Ambience – The Saboscrivner

Selva Rosa Cocina and Bar

Selva Rosa Cocina and Bar (https://soon.selvarosa.com/) is a gorgeous new Mexican restaurant with some Japanese fusion elements, located in Maitland. It took over the old location of Teak, a casual restaurant we loved at first, but the quality faltered over the years until it closed. (This may become relevant later, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos.) It is on one corner of The Village apartment complex on 17-92 (not to be confused with the infamous Villages elsewhere in Central Florida), with Lim Ros Thai Cuisine on the opposite corner.

The interior is very modern and pretty, with plenty of pink neon signs and fake plant walls, designed to be trendy and Instagrammable for photo ops. They are going for sexy, sophisticated style. More about that later, I promise.

We have been there twice now, and they always bring out thin, crispy tortilla chips that are well-salted and are not greasy at all, along with a simple, tasty table salsa.

I took photos of the menu, because they still aren’t available on the shell of a website. You may want to right-click on these to open them in new tabs and then expand them:

My wife ordered a black sesame latte on our first visit, perfect for our early lunch on a chilly Saturday. She said it was delicious.

I ordered this pair of Ensenada-style tacos, one for each of us, with fried grouper, shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, and habanero salsa on soft flour tortillas. I love a good fish taco, and they are surprisingly hard to come by in Orlando. This was excellent, in part because grouper is one of the tastiest fish… and also surprisingly hard to come by in Orlando.

My wife ordered pollo a la brasa, half of a deliciously marinated and grilled chicken, served artfully on a banana leaf with avocado crema and fresh cilantro on top, with a mound of the best Mexican rice I’ve ever tried anywhere and excellent black beans topped with queso fresco.

I was going to go with something else, but mentioned to our server David that I had a hard time deciding and would have to return soon. He suggested one of their most popular dishes, the short rib taquiza, a sizzling fajitas-sort of setup with a giant beef short rib, prepared with birria-style seasoning and a huge bone that slides right out. I know he was trying to upsell me, because this is a $38 dish, but I am a sucker for slow-braised, tender meats on the bone, and I already like short ribs, so I changed my order. No regrets. This thing was a beast, and it came out smoking and sizzling to beat the band. Even I got three meals out of this massive meat, but believe it or not, I am consciously trying to eat less, and also to eat healthier when I can. Short rib isn’t health food by any stretch, but at least I didn’t devour the whole thing in one sitting. (I always joke that my mom doesn’t approve of ordering fajitas at restaurants because people shouldn’t draw attention to themselves with those sizzling platters, but the main reason is because she doesn’t like Mexican food.)

The short rib taquiza came with another mound of that terrific Mexican rice (did I mention it’s the best I’ve ever had?), a bowl of rich, thick beans with chunks of unctuous pork belly, and a salad of shredded iceberg lettuce mixed with sliced tomatoes, raw white onion, and a little guacamole.It also came with warm, soft, handmade corn tortillas, probably the best corn tortillas either of us have ever had in Orlando, but I failed to get a photo of them. My wife and I loved the corn tortillas so much, we planned to get more on our next visit.

My wife ordered this dessert after her first choice (something with pistachios) was sold out. It looked cool, but she didn’t care much for it, and I had no interest in something chocolatey. It didn’t look appetizing to me at all. By the way, that was a shortbread-like cookie underneath it, not a layer of frosting or whipped cream.
It had raspberry puree in the middle, which she didn’t like or want. Back at home, I performed a bit of surgery, slicing it open and removing the raspberry filling for her. It wasn’t anything mind-blowing, and neither of us would ever get it again.

We returned the following weekend for a later lunch on “Superb Owl” Sunday, figuring the restaurant would not be too busy. We were right. But even though it wasn’t busy at all, it was a very different experience. What a difference a week makes!

She ordered another sesame latte, which was served in an attractive glass this time:

This time, we made it a point to arrive after 1 PM so we could hopefully try one of their sushi or similar raw fish dishes, since the menu said they do not serve them before 1. Instead of a sushi roll, my wife chose the ahi tuna truffle appetizer for us to share, with a mound of raw ahi tuna over diced avocado with red onion, cilantro, and their sweet soy truffle sauce, served with crunchy fried cassava chips and crispy tostadas. I am not a truffle fan, but this whole dish worked really well together. Ahi tuna is one of my favorite things to eat in the world, and she liked it too. By the way, all our food — apps and entrees alike — came out at the exact same time. Not ideal, but not something that would usually annoy me. Stay tuned, true believers.

Knowing we would have plenty of leftovers to enjoy over the next few days, I selected another pair of tacos, since we were both intrigued by this combination. These were the tacos bacanos, with ropa vieja (a Cuban dish of shredded beef stewed in a savory, tomatoey broth), black beans, avocado, and salty crumbles of queso fresco. These particular tacos were supposed to come on “plantain tortillas,” which I expected might be like tostones, but fried into a curved taco shell shape. As far as I could tell, these were pretty typical corn tortillas. Once I got home and started writing this review, I realized the menu said these tacos should also include avocado crema (so good on my wife’s grilled chicken on our previous visit) and pickled onions, but ours didn’t come with either. Missing or switched ingredients would be a recurring theme this time around, leading to more perplexing disappointment.

My wife loves a good steak, and she ordered the churrasco al carbon for her entree, figuring she would get multiple meals out of it. The grilled angus skirt steak arrived looking beautiful, topped with a little chimichurri and a few hot pink pickled onions. The kitchen cooked it rare as she requested, something that some other trendy restaurants just couldn’t get right. It came with yuca fries, black beans, and “seasonal vegetables” — mostly roasted squash.

This time I got the fajitas I almost ordered last time, when David recommended the colossal short rib instead. This was the asado Selva Rosa, a sizzling setup that was supposed to come with guajillo lime chicken, adobo grilled chicken, achiote shrimp, and one of my favorite Mexican meats, chorizo sausage. Since I’m trying to eat more protein and fewer carbs, it seemed like a nice way to try multiple things, but I fully admit that the chorizo was the deciding factor for me. So I thought it was a little odd that our new server asked how I wanted the meat cooked. Chicken, shrimp, and crumbly chorizo? I was surprised, so I hesitantly said “medium, so the chicken is cooked all the way through.” I just wasn’t expecting that question. I like my steak rare, but not my chicken!
So when it arrived, I couldn’t differentiate between two different types of chicken, the chorizo was noticeably absent, and there was also some steak that was tough and overdone. The menu didn’t say anything about steak, and if I had known steak would be involved, I would never have asked for it medium, because as I said, I like my steak rare. The hits just kept on coming! Honestly, I wonder if someone in the kitchen mixed up “churrasco” (steak) and “chorizo” (sausage).

