Snacks – The Saboscrivner

Canter’s Deli (Los Angeles)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phoresh Noodle & Street Fare

It has been a while since I made this trip to Phoresh Noodle & Street Fare (https://orlandophoresh.com/) with a former co-worker from my previous job, and since then, both of us have moved on to bigger and better things. It is one of the few Vietnamese restaurants on the east side of Orlando, located at 2751 S Chickasaw Trail #107, Orlando, FL 32829, just south of Curry Ford Road.

Phoresh is a casual restaurant with counter service:

I ordered a Vietnamese iced coffee, which I like the way I like my women: sweet and strong. But since I so rarely drink coffee, it made my heart race for the rest of the afternoon (women often have that effect on me as well). Next time, I know I would be better off with just water.

When you order the “pho it up,” you have a choice of beef, chicken, or vegetarian broths, with different proteins available for each. I ordered the beef broth, and I paid a $4 upcharge for the “combo” with all four possible proteins: paper-thin slices of raw eye round steak (they cook in the hot broth, but I like my steak rare no matter what), beef brisket, beef flank, and dense, chewy meatballs (nothing like Italian-style meatballs).

Here it is after a bit of stirring, to make the rice vermicelli noodles visible:

It was a super-solid bowl of pho, and I can’t say anything bad about it, but I have yet to find anything to dethrone my favorite, Pho Huong Lan.

My colleague ordered pho with just brisket. We shared the plate of herbs, but I don’t like bean sprouts, so he got to have them all. I love putting basil, lemongrass, and fresh jalapenos into my pho.

He got an order of pork belly bao, and we each had one. It was AWESOME. Looking at the current menu, Phoresh lists grilled pork as the only pork-related option for the bao, and I’m guessing that would be different than the pork belly we ordered, admittedly a while back.

I, in turn, got the tempura shrimp bao, and we each had one of those too. I loved them as well. The cool, crispy, slightly sweet pickled vegetables on the top, which would not be out of place on a banh mi sandwich, really made the bao sing.

Finally, I got an order of two roti paratha cakes for us to share, but my colleague wasn’t into them, so I had most of them with the spicy curry sauce they came with. I’m guessing these were pre-made and frozen, then heated up on the grill, not unlike the roti I used to buy at Asian markets to keep in the freezer at home. But I’m guessing even Hawkers Asian Street Fare doesn’t make their roti from scratch (or could this be me picking a fight with Hawkers? I’m guessing they won’t notice or care.) Anyway, these things are are always good, so no complaints. Like I always say, imagine the love child of a fresh, fluffy flour tortilla and a flaky croissant, and you’ve got roti and/or paratha.

So that was our visit to Phoresh Noodle & Street Fare. If you live in Orlando, you probably have strong feelings about the best places for pho, and some might offer more pho options, larger menus, and/or table service. But like I said, there aren’t many Vietnamese restaurants in East Orlando, so if you live out that way, you should definitely give Phoresh a try.

JAWS Toppoki

JAWS Toppoki (https://www.jawsfl.com/) is a Korean street food restaurant in the hustling, bustling food court inside the world’s largest H Mart, the Korean supermarket that took Orlando by storm when it opened in the Pine Hills neighborhood in West Orlando in September 2025.

My wife and I waited three weeks before visiting the sprawling supermarket, not wanting to deal with long lines and crazy crowds. But even though we chose to visit on a weekday midmorning, the lines were still long and the crowds were still crazy. H Mart was a shining example of abundance, but the cramped layout and oblivious shoppers (half of whom were filming themselves, like everyone has to be an influencer) detracted from what should have been a fun experience. Pushing my disabled wife in a wheelchair was an exhausting and nerve-wracking experience for both of us. It could be said that shopping was not a pleasure.

After we were both fed up and hangry, we adjourned to the huge food court, which was just as chaotic as inside the store itself. My wife wanted to eat some sashimi we bought inside H Mart, so I rolled her up to an empty table and went off to decide what to get myself for lunch.

Feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed, I decided on JAWS Toppoki, maybe because it was nearest to our table, or maybe because it had the shortest line. I liked that you could order different combinations of things, which I always appreciate at any restaurant, especially when a lot of the food is unfamiliar. I am getting more of a Korean food education, especially because I stay in Koreatown on my occasional short work trips to Los Angeles. But I looked forward to trying JAWS Toppoki’s take on various popular street foods.

