the Middle East. Hey, that sounded like an interesting combination, and it was!

I can’t prepare you for how big these feteer dough pies are, especially for one person, especially for one person who just inhaled a shawarma wrap. Each little piece is very filling, especially compared to a slice of pizza, due to all the included ingredients. Needless to say, I took the vast majority of this feteer pie home and ate it over the next few days, warming up pieces in the toaster oven so it stayed crisp.

By now, it sounds like the legend of The Dough Show has spread, and long lines have been forming, which is great. I’ve still only been once, but when I return, I would probably try the pastrami or salami in separate pies, since my only complaint was there was so much going on, it was hard to differentiate all the separate ingredients in the “Dough Show” pie I ordered. I might even ask them to hold the olives, even though I ate them, and they were okay. Hey, don’t judge — that just leaves more olives in the world for YOU to enjoy, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!

Next time, I would also skip the shawarma, but I’d consider going with a friend to share a couple of different selections, and maybe even try something sweet. So have any of my readers been to The Dough Show yet? If so, what did you order, and would you recommend it?

Zeytin Turkish Cuisine

Let’s face it — dining out is usually an impersonal, almost mechanical experience where you pay for food, you get your food, you eat, you leave, and you go on with your life. That’s the bare minimum of what we expect, and sometimes that’s what we crave. But how often do any of us visit a restaurant where you feel a warm welcome, like you’ve stepped into someone’s home and they are legitimately happy to see you? There are a few places like that around Orlando — Mediterranean Deli and Se7enbites immediately come to mind.

Another one is Zeytin Turkish Cuisine (https://www.facebook.com/ZeytinTurkishCuisine), a restaurant that has been around for eight years, but I only recently discovered it for myself. I’ve been a late bloomer throughout my life, but finally trying this wonderful food, prepared with skill and love and accompanied by some of the kindest, warmest hospitality I have ever encountered, I wished I had made to this College Park eatery long ago.

This was the lavas bread ($4.95), which you have to order at any Turkish restaurant, and especially at Zeytin. It usually arrives to your table in a dramatic fashion, huge and round, puffed up with hot air, which you then pierce with forks and knives to deflate. Then you tear off pieces of the warm, soft bread (kind of like a pita, but so much better) and dip it into various dips. It was packed in a brown paper bag and mostly deflated by the time I got home, but still just as good as we’ve had before, from elsewhere.

The main reason I went to Zeytin was because my wife was craving babaganush, that smoky, creamy dip made from roasted eggplants, sometimes with garlic, tahini paste, and olive oil added to it. She asked me to find the best babaganush in Orlando, and I received several helpful suggestions on the Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps!, the burgeoning community of local foodies founded by the civic-minded mensch Ricky Ly. One suggestion stood out to me, from Michele Bourassa, a familiar name from the Foodie Forum. She was the co-owner of Zeytin, and she invited me out to finally try her restaurant. How could I refuse such an offer? I had read great reviews for years and always meant to try it, but I’m rarely out in the College Park area. I called in my order on the way there, and it was all ready by the time I arrived. Michele could not have been nicer, and the babaganush ($8.50) could not have been better. Seriously, I’ve never had its equal, and my wife was over the moon with happiness.

But Michele (a true ray of sunshine and the perfect “front of house” person any restaurant would be grateful to have) and her husband, chef and co-owner Zeynel (everyone calls him “Z”), threw in some extras for us, which they did not have to do! Despite just ordering babaganush, they sent us home with the equivalent of their mixed appetizer platter, with multiple dips to accompany our lavas bread. (I tipped above and beyond, the least I could do for her unheralded generosity.)

This container held their two creamy, yogurt-based dips: cacik, yogurt blended with cucumbers, garlic, dill, and fresh mint, and haydari, thicker yogurt blended with crushed walnuts, garlic, and dill. Both were so refreshing, but I personally preferred the haydari.The word “Zeytin” is Turkish for olive, a favorite delicacy of Chef Z, and we noted that each dip was topped with a kalamata olive. I made sure my wife ended up with all of those.

