Sweets – Page 4 – The Saboscrivner

Christo’s (Sanford)

Sometimes I find out about a restaurant, read everything I can about it, and pore over the menu months or even years before I’m able to go. This usually happens when a place is far from both home and work, when I can’t just jet off there whenever I want, and when takeout or delivery are unrealistic due to distance, so I need to plan a special trip to go. Sometimes those trips end in disappointment, and other times they end in unbridled joy and obsession. The following review is based on two separate visits to a restaurant, one for dining in and one for takeout, and it definitely runs the gamut of emotions.

Longtime readers know how much my wife and I both love diners, and any Orlando residents know that truly good diners like the ones they have up north are extremely rare down here. So when I first heard about Christo’s (https://christossanford.com/) in quaint, historic downtown Sanford, it had my curiosity. Then I began to study the voluminous menu online, and it had my attention! It was a huge menu full of classic American food, along with the Italian and Greek dishes that many northern diners boast among their offerings, and a huge selection of freshly-baked desserts. To quote Stefon, “This place has everything!”

There aren’t enough restaurants where you can get burgers, pizza, gyros, barbecue ribs, fish and chips, pasta, Italian subs, all kinds of fried apps, wings, breakfast (only on Sundays), pies, and a cheesecake of the day. Some people might look suspiciously at a restaurant like that, where the menu’s ambition may exceed the kitchen’s reality, where they spread themselves too thin instead of focusing on and perfecting a few core dishes. But the allure of the diner is that variety, where you can get waffles, a Reuben sandwich, spanikopita, calzone, or even lobster, at any time of day, and you know they’ll all be good. And at Christo’s, rest assured, they are gonna be GOOD. (Editor’s note: Christo’s does not have lobster, but they do have crab cakes!)

The dining room appears to be built inside of an old bank, with the area where the vault used to be in the very back of the long room. It is a little dark in there, which I appreciate. I hate feeling blasted with light in restaurants, like we’re being examined on a slide on a giant microscope. Christo’s had a homey, relaxing feeling, like a restaurant my parents would have taken us to when I was a kid in the ’80s, without feeling like a Southern “down-home-cookin’-corn-pone-y’all” kind of diner. I liked it immediately, and my wife and I both liked our server Arielle, who was so sweet and patient and welcoming, despite being super-busy. I keep reading stories about service in restaurants being bad due to the pandemic, and places being short-staffed due to staff quitting for more lucrative jobs and due to abuse from customers. I’m sure that all happens, and anyone who is rude to hard-working people in the service industry is deplorable and worthy of the deepest contempt and merciless social consequences. But I digress. I just meant to say that Arielle was slammed, but she provided us the best service I’ve experienced in a restaurant in a year and a half, since before COVID-19 changed everything forever. (I know some people will be interested, so I mention it here: none of the staff members were wearing masks on either of these visits.)

One thing I had been excited about trying at Christo’s was the fresh-baked pepperoni bread. It isn’t a stromboli (because they have those too), but just fresh, fluffy, crusty bread with pepperoni slices and cheese baked into it sounded delightful. Guess what, folks: it was. I usually don’t like bread that is too crusty, where the crust shatters into shards when you bite it, occasionally carving up your gums like a ninja on the rampage. This was an ideal crust that was crackly, but not overly hard or crunchy.

I was tempted by other apps, but I feel like I made the best possible choice in Greek nachos ($11.49), a Herculean portion of crispy, fresh-fried pita wedges (definitely not those rock-hard, bone-dry, bagged pita chips) smothered and covered with a veritable Mount Olympus of sliced gyro meat, crumbled feta cheese, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, thin-sliced red onions, kalamata olives, and chopped pepperoncini peppers, then topped with a layer of creamy, tangy tzatziki sauce. Folks, this was legendary, or at least mythical. If only Homer was still around to write about these Greek nachos… or maybe they should have called them Natchios. (Any other Daredevil fans reading this? If so, make your presence known!)
Much to my pleasant surprise, my wife liked these Greek nachos too, but I loved them. Fearless readers, I might go out on a limb and say that this is one of my favorite restaurant appetizers of all time, and not just in the Orlando area either. I can’t recommend or rave about these enough! And the portion really is huge, so a group could happily share it, or someone could easily make it into a filling, fulfilling meal.

My wife always appreciates a nice sweet breakfast, so we made sure to go on a Sunday, the one day Christo’s opens earlier than 11 AM and serves a breakfast menu until it closes at 3 PM. She ordered white chocolate French toast ($10.99), which came with six thicc slices of fresh-baked challah, dipped in white chocolate egg batter and grilled until it was golden. She loved it, as I suspect most people would, but everything was so filling, she could only eat two of the smaller slices then and there. Everything heated up very well back at home, which is a bonus.

I couldn’t decide between a burger and a sandwich, so Arielle recommended Christo’s Chicago beef sandwich ($9.95), which she said would be “more festive than a burger.” Folks, I’ll take any festivities where I can get them, especially these days! The sandwich includes thin slices of bottom round topped with sauteed onions (and mushrooms, which I asked her to hold), baked on a crusty roll with mozzarella and brick cheeses and served with au jus.

“AU JUUUUUUUUS!
AU JUUUUUUUUUS!
Do you hate him, ’cause he’s PIECES OF YOU?”
(Nobody will get or appreciate that, but I only write this blog to amuse myself, so mission accomplished.)

Anyway, it was a fine sandwich, but really could have used a vegetable and something spicy. The pickled giardinera vegetables that go on an authentic Chicago Italian beef sandwich would have brought this one over the top.So what’s all the other stuff on the plate, you ask? Well, at Christo’s, sandwiches and burgers come with chips and a pickle, OR for an additional $4.49, you can get it Fat Boy Style. I have nothing but love for the Fat Boys (RIP, Buff Love and Prince Markie D!), but Christo’s had the ingenious idea to include a single onion ring, a firecracker fried cheese ball (with firecracker sauce!), and either fries or potato salad in their Fat Boy Style option, and how could I refuse? Yes, this is a Ring the Alarm! feature because I ate a single onion ring, and it was a fine one — hand-dipped into homemade beer batter and fried to perfection. You know this onion ring was made with care, pride, and love, and didn’t come frozen in an industrial-sized bag from somewhere. The firecracker fried cheese ball was a blend of five cheeses dipped in batter and fried into a perfect little golden globe (don’t sue me, please). The firecracker sauce was creamy and tangy, barely spicy at all — definitely not as spicy as spicy mayo that comes with sushi and poke. Anyway, you can get a full appetizer order of the firecracker fried cheese balls for $8.49, a full order of the onion rings for $6.99, or a smaller “entree side” order of the onion rings for $3.99, which is good to know for next time.

And because you can get fries almost anywhere but I was already eating plenty of fried stuff, and also in a Greek diner, I chose the potato salad, and I was so glad I did. Greek-style potato salad is served chilled, but instead of mayonnaise, it includes vinegar, and I love vinegary salads. It was so delicious, I just loved it. (As an aside, German potato salad is also awesome and vinegary, but it is served warm and includes bacon. Get some down the street at Hollerbach’s Willow Tree Cafe, our favorite restaurant in Sanford.)

Like the diners of my dreams, Christo’s had a long glass refrigerated display case near the front, full of freshly baked pies and cakes. It looked like a birthday-style cake with rainbow sprinkles baked in and more on top, a key lime pie, and a blueberry cream pie in the front. It’s harder to tell exactly what wonders were on the lower level.

Moving on down, there was one slice remaining of a gorgeous flaky apple pie, a slice of blueberry cheesecake in the back, and the cake on the top right was either a carrot cake or a hummingbird cake, topped with nuts and cream cheese icing. On the lower deck, there was a cake with cherries on it, some kind of chocolate cake, and an intriguing-looking orange cake I made a mental note of.

Further down, there were freshly baked cookies and pastries, as well as chocolate-dipped wedges of baklava in the top left there!

My wife usually gravitates toward anything chocolatey, so she really surprised me by expressing interest in that beautiful blueberry cream pie ($6.99), which would have been my top choice anyway. It wasn’t overly sweet, and the crust had a nice saltiness to it, to offset the tangy cream and tart berries. I liked it more than she did, but we both liked it.

Since it’s summer and blueberries are in peak season, at least somewhere, I made a case that we had to compare the cream pie to the blueberry cheesecake ($7.99) too. This one wasn’t overly sweet either. It almost reminded me of yogurt, in that it had a subtle tangy tartness that wasn’t just from the berries. The graham cracker crust was more crumbly than firm, but it wasn’t moist or buttery like the graham cracker crusts on some cheesecakes and key lime pies, and wasn’t salty either. I liked it, don’t get me wrong, but everything about the blueberry cream pie was better than the cheesecake.

Funny enough, my wife’s favorite desserts were the freshly baked cookies we brought home: snickerdoodles and sugar cookies ($2.50 each). Back at home, she said they were soft, but not like raw cookie dough either — they were nicely chewy, but still had a bit of a crumble, just like you hope for.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Christo’s, and I really wanted to write a review while it was all fresh in my mind, so I returned after work today and brought home a large takeout order, using a very generous UberEats gift card a sweet friend had given us. This way, I figured my wife and I would have enough leftovers to last through most of the weekend.