It came with the same side salad, refried beans (not as good as last time, with no big chunks of pork belly or any other meat), and Mexican rice (also not as good as last time, when I told ya it was the best Mexican rice I’ve ever had).

This time I remembered to take a photo of the fresh corn tortillas when I unwrapped them from the foil, soft and steaming. But these looked different — certainly not as good. I gave them to my wife, who loved them last time, and I think she agreed they weren’t as good.

I asked our server what happened to the chorizo, because that’s why I ordered this dish. She said she would check, then some time passed and she said the kitchen would make me some chorizo, then more time passed and they brought this out. This was definitely not the orangey-red, spicy, savory, greasy, crumbly chorizo I’ve enjoyed in countless authentic tacos, burritos, and tortas. This was a slight step up from a salchicha, not that different from a hot dog, but possibly with a natural casing that got crisped up. Full disclosure: they took $5 off the bill because of this without me asking them to, but all these little things were adding up, and we were both feeling annoyed.

At this point, we had a lot of leftovers and were losing steam (and patience), so I asked our server for the Rosa en Fuego dessert they were out of last time, as well as some boxes. She brought us two boxes for all this food, so we had to go back and forth a couple of times to get enough boxes to pack everything up, and then a separate request for a paper bag to carry everything in. I refuse to leave expensive food behind at restaurants, even if more and more places are starting to act weird about offering to-go containers. It was starting to feel like a comedy sketch, and I imagined a domineering manager berating the wait staff about giving customers too many to-go boxes, and that’s costing them money. It really felt like that could be happening behind the scenes, and I’m a pretty chill, patient, conflict-averse guy, but it all seemed so unnecessary and ridiculous.

This was the Rosa en Fuego, a pretty large and attractive dome.
I never even saw the dessert menu, but my wife wanted to try it because it included pistachio and rosewater, two ingredients she loves. I joked that Pistachio and Rosewater sounds like a law firm for elves, and we riffed for a while about how they practiced enchanted forest law, like toadstool landlord/tenant issues, lily pad eminent domain, and zoning ordinances for businesses inside holes in tree trunks.

What we didn’t realize was that this would be a whole production, with some kind of alcohol set ablaze with a torch:

Then poured onto the dome, flames and all (hence the “en fuego”):

The sugary dome started to burn and melt away:

And it ended up being this little melty, shriveled thing with a light green bit of pistachio cake underneath. I was never interested, and she said it tasted like kerosene (probably butane, to be more accurate). I’m sure the influencers will go gaga over it, posting video of the burning, the melting, and their inevitable reaction shots.

As an aside, I noticed the men’s restroom looked surprisingly luxurious, with gleaming black urinals and fancy faucets for the sinks, but when my wife returned from the women’s restroom early in our meal, she looked upset. The toilet in the one accessible stall (which her rollator could not fit inside) was clogged and overflowing, and she said it made her lose her appetite. That kind of set the mood for our entire lunch. On the way out, after I paid our bill and tipped well, she told the manager about the restroom situation in a polite and diplomatic way, and we both looked into the eyes of a man who had no fucks left to give.

After two visits a week apart, after how much we enjoyed everything the first time and how many corners were cut the second time, our excitement has cooled like that weird melted dessert. My wife put it best: more than the food (which features trends like wagyu and truffle and fusion sushi), Selva Rosa Cocina and Bar is all about the vibes. The decor, the menu options, the presentations, the fact that ingredients are substituted or missing without warning and nobody seems too concerned, the checked-out service — it all feels aimed at trendmongers who care more about how their photos will look than about the overall quality, and most importantly of all, how they look in those photos. For us, that holds no appeal, and yes, I am fully aware of the irony of me taking a lot of photos for the purposes of this review. I realize this is still a relatively new restaurant, so they may be working out kinks and/or bugs, but the colossal downgrade in our experience from one week to the next was noteworthy. It is probably clear that Selva Rosa is not our scene, so I wanted to tell a full, clear, unbiased story so you can determine whether or not it may be your scene. Let me know what you decide.

Colorado Fondue Company

I live right near the Colorado Fondue Company in Casselberry (https://www.coloradofondue.com/), but I had not been there in close to 15 years, not since I was dating my wife. I do love dipping foods in other foods, so it surprises me that I haven’t come here more to get my dip on. The menu features a variety of cheese and chocolate fondues, meant for sharing and dipping, as well as meats that you cook yourself on heated stones on the table.

It is a beautiful restaurant space, designed to resemble a cozy ski chalet in the Rocky Mountains, so it has an upscale-yet-festive atmosphere that would be perfect for a date or a special occasion dinner. It is even nicer around the holidays, since they put a lot of effort into decorating the place like crazy for Christmas. I get depressed around the holidays like clockwork, and I don’t do any decorating or much celebrating myself, but even I was struck by how nice it was on my most recent visit with two former co-workers, now friends. That’s why I didn’t want to wait any longer to run this review, here on Christmas Eve. If I can inspire even one couple, family, or friend group to dine there together while the Christmas decorations are still up, I will have done my job (that I don’t make a dime for), and those people will have a grand time.

In addition to a la carte options, Colorado Fondue Company offers four separate dinner options, which they call “trails,” keeping the mountain ski lodge theme. You really have to get along well with the people in your party, because each of the trails requires two people per order. I guess one ravenous person could go to town, though.

The Beginner trail is the cheapest, and each person gets to choose their own soup or salad, but they have to agree on the cheese fondue and chocolate fondue for dessert. The Intermediate trail includes the choice of soup or salad, a cheese fondue, and a selection of meats, but no dessert. My party of three went with the Expert trail, so we each got a salad, we agreed on the cheese fondue, we got the meats, and we got a dessert fondue. There is an even pricier Extreme trail with more premium meats, but we were content with the Expert options.

