Spicy – The Saboscrivner

Holbox (Los Angeles)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gateway to India

Gateway to India (https://gatewaytoindiarestaurant.biz/) is a great, underrated Indian restaurant located at 790 E State Rd 434, Longwood, FL 32750. It is located a short walk away from the Spice House of Longwood Indian grocery store (820 E State Rd 434 #150), and very close to one of my favorite businesses in the Orlando area, Acme Superstore (905 E State Rd 434). I try to check in at Acme at least once a month, and I really should make it to Gateway to India more often than I do. But whenever I do, it never disappoints.

On my most recent visit for takeout (which was still too long ago), I tried their lamb biryani for the first time. Even though I like everything spicy, I ordered this basmati rice dish mild because I planned to share it with my wife. My fascinating research showed me that biryani may have reached the Indian subcontinent as an offshoot of Persian pilau, which other cultures refer to as the more familiar rice pilaf, and that also gave us the Central Asian plov, which I enjoyed at Caravan Uzbek & Turkish Cuisine and Chayhana (review coming soon, I swear!). The tender shreds of lamb blended with cashews, cilantro, and raisins, and there was a hard-boiled egg in there too.

There are two Indian dishes my wife returns to time and time again. One is butter chicken (sometimes called makhani), served in a creamy, tomatoey sauce. The velvety-smooth, rich consistency usually means there is butter in there, but I should clarify and refer to it as ghee. See what I did there?

The other go-to Indian dish my wife loves is palak paneer, which is spinach (the palak) served in a creamy, mildly spiced curry sauce with chunks of a soft cheese (the paneer). You can’t go wrong with it, and even if you’re not a vegetarian, it is always a delicious, crowd-pleasing choice.

Even though I didn’t get photos of the butter chicken and palak paneer containers, this is the plate I fixed for my wife, with the palak paneer over basmati rice at 12:00, the butter chicken taking up the largest compartment, and some of that luscious lamb biryani at 9:00.
The plastic plate with compartments is from some ancient takeout order (maybe from the defunct Stonewood restaurant), not from Gateway to India. But I kept two of these because they were so nice, microwave-safe AND dishwasher-safe, and they have clear lids that snap on. But most of all, she doesn’t like different kinds of food touching.

This was my lamb vindaloo ($19.95), served spicy hot. It has chunks of lamb and potato in a spicy curry flavored with vinegar, garlic, and chiles. Vindaloo has Portuguese origins, which those colonizers bought to Goa, a small, coastal state in western India. I go back and forth between different lamb dishes, but vindaloo is one of my favorites, along with rogan josh. I love vinegar as a flavor, so the vindaloo won out this time.

And here it is in the big compartment with butter chicken and palak paneer for me:

I’ve written before about my great love of Indian breads at Sanaa (which I recommend to my fellow Indian bread aficionados), but I am always a fan of naan, roti, paratha, kulcha, and more. I would like to create something where people sign up to get a different Indian bread every week, and we could called it Kulcha Klub. Maybe they could be served by a quartet of women in blonde wigs, the Four Naan Blondes.

I got an order of butter naan, because that’s kind of the fluffy, puffy standard:

As well as a butter paratha, to compare and contrast — not just the two breads from Gateway to India, but also to see how their paratha stands up to other versions I’ve had, like the crispy Malaysian style that I used to buy frozen. Paratha from Indian restaurants are never as flaky like those frozen versions (I call them the love child of a flour tortilla and a croissant), but they are still awesome, especially when you have rich, spicy curries to scoop up.

This was our container of raita, a cooling yogurt with cucumbers that was so good to cool down my tongue after the fiery vindaloo.

And even though this looks similar, this was a rice pudding dessert that my wife wanted to try. I don’t remember what it tasted like, but it’s possible I didn’t try any.

I really love Indian food, even though I don’t pretend to be any kind of expert. I don’t think I’ve ever been disappointed by a dish, meat or vegetarian alike, but I like to balance trying new things with going back to my old favorites. That means trying them at different restaurants too, to compare how each place makes those familiar favorites. Gateway to India is one of the closer Indian restaurants to our home, so I need to make it back there more often. If you’re in Seminole County, especially Longwood, Casselberry, and Winter Springs, it is so close to where all three areas converge at the intersection of 434 and 17-92. Even if you’re further out, it is definitely worth the drive. I might see you over there some time soon, probably after a bit of back issue bin diving at Acme. That always makes me work up an appetite!

SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles

Back in 2019, when I took my wife to New York City for our tenth anniversary, one of the many delicious restaurant meals I had was takeout from Xi’an Famous Foods, a casual restaurant specializing in hand-ripped biang biang noodles and spicy braised meats from the city of Xi’an in northwestern China. It was like no other style of Chinese food I’ve ever had before, and I’ve been saying for years that even with Orlando’s breadth and depth of various regional Chinese cuisines, we have desperately needed a place like that. Well, we finally have one!

SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles (https://www.instagram.com/slap.noodles.usa) opened back in November 2025, at 6532 Carrier Dr Ste B, Orlando, FL 32819, right off International Drive, a little north of Sand Lake Road. It has been a popular destination ever since, with influencers aplenty sharing videos of chefs slapping and stretching dough to make perfectly long, chewy noodles from scratch and diners slurping them up. I’ve been wanting to try it ever since it opened, and I finally made it over there yesterday with my best friend, after surviving yet another MegaCon. (We went to The Whiskey two years ago and Fogo de Chao, which I somehow still haven’t reviewed, last year.)

I’ve been so good lately about not drinking my calories, but I figured our food would be spicy, so I treated myself to a sweet drink from SLAP!’s beverage cooler, this interesting-looking honey pomelo drink. After I chose it, I found a small English language label on the back that described it as honey grapefruit tea. It was so sweet and refreshing and delicious, and I loved it, especially as a nice treat after a grueling day.

It was way too hot for bowls of soup, so my friend and I both chose chili SLAP! noodle bowls, sans soup. He got the signature three-way chili SLAP! noodles, which we learned was a combination of three of their other bowls that can be ordered separately: sliced pork, tomato and egg, and vegetable (which included cubed potatoes, celery, and carrots at the bottom. They also included bok choy, bean sprouts, and lots of chili oil and chili powder. It looks fiery, but believe it or not, it was a lot milder than it looks. There were a bunch of those perfectly al dente biang biang noodles under there, don’t worry!

I got the beef short rib chili SLAP! noodles (no soup for me either), because short ribs are up there with oxtails and lamb shanks as rich, flavorful, unctuous cuts of meat I have a hard time turning down. It has the same kind of seasoning and also included bok choy (which I like) and bean sprouts (which I don’t care for, so I’ll know to ask them to hold the bean sprouts on future visits). I loved that they included a pair of kitchen shears for cutting the short rib, which I wish more restaurants would give you. A few well-placed snips separated all the tender meat from the giant bone, and a few more cuts turned it into bite-sized pieces. I got two meals out of this giant portion, which I’m getting so much better at.

I forgot to get a good picture of the actual hand-ripped biang biang noodles at the restaurant, but here they are in my leftovers, back at home. At the restaurant, we only ate with chopsticks. These noodles are awe-inspiring, and the chili seasoning is addictive. I suspect these dishes would still be too spicy for my wife, parents, brother, and in-laws, who hate anything beyond “mild,” but I think most people will find the taste pleasant and the spicy level nowhere close to overwhelming.
By the way, watch how you dress at SLAP!, because it is too easy to splatter a good shirt with that chili oil. I’ve been wearing the same beloved shirt to comic book conventions for 25 years to pose for pictures with comic writers and artists, a running gag that only I appreciate. Luckily, I had the foresight to pack an expendable T-shirt to change into when we got to the restaurant to protect The Shirt.

I was also excited to try one of the “crispy pancake” sandwiches at SLAP!, and I went with cumin lamb. Lamb is probably my favorite protein of all time (not including cured Italian meats), and I still remember the spicy cumin lamb “burger” I got at Xi’an Famous Foods in 2019. In that earlier review, I described it as being served on “a crispy flatbread bun that was like a cross between a pita and an English muffin, in terms of texture.” Here at SLAP!, the flavorful lamb was served on roujiamao, which is more like a flaky paratha or roti, a flatbread I’ve described many times as being the love child of a croissant and a flour tortilla. This roujiamao was much flakier, with more crispy layers, than the typical roti you may have had at Hawkers Asian Street Fare (which you can also buy frozen, as I suspect Hawkers does). This didn’t have that rich, buttery flavor either, but it complimented the cumin lamb very well, and it was fun to eat it.

