Vietnamese – 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!

Z Asian Vietnamese Kitchen

Z Asian Vietnamese Kitchen (https://eatzasian.com/) is one of the nicer, more upscale Vietnamese restaurants in Orlando’s Mills 50 district full of Vietnamese and other Asian restaurants, markets, and shops. That said, as someone who does not love high-end, fancy, luxurious dining, it is still very accessible and welcoming for all. It is also unique because it received prestigious Michelin Bib Gourmand awards in 2022 and 2023. To clarify, that does not mean it has a Michelin star, like some of the highest-end eateries, but rather it was recognized for its “good quality, good value cooking.” Chef and co-owner Huong Nguyen focuses on street foods from Saigon, but her menu offers several dishes that Orlando’s other Vietnamese restaurants do not serve.

I first went to Z Asian with a former co-worker in late July. She and I both left our workplace for new opportunities this year, so it was a chance to catch up and chat. She is vegetarian, and Z Asian has so many vegetarian and vegan options on its menu, I thought it would be a perfect choice for dinner.

We started out with an order of two vegan summer rolls (goi cuon chay), with tofu, vermicelli noodles, and shredded lettuce rolled up in transparent, sticky, chewy rice paper and served at room temperature with a side order of peanut sauce. My wife loves summer rolls with peanut sauce from other Vietnamese restaurants like Little Saigon and Pho 88, but they are usually not my favorites. I’m not a big tofu guy either, but I’ll try anything once, and this was an excellent summer roll! The tofu had the consistency of a firm omelet with a slightly crispy exterior, balancing against all the chewy ingredients.

I also chose an order of pan-fried rice flour (bot chien), something I always see on Vietnamese menus but had never tried before. It always looks good, and I thought my vegetarian friend would like it too. It came served on a blanket of lovely fried eggs, although there is a vegan option too, without the eggs. It was served with a side of crunchy, sweet pickled carrot and daikon radish, with a sweet chili soy dipping sauce. This was AWESOME. We both loved it. This was another dish with a crispy exterior and soft, yielding interior, kind of like fries or tater tots — not in taste, but in “mouth feel.” They were terrific with the sauce, and I liked the pickled vegetables (necessary ingredients on any banh mi sandwich) a lot.

My friend ordered stir-fried garlic noodles with tofu. I didn’t try this, but she seemed to like it a lot. In addition to the fried tofu (similar to the pieces in the summer rolls), it came with bok choy, carrot, and plenty of crunchy bean sprouts.

I ordered special rice noodle soup (hu tieu thap cam), with thinner rice noodles than you usually find in bowls of beefy pho. Instead of being a beef-based soup like pho, this soup included pork, shrimp, squid, fish cakes, and krab sticks, in addition to aromatic herbs. It was a nice, light soup and a pleasant change from the pho I’ve ordered so many times elsewhere. Somehow, I managed not to splash my clothes, which was a minor miracle.My research tells me hu tieu is a Chinese-Cambodian invention that was adapted to Vietnamese tastes in the city of Saigon, and that I could have also ordered a “dry” version with a small bowl of soup on the side to protect my work clothes in the future.

Before leaving, I ordered the pan-fried rice cakes (minus the eggs) to bring home for my wife to try. She was dazzled with them too, and they did not lose their subtle crispiness on the drive home.

And I also brought home a dish I had really wanted to try, after seeing so many people post photos of it. My vegetarian friend would not have been into this at all, but I knew my wife would share my appreciation of Z Asian’s grilled jumbo squid (muc nuong sate). You can get squid at lots of restaurants (Italian, Greek, Chinese, steakhouses, and so forth) in the form of breaded, fried calamari, but I had never seen such squid served in such a beautiful presentation as this. If your fellow diners aren’t averse to eating cephalopods (so that counts out my in-laws), this will be a real attention-grabber at your table, and I strongly recommend it.
The menu says the grilled jumbo squid is marinated in “house sauce,” and it is served with house-made jalapeno green sauce, but it did not need to be dipped in anything. Squid can sometimes get chewy and rubbery, but this was so tender and flavorful, with slight spicy and sweet flavors balancing out the taste of the ocean (but not a fishy taste).

It wasn’t long before I returned to Z Asian with my wife, who ordered a Thai milk tea (tra Thai) that was rich and cool and creamy and sweet, with a slightly smoky flavor.

