Thai – The Saboscrivner

The Moderne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isan Zaap Thai Cafe

For years, I had been hearing my friends rave about Isan Zaap Thai Cafe (https://isanzaaporlando.com/), unfortunately a little far from home for me, but moments away from another Thai restaurant my wife and I love very much, Naradeva Thai. You could seriously eat a big meal at one, then still comfortably walk to the other for another meal, they are that close. But I don’t recommend doing that.

I do, however, recommend Isan Zaap, and I’m not the only one. Michelin, that tire company that doubles as a restaurant critic organization, awarded Isan Zaap Thai Cafe one of its coveted Bib Gourmand awards, for “good quality, good value cooking,” joining some of Orlando’s finest establishments. So if you don’t trust your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner’s recommendations by now, you can rely on the Michelin Guide, known for its completely unbiased judging.

While Naradeva’s dining room has a serene wilderness vibe, Isan Zaap is more of a modern dining space. Their menus are very different as well. I do not pretend to be an expert on Thai food, but I know they represent different regions of Thailand, with Isan Zaap covering Isan, the Northeastern region of Thailand (similar to another local Thai restaurant, Mee Thai). According to Isan Zaap’s website, Isan cuisine includes fresh herbs and spices, multiple proteins, and fermented ingredients, which makes sense, because I enjoyed a lot of funky, pungent flavors in the dishes I tried.

On my first visit in late January, I brought a friend with me who I always run into whenever I do anything cool and fun around town. Whether it’s a concert, a stand-up comedy show, or a comic book convention, this dude is always there with his finger on the pulse of all things cool and good. We were both riding high after attending a comic art show where I met my all-time favorite artist, so I chose Isan Zaap as a way to prolong the good feelings and rare chance to hang out.

I started my meal with a refreshing, sweet, slightly smoky Thai iced tea. It was so good, I wanted to gulp it all down, but I knew I would want to save it to cut the heat of whatever food I ordered.

I decided to order larb for the first time ever, after remembering young Peter Parker and his smokin’ hot Aunt May (played by Marisa Tomei) riffing about larb in Spider-Man: Homecoming. I don’t think they ever explained what larb was in that scene, but it sounded right up my alley, with minced pork, pork skin, pork liver, and “seasoning” with lime juice, herbs, and roasted rice powder. I asked for it with medium heat, but boy, was it spicy. I have gotten used to ordering Indian dishes hot, but I eat Thai food so infrequently, medium felt just hot enough. Man, was this some luscious larb! Listed under the “Salads” on the menu, it was so bright and tangy, sour and spicy, crunchy and funky, and surprisingly cool and refreshing, while spicy enough to make my lips tingle. It was served chilled, with thin slices of onion, finely shredded carrot, cucumbers, and lots of mint, and it exceeded all my expectations with its blend of flavors and textures. I was a little surprised the larb did not come with rice, but what do I know? Anyway, it made me a larb lover for life.

Because I’m me and I just can’t help myself, I ordered a second dish, figuring I would try it there and finish the rest at home: my go-to favorite that I like to try at every Thai restaurant, stir-fried drunken noodles, also known as pad kee mao (or sometimes pad kee mow). These are wide, flat, chewy rice noodles sautéed with onions, red and green bell peppers, basil leaves, and a protein (I chose squid, which was a little rubbery, but still tasty), in a sweet and spicy sauce. I asked for this dish medium as well, and it also brought a pleasant amount of heat.

My friend chose excellent-looking pad Thai with tofu, another dish you can never go wrong with. He let me try a bite, which had the nice sweet-and-sour tanginess I always enjoy in pad Thai. I made a mental note of it, because my wife loves this dish, and I definitely wanted to return with her.

It was a great lunch and a great hang. I went home and talked about this meal for damn near three weeks before my wife and I finally made it back to Isan Zaap together, again for lunch on a weekend. We both ordered Thai iced coffees this time, which I liked even more than the Thai iced tea. (I almost never drink tea or coffee, but this just goes to show you that if you put sweetened condensed milk in anything, I will consume it.)

My wife ordered pad Thai, as I figured she would. She got it mild and chose mixed seafood for her protein. It came with shrimp, squid, and mussels in the half shell, which she was kind enough to share with me, because I notoriously love mussels and she is ambivalent about those bivalves. She liked it, and as usual with her, she got two meals out of the dish.

I chose two things again on this trip, figuring we would share them both. This is a picture of half our order of grilled pork neck, which looked and smelled so good that I uncharacteristically devoured half of it before remembering to take a picture. It was a very pretty plate of thin slices of perfectly grilled, marinated, tender pork, accompanied by pretty shredded carrots and cabbage on the side and a very spicy Isan dipping sauce that I loved and she wanted nothing to do with. The grilled pork neck did not come with rice or anything else, so it might not be the most filling dish for a single hungry person. I would definitely recommend it to share with a group, though — or if someone is avoiding carbs and just wants delicious lean protein.

I also thought we would both enjoy the chef’s special dish of crab fried rice, after noticing so many crab dishes on the menu. Again, I ate the vast majority of this, even though it was not spicy or intimidating in any way. It was solid fried rice, but there wasn’t a lot in it aside from eggs, garlic, a little basil, and the lump crabmeat on top. I certainly enjoyed it, but next time I will order something more unique and unfamiliar, that’s for sure!