I have had a never-ending tuna craving, so I ordered tuna gimbap to start with. Gimbap looks superficially similar to a sushi roll: various ingredients rolled and wrapped in sesame oil-seasoned rice and a layer of dried seaweed — very similar to Japanese nori — and then sliced. The tuna gimbap included a mayo-based tuna salad, finely shredded carrots, cucumbers, sesame leaf, and sesame seeds. It was a fine little snack, but I couldn’t complain about getting too much tuna. If anything, it was too much carrot and not enough tuna! This gimbap didn’t quite scratch the tuna salad itch I’ve had since having the best tuna sandwich ever on my last trip to Los Angeles, which also included some Korean flavors.

Since our H-Mart visit was annoying and I didn’t expect to return anytime soon, I figured I would order a few different things for the sake of variety, end up with plenty of leftovers, and probably not bother to come back. So I got one of the combo meals called the “Friends Set.” It included a large metal bowl of JAWS toppoki, the restaurant’s namesake dish. Korean restaurants usually list this dish as tteokbokki, but it is pronounced similarly to “toppoki,” hence the name.
The long noodle-looking things are chewy rice cakes, and I assure you they are nothing like the bland, crunchy, hockey pucks our moms ate in the ’80s when they wanted to lose weight, even though those food crimes are what first comes to mind when I think of “rice cakes.” These are chewier than gnocchi or any al dente pasta, and denser as well. They are swimming in a very spicy sauce with thin slices of tofu, and the whole bowl is topped with crispy strips of something or other, sesame seeds, scallions, a quail egg, and half of a fried dumpling called mandu.

The “Friends Set” also came with a paper bag of tempura-fried sweet potato, shrimp, squid, cheese, and another dumpling. I forgot to take a picture of it, but you can see what the “Deep Fried Set” looks like on the menu.

Finally, it came with sundae, but not the kind you’d get at Carvel on your birthday! Sundae is a chewy, savory Korean blood sausage, and this was my favorite part of the meal. Call it morcilla, black pudding, or just plain old blood sausage, I am always a fan of this savory treat, even if it may seem weird or intimidating to the uninitiated. Maybe I have a bit of of Goth in me, but I think it is always delicious, no matter which culture or cuisine makes it. Korean sundae (which I believe is pronounced “SOON-day”) is made with pork blood, glass noodles, and glutinous rice, and it had a moist, almost sticky texture, especially with the chewy natural casing. Sprinkling on the included mixture of salt spiked with dried chili flakes made it even more flavorful. The thinly sliced, light-colored meat in the top right of the sundae tray is intestine, but I’m not sure if it was beef or pork. I ate it, and it was fine, but I’ve enjoyed grilled intestines at Argentinian and Korean restaurants before that ended up with a more pleasant crispy texture from the grilling process.

I don’t think I’ll return to JAWS Toppoki anytime soon, but that’s mostly because I have no desire to return to H Mart anytime soon. It is probably worth visiting once if you’re the least bit curious, but even though it’s a really nice Asian supermarket, Orlando is very lucky to have many other nice Asian supermarkets, and none of them are as crowded and chaotic. Lotte Plaza Market has a (much smaller) food court, but was probably the largest and “nicest” before H Mart opened. My usual go-to, iFresh Market, is the current home of the wonderful Meng’s Kitchen. And then we also have Enson Market, New Golden Sparkling Market, Phuoc Loc Tho (my first-ever Asian market from when I first moved to Orlando in 2004), the “OG” Dong A Market, Eastside Market, and even more.

And even if you’re craving Korean street food, we have plenty of other local restaurants where you won’t have to navigate that intense, insane food court.

Sideward Brewing

Sideward Brewing (https://sidewardbrewing.com/) is a brewery-restaurant on the corner of Bumby Avenue and Robinson Street in Orlando’s Milk District. It shares a building with Stasio’s Italian Deli and Market, one of my favorite places to eat in the entire city, and the two casual eateries share an insanely tight and crowded parking lot as well.

My dozens of readers may remember that my wife and I don’t drink, but I’ve been wanting to try the food at Sideward Brewing for years. Everything is scratch-made in house, and I have cool, trusted friends who are regulars who rave about it. They also brew and can their own house-made root beer, and that was the final nudge we needed to make it over there on a recent Sunday in the late afternoon, before it closed at 6 PM. Sunday is the optimal day to go there, since Stasio’s is closed, and the parking lot won’t be as hectic and dangerous as it usually is. Seriously, I’d rather brave the Trader Joe’s/Shake Shack parking lot in Winter Park than the Stasio’s/Sideward parking lot on a Saturday.

