Salads – Page 3 – The Saboscrivner

Terralina Crafted Italian

Another Disney restaurant review, a week after the last one? Is our friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner kidding? Is he out of ideas, or did he come out as a Disney adult? None of the above are true. But after taking my wife to the birthday dinner of her choosing, I returned to the “happiest place on Earth” (depends who you ask and what mood they’re in when you ask them, I guess) to catch up with former co-workers at Disney Springs. Before my current job, which I love, I worked somewhere for 15 years, and it was a constant roller coaster ride. I left in 2023, onward and upward toward a brighter, more promising future, and for this dinner, we were celebrating a former colleague who had recently done the same.

Our group met at Terralina Crafted Italian (https://www.terralinacrafteditalian.com/), and it was my first visit to this restaurant. All the food I tried was quite good, but the company is what really made this meal special. I hadn’t seen any of these people in almost two years and had never met my former colleague’s lovely wife or his sweet, quiet visiting mother-in-law. Coming from the same workplace, we had all been through a lot and had a lot to discuss.

Not every restaurant brings bread for the table anymore, but Terralina Crafted dropped off baskets of fresh, warm, fluffy focaccia bread with a hint of rosemary. They suggest you enjoy it with olive oil (in the bottle), salt, and pepper. The bread was wonderful with the olive oil, but I wish there had been some sweet balsamic vinegar or syrupy, sticky balsamic glaze to go with it. I put that stuff on anything and everything!

I was sitting next to my former colleague, who ordered a few apps to share with the table. These were mozzarella-stuffed rice balls, the beautiful love children of mozzarella sticks and arancini (balls of creamy rice or risotto, covered in bread crumbs and deep-fried. This version was the best of both worlds, and I truly enjoyed the bites I shared. The tomato-basil dipping sauce added a nice hit of acid to balance the salt and fat, and the thick flakes of shaved parmesan cheese were a nice touch for the presentation.

I did not try these bruschetta, but the presentation was beautiful. The bread slices were toasted or grilled and topped with diced tomato, basil pesto, arugula, shaved parmesan, and my beloved balsamic glaze (so they have it in the kitchen!).

Two people in my party ordered this salad of spinach, beets, gorgonzola, and fennel, tossed in a honey balsamic vinaigrette. I didn’t try theirs, but one of my friends thought they added a bit too much dressing.

I didn’t get photos of everyone’s food on the far side of the table, but my colleague sitting to my left ordered a wood-fired pizza with bacon, mushrooms, leeks, roasted garlic, and mozzarella. It looked and smelled lovely, and he seemed to like it.

My friend, colleague, and former mentor and supervisor on my right, a vegetarian, ordered this margherita pizza, topped simply with fresh mozzarella, tomato slices, and fresh basil. At the end of our meal, she had two slices left over and offered them to me, since she was staying overnight at one of the Disney hotels and doesn’t dig on leftovers. As for me, most of my meals are comprised of leftovers, so I gladly and gratefully took her pizza and enjoyed the heck out of it the following day. The toaster oven did a brilliant job crisping it back up, and I have become a major proponent of fresh basil on pizza.

I had been thinking about getting one of those pizzas, but then I saw the Italian grinder, a sandwich with spicy capicola ham, pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, tomato, roasted red pepper strips, arugula, basil pesto, and balsamic glaze. Since an Italian sub is always my favorite meal, I no longer felt the need to look any further. But I’m glad I asked our patient server if the grinder is served hot or cold, because I prefer sandwiches with Italian meats served cold, rather than hot, with the cured meats turned crispy and greasy. He said the bread would have to be warm, but the sandwich ingredients could be cold, and that was perfect.
What I didn’t expect was that the grinder would be served on a warm flatbread (pretty much like the pizzas, crispy and soft at the same time), rather than a sub or hoagie roll. It was an interesting surprise that made the grinder a little messier to eat, but look at that gorgeous presentation! Still, I did fine eating like an adult man in front of my colleagues without besmirching myself. A popular local (non-Disney) restaurant, Pizza Bruno, used to make an Italian sandwich similar to this, which they called a piadina. I loved that thing, but they stopped serving it.

The sandwiches at Terralina Crafted come with house-made truffle potato chips and garlic pickles, but I asked to substitute fries for $4, and I’m so glad I did. Since mushrooms are my culinary Kryptonite, I avoid truffles and truffle oil too, in an abundance of caution. The fries were the kind I really love — the lightly battered, crispy kind. I wasn’t expecting that, but I devoured them. The garlic pickles were incredible! I don’t know if they make those in-house or buy them from somewhere, but they were some of the tastiest pickles I’ve ever had, sliced almost paper-thin but still crunchy. I shared some with another friend, who said they tasted like pickles her mother used to make. I love it when food brings on a nostalgic reaction, even if it isn’t mine! I need to find out what their deal is.

So that was my first trip to Terralina Crafted Italian. I might have never tried it, because Orlando has no shortage of Italian restaurants, most seem overpriced, and I have simple pleasures — Italian subs and hoagies, New York-style pizza by the slice, and I make terrific pasta dishes and the best lasagna at home. But even though I admit that I’m usually underwhelmed by Disney restaurants, Terralina Crafted was a terrific choice, especially for a large group with different tastes. I would happily return in the future. And the best treat of all was seeing these great people again, for the first time in far too long. We almost went to House of Blues for dinner, which would have been fine, but I’m so glad the evening worked out the way it did.

By the way, if you’re planning to go to Terralina Crafted Italian yourself, the Lime Garage at Disney Springs is the most convenient place to park.

California Grill

I’ve joked before that my wife and I are not “Disney adults” or theme park people in general. That said, once in a while, we end up across Orlando from us on Disney property, and food is always involved on those rare occasions. Usually that means meeting visiting friends or my former co-workers out at Disney Springs, but we recently went upscale.

Every year, I task my wife with deciding where she would like to go to celebrate her birthday — anywhere she wants, the sky’s the limit. Sometimes she wants something down to Earth, sometimes she aims a little higher. Some years, I end up bringing in takeout or even cooking for her at home, but I leave the decision up to her and try my damnest to make her happy. This year, she suggested a place we had never been, but both of us had always heard about: the California Grill (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/contemporary-resort/california-grill/), the high-end restaurant on the 15th floor of the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. The hotel is an example of brutalist architecture that seems like both a time capsule from the 1970s and an idea of what the future would have looked like at the time. Along with the Polynesian Resort next door, the Contemporary was one of the two original hotels that opened when Walt Disney World opened in 1971, and believe me, it looks like it!

The Contemporary is noteworthy to me too, because it was the hotel my family stayed at for our two (count ’em: TWO!) Disney family trips when my brother and I were kids, back in the late ’80s. My family is definitely not “of the travelers,” and trips out of Miami were exceptionally rare for us. I realize Disney has always been a splurge and an extravagance, but it wasn’t until I moved to Orlando as an adult that I realized how big a deal it was that we stayed on Disney property, as opposed to any of the hundreds of independent, off-site hotels between Orlando and Kissimmee. And the Contemporary, which costs and arm and a leg now, surely wasn’t cheap back then either.

A big selling point for my dad was being able to park at the hotel and not drive again the entire trip. A futuristic monorail connects the Contemporary, the Polynesian, the Grand Floridian Resort (a super-high-end hotel that looks like a big Southern plantation, bless their hearts), and the Magic Kingdom and Epcot parks. Of course we rode that monorail as a family, and it might have led to my lifelong love of public transportation AND tours where I can explore as much of an unfamiliar area as possible. That monorail appealed to me more than most of the relatively pedestrian rides inside the parks (keeping in mind that we didn’t ride Space Mountain, and most of the Magic Kingdom rides back then were aimed at really little kids). But I have digressed enough!

So to access the toney California Grill, you check in on the second floor of the hotel and take a seat until they contact you. Then you ride a special elevator up to the 15th floor, where the restaurant is. It is a huge dining room with a long, open kitchen and glass windows all around. One of the major selling points is being able to watch the nightly fireworks through all the windows when they start at 8 PM. Unfortunately, I was only able to score a reservation for 5:20, but they will let you reenter to watch the fireworks if you show your receipt from an earlier dinner.