This container held two separate dips as well: esme on the left, a spicy melange of tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, onions, cornichons, parsley, garlic, crushed walnuts, lemon juice, and olive oil, and soslu patlican on the right, my personal favorite Turkish dip, with sauteed eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic. My wife isn’t into anything spicy or overly tomatoey, so I got to enjoy both of these myself — and let me tell you, I enjoyed them. That was such an unexpected and unnecessary bonus, and we were both so grateful.

Because I wanted to try a meat dish and see how Zeytin handled one of my favorite Turkish dishes from elsewhere, I also ordered the Iskender kebab ($24.95), ground lamb mixed with seasonings, shaped into a loaf, broiled, and served as thin slices. Unlike the more common doner kebab, which uses the same meat, the slices in the Iskender kebab are served over cubes of sautéed, buttered bread so the juices and spices saturate the bread. Normally it is topped with tomato sauce and yogurt, but I figured that might make the dish a soggy mess by the time I got it home.

I asked for both the tomato sauce (see above) and the yogurt (see below) on the side, so I could apply my own, and also my wife could enjoy the sliced lamb plain, free of tomato-based sauces, as she always prefers. The yogurt was cool and creamy, and they gave us so much of it! Back at home, the cubes of bread crisped back up very nicely in our toaster oven, and I chopped some pickles and sprinkled some Penzey’s Turkish seasoning blend into the yogurt. Whatever yogurt I didn’t use with three separate servings of the Iskender kebab, I enjoyed with some chicken later in the week.

I asked if the Iskender kebab came with rice, and it does not, because of the crouton-like cubes of crispy bread underneath. But I figured the rice would be really good at Zeytin, so I asked for a side order of rice. As my wife and I both hoped, it was a buttery rice pilaf with chewy orzo pasta, much like the rice from the dearly departed Beyti Mediterranean Grill, our friendly neighborhood Turkish restaurant that opened in 2020 and closed in 2022. Even when my wife didn’t feel like eating meat, she would send me to Beyti to bring home lavas bread, babaganoush, and that rice. This takeout meal from Zeytin was like revisiting some old friends who were a little different, but had become even better.

Michele also included four pieces of freshly made pistachio baklava for us, a truly sweet and unexpected treat that wowed us in every way possible. It was some of the best baklava we’ve ever had, and not just in Orlando, either.

The following weekend, I took my wife to see an awe-inspiring stage production at Orlando’s Renaissance Theatre, Josephine, a one-woman show about the incredible life of American icon Josephine Baker, starring a local icon, triple-threat (actress-singer-dancer) Tymisha Harris. Afterwards, we headed on to dinner at Zeytin, a mere week after bringing home that bountiful takeout order. I had forgotten that you need to make a reservation for the small dining room, but we were so lucky a table was available, and Michele was able to seat us right away. I introduced Michele to my wife, who quickly and rightfully pointed out that she loved Michele’s kind heart. The only reason you wouldn’t agree is because you haven’t met her yet.

The dining room was pretty full when we arrived that Sunday evening. It seemed like a lot of the crowd was made up of regulars, and we could both understand why. Natural light streamed in and reflected off the beautiful hanging lights made of multicolored glass mosaics, which Chef Z had gotten from Istanbul. There was a fish tank near the entrance, close to our table, and we entertained ourselves throughout our dinner watching the aquatic antics of a tiny turtle.

Michele asked her husband to get our lavas bread ready even before we placed our order. As great as our feast was at home the previous week, most restaurant food is so much better consumed hot and fresh in the dining room itself, and Zeytin was no exception. Here was the steaming, soft lavas bread, fully puffed and fluffed up, ready to be deflated, dipped, and devoured.

We had to order the finest babaganush in Orlando all over again:

And Michele was kind enough to hook us up with small sample dishes of haydari, esme, and smooth, creamy hummus (which I always try to say in a sexy voice like Gal Gadot, but it sounds more like an old man with phlegm caught in his throat, coming from me).

