CLOSED (since review was published)

CLOSED: Outpost Kitchen, Bar, & Provisions

EDITOR’S NOTE: On November 9th, 2023, The Outpost Kitchen, Bar & Provisions suddenly closed, apparently evicted from its Maitland location after falling $64,000 behind in rent payments. Staff were not given any prior notice. See https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/11/10/outpost-kitchen-evicted-from-maitland-city-centre-records-show/.

***

After years of attempts, my wife (Doctor Professor Ma’am) and I finally had the most outstanding dinner last night at Outpost Kitchen, Bar, & Provisions (https://www.outpostkbp.com), a restaurant in suburban Maitland, nestled between Casselberry and Winter Park, surprisingly close to home. It seemed like life kept conspiring to keep us from dining there, with all kinds of illnesses, injuries, and random emergencies forcing us to cancel previous reservations, but once we made it, it was totally worth the wait.

The décor is at once both rustic and hipster-modern, full of wooden tables and chairs (no booths), Edison-style hanging light bulbs, and even a retro refrigerator in the dining room, not far from the open kitchen. There is also a large bar, an outdoor patio, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounding the free-standing building that provide plenty of natural light and views of “scenic” Highway 17-92.

Shortly after being seated in that expansive, high-ceilinged, wide open dining room, we met the co-owner, Kevin Casey, who reached out to me on Facebook last year to invite us out to the Outpost. Kevin was jovial and warm and welcoming, and I apologized for it taking us so long to get out there. I can also say that the entire serving staff was top-notch. We received some of the best service we’ve ever encountered at a restaurant in Orlando, not just from our own server, but from her compatriots, who all checked in on us periodically, hoping we were having the best experience. (We were.)

I had not eaten all day, so my wife and I started our decadent dinner with handmade Outpost tots ($12), a wooden platter of eight golden-brown fried spheres, drizzled with Outpost sauce (not as sweet as a barbecue sauce, but thicker and not as hot as a hot sauce) and bourbon ranch. Now, we all know tater tots, but these were nothing like standard tots or the beloved Beefy spuds at Orlando’s iconic Beefy King. Each of these orbs, which were about the size of large golf balls, were more like potato pancakes, also known as latkes — crispy on the outside, but yielding and fluffy-soft and seasoned on the inside.

Kevin told us that these are complicated to make right, because the potatoes are all hand-shredded, and if the kitchen staff took too long, they would oxidize and ruin the batch, but they came up with a method to simplify the process. Whatever they did, it worked, because these are some of the most perfect potato products we’ve ever partaken in. If you ever go to the Outpost, don’t sleep on these not-so-tiny tots!

Something else cool about the Outpost is that they pay homage to Orlando’s culinary past. So many people dismiss our touristy town as “chain restaurant hell,” even though I started this blog just about five years ago to combat that misconception and shine a well-deserved spotlight on some of our best local restaurants. Kevin and Julie Casey are doing the same thing with their series of Memory Lane Menus, recreating classic dishes from beloved and much-missed eateries that closed years or even decades ago. They first did that with Pebbles, a restaurant that I’ve heard about, but it closed before I moved here in 2004, and their current Memory Lane Menu is a tribute to the legendary Ronnie’s Restaurant.

Now I never made it to Ronnie’s either, but my wife has told me all about it, and it would probably have been my favorite restaurant in the city, had I ever eaten there. I’ve seen the voluminous menu, and it looked very similar to another long-lost legend — Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House, a Jewish delicatessen/diner on Collins Avenue in North Miami Beach. Unlike Ronnie’s, I got to enjoy many meals at the Rascal House, first with my family as a kid and a teenager during weekends at the old-timey Art Deco motels right on the beach with names like the Dunes, the Driftwood, and the Desert Inn. Years later, I would visit friends on trips home from Gainesville and catch up with them over late-night overstuffed sandwiches and metal dishes of free pickles and cole slaw. I even got to take my wife to the Rascal House once, in 2007, when we were still newly dating, before the it closed its doors for good. I will always treasure those memories and those meals, especially because the Rascal House was the first restaurant I recall my family traveling out of its way to, trekking from suburban Kendall to Sunny Isles Beach, decades before seeking out the best food anywhere I could find it would become one of my adulthood hobbies.

But back to Ronnie’s now: the Outpost’s Memory Lane Menu for Ronnie’s is available for ONE MORE WEEK, until Saturday, June 10th. They are offering three classic Ronnie’s dishes: cabbage soup made with beef short ribs (which was sadly sold out when we went last night), a chocolate eclair made from an original Ronnie’s recipe, and a corned beef and pastrami platter, which we ordered to share as an appetizer. I had heard stories and fables about Ronnie’s corned beef and pastrami, served with potato salad and sliced tomatoes, and I must be honest, that was what finally spurred us to make it to the Outpost. I’m so glad it got us in the door, because it was amazing, and so was everything else.