As is typical at Disney, the service was impeccable. That’s that “Disney magic” in action, where everyone is warm, welcoming, and helpful. Even if I scoff sometimes about Disney, I have nothing but respect for friendly and professional service. We got a comfortable booth (that I requested with our online reservation), and our “cast member” server, the charming Charmaine, wished my wife a happy birthday.

She explained that the California Grill serves a price fixe menu: for $89 per adult diner, each person chooses an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert from a list of multiple options. We had already studied the menu in advance, being studious little nerds. A lot of dishes included mushrooms, because fine-dining chefs loooove mushrooms, but I’m always on the lookout for them — my culinary Kryptonite.

Charmaine brought us a basket of warm, freshly baked rolls, with the lightest, crispiest exterior crusts and warm, fluffy interiors. I should have photographed a cross-section, but trust me, you would want to shrink down and curl up for the coziest nap ever inside these rolls.

They came with a board featuring soft, salted butter in that fancy shape that only higher-end restaurants use for butter and occasionally ice cream, as well as a bread dip of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs. As anyone who knows us might guess, my wife went for the butter and I went for the bread dip.

It wasn’t long before we received our apps. I went out of my way to pick things I knew my wife would want to at least try, hoping to share everything. This was the barbecue American eel roll, a sushi roll with unagi (the fresh and tender grilled eel), avocado, cucumber, “dragon sauce” (a savory, sweet, sticky brown sauce), toasted sesame seeds, and crispy garlic. It was great. I love sushi rolls and I always enjoy eel, but I’ve never seen one served like this, with the whole long tail of the eel.

My wife was really excited about the farmer’s market salad on the menu, and to be fair, neither of us had ever seen a salad like this before: petit mixed greens (normal enough), roasted baby beets (we are both new to appreciating beets), poached pears (she loves pears!), pear gel (fine dining chefs love their gels!), chocolate biscotti (I had always dismissed biscotti as God’s joke on people who like cookies, but props for putting it in a salad), vanilla “pudding” (WHY is “pudding” in quotation marks?!), and citrus vinaigrette dressing. This salad was a huge hit for her, and seeing it on the menu was probably what made up her mind about coming here in the first place. As far as we could tell, the vanilla “pudding” looked and tasted just like vanilla pudding, hold the quotes.

My wife chose the seared halibut for her entrée… just for the halibut. I don’t mind calling it a main course, but I don’t like “mains” on a menu and I especially don’t like “proteins.” This lovely seared rectangular prism was served atop bourbon-brown butter risotto with a slice of fondant sweet potato, sweet potato purée (fine dining chefs also love their purées), sweet potato leaves, kale (she has been on a kale kick ever since that dinner), toasted pecans, and a cranberry vinaigrette dressing. We both wondered if the halibut might be a little overcooked, since the texture was more firm than we expected. I think she liked some of the components of this dish more than the fish itself. A lot of it came home with us, and she invited me to finish it off the next day.

As for me, I chose the pan-seared lamb strip loin, since lamb is always one of my favorite meats (not “proteins”). I requested my lamb rare, and it came back perfectly rare. It was served with roasted root vegetables, baby brussels sprouts, beautiful thin-sliced radishes, and crispy fried parsnip chips over a bed of parsnip-celeriac Purée, with a juniper-cranberry-cabernet demi-glaze (a very rich, delicious, savory-sweet-tart reduction).

I had to take a picture of the “back” of the dish too, because it was such a marvel to behold. It reminded me of the artful plating at the legendary Noma restaurant in Copenhagen (not that I’ll ever go to Noma, or probably even to Copenhagen), where the food looks like little terrarium environments for wee Danish fae. While the lamb was cooked as well as lamb can be cooked, and the demi-glace was awesome, I must admit the dish lacked the strong flavors I always seek. It was on the bland side!

Because I had said in the reservation that we were celebrating my wife’s birthday, Charmaine brought us out a small slice of festive “funfetti” cake, which was unexpected and unnecessary, but sweet. Very, VERY sweet. The icing was pretty heavy and super-sweet.

For her actual dessert off the price fixe menu, my wife went with the chocolate-hazelnut tart, artfully presented with orbs of chocolate-hazelnut praline crémeux served over a long, thin chocolate shortbread cookie, topped with candied hazelnuts and decorated with dots of espresso crème anglaise. I didn’t try a nibble of this one, but she seemed to like it.

I chose the lemon mousse and olive oil-poppyseed cake, which sounds a lot weirder than it actually was. The presentation was gorgeous for the small, rectangular Meyer lemon-olive oil cake, studded with poppyseeds, topped with lemon cream, and decorated with dots of blood orange gel. (Fancy chefs love gels!) The pretty latticework on top was the thinnest, crispiest , most delicate sugar structure, but maybe I’m wrong, because it almost felt like a delicate, crispy cookie.

After the hour drive down to Disney property and the long, luxurious birthday dinner, my wife didn’t feel like sticking around for the fireworks or revisiting the 1988 Saboscrivner family monorail tour, so we headed for home. Both of us agreed that we were glad we went to the California Grill, but nothing amazed or astonished us enough to return. This will be a true one-and-done experience for us — nothing was bad by any means, but for that kind of a schlep, and at those prices, there are old favorites we would rather return to and plenty of other restaurants to try out for future special occasions. That said, I appreciated how pleasant they made our experience, with top-notch service and no stodgy, stuffy, precious pretentiousness.

Don’t worry, folks. After this excursion into fine Disney dining and last week’s review of one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten (in Miami, no less!), I’ll be back to waxing poetic about sandwiches, discovering delis, and obsessing over sardines and mustards soon enough. My vox populi is never gone for long!

Chain Reactions: Sixty Vines

Sixty Vines (https://www.sixtyvines.com/) is a nice chain restaurant with 13 locations around the country, including one in Winter Park and one in the Dr. Phillips area of Orlando. It serves “wine country inspired-cuisine paired perfectly with 60 wines on our sustainable tap system.” Unfortunately, my wife and I are non-drinkers, so we couldn’t take advantage of the vast assortment of wines from around the world. But the food was all quite good on all three of my visits with my wife, who had discovered it earlier and dined there once before, with a friend. I’ve never been to the Sonoma Valley in my California travels, but that’s what I believe Sixty Vines is going for.

For our first of three romantic meals there, my wife started us out with house-made ricotta cheese, which came with little bucket bouquets of flatbread, roasted marcona almonds, and honey with the chewy, waxy comb included.

Here’s a close-up of the cow milk ricotta, served with olive oil that contributed to the silky, whipped, lush richness and topped with fresh-cracked black pepper that did a spectacular job cutting the richness a bit. We both agreed this was the nicest ricotta we’ve ever had, and it would have been too good to just use in baked ziti or lasagna, where stronger flavors would have overpowered it.

We got the ricotta again on our second visit, and it was just as good:

On our most recent visit, she switched it up and got the Cowgirl Creamery Mt Tam, which is a triple cream brie-style cheese with a “bloomy rind,” named after Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. As much as I like cheese, I’ve never been into earthy, funky, sticky brie, so I didn’t even mess with this one. Plus, the portion is very small, and I even joked “Brie?! More like WEE, am I right?” More for her, such as it is.

On our first visit, we decided to get the very bougie-sounding “shared plate” of buttermilk-brined fried chicken topped with dollops of lemon creme fraiche and even tinier dollops of caviar (a indulgence both of us love). The boneless chicken pieces didn’t have much flavor at all, though. That batter desperately needs some herbs and spices, and it doesn’t even have to be eleven! Combining the decadence of fried chicken and caviar is a great idea, one that celebrity chef David Chang definitely approves of, but I’d skip the fried chicken on future visits to Sixty Vines and advise others to do the same.

On our second and third visits, we got the bacon-wrapped, oven-roasted dates, which was appropriate because we were on dates. I love dates and balsamic glaze, and these were perfect little bites of food. They only give you three in an order, but I could have eaten about 30 of these. I have a problem.