I suggested we order moussaka ($21.95) to share, figuring we would have leftovers that would heat up well. The baked casserole of sliced eggplant, ground lamb, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic was topped with a bechamel sauce and molten-hot, melty mozzarella cheese. It was very similar to lasagna, but with layers of eggplant instead of pasta sheets. For this reason, I like the tomato-based Turkish version of moussaka better than Greek versions that don’t have the tomatoes. And while I’ve had a similar version of moussaka at Cappadocia, another Turkish restaurant, Zeytin’s version is definitely my favorite in the city. The moussaka came with a mountain of that wonderful buttery rice pilaf with orzo, which we both loved.

Since we were dining here on a Sunday evening, I couldn’t resist ordering one of my favorite Turkish dishes: lahmacun ($19.95), a throuple of soft baked flatbreads topped with ground lamb, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices. I figured I would end up with plenty of leftovers that would heat up well in the microwave at work, but they were so good, they never made it into my workday lunches. I loved the lahmacun (pronounced “llama-JUNE,” but with a soft “j,” as in “bougie”) from Beyti while it was open, and I have even made it from scratch before. But Zeytin’s version blew me away, filling a hole in my heart and staving off my regular Sunday evening despondence for a while. I was impressed that it essentially came with a whole side salad, with chopped romaine lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, and parsley tossed in a very light vinaigrette dressing, which you can roll up inside the lahmacun to eat, like a veggie wrap with meat on the inner wrapping. But there was so much salad, that even after eating all three lahmacun pieces with it, I was able to pack the rest in my work lunch the following Monday. (I also ate the lemon wedges like orange wedges, which is what I usually do with lemon wedges.)

Here’s a close-up of one of those decadent discs. I just loved them. The thin outer crust was nice and crispy, but not overly crunchy, and the lahmacun dough got pleasantly soft underneath the cooked lamb and vegetables.

If you put a gun to my head (please don’t) and forced me to name my five favorite world cuisines (excluding regional American foods like barbecue, Jewish-style delicatessens, and Hawaiian), Turkish would definitely make my top five, along with Italian, Mexican, and probably Japanese and Cuban. That’s a hard decision to make. What about Indian? What about Chinese, in all its varieties? Greek? Vietnamese? I love them all, and so many more, but the local restaurants in Orlando made me a true devotee of Turkish flavors, and Zeytin reminded me what I love so much about them.

On top of that, I can’t get over how kind and sweet Michele was. I didn’t get to meet Chef Z, but he sounds like a pretty amazing person too. The fact that she reached out to me to invite me to their restaurant was such a nice gesture. I had been meaning to visit for far too long, but that personal touch is what finally made it happen. They hooked us up on that first takeout trip — I would be impugning whatever journalistic integrity I have if I failed to admit this — but they did it because they are such nice people, not asking for anything in return except for us to return. And it only took a week for us to do so, because it was that damn good.

Some Turkish restaurants may have expanded too much in recent years and aren’t as consistent (or as good) as they used to be. You may find others closed at random times throughout the week when they’re supposed to be open. But I can’t imagine Zeytin disappointing in any way, not after our recent experiences. All of their meats are halal, and everything is prepared from scratch — fresh produce, fresh everything. I am thrilled to consider myself a Zeytin convert now, and the next step is to become a regular. Please join me in doing the same!

So much of College Park has minimal parking (ironic), especially the stretch of Edgewater Drive closer to Princeton, but this is the north end of College Park, and Zeytin has its own parking lot. The restaurant is located at 4439 Edgewater Drive, just off Fairbanks Avenue, and very convenient to access via I-4. It is only open for dinner, and if you intend to dine in, definitely call 407-988-3330 to make a reservation. Plan your next date night or family dinner here. The extroverted, effervescent Michele and her husband, Chef Z, will make you feel like family, or probably even more welcome, depending on what your family is like.

