Category: Sweets

Kaya

Kaya (https://www.kayaorlando.com/) is an upscale Filipino restaurant in Mills 50, Orlando’s best foodie neighborhood.  It is owned and operated by Chef Lordfer Lalicon and General Manager Jamilyn Salonga Bailey, who first made names for themselves with Kappo in Orlando’s East End Market food hall, then launched their award-winning omakase sushi restaurant Kadence.  I have not been lucky enough to go to either yet, but I’ve been aware of them for the longest time, and they seem like incredibly nice, hard-working, talented people who deserve all their accolades and local love.  Kaya first opened in 2022, and while I’ve been wanting to try it ever since, I finally made it there for the first time a few weeks ago.  Better late than never, because I had an unforgettable experience that I’ve been replaying in my head ever since.

I was actually meeting a friend for dinner on a rare weeknight I was off work: someone I also consider a mentor and a role model, Amy Drew Thompson, the food writer for the Orlando Sentinel.  This was my second time meeting Amy Drew in real life, and she is a delightful person who is so nice, so knowledgeable, and an amazing writer.  Kaya is one of her favorite local restaurants, and I was thrilled she was willing and able to meet me there.  Of course everyone at Kaya knew her, because she does so much for Orlando’s local food scene.  Jami came by to check on us a few times, and even Chef Lalicon (who everyone calls “Chef Lo”) popped out of the kitchen.  We sat at the bar, and the two bartenders, Daniel and a nice lady whose name I’m blanking on, took wonderful care of us.

They started us out with a mocktail called Hiraya, with white peony and marigold tea, pineapple juice, and lime juice, sprinkled with Sichuan peppercorns.  It was so refreshing!  It started with the unmistakable sweet taste of pineapple, but that quickly faded to something more botanical.  I’ve never tasted anything like those tea flavors, but it tasted like my wife’s shampoo smells (in a good way). 

The first dish to come out was Lumpiang Shanghai, an order of three very long, very crispy spring rolls, stuffed with seasoned pork and chicken and served with hibiscus sweet chili sauce.  I knew these as lumpia, and I’ve had them before (including when a very sweet student made them and brought me some, years ago), but with all due respect to her, I’ve never had anything close to these.  They set the tone for a multi-course meal where each dish was the most interesting thing I had ever tasted, until the next one came along and supplanted it.   

Kinilaw is a raw fish-based dish somewhat reminiscent of ceviche in Latin American countries, except where ceviche uses citrus juices to “cook” the fish, kinilaw utilizes vinegar for a similar purpose.  This gorgeous kinilaw incorporated madai, the Japanese word for red sea bream, a whole new fish I had never tasted before (although some of my research tells me the term is used interchangeably with red snapper, usually when it’s served as sushi).  Delicate raw slices of the madai were served with peaches, paper-thin slices of crunchy radish, coconut, and chili flakes, all arranged artfully on separate little crispy islands of puffed rice.  You can see five little radish slices, each one topping a piece of the madai, and there’s puffed rice under each one.  You would scoop up the whole little stack, and it is a perfect bite of food with so many textures and flavors.  Chef Lo used pinakurat, which is a spiced coconut vinegar (made from coconut sap).  I’ve bought the Suka Pinakurat brand before, at Orlando’s many Asian markets, since I love experimenting with different vinegars almost as much as I love mustards, but I never dreamed anyone could use it to create a dish on this level of complexity and beauty. 

This beautiful dish was Bicol Express mussels, served in a broth of coconut cream, Thai chilis, shallot, garlic, and bagoong, served with thick slices of pandesal toast for dipping in the rich broth.  I love mussels in any form, and this dish was the most unique way I’ve ever eaten them.  Bicol Express is a Filipino dish traditionally made with cubes of pork, rather than one of the best bivalves.

Bagoong, by the way, is a Filipino condiment made of fermented shrimp or krill cured in salt, which makes a  salty, savory, umami flavor.  It sounds intense and funky, but I didn’t notice anything intense or funky standing out to distract from the mussels or their creamy, spicy, coconutty broth.  But I like intense and funky!  (I’ve been told that I AM intense and funky!)

I wrote about pandesal, literally “bread of salt,” when I reviewed the Filipino-American fusion bakery-cafe The Baker’s Son in Kissimmee, this past December.  It is some of the most delicious bread I’ve ever tasted, similar to buttery brioche, Japanese milk bread, and French pain de mie, sharing their subtle sweetness.   As I’ve gotten older, and especially as I’ve cut way back on carbs, sometimes I just really appreciate good toast, and this pandesal toast was no joke, especially when used to sop up the broth and flex a couple of mussels.   