Christo’s makes much of their pizzas, and my wife asked me to bring her a personal pizza with Italian sausage, mushrooms, and green peppers ($11.99). I splurged and took the 417 (a toll road) home from Sanford to ensure the food would still be as hot as possible, and the pizza was still warm! I had a slice after picking most of the mushrooms off it, and it was a pretty chewy crust, but had a good flavor from the sauce, cheese, and toppings. I prefer a crispier crust, though, whether it’s thin New York-style pizza or thick, rectangular Sicilian-style. My wife thought it was okay, but her favorite pizzas in town are from Pizza Bruno and that rare bird, Brad’s Underground Pizza.

Most people who know me or read The Saboscrivner know that Italian subs are pretty much my favorite meal. I had to try Christo’s version, the Italian Lunch Box ($9.99) to compare it to my favorite subs and hoagies in Orlando. It was okay, with salami, pepperoni, ham, mozzarella cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions on a soft hoagie roll, but no roasted peppers or drizzled Italian dressing, as promised on the menu. I think the roasted peppers and Italian dressing would have helped it immensely. I’m kind of a sub aficionado, and I think they need the tanginess of peppers — either roasted reds or something spicy, like hot pickled cherry peppers, or both. Subs also require the lubrication from a condiment, like some kind of oil and vinegar, or better yet, a vinaigrette dressing. As it is, I’ll leave the Italian subs to the experts, but props to Christo’s for offering one in the first place.

Ribs? At a DINER? Yep, “Need-A-Bib” ribs were on the menu, so I ordered a full slab ($19.99), just for the heck of it, knowing we could share them and they would last us a few meals. These were substantial spare ribs, not tiny little baby backs, uncut and fall-off-the-bone tender (which most barbecue pitmasters would argue isn’t ideal). They definitely weren’t smoked — most likely par-boiled and finished on the grill, then brushed with a sticky, sweet, and slightly smoky barbecue sauce. But they were still tender and tasty, despite not being traditionally smoked, and weren’t fatty or greasy at all.

I got a choice of two sides with the ribs, so I opted for those really good onion rings as well as fried macaroni and cheese, because why not, right? The fried mac and cheese came in the form of two large, thick triangles, covered with crispy brown breading and dusted with parmesan cheese.

Here’s a cross-section of the fried mac and cheese and one of the firecracker fried cheese balls that come with the Fat Boy Style orders:

We went a bit nuts on desserts as well. Restaurants, take note: if you want to tempt us, put pies and cakes in a glass display case, or better yet, under glass domes, like they always have in diners in old movies. We are suckers for seeing them up close and on display like that!

Continuing the blueberry dessert trend from our previous visit, it looks like we got a double slice of a blueberry cake ($7.99, but it’s a large portion that needs to be shared). The cake itself was on the dry side, and we both wished it had more blueberries, but the cream cheese icing was a real winner. It was much better after we left it in the fridge to chill for a while. I like my cake chilled, and usually my pie as well.

I am also a mark for any orange desserts, so after seeing it on our last visit, I brought home a slice of orange cake ($7.99), intending to make it last a while. The cake itself was slightly more moist than the blueberry cake, but it had a good subtle orange flavor, and once again, cream cheese icing. Not bad, but one of these days I’m going to have to return to Christner’s, the really nice steakhouse that serves a mandarin orange cake that is one of my all-time favorite desserts. I haven’t been there in many years, so I’ve never written a review.

And finally, Christo’s apple pie is so pretty, I had to get us a slice of that too ($6.99). This is one that looked better than it tasted, I must admit. Do you remember reading how I wished the Chicago beef sandwich had some spicy marinated giardinera vegetables and the Italian Lunch Box sub had some hot peppers and a vinaigrette dressing? They would have been much better sandwiches with some spicy elements added. Well, you know what WAS spicy, but we both wished it wasn’t? This apple pie. It had a lot of cinnamon in it — like, a ridiculous amount of cinnamon that had a hot, spicy bite to temper the tartness of the apples. It wasn’t overly sweet either, which was fine, especially after I overdosed on apple pie judging the 2018 National Pie Championships here in Orlando, but mama mia, that was a spicy pie!
So that’s Christo’s, one of the best diners I’ve found in Florida. We tried a lot of stuff because I got all swept up in the excitement of discovering a new diner with a big ol’ menu, and I wanted to write a thorough, exhaustive review after all the anticipation of finally getting out there. Some things were terrific (I can’t rave enough about those Greek nachos!), others were fine, and some were a little disappointing, but that’s diners for ya, and that’s life as well.

Since Sanford is half an hour away from home and even further from work, I don’t see myself returning all that often. But it is definitely worth a try for anyone hanging out in Sanford, especially among all the other trendier restaurants and hip breweries and wine bars along First Street. It’s a family restaurant — not cutting-edge or foodie-hipsterish in any way — but that’s part of Christo’s charm. I think it’s cool just by being an unpretentious, old-school diner with a huge, ambitious menu. I think any diners would have a difficult time going there and not finding something good to eat, especially if you’re dining with a party of people with strong opinions. If you’re anything like me, you might feel a little overwhelmed by all the choices, but overwhelmed in the best possible way. And if we’re lucky, life can feel a little like that too.

AdventHealth: 30 Days of Hospital Dining

Wait a minute… is The Saboscrivner really going to review the food at AdventHealth, Orlando’s largest chain of hospitals? Yes, but I have a good reason. My wife had a major surgery in May that necessitated spending nine days in AdventHealth Orlando, followed by another three weeks in AdventHealth Winter Park. It was heavy and scary stuff, and I didn’t want her to go it alone. I am so grateful that my employer allowed me to take a leave of absence from work, and that both hospitals allowed me to move in with her and spend every post-surgical moment at her side. (Both of us are fully vaccinated.) So we both lived in hospitals for 30 days — from May 11th through June 10th — and that meant eating a lot of hospital meals. This massive review may prove useful if any of my readers, or any of their family or friends, are ever hospitalized in an AdventHealth facility, or even if you end up visiting anyone there. But I hope you all stay healthy and safe and never have to come here, unless it’s for a positive reason, like having a baby or getting a cool prosthetic or something.

AdventHealth is a faith-based nonprofit that claims to have “nearly 50 hospital campuses and hundreds of care sites in diverse markets throughout nine states” (see https://www.adventhealth.com/who-we-are). Despite the health care company’s strong Christian values and mission, everyone is welcome and included — staff, patients, and visitors alike. I can say with confidence that the doctors, nurses, and therapists took exceptional care of my wife, when she needed it the most.

Now onto the food! Both hospitals have cafeterias for the staff and visitors, and there is some surprisingly good food to be had there. It tends to be more flavorful than the food served to the patients in their rooms, which tends to be blander, with less salt and fewer herbs, spices, and strong flavors. The much larger AdventHealth Orlando has a much larger cafeteria, the Welch Cafe, which puts out the most options at lunchtime, the busiest time, and far fewer things to choose from in the evening. There is an Italian station that has pizza, pasta, and rotating specials, a sandwich station where you can get a custom-made sandwich, a salad bar, a fresh sushi station, lots of pre-packaged “grab and go” options, sweets, and a lot more. With some options, there is a price per pound and you pay whatever your meal weighs, and others have fixed prices.

I should also note that AdventHealth, founded by Seventh Day Adventists, used to only serve vegetarian food, and only in recent years started serving meat. They do not serve any pork at all, though — not in the cafeterias or the in-room meals for patients, and not even at the Wendy’s across the street from AdventHealth Orlando. So you’ll see a lot of beef and/or turkey substitutions for pork products, and at least one of them ended up being really good.

My wife was in AdventHealth Orlando for a total of nine days, so I ate in the Welch Cafe a few times. Here are some of the highlights:

BWAAAAAAH! BWAH BWAH BWAAAAAAH!
RING THE ALARM! I had surprisingly great onion rings with my very first meal at the Welch Cafe, sleep-deprived and full of fear after delivering my wife to the hospital at 5 AM to be prepped for surgery. After waiting for hours outside the surgical wing, I figured I might as well keep up my strength and eat something that tasted good. These onion rings ($1.75, priced out at $7.29 per pound from the burger bar) were better than many others I’ve had around Orlando, believe it or not.

For me, pasta is comfort food, so I indulged three times with different types of penne pasta in red sauces. This first one, which I ate on Day One while my wife was under the knife, was kind of like penne in an alfredo sauce, but I also asked for a warm blanket of marinara over the top. I seem to recall some pieces of tender chicken in there too. I was worried sick about her and felt guilty eating, but I knew I would have passed out or succumbed to a stress migraine if I didn’t have something substantial.

On two subsequent Welch Cafe visits, I got different versions of baked penne with ground beef ($4.29), both of which hit the spot. You can’t go wrong with hearty baked pasta dishes like this:

This was a pre-made meatball sub (a very reasonable $4.99) that was much better than I expected.

At least during the busiest hours in the middle of the day, you can get a custom sandwich made at the deli counter. The one time I indulged, I opted for pastrami on a sub roll (a little over $7), with creamy horseradish sauce, lettuce, tomato, onions, banana peppers, and jalapeño peppers, and the nice lady even pressed it on the grill (note the grill marks in the sub roll). It wasn’t any kind of ideal pastrami sandwich like Katz’s Deli in NYC or Orlando’s own Pastrami Project, but it was savory and spicy and messy in the best possible way. That blend of flavors and textures provided a much-needed brief reprieve from the stress of that particular day at the hospital. And as far as I’m concerned, that is the main goal of pretty much any sandwich.

