Middle Eastern – The Saboscrivner

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 right 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.

CLOSED: Beyti Mediterranean Grill

UPDATE: I am heartbroken to report that Beyti Mediterranean Grill closed down in February 2022.

***

I love Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food, and my absolute favorite among those might be Turkish food. Two of my favorite restaurants in Orlando are Turkish, and I’ve written glowing reviews of both of them here on The Saboscrivner blog: Bosphorous and Cappadocia. But when I found out a Turkish restaurant was opening near where we live in Casselberry, my wife and I were excited, overwhelmed with hope it would be awesome. Well, Beyti Mediterranean Grill (https://www.beytifl.com/) opened its doors this week, in the old location of Rolando’s Cuban Cuisine on Semoran Boulevard, just north of the busy Red Bug Lake Road intersection. The restaurant is located right beyond where the overpass lets out, so it is easy to get to if you’re driving north on Semoran, but you’ll need to make a u-turn at the light if you’re heading south. They don’t have a sign up yet, so be on the lookout.

The owners used to own Turkish Bar and Grill in Altamonte Springs, but I’m sad to say we never discovered that restaurant, and it closed in February 2019. Well, they’re back in business at Beyti, and I am so happy to report that it is awesome. Even better than we expected, in fact, and our expectations were high. As usual, on a Friday night after a busy week, I ordered a lot of food, but the two of us will end up with multiple meals from this massive menu.

Turkish appetizers often include a lot of rich, savory dips, and my favorite is sauteed eggplant ($4.99), sometimes known as soslu patlican. In this dish, the eggplant is cooked with tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic, and it is probably my favorite thing you can do with an eggplant. I’ve had and enjoyed the Bosphorous and Cappadocia versions, and this was as good or better than both. It was definitely a larger portion for a smaller price.

My wife requested babaganoush ($4.99), which is a creamy and smoky eggplant dip, blended with tahini, yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and garlic. We both like babaganoush a lot, and this was a real winner — not too chunky, but not blended so smooth that it loses any texture. The smoky flavor came through very well. We were in babaganoush bliss.

Even though the dips both came with soft pita wedges, we couldn’t resist ordering the lavash bread ($3.99) to tear apart and dip into the dips. It usually comes to your table inflated to the size of a football, but this one deflated in the ten minutes it took me to drive this bounty home. Still, the bread was warm, soft, and fluffy, if no longer puffy. I give it props over Bosphorous and Cappadocia for being dusted with regular and black sesame seeds, a very nice touch.

This is lahmacun, which is a soft, thin Turkish flatbread topped with seasoned ground beef in a rich tomatoey sauce. The order ($9.99) came with three of these, and they are one of my favorite Turkish dishes anywhere. I only ate one tonight, so these are my most eagerly awaited leftovers. It is even thinner than a typical pita bread, maybe about as thin as a thin crust pizza, but very soft — not like the crispy, crackery crust of most thin crust pizzas, and even softer than the pita and lavash breads.

This is a gyro plate with double the meat ($13.99). The garlicky gyro meat, a mixture of seasoned lamb and beef, was fantastic — so savory and not greasy at all, like so many gyros from so many other places. This was my wife’s choice, and clearly she has good taste. But this way I got to have some too, without feeling guilty for tasting too much of her food. What you can’t see in this photo is that the gyro meat completely covers a large portion of fluffy, buttery rice pilaf, with the meat juices dripping down and seasoning the rice even further. Note the crispy, vinegary pickled cabbage, lettuce and tomato in a very light vinaigrette, half a charred jalapeno pepper, and four more soft pita wedges.

I was very curious about the restaurant’s namesake dish, the Beyti ($10.99). The menu describes it as chopped lamb, garlic, hot peppers, and parsley, wrapped in pita bread and topped with tomato and yogurt sauces. It reminded us of a Turkish enchilada with the yogurt sauce filling in for a crema or sour cream on top, and the thin pita wrap reminiscent of a tortilla. The luscious lamb inside was formed and shaped into a long, dense meatloaf, so after being sliced, it was like there was a thick lamb meatball inside every segment. I was happy to see more cabbage and another hot pepper with this dish, as well as marinated red onions.

We ended up with even more vegetable accompaniments, enough to keep me in salads for a few more days!

The owner included two of their stuffed grape leaves, which he assured me were made fresh by hand, not served straight out of a can. I’ve had canned dolmades, and I have to admit that I love them, but there’s nothing like the real deal. They were served chilled, with seasoned rice inside, but no meat for you vegetarians to worry about. I was torn about ordering these, because I’m such a fan of stuffed grape leaves, but I had already ordered so much food. As a result, this was a really special surprise touch, and he assured I’ll order the grape leaves every time I return.

Finally, here’s a photo of an additional large container of the great buttery rice pilaf (I’m not even sure what that came with), along with an order of the most delicious pistachio baklava that the owner was also kind enough to include for free. It was such a generous gesture, and one we’ll never forget. I love baklava, and I’m not exaggerating when I say this is some of the best baklava I’ve ever had. It was still warm, extremely fresh, chewy (some baklava is flaky and dry), and perfect in every way.

