Seafood – Page 2 – The Saboscrivner

Holbox (Los Angeles)

Holbox (https://www.holboxla.com/) is the first actual Michelin-starred restaurant I’ve ever dined at, although I have visited several Michelin Bib Gourmand award winners and Recommended restaurants here in Orlando. It specializes in Mexican seafood dishes, and in all my research on Los Angeles restaurants, it is one of the most popular and highly recommended destinations for Angelenos and tourists alike. However, even though the food is crafted and plated with elegance and style, tasting as beautiful as it looked, it is a humble stall inside Mercado La Paloma, a Mexican food hall in South Los Angeles, surrounded by five more casual food stalls — at the time of this writing, four other Mexican restaurants and one Thai place.

Because you can either eat at the counter or communal tables, I would say Holbox is casual and accessible too, which makes it kind of a novelty for a Michelin-starred restaurant, and extremely unique. They offer an eight-course tasting menu that surely sells out weeks in advance, but I shared a magnificent feast with a good friend on a work trip to L.A. back in November, just sitting at the counter and ordering off the regular menu. I’m so glad we got to experience Holbox for ourselves, after reading so much hype and love online.

(By the way, Holbox is pronounced “OL-bosh,” like the “ol’ swimmin’ hole.” Maybe that wasn’t the best example.)

This was my sparkling lemonade, and we shared these fresh tortilla chips and salsa. Since my friend and I take eating seriously, we almost skipped the chips until I realized they are only $1. How could we say no to $1 chips? That would be worth it anywhere, and especially at the legendary Holbox. They were good chips — so light and thin and crispy! — and the salsa was magnificent.

All four of these fresh hot sauces were stellar: Chile Kut with roasted habanero, Habanero, Arbol-Guajillo, and Chile Morita. The roasted habanero had an almost creamy consistency, and the Arbol-Guajillo and Chile Morita were deliciously smoky. I wish they sold them in jars like these, but I would not have been able to bring them home with me on the plane anyway.

This beautiful, intricate creation was my tuna tartare tostada, with Baja bluefin tartare, Sinaloa-style salsa negra, pickled carrots and onions, dollops of pureed avocado, and fresh cilantro on a thin and crispy fried corn tortilla (like an open-faced taco).

And my friend got this smoked kanpachi tostada, kanpachi being a type of fish. His tostada also included Hokkaido scallops, shrimp, the aforementioned arbol-guajillo hot sauce, dollops of avocado, and cilantro.

Since I am obsessed with smoked fish, I got this house-smoked kanpachi taco for myself, with queso chihuahua, salsa cruda, avocado, and peanut chili oil on a fresh blue corn tortilla. Every bite was fabulous.

You can see the smoked fish interior better in this shot:

In the photo below, the taco on the top is the Baja fish taco, with crispy battered local Vermillion rockfish, crema, mayonnaise, salsa roja, and pico de gallo. I got a perfect bite of the fried rockfish, and it might have been my first time trying that fish (a second new fish on a trip to L.A., after discovering sand dabs at H.M.S. Bounty!).On the bottom is the pan-seared Hokkaido diver scallop taco, with three scallops, chile x’catic sauce, caramelized onions, tomato, and marinated fennel on the same blue corn tortilla. I got a scallop, and it was as perfect as a scallop can be.

Finally, we shared the filete al carbon, a mesquite-grilled filet of branzino served over cilantro rice with black beans, more of that x’catic sauce, avocado, and pico de gallo, with rolled-up tortillas in that foil off to the left side.I think we settled on this dish because they were out of something that interested us both more, but it did not disappoint, despite seeming a little more ordinary than the other creations.

Every time I hang out with this friend of mine, we always fit in an epic meal. We enjoyed Langer’s Delicatessen, Pann’s, and Genghis Cohen on three of my previous L.A. trips, as well as a few other L.A. restaurants (including a famous, iconic Hollywood classic) and an awe-inspiring indigenous restaurant in Portland, Oregon, that I have yet to review. He’s a stand-up guy, a great professor, and a fellow adventurous diner, so I am always happy to catch up with him when I’m on the other coast. Holbox was one of our greatest discoveries to date, and if you don’t want to take my word for it, that tire company loved it enough to give it a coveted Star.

Barkhaven

“D’ya like dags?”
“Dags?!?”
“Yeah, dags.”
“Dags!”
“Ohhhh, dogs. Yeah, I like dags.”
(Name that movie!)

Barkhaven (https://barkhaven.com/) is a combination dog park, dog grooming facility, restaurant, and bar in Orlando’s Ivanhoe Village area at 724 Brookhaven Drive, Orlando, FL 32803. To put everyone’s minds at ease, don’t worry — there are no dogs in the dining room shedding, drooling, making noise, or trying to steal people’s food. There is a separate entrance for people to bring their dogs outside to the fenced-in dog park, but there are windows to watch dogs romp and frolic while you eat inside the restaurant, or there are outside tables separated from the dog park with a fence.

Full disclosure: we don’t have a dog. I am super-allergic to them, and I am much more of a cat person (more like I’m totally obsessed with cats and want to be best friends with every cat ever). But my wife grew up with Yorkies and one wonderful Yorkie/schnauzer mix and misses them terribly. When I recently found out Barkhaven existed, I thought she would appreciate a chance to watch some dogs make with the romping and the frolicking while enjoying lunch out after a nearby hair appointment.

The restaurant and bar area is a large, wide-open space with tables and a few half-booths up against one wall. All the food is served in disposable paper bowls and plates, with plastic utensils, which is fine with me. It’s a very casual place. The menu says they don’t use any seed oils, and they do all their frying in beef tallow, so look out, vegetarians. I don’t know when seed oils became public enemy #1 or beef tallow started being considered a healthier option, but I remain skeptical. I’m seeing this sentiment so often, I expect it’s some political agenda. Unlike the wonderful smokiness that comes from frying in reserved bacon grease, I don’t think beef tallow adds any particular flavor to foods, just kind of an oppressive heaviness. Would I end up changing my mind after this lunch at Barkhaven? Read on, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos.