I swore I wouldn’t end with this, but I can’t resist: HAIL ZEYTIN!

Cafe Tu Tu Tango

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tajine Xpress

Tajine Xpress (http://tajinexpress.com/) is a fast-casual Moroccan restaurant that opened earlier this year on Goldenrod Road on the east side of Orlando, south of East Colonial Drive. It didn’t seem like the most propitious location until I noticed it is close to a mosque with a school, as well as a Middle Eastern grocery store and a Muslim clothing store. It should do really well in that area, which is luckily close to my job as well.

By fast-casual, I mean you order at the front counter, then sit down and wait for it. When I went with a work colleague for lunch a month or so ago, it wasn’t busy, and a nice lady walked our food out to our table. But there is also a pickup area right in the corner of the glass section below. As a double-Gator, I appreciated the orange and blue décor, and I really liked the rich royal blue color of the walls. The chairs are large and made of metal. They don’t fit terribly well under the tables, so I found myself literally on the edge of my seat as a whole new, unfamiliar regional cuisine presented itself to us. My colleague has eaten at the Moroccan restaurant at Epcot, but for me, it was completely new. I was excited!

She is vegetarian, so she ordered the Moroccan salad ($3.98), with diced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and herbs and spices dressed in olive oil and herbs.

She also got zaalouk ($3.98), a chilled eggplant and tomato salad. She seemed to really like both of those dishes.

It came with round bread that was crusty on the outside and softer on the inside. It wasn’t anything like pita bread, and we both agreed it didn’t have a lot of flavor. I imagined it would have been better if she dipped pieces of it in those two salads.

We went on a Friday, so Tajine Xpress was offering its weekend-only couscous platters. I love lamb and couscous, so I couldn’t resist ordering the lamb couscous ($15.98). It arrived on a platter that was absolutely HUGE, with some soft, tender vegetables: potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and a squash I wasn’t familiar with. My research shows it might have been an acorn or kabocha squash, with the green rind and tender orange flesh inside.

Underneath the mystery squash, the lamb had been stewed until it was fork-tender, and they left some bones in there to impart even more flavor. It was salty and oniony and so delicious. I wish there had been a little more of the lamb atop the tender, al dente couscous, but you’ll never catch The Saboscrivner wishing a dish had less meat.

Tajine Xpress makes two kinds of spring rolls called briwates — beef and seafood — and you get two per order. OR, you can be like me and order the briwates sampler platter, which gives you one beef briwat and one seafood briwat ($9.98). They were served with harissa, the spicy sauce that explains it all. The briwates looked and smelled so good, but they were both stuffed with mushrooms, my old enemy, a tasty ingredient that chefs love to cook with, but I just cannot eat.
Undeterred, I cut these open, picked out all the mushrooms, and ate whatever was left, which was not my best idea ever. It ended up being a very long afternoon at work. But you have to understand, my vegetarian co-worker couldn’t eat them, and I can’t stand to waste food. I definitely won’t order these again because of the mushrooms, but you normal, non-afflicted people reading this will probably like the briwates.

It took me a while to return, but I had really wanted to try the beef with prunes tajine ($12.98), because I love savory and sweet flavors together. I went for lunch today and ordered it to go, so it came in a round cardboard tray with separate compartments for the huge chunks of tender braised beef topped with slivers of toasted almonds, my side order of rice pilaf (mixed with tiny bits of vermicelli and topped with peas and diced carrots), and only two prunes, sticky-sweet and covered with sesame seeds.
My wife instinctively made a face when I told her I ordered beef with prunes, but I showed her the two prunes were separated in the to-go container and offered her one. Even she liked it, but I was a little sad we each only got a single prune. I definitely would have liked more prunes, and it would have been interesting to taste them swimming in the meat juices. I assumed they would be cooked and served together, but what do I know? The beef had a lot of flavor and was so tender, I didn’t even need a knife to cut it. A couple of the pieces had thick bones attached with some tender fat, like one of my favorite meats to eat, oxtails. But all the meat easily pulled right off the smooth bones, which is one of the joys of braising, stewing, and slow-cooking. The rice was a little bland, so I mixed all of it into the juices the beef came with, although I would have liked more of that rich, flavorful liquid too.