This was Ningang’s rigatoni, a take on the Filipino style of spaghetti, which is traditionally served with cut-up hot dogs and Spam in a sweet tomato sauce.  On my one trip to the Filipino fried chicken chain Jollibee, I was most excited to try a side order of that spaghetti, but I didn’t think it was anything special.  Kaya’s menu describes their version of the dish as “Filipino beef Bolognese, Spam, aged gouda, a touch of sweetness, a lot of love.”  You can taste the love in it, along with in everything else Chef Lo makes.  I love a good pasta dish, especially a meat sauce, and I really loved this rigatoni.  I would have a hard time returning to Kaya and not ordering this every time (among other things, natch).

I’ve written often about how one of my favorite meats is oxtail, whether it’s in Jamaican or Trinidadian cuisine, American soul food, or even in a steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho.  I was curious about trying Kaya’s oxtail kare kare, served in a rich peanut sauce with eggplant, bok choy, and a little dipping bowl of bagoong (in the top right, so you can see it by itself), but I’ve never tried or even seen oxtail like this.  Usually eating it is a messy affair, as you’re holding the irregularly shaped bone segments and chewing the tender meat and unctuous fat off them, and the bones are slippery enough that they can slip right out of your hands and go flying.  If my dad ever dared to eat oxtail, he would probably add it to his list of foods to not eat on a date, including most other hand-held meat with bones, and anything you have to “fight with” too much — crab legs that need to be cracked, shrimp that need to be shelled, and so forth.  But Chef Lo deboned all that rich meat and pressed it into a brick, then seared the outside to crispy perfection.  It was not only delicious and not only gorgeous, like everything else we were experiencing at Kaya, but he made it EASY.The oxtail kare kare was served with a side of buttery garlic rice called sinangag, which you must order separately (for $5) if your entree doesn’t come with it.

Because I was dining with a culinary luminary, Jami and Chef Lo sent us out these gambas: huge Cape Canaveral white shrimp, served with the heads on as well as the tails, in rich garlic butter, kalamansi verde, and preserved lemon.  Now these were messy, but what a festival of flavors and textures and colors! 
Kalamansi (sometimes called calamansi or calamondin) is a small, round citrus fruit, a hybrid of a kumquat and a Mandarin orange, and their juice is used in a lot of Filipino recipes.  Ripe ones are orange, but because the ones used in this recipe were kalamansi verde (green), they added sour notes because they weren’t ripe yet, perfectly balancing the richness of the garlic butter.  My wife says I love sour and tangy flavors more than anyone she’s ever met, which is one big reason I’m so crazy about Filipino cuisine.  (I also jokingly call myself the “acidic Jew” because of this.)  I have enjoyed kalamansi juice in cool, refreshing beverages before, including from the aforementioned The Baker’s Son (not that different from lemonade or limeade), and after a dear friend with a green thumb hooked me up with kalamansi from her own garden, I squeezed enough juice out of them to make my favorite dessert ever, a variation of Atlantic Beach pie.  (If you’re curious, drop me a line, sweet-toothed Saboscrivnerinos!)

Speaking of dessert, we were about to be blown away by the creativity of Kaya’s talented pastry chef, Chef Clarice Lam.  This was her Silvana Alaska, based on beloved Filipino cookies called Silvanas: two cashew-meringue wafers with a layer of buttercream between them, coated with cookie crumbs.  Chef Lam’s show-stopper was a gluten-free dessert with cashew meringue, ube French buttercream, blueberry compote, a dome-like layer of toasted Swiss meringue (hence the “Alaska” part, like the classic old-timey dessert baked Alaska), tiny cubes of blueberry jellies, and surrounded by a sweet, creamy moat of ube crème anglaise.By the way, ube is a purple yam that is definitely having a moment, being used in all kinds of desserts.  My wife loves the ube soft serve ice cream at Sampaguita Filipino Ice Cream, mere moments away from Kaya, but I’ve never had a dessert of this level of complexity, with or without ube.

Once we split into the meringue dome, this is what the Silvana Alaska looked like inside.  (I think my photo looks like a big fish opening its mouth, with the blueberry jelly cube as its eye, but that was not my intention.)

I am so proud of my wife, who has been trying all kinds of new foods lately.  Even though she wasn’t with us at this dinner (arguably having even more fun than we were, seeing her beloved Tori Amos in concert), I selected another tempting dish to bring home for her to enjoy later.  We both love squid ink pasta (I call it “Goth pasta”), and this was Kaya’s squid ink pancit: house-made spaghetti noodles topped with calamari rings, adobo sauce, black garlic aioli, and pandesal bread crumble.  It was magnificent.  We both sampled it later that night, after I picked her up from the concert, and she got two more whole portions out of it the next day.