My wife is obsessed with hummus, especially since our recent discovery of The Hummus Guy food truck. Aside from the dogs and the proximity to her stylist, the other reason I suggested Barkhaven was because I saw they serve hummus, and I knew she would want to try it. It’s a very nontraditional hummus, though — mixed with balsamic red peppers (I loved ’em, she didn’t), topped with crushed crispy chickpeas (not sure if they were dehydrated or fried in beef tallow?) and paprika, and served with thick-sliced cucumbers and pita chips (definitely fried in beef tallow, maybe a moment too long).

She usually likes wings, and I’ve been thinking a lot about delicious Korean-style crispy chicken wings recently. As a result, we were both intrigued by the honey mustard crunch wings, glazed with fermented honey mustard, sprinkled with green onions, and drizzled with scratch-made ranch dressing. These were meaty wings, not those tiny, sad sports bar wings I hate, but they were a little dry. The wings were suitably crispy without being breaded (there’s that beef tallow again), and as a mustard aficionado, I liked the honey mustard flavor that wasn’t too sweet like so many honey mustards that I call “dessert mustards.” My wife doesn’t like ranch and didn’t care for the ranch being drizzled on, so I ended up eating most of the wings in three separate servings, mostly back at home.

This was definitely the best thing I tried at Barkhaven, the arayas, also known as a Lebanese burger. Rather than a traditional burger patty that might just be sprinkled with salt and possibly pepper, this beef was heavily seasoned with delicious spices, and it actually had some heat, which I enjoyed. It was stuffed into a pita and grilled to get a crispy exterior, then drizzled with garlic tahini and rosemary pineapple hot honey. It was terrific — savory, spicy, and so messy and greasy. It reminded me of a spicier, greasier, messier version of the hawawshi I enjoyed so much last summer at The Cairo Express, although that was crispier because it didn’t have any condiments or sauces on the exterior surface.
The crunchy red cabbage slaw on the side was pleasant, even though I usually prefer the creaminess of conventional cole slaw. And I didn’t realize this arayas was going to come with fries, but I’m trying to be good and avoid fries. These were pretty conventional crinkle-cut fries, despite the beef tallow, so I wasn’t terribly tempted. I dipped a few in the ranch that came with the wings and dragged a couple through whatever tahini, honey, and meat juice dripped out of the arayas, but I left most of the fries behind and only felt a little guilty about the unexpected food waste.

Even though I’ve been eating less and eating healthier (this meal being an exception), and even though I didn’t devour all the fries, I saw Barkhaven offered onion rings, so I had to try them. I try onion rings anywhere and everywhere, since I have a recurring feature on this food blog called Ring the Alarm! These were described as “Thick-cut onions dipped in a crisp, golden beer batter and fried to perfection,” but they were not the kind that I am always delighted to find in the wild, at restaurants like The Whiskey, Christo’s, Build My Burgers, bb.q Chicken, and even Culver’s. The batter on these was dry, kind of tasteless, and had several burnt, scorched spots. Maybe it was the beef tallow.

Barkhaven also serves wood oven pizzas, fish and chips, salads, a hot dog (natch), desserts that include deep-fried pound cake (I guess they have to put that beef tallow to use!), and a whole menu for dogs. When I saw the combination of “beef, pumpkin, and broccoli” on the menu, along with “frozen carrots,” I thought “those are certainly some choices,” until my wife pointed out that those are options for dogs. But again, the dogs would eat outside. They also have a large selection of beers, wines, cocktails, coffee, tea, and other non-alcoholic beverages, all for humans.

Once we boxed up our ample leftovers, we adjourned outside to watch the aforementioned romping and frolicking for a little while. Those good boys and girls were having a grand time, and we saw some beautiful huskies and even a rascally shiba inu. It was a nice way to decompress mentally and physically after what turned out to be a heavy meal. So that was Barkhaven. If you like dogs, drinking, and beef tallow, you’ll be in absolute heaven!

Sushi Island

Sushi Island (https://sushiislandwinterpark.com/) is a new all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant in Winter Park, at 227 S Semoran Blvd, just south of University Boulevard near Full Sail University. The owner completely remodeled what used to be a (bad) sports bar/restaurant called Arooga’s, and the dining room is modern, spacious, and welcoming.

I met a good friend and former work colleague for lunch here on a recent Saturday, and we had a grand time, catching up after far too long. He has lost a bunch of weight doing the low-carb, high-protein keto diet, and I recently started a weight loss plan myself, trying to eat fewer carbs and smaller portions. We both figured we would do our best to “be good” here, and neither of us ate ourselves into uncomfortable food comas (which I usually do in all-you-can-eat situations). I figured that alone is decent progress for me.

That freezer in the front contains single-serving cups of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream for dessert, but I can’t imagine saving enough room for ice cream. My friend and I definitely didn’t.

Sushi Island launched its website after our lunch a few weeks back, but I made sure to take clear, legible photos of the menu since they weren’t widely available online yet. Since we went for lunch on a Saturday, we got the dinner menu and dinner price of $34.95 per person. In addition to all the sushi on the other side, you can order appetizers, soups (including udon noodle soup), fried rice or noodles, tempura-fried chicken, shrimp, and vegetables, hibachi-grilled meats and vegetables, and breaded, fried chicken, pork, and salmon katsu.

Here is half of the sushi menu, including salads, appetizers, sushi and sashimi, and simple rolls, which are also available as cone-shaped hand rolls (which I’m never as big a fan of).

And here are all the sumptuous specialty rolls:
Just as an FYI, there are a few sushi rolls on this dinner menu that aren’t available on the weekday lunch menu, so check the website for the differences.

My friend started out with an order of three crispy fried gyoza dumplings. He offered me one, but I passed. He liked them!

He also got this hibachi steak, a relatively small portion of cubed grilled steak with teriyaki sauce. I had one piece, which was more done than I prefer, but I didn’t come to Sushi Island for the steak.

I picked some of the fishy apps for us to share, starting with yellowtail jalapeno. This was just two thin slices of yellowtail over mixed greens with a dash of dressing and two slices of fresh jalapeno on top. We each had one piece of yellowtail, and it was a nice start to the feast of fish to come.

This was the similar tuna jalapeno, which we also liked:

This was tuna tataki, two lightly seared pieces of tuna with a peppery crust:

And this was the delicious mango salmon appetizer. I love raw salmon and I love mango, and I could have ordered a few of these.

