Pastries and Pies – The Saboscrivner

Canter’s Deli (Los Angeles)

Canter’s Deli (https://www.cantersdeli.com/) is a legendary Los Angeles delicatessen, a Hollywood hotspot that has been in business since 1931 and in the same location at 419 North Fairfax Avenue since 1953. The decor is pure 1950s-style Art Deco, which I associate fondly with Los Angeles delis and diners, and with the City of Angels in general. I wish everyplace was decorated this way, including my own home. Like so many other timeless restaurants I’ve enjoyed in L.A. like Langer’s Deli, Philippe the Original, HMS Bounty, The Prince, Bob’s Big Boy, and Pann’s, Canter’s retains all its old-school cool as it approaches its hundredth anniversary. I regret not taking any photos of the interior, but I was a little distracted on my one and only visit.

I visited Canter’s on my second work trip to L.A., where I met an Internet friend for the first time after knowing him online for over 25 years, along with his lovely and talented wife, who many of you may recognize.

These free pickles were delivered to the table, as any good deli should do, and they were great.

Instead of a soda or egg cream, I ordered this chocolate phosphate, kind of like a creamy chocolate soda — so not really that different from an egg cream. I just thought it would be nice to try, like an old-timey soda fountain favorite that you never see on menus anymore. Now that “dirty sodas” are a whole thing, I wish people were willing to go more retro and bring back the whole soda fountain concept. With all the jerks out there, maybe some of them could find work as soda jerks.

My friend’s wife is an actress you would have seen if you watched the first season of The Pitt, the wonderful HBO Max hospital drama that was my favorite show of 2025. She ordered a lox benedict, a classic brunch dish with a toasted English muffin topped with salty, smoky salmon, poached eggs and velvety, creamy hollandaise sauce. I didn’t try any, but it looked like a perfect version of eggs benedict. Personally, I never order benedicts at restaurants, but sometimes I make them in my own kitchen because there is no place like home for the hollandaise. At the top, she chose potato pancakes (also known as latkes) for her potato side. They are usually served with sour cream, applesauce, or in this case, both. I always recommend both.

Los Angeles is a big pastrami city, between its historic delis like Langer’s and Canter’s as well as the pastrami French dip, a more localized sandwich that hasn’t spread out of the city. (I tried one of those at a “deli-adjacent” spot more recently, and I will get around to reviewing it eventually.) Local fast food joints like Original Tommy’s and The Hat even load up burgers and hot dogs with pastrami. Somebody call Randy Newman, because I too love L.A.!

My friend, an accomplished film critic, ordered this terrific-looking pastrami Reuben sandwich with grilled pastrami (my preferred alternative to the traditional corned beef), Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing on rye bread grilled to perfection. It looked perfect, and so did the fries.

I got the Canter’s Fairfax sandwich, with generous portions of corned beef AND pastrami on rye. Just like I did at Sarge’s in NYC and Attman’s in Baltimore, when I visit a deli in a faraway city, I usually order combination sandwiches that allow me to sample as many different tastes as possible. They loaded up the sandwich higher than the pastrami sandwiches (plural!) I tried at Langer’s, but I give Langer’s the edge for the exquisite quality of their thicker, hand-sliced pastrami. Not that this was bad, by any means. It was terrific! That’s potato salad in the background — the Canter’s Fairfax comes with a choice of that or cole slaw. The good conversation distracted me, because for a mere dollar more, I could have ordered the Fresser, an identical sandwich that would have come with potato salad AND cole slaw. Oh well! At least the potato salad was excellent.

Because I’m me, I had to RING THE ALARM and try onion rings while I was at Canter’s, and I’m so glad I did. These are some of the most perfect onion rings I’ve ever had in my life. There’s something about Jewish delis just nailing the batter, the frying process, and onion rings in general. Junior’s and Sarge’s Deli in New York City both serve a very similar style. They all share rich, thick batter that holds up and doesn’t separate from the onions, and they are the perfect light, crunchy consistency that never has any burnt spots.
Yup, those are my Top Three onion rings of all time (and no others even come close): Sarge’s, Junior’s, and Canter’s. I’ve never had any quite like them here in Florida. I guess Jewish delis in major metropolitan cultural centers are the lords of the rings.

I can’t imagine how many famous, talented people have hung out at Canter’s Deli over the past 95 years, although the website drops a few dozen names. (I loved Guns ‘n’ Roses back in 8th and 9th grades, and I know they hung out at Canter’s all the time back in the late ’80s.) It is staggering to think how many genius ideas were born there, how many deals were struck there that helped shape our culture, and how many delicious deli dishes were devoured during those acts of creation and negotiation. We certainly enjoyed the heck out everything we tried. Even though there are other delis I have yet to discover in L.A., I would totally return to Canter’s on a future visit. Whenever I do, what should I try next time? I’m thinking some kind of smoked fish, but it would be hard to turn down those top-tier onion rings again.

Cafe De Wan

Cafe De Wan (https://www.instagram.com/cafedewan_/) is a brand-new Turkish restaurant that just opened a few weeks ago in Casselberry. My wife and I love Turkish food, and we are still sad about Beyti Mediterranean Grill closing during the pandemic, only a year or so after it opened in our neighborhood. We really like Sourdough Bread House, another Turkish cafe in Casselberry, but Cafe De Wan is even closer, with more savory dishes on its menu. But like Sourdough Bread House, just five minutes north on Semoran Boulevard, Cafe De Wan serves an awe-inspiring Turkish breakfast feast.

We started with a spinach and onion borek (left), a flaky pastry filled with seasoned, sauteed (what else?) spinach and onions. On the right is a “Turkish pastry” that was very dense and barely sweet. These arrived at our table sliced up. They were sold separately (not part of the Turkish breakfast), but we were happy to have them, due to so many spreads and dips that were about to arrive.

The Turkish breakfast “plate” (which actually includes many plates) comes with a pot of steaming hot black tea. I am not a big tea drinker, but this was delicious, especially after adding a few sugar cubes and waiting for it to cool. I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed this tea.

Well, here we go! We first received a wooden platter with walnuts, almonds, golden raisins, grapes, orange slices, very nice green and black olives (both kinds had pits), English cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and mixed greens topped with three different kinds of cheese. The top dishes were fig jam, creamy tahini with pekmez, or grape molasses, swirled into it (not date syrup, as I originally thought), and what I thought was ajvar, a thick dip of roasted red peppers blended with garlic and olive oil, topped with a walnut. (Ajvar wasn’t listed elsewhere on the menu, but I’ve had it in jars a few times, and this was more like ajvar than any version of ezme, a spicy Turkish salsa, that I’ve ever tried.) I devoured the fig jam and ajvar, and my wife was crazy for the tahini with pekmez. A reader informed me that the combination is like Turkish peanut butter and jelly, which makes all the sense in the world. Thank you, Ipek! At the bottom, there was Nutella, that chocolatey hazelnut spread that is beloved around the world, and thick honey with decadent clotted cream in it.

The Turkish breakfast plate came with two pieces of this fantastic Turkish bread, which we both liked more than the Turkish pastry above. It was so fluffy!

This plate was menemen, a dish of scrambled eggs mixed with sauteed peppers and tomatoes and topped with a bit of cheese. I devoured the menemen since my wife didn’t want anything to do with it, so that worked out.

The Turkish breakfast plate came with yet another plate with a plain egg, fried over easy with a runny yolk. She ate that egg, and I did not get a picture of it, but I’m sure you are envisioning it in your head right now. This was so much food for $25, but we weren’t even done!

Just like I have go-to dishes that I will order anywhere (Italian subs, onion rings, chili, macaroni salad), my wife is like that with baba ghanoush, the Middle Eastern dip of roasted eggplant blended with tahini, olive oil, and garlic. We were disappointed by another new restaurant’s baba ghanoush recently, one that tasted like straight-up tahini, lacking that smoky flavor that comes from roasting the eggplants, so we were hoping for the best with Cafe De Wan’s version. It was stupendous, and the smoky flavor came through first and foremost. That’s another cured black olive on top.

The baba ghanoush came with yet another type of bread for dipping, this time pretty standard (store-bought?) soft pita bread wedges. I left most of the baba ghanoush for my wife, the true aficionado, but I used the pita for dipping in everything else on the table.