Folks, I cannot stress how awe-inspiring this meal was.  I rarely go out to dinner because of my odd work schedule, but if Kaya was open for lunch (it isn’t), I’m sure I would have tried it years ago.  Instead, I’m late to the party, but this was, without a doubt, the absolute #1 best meal I’ve ever eaten in my 22 years in Orlando, and in the Top Five meals of my entire life.

I can tell you three of the others right now:

    • Babbo in NYC for our honeymoon in 2009, before we knew what a shit Mario Batali was,
    • Chef Michael Solomonov’s elevated Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant Abe Fisher in Philadelphia in 2023, which closed not long after our visit up there to see Le Tigre, so I never got around to writing about it, and
    • Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster Overtown in Miami, before seeing De La Soul in 2025.

But I was wowed by every part of the Kaya experience: not just the once-in-a-lifetime dishes my friend/mentor and I shared, but the professionalism of our bartender-servers, Jami’s warmth and kindness, the decor, the unbridled creativity of Chef Lo and Chef Lam, and the way the whole place — the whole experience — feels like a labor of love and a way of sharing a cuisine and a culture that too many Americans have yet to experience.  The website lists Kaya’s values with their names in Tagalog, and I really needed to share these, because you don’t see restaurants with a mission statement all that often, and they really exemplify all these beautiful, noble, lofty ideals:

    • Pamilya: We treat our team and guests like family. We practice radical hospitality so that our guests feel a sense of belonging and ease. We create space to be present for our families.
    • Kapwa + Bayanihan: We care deeply about community. We treat one another with love, look out for each other, and lift one another up. We build a model that allows us to be full, whole humans in right relationship with one another.
    • Utang Na Loob: We respect and honor our community, elders, and ancestors, as well as the land and its resources. We take a no/low-waste, sustainable approach, and we celebrate the beauty and richness of our heritage.
    • Mapanlikha: We move from a place of possibility, learning from the past and our experiences while actively creating our vision for the future. We pay close attention to how we can constantly improve while shaping the narrative of what’s possible.

Nothing about this epic experience was “mid” or forgettable, nor was it snooty or snobby or inaccessible.  Nobody was going through the motions.  Even with my own hang-ups about fine dining (that it isn’t meant for people like me), I never felt like an impostor or a sellout or a disappointment to my parents.  It was a close to perfect as a meal could be, and I had a blast!  Kaya has clearly earned its Michelin Green star for sustainability, and deserves to be in that rarified pantheon of top restaurants in Orlando, if not all of Florida, but I feel like it deserves a regular star as well, if not two.  By the way, according to the website, “kaya” means capable in Tagalog, and “kaya natin” means we can.   They are beyond capable, and not only can they, but they do.

And as much as I hoped to return to Kaya sooner rather than later, I surprised myself by returning just a few weeks later — yesterday, in fact!  But it wasn’t for another dinner, not this time.  Instead, Executive Pastry Chef Clarice Lam hosts an event called Kapé Kaya, a daytime bakery concept featuring her awe-inspiring pastries, every Saturday, from 9:30 AM until 12 PM.  I’ve seen pictures of her past creations, but this was a rare treat: the second of three Kapé Kaya events where she teams up with another local restaurant hero: Chef Tyler Brunache of SmokeMade Meats + Eats, my favorite barbecue restaurant in Orlando that won Michelin Bib Gourmand awards for “good quality, good value cooking” in 2025 and 2026.

This was like when Jack White teamed up with Norah Jones… or when Jack White teamed up with Alison Mosshart from The Kills… or when Jack White teamed up with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest!  Or maybe like the too-rare team-ups between Daredevil and Captain America, a pairing that makes all the sense in the world even though you don’t automatically think of them as obvious partners.  I had to be there, so I arrived around 8:45 AM, and there were already about 30 people ahead of me, waiting in line outside Kaya.  The heat and humidity didn’t get too bad until around 9:30, but they moved things along pretty well inside.  In the meantime, we studied the menu:

Jami came outside to announce when they were finally opening up, and I couldn’t believe she recognized me after meeting me once, a few weeks ago.  (I was also somewhat incognito, wearing sunglasses and my “I Love Research” bucket hat under the baking morning sun, looking like the nerdiest rapper ever, and she still recognized me and gave me a hug.)  When I finally got in, they had all the gorgeous pastries on display on the bar, with labels and prices.  You order and pay up front, then wait for the staff to assemble your order in large pink bakery boxes. 

I thanked Chef Lam on the way out the door, and even though I had considered doing it, I refrained from doing my Anthony Hopkins-as-Hannibal Lecter impression, greeting her with “Hello, Clarice.”  She’s probably heard it before, and Mads Mikkelsen was the better Hannibal Lecter anyway, by far.  (I said what I said.)  I was on my way by 10:15, leaving me enough time to make it to donate blood in Altamonte Springs by my 11 AM appointment time.  As usual, I brought a cooler with me to keep my Kapé Kaya treats safe and cool in this awful summer heat.