Here’s a close-up of the thick, hand-carved slices of mostly lean pastrami, crusted with a delicious, peppery, spicy “bark”:

And as much as I love pastrami (which is a lot), I liked the Outpost’s version of Ronnie’s corned beef even better, because it was marbled with so much creamy, unctuous fat. Even without rye bread and mustard, these deli delicacies were a huge hit. We just nibbled on them at the restaurant, but I finished them in a sandwich earlier today (on a toasted sourdough roll since we didn’t have rye at home, but with good Carnegie Deli dusseldorf mustard).

My wife always likes a good steak even more than I do (I’m more of a sandwich and burger guy), and one thing she always craves is a coffee-rubbed steak. Very few restaurants in Orlando offer them, but the Outpost sure does: the Crusty New Yorker, a peppercorn and coffee-crusted New York strip steak, covered with garlic caper cream sauce and served on a bed of creamy cauliflower rice. She asked for the steak rare, and it was cooked perfectly, beautifully rare, pre-sliced and rich purple-red inside. She also loves capers and cream sauces, so she was in heaven with this dish. She was admittedly skeptical about the cauliflower rice, but we both really liked it. It had a slight crunch that regular rice doesn’t have, but the creaminess and seasoning reminded me a bit of risotto.With the bounty of everything we ordered, she would end up getting three full meals out of this generous portion.

And even though I was tempted by many dishes on the menu, one of the Outpost’s burgers really sang out to me: the Black Cherry Burger, cooked to an ideal medium rare and topped with house-smoked brisket, yellow cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and sliced hot cherry peppers on a brioche bun. I wish it had been a little bigger (only because I wish all burgers were bigger, from White Castle on up), but it was delicious. I would rank it among the finest burgers in the city, without a doubt. It came with really solid fries, which I dipped in a little metal ramekin of house-made barbecue sauce. Good fries, but after those tantalizing, tremendous tots, they were almost anticlimactic.

My wife is a bigger dessert person than I am, whereas I can often take or leave something sweet after a big meal. Still, we were both equally tempted by two different desserts on the Outpost’s masterful menu, and we splurged and ordered both. This was the drunken blueberry bread pudding, served in a small, sizzling-hot skillet. It was made with brioche and sweet Hawaiian bread, bourbon custard, fresh blueberries, tangy orange icing, and blueberry compote. It was really decadent, but not nearly as sweet as you might be thinking. It was spectacular, and a perfect way to end a summer meal. This was my wife’s favorite of the two desserts.

They also offered a pineapple upside down cake special, and even though I bake a mean pineapple upside down cake myself, we were both intrigued by it too. Unlike mine, which is a light, moist pineapple-flavored cake, this one was a denser spice cake, almost like a richer, sweeter gingerbread. It was topped with a roasted pineapple ring and some sweet, sticky caramel glaze, and that is a dehydrated pineapple ring on the side, thin and chewy and sweet and sticky like fruit leather. (Kinky!) The dark pools are a cherry glaze, although i thought they might be balsamic reduction at first. Cherry definitely fit better with pineapple upside-down cake. Our dutiful server told us that this was such a big hit, it would probably become a regular menu item moving forward. You heard it here first, folks!

Now you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos (my baker’s dozens of regular readers) know that The Saboscrivner takes pride in his journalistic integrity. I am proudly not an influencer (in fact, I still take perverse pride in some rando Redditor referring to me as an “anti-influencer”), and I never go into these restaurants asking for freebies in exchange for a good review. I wouldn’t dare, and I think that is rude and gauche and presumptuous and any number of unprintable terms. That said, since Kevin invited us in so long ago, I let him know we were coming since I wanted to meet him and thank him for reaching out… and he ended up hooking us up, out of the goodness of his heart. I was shocked, and I insisting on paying as much of the bill as they would let me, in addition to leaving a generous tip for our server based on what this large, luxurious meal would have originally cost. It was all so great, I would have written this identical review anyway, minus this paragraph. We loved everything, and we look forward to returning and becoming regulars. But that’s how nice the owner is, even during a time when local restaurants are struggling.

That’s why I am doubling down with my recommendation here. Visit the Outpost! They serve brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, and apparently Saturdays are a lot more chill compared to the busier Sundays. They are even planning to institute a weekday brunch menu, so be on the lookout for that. If you loved Ronnie’s back in the day (or you just love Jewish delis, like I do with all my heart), definitely stop by in the next week for a taste of Ronnie’s classic menu. I will definitely swing back by, hoping for that beef short rib cabbage soup to go! Also, stay tuned for the Outpost’s next Memory Lane Menu, paying homage to Gary’s Duck Inn, apparently the inspiration for the original Red Lobster. I never made it there either, but some locals probably have, and it sounds like something that should not be missed. The Outpost should not be missed, either.