Today has been a dark, dreary, drizzly day, which is a perfect day for soup. At the last minute, I also ordered the harira soup, with tomatoes, onions, lentils, chickpeas, vermicelli, and beef ($3.98). It was a tasty twist on a tomato-based vegetable beef soup, as I expected.

The harira came with another round piece of bread, which I made sure to dip in the soup to add some flavor and soften it up. But I already consumed some carbs from the rice, so I realized I’m just not into this bread and didn’t have to eat all of it.

The menu at Tajine Xpress isn’t huge, but now I’ve covered the two dishes that sounded the best to me: the lamb couscous (available Friday through Sunday only) and the beef with prunes tajine. I would recommend both of those for sure. As I said, I wish you got more meat with both of dishes, especially because the meats are so good. I don’t love that round bread, and I’m wondering if the other side order options of fries and beans would be better than the rice I got today. I think they would have to be. I just figured fries would be cold by the time I got them home, but if you go and try the fries, let me know how they were!

CLOSED: Jaber

UPDATED ON 9.15.2021:
On September 3, 2021, Jaber announced on its Facebook page that it was closing.

***

My wife and I were recently driving through College Park, a nice Orlando neighborhood near downtown, full of really terrific restaurants. We hardly ever make it down there, and I’m not even sure why we were in College Park this time around. But traffic temporarily stopped in front of Jaber (https://www.facebook.com/jaberorlando/), a restaurant on Edgewater Drive displaying a big banner advertising Lebanese cuisine, with huge color pictures of tempting, tantalizing shawarma wraps. We looked at each other and decided to pull over and stop in for lunch — a rare moment of serendipity, without reading reviews or online hype or studying the menu in advance of our visit. Sometimes you have to take a chance, especially when it comes to lunch. YOLO, am I right? (Did I get that right?)

Looking through the unique menu at Jaber, I realized it was a Lebanese restaurant with a Brazilian twist, with multiple locations in Brazil. This was going to be an interesting fusion feast. We started out with some esfihas, which are small Lebanese pastries. The menu listed open esfihas that look like petite pizzas, and closed esfihas that are more like little pockets of dough, pinched closed in a variety of pretty shapes, and baked. The open beef esfiha in the bottom left corner above ($2.49) was indeed like a wee pizza, minus cheese. My wife ordered the folded spinach esfiha ($3.49), the triangle in the top left, that was just like the delicious spinach pies I used to enjoy so much at Gyro Plus and Falafel King back in Gainesville, over 20 years ago, and much more recently at Tony’s Bakery here in Orlando. As much as I like Greek spanakopitas on thin, crispy, flaky phyllo dough, I always prefer this Lebanese style spinach pie enveloped in warm, soft, chewy dough. Jaber’s folded spinach esfiha was much smaller than the one from Tony’s Bakery, but it was still warm and soft and chewy and fresh, with the cooked spinach so well-seasoned inside, with garlic, lemon, and possibly even nutmeg, among other savory flavors.

My wife’s favorite, however, ended up being the folded sausage esfiha that I ordered ($3.49), the tempting pinched pastry in the bottom right of the above photo. It was stuffed with crumbled calabresa sausage (which I first encountered at another local Brazilian restaurant, Mrs. Potato) and olives! That was an interesting choice that she just loved. The soft dough was my favorite part, so I’m glad we split that one. And finally, in the top right of the above photo, we have a fried kibbeh ($3.49), the lemon-shaped fried shell of cracked wheat with crumbled, seasoned ground beef and minced onions inside. I liked this one more than she did because it was so oniony.