Yes, there is sushi available in the Welch Cafe, and yes, I had to try it. There was a sushi chef making it fresh every day, at least around lunchtime, and then they would remain in the “grab and go” cooler for the dinner crowd.

It was pretty much on par with grocery store sushi, and I figured if it gave me any problems, I was already in a hospital. This was the sushi sampler platter I chose. It looked pretty, and eating it felt luxurious, like I didn’t even deserve to be enjoying something this nice while my wife was resting and healing several floors above me.

The sampler ($10.89) included some tuna and salmon nigiri, some California rolls wrapped in tuna and salmon, and a volcano roll topped with crispy rice, spicy mayo, and eel sauce. Like I said, it was fresh, and it was luxurious. I haven’t had any sushi since then, but just looking at this picture, I’d get something similar again without trepidation.

The Welch Cafeteria even had desserts! I had to try the tres leches ($2.49), and it was perfectly fine, if not up to the standard of Miami’s legendary Cuban restaurant Versailles:

At one point, I brought this cookies and cream cheesecake (probably also around $2.49) back up to our room to share. It was also fine, but I think my wife would have enjoyed it more under almost any other circumstances:

After nine days there immediately after her surgery, she was transferred to the inpatient rehabilitation unit in AdventHealth Winter Park for almost three weeks of intensive physical and occupational therapy. It is a much smaller hospital, with a commensurately smaller cafeteria in the basement. The onion rings definitely aren’t as good there — kind of soggy — but on this day, the special was a surprisingly spicy and tender beef dish that was probably braised, or maybe even cooked in a slow cooker or a pressure cooker. I liked it quite a bit. My wife didn’t want anything to do with it.

I always crave hot dogs around summer holidays, and usually buy a pack around those times of year to cook at home. We spent Memorial Day in the hospital, so I grabbed this simple all-beef hot dog ($2.79) from the basement cafeteria that day. It tasted a lot like a Costco hot dog, but not as cheap, as big, or quite as good. With packets of yellow mustard and relish, it transported me away for a few brief bites to an imagined backyard cookout with friends, before I found myself back at my wife’s hospital bedside.

On one of the last days before she was discharged, the cafeteria offered a gyro as a daily special ($4.79). I have a hard time turning down gyros anywhere, so I had to try it. The processed, seasoned, sliced gyro meat (usually a blend of beef and lamb) was topped with shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes, served with a tiny cup of creamy, tart tzatziki sauce, and served on a warm flatbread-style pita, it was comfort food. Nowhere near as good as Orlando’s best gyro at Mediterranean Deli, but still better than many of the other meals I had eaten over this past month. These onion rings ($2.69) were slightly better than that first bunch, too.

But the highlight of this cafeteria was the customizable 6″ personal pizzas for $3.99, made to order with the ingredients of your choice, and then baked in a tiny, powerful oven and presented to you two or three minutes later. These were better than they had any right to be from a basement hospital cafeteria! (Technically, they were underground pizzas, but a fella named Brad has built his brand around that moniker.)

I went all out with beef sausage, turkey ham, turkey pepperoni, red onion, jalapeño peppers on my pizza. When it came out of the oven, the gentleman brushed the crust with garlic butter, and upon my request, drizzled it with balsamic glaze. It was a damn fine pizza, I have to admit.

I brought a couple of those basement (not underground!) pizzas back for my wife, who preferred them to most of the daily trays from Nutritional Services. Longtime Saboscrivner scholars may remember she isn’t into tomatoey sauces, so I would order her pizzas to be brushed with a garlic butter base, and then I’d request beef sausage and mushrooms on them for her.

So that’s what hospital staff and visitors can eat, but what about patients in their rooms? Well, Nutritional Services delivers three meals a day to patients, and they offer a surprising amount of choices. I tried to figure out a pattern for weeks, and then in our final week, they brought us the actual menu, which I have photographed here. (Right-click and open them in new tabs for larger images.)

If someone from Nutritional Services manages to catch a patient in her room (between physical and occupational therapy appointments, in my wife’s case), they will take her order for all three meals for the next day, entering her choices on a tablet. If not, the patient will just get whatever the daily specials are. Since my wife really has to be in the mood for specific foods even when she isn’t distracted by chronic pain, post-surgical pain, and new pain from grueling therapy, I ended up helping her eat a lot of meals she wasn’t in the mood for and didn’t want anything to do with. Also, I obsessively saved condiment and seasoning packets in our room, much like I imagine prisoners doing to make prison food more tolerable.

Do yourself a favor — if you are admitted as a patient at AdventHealth, ask Nutritional Services for a printed menu, so you can see what all the options are at all times, since they don’t always tell you every single thing you can choose from. That way, you can also be more prepared when they come to your room to take your order.

These beef sausages, one of the Nutritional Services option for patients’ in-room breakfasts, are the same ones you can get sliced on your cafeteria pizzas. They might not look very appetizing, but I really liked these, and even my wife embraced the greatness of the beef sausage by the end of her stay. They were very savory, with a different texture than standard pork breakfast sausage, not as greasy, and not nearly as heavy with sage either. I would order these in my beloved Waffle House or at another breakfast joint if they were available, or even buy them at the store to make at home.

Sliced brisket with chimichurri sauce, always served with a soft corn souffle (I amused myself by calling it “corn pone,” a term that cracks me up for no real reason) and green beans. I make much better green beans, but I actually liked this quite a bit, and even my wife did too.

Chicken tenders. A little bland and way too small to satisfy, but perfectly adequate, especially with some Ken’s honey mustard dressing as a dip.

Macaroni and cheese and baked sweet plantains. My two favorite sides with any lunch or dinner orders. I would always try to remind her to order them for me, or request to substitute them instead of boring sides like the plain white rice pictured above. The mac and cheese was similar to what you would get at a lot of barbecue joints and Southern “meat and three”-style diners or cafeterias. Of course I’ve had better, because this is a hospital, but I’ve had much worse. These came with an eggy “spinach patty” that my wife kinda sorta liked, but it didn’t do much for me.

A cheeseburger that had that Burger King flame-broiled taste. It was a little dry and not terribly juicy, but I appreciated having the general flavors and textures of a cheeseburger for the first time in a month.

My wife also ordered several vegetarian Beyond burgers as alternatives to the daily specials, which meant I ended up finishing several Beyond burgers throughout our stay. We both used to like those, but I think we burned ourselves out on them for all time.

Lasagna rollatini, with ricotta cheese inside. Like I said, my wife famously doesn’t like tomatoey sauces, but we quickly learned these are too dry and pretty bland with sauce served on the side, or not at all. At least I thought they were definitely better with the sauce on them. With just a few days left in her stay, we learned from the brochure that she could have been requesting the lasagna roll-ups with pesto sauce all along, but we never got to try that.

Chipotle chicken breast, served with yellow rice and “fajita vegetables.” The chicken was always dry, but it had a little bit of heat, and I would eat it because she never wanted anything to do with it.

Mojo cod, served with white rice, black beans, a whole wheat roll, and more of those plantains. Not her thing at all. Not really mine either (but for the plantains), but I always ate it until I convinced her to request other stuff on mojo cod days.

In those final days, once we had the Nutritional Services menu and knew there were other options to choose from, my wife ordered me sandwiches with soups, while she drank Ensures and ate snacks I brought to the room from Trader Joe’s. She knows how much I love sandwiches.

A cold roast beef sandwich on marble rye with three-bean chili. I liked both, especially adding a bit of mustard to the sandwich. The chili reminded me of a vegetarian version of Wendy’s chili, so not the worst thing in the world. It also provided amusement for both of us later.

A cold turkey and havarti sandwich on marble rye, improved by yellow mustard and mayo, with chicken noodle soup (never my favorite soup):

I didn’t remember to photograph all the meals, but these were a few that (unfortunately) showed up more than once:

Sliced turkey with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and steamed carrots. She couldn’t even deal with the smell of this one, but I thought it was okay. I do stand by the controversial take that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner is bland and boring AF.

Bruschetta chicken breast (dry), covered with diced tomatoes, and served with unsauced penne pasta, underdone brussels sprouts, and splashed with balsamic vinegar. This could have been a much better dish than it was. I make pretty good brussels sprouts at home by oven-roasting them, and the few times I had this meal, it inspired me to improve my brussels sprouts game even more.

Spaghetti and meat sauce with broccoli. I ate it every time because she wouldn’t, and I can’t abide by wasting food. I love spaghetti and meat sauce. I couldn’t bring myself to love this spaghetti and meat sauce.

Pot roast. Just like a lot of people’s pot roast, you can chew it forever and nothing happens. It made me want to experiment with pot roast when we got home, to try marinating and braising and using ingredients like bold Italian vinaigrettes and jars of spicy pickled giardinera vegetables.

Nutritional Services also offered desserts and snacks. None of the baked goods were great, but I rekindled my lifelong love of orange sherbet, and now I feel the need to buy some to keep in the freezer at all times. (No, Megan Draper, it does not smell or taste like perfume!) And I taught my wife the joy of using graham crackers to scoop up vanilla pudding.

