Salads – The Saboscrivner

Aurora

To my dozens of regular readers, I apologize for accidentally publishing this piece last week, while it was still an incomplete draft. I unpublished it immediately, but any subscribers would have automatically received an unfinished version, and I regret that. That’s a rookie mistake, and you really hate to see it!

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Aurora (https://aurorarestaurantorlando.com/) is a beautiful restaurant located inside the Celeste Hotel, standing in front of the University of Central Florida in East Orlando, at the intersection of University Boulevard and Alafaya Trail. I recently took my wife to dinner at Aurora, the first time for both of us, and we had an incredible experience that left us yearning for more. Executive Chef Mike Trudnak is a CIA graduate (the good CIA, the Culinary Institute of America), and he has created one of the most exciting menus I’ve encountered in the Orlando area in a long time. We will definitely return and hopefully become regulars, especially since Chef Trudnak changes the menu seasonally.

I had bugged my wife to try Aurora for years, but the impetus for us to finally make it there back in July was Bite 30, the annual midsummer event in which some Orlando restaurants offer an optional prix fixe menu where you can get an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert for the reasonable fixed price of $38. (It started out years ago at $30, hence the name, but I get it, food costs more, and I don’t begrudge restaurants having to raise their prices to stay afloat.) It’s a fantastic way to try new restaurants and sample several different dishes that you might never otherwise order.

I absolutely love that younger generations are drinking less, encouraging more and more restaurants to offer mocktails on their drink menus. Neither my wife nor I drink alcohol, but she likes the experience of getting a nice mixed drink in mocktail form. This was the Asteroid, with muddled blueberries and blackberries, lemon lime soda, and simple syrup, and garnished with fresh mint leaves. She said it was delicious.

Even though it wasn’t part of the Bite 30 menu, I suggested we get the bread service, with fresh, fluffy, pillowy-soft yeast rolls. These were awe-inspiring. If you’ve ever bought frozen Sister Schubert’s yeast rolls or tried the versions at Texas Roadhouse, those are fine, but these are a million times better, and not just because I’ve been eating low-carb lately. I can’t rave about these yeast rolls enough.

The bread service came with honey butter and house herb butter, both whipped for smooth and easy spreading. They were great (show me some bad butter… I’m waiting!), but the rolls were so perfect, they didn’t even need butter.

The beet and goat cheese summer salad was on the appetizer list for Bite 30, but even though there were appetizers that appealed to each of us more, we were both very intrigued by this salad. Our lovely and patient server Alura told us that we could order a half-portion of the salad and the kitchen would even split it for us, so we could each try everything. That was the perfect solution to a first-world problem, and we were so grateful to her for letting us know.

So this beautiful plating is half of the half-portion! The salad contains local baby greens, paper-thin sliced cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, pickled fennel, watermelon radish, baby beets, sorrel, sunflower seeds, hibiscus, and goat cheese puffs, with a wee pitcher of honey thyme vinaigrette dressing. What a masterful salad, as beautiful as it was tasty. We both love beats and goat cheese, and I’m always intrigued by interesting dressings because I eat so many salads at home. This did not disappoint.

The baked puffs, airy and crispy at the same time, really did have goat cheese baked inside!

We both love raw tuna, and my wife chose these gorgeous tuna tostadas as her Bite 30 prix fixe appetizer. They contained ponzu-marinated Ahi tuna, smashed avocado, aioli cabbage slaw, wakame (an edible seaweed), and pickled red onion on the top of the crunchy fried tostada discs. They were a little messy to eat, but so worth it.

As for me, as a middle-aged man, I don’t get that many opportunities to eat an entirely new meat for the first time in my life, so I couldn’t resist the allure of camel empanadas! Yes indeed, these golden-brown empanadas, fried to perfection, contained ground camel meat, seasoned with vadouvan curry, onions, peppers, and garlic. What the heck is vadouvan curry, you ask? Well, I didn’t know either, but I’m a librarian, so I looked it up. As usual, Serious Eats had the answer — a sweet and smoky French-influenced blend of toasted spices, with shallots, onions, garlic (sometimes), fenugreek, chile, cumin, and curry leaves.
They were served with whipped feta cucumber tzatziki dipping sauce. Everything was so good. As Jim Gaffigan once said, there’s no such thing as a bad empanada, and he was right.

Here’s a rare look inside a camel empanada!

My wife ordered the grilled beef filet medallions as her entree, a dish that would have cost $58 just by itself on the regular menu! They were served on a bed of carrot puree with asparagus, fondant potatoes (the two brown puffs at 1:00 and 7:00), and the brown sauce is a peppercorn demi-glace. Her only complaint was that she asked for them rare and they were cooked well beyond rare, but she still liked them a lot.

And since I was having a hard time deciding, I asked her what her second choice would be, so I could order that one. She said she was curious about the tableside finished eggplant parmesan, so of course I ordered it so we could share. The Italian-breaded eggplant cutlet looked a little naked, despite being topped with balsamic spheres and micro basil. The description didn’t mention it came with any pasta, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a bed of thick sheets of (no doubt freshly made) pappardelle underneath it.

But hey, what’s this? A second server came to the table, carefully holding a sizzling skillet of San Marzano tomato vodka sauce topped with melty broiled burrata and parmesan cheeses, meant to pour over the eggplant at tableside!

I never record video on The Saboscrivner food blog, because nobody wants to watch me eat, plus I have a face for radio and a voice best suited for print media. So you’ll have to believe me that it was a nice little production of the sauce and cheese sliding out of that hot pan onto my eggplant, but you don’t get to see it in action. You can imagine, though. I NEVER order eggplant parm at restaurants (I have two talented friends who made the best versions I’ve ever had in their own kitchens), but this was a particularly nice one, especially with the whole “dinner and a show” aspect.

For dessert, my wife got the flourless chocolate torte, with dark chocolate ganache, strawberry sorbet, and fresh strawberries. Me not being a big chocolate eater, it would never have occurred to me to order this, but I tried a small morsel, and I loved not only the rich, intense, chocolatey flavor, but also the smooth texture. It’s gluten-free, too!

I chose the lemon and wild berry cake because I always love any citrusy desserts. The small cake was about the size of a hockey puck, rather than a slice from a larger cake. It was topped with blueberry compote, a mountainous dollop of fresh whipped cream, and a beautiful hibiscus flower.

Here’s a better angle so you can see more of the blueberry compote on top and all the berries baked inside.

We went back to Aurora this past weekend for Magical Dining, when Orlando-area restaurants offer a similar fixed-price menu for either $40 or $60, and part of each bill goes to worthy charities like OCA (Opportunity, Community, Ability), which empowers individuals with autism and other developmental differences. (Aurora’s menu was $40.) This event is always scheduled for mid-August through September, historically one of the slower times of the year for restaurants, since kids are back in school and tourism decreases. Just like Bite 30, it’s a great opportunity to try new dishes at new restaurants, or to go back to old favorites, and my wife was excited to return to Aurora. Hopefully after reading this review, you might be excited to go there too, with several weeks left to go during Magical Dining.

The Magical Dining menu was very similar to the Bite 30 menu, but I tried my best to try different things this time. My wife got the beet and goat cheese summer salad for her appetizer again, because she loved it that much, but I got something I hoped she would enjoy as well: the jackfruit “tostachos.” This was a platter of crispy tostones (fried green plantains, not sweet or soft like maduros, which are ripe plantains), topped with shredded, roasted, and barbecue-seasoned jackfruit, pickled red onion, heirloom tomato salad, and adobo mayo ketchup. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like, but it was delicious, and it was a much larger portion than the other appetizer I was considering, the Mexican arancini. There were actually five separate topped “tostachos” (like tostone-nachos, get it?), but I gave my wife one before snapping this photo.
The mayo-ketchup was a nice touch, since that’s a common dipping sauce for tostones at Puerto Rican restaurants. And the jackfruit had a similar consistency to shredded barbecue chicken, even though most people wouldn’t mistake it for chicken. I can see it being a godsend for any vegetarians and vegans who used to eat chicken and miss the whole experience.