This was the seasonal Holiday Harvest salad that one of my colleagues ordered, with chopped iceberg lettuce, roasted pumpkin seeds, Craisins, crumbled gorgonzola cheese, and sliced apples. The website mentions a bacon balsamic vinaigrette dressing, but this looks more like a ranch dressing.

Another colleague got the Mountain Mix salad, with a blend of “harvest greens” and iceberg lettuce (although that looks like all iceberg to me), a “sesame-nut trail mix blend,” and shredded sharp cheddar cheese with honey Dijon ranch dressing. I do love those crunchy, salty sesame sticks.

For my salad, I chose the Southwest Caesar, with romaine lettuce, toasted croutons, and parmesan Caesar dressing, also anointed with a sweet red pepper coulis. I had to look up coulis on my phone (a thin, pureed sauce made from fruits or vegetables), but they had me at “sweet red pepper.” I stirred it into the salad, and it was a perfectly cromulent Caesar.

We shared more than one basket of these garlic-herb rolls, with crackly exteriors and pillowy soft interiors. They were great for dipping in the cheese fondue and various condiments yet to come.

On my first visit to Colorado Fondue Company with my now-wife, we shared the original cheddar fondue, with sharp aged cheddar and Swiss Emmenthaler cheeses, a beer and bouillon base, garlic, and herbs. This time, with my two colleagues, we shared the bruschetta Jack fondue, with fontina, asiago, and Monterey Jack cheeses, roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, basil pesto, and seasoned toast crumbles on top. It was great.

They brought us a basket of various breads and generic tortilla chips to dip in the fondue. The round slices of pretzel bread were my favorites. They were very similar to the frozen Bavarian pretzels I sometimes buy at Aldi, from the Deutsche Kuche brand (which I pronounce “Douche Cooch”).

The cheese fondue also came with broccoli, sliced carrots, apples, and grapes.

Slainte! L’chayim!

Next, we got two burning hot flat stones and this long platter of raw meat and seafood to cook ourselves. It included (from top to bottom): Pacific white “fusion” shrimp marinated in basil and garlic roasted pesto, coconut milk, and salt and pepper seasoning, Pacific Northwest chicken in a citrus soy marinade with mixed herbs, Colorado lodge sirloin in a teriyaki and soy-infused ginger marinade, filet mignon in roasted garlic pesto, soy sauce, lager beer, and crusted peppercorns, and at the bottom, Jamaican jerk-marinated pork tenderloin.
I don’t have any pictures of the cooked meat, but you know what meat looks like while it’s cooking and when it is cooked. If not, take a peek at similar photos of cooking and cooked meats from my trip to GG Korean BBQ earlier this year. I can tell you that all the meats were very tender except the sirloin, which was chewy. I never order filets, but I was impressed by how tender it was, especially since I like my steak bloody rare.

We also got a fondue pot of boiling hot broth to put the ravioli and potatoes in, and there were already random mushrooms and penne pasta in that broth. I was careful to avoid any mushrooms, my old culinary nemesis.

We got these four sauces for spooning onto our plates to dip: a whipped herbed cream cheese, a creamy red pepper sauce that reminded me of thinner thousand island dressing that wasn’t spicy at all, honey mustard, and savory-sweet teriyaki sauce. Me being me, the Condiment King (with all due respect to DC Comics), I probably paid more attention to these sauces than my dining companions did. But since I wanted to let the meats speak for themselves, I mostly dipped the remaining breads in them.

One of my companions, a brilliant professor and scholar, and one of the kindest people ever, chose our dessert fondue: the Winter Caramel Crunch. It combined milk chocolate, salted caramel, and Irish creme (maybe the actual liqueur, which used to be delicious back when I drank), and was topped with crushed pretzels. I can usually take chocolate or leave it, but it was a very good choice. A real crowd-pleaser, in fact. From the name, I’m guessing it is also seasonal, so try it while you can!

The dessert fondue came with this tray of cream puffs, graham crackers, marshmallows, pretzels, cake pieces, Rice Krispy Treat pieces, sliced bananas, and strawberries. Dipping things in the fondue is always fun, but I ate the strawberries plain, since I like them best that way.

It was really nice catching up with these ladies, since I don’t work with them anymore, and the setting and dinner could not have been better. It would have been pleasant even if we went to some dive, but instead, we had a long, luxurious meal in one of the prettiest restaurants in Seminole County, if not the entire Orlando area.

Seriously, get over there ASAP, before they take down all those Christmas decorations! You won’t be sorry. If you get sentimental and nostalgic at Christmas (and I’m one of the few sad weirdos who doesn’t), you’ll be in holiday heaven. And if you don’t want to splurge too much, you can have a totally nice, light dinner date by just going with the Beginner trail: salads, a cheese fondue you all have to agree upon, and a chocolate fondue you all agree upon, with all the accoutrements, for $16.50 per person. Then you can just focus on dipping and good conversation, without having to cook your own meat.

HMS Bounty (Los Angeles)

HMS Bounty (http://www.thehmsbounty.com/) is a beloved dive bar in Los Angeles’ vibrant Koreatown. Named after a British ship where sailors staged an infamous mutiny (you may have seen the 1962 movie Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando), the bar is nautical-themed, but not in a cheesy way. Just don’t let “dive bar” dissuade you, because it’s a cool, dark room with a lot of character (dig those red leather booths, one of my favorite bits of recurring decor in L.A. dining and drinking establishments), history (it opened in 1962 — the year that movie came out! — on the ground floor of an apartment building dating back to 1924), and most importantly, super-solid food.

Before my L.A. work trips, I often consult websites like Eater for recommendations, and they listed HMS Bounty on their lists of The 38 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles (as of this writing, I’ve been to four), 20 Classic Los Angeles Restaurants Every Angeleno Must Try (five so far!), and The Best Dive Bars in Los Angeles. The restaurant was even a filming location in season 1, episode 11 of Mad Men (a fantastic show I loved), where Elisabeth Moss’ audience point-of-view character Peggy Olson went on a date to a seafood restaurant, “La Trombetta.” Season 1 was set in 1962, so the vibes were perfect, like everything else on that show. A different season 1 episode of Mad Men filmed at The Prince, another classic Koreatown restaurant with similar vibes and decor (and surprisingly good Korean food), so they were pros at capturing L.A.’s enduring old-school cool and making it stand in for early ’60s New York City.