So that’s pretty much it. I also brought in takeout for us a few times, but for 30 days, we lived in these two AdventHealth hospitals and mostly ate hospital food. Some things were surprisingly good, or at least better than you would expect. Others were much, much worse. I’m glad that she was discharged just over a week ago, and now I’m able to go grocery shopping again, to cook for us again, and to take my wife out to eat wherever we want again. I sincerely hope you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos never have to spend this much time in the hospital, so you never have to try most of these meals for yourselves, but I also hoped this would be an interesting look at some of Orlando and Winter Park’s most “exclusive” dining.

Cubans on the Run

Cubans on the Run (https://www.cubansontherun.com/) is a small, casual Cuban restaurant located in Casselberry, but practically on the edge of Longwood. Yesid Saavedra opened it as a small sandwich shop with his late father-in-law Jose Torres in 1993, but it was destroyed by Hurricane Charlie in 2004. Undaunted, they rebuilt and reopened it as a larger space, with an expanded kitchen and a fuller menu to match, adding Cuban entrees beyond sandwiches.

My wife and I have enjoyed Cubans on the Run for years, but because it is closed on Sundays, sometimes we don’t make it there when we get the bright idea to go. I’ve never eaten in the dining room, even in all the years before the pandemic, but it’s a fantastic restaurant to pick up takeout. They have one of the best Cuban sandwiches in town — not as large as College Park Cafe‘s Cubano, but definitely one of the better ones in the Orlando area. Those two are my Top Two, for sure.

My wife doesn’t share my obsession with sandwiches, but she likes steak much more than I do, believe it or not. At Cuban restaurants, she almost always orders a thin grilled steak, like this one here ($10.99), served with chimichurri sauce on the side, and topped with a mound of thin-sliced grilled onions she hates, but I love. I am always glad to scoop up her onions. She requested white rice with it but got yellow rice, which she was fine with. Those are tostones on top — savory, starchy, salty, crunchy fried plantains, and a cup of red beans underneath that I would end up eating. The steak is very thin, but it was a huge portion. There was a second entire piece of steak underneath that one, almost the same size!

I am making a conscious effort to eat a little healthier in 2021, so on this visit, I ordered chicken fricasee for the first time. This herculean portion was only $7.50. I requested dark meat, so I got a huge chicken thigh with the bone still in and the skin still on, a huge leg, a couple of chunks of potato from the stew, a bed of rich yellow rice, a cup of red beans, and four maduros — sweet fried plantains, definitely a Top Ten favorite food of mine. Sometimes you order chicken and it’s disappointingly dry, which is one reason I tend to prefer dark meat, especially thighs. This was perfect chicken — so moist, juicy, tender, rich, flavorful. It was prepared so well, I feel inspired to try to recreate my own version at home. Loved this chicken. One of the best chicken dishes I’ve eaten in the Orlando area, without a doubt!

But for the purposes of this review, I couldn’t go to Cubans on the Run and not order one of their signature sandwiches. But instead of the traditional Cuban sandwich that Cubans on the Run is acclaimed for, I switched it up and got my childhood favorite from Miami, the medianoche (midnight) sandwich ($5.99). It has all the same ingredients as the Cubano: roast pork, sweet ham, Swiss cheese, yellow mustard, and pickles, only it is served on a sweet, egg-based yellow bread, rather than Cuban bread. But I’ve had the Cubano before too, and like I said, both are among the finest in Orlando.

This is a chicharron ($3.75), crispy fried pork with the crunchy skin attached. This one was harder, drier, and crunchier than I like, but we caught them late on a weekday evening on this particular visit, and usually I go earlier on Saturdays when the chicharrones are fresher and more tender.

My wife and I both love arepas ($3.75), sort of a sandwich made with two sweet corn patties fried on a grill, with melty mozzarella cheese in between them. Growing up in Miami, you got an arepa from a cart whenever there was an outdoor event, like a fair or festival. I have recently learned these are often referred to as arepas con choclo, or cachapas, since there are other kinds of arepas (Colombian, Venezuelan, etc.) that aren’t the sweet corn cakes.

These are two perfect churros ($3.25 for the pair), which are doughnut-like pastries that are fried and dusted with cinnamon sugar. They should be crispy on the outside and moist and cake-like on the inside. These churros are made fresh, and you can get them with or without cream down their long hollow centers. I like the cream, but my wife prefers them without. Guess how we got these!*
*We got them without cream, the way my wife likes. Fellas, consider this a teaching moment.

I have a hard time going to any Cuban restaurant and not trying my old Miami standards of a beef empanada ($1.85) and one or two croquetas de jamon (75 cents each).

Empanadas are savory pastries, usually filled with some kind of meat wrapped in a half moon-shaped crust, then baked or fried. Cuban empanadas are wrapped in a flour dough crust, then fried until crispy, flaky, and soft. I like them the best, especially when they’re stuffed with picadillo, a dish of seasoned ground beef. This was a nice light empanada, crispy yet soft and yielding, barely greasy, although I wish the ground beef was a little more tomatoey. (Everyone seasons it a little different, and sometimes you find olives in there, stewed with the picadillo.)

Croquetas are small fritters of diced ham mixed with a rich, creamy bechamel sauce, dipped in bread crumbs, and then fried until crispy and solid, but soft and creamy inside. I love them, but nobody loves them more than my best friend since childhood, a lifelong Miami resident who is currently blogging about his quest to discover and review Miami’s finest croquetas, in The Croqueta Diaries. I’m a dabbling dilletante, but consider my dude Captain Croqueta.

And even though Cuban food is not known as spicy food, Cubans on the Run is well-known for their housemade hot sauce. Usually they will give you one or two tiny plastic cups, even with a big order like this, but this time I remembered to ask to purchase a bottle (I believe it was $5).

I’ve tried several other Cuban restaurants around Orlando, but Cubans on the Run is definitely one of my favorites, and one of the best. It isn’t far from home, but much too far from work to dash off to for a quick lunch. Since it is closed on Sundays, that means we can pretty much only ever go on Saturdays or rare mornings after dental appointments nearby. But as you can see from the hearty, unpretentious, delicious food here, it never disappoints. Run, don’t walk, to Cubans on the Run!

The Ravenous Pig

The Ravenous Pig (https://www.theravenouspig.com/) has always been one of my favorite restaurants in Orlando for a special occasion. I started dating my wife in 2006 when I was a poor grad student just starting to work in libraries. Back in the beginning, we’d go out for burgers or Vietnamese food, or a special date night for us was the Cheesecake Factory or P.F. Chang’s. So perhaps just in time (especially for us), chef-owners James and Julie Petrakis opened the Ravenous Pig in 2007. It became one of Winter Park and Orlando’s hottest restaurants, and probably our first “gastropub.” The Petrakis’ ever-changing menu was always full of creative, beautiful dishes and elevated takes on beloved comfort foods made from locally-sourced ingredients. The service was impeccable, and the atmosphere was upscale, yet warm and welcoming, never formal or stuffy (two things I hate). Luxury gives me anxiety, anything too fancy seems like a betrayal of my stoic, down-to-Earth parents. But the Pig always made me feel like I belong there — at least once in a while, when we were celebrating something.

I took my now-wife there for a date shortly after it opened, feeling so cutting-edge hipster cool after reading a blurb about the Pig in Orlando Weekly. It almost felt like something clicked for me that night, changing me forever. Maybe the Ravenous Pig was my foodie origin story — my radioactive spider bite, my lightning and chemicals, my intrinsic field subtractor. That dinner — that menu! — made me think more about food, and where it came from, and all the cool and new things you could do with it. The Pig might have been the first restaurant of its kind I had been to as a dude in my late 20s used to canned tuna and sardines, ramen and spaghetti, and Fuddruckers for a real treat — a restaurant where even a burger and fries could be high art. And since then, we’ve had some memorable meals there, often shared with friends from near and far.

But along the way, with so many great new places to eat (some of them definitely inspired by the Petrakis’ successes), a few years had passed since our last visit to the Ravenous Pig. Flash back a year to February 2020, in those innocent, pre-pandemic days. We found ourselves out on the town the evening before Valentine’s Day, arguably a much better night to go out. We decided to treat ourselves to a romantic dinner date, knowing we’d stay in and law low the next night, and I’d prepare a nice dinner at home.

This was only our second visit to the Ravenous Pig’s “new” location on Fairbanks Avenue, across the street from Fiddler’s Green and Swine & Sons, even though they moved in a few years ago. I never noticed the hostess station was a card catalog-looking setup behind glass, which appealed to my librarian’s sense of aesthetics.

It’s a stunning space.

And they cure their own charcuterie in this climate-controlled case, which is always impressive! I consider myself a connoisseur of the salted, smoked, cured, and pickled.

We started out with an order of smoked wings ($9). Believe it or not, my wife is more of a wing eater than I am, but I knew the Ravenous Pig would have wondrous wings. It’s a wonder we had never tried them before, but it’s possible these particular wings were a newer offering, considering they change their menu often and we hadn’t been in a while. These were nice and juicy, with a crackly skin and a good smoke flavor that didn’t overpower the taste of the meat. They were seasoned with garlic, parmesan cheese, parsley, and Calabrian chiles — a kind of spicy pepper I am obsessed with. But even though these weren’t spicy, I liked these wings much more than she did, and ended up eating four out of the five.