This was the lahmacun combo, one of my favorite dishes at any Turkish restaurant, which I order everywhere and have even made from scratch at home. It looks like a pizza without cheese, but it is a flatbread topped with seasoned ground lamb, onions, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and spices, baked until crispy. Instead of cutting it into slices, you essentially put a salad on top of it (usually sliced tomatoes, onions, and flat-leaf parsley — not cilantro!), squeeze on some lemon juice, and roll it up to eat like a wrap. It is so good, and this was one of the better lahmacuns I’ve tried anywhere. It was definitely the crispiest and thinnest!

This was the “dip sauce” that came with the lahmacun combo. It was kind of like toum, a creamy, garlicky dip with the consistency of hummus. It was great, especially with so many things to dip into it!

In addition to the pot of tea that came with the Turkish breakfast plate(s), my wife ordered a drink called the Crimson Bloom, a combination of hibiscus, cranberry, and clove. She always likes jamaica (hibiscus) aguas frescas at Mexican restaurants, so this was a big hit with her. It also sounds like a superhero, or possibly a villain. The white drink is homemade ayran, a yogurt drink similar to Indian lassi, but this was tangy and sour, rather than sweet like lassi. I would not have ordered it, but it came with the lahmacun combo, which was a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t really into it, but my wife enjoyed it, so that worked out well. Next time (and there absolutely will be a next time), I’ll try Cafe De Wan’s mint lemonade. It is the same price as the ayran ($3.99), so I wonder if they would consider substituting it in the future. I would definitely get that lahmacun combo again!

It is my pleasure to welcome Cafe De Wan to our neighborhood. It doesn’t offer all the savory Turkish entrees you would find on the menu at Istanbul Grill or Bosphorous, but it has more of a cafe atmosphere, for lighter meals. That luxurious Turkish breakfast plate (which deserves to be called a feast or a smorgasbord, considering how many individual plates are involved) is a perfect thing for two people on a date to share, and they offer it all day, not just during breakfast hours. Yes, I asked. I am familiar with the concept of “girl dinner” — eating little bits of this and that, and that’s how I eat many of my meals at home, usually standing up in my kitchen so I’m not away from work for too long. If you like “girl dinner,” you’ll go gaga for the Turkish breakfast plate. My only concern (and it is a small one) is that they didn’t have any of the small plastic ramekin-style containers with lids to take home small amounts of different things, but that’s okay. They had larger containers, and we made do.

Believe me, my wife and I got at least four full meals out of everything we ordered, and you may have already noticed that I eat a lot. (I’m going to try to eat less and eat healthier in 2026, though, so wish me luck! I’m gonna need it.) Please give Cafe De Wan a try, because it deserves our support. Unique restaurants like this don’t always thrive or even survive in Casselberry, and I really enjoyed it, so please help them become a dining destination!

Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner

Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner (https://www.moakaidiner.com/) just opened the week before last in the old Mongolorian location at 2217 East Colonial Drive in Orlando, just west of Bumby Avenue. The restaurant is still in its soft opening phase, but it is fully open for business every day except Sunday. Sunday brunch hours will be added in due time. It is owned by the same owner of my beloved Poke Hana (honestly one of my favorite restaurants in Orlando since 2018) and Korean fried chicken joint Chi-Kin, which I still haven’t been to yet.

I love Hawaiian food, and Poke Hana is a big reason for that, since I’ve never actually been to Hawaii. Even before that, there was a short-lived Hawaiian restaurant in Oviedo called Hawaiian Grindz that introduced me to most Hawaiian dishes. Unfortunately, it didn’t last very long, perhaps because the owners seemed to be very laid-back, to the point of not always opening when their posted hours said they would.

Anyway, Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner is a very professional setup with a busy, happy-looking staff, all in festive aloha shirts. It is a classic diner layout with booths along the window, tables, stools overlooking an open kitchen (separated by a plexiglass screen) and more stools at the bar. For my first visit earlier this evening, I sat at the bar and placed my takeout order with the very friendly and welcoming Olivia, the bartender.

While I waited for my takeout, I ordered a POG juice. I remember how popular Pogs were in the early ’90s, especially at the comic book shops I used to frequent, and how quickly the Pog fad came and went. But don’t worry — POG juice is passion fruit/orange/guava juice, and it is so sweet and tangy and tasty. It is surprisingly thick and heavy, as fruit juices can sometimes be, but I already love all tropical fruits, especially passion fruit and guava, so I enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

(That is the ever-patient Olivia’s arm back there.)

After that, I also tried the lychee lemonade, since I am now a lemonade connoisseur. It was also wonderful, and a lot lighter and more refreshing than the POG juice. I would definitely order that again.

I placed a large order, figuring my wife and I would get four total meals out of everything, and it was ready quite quickly.

My wife requested the shoyu poke bowl, with cubes of raw ahi tuna marinated in house shoyu (soy) sauce with Hawaiian salt, shelled edamame soybeans, macadamia nuts, chili flakes, sweet onions, and dried seaweed called ogo. These are all flavors she likes (except the onions, which she figured out after one harsh bite), so she was really happy with it. She said she liked this poke even more than Poke Hana, where we have eaten dozens of times, so that’s high praise coming from her.

I couldn’t decide between a few things, so I ordered an assortment, hoping to share, and if not, knowing I’d have leftovers for tomorrow. These were the kalbi ribs, beef ribs marinated in shoyu and fruit juices, sliced across the bones, and grilled. They had a lot of flavor from the grilling process and were so tender. I always love peeling the flat bone slices out of kalbi and enjoying the almost chewy meat around the edges of the bone. Even my wife liked the piece she had.

All “plate lunches” at Moa Kai come with two scoops of white rice and one scoop of macaroni salad, but you can also choose different sides, and some require a nominal upcharge. I already know I love Hawaiian-style macaroni salad, including from Poke Hana, so I was looking forward to this, but instead of white rice, I got garlic pan-fried noodles, hoping my wife would want to try them. We both loved them! As great as the kalbi and macaroni salad were (and they were), these garlic noodles were the truth. Whenever we return, we will split a full-size order of them.

Kai Asian Street Fare on the edge of Casselberry and Winter Park makes the closest thing in town to these garlic noodles, and theirs are also awesome, just a little more buttery-greasy. But I had a lousy phone camera back then, so forgive the ugly, blurry shots in that early review.

I got a second plate lunch, the mix plate, where you can select two house favorites. For one of my choices, I went with the spicy ahi poke with cubed, marinated ahi tuna, sweet onion, masago, and crushed macadamia nuts in house-made spicy sauce (think spicy mayo), topped with scallions. This was fire! Poke is one of my favorite foods, whether from Poke Hana, Rion’s Ocean Room, or even Costco, and I especially love spicy ahi or salmon poke like this. It was a small serving, but that’s what happens in a sampler platter like this. I could eat this by the bucketful.

The other thing I ended up with was the grilled shoyu chicken, which was a shoyu-marinated, grilled boneless chicken thigh, topped with teriyaki sauce and scallions. It was so tender and juicy and well-seasoned, and I always say chicken thighs are the best part of the chicken, aside from the oysters. Thick thighs save lives! (And if you were intrigued by the garlic noodles above, the full-size order comes topped with this shoyu chicken.)
The only reason I said I “ended up with” it was because I ordered the Korean chicken instead, which sounds like it would have been similar shoyu-marinated chicken, but cubed, battered, fried, and tossed in house-made Korean garlic sauce. I am not disappointed at all that I ended up with the grilled chicken instead. It was a slightly healthier option, and so damn delicious, I would happily order it again. I don’t own a grill, merely because it is so blasted hot and humid in Orlando nine months out of the year, I know I wouldn’t use it much. Knowing myself, that would lead to all kinds of cognitive dissonance and self-resentment, and I deal with that enough already without feeling guilty about buying a grill and not using it often enough. But I always miss the flavor of good grilled meats, and the grilled shoyu chicken thigh was a perfect piece of chicken. WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOYU!

I got macaroni salad with this plate lunch too, but instead of the white rice, I got Spam fried rice for an upcharge. Spam is so good, y’all! It is the very definition of a “sometimes food,” as heavily processed and salty as it is, but fried up with rice or noodles and wrapped in rice and seaweed as a Spam musubi, it is tastier than you would believe. The Spam lovers know what’s up, and the squeamish among you will just have to take my word for it. This Spam fried rice didn’t have anything else in it (no eggs or vegetables), but just Spam and fried rice were great by themselves.