This was the snow krab salad, made with shredded surimi (artificial crabmeat made out of pollock or cod), mixed with some mayonnaise and topped with crispy panko bread crumbs, served chilled. I really enjoyed this, but I already like the sweet taste of surimi a lot.

These were two green mussels, topped with spicy mayo. Mussels are one of my favorite shellfish. Don’t worry, these were cooked, not raw.

I ordered four pieces of smoked salmon sashimi and four pieces of saba (mackerel) sashimi, which is one of my favorites. When it comes to sushi or sashimi, mackerel is always lightly pickled, so it has a sweet, vinegary tang like my beloved pickled herring. I’ve never seen any sushi or sashimi garnished with a strawberry before, but I’ll allow it!I was expecting just the thin slices of fish because that’s what I recognize sashimi to be, but these were served with small balls of sushi rice underneath each one, so they were more like nigiri. I ate the rice because I ordered them, and I never like wasting food. Now that I know, I will request sashimi without the rice next time.

We each ordered two rolls. My buddy got the top two, and I got the bottom two. The top one was the Cow Boy roll, with shrimp tempura and spicy krab, topped with paper-thin slices of medium rare steak and scallions. The second one down is the Bubba Gump roll, with tempura-breaded and fried shrimp and snow krab inside, topped with steamed shrimp, avocado, spicy mayo, and jalapeño sauce. He was kind enough to share a piece, and it was a good combo with a blend of nice textures. The bottom two were mine, both recommended by our lovely server Leah: the Fat Boy roll and the Spicy Girl roll, which could be perfect descriptions of me and my wife. The Fat Boy roll (third one down) contains spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, and cucumber and is topped with tuna, salmon, avocado, spicy mayo. and eel sauce. The Spicy Girl roll (last but definitely not least) contains spicy yellowtail, spicy tuna, and avocado and is topped with spicy salmon, masago, white sauce, and eel sauce. I absolutely loved them and could have eaten far more than I did, but I really am trying my best to eat less these days, folks.

Finally, this was my last hurrah: the Naruto roll, with spicy tuna and avocado served in a beautiful, paper-thin spiral of cool, crispy, peeled cucumber, topped with masago, scallions, and ponzu sauce. This was such a nice treat, and since I already ate more rice than I hoped to, I was glad to find this good roll without rice. When I return to Sushi Island (and I WILL return), I will probably order several of these Naruto rolls. You can get them with different fish, too: regular tuna, salmon, yellowtail, or krab.

I was so glad to catch up with this friend of mine, who I have watched progress from dedicated law student to esteemed attorney to beloved law professor and head of an important department at my previous institution. He is one of the best people I know, and I kvell with pride to consider him one of my friends (and to be one of his!) — and that doesn’t even get into his skills as a drummer! And we could not have chosen a better place than Sushi Island, especially since we’re both eating less and eating healthier these days. I know I could have eaten a lot more sushi, but we both left satisfied, without being uncomfortably stuffed and bloated. That means we are making progress in every aspect of our lives! But Sushi Island was so good, and I am thrilled to have a place like it on my side of town, without schlepping down to International Drive for very similar all-you-can-eat sushi at Sushi Yama.

Colorado Fondue Company

I live right near the Colorado Fondue Company in Casselberry (https://www.coloradofondue.com/), but I had not been there in close to 15 years, not since I was dating my wife. I do love dipping foods in other foods, so it surprises me that I haven’t come here more to get my dip on. The menu features a variety of cheese and chocolate fondues, meant for sharing and dipping, as well as meats that you cook yourself on heated stones on the table.

It is a beautiful restaurant space, designed to resemble a cozy ski chalet in the Rocky Mountains, so it has an upscale-yet-festive atmosphere that would be perfect for a date or a special occasion dinner. It is even nicer around the holidays, since they put a lot of effort into decorating the place like crazy for Christmas. I get depressed around the holidays like clockwork, and I don’t do any decorating or much celebrating myself, but even I was struck by how nice it was on my most recent visit with two former co-workers, now friends. That’s why I didn’t want to wait any longer to run this review, here on Christmas Eve. If I can inspire even one couple, family, or friend group to dine there together while the Christmas decorations are still up, I will have done my job (that I don’t make a dime for), and those people will have a grand time.

In addition to a la carte options, Colorado Fondue Company offers four separate dinner options, which they call “trails,” keeping the mountain ski lodge theme. You really have to get along well with the people in your party, because each of the trails requires two people per order. I guess one ravenous person could go to town, though.

The Beginner trail is the cheapest, and each person gets to choose their own soup or salad, but they have to agree on the cheese fondue and chocolate fondue for dessert. The Intermediate trail includes the choice of soup or salad, a cheese fondue, and a selection of meats, but no dessert. My party of three went with the Expert trail, so we each got a salad, we agreed on the cheese fondue, we got the meats, and we got a dessert fondue. There is an even pricier Extreme trail with more premium meats, but we were content with the Expert options.

This was the seasonal Holiday Harvest salad that one of my colleagues ordered, with chopped iceberg lettuce, roasted pumpkin seeds, Craisins, crumbled gorgonzola cheese, and sliced apples. The website mentions a bacon balsamic vinaigrette dressing, but this looks more like a ranch dressing.

Another colleague got the Mountain Mix salad, with a blend of “harvest greens” and iceberg lettuce (although that looks like all iceberg to me), a “sesame-nut trail mix blend,” and shredded sharp cheddar cheese with honey Dijon ranch dressing. I do love those crunchy, salty sesame sticks.

For my salad, I chose the Southwest Caesar, with romaine lettuce, toasted croutons, and parmesan Caesar dressing, also anointed with a sweet red pepper coulis. I had to look up coulis on my phone (a thin, pureed sauce made from fruits or vegetables), but they had me at “sweet red pepper.” I stirred it into the salad, and it was a perfectly cromulent Caesar.

We shared more than one basket of these garlic-herb rolls, with crackly exteriors and pillowy soft interiors. They were great for dipping in the cheese fondue and various condiments yet to come.

On my first visit to Colorado Fondue Company with my now-wife, we shared the original cheddar fondue, with sharp aged cheddar and Swiss Emmenthaler cheeses, a beer and bouillon base, garlic, and herbs. This time, with my two colleagues, we shared the bruschetta Jack fondue, with fontina, asiago, and Monterey Jack cheeses, roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, basil pesto, and seasoned toast crumbles on top. It was great.