Another thing my wife always loves is octopus. There are a few restaurants that make excellent octopus dishes, including long-time favorite Pizza Bruno, but this charred octopus ($32) definitely made the grade with her. The huge tentacles were firm and meaty, grilled to perfection. I admit I’m not the biggest octopus fan, because I’ve had tiny, shiny, slimy baby octopus a few times, and I just can’t get into those. This kind of preparation, with large char-grilled tentacles, is much better.
This Spanish-style octopus was served with the most excellent papas bravas (some of the finest fried potatoes I’ve ever had anywhere), a tomato-olive vinaigrette (I like tomatoes and she doesn’t; she likes olives and I don’t), and topped with an artistic swirl of paprika aioli that went perfectly with the papas bravas.

I was torn between a few choices, but since it had been so long since our last visit, I went with my old friend the Pub burger ($18). This is a contender for Orlando’s best burger. Some of the only ones that come close are from Orlando Meats, which I named one of my Top Five dishes of 2018 in Orlando Weekly, and a recent find at Alex’s Fresh Kitchen in Casselberry, which I listed in my Top Ten Tastes of 2020, also in Orlando Weekly. But the Pub burger is the granddaddy of them all. Cooked to a perfect medium rare and served on a fresh-baked, grilled brioche bun, it is topped with melty blue cheese (sometimes too pungent for me, but perfect in these proportions), with bibb lettuce, marinated red peppers, and crisp, house-cured pickle slices. I’ve written ad nauseam about my slow quest to appreciate pickles, and this gastropub made the first pickles I’ve ever liked, the first pickles to make me think “Mmmm, good” and not “Ew, gross!”The shoestring-style fries are usually truffle fries, but I’ve also written ad nauseam about mushrooms being my enemy, and that unfortunately includes truffles too. I guess I’m just not a fungi. On this visit last year, I had the foresight to ask our patient server Tanya to ask the kitchen to leave off the truffle oil or whatever truffle seasoning they use, and everyone came through for me. They were great, especially dipped in a little ramekin of garlic aioli that you know someone whips up fresh every day. I ate most of the fries first, because we all know how fries get cold quickly, especially the shoestring variety, and how sad cold fries are.

Close-up of that beautiful burg:

For dessert, we usually default to an assortment of the Ravenous Pig’s daily house-made ice creams and sorbets (three scoops for a very reasonable $6). Tonight my wife asked for a single scoop of their incredible chocolate ice cream made with cacao nibs ($2), which is so rich and deeply, darkly chocolatey, served over crispy crumbles of shortbread. It’ll have you calling out “CACAO! CACAO!”

But we couldn’t say no to the cheesecake ($8), a special for the special night out. The soft ricotta-based cheesecake was served with fresh grapefruit, a scoop of grapefruit sorbet, crunchy honeycomb-type things that got stickier as you chewed them, and a swirl of local honey. This was small, but rich, and we made every bite matter.

I want to reiterate that even though I try to publish a restaurant review every week, we’re not bougie people who go out to classy joints like the Ravenous Pig that often. But Valentine’s Day (or the night before it) is an opportunity to treat ourselves, and more importantly, treat each other. We chose the perfect place to do that treating exactly a year ago, so I saved this review to publish now, to give my constant readers, my Saboscrivnerinos, an idea for this looming V-Day. With the pandemic still raging, my wife and I still don’t feel comfortable dining in anywhere, so I haven’t made it back to the Pig since this visit, 364 days ago. But we look forward to an end to all of this, when everyone can get vaccinated and be safe to eat out again. All that time away makes our occasional visits to one of Orlando’s all-time best restaurants that much more meaningful, memorable, and magical. When the world gets safer, safe enough to go back out to eat again, I’m sure we’ll return to The Ravenous Pig and hopefully meet up with friends to celebrate still being alive, surviving and thriving together.

Edward’s Gourmet Confections and Fine Coffees

EDITOR’S NOTE: When I first published this review, just over 24 hours ago, I announced that Edward Hawk Neal-Paci would be partnering with Donut Central and Fuelpresso in Winter Park to make his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts available for sale there throughout the week. Unfortunately, after a trial week, that won’t be happening after all, and I have edited my review to reflect that. I don’t want any potential or returning fans to go to Donut Central looking for those perfect pastries and end up disappointed in your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner, or especially in Edward.

***

Okay, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos. I’ve found another dessert to add to my pantheon of all-time favorite desserts. We are lucky and blessed here in Orlando to be surrounded by so many incredible bakeries, including my two personal favorites, Se7en Bites and Sister Honey’s. But I’ve discovered another talented master baker, on the same high level as Se7en Bites’ Trina Gregory-Propst and Sister Honey’s Evette Rahman. And just like both of them, he’s a really friendly and nice person, a prince among men, a real mensch. (I’ve never met a jerk-ass baker, though. Have you? Maybe you have to be sweet to create sweets.) His name is Edward Hawk Neal-Paci, and his new business is called Edward’s Gourmet Confections and Fine Coffees (https://www.edwardsgourmet.com/).

I first met Edward back in late November, where he was set up at the Longwood Farmers’ Market on a Sunday. That’s where you can find him most Sundays. He also sells his wares at the Audubon Park Community Market on Monday evenings, but I teach a night class on Mondays this semester, so that ain’t happening for me. But before that, I had followed him on Facebook for a few months, salivating over his photos and descriptions of creative, hand-crafted baked goods and getting more and more psyched for my first visit due to the enthusiastic, rave reviews. I’m much more into savory, salty, spicy foods, but I appreciate the sweet stuff as much as anyone, especially pastries made with care and love.

When I finally met up with Edward at Longwood, I tried two of his brioche doughnuts: one strawberry and one cookies and cream. These were light and fluffy, airy, and absolutely gorgeous — not heavy and greasy like far too many doughnuts. As I get older and become more of an anhedonic altacocker, I can’t deal with the acid reflux I get from some oily, greasy foods like doughnuts. It makes me sad that I don’t enjoy them that much anymore, even from bakeries and doughnut shops I once dug. But I assure you that his decadent doughnuts didn’t have that effect on me.

Here’s that strawberry brioche boi. More on the other in a bit. Look at that rich, smooth, shiny icing. It actually tasted like strawberries — like the actual fruit! — rather than just cloying sugar dyed pink.

But I was so lucky to get the main thing I came for that morning — his very last citrus-glazed croissant doughnut. I’m sure you’ve heard of the cronut out of New York City, the beautiful, perfect love child of a rich, flaky croissant and a doughnut. That’s what this is — the thing I mentioned earlier, one of those rare perfect foods — an all-time Top Five dessert in my 40+ years on this big blue ball o’dirt.

Here’s the aforementioned cookies and cream brioche doughnut and the star of this review, the citrus-glazed croissant doughnut:

I would later learn from Edward that the citrus-glazed croissant doughnut includes not one, not two, but five kinds of hand-squeezed fresh citrus juices: orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, and tangerine. And the laminated croissant dough isn’t just plain croissant dough, goodness no (although that would be good enough for most of us), but orange croissant dough, made with rich European butter, in *81* separate layers. I started gently pulling it apart, layer by layer, but couldn’t pick out all 81, although I believe every word the man says. That’s why to me, cooking may be an art, but baking is equal parts art, science, and magic. And this man is the Sorcerer Supreme, the Master of the Mystic Arts, when it comes to doughnuts and croissants.

Here are cross-sections of all three, back at the Saboscrivner’s Sanctum Sanctorum:

Finally, Edward amazed and astonished me with a savory croissant stuffed with three of my favorite things to eat, together or separately: serrano ham, goat cheese, and figs. It was an award-winning combination: salty, sweet, chewy (with the slightest crunch from those fig seeds), and a little funky from the goat cheese, especially wrapped and baked inside the soft, flaky, buttery croissant. It was like a dream.

Of course I have to show you the cross-section:

Apparently I missed out on a beloved apple fritter and sweet potato pie, but I have faith that old favorites will return throughout the year, as Edward also introduces new desserts destined to be classics.

This past week, Edward embarked on a new adventure: an all-too brief period selling his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts and citrus-glazed bites (small cubes about a quarter of the size of a full croissant doughnut) at Donut Central and Fuelpresso (https://www.donutcentral.com/) in Winter Park, on the southeastern corner of Aloma Avenue and Semoran Boulevard. Edward used to work there, so he teamed up with his former employer, providing his citrus specialties for sale alongside their own doughnuts. Unfortunately, he thought he might have a longer partnership with Donut Central, but it didn’t work out. Still, I’m glad I caught him there, for the purposes of this review.

I was lucky enough to see him again and meet his charming husband Eric when I popped in this past Saturday, the second day his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts were available at Donut Central. This was when I learned about the different citrus juices, the 81 layers, and Edward’s background as an accountant. (I am a huge proponent of anyone who changes careers and ends up doing what they love the second time around, since I did that too, and it saved my life.)

Here are the citrus-glazed croissant doughnut bites ($6.50 for four). These things totally melt in your mouth.

And here are three (because I couldn’t resist eating the fourth one right away) drizzled with rich, velvety chocolate. Chocolate and orange go together surprisingly well, although I think I prefer them pure and unadulterated.