Back at home, this is a close-up of my brisket bear claw, which had buttery, flaky layers like the best croissant you’ve ever had.

This was the longganisa sausage bun, and keep in mind this was all one interconnected thing!  I’ve been lucky enough to catch Chef Tyler’s longganisa sausage as a weekend special at SmokeMade, and I love how sweet and savory it is.  All his house-made sausages have a perfect crispy natural casing, and Chef Lam’s dough was kind of like a savory danish pastry, not flaky and layered like the bear claw.

I love macaroni salad and always enjoy the slightly sweet taste of surimi (imitation “krab”) in sushi and poke, so I couldn’t resist the krab macaroni salad puff pastry tart.  It was so refreshing, especially compared to the other two heavier pastries, and the tart shell was flaky and light.

Here they are on a plate, so you can see a cross-section of the brisket bear claw with all those laminated dough layers and smoked brisket, gouda cheese, pickles, and barbecue sauce inside.  Upon tearing into it, it reminded me of a cross between a croissant and the Cuban pastelitos I grew up eating in Miami, sometimes stuffed with seasoned ground beef called picadillo.

And here are my sweet choices.  One the left, I got the mango coconut croissant bibingka, because I thought it was something my wife and I would both like, whereas I figured the savory pastries above would be all mine.  This thing was so dense and rich, we’re both slowly working our way through it over 36 hours later, a bite or two at a time.  Like so many other Filipino dishes, bibingka is new to me, so I looked it up.  Serious Eats never lets me down: it is a “coconut-flavored, banana-leaf scented rice cake topped with caramelized coconut strips.”  However, not having had prior bibingka experience, I would have guessed it was more like a bread pudding, since that’s what the texture and consistency felt like to me.  I loved the mango puree on top.  It was so good, but a little goes a long way.The same could be said for Chef Lam’s “thick’em cookie,” the one thing my wife actually requested.  This is a huge cookie, even bigger than the ones from Gideon’s Bakehouse.  The edges were crispy, but the rest was soft and yielding, which I always prefer in my cookies.  There were chocolate chunks, corn flakes, and some fancy salt crystals sprinkled on top.  My wife was in heaven, and she has also been nibbling away at the cookie because you can’t just devour it.  This plate was surprisingly heavy with both of these on it.

So that was my amazing Kapé Kaya experience, just weeks after my first dinner at Kaya.  I am posting this NOW because there is one more scheduled Kapé Kaya crossover with SmokeMade Meats and Eats, and that is next Saturday morning, August 1st.  I’ll probably be seeing the next Spider-Man movie before the Internet can spoil it all for me, but all my dozens of readers should do whatever it takes to be at Kaya before the line gets too long and the heat gets too unbearable.  Spider-Man is supposed to team up with the Hulk and the Punisher, but the best team-up in Orlando is going to be happening right at Kaya, and you don’t want to miss it!

Bachour (Coral Gables)

Bachour (https://antoniobachour.com/) is a beloved bakery-cafe-restaurant in Coral Gables, a historic and tony area of Miami.  I was down that way back in May, visiting my family in Kendall for the first time in far too long.  I also spent some quality time with my best friend (going back to elementary school) and his amazing girl, taking advantage of their generous hospitality and visiting parts of Miami I never ventured out to when I grew up down there.  The last day I was in town, we had brunch at Bachour, and his mom — who just happened to be my first-grade teacher! — joined us.  We had a great time, despite getting rained on while we ate in a semi-covered outdoor alcove.  The food, which combined French and Latin influences, was magnificent.

Founded by Puerto Rican-born Chef Antonio Bachour, Bachour is known for gorgeous pastries, arranged artfully in glass display cases:

We started out with an order of arepa fritters, one perfect crispy fried sphere for each of us, stuffed with cotija cheese and held in place with avocado puree underneath.

We also got an order of tequeños, small pastries made of long, flat strips of dough wrapped around salty queso blanco and baked or fried.  (These were fried.)  They were served with cilantro garlic aioli dipping sauce, which was so good, I kept it for whatever was coming next.

This stunning swirled pastry is Bachour’s version of a cinnamon roll.  Look at those crispy, light, flaky layers of laminated dough.  It was a work of art.

My boy’s mom ordered this creme brulee French toast with vanilla custard and mascarpone creme as her entree, even though that’s a dessert in my book.  

His lovely ladyfriend got this breakfast sandwich with scrambled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, aged cheddar, truffle butter, and arugula (it’s a veg-EH-ta-ble) on a soft brioche bun.  

She also ordered a side of crispy home fries with it.