For some reason, I could not decide what to order. Normally I am not intimidated by a large menu, but for this second visit, I just couldn’t choose. I eventually picked something pretty random, the seafood stir-fried noodles in garlic sauce, which came with tail-on shrimp, squid, fish cakes, and the usual bok choy, carrots, and bean sprouts. I chose egg noodles instead of rice noodles, but I had completely forgotten that this was essentially what my friend ordered on our first visit, minus the seafood. To be completely honest, this was okay. I feel like I did not make the best choice. I might have been happier with pho or bun bo hue, but I kept thinking about how hot it was for soup (on a scorching August afternoon in Florida), and how it would be hard to beat Pho Huong Lan, maker of the best pho and bun bo hue I’ve ever had anywhere. Plus, with Z Asian’s huge menu, I wanted to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone, trying something new instead of something familiar I’ve had dozens, if not hundreds, of times over the years. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the dish; I blame myself for being uncharacteristically wishy-washy and not choosing wisely. I was kind of hoping the garlic sauce on the noodles would be more like the awe-inspiring buttery garlic noodles at Kai Asian Street Fare, but not knowing any better, I just set myself up for disappointment.

As always, my wife was smarter than I, choosing a favorite from other Vietnamese restaurant menus: slices of tender grilled beef, tail-on shrimp, and a crispy fried spring roll cut in half, served over rice vermicelli noodles, with shredded lettuce, julienned cucumber and carrot, diced scallions, and crushed peanuts. This was not a noodle soup, but a very refreshing, summery dish with warm and cool ingredients. Sometimes you can’t go wrong with a classic!

So that’s Z Asian Vietnamese Kitchen. I would absolutely return and try something different next time — maybe something with clams or snails, or maybe even sample the bun bo hue or the pho. But I really don’t think you can go wrong, and if you are a vegetarian or vegan, you have a lot more options here than most other restaurants in and around Orlando. And if you don’t want to take my word for it, a certain tire company also really recommends the place.

Banh Mi Y Nhu

I missed posting a new review last week, but I’m back… not that anyone would have noticed. I have a new job, working from home on Pacific Time, and I am still getting used to the schedule. The only drawback, measured against too many wonderful positive changes to count, is that I no longer work on the outskirts of some of Orlando’s greatest culinary neighborhoods, the Milk District and Mills 50. Case in point: I have been craving banh mi, or Vietnamese sub sandwiches, for weeks, and all the best places that serve them are in the Mills 50 district, about 25 minutes from home, as opposed to ten minutes from work. Jetting there and back in the middle of a workday is unthinkable, and most of the places are closed by the time I clock out around 9 PM (not that I need to be eating that late anyway).

Banh mi are a perfect comfort food for this scorching hot summer, usually featuring cured cold cuts or fresh meats on fresh-baked baguettes that are crusty on the outside yet perfectly soft on the inside. The fluffy baguettes are spread with rich pate, mayonnaise, and/or butter, and the salty meats are topped with cool, crispy pickled carrot and daikon radish strips and fresh cilantro and jalapenos. They are decadent sandwiches for sure — the product of French colonialization of Vietnam — but also surprisingly light and refreshing, compared to something like a heavy, greasy cheesesteak or my beloved Italian subs.

While I really liked the banh mi sandwiches at Paris Banh Mi, this time I visited a place I had not been in several years, but I first tried in 2010 when Orlando Weekly published “Banh Voyage,” an article comparing and contrasting some of Orlando’s finest banh mi. Many of those listed establishments no longer exist, and several more have opened in the ensuing 13 years, but the #1 ranked place from the 2010 article is still around, just with a new name: the former Boston Bakery, which is now called Banh Mi Y Nhu, at 1525 East Colonial Drive in Orlando.

This place has never had a website under either name, so I wanted to include a photo of the simple menu at Banh Mi Y Nhu, displayed over the counter on two large TV screens. There was plenty of glare coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows on a Saturday afternoon, so apologies for the quality of this picture (the best of several, for what it’s worth):

All eight sandwiches are priced at either $7 or $7.50, and if you buy five at once, you get one free. The 2010 Orlando Weekly article mentions banh mi usually cost between $2.50 and $3, but that’s 13 years of inflation for you! I do remember them costing $5 at Boston Bakery the last time I was there, but like I said, it had been a while. Too long.

My wife doesn’t share my sandwich love, so I could not justify bringing home six, but I did splurge a bit and order three different banh mi for myself. I justified it because it’s more of a mission to get down here, and because I wanted to write a worthy review. Don’t worry, I didn’t eat all three sandwiches in one sitting.

I ate them in two sittings, although I was standing up for the second.

The first one was my usual banh mi order: the combination, or banh mi thịt nguội (#1), which contains multiple cured meats, including ham, steamed pork roll, and head cheese (which is meat, not cheese, and way more delicious than it sounds), in addition to the savory liver pate. I am much more used to the combination banh mi being called dac biet, but I’m sure some expert will come along to explain why they aren’t the same thing.