I planned to just get some of the croissant doughnut bites, but we chatted for a while, fully masked and socially distanced. After 15 or 20 minutes flew by, Edward had a whole batch of fresh citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts ready, and I was able to leave with a whole one ($5), still warm. It was the best one yet.

Some of those luscious laminated layers:

This croissant doughnut sings. First of all, you can see the tiny flecks of orange, yellow, and green zest from oranges, lemons, and limes in the freshly applied glaze. The pastry is crispy and crackly, yet soft and yielding whether you bite in or deconstruct it, layer by buttery layer. It’s sweet (as if there was any doubt), but also surprisingly tart, with the refreshing bite of fresh-squeezed juice(s). There’s a lot going on with this pastry, a lot to unpack — hence all those layers. It is the best of all possible worlds, and it will remind you why, for all of its many problems, we are pretty lucky to live here in Florida.

Edward’s citrus-glazed croissant doughnut reminds me of an infamous contest a few years ago, where local chefs and bakers were invited to submit dessert recipes to be considered as the “signature dish” of Orlando, our City Beautiful. The only stipulation is that they had to include one ingredient, so synonymous with Central Florida and Orlando history. If you guessed citrus, you’d be… wrong! The chosen ingredient was honey, and the contentious contest led to a controversial champion, a precious, fancy dessert most people couldn’t even pronounce, from a single restaurant that has since closed.

I’m always fascinated when I travel to different cities that really do have a distinct local dish, where every restaurant serves their own unique, individual take on it. Think NY pizza or bagels, Philly cheesesteaks (even though DiNic’s roast pork sandwich is better than any cheesesteak), barbecue in Texas and Memphis, Cuban sandwiches in Miami, Cuban sandwiches in Tampa. (That’ll get a debate going!) I think that has to happen organically, over time — and I’m talking decades or longer, not mere years. And it definitely can’t be decided unilaterally, based on a single contest. Marketing helps, but the people have to choose.

Orlando has an incredible culinary scene that I’ve tried to do my part to highlight, but we’re not at a point yet where a single dish can represent our entire diverse dining dominion. This was one of the many topics Edward, Eric, and I discussed while I waited for my croissant doughnut. But that said… if Orlando was to have a single food that represented the city and its history, geography, economics, and culture, a dish that everyone should try because they would love it… this would be the one. I’m calling it.

I’d like to say you heard it here first, you savvy, sophisticated Saboscrivnerinos, but the legend of Edward Hawk Neal-Paci and his citrus-glazed croissant doughnuts has been exponentially expanding for months. The man has big plans for 2021, and whatever he does next, I wish him the best of all things. The farmers’ markets, the week-long team-up with Donut Central and Fuelpresso (which ended up being like a pop-up) — I think we’re ogling the outrageous origin of enterprising Edward’s excellent empire. I strongly advise you to follow him on social media and seek out this this delectable doughnut, this crushworthy croissant, this peerless pastry, sooner rather than later, just so you can say “I knew him when.”

CLOSED: Valisa Bakery

EDITOR’S NOTE: Valisa Bakery CLOSED at some point in April or May of 2022.

***

I pass Valisa Bakery (https://www.valisabakery.net/) every day on my way to and from work. It’s a Puerto Rican bakery that serves breakfast, lunch, and plenty of pastries and other snacks and sweets, and it’s another one of Orlando’s little treasures. This week, my co-worker had heard about a pulpo (octopus) sandwich they serve, so it sounded like a perfect opportunity to return, bring back takeout lunch for both of us, and finally review a place I’ve always enjoyed on my past visits.

This was her pulpo sandwich ($11.95), with chunks of tender octopus marinated in a citrus vinaigrette, with lettuce and tomato on fresh pressed bread. She wasn’t expecting it to be served chilled like ceviche, but it looked and sounded really refreshing, like a great summer sandwich.

I decided to finally try a tripleta ($8.50), the Puerto Rican sandwich that is great late-night drunk food and just as good in the middle of a workday when you don’t even drink. Tripletas can have infinite variations, as long as there are three meats on it. This one had thin-sliced, sauteed steak, roast pork, and sliced ham, served on a soft, fluffy, fresh roll with lettuce, tomato, garlic sauce (awesome), and creamy mayo-ketchup — an awesome combination. It was so big and heavy, I only ate half at work and finished it at home that night.

Tripleta close-up:

I was intrigued by the daily lunch specials, especially a Thursday special called canoas. I had to look it up, but canoas are sweet fried whole plantains, cut down the middle, stuffed with seasoned ground beef like picadillo, topped with a white cheese, and baked until it melts, so they look like little canoes. With that in mind, I was ready to take a canoe trip. I ordered two canoas ($3.50 each), not knowing how big they would be, but they were huge. My co-worker and I each had one, and I loved them. They reminded me of pastelon, my favorite Puerto Rican dish that I’ve had, which is kind of like a lasagna but with layers of sweet plantains instead of pasta sheets. Canoas were like single servings of pastelon.

Any good Latin restaurant should have great rice that is better than the rice I can make at home, and Valisa Bakery was no exception. I tried their yellow rice, which looked and tasted more like fried rice, rich from being cooked with pieces of pork, including rich, fatty chicharron. I have a hard time going anywhere and not trying macaroni salad or pasta salad, so I tried an eight-ounce container of ensalada de coditos ($2) and was glad I did. It was a creamy macaroni salad (but not runny at all), and the elbow noodles were very al dente. Of course I shared this too!

Finally, I already knew that Valisa Bakery baked some really good quesitos -sweet, flaky pastries stuffed with cream cheese that are like the beautiful love child of a glazed croissant and a cheese danish. I have an unimpeachable favorite destination for quesitos in Orlando, but Valisa is my second-favorite, and these quesitos ($2 each) were not disappointing.

So as you can tell, Valisa Bakery is more than just a bakery. It’s a great bakery, but it’s also a breakfast joint, a cafeteria with rotating daily hot lunch specials, a deli with a scintillating selection of sandwiches, and a Puerto Rican restaurant where you can get tostones, mofongo, and more. And did I mention it’s a great bakery too? I have enjoyed it for years, so I’m a little ashamed it took me this long to return and write a long-overdue review.

Ms Tea’s Bento

This week I ordered takeout for myself and two co-workers from a relatively new Taiwanese restaurant for the first time, after seeing some photos of the food on The Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps, the main reason I haven’t deleted my Facebook account. Ms Tea’s Bento (https://msteasbento.business.site/) opened last year, then closed for six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and only recently reopened at the beginning of September. The restaurant and teahouse is located in a shopping plaza on East Colonial Drive between Dean and Rouse Roads, easily accessible via the 417 or 408 and not far from busy Alafaya Trail.

It’s a cute little cafe, very warm and welcoming with simple decor (lots of tea, lots of cats), and I was welcomed by the sweetest woman who had my order all ready when I showed up. They have a menu on the website, but I thought it would be convenient for my readers to scan and share the menu here:

I mentioned it was my first time in, and I was so excited to try everything. The lady offered to make me a tea drink for free, because it was my first visit, which was so sweet and generous. I was almost ready to get a black milk tea, but I saw they had a sign in the window offering Yakult beverages, made with a popular Japanese probiotic drink, similar to sweet, thin yogurt with a subtle citrus taste. I asked about the Yakult, and she ended up making me a beautiful pink iced hibiscus tea drink with Yakult added to it, the way you would normally add milk. It was really light, sweet, and refreshing.

I also picked up an iced coffee for my co-worker ($3.75), which was shaken up with some sweetened condensed milk, like Vietnamese cà phê sữa đá. It looked and smelled delicious, and she seemed to love it. My longtime readers know I’m not a big coffee drinker, but I do make an exception for Vietnamese iced coffee.

So this is the chicken teriyaki bento box my one co-worker ordered, with steamed rice and vegetables ($9.50). I appreciated that all the meals came in recyclable, dishwasher-safe, microwave-safe plastic containers with lids that snap into place. That’s always nice to see, especially because I clean and reuse all those kinds of containers. Those are so much better than styrofoam or those flimsy, fragile folded paper takeout boxes.

My other co-worker loves takoyaki, crispy fried fritters made with octopus, a popular Japanese street food. She wanted to try Ms. Tea’s takoyaki ($5.99), and seemed to really like them. I believe they came garnished with thin bonito (fish) flakes and Japanese mayo.

I couldn’t decide between two dishes, and she was also interested in one of the two I wanted, so I suggested we split one of them, knowing her takoyaki wouldn’t be a large order. We split the spicy pork dry noodles ($8.95), which were nice, thick udon-like noodles with ground pork and julienned cucumber, very similar to dan dan noodles I’ve enjoyed before at Chuan Lu Garden. It also came topped with an egg fried to a perfect over-medium with a runny yolk that added richness, and fresh cilantro.

The other dish I wanted to try was the pork stew rice bowl ($7.50), which included braised pork belly in a rich brown sauce over steamed white rice, with still-crispy celery sticks, some tangy diced preserved vegetables (near the top), and half of a “tea boiled egg,” which was one of the things that drew me to try this dish. I think those lighter diced cubes at the bottom were fried tofu, which I definitely wasn’t expecting, but I could be wrong., since I almost never eat tofu. Saboscrivnerinos, please weigh in and set me right!