Unlike our first visit, this time our server brought us a container of four tins of seasonings to spoon onto our food: chilli, sugar, vinegar, and fish sauce. I used a little bit of the chilli (just a red powder) and a splash of vinegar to jazz up the fried rice, but I did not want to overwhelm any of the flavors. I know the sugar is meant to cut the heat, but the spiciest thing I had at this second meal was the Isan dipping sauce with the sliced pork neck.

Last, but certainly not least, I ordered another dish to bring home and enjoy later: the pork liver larb, served chilled and tossed in the same spicy, sour dressing with toasted rice powder, shredded carrot and cabbage, sliced cucumbers, and more herbs on top. This time I made jasmine rice in my Aroma rice cooker to go with the larb, which may be completely inauthentic, but it worked for me. I love liver in all its forms, and the pork liver was rich and intense in that offal (but not awful) way, and tender enough to almost melt in my mouth. It might have been my favorite component of that original larb dish I tried, but I found myself missing the additional textures and flavors of the ground pork and pork skin in the “O.G.” larb. Again, you live and you learn, or at least I do! As always, I appreciated that Isan Zaap packed my takeout larb in one of those great plastic containers with a clear, locking lid. These are microwave-safe AND dishwasher-safe, and if you think I keep a collection of them, you’d be right as rain.

So Isan Zaap Thai Cafe was really wonderful after both of my visits, and it ignited my newfound interest in Thai food. I’ve been to a few other Thai restaurants in Orlando, and a longtime favorite closed in 2023, but I am excited that there is so much more to learn about and experiment with. I’m no tire company, but I can tell you that Isan Zaap is definitely worth all the hype and praise, whether you eat Thai food all the time or just dabble occasionally, as I do. I don’t know how often I will make it back to this restaurant, but Isan Zaap serves some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had, and not just in Orlando either. If you know, you know, and if you don’t, then what are you waiting for?

Twenty Pho Hour

Twenty Pho Hour (https://www.twenty-pho-hour.com/) is a new “fast casual Asian fusion” restaurant that opened in the shopping center at 11951 International Drive, down by Sea World, in a part of Orlando I rarely venture to. My wife and I recently went there because a dear friend from college was in town briefly, staying nearby. I hadn’t seen him in over 20 years, but we lived down the hall from each other in the dorm our freshman year, and had caught up on Facebook, where he is as witty and insightful and as good a dude as ever. This guy (who shares a name with an infamous TV news reporter and an infamous cartoon character) had even befriended some of my completely unrelated Facebook friends, and my wife really wanted to meet him, so we had a great lunch at the eye-catching Twenty Pho Hour.

Normally you order at the counter, but since my wife and I arrived before my friend, the patient server allowed us to sit down at a table, and she took all of our orders on a tablet when my friend joined us. Then we wandered around the space, since there is a lot to look at. Twenty Pho Hour bills itself as “America’s first 2D noodle bar,” and that is due to the striking interior design and theming of the restaurant. Everything is white surfaces with black outlines, giving it the look of two-dimensional artwork that messes with your eyes and your brain by suggesting three dimensions. Generation Xers and elder Millennials, you have probably (hopefully!) seen the classic “Take On Me” music video by Norwegian band A-ha, and that is the best way to describe the Twenty-Pho Hour decor. Plus, the song is a synth-pop bop that can transport you straight back to 1985, for better or for worse.

All the books had funny, punny titles on their spines:

The “pho booth” is a popular picture-taking spot, as one could guess:

So it’s a hip, cool, ‘Grammable place, but what about the food? Well, it’s perfectly fine, especially on that touristy side of Orlando, far from the super-authentic Asian restaurants clustered around the Mills 50 district. I’m guessing many who venture here, this could be their first taste of pho, the iconic Vietnamese beef noodle soup that lends the restaurant its name, so I decided to try a classic: pho dac biet ($13). This is the combination pho that comes with thin slices of rare eye round steak, beef brisket, chewy beef meatballs, tender tendon, and tripe (which has an odd texture that isn’t always my favorite), in addition to soft rice noodles, onions, and green onions in a complex, fragrant, slow-simmered beef broth. I’ve slurped, scarfed, sipped, and supped on pho dac biet all over Orlando, so I wanted to try this as pure and unadulterated as possible. I didn’t add any sambal oelek, sriracha, or hoisin sauce to my pho, just the fresh basil, fresh jalapeño slices, and a healthy squirt of lime. And it was perfectly fine. It didn’t capture the majestic magnificence of my other 2023 discovery, Pho Huong Lan, which I would still consider the best pho in Orlando by far. But it was refreshing, the way only pho can be, compared to having other hot soups during most of the hot, humid year in Florida. Later, I would describe it to my wife as “baby’s first pho,” but you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that.

My friend ordered the Trifecta ($13), a soup of beef brisket, chicken, shrimp, and udon, a thick and chewy Japanese style of noodle, in beef broth. He seemed to really enjoy his, but I did not get a picture of it. Sorry!

