Category: Small Plates/Tapas

Bites and Bubbles

Bites and Bubbles (https://www.bitesbubbles.com/), located in the Mills Park shopping area at 1618 North Mills Avenue in Orlando, serves contemporary American cuisine with European flair.  You might detect a slight French accent (hon hon hon).  It is located right next door to Yamasan, a Japanese restaurant my wife and I loved when we discovered it this past summer.  Now we have two new favorites next door to each other!

Bites and Bubbles is owned and operated by Eddie Nickell and Nicholas Olivieri, two restauranteurs who have had other successes around Orlando over the years.  My wife and I had dined at two of their past restaurants, Prickly Pear (a Southwestern concept in downtown Orlando, bringing a much-needed and now much-missed cuisine to town) and Bananas (a diner that was the previous tenant of the current King Cajun Crawfish space in the Mills 50 neighborhood), and I always liked them.  We never made it to Funky Monkey or Nick’s Italian Kitchen, but those were their places as well, and some of my readers may share fond memories from all of their spots.  But it seems like Bites and Bubbles has been Nick and Eddie’s greatest hit so far, and now I see exactly why.  The menu is incredible, and the service was impeccable.

I had been wanting to come here for several years, but because it is not open for lunch or on Sundays, I work late during the week, and my wife and I rarely go out to dinner (believe it or not), it felt like the universe was conspiring to keep us away.  But finally, with about a week left in Orlando’s annual Magical Dining promotion, we made it for dinner on a weeknight and were able to snag a reservation for a comfortable table indoors.  They also have a covered outdoor patio and rooftop seating that must be lovely in the winter, but it was still too muggy in September, and it also looked like rain.

For those who are unfamiliar, Magical Dining comes around every September, when some of the nicest restaurants in and around Orlando offer a special prix fixe menu where you choose an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert (from a list of three or four of each) for either $40 or $60, and some of the bill goes to support a different charity every year.  This year, the charity is the REED Charitable Foundation, which promotes children’s literacy, specifically reading instruction and educator training.  As if we weren’t already on board with the concept, I’m a librarian, and my wife, Doctor Professor Ma’am, is a college professor, so the cause is near and dear to our hearts.  I’m so glad all these restaurants are helping.

And on top of the charitable donations, Magical Dining is a perfect opportunity to try new restaurants that tend to be more on the upscale side (which we rarely go to), and to sample more dishes than you normally might.  Bites and Bubbles offers a $40 menu, which was definitely easier to swallow than the $60 options elsewhere, and it included most of the decadent dishes on their regular menu.  That’s an offer we could no longer refuse, so it was the ideal time to finally visit.

The interior is a beautiful space with sexy decor, blending baroque and modern styles.  There are plenty of red accents to break up the darker colors, and here in late September, they have put up some tasteful Halloween decorations (note the skull on the bar below).  There are no booths, but we were seated at a table with comfortable chairs.

They offer a huge wine list (I believe curated by Nick), lots of beers, and a vast selection of cocktails with clever names.  My wife is always happy to see mocktails available, so she ordered this drink called a gingerberry fizz that was spicy ginger beer (non-alcoholic, natch) mixed with cranberry juice and garnished with a slice of lime.  She liked it, and it sounded really refreshing.  She hates spicy food, but loves really spicy ginger beer.  That stuff is nothing like the ginger ale people drink on airplanes!

Our server Julian dropped off the first of many special surprises of the evening: an unexpected appetizer featuring house-made pimento cheese (always a favorite of mine) topped with jammy roasted tomatoes in one bowl, some vegetables in another bowl (fresh carrots, marinated gigante beans, pickled okra, fresh and crunchy carrots, and a slice of grilled eggplant), and some toasted baguette slices and water crackers for spreading and dipping.  I didn’t even know this was an option, and it definitely wasn’t part of the Magical Dining menu!  Note the whimsical Halloween-inspired three-bowl setup, too.

My wife loves winter root vegetables, so she was very tempted by the butternut squash bisque, even though it wasn’t one of the Magical Dining options.  Since we are a fun couple who know how to party, she went for it.  The bisque was thick, rich, creamy, savory, and slightly sweet, and that is whipped cream and some toasted pepitas in the center.  It was a perfect soup for the fall (by which I mean the season, but it would also be a comforting soup to take the edge off the end of civilization).

For her Magical Dining appetizer, she chose the escargot, which I would have definitely ordered if she didn’t.  It was a generous portion of gastropods for this pair of gastronomes, and it was so nice that they were all removed from shells and resting in the thick, savory brandy mustard crème sauce.  (The three shells were strictly decorative, but including the shells is de rigueur for serving escargot, whether you have to dig them out of the shells or not.)  For those who haven’t tried escargot, yes, they are snails.  They are traditionally served in garlic and butter, so they taste like garlic and butter, but these had an interesting flavor, both earthy and ocean-y, plus what they picked up from the sauce.  They have the consistency of mushrooms, a little firmer and chewier than tinned oysters or mussels. Did I use that nice toasted bread to soak up all the brandy mustard crème sauce?  You better believe it.

My Bites and Bubbles-obsessed friend had told me you could order a second appetizer for Magical Dining instead of a dessert, and our wonderful server Julian confirmed that.  I would have loved to try all four of the apps, but we made out like bandits, being able to get three of the four.

This app is their fried goat cheese, which is a large, round patty covered with crispy, golden-brown panko bread crumb and almond breading.  The inside was equal parts creamy and funky, like goat cheese should be.  It was served on a toasted baguette slice, topped with more of those terrific roasted tomatoes, and served with the most delicious fruit salsa, blackberries, fresh basil leaves, and the first fresh figs I’ve had all year.  It was a wonderful combination of sweet, savory, tangy, creamy, crunchy, soft, and sticky, and it was plated like a work of art.  The presentation made me think of the gorgeous dishes food stylist Janice Poon created for the Hannibal TV series, so artful and beguiling even when they were macabre (although this app was anything but macabre).

This was my second app, another beautiful tableau: house-made pork liver paté that was savory and salty and not a uniformly smooth texture throughout, so it was a fun experience spreading it on the toasted baguette slices and water crackers and dipping it in the grainy mustard.  (I am truly, literally obsessed with mustard, so I really should have gotten the name of that mustard they used or found out if it was made in house.)  Like the goat cheese app, this one came with so many accoutrements to make each bite a unique pleasure of tastes and textures: the bread and water crackers, the mustard, house-made cornichons, marinated gigante beans, drops of balsamic glaze, more fresh figs (that paired perfectly with the balsamic glaze), a sprig of fresh dill, and my favorite of all, the balsamic-marinated, grilled cipollini onions at 11 and 3 o’clock.  I’ve only ever seen them in the olive bar at Whole Foods, where they are very expensive, but I could eat those like candy. As much as I love the things that go onto a charcuterie board, I never order them when I’m out at a restaurant.  I’d rather snack on all that stuff at home, and then I always get the thought “Why should I put this on a board when I can put it on bread, which is an edible board?”  And then I recreate THE SANDWICH.  But this pristine pork paté plating restored my faith in charcuterie boards.

With four entrees to choose from, my wife went with the duck confit, a classic French recipe for preparing a duck leg quarter (including the thigh) by curing it with salt and herbs, then slow-roasting it in its own rendered fat.  I tried duck confit for my first time earlier this year at a legendary Los Angeles restaurant I haven’t reviewed yet, and I think this was my wife’s first time.  However, never content to do things the easy or expected way, Bites and Bubbles served their duck confit like an upscale take on a classic Thanksgiving dinner, with country cranberry stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, and duck gravy with diced carrots, served with haricots verts on the side (that’s green beans for you non-Francophiles).