Sideward has indoor and outdoor tables, and they all have wooden chairs. The outdoor area is covered, and the tables are four-tops, nicely spaced out. The indoor tables are long, with eight seats at each. We sat indoors, the only two people at our long table. It is a family-friendly place, and plenty of people brought little kids and dogs that were all quiet and well-behaved. You order your food and beer at the counter, and they have a cooler full of canned beers to go. They even have a house merlot, for anyone who prefers wine to beer.

We each started with a house-made Riff & Milo root beer, which is named after two dogs who I’m sure are the best boys. The cans are $5 each, but they are 16 ounces, the equivalent of a pint. I didn’t think twice about paying that price for getting to try a pint of a whole new root beer, to say nothing of supporting a local establishment. The ingredients included cane sugar, brown sugar, honey, vanilla, and natural and artificial flavors. We both thought there was a strong wintergreen taste to this root beer, so I wouldn’t be surprised if wintergreen extract is one of those flavors.

I’m sure their beers are tasty and the highest quality as well.

My wife loves boiled peanuts (which I call “bald peanuts” to fit in in the South), and I can’t think of any other restaurants in Orlando that serve them. She got a nice-sized serving of steaming hot “traditional” bald peanuts, but you can also request them with Korean BBQ, buffalo, sweet heat, Nashville spice, or spicy jalapeno seasoning. She hates anything spicy, so traditional was the safest way to go.

I appreciated that they included two cups — one for the bald peanuts and one for discarded shells.

We both love a good soft pretzel, so we shared an order of two soft pretzels, which were fluffy with lightly crispy, crackly exteriors and a light dusting of crunchy salt crystals, and so, so buttery. They were like the Auntie Anne’s pretzels I love, that I only treat myself to when I’m at an airport and my flight is delayed, but better. In fact, I would argue that this is the best pretzel in the Orlando area. Yes, even better than the big one at Hollerbach’s German Restaurant in Sanford. I said what I said! Take my word for it: there are definitely two in there. The second one is underneath the top one.

The pretzels were served with a grainy sweet mustard called Punks mustard (I’m assuming it was made with Sideward’s Punks in the Waiting Room lager), warm and gooey beer cheese (excellent), and wonderful pimento cheese topped with some thin-sliced pickled peppers. I loved both cheese dips, but these pretzels are so good that they don’t even need any accoutrements.

A muffuletta is one of my favorite sandwiches, and I was excited to try Sideward’s version. A muffuletta is a classic New Orleans Italian sandwich that originated at the Central Grocery on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. I’ve been lucky enough to have the real deal there a few times, but I haven’t been back to New Orleans since 2001. Sideward’s muff isn’t served on the same huge, round loaf of French bread topped with sesame seeds, but the salami, mortadella, capicola, provolone cheese, and olive tapenade came on fluffy focaccia bread. While some places serve a hot muff, I prefer mine chilled, as Central Grocery does theirs. Luckily, Sideward’s muff is tangy, salty, and cool. By the way, the olive salad is usually a combination of olives (green, black, sometimes kalamata), pickled giardiniera vegetables, onions, carrots, celery, and hot peppers chopped up and mixed with herbs and olive oil. You can buy the Central Grocery’s own olive salad expensively, but it is easy to make your own, especially if you start out with a jar of giardiniera. I love it on multiple kinds of sandwiches.

My wife ordered a caprese sandwich that she was kind enough to share with me. It was delicious! As good as the muff, if not better. It included house-made pesto, fresh mozzarella, roasted grape tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and balsamic-dressed arugula on a ciabatta roll that looked and tasted very fresh, with a crackly exterior crust. Usually I’m disappointed in ciabatta compared to focaccia, a nice crusty semolina roll, or even a soft hoagie roll. Many of them are difficult to tear with your teeth due to a hard and chewy outer crust, but this might have been the nicest ciabatta I’ve ever had. My wife absolutely does not share my sandwich obsession, but she appreciates a good caprese salad or sandwich (especially when I pick out the tomatoes for her, as I did here). She was really gung-ho about this one, and I was so glad she was in a sharing mood. It was perfect in every way!