My wife ordered pad Thai ($13), a dish of stir-fried rice noodles with egg, peanuts, carrots, scallions, cilantro, and lime in a sweet and tangy sauce. She chose tofu as her protein, but you could also choose steak tips, brisket, chicken, shrimp, or vegetables. Note that even the plates and bowls stick to the visual theming of white with black borders, to continue the illusion and make the food pop visually even more. I’ve always felt that pad Thai is a great dish for judging a new and/or unfamiliar Thai restaurant, along with my personal go-to Thai dish, pad kee mao, sometimes known as drunken noodles. I think my wife chose wisely, because she really loved Twenty Pho Hour’s version of pad Thai. She let me try a taste, and I liked it too.

My wife also adores summer rolls at most of our favorite Vietnamese restaurants like Little Saigon and Pho 88, so she wanted to try the Twenty Pho Hour version. These were tofu summer rolls ($5) — transparent, chewy rice paper stuffed with fried tofu, mixed greens, rice vermicelli (the same noodles that were in my pho), carrots, zucchini chips, fried onion, and fried garlic. She seemed to like them a lot, but she didn’t dig on the sweet chili sauce they came with. She greatly prefers the sweet peanut sauce that most other Vietnamese restaurants serve their summer rolls with. Little did we realize, Twenty Pho Hour also serves more traditional summer rolls with that peanut sauce, but oh well, lesson learned.

My wife ordered a taro milk tea ($5) with some strawberry-flavored popping boba added (a $1 upcharge), and she really liked that. Taro bubble tea is her standard drink at any Asian tea shop or Vietnamese restaurant, but they had a few flavors to choose from. Taro always tastes like vanilla to me, but with a slightly earthy undertone that is pleasant.

And my old pal ordered an adult beverage that came with an adorable Twenty Pho Hour-branded rubber duckie, complete with the restaurant’s logo and matching color scheme. This was the spicy Tokyo mule ($12), with jalapeño-infused sake, ginger beer, simple syrup, lime juice, and fresh basil. It sounded really interesting and refreshing, and he seemed to really like it. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring the duck with him, but you can keep them.

So that’s Twenty Pho Hour. Despite the name, the restaurant is not open twenty-four hours, so that is misleading, but I understand the need for some logical leaps in service of a pun. At least it remains open until 2:00 AM Thursday through Saturday. If you find yourself down near Sea World and don’t want to schlep toward downtown Orlando for pho or other Asian food, it would be a pretty safe bet. It’s already quite popular, and I expect its popularity with increase exponentially in the weeks and months to come, so plan your visit accordingly.

Apparently it is up for some kind of Michelin dining award in 2023, to be announced later this summer. I’m assuming a Bib Gourmand award, which “recognizes great food at a great value,” or a “Recommended Restaurant.” But I’m not expecting a restaurant that has you fetch your own chopsticks and plastic utensils will get a Michelin star. Personally, I am skeptical about the entire Michelin process, and about getting restaurant recommendations from a tire company with delusions of grandeur, but here you are, getting restaurant recommendations for the past five years from an ex-librarian writing from a home office filled with action figure displays.

Kung Fu Dumpling

I remember reading about Kung Fu Dumpling (https://www.kungfudumplings.com/) some time last year. A new Chinese restaurant that specializes in dumplings and noodles sounded great, but it’s in Oviedo, at 7 Alafaya Woods Blvd #4000, right off Alafaya Trail — a direction I rarely drive in. I tried it for the first time this past summer when I got home late from an out-of-town work trip, exhausted and hungry after dropping a co-worker off at home near there. I figured I would end up with disappointing fast food, but when I drove by Kung Fu Dumpling and saw the lights on, you won’t believe how quickly I turned in there.

This is the inside. There are several tables, but it was pretty quiet after 10 PM on a Sunday. Since I didn’t even plan to stop by, I perused the menu and ordered at the counter, overjoyed that this long travel day was going to have a happy ending.

The space is brightly lit with festive decor, and it’s sparkling clean inside. I was relieved to hang around in the dining room while they prepared my food, after the stress of flying. I was messing around on my phone, but it seemed like all the food I ordered was ready in about ten minutes.

Kung Fu Dumpling offers many familiar dim sum dishes, and I couldn’t resist bringing home an order of homemade fried pork, shrimp, and chive dumplings (three for $6), since I know my wife likes those too. If you’ve had these dumplings anywhere else, you know what you’re getting, and you’ll be very happy with them. I figure some restaurants serve frozen ones, but these tasted very fresh.

Pardon the shadows, but these were another dim sum favorite of mine, pan-fried pork buns (two for $5). I wolfed these down, standing up in my kitchen, before I could even unpack my luggage. We all know they’re never as good the next day!

I was thrilled to see my go-to standard Chinese restaurant dish, beef chow fun ($17), made with homemade wide, flat, chewy rice noodles, stir-fried with sliced beef, onions, and scallions. Neither of us are huge fans of bean sprouts, so I asked them to hold those, and I was happy to not have to pick them out. This was a shining example of beef chow fun. In fact, one could consider it beef chow fun for the whole family.