Extreme close-up of the dates from a different visit. Dates taste more like caramel than fruit to me, with a sticky, chewy texture to match. These are just perfect in every way, with the crackly, crisp, rich smokiness of the bacon, the chewy, rich sweetness of the dates, and the sweet, sticky acidity of the balsamic glaze. This is a decadent, sexy dish for sure.

The grilled golden beets are another good appetizer at Sixty Vines, and for some reason, The Golden Beets also sounds like a good name for a Japanese wrestling tag team. I discovered I love beets just last year, and now I’m making up for lost time! It just never occurred to me to try them before, but I love their earthy sweetness… or is it sweet earthiness?

These beets arrive sliced on a bed of whipped feta, cheese, topped with crushed, toasted pistachios, and are drizzled with an apricot vinaigrette dressing that is divine.

My wife also loves Sixty Vines’ house salad, comprised of spring mix, candied walnuts, fresh strawberries, paper-thin shavings of peppered pecorino romano cheese, and citrus honey vinaigrette. I make salads at home and eat them almost every day for lunch, but she has no interest in the salads I make. But this house salad is a bit more decadent than my salads, with fewer odd pickled things but plenty of ingredients she loves.

On a recent weekend, I picked up a house salad for my wife to enjoy in the comfort of home. I am pleased to say that they were happy to take my order and did not threaten to call the police, like other semi-upscale Winter Park restaurants (right across the street from Sixty Vines) have been known to do when people request salads to go.

Since that was going to be her lunch, I added on smoked salmon so it could be more of a full meal for her. It’s a $15 upcharge(!), but at least they were generous with it. Just so you know, it is hot-smoked salmon added in chunks and flakes, not the thin-sliced nova salmon you’d find at an appetizing store to put on bagels.

Between the citrus honey vinaigrette on the house salad and the apricot vinaigrette that came with the Golden Beets, they definitely do vinaigrette dressings right at Sixty Vines. I wish they bottled the dressings for all the sad salads I make for myself, but I’d also put them on sandwiches, pasta salads, raw veggies… pretty much anything. They are so fresh and tangy and sweet, and they really make vegetables sing.

For her entrée on our first visit together, my wife chose the fig and prosciutto pizza, which came topped with white sauce, mozzarella, honey, arugula, and sesame seeds (in addition to fresh figs and paper-thin sliced prosciutto).

After my wife’s first visit to Sixty Vines with a friend, she had told me about how much she loved the pan-seared rainbow trout. She was torn between ordering the trout again and getting that pizza, so she chose the new thing. She liked it (and I liked the slice she insisted I try), but she said she would go back to the trout when we returned.

And on our next visit together (the aforementioned date with the dates), she did! The pan-seared rainbow trout comes with snap peas, pickled fennel, lemon-dill aioli, and marcona almond gremolata.

Trout! Trout! Let it all out! This is a fish she can’t do without!

For our most recent visit, they actually changed the rainbow trout dish completely, to include green lentil ragout, coconut-vadouvan curry, orange, scallion, and cilantro! They do change the menu every so often, but that didn’t sound as good of a combination to her, so she switched it up.

This was the filet mignon, cooked to a perfect rare and served with roasted winter squash, toasted walnuts, shallots, and fig-balsamic reduction. She loved it, and I thought the couple of bites she shared with me were damn delicious. Believe it or not, I don’t eat a lot of steak, and especially not filets, but this was magnificent.
It should not have surprised me that a wine-centric restaurant is so good with vinegars, but the sweet fig-balsamic complemented the buttery soft, tender filet perfectly.

I am a simple man with simple pleasures, and for my first visit, I figured a nice, semi-upscale restaurant like Sixty Vines would hopefully serve a good, juicy burger, rather than the smashburgers that are so popular right now. I love a good smashburger, but it feels like it’s getting harder to find a thick and juicy burger in Orlando, especially with The Whiskey so far away from us.

I chose the double cabernet burger, with cabernet smothered patties, white cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, worcestershire mayo, and tomato on a potato bun, served with crispy fingerling potatoes. The potatoes were fine, especially with ketchup, but the burger was one of the best I’ve had anywhere in a long time (along with smashburgers from Cow & Cheese and Smokemade Meats + Eats and a thicker burger at a hipster place in L.A. I haven’t reviewed yet).

I thought about that burger for a long time afterwards, and I argue it is one of the better burgers in Orlando. I liked it so much that I ordered it again on our second visit, even though I usually challenge myself to try different things. But it’s so juicy, and they cooked it to a perfect medium rare both times, and all the toppings work together in perfect harmony. I’m guessing the cabernet is a reduction of some kind, but between that, the caramelized onions, and the worcestershire mayo, there is a lot of umami richness and tangy-sweet acidity going on.

I finally moved away from the double cabernet burger on our third visit. As much as I love raw, smoked, cured, and even tinned fish, I don’t eat a lot of regular cooked fish, and I want to eat more of it in 2025. I chose the seared halibut, which came with roasted asparagus, crispy prosciutto, and bites of fingerling potatoes in a sea of smoked tomato butter.

It was another decadent dish and a big hit. The halibut was seasoned and cooked beautifully, and it was tender enough to cut with just my fork. It melted in my mouth. I highly recommend this dish, and I would get it again, just for the halibut.

We were too full to get dessert after our first visit, but on our second visit, we shared this olive oil citrus cake with sweet whipped mascarpone cheese. Olive oil cake might sound a little odd, but like everything else at Sixty Vines, it is top-notch. (And if you ever have a chance to try it, olive oil gelato is delicious too!) When it comes to desserts, my favorites involve citrus or tropical fruit, while my wife gravitates toward anything chocolatey, so she surprised me by requesting this. I was more than happy to go along with it, and it was a great choice. She got the same olive oil cake again on our third, most recent visit. That’s how much she liked it!

When I brought home the to-go salad with smoked salmon, she had also mentioned wanting to try the orange morning bread from Sixty Vines’ weekend brunch menu, so I made sure to order it too. The order included five brown butter cinnamon bites (larger than golf balls), and they included little ramekins of citrus icing and crushed candied walnuts with a “coffee crumble.” We both thought these would have been better at the restaurant, where they are served warm in a basket, and your server pours the citrus icing and the crushed, crumbled stuff over them. But the citrus icing was pretty great.

So that’s Sixty Vines, which is probably my wife’s favorite restaurant in Winter Park, and possibly in the entire metro Orlando area. I fully admit I would never have gone on my own because it seemed:
1.) Wine-centric, and neither of us drink,
2.) Semi-upscale, which is generally not my thing, and
3.) A “chick place” — a restaurant aimed more at female diners than male.

But whenever my wife wants to do something or go somewhere, I always try to oblige to make her happy, and I’m glad we went. After three times dining in and one time bringing home takeout, all in the past two months, I give it the Saboscrivner Seal of Superiority. The double cabernet burger, the house-made ricotta, the Golden Beets, those mouth-watering bacon-wrapped dates, the seared halibut, and the various vinaigrettes are all winners, and I know my wife really liked that pizza and loved the filet mignon and the previous version of the rainbow trout. The only disappointment for both of us was that fried chicken, but luckily, this is Orlando, and there are plenty of places to get fried chicken, even if they aren’t topped with caviar.

Gabriel’s Subs

Gabriel’s Subs (https://sites.google.com/view/gabrielssubs/home) is a rarity in Orlando — a friendly neighborhood sub shop that has survived and thrived since 1958. Not many restaurants have been around that long in our relatively young city, and especially not in College Park, an area where many trendier restaurants just don’t last for any number of reasons. Through all the turnover, Gabriel’s remains a retro-yet-timeless destination where generations of families and hungry teenagers continue to dine. My high school experience consisted of being a lonely, horny, increasingly bitter outsider, counting down the days to graduating and escaping to college (which I looked at like the witness relocation program), but I guarantee that if I had attended Edgewater High School in College Park, I would have at least looked back fondly on the proximity to Gabriel’s Subs.