My friend got the Bachour crispy chicken sandwich, with butter lettuce and creamy, crispy slaw on a brioche bun, and he said it was one of the best chicken sandwiches he’s ever had.  He chose fries as his side instead of a salad, which makes me think of John Mulaney’s routine about ordering a chicken sandwich and choosing between the two most different foods in the universe.

And as for me, your friend and humble narrator, one of those foods that always tempts and tantalizes me is smoked salmon, so I got something I normally never order anywhere, a club sandwich (a triple-decker sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on white toast) with smoked salmon and a bit of avocado added in.  Club sandwiches often slide apart, or the toasted bread crumbles under the architecturally unsound structure of its fillings, but I am a grown man, and I promise you I did my best.   
Even though I really have been trying to eat healthier, I kept the server from removing that delicious cilantro garlic aioli from earlier, so I ordered fries instead of a salad too, figuring I would share them with everyone else at the table to assuage my guilty conscience (another Mulaney bit).

I brought home two croissants for my wife.  This one was pistachio:

And this one was almond.  She loved both, but I don’t think she mentioned a favorite between them. 

All in all, it was a nice visit back home, and a highlight of the trip was this wonderful brunch shared with some of the best people I know.  I had heard of Bachour before, but just like 90% of places I hear about in Miami, I never thought I would actually go there.  Well, on this recent trip down, I scratched a few of those semi-mythical spots off my list.  This was a great meal, and the company couldn’t be beat.

Lo Mejor Del Mundo Cuban Cafe

Lo Mejor Del Mundo Cuban Cafe (https://www.facebook.com/lomejordelmundocubancafe/) is a small, casual, no-frills Cuban cafe and restaurant (hence the name) at 181 Oxford Rd, in Fern Park, Florida.  Where Casselberry ends and Fern Park begins, I have never quite figured out, and I live around here!  That stretch of Oxford Road is currently torn up by construction, but if you can get through, it is definitely worth a stop in.  On my first visit in a long time, these guys were waiting outside the door, wishing they could get in:

As I often do, I brought home takeout.  This was ropa vieja (literally translated to “old clothes”: a savory, hearty dish of shredded beef stewed in a tomatoey sauce with onions and bell peppers, served with fluffy white rice and sweet fried plantains (maduros), which are always one of my favorite foods. 

My wife wanted this bistec con chimichurri, steak cut thin and pounded even thinner, then topped with chimichurri, a bright condiment made of parsley, garlic, olive oil, and salt that goes perfectly with just about any meat.  She is always much more into steak than I am.  It was served on a bed of moros rice (white rice mixed together with savory black beans, sometimes referred to as congri), with even more maduros on the side. 

Each meal came with beans, which they served in separate containers to avoid them dripping out of the styrofoam boxes.  I prefer red beans when they are an option, and my wife is a traditionalist and prefers the black beans.

I hadn’t been here in so long, I also got a Cuban sandwich for the purpose of reviewing it here.  It isn’t the biggest Cuban sandwich in the Orlando area, nor the best, but even a mid Cuban sandwich is better than not having one at all.  It was also on the dry side, but a lot of places serve really dry roast pork on their Cubanos.  I think I might have added more mustard from my vast mustard collection and more pickles (Grillo’s, natch) once I unwrapped it and took the first few bites.

These pastries were far better: a pastelito con carne and a fried empanada con carne.  But you can never go wrong with either of these! 

Yes indeed, they were both stuffed with seasoned ground beef.  Some places add tomato sauce and even olives and raisins for a specific Cuban dish called picadillo, but these were much more standard.  I love how the baked pastry shell of pastelitos is often slightly sweet, contrasting against its savory fillings, and you can’t ever go wrong with the rich fried dough shell of Cuban empanadas.

And finally, I got a quesito for each of us — sweet pastries stuffed with sweetened cream cheese.  Funny thing is, growing up on Cuban food in Miami (mostly from Latin American Cafeteria, which we could walk to from our house, and La Carreta), I don’t remember ever getting quesitos like this down there.  But when I moved to Orlando in 2004, they were ubiquitous at Cuban restaurants, cafes, and bakeries.  Hey, I’m not complaining!  

It was interesting revisiting Lo Mejor Del Mundo Cuban Cafe after so many years.  Not being on a main road, and with all the construction happening right in front of the little shopping strip it’s in, the place could definitely use a spotlight shined on it.  That said, everything I brought home was perfectly fine, but in the future, I’ll drive a little further to Cubans on the Run (where Casselberry starts fading into Longwood) or further still to Vicky Bakery.

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.

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s (https://thebakersonusa.com/) is a Filipino-American bakery/cafe that first opened in Jacksonville, but opened a second, much larger location in Kissimmee this past Thursday, December 4th.  (The address is 4797 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee, FL 34746, in front of the Target.)  I have been following its progress, excited about sampling new and unfamiliar sweet and savory baked goods, as well as any drinks and dishes they might serve.