Finally, I couldn’t resist trying the sweet butter/condensed milk toast ($4.25), which sounded like a rich, delightful dessert. I love buttered toast, from Waffle House breakfasts to every kind of garlic bread with barbecue or Italian food. And I love sweetened condensed milk with anything, from coffee to fruit to Cuban tres leches. To me, plain ol’ sweetened condensed milk is a more satisfying dessert than many kinds of cookies, cakes, and ice cream!

I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but it ended up being ONE large, thick slice of bread, very lightly toasted, and soaked with butter and condensed milk. I didn’t share this one, even though I realized about halfway through that it was scored into several smaller squares to be easily divided and shared. I ordered it for myself, so I had no compunction about enjoying it all myself.

I enjoyed everything I tasted on my first trip to Ms. Tea’s Bento, and I definitely plan to return and try more dishes and drinks. It’s one of Orlando’s hidden gems in that sun-baked industrial stretch of East Colonial Drive between the 417 and Alafaya, and it’s easy to miss. But when the sun is beating down and you want pull over for a cold, tasty beverage, or you’re hungry for something unfussy and possibly unfamiliar, it’s one more delicious destination in East Orlando and a casual, affordable alternative to the chain restaurants that proliferate out around UCF and Waterford Lakes.

Sister Honey’s Bakery

Orlando is blessed with an abundance of wonderful, locally-owned bakeries. I’ve reviewed many of our best ones already, so please click here to see all my other bakery reviews. But I had yet to review one of my favorites, to add it to my bakery pantheon (or pan-pantheon): Sister Honey’s Bakery (https://www.sisterhoneys.com/).

Sister Honey’s is a Black-owned bakery in the SoDo area (South of Downtown Orlando), named for owner Evette Rahman’s mother’s nickname. Evette is a champion baker with awards and accolades to spare. From 2014 to 2016, she took the Best in Show awards at the National Pie Championships, hosted right here in Orlando by the American Pie Council. That’s the pie-baking equivalent of winning Best Director three years in a row at the Academy Awards! (I had the honor of serving as a pie judge in this prestigious competition in 2018 and 2019, and wrote about it right here on this blog.) As of 2017, Evette had won 27 blue ribbons from the National Pie Championships, including a staggering 10 alone in 2016.

So needless to say, if you haven’t been to Sister Honey’s before, knowing this now, your expectations will be pretty high. Well, I promise that they’ll be even higher if you make it all the way through this review, and you WON’T be disappointed.

As far as I’m concerned, Evette makes the best key lime pie I’ve ever had, and key lime pie is one of my Top Five all-time desserts. This is the whole pie, which I’ve never bought from her:

But in all the years I’ve been going, I think I’ve eaten the equivalent of a whole key lime pie, one decadent slice ($5.99) at a time.

Key lime pie isn’t the hardest thing in the world to make at home, and Publix even makes a damn fine one, but you have to try Sister Honey’s version at least once, to see how it stands alone.

I’ve also had the strawberry cheese pie many times, with its thick graham cracker crust, gooey cream cheese base, fresh strawberries, and fresh whipped cream. It was the National Pie Championships Best in Show winner in 2014, and the judges chose wisely.
On my most recent visit, Evette brought this pie out from the back when I was already about to pay, so I was able to request a last-second slice but wasn’t able take a picture of the whole pie. It melted a little in my car on the long drive home, but you get the idea of its pure decadent deliciousness.

My wife’s favorite delectable dessert from Sister Honey’s is the vanilla bean pound cake. Usually the icing on the top is perfectly smooth, but I smeared it taking it out of its plastic clamshell box, so that’s on me. It’s incredibly moist and vanilla-ey, and the icing is never heavy or greasy like the gross buttercream on a lot of supermarket cakes.

Rear view:

Coconut and German chocolate cakes on display. The coconut cake is my wife’s second-favorite:

Here’s the latest slice of coconut cake she got ($5.99). It looks much better in person, and it is incredibly moist and rich. The gooey coconutty filling between layers is my favorite part of this cake.

This was the first time I ever saw a golden pineapple cake available. Longtime readers know how much I love anything pineappley, so I had to go for it.

Here’s the slice I got ($7.99). The cake itself and the icing were both more subtle than I expected.

I make a mean pineapple upside-down cake that my in-laws crave, to the point where I make it for us every Thanksgiving instead of more traditional Thanksgiving desserts. It’s also a big hit at work potlucks. But I make it using a Duncan Hines pineapple cake box mix that smells and tastes as “pineappley” as you might expect, probably due to being so processed and artificial. Evette’s cake has real chunks of pineapple in the icing between the cake layers and the delicious topping, and if anything, it probably has more real pineapple and pineapple juice in it than the store-bought cake mix I’m more used to. It was another hit.

We’ve never tried her carrot cake, but for $5.99 a slice, how can you possibly go wrong? If you see it up close, the smooth cream cheese frosting (my favorite part of any carrot cake) is sprinkled with gleaming orange and green sugar crystals.

Sister Honey’s also offers multiple types of cupcakes, which I fully admit aren’t usually my thing, although I’m sure hers are a cut above the rest. Seen below: Peanut butter chocolate, German chocolate, and Very vanilla cupcakes ($2.99 each).

Seen below: Cookies & cream and Chocolate vanilla cupcakes ($2.99 each).

Evette has cookies too, and the wedge-shaped shortbread cookies are rich, buttery, and quite good, but I think the pies and cakes are the star attractions at Sister Honey’s.

Sister Honey’s is a good distance away from home, so it requires a special trip to make it there. I always shoot for Saturdays around 11:30, to give them time to put everything out after opening at 11:00. (You heard it here first!) Evette’s husband Andy is always manning the front, boxing up slices, patiently answering questions, and ringing people up. I admit I’ve never actually met Evette, but I’ve dealt with Andy so many times over the last few years that he recognizes me now, even with my mask on, and always asks how my wife is doing. He’s a real mensch, and I hold them both in high esteem.

It is a very small bakery space with no indoor seating, so plan on getting everything to go. But these days, that’s the safest bet anywhere, anyway. You may want to bring a cooler if you’re planning to get perishable pies like the key lime pie and strawberry cheese pie above, or Evette’s equally exquisite coconut cream pie. They might melt and droop a bit in this oppressive summer heat, even if you’re running the air conditioner in your car. But the cakes are ideally left out at room temperature, as Andy advises, to avoid drying them out in the fridge.

I can’t sing the praises of this bakery and its award-winning baker enough. Anytime anyone asks wants to know the best key lime pie in Florida, this is where I direct them. Yeah, I said it! Pretty much anything I photographed and discussed above is the best of its kind that you’ll find in Orlando. Now more than ever, we need to be showing love to our small businesses, and especially Black-owned businesses. If you’re wistfully wishing for cakes, pies, cupcakes, and cookies that transcend the Publix bakery, schlep down to SoDo for Sister Honey’s, where Evette Rahman will make your life that much sweeter.

Light on the Sugar Bakery

I used to joke that living in Casselberry, we almost always have to drive 20+ minutes to get to Orlando’s hottest restaurants in the hipper, trendier areas like Winter Park, the Milk District, and Mills 50. But since we started sheltering in place due to the pandemic, I’ve tried to stay much closer to home the rare times I venture out for takeout, and I’ve come to discover a lot of nearby gems like Alex’s Fresh Kitchen and Tomasino’s Pizza in recent reviews, alongside neighborhood favorites like Bagel King, Waffle House, and Kai Asian Street Fare.

I was overjoyed when my choice for Orlando’s best barbecue, Git-N-Messy BBQ, relocated from Sanford to the edge of Winter Park and Oviedo, much closer to us. And since we started quarantining, I’ve picked up takeout from Git-N-Messy several times. Best of all, there is a relatively new bakery right across the street from Git-N-Messy, in the same shopping center as Pho Cali/Quickly Boba and Twisted Root Burger Co. It’s a small Asian bakery called Light on the Sugar (https://www.lightonthesugar.com/), and it is so good, we’re still in shock that it opened on our side of town and not one of these hipster neighborhoods.

My wife and I first visited Light on the Sugar on our way to have dinner at Tomasino’s for the first time in mid-January of this year, back when you could still linger at restaurants, cafes, and even bakeries without a second thought. We were face to face with glass cases full of beautiful baked goods — cakes, cream puffs, croissants, danishes, and more. The bakery was already getting excellent word of mouth on the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook, so we were excited to be there and trying to take our time deciding what to bring home with us.

Even more choices (pardon the reflections):

Unfortunately, I left this first visit very annoyed, due to an employee who was relentlessly rushing us to make a quick decision. The place was empty aside from us, so it’s not like we were holding anyone else up. And we had every intention of choosing quite a few treats to bring home, so the guy’s rude attitude really got on my nerves. We made our choices and went on to dinner, both turned off by the experience. In fact, I might have not returned at all, except that everything was so amazing. My wife had fallen for these delectable, decadent desserts, so that inauspicious first visit became the first of many over a relatively short time.

This was what we brought home the first time: a cream puff topped with Froot Loops, a slice of their beautiful and intricate chocolate crepe cake, and a plain croissant.