My wife was drawn to the same grilled beef filet medallions, but this time, they were cooked perfectly rare, as she requested, and I thought this photo came out better.

But I switched it up and ordered a real Florida Man fusion dish: alligator fried rice, with marinated and cornstarch-fried Louisiana gator, tamari orange sauce, stir-fried vegetables (lots of snow peas in there), and sesame seeds. Alligator sure seems like a novelty food — something tourists have to try when they visit Florida or Louisiana — but I can’t help but be drawn to it every few years, just because I crave novelty just like anyone else. If I didn’t know it was alligator, I’d probably think it was fried chicken, but it is not as tender as chicken. Other than the fried gator nuggets and the sweet orange sauce, this reminded me of the fried rice I make at home, which was somehow a confidence-booster. I’m extra-glad I didn’t get the Mexican arancini appetizer, because that would have been two rice dishes in one meal, and that would be unhinged!

Creatures of habit that we are, we defaulted to the same desserts as last time, because they were so damn good. She got the flourless chocolate tarte with dark chocolate ganache and strawberry sorbet again, and it was just as good this time:

And I got the lemon and wild berry cake again, because it is probably in the Top Five restaurant desserts I’ve ever had. But this time, I was so full, I asked for it to go, and they were kind enough to pack up the fresh whipped cream and blueberry compote in separate little plastic ramekins.

Well, we have every intention of returning to Aurora in the future, even when they aren’t doing special fixed-price menus. I think of it as a “special occasion” restaurant, even though they have perfectly normal menus and even serve breakfast every weekday until 11 AM, plus brunch on the weekends. There aren’t a lot of “nicer” restaurants in East Orlando — just the Cooper’s Hawk chain in Waterford Lakes, the casual Wine 4 Oysters, and Aurora, and this is definitely our favorite. It’s so nice, but not a stuffy or intimidating sort of nice. Bring a date, bring your parents, bring out-of-town guests, and you’ll have a grand time. Just show up for breakfast or lunch on a regular, normal day, and you’ll really enjoy it, but don’t miss that Magical Dining menu. You have a few more weeks to catch the prix-fixe options, and I promise you won’t regret it.

Mae Tao and Son’s Kitchen

Orlando’s newest, hottest restaurant is Mae Tao and Son’s Kitchen (https://www.mtskitchen.com/). Located in the food court of Lotte Plaza Market, the sprawling Asian supermarket at 3191 West Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL 32808 (on the corner of John Young Parkway), this venture from married couple Brittney Keophoxay-Lam and Dan Lam serves Laotian and Cambodian (Khmer) cuisines. Orlando has had one Laotian restaurant for many years (Sticky Rice, which I haven’t been back to in far too long, come to think of it), but this is the first-ever Cambodian restaurant to open here, and it started out as a food truck before moving into its permanent location in the Lotte food court. They were in a soft opening phase for the past week, and they had their grand opening yesterday. Now that Mae Tao and Son’s Kitchen is officially open, the hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 AM to 8 PM.

The menu is on the website, as well as on the illuminated big screens above the booth, and believe me, my wife and I studied it in advance. I got there shortly after it opened today, and I ordered a bunch of food to bring home to share with her. I always keep a big “heat bag” in my car for bringing takeout food home, and everything was still hot when I got back home.

We started out with an order of roti, those crispy, flaky fried flatbreads that came with pickled cabbage (more about this later) and a creamy, mildly spicy house-made curry dipping sauce. If you’ve ever been to Hawkers, you probably know and love roti, and I’ve even bought very similar frozen ones, but these tasted freshly made.

We were both intrigued by this cured salmon laap salad. I am never a fan of cooked salmon, but I love raw salmon (one more reason I may be a bear, besides looking like one), and one of my favorite foods is cold-smoked, thin-sliced nova salmon, so I was curious about this version of cured salmon. The website says the slices of cured salmon are tossed with herbs (there was a lot of fresh mint, in addition to crunchy red and green onions), toasted rice powder, lime, and traditional Lao seasonings. It was served with some sliced cucumbers and a nice-sized portion of sticky rice, which I thought my wife would love, even if she wasn’t into the salmon. Well, she loved the sticky rice (she had only ever had sweet sticky rice before, in Thai desserts), and she surprised me by not only liking the cured salmon, but liking it more than I did. I generally love tangy, sour, acidic flavors, and I fell in love with the Thai “meat salad” larb when I first discovered it last year (at Isan Zaap Thai Cafe). I wondered if this “laap” salad would be similar to larb, especially with the toasted rice powder and lime juice, but this particular recipe had a fermented funkiness I wasn’t expecting, which made me wonder if fish sauce was one of those traditional Lao seasonings. I did appreciate that the salmon still had that nice raw texture and wasn’t “cooked” by the lime juice, the way salmon comes in ceviche. That said, I don’t regret ordering or trying it!

This was kuy teav, a Cambodian noodle soup made with a Wagyu beef broth, tender (and chewy!) beef meatballs, and flat rice noodles, topped with fresh herbs, shallots, and crispy fried garlic. I also paid small upcharges to have quail eggs, beef tripe, and a braised boneless beef rib added to the soup. My wife and I both love Vietnamese pho, that ubiquitous beef noodle soup that maybe should become the official dish of Orlando (hey, it makes more sense than honey nougat glacé!), and I really wanted to compare and contrast this new soup to pho, since they sounded similar at the most surface level. Like all the best pho spots, Mae Tao and Son’s packaged the broth on the side, so it wouldn’t turn the tender noodles to mush on my drive home.
I liked all the ingredients in this kuy teav soup, even the addition of beef tripe, despite not always enjoying the texture of it in pho. I thought the broth was more delicately flavored than the stronger flavor of pho broth, but maybe it’s because I’ve only tried it this one time, and it didn’t come with any additional condiments or seasonings that way every Vietnamese restaurant allows diners to customize their pho. I loved the meatballs and quail eggs, though. (I keep a few cans of quail eggs in the pantry at home because I like to pickle them in the fridge for quick protein snacks. Yes, you can buy peeled, hard-boiled quail eggs in cans at Asian markets!)

Mae Tao and Son’s Kitchen is definitely a fusion restaurant, devoted to winning over new fans who are unfamiliar with Laotian and Cambodian flavors. In addition to everything else we tried, we got two of their sandwiches, which are huge and beautiful and served on toasted brioche buns, served with the cut side up because they are so photogenic. Longtime readers and anyone who knows me in real life know how much I love a good sandwich, and these sandwiches are designed to be perfect gateways to introduce those unfamiliar eaters to these two new cuisines. (I still have fond memories of my first introduction to Filipino cuisine, which I now love, from the fusion dishes at the long-gone Taglish, a former tenant of the Lotte Plaza Market food court.)

This was the BBQ tiger beef “sando,” smoked beef in a crying tiger Lao-style barbecue glaze, layered with delicious black garlic aioli, jeow som cabbage, and fresh greens. I was completely unfamiliar with jeow som, but I did a bit of research, and it is a Lao dipping sauce made with fish sauce (A-HA!), herbs, fresh lime juice, garlic, sugar, chopped cilantro, and peppers. So the finely shredded red cabbage was tossed in this dipping sauce, making it like a sweet, sour, funky, crunchy slaw.

One thing my wife and I were surprised to discover on this sandwich that wasn’t listed in the ingredients was a large hash brown potato patty, which was a really nice touch. I don’t know why more places don’t put those into sandwiches! Anyway, this was a huge hit with both of us.