She loved it!  She typically doesn’t like things covered with gravy or any kind of sauce, but she ended up loving the rich duck gravy they used.  She normally doesn’t like Thanksgiving stuffing either, but she said that was her favorite part!  She was also pleasantly surprised that the mashed potatoes turned out to be mashed sweet potatoes, which she greatly prefers.

As for me, I was tempted by all the entrees.  I might have chosen the classic French dish beef bourguignon, which is canonically Superman’s favorite meal in DC Comics (although he likes his with ketchup because he is still that farm boy from Smallville, Kansas).  Unfortunately, that dish includes mushrooms, which, much like Kryptonite is for Superman, are my personal Kryptonite.

So instead I chose one of my favorite meals, a braised lamb shank.  This is one of my favorite things to eat in the world, and I love ordering them at Turkish and Greek restaurants.  In fact, I love braised lamb shanks so much that I learned how to make my own in a rich, thick sauce of crushed tomatoes, onions, roasted red bell peppers, and hot cherry peppers.  My sauce takes on so much rich lamb fat, and it makes a perfect pasta sauce that lasts for days after all the meat is gone.  I usually braise mine for five to six hours until the meat is literally melting off the bone, but I could tell this lamb shank wasn’t cooked quite as long, since it held its form better, clinging to the bone.   It was tender and unctuous in its own tomato broth, and I tasted cumin as the main flavor in there.  it was served on a bed of mashed potatoes (not mashed sweet potatoes this time), with haricots verts and fresh dill on top, and it was lovely.  I ate most of this dish at home the following day, since another distraction arrived at the same time.

One Bites and Bubbles specialty I’ve been hearing about for years is their duck fat-infused burger, and even with all our other delicious food, it was such an ordeal to finally make it there for dinner, we couldn’t leave without sharing it.  I’m so glad we did.  It consists of two smash-style patties cooked in duck fat, shredded lettuce, a tomato slice, thin-sliced pickles, and house sauce on a soft and fluffy brioche bun.  It also comes with Swiss cheese, but my wife doesn’t like cheese on burgers, so Julian brought the two slices of Swiss on the side for me.  In fact, she doesn’t like dressed burgers or buns, so I slid the bottom patty out for her, threw the cheese on the other patty, and ate the burger in the form of an actual burger, as intended.  It was like a fancy version of a Big Mac, especially with the flavor of the lettuce, pickles, and tangy sauce that was reminiscent of McDonald’s “special sauce.”  Of course, long time Saboscrivner subscribers should remember that McDonald’s totally ripped off their Big Mac from the Original Double-Deck burger, the most popular burger from legendary Los Angeles-area diner Bob’s Big Boy, which was once a national chain.Even though I like ketchup on burgers, I didn’t add any, because I wanted to taste the meat and the combination of Chef Eddie’s intended flavors without the strong flavor of ketchup horning in.  The fries were a $4.99 upcharge, but so worth it.  They were Sidewinder fries, which are among my favorite fries due to their crispy, crunchy outer layer.  We were too full to mess with them, but they crisped back up just fine in our toaster oven today.

My wife is much more of a dessert person than I, but I made my choice to go with two apps instead.  Nothing would sway her from the chocolate fudge layer cake, drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with a dollop of whipped cream, a buttery, shortbread-like cookie, and a Pirouline rolled wafer cookie filled with chocolate or hazelnut spread.  Like everything else in this glorious epic dinner, the presentation was stunning, and she said the cake itself was superb.  She brought about half of it home and said it was even better — even more moist — after a night in the fridge! 

And this is when Bites and Bubbles outdid themselves again, bringing out a second dessert that wasn’t even one of the Magical Dining options: their pistachio gelato affogato.  We never saw it coming and didn’t ask for it, so it was the most pleasant of surprises: scoops of pistachio gelato, mini bombolini (like little Italian doughnut holes filled with custard), crushed pistachios, more of the buttery shortbread-like cookies and Piroulines, and dollops of whipped cream.  It was an affogato because it came with a shot of espresso we were supposed to pour over it, but my wife never drinks coffee after 3 PM, or it will literally keep her up all night, which means we would both be up all night.  Instead of pouring the espresso over this lavish, decadent dessert to make it a true affogato, I dunked the bombolini and cookies in the tiny metal cup of espresso to make my own wee, personal affogato. 

I can’t get over the incredible food at Bites and Bubbles, the artful presentations, the intimate setting.  But I have to rave about the service even more.  Julian was one of the kindest, most knowledgeable, most patient servers we’ve ever encountered in Orlando, and Nick and Eddie were the hosts with the most.  They came to our table to personally check on us and did everything in their power to give us one of the nicest dinner dates we’ve ever had, anywhere.

Have you ever seen Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece when Henry Hill (the late Ray Liotta) takes his girlfriend Karen (Lorraine Bracco) on an extravagant date to the Copacabana nightclub, and a long, uncut tracking shot follows them from the kitchen entrance through the bustling restaurant, where everyone is being so nice to them, moving a table right up in front of the stage, doing everything they can to give them an unforgettable, glamorous experience?  Well, that’s how I felt, taking my wife to Bites and Bubbles for the first time.  I don’t think I’m a particularly cool guy, and I always say that I’m no influencer, nor do I want to be.  But they made us feel so welcome and so special, like a couple of big shots, and I’m pretty sure that anyone who dines at Bites and Bubbles, whether Magical Dining is going on or not, will get that kind of warm reception.  I can’t recommend it highly enough or rave enough about this dinner we enjoyed there.

Of course, we returned home with enough leftovers for a few more meals because we went a little wild there, but now that we’ve experienced Bites and Bubbles, I have no doubt we’ll return, and hopefully sooner rather than later.  If you have a hot date, friends in from out of town, dinner with parents (who actually like trying new things, unlike our parents), or something to celebrate, this is probably one of the best restaurants in Orlando for a special occasion dinner to commemorate something like that.  Ask for Julian, and leave yourself in Eddie and Nick’s capable hands.  They will treat you right!

The ‘Dines List 4: Sketches of Spain

This is my fourth installment of The ‘Dines List, a series of rambling reviews that extol the virtues of sardines and other tinned seafood, which I eat quite often. The goal is to review new and interesting tinned fish and shellfish I discover in my travels (or friends send me as gifts), and also to win over the sardine-skeptical.  Sardines in particular are very healthy due to being pure protein and full of omega-3 fatty acids.  They are mostly environmentally friendly since they are tiny little fellers who are low on the food chain.  And they are surprisingly delicious — far tastier and less “fishy” than the uninitiated might think.

A few years back, sardines started going viral for being “hot girl food” (check that Vogue article if you don’t believe me!), which really raised their profile and made these humble little fish both trendy and sexy.  Well, I am neither hot, nor a girl, nor sexy, and rarely am I trendy, but I’ve been flying my fish flag since I was a poor college student decades ago.  Now I eat them because I like them, not because I have to.  I guess I’m just ahead of my time, like with the whole loving superheroes thing, ever since I was a little kid in the early ’80s, long before they were cultural icons.  Awww, I’ll never be a cultural icon.

(But good grief, there is already some backlash against the whole tinned fish trend, and I blame the criticism on the fact that women have embraced it.  Let people — and especially women — enjoy things!  Be curious, not judgmental!)