I only recently made it to Gabriel’s for the first time, and it was so good that I fixated on it for almost two more weeks before I had a chance to return. A friend with good taste had recommended the cheesesteak sub, with the caveat that it might not be as impressive as other cheesesteaks I’ve had, but it would be something singular and special. Well, this dude called it.

The cheesesteak at Gabriel’s is a pretty simple thing: grilled ribeye steak, sliced so thin it is practically shaved, then sauteed with onions and served on a soft roll with American cheese, my preferred cheese for a burger, breakfast sandwich, or a cheesesteak, as it turns out. Nothing melts quite as satisfyingly or pairs with hot, greasy meats quite as well as good ol’ American. I added hot cherry peppers to mine, which I will always do when they are an option.

It was boiling lava hot and pretty greasy, so the above photo was the only one I got, and it didn’t really show much. I had to go back, to try that sandwich again to see if the first one was an anomaly, or if it would always be that good — and on my second visit, I snapped two slightly better photos. Note the different colored basket for cheesesteak #2:

You see, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, there are definitely more authentic cheesesteaks around that are more like the classic Philadelphia version. My personal favorites in Orlando are identical sandwiches served at John and John’s – A Pizza Shop and Cavo’s Bar and Kitchen. But what makes Gabriel’s cheesesteak special to me is that it tastes JUST LIKE a Krystal or White Castle slider burger, but in sub form. It’s uncanny, especially after adding a squirt of yellow mustard to my second cheesesteak to match the Krystal flavor even closer.
I left off the pickles (honestly my least favorite part of the Krystal and White Castle flavor) and of course added the hot cherry peppers, which make almost everything better for me, but it was such a comforting, familiar savory flavor profile. The meltiness of the cheese melded with the steak and onions on those soft rolls hit just right, and I can’t say enough nice things about it. It is also reminiscent of that New York borough bodega classic sandwich, the chopped cheese, moreso than any other Philly cheesesteaks you’ve had.

RING THE ALARM, because Gabriel’s serves onion rings, and I had to try them! I prefer battered onion rings to this breaded style, but I ate them with a mountain of ketchup, scalding my tongue the entire time because they were so hot out of the fryer.

While I was trying a historic sub shop for the first time, I couldn’t leave without ordering their version of an Italian sub. Gabriel’s calls it the grinder, and it comes with hard salami, capicola, imported ham, prosciuttini (which I’ve only ever seen on Jersey Mike’s #13 Original Italian), provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, Italian dressing, and I added on sweet peppers. This is the grinder back at home, in front of my familiar microwave on my familiar green plates, after the flavors had a chance to meld together in the fridge for a few hours.

They really load up those soft sub rolls, so it’s a bit messy to eat, even by Italian sub standards. But it was really tasty. It’s hard for me to dethrone the namesake Stasio sub from Stasio’s Italian Deli and Market, but Gabriel’s grinder was really satsifying, and I’d happily order it on any return trips.

In fact, I got one on my very first return trip, to get a better photo (and also because I wanted another one, with hot cherry peppers this time)!

Is it overstuffed? Yes. Is it messy? Indubitably. Is it spicy? Oh, indeed. But so am I.

My friends and dozens of readers know that a sub — and especially an Italian sub — is probably my favorite meal. I am always on a quest for good food, but I seek out sandwiches and subs wherever I go because they always sound good to me. I am thrilled to have finally discovered Gabriel’s Subs after living in the Orlando area for 20 years, but better late than never. And after trying it twice, I totally get it. I’m on board. Like Beefy King, a similar time capsule of a restaurant that has withstood changing tastes and trends by continuing to do what it does best, Gabriel’s is an iconic institution and a certified classic. If you are a fellow fan, what is your usual order, and how long have you been ordering it?

Sarge’s Delicatessen and Diner (New York)

I recently took my wife on a whirlwind trip to New York City to celebrate our 15th anniversary. Before that, we had gone there for our 10th anniversary back in 2019, where I reviewed six restaurants, and before that, we were last there for our honeymoon in 2009.

We made the most of this recent trip — we saw two shows together, and while she saw a third, I made off to attend New York Comic Con, where I got comics signed by beloved writers and artists and posed for a photo with my favorite actress, Carla Gugino. Food-wise, we enjoyed a fancy anniversary meal, visited old favorites Ess-A-Bagel and Junior’s, and I took a trip to the Bronx to visit several iconic Italian delis along Arthur Avenue (which will be the subject of a future Saboscrivner ‘sclusive).

As great as my Arthur Avenue adventure was (spoiler alert!), my single favorite meal on this latest NYC trip was Sarge’s Delicatessen and Diner (https://sargesdeli.com/), and not just because I was back with my wife after a day apart from her, mostly spent waiting in long lines with fellow nerds. Sarge’s is located in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood and first opened in 1964 — not as ancient as Katz’s Delicatessen, but still an impressive run. You will see why shortly.

I should note that on past trips, we had always gone to the historic Katz’s, a Lower East Side landmark and tourist trap known for its legendary pastrami (and legendary chaos). But since we’ve been more than once, and since I’ve had equally fine pastrami at Langer’s Delicatessen in Los Angeles and The Pastrami Project right here in Orlando since our last Katz’s visit, I wanted us to have a new New York deli experience. People always say that the pastrami at Sarge’s may not be quite as good as Katz’s (maybe an 8 or 9 instead of a perfect 10), but the rye bread is better (it wouldn’t take much), the menu is larger, and the entire experience is a lot more pleasant and relaxing, with booths(!) and table service(!) and no long lines. It sounded amazing, so off we went, reunited after spending our longest day in New York doing our own things.

We were seated right away by a lovely and patient server (try finding one of those at Katz’s!), and there were no long lines to get in nor any weird rituals with tickets. My wife started the meal with a magnificent chocolate milkshake, while I opted for a cool, refreshing vanilla egg cream (no doubt made with Fox’s U-Bet vanilla syrup, which I always keep on hand back home). I had just walked from the Jacob Javits Convention Center to the theater district to meet her as her show let out, so I probably would have been better off with delicious New York City tap water, but I was caught up in the moment.
For those of you who never read my reviews, an egg cream contains neither eggs nor cream. It is made with seltzer water, milk, and a flavored syrup — traditionally Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup, but I also love egg creams made with Fox’s U-Bet vanilla and coffee syrups. As a result, they are more like a soda than a thick, heavy milkshake. Sometimes I even enjoy one at the end of a heavy meal to aid with digestion, but tonight I opened with the egg cream.

Like any good deli, Sarge’s quickly brought out free plates of regular and half-sour pickles and fresh, cool, crunchy cole slaw. I devoured the cole slaw and had one of each kind of pickle, and they were all terrific, especially as the first real food I had eaten all day.

We were blessed with blissfully cool October weather on our trip, so my wife got one of her favorite Ashkenazi Jewish comfort foods: matzoh ball soup. It was a huge bowl with one huge matzoh ball in the center, but no visible pieces of chicken, no vegetable, no noodles, just the ball. She said it was amazing soup, and after trying a spoonful of broth, I concurred.

She ordered half a pastrami sandwich with her soup, and she loved it as well. As you can see, Sarge’s serves huge, overstuffed deli sandwiches, but the main difference between Sarge’s and Katz’s pastrami sandwich is that Katz’s hand-slices the pastrami, resulting in thicker slices, while Sarge’s uses a machine, ending up with the much thinner, uniform slices you see here.

Whenever I visit a deli, whether it’s Jewish or Italian, I always try to sample as many different house specialties as I can, especially when I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make it back. I certainly hope to return to Sarge’s one day, but that didn’t stop me from ordering a Custom Combo sandwich with three different meats: the excellent pastrami (on top), its underrated cousin corned beef (in the middle), which was equally great, and rolled beef (the darker meat on the bottom), a mysterious, mythical meat I had only ever heard of, but never seen available anywhere else. For those inquiring, I made sure to deconstruct the sandwich to taste and truly appreciate each meat separately. So what is rolled beef? I wasn’t entirely sure, either before or after eating this heckin’ chonker of a sandwich, so of course I did some research and found a Tablet article about the history of rolled beef. It is cured and smoked beef navel (similar to pastrami in that regard), but less fatty, less peppery, usually served cold, and traditionally a cheaper option at delis. It was great, but I still prefer the perfection of pastrami in the pantheon of salted, cured meats.