And this was maybe my favorite thing of all, the sweet and sour tamarind “sando,” with crispy panko-breaded and fried chicken thigh cutlets tossed in a sweet and sour tamarind glaze, topped with more of that black garlic aioli, jeow som cabbage, and fresh greens. There is A LOT going on in both of these sandwiches, but in a good way. Over the past three months, my wife has suddenly become a far more adventurous eater. I’ve always loved trying new things, but she has started sharing my enthusiasm for food, even as I’ve been slowly eating less, eating healthier, and losing weight since the start of this year. (Today was a bit of an exception, obviously.) She never even cared for sandwiches before, mostly because she doesn’t like different food touching and usually tries to avoid bread, but she gave both of these sandwiches a fair chance and ended up liking the BBQ tiger beef more. I was happy that she was all in on this new alimentary adventure with me.

So even though you’re probably going to be seeing these stunning sandwich cross-sections in your socials a lot over the next few weeks, I wanted to publish this review ASAP, while the details were still fresh in my head and the flavors were still dancing on my tongue and in my memory. You should make your way to Lotte Plaza Market ASAP, because it’s still a super-nice Asian supermarket with something for everyone, and it’s still a lot less crowded and chaotic than H-Mart, a year after the latter opened. And while you’re picking up your staples, sauces, seafood, and snacks, stop by the food court and give Mae Tao and Son’s Kitchen a try. If you’re still on the fence, you would probably love Laotian and Cambodian food if you like Thai flavors. It’s not a fully accurate comparison, but it might be the most familiar to the uninitiated. The sandwiches were my favorite by far, but you really can’t go wrong. I didn’t get to meet Brittany or Dan (and they would have no idea who I am anyway), but they’re off to an amazing start with Orlando’s hottest restaurant. And as you can tell, this place has everything.

The Corner Pizza Bar

The Corner Pizza Bar (https://thecornerpizzabar.com/) is a super-casual pizzeria and bar in downtown Orlando, located at 150 S Magnolia Ave, Orlando, FL 32801. It is one of the closest restaurants within walking distance to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, and I was on my way to a show when I met a friend, his girlfriend, and another friend of his there for dinner. They were kind enough to invite me to join them, or otherwise, I would have gone straight from work to the concert, skipping dinner and some really pleasant human contact with really pleasant humans. I wasn’t expecting the pizza would be so good, either!

First of all, I liked that The Corner Pizza Bar was kind of dark and somewhat cavernous inside. I love restaurants like this, where you aren’t being blinded by bright light and don’t feel like other diners are right on top of you. This was late June, when the World Cup was happening, so most people in there were watching socc… um, footba… nah, whatever, soccer on the large-screen TVs. We were just there to eat and chat before seeing the brilliant British singer-songwriter-piano player Joe Jackson, an underrated musical legend who has been reinventing himself since the late ’70s. Yes, he’s still around, and he’s still got it.

Since this has been my year of cutting carbs and losing weight, I figured I was at a new pizzeria, so I might as well treat myself and try their pizza. I appreciate any pizzeria that sells slices, so I went with a plain cheese slice. Toppings are fine, but you can really size up a pizzeria and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses by ordering a plain slice and enjoying it on the premises. Well, for one thing, this slice was HUGE. At a glance, it reminded me of Lazy Moon Pizza, that Orlando institution with three locations that I have a lot of nostalgic love for. But I thought The Corner’s slice was much better than Lazy Moon — more like a traditional thin and crispy New York slice.
I appreciated that the crust wasn’t burnt to a crisp, the cheese was melty, and the robust sauce didn’t feel like an afterthought. Of course I fold my slices, and this one flopped a little due to sheer size, but it did not affect my enjoyment at all. It was a lot better than some of the better-known and highly vaunted local pizzerias, I can tell you that.

The other thing I ordered was my other go-to at any pizzeria: a Sicilian slice. I love Sicilian pizza more than anyone else I know, again due to nostalgia. I would always get one of these thick, rectangular slices at Cozzoli’s Pizza at the Dadeland Mall food court as a kid in the ’80s, and I’ve been chasing that high ever since. It is nothing like Chicago-style deep dish pizza, and it is less greasy than the rectangular slices of a Detroit-style pan pizza with its caramelized cheese “frico” edges. I love that the Sicilian crust is crispy on the bottom, but underneath the mozzarella cheese and thick tomato sauce, it is pillowy soft. This was a fantastic Sicilian slice, especially in a city where not enough pizzerias offer this option. I have no complaints, no nitpicks.

My friend and his girlfriend ordered this calzone to share with each other, but when they started getting full, they asked if I wanted any. Since we were all heading to the concert, I took it upon myself to finish it, and I have no regrets for stepping up. I don’t always go crazy for calzones, but this one had a nice, light crust brushed with garlic butter. Some places overbake them so the crust becomes a bland, dry impediment, rather than an enjoyable component of the finished product. They chose meatballs to go inside, along with the mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, and I forget what else, but you can’t ever go wrong with meatballs at an Italian restaurant. I honestly prefer them to pepperoni or sausage as a pizza topping — either sliced or crumbled. And if you don’t know, now you know!

I have to admit, I avoid going to downtown Orlando whenever possible, after two hectic years of working down there, twenty years ago. The parking can be a nightmare, although I paid extra for guaranteed parking in a garage for the Joe Jackson concert, and that put me mere steps away from The Corner Pizza Bar. The nighttime crowds can be intense and intimidating, but this was a quiet Monday night. It’s just a schlep in general, or else I would consider returning to The Corner Pizza Bar somewhat regularly. But next time I attend a concert downtown, I will absolutely go back for a pre-show dinner. The pizza and calzone were better than they had any right to be, the good conversation with friends old and new elevated the entire meal even higher, and then I got to see a musical legend perform for the first time. The Corner Pizza Bar helped make that a memorable, magical Monday.

Tuun (at Sea Thai)

Tuun (https://www.instagram.com/tuunorlando/) is essentially a restaurant operating within a restaurant, at Sea Thai (https://seathaiorlando.com/), located at 3812 East Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL 32803. Sea Thai has been in that location near the Fashion Square Mall and Orlando’s Milk District neighborhood since 2007), so it was still new in the early days of my old job, when I had lunch there a few times. I don’t know why I never worked it into my regular rotation, because it was always solid.

But I had been dying to get back over there to try the special menu offered at Tuun, coming out of the same kitchen as all of Sea Thai’s regular dishes. It’s the brainchild of Chef Jack Jone Tawa Chavitranurak, the brother of the owner of Sea Thai. He started Tuun in 2020, so it took far too many years to finally try it, but better later than never.

We got together with a super-cool couple for dinner (literally the coolest people we know), and it was the first time we’ve ever had a chance to sit and eat and chat, all four of us. You see, I would run into them on the rare times I go anywhere cool or do anything fun in Orlando, first meeting them at a Kyle Kinane show at The Abbey in Thornton Park, then at Neko Case at the Beacham in downtown Orlando, then at J.G. Thirlwell at the Timucua White House, and I saw him flying solo at a Surfragettes show at Will’s Pub and a couple of comic conventions. We’ve also had lunch at Black Bean Deli and Isan Zaap Thai Cafe before. I’d always come home raving about how cool they are, and my wife finally met this mythical couple when we all saw Fred Armisen perform at The Abbey last year. We’ve been wanting to hang out with them in a place we could talk and hear each other ever since, and we finally made it happen at Sea Thai!

Our friends ordered these spring rolls off the regular Sea Thai menu to start with. They are filled with glass noodles and mixed vegetables, fried in their tightly rolled wrappers until crispy, and served with plum sauce for dipping.