Anyway, back in 2021, I wrote my first riveting installment of The ‘Dines List, which I titled Canned Sardines 101, listing and reviewing some of my favorites and providing advice and recommendations for the ‘dine-curious.  Then I started getting geographical with The ‘Dines List 2: Mission to Morocco!, where I only reviewed Moroccan sardines, and The ‘Dines List 3: Postcards from Portugal, where I only covered Portuguese tinned seafood.  As you might guess, these countries along the Mediterranean Sea have huge fishing and canning industries, as well as a culture and tradition of dining on ‘dines.  I wrote about Portuguese sardines way back in March 2023, so it was only fitting that I’d get around to Spanish sardines and other tinned seafood eventually.  Spain and Portugal produce the most serious gourmet tins, and I’ve been trying as many different varieties as I could in the meantime.  So with all due respect to the legendary Miles Davis, welcome to The ‘Dines List 4: Sketches of Spain.

I found Vigo hot spiced sardines in sunflower oil at Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg, a place I always recommend and rave about.  As sardines and other tinned seafood have become more popular and trendy, Mazzaro’s has dramatically increased its tinned seafood selection with a lot of higher-end Spanish and Portuguese brands that you won’t find at everyday supermarkets.  These Vigo sardines are some of the cheaper ones at Mazzaro’s, for $2.99.  I’ve also seen them at Walmart, but just the big Supercenter near me, not the smaller Neighborhood Markets.  Does anyone else think of Vigo the Carpathian coming alive inside the painting in Ghostbusters 2, whenever they see this Spanish food brand?  No?  Just me?  It can’t just be me!

Once I drained most of the oil, these definitely weren’t as pretty, so maybe you get what you pay for.  I either ate these bad boys straight out of the tin or dumped them on top of a salad.  I recall them being perfectly okay, but I’ve had better — read on to see some of them!

I bought these La Española sardines in “oil – spiced & piquant” at Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery, an awe-inspiring Italian market and deli in Los Angeles’ beautiful Santa Monica neighborhood.  Bay Cities is a West L.A. icon that has been open since 1925.  I bought several sandwiches and a bunch of snacks there on a work trip in April 2025, including a few different La Española tins, since I’ve never seen this brand for sale anywhere in Florida.  That way I had food for my hotel room and for work lunches, since I never rent a car in Los Angeles.  At some point, I’ll get around to writing a Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery review, because it deserves one.

These were larger sardines — firm and meaty, not super-spicy, but just fine for eating out of the tin in a hotel room like the most depressing film noir antihero ever.  I don’t remember finding the pickle and carrot slices pictured on the outer box, but they may have been under the ‘dines.

These Jadran sardines with hot pepper are interesting, because they seem to be harvested from the Adriatic Sea (between the boot of Italy and Croatia), but the box specified they are a product of Spain — perhaps processed there.  I think I bought them at either the huge International Food Club out on L.B. McLeod Road off John Young Parkway (a super-fun place to browse and discover treasures) or at Tima’s House, the small Euro-Balkan market in Longwood.

They weren’t the prettiest sardines ever, but I have plenty of silvery beauties coming up:

I added them to a nice salad, so isn’t this a work of art?  Dig the jammy hard-boiled eggs and beautiful pickled onions I made myself.

I’m pretty sure I picked up these Serrats small sardines in olive oil when they were on sale at our friendly neighborhood Fresh Market, because I don’t like paying full price for the fancy Spanish and Portuguese sardine brands. 

These were attractive, silvery fish, packed tightly and beautifully in their tin.  (I had already drained the oil here.)  I think more people would like sardines if they all looked this nice and orderly, since people eat with their eyes.  But did they taste good?

I served them on some lightly toasted Cuban bread with more of my homemade pickled onions from a different batch and some sliced tomatoes.  As you can see, they fell apart a bit as I removed them from their tight tin, but these were very good.

Fresh Market is where I’ve bought the vast majority of my Matiz sardines as well.  I am nuts for lemon desserts, but not as big on lemon in savory dishes.  Still, I had to try these Matiz wild sardines with natural lemon essence.

Trust me, they looked a lot less blurry in real life.  I don’t recall them tasting super-lemony, which was fine with me, but they didn’t make a strong impact on my memory, which means they weren’t mind-blowingly amazing or mind-blowingly awful.  I probably wouldn’t buy this variety again as a result, but I never regret trying anything.

My next Matiz product was their wild spicy sardines with piri piri pepper in olive oil, also from Fresh Market:

My only experience with piri piri peppers so far had been in hot sauce from Nando’s, the South African grilled chicken chain I tried in Chicago and still need to write about.  If Nando’s opened locations in Orlando, it would be a license to print money, but you can buy Nando’s piri piri-based hot sauce  (they call it peri peri there) and “Perinaise” at Publix and Fresh Market.  Just one look at these ‘dines made me think they would have a nice, vinegary, tangy bite to them.   

I had these with some rice after draining most of the oil, and sprinkled them with some crispy fried jalapeños.  They were a great little lunch, and barely spicy at all on their own.  The little included pepper is usually like an empty sack of seeds and never terribly pleasant to eat, but do I try every time?  YUP!

I had an even better feeling about these Matiz wild small sardines with sweet piquillo peppers, because I always think smaller sardines taste better and have better textures than the larger ones, and piquillo peppers make everything better.

They looked nice and silvery in the tin after I drained most of the oil.

I don’t even remember what kind of dark, crusty bread I ate with these little ‘dines, but I spread some cream cheese underneath them.  They were excellent, and for a change, the little peppers were pleasant to eat.  I always appreciate a piquillo pepper, though.

I liked these so much that I tried another tin on a different nice salad:

A while back, an old friend mailed me these Donostia Foods sardines in spiced sauce, and I knew they would be awesome.  She runs The Back Yard restaurant and bar in Baltimore and started their imported gourmet tinned seafood program, which sounds like a big hit.

I knew that despite a nondescript box, these would be special sardines because they included olive oil, tomato, carrot, cucumber, red pepper, onion, “spices,” and salt.  They were some of the most delicious ‘dines I’ve ever had. 

Here they are on a cracker with a wee cornichon from the tin.  This was a well-balanced bite of food!

I am lucky to have true and dear friends in my life, and sometimes they even hook me up with tinned seafood.  I hope you all have people like this in your own lives.  My best foodie friend and his wonderful girlfriend surprised me with these Los Peperetes sardinillas (small sardines), which he had read raving reviews about.  She was already in Spain, and he sent her on a special mission to track these down for me.  Can you imagine going to that trouble for someone you haven’t even met yet?  They are awesome, and so were these Los Peperetes.

Look at how beautifully packed these tiny sardinillas are!  Los Peperetes did an artful job.
Even the tiny tails were lightly crispy.  Yes, you can eat the tails, and you won’t choke or anything.  I like them.

I had to include this photo to show that there was a whole second layer of tightly packed fish below the top layer.  It was the gift that keeps on giving!  These were really something special.  I ate them plain at first, to get the full effect without any other distracting flavors, but I still have one more tin that I’m saving for a special occasion (or maybe a nice treat if we lose power during hurricane season).  You can’t ask for better quality sardines than these, or better quality friends than mine!   

The same dude surprised me a different time with this assortment of imported Spanish tinned seafood from Conservas de Cambados, which blew my mind.  This freakin’ guy!  What a mensch!  I had never heard of this brand before or seen them for sale locally, but I recently saw them for the first time “in the wild” at the aforementioned Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg.  I was absolutely blown away by his generosity and excited to dig into each of these.

There was only one tin of sardines in the box, but I knew they would be great because they were small.  Luckily for us, the label tells us the tin contains fish (sardines, in fact)!