And me being me, I saw onion rings on a menu and had to order them. I always try onion rings wherever I am, and I review them in a recurring segment on this blog called RING THE ALARM! Well, folks, I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but our server turned every head in the dining room when she walked out this titanic, tremendous tower, this massive, monumental mountain of gorgeous, golden-brown batter-dipped onion rings. It was almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.
Dear readers, you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, I can say without hesitation that these were the absolute finest, worthiest, all-time best onion rings I’ve ever had in my life. They narrowly beat another New York deli landmark, the aforementioned Junior’s, which previously held the prize with their similar style of onion rings. These are crispy on the outside (not quite crunchy), and almost cakey on the inside — kind of like fluffy funnel cakes, but savory instead of sweet. I’ve only ever encountered this style of onion rings at iconic Jewish delis, and it is definitely my favorite.

So that was our first-ever trip to Sarge’s Delicatessen and Diner, but hopefully not our last. There are over 200 items to choose from on that vast and voluminous menu, and I doubt any of them would disappoint. In addition to the deli sandwiches they are probably best known for, Sarge’s offers the usual smoked fish you would hope for from a good appetizing store (nova salmon, salty belly lox, smoked whitefish, and even fancy smoked sturgeon and sable, plus multiple varieties of herring), a full breakfast menu, hot dogs and burgers, all kinds of diner classics, and even beer, wine, and liquor. If you’re looking for comfort food in Manhattan and want to enjoy it in actual comfort, as opposed to the tumult of Katz’s, Sarge’s is the place for you. Tell ’em The Saboscrivner sent ya… and they’ll have no idea what you’re taking about!

The Taproom at Dubsdread

I moved to Orlando almost 20 years ago, the day after Thanksgiving in 2004, so I feel a bit like a local. I like to think I know the best places to eat, even though there are always new hotspots and a handful of old classics I have yet to visit. One of them, one of the oldest and most classic Orlando restaurants of all, is The Taproom at Dubsdread (https://taproomatdubsdread.com/), the 100-year-old restaurant at Dubsdread Country Club, nestled between Winter Park and downtown Orlando. I had always heard great things about the food, but I avoided it for the better part of my two decades here, despite loving old, historic restaurants. In a city that isn’t known for its history, you’d think I would have checked it out long before now, but the whole “country club” thing kept me away.

I fully admit to being a bit of a class warrior, taking pride in my middle class origins and silently (or sometimes not so silently) judging and resenting the wealthy. Growing up listening to punk and hip hop and watching the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and “slobs versus snobs” comedies like Trading Places, Caddyshack, and Animal House probably had a lot to do with that. My parents were even more influential on my class consciousness — two career public school teachers who lived simply, refused to spend beyond their means, felt like they had nothing to prove to anyone, and rarely treated themselves to anything. To me, a restaurant at a country club felt like another world I probably wouldn’t be welcome in (and that my parents would probably disapprove of anyway), so I rejected it before it could possibly reject me. I spent all my time in Orlando avoiding the beloved landmark Taproom at Dubsdread until a work colleague and friend who I think the world of invited me to lunch there. I figured this would be my chance to finally check it out and write an unbiased review for my blog. As the guest of a classy, professional woman, I would be less likely to get into trouble with a snooty maitre d’, a judgmental valet, a surly golfer, or a society matron who resembled Margaret Dumont.

And it was a perfectly nice restaurant, much warmer and more welcoming than I expected. If anything, it was a lot less pretentious and highbrow than Hillstone or Seasons 52, those upscale chains. They didn’t even have valet parking, and the hostess and server were really nice.

My colleague ordered the fresh apple and bacon grilled cheese sandwich, which came with Tillamook cheddar, Emmenthaler Swiss, almonds, and fig preserves, plus a side order of fries. It looked really nice, and it inspired me to invite her to the incredible La Femme Du Fromage later on, since I already knew she liked fancy grilled cheese sandwiches.

We must have met for lunch on a Wednesday, since that is the day they offer a chilled lobster and shrimp roll sandwich as a lunch special. I always appreciate a good lobster roll. I had the best one ever twelve years ago at Neptune Oyster in Boston’s North End neighborhood, and I’ve been chasing that high ever since. This one didn’t quite reach those euphoric heights, but it was still really nice and refreshing, served on the traditional split-top bun and served with a side of onion rings — the “good kind,” as far as I’m concerned, with their golden beer battered exterior. So RING THE ALARM, constant readers — you can get a side order of really good onion rings at a country club restaurant, and for only $4! They’re on the menu and everything; I wasn’t like that rube in the commercial who said “Would ya please pass the jelly?”, embarrassing himself at a fancy dinner party, asking Chef for something lowbrow that they normally wouldn’t serve. Great lunch, great company, great restaurant. I thought even my in-laws might like it, and they don’t like most places.

I returned to the Taproom at Dubsdread more recently during Magical Dining Month, when many Orlando restaurants offer a reasonably priced prix fixe menu with a few different appetizer, entrée, and dessert choices to mix and match, where a portion of the final bill goes to help local charities. This time I went for dinner with two very cool friends, a truly glamorous couple who share my love of good food, but we hadn’t had a chance to get together in years. They were great company, as always, and even challenged me to take better food photos than I usually take. We’ll see if their coaching and constructive criticism helped here — you tell me, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!

We started with bread for the table, which I didn’t know about when I met my colleague for lunch, but now I know… and knowing is half the battle. The bread was like ciabatta, and the butter was whipped for easy spreading, which I always appreciate. Nobody likes frozen butter that can’t be spread!
Being true foodies, we shared everything throughout this magical meal.

These were buffalo shrimp (not mine), served with some celery sticks. I forgot if the dip was bleu cheese or ranch, but the shrimp were nice, with a slightly crunchy exterior and that mild acidity you get from buffalo sauce.

These were Italian meatballs (also not mine), but the owner was very generous and willing to share. I would have been happy to have meatballs like this over a bowl of pasta or in a sub, and I liked that the tomato sauce was chunky and not watery.

I ordered house-made potato chips topped with crumbled bleu cheese, scallions, and balsamic glaze, a delicious dish that was perfect for sharing. The chips were crunchy, not limp, overly greasy, or even overly salty. Of course, balsamic glaze makes everything better, and I’ve really gotten into bleu cheese lately.

For our entrees, someone ordered a bone-in pork chop that looked good:

And two of us, myself included, ordered prime rib. I like my steaks and prime rib RARE, and I was thrilled that the Taproom at Dubsdread took me seriously. Too many places blast a beautiful piece of meat far beyond rare because they don’t believe us and think we’ll send it back for being underdone. Nope, this is how I like it, especially with lots of creamy horseradish sauce for dipping — the more fiery and sinus-clearing, the better. The mashed potatoes scooped beneath were pretty nondescript. They could have used sour cream and/or cream cheese, bits of the potato skin, onions, or something else to liven them up, but sliding them around in the meat drippings helped resuscitate them a little.

The late, great Russell Jones, aka Big Baby Jesus, aka Dirt McGirt, aka Ol’ Dirty Bastard, famously warbled, “Oh baby, I like it RAAAAAAW!” Well, this prime rib was rare rather than raw, and oh baby, that’s how I like it.

It was time for dessert! I did not order this brownie sundae, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream served over a warm brownie, but it looked really good. How can you go wrong with something like this?

Two of us opted for the key lime pie, which is always one of my favorite desserts, and the Taproom makes an excellent version. The very smooth, shiny topping was more tart than the rest of the creamy filling below, and I loved it. I go nuts for citrus desserts that are sweet and creamy but also tart, and too often, bakers are afraid to go tart enough.