According to the website, owner-operator Jun Valerio is a third-generation Filipino-American baker, and his family owns multiple Valerio’s bakeries on the West Coast.  Jun and his wife Kathleen ran Valerio’s locations in California, Seattle, and Canada before opening their own spinoff, the first Baker’s Son location, in Jacksonville, which has a larger Filipino population than the Orlando area.  But now that they have opened in Kissimmee, I have a feeling they will have a huge hit on their hands with mass appeal that will reach beyond Filipino locals and tourists.

I finally made the hour drive to the new Kissimmee location on Saturday morning, hoping to beat the lunch rush, but instead I found myself in a slow, serpentine line that wrapped around the entire store.  There weren’t any employees directing traffic, but customers walked to the left upon entering to grab any packaged breads and sweets off the shelves, then found their way to the end of the line.  I estimate it took me an hour and 15 minutes from entering the store to ordering my food and paying at the front counter, but I chatted with the guy in front of me, and everyone was patient and polite, helping point the newcomers in the right direction.

The full menu is not on the website, so I took photos for my dozens of readers, so you can study in advance.  Try right-clicking on these menu photos and opening them in new tabs for slightly larger images.

This is the coffee, tea, boba, and signature drinks menu:

Here is the food menu, with merienda (snacks), rice plates, sandwiches, burgers, healthy eats, and breakfast sweets:

And this is the Cloud Series (The Baker’s Son’s version of milkshakes), plus soft serve ice cream:

The coffee drinks people were picking up from the cafe counter all looked delicious, but coffee makes me feel terrible.  I, on the other hand, have never met a cold, refreshing, citrusy drink I didn’t like, so I got the fresh calamansi juice.  Calamansi is a fruit that is similar to lime, and its juice adds sour notes to many Filipino recipes.  This was similar to limeade — sweet, sour, and so refreshing.  

After how long the line took, I didn’t know how long it would take for the food I ordered to be served, so I asked for an empanada when I got to the counter.  They looked really good.  This was a little smaller than a typical Cuban empanada:

It had a saucy, seasoned beef filling with some raisins, but it was nothing like the picadillo filling I’m used to in Cuban empanadas.  It was definitely saucier, and the fried shell had a really pleasant salty-sweet flavor and didn’t taste or feel greasy.   

I really wanted to try something with longanisa, a sweet and savory Filipino sausage.  They offer a longanisa burger, but since I was planning to eat there after waiting that long, I chose something that would not have traveled well: loaded longanisa fries.  These were really crispy fries that any fry lover would love, topped with crumbled longanisa sausage, caramelized onions, creamy garlic sauce (like an aioli), and an over-medium fried egg.  It was so delicious and decadent.  

I’ve had bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches on my mind recently, so since I didn’t get a burger, I opted for the tocino glazed bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, served with sweet glazed bacon called tocino, scrambled eggs, American cheese, and a crispy hash brown patty on a pillowy-soft roll called pan de sal (literally “bread of salt”) that had been grilled to crisp up its interior.  Pan de sal (sometimes stylized as pandesal) is one of the specialties of The Baker’s Son, so I’ll come back to that a little later.  

This was sinigang popcorn chicken off the merienda (snacks) menu.  I certainly didn’t need it, and it was a bit of an impulse buy, but the guy in front of me said he was going to get it, and I trusted him.  He said it should have a sour seasoning sprinkled on it, but even though mine was good, with a crispy, crunchy batter, it didn’t taste sour to me.   While writing this, I found out that the sour sinigang flavor usually comes from tamarind. 
I ate most of the above food on site, but took most of the chicken home with me, where I will try it with my huge collection of condiments and sauces.

But since I was at a brand-new bakery, I couldn’t leave without buying some bread.  I bought the smallest bag of pan de sal they had.  These were smaller rolls, like dinner rolls, but they had much larger bags with larger rolls, more like what I had with my bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich (think of typical burger buns).  They are made with flour, eggs, yeast, sugar, salt, and powdered milk, so they will be nice and light and fluffy and slightly sweet.  They reminded me a bit of Japanese milk bread.

This was pan de coco, more small, fluffy rolls  stuffed with a sweet spread made of young coconut.  (If any MCs are looking for a new stage name, may I suggest “Young Coconut”?)

And this box of Spanish bread is a bit like buttery, soft brioche, with a sweet, buttery, creamy filing in the center.  I would have been fine with one or two, but they only came in boxes of six.  

They had so much more to choose from, including a lot of sweeter breads, rolls, and pastries, many of which had lots of icing and/or ube (sweet purple yam) filling.  But I knew my wife wouldn’t be terribly interested in any of these, so I reigned myself in.  I like to make sandwiches at home, so I could level up my sandwich game with all these different rolls.