Here’s a cross-section. This is one of the prettiest banh mi I’ve ever had from anywhere, and Banh Mi Y Nhu was much more generous with the ingredients than several of the other local places. It was delicious, with crunchy, chewy, salty, spicy, sour, creamy, and fresh textures and flavors. I like a lot going on in my sandwiches, and this one did not disappoint.
I realize I haven’t tried every single banh mi in Orlando, but I don’t mind naming this one the highest-quality combination banh mi I’ve ever had. (That said, I don’t know if it was missing certain meats that go in the dac biet, or vice versa.)

The next one was the fried fish cake, or banh mi cha ca (#6), which sounded different (and I had completely forgotten I tried something similar at nearby Banh Mi Boy in early 2022). I expected something like surimi, the imitation “krab” that I love in a mayo-based seafood pasta salad, or maybe like those spiral-emblazoned fish cake slices that make their way into bowls of ramen noodles.

Interestingly, what it reminded me of the most was Jewish gefilte fish, just sliced like cold cuts (I compared it to “fish bologna” in my Banh Mi Boy review) rather than mysterious loaves floating ominously in glass jars like specimens in some forensic scientist’s lab. This fried fish cake has a slight sweetness to it, and while it was clearly processed fish, it didn’t taste super-“fishy,” which was fine with me. As usual, the incredibly fresh baguette, spreads, and vegetables elevated the sandwich to a special experience, the sum of its parts surpassing any individual ingredient.

I asked the lady at the counter for her recommendation for a third, and she recommended the grilled pork, or banh mi thit heu nuong (#9), so I went for it. I’m so glad I did, because it ended up being my favorite of the three sandwiches.

The grilled pork was still warm, sliced thinly and covered with a savory-sweet, sticky glaze that probably included sugar and fermented fish sauce. My wife sometimes orders similar grilled beef with rice vermicelli at sit-down Vietnamese restaurants, and this grilled pork was very similar to that, if you’ve had those dishes before. Of my three choices, this is the sandwich I would recommend to banh mi newbies since it is the most familiar filling and the least processed, and it was really satisfying.
I’m used to these being cool and refreshing sandwiches due to the cilantro and pickled carrot and daikon, but all three of these were still warm by the time I got them home, all due to the baguettes being so fresh (baked on the premises, of course). I’ve had too many banh mi in Orlando served on stale, hard, undersized, and even burnt baguettes, and lots where they skimped on the ingredients, but I will definitely return to Banh Mi Y Nhu to fulfill future cravings.

I also ordered a fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice to sip on the way home to beat the heat, but I forgot to take a photo of it. The last thing I ordered was a bag of crispy shrimp chips for $3, since Banh Mi Y Nhu also sells several small dishes and snacks, beyond the eight sandwiches on the menu. These shrimp chips are such a great consistency — crispy but not crunchy, probably fried but not greasy. I wonder if they are made of tapioca flour for that texture. I’ve had some mass-produced bagged shrimp chips that smelled like sea garbage, but these were relatively mild and not even super-shrimpy. They were nice and light, and I enjoyed them too.

But at Banh Mi Y Nhu, the sandwiches are the star attraction, so if you haven’t hopped on the banh mi bus yet, this is the place you want to start.

King Cajun Crawfish

It has been over five years since I’ve eaten at King Cajun Crawfish (https://kingcajuncrawfish.com/), the Vietnamese-Cajun restaurant in Orlando’s Mills 50 district, one of our best and most diverse neighborhoods for dining. I have always loved it, being a fan of New Orleans and its culture and culinary traditions, so I don’t know what took me so long to return. At least I’ve been there more recently than I’ve been back to the Big Easy itself (not since 2001, sadly).

You may already be familiar with the Cajun and Creole dishes of Louisiana, but I will be didactic and point out that Cajun food is rustic and rural, a spicy stewpot of French-Acadians who left Nova Scotia and settled in the bayous of Louisiana along with Southern influences, while Creole food is more continental “city food” from New Orleans, influenced by Caribbean and European flavors, especially French.

Vietnamese-Cajun is a unique offshoot — a fusion of a fusion — and we are lucky to have several Viet-Cajun restaurants here in Orlando. I believe King Cajun was the first, so it has always been my favorite. Food & Wine offers a nice history of the fusion cuisine, which started with Vietnamese refugees who worked in the seafood industry in Gulf Coast Texas and Louisiana.

I recently invited a beloved professional mentor and friend out to lunch, something we’ve been meaning to do for almost 15 years but never gotten around to. She is a sophisticated and brilliant woman who hails from New Orleans, so I figured King Cajun would be a good choice. I see it as pretty authentic, but I was glad she said the same, without any prompting.

King Cajun Crawfish specializes in seafood boils, messy pots of excess featuring crawfish, shrimp, and crab in savory, spicy broths with potatoes, corn, and Andouille sausage. However, those are so messy, you really have to dress down for a meal like that, or you’ll ruin your clothes. Just an FYI: a meal like that might not be the best choice for a date, unless you’re planning to disrobe later, in case it could end up being an inspired choice. My colleague and I played it safer, selecting with other menu items less likely to splatter, splash, and stain, but for future reference, those seafood boils are delicious, especially if you go with the house specialty “ShaBang sauce” (a blend of their traditional, lemon pepper, garlic butter, and “Rajun’ Cajun” seasonings).