And here is a shot of the Tuun menu, since it isn’t on the Sea Thai website, and there isn’t a Tuun website:

This is the watermelon salad, two round watermelon slices topped with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, fried shallots, and chili watermelon dressing. Both couples ordered a watermelon salad to share, and I think everyone liked it a lot. My wife enjoyed it even more than I.

This was the roti, a crispy, crackly fried savory pastry topped with boneless beef short rib curry, chili oil, kaffir lime, and fried shallots. It felt so much more delicate than the flaky, buttery roti canai that everyone always orders at Hawkers Asian Street Fare. I’m not convinced the roti at Hawkers isn’t a frozen version, since I’ve bought very similar ones at Asian and Indian markets around Orlando. But there is nothing like this roti anywhere, I promise you that!My wife has really been expanding her palate since some surviving some medical issues earlier this summer, and she loves trying new foods more than ever before, which is a joy to watch. She was undaunted by the short rib curry, something she never would have messed with before, but it wasn’t spicy, just flavorful.

The roti was served with cool, crisp cucumbers and some thin-sliced red onions pickled in sweet vinegar. As a fan of so many things pickled and vinegary, I just loved this. It worked well for cutting the salty, fatty, spicy qualities of the other dishes.

My wife is always an octopus lover, and she chose this beautiful, lightly grilled octopus tentacle, served with mango salad, fried shallots, cashews, and garlic lime dressing.

I ordered the Tuun noodles, assuming we would split them, but she didn’t really want any. They were very similar to drunken noodles, also known as pad kee mao or pad kee mow, one of my all-time favorite Thai dishes, and these were served with spicy braised beef, bell pepper, basil, and a big fried egg in the middle. They come with mushrooms too, but I asked our server to hold the mushrooms. I’m sorry I didn’t take another photo to include a view of the flat, wide noodles, but you can kinda-sorta make them out around 6:00. Funny thing, my wife and our friends thought I ordered “tuna noodles” and were surprised when I mentioned beef. I remember eating tuna noodle casserole as a kid, but these Tuun noodles are a world apart from that. Drunken noodle lovers (by which I mean lovers of drunken noodles), don’t sleep on these.

And now, seared duck confit, a dish my wife and I both loved. She’s a superfan of it now, served with more of those fried shallots and tangy-sweet tamarind sauce. I now realize it was supposed to come with fried eggs, but they left them out. We didn’t even notice at the time, but the duck legs were so rich and decadent, cooked to perfection, that we were distracted.

A few weeks later, we had to return to Sea Thai ourselves to go through that Tuun menu again and revisit some of those killer dishes. My wife started with a creamy, smoky Thai iced tea, and this time I remembered to get a picture of it.

This was very much a “greatest hits” meal, because we couldn’t stop thinking about it. I think my photo of the watermelon salad came out better this time. But she loved it so much, I let her have it all.

I think my roti photi (sorry, photo) came out better this time as well.

And the sweet, pickled cucumbers were even more delicious and refreshing this time.

She got the duck confit again, and this time they included the egg, which were jammy in the center and lightly fried.

Me being me, I had to switch it up this time, so I tried Tuun’s stir-fried soft shell crab, with tom yum powder, kaffir lime, fried garlic, and fried shallots. I always like crispy soft shell crab, especially at Thai restaurants, and I was not disappointed. The sauce had a bit of tangy sweetness, maybe also from tamarind (I think the menu was the same on this second visit, but it didn’t mention it), and I swear I tasted ginger as well.

Here’s another angle on the soft shell crab dish:

We will definitely keep returning to Sea Thai for those Tuun specialties, and next time, I might actually order some things off the regular menu. I noticed they have khao soi noodles, which I fell in love with at Thailicious in Longwood last year. But I tell ya, if you go to Sea Thai on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday evening, you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t sample some of the dishes off the special Tuun menu. We are huge fans now, and I can’t imagine anyone could sample these gorgeous plates and not be blown away by their presentation and perfection.

Kaya

Kaya (https://www.kayaorlando.com/) is an upscale Filipino restaurant in Mills 50, Orlando’s best foodie neighborhood. It is owned and operated by Chef Lordfer Lalicon and General Manager Jamilyn Salonga Bailey, who first made names for themselves with Kappo in Orlando’s East End Market food hall, then launched their award-winning omakase sushi restaurant Kadence. I have not been lucky enough to go to either yet, but I’ve been aware of them for the longest time, and they seem like incredibly nice, hard-working, talented people who deserve all their accolades and local love. Kaya first opened in 2022, and while I’ve been wanting to try it ever since, I finally made it there for the first time a few weeks ago. Better late than never, because I had an unforgettable experience that I’ve been replaying in my head ever since.

I was actually meeting a friend for dinner on a rare weeknight I was off work: someone I also consider a mentor and a role model, Amy Drew Thompson, the food writer for the Orlando Sentinel. This was my second time meeting Amy Drew in real life, and she is a delightful person who is so nice, so knowledgeable, and an amazing writer. Kaya is one of her favorite local restaurants, and I was thrilled she was willing and able to meet me there. Of course everyone at Kaya knew her, because she does so much for Orlando’s local food scene. Jami came by to check on us a few times, and even Chef Lalicon (who everyone calls “Chef Lo”) popped out of the kitchen. We sat at the bar, and the two bartenders, Daniel and a nice lady whose name I’m blanking on, took wonderful care of us.

They started us out with a mocktail called Hiraya, with white peony and marigold tea, pineapple juice, and lime juice, sprinkled with Sichuan peppercorns. It was so refreshing! It started with the unmistakable sweet taste of pineapple, but that quickly faded to something more botanical. I’ve never tasted anything like those tea flavors, but it tasted like my wife’s shampoo smells (in a good way).

The first dish to come out was Lumpiang Shanghai, an order of three very long, very crispy spring rolls, stuffed with seasoned pork and chicken and served with hibiscus sweet chili sauce. I knew these as lumpia, and I’ve had them before (including when a very sweet student made them and brought me some, years ago), but with all due respect to her, I’ve never had anything close to these. They set the tone for a multi-course meal where each dish was the most interesting thing I had ever tasted, until the next one came along and supplanted it.

Kinilaw is a raw fish-based dish somewhat reminiscent of ceviche in Latin American countries, except where ceviche uses citrus juices to “cook” the fish, kinilaw utilizes vinegar for a similar purpose. This gorgeous kinilaw incorporated madai, the Japanese word for red sea bream, a whole new fish I had never tasted before (although some of my research tells me the term is used interchangeably with red snapper, usually when it’s served as sushi). Delicate raw slices of the madai were served with peaches, paper-thin slices of crunchy radish, coconut, and chili flakes, all arranged artfully on separate little crispy islands of puffed rice. You can see five little radish slices, each one topping a piece of the madai, and there’s puffed rice under each one. You would scoop up the whole little stack, and it is a perfect bite of food with so many textures and flavors. Chef Lo used pinakurat, which is a spiced coconut vinegar (made from coconut sap). I’ve bought the Suka Pinakurat brand before, at Orlando’s many Asian markets, since I love experimenting with different vinegars almost as much as I love mustards, but I never dreamed anyone could use it to create a dish on this level of complexity and beauty.

This beautiful dish was Bicol Express mussels, served in a broth of coconut cream, Thai chilis, shallot, garlic, and bagoong, served with thick slices of pandesal toast for dipping in the rich broth. I love mussels in any form, and this dish was the most unique way I’ve ever eaten them. Bicol Express is a Filipino dish traditionally made with cubes of pork, rather than one of the best bivalves.