They brought us a basket of various breads and generic tortilla chips to dip in the fondue. The round slices of pretzel bread were my favorites. They were very similar to the frozen Bavarian pretzels I sometimes buy at Aldi, from the Deutsche Kuche brand (which I pronounce “Douche Cooch”).

The cheese fondue also came with broccoli, sliced carrots, apples, and grapes.

Slainte! L’chayim!

Next, we got two burning hot flat stones and this long platter of raw meat and seafood to cook ourselves. It included (from top to bottom): Pacific white “fusion” shrimp marinated in basil and garlic roasted pesto, coconut milk, and salt and pepper seasoning, Pacific Northwest chicken in a citrus soy marinade with mixed herbs, Colorado lodge sirloin in a teriyaki and soy-infused ginger marinade, filet mignon in roasted garlic pesto, soy sauce, lager beer, and crusted peppercorns, and at the bottom, Jamaican jerk-marinated pork tenderloin.
I don’t have any pictures of the cooked meat, but you know what meat looks like while it’s cooking and when it is cooked. If not, take a peek at similar photos of cooking and cooked meats from my trip to GG Korean BBQ earlier this year. I can tell you that all the meats were very tender except the sirloin, which was chewy. I never order filets, but I was impressed by how tender it was, especially since I like my steak bloody rare.

We also got a fondue pot of boiling hot broth to put the ravioli and potatoes in, and there were already random mushrooms and penne pasta in that broth. I was careful to avoid any mushrooms, my old culinary nemesis.

We got these four sauces for spooning onto our plates to dip: a whipped herbed cream cheese, a creamy red pepper sauce that reminded me of thinner thousand island dressing that wasn’t spicy at all, honey mustard, and savory-sweet teriyaki sauce. Me being me, the Condiment King (with all due respect to DC Comics), I probably paid more attention to these sauces than my dining companions did. But since I wanted to let the meats speak for themselves, I mostly dipped the remaining breads in them.

One of my companions, a brilliant professor and scholar, and one of the kindest people ever, chose our dessert fondue: the Winter Caramel Crunch. It combined milk chocolate, salted caramel, and Irish creme (maybe the actual liqueur, which used to be delicious back when I drank), and was topped with crushed pretzels. I can usually take chocolate or leave it, but it was a very good choice. A real crowd-pleaser, in fact. From the name, I’m guessing it is also seasonal, so try it while you can!

The dessert fondue came with this tray of cream puffs, graham crackers, marshmallows, pretzels, cake pieces, Rice Krispy Treat pieces, sliced bananas, and strawberries. Dipping things in the fondue is always fun, but I ate the strawberries plain, since I like them best that way.

It was really nice catching up with these ladies, since I don’t work with them anymore, and the setting and dinner could not have been better. It would have been pleasant even if we went to some dive, but instead, we had a long, luxurious meal in one of the prettiest restaurants in Seminole County, if not the entire Orlando area.

Seriously, get over there ASAP, before they take down all those Christmas decorations! You won’t be sorry. If you get sentimental and nostalgic at Christmas (and I’m one of the few sad weirdos who doesn’t), you’ll be in holiday heaven. And if you don’t want to splurge too much, you can have a totally nice, light dinner date by just going with the Beginner trail: salads, a cheese fondue you all have to agree upon, and a chocolate fondue you all agree upon, with all the accoutrements, for $16.50 per person. Then you can just focus on dipping and good conversation, without having to cook your own meat.

Il Pescatore

Il Pescatore (https://ilpescatoreonline.com/) is an old-school Italian restaurant in Orlando’s Milk District, nestled between Vietnamese restaurants Pho Vinh and Pho Hoa on Primrose Drive, directly south of East Colonial Drive. Se7en Bites and Smoke & Donuts BBQ are just past it, too. The Milk District is full of treasured restaurants, and Il Pescatore turned out to be one more. It’s not new, and many Orlando locals probably know it already, but it’s still relatively new to me, okay?

I honestly don’t go out for Italian food very often anymore (excluding pizza and my beloved Italian subs), since I make myself multiple salads a week at home and work wonders with pasta. But my first visit to Il Pescatore two years ago was kind of a treat, and also an emotional milestone, because two valued co-workers and great friends took me to lunch there on my last day of a job I had held for 15 years. Even though I worked close to the Milk District for that many years, I had never gone to Il Pescatore before, because I thought it was a fancy, upscale restaurant, and those are usually not my thing. I was wrong! It was cozy, comfortable, and welcoming, and the food was super-solid.

This was my side salad, with fresh, crunchy iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, a bit of shredded red cabbage, and an excellent house-made vinaigrette dressing that really stood out.

One of my colleagues ordered the tri-color salad with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella, topped with the same house dressing.

Another colleague ordered this Greek salad, with mixed greens, feta cheese, kalamata olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, whole pepperoncini peppers, red onions, and that incredible house dressing.

I did not try this funghetti al ‘aglio, mushrooms sautéed in olive oil-based garlic sauce, but my colleagues seemed to really enjoy it.

This was good ol’ bruschetta, a crowd-pleasing classic, with tomatoes, garlic, and herbs tossed in olive oil and served over toasted Italian bread. We all dug into this appetizer and enjoyed it.

This was my colleague’s calzone, which would have been stuffed with ricotta cheese and mozzarella. Like the lasagna, you can’t go wrong with something like this! By the way, Il Pescatore’s red sauce slaps. You can tell they make it fresh in house and aren’t just opening some industrial food service can.

I ordered this baked lasagna from the lunch menu, and while I wish I remembered it better after two years, I’m sure it was great, as anything smothered and baked in red sauce and mozzarella cheese would be. Lasagna is one of my favorite dishes of all time, but I make such an amazing version myself (especially in the winter), I rarely order it at restaurants. Once in a while, I make an exception, and I’m sure I chose wisely here.

This combo sub was definitely mine too: ham, genoa salami, capicola, provolone cheese, shredded iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and more of that house vinaigrette on a nice, soft roll, served cold. I have a hard time passing up an Italian sub, and while this one wasn’t the biggest or the best of all time, it definitely hit the spot.

I didn’t order the tiramisu, but my colleague/mentor/friend was kind enough to offer me a taste. It’s a wonderful dessert I rarely partake in but always enjoy whenever I do: an architectural marvel of lady finger cookies layered with mascarpone cheese and espresso.