I couldn’t help ordering a second dish I knew my wife and I could share: pad Thai ($15), a classic dish of stir-fried noodles (also homemade!) with eggs, chicken, shrimp, scallions, carrots, peanuts, and lime wedges to give it a little tangy tartness. There is a mysterious sour-sweet flavor I often encounter in pad Thai that I love that might be tamarind, but it could also be lime. Anyway, I don’t order pad Thai often enough at Thai restaurants, but I’m glad I ordered this version at Kung Fu Dumpling, especially with the homemade noodles. My wife liked it too.

This is from the “Asian Wraps” section of the menu: a green scallion pancake wrap, with sweet red char siu barbecue pork stuffed inside ($10). I’ve had similar scallion pancakes at Chuan Lu Garden, and this one worked well as a tortilla-like wrap. I loved the combination of flavors and textures here.

This is a black sesame pancake ($5.50) that was very similar to a Malaysian paratha or roti, but not as buttery. I know my wife doesn’t like onions or scallions, but she absolutely loved this, as I figured she would. I resolved to return and bring her more, since I thought the pancakes and wraps were limited-time specials. But looking at the Kung Fu Dumpling menu online, I’m pleased to say both the black sesame pancake, the green scallion pancake (also $5.50), and all the “Asian wraps” continue to be available.

So I returned to Kung Fu Dumpling a week or two later, bringing her two of those black sesame pancakes. My wife also requested the teriyaki Buddha’s Delight ($14), a vegetarian dish with stir-fried tofu, broccoli, carrots, and onions (which I dutifully picked out and ate for her) in a lightly sweet teriyaki sauce. I didn’t take a picture of it, but it came with fragrant jasmine rice.

And after over-ordering on my first visit, when I was delirious from travel fatigue, I stuck to one new dish the second time: Korean pan-seared braised pork belly over lo mein noodles ($16). I hoped she would want to share this dish too, and I believe she liked the slice of tender pork belly she tried. As for me, I loved it.

So that’s my review of Kung Fu Dumpling, after two visits. I’m still rarely in that part of Oviedo, where it approaches East Orlando and turns into UCF before you know it. But even if you don’t live or work anywhere in the area, I still highly recommend Kung Fu Dumpling for your pan-Asian comfort food needs. Whether you’re craving Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese flavors, you will find something you love here. If you want late-night dim sum, they have you covered. If you crave tender homemade noodles (as I so often do), you’ll be in for such a treat. As the great thespian Keanu Reeves said after a grueling training session in The Matrix (1999): “I know kung fu.” Now you, constant reader, also know Kung Fu.

CLOSED: Thai Singha

UPDATE: Apparently Thai Singha closed in April 2023, and I am very sad about it.

***

Thai Singha (https://thaisingha.net/) is the first Thai restaurant I ever visited in Orlando, shortly after meeting my wife and starting to date her, back in 2006. It is out in the sprawling Waterford Lakes shopping center in East Orlando, south of the University of Central Florida. The area is full of restaurants, but not many stand out and draw attention. Thai Singha definitely does, or at least it should.

We realized it had been years since we had gone together, especially after discovering newer favorites like Mee Thai and Naradeva Thai, both wonderful places. But you never forget your first, especially since Thai Singha is where I discovered my favorite Thai dish that is now my benchmark order at any new Thai restaurant, to compare and contrast them all.

My wife started with hot ginger tea ($2.95), which smelled really good and came in a neat-looking receptacle:

Then she ordered one of her favorite dishes, that she also introduced me to at Thai Singha over 15 years ago: mee grob ($6.95). Some restaurants call it mee krob or meekrob, but many around Orlando don’t serve it at all. It is a veritable mountain of crispy rice noodles, shrimp, pork, and tofu, tossed in a tangy sweet sauce and garnished with scallions and bean sprouts. It is awesome, folks. It is very sticky, crunchy, sweet, salty, and sour — a feast for all the senses. The shrimp is fried so nicely that you can even crunch and swallow the crispy tails. It is one of the only places where I like tofu, but I fully admit I haven’t had enough tofu to discount it completely. Maybe everyone is already wise to the joys of mee grob, but if ya don’t know, now you know.

My wife ordered her favorite entree as well: late night noodles with a combination of shrimp, scallops, and squid ($16.95). You can choose any of the options from the “Favorite Dishes” section of the menu to come with mixed vegetables, tofu, chicken, beef, or pork for $11.50, shrimp for $14.50, or a meat combo or this seafood combo for $16.95.The late night noodles are soft, chewy rice noodles stir-fried to perfection, then tossed in a light soy sauce with eggs, the shrimp, the buttery little bay scallops, and the tender squid, and served over a bit of lettuce. She loves it.

And this is my favorite Thai dish, made with the same flat, wide, perfectly chewy rice noodles: drunken noodles, also known as pad kee mao or pad kee mow. I got mine with tender pork for $11.50, and I always wish the portion was bigger here, because it is so incredibly delicious. Drunken noodles are stir-fried with onions, green bell peppers, fresh Thai basil leaves, and a sweet chili paste sauce. It is always sweet and spicy at once, which I just love in any cuisine, and the Thai basil brings such a unique herby flavor — very different than the typical basil in Italian recipes. Despite the name, there is no alcohol in this dish, but it is a common, beloved Thai street food for drunken revelers. I’m sure the late night noodles have a similar origin story from nocturnal hawkers and their grateful post-partying clientele.