Bagoong, by the way, is a Filipino condiment made of fermented shrimp or krill cured in salt, which makes a salty, savory, umami flavor. It sounds intense and funky, but I didn’t notice anything intense or funky standing out to distract from the mussels or their creamy, spicy, coconutty broth. But I like intense and funky! (I’ve been told that I AM intense and funky!)

I wrote about pandesal, literally “bread of salt,” when I reviewed the Filipino-American fusion bakery-cafe The Baker’s Son in Kissimmee, this past December. It is some of the most delicious bread I’ve ever tasted, similar to buttery brioche, Japanese milk bread, and French pain de mie, sharing their subtle sweetness. As I’ve gotten older, and especially as I’ve cut way back on carbs, sometimes I just really appreciate good toast, and this pandesal toast was no joke, especially when used to sop up the broth and flex a couple of mussels.

This was Ningang’s rigatoni, a take on the Filipino style of spaghetti, which is traditionally served with cut-up hot dogs and Spam in a sweet tomato sauce. On my one trip to the Filipino fried chicken chain Jollibee, I was most excited to try a side order of that spaghetti, but I didn’t think it was anything special. Kaya’s menu describes their version of the dish as “Filipino beef Bolognese, Spam, aged gouda, a touch of sweetness, a lot of love.” You can taste the love in it, along with in everything else Chef Lo makes. I love a good pasta dish, especially a meat sauce, and I really loved this rigatoni. I would have a hard time returning to Kaya and not ordering this every time (among other things, natch).

I’ve written often about how one of my favorite meats is oxtail, whether it’s in Jamaican or Trinidadian cuisine, American soul food, or even in a steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho. I was curious about trying Kaya’s oxtail kare kare, served in a rich peanut sauce with eggplant, bok choy, and a little dipping bowl of bagoong (in the top right, so you can see it by itself), but I’ve never tried or even seen oxtail like this. Usually eating it is a messy affair, as you’re holding the irregularly shaped bone segments and chewing the tender meat and unctuous fat off them, and the bones are slippery enough that they can slip right out of your hands and go flying. If my dad ever dared to eat oxtail, he would probably add it to his list of foods to not eat on a date, including most other hand-held meat with bones, and anything you have to “fight with” too much — crab legs that need to be cracked, shrimp that need to be shelled, and so forth. But Chef Lo deboned all that rich meat and pressed it into a brick, then seared the outside to crispy perfection. It was not only delicious and not only gorgeous, like everything else we were experiencing at Kaya, but he made it EASY.The oxtail kare kare was served with a side of buttery garlic rice called sinangag, which you must order separately (for $5) if your entree doesn’t come with it.

Because I was dining with a culinary luminary, Jami and Chef Lo sent us out these gambas: huge Cape Canaveral white shrimp, served with the heads on as well as the tails, in rich garlic butter, kalamansi verde, and preserved lemon. Now these were messy, but what a festival of flavors and textures and colors!
Kalamansi (sometimes called calamansi or calamondin) is a small, round citrus fruit, a hybrid of a kumquat and a Mandarin orange, and their juice is used in a lot of Filipino recipes. Ripe ones are orange, but because the ones used in this recipe were kalamansi verde (green), they added sour notes because they weren’t ripe yet, perfectly balancing the richness of the garlic butter. My wife says I love sour and tangy flavors more than anyone she’s ever met, which is one big reason I’m so crazy about Filipino cuisine. (I also jokingly call myself the “acidic Jew” because of this.) I have enjoyed kalamansi juice in cool, refreshing beverages before, including from the aforementioned The Baker’s Son (not that different from lemonade or limeade), and after a dear friend with a green thumb hooked me up with kalamansi from her own garden, I squeezed enough juice out of them to make my favorite dessert ever, a variation of Atlantic Beach pie. (If you’re curious, drop me a line, sweet-toothed Saboscrivnerinos!)

Speaking of dessert, we were about to be blown away by the creativity of Kaya’s talented pastry chef, Chef Clarice Lam. This was her Silvana Alaska, based on beloved Filipino cookies called Silvanas: two cashew-meringue wafers with a layer of buttercream between them, coated with cookie crumbs. Chef Lam’s show-stopper was a gluten-free dessert with cashew meringue, ube French buttercream, blueberry compote, a dome-like layer of toasted Swiss meringue (hence the “Alaska” part, like the classic old-timey dessert baked Alaska), tiny cubes of blueberry jellies, and surrounded by a sweet, creamy moat of ube crème anglaise.By the way, ube is a purple yam that is definitely having a moment, being used in all kinds of desserts. My wife loves the ube soft serve ice cream at Sampaguita Filipino Ice Cream, mere moments away from Kaya, but I’ve never had a dessert of this level of complexity, with or without ube.

Once we split into the meringue dome, this is what the Silvana Alaska looked like inside. (I think my photo looks like a big fish opening its mouth, with the blueberry jelly cube as its eye, but that was not my intention.)

I am so proud of my wife, who has been trying all kinds of new foods lately. Even though she wasn’t with us at this dinner (arguably having even more fun than we were, seeing her beloved Tori Amos in concert), I selected another tempting dish to bring home for her to enjoy later. We both love squid ink pasta (I call it “Goth pasta”), and this was Kaya’s squid ink pancit: house-made spaghetti noodles topped with calamari rings, adobo sauce, black garlic aioli, and pandesal bread crumble. It was magnificent. We both sampled it later that night, after I picked her up from the concert, and she got two more whole portions out of it the next day.

Folks, I cannot stress how awe-inspiring this meal was. I rarely go out to dinner because of my odd work schedule, but if Kaya was open for lunch (it isn’t), I’m sure I would have tried it years ago. Instead, I’m late to the party, but this was, without a doubt, the absolute #1 best meal I’ve ever eaten in my 22 years in Orlando, and in the Top Five meals of my entire life.

I can tell you three of the others right now:

- Babbo in NYC for our honeymoon in 2009, before we knew what a shit Mario Batali was,
- Chef Michael Solomonov’s elevated Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant Abe Fisher in Philadelphia in 2023, which closed not long after our visit up there to see Le Tigre, so I never got around to writing about it, and
- Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster Overtown in Miami, before seeing De La Soul in 2025.

But I was wowed by every part of the Kaya experience: not just the once-in-a-lifetime dishes my friend/mentor and I shared, but the professionalism of our bartender-servers, Jami’s warmth and kindness, the decor, the unbridled creativity of Chef Lo and Chef Lam, and the way the whole place — the whole experience — feels like a labor of love and a way of sharing a cuisine and a culture that too many Americans have yet to experience. The website lists Kaya’s values with their names in Tagalog, and I really needed to share these, because you don’t see restaurants with a mission statement all that often, and they really exemplify all these beautiful, noble, lofty ideals:

- Pamilya: We treat our team and guests like family. We practice radical hospitality so that our guests feel a sense of belonging and ease. We create space to be present for our families.
- Kapwa + Bayanihan: We care deeply about community. We treat one another with love, look out for each other, and lift one another up. We build a model that allows us to be full, whole humans in right relationship with one another.
- Utang Na Loob: We respect and honor our community, elders, and ancestors, as well as the land and its resources. We take a no/low-waste, sustainable approach, and we celebrate the beauty and richness of our heritage.
- Mapanlikha: We move from a place of possibility, learning from the past and our experiences while actively creating our vision for the future. We pay close attention to how we can constantly improve while shaping the narrative of what’s possible.

Nothing about this epic experience was “mid” or forgettable, nor was it snooty or snobby or inaccessible. Nobody was going through the motions. Even with my own hang-ups about fine dining (that it isn’t meant for people like me), I never felt like an impostor or a sellout or a disappointment to my parents. It was a close to perfect as a meal could be, and I had a blast! Kaya has clearly earned its Michelin Green star for sustainability, and deserves to be in that rarified pantheon of top restaurants in Orlando, if not all of Florida, but I feel like it deserves a regular star as well, if not two. By the way, according to the website, “kaya” means capable in Tagalog, and “kaya natin” means we can. They are beyond capable, and not only can they, but they do.