After teaching an evening class on one of my L.A. visits, some students invited me out to dinner with them, and I was so honored, of course I agreed. We walked to HMS Bounty (which was their idea, not mine) and proceeded to share several plates while chatting and decompressing from the school day.

Fried calamari was on point, with a nice, light breading and a tender texture. No rubber bands of squid here! I think the sauce turned out to be cocktail sauce rather than marinara, which surprised me in the moment.

As my longtime readers know (the couple dozen of you), I will order onion rings anywhere and everywhere they are available. These were really good, with a completely different kind of batter than the calamari that was crispy, stayed on, and the rings weren’t too thick or too thin. It was a generous portion for $6. RING THE ALARM!

I was blown away by these thick, meaty, tender, well-seasoned hot wings, which were mildly hot, if anything. I’ve written before about my contempt for tiny, dry, crunchy sports bar-style wings, but these were the complete opposite. They were honestly in the Top Ten wings I’ve ever had anywhere.

I don’t think I ever got a piece of fish from this fish and chips platter, and I might have grabbed a single fry, just for the experience of it all. The menu said all entrees (including these fish and chips) were served with mashed potatoes and vegetables, but I honestly don’t remember if they arrived on a separate plate or not. If not, nobody noticed or complained.

But because I always study menus in advance, this is what I really wanted to try: sautéed sand dabs, a kind of fish that I’ve never seen on any menus in a lifetime in Florida, but I’ve already been to two restaurants in Los Angeles that serve them (both old-school places, if that makes a difference). I will review the other one at some point in the future, because I’d still love to return there.
How often do you get to taste a completely new, unfamiliar fish, especially by the time you hit your 40s? These sand dabs were mild and tender (definitely not a “fishy”-tasting fish), probably lightly dredged in seasoned flour. I was so happy to try an all-new, all-different fish! By the way, sand dabs are a flat-bodied fish related to the flounder.

The one thing we didn’t order that we probably should have was the “famous baseball steak,” which the Eater writeups had mentioned. But there was plenty of food to go around, and nobody left hungry or disappointed.

This group of brilliant, ambitious, warm, welcoming students that invited me out was all about sharing food (although I think I was the most interested in the onion rings and sand dabs) and spirited conversation. It was a delightful dinner with even better company, and I was so honored to be there for multiple reasons. I mean, most of my readers have been students at one point or another, but how often have you ever wanted to hang out with your teachers or professors socially? Has that ever happened?

I can’t imaging too many L.A. tourists making a special trip to HMS Bounty (but if you do, more power to ya!), but it is definitely a place that locals should pop into at least once. With all that history, timeless cool vibes, and much better food than one might expect, it would be worth checking it off your lists. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I really like dark dining rooms, even if I sometimes need reading glasses to make out the menu. That lovely dinner felt like I was transported to a different time and place, if only temporarily, and that’s what a really nice restaurant experience should be able to do.

Bites and Bubbles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baar Baar (Los Angeles)

Baar Baar (https://www.baarbaarla.com/) in downtown Los Angeles (the locals call it DTLA) is the most upscale Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to, with a gorgeous dining room and a large, eclectic menu of gourmet dishes that definitely seemed “elevated” above the standard Indian cuisine I’m used to. This memorable meal goes back to late summer, 2023, when I was invited on my very first trip to L.A., joining our dean, an associate dean, and my director, only about a month after starting my current job. I definitely felt like the odd man out, hanging with these big shots, but their warm welcomes and lack of pretension convinced me I belonged there. Our dean, a very classy lady who knows how to throw a dinner party, ordered several dishes, mostly small plates meant to be shared.

These puffs were dahi puri, topped with tamarind, mango, yogurt mousse, and raspberry chaat masala. These were very light and crispy (similar to pani puri I’ve had elsewhere), but the toppings added sweet flavor to go with the savory, lightly fried puffs.

These beauties were Kashmiri duck tacos, served birria-style, shredded with cheddar cheese, cilantro, and red onion — true fusion cuisine! Instead of Mexican tortillas, the crispy taco shells were more like roti or parathas. The four of us each got half a taco and savored every morsel.

These six gorgeous oysters came with guava and chili granita (almost like a sorbet), pickled cucumber, and shallots. I love oysters, and these were so fresh and refreshing. I would have been happy just having this platter to myself and nothing else, but of course we all shared these and everything else.

This fun and frizzy dish was sweet potato chat, an appetizer served with tangy-sweet tamarind chutney, sweet and sour yogurt (or “yoghurt,” according to the menu), and kale.

These were two lamb chop burrah kebabs (the second one is underneath, and you can see the bone), served with fresh mint, hemp seed chutney, and lachcha pyaz, a bright and pungent salad comprised of thin rings of red onion rings, ground spices, lemon, and fresh herbs. I love onions, but raw red onions are intense, and so is the onion breath they create. I was desperate to make a good impression on these three powerful, professional women, so I didn’t mess with the lachcha salad the way I normally would, dining on my own. The lamb was wonderful, and the fresh mint really worked well with it.

This dish doesn’t seem to be on the menu anymore, but it was tandoori butternut squash, served with asparagus, millet khichdi (instead of rice as the base of this dish, it was a combination of millet and yellow moong dal, or mung beans), and rice papad, which are like very thin, airy, crispy crackers or wafers.

While these look vaguely desserty, they were savory paneer pinwheels (notice how they look like three slices of something longer, rolled into a spiral), with makhani (a creamy, buttery, tomato-based sauce), topped with dollops of red pepper chutney, and pistachios. I loved them.

These were beef short ribs, always one of my favorite meats from any cuisine, served in Madras curry (a spicy British-Indian creation with a base of tomatoes and onions), with bone marrow Khurchan and baby vegetables. Between the tender short ribs and rich, unctuous bone marrow, which is like “meat butter,” I was in heaven with this decadent dish.

At Baar Baar, even a simple side of saffron rice was still cooked as perfectly as any rice could be.

And this was a side of pomegranate raita: cool, refreshing, creamy, tangy yogurt topped with pomegranate seeds.

This gorgeous dessert doesn’t seem to be on the Baar Baar menu anymore, but it was called mango ghewar, and it consisted of malai kulfi (Indian ice cream flavored with cardamom, saffron, and rose water), mascarpone cheese mousse, mango jelly, and crushed pistachios.