My mentor started out with hush puppies, seasoned dough balls fried to crispy, golden perfection, yet savory and soft inside. These were terrific dipped into some thick, tangy remoulade sauce, and the leftovers heated up perfectly in my toaster oven later that night.

She also ordered a cup of jambalaya, which is a rice dish in a thick, tomatoey sauce with Andouille sausage, chicken, shrimp, onion, and celery. We both liked the little we tried, and I brought the rest home for my wife, who overcame her skepticism and absolutely loved it.

I got seafood gumbo for us to share, which my wife and I both always enjoyed at King Cajun in the past, and this was no exception. My mentor and I requested it at medium heat, because there was hot sauce on the table to punch it up if it was too mild. I could have taken it hotter and been fine, but it was great as is, with plenty of plump shrimp, sausage, chicken, rice, okra, and the “trinity” of Cajun and Creole cooking: onion, celery, and green bell peppers, all cooked in a flavorful roux (stirring flour into butter or some other fat to thicken sauces). Needless to say, we did not roux this day! Gumbo is more like a soup or stew than jambalaya, just in case you have confused them in the past. Both have similar ingredients, but gumbo always has more of a broth, with white rice on the bottom of the cup or bowl.

The hot, fresh French bread at King Cajun is awesome — perfectly crusty on the outside and fluffy, soft, and warm inside. A small loaf, more than enough for two people to share, is only $2. You must get it, whether you order the seafood boil or something else saucy, like gumbo, jambalaya, or crawfish étouffée (for next time). The po’boy sandwiches come on the same bread, but when you order the loaf, it is scored to pull apart easily.

This was the fried oyster platter (my choice), which I thought was only supposed to come with six fried oysters, but it came with far more than six. They were also fried perfectly in a cornmeal batter. I think I prefer raw or charbroiled oysters most of the time, but these were delightful. You can also get them in a po’boy sandwich, but we already had French bread, and I felt like getting some sides.All the fried platters come with two sides. I chose potato salad and onion rings, so long-time Saboscrivner readers know this is also a RING THE ALARM! feature. The potato salad was cool and refreshing, tangy with a little yellow mustard the way Southern potato salads often are. The onion rings were breaded rather than battered, but they didn’t have those jagged crags that cut up the inside of your mouth, and the onions inside were at a reasonable temperature, not molten and scalding. I dipped the oysters and onion rings in the included cocktail sauce, but the remoulade (not pictured) was the best dipping sauce for both.

A side of cole slaw was crispy, cool, creamy, and refreshing, but not too heavy with mayo. Like the potato salad, it was nice to cut all the richness of the fried stuff we had been eating.

And for dessert, you can’t leave New Orleans or King Cajun Crawfish without an order of beignets (pronounced “bin-YAYS”), puffy triangles of fried dough covered with so much powdered sugar, it looks like they just left a bachelor party in Miami… or let’s face it, any party in Miami.
King Cajun Crawfish serves Café du Monde coffee, a New Orleans classic that is an ideal combination with these beignets (especially with condensed milk added), but we both passed. I’m not a coffee drinker, and even I’ll tell you that is some damn fine coffee with its flavoring from the chicory root. Then again, condensed milk makes everything better, and now I’m thinking about requesting some to drizzle over the beignets or dip them in it next time.

This was a long overdue lunch with one of the best people I know, and we could not have picked a better restaurant. It made me happy she liked it and considered it authentic (better than Tibby’s, she said!), and I wondered how and why it had been so long since my last visit to King Cajun Crawfish. Next time I return, I will have to go with a group and dress down to enjoy some boiled crawfish and shrimp in ShaBang sauce without ruining my work clothes. I don’t think that’s too shellfish of a request.

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.

Pho Huong Lan

Well, we’ve had another chilly few days, and when the weather gets cool, my thoughts turn to hot, hearty soups. Pho Huong Lan (https://www.facebook.com/people/Pho-Huong-Lan/100063544778514/) is my new favorite restaurant in Orlando for the two Vietnamese noodle soups I love so much: pho and bun bo hue. For the uninitiated, pho is a hearty beef noodle soup featuring rare beef that cooks in the hot broth, as well as meaty add-ons like sliced brisket, chewy beef meatballs (nothing like Italian or Swedish meatballs), tender and unctuous beef tendon, and tripe. Bowls of pho are infinitely customizable, as they come with basil leaves, bean sprouts, sliced fresh jalapeño peppers (much hotter than the standard pickled variety you get in jars), lime wedges to squeeze into the broth, and condiments like hoisin sauce and spicy sriracha.