I got cool, creamy, refreshing Gram’s potato-egg salad as a side, and it did not disappoint. I am convinced that hard-boiled eggs make any potato salad better.

Sideward serves a beautiful-looking breakfast burrito on Sundays from the time it opens at 11 AM, but we were too late for that. It didn’t matter, since we had plenty to choose from and enjoyed everything.

I’ve been wanting to return to Sideward Brewing for another meal, but haven’t had a chance, and I really wanted to get this review out there. I keep thinking about those pretzels and how comforting they would be in this unseasonably chilly weather, especially with all those accoutrements. I highly recommend them, along with the root beer and both sandwiches we tried. Yes, even sharing a wall and a (stressful) parking lot with Stasio’s, home of my favorite sandwich in all of Orlando (the namesake Stasio Italian sub), I would still consider Sideward’s muffuletta and caprese to be destination-worthy sandwiches. And if you like beer, I always hear it is one of the best breweries in Orlando. Check it out! And if you’ve already checked it out, what is your regular food order, and what beers do you recommend?

Black Bean Deli

Black Bean Deli (https://blackbeandeli.com/) is a casual Cuban cafe with two locations: Winter Park and Orlando’s Mills 50 District. It had been years since I last ate there, but on my most recent visit, I met two of my coolest friends, an awesome married couple, for lunch at the Winter Park location.

I’m not a coffee drinker, but I had to order this colada for the three of us to share. Cuban coffee is strong and sweet, but don’t underestimate the strength! That’s why the traditional way to imbibe it is to sip it out of these tiny cups and share it with friends. If I drank the whole big cup, I would have been climbing the walls… or more likely, just miserable from acid reflux and a pounding heart. But sharing is caring!

This was the day that I found out my friends are pescatarian, even though they seemed okay with coming here. Somebody ordered this nice green salad, but Cuban food tends to be very meat-heavy.I’ll never forget a guy at one of the La Carreta locations in Miami trying to order a “green salad” and getting into it with a very confused waiter. (There are salads on the menu there, but nothing specifically called a “green salad.” Dude got big mad and very loud over it!) Anyway, you can get a salad at Black Bean Deli too, with no drama necessary.

I started with an empanada de picadillo, a flaky fried pastry stuffed with seasoned ground beef. You can taste tomatoes, onions, pimento, and cumin, and some cooks add green olives and even raisins to their picadillo. Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it! I, for one, am very pro-raisin.

Many Hispanic countries have their own versions of empanadas. Some are fried, some are baked, some have a cornmeal shell, while others are made of a flour-based dough (including the Cuban style, which is my favorite type of empanada).

Black Bean Deli has a special they only run Fridays through Sundays: a Cuban frita burger, which is a Miami classic. I’ve written about fritas before, when I had them down in Miami at Polo Norte and the king of them all, the legendary El Rey De Las Fritas. The seasoned burger patty (a combination of beef, pork, and chorizo sausage) is served on a brioche bun and topped with onions, mayo, a tangy red sauce (it looks like ketchup, it tastes like ketchup, but brother, it ain’t ketchup!) and crispy shoestring potatoes (papitas julianas). Some places use the potato sticks that come out of a can (which are delicious), but Black Bean Deli clearly julienned and fried their shoestring potatoes fresh to order (El Rey De Las Fritas does this too), and they came out as salty, crunchy, golden-brown perfection on top of the flavor-packed patty.
This seemed like a more “elevated” take on the frita than El Rey, but I wasn’t complaining. I was in burger heaven!

Dig these wonderful maduros, sweet fried plantains, that caramelized during the frying process for a slightly crispy, sticky exterior. These are one of my favorite foods in the entire world.

Obviously, Black Bean Deli serves Cuban sandwiches and their cousin on sweet bread, the medianoche, as well as baked chicken breast and shredded pork marinated in garlicky, citrusy mojo criollo. You can get black, red, or garbanzo beans (I grew up with black but honestly prefer red) with white or yellow rice (I prefer yellow). These are the classics, but I’m glad I deviated from old standards to try that magnificent frita burger. I’ll be back to revisit those iconic Cuban dishes and sandwiches, though.

I always say that Orlando Cuban food can’t compare to the options in Miami and Tampa, but Black Bean Deli is one of those joints where you go in knowing what you’re going to get, and you won’t be disappointed. And sometimes, like with their take on the frita burger, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by something that transcends.