And as much as I hoped to return to Kaya sooner rather than later, I surprised myself by returning just a few weeks later — yesterday, in fact! But it wasn’t for another dinner, not this time. Instead, Executive Pastry Chef Clarice Lam hosts an event called Kapé Kaya, a daytime bakery concept featuring her awe-inspiring pastries, every Saturday, from 9:30 AM until 12 PM. I’ve seen pictures of her past creations, but this was a rare treat: the second of three Kapé Kaya events where she teams up with another local restaurant hero: Chef Tyler Brunache of SmokeMade Meats + Eats, my favorite barbecue restaurant in Orlando that won Michelin Bib Gourmand awards for “good quality, good value cooking” in 2025 and 2026.

This was like when Jack White teamed up with Norah Jones… or when Jack White teamed up with Alison Mosshart from The Kills… or when Jack White teamed up with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest! Or maybe like the too-rare team-ups between Daredevil and Captain America, a pairing that makes all the sense in the world even though you don’t automatically think of them as obvious partners. I had to be there, so I arrived around 8:45 AM, and there were already about 30 people ahead of me, waiting in line outside Kaya. The heat and humidity didn’t get too bad until around 9:30, but they moved things along pretty well inside. In the meantime, we studied the menu:

Jami came outside to announce when they were finally opening up, and I couldn’t believe she recognized me after meeting me once, a few weeks ago. (I was also somewhat incognito, wearing sunglasses and my “I Love Research” bucket hat under the baking morning sun, looking like the nerdiest rapper ever, and she still recognized me and gave me a hug.) When I finally got in, they had all the gorgeous pastries on display on the bar, with labels and prices. You order and pay up front, then wait for the staff to assemble your order in large pink bakery boxes.

I thanked Chef Lam on the way out the door, and even though I had considered doing it, I refrained from doing my Anthony Hopkins-as-Hannibal Lecter impression, greeting her with “Hello, Clarice.” She’s probably heard it before, and Mads Mikkelsen was the better Hannibal Lecter anyway, by far. (I said what I said.) I was on my way by 10:15, leaving me enough time to make it to donate blood in Altamonte Springs by my 11 AM appointment time. As usual, I brought a cooler with me to keep my Kapé Kaya treats safe and cool in this awful summer heat.

Back at home, this is a close-up of my brisket bear claw, which had buttery, flaky layers like the best croissant you’ve ever had.

This was the longganisa sausage bun, and keep in mind this was all one interconnected thing! I’ve been lucky enough to catch Chef Tyler’s longganisa sausage as a weekend special at SmokeMade, and I love how sweet and savory it is. All his house-made sausages have a perfect crispy natural casing, and Chef Lam’s dough was kind of like a savory danish pastry, not flaky and layered like the bear claw.

I love macaroni salad and always enjoy the slightly sweet taste of surimi (imitation “krab”) in sushi and poke, so I couldn’t resist the krab macaroni salad puff pastry tart. It was so refreshing, especially compared to the other two heavier pastries, and the tart shell was flaky and light.

Here they are on a plate, so you can see a cross-section of the brisket bear claw with all those laminated dough layers and smoked brisket, gouda cheese, pickles, and barbecue sauce inside. Upon tearing into it, it reminded me of a cross between a croissant and the Cuban pastelitos I grew up eating in Miami, sometimes stuffed with seasoned ground beef called picadillo.

And here are my sweet choices. One the left, I got the mango coconut croissant bibingka, because I thought it was something my wife and I would both like, whereas I figured the savory pastries above would be all mine. This thing was so dense and rich, we’re both slowly working our way through it over 36 hours later, a bite or two at a time. Like so many other Filipino dishes, bibingka is new to me, so I looked it up. Serious Eats never lets me down: it is a “coconut-flavored, banana-leaf scented rice cake topped with caramelized coconut strips.” However, not having had prior bibingka experience, I would have guessed it was more like a bread pudding, since that’s what the texture and consistency felt like to me. I loved the mango puree on top. It was so good, but a little goes a long way.The same could be said for Chef Lam’s “thick’em cookie,” the one thing my wife actually requested. This is a huge cookie, even bigger than the ones from Gideon’s Bakehouse. The edges were crispy, but the rest was soft and yielding, which I always prefer in my cookies. There were chocolate chunks, corn flakes, and some fancy salt crystals sprinkled on top. My wife was in heaven, and she has also been nibbling away at the cookie because you can’t just devour it. This plate was surprisingly heavy with both of these on it.

So that was my amazing Kapé Kaya experience, just weeks after my first dinner at Kaya. I am posting this NOW because there is one more scheduled Kapé Kaya crossover with SmokeMade Meats and Eats, and that is next Saturday morning, August 1st. I’ll probably be seeing the next Spider-Man movie before the Internet can spoil it all for me, but all my dozens of readers should do whatever it takes to be at Kaya before the line gets too long and the heat gets too unbearable. Spider-Man is supposed to team up with the Hulk and the Punisher, but the best team-up in Orlando is going to be happening right at Kaya, and you don’t want to miss it!

Bachour (Coral Gables)

Bachour (https://antoniobachour.com/) is a beloved bakery-cafe-restaurant in Coral Gables, a historic and tony area of Miami. I was down that way back in May, visiting my family in Kendall for the first time in far too long. I also spent some quality time with my best friend (going back to elementary school) and his amazing girl, taking advantage of their generous hospitality and visiting parts of Miami I never ventured out to when I grew up down there. The last day I was in town, we had brunch at Bachour, and his mom — who just happened to be my first-grade teacher! — joined us. We had a great time, despite getting rained on while we ate in a semi-covered outdoor alcove. The food, which combined French and Latin influences, was magnificent.

Founded by Puerto Rican-born Chef Antonio Bachour, Bachour is known for gorgeous pastries, arranged artfully in glass display cases:

We started out with an order of arepa fritters, one perfect crispy fried sphere for each of us, stuffed with cotija cheese and held in place with avocado puree underneath.

We also got an order of tequeños, small pastries made of long, flat strips of dough wrapped around salty queso blanco and baked or fried. (These were fried.) They were served with cilantro garlic aioli dipping sauce, which was so good, I kept it for whatever was coming next.

This stunning swirled pastry is Bachour’s version of a cinnamon roll. Look at those crispy, light, flaky layers of laminated dough. It was a work of art.

My boy’s mom ordered this creme brulee French toast with vanilla custard and mascarpone creme as her entree, even though that’s a dessert in my book.

His lovely ladyfriend got this breakfast sandwich with scrambled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, aged cheddar, truffle butter, and arugula (it’s a veg-EH-ta-ble) on a soft brioche bun.

She also ordered a side of crispy home fries with it.

My friend got the Bachour crispy chicken sandwich, with butter lettuce and creamy, crispy slaw on a brioche bun, and he said it was one of the best chicken sandwiches he’s ever had. He chose fries as his side instead of a salad, which makes me think of John Mulaney’s routine about ordering a chicken sandwich and choosing between the two most different foods in the universe.

And as for me, your friend and humble narrator, one of those foods that always tempts and tantalizes me is smoked salmon, so I got something I normally never order anywhere, a club sandwich (a triple-decker sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on white toast) with smoked salmon and a bit of avocado added in. Club sandwiches often slide apart, or the toasted bread crumbles under the architecturally unsound structure of its fillings, but I am a grown man, and I promise you I did my best.
Even though I really have been trying to eat healthier, I kept the server from removing that delicious cilantro garlic aioli from earlier, so I ordered fries instead of a salad too, figuring I would share them with everyone else at the table to assuage my guilty conscience (another Mulaney bit).