So that’s our first Thai restaurant we were able to share with each other, Thai Singha. I am pleased to report we enjoyed it as much as ever after being away for far too long. I was just sad to see it dimly lit and not busy, despite it always bustling during our past visits, too long ago. We got there in the late afternoon on a recent Friday, too early for the dinner hour, but we were the only diners in the place, while others popped in and out to pick up sporadic takeout orders. It is difficult to get to Waterford Lakes, and we rarely end up on that east side of Orlando anyway, but it remains a treasure well worth braving UCF-area traffic to return to from time to time. Over the years we’ve been together, we have ordered other dishes on the menu that are always solid, but we are always a little disappointed when we don’t go with our favorites here. Now you’ve seen our go-to dishes, so pay it a visit, decide on your own favorites, and let me know what they are!

Meng’s Kitchen

Meng’s Kitchen (https://www.mengskitchensorlando.com/) is one of my favorite kinds of restaurants: a bit of a secret because it’s a restaurant inside something else — in this case, inside another restaurant, U-Roll Sushi on East Colonial Drive, directly east of Goldenrod Road (which I really need to review some other time).

When you crave Chef AJ’s eclectic comfort food with origins in China, Thailand, and India, you have to place an online order on the website above, then pick it up from U-Roll Sushi or make a note that you’re going to eat it there, as I did recently. I met one of my closest foodie friends here in Orlando, a true bon vivant who knows even more good local places to eat than I do, and also one of the most upstanding, civic-minded, honorable people I know. He has been a Meng’s mark for a while now, and I was glad to finally catch up with him over lunch on a workday, to see what all the hype was about. This guy has never steered me wrong, and he definitely helped me choose wisely this time.

This is Chef AJ’s famous Hainanese chicken and rice ($10) — poached chicken served over Hainanese style rice pilaf with the most amazing ginger, garlic and soy dipping sauce. The online ordering system gives a choice of white or dark meat, and I will always choose dark meat, 100% of the time. It came boneless and fully sliced, with the soft skin on. It also came with a side of broth that I forgot to photograph. It looked like plain broth, just like this looks like plain chicken, but looks are deceiving, because everything had so much incredible flavor, I was blown away.

My wise and worldly friend chose the chicken, so I had to make a decision. With so many intriguing and unfamiliar options, I chose the braised pork Hunglay curry ($10) — marinated pork belly and pork shoulder with toasted garam masala, slowly braised with Hunglay curry paste, shallots, pickled garlic, fresh mango and ginger, and tamarind paste. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten all year, so I chose wisely too. Every piece of pork was tender enough to cut with our plastic forks, and they just melted in my mouth. I’m such a fan of saucy, braised meats, and this was an outstanding dish, full of strong flavors I wasn’t overly familiar with, but they all worked so well together.

The online menu said this braised pork curry came with steamed jasmine rice, but I requested a substitution of the spiced yellow rice that came with some other dishes, and I noted that it was okay if Chef AJ couldn’t substitute it. Well, he did, and the spiced yellow rice was triumphant as well. I have a rice cooker at home, and I can still NEVER cook rice as well as Asian and Latin restaurants. But both this rice and the Hainanese rice pilaf that came with the chicken were something really special. Spooning some of the pork curry sauce, which was savory but not spicy at all, over both kinds of rice opened up whole new worlds of flavor.

My friend ordered this cucumber salad ($4) for us to share — chunks of cucumber and tomato and thin slivers of red onion in Thai sweet and sour dressing. It might not have occurred to me to order this, but I’m so glad he did, and I’d get it again. It was crisp and crunchy and sweet and spicy and cool and refreshing, especially with the heavy chicken, pork, and rice and the rich sauces they came with. The sweet and sour dressing reminded me of Thai sweet chili sauce, a beloved condiment, but not as thick, sticky, and jelly-like. True to its name, there was also a sour, slightly pungent component in the dressing that played well with the cucumbers.

My friend also ordered tom kha gai ($5), a Thai soup made with coconut milk, curry paste, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and big ol’ chunks of mushrooms, which I cannot eat. Normally I like to try everything, but I am allergic or intolerant or something. It always ends badly for me, so I passed. But the soup looked and smelled good, and he seemed to like it.

So far, this was my only visit to Meng’s Kitchen, but I need to return sooner rather than later for more Hainanese chicken and rice, more of that incredible braised pork Hunglay curry, and to eventually make my way through the menu and try everything else (as long as it doesn’t contain mushrooms). It was terrific — one of those hidden gems that are all over Orlando, if you just give them a chance.

Tight Chips: Asian Potato Chips, Part 1: Savory Flavors

Orlando is a diverse and inclusive city with a huge Asian-American community, which means we are lucky to have so many terrific restaurants and markets representing our Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, Filipino, and Indian neighbors and their cuisines. Most of our Asian markets are located along Colonial Drive, with good ones on both the east and west sides of downtown Orlando. They are treasure troves of ingredients you can’t find at Publix and other mainstream American supermarkets, along with high-quality produce, meat, and seafood that are often cheaper than anywhere else. And of course, the snacks alone are often worth the trip.