But wait, there’s more! That old Hawaiian restaurant in Oviedo introduced me to saimin, a Hawaiian noodle soup similar to Japanese ramen, but with Spam. Saimin soup with Spam is on the menu here at Moa Kai, but we’re still in August, and I couldn’t conceive of ordering soup. But I still had to try some form of saimin, so I got the local style stir-fried saimin noodles with char siu (Chinese-style barbecue pork with a slight sweetness that you may know and love from Kai Kai or Tasty Wok), Spam, sliced kamaboko (cured surimi, similar to the fish cakes in ramen), scrambled eggs, carrots, and scallions, seasoned with shoyu and dashi, a Japanese cooking stock flavored with fish and kelp.
I’m going to enjoy this tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist a few bites while it was still fresh and hot, and it was on point. It reminded me of a Hawaiian version of lo mein (but better) or Filipino pancit bihon. The char siu pork was sweet and tender, and the Spam was sliced into tiny cubes and perfected by the stir-fry process. You could enjoy these local style stir-fried saimin any day of the week, not just on stir-Friday.

My wife had requested an açaí bowl for a bit of a dessert tonight and breakfast tomorrow. This was a huge helping of açaí sorbet blended and topped with fresh strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, and kiwi, shredded coconut, peanut butter, and granola. Knowing it was sorbet, I brought a cooler in the car with a couple of reusable fake-ice blocks to keep it cold on the drive home, but it still got a little melty. The tiny taste I had when she had enough for the night was soooo nice and refreshing, though.

I had never even heard of açaí until a few years ago, when everyone started touting its benefits as a healthy “superfood.” I can’t speak on that, but the dark purple sorbet made from the açaí berries is a nice blend of sweet and tart, especially when mixed with other, sweeter fruits.

And finally, we were both curious about the ube haupia pie, so I guess that makes us pie-curious. I couldn’t resist ordering a piece for us to share. Haupia is coconut pudding, a popular Hawaiian dessert made from coconut milk, sugar, cornstarch, and water, and it is surprisingly jiggly and bouncy like Jell-O. Poke Hana serves haupia in crispy fried spring rolls, which are terrific, but this was different. Moa Kai serves their haupia in pie form with a macadamia nut-graham cracker crust (superb) with a layer of creamy ube pudding in between. Ube is a purple yam with a vanilla-like flavor, common in Filipino and Vietnamese desserts and sweet drinks, and it is as tasty as it is beautiful. Someone call Yam Grier and send me to Yamsterdam, because these were some sweet-ass yams under that haupia, with more bounce to the ounce.

Folks, I am thrilled to report that Orlando has another winner. We first heard earlier this year that Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner was coming, and months passed with no updates. The menu surfaced online back in April, and it all sounded so good, I hoped plans wouldn’t change, since some announced restaurants never see the light of day. It was so worth the wait, and all the time and effort and money they put into it are paying off. You can see we tried many things so I could write a worthy review and share as much information as possible. Yeah, that’s the ticket. The diner setting is going to be a fun, welcoming atmosphere for dining in, and the location, right in our Mills 50 district with so many other fantastic restaurants nearby, will hopefully help keep them busy and garner them the success they deserve. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to beautiful Hawaii, but at least we can all have a taste of it right here in Orlando. Whether you dine in or order takeout like I did tonight, look for Olivia, who might be behind the bar. She is awesome, and even in the brief time I waited for my takeout order at the bar, she made me feel like a valued customer, patiently answered any questions I had, asked if I needed anything, and represented the restaurant so well.

Chain Reactions: Vicky Bakery

Vicky Bakery (https://vickybakery.com/) is a beloved Cuban bakery chain with 26 locations (and a food truck), mostly throughout South Florida. Despite growing up in Miami, I never visited Vicky until they opened a location in south Orlando last year! (My family would always go to Latin American Cafeteria, right by our house in Kendall, or the superior La Carreta instead.)

But Vicky Bakery is a great addition to Orlando, a city with lots of good Latin food and amazing bakeries, but lacking in the wonderful Cuban cuisine that is so ubiquitous in and around Miami. I have been three times now, only because it is pretty far from me — all the way down near Orlando International Airport. If it was closer, I guarantee I would go a lot more often, so maybe I’m better off. But after three visits, I figured it was time to write a review, because I love it.

Like most good bakeries, when you walk into the Orlando location of Vicky Bakery, you are face to face with tempting baked goods arranged in glass display cases. This case of croquetas, empanadas, and pastelitos is right next to the cash register, facing the entrance:

There are other cases with more sweet stuff elsewhere:

On my first visit, I ordered buttered Cuban toast, a croqueta de jamon (ham croqueta), empanada de carne (beef empanada), a pastel de carne (beef pastel), two pasteles de queso (cheese pasteles), and a pizza pastel (take a wild guess).

Everything was very good, but the combination of savory and sweet in the beef and pizza pasteles, with their light, flaky, crispy layered pastry crusts and shiny tops glazed with sugar put those over the top for me.

I also ordered the medianoche (“midnight sandwich”), a variation on the classic pressed Cuban sandwich with roast pork, sweet ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and yellow mustard. I like the medianoche even better, because it is served on a slightly sweet yellow bread rather than the traditional Cuban bread. My mom introduced me to these when I was very young, and it probably launched my love of savory-sweet food combinations. I have to say, with no exaggeration, that it was the best medianoche I’ve ever had. Everything came together perfectly. Some Cuban sandwiches are too dry — usually the fault of dry pork that was cooked too long or not juicy enough to begin with, or stale bread — but this one didn’t have me wishing for a “sandwich lubricant.”

I also tried the Vicky sandwich, with thin-sliced cantimpalo sausage (similar to pepperoni or spicy salami), sweet ham, Swiss cheese, and butter on a French baguette — a more continental sandwich.

On my second visit, I got the pan con bistec (steak sandwich), which is steak (usually top round or sirloin) sliced very thin, with sautéed onions onions, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, mayonnaise, and crunchy, salty potato sticks on Cuban bread pressed until it had a crackly texture. It was good, but I usually find this sandwich a bit lacking, like it needs more of a hit of acid than just the tomato to balance out the salt and fat.

You can see there wasn’t a whole lot of steak either. ¿DONDE ESTA LA CARNE? (Where’s the beef?) Unfortunately, it couldn’t measure up to the best pan con bistec I’ve ever had, from Sanguich de Miami.

I also got the croqueta preparada, a traditional Cuban sandwich (like the medianoche, but on pressed Cuban bread instead of the sweet yellow bread) only with a twist: six croquetas pressed into it — three in each half! Vicky serves croquetas de jamon (ham) and croquetas de pollo (chicken), and they let me try both. If you think Cuban sandwiches are awesome (and they are!), try a croqueta preparada next time. It really brings a rich, decadent sandwich to a whole other level. Sanguich de Miami also served the best croqueta preparada I’ve ever had, but the one from Vicky Bakery is the best I’ve tried in Orlando.

Don’t forget to sign up for e-mails from Vicky Bakery, because they mailed me a birthday coupon for $7 off any order, and unlike some restaurants, there was an almost three-month window to use it. On my third visit, I felt like some kind of player, a big timer playing with the house’s money, knowing I could get a $7 discount. Mr. 305’s got nothing on me!

I couldn’t resist the pizza pastel again, and it was just as good as always.

I figured I should probably try a cafe con leche, to make this review more complete. (Don’t worry about the photo, which was just a red cup with the Vicky Bakery logo on it.) It was absolutely delicious — strong and sweet, like I like my women — but I just can’t drink coffee anymore. Every time I do, I get acid reflux and the unpleasant feeling of my heart wanting to jackhammer its way out through my rib cage and fly around the room like some mad bird. And worst of all, both awful sensations hit me hours after drinking the coffee. I don’t even get a temporary energy boost at the time, just intense physical discomfort late in the evening. This was a small, and it still made me feel like I was going to discorporate into individual atoms. Not worth it for me, but for all of you coffee drinkers, you’ll really like it.

And then I tried the last sandwich I was really interested in, the pan con lechon, with finely chopped pork marinated in citrusy, garlicky mojo criollo, served on the same terrific pressed Cuban bread with a lot of sautéed onions. I loved it. Sometimes pan con lechon sandwiches are a bit dry and/or flavorless, but Vicky nailed this one. I liked it a lot more than the pan con bistec from my previous visit.