I brought home two croissants for my wife. This one was pistachio:

And this one was almond. She loved both, but I don’t think she mentioned a favorite between them.

All in all, it was a nice visit back home, and a highlight of the trip was this wonderful brunch shared with some of the best people I know. I had heard of Bachour before, but just like 90% of places I hear about in Miami, I never thought I would actually go there. Well, on this recent trip down, I scratched a few of those semi-mythical spots off my list. This was a great meal, and the company couldn’t be beat.

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.

Talay

Talay (https://www.talayorlando.com/) is one of the newer and more upscale Thai restaurants in Orlando, located in the “North Quarter” on 861 Orange Avenue, right before you cross East Colonial Drive into downtown Orlando. I took my wife there for lunch a few weeks ago, and we had a nice meal in the spacious dining room, which was surprisingly empty. I’m sure it gets crazy crowded later on, though. Everything is light wood and creamy colors, making the space feel modern and elegant. There are some booths inside, and there is even more seating outside, on an inviting covered patio.

As usual, my wife started her with a creamy and refreshing Thai iced tea:

We ordered four different things, intending to share most of them and end up with leftovers. A few were relatively small portions, so it all worked out.

This was salmon chae nam pla, an appetizer with thin slices of raw salmon (each garnished by a paper-thin slice of pickled garlic), two little clusters of salmon roe, and mint leaves, all displayed on a sea of spicy cilantro chili-lime dressing. The dressing was too spicy for my wife, so I ended up eating most of these. I must be part bear (I definitely look like a bear), because I never tire of devouring raw salmon.

We also shared goong ob woon sen, a dish neither of us had ever tried before, or even noticed on any other Thai menus before. It included plump shrimp served with their tails on, glass noodles (traditionally made from mung bean or sweet potato starch, which turn translucent), thin slices of bacon, black pepper, sesame oil, celery, ginger, “Talay’s signature wok sauce,” and cilantro chili relish served on the side. Those leaves in the middle are a tiny celery stick garnish sticking out.

You wanted a noodle pull? Well here’s a noodle pull! This was a good dish, and the noodles had a nice chew to them. I didn’t pick this one, and I didn’t know what to expect (other than “bacon is always good”), but it all came together.

I finally got my wife into my favorite Thai dish that I used to order all the time as a benchmark of any new Thai restaurant, pad kee mao (sometimes spelled pad kee mow, and also known as drunken noodles). As long as she orders it mild, she loves it as much as she loves her old go-to, pad Thai. This was Talay’s pad kee mao, a stir-fried sensation with flat rice noodles (always so nice and chewy), green and red bell peppers, Thai basil, chili, and Talay’s spicy wok sauce, which they surely toned down for her. She chose crispy duck as the protein (for a small upcharge), and the duck was wonderful — tender, juicy, battered and fried to perfection. We are both big duck fans.

And as for me, I panicked. So many things sounded good, and I know for a fact I won’t make it back to this spot very often. Instead of going with a familiar favorite, I wanted to try something more unique off Talay’s Signature menu, since they have so many elevated dishes you can’t find just anywhere. I decided to go with something I always love on any menu, whether it’s a seafood shack or a Thai restaurant, soft shell crab. This was pu nim tod kra tiam, crispy soft-shell crab served with garlic, pepper, and a savory brown sauce. It ended up being a new twist on an old classic, and it was much less heavy than it looks here.

It came with white rice on the side, which I mixed in to gather all the sauce under the crab, and I asked to try the roasted chili relish, which costs $3 extra. All I got was the little ramekin on the right, and it was interesting. It definitely had some sweetness and funky umami, maybe from fish sauce.

Due to the location, I don’t expect we will become regulars at Talay, especially since I bring home takeout much more often than we dine out. But Talay is definitely one of the nicer Thai restaurants in Orlando, and it would be a fantastic place for a date or a big night out. It reminded me of Lim Ros Thai Cuisine that way, another Thai restaurant that is a little more elegant and elevated than usual. Both feature lush, sexy vibes, rather than the “hominess” of the more old-school Thai restaurants we honestly end up at more often (like Thailicious in Longwood). But I can’t say anything bad about either of them, and if you already know Talay, I’m sure you can’t think of anything negative about it either. If I ever do make it back, what should I order next time? I’m always happy to try anything new!

Chayhana

Chayhana (https://chayhanaorlando.com/) is an Uzbek restaurant that serves authentic Uzbek and Central Asian food, all of which is halal. It is located at 851 State Road 436, #1027, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, in the long plaza at the intersection of State Roads 436 (Semoran Boulevard) and 434. I’ve had Uzbek food before, at Caravan Uzbek & Turkish Cuisine, but that’s all the way across town from me, in an area I never go. I was excited to finally try Chayhana, which is a lot closer. I’ve brought takeout home twice now, and it was great both times.

My wife is the biggest hummus aficionado I know. She loves hummus to the point where I wonder if I should be jealous of hummus. (With all honesty, I am very secure in our marriage, and I am always glad when she enjoys anything.) Not long after we both discovered the greatness of The Hummus Guy food truck in Maitland earlier this year, we realized Chayhana’s hummus was very different, but also terrific. They sprinkle theirs with some light seasoning, drizzle on olive oil, and top it with a few chick peas. And if I may, what’s the difference between a garbanzo bean and a chick pea? The president has never paid to watch a Russian garbanzo bean. Hey-o!

The hummus came with these warm, lightly grilled pita wedges for spreading or dipping. I consider myself a bit of a pita connoisseur, since there are good and bad kinds, and this is the good kind that gyros are often served on. You can buy the Kontos brand of this kind of pita at some places, like the halal Indian market Apna Bazaar, with locations on South Orange Blossom Trail and on 434 in Longwood.

My wife also loves kasha, or buckwheat (o-tay!), a nutty and earthy grain that is toasted and then boiled until tender, kind of like couscous. I ordered her this grechka, which is warm buckwheat, sprinkled with parsley.

I ordered this pumpkin manty with her in mind. Manty are filled dumplings with a soft, thin, chewy, handmade dough wrapper, kind of like Chinese wontons, Italian ravioli, or Polish pierogi. These manty were much larger than any wontons, ravioli, or pierogi I’ve ever seen, though. And yes, they were stuffed with seasoned pumpkin, onions, and spices for a delicious dish vegetarians would love. Actually, anyone would love these. I thought they might be a bit bland, but they were anything but. And look at the pattern on the outside. They didn’t have to make them look that beautiful, but someone went to the trouble of doing that to all the manty!

This dish is Chayhana’s best-seller, and you can see why. It is plov, a dish of fragrant, buttery fried rice cooked with halal-certified beef and lamb, carrots, onions, scallions, a hard-boiled quail egg, and pomegranate arils. It is gorgeous, isn’t it? It looks like Christmas, with the parsley, scallions, and shiny red pomegranate arils sparkling on top. It’s delicious, too. I preferred it to the similar rice dish at Caravan called to’y osh.I mentioned this in my recent review of Gateway to India, but plov shares its etymology with a more familiar rice dish, pilaf (always so good and buttery from Turkish restaurants like Bosphorous and Istanbul Grill), and they both evolved from Persian pilau, along with Indian biryani, another beloved rice dish. I love that so much.

But that’s not all! I had to try the boso laghman, a dish of hand-pulled wheat noodles, halal beef, thin strips of an egg omelet, sauteed onions and bell peppers, and sprinkled with parsley and sesame seeds, all sauteed together in a savory sauce. Those are the omelet strips on top, not the noodles.