My readers know I often review potato chips and other snacks as Tight Chips features, so this is the first of what will surely be several write-ups of potato chips with unique flavors from the Asian markets.

I chose these particular chips to review here because they are all savory flavors: various meats, chicken, and egg-flavored chips. And please note that I tried these and wrote down my opinions over the course of several months, rather than ripping all the bags open and gorging on them in one sitting, as soon as I got home from the market.

Salted egg-flavored chips have a bit of a fan following, so I had to try these salted egg Lay’s from Thailand. I believe I found these at Eastside Asian Market in East Orlando.

They were salty and eggy (mostly a yolk flavor). I don’t know what else I was expecting, but this was the only flavor that had a lot of built-up hype ahead of time.

The salted egg flavor above was much better than these other egg-flavored Lay’s, which were more of a thick, ridged chip (kind of like “Wavy Lay’s” and much thicker than Ruffles). These had a strong and very dry egg yolk aroma and flavor. I wouldn’t bother getting these again, and I even forgot to take a photo of the actual chips, so I guess the yolk was on me.

I must have gotten these Roasted Chicken Wing Lay’s on the same visit to New Golden Sparkling Supermarket on West Colonial Drive in Orlando’s Pine Hills neighborhood, because they are the same thick, ridged style, and I also forgot to take a photo of the open bag. They were savory and salty, containing “chicken powder” and “chicken oil,” but I detected soy sauce more than anything strongly chickeny. I think I just don’t care for the thicker texture of these kinds of ridged “Wavy” Lay’s.

I couldn’t resist being lured in by this eye-catching bag design, only to discover this was Lay’s Mexican Chicken Tomato flavor. Now I’ve enjoyed plenty of Mexican dishes that included chicken and tomatoes among the ingredients, but I don’t automatically match them up in my head. These were definitely more tomatoey than chickeny, and disappointingly not spicy at all.

So which came first, the chicken-flavored chips or the egg-flavored chips? I have no idea, but that sounded like a Scott Joseph joke, now that I’ve written it out.

These next Lay’s chips have a braised pork flavor. The bag has a picture of a bearded fellow who looks like most of the guys you see in comic book stores, who usually have strong opinions about nerdy topics and demand to be heard. This is the logo of Formosa Chang, a Taiwanese restaurant chain that began with a single food stall in a market, but now has 30 locations in Taiwan and a few in Japan as well. Just like Lay’s did some co-branding with American restaurants last year, with flavors inspired by their signature dishes, they must have worked out a similar deal with Formosa Chang for one of their more popular dishes.

Braised pork sounded like a really great savory chip flavor, and I love the Taiwanese food I’ve tried at Mei’s Kitchen and Ms. Tea’s Bento, both in East Orlando. But these were pretty bland and unmemorable. I would love to try the real version of this dish from a Formosa Chang restaurant.

I didn’t even look at the label on the back of this bag of Lay’s until I got them home, but even though I was expecting some kind of sausage flavor from the look of the image below, this is a “spicy stewed flavor.”

Once again, this was a nondescript flavor, and look at how light they went on the seasoning on these chips! They didn’t even taste spicy, and I was looking forward to feeling some kind of burn.

I have finally moved past Lay’s for now, to review two chips from Oishi, a very good snack company based in the Philippines. Oishi products always have good, strong flavors. These are sweet and spicy potato chips that did not disappoint, after most of the above Lay’s flavors did.

Oishi is much more liberal with the seasoning!

And finally, these are Oishi “Ribbed Cracklings” (ribbed for her pleasure?), which are salt and vinegar flavors, or as I always call them, “salty vinnies.” These are not potato chips, since they are made of wheat flour and tapioca starch. They also aren’t pork rinds, despite being called “cracklings,” but they are not vegetarian because they contain fish sauce.

These are AWESOME. I saved the best for last because they have a terrific texture — crispy but not crunchy, sort of airy, kind of a middle ground between crunchy Cheetos and puffy Cheez Doodles, if you will. If you’ve ever tried shrimp chips from an Asian market, it’s the same kind of texture. They are addictive. And if you love vinegar as much as I do, they are really intense with the vinegar powder, giving them a powerfully pungent, puckery punch. If you don’t already like salt and vinegar chips, definitely spare yourself some torture! But if you do, face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot.

Don’t worry, folks — I’ll publish a new restaurant review next week, but I like to pepper in the Grocery Grails features from time to time to keep things interesting, including the spinoffs Cutting the Mustard (mustard reviews), The ‘Dines List (canned sardine reviews), and Tight Chips (snack chip reviews). I swear I don’t go out to eat as much as you probably think I do, but I sure love grocery shopping and discovering interesting new foods at the store.

CLOSED: BaanChan Thai Restaurant

EDITOR’S NOTE: BaanChan Thai Restaurant closed permanently over the summer of 2022.

***

I had been hearing about BaanChan Thai Restaurant (https://www.baanchanorlando.com/) for years before finally making it there in December. I brought back takeout for my “lunch bunch” at work, and everyone really enjoyed what they ordered. It’s way out east on Colonial Drive, further east than I usually venture, almost out to Alafaya. But it is easily accessible via the 417 and convenient for anyone in the UCF area.