My friend and I each took a few bites, and we still had some left over that I finished for lunch today. This was a hit, and you can also order the crispy pancakes with braised beef or braised pork. Next time! And yes, there will be a next time.

Finally, we also tried some skewers, because we know how to party, and how often will be able to make it back here? It’s across town from me, and my dude lives in Miami! Homestead, actually! All the skewers at SLAP! are served in orders of four for a very reasonable $5.99 each, but you can’t mix and match. That’s how we ended up with a dozen skewers. The four on the left are Chinese sausage, which was both of our favorites. They were grilled and coated with the same chili spice blend, but they weren’t like the chewy and slightly sweet lap cheong I expected, which I love in fried rice.

The four skewers in the middle are beef, which were also grilled and coated with the same chili spicy powder. They were chewy and not terribly tender, and not juicy at all, but at least they tasted good. The four crispy chicken skewers on the right were disappointing, though. My friend was spot-on when he called them “basic.” I’ve had spicy chicken nuggets from Wendy’s with more flavor, so at least I know to skip them on future visits. The sauce on the right side that looks like it’s about to spill (we didn’t let that happen) was reminiscent of Thai sweet chili sauce, but not nearly as sticky or sweet. That sauce and the chili spice on the left helped make the crispy chicken skewers somewhat more interesting, but I’d still order something else next time. Maybe an order of dumplings, which you can get with lamb, beef and onion, pork and cabbage, or pork, shrimp, and chive.

Vegetarians, there aren’t a ton of options for you at this meat-centric restaurant, but you can safely get the vegetable chili SLAP! noodles, vegetable noodle soup, and a couple of different skewers: enoki mushrooms with tofu skin, cilantro with tofu skin, or “fish tofu,” which I’m assuming is tofu reminiscent of fish, and and not a combination of fish and tofu. If you are ovo-vegetarians, you could also do the tomato and egg chili SLAP! noodles or tomato and egg noodle soup.

And since I always check (on behalf of my wife), there are a few half-booths along the side wall at SLAP!, in addition to plenty of tables. Napkin dispensers hang from the ceiling above each table, which you’ll appreciate due to needing a lot of napkins for meals like this, and also for the space they save on the tabletops. (Short people, your mileage may vary).

SLAP! Hand Ripped Noodles is definitely worth all the hype. I would have liked to get there sooner, but better late than never. Now I look forward to returning, but I wanted to publish this review as soon as possible, for the handful of you out there who haven’t already jumped on the bandwagon. It’s another treasure for Orlando, especially when the options along International Drive are so chain-centric. As if there was any doubt, SLAP! slaps.

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.

Fiesta Cancun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thailicious

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Get ready for the noodle pull!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Woodlands

Woodlands (http://www.woodlandsusa.com/) is a vegetarian Indian restaurant on South Orange Blossom Trail, very close to my favorite Indian restaurant, Bombay Street Kitchen (which is not strictly vegetarian). That area is pretty far from me, so one day I went for lunch on a weekend while my wife was getting her hair cut and colored, knowing that whole process would take a few hours.

Woodlands specializes in dishes from Udupi, a town on India’s southwestern coast. Since I went alone and was a little intimidated by the menu, I ordered a few things, fully expecting to end up with lots of leftovers to bring home. I started with a tall glass of cool, tangy, sweet, creamy mango lassi:

I don’t even remember ordering this, but it is a soup called rasam, described on the menu as “Traditional South Indian Sour’n Spicy Soup.” The sour ‘n spicy aspects would have appealed to me, especially since I was ordering several carb-heavy dishes to come. It is made with tomatoes and tamarind and garnished with chopped cilantro leaves. I think I got it planning to dip the various baked and fried breads in it, not realizing that they would come with their own li’l dipping cups.

These doughnut-looking fritters are medju vada, which are like savory fried doughnuts made with lentils. They were served with coconut chutney (top) and sambar (bottom), a soup of lentils, vegetables, tamarind, and various spices.

These were paneer pakora, lightly spiced fritters stuffed with homemade Indian cheese called paneer. These were about the size of fried ravioli. For those who haven’t tried paneer, it is kind of a dry, firm, crumbly cheese that doesn’t get melty like mozzarella. It is similar in texture to feta, but firmer (and a lot less salty and pungent), and also similar in texture to tofu.The darker sauce is actually brown, and it is sweet, sticky, tangy tamarind chutney. The green sauce was a delicious mint cilantro chutney that had a bit of heat.