Bun bo hue is a spicy red broth that usually contains thicker noodles and different cuts of beef and pork, and it also comes with fresh herbs, vegetables, and lime wedges to make every bowl unique. I’ve tried them all over town, and Orlando is blessed with many Vietnamese restaurants that serve excellent bowls. I can’t think of many disappointing experiences I’ve had with either kind of soup. They warm your body and soul — perfect for chilly weeks like this one — but pho is one of the only soups I seek out to enjoy in the summertime, because it is so light and surprisingly refreshing. But that said, of all the restaurants I’ve tried these two soups at, Pho Huong Lan makes the souperior versions of both.

Here are photos of the menu. Pardon the contrast — yellow text on a white background is not the greatest combination. You may want to right-click on the menu images and open them in new tabs for larger images.

This really cool mural livens up the dining room, where hot pots simmer off to the side.

Lucky maneki neko cats decorate the front counter, greeting customers.

For our first takeout order, I ordered pho for both my wife and myself. Like any good Vietnamese restaurant, they package the fragrant broth separately in takeout orders, so the tender rice noodles don’t turn to mush before you get to enjoy it. Mine is on the left, and it doesn’t look as clear as my wife’s broth on the right because it has oxtails (one of my favorite meats!) swimming in it.

My wife ordered pho tai dap, with rare flank steak. That’s her usual, but most local Vietnamese restaurants serve it with small, paper-thin slices of rare beef. Pho Huong Lan surprised us both by serving it with a large piece of tender rare flank steak, served like chopped steak — not exactly in the form of loose ground beef, but close. It cooked perfectly well in the hot broth at home, so don’t worry about that one bit. The rice noodles were thicker and more tender than the rice vermicelli most local restaurants served. We both liked them a lot.

Here’s a close-up of the rare flank steak we both got. I preferred this a lot to the slices of rare beef we are used to. It was a lot more tender than those slices once it hit the broth.

I got a smaller portion of the rare flank steak because I chose the pho dac biet, my usual at most restaurants, with rare flank steak, brisket, beef tripe, tender beef tendon, and beef meatballs (which were also floating in the broth with the oxtails I added on for an upcharge).

Here is my beautiful bowl of pho, fully assembled at home, as perfect as such a thing can be:

On my second visit, I tried the bun bo hue, which came with thicker, chewier rice noodles and a different assortment of meats than the pho: “rough” flank steak, beef shank, the chewy and unctuous tendon I love, congealed beef blood, and a round slice of pork bologna. I also paid the upcharge for beef short rib, another fatty and tender meat I love. I am so happy that Pho Huong Lan offers oxtail and short rib options, which I don’t mind paying extra for.
(In addition to the short rib and oxtail add-ons for the pho and bun bo hue, you can also add ox pennis [sp] to your noodle soup for an upcharge, something I’ve never noticed on any other local Vietnamese menus. But as many times as people have told me to “Eat a dick,” I’m just not there yet in my development as an adventurous eater.)

Here is the assembled bun bo hue, which was so warm and comforting and refreshing on a chilly day. It was spicy, but not nearly as spicy as other dishes I’ve had from other cuisines, and not even quite as spicy as other versions of bun bo hue I’ve had in Orlando. Here, the heat complimented all the fresh flavors without overwhelming any of them.

Pho Huong Lan only serves pho and bun bo hue, with multiple options in multiple sizes. If you’re looking for rice dishes, grilled meats, summer rolls, banh mi sandwiches, or any other Vietnamese specialties, the good news is you have many other great options in Orlando, especially in the same Mills 50 district. I have reviewed plenty of them, and I remain a fan. But if you’re in the mood for these two iconic noodle soups, I argue that Pho Huong Lan makes the absolute best versions in Orlando. I’ve tried most of them, and this restaurant is streets ahead of its competitors. Your mileage may vary, and I would love to hear what my dozens of readers think, but I feel pretty confident recommending Pho Huong Lan as the best I’ve ever had.

Banh Mi Boy

Banh Mi Boy (https://www.facebook.com/banhmiboyorlando) is a counter in the back of Tien Hung Market Oriental Foods, a Vietnamese grocery store in Orlando’s Mills 50 district, at 1112 E Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL 32803 (directly southeast of the major intersection of Colonial and Mills Avenue. There is no shortage of places to get delicious banh mi, French-inspired Vietnamese sub sandwiches on crusty baguettes, in the Mills 50 district, but I had been hearing good things about this place for a while. As much as I love Paris Banh Mi Cafe Bakery and always sing its praises to anyone who asks (and plenty who don’t), I also love branching out and trying new restaurants to discover different takes on favorite foods or brand-new favorites.