Over a year ago, there was a rumor that a second Orlando-area Vicky Bakery was going to open in Winter Park, near the intersection of 17-92 and Lee Road, which would have been a heck of a lot more convenient for me. At some point, that fell through, so I figured I had better get down to the one and only location sooner rather than later. I’m sorry I waited so long, because it was fantastic, and my second and third visits were equally good.

It is probably just as well for me that it is a schlep, because I don’t need to be eating this food too often. But when I’m in the mood for Cuban pastries and sandwiches, I drive past several Cuban and other Latin bakeries in order to get to Vicky Bakery, because it really is that damn good. Miami was a strange place to grow up, and I always felt like a stranger at home there, but the Cuban food can’t be beat. I’m glad we have an authentic taste of home available in Orlando, even if it feels like a mission getting down there.

Bob’s Big Boy (Los Angeles)

Bob’s Big Boy (https://bobs.net/) is a legendary diner in Burbank, California, a Los Angeles suburb near the Warner Brothers and Disney studios. First opened in 1949, Bob’s Big Boy is an iconic building designed by architect Wayne McAllister in the retro-futuristic “Googie” style that is virtually unknown here in Florida, but so popular in mid-20th Century L.A. diners, coffee shops, and gas stations. Think of The Jetsons, or anything referred to as “space-age” or “atomic age,” back when the future seemed bright and exciting, guided by trust in science and faith in exploration. I love that style for its timeless quality, while simultaneously being totally of its time (and of course before my time).

Bob’s Big Boy is named for its founder, Bob Wian, and for Richard Woodruff, a six-year-old boy who did odd jobs around the diner, who Bob called “Big Boy.” The familiar restaurant mascot was inspired by Woodruff — a friendly corporate logo based on a heartwarming tale of child labor.

Inside, it looks like a classic mid-century coffee shop with a long counter surrounding the open kitchen, plus plenty of cushy booths along the side and in the back. They have kept the restaurant looking clean and welcoming over the decades, which isn’t always the case at some of these old-school L.A. eateries.

The Burbank location was the first of what would become a nationwide chain, but now there are random, assorted Big Boy restaurants scattered around the country. My wife assures me there even used to be one in Orlando, but I was never aware of any in Miami, growing up down there in the ’80s.

But you can’t eat architecture or vibes, so what brought me way out of my way to this old-timey diner on my most recent work trip to L.A., a city renowned for excellent restaurants of all styles and price points? I was paying homage to one of my all-time favorite creative individuals, the late, great filmmaker/writer/actor/musician/visual artist David Lynch, who passed away on January 16, 2025, four days shy of his 79th birthday.

Lynch might be best known as the co-creator of the beloved television series Twin Peaks, which ran for two seasons from 1990 to 1991, got a bizarre movie prequel (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me) in 1992, and then returned in 2017 for a magnificent third season in 2017, reintroducing the surviving cast members, all of whom had aged considerably in the intervening years, alongside the man who dreamed it all up. Twin Peaks, which combines a quirky small-town dramedy and a dark, twisty murder mystery is not for everyone, but it is near and dear to my heart. He also wrote and directed the films Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Dune (the first one, natch), Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart (an underrated classic with one of the greatest Nicolas Cage performances), The Straight Story (a rare G-rated Lynch movie that you can watch with your entire family), Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive (another one of my all-time favorite movies), and Inland Empire.

For many years, Lynch was a regular at the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, and he did so much writing over black coffee, chocolate milkshakes, and plates of fries. The Bob’s Big Boy website even has a special Hall of Fame page for David Lynch, detailing his typical lunch order and explaining that as a creature of habit, he always liked to eat right at 2:30. It quotes his book Catching the Big Fish: “I used to go to Bob’s Big Boy restaurant just about every day from the mid-seventies until the early eighties. I’d have a milk shake and sit and think. There’s a safety in thinking in a diner. You can have your coffee or your milk shake, and you can go off into strange dark areas, and always come back to the safety of the diner.”

This was my first work trip to L.A. since Lynch had passed away, and I wanted to see where the magic had happened, to enjoy a meal in this humble diner he loved so much, that fueled his nonstop (and often nightmarish) creativity — maybe to feel a bit of the inspiration he felt. Bob’s Big Boy was my last stop before going to the airport and heading home, and thanks to some lucky timing, I was able to have my lunch at 2:30 as well.

Unfortunately, I didn’t order Lynch’s lunch. I am not a coffee drinker — it usually hits me hard, hours after drinking it, with a wave of intense acid reflux and the feeling of my heart wanting to jackhammer its way out of my body through my ribcage and fly around the room. It is not a pleasant feeling, and that was the last thing I needed before a red-eye flight home. Instead, I got a strawberry lemonade that was light and refreshing, with plenty of freshly sliced strawberries and that good kind of crushed ice.

A few things on the menu tempted me, but since this was my first visit to Bob’s Big Boy, and possibly my only visit ever, I went with a classic order: the “Original” Big Boy combo: their original Double-Deck hamburger with fries and a side salad. The salad came out first. My very kind server Rachael told me they are famous for their bleu cheese and ranch dressings, so I went with bleu cheese, a dressing I almost never get on a salad. The salad was fine (iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, finely shredded cheddar cheese, and really firm croutons), but the bleu cheese dressing elevated it to something better than the sum of its parts.

I knew what to expect from the Original Double-Deck burger, but I was still a little surprised when it came out. It had two burger patties with top, middle, and bottom sesame seed buns, cheese, lettuce, mayo and “special red relish.” If that sounds mostly familiar, it’s because most of us have eaten a McDonald’s Big Mac at some point in our lives, or at least seen one or heard about them. I did a bit of research, and it turns out the Big Mac was introduced by a McDonald’s franchisee in Pittsburgh in 1967 and became a nationwide product in 1968. The franchisee, Michael James “Jim” Delligatti, used to manage a Big Boy, and that three-bun wonder surely made an impression on him, enough to rip it off.

That said, the red relish was delightfully tangy and zippy — kind of similar to Wickles Spicy Red Sandwich Spread (which includes jalapeño peppers and cucumbers), but not as spicy. I probably would have preferred a chili cheeseburger (which old-school L.A. restaurants call a chili size), but I had to try the original, and it was what it was.

I know David Lynch appreciated his fries, especially at Bob’s Big Boy, but I can never settle for fries when onion rings are an option. RING THE ALARM! For a slight upcharge, I got onion rings in my combo, and they were okay. These are breaded, and I always prefer battered onion rings. But luckily for me and my readers (and unluckily for my body), I had better onion rings at two different restaurants on this same L.A. trip.

Rachael was sweet and kind enough to bring me little dipping cups of bleu cheese and ranch dressing to dip my onion rings, and the ranch was as good as the bleu cheese, if not better. I never get ranch as a salad dressing or a dip, but maybe I would if all ranch was this good! If you live out west, they actually sell Bob’s salad dressings at supermarkets, you lucky ducks.

Usually I like ketchup on burgers and onion rings, but I never even touched the ketchup at this meal, wanting to sample everything in its purest form.

Even though David Lynch favored chocolate milkshakes at Bob’s Big Boy, I know he was also very fond of pie. The Double R Diner on Twin Peaks was famous for its cherry pie (and its gorgeous waitresses, always beset by dangerous, desperate men), but I noticed that fresh strawberry pie is a seasonal special on the Bob’s menu, and that sounded too good to pass up. It was pretty much what you would expect a classic strawberry pie to be — not as good as Evette Rahman’s National Pie Championship-winning strawberry cheese pie at Sister Honey’s Bakery in Orlando, but nothing is. Still, it hit the spot, and it was a generous serving.

Yes, there is some pie crust under there!

I admit that I ate pretty quickly because I had to grab a Lyft and make it from Burbank to LAX against unknowable afternoon traffic, but I got to my gate two hours before boarding, so all was well. I had a good feeling I would be okay. While I have eaten better, more memorable meals in Los Angeles — even on this same trip, which I will write about eventually — I have no regrets about making a pilgrimage to Bob’s Big Boy, to enjoy a tiny taste of classic Americana and retrace the steps of a weirdly wholesome creative genius who brought so much entertainment to my life.