I returned to Il Pescatore this past week with the same two now-former co-workers, along with a third. Of the four of us, only one person is still at the old workplace. I think the world of these people, and I am so glad we have kept in touch. The last time we got together to catch up over a meal, earlier this year, we also ended up at an Italian restaurant, Terralina Crafted Italian at Disney Springs. This time, it was a lot closer to people’s work and home (and for me, they are one in the same).

I ordered an appetizer of fried smelts, hoping to share them with the group, but my one male colleague had one, the two ladies wanted absolutely nothing to do with them, and I enjoyed the rest. I am a huge sardine eater, so finding small fried fish like sardines and smelts at restaurants is a rare treat. Olympia Greek Restaurant used to have good ones, but it closed years ago. These were very good, especially dunked in Il Pescatore’s wonderful red sauce.

My vegetarian colleague ordered this lovely pizza bianco, a white pizza topped with mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, sliced tomatoes, crushed garlic, and fresh basil. I thought she ordered the 12″, but it seemed a lot bigger than that.

Someone got the chicken parmesan with linguini, which looked like a HUGE portion:

And someone else got the similar-looking eggplant parmesan, also with linguini:

Since I studied the menu over the two years since my first visit, I learned about a dish on Il Pescatore’s dinner menu called tortellini di Stefano. It sounded so perfect, but it isn’t on the lunch menu. Luckily, when I mentioned it to our server, she told me they could still make it, but there wasn’t a more moderately priced lunch portion. Hey, that was fine with me! It was really satisfying and different enough from the pasta dishes I make at home that I felt like I made the best possible choice. It arrived with a melty, oven-baked layer of provolone (not mozzarella!) cheese, and I do love provolone.

After folding in the cheese, you can get a better idea of what the dish looks like beneath. The tortellini pasta was in a “creamy meat sauce with a touch of prosciutto,” almost like a cross between a creamier Bolognese meat sauce and a vodka sauce. And prosciutto is one of my favorite foods — not just meats, but foods in general. I shook some red pepper flakes onto the pasta to add a bit of heat. They aren’t just for pizza anymore! This tortellini di Stefano wowed me. I would totally order it again whenever I return to Il Pescatore, and hopefully that won’t take me two more years.

“Red sauce” Italian is pure comfort food for me. My family used to go to Anthony’s Pizzeria in Kendall throughout the ’80s and into the mid-’90s, and when it closed, they switched to getting takeout from The Big Cheese, a South Miami/Coral Gables institution. I love a good bowl of pasta in red sauce, which sometimes I make from scratch and sometimes I leave to the experts (Rao’s). When I’m stressed or depressed (which happens a lot, surprise surprise), pasta and a good salad and some bread help get me through, and when I’m feeling celebratory, relaxed, and relieved, the same meal sounds just as good then.

After trying the humble but excellent food at Il Pescatore twice now, I know they have a lot more interesting options than the same pasta and sauce I can easily make myself at home. The tortellini de Stefano was a dynamic dish, but next time, I might try the linguini scungilli, with conch in a garlic tomato sauce. If I’m feeling flush, I might treat myself to the zuppa di mare Trapanese, a Sicilian seafood platter with shrimp, mussels, calamari, clams, and snapper, all simmered in tomato sauce. Maybe I’ll just get the eggplant parm like my colleague ordered this week, since my attempts at eggplant parm at home never come out well. I know Il Pescatore won’t let me down! They haven’t so far.

Fiesta Cancun

Fiesta Cancun (https://fiestacancunfl.com/) is a beautiful, festive, casual Mexican restaurant in Altamonte Springs. It is tucked off the beaten path at 260 Douglas Avenue, just off busy Semoran Boulevard (State Road 436) and a minute from I-4 exit 92. You can’t see it from Semoran, but turn onto Douglas, and it will be on your left before you hit the Waffle House on the left and the Cracker Barrel on the right.

The dining room is so colorful and fun, it is hard not to get swept up in a celebratory spirit and feel like you’re on vacation. I blacked out the faces of nearby diners to preserve their privacy, but you can still tell that the vibes are super-festive.

I’ve said this before, but whenever a Mexican restaurant offers aguas frescas, I know we’re going to be in for good, authentic food. I got a passion fruit agua fresca (one of my favorite flavors of anything), and my wife chose jamaica (hibiscus flower). The glass mugs were huge, but our bill said they cost $7.50 each, and refills cost extra! (The menu says they cost $4.25 each, so maybe they did charge us for refills.) As much as I love it, I’ll stick to water in the future and not drink my calories.

The fresh, free tortilla chips were fine after adding a little salt, and the table salsa was fresh and bright-tasting. But even better, Fiesta Cancun offers a salsa bar, which was a real treat to me.I love a salsa bar, and it is one of the many reasons I’m such a fan of Las Carretas. I appreciated that Fiesta Cancun had handwritten signs posted above each salsa explaining what each one was, and what the ingredients were.

Top row:
Sliced onions with habanero peppers, tomatoes, and lime juice
Spicy molcajete sauce with serrano chiles and onions
Spicy taquera sauce with avocado, serrano chiles, onions, cilantro, and mayonnaise to make it creamy

Bottom row:
Spicy red sauce with chiles de arbol, tomatillos, and onions
Non-spicy salsa verde with tomatillo and cilantro (the only one my wife wanted anything to do with)
Spicy Jalisco sauce with chiles de arbol, serrano chiles, tomatillos, and onions

They all looked so good, and of course I tried them all! They have plenty of tiny plastic cups for you to fill.

My wife was craving a good taco salad in a crispy fried shell. This one included shredded iceberg lettuce, a healthy dollop of guacamole, and pico de gallo and sour cream on the side. I availed myself of the pico, since I am a giant fan of the stuff, and she doesn’t care for onions or tomatoes. You can choose between ground beef, shredded beef, and shredded chicken with the taco salad, but I didn’t see any meat in the photo, and I don’t remember which one my wife ordered.