You may notice immediately that the Banh Mi Boy Facebook page I linked to above doesn’t include any information, or even a menu, so I took the liberty of photographing the menu above the counter. Make sure you right-click both photos and open them in a new tab for larger images.

On my first visit, I bought two sandwiches. For $6.99 each, you can’t go wrong. They aren’t exactly foot-longs, but they are substantial enough (no pun intended) to get two meals out of one sandwich — although I usually eat a whole banh mi in one sitting. The top one is the #1 Tien Hung Special (banh mi đặc biệt), usually the “special combination” with a variety of cured meats: pork roll, pork belly, head cheese, and pate (I’m assuming; I could be missing one or be wrong on one of the others). If you’ve never had a banh mi before, this is the one I’d recommend, for the most interesting blend of flavors, textures, and colors. The meats may be unfamiliar to American diners, but if you like deli meats and cold cuts, these really aren’t that different from various hams, salamis, bolognas, and other porky cured delicacies.The bottom one is the #3, cured pork belly, which was also really good. You can see how they both come dressed with sliced fresh cucumbers and jalapeño peppers, fresh cilantro, and pickled shredded carrot and daikon radish, making everything taste very cool, refreshing, and crunchy. What you can’t see are the smears of creamy mayo (or possibly even butter?) that lubricate the inner baguette surfaces, plus the rich, savory pate (think liverwurst, but better). I would definitely order both in the future.

Well, I might not have returned so soon, but I forgot to photograph the menu on my first visit, and since there are no menus online, I wanted this review to be useful. And as long as I was there, I decided to get two more banh mi sandwiches for two more meals!

This was the #8, the fried fish roll. It contained slices of a processed cold cut made of fish, almost like a fish bologna. It didn’t smell or taste overwhelmingly fishy in a bad way, and had an interesting chewy texture that I didn’t expect, but liked. But then again, I’ve made no secret on this blog of my love of cured, smoked, pickled, and processed seafood.

And this was the #14, the pate banh mi. Pate is usually my favorite ingredient on just about any banh mi, but I rarely see it offered alone. I figured that if I like the pate so much, why not finally try a sandwich with just that? Honestly, I was hoping for a lot more pate because the usual meats on the đặc biệt weren’t there to accompany it, but it wasn’t spread on very thick. It still tasted good — that rich, almost livery taste that I appreciate.

So yeah, that’s Banh Mi Boy. They offer some other prepared Vietnamese snacks and foods that are unfamiliar to me — things I have yet to try — but when you go to a sandwich place, you probably want to try the sandwiches. I know I do. Like I said, I liked it enough to go two times, relatively close together, and I would definitely return again. Tien Hung Market Oriental Foods may not be Orlando’s nicest or more inviting Asian market (that would be Lotte Plaza Market on West Colonial Drive and John Young Parkway, which has an entire food court), but it’s worth a visit to try some of the great banh mi sandwiches here. And I’m always a fan of restaurants “hidden” inside other businesses, from grocery stores to convenience stores, office buildings to bowling alleys.

Phở Vinh

Phở Vinh (http://www.phovinhorlando.com/) is one of the many Vietnamese restaurants east of downtown Orlando, but it is slightly east of the main Vietnamese neighborhood, Mills 50, in an adjoining neighborhood known as the Milk District, due to the presence of the T.G. Lee Dairy headquarters. Some of my favorite restaurants in Orlando are in the Milk District, and I’m happy to add another one to that number.

Our wonderful next-door neighbors took us to dinner at Pho Vinh several years ago, and we all liked it, but my wife and I kept returning to our usual Vietnamese restaurants, Phở 88 and Little Saigon, in the subsequent years. Both are very good, but I recently felt like a change, so I recently called in a takeout order with Phở Vinh, brought it home, and unpacked deliciousness that even exceeded that dinner way back when.

Since the name of the place is Phở Vinh, we both decided to order phở, the classic Vietnamese beef noodle soup that we love so much. Even though “beef noodle soup” sounds heavy, it is surprisingly light and refreshing, despite still being hearty and filling.

When we go to our usual Vietnamese restaurants, my wife always orders phở tai ($9.95), with thin slices of rare beef that cook in the hot, fragrant, clear broth. Phở Vinh does what most Vietnamese restaurants do, packing the meat, noodles, and aromatics in one container, and the broth in a separate container, so the meat doesn’t get fully cooked and the noodles don’t turn to mush on the drive home. We order takeout a lot more often than we dine out, especially these days, so we appreciate this very much.

I got what I normally order at other Vietnamese restaurants, the phở xe lưa ($13.95), with thin slices of rare beef, brisket, flank steak, tendon (rich, unctious, and chewy — I love it), and tripe (not my favorite, but it’s always included with the other meats in the combination phở).

Here is the phở broth. We both got identical containers, which are pretty generous.