I should have researched which booth David Lynch liked to sit in, but ultimately, that doesn’t matter. The fact that he did so much writing at Bob’s Big Boy, leading to so many unforgettable movies and hours of television, was enough to get me in the door, and I’m so relieved I got that experience. Even though I know he was recently buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery with a simple, mysterious grave marker that reads “Night Blooming Jasmine,” I would not have been surprised to see the man himself in a nearby booth, his gray pompadour gone white, his dress shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck, scribbling notes on a napkin. I would have given him a thumbs-up like his Twin Peaks protagonist, Special Agent Dale Cooper, and he might have raised his cup of black coffee to me and said something charmingly cryptic to me in that great old-timey newsman-sounding voice of his, like “Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole.”

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli (https://www.instagram.com/mamanapoliwinterpark/) is a new business that opened this past summer in Winter Park, just south of Fairbanks Avenue on State Road 17-92. It is a cute café with delicious coffee, pastries, snacks, sandwiches, rustic-looking pizzas, and shelves laden with Italian groceries. There are a few booths inside for lingering over a cappuccino and any number of Italian delicacies.

You can see some of their premade panini sandwiches above the deli meats: the Vesuvio, Procida, Ischia, and Capri. If you right-click on the photo below and open it in a new tab, you can probably even make out the ingredients listed for each.

This glass case includes fresh cannoli, tarts, macarons, and cake slices.

Here are gorgeous pistachio, Nutella, apricot, and almond croissants.

Bombolone are like Italian doughnuts, and these all had different fillings: Bavarian cream, apricot, Nutella, and pistachio cream (which seems to be becoming a trendy dessert ingredient).

And here are flaky, shell-shaped sfogliatella pastries, with a light, crispy texture and a smooth cream filling with the slightest hint of lemon.

M’ama Napoli has several shelves of imported Italian groceries, including some nice-looking fruit preserves, pickled peppers, and tomato sauces.

For the first order I ever brought home, I selected some cream-filled conchiglia puff pastries and a croissant filled with almond paste (marzipan) for my wife who loves almond-flavored anything. While I still give the edge to Benjamin French Bakery in Thornton Park for the best croissants in Orlando, my wife and I enjoyed all these pastries.

I also got an incredible sandwich on freshly baked, fluffy focaccia bread, the Toto. I’m sure it wasn’t named for the yacht rock-adjacent band that featured David Paich, Steve Lukather, and the Porcaro brothers, but it was full of paper-thin slices of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, arugula, tomatoes, and shaved parmigiano cheese. I loved it. It was huge, too!

Here is a better photo of the Toto sandwich from our second visit. My wife doesn’t share my obsession with sandwiches, but she likes good bread, prosciutto, fresh mozz, and arugula — pretty much everything but the tomatoes — so she had most of this one.

That time, I tried the Maradona sandwich, with salami, fresh mozzarella, and arugula. The salami was really high-quality, but since I ate this sandwich at home, I plussed it up with the tomatoes from my wife’s Toto sandwich, some hot cherry peppers, and balsamic glaze.

And this was a special sandwich that was only available that day, with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, shaved parmesan cheese, and some kind of creamy sauce that gave it a bit of a funky flavor, but not unpleasant. It was an umami bomb, though!
I would probably skip this one in the future, just because the Toto is so great, and there are lots of other sandwich options too — not just on focaccia, but pressed paninis as well. Maybe I’ll try a focaccia sandwich with mortadella next time, which is like very posh bologna that sometimes contains pistachios.

There are only a few parking spaces behind the building, off busy State Road 17-92, but I’ve had decent parking karma on my two visits to M’ama Napoli so far (which is more than I can say for many of Orlando’s most popular dining districts). Check it out, and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed, especially if you get the Toto or one of the other focaccia sandwiches!

Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish (St. Petersburg)

Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish (https://tedpetersfish.com/) is a legendary landmark in St. Petersburg, Florida, right off the beach. It is a perfect example of a classic “Old Florida” seafood restaurant and smokehouse, the kinds of places that barely exist anymore, but those that remain are both time capsules and treasures. Founded in 1951 and still family-owned and in its original location, Ted Peters conjures up sights, smells, and tastes of a bygone era, but luckily we can still enjoy them today. In fact, just last month, Southern Living magazine (which features some pretty great food writing) included Ted Peters in its list of Florida’s 17 Most Legendary Restaurants. (I have been to five of them and reviewed one other on this blog, Bern’s Steak House.)

I first visited Ted Peters with my wife several years ago, long before I started writing as The Saboscrivner in 2018. But strangely enough, neither of us remembered much about our first visit, aside from that I liked it. I’ve been wanting to return for years, and on a recent weekend getaway to St. Pete Beach, it was my first stop after checking into our hotel and depositing my wife in our room. I brought back a takeout feast, knowing the room had a mini-fridge in case we couldn’t finish everything. But we were both stunned by the portion sizes upon my return — somehow you’d think that would have stuck in my memory when we ate there the first time, but it didn’t. This recent visit was like getting to experience it all again for the first time.

Just so you know, it doesn’t get much more casual than this place. There are plenty of tables on a covered patio, and they can pull down outer walls in case it rains, as it did on the sweltering late June afternoon I showed up there. There is also an enclosed dining room with some rustic decor — wood-paneled walls and stuffed animal heads. I just poked my head in the room but didn’t linger. You can order beer (or root beer) in frosty glass mugs, but it’s a family-friendly restaurant in every way, not some kind of dirty dive (although it was featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives show).

This is the menu that hangs above the bar, with accurate prices as of June 30th, 2024:

They offer four kinds of smoked fish, all smoked over red oak wood: salmon, mullet, mahi mahi, and mackerel, but mackerel was out of season. Both of our orders came in huge white paper boxes, like the kind of boxes a bakery would send you home with a large pie or cake in. Like I said, we were both stunned back at the hotel when I opened everything up and saw how much fish they give you.

My wife asked for a smoked salmon lunch, which comes with fish, tomato, onion, pickle, and lemon. It was a huge hunk of salmon, hot-smoked to a golden brown color, compared to the delicate pink nova salmon we know and love from a lifetime of bagel breakfasts, appetizing stores, and delicatessens. The hot-smoked salmon was drier and flakier than the tender, thin-sliced nova that melts in your mouth, but it was still really good. You just have to think of it as its own thing — not as salty as nova, but much more oily and “fishy.”
The entire piece had thin, crispy salmon skin underneath that was easy to separate, even with the flimsy plastic fork and knife they included, but we both love salmon skin, so it was a nice surprise treat.

Because mackerel was out of season, I ordered a mullet dinner for myself, and not just because I had a mullet back in 8th and 9th grade. This was a nice piece of fish, even longer than the salmon filet, just not as thick because mullet is a smaller fish. This one reminded me more of the golden smoked whitefish I treat myself to every few years, which I pull apart to make rich, decadent whitefish salad. Like whitefish, mullet is full of long, thin, plasticky, pin-like bones that you have to carefully remove, as well as one long spine that you can pull out in one piece like a cat in an old-timey cartoon. As a result, the mullet was harder to eat in a hotel room due to how messy it is, but we brought a lot home, packed tightly in a cooler with ice, and I made it into some smoked mullet salad back in my kitchen.

Unlike the salmon, you can’t eat the scaly skin of the mullet (the entire underside), so I did what I could to peel it all off, along with the tail, fins, and all those bones. The little sauce containers were a creamy horseradish sauce that had a slight sweetness (not nearly as intensely spicy as the horseradish sauce at Orlando’s beloved Beefy King) and another sauce that was seemingly ranch (that one was for the Swifties), but possibly with some Cajun seasoning added. I brought those home as well and added them to the flaky, deboned mullet (because the meat is also drier than the smoked whitefish I’m used to).

The difference between the lunch and the dinner is that the dinner comes with cole slaw and potato salad, so of course I had to try those! The cole slaw was creamy, crunchy, and refreshing, perfect for cutting through the intensely fishy, oily, smoky flavors and textures.

The potato salad is actually German potato salad, so it is tangy and the slightest bit sweet from being made with apple cider vinegar instead of the standard mayonnaise. It is also rich, smoky, and has a nice blend of soft and crunchy textures from crumbles of bacon. It was served warm, as German potato salad usually is, and it was terrific. I’m so glad I sprang for the dinner instead of the lunch.