This was the onion rava dosa, which was different from smoother-textured dosas I’ve ordered elsewhere. It is a thin, crispy crepe made of cream of wheat and rice, grilled with onions and mildly spicy chilies. It has been too long since my visit, but now I’m wondering if I got the onion rava masala dosa, which is the same thing but stuffed with potatoes and onions. For a dollar more, that’s probably what I would have ordered! Anyway, it was awesome, and I could use one of these right now.

This was garlic naan, soft and fluffy bread baked in a clay oven called a tandoor. If you’ve ever had Indian food anywhere, you have probably tried naan, and you know how delicious it is. And garlic only makes things more delicious!

These were large, fried puffy bread called batura. They are often served with stewed chickpeas as chana batura (including at Woodlands), but these were on the bread menu without the chana. They are awesome, no matter where you order them from. Anyone remotely skeptical about trying Indian food would love these. Go ahead, take those batura.

Boy, I really carb-loaded at this meal! This is what I get for going alone on a whim, without having studied the menu in advance, and without having more experienced Indian food lovers joining me. Writing about this meal so many months later, I was reminded of the cafeteria at the Hindu Society of Central Florida in Casselberry, one of the greatest hidden treasures in the entire Orlando area. Guided by a knowledgeable friend and joining other friends, that was the first place I ever tried vada, dosa, sambar, and coconut chutney, many years earlier. I guess I defaulted to familiar favorites at Woodlands.

But to wrap up this review, Woodlands is one of Orlando’s best-known and best-loved Indian restaurants, and I guarantee that you won’t miss meat if you go there, with all the delicious, flavorful vegetarian options to choose from. I love meat, but I was overwhelmed by all the choices, and I really enjoyed everything I tried. Whenever I make it back (and who knows when that will be), I would love some suggestions of what to order next time!

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.

Selam Ethiopian and Eritrean Cuisine

A while back, I went to a Transformers convention here in Orlando with one of my closest friends. We went to high school together in Miami, and he was in town for the show, visiting from Tampa. He is a vegetarian, so afterwards, I suggested lunch at Selam Ethiopian and Eritrean Cuisine (https://www.ethiopianrestaurantorlando.com/), located at 5494 Central Florida Parkway in Orlando, just off International Drive and close to the Sea World theme park. I’ve only ever had Ethiopian food once before, a long time ago, at Orlando’s only other Ethiopian restaurant, Nile, which I need to get back to. But I had been hearing great things about Selam for years (including a Michelin recommendation), and it lived up to every bit of hype.

We started our epic lunch by sharing this order of two lentil samosas, fried to perfection in their thin, crispy shells. These were flatter triangles than the pyramid-like Indian samosas most of us are probably used to, with lighter, thinner shells that were more like spring roll wrappers than the empanada-like exteriors of Indian samosas. They were stuffed with a blend of lentils (a legume I love), onions, jalapenos, and herbs. Selam also offers samosas with minced beef or chicken, as an alternative to these vegetarian ones. The chunky hot sauce was absolutely delicious. I’d say it had a medium-hot spice level, so too much for my wife, parents, and in-laws, but not hot enough to make people run to the bathroom or beg for a glass of milk.

We each ordered lunch combination platters that are served on injera, which is a thin, sourdough-based bread that you rip apart with your hand and use it to scoop up or dip into various stewed meats and vegetables. It’s a similar concept to Turkish lavas bread and Indian naan, but the injera is much thinner, more like a crepe or a very thin pancake, and almost spongey in consistency. I’m always a little surprised Ethiopian food hasn’t caught on more as a mainstream cuisine, because Americans do love dipping things into other things. Be prepared to scoop and dip, because there are no utensils! The cuisine offers some of the most delicious vegetarian dishes I’ve ever tasted, and I say that as a committed omnivore.