So I would definitely recommend the Taproom at Dubsdread for a nice lunch or dinner, whether you’re some kind of jet-setting big shot with a sweater tied around your neck or an anti-establishment outsider who wants to subvert every dominant paradigm you’ve ever encountered. I’m glad I finally realized that a country club restaurant could be perfectly pleasant, without running into unpleasant stock characters from old-timey slapstick flicks or ’80s comedies from boomer filmmakers. And enjoying two meals with friends didn’t make me part of any System, so I still feel like the cool(?), nonconformist iconoclast I will always be.

Sourdough Bread House

Hey, I guess I still write this blog! It has been a while, but I really want to spread the good word about Sourdough Bread House (https://www.sourdoughbreadhouse.com/), tucked away in an easy-to-miss spot on State Road 17-92 in Casselberry, alongside the flyover that bridges State Road 436. This lovely Turkish café sits in the shadow of a mostly-abandoned shopping center that used to house Bed Bath and Beyond and Staples, although both closed in the last year or two. I live in Casselberry, which often feels exactly like the “chain restaurant hell” that I promise my readers Orlando really isn’t, but that’s why small, locally owned and operated restaurants like Sourdough Bread House need our support and love, because that’s what they share with the community.

I had been popping in for years to buy the occasional large, round, dense loaf of perfect sourdough bread, which is always a big hit in our house.

Whether you use it for savory sandwiches or sweet spreads, it is some of the best bread you can buy in the Orlando area, and some of the best sourdough I’ve ever had anywhere. They serve it with sour cherry preserves at the restaurant, which you can also buy in jars, and we have done that too!

But beyond the bread, my wife and I recently started eating the occasional late breakfast or early lunch at Sourdough Bread House, and I had to shout about these wonderful meals from the virtual rooftops.

We might be Xennials, those sad, rootless kids who don’t fit in as either Generation X or Millennials, but my wife sure is a sucker for avocado toast when it shows up on breakfast menus. And while it is the easiest thing to make at home, I already mentioned the namesake sourdough bread at Sourdough Bread House cannot be missed. The huge, thick, lightly toasted slice comes slathered with avocado, shredded mozzarella cheese, halved grape tomatoes, arugula, olive oil, and pomegranate molasses — a wonderful recent discovery of mine that can be used for many of the same purposes for which you’d use balsamic glaze. My wife isn’t into tomatoes, so I got those, but she loved everything else. She added on a single perfectly fried, over-easy egg for some extra protein.

Keep in mind you can get more traditional American breakfast items here too, including French toast (sourdough, of course) and pancakes, but because the owners are Turkish, they serve beef bacon rather than traditional pork bacon.

Me being me, I have a hard time saying no to sandwiches and combination platters, so I went for the cold meat plate, which was quite the funky cold meat plate. I got two huge slices of toasted sourdough bread cut into four equal pieces, and they were topped with roast beef, pastrami, smoked turkey, and beef bacon — all cold, as promised. I think roast beef and turkey sandwiches are perfect blank slates that can be magical hot or cold. Pastrami is almost always served hot at delis, but I didn’t mind it at all being served cold here, just like good revenge. And while bacon is also usually served hot, I loved the cold beef bacon the most of all four meats. (It’s the one with the beautiful streaks of marbling in the bottom left below.) I think if it was served hot, I would have missed out on the subtlety of the textures and flavors. My hot take is that regular porky bacon is sometimes a bit overrated because it can be rubbery or burnt to a crisp, but this beautiful, beguiling beef bacon hit different. I’m guessing most people haven’t tried it yet, so now’s your chance — run, don’t walk. Finally, the small white dish above was a side order of a Turkish sausage called soudjouk, which ended up being kind of like sliced pepperoni, but made of beef instead of pork. The beef bacon was still the king of this platter.While all four of these open-faced mini-sandwiches would have benefitted from a swipe of good mustard (and you can guess I have quite a collection at home, being a maven of mustard with my Cutting the Mustard reviews), I was able to add a schmear of ezme to them — the stuff in the tiny black dish above. It is a Turkish dip made of tomatoes, bell peppers, and spicier peppers, and I really love it on any Turkish restaurant menu. It also came with a teeny-tiny side of fruit — a few wee chunks of honeydew melon and a single piece of pineapple (in the small white dish in the bottom right above).

We returned about a week later, and this time my wife ordered the quinoa salad, with mixed greens, quinoa (of course), cubed avocado, dried apricots, and curried sunflower seeds. It is dressed with olive oil, pomegranate molasses, dried dill (an herb she likes more than I do), oregano, and of course, a slice of sourdough bread.

Here’s a close-up of the lovely salad. I’m not the biggest quinoa fan in the world, but my wife loves it, and so does one of my favorite filmmakers and creative people, a man with a nightmarish imagination but the most wholesome personality ever, the pride of Missoula, Montana, the legendary David Lynch. Here’s a video of him making quinoa that always brings me joy. I could listen to him tell stories and make quinoa all day.

My wife added on a side order of delicious smoked salmon, which we both love. This was like typical cold-smoked nova salmon, the kind you’d get at a bagel bakery, appetizing store, or most supermarkets. It is one of my favorite things to eat in the world.

And I’m a simple man, so I got a breakfast sandwich with two eggs, cheddar cheese, and beef bacon on sourdough (natch), because I had been thinking about that beef bacon since our previous visit.I had a few thoughts about this sandwich, because of course I do:
1. It was good, BUT…
2. I like American cheese much more than cheddar on breakfast sandwiches with egg and a salty meat.
3. The beef bacon was good hot, but I like it even better served cold.
4. It desperately needed an acidic ingredient to balance the salt and fat — ideally mustard and/or something spicy! (I saved half to finish at home, where you can bet I “plussed it up.”)
5. This bread would have been better toasted, grilled, or pressed like a panini. (And yes, I toasted that other half.)

But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? No, I kid, I kid, it was good! We live close to the Sourdough Bread House, so we’re going to become regulars, either popping in for takeout or just bread or enjoying a leisurely late breakfast, since my workdays start later now. This is a real treasure, especially in Casselberry, where any truly interesting, unique, singular restaurants usually don’t last long because the locals seem to prefer fast food and familiar chains. Trust me — this is worthy of a longer drive from elsewhere around Orlando, and you won’t be sorry! I just hope you like sourdough bread, but even on the off chance you don’t, you would still probably find something wonderful on the menu.

Mazzaro’s Italian Market (St. Petersburg)

Mazzaro’s Italian Market (https://www.mazzarosmarket.com/), located in mainland St. Petersburg, Florida (not on St. Pete Beach) is to me what Walt Disney World is to most people — a land of magic and wonders, an expensive way to have a grand time, and if not the happiest place on Earth, then one of the happiest places in Florida for sure.

The market is huge — not quite as large as a Publix-style supermarket, or even as big as the two-story Eataly in Chicago, but much larger than Orlando’s beloved Stasio’s Italian Deli and Market or even the new D’Amico & Sons Italian Market and Bakery. (Honestly, I enjoy it so much more than the very corporate and bougie Eataly.) It seems to sprawl on forever, with a wine room, a cheese room, a cafe, a gelato area, counters for freshly made sandwiches, deli meats and cheese sliced to order, hot prepared foods, fresh pasta, and this scenic bakery to your left when you enter, where everything is made from scratch, like almost everything else in Mazzaro’s. It is always crowded, so you’ll have to jostle your way through the narrow, mazelike aisles. Midwesterners, prepare to say “Ope!” a lot, while New Yawkers might prefer “Eyyy, I’m walkin’ here!”

Back in 2022, my wife chose this simple cannoli from the bakery, with the crispy-crunchy pastry shell piped full of rich, sweet cream and dipped into crushed pistachios.

This was a gorgeous sfogliatelle, a delicate shell-shaped pastry made of dozens of crispy layers of dough, with cream in the middle (usually a bit lemony), dusted with powdered sugar so it looks more like it came from Miami than St. Petersburg. Luckily, one can get sfogliatelle in Orlando now, at Stasio’s or D’Amico & Sons, but on a rare pilgrimage to Mazzaro’s, you have to try everything you can. One of my favorite food-related activities is “Dare… To Compare!”, and this pastry shell will make you yell “Shell yeah!”

Hilariously, my wife calls sfogliatelle “schmuckatelli.” I could listen to her say that all day.