Needless to say, this was a sumptuous feast, even shared by four people. Like I said, our dean is a class act who knows how to party! Few things bring me as much joy as sharing a bunch of different dishes with people over good conversation, and that’s what our dinner at Baar Baar turned out to be. Not only was it the finest Indian meal of my life, but it was a reminder that all the decisions I had made in my life to get to this moment in time — this job, working remotely, getting to visit our gorgeous school in L.A. once in a while, collaborating with these amazing people, even being part of this grand gustatory gathering — turned out to be right. This dinner was almost two years ago, and ever since then, I have been grateful every day for the new direction my life has taken. I’ve also been falling more and more in love with Los Angeles and its culinary culture. Even though Orlando is my home, I’ve had so many great meals in L.A. (sometimes solo and sometimes with colleagues and friends, like this one), and I have so many more L.A. restaurant reviews yet to come!

California Grill

I’ve joked before that my wife and I are not “Disney adults” or theme park people in general. That said, once in a while, we end up across Orlando from us on Disney property, and food is always involved on those rare occasions. Usually that means meeting visiting friends or my former co-workers out at Disney Springs, but we recently went upscale.

Every year, I task my wife with deciding where she would like to go to celebrate her birthday — anywhere she wants, the sky’s the limit. Sometimes she wants something down to Earth, sometimes she aims a little higher. Some years, I end up bringing in takeout or even cooking for her at home, but I leave the decision up to her and try my damnest to make her happy. This year, she suggested a place we had never been, but both of us had always heard about: the California Grill (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/contemporary-resort/california-grill/), the high-end restaurant on the 15th floor of the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. The hotel is an example of brutalist architecture that seems like both a time capsule from the 1970s and an idea of what the future would have looked like at the time. Along with the Polynesian Resort next door, the Contemporary was one of the two original hotels that opened when Walt Disney World opened in 1971, and believe me, it looks like it!

The Contemporary is noteworthy to me too, because it was the hotel my family stayed at for our two (count ’em: TWO!) Disney family trips when my brother and I were kids, back in the late ’80s. My family is definitely not “of the travelers,” and trips out of Miami were exceptionally rare for us. I realize Disney has always been a splurge and an extravagance, but it wasn’t until I moved to Orlando as an adult that I realized how big a deal it was that we stayed on Disney property, as opposed to any of the hundreds of independent, off-site hotels between Orlando and Kissimmee. And the Contemporary, which costs and arm and a leg now, surely wasn’t cheap back then either.

A big selling point for my dad was being able to park at the hotel and not drive again the entire trip. A futuristic monorail connects the Contemporary, the Polynesian, the Grand Floridian Resort (a super-high-end hotel that looks like a big Southern plantation, bless their hearts), and the Magic Kingdom and Epcot parks. Of course we rode that monorail as a family, and it might have led to my lifelong love of public transportation AND tours where I can explore as much of an unfamiliar area as possible. That monorail appealed to me more than most of the relatively pedestrian rides inside the parks (keeping in mind that we didn’t ride Space Mountain, and most of the Magic Kingdom rides back then were aimed at really little kids). But I have digressed enough!

So to access the toney California Grill, you check in on the second floor of the hotel and take a seat until they contact you. Then you ride a special elevator up to the 15th floor, where the restaurant is. It is a huge dining room with a long, open kitchen and glass windows all around. One of the major selling points is being able to watch the nightly fireworks through all the windows when they start at 8 PM. Unfortunately, I was only able to score a reservation for 5:20, but they will let you reenter to watch the fireworks if you show your receipt from an earlier dinner.

As is typical at Disney, the service was impeccable. That’s that “Disney magic” in action, where everyone is warm, welcoming, and helpful. Even if I scoff sometimes about Disney, I have nothing but respect for friendly and professional service. We got a comfortable booth (that I requested with our online reservation), and our “cast member” server, the charming Charmaine, wished my wife a happy birthday.

She explained that the California Grill serves a price fixe menu: for $89 per adult diner, each person chooses an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert from a list of multiple options. We had already studied the menu in advance, being studious little nerds. A lot of dishes included mushrooms, because fine-dining chefs loooove mushrooms, but I’m always on the lookout for them — my culinary Kryptonite.

Charmaine brought us a basket of warm, freshly baked rolls, with the lightest, crispiest exterior crusts and warm, fluffy interiors. I should have photographed a cross-section, but trust me, you would want to shrink down and curl up for the coziest nap ever inside these rolls.

They came with a board featuring soft, salted butter in that fancy shape that only higher-end restaurants use for butter and occasionally ice cream, as well as a bread dip of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs. As anyone who knows us might guess, my wife went for the butter and I went for the bread dip.

It wasn’t long before we received our apps. I went out of my way to pick things I knew my wife would want to at least try, hoping to share everything. This was the barbecue American eel roll, a sushi roll with unagi (the fresh and tender grilled eel), avocado, cucumber, “dragon sauce” (a savory, sweet, sticky brown sauce), toasted sesame seeds, and crispy garlic. It was great. I love sushi rolls and I always enjoy eel, but I’ve never seen one served like this, with the whole long tail of the eel.

My wife was really excited about the farmer’s market salad on the menu, and to be fair, neither of us had ever seen a salad like this before: petit mixed greens (normal enough), roasted baby beets (we are both new to appreciating beets), poached pears (she loves pears!), pear gel (fine dining chefs love their gels!), chocolate biscotti (I had always dismissed biscotti as God’s joke on people who like cookies, but props for putting it in a salad), vanilla “pudding” (WHY is “pudding” in quotation marks?!), and citrus vinaigrette dressing. This salad was a huge hit for her, and seeing it on the menu was probably what made up her mind about coming here in the first place. As far as we could tell, the vanilla “pudding” looked and tasted just like vanilla pudding, hold the quotes.

My wife chose the seared halibut for her entrée… just for the halibut. I don’t mind calling it a main course, but I don’t like “mains” on a menu and I especially don’t like “proteins.” This lovely seared rectangular prism was served atop bourbon-brown butter risotto with a slice of fondant sweet potato, sweet potato purée (fine dining chefs also love their purées), sweet potato leaves, kale (she has been on a kale kick ever since that dinner), toasted pecans, and a cranberry vinaigrette dressing. We both wondered if the halibut might be a little overcooked, since the texture was more firm than we expected. I think she liked some of the components of this dish more than the fish itself. A lot of it came home with us, and she invited me to finish it off the next day.