This was up there with the Serrats and the Los Peperetes for gorgeous presentation.  I definitely think more people would eat sardines if more tins looked like this:

Here they are on some toasted Cuban bread… or maybe this was a Cusano’s hoagie roll, which I make a special trip to Gordon Food Service to buy.  There were a bunch of these little guys!  I might have added some lettuce, tomato, onion, and a splash of vinaigrette after the photo op, but I wanted to photograph them in an unadulterated manner first.

Wait a minute, ye scurvy scalawag!  This next thing isn’t a sardine!  I know, I know — it is line-caught Spanish white tuna belly, also from the Conservas de Cambados assortment.  I love tuna in all its forms: raw in sushi or poke, seared as a posh appetizer or entree, or even the cheap canned stuff in a tuna salad sandwich or tuna melt.  I hardly ever eat canned tuna because of the mercury, and because the smell of regular canned tuna makes my wife gag in a way that sardines (luckily for both of us) do not.  But this was a rare and decadent treat, and this was the best place to include it. 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it looked a hell of a lot more appetizing than the cheap “chunk light” tuna in natural spring water that I grew up eating, and packing the fish in oil rather than water makes it smell a lot less offensively fishy.   

After draining the oil, I enjoyed it on some toasted Cuban bread with a light slathering of Duke’s mayo underneath.  I make really good tuna salad (and chicken salad, and egg salad), but this was such a luxurious product, I didn’t want to dilute the flavor with any other distractions.  As you might guess, it was a cut above any canned tuna I’ve ever had in my life.  It just tasted rich — not necessarily fatty, but not “fishy” and definitely not dry.

The Conservas de Cambados gift box also included a tin of line-caught Spanish white tuna in olive oil, which I forgot to photograph, but it was also really good, I assure you.  And the other tins in the photo above were scallops and two different types of octopus, which I will tell you about later.

As long as we’re talking about delicious Spanish tuna, this is my most recent discovery from Bravo Supermarket, the Latin grocery store chain with multiple locations here in the Orlando area: Conchita Fritada de Atun, or Zesty Tuna Fish Dip.  It was essentially a tuna paté blended smoothly with tomatoes, pimento, onions, pickles, “spices,” rice flour, and sunflower oil.  It might look like cat food, but it tasted luxurious and was absolute heaven to eat, meow meow.  I dipped some toasted pita bread wedges in it, and I loved every moment.  It was cheap, too — had to be $2.99 or at most, $3.99.  It would be easy enough to make something similar, but this was better than it had any right to be.

Finally, these aren’t sardines either, but huevas de merluza, or hake roe (hake being a whole different kind of fish).  I had never heard of this Spanish company Agromar, or even hake, but it turns out they are medium-to-large fish related to cod and haddock, so nothing like the little dudes I’ve been specializing in writing about so far.  But I do love fish eggs, whether they are masago (orange capelin roe), tobiko (orangey-red flying fish roe), or ikura (that much larger salmon roe that pops in your mouth like popping boba) in sushi, or caviar, that ultra-decadent delight.  And these were spicy too, so how could I not try it? By the way, I bought this at the best place to buy fancy tinned seafood in Orlando, Hinckley’s Fancy Meats in the East End Market food hall.  I reviewed Matt Hinckley’s wonderful sandwiches a few years back, and he is definitely a master of smoking and curing meats, making patés and rillettes, and so much more.  But since then, he has branched out into curating and selling some very high-end, fancy tinned fish and shellfish from Spain and Portugal, so check out his staggering selection and order some.  Yes, he ships!

These definitely didn’t look anything like what I would have expected, though.  Not tiny round eggs, and not anything like bottarga, that intensely flavored, decadent, Italian salt-cured roe sac from a grey mullet, either.  The box refers to them as “medallones” (medallions), and I guess they look like that… or sliced Vienna sausages.  At first, I didn’t know what to think, but I will try anything once!

These hake roe medallions are some serious gourmet shit, and what do I do?  Serve them (just to myself, because my wife would have wanted nothing to do with this) on Ritz crackers, which are the best and most versatile crackers.  I’ll dip Ritz crackers into smoked whitefish salad or chopped liver, spread them with cream cheese and guava paste, or crush them and bake them into the best buttery-salty-sweet pie crust ever.  Or I’ll put hake roe on ’em! Were they tasty?  Sure.  They weren’t spicy at all, not salty, or even “fishy,” but they were pleasant.  Can I describe the texture?  No, not really.  It really wasn’t like anything else I’ve ever eaten.  Am I glad I tried them?  You better believe it!  Would I get them again?  Probably not, only because there is a wide world of seafood out there, and I’d love to try some different impulse buys from the vast selection at Hinckley’s Fancy Meats before doubling back.  But if you’re buying the next round, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, I will happily enjoy some future huevas de merluza tapas with you!

That’s all for now, but I have a huge stash of more sardines and other tinned seafood to review, from Spain and other seas and ports around the world.  In the meantime, whether you read this piece while sardines are still in style or discover it long after the tinned trend has come and gone, you can always rely on The ‘Dines List for detailed descriptions and unbiased reviews of humble (and occasionally not so humble) tinned fish.  And coming soon, we’ll venture into the wild waters and delicious depths of tinned shellfish, so get ready to see me flexing my mussels.

Baar Baar (Los Angeles)

Baar Baar (https://www.baarbaarla.com/) in downtown Los Angeles (the locals call it DTLA) is the most upscale Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to, with a gorgeous dining room and a large, eclectic menu of gourmet dishes that definitely seemed “elevated” above the standard Indian cuisine I’m used to. This memorable meal goes back to late summer, 2023, when I was invited on my very first trip to L.A., joining our dean, an associate dean, and my director, only about a month after starting my current job.  I definitely felt like the odd man out, hanging with these big shots, but their warm welcomes and lack of pretension convinced me I belonged there.  Our dean, a very classy lady who knows how to throw a dinner party, ordered several dishes, mostly small plates meant to be shared.

These puffs were dahi puri, topped with tamarind, mango, yogurt mousse, and raspberry chaat masala.  These were very light and crispy (similar to pani puri I’ve had elsewhere), but the toppings added sweet flavor to go with the savory, lightly fried puffs.

These beauties were Kashmiri duck tacos, served birria-style, shredded with cheddar cheese, cilantro, and red onion — true fusion cuisine!   Instead of Mexican tortillas, the crispy taco shells were more like roti or parathas.  The four of us each got half a taco and savored every morsel.

These six gorgeous oysters came with guava and chili granita (almost like a sorbet), pickled cucumber, and shallots.  I love oysters, and these were so fresh and refreshing.  I would have been happy just having this platter to myself and nothing else, but of course we all shared these and everything else.

This fun and frizzy dish was sweet potato chat, an appetizer served with tangy-sweet tamarind chutney, sweet and sour yogurt (or “yoghurt,” according to the menu), and kale.

These were two lamb chop burrah kebabs (the second one is underneath, and you can see the bone), served with fresh mint, hemp seed chutney, and lachcha pyaz, a bright and pungent salad comprised of thin rings of red onion rings, ground spices, lemon, and fresh herbs.  I love onions, but raw red onions are intense, and so is the onion breath they create.  I was desperate to make a good impression on these three powerful, professional women, so I didn’t mess with the lachcha salad the way I normally would, dining on my own.  The lamb was wonderful, and the fresh mint really worked well with it.

This dish doesn’t seem to be on the menu anymore, but it was tandoori butternut squash, served with asparagus, millet khichdi (instead of rice as the base of this dish, it was a combination of millet and yellow moong dal, or mung beans), and rice papad, which are like very thin, airy, crispy crackers or wafers. 