I had studied the large menu in advance, and I was so excited to see that Fiesta Cancun offered cochinita pibil, a dish from the Yucatan Peninsula that is sometimes called puerco pibil. It consists of citrus-marinated, slow-roasted pork with a complex array of spices and flavors, cooked until it is fork-tender. I am always inspired to order it whenever I see it on a menu thanks to the 2003 action movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico, in which Johnny Depp’s antihero also ordered the dish whenever he encountered it. The DVD extras (remember those?) included badass writer-director-composer Robert Rodriguez demonstrating his own recipe for puerco pibil*, which I made for a work potluck once. It was a labor-intensive recipe, and my version came out great, but my old co-workers were a tough crowd that didn’t share my enthusiasm. My old director actually had the audacity to tell me I should not have wasted so much time making it, and she wouldn’t even try it! To make a long story short, the cochinita pibil at Fiesta Cancun was dry! I know, right? I was disappointed, but I still ate it, and jazzing it up with the various salsas helped immensely. The black beans were fine, and I did love the rich Mexican rice and tangy-sweet, crunchy, pink pickled onions. I wouldn’t order it again, but I wasn’t even mad. I was still having a grand time.

I had also ordered a chile relleno off the a la carte menu, intending to have it later, but I busted into it to make up for the dry pork. I apologize for not photographing a cross-section of the battered and fried poblano pepper stuffed with melty cheese, but I honestly liked it a lot more than the cochinita pibil. I would totally come back and try other things on the menu, but I’d get that chile relleno again too.

I couldn’t take my wife to a Mexican restaurant and not order her churros or sopapillas! This time, the churros won out. The fried dough sticks were covered with cinnamon and sugar and came with a chocolate dipping sauce.

So even though I was disappointed by my cochinita pibil, I would still return to Fiesta Cancun and try other things in the future, if I was ever in Altamonte with people who wanted Mexican food and fun surroundings. You might have already noticed how vast the menu is, and how they offer a lot more seafood dishes than most Mexican restaurants, which makes sense, given that Cancun is a coastal city on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. I think it would be a crowd-pleaser for most groups. If you’ve been there before, what are your favorite dishes on the menu, and what should I try next time?

*By the way, I’ve been a fan of Robert Rodriguez ever since I first saw his $7,000 self-financed independent debut El Mariachi back in the early ’90s. As much as I’ve enjoyed most of his movies, his coolest career moment might be when he says in the above video “Not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to fuck.” Spot on. I also love his advice about learning to cook your two or three favorite dishes very well and making a little restaurant-style menu for your kitchen, to the point where you could always offer a few house specialties to guests with minimal notice or prep. That’s entertainment!

Pho Bar Vietnamese Kitchen

Pho Bar Vietnamese Kitchen (https://phobar.co/) has two locations in South Florida and one in Boston, but I didn’t label this review of its relatively new Orlando location with my “Chain Reactions” tag because it doesn’t feel like a chain… at least not yet. I recently went to Pho Bar for the first time, looked at the menu in person, but ordered everything as takeout to bring home to my wife.

She always wants summer rolls from any Vietnamese or Thai restaurant, so I brought her these two HUGE spring rolls (that’s what Pho Bar calls them, even though I think of spring rolls as the crispy deep-fried ones), with shrimp, pork, shredded lettuce, bean sprouts, and basil wrapped in rice paper and served with a peanut-hoisin sauce for dipping. These were much larger than most restaurants’ versions of summer rolls, and they came individually wrapped in plastic wrap. I should have waited for her to unwrap them before snapping this picture, but oh well.

I thought we would both enjoy splitting the grilled satay squid, which is always an impressive dish to me. The presentation is eye-catching for sure, with the grilled squid sliced into perfect rings and separate tentacles. It was seasoned with a chili soy marinade, and while I liked it, she didn’t love the flavor of this squid. It was chewier than we are both used to, and I give the edge to the similar-but-superior grilled squid at Z Asian Vietnamese Kitchen, just a few minutes east on Colonial Drive. The two sauces that came with the squid are ginger fish sauce, which was on the pungent side, and “green chili sauce,” which I really loved. It had a kick, but also a cool sort of flavor. I admit I used most of that sauce on some pork loin I marinated, roasted, and sliced very thin.

Like any good Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Bar packed our pho broth separately, so the rice noodles wouldn’t turn to mush while sitting in the hot brother. Unlike a lot of pho places, Pho Bar makes their rice noodles fresh in-house, and you can see they are wider than the traditional dried “rice sticks.” But for purists, they also offer traditional rice vermicelli instead. My wife always orders pho tai, with beef eye round, sliced paper-thin. It is always served rare, because it cooks in the steaming broth.

I will usually order pho dac biet, which comes with thin-sliced eye round, sliced brisket, chewy beef meatballs (nothing like Italian meatballs!), beef tendon, and tripe. But at Pho Bar, I was tempted by a more expensive option, pho suon bo, with brisket, meatballs, and short rib, which is a cut of beef I always love. Here’s my bowl before I added broth to it, but the short rib was too large to fit:

That was a whole meal in itself, so I ended up with the short rib standing alone at the end! It was a huge piece of meat, rich and marbled with fat, and the long bone slid right out. We had so much extra broth left over, I cooked up some noodles (the knife-cut Taiwanese noodles with fluted edges that I always keep in the pantry, not proper rice noodles for pho) and got a whole extra meal with that giant short rib.

And as we’re about to experience some unseasonably cold days here in the Orlando area, I still have even more of Pho Bar’s pho broth left over, so I have since bought some rice noodles for when I heat up the rest. This is going to be perfect weather for pho, which is why I’m publishing this review today, of all days.

I still contend the pho at my beloved Pho Huong Lan is the best in Orlando, and I am more likely to return there than to Pho Bar. But I’m certainly glad I tried the new place. It wasn’t bad by any means, even if neither of us loved the grilled squid. If you’re planning to dine in at Pho Bar, the restaurant itself is much nicer than Pho Huong Lan — less cramped, modern decor, comfortable booths. I expect it will do well in the Mills 50 neighborhood, even with so much competition within the same few blocks. It feels like more of a “date place,” complete with full bar (hence the name). The website lists a whole menu of cocktails in addition to beer, wine, and sake, or as hipster foodie influencers prefer to call it, a “cocktail program.”

Runabout Brewing Co.