I would definitely recommend The Baker’s Son, even though people might want to wait a little longer to avoid the long lines.  Most new restaurants will have a certain amount of hype involved, and I did make the choice to go on the third day it was open, but I suspect it will calm down soon enough (and probably be a lot more chill on normal weekdays, rather than the Saturday of its opening week).  Most of the people waiting inside with me were Filipinos of all ages, and I could sense their excitement and pride in The Baker’s Son.  I couldn’t be happier for them, or for the Valerio family and their staff, or for the rest of us, having a bakery/cafe like The Baker’s Son as an option in the Orlando area.  Head down to touristy Kissimmee when you can, and please let me know what you ordered and what you thought!

Bites and Bubbles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Gideon’s Bakehouse

Gideon’s Bakehouse (https://gideonsbakehouse.com/) serves some of the best cookies in Orlando, if not in all of Florida.  These are huge, heavy, rich cookies, ideally shared among two to four people.  You’ve never seen or tasted anything quite like them anywhere else, but almost a decade after opening, they still have a loyal fan following.  Read on to see why!

Steve Lewis opened the original Gideon’s location opened in 2016, in a small stall in the East End Market, a critically acclaimed and beloved local landmark in Orlando’s Audubon Park neighborhood.  Since then, a larger location opened in Disney Springs in 2020, where tourists apparently queue up for hours for their cookies and photo ops.  I admit I’ve never been to the Disney Springs location, not when the tiny original is so much closer and more convenient.  You may notice that Gideon’s Bakehouse has a creepy/kooky/mysterious/spooky aesthetic, kind of like Tim Burton-meets-Edward Gorey.  They include trading cards of all these cutesy, creepy, Funko Pop-looking characters that people probably go crazy collecting, even though I’ve never paid close attention to them.  Apparently the Disney Springs location has even more of a Victorian haunted house mise en scène going on, but I’ll leave that to the tourists and local Disney adults.   
I realize the books are just for show, especially since they have them displayed with the spines facing in rather than out.  As a librarian, this strikes me every time, and I say to myself “No human being would stack books like this.”

But Gideon’s goes hard with their theming, and they have a lovely glass curio cabinet (not just a simple display case!) showing off all their cookies:

Here are some of their pistachio toffee chocolate chip cookies on the upper level with some mysterious limited edition cookies below.  (They are always coming out with limited editions that don’t stick around for long, knowing their target audience feels those FOMO feelings.)

Here are some of their classic chocolate chips above, with triple chocolate chips below.   I should have mentioned this sooner, but all their cookies are very soft, moist, chewy, underbaked.  They melt in your mouth.  Your mileage may vary, but if I’m going to indulge with cookies, this is how I like them, not hard little crunchers that shatter into a dust storm of dry crumbs. 

Here are limited edition Kris Kringle cookies on display, which had to have been a holiday season thing.  I tried it once, and I was more into it than my wife, who is the real sweet tooth.

And here are just a few of the cookies I’ve brought home for my wife or shared with friends and co-workers over the years, starting with my wife’s favorite, the pistachio toffee chocolate chip.  Notice those crunchy salt crystals!  Gideon’s uses salt crystals a lot, as a way to cut the sweet richness (rich sweetness?) and add a bit of additional texture. 

Here was one of the many limited editions: a peanut butter cold brew cookie, inspired by their peanut butter nitro cold brew (which I’ve never tried, not being a coffee drinker.  They describe it as a peanut butter cookie laced with freshly ground decaf espresso and covered in chopped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Reese’s Pieces.  

This is their standard peanut butter crunch cookie, made with a dough that is mostly peanut butter and topped with peanut butter chips and handmade crunchy candied peanuts.

Here’s that aforementioned Kris Kringle with a peanut butter crunch and a pistachio toffee chocolate chip from a different visit.  It was a white chocolate chip cookie flavored with coconut, caramel, vanilla, and freshly ground coffee beans, adding a bit of bitterness to counterbalance all that rich sweetness (sweet richness?).  It also had a crunch from coarse sugar and those sea salt crystals.

I’m sure you waiting for this one: dig that classic chocolate chip, and look at all those chips!  I’m a reasonably large full-grown man, and I can only hold one of these cookies in my hand.  Then I have to wash it, because the entire surface is covered with gooey chocolate chips.

On my most recent trip, I brought a triple chocolate chip cookie home for my wife.  The website says they actually use five kinds of chocolate, including from high-end chocolatiers Callebaut and Ghirardelli.  They also pour their chocolate ganache straight into the cookie dough as they mix it, to obtain a velvety texture.  It seemed pretty intense, and so far I haven’t even tried a bite of this one.