I am always up for anything with lamb, so I went with the lamb shawarma ($17.89) — a thin wrap (more like a lightly-grilled tortilla than the fluffy, puffy pita bread I’m used to with gyros) stuffed with thin slices of seasoned lamb, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and tahini sauce, like a Lebanese burrito. It was tasty, even though I prefer the huge gyro from Mediterranean Deli that is around half the price. The lamb shawarma came with fries which were similar to McDonald’s fries, but could have used a lot more salt. I was really hoping for better fries, on par with Mrs. Potato, but those were some of the best fries I’ve ever had.

I was able to resuscitate these fries by shaking a liberal amount of this “Chef’s Sauce” onto them. It was a delicious hot sauce that definitely breathed some life into them. I asked our server Bella what was in the hot sauce, and if they sold bottles of it. She came back with “peppers and garlic,” and a bottle was $11. Sorry, I think that’s way too much to pay for a bottle of hot sauce, even though it was good.

This was the Syrian rice ($7.50), one of several different international rice dishes on the menu. It sounded the best for sharing — rice and angel hair pasta, fried in butter, kind of like a rice pilaf from heaven. Some Turkish restaurants serve a similar buttery rice, and we both ended up loving it.

My wife was feeling overwhelmed by the large two-page menu in a new restaurant, but it was an easy choice once I pointed out the combo meals. She loves steak — far more than I do, far more than most men do — so she chose combo #7 with picanha ($17.99), a thin-sliced Brazilian steak, reminiscent of Cuban palomilla steak and Argentinian churrasco, if that helps place it in context. Unlike those, picanha is served with the fat cap attached. It was seasoned with garlic and herbs, and it arrived sizzling.

Her picanha steak combo came with even more of the unsalted fries, a mound of white rice, and a cup of stewed red beans. This was so much food, we brought these fries home along with the rice and beans, and I ate everything over the next couple of days, doused with some hot sauces from my own collection.

My wife also ordered a cappuccino with Nutella around the rim ($5.79), which would have been a great dessert, but she asked for it at the beginning of our meal and sipped it throughout. It was messier than she expected, with the thick, sticky Nutella around the rim of the cup, but she did what she could to scrape it in and stir it into the cappuccino. I didn’t try this, but she liked it, and how could it not be great?

I honestly don’t know when we will return to Jaber. It’s in a part of Orlando we rarely venture out to, and even though our food was good, I thought it was kind of pricey for what we got, compared to similar dishes we like from elsewhere. The esfihas and the rich, buttery Syrian rice were definitely our favorite parts, and I would still recommend it for anyone located closer to College Park, Winter Park, or downtown Orlando looking to try one of Orlando’s more interesting fusion restaurants.

One thing that would bring me back would be their All You Can Eat Esfihas offer for $19.99 (plus tax and tip, of course), on Tuesdays from 4:00 to 10:00 PM and Sundays from 12:00 to 4:00 and 5:00 to 10:00 PM. I really did like the esfihas we got, and I wanted to try others from the long list of options. Plus, they are small, and I have faith in myself to know I could put A LOT of those away and more than get my money’s worth on a future visit. The Jaber Facebook page posted about the all-you-can-eat special back in February and said you have to make reservations. I don’t know if they are still running this special, but it would definitely be worth investigating. If I see you there, it will probably be on one of those days!

Mediterranean Street Food by ShishCo

Mediterranean Street Food by ShishCo (https://www.mediterraneanstreetfood.com/) is a small free-standing shack in the middle of a shopping plaza parking lot on State Road 17-92 in Maitland, between Casselberry and Winter Park, not far from Lake Lily, the Enzian Theater, and Luke’s Kitchen and Bar. If you live in Orlando, you’ve probably driven by it countless times and might not have given it a second glance. But if you know, you know. I first ate there on New Year’s Day several years ago. It is a perfect setup for drive-through or takeout, but they have a few outdoor tables under an awning, and it was a gorgeous, sunny, chilly day for an al fresco lunch. It helps that I absolutely love Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food. It’s rare when food is so delicious, yet also relatively healthy.