My one co-worker ordered the BaanChan ramen ($10), with noodles in a spicy lemongrass soup, mushrooms, onions, scallions, cilantro, whole chiles, and lime. It came with a soy-marinated soft boiled egg and several large deep-fried, breaded shrimp. This was a a uniquely Thai take on ramen. They wisely packed the broth, the fried shrimp, and all the other stuff in three separate containers for her. My photo of the broth came out blurry, so I left it out. You’re welcome!

Three of us ordered my go-to Thai dish, drunken noodles ($8.50), at various levels of heat. Because I like to tempt fate and sometimes ruin my afternoons at the workplace, I asked for mine to be hot. Drunken noodles, sometimes called pad kee mow or pad kee mao, are wide, flat noodles stir-fried to an al dente consistency in a spicy sauce with onions, bell peppers, and Thai basil, plus a protein. I chose pork, which was tender and not dried out from the stir-frying. These were much more oily than other drunken noodles I’ve ordered elsewhere, at places like Mee Thai, Naradeva Thai, and Thai Singha, but still had a lot of flavor and A LOT of heat.

Someone’s food came with fluffy jasmine rice, but it went unclaimed. That was a relief to me, because I ate it to cut some of the lingering heat from the spicy, oleaginous noodles. Sometimes carbs can save your life!

I also ordered two small appetizers for myself, so I could make everything last for lunch and dinner. I asked around, and a lot of people recommended the Thai heaven beef ($4.50), which is fried beef jerky! Because it was fried and not just cured like a lot of conventional jerky I’ve had, in addition to being sticky, sweet, salty, and slightly spicy, it was oily and also quite firm and crunchy, which I wasn’t expecting. I can see why this is a popular crowd-pleaser at BaanChan, but I don’t know if I would order it again.

My absolute favorite thing I tried on this first visit to BaanChan was the Thai sausage ($4). It was chewy and savory with a slightly crispy exterior, not spicy at all. It was a terrific sausage, and I loved it. It came with paper-thin slices of pickled ginger like you might get with sushi, and some intimidating-looking whole chiles that I wisely avoided.

You can also see a fried pot sticker that one of my co-workers gave me from her order ($4.50 for four). It was stuffed with ground, seasoned pork and vegetables and was a pretty standard pot sticker, but you can never go wrong with those.

I was glad to finally try BaanChan after reading about it for years. Whenever I make it back, I’ll definitely order that amazing sausage again, and I’ll probably try the pineapple fried rice, chili jam, or larb next time to switch things up.

Thai Halal Grill

Thai Halal Grill (http://thaihalalgrill.com/) is a new fast-casual restaurant located inside the Apna Bazaar, a Halal Indian grocery store in Longwood, north of Orlando. The restaurant just opened recently — I believe in October 2020. When you walk into Apna Bazaar, you can’t miss their round sign lit up on the right of the market.

The menu appears on a large TV monitor above the counter where you order, but they also have the menu on their website and full-color paper menus to take. I was not planning to order food when I got to Apna Bazaar — instead I was looking for ground lamb for a pastitsio recipe. But a friend and co-worker with good taste and opinions I respect raved about Thai Halal Grill after discovering it recently, so I placed an order and shopped around the grocery store while my food was being prepared, picking out some snacks and sweet basil seed drinks. It only took about ten minutes.

I saw they had spicy halal meatballs in chili sauce with fried rice, and I almost order that when I saw the meatballs could also come with stir-fried noodles. Sold! That dish was a very reasonable $10.95 for a huge portion. In fact, everything on the menu is $10.95 except for the stir-fried beef and pepper with white rice, which is $11.95. I might try that next time, or the Thai fried rice, ore even one of the curries. The lady working the counter was so sweet, warm, and welcoming. She gave me a tangerine to take with me, for dessert.

Here’s a close-up photo. I loved this dish. The meatballs were extremely flavorful, with the nice spongy texture you hope for from a meatball. It contained red and green bell peppers, onions, and peas, but luckily no carrots. I can take or leave carrots in dishes like this, as they never seem to add much in the way of flavor. The noodles were soft and delicious. I could have easily gotten two servings from this portion, but I chose not to.

I will totally go back to Thai Halal Grill and try something different next time, plus it was fun browsing around Apna Bazaar. But I didn’t want to wait any longer on this review, since I got a little distracted by all the big news last weekend and never published anything this past week. This is a tiny local restaurant that could use your business. Please stop by and give them a chance, and I guarantee you’ll be tempted to buy some stuff from the market too. Longwood isn’t known as one of Orlando’s super-hip foodie areas, but I’ve also reviewed Oh My Gyro and Pickles Delicatessen in the area, and there are more delicious destinations in Longwood I have plans to revisit and review soon.