And here is a shot of my steaming soup, all the meats and noodles simmering with torn basil leaves, paper-thin sliced onions, scallions, and fresh jalapeño peppers with all the fiery seeds and ribs intact. I squirted in a bit of lime juice from lime wedges (also included), but I rarely alter my phở beyond that, despite the addition of sauces like hoisin and sriracha. It is better to taste it as intended, especially when visiting a new restaurant for the first time, or in our case, the first time in a long time. It was wonderful. So fresh and fragrant, and like I said, never a heavy meal.

I also got an order of cơm chiên dương châu ($11.95), fried rice with shrimp, roast pork, ham, and sweet, chewy Chinese sausage called lap cheong or lap xeong, which I love. They should call this dish the “kosher special”! I was hoping to share it with my wife, but figured she might not like it, so I’d have more for myself to pack for lunch the next day. But she thrilled me by loving the fried rice, even the Chinese sausage, which I definitely wasn’t expecting.

Guessing wrongly that she wouldn’t be into the fried rice, I ordered my wife a second whole meal for the next day, since I was going to be at work, and she doesn’t cook. After phở tai, this is her favorite Vietnamese dish to order: bún bò nướng, or charbroiled beef with rice vermicelli (the bún). At Phở Vinh, this also came with a crispy fried spring roll, so the dish was called bún bò nướng chả giò ($12.95). I thought she might like to try the spring roll (the chả giò), but she wasn’t interested in it, so I ate it while it was hot and fresh. We almost never get spring rolls, and I was reminded how much I like them. I didn’t try any of the rest, but she ate it all, which means she liked it. (If she didn’t, she wouldn’t!)

My next visit to Phở Vinh to bring home more takeout was two weeks later, on a recent drizzly, dreary Friday evening. I got my wife the summer rolls she greatly prefers (an order or two for $3.95). Unlike the crispy fried spring rolls, summer rolls are wrapped in a thin, chewy, sticky rice crepe, stuffed with pork, shrimp, rice vermicelli, and vegetables, and served chilled. I’m never into these, but she loves ’em, especially the sweet, sticky peanut sauce they are always served with.

She got her usual phở tai again, but I switched it up and got a different kind of noodle soup, the very spicy bún bò huế ($11.95), with slices of beef and pork in an intensely hot broth. As usual, the meats, noodles, and vegetables were packaged separately from the orangey-red broth.

And here’s the gleaming, glistening soup, perfect for warming me up (and making my eyes water and nose run) on a surprisingly chilly, rainy evening.

Finally, I got bánh mì bò kho ($11.95), a rich Vietnamese take on classic beef stew, served with half a loaf of crusty French bread. I didn’t eat this until the following Sunday, two days later, when it was even chillier, but it heated up great and tasted delicious. It was thicker than the phở and bún bò huế, but not nearly as thick as some beef stew I’ve had. There were plenty of big chunks of soft carrot, thin slices of onion, and huge pieces of tender beef that were a perfect, soft consistency — not that different from oxtails, which are one of my favorite foods. That got me thinking about how awesome a Vietnamese oxtail soup or stew would be.
Unfortunately, the French bread was burnt, as you can see. I still ate it, don’t get me wrong! I heated it up in the toaster oven, but had I been at the restaurant, I would probably have asked for another piece.

So as you can see, Phở Vinh won us over. With this stupid weather we’ve been having, alternating between days in the 80s and nights in the 50s, you can imagine how good nice, hot soups and stews would be. If you’ve lived in Orlando for a while, you probably have a favorite Vietnamese restaurant. We sure did, but I’m glad we branched out and tried Phở Vinh. It is definitely a regular in our rotation now, and we will definitely return.

Little Saigon

On my first real date with my wife back in August 2006, I took her to a Vietnamese restaurant (Lac Viet, which closed several years ago), followed by a gelato place in downtown Orlando (also long gone), and we ended the night at Tatame in Winter Park for boba tea (sadly gone as well, but now Manzano’s Deli and Tin & Taco are in its old location). Since then, we have shared countless meals at Orlando’s many Vietnamese restaurants.

Our longest-standing favorite is Little Saigon (https://www.littlesaigonfl.com/), located on the corner of East Colonial Drive and Thornton Avenue, one block west of Mills Avenue, right in the Mills 50 District. After getting vaccinated, Little Saigon was one of the first restaurants my wife and I returned to in April, finally dining out after strictly getting takeout for over a year.

My wife couldn’t decide between two old Little Saigon favorites after all our time away from restaurants during the pandemic, so I advised her to order both dishes so she could enjoy leftovers the next day. (We are a fun couple who knows how to party because of life decisions like this.) This was grilled beef over rice vermicelli ($9.95), a light, fresh favorite of hers. The beef is served with incredibly thin, tender slices that were marinated in something that makes them sweet, salty, and absolutely delicious. I know fish sauce is involved, and probably sugar. The rice vermicelli beneath doesn’t have much flavor of its own, but it soaks up so much flavor from everything it touches. This dish is topped with crushed peanuts and shredded lettuce and cilantro, adding a bit of crunch and coolness. This is what she opted to take home to eat the following day, because the noodles and grilled beef microwave so well.