While these look vaguely desserty, they were savory paneer pinwheels (notice how they look like three slices of something longer, rolled into a spiral), with makhani (a creamy, buttery, tomato-based sauce), topped with dollops of red pepper chutney, and pistachios.  I loved them. 

These were beef short ribs, always one of my favorite meats from any cuisine, served in Madras curry (a spicy British-Indian creation with a base of tomatoes and onions), with bone marrow Khurchan and baby  vegetables.  Between the tender short ribs and rich, unctuous bone marrow, which is like “meat butter,” I was in heaven with this decadent dish.

At Baar Baar, even a simple side of saffron rice was still cooked as perfectly as any rice could be.

And this was a side of pomegranate raita: cool, refreshing, creamy, tangy yogurt topped with pomegranate seeds. 

This gorgeous dessert doesn’t seem to be on the Baar Baar menu anymore, but it was called mango ghewar, and it consisted of malai kulfi (Indian ice cream flavored with cardamom, saffron, and rose water), mascarpone cheese mousse, mango jelly, and crushed pistachios.

Needless to say, this was a sumptuous feast, even shared by four people.  Like I said, our dean is a class act who knows how to party!  Few things bring me as much joy as sharing a bunch of different dishes with people over good conversation, and that’s what our dinner at Baar Baar turned out to be.  Not only was it the finest Indian meal of my life, but it was a reminder that all the decisions I had made in my life to get to this moment in time — this job, working remotely, getting to visit our gorgeous school in L.A. once in a while, collaborating with these amazing people, even being part of this grand gustatory gathering — turned out to be right.  This dinner was almost two years ago, and ever since then, I have been grateful every day for the new direction my life has taken.  I’ve also been falling more and more in love with Los Angeles and its culinary culture.  Even though Orlando is my home, I’ve had so many great meals in L.A. (sometimes solo and sometimes with colleagues and friends, like this one), and I have so many more L.A. restaurant reviews yet to come!

Red Rooster Overtown (Miami)

This past weekend, I visited Miami, the city where I grew up but never felt at home, for the first time in a year and a half.  I caught up with my parents and brother, then hung out with my best friend.  We saw the legendary hip hop group De La Soul (my second-favorite hip hop group of all time, after A Tribe Called Quest), performing at a nice concert hall in downtown Miami.  But before that legendary concert, we also ate what turned out to be one of the best meals of my life.

The restaurant was Red Rooster Overtown (https://www.redroosterovertown.com/), one of the many restaurants created by the Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, who opened his first Red Rooster location in Harlem.  If you watched the Luke Cage TV series, Harlem’s badass hero for hire Luke Cage took his ladyfriend Claire Temple to eat at the original Red Rooster in season 2, episode 1.  Back when that episode dropped in 2018, I looked it up to confirm it was a real place, checked out the menu, and remembered it when I learned a second location opened in Miami in 2019.  But this was my first chance to dine there, and I’m so glad we did.

By the way, Overtown is a historic Black neighborhood in downtown Miami that has definitely undergone some gentrification in recent years.  The Red Rooster building is literally standing in the shadows of expensive-looking high-rise condos, and we saw a “Museum of Ice Cream” and a Savage X Fenty lingerie boutique nearby.  But make no mistake, this esteemed restaurant celebrates the vibrant history of Overtown and Miami’s cultural and culinary histories.  The décor inside Red Rooster Overtown features artwork and artifacts on display in the beautiful dining room that celebrate and commemorate Black culture, including original covers and pages from different editions of the Green Book, safety guides for Black motorists, framed near the hostess stand.


Right above our table, I dug a gorgeous accordion, a cool old projector, and a reference book about the Black Panthers (not the superhero, but the unfairly vilified political activist organization that did a lot of good in so many underserved communities from the late 1960s to 1982).

Unlike the original Red Rooster in Harlem, which serves “elevated” soul food, Red Rooster Overtown combines soul food with Caribbean flavors, creating a fusion menu that is a perfect microcosm for Miami itself.  Every dish on the menu looked amazing.  I literally wanted to try everything, but my dude and I did try a bunch of stuff on our first (but hopefully not last) visit.  We went to town!

We started with the best deviled eggs I’ve ever had, and I love deviled eggs.  This quartet came sprinkled with Aleppo pepper, used the most in Syrian, Turkish, and Armenian cuisine, and each egg half was garnished with a crispy chicharron, or fried pork skin.  We each got two deviled eggs, and like a good sushi roll, they were best eaten in one bite to ensure we experienced all the flavors and textures (soft and yielding, crunchy and crackly) all at once.

Next up, we shared another appetizer: cassava papas bravas.  Cassava is probably better known as yuca, a starchy root vegetable that is usually boiled or fried, not unlike potatoes, and papas bravas are a Spanish dish with fried potatoes served with really cool stuff on them, like a spicy red sauce.  I’ve tried yuca from countless Cuban and Puerto Rican restaurants, and I must admit I’ve never loved it, especially not when sweet ripe plantains (maduros) or good French fries are available.  But this dish changed my mind and made me realize the heights that a talented chef could reach with the humble yuca.

These were perfectly chewy little orbs with lightly crispy fried exteriors, almost like the love child of gnocchi pasta and tater tots.  They were served with red curry sauce, blistered tomatoes, cotija cheese (a salty, crumbly, dry Mexican cheese similar to feta or parmesan), and lime, so it was a feast of salt, fat, and acid that formed a perfect balance.  They were sublime.  Chef’s kiss, 10/10, no notes.

My buddy ordered the fried yardbird, because he likes fried chicken even more than I do.  It came with three pieces, and I got the leg, which was magnificent.  Juicy, tender, fried to perfection, crispy and well-seasoned breading, not greasy at all.  Better still, it came with chili butter, house pickles, and braised collards, which I was very tempted to order separately until we realized it came with the fried chicken.
The braised collards are made with smoked turkey, and they were so damn fine — no getting funky on the mic for this batch of collard greens!  I always order them whenever I see them on a barbecue or soul food menu, but these were the best greens I’ve ever had.  In fact, “the best _____ I’ve ever had” is a running theme for this review.

I don’t know if I am famous for my love of oxtails, but I do love oxtails, and anyone who knows me knows that.  However, my friend is not a fan, so I opted against trying the Guyanese oxtail pepper pot with sweet plantains, piquillo peppers, and coconut lime rice, even though that seems like a winning combination.  He doesn’t dig on catfish either, so I skipped the Overtown fish fry, with fried catfish, red shrimp, and oxtail fried rice.

But since I have a lot of love for other tender, unctuous, bone-in braised meats, I ordered a new dish that had recently been added to the menu, the smoked jerk short rib, served with butter bean stew and fennel slaw.  These short ribs were served sliced on top of the creamy butter bean stew, with with all the bones removed, and tender enough to cut with a fork.  They were pleasantly spiced, but not spicy.  The fennel “slaw” wasn’t much like any slaw I’ve ever had before — not creamy nor vinegary — but thin, almost shaved shreds of fennel bulb on top of the short rib slices added some crunch and herby-sweet flavor.
We both loved this one.  I must admit it wasn’t the best short rib dish I’ve ever had (that was the Montreal-style smoked short rib dish I had at Abe Fisher, an Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant in Philadelphia that closed about a month after my wife and I ate like kings there in 2023), but it was probably the second-best short rib dish I’ve ever had.

We shared a couple of sides, too.  We know how to party!  The crispy brussels sprouts with shallot vinaigrette, topped with a snow flurry of finely shredded parmigiano reggiano cheese, was a savory, tart, umami adventure.  I’m a sucker for anything with an interesting vinaigrette dressing, so that was a hit.  I wish my brussels sprouts came out that well, but now I just need to experiment more.