I don’t even remember what this thing was! Some sort of fruity center, for sure.

Heck, we brought these two sugar-topped beauties home with us last month, and I don’t remember what they were either!

My wife is a sucker for a good New York style black and white cookie, which are more like cake when done right, with the slightest hint of lemon underneath the rich, shiny icing. This one, from our most recent visit last month, was as good as any we’ve gotten from New York bagel shops, bakeries, and delis.

As I said, Mazzaro’s is almost always crowded, but never moreso on Fridays or Saturdays, where everyone feels packed in like a certain tinned fish I love. That may be a reason the store seems so large, because it takes so long to traverse and even longer to take it all in. When you finally make it past the bakery, weaving through equally overwhelmed shoppers experiencing sensory overload in that maze of shelves for non-perishable groceries, you will find yourself faced with a plethora of options for fresh pasta, prepared foods, and deli sandwiches.

Here are just a few of the fresh filled pastas to choose from, which you can order by the pound.

There is a large refrigerated case with more handmade pasta already rationed and weighed in convenient containers.

I’ve never ordered any of the prepared foods because I’m always just passing through, but if you lived locally, you could easily take care of dinner for a single person, a couple, a small family, or even a big party. Yes, for those in the St. Pete area, Mazzaro’s caters as well, and I have to imagine you would be the host with the most or the hostess with the mostest if you brought in their fine fare.

My wife doesn’t share my obsession with Italian subs or sandwiches in general, so on our 2022 trip, she ordered this pair of lobster and seafood rolls from the deli counter. She prefers lobster rolls served warm with butter (Connecticut style), whereas I prefer them served cold with mayo and a little bit of diced celery for crunch (Maine style), and that’s what these were. I ended up eating the vast majority of these, which was fine with me. On our return in 2024, she remembered this was not the way (at least not for her), so she ordered a grilled caprese sandwich, with tomato, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and pesto spread on grilled Italian bread, and devoured it with gusto on Mazzaro’s covered patio, despite not liking fresh tomatoes or sandwiches that much. I didn’t even get a photo of it!

This is Mazzaro’s tried-and-true #1 from our 2022 visit: ham, Genoa salami, capicola, mortadella, provolone cheese, Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, onion, roasted peppers, Italian slaw, and oil and vinegar on fresh-baked Italian bread from a wood-fired oven. It’s a magnificent Italian sub, and I say that with pride and authority, since an Italian sub may just be my favorite meal (and is definitely my favorite sandwich).The Italian slaw is no joke, adding a tangy, vinegary crunch to the sub. More places should experiment with different kinds of cabbage slaw on sandwiches.

I had to get another #1 when we returned in 2024, and I asked for this one on a softer hoagie roll to try it a little different. I actually preferred it this way, because my one minor complaint about Mazzaro’s sandwiches is that sometimes the bread is a little burnt on the outside (see above).

If you recognize our familiar plates from dozens of takeout reviews, it’s because I always order these sandwiches and bring them home with me, rather than do the two and a half hour drive on a full stomach. I will enjoy them more in the comfort of my own home, and it gives the intense flavors time to marry and marinate. Usually I bring a cooler when I know I’ll be stopping by Mazzaro’s.

And I can’t go to Mazzaro’s without also ordering a #7 for later. This sandwich is both beauty and beast, with prosciutto di Parma, sweet soppressata, hot capicola, marinated sun-dried tomatoes (one of my favorite ingredients in sandwiches, salads, and sauces), and fresh mozzarella on a ciabatta roll. Both the #1 and #7 sandwiches taste even better after a drive back to Orlando and a night in the fridge.

Here’s my latest #7 from our most recent visit in July 2024. The outside of the ciabatta roll was overdone, but the interior ingredients are so good, the sandwich couldn’t possibly be ruined.

I also brought home three different, interesting salumi, so we could have a little salami as a treat: a bison salami from Angel’s Salumi & Truffles (no truffles for us, though!), a venison, pork, and pinot noir salami from Driftless Provisions, and a “bonfire cider” salami from Short Creek Farms (which I don’t see on their website, so here are all the salami).

The one disappointment for me, even though it sounded like a can’t-miss delicacy, were these prosciutto “chips,” made in house by Mazzaro’s. Prosciutto might be my favorite meat ever, and it is definitely one of the finest things you can make out of pork. However, a major part of its appeal is getting it sliced paper-thin so it almost melts in your mouth, with a pleasant chewiness. These crispy, crunchy strips lost that experience, although fans of crunchy bacon might like them more than I did.

I could have run amok a lot more on this most recent visit, but the relentlessly hangry crowds seriously stress out my poor wife. I resolved to go without her next time, whether I’m coming or going from St. Pete, so I can linger longer without guilt and she can be spared the entire hectic experience.

As much as I appreciate the Italian markets in and around Orlando, there is nothing like a trip to Mazzaro’s, which is why I’ve been recommending it to St. Petersburg locals and tourists alike for years (and even recommending Orlando denizens consider it for a day trip, because it is that rad). Heck, I wish I could pop over there right now, but I’m writing this on a Sunday evening, and it wouldn’t be open anyway. For such a popular place, they have pretty limited hours, so review them in advance so you don’t schlep over there and end up disappointed:

Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm
Saturday: 9am-2:30pm
Sunday: Closed

And if you’re already a “Mazzaro’s Adult” (not quite the same as a Disney Adult, am I right?), let me know what your can’t-miss favorites are for my next visit, whenever that might be.

Dough Boyz Pizzeria

Dough Boyz Pizzeria (https://doughboyzpizzaoviedo.com/) is located in a small, nondescript strip plaza in Oviedo, near the intersection of Aloma Avenue and Tuskawilla Road, just west of State Road 417. It is a few doors down from Ramen Takagi, a Saboscrivner favorite and home of the best tonkotsu ramen in the Orlando area. It is also a few moments from another newer discovery I enjoyed earlier this year, Alma Argentina.

Like any good New York-style pizzeria, Dough Boyz offers pizza by the slice, which is my preferred way to try any new pizzeria. While I was bringing home a whole pie, I had to try a plain cheese slice, crispy and warm from the oven, while I was still on the premises. To me, that’s the best way to get an idea of any pizzeria at its best. I ate this huge slice in the car, and it did not disappoint. It was the perfect blend of crispy and chewy, with nice robust sauce (not too acidic nor too sweet), melty mozzarella, and a thin crust that wasn’t burnt to a crisp. It was a little floppy, but that doesn’t bother me at all.

But this was the main event that I brought home, the grandma Sicilian, a thin-crust square pizza that is already pretty unique, because most Sicilian pizzas in my experience are thick and on the chewy side, with crispy bottoms and edges from cooking in a pan. Dough Boyz does that thicker Sicilian style too, but this was one hot grandma! It was topped with their house-made plum tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella (it’s fun to call it “MOOT-sa-DELL”), and homemade pesto sauce — a perfect combination. The only things I could have possibly added to edge this pizza pie further into pie-fection would have been some fresh basil leaves and a swirl of balsamic glaze. But I can’t complain, because it was a little slice of heaven — or more like twelve huge, rectangular slices of heaven.

A major reason I wanted to try Dough Boyz, out of all the friendly neighborhood pizzerias in every single strip plaza around here, was because they sell cheesecake from a local baker based in DeBary, Florida, Cheesecake Chino’s. I haven’t met Chino himself, but I have interacted with him online, and I wanted to try his New York-style cheesecake to compare it to familiar ones like Publix, the Factory, and my personal favorite cheesecake, from the New York-based Junior’s. The slice I got reminded me more of Junior’s than any other cheesecake I’ve had, and I mean that in the best possible way. It was a plain, dense slice with no toppings or additional flavors (fine with me), with the slight tangy tartness I crave from cheesecake, and an interesting chocolate crust, rather than a more typical graham cracker crust (or the weird cakey crust Junior’s uses, which is maybe the only thing I don’t love about their cheesecakes). It was very good, and I would be really interested in trying some other varieties from Cheesecake Chino’s in the future. I’m always thrilled to support local bakers, just as I love supporting local restaurants.