Here are the noodles, and they were so nice and chewy and al dente. The sauce gave everything the slightest smoky flavor. I also ordered laghman at Caravan, and while it was very good, I once again give the edge to Chayhana. I’ve mentioned in a few different reviews that the term laghman was derived from the Chinese lamian (like the wonderful, chewy noodles I reviewed earlier this year at SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles), and that’s how we also got the Chinese lo mein and the Japanese ramen.

Here is my plate. What a bounty! And now you can get a good look at how gorgeous the dough sculpting on that manty was.

After reading the menu, my wife asked me to bring her pistachio cake, which I was happy to do. But when I got there, they had two different pistachio desserts, and I wasn’t sure which one she wanted, so I brought both home. That’s the kind of husband I am.

This dome-shaped dessert was the pistachio cupala, which Chayhana imports from a Michelin-starred bakery in Turkey. I didn’t have any (I’m avoiding sweets, and this didn’t look like my thing anyway), but she seemed to like it.

She preferred this Antep dream cake (topped with finely crushed pistachios above that rich, creamy layer of chocolate). It was not listed on the website, but it was available when I went in. I think it looks more appetizing, personally:

Everything was such a treat, I returned a few weeks later for another round of takeout.

The hummus wasn’t sprinkled with that seasoning or adorned with extra chick peas the second time, but she still liked it a lot:

The plov was still wonderful:

SinceI feel like I ran amok with carbs on our first takeout trip, I resolved to eat a little healthier the second time around. This was the chicken shish, served in small chunks rather than one long skewer so it could fit in a small takeout box. I could tell the chicken was marinated in herbs and spices and grilled, but I most admit, the picture on the website made it look better with the nice caramelization from grilling. I don’t think it lived up to the “golden and smoky” description from the menu. It was chicken breast meat, which is certainly healthier (and it’s what I cook and eat at home all the time now), but I think thigh meat is always more flavorful and feels like more of a treat.

I preferred the lulya kebab, made of seasoned halal ground lamb and beef that was skewered and grilled. This is the kind of thing I will always order at any Middle Eastern or Central Asian restaurant, kind of along the same lines as the lamb adana kebap I ordered at Istanbul Grill or the Iraqi kebab we tried at Rawsha Mediterranean Cuisine. Both kebabs were served with red onions (some raw, some grilled) over very thin flatbread.

We have yet to dine in at Chayhana, but there is a nice little dining room that looks comfortable. When I picked up my takeout orders, it was during the holy month of Ramadan, and smiling Muslim families were just starting to show up for dinners. Everyone looked so happy to be there, and hopefully I’ve communicated why. Chayhana is the very definition of a hidden gem, serving food that may be somewhat familiar, but with unique twists. It makes you think about geography, about how little we (as Americans) know about Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, but how their cuisine has so many similarities with Turkish and other Middle Eastern fare, and how they all evolved from shared origins. That makes our increasingly complicated world seem a little bit smaller, and hopefully gives us all a little hope that we’re not so different, you and I. And for those of us who live in the Orlando area, we are so lucky to have a diverse culinary scene that allows more than one Uzbek restaurant to survive and thrive, even in super-suburban Altamonte Springs.

Aloha Hawaiian Kitchen

I love Hawaiian food, and I had been excited to try Aloha Hawaiian Kitchen (https://alohahawaiiankitchen.com/) for a while. Aloha is down near Orlando International Airport, so I don’t see it becoming part of my regular restaurant rotation, but when I finally made it there in December, it did not disappoint. Hawaiian cuisine evolved from a combination of Native Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Portuguese, and mainland American ingredients and influences due to the diaspora, but it is very much its own thing. It is one of my favorite regional American cuisines, up there with Ashkenazi Jewish delis and appetizing stores and the grand tradition of barbecue. But while I’ve tried amazing delis in New York City, Los Angeles, and South Florida and barbecue in Texas, Memphis, and right here in Orlando, I have yet to visit Hawaii, so I take our local Hawaiian restaurants at their word.

Because I always love sampling multiple things, especially when I know I won’t be able to return to a restaurant often, I ordered the Surfside Sampler, which comes with three meats: marinated and grilled beef short ribs (kalbi), crispy marinated and fried ono shrimp, and marinated and pulled luau pig. However, I asked if I could substitute the mochiko chicken instead of the luau pork, since it is the same price when they are sold separately. They were kind enough to allow me to get that substitution. This heaping tray came with scoops of white rice and Hawaiian macaroni salad, which I am a huge fan of. It was probably more than enough calories for the full day, with more to spare. I think the Hawaiians perfected mayonnaise-based macaroni salad, which I have recreated at home. The secret, which I found in a few different recipes, is to let slightly underdone macaroni noodles absorb a lot of milk, and then stir in your mayo. (They recommend Best Foods, which I think is the same stuff sold as Hellman’s in the eastern U.S., but I’m a Duke’s man.)

I first tried mochiko chicken at the first Hawaiian restaurant I ever visited, a place called Hawaiian Grindz that used to be on State Road 434 in Oviedo. It didn’t last very long, perhaps in part because the laid-back owners didn’t always open on time… or at all, despite posted hours. But I loved the little pieces of fried chicken thighs, which were lightly breaded and then tossed in a sweet sauce. While these mochiko chicken pieces at Aloha look a bit dark, I can assure you they were fried to crispy perfection. They weren’t overly sweet, either. It was a nice blend of sweet and savory — much less sweet than the mochiko chicken at the old place that closed.

Here’s a close-up of the kalbi, those wonderful marinated and grilled Korean-style beef short ribs, cut against the bone These also had a savory-sweet marinade, and the grilling process added some great flavor from caramelizing sugar on the surface. The meat was tender, but not exactly falling apart or off the bone. Kalbi (sometimes called galbi on Korean menus) always has a pleasant chew, and you can usually tear or bite the meat near the bone and pull it right out. That area is even chewier, but the texture is nice.

Here is an extreme close-up of one of the crispy, garlicky-fried shrimp. It had such a nice flavor and crunch, and just like at my beloved Poke Hana, it is fried so well that you can eat it crunchy tail and all. Look at all that garlic!

While I wanted to try more, I limited myself to a Spam musubi, which I enjoyed later, back at home. These are the ultimate in simple comfort food: a slice of fried Spam (which is actually delicious, snobs and skeptics!) on a bed of sushi rice, rolled tightly in a sheet of nori (seaweed, the same stuff in sushi rolls), and often served warm. I’ve seen these musubi referred to as “Hawaiian protein bars,” and they do have just enough protein and carbs to give you a burst of energy when you need it.

By the way, Spam is a product of Minnesota, but it became closely associated with Hawaiian cuisine when the U.S. military used it to feed troops stationed in Hawaii in the 1940s. That’s how it found its way into saimin (a Hawaiian take on ramen), Spam fried rice, and of course, the musubi.

We are lucky to have a few wonderful Hawaiian restaurants to choose from in Orlando, including the aforementioned Poke Hana, OverRice, the new Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner, and Hanalei Shave Ice for a cool, refreshing dessert. Aloha Hawaiian Kitchen is in great company. Sadly, Aloha is much further away from me, but even though I don’t foresee going back as often, it was very good, and I’m so glad I tried it. If you find yourself down near the airport, or coming or going from the 528 or the Lake Nona area and you don’t feel like awesome seafood at High Tide Harry’s or Orlando’s best Cuban sandwich at Vicky Bakery, check it out. Aloha features a large menu, including meat-centric combo meals like I ordered and customizable poke bowls, if you want something lighter than the smorgasbord of meats I enjoyed. Nowadays, as I continue slowly losing weight from eating less and eating healthier, I would have gotten two or even three meals out of that Surfside Sampler, but I housed it in one sitting at the time, thinking that dangerous thought of “Well, it won’t be as good heated back up later!” I’ve come a long way over these past four months.