CLOSED: Chicago Dog & Co

EDITOR’S NOTE: Chicago Dog & Co. permanently closed on October 8, 2023.

***

As much as I love food and restaurants and cooking, I’ve never worked a day in the food service or hospitality industries. For me, eating, cooking, and even grocery shopping are necessities I’ve turned into hobbies. We have to eat to survive, so I do what I can to make the experiences enjoyable, but I’ve never had to work at it. As a result, I have nothing but admiration and awe for everyone who works in restaurants. It’s a hard, hot, and dangerous job, and too many people take it for granted when we get delicious food we didn’t have to make ourselves. Even I have been guilty of this in the past, but I have so much appreciation, and I always try to show it, including by writing this food blog. I hope it comes across in my words, as I try to boost the signal for local restaurants here.

This past week my wife and I binge-watched a new show called The Bear, which consists of eight half-hour episodes streaming on Hulu. The Bear is about Carmy, a world-renowned chef who returns to his family’s divey restaurant in Chicago after his brother commits suicide and leaves Carmy the restaurant in his will. Most of the show takes place inside the restaurant’s cramped, chaotic kitchen, and the writing, acting, directing, and editing work in perfect tandem to create a feeling of unhinged uneasiness — a “sense of urgency,” as Carmy calls it. All the restaurant people I know who have been watching it say they get the details almost too perfect, to the point where it is too real, too uncomfortable to enjoy. But it’s really good, so you should watch it if you’re looking for a new show you can knock out in a weekend.

Anyway, the main specialty of Carmy’s family restaurant is a real Chicago classic: Italian beef sandwiches. We watch them preparing hundreds of “beefs,” and before the end of the intense first episode, I was craving one here in Orlando. The Chicago/Italian beef isn’t as ubiquitous a sandwich as the Philly cheesesteak, but there are a few places around town to find them. My favorite local food writer, a woman who serves as a constant inspiration to me, who I am honored to think of as a friend (albeit one I have yet to meet in real life), Amy Drew Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel, wrote a guide to Italian beef sandwiches in Orlando earlier this year, which pointed me to the subject of my latest restaurant review.

Chicago Dog & Co (https://www.chicagodogandco.com/) is located in Altamonte Springs, Florida, west of I-4, close to where Altamonte starts blending into Apopka. Sandra (a practicing attorney!) and Monica, two Chicago-born sisters raised in Central Florida, opened the restaurant just over a year ago, in April 2021, and they have been going strong ever since. Open every day except Monday, Chicago Dog & Co has covered outdoor seating, but no indoor seating. You walk up to order at a window, and they call your name when your order is ready. They specialize in Vienna Beef hot dogs on steamed poppy seed buns, and you can get them with a number of toppings, including the Chicago way, “dragging it through the garden,” with yellow mustard, diced onion, sliced tomato, neon green relish, a pickle spear, “sport” peppers, and celery salt.

But as much as I enjoy a good hot dog, I’m more of a devotee of a garlicky New York-style dog, as typified by Sabrett, Nathan’s, and Boar’s Head, topped with spicy mustard and sauerkraut. I have no doubt the Vienna Beef hot dogs are bringing back happy Chicago memories for thousands of Central Floridians, but I went there for a different reason: to get my post-Bear Italian beef fix. And did I ever!

This was the Italian beef ($8) I brought home for myself, the tender sliced beef topped with sweet peppers and spicy giardiniera vegetables, a blend of carrots, onions, and green peppers. (The more traditional Chicago version has carrots, celery, and cauliflower!) It is served on a soft Gonnella roll, either dry (no au jus, or au jus served on the side), wet (au jus poured over the sandwich), or dipped (the entire sandwich, roll and all, dipped in au jus to create a real fork-and-knife experience). Since I was bringing it home, I opened for au jus on the side. I thought it was really good, and better once I poured the jus over the meat and bread. The actual beef in an Italian beef isn’t super-moist or fatty, so the jus helps lubricate the sandwich, in the best possible way. It was definitely a WAS (wet-ass sandwich) by the time I was through, and it definitely fulfilled my Italian beef craving.

Knowing my wife the way I do, she isn’t into toppings, condiments, sauces, or even sandwiches all that much, so I ordered her a plain beef ($8) with jus on the side, and also giardiniera on the side (since I knew I would get to eat hers). Here’s the unadorned, unadulterated beef:

Since they serve chili dogs and I love chili, I asked if I could try a little side order of chili, and they were kind enough to fill a small cup for me. Here it is with the side of spicy giardiniera.