As for me, I chose the pan-seared lamb strip loin, since lamb is always one of my favorite meats (not “proteins”). I requested my lamb rare, and it came back perfectly rare. It was served with roasted root vegetables, baby brussels sprouts, beautiful thin-sliced radishes, and crispy fried parsnip chips over a bed of parsnip-celeriac Purée, with a juniper-cranberry-cabernet demi-glaze (a very rich, delicious, savory-sweet-tart reduction).

I had to take a picture of the “back” of the dish too, because it was such a marvel to behold. It reminded me of the artful plating at the legendary Noma restaurant in Copenhagen (not that I’ll ever go to Noma, or probably even to Copenhagen), where the food looks like little terrarium environments for wee Danish fae. While the lamb was cooked as well as lamb can be cooked, and the demi-glace was awesome, I must admit the dish lacked the strong flavors I always seek. It was on the bland side!

Because I had said in the reservation that we were celebrating my wife’s birthday, Charmaine brought us out a small slice of festive “funfetti” cake, which was unexpected and unnecessary, but sweet. Very, VERY sweet. The icing was pretty heavy and super-sweet.

For her actual dessert off the price fixe menu, my wife went with the chocolate-hazelnut tart, artfully presented with orbs of chocolate-hazelnut praline crémeux served over a long, thin chocolate shortbread cookie, topped with candied hazelnuts and decorated with dots of espresso crème anglaise. I didn’t try a nibble of this one, but she seemed to like it.

I chose the lemon mousse and olive oil-poppyseed cake, which sounds a lot weirder than it actually was. The presentation was gorgeous for the small, rectangular Meyer lemon-olive oil cake, studded with poppyseeds, topped with lemon cream, and decorated with dots of blood orange gel. (Fancy chefs love gels!) The pretty latticework on top was the thinnest, crispiest , most delicate sugar structure, but maybe I’m wrong, because it almost felt like a delicate, crispy cookie.

After the hour drive down to Disney property and the long, luxurious birthday dinner, my wife didn’t feel like sticking around for the fireworks or revisiting the 1988 Saboscrivner family monorail tour, so we headed for home. Both of us agreed that we were glad we went to the California Grill, but nothing amazed or astonished us enough to return. This will be a true one-and-done experience for us — nothing was bad by any means, but for that kind of a schlep, and at those prices, there are old favorites we would rather return to and plenty of other restaurants to try out for future special occasions. That said, I appreciated how pleasant they made our experience, with top-notch service and no stodgy, stuffy, precious pretentiousness.

Don’t worry, folks. After this excursion into fine Disney dining and last week’s review of one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten (in Miami, no less!), I’ll be back to waxing poetic about sandwiches, discovering delis, and obsessing over sardines and mustards soon enough. My vox populi is never gone for long!

The Prince (Los Angeles)

The Prince (https://www.instagram.com/theprincela) is a classy, old-school Los Angeles Korean restaurant and lounge that is most famous for appearing in multiple movies and TV shows over the decades, including Chinatown (one of the greatest L.A. movies, neo-noirs, and movies in general of all time), Mad Men (one of my favorite shows of all time), and New Girl (where it was the characters’ regular hangout). I’ve never actually watched New Girl, but now I am imagining Zooey Deschanel with bangs and glasses, singing a silly old song (maybe “Dream a Little Dream of Me”?) and strumming a ukulele in this dusky, dark red hipster hangout.

Back in November, I was on a work trip to L.A. and had a chance to join some of my amazing co-workers for dinner. I always stay in Koreatown, where my employer is located, and where there seem to be hundreds of Korean restaurants to choose from, at all different styles and price points. I am still very new to Korean food, but the more things I try, the more I feel inspired to branch out and try more. The Prince was walkable from our campus, so since I was already aware of its cinematic résumé and timeless cool décor, I convinced this small group to trust and follow me.

I must apologize in advance for the photos that follow in this review. It’s a gorgeous room, dark and anachronistic, but as soon as I took my first photo to set the scene, a server yelled at me to not use flash photography inside. So I did my best, such as it is, to share the red vinyl booths, the dark wood, the dim lighting, and even these hale and hearty knights standing guard.

Also, I swear I saw Spike Jonze, director of super-creative movies and iconic music videos, dining there, but I wasn’t 100% sure it was him. As much as I wanted to thank him for “Sabotage,” Adaptation, and Jackass, I didn’t want to be That Guy who disturbed his dinner… especially if it wasn’t Spike.

Anyway, our group was a mix of adventurous and unadventurous eaters, so we picked five things that looked good to everyone, and we all shared them. That is my favorite way to dine with friends.

These are the onion rings (RING THE ALARM!) and cheese balls, because you know if I go anywhere and see onion rings on the menu, I have to order them. They were crowd-pleasers, and it was not the first time I had really good onion rings at a Korean restaurant. The cheese balls were even better — perfect, golden-fried, golf ball-sized orbs with melty cheese in the middle, under the breading. I should have tried to get a shot of a bisected cheese ball to show you their molten, sticky, creamy centers, but they went fast!

When you’re introducing Korean food to unfamiliar diners, beef bulgogi is one of those perfect gateway dishes. Bulgogi is a dish of thin-sliced beef (often sirloin steak), marinated in a savory-sweet sauce, and then grilled or stir-fried with onions and green bell peppers. The bulgogi marinade contains soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and pear juice, which tenderizes the meat. There is nothing spicy or “weird” to scare off the unadventurous diner, so it was another hit at our table. Just FYI: “bul” is Korean for fire, and “gogi” means meat.

We also ordered galbi (sometimes called kalbi), a very similar dish but with beef short ribs sliced cross-wise against the bones, rather than thin-sliced steak. It has a similar flavor due to the marinade, but I already love short ribs in any form — not just the flavor, but the wonderful texture. I especially like the chewy part of the meat right around the bones, which you can just pull off with your fingers if you don’t want to gnaw it off. This was served over onions and scallions, and there wasn’t a morsel left.

I didn’t have any input in choosing this garlic shrimp dish, served with fresh, raw, shredded cabbage, but I was happy to try a couple of the shrimp, which came in their shells and had to be peeled. It was delicious — different from scampi or any other garlic shrimp dish you might be envisioning, but still very satisfying.