I just want to say that I brought this delicious food home the evening before our anniversary. In this pandemic year, we haven’t gone out to eat at a restaurant together since the first days of March, and don’t intend to resume that old habit anytime soon. So all of my restaurant reviews since March have been of takeout food. I already warned my wife that this isn’t going to feel like a festive anniversary, but she’s perfectly content eating at home. Tonight’s dinner felt extra special, being home together, still thankfully safe and healthy, and eating one of the tastiest meals we’ve shared in a while from a wonderful new restaurant right in our neighborhood. While we enjoyed our first of several Turkish feasts over the next few days, for a little while it felt like nothing was wrong in the country or the world. We had each other (eleven years married!), and we had Beyti Mediterranean Grill, a welcome new addition to the Casselberry culinary scene, one that is well worth the drive from anywhere in the greater Orlando area, easily as good or better than our other established Turkish restaurants, and considerably cheaper. We wish them all the best and look forward to becoming regulars in the months and years to come. Seriously, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos — RUN, don’t walk to this one.

Oh My Gyro

I’ll never forget a trip my wife and I were lucky enough to take to New York City while we were dating and I was working my way through library school. Among other things, I grabbed this incredible lunch from a halal food cart near 30 Rockefeller Center. It was so simple, but pretty perfect: gyro meat (possibly lamb, but who can really say?), rice, salad, pita bread, mysterious white sauce and painful hot sauce, eaten out of a tinfoil plate while surrounded by the excitement, adventure, and passion of the greatest city in the world (as well as our own). When we returned for our honeymoon in 2009, I found an unrelated halal cart and tried their version of the gyro platter. It was almost identical, but still satisfying, especially with the nostalgia factor working for it.

We were even luckier to return to Manhattan last year, a decade later, to celebrate our tenth anniversary. (And how lucky were we that our tenth anniversary fell in 2019 and not the hell year 2020?) We ate like kings on that trip, but one thing I didn’t seek out were the halal food vendors. Who needed them, now that we have Oh My Gyro (https://www.facebook.com/ohmygyro/) to deliver the New York halal street food experience to the suburbs of Seminole County? Oh My Gyro is owned by the Kermali family, transplanted New Yorkers who have nailed the flavors of the ubiquitous street food and bolstered their menu with some Indian dishes and a few special surprises.

I can’t help it — I’ve been here four times (with far too much time in between each visit), but until today, I have always ordered the same thing, because it’s a flawless meal: the lamb combo platter ($9.89), with salty, garlicky gyro-seasoned lamb meat served over perfectly cooked yellow rice with pita bread, lettuce, and tomatoes. I ask for plenty of their cool, creamy white sauce (stop giggling, you guys!), a bit of the spicy red hot sauce (like the NYC version, it’s VERY spicy, and a little goes a long way, even for those who crave the burn), and it even comes with a soda.

They also offer chicken and falafel on these platters, but my wife and I both love gyros — and lamb in all forms, really — so that will always be our top choice. When I went back today, I ordered a large lamb platter for my wife (only $8.99 when it isn’t a combo with the soda, and peep that white sauce on the side). She liked it a lot, as I always do.

I have been missing the occasional Indian buffet lunches at Moghul Indian Cuisine my co-workers and I used to enjoy pre-pandemic, and I was craving samosas. Luckily, Oh My Gyro serves vegetarian, beef, and chicken samosas. I’ve never tried theirs, so this time I ordered the vegetarian ($4.99) and beef ($5.99), not realizing each order would come with four adorable, perfectly folded, perfectly fried samosas.
These were very thin and crispy, in what reminded me of spring roll wrappers. The samosas at Moghul, on the other hand, are larger and in a thicker, flakier, almost pie crust-like shell. But these both had a lot of flavor and a surprising amount of heat, from both the ground beef in sauce and the spiced mashed potatoes in the vegetarian ones.

But the main reason I returned to Oh My Gyro today was for a special they were only running today (Friday) — spicy, East African-style bone-in veal biryani ($12), which promised to be braised until tender. I am a sucker for stewed and braised meats, especially when they’re cooked low and slow until they’re tender enough to fall off the bone. I’ll take a Turkish lamb shank stewed in tomato sauce (like the ones at Cappadocia), German pork eisbein (like the ones at Hollerbach’s Willow Tree Cafe), or giant beef ribs (like the ones at Git-N-Messy BBQ) over steak. But then again, I don’t think steak is the be-all and end-all of meats.

Anyway, this was the veal biryani, served over fluffy basmati rice with a side of pickled onions, hot peppers, and random other vegetables. The meat was deliciously tender, and the sauce had so much flavor. It wasn’t nearly as spicy as I expected, which is fine. It came with a side of cool, creamy, yogurt-based raita to assuage the burn that never came, but it was so good, I was glad they included it.