Runabout Brewing Co. (https://www.runaboutbrewing.com/) calls itself a “Kitchen and Raw Bar,” a brewpub that serves an assortment of Southern-accented comfort food (pizza, burgers, sandwiches, salads, oysters, and more) and has 20 beers on tap. Longtime readers know my wife and I don’t drink, but a cool and trusted friend loves this place, so we recently followed her advice and went out there for a Saturday lunch date. It is located at 4721 S. Orange Avenue in Orlando, south of downtown in a district I believe is called Edgewood, between SoDo and Pinecastle. We were among the first to arrive, a little before noon, but the place was pretty slammed by the time we left, probably full of loyal locals.

This hot and crispy jumbo pretzel (that’s what they call it!) is more than enough for two people to share. It has the best crackly texture, almost like it was lightly fried. It is also dusted with Tajin, a chili-lime seasoning that I’m used to having over fruit, not a baked (and fried?) good. My wife doesn’t dig on cheese sauces or dips in general, but I loved the lager cheese fondue dipping sauce.

These were some great onion rings, definitely beer-battered and served with sriracha aioli. I give these a strong and confident RING THE ALARM!

My wife ordered this lovely arugula and spinach salad, topped with feta cheese, Granny Smith apple slices, and sugar-dusted pecans. There is also a lemon vinaigrette dressing on it that she really liked. She added two buttermilk chicken tenders to the salad, which didn’t photograph well, but she seemed to like them. You can also get herb-seared steak, crispy fried oysters, a salmon filet, or three chilled prawns added onto any salad there.

I couldn’t decide between two entrees, but I had not had a good burger in a while, so I ordered this “hot stuff” burger topped with pepper jack cheese, fire-roasted peppers, and crispy fried pickled jalapenos and topped with chili sauce. It wasn’t the largest burger in town, or the thickest, or the prettiest, or the juiciest, but it was still tasty.
The fries were pretty standard — if you’re thinking they would taste like McDonald’s fries, you’d be right, but there isn’t anything wrong with that!

And while it isn’t on the menu on the website, they did offer an Italian sub on the lunch menu when we went, so I ordered it to go. I got some salami, pepperoni, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and vinaigrette dressing on the whitest sub roll ever. It looked underbaked but tasted fine, and it was a solid sandwich.The potato chips were house-made and stayed crispy all the way home, when I separated them from the sandwich so they wouldn’t get soggy.

It is quite a haul for us to get to Runabout Brewing from home, but I’d go back to meet friends there, absolutely. There might be bigger, better burgers and Italian subs elsewhere in Orlando, but I liked these, don’t get me wrong. I was impressed by the breadth and depth of the menu just the same, especially for a brewery-restaurant. Next time I’d probably try some seafood, especially since I love oysters so much, or the marinated and wood fire-roasted wings, since so many places serve wings but so few get them right. The menu on the website now displays collard greens braised with smoked turkey necks, which I didn’t notice at the time (or maybe they weren’t on the menu when we went), but I’ve enjoyed a lot of good collards lately, so I would definitely get those on a return trip. I am just glad to see so many local breweries thriving and serving good food, not just the lowest-effort bar food.

Thailicious

Thailicious (https://thailiciousfl.com/) is a very casual Thai restaurant in the suburbs of Longwood. The building looks like a house, complete with outside tables on a covered, screened-in front porch. My wife and I have gone three times so far, and we really like it, enough to already consider ourselves semi-regulars. I want to work our way through the entire menu, but their dishes are so good, it is hard to not default back to past favorites.

My best advice for going for dinner is to arrive early, because it always gets super-busy. The people of Longwood know what’s good, and they also may not want to drive far and wide for newer, trendier Thai restaurants, knowing they have a wonderful, well-kept secret in their own back yard.

On all of our visits, my wife starts out with sweet, cool, creamy, slightly smoky Thai iced tea, her beverage of choice:

She usually orders summer rolls, one of her go-to favorites at any Vietnamese or Thai restaurant. Thailicious’ version comes with shrimp, rice noodles, carrots, and Thai basil leaves, wrapped in fresh rice paper for a chewy texture and served with a sweet peanut sauce.

On our first visit, we also ordered a crab rangoon appetizer, just for the heck of it. I hadn’t had crab rangoon in years, probably not since the days of the all-you-can-eat China Jade buffet on East Colonial Drive near Fashion Square Mall, but these were better than I remembered. They were fried to crispy perfection, not greasy or heavy at all, with sweet cream cheese inside (but nary a hint of crab, as usual).
These were so good, we got them again on our third visit.

The first time in, my wife ordered her go-to noodle dish, pad Thai, since we are now on a quest to discover all the best versions of pad Thai in and around Orlando. This was one of the best versions either of us have tried around here. The rice noodles were sauteed with pork (but you can also choose chicken, tofu, or beef or shrimp for a small upcharge), eggs, ground peanuts, bean sprouts, and green onions. The sauce was actually kind of tangy and citrusy for a change. A lot of places serve pad Thai that is too sweet, and it never has that tangy funk that I love.

I ordered my own go-to noodle dish, pad kee mao, also known as drunken noodles. These are wider, flatter noodles, sauteed with onions, bell peppers, carrots, zucchini (a nice touch that nobody else seems to add), fresh basil (so important to the overall flavor of this dish), and scallions, and I asked them to hold the bean sprouts. I also got pork as my meat of choice, and it was a wise choice. This was a delicious version of drunken noodles. The dish is always sweet, but I ordered mine medium-spicy, because I like my Thai noodles like I like my women, sweet and spicy. Next time I’ll try Thai-spicy, now that I know I can more than handle the medium-spicy baseline.
Well, my wife was brave enough to try the drunken noodles, and she loved them so much that she ordered them (mild, of course) on our second visit, and again on our third! I tell ya, this dish is a crowd-pleaser. If you’ve never tried them before, either at Thailicious or your Thai restaurant of choice, give them a chance, and you won’t be sorry. She wasn’t.

I tried something completely new and different on our second visit: a noodle curry dish from northern Thailand called khao soi, made with egg noodles, napa cabbage, pickled sweet peppers, and pork (instead of chicken or tofu). The noodles came in the creamy, medium-spicy curry kind of like a thick soup, and our very friendly and patient server gave me chopsticks with it, utensils you don’t usually get at Thai restaurants. It was nice gambling on a brand new, unfamiliar dish and enjoying it so much. I’d totally order it again, but that would also defeat my purpose of making my way through the Thailicious menu, as I intend to do in the months and years to come.