I couldn’t go to Ted Peters and not try their famous smoked fish spread, which I definitely did not try on my first visit however long ago. My wife didn’t care for it as much as the salmon and mullet, but surprise surprise, I liked it even more — maybe due to it being less intensely fishy and smoky. The fish (I’m assuming mullet, but it could be a blend) was mixed into a uniform creamy consistency with mayo and sweet pickle relish, adding some sweetness, coolness, and crunch. It reminded me of a really terrific tuna salad with that smoky flavor shining through but not overpowering.
At the restaurant, you can order smoked fish spread with Saltine crackers, but for takeout orders, you just order it by the half-pint, pint, or quart. I got a half-pint, and it didn’t come with crackers, so I had to run by Publix to buy some Saltines. They were fine, but I still contend that anything Saltines can do, Ritz can do better. But my wife loves Saltines, and I wanted to follow the founders’ intent here.

At this point, a couple of you might be lamenting “What if I don’t eat fish?” or “What if I don’t like smoked fish?” Well, first of all, I would probably suggest trying a different restaurant. There are so many to choose from up and down St. Pete Beach and on the mainland, and many are in the good-to-great range. But just in case, I had always read that Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish serves really tasty burgers, and I had to put that to the test. I’m a cheeseburger guy, and I think American cheese is the best cheese you can put on a burger. But my wife doesn’t like cheese on burgers, so I ordered a plain hamburger with her in mind, just in case any of the fish were “too fishy” for her. When I showed her the plain burger as an option, she said it looked a little sad, plus she surprised both of us by liking the smoked salmon and mullet as much as she did.

Now I like a lot of stuff on a burger (surprise, surprise), so if it looked sad, that’s because it was plain. Since she wanted nothing to do with it, I added ketchup, yellow mustard, and relish (from included packets), the “seemingly ranch” sauce, and lettuce and tomato. It was delicious! It tasted like a burger you’d get at a cookout with that nice flavor from the grill. The bun was your typical squishy white bread bun, not grilled or toasted or anything, but absolutely fine for what it was. Adding American cheese and grilled onions and grilling the bun might have brought this burger over the top, but I have no complaints. If you don’t want your fingers or your breath to smell like smoked fish for hours after dining, like if you’re on a really hot date at Ted Peters, then consider the burger.

Now key lime pie is one of my favorite desserts ever, but my wife doesn’t share my love for it. I was all ready to skip the tempting key lime pie on Ted Peters’ menu for the second time, but it was actually her idea to order a slice. Of course I did not argue! It was nice and tangy, an ideal dessert for balancing out smoky, rich fish, but the crust was rather crumbly and a bit bland. Rather than the standard moist graham cracker crust, it might have been made of shortbread or even ‘Nilla Wafers, that mainstay of Southern-style banana pudding. (When I was a little Saboscrivner, before I spent 15 years working for a Catholic law school, I used to think the “wafers” consumed during Catholic mass were ‘Nilla Wafers.)
I would definitely recommend it anyway, since key lime pie is Florida’s official dessert (or should be), and it does go so perfectly at the end of a meal like this. But this is a rare occasion where I might give the edge to the Publix bakery, and I would be remiss if I didn’t credit the award-winning baker Evette Rahman of Sister Honey’s Bakery in Orlando for making the best key lime pie I’ve ever had in my life.

So anyway, Southern Living is right on about this place. And if you don’t believe me and don’t believe them, my friend and role model Amy Drew Thompson, the food writer for the Orlando Sentinel, is a fellow fan of Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish, and she definitely knows what she’s talking about. But hopefully you can see from my words and pictures that Ted Peters is a unique experience, something that is all too rare in Florida and almost nonexistent anywhere else. After our most recent visit to St. Pete Beach, I said again what I’ve said before, that if I had to live anywhere in Florida that isn’t in or around Orlando, the St. Pete/Tampa area would be it for me. My wife and I love St. Pete Beach for short little weekend getaways, but it would totally be worth a day trip from Orlando just to take in a taste of timeless Old Florida at Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish. Eat on the patio, spring for the dinner so you can have German potato salad and cole slaw, get your hands a little dirty, raise a frosty mug, and be glad that after all these decades and generations, the crew at Ted Peters still smokes fish every day.

Smoke & Donuts BBQ

Not to be confused with the similarly named Smoke & Dough in Miami, Orlando’s Smoke & Donuts (https://www.smokeanddonuts.com/) is a relatively new restaurant that started serving excellent barbecue and beautiful, festive cake doughnuts just over a year ago, right in one of the best foodie neighborhoods in the city, the Milk District.

My wife and I recently had our first meal at Smoke & Donuts, and me being me, I made sure we could sample as many things from their eclectic menu as possible. The restaurant is open from 11 AM to 9 PM on weekdays, but on weekends, it opens at 9 AM for a brunch menu in addition to the full regular menu. We figured that would give us even more options to choose from, especially with my weird work hours that prevent us from going out to eat during the week. Luckily, there was plenty of parking and no wait shortly after 11 AM on a Saturday.

Once you arrive, you take a paper menu to study as you walk down a line where you can see those dazzling, decadent doughnuts on display, then the stations where the staff assembles barbecue bowls, sandwiches, and “boards” (really metal trays). My wife sat down at an open table while I took the walk toward an extremely patient woman who took our large order at the end of the line. It’s a familiar setup — you pay at the register, take a number, and then someone delivers your food to your table.

Before I reveal everything we ordered, here are the sauces diners will be able to choose from, since sauces are such an important part of the barbecue experience. They are all in squeeze bottles over by the self-serve soda fountain, and there are plenty of tiny plastic cups with lids to fill with the six sumptuous sauces. Over here you have toasted guajillo pepper, KC (Kansas City) sweet, spicy vinegar (it’s a North Carolina thing), and a marvelously thick hot sauce with visible spicy pepper seeds and a touch of sweetness.

Next to them, kept on ice, are Lowcountry SC (South Carolina) mustard sauce (kind of a creamy, herby, tangy mustard, not like bright yellow mustard or overly sweet honey mustard at all) and AL (Alabama) white barbecue sauce, which is creamy, tangy, and sweet. You KNOW I tried them all!

Here’s my sauce lineup. Before our food even arrived, as I was assembling our sauces, they brought us each a sample of a perfect, delicately seasoned, crunchy pork rind, which we both liked. Pork rinds can be heavenly or a pointless waste of calories, and the seasoning usually makes all the difference. But this one was very light, which was also nice.

My wife ordered a blueberry “MOCK-jito,” a delightful mocktail with fresh mint, lime, and fresh muddled blueberries. She said it was so refreshing, and it was one of the highlights of this epic brunch. I am so glad to see more restaurants offering interesting mocktails made with the same love and care as their alcoholic cocktails. Thank you, Smoke & Donuts!

It wasn’t long before our meals were walked out to the table. My wife and I each chose a Pit Sampler board, which comes with a choice of three meats and either one side and a piece of cornbread or a glazed doughnut (one of the more basic doughnuts, not the fancier ones). She chose pork belly (on the left; smoked and prepared in a sous vide water bath), pulled smoked chicken slathered in the Alabama white barbecue sauce, and sliced brisket for her meats. When I was given a choice of ordering her brisket lean or marbled, I chose marbled, which we both prefer. With steak, brisket, or pastrami, when in doubt, go for the marbling!

Instead of a side, she opted for a cinnamon sugar cake doughnut. Those pink strips are pickled red onions, something I love a lot (and make myself at home), but she has no interest in onions at all, or anything pickled. Needless to say, I got them for myself, along with the rest of the house-made pickles and pickled onions in the top right corner of her tray.

For my Pit Sampler board, I purposely chose three different things, knowing we would offer each other samples of ours anyway. I got chopped brisket (doused in TG sauce, the toasted guajillo pepper sauce), chorizo sausage, and St. Louis ribs (rubbed in “red chile and brown sugar slather”).
I chose baked beans for my side (see above), which included Kansas City sweet barbecue sauce, caramelized onions, sorghum, and stout. And you can see my cornbread up there too. But wanting us both to have a chance to try more sides, I also ordered a side sampler with three additional sides:

French fries, a necessity for dipping in the six different sauces:

Crunchy cucumber and cabbage slaw, shredded and tossed in a sherry and rice wine vinaigrette. I didn’t even try this until later, when we got home with multiple boxes of leftovers, but I liked it a lot. What a gourmet, nontraditional take on cole slaw. It was a bit dry, even with the vinaigrette, but a little Alabama white sauce perked it up.