She also ordered her favorite beef noodle soup anywhere — phở tai ($9.95), a rich beef broth flavored with beef bones, onions, scallions, ginger, star anise, and other aromatics. It comes with rice vermicelli noodles and thin slices of rare beef that cook in the hot broth. You can see thin-sliced onions floating around, but I always fish those out and happily add them to my own bowl of phở, because she hates onions and I love them — one more reason we are so perfectly matched. And this was the dish she enjoyed in the restaurant, while it was hot, fresh, and at its best.

I was also craving phở, but I always go with phở dac biet ($9.95), the same beef broth and rice noodles served with thin-sliced rare beef as well as brisket, beef meatballs (much denser and chewier than Italian-style meatballs), chewy, tender tendon, and usually tripe. This time I asked them to hold the tripe and give me extra tendon instead, and I’ve decided I like it much better that way. Any Vietnamese restaurant will serve phở with a plate of several fresh herbs and additional ingredients to add, so diners can customize their soup to their hearts’ content. I always tear up fragrant fresh basil leaves and crunchy sliced jalapeño peppers (these are fresh; much spicier than the pickled kind from a jar, so don’t touch your eyes!), but I prefer to leave the crispy bean sprouts out of my phở. If I get lime wedges, I’ll usually squeeze some lime into my phở and some more into my glass of water. Then there are condiments: hoisin sauce, sriracha (overrated hot sauce), and sambal oelek (thicker, chunkier hot sauce). I’ll usually add just a tiny spoonful of sambal too, but only after tasting the pure, unadulterated broth first. As you might have guessed, my wife prefers plain phở, just as it comes out of the kitchen… but with as many onions fished out as possible.

My wife also loves boba tea drinks, especially the ones that are served up like slushies, full of chewy tapioca balls called boba. I like the drinks quite a bit myself, but I’m not into the boba itself. This time I passed, but she got her favorite, taro boba tea ($4.25), which always comes in a purple color but tastes more like vanilla to me than anything else. It was icy and creamy and velvety and refreshing, but since my wife is only five feet tall, she had to stand up just to take a sip from this tall straw and taller glass.

More recently, a dear old friend of my wife’s brought us some Little Saigon takeout after we had just returned home from being away for a while. She brought my wife her usual favorite, the grilled beef with rice vermicelli, as well an order of two summer rolls ($4.25) as an appetizer. I totally forgot to take a photo when she ordered them on our last visit to the restaurant, but I got ’em this time! These are thin, sticky rice paper wraps stuffed with chilled pork, shrimp, rice vermicelli, and herbs, and served with a thick, sweet peanut dipping sauce. I must admit I’m not the biggest fan, but she just loves them.

This friend of my wife’s asked me what I wanted, and I decided to try something I love, but hadn’t ordered before at Little Saigon: a hot and spicy beef noodle soup ($9.95), also called bún bò huế. At Pho 88, their version of bún bò huế includes pork as well as beef, but this was its own unique thing. I appreciated that the thin slices of beef were fattier, with more marbling, than the usual thin slices of beef eye round in the standard phở , and I liked them much more as a result. The rice noodles in the hot and spicy soup were definitely thicker than the typical rice vermicelli in phở, too.

Whenever you order phở to go, any good Vietnamese restaurant serves the broth in a separate container from everything else, so the rice noodles don’t turn to mush and the rare beef doesn’t overcook before you get it home. Little Saigon packaged the deep red, oily bún bò huế broth separately from everything else, which is the ideal way to do it for takeout orders.

Here is the assembled bún bò huế, with plenty of cilantro and green onions. It came with the typical phở accompaniments, so I squirted in some lime juice but didn’t feel the need to add anything else. The soup is definitely spicy, but if you’re worried about the heat, I can promise you it looks much spicier than it actually is. You may need to blow your nose while eating it (I sure did), but your lips and tongue shouldn’t burn afterwards, and you shouldn’t have any other distress or discomfort from it.

It might sound a little weird to order hot soup during so much of the year in steamy hot central Florida, but I find phở and bún bò huế very refreshing, even in the peak of the summer months. Keep in mind that Vietnam has a humid, tropical climate too! But I think I appreciate phở the most during our weeks of winter when the temperature in Orlando drops below 70 degrees, and sometimes down into the 40s for a few precious days. It doesn’t matter, though — Vietnamese food is delicious any time of year, and Little Saigon is one of our favorite restaurants to order it. And my wife says the summer rolls here are the best ones anywhere.

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.