Get ready for the noodle pull!

It was so good, it inspired me to start ordering this dish elsewhere, to compare other restaurants’ versions to the first khao soi I’ve ever had here at Thailicious. You know what they say: You never forget your first time!

Then we got coconut sticky rice for dessert on visit number two, which we never order, but we loved it so much that we wondered why. What a delicious, sweet treat, especially topped with a huge scoop of creamy coconut ice cream! We haven’t been living right, avoiding sweet sticky rice, but better late than never.

On our third visit, I ordered the laab gai, a dish of ground chicken seasoned with lime juice, shallots, roasted rice powder, and scallions, served at the hot spice level, on a bed of fresh, crunchy iceberg lettuce. I am still relatively new to laab (sometimes called larb) after being introduced to an incredible version with ground pork at Isan Zaap Thai Cafe last year and then trying a chicken version at Lim Ros Thai Cuisine earlier this year. I would rank this one between the two.

I also got the spicy basil from their traditional spicy Thai dishes menu, with sautéed pork, sweet basil leaves, onions, zucchini, and red and green bell peppers, at a hot spice level. It came with a bowl of jasmine rice on the side, which I mixed in to soak up the delicious flavors. They always get the pork so tender here at Thailicious. In fact, not only are the flavors fresh and strong, but everything is the perfect consistency.

It was delicious, but I always return to noodle dishes, so I’ll give the edge to the fabulous drunken noodles, pad Thai, and that amazing khao soi from visit #2. Now that I’ve written a review with a good bit of variety, I will start returning to those old favorites, because I will definitely return to Thailicious.

Orlando has several Thai restaurants, many of which are new, hot, and trendy. This Longwood mainstay isn’t hot or trendy, but it is so damn good, without any pretension or attempts to be the new influencer-illuminati destination. That makes me love it even more. It’s a friendly neighborhood sort of place with next-level food, comfortable booths, and warm and welcoming service. Just don’t get there too late on Friday or weekend evenings, because the locals know what’s good, and you will have to wait!

HMS Bounty (Los Angeles)

HMS Bounty (http://www.thehmsbounty.com/) is a beloved dive bar in Los Angeles’ vibrant Koreatown. Named after a British ship where sailors staged an infamous mutiny (you may have seen the 1962 movie Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando), the bar is nautical-themed, but not in a cheesy way. Just don’t let “dive bar” dissuade you, because it’s a cool, dark room with a lot of character (dig those red leather booths, one of my favorite bits of recurring decor in L.A. dining and drinking establishments), history (it opened in 1962 — the year that movie came out! — on the ground floor of an apartment building dating back to 1924), and most importantly, super-solid food.

Before my L.A. work trips, I often consult websites like Eater for recommendations, and they listed HMS Bounty on their lists of The 38 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles (as of this writing, I’ve been to four), 20 Classic Los Angeles Restaurants Every Angeleno Must Try (five so far!), and The Best Dive Bars in Los Angeles. The restaurant was even a filming location in season 1, episode 11 of Mad Men (a fantastic show I loved), where Elisabeth Moss’ audience point-of-view character Peggy Olson went on a date to a seafood restaurant, “La Trombetta.” Season 1 was set in 1962, so the vibes were perfect, like everything else on that show. A different season 1 episode of Mad Men filmed at The Prince, another classic Koreatown restaurant with similar vibes and decor (and surprisingly good Korean food), so they were pros at capturing L.A.’s enduring old-school cool and making it stand in for early ’60s New York City.

After teaching an evening class on one of my L.A. visits, some students invited me out to dinner with them, and I was so honored, of course I agreed. We walked to HMS Bounty (which was their idea, not mine) and proceeded to share several plates while chatting and decompressing from the school day.

Fried calamari was on point, with a nice, light breading and a tender texture. No rubber bands of squid here! I think the sauce turned out to be cocktail sauce rather than marinara, which surprised me in the moment.

As my longtime readers know (the couple dozen of you), I will order onion rings anywhere and everywhere they are available. These were really good, with a completely different kind of batter than the calamari that was crispy, stayed on, and the rings weren’t too thick or too thin. It was a generous portion for $6. RING THE ALARM!

I was blown away by these thick, meaty, tender, well-seasoned hot wings, which were mildly hot, if anything. I’ve written before about my contempt for tiny, dry, crunchy sports bar-style wings, but these were the complete opposite. They were honestly in the Top Ten wings I’ve ever had anywhere.

I don’t think I ever got a piece of fish from this fish and chips platter, and I might have grabbed a single fry, just for the experience of it all. The menu said all entrees (including these fish and chips) were served with mashed potatoes and vegetables, but I honestly don’t remember if they arrived on a separate plate or not. If not, nobody noticed or complained.

But because I always study menus in advance, this is what I really wanted to try: sautéed sand dabs, a kind of fish that I’ve never seen on any menus in a lifetime in Florida, but I’ve already been to two restaurants in Los Angeles that serve them (both old-school places, if that makes a difference). I will review the other one at some point in the future, because I’d still love to return there.
How often do you get to taste a completely new, unfamiliar fish, especially by the time you hit your 40s? These sand dabs were mild and tender (definitely not a “fishy”-tasting fish), probably lightly dredged in seasoned flour. I was so happy to try an all-new, all-different fish! By the way, sand dabs are a flat-bodied fish related to the flounder.

The one thing we didn’t order that we probably should have was the “famous baseball steak,” which the Eater writeups had mentioned. But there was plenty of food to go around, and nobody left hungry or disappointed.

This group of brilliant, ambitious, warm, welcoming students that invited me out was all about sharing food (although I think I was the most interested in the onion rings and sand dabs) and spirited conversation. It was a delightful dinner with even better company, and I was so honored to be there for multiple reasons. I mean, most of my readers have been students at one point or another, but how often have you ever wanted to hang out with your teachers or professors socially? Has that ever happened?

I can’t imaging too many L.A. tourists making a special trip to HMS Bounty (but if you do, more power to ya!), but it is definitely a place that locals should pop into at least once. With all that history, timeless cool vibes, and much better food than one might expect, it would be worth checking it off your lists. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I really like dark dining rooms, even if I sometimes need reading glasses to make out the menu. That lovely dinner felt like I was transported to a different time and place, if only temporarily, and that’s what a really nice restaurant experience should be able to do.