And the charred candied yams with chili crunch (the hottest condiment around these days, rightfully replacing old and busted sriracha) and lime aioli was another feast for the senses, as beautiful as it was delicious, and full of wild flavors and interesting contrasting textures.  I never would have ordered this one on my own, but I sure was happy to try it.

Finally, even though neither of us are the biggest dessert dudes, we split the key lime pie, which is always one of my favorite desserts anywhere.  Since my wife doesn’t care for it, I never order it when I’m with her, but this pie was yet another platinum hit.  It was served as a round tart rather than a typical slice from a larger pie, with a light graham cracker crust and topped with wonderful coconut meringue that went perfectly with the sweet, creamy, tart pie filling.  The best key lime pie I’ve ever had is right here in Orlando, at Sister Honey’s Bakery, but this key lime pie/tart was damn fine in its own right.

So that’s my rundown of Red Rooster Overtown.  I cannot rave enough about this place.  I’ve had a handful of restaurant meals where every dish and every bite is better than the last, culminating in a culinary crescendo.  The aforementioned Abe Fisher in Philly (RIP) was one of those for sure.  This was another.  Normally I would say that nothing could top a meal like that, but then we saw De La Soul, and Posdnous, Maseo, and special guest Pharoahe Monch filled that theater with love and joy.  It was a perfect meal for the occasion — soul food before De La Soul.  Upon researching more about Red Rooster to write this review, I discovered another connection: De La Soul founded The Spitkicker Collective, a group of Black musical artists and other creative people to engage in social activism, and Chef Marcus Samuelsson — the Red Rooster founder himself — also got involved.  So our evening seemed preordained.  I wonder if the group hung out and partied at Red Rooster Overtown after the show.  Regardless, I’m so glad we went there before the show, and I certainly hope to return with my friend on a future trip to Miami.

And on that note, Red Rooster Overtown also offers a weekend brunch buffet with a DJ spinning, as well as a Sunday evening buffet with live jazz, with both buffet menus on the restaurant’s website (linked at the top of my review).  Either of those would be a great excuse to go back, and buffets and jazz are two of my favorite things!

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.

The Bayou Kitchen and Lounge

The Bayou Kitchen and Lounge (https://thebayouorlando.com/) is a New Orleans-style restaurant in Longwood, Florida.  I loooove Creole, Cajun, and New Orleans-style food, all tracing back to the four trips I got to take to New Orleans between 1998 and 2001, as a young lad obsessed with music and food.  Sadly, our options here in Orlando are somewhat limited to Tibby’s and Vietnamese-Cajun places like King Cajun Crawfish.  (I still remember the long-gone Crooked Bayou in downtown Orlando and Jockamo’s way out on Sand Lake Road and John Young Parkway!)  So needless to say, I was excited when The Bayou opened, and even more excited to read good reviews.

I recently made it over there on a weekend for lunch with my wife, and we were joined by one of her old and dear friends.  My wife and her friend both ordered cups of gumbo, which looked more like bowls to me.  (A lot of restaurants will give you a really puny cup, but not The Bayou!)  It comes with a scoop of white rice in the rich stew, but my wife’s friend asked for hers with no rice, and this was the better photo of the two of them.  The gumbo wasn’t very spicy (at least I didn’t think so), but it was loaded with chicken, shrimp, crawfish, andouille sausage, and both bowls came with a small crab leg sticking out, for dramatic effect.  (We ended up taking both crab legs home, along with a bunch of other leftovers, where I cracked them open for myself.  There wasn’t much meat, but I often think that even larger crab legs are more trouble than they’re worth.)

After becoming a huge fan of charbroiled oysters at one of my favorite Orlando restaurants, High Tide Harry’s, I thought I was being a cool, sophisticated guy by ordering charbroiled oysters for the table.  However, I ended up eating almost all of them myself.  I guess I can’t complain, even though I really did order them to share.
These were pretty big oysters on the half shell, fully cooked and covered with sizzling garlic herb butter and parmesan cheese, served with slices of toasted French bread dabbed with even more garlic herb butter.  Not exactly health food!

Here’s an extreme close-up of one of the oysters.  Was it delicious?  Yes, of course it was!  Enough garlic butter makes anything delicious.  But it reminded me how much I prefer my oysters raw and chilled, with maybe just a tiny bit of mignonette.  The Bayou doesn’t serve raw oysters, but they are so refreshing that way, and so heavy this way!

Our friend ordered a fried oyster po’ boy sandwich (the Bayou’s menu calls them “poboyz,” which I do not love) with a side of fried okra, and she seemed to really like it.  I was impressed that they bring in French bread from the Leidenheimer Baking Company in New Orleans, which is the best-known and most beloved po’ boy roll out there.  Unfortunately, the menu calls it “Linenheimer,” but I knew what they meant.

I couldn’t resist a po’ boy either, especially since they had the authentic rolls.  I got a combination of fried oysters and fried crawfish, which you are allowed to do.  The po’ boys come dressed with shredded iceberg lettuce, sliced tomatoes and pickles, and creamy, tangy remoulade sauce, as they should.  I got house-made potato chips as my side.

But I also got a side of onion rings, because I am The Saboscrivner, and I try onion rings whenever and wherever they are available.  Ring the Alarm for these big rings!  They had kind of a loose battered coating — not my preferred style, but pretty good nonetheless.  I thought they were very salty, even by onion ring standards.

My wife always loves chicken and waffles, so she jumped at the chance to order it here.  You can choose between jerk chicken and fried chicken strips, so she went with the fried.  It was served over a big pearl sugar waffle, which is definitely the new hotness when it comes to waffles.  While she was grateful she didn’t have to get spicy jerk chicken, we both thought the fried chicken could have used more seasoning,  especially at a restaurant specializing in such a well-seasoned, savory cuisine.

Since we were partying pretty hard (by our standards), she added on a side of fried lobster, which was only $11.  She liked it a lot more than the fried chicken, needless to say.

And adding to this wild, uninhibited festival of fried food and heavy carbs, we all shared an order of beignets for dessert.  It seemed like the thing to do.  These fried dough balls, topped with enough powdered sugar to look like they were partying in the ’80s, are similar to doughnuts, and they are a major treat in New Orleans, especially at iconic establishments like Cafe du Monde.

So that was everything we had at The Bayou, which turned out to be quite a lot.  I thought the food was better than Tibby’s and certainly different from the Vietnamese-influenced food at King Cajun Crawfish.  I did wish The Bayou had a muffuletta sandwich on the menu, but I wish every restaurant had those.  Nothing ever seems to compare to the food I enjoyed with dear friends in New Orleans almost 25 years ago, but for Orlando and its surrounding suburbs, this was pretty fine.  Plus, The Bayou is the kind of unique, locally owned operation we should all strive to support, especially on a day like today, which happens to be Small Business Saturday.  Tell them The Saboscrivner sent ya, and I guarantee you’ll have a great meal, but they will have no idea what you’re talking about!

Otto’s High Dive

Otto’s High Dive (https://www.ottoshd.com/) opened over a year ago in what I consider Orlando’s best foodie neighborhood, The Milk District.  The “neighborhood rum bar” quickly earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand award for “good quality, good value cooking.”  It is only open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday, but opens at 11 AM for brunch on Sundays (and is closed Mondays).  Because Otto’s serves oysters and other raw seafood plus Cuban food, I had been wanting to try it ever since it opened, but finally made it in there with my wife on a recent Sunday afternoon.  Neither of us drink, so we skipped the vast selection of rums and beautiful cocktails, but they looked really great, and I’m sure they were.  But we arrived hungry and came to play.