I did choose this dish, though: thick, perfectly al dente udon noodles served with mixed seafood: shrimp, mussels, squid, and tiny crab legs (more trouble than they were worth to crack open). The menu describes it as coming in a spicy broth, but it could be served mild upon request. I honestly don’t remember what we decided as a group, but I think we went with spicy and almost everyone still loved it.

Real Korean food aficionados might be rolling their eyes, disappointed that we made relatively staid and familiar choices, but that’s often what happens in a “family-style” group dining situation. I would have loved to try the soondae, since I always love blood sausage in all its other forms, from Argentinian morcilla to British black pudding, but nobody else was on board with this one. It’s all good!

I have no regrets or complaints about The Prince, especially because it is such a part of Los Angeles and Hollywood history. I would not be surprised if there are better Korean restaurants in L.A.’s Koreatown, but the vibes at The Prince are unmatched. Every time I make it out there for work, I try to visit at least one historic, iconic L.A. landmark, whether it’s a tourist attraction, a restaurant, or both. So far, I’m making quite a list. I love my job, and I love L.A.!

Prato

The upscale Italian restaurant Prato (https://www.prato-wp.com/) is a mainstay of Winter Park’s tony Park Avenue for good reason. Chef and co-owner Brandon McGlamery (also of the excellent Luke’s Kitchen and Bar in Maitland) has always served top-notch food in gorgeous surroundings. This is not a typical “red sauce” Italian-American restaurant, so don’t expect spaghetti and meatballs or red and white checkered tablecloths. But even though Prato is a cut above, it isn’t snooty or snobby, and the comfort food truly comforts.

I had not been back to Prato in years, due in part to the difficulty of parking on Park Avenue (ironic, eh?) and a lot of bad timing. Sometimes I’d find myself there in the off time between lunch and dinner service, where Prato only offered a limited menu, and one of the most famous pasta dishes in Orlando was unavailable. This review was from a recent visit with my wife for lunch, which I timed just so I could try the legendary pasta for the first time, after years of reading hype about it online.

We started out with pretzel-crusted calamari, fried to golden-brown perfection. I always note that too many restaurants overcook their squid tubes and tentacles until they are chewy and rubbery, but these were really tender, as they should be. We had tried these before, too many years ago, and these were just as good as they had always been. I always appreciate dipping sauces (salsa rosa and grain mustard aioli), but this calamari didn’t even need them. That didn’t stop me from dipping, though!

After how much we enjoyed the beef tartare on a recent trip to Luke’s, we decided to trust Chef McGlamery and ordered the carne cruda at Prato as well, to compare and contrast them. It is raw beef (which tastes great and must be the highest quality to avoid safety concerns), topped with a farm-fresh egg, grated horseradish, and romanesco conserva. I realize romanesco is a relative of the cauliflower that grows in stunning fractal patterns, but I didn’t see any of that vegetable, so I wondered if the menu might have meant romesco, which is a sauce made from cooking down tomatoes, roasted red peppers, garlic, and almonds. It was also served with crunchy toasted focaccia bread slices for scooping up the meat or spreading it onto the toast. We loved it, just as we loved the beef tartare at Luke’s.

Here’s a close-up of that amazing carne cruda. The meat was so tender and flavorful in a way we rarely get to experience, since everyone cooks their meat (and should continue to do so, don’t get me wrong).

I forgot to mention that we came to Prato during weekend brunch hours, being sure to be there as it opened to avoid a long wait. After the savory appetizers, my wife went with a sweet dish: perfect little pancakes topped with freshly made ricotta cheese and blueberry compote (which strikes me as more of a dessert than a breakfast dish, but millions of brunchers will disagree). She adored it.

And I finally got to try the legendary pasta dish, mustard spaghettini “cacio e pepe.” I fully admit to being a red sauce guy, since that’s the Italian food I was raised eating. I am always drawn to rich bolognese and spicy arrabbiata sauces, so I rarely order cacio e pepe on menus, even though it can be so luxurious and decadent despite its relative simplicity (just Pecorino Romano cheese — the cacio — and black pepper — the pepe). This version was anything but simple, though. It included mustard in there somewhere, but it’s subtle, and you definitely won’t detect the brightness of yellow mustard or anything horseradishy, so don’t worry about that. I love mustard (and even review mustards on this blog), so that was the main thing that had me intrigued for so many years.
This house-made pasta also includes balsamic vinegar (another favorite ingredient of mine), radicchio, a spicy and bitter vegetable that looks like red and white cabbage and is sometimes called Italian chicory, and speck, a cured and lightly smoked pork leg (think of ham or bacon) from the cold and mountainous South Tyrol province in northeastern Italy. If you are familiar with geography, you might guess that there is some German or Austrian influence to this particular cured meat, and you’d be right. Also, the mountains are called the Dolomites, but Rudy Ray Moore had nothing to do with it.

This was a gorgeous and delicious pasta dish that surpassed all the hype. I make pretty great pasta dishes at home, but I had never had anything quite like this, and I was so happy to finally try it, after all these years. It was one of my favorite things I ate in 2024, that’s for sure.

I don’t know when we will return to Prato, but as tempting as it always is to try new things on every visit, I am obsessed enough with the mustard spaghettini “cacio e pepe” that I will probably order it again and again in the future. It’s like nothing I’ve ever tried before. Leave it to me to be late to the party and then never want to leave! But I’m sure Prato being great is no big surprise or secret to anyone else in Winter Park or Orlando. It has a swanky vibe that would be perfect for a date night or just a nice dinner out. The hardest parts will be parking nearby and figuring out what to order, but hopefully I have already helped you with the second challenge.

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!

Sanaa

This is a review of a wonderful meal I ate back in May, with five wonderful former co-workers. (I started a new job six weeks ago, so I’m still getting used to referring to the job I held for 15 years as my old job, and my co-workers as former co-workers.) After attending the lovely graduation ceremony for our students every May, we had a nice unofficial tradition of going out to lunch somewhere afterwards, usually a fun place somewhere on Disney property, where we would never have the time to go on a normal workday.