This was my meat combination platter, which included four different meats. The green vegetables on the left are gomen besiga, a dish of sautéed collard greens with beef, ginger, garlic, onions, and jalapenos. I am a huge fan of collard greens, even though I didn’t grow up eating them, but now I am delighted to try every version I can, usually on barbecue and soul food menus. But these were like nothing else. To the right of the greens is ye beg wot, chunks of lamb stewed with onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric. I love lamb and stewed meats in general, and that had so much flavor. The redder chunks of meat in the middle are beef wot, a similar stew made with beef that was a little spicier. (If I mixed up the lamb wot and beef wot, I apologize to everyone!) The dark red dish on the right with the hard-boiled egg (a pleasant surprise) is doro wot, a spicy chicken stew flavored by seasoned butter called niter kibbeh and a pretty spicy spice blend called berbere. After this meal, I bought a little thing of berbere at Penzey’s Spices, and I need to experiment with it more. That is homemade cottage cheese in the top right. I loved everything. I’m always excited to explore a new cuisine, and whenever a restaurant offers some kind of combo to let me sample multiple dishes and flavors, I will take that opportunity.

My friend did the same thing by ordering the vegetarian combination platter. That’s a little side salad on the left, followed by ye timatim fitfit, which is the injera bread chopped up and sauteed with fresh tomatoes, green chilies, onions, garlic, and herbs. It was cool to see how versatile the injera is, and kind of a meta thing to use the flat injera to scoop it up with, like dunking Oreos into cookies and cream ice cream. The next one over, the yellow-orange dish, is ye kik alicha wot, which is mild split peas stewed with onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric. After that, the dark red is ye misir wot, with pureed split red lentils simmered in chopped onions, garlic, ginger, vegetable oil, and berbere sauce, so it was spicier than the split peas next to it. Next up is atakilt (vegetable) wot with the most delicious potatoes, carrots, green beans, onions, cabbage, and ginger, all stewed together. Finally, the vegetarian combo platter had ye gomen (collard green) wot on the right side, which was probably similar to my gomen besiga, only with no beef in this one.

My friend, who is always a generous guy, let me sample all of those, and I have to say that as tasty as my meats were, and how exciting it was to try all those unfamiliar flavors, the vegetarian combo blew them away with depths of flavor. If I was skilled enough to cook Ethiopian and Indian recipes well, I could probably go vegetarian, or at least eat vegetarian more often than I do, which is not as often as I should. But I recommend this highly to everyone, whether you eat meat or not, to demonstrate the absolute wonders and miracles you can achieve with vegetables and spices.

In fact, two years before I published this review, I listed Selam’s vegetarian combination platter in Top Tastes, where I listed my favorite local restaurant dishes of 2023 in Orlando Weekly, back when I was writing those every year. (Somehow we skipped 2024, and who knows what’s going to happen this year.)

I hardly ever drink coffee, but if you go to an Ethiopian restaurant, it almost feels like a necessity to do the traditional coffee ceremony, so we did. While I don’t pretend to be a coffee connoisseur, this was really delicious and strong coffee, with a depth of flavor I never notice in plain black American-style coffee. That said, I’ve never been into plain black coffee, and here at Selam, I needed some sugar in mine to mellow it out.

While this meal goes back a while, I remember it like it was yesterday. I kept holding off on publishing this review because I was hoping to return, ideally with other friends to try other dishes. Unfortunately, it is far from home, and Ethiopian food is a hard sell for most people I know (including my wife, who was brave enough to try it with me that one other time, 16 years ago, but it wasn’t her thing). But I give Selam my highest possible recommendation, whether you are familiar with the cuisine or completely uninitiated and a little intimidated. Don’t be intimidated! Everything was a hit, and it’s FUN. It would actually be a fun place to take a date, because you eat with one hand, which is kind of sensuous, and you share everything. But if any of my friends ever want to go to there on a weekend, I’m your huckleberry!

Howlin’ Ray’s (Los Angeles)

Howlin’ Ray’s (https://howlinrays.com/) is a beloved Los Angeles institution for Nashville-style hot chicken, which is one of my favorite styles of fried chicken. I got to try the iconic Hattie B’s Hot Chicken on my first and only trip to Nashville back in 2017, and I am a HUGE fan of Chicken Fire and JAM Hot Chicken, our two beloved Nashville hot joints back home in Orlando. I crave Chicken Fire a lot, but fried chicken and fries are the very definition of “sometimes foods,” so I rarely go.