Two weeks had not passed before I returned to Dough Boyz for another takeout mission. I had not seen arancini on the menu, but when I arrived at the restaurant and saw them, I had to order one for my wife. She loves these things: a ball of creamy rice stuffed with seasoned ground beef and peas, rolled in seasoned bread crumbs and fried to perfection: crispy on the outside and soft and yielding on the inside. If you’ve ever had a Cuban papa rellena, it’s surprisingly similar, just with risotto instead of mashed potatoes.
It came with a dipping cup of marinara, but she wanted nothing to do with that, so I had something to dip my pizza crusts in. Score!

I ordered an eggplant rollatini pizza for us to share over the next few days — a classic New York-style pie with plum tomato sauce, “special blend” ricotta cheese, and thin slices of breaded and fried eggplant, but no mozzarella cheese. My wife likes eggplant and especially eggplant rollatini more than I do, but I ended up liking this pizza more than she did. I know she doesn’t share my red sauce obsession, but I think Dough Boyz has a particularly good, fresh-tasting tomato sauce, and I’m not at all surprised that they make it in-house.

And after trying the thin crust Grandma Sicilian last time, I had to go back for the thicc Brooklyn Sicilian this time. I would have settled for a slice, but they didn’t have any Sicilian slices left, so I sprang for a whole pie, knowing I’d make it last over several days. It started out with twelve slices, but I HOUSED three of them before remembering to take this photo. I loooove Sicilian pizza, you guys. I used to get slices at Cozzoli’s Pizza in the Dadeland Mall food court in suburban Kendall as a kid, and that’s how my love affair with rectangular, pillowy-soft, crispy-edged Sicilian pizza started, in the early ’80s in Miami.
This Brooklyn is slightly different from other Sicilian pizzas I’ve had elsewhere (including from Orlando-area mainstays Valdiano, Del Dio, Paradiso, and Antonella’s) because the chunky, robust tomato sauce is applied on top of the mozzarella and provolone cheeses, and then the whole thing is topped with oregano, grated parmesan cheese, and olive oil. It makes it messier to eat, but really, really good. I have always said that the sauce is usually the most ignored ingredient on pizza, but Dough Boyz takes their sauce as seriously as their dough and cheese.

Finally, for dessert on this epic second takeout trip, I brought home Dough Boyz — not the staff of the actual pizzeria, but fried dough balls topped with so much powdered sugar that they looked like they were partying in the aforementioned Miami, perhaps in the 1980s. You may know them better as zeppoli. My wife absolutely loved these, even more than the cheesecake, but I stand by the cheesecake.

Dough Boyz Pizzeria does have a few tables for dining in, but it is a no-frills place, and I’m guessing the vast majority of their business comes from takeout. I’m sold. It is twelve minutes from my home, and I pass a few other pizzerias to get there, but they have earned a loyal and enthusiastic regular customer moving forward. Give them a try, especially if you’ve heard the tiresome bleats of ex-New Yorkers saying there is no good pizza in Orlando. There is plenty, and you can just click on the “Pizza” category link in this review to read my other reviews on the subject (or just click on all the other links I’ve made sure to sprinkle into this review, like so much parmesan cheese). My personal favorite pizzeria is too much of a schlep across town to just get there anytime I crave it (sorry, John & John’s – A Pizza Shop), but Dough Boyz is my new friendly neighborhood destination, and I’ll be back again before long.

CLOSED: La Femme Du Fromage

EDIT: Tonda Corrente closed La Femme Du Fromage in Orlando’s East End Market at the end of October 2025, but I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of her, or her cheeses.

***

La Femme Du Fromage (https://www.lafemmedufromage.com/) is Orlando’s finest cheese shop, but it is also a restaurant. Located inside our hipster-friendly food hall in the Audubon Park district, the East End Market, this stall is a required destination for anyone who loves cheese… and wine, and charcuterie boards, and the finest grilled cheese sandwiches you’ll ever find anywhere. The finer things in life, basically.

Owner-operator-cheesemonger-chef Tonda Corrente is a delightful person with great taste in music — you thought I was going to say cheese, didn’t you? Well, she has the best taste in cheese of anyone I’ve ever known, and she even introduced me to my all-time favorite cheese, Cahill’s Irish porter cheddar, as beautiful as it is delicious. I am currently obsessed with her grilled cheese sandwiches, and I am dragging everyone I know to her little shop, one by one, to get them equally obsessed.

I ate there recently with a former co-worker, a brilliant professor and top-notch legal mind who I have the utmost respect for. This person admits to not being the most adventurous eater, so I figured suggesting Tonda’s cheesy creations was a safe bet. It was. We shared a magnificent early lunch on a Friday, dining at one of the outdoor tables at East End Market before it got too unbearably hot. The only issue at La Femme Du Fromage is what to choose, because every sandwich on the menu tempts and entices. I think we both chose wisely.

Because all my friends know how much I love a good Italian sandwich, I chose Tonda’s baked Italian sandwich, which was stuffed with genoa salami, prosciutto di Parma, housemade chorizo spread (kind of like nduja, that wonderfully rich, soft, spicy, spreadable sausage), house-made olive tapenade, and of course Tonda’s three-cheese blend (cheddar, gruyere, and havarti), topped with arugula and citrus vinaigrette, on a crusty baguette. It was a fine, fine sandwich. No complaints, no regrets. The only way to improve it would be for it to be twice the size, but it was great as is.

My friend ordered the egg and cheese sandwich, with a fried egg and Tonda’s three-cheese blend on garlic-buttered artisan bread. It was a wise choice for a first-timer, and she seemed to like it a lot. She was also kind enough to share it with me, and I thought it was a fabulous sandwich that blew me away. It’s so simple, yet so perfect.

When I returned with my wife the following weekend (after raving about it all week), Tonda had a special menu available, in honor of the Kentucky Derby. While I am not fascinated by big hats nor preoccupied with playing the ponies, I am a big fan of limited-time food specials. But even I didn’t realize we would try three of them on this visit (my wife’s first trip to La Femme Du Fromage).

This was my Triple Crown grilled cheese, with hickory smoked ham, bourbon glaze, smoked gouda, Tonda’s three-cheese blend, berry port jam, and garlic chive butter, topped with crumbles of smoky blue cheese from Rogue River Creamery. It was probably the best ham and cheese sandwich I’ve ever had in my life. My wife didn’t try it, because (gasp!) she doesn’t like ham. I know, right?

These were her Derby pretzels, soft pretzel sticks that reminded me of the ones I buy at Aldi. However, they came with something you cannot get just anywhere: pimento cheese dip, that decadent Southern treasure that I always love to sample everywhere, because it’s always a little different but always good — kind of like chili, onion rings, and Italian sandwiches. Tonda later told me this wasn’t house-made pimento cheese, but it came from Sweet Grass Dairy, where they added mayo, piquillo peppers, and Spanish pimentón to their own semi-soft, French-style Thomasville Tomme cheese. It was awe-inspiring.

This was the peach and prosciutto flatbread, another special recommended by Tonda herself, and it tasted like spring in all the best ways. It included pesto sauce, mozzarella and goat cheese, arugula, and white balsamic glaze, in addition to the paper-thin slices of salty prosciutto (the rare kind of ham my wife will make an exception for, because it is that damn good) and fresh, juicy peaches.

Tonda Corrente and La Femme Du Fromage were featured in the Orlando episode of Somebody Feed Phil earlier this year, Phil Rosenthal’s good-natured food and travel show on Netflix. Phil visited the East End Market, among other destinations in our City Beautiful, and he spotlighted some of our best local restaurants and their chefs and owners. I even made a list of my own reviews of Phil’s Orlando stops, and by the time you read this new review, I will have updated that list with a link to it. La Femme Du Fromage is a cheese-lover’s paradise, but there is nothing cheesy about it, or about its lovely, stylish proprietress Tonda, who has forgotten more about cheese than I will ever know. You must pay her a visit and try her fabulous flatbreads and god-tier grilled cheese sandwiches, which she charges a reasonable amount of bread and cheddar for.