Last year we had an awe-inspiring lunch at Jose Andres’ huge Jaleo restaurant at Disney Springs, and this year we went to Sanaa (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/animal-kingdom-villas-kidani/sanaa/) at Kidani Village, part of the beautiful Animal Kingdom Lodge resort hotel. You do not need to purchase admission to the Animal Kingdom theme park to eat here, or I probably would have skipped out on this one. Sanaa serves African food with Indian influences,

Like everything at Walt Disney World, the theming of the restaurant is beautiful. It is a popular place, and my Disney-experienced colleague booked a reservation for our party weeks in advance, which was a wise move. You can actually see zebras, giraffes, and other wild animals out those windows… just not in my photo. (Sorry.)

If you ask me, the highlight of dining at Sanaa is the Indian-style bread service. This is a dream for vegetarians and people who are at peace with consuming carbs. It costs $21, and you get five different breads and a whopping nine different accompaniments. The six of us shared everything and were very polite about it, but in the future, I would totally order this just for myself, possibly even as my main meal. If you come to Sanaa and don’t order the bread service, you are missing out on something spectacular.

The five breads are supposed to be traditional naan, garlic-ginger naan, spiced naan, onion kulcha, and paneer paratha. I only see four in the photo below, and I could not possibly begin to guess which one was which, but trust me when I tell you that they were all fluffy, soft, buttery heaven. If you haven’t had naan or roti or paratha or kulcha before, I encourage you to find the closest Indian restaurant on your way home from wherever you are and pick some up to go, even if you don’t order anything else! Imagine the softest, fluffiest pita bread, and you’re still not even close to how good these clay oven-baked flatbreads can be.

Of course I got a lousy photo of the beautiful dips, sauces, and chutneys, trying to capture them before my colleagues dove in, but they were a real treat for a fan of condiments, sauces, and dips like me. I wasn’t always sure what I was dipping into what or spooning onto what, but there wasn’t a bummer in the bunch. They included cucumber raita (cool and creamy yogurt in the top right), roasted red pepper hummus (top left), mango chutney (second from top right; similar to a chunky mango salsa), tomato-date jam (I loved this one, whichever it was), tamarind chutney, coriander chutney, garlic pickle, red chile sambal, and spicy jalapeño-lime pickle. This was such a crowd-pleaser, and it was definitely the highlight of the meal for me. Like I said, whenever I get around to returning, I’m gonna get this just for myself, and then suggest anyone else I am with share one.

One co-worker ordered samosas, which were plated beautifully. These were potato and pea samosas in what looked like perfect pastry shells, served over mango and tamarind chutney. I didn’t ask to try hers because that is all she ordered for herself, but have you ever had a bad samosa? I don’t think that is possible, kind of like the nonexistence of bad empanadas.

I ordered the potjie (referring to food slow-cooked in small cast-iron pots), which I was drawn to because the menu presents several options to choose from. You may choose one from the “journey” (meat-based dishes): Goan seafood curry, butter chicken, braised beef, or pork vindaloo, and then one from the “harvest” (plant-based dishes): rajma masala, chickpea wat, sukuma wiki, or lentil daal. Our server was very patient, answering our questions and making suggestions.

I can try butter chicken at any number of wonderful local Indian restaurants, since that is my wife’s favorite Indian dish, and even though I love a good vindaloo, I knew our group was headed to Epcot next, so I did not want to ruin a rare, fun afternoon out by sabotaging my stomach with something really spicy. I thought the most interesting and offbeat choice was the Goan seafood curry, so that’s what I got.

It came with shrimp, fish, and scallops in a rich curry that was mildly spicy, probably much more mild than the vindaloo. Luckily, it came with plenty of fragrant basmati rice, and I mixed them together liberally.

My plant-based choice was sukuma wiki, an East African dish of collard greens stewed with tomatoes and spices. I love good collards, and even though these were purely vegetarian (rather than being cooked with any smoked pork, smoked turkey, or ham), they were so full of flavor. No regrets here! Even though this dish is from Kenya and Tanzania, it made me realize it has been more than a decade since I’ve had Ethiopian food (another cuisine that handles collard greens very well). It is also really damn good, and I need to get some again soon.

My one male colleague at the lunch also ordered the potjie, but with completely different options.

He opted for the braised beef, which looked and smelled really fine:

And he also chose rajma masala, a curry dish of kidney beans cooked with onions, tomatoes, herbs, and spices. It looked and smelled great as well, but he was not joining us for Epcot, so the rest of us dodged a big bullet that afternoon.
At this point, I was already pleasantly full, but people in my party insisted on ordering three separate desserts to share. Let it never be said that librarians don’t know how to party!

This was serradura, which was butterscotch pudding, almond coffee streusel, fresh pineapple and mango, and Breton shortbread (which I didn’t try because it looked like a biscotti, God’s joke on people who like cookies). The little spoonful I had was very nice. It was cool, creamy, not too sweet or rich.

This was kheer, a plant-based dessert of coconut-rice pudding with cashew streusel and saffron-poached fruit. I tried a tiny taste because sometimes coconut and nuts betray me, but I liked it more than I expected to. I would never have even considered ordering this dessert, but it was delicious.

And this was a dessert special that was like a fancy version of a chocolate candy bar with nuts. I left that for the other five people to devour, because I was very content at this point.

As my friends and regular readers (the stalwart Saboscrivnerinos) know, I am not what you would consider a “Disney adult.” I have nothing against Disney, but my wife and I just aren’t theme park people. That said, I had a blast at Epcot after lunch with my former co-workers, awesome people I am proud to call friends, as well as professional colleagues. (Frolleagues?) I especially want to thank one frolleague who also left that same institution over the summer, one of the dozens of stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, a wonderful woman who used a guest pass to get me into Epcot. Next time I see you, I’m treating you to something — and you know who you are!

My wife and I end up at Disney Springs every so often, usually visiting people who are staying at or near the parks, since you don’t have to pay admission to go there. There are good restaurants at Disney Springs, but it was a blast to go somewhere new on the sprawling resort property, somewhere I had never been before, and to enjoy new dishes and flavors I had never even tried before. I would strongly recommend Sanaa to any adventurous tourists and locals alike.

While I have favorite Indian restaurants in Orlando (Bombay Street Kitchen chief among them), not a lot of places serve African-Indian fusion dishes, aside from occasional specials at the casual Oh My Gyro in Longwood. There is nothing quite like Sanaa, and especially nothing like that breathtaking bread service. You don’t have to pay park admission to eat here or even pay for parking, so consider adding it to your list of Disney dining destinations.