Rich macaroni and cheese, featuring cheddar, Swiss, Chihuahua, and cotija cheeses and a little lager. This is definitely one of the best versions of mac and cheese in Orlando, and my far-and-away favorite of all the sides we sampled.

Here’s a close-up of my chopped brisket, which was good, although I think I would definitely opt for the sliced, marbled brisket in the future:

I had no idea how many ribs came in the sampler, but I have to be honest, I only expected one rib (making me think of Chris Rock in I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka, a movie I made my wife watch for the first time recently, still as funny as it was when it came out in 1988). Imagine my surprise when the guy delivered the trays to our table, and there were three ribs, although he told me he accidentally gave me an extra one. So normally you would get two in the Pit Sampler, and even that would have been great. The ribs were my favorite of the three meats I ordered, by far. They were so tender and smoky and sweet and spicy, easy to pull off the bone, but not exactly “falling off the bone” (barbecue mavens try to avoid that texture).

And from the brunch menu, my wife really wanted to try the biscuits that came with a trio of different flavors of soft, spreadable butter. It looks like they change these flavors all the time, but today we got mango, cilantro-jalapeño, and strawberry-basil butters. My wife really loved the two fruity ones, and I liked all three. The biscuits weren’t huge, but we also shared my cornbread and still had plenty of these rich, creamy, velvety butters left to bring home in the tiny plastic sauce cups. Thank goodness for the lids!

We were as interested in those stunning doughnuts as we were in the barbecue, so we ordered more to take home and parcel out over the next few days. On the left is a blonde blueberry doughnut we intended to share, with vanilla glaze, oat streusel, blueberry compote, and a chewy, buttery blueberry swirl blondie (the triangle “hat” on top, definitely a fascinator). In the middle is a red velvet doughnut my wife chose, with chocolate glaze, red velvet fudge, and a lightly crispy meringue on top, like a little beret sitting at a jaunty angle. On the right is a passion petal dancer, the most butch-sounding dessert name ever. I chose that one as soon as I saw it includes passion fruit cremeaux (I don’t even know how to pronounce that), lemon pavlova, and a dehydrated strawberry.

And this was one last doughnut for me, back at home: the key lime doughnut, with candied lemonade glaze, ginger snap streusel, key lime pavlova, and meringue. Good grief, this was so good. All the doughnuts from Smoke & Donuts BBQ are cake doughnuts, so they are really dense, heavy, and on the drier side, but not crumbly. If you’re craving the light airiness of yeasty Krispy Kreme doughnuts, then go to Krispy Kreme. But you’ll miss out on these lovely, luxurious, cakey creations.

We were lucky enough to meet Smoke & Donuts’ chef-owner Ian Russell, a graduate of the only CIA that makes the world a better place, the Culinary Institute of America. He worked as an actor (appearing in at least one local production with my wife when they were both a lot younger!) and some other interesting careers before founding Smoke & Donuts as a food truck. After building a reputation there, he then moved into the current space, directly next door to one of Orlando’s most famous and beloved restaurants, Se7en Bites. I was impressed that Chef Russell went around from table to table, introducing himself and asking his guests how everything was, and that’s when my wife recognized him from when they were in Cyrano together. Then the lady who had so patiently taken my large order introduced herself as his mother, and she stopped by to check up on us and kvell about her successful son.

I would be proud too. Chef Russell and his entire staff (including his mom) were wonderful. We felt very welcome and had a terrific brunch/early lunch that ended up being the only meal we needed for the rest of the day, with plenty of leftovers for the next couple of days. The ribs and mac and cheese were definitely my favorites of everything we tried, but I would return just for a big ol’ order of fries so I could use them as sauce delivery devices, the sauces were that good. People are intense (and intensely loyal) when it comes to barbecue. Orlando is lucky to have some good options (along with Briskets in Oviedo and Smokemade opening a permanent location soon), and Smoke & Donuts is definitely among the best. The Milk District has another winner, and since they have lasted over a year in this location, I’m sure they aren’t going anywhere. Come try them when you’re craving meat and sauce, and they even offer smoky jackfruit for vegetarians!

Alma Argentina

Alma Argentina (https://linktr.ee/AlmaArgentina) opened in late 2021, but my wife and I recently ate there for the first time. It is located at 3607 Aloma Avenue in Oviedo, tucked between Tuskawilla Road and the entrance to State Road 417. There is also a second, much newer location out in Celebration, but this one is close to home for us. We were heading for the 417, not sure what we wanted for an early dinner, and when I pointed out that it was there, she said Argentinian food sounded good, so I made a immediate U-turn. I’m so glad we made a last-minute, game-time decision to try it, because we both loved everything, and I highly recommend it to all.

I did not even know what to expect, but Alma Argentina is a small, sit-down restaurant with table service. Our server Julieta was extremely friendly and welcoming, and of course I said it was our first time. She came back quickly with fresh bread for the table, which neither of us expected, but it was a delightful surprise. This was outstanding bread! My photo doesn’t do it justice, but it was so soft, with such a nice, yielding, crackly outer crust, and it was served with a wonderful chimichurri for spreading and/or dipping. Chimichurri is one of the best condiments, especially when it is freshly made, as this almost certainly was. The blend of garlic, parsley, olive oil, and vinegar was so bright-tasting, it was an ideal complement to the bread, and to the festival of meats that followed.

Alma Argentina offers multiple flavors of empanadas, and you can mix and match in orders of three, six, or twelve. My wife was interested in the pork empanada, and I wanted to try pretty much all of them, so we settled for three. Imagine my surprise when Julieta asked if we wanted them baked or fried. I asked her what was better, and she didn’t hesitate to say “Fried.” It wasn’t long before she brought out three gorgeous empanadas, fried to perfection.

It was my wife’s idea to try the pork empanada, with slow-cooked pork shoulder, but I ended up eating most of it. With no other ingredients, I wondered if it might be a little dry or boring, but it absolutely wasn’t. The pork was so tender and flavorful!

I figured “When in Argentina, order the Classic Argentinian empanada.” This one came stuffed with seasoned ground beef and chopped onions, peppers, olives, and hard-boiled eggs. Magnificent! It was so juicy, it splattered my favorite guayabera shirt when I took a bite, and I wasn’t even mad. I liked the different textures in this one, but I am generally a fan of adding hard-boiled eggs to things, whether you’re talking about potato salad, chopped liver, or empanadas.

And this was the osso bucco empanada, with more slow-cooked, tender meat, onions, peppers, and what looked like diced carrots and possibly a pea. It was almost like stew in there, so it got pretty messy, but so delicious. These are some of the best empanadas in Orlando, without a doubt. Despite the wet ingredients, the fried pastry shells held up extraordinarily well.

My wife ordered costillas (beef ribs), and she received a large portion with two thick slabs of tender, marbled meat, cross-cut so you got a few short stubs of bone studded in the meat. We were both a little surprised when Julieta asked her how she wanted it cooked, since nobody ever asks how you want ribs cooked. My wife wisely chose medium rare, and it all made sense when they were served in this cross-cut style. It was the perfect temperature. When ribs are sliced this way, the meat easily tears off from around the bone, and it is a very satisfying process to pull the meat off by hand. They reminded me of flanken, an Ashkenazi Jewish dish of braised short ribs cross-cut like this, and you also see them in this style in Korean galbi, just with a sweet marinade.

You can choose a side with the entrees and sandwiches, and she made another wise decision, choosing fries. These are some of my favorite kinds of fries, twice-fried with a crispy, almost batter-like coating. Orlando’s wonderful Brazilian restaurant Mrs. Potato serves very similar fries, and these were on the same level. We shared them, and I was dipping back and forth between ketchup and chimichurri. Even though I can take or leave a lot of fries, these were something special.

Since the bread was so good, and since we were already trying a few different meats between the three empanadas and the beef ribs, I decided to try a choripan sandwich, which came with two different kinds of chorizo sausages. I guess I was hoping for Spanish-style cured chorizo, sliced thin and slightly spicy, similar to salami and pepperoni. Instead, the sandwich on the same delicious fresh bread included two link sausages, both cut the long way. Their shape made it hard to keep them contained in the sandwich, especially with butter lettuce, sliced tomatoes, mayo, and chimichurri adding to things slipping and sliding. This was an extremely messy sandwich to eat, but worth the struggle.

Here’s a look at the inside. Like I said, both sausages were very savory and kind of greasy, but not spicy, and not cured like Spanish chorizo or your typical Italian salumi. Still good, though!