Moa Kai Hawaiian Diner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chain Reactions: Vicky Bakery

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

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

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

There are other cases with more sweet stuff elsewhere:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UniGirl

UniGirl (https://www.unigirlfl.com/) is an whimsically named food stall in Orlando’s relatively new Asian food hall Mills Market, located inside the former Tien Hung market on East Colonial Drive between Mills and Thornton Avenues. It is even more adorable when you learn on the website that it was named after chef/owner William Shen’s shiba inu, a super-cute Japanese dog breed that looks like a fox. A cartoony shiba inu appears as the official mascot of the restaurant.

UniGirl specializes in onigiri, tasty triangles of lightly salted koshihikari Japanese short grain rice (nicely chewy and sticky; the same kind of rice used for sushi), molded with some kind of filling, sprinkled with furikake seasoning (diced roasted seaweed and sesame seeds), wrapped with a piece of roasted seaweed to use like a handle. They are served warm and best enjoyed that way. I first tried onigiri a few years back at Ramen Takagi, still my favorite ramen-ya in the Orlando area, but nobody else has focused on onigiri until UniGirl opened in November 2024. I had some fun on my first visit very recently!

This was the refreshing “daily mocktail” — so perfect on an unseasonably hot day in early April. It was a blend of calamansi and passion fruit juices and jasmine, served over crushed ice, which we can all agree is the best kind of ice. Calamansi is a tart little citrus fruit, similar to lime, that is very popular in Filipino cuisine, and passion fruit is one of my favorite fruits and flavors in general.

I got an order of three fried oysters while I waited, which were fried to order and to perfection. These were listed on a chalkboard as a konbini special, with konbini serving as an abbreviation of konbiniensu sutoru, or “convenience store.” Japanese convenience stores are supposed to be truly special places, 24/7 paradises where weary shoppers can pick up a variety of premade, fresh, tasty grab-and-go foods that are quite good, not just reheated junk food thrown together from the lowest-quality ingredients. Even the 7-Eleven chain, ubiquitous in Japan, is known for really great food and snacks, far more over there than they are here.

Just as an aside, I am obsessed with lemons. Whenever I get a lemon wedge served with my seafood, I eat it whole, just like normal people would eat an orange slice.

Anyway, the creamy, cool, slightly herby dipping sauce worked well with the golden, crispy exterior and almost creamy oyster centers. The fry guy warned me they would be boiling lava hot, so I might want to wait a little while once they came up. That was wise advice. About five minutes later, they were still hot, but no longer capable of burning my mouth. Did you hear about the hipster who burnt his tongue? He ate UniGirl’s fried oysters before they were cool!

On to the star of the show: the onigiri! I brought four onigiri home with me, but they had more than that to choose from, all individually wrapped and labeled.

As you can see, all the perfect little onigiri look similar, so thank goodness their disposable outer wrappers are labeled. Once I got home and opened them up, I made a note of which was which.

The tuna onigiri in the top left was more like tuna salad, mixed with mayo (probably the eggy Kewpie brand) and a bit of mustard, rather than the raw ahi tuna I always expect, like you get in sushi or poke. The miso tan tan (spicy crumbled pork) in the top right had a lot of flavor, including some mild spice.

The unagi (eel) onigiri in the bottom left was by far my favorite. It was sweet and savory, not fishy at all. In the bottom right, mentaiko (Alaskan pollock roe, from a fish in the cod family) was salty and spicy, with a subtle umami quality. I first tried mentaiko years ago at Susuru, another unique Japanese restaurant here in Orlando, where they served mentaiko fries.

Finally, UniGirl advertised potato-egg salad as anther konbini special on the Saturday I went, and I thought it would be a nice little treat, especially since I’m such a fan of delicatessen fare. I find it comforting that the Japanese like potato and egg salads too, and of course their versions are excellent.

Everything from UniGirl was a real treat — savory Japanese snacks meant for comfort and convenience, but so different from the conventional, familiar landmarks of Japanese cuisine like sushi, ramen, and udon. I’m definitely not the only fan, because just the other day, on April 17th, 2025, UniGirl was awarded a prestigious Michelin Bib Gourmand award for “good quality, good value cooking.” That is a huge honor for Chef William Shen (who also got an interview feature on the tire company’s website), for UniGirl, for the Mills Market (which houses a few other Michelin award-winning food stalls… STAY TUNED, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!), and for Orlando in general.

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.

Sourdough Bread House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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