But I hadn’t been back in a while — not since I started The Saboscrivner in 2018 — so I was long overdue for a return for some serious takeout. About a month back, I ordered us the sampler platter, and me being me, I chose the one that feeds three ($13.50) so my wife and I would have plenty of leftovers, instead of the sampler platter that feeds two ($11.50). It was a huge amount of food, and probably worth the extra two bucks. I think this top container in the photo below was supposed to be babaganoush, but it was nothing like the creamy, smoky eggplant dip we’ve had at other restaurants and always love. It was almost more like a chilled, spicy salsa, with lots of tomatoes in it, and maybe some eggplant too? Nothing like that was listed in the menu online. My wife was disappointed because it wasn’t standard babaganoush, and it remains a mystery to me. The hummus was much better, and you can see they were extremely generous with grilled pita wedges. But that’s not all…

The sampler platter also came with a generous portion of falafel balls (that were more like patties) and the most delicious Turkish egg rolls called sigara boregi — crispy phyllo dough cylinders wrapped around a blend of spiced savory cheese. You can order those separately, and I’d definitely get them again next time. There were stuffed grape leaves too — one of my favorite foods — but I guess I ate those before getting a photo. The sampler also came with tahini and tzatziki sauces.My wife is going through a major falafel phase, so I think we added on a few extra falafel balls for her (75 cents each). The extras came packaged separately, but trust me, they look the same as the ones above.

This is the doner/gyro bowl ($10.49), which is a huge amount of food and a terrific value for the price and quality. The doner/gyro meat is a combination of beef and lamb, served in a soft, fluffy bread bowl over rice with lettuce, tomatoes, and red onions, all dusted with savory za’atar seasoning. This is what I ordered on my first visit a few years ago. I sat at one of their tables under the awning on a beautiful, sunny, cool January day and felt like a king, eating this in the middle of that parking lot. I loved it then and loved it this time too. The bread bowl is really fantastic. I like to tear off pieces and make little roll-ups with all the ingredients.

And this is the chicken shish kebab bowl (also $10.49), served the same way. I hesitate to order chicken at a lot of restaurants because it is often dry and bland, but I knew this would be good because the menu said it was grilled dark meat, marinated in spices. I love dark meat chicken, especially thighs, and the best thing you can do to prepare chicken is marinate it before cooking. It was very tender, juicy, and flavorful, plus you got more of that nice rice and another fluffy bread bowl. Needless to say, the two of us got a few meals out of all of this bounty.

These two bowls might have come with additional tzatziki sauce cups too — I’m afraid I don’t remember, but they probably should have. I made sure to request a little two-ounce cup of the “Julides hot relish” listed on the menu under Add Ons (50 cents), and that was terrific stuff. It’s one more condiment I would happily buy by the jar.

Anyway, I don’t intend to stay away from Mediterranean Street Food this long again. In an attempt to live a little healthier (and longer), we have both been eating a lot of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food recently, especially from Casselberry’s Beyti Mediterranean Grill, an amazing Turkish restaurant that opened last October, that we have been to many times. We love that place! This return trip to Mediterranean Street Food in Maitland was an attempt to switch up our routine, and it was good too. I can’t think of too many world cuisines that are just as tasty and somehow also pretty healthy. Usually you have to trade one for the other, but not at Mediterranean Street Food.

Orlando Weekly published my Top Ten Tastes of 2020!

I am honored to have one of my end-of-the-year lists included in our wonderful local alt-weekly newspaper, Orlando Weekly, for the FOURTH year in a row. This piece, my Top Ten Tastes of 2020, didn’t make it into the print edition, but it is a blog piece on their website for all to see.

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/top-tastes-2020-the-10-best-dishes-we-tried-in-orlando-this-year/Content?oid=28559241

Here’s a link to my 2017, 2018, and 2019 Orlando Weekly lists.

Happy New Year to all of my dozens of readers! Stay warm, healthy, and safe in 2021. Don’t forget to eat something good — because you deserve it, and because these local restaurants could use all the help they can get.