Unfortunately for us, we were seated at one of the tiniest two-top tables I’ve ever seen in a restaurant.  Even though we ordered a lot of food, it became a constant balancing act and rearranging game to make everything fit on the tiny table, to the point where plates were perched precariously as I tried to consolidate and stack everything I could.  It should have been a relaxing and fun lunch, but the space didn’t really allow for that.

My wife ordered a Coke, and it was cool that they brought an icy-cold bottle of Mexican Coke (made with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup) and a glass full of crystal-clear ice cubes with lime wedges.

We started out with the ceviche, with cubes of raw yellowfin tuna, avocado, watermelon, mustard seeds, basil-chili oil, a splash of mezcal, and “leche de tigre.”  Don’t worry, it isn’t real tiger’s milk (who would dare to milk a tiger?), but the citrus-based Peruvian marinade that “cooks” the raw fish in ceviche.  It usually includes lime juice, onion, different chile peppers, salt, and pepper.

This was the crab salad: beautiful fresh crabmeat, chilled and mixed with avocado, pineapple, and lime, and served with long, thin, crispy plantain chips for spreading and/or dipping.

It was a surprisingly generous portion:

This was the bread platter with slices of Cuban bread (not toasted or grilled or anything) and one little plantain muffin.  It was supposed to come with a third thing, but they said they were out of it, so they just left it off.  Spreads include whipped, salted butter and guava spread. and I’m sorry I don’t remember the third.  Neither of us would bother getting this again.

I was perfectly happy with all the seafood and snacks, but the main reason we finally went to Otto’s was because they serve a 14-ounce chargrilled Prime ribeye steak with a spiced coffee rub, and that sounded amazing to my wife.  She ordered it rare, like both of us always order our steaks, and it came out… very much NOT rare.  Neither of us like to be “those people” in a restaurant, but it was an expensive steak, so we politely asked to send it back because it wasn’t rare.

At that point, the chef came out of the kitchen and told us that they use a sous vide machine to cook the ribeye, so it should have been rare, but trust me, it wasn’t, and we told him as much.  Then he offered to cook the skirt steak rare with the coffee rub so it could take on the flavors she was looking for, since I guess they don’t sous vide that cut.  My wife agreed, and she got this huge and lovely coffee-rubbed skirt steak with tostones, white rice, and excellent black beans, plus some pickled onions sliced paper-thin on top that I happily ate. 

I didn’t get a good picture of the interior of the skirt steak until we heated up the leftovers at home, but that’s how we like our steaks to look inside.   
Sadly, my wife still would have preferred the ribeye done to her satisfaction.  That whole exchange shook us both, and even though we didn’t feel great about sending the ribeye back in the first place, a restaurant charging those prices, with a damn Michelin Bib Gourmand award, maybe should not put polite customers on the defensive like that.

This was  rich duck fat bordelaise, garlicky chimichurri, and red pepper sofrito that came with the skirt steak.  All three were delicious, especially with the Cuban bread.

Being a glutton (as well as a glutton for punishment, apparently), I ordered a side of broccolini, one of my favorite vegetables, which was the seasonal vegetable during our visit.  It was charred and topped with a romesco sauce that was really good.

I don’t think Otto’s High Dive has its dessert menu online, so I snapped a photo of it:

We decided on the toasted coconut rum cake, brown butter cake served with coconut lime curd.  It was soaked with rum and set ablaze, which is always fun.  It was delicious, and we chose wisely here, but I remain curious about the Florida orange tres leches too.

And this was a quesito that I hastily added on.  It was a perfectly fine little pastry, but I admit I’ve had better at places like Zaza and Vicky Bakery.

So as if it wasn’t already painfully obvious, The Saboscrivner knows how to party.  The food was good to great, but I admit it wasn’t the best time, and I don’t think I’d go back.  Maybe Otto’s High Dive would be more fun and less stressful if you’re drinking.  Then you might not care if all the plates don’t fit on your table, your steak is overcooked, and the chef gets big mad for politely, diplomatically standing up for yourself.  But the place is a big hit, so try it for yourself and see what you think!  Or don’t.

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.

Kiko Japanese Cuisine

Kiko Japanese Cuisine (https://www.winterspringskiko.com/) is an unassuming little Japanese restaurant next door to our friendly neighborhood Publix in the Willa Springs Village shopping center, on the corner of Red Bug Lake Road and Tuskawilla Road in Winter Springs.  So many similar shopping plazas have little sushi restaurants like this.  Since I moved to Orlando 20 years ago, there have been two that came and went in this exact location: Nagoya, and more recently, Kabuto Sushi & Grill, which I actually liked a lot, but it closed near the end of 2022.  The locals may appreciate these restaurants, but they weren’t considered sushi destinations.  Nobody was driving to our neighborhood from the cooler, hipper ends of Orlando.  Nobody drives to Winter Springs for anything if they can help it.

But they’re missing out, let me tell you.  My wife and I were blown away by how great Kiko was after our first visit to the restaurant, and we liked it just as much after bringing home takeout even more recently.  This is a place that seems to have a devoted local following, but it should be a lot more popular and beloved than it already is.

We definitely overordered on our first visit, which included this insane sushi sashimi combo “for one,” in addition to all these other beautiful rolls.  We didn’t expect the combo for one to come on this attention-catching wooden boat, or to be as pretty as it was.  I’ve eaten a lot of mid sushi around this city, but every piece of sashimi and every sliced roll at Kiko was crafted with love, care, attention to detail, and the freshest possible ingredients.  The combo comes with ten pieces of sashimi, four pieces of sushi, and one “crazy” California roll. 

My wife is bigger on sashimi than I am.  She worries about carbs, and I never do, even though I should.  Here are the ten pieces of sashimi she got in the combo, serve on a bed of finely crushed ice concealing a pretty turquoise LED light.  Aside from salmon at 12:00 and tuna at 3:00, I’m not sure what the other two kinds of fish were.

Here were the four gorgeous pieces of nigiri sushi that came with her combo, delicate slices of fresh fish served over rice.  The top two are salmon and tuna, obviously, and the bottom one was topped with wonderful ikura, salty salmon roe that pop in your mouth.

This was the “crazy” California roll, topped with spicy surimi krab, in addition to the krab, avocado, and slivered cucumber inside.  I’m a sucker for surimi and anything spicy, so I enjoyed this, even though I never order California rolls.  

Since we figured that combo “for one” would be just for my wife, I ordered some rolls for myself, keeping in mind things she might like too.  This was the mango tango roll, with tempura fried shrimp, cream cheese, and cucumber inside, topped with paper-thin sliced mango, mango sauce, and eel sauce.  I know, it isn’t authentically Japanese at all, but it sure was delicious.  The tempura shrimp was fried to perfection, and the sweet-tart mango, warm and crispy shrimp, and cool, creamy, refreshing cream cheese fit perfectly together. 

This was a double-spicy roll, with spicy tuna and spicy salmon, deep-fried and topped with eel sauce and spicy mayo.  I love crunchy stuff in my rolls, but I didn’t pay close enough attention when ordering to realize the entire roll would be deep-fried.  It was tasty, but I feel like that throws off the delicate texture of the raw fish, and then it isn’t even raw anymore.  And oh baby, I like it raw.