The most recent limited edition cookie I got sent out for was a coffee cake cookie, exclusive to the Disney Springs location unless you preorder six cookies (any combination) online from the closer East End Market location.  My wife and I both love coffee cake, to the point where I baked her a coffee cake from scratch back in our early dating days just because she mentioned liking it.  You can call me a simp if it makes you feel better, but we have been together for 19 good years and married for almost 16, so we’re in it to win it and put in the work every day to be the best people we can for each other.   Anyway, this was one of my favorites: a buttery vanilla bean cookie filled with cinnamon streusel (the website said “Strudel,” but I’m guessing they meant streusel, since I’ve baked coffee cake from scratch) and topped with “Homemade Double Baked Butter Crumbs.”  Good lord, it was good.  But seriously, with any of these, you can easily cut them into quarters, and even a quarter is plenty.  Luckily, all these cookies freeze and thaw very well.

I still give the edge for soft, moist, chewy cookies to a small operation: HeartSong Cookies, owned and operated by one of the sweetest people ever, Kathy Paiva.  But Gideon’s Bakehouse is a big deal — an Orlando favorite that has garnered national attention, and now you can see why.  Despite not being a big cookie eater in general, I can’t disparage these cookies, nor would I want to.  If you like huge, hefty, hulking cookies, this is your place. And if you also like sad little cartoon monster children, mysterious books shelved backwards, and humming Danny Elfman movie scores while you enjoy your cookies, this is definitely your place.  Everyone is welcome at Gideon’s, from regular joes to goths to steampunks, who are goths that have discovered the color brown.

Oh yeah, and they sell slices of cake too!

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli (https://www.instagram.com/mamanapoliwinterpark/) is a new business that opened this past summer in Winter Park, just south of Fairbanks Avenue on State Road 17-92.  It is a cute café with delicious coffee, pastries, snacks, sandwiches, rustic-looking pizzas, and shelves laden with Italian groceries.  There are a few booths inside for lingering over a cappuccino and any number of Italian delicacies.

You can see some of their premade panini sandwiches above the deli meats: the Vesuvio, Procida, Ischia, and Capri.  If you right-click on the photo below and open it in a new tab, you can probably even make out the ingredients listed for each.

This glass case includes fresh cannoli, tarts, macarons, and cake slices.

Here are gorgeous pistachio, Nutella, apricot, and almond croissants.

Bombolone are like Italian doughnuts, and these all had different fillings: Bavarian cream, apricot, Nutella, and pistachio cream (which seems to be becoming a trendy dessert ingredient).

And here are flaky, shell-shaped sfogliatella pastries, with a light, crispy texture and a smooth cream filling with the slightest hint of lemon.

M’ama Napoli has several shelves of imported Italian groceries, including some nice-looking fruit preserves, pickled peppers, and tomato sauces.

For the first order I ever brought home, I selected some cream-filled conchiglia puff pastries and a croissant filled with almond paste (marzipan) for my wife who loves almond-flavored anything.  While I still give the edge to Benjamin French Bakery in Thornton Park for the best croissants in Orlando, my wife and I enjoyed all these pastries.   

I also got an incredible sandwich on freshly baked, fluffy focaccia bread, the Toto.  I’m sure it wasn’t named for the yacht rock-adjacent band that featured David Paich, Steve Lukather, and the Porcaro brothers,  but it was full of paper-thin slices of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, arugula, tomatoes, and shaved parmigiano cheese.  I loved it.  It was huge, too!

Here is a better photo of the Toto sandwich from our second visit.  My wife doesn’t share my obsession with sandwiches, but she likes good bread, prosciutto, fresh mozz, and arugula — pretty much everything but the tomatoes — so she had most of this one.

That time, I tried the Maradona sandwich, with salami, fresh mozzarella, and arugula.  The salami was really high-quality, but since I ate this sandwich at home, I plussed it up with the tomatoes from my wife’s Toto sandwich, some hot cherry peppers, and balsamic glaze.

And this was a special sandwich that was only available that day, with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, shaved parmesan cheese, and some kind of creamy sauce that gave it a bit of a funky flavor, but not unpleasant.  It was an umami bomb, though! 
I would probably skip this one in the future, just because the Toto is so great, and there are lots of other sandwich options too — not just on focaccia, but pressed paninis as well.  Maybe I’ll try a focaccia sandwich with mortadella next time, which is like very posh bologna that sometimes contains pistachios.

There are only a few parking spaces behind the building, off busy State Road 17-92, but I’ve had decent parking karma on my two visits to M’ama Napoli so far (which is more than I can say for many of Orlando’s most popular dining districts).  Check it out, and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed, especially if you get the Toto or one of the other focaccia sandwiches!

Mazzaro’s Italian Market (St. Petersburg)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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