I’ve been hearing raves about Howlin’ Ray’s ever since I started making these occasional work trips to L.A., and I swore I would try it on my most recent visit. From all accounts, it is one of those much-hyped places that actually lives up to all the hype. It started out as a food truck in 2015, founded by former fine dining chef Johnny Ray Zone (who sounds like a psychobilly musician or a cyberpunk protagonist) and his wife Amanda Chapman. A year later, they opened their first permanent location in Chinatown, which is the closest to my job, but not close enough to walk to. I figured it would be a good place to have delivered to work on my longest day, when I was staying late to teach part of a nighttime class. I don’t usually like getting food delivered, but it would be a lot more convenient than making it over to a place that doesn’t even have seating in my very limited time in the city.

I started out with a quarter chicken that was a leg and thigh, since I always prefer dark meat. I went with the hot flavor as a benchmark, to see how hot Howlin’ Ray’s hot actually is, and to also gauge how much I could take. It was delicious, tender, juicy chicken under that intense seasoning, fried to perfection. But holy moley, that seasoning! It definitely made my eyes water, nose run, lips tingle. It was hot, but tasty, and that’s the most important thing. I’m not a masochist — not totally, anyway — but as much as I love spicy food, I want flavor, not just pure pain. And this delivered plenty of delicious flavor!

At Hattie B’s, I ordered a medium thigh and a hot thigh to figure out a similar benchmark, and I have no regrets about either order. Like at Hattie B’s, Howlin’ Ray’s hid a slice of white bread underneath that quarter bird, and I was so glad to find it under there. Chewing it helped with the burning sensation.

I don’t go hotter than the hot level at any of these Nashville places, but I also wanted to scale back. And while they had chicken sandwiches that I’m sure are wonderful, I eat a lot of sandwiches, and I’ve even eaten sandwiches on this same L.A. trip. I wanted to try a few things from the menu, and Howlin’ Ray’s has a concoction called Mario Style that combined a few of them. This is a mountain of “shake fries” (crinkle-cut fries with spicy seasoning shaken over them), topped with chopped chicken breast at the flavor/heat level of your choice (I chose medium-plus, a half-step between medium and hot), vinegar slaw, pickles, creamy comeback sauce, and more of that shaken seasoning. I think there might have even been some cheddar cheese in there, but maybe not.
I figured I could eat this mess with a fork at my desk, but of course I dropped one piece of chicken that hit one of my favorite ties in three different places on its way down to also hit my crotch.

Here’s another pic showing you that there actually were fries underneath there. Mario Style was a huge portion of food, more than enough for a full meal. And assuming there was cheese in there, or if there was any dairy in the comeback sauce, then all four food groups are covered!

I can’t go to a restaurant that serves collard greens and not try them! These tender greens were braised with onions and also tomatoes, which is a new one for me. They were so good, I slurped the “pot likker” broth when I was done with the greens. And before I could check my teeth for rogue greens, two students chose that moment to come to my office to chat. (I checked after they left, and thankfully I didn’t have anything stuck in my teeth, but the timing really was impeccable.)

As I’ve said before, I also can’t go to a restaurant that serves macaroni salad or pasta salad and not try them! This cool and creamy macaroni salad included diced green bell peppers, piquillo peppers (an impressive touch), and a lot of fresh dill, which was interesting. I saved it for last to cool things down, even though it didn’t help with my burning lips.

This was all a huge treat. I loved it! The menu was very similar to Hattie B’s in Nashville, and I’d say Howlin’ Ray’s is on the same level, flavor-wise and overall quality-wise. I still have nothing but love in my heart for Orlando’s own Chicken Fire, and I appreciate a slight sweetness in the hot chicken from Chicken Fire, maybe due to a drizzle of honey. But my favorite thing about Howlin’ Ray’s compared to our beloved Orlando establishments is that they serve bone-in chicken, which Chicken Fire and JAM Hot Chicken do not do. That thigh and leg I had were straight fire — no pun intended — and totally worth the temporary pain. The chicken itself was fried to perfection, and people like my wife who don’t like spicy food would probably love their country style, which is even more mild than their mild. This is delicious food that I highly recommend to Angelenos and tourists alike, but I’m glad I ate it alone in my little office at my L.A. job site, so nobody else saw me tearing up and blowing my nose… except those two students who caught me mid-meal. They might have seen my tears of discomfort, but they were also tears of joy. I guess I am a little masochistic after all.