And for a side, I chose potato salad, since I have been on a kick of trying different versions of potato and macaroni salads whenever I find them on menus. It was good, and better once I mixed in the remaining chimichurri that came with our bread, but the fries definitely took the prize.

I feel like a boob — a real boludo — for not trying Alma Argentina sooner, especially since it is so close to where we live. Everything we tried exceeded our expectations, as did the overall experience of dining in. We will definitely add it to our regular rotating restaurant repertoire, especially for takeout. I look forward to working my way through the *19* savory empanada options, and my wife will want to try the three dessert empanadas at some point. She likes steak even more than I do, so I’m sure she will switch it up and try some of the different Argentinian steaks on future visits. Maybe we’ll share the parrillada, a mixed grill platter that comes with flap meat, beef ribs, chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage, which I love, but she wants nothing to do with), sweetbreads, and chinchulines (grilled beef intestines, which are tastier than you would think).

Regardless, if you like meat, don’t do what I did and sleep on Alma Argentina for over two years. It’s a small, family-owned restaurant that is easy to miss if you’re driving by that little segment of Oviedo. Stop in, and you will be wowed by their hospitality and hearty, flavorful food the way we were. ¡Che, buen provecho!

Briskets BBQ Shack & Grill

Briskets BBQ Shack & Grill (https://www.brisketsbbq.com/) is a literal shack in quiet Oviedo, Florida, slightly off the beaten path but well worth the schlep. I met some of the nicest, sweetest people — a true family operation — serving some of the best barbecue I’ve ever had in the Orlando area.
Needless to say, just discovering a new barbecue joint is pretty exciting, especially since I work odd hours now and rarely get out to eat during the work week. Briskets opens at 10 AM, and since I don’t start work until noon (the joys of working on Pacific time), I made sure to be there right when it opened to bring home plenty of delicious takeout. My wife and I got several meals out of this barbecue bounty from Briskets.

You order inside the small shack, where you can see everything ready to be portioned and served. Briskets serves two kinds of house-made smoked sausages, wrapped in natural casings for that perfect snappiness that causes momentary happiness. Did I try them both? Have you ever read this food blog before? What do YOU think?!?!

Sides are on display: elbow macaroni in the front left with creamy smoked cheddar cheese sauce behind it for mac and cheese, green beans topped with crumbled bacon in the back right, and in front of that, awe-inspiring cornbread casserole. (More on these soon enough.)

Here we have smoked corn and the best baked beans I’ve ever had in the back (more on dem beans in a bit), and something else next to sweet potato casserole in the front right — possibly loaded mashed potatoes topped with cheese and bacon? I did not try that one, so apologies.

These are savory brisket and cheese hand pies, with a nice, flaky crust. Of course I had to try one! I don’t have a picture of it cut open, but it was really good, like everything else from Briskets. They also offer pulled pork hand pies sometimes, but not on the day I visited. I would have preferred that, because pulled pork was one of the only meats I did not bring home, but the brisket pie was excellent. (I didn’t detect any cheese inside the pie with the shredded brisket, but it came with an additional ramekin of the smoked cheddar cheese sauce for dippin’, so maybe that’s where the cheese comes in.)

This was the highlight, the glorious beef rib, something my wife and I have both craved for far too long. Charismatic barbecue boss Chuck Cobb blessed Central Florida with Git-N-Messy BBQ before passing away in early 2022. In in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, back in the spring and summer of 2020, when Chuck served his barbecue out of a convenience store in Winter Park, I brought home many flawless beef ribs that each lasted us multiple meals. They were one of the only highlights of those weeks and months of isolation, fear, and uncertainty. Finding out Briskets served wonderful beef ribs of their own was my main impetus for visiting it in the first place. There is so much meat, you won’t believe it if you’ve never had one. If you’ve had “kinda big” pork spareribs, forget it. Those don’t even compare. While this is not the cheapest item on Briskets’ menu, one rib is more than enough for a meal, even for Chris Rock in I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka. The beef is so tender and juicy with lots of marbling from fat and a nice outer bark made from rubbed spices, and the rib easily pulls off the Brobdingnagian, brontosaurus-sized bone in one piece. Briskets serves their beef rib with whole smoked jalapeño peppers and a mound of really good bread and butter pickle slices, all atop three slices of white bread that soaked in all those juices and flavors. We both loved this beef rib, and I loved everything else that came with it.

Beyond that, I selected a Texas three-meat plate, which came in those great plastic containers that are dishwasher-safe and microwave-safe, with a clear lid that snaps on. I wish more restaurants would use those.

For our meats, I selected brisket (you have to try the namesake meat!), pork spareribs (excellent in their own right, just don’t expect them to equal the beef rib in size), and the smoked sausage. I mentioned there were two kinds of smoked sausage on the day I went: Texas beef sausage and jalapeño cheddar sausage. I would have had a hard time choosing, but they were kind enough to let me try both together as one of my meat choices! Of course, both were excellent, and that snappy bite you get from the natural casing really elevates them above and beyond most other sausages.The brisket also had some nice marbling — not too lean nor too fatty — and was very tender and packed with flavor from smoking it low and slow. The pork spareribs had a slight sweetness from the sticky glaze to counterbalance their salty smokiness. Every single one of the meats amazed and astonished, but that’s not all! The Texas three-meat platter came with two sides, and because this was my first visit, I brought home a couple of others, too.

Here is the macaroni and cheese. The smoked cheese sauce ladled on right before packing it up in the to-go container really sets it apart. I think adding something else to it might put it over the top, like diced pimentos or other peppers for some acidity to balance out the smoky richness, or a seasoned bread crumb topping for a bit of crunch with all that silky smoothness.

I loved the creamy potato salad, which had a slight crunch from bits of celery(?) and tanginess from yellow mustard. Yes, this was a Southern-style potato salad, and it was damn fine. My constant readers, the stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, may be noticing that I try to sample potato salad and macaroni salad wherever they are available, and this one did not disappoint.

These are Bob’s country beans, and they were the most perfect, most glorious, and most beautiful barbecue baked beans I’ve ever had in my life. Just from one glance, you can see they aren’t your typical brown baked beans, swimming in a sweet, sticky sauce. There are multiple varieties of beans at play here, and my wife and I could not identify all the different shapes, colors, and sizes. I took to Facebook to ask what kinds of beans were included, and someone from Briskets (Bob himself?) told me “it took oh maybe half my life to figure that particular recipe out I’m not too quick to share it if that makes sense. I’ve had a lot of people make a lot of guesses of what’s in there and none have gotten it yet.” I get it, and I appreciate that. Unless you are Penn and Teller, most magicians don’t reveal how their tricks work either, and I am perfectly happy to be caught up in the mystery of it all.

I chose this sweet potato casserole for my wife specifically, although I ended up eating most of it after she first tried some. (She doesn’t dig on leftovers quite as much as I do.) It was your typical Thanksgiving style — very rich and sweet from butter, brown sugar, and pecans, but no marshmallow topping here.

And this was the magnificent cornbread casserole, which was topped with a drizzle of honey. It was sweet — not savory at all — to the point of it practically being a dessert, and so rich and satisfying. This was a huge hit with both of us.

I also had to get some banana pudding for us to share back at home. It was creamy and cool and refreshing, and I strongly recommend it. Banana pudding goes so well with barbecue, Nashville hot chicken (it might have saved my tongue at the legendary Hattie B’s in Nashville), and so many other Southern meals. This one was no exception.

While I have every intention of returning to Briskets BBQ Shack & Grill and becoming a regular, I feel like I definitely tried enough menu items on my first visit to write a comprehensive review. This is still a new business (and did I mention it’s a small, family-owned business?), and I want word of mouth to echo from computers and phones, resonate from the rooftops, and spread throughout the Orlando area. We are two weeks out from Christmas, and Briskets is even offering a special Christmas menu for feeding huge parties. In the cooler months ahead, you may want to trek out to Oviedo and enjoy your food al fresco, at those picnic tables they provide, before the humidity becomes unbearable (in March). But Floridians love good barbecue year-round — I know I do — and at this moment, I can’t think of any better barbecue around here. Trust me, you need to discover this place for yourselves before everyone else in town does, because long lines of loyal customers are inevitable. Why not join me in becoming a loyal customer before the lines get out of hand? You won’t regret it!