The two little orange-red balls at the top of the plate, called ladoo, came with it as a bonus. My wife and I had never encountered these before, but they turned out to be sweet! I researched these, and ladoo (or laddu) are made with flour, fat, and sugar, and often contain nuts — these did. They were a pleasant surprise after our lamb platter, veal biryani, and samosassortment. (There. I just created a word.)

But there were more sweet balls in store! I had to get an order of gulab jamun ($2.99), those sticky, syrupy, spongy balls that are a joy at the end of any Indian meal. My wife had never had them before, but I was proud of her for trying one. Of course she liked it. What’s not to like? But they must be REALLY sweet, because she commented on how sweet it is, and how it was too sweet for her to have more than one. Hey, more for me!

As a last-minute choice, I ordered a mango lassi ($2.99), hoping to save it to cut any heat from the biryani. But anyone who knows me can predict what happened next: of course I drank it on the drive home, probably finishing it while I was still in Longwood!

Oh My Gyro is one of those neighborhood gems that doesn’t get enough foodie love, especially being tucked away in a small, easy-to-miss strip along State Road 434 in Longwood, between 17-92 and I-4. I highly recommend it, though. Unfortunately the biryani was a one-day special, but if we’re all lucky, they will bring it back. But if you’ve spent any time in New York City and romanticize the gyro, chicken, or falafel platters with rice you can buy from countless carts to eat on the street, Oh My Gyro will satisfy that craving.

Tony’s Bakery

Tony’s Bakery is located at 2468 North Forsyth Road, Orlando, Florida 32807. The phone number is 407.679.6336. I point this out because Tony’s doesn’t have a website or even a Facebook presence. They do not advertise. Most of their business comes from word of mouth. Tony’s is the truest kind of hidden treasure, a small Middle Eastern grocery store and commercial bakery, camouflaged in an industrial garage and warehouse area along Forsyth Road, just east of busy State Road 436 (Semoran Boulevard), immediately north of Hanging Moss Road and south of University Drive.

Tony’s specializes in savory Middle Eastern baked goods: soft, fluffy, warm spinach pies, spinach and cheese pies, spicy cheese pies, meat pies, fragrant za’atar pies, and of course fresh pita bread. I didn’t buy any pitas, but all the pies (more like pastries) were $1.75 each — easily a bargain at twice the price. They also sell some Middle Eastern groceries, but everyone probably goes for the baked goods.

This is the spinach and cheese pie (top) and the spicy cheese pie (bottom), from my first visit. The spicy cheese pie was medium-spicy, which was unexpected but very welcome. The pastry was served fresh and warm, the white cheese inside was soft, and I wish I could tell you what kind of cheese it was, but I cannot.

Two kinds of meat pies here, both with seasoned, finely-minced ground beef. The one on the left was in a rich tomato sauce, similar to the lahmacun I’ve ordered and loved at the Turkish restaurant Bosphorous. The ground meat in the pastry on the right was seasoned more simply, just with a bit of salt, pepper, and probably onion and garlic.

The crusts on all four of these pies were very soft, chewy, and still delightfully warm when I bought them around 10:30 AM on a weekday.

This was the za’atar pie, awkwardly cut up into pieces by a plastic knife in our break room at work. An actual sharp knife or a pizza cutter would have done better, or we could have just torn it, since it was very soft and thin. It started out perfectly round, I swear! It was extremely fragrant with thyme, oregano, marjoram, toasted sesame seeds, and salt, and olive oil. It was my least-favorite of the five pastries I sampled — NOT because it was bad (it was really good!), but only because the others were so amazing. My co-workers seemed to like it the most.

Tony’s Bakery closes at 3 PM, but they run out of food long before that… I’d guess probably before lunchtime. If you’re going to go by, hit them early, or don’t bother. Like I said, I got there at 10:30 AM, and they were already out of spinach pies. Luckily for me, everything else was still available, and extremely fresh and warm. The man (Tony himself?) invited me into the huge kitchen in the back, where a very sweet woman patiently explained to me what everything was. I bought two of each of these to bring to work, so ten of these large, fresh, filling, savory pastries cost $17.50. I can’t recommend Tony’s Bakery highly enough, and now that I know how good it is, I’m going to add it to my regular rotation. You should too.

I returned more recently to pick up spinach pies and cheese pies for a baby shower at work:

I brought my trusty pizza cutter to work and cut each one in half to avoid the inevitable, horrifying waste of people taking a dainty bite and flinging the rest in the trash. This way they would have smaller bites. As it is, I wound up with a bunch of leftovers, so I happily ate these for a few more days afterwards.

While I was there, I couldn’t resist getting two of the hot, fresh open-faced meat pies and another spicy cheese pie, just for myself.

I wrote this review back in January (of 2020), so with everything going with COVID-19, definitely call Tony’s Bakery before heading over there to make sure they’re open. Call early, and go early. Don’t dawdle, especially if you want those perfect, soft, steamy, savory spinach pies!