I liked the bites I tried of things, but she just went wild for them. The cream puff is so light and delicate, but the rich cream in the middle is really something special. As you saw in the first photo, they have many different varieties of cream puffs on any given day, including strawberry, matcha, ube (purple yam, taking off in popularity here in the States), and Earl Grey, but she loves her sugary cereals. And the chocolate crepe cake, made of dozens of layers of thin crepes, also wowed my chocolate-loving wife.

On one of my many subsequent visits after picking up takeout from Git-N-Messy BBQ across the street, they didn’t have the Froot Loops cream puffs she loves, but I was able to bring her comparable Lucky Charms cream puffs that were also a big hit at home.

You can tell these baked goods are all fresh and of the highest quality, but none of them are cloyingly, overwhelmingly sweet… hence the name. They are also less heavy than baked goods from some other bakeries (4 Rivers Smokehouse’s Sweet Shop comes to mind) — these are almost ethereal, by comparison.

I’ve also been lucky enough to find a Japanese milk loaf on a few of my visits to Light on the Sugar, and I can never resist bringing one home. This loaf of bread is rich and buttery, like a cross between brioche and challah. It makes great French toast, or it’s perfect to just slice and enjoy with some good salted butter.

I should note that Winter Park’s Bread & Co., another very good Asian bakery, also bakes a Japanese-style milk bread that I love, but my wife prefers Light on the Sugar’s version.

And I should also note that on the multiple visits I’ve made since that first unnecessarily stressful visit with my wife, I have received nothing but friendly and warm service from several female employees. I haven’t seen that one rude guy again since, and he may not even still be there. Since everything is takeout only these days, I’m usually in and out in two minutes, especially now that I know what my wife likes best. But it’s a great bakery and well worth a visit, whether you live in our quieter part of town, or even if you’re surrounded by Orlando’s other good bakeries in the cooler areas. Like every other restaurant we like, I hope they’ve been holding up through this scary and unknowable time. But the best way to save the places and things you love is to actually support them, so stop by Light on the Sugar soon and try a few things. You might even plan your visit around picking up some other takeout at any of the great nearby restaurants, who all need your support as well.

CLOSED: Alex’s Fresh Kitchen

EDITOR’S NOTE: Beloved Casselberry eatery Alex’s Fresh Kitchen closed permanently on September 8, 2024. Alex is moving to Arizona, and The Saboscrivner wishes him the best out there.

***

I’m sure my regular readers are all doing their part to keep themselves and others safe by staying home, and so is your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner. But we still have to eat, and I feel obligated to help our local restaurants by ordering takeout when I can (pretty much limited to weekends, on my way home from the pharmacy or grocery store) and spreading the good word about them, to encourage others to keep ordering too.

I’m much less likely to drive all around the Orlando area on food missions like I used to, so I have a renewed focus on what’s good in the neighborhood. (Sorry.) Late in 2019, my quiet and unassuming suburb of Casselberry got a new little restaurant: Alex’s Fresh Kitchen (https://www.alexsfreshkitchenfl.com/). It opened in a space on Semoran Boulevard just south of Red Bug Lake Road once held by Five Boroughs Pizzeria. Who? Exactly. I visited the pizzeria once and thought it was perfectly okay, but it closed before I could write a review. Alex’s Fresh Kitchen, on the other hand, is a welcome addition to this side of town, and a place I intend to become a regular at.

Alex Diaz is the chef-owner of this small, quaint restaurant with an open kitchen. He cooks, and his mother, Deborah McDowell, who I didn’t get to meet, provides the baked goods. Alex was a convivial guy, definitely proud of his place despite suffering from the slowdown all restaurants are dealing with. But he had other locals, clearly regulars, coming in for takeout before and after me, so I’m glad people are finding out about his Fresh Kitchen.

I used to not be a big chicken sandwich guy, but the last year has led to me appreciating the humble fried chicken sandwich more, as you might have seen in my reviews of Popeye’s, Swine & Sons (which I named one of my favorite dishes of 2019 in Orlando Weekly), and Chicken Fire (which I tried and loved even before they introduced a chicken sandwich of their own). I had heard from multiple trusted foodies that Alex’s offers a worthy chicken sandwich, so of course I had to try it.
Their version ($12) is a fried or grilled chicken breast (I chose fried because when we’re under a stay-at-home order, we all deserve a little treat), served on a brioche bun with garlic aioli, cabbage slaw, and pickles that were made in house. I always prefer chicken thighs, especially when the chicken is being fried, but even with white meat, it was still a large and tasty sandwich.

I also ordered the burger special ($13), and I’m so glad I did, because it was one of the tastiest burgers I’ve eaten in a really long time, and not just because we’ve been quarantined at home. It was an eight-ounce burger cooked medium rare, exactly how I requested, served on the same kind of lightly-griddled brioche bun, and topped with fried onion strings, barbecue sauce, pulled bacon, and the most delicious roasted tomato aioli — a pretty perfect burger. I can’t rave about this burger enough. Alex told me he runs a different burger special almost every week, so this was a passing thing, but I hope he brings it back or maybe makes it the regular burger, in addition to rotating specials.

I placed my takeout order over the phone, and Alex offered me the choice of fries, home fries, or salad. I had a hard time deciding between fries and home fries, especially because I make and eat salads all the time, but usually leave deep-frying to the professionals. Luckily, with ordering the chicken sandwich and the burger, I got an order of fries and an order of home fries. Even though I live ten minutes from Alex’s, the fries were lukewarm and a little soggy by the time I got home and started eating, but I devoured them anyway. They were good fries, and I suspect they’d be great fries when we’re able to eat in restaurants again.

What was great, however, were the little plastic cups of roasted tomato aioli and roasted onion aioli that Alex included for me. Longtime readers know what a fan I am of condiments, dips, and sauces, and these were mind-blowing. I wish he sold these two house-made aiolis in jars, because I’d buy multiple jars and give them to friends and colleagues as gifts. Ask my wife, who was eating something else while I had this food — I kept exclaiming how good the fries were dipped in these two aiolis, especially the roasted onion one. I was even cursing with enthusiastic disbelief, and I’m sure I pumped my fist more than once. They were that good.

The home fries were even better than the fries. The fried potato chunks were a little soft, but I’m sure they would have been crispier if eaten immediately. They were very well-seasoned, and there were strips of onion and bell pepper tossed in with them. I don’t order home fries very often, but I’m so glad I got these. They were more flavorful than the regular fries so they didn’t benefit as much from the aioli duo, but you bet I tried every different combination and permutation anyway.

Alex’s mother, Deborah McDowell, makes the desserts at the Fresh Kitchen. I saw a beautiful chocolate peanut butter cake, as well as a beguiling ube cake:

But maybe my favorite dessert in the world is an Atlantic Beach Pie that I make. This is the recipe, except I make the crust out of Ritz crackers (the best crackers) instead of the traditional Saltines, You end up with a pie that is sweet, rich, creamy, sticky, buttery, tart, salty, and crunchy, and perfect year-round (but especially as a summer dessert). So when I saw Deborah also makes a lemon pie for Alex’s Fresh Kitchen, I had to try her version. She didn’t opt for the buttery, salty, cracker crust, instead going for a thick, moist graham cracker crust. Her lemon filling was more custardy than mine, much less tart, and also firmer, while mine comes out more runny. I was so happy I tried it. Creamy, citrusy pies are the best.

Well, after this first visit, I was already a fan of Alex’s, so I returned this past weekend for more takeout. I got myself one of his weekly specials, an 8″ Philly cheesesteak sandwich ($12), with a side of those terrific home fries. It was tasty, but not as juicy or greasy as cheesesteaks I’m used to from places like LaSpada’s. I feel like it could have used more melty cheese, but it still hit the spot.

After my week of raving about Alex’s, and my dear wife not being able to escape my raving, she asked me to order her the mini chicken and waffles ($11). By the time I got it home and unpacked it for her, there didn’t seem to be anything “mini” about it. It was a large Belgian-style waffle, already cut into quarters, and served with two medium-sized pieces of fried chicken breast. Some parts of the fried chicken were burnt, but she ate it anyway, scorched spots and all. I’m sure this was an anomaly, because my chicken sandwich from the previous visit was fried to perfection.
The chicken and waffles came with four little cups of various accompaniments. From left to right: maple syrup (maybe “pancake syrup,” which I honestly prefer sometimes due to growing up with it), a sweet, caramelized, almost toffee-like topping that she loved on the waffles, what I think was cinnamon sugar (we didn’t try this, and it’s still in our fridge), and her favorite, a sweet and sticky vanilla sauce.

And because nobody deserves a treat more than my poor wife, who has been cooped up at home for weeks, I brought her back a slice of the chocolate peanut butter cake ($7), which happens to be gluten-free. She absolutely loved it, chocolate lover that she is. Just like last week’s burger was my favorite thing I’ve tried from Alex’s, this cake was definitely her favorite.

It’s great to have one more good restaurant offering comfort and consistency close to home, especially because we’re hardly going anywhere these days. Alex’s Fresh Kitchen is a relatively new addition to Casselberry’s limited dining options, but I’m so glad Alex and his mom are here, now more than ever. Ironically, their restaurant is across the street from my gym, but they’re open and the gym is closed. I can’t go there three times a week like I was going to the gym, but I’ll keep going when I can, especially now that I’m following their Facebook page for updates on the new burgers and other weekly specials. Welcome to the neighborhood, Alex and Deborah! Constant readers, make them feel welcome.