Tako Cheena

My wife and I have always been huge fans of Tako Cheena (http://mytakocheena.com/), the creative and bohemian Asian-Latin fusion restaurant on Mills Avenue, north of Colonial, in one of Orlando’s finest foodie neighborhoods, Mills 50. It used to be in a tiny space in a little strip plaza on Mills, with very few parking spaces in front, to the point where we’d often have to circle the block six or ten or twenty times, or more realistically, time our visits for when the place was just opening up. There was a somewhat steep step up that limited the accessibility for my walker-wielding wife, and a tiny, cramped dining room that further limited her mobility inside once I helped hoist her up. The food was always delicious, but it wasn’t the most comfortable surroundings, despite the hip, colorful, artsy decor.

Well, I was recently craving Tako Cheena after a rough week, and to my great joy, they recently moved into a larger building mere steps from their old location. And it has an actual parking lot, plus a spacious outdoor patio. I was just picking up takeout from an outside-facing window, so I didn’t linger or even peek inside to look at indoor seating. However, the new location already looks so much more comfortable and accessible, and that is like a dream come true for us.

The covered patio overlooks Mills Avenue, and you can see it is steps away from the original location:

Since the menu on the website doesn’t have most of their newer menu additions of the last few years, or any prices, this was the best shot I could get of the posted menu. A past favorite, Mary’s Greek Lil Lamb (a gyro in taco form) has never been on their old menu on the website, so I didn’t even think to order one this time, but I was glad to see it has been added to the new menu. The pernil asado, slow-roasted, marinated pork, is pretty darn great too, but I didn’t order that either on my most recent visit.

Since I haven’t even been here since I started this blog two years ago, I ordered a bunch of our old favorites. I got us each a panko-crusted cod “tako” ($4.50), with spicy mayo, shredded cabbage, and scallions on a soft flour tortilla. This was the first time they asked me if I wanted flour or corn tortillas, but they could have started giving customers that choice at any point in the last two or three years. These are my favorite fish tacos in Orlando, and I was sad to learn they were out of the usual sweet and sour onion sauce that goes on them, but they were still delicious. My wife, who always used to love these, thought hers was too spicy, so I ended up eating most of hers too. I love spicy mayo on anything, so they were perfect for me, as usual.

Miami kid that I am, I have a hard time turning down empanadas, those crispy-fried half moon-shaped pastries stuffed with a variety of savory or sometimes sweet fillings, sealed with a crimped edge. Different cultures make different empanadas, but I always prefer a deep-fried, crispy flour pastry shell, and those are the ones they make here. Tako Cheena always offers different beef, chicken, and vegan empanadas of the day ($3.25 each), always rotating creative fusion ingredients in each one. I asked what the beef empanada of the day was, and this one had seasoned ground beef like picadillo with mashed potatoes and sweet plantains. Yes please! I could have easily eaten two of more of those crispy fried pastries, especially since sweet plantains are a top ten favorite food for me, but I stuck to one.

The empanadas come with a very small plastic dipping cup of salsa. When I placed my phone order, the guy asked if I wanted sweet or spicy. I asked if I could try both, and he said yes. Well, my bill had a “GG” next to the empanada at no charge, and an “HJ” that I was charged 50 cents for, so that’s how I learned additional salsas come at a cost. I don’t mind, because I always love trying new salsas. I could be wrong, but looking at Tako Cheena’s website and the menu above, I’m guessing the “GG” refers to ginger guava salsa, and the “HJ” is probably habanero jackfruit salsa, even though they list it as “jackfruit habanero.”

The website advertises “BURRITOS THE SIZE OF BABY’S [sic] ARMS,” and they aren’t exaggerating. I ordered the Korean burrito ($10.75), stuffed to almost bursting with sweet and savory marinated beef bulgogi, kimchi fried rice with mixed vegetables, crema, sriracha, ginger scallion oil, and cilantro. It was a really interesting blend of flavors and textures wrapped in that huge, straining flour tortilla, which is one reason I prefer burritos to tacos. (GASP!) It’s so huge, I saved half for the next day, and even the half is a generous portion. That isn’t something I normally order at Tako Cheena, but I wanted to present more of a variety of options for my baker’s dozens of readers.

Look at how much room it takes up on our now-familiar green plates!

Here’s a shot with burrito and empanada interiors:

Another one of our long-time favorites isn’t listed on the menu on the website, but Tako Cheena has incredible arepas, sweet corn patties stuffed with a variety of ingredients. Our favorite is the four-cheese arepa ($7.50) with a big fried cheese patty, topped with pickled shredded carrots and other vegetables (maybe jicama or daikon radish? Although it looks similar to Filipino atchara, or pickled papaya salad), and spicy mayo.

Picking a favorite item on the whole menu feels like being forced to pick a favorite child, for those who have more than one child, but this arepa might be it:

Cross-section. I should note that the cheese is lightly fried on its exterior, but not battered or breaded like my beloved mozzarella sticks. It’s more like halloumi cheese that way, with a similar texture.

One thing you probably noticed by now, that I definitely appreciated, was how they packed all our takeout food either wrapped in foil wrappers or placed in cardboard boxes. It was nice to see some eco-friendly alternatives to styrofoam.

Even though some restaurants are reopening for dining in, my wife and I are in no hurry to start doing that again anytime soon. But now that Tako Cheena has a parking lot of its own and that convenient walk-up window, I’ll probably order more takeout from them in the weeks and months to come. I’m glad an old favorite is more accessible than ever before, and as good as ever.