On the plate below, this is a smoked salmon roll on the left, with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and cucumber, a favorite of your cream cheese and lox-loving Jewish author.  The one in the middle is the Sunset Blvd roll, named for one of Los Angeles’ most infamous streets (and Billy Wilder’s brilliant 1950 film noir that is my dude David Lynch’s favorite movie).  It contains spicy yellowtail, salmon, and crunchy tempura flakes and is topped with spicy tuna, avocado, plum sauce, and tobiko (flying fish roe, which is the rich red color).On the right is the glamorous Hollywood roll, with tempura soft shell crab and mango inside, topped with a layer of spicy tuna, avocado, and scallions, then finished off with masago (the orange smelt roe), eel sauce, and spicy mayo.  Crunchy, spicy, creamy — this roll had everything.

The Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood rolls were my favorites, but everything was awesome, even the deep-fried double-spicy roll.  That was the only one I wouldn’t order again, but we were both blown away by how amazing everything was.  We didn’t set out to overorder or indulge like this, but we also had no idea Kiko would be this good.  A random weekend lunch turned out to be a huge treat and a feast for all five senses, and we ended up with plenty of leftovers for later.

I returned a few weeks later to bring home some takeout.  We didn’t go as buck wild this time, but we still had fun.  This time my wife ordered the smaller sashimi dish, which included tuna, salmon, tako (octopus), tamago (egg, essentially like firm slices of an omelet), and a fish with firm white flesh that I didn’t try and she couldn’t readily identify.

I ordeered myself an appetizer called the spicy tuna twister, not knowing what it included or involved, but figuring I couldn’t go wrong.  When I got home, I was surprised to see two pretty little clusters of spicy tuna in almost a paste-like form, surrounded by beautiful spirals of thin-sliced avocado.  But what were they surrounded with?  These were tempura-fried onion petals, almost like pieces of a Bloomin’ Onion, only not as heavily seasoned, and a hell of a lot less greasy.  Long-time readers, the stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, know I’m an onion ring aficionado, but I never expected this!  They were fried to perfection (I know, I know, but they were!), and paired perfectly with the ramekin of spicy mayo for dipping.  These aren’t onion rings if you stick to the literal definition, but since they were a pleasant surprise of breaded, fried onions, I still give them one of my Ring the Alarm! shout-outs.   

This time, I tried the salmon skin roll (on the left), because salmon skin is so savory and crispy and awesome, and the spicy yellowtail roll (on the right), because I don’t eat enough yellowtail (also known as hamachi or Japanese amberjack), but I always love it whenever I do.  These rolls were slightly less ornate and ostentatious than the ones I got on my first trip to Kiko, but I liked them just as much, and I was able to focus on their core ingredients more.

We also got that mango tango roll again, because YOU KNOW WE HAD TO DO IT TO ‘EM!  This time, enjoying our Kiko feast at home, it was just as inauthentic, but just as good.

I am thrilled that Kiko Japanese Cuisine opened in 2023, so close to our home.  I’m sure pretty much anyone reading this who likes sushi already has their own favorite sushi restaurant — possibly even one for “everyday” sushi and a more upscale locale for a splurge meal.  Well, I hope I have convinced some people to give Kiko a try.  It is a great place for an “everyday” sushi restaurant, and easily good enough (and affordable enough compared to some of Orlando’s Michelin-affiliated darlings) that you can splurge there too.  I’m going to keep returning, and I hope to run into some readers there as I become a regular.

 

The Moderne

I guess I haven’t published a new review in about a month, since work has been keeping me so busy.  Working from home, I also haven’t been able to go out to eat quite as often, which means I’m cooking more and saving money (yet not losing any weight).  But this review is long overdue, from a date night about a month ago at one of the prettiest, swankiest, sexiest restaurant/bar/lounges in Orlando, The Moderne (https://www.themodernebar.com/) in the foodie dream district of Mills 50.  I’m sure a lot of my regular readers have already been here, but this was our first visit to The Moderne.  I had been wanting to try it for a while, since it features an eclectic menu of small plates — mostly pan-Asian dishes, but some include other international influences, ranging from Italian to Peruvian.

This was my wife’s beautiful mojito mocktail, served with a dehydrated lime slice as a garnish.  I tried a sip, and it was delicious.  The Moderne features an enticing cocktail menu, but we were both happy to see a few mocktail options for non-drinkers like us.  I guess you could call this one a “no”-jito.   My wife reminded me to mention that she first asked for a simple Shirley Temple, but the gorgeous, well-stocked bar did not have any grenadine syrup, something we both thought was odd at the time.

Our order of duck wontons came out first.  These hand-folded wonton wrappers were stuffed with shredded duck seasoned with Chinese five-spice powder and fried until crispy.  They were served with chili oil peanut sauce.  We both wished they had been served with more duck inside, even though they tasted good and were surprisingly not that oily.

This beautiful dish was the tuna kobachi, with spicy cubed tuna, avocado, Japanese-style marinated cucumbers, scallion, red tobiko, micro cilantro, and a dish of ponzu sauce for dippin’ and dunkin’.  I loved it so much.  I could eat this every day of my life and never get tired of it, although I’d hate to think of what my mercury levels would be.  It was my favorite dish that we tried, a perfect 10/10. 

Next came our chashu quesadillas, which were plated beautifully.  Quesadillas are the easiest thing to make at home, but my homemade ones never feature chashu pork, (like the kind of pork you get in a bowl of “real” (not instant) ramen), shredded cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, Japanese Kewpie mayo, chili amarillo sauce, and pickled onions.  Well, mine would have the cheeses and Barbie Dream House-pink pickled onions, but that’s where the similarities begin and end.

This was another hit with both of us: yellowtail (hamachi) ceviche, with cubes of cool, refreshing yellowtail in mango wasabi lime sauce, diced onion, serrano, red tobiko, micro cilantro, all encased in perfectly thin, crispy, delicate spheres of pani puri, the Indian street food classic (see my Bombay Street Kitchen review for authentic pani puri).  It was a gorgeous fusion experience that dazzled all of our senses.

My wife chose these miso cream noodles, which sounded like something she would love.  The dish featured thin pasta (like angel hair or vermicelli), that chashu pork again, mushrooms, miso, fried garlic, toasted bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, and scallions.  She admitted not really being into it and said it was both very rich and on the bland side — an interesting dichotomy, kind of like fettuccine alfredo from the Olive Garden (although this definitely had more flavor than that)!  She picked at it and brought most of it home, where I happily finished it after picking the mushrooms out.  I’m a pretty tolerant guy, but I have this unfortunate intolerance to mushrooms, and chefs freakin’ love throwing them into things.

I chose a different noodle dish for myself that seemed like another fragrant fusion feast: seafood pappardelle, with pappardelle pasta (wide, flat noodles that are wider than fettuccine), shrimp, tamarind Nikkei sauce (Nikkei being a Peruvian-Japanese fusion due to all the Japanese immigrants in Peru), carrots, red peppers, onions, peanuts, and a cilantro-heavy “Asian herb salad.”  It was okay.  The sauce was a little sweet and tangy, not as spicy as I had hoped, and very thin.  I thought it was odd that the dish was called “seafood pappardelle” when the only seafood in it was shrimp.  This was a last-minute choice when the server was already taking our orders, but I think I would have enjoyed one of the other noodle dishes more.  Oh well, you live and you learn!

So that was our first experience at The Moderne.  I liked it and would go back, but my wife admitted it was not one of her favorite restaurants.  Oh well, people have different tastes and like different things — that is no surprise.  My favorites were the two dishes with raw fish, which is usually one of my favorite things to eat.  (This also explains why The Moderne’s neighbor a few doors down, Poke Hana, remains one of my favorite restaurants in all of Orlando all these years later.)  I might get those again, or other raw fish options, and I would definitely try a different noodle dish on a second visit.  Plus, after dinner at The Moderne, you can go next door and have some of Orlando’s finest ice cream at Sampaguita, which is exactly what we did on this date night!