In addition to the dogs and beefs, Chicago Dog & Co also serves burgers. I haven’t had a tasty burger in quite a while, so I couldn’t resist this double smash ($6) — a very reasonable price for two beef patties smashed thin with sautéed onions and melty American cheese on a soft bun. The bun got steamed in the aluminum foil wrap on my 20-minute drive home, but I imagine it would be a lot less wrinkly if you enjoy yours at the restaurant.The burger had a great “fresh off the grill” taste, and I’m a sucker for American cheese and sautéed or grilled onions on my burger. I added a bit of the chili once I ate about half of it at home, but it didn’t need any other adornments to improve it.

Finally, I brought home an Iltaco Pizza Puff ($4) for my wife to try. These things are awesome — another Chicago snack that is like the best Hot Pocket you’ve ever had, or more like a small, flat, pizza-filled chimichanga or empanada.

The crispy, bubbly, fried shell is like a flour tortilla — hence the chimichanga comparison — and it is stuffed with tomato sauce, melty mozzarella cheese, and sausage or pepperoni. I love these things. My wife wasn’t interested in trying it, so I ate both halves myself.

So if you also watched The Bear and have been asking “Where’s the beef?” ever since, Chicago Dog & Co is the place for you. Since I started this blog in 2018, I’ve tried (and reviewed) two other Italian beef sandwiches in and around Orlando: Rosati’s Pizza (a Chicago chain) in Winter Park, and Christo’s, the diner in Sanford. There are one or two other options I’m aware of, thanks in part to Amy Drew Thompson and the good people of The Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps!, but as you might have realized by now, they aren’t nearly as easy to find around here as other sandwiches. I’m happy I had time on a lazy Sunday to finally check out a new(ish) local restaurant owned by two women who deserve our community’s support. Hopefully their kitchen is a lot more copacetic than the one in the show! But if you go for a beef or even a Chicago hot dog, don’t forget that Pizza Puff too — trust me on that. That thing is magical.

CLOSED: Kabuto Sushi & Grill

EDITOR’S NOTE: Kabuto Sushi & Grill announced it would be permanently closing after December 26th, 2022.

***

Kabuto Sushi & Grill (https://www.kabuto-sushi.com) is the closest sushi restaurant to our house, but it took us a while to try it. It used to be a different sushi restaurant years ago, which we only ever went to once. Once was enough. It was really expensive and just okay, but Kabuto has a completely different menu, different management, different décor, different everything. I ordered takeout, but the dining room was gorgeous — very modern and sexy, especially for a sushi restaurant in uber-suburban Winter Springs, next door to our regular Publix where everyone knows me.

I ordered takeout for that first visit to Kabuto, starting with a pretty typical eel roll ($10), with baked eel and cucumber inside the sushi rice and a little dipping cup of sticky, sweet eel sauce on the side:

My wife thought the Kabuto’s summer roll ($16) sounded interesting, with tuna, salmon, a krab stick, avocado, and mango, wrapped in spring mix leaves and rice paper, with house-made raspberry wine sauce on the side. It was an interesting combination, especially with the sauce, that was like a sweet and sticky vinaigrette dressing, and no rice to speak of.

I ended up using the sauce as dressing on a homemade salad a few days later, since she isn’t into sauces and dips anyway. It was perfectly fine, but I like my sushi rolls with rice, so I probably wouldn’t order this one again.

I’m glad I ordered a spicy tuna crunch roll and a spicy salmon crunch roll ($8 each; below left and center), both with tempura flakes inside to give them that gentle crunch, and we really enjoyed both of those.
But there were two highlights, even though these other rolls were solid. One was the mango passion roll that my wife chose ($16; on the right side in the above photo), with yellowtail, salmon, and avocado inside, topped with more yellowtail and salmon, plus mango salsa. It was AWESOME. What a great combination. I always order mango in my poke bowls with tuna and/or salmon when it is available, and it worked so well here.

My personal favorite wasn’t a roll at all, but a selection from the “cold small plates” part of the menu: spicy tuna crispy rice ($12), with cubes of deep-fried rice topped with spicy tuna, avocado, masago, scallions, sesame seeds, and a sweet glaze. It came with four pieces, which we split evenly, but I could have eaten two hundred of them, seriously.

I love ramen almost as much as I love sushi, but my wife doesn’t always share my love of ramen (aside from the instant stuff). I was surprised when she suggested we order a bowl of the tonkotsu ramen ($13) to split, since I figured she wouldn’t be interested, but I was half-considering ordering one just for myself. In the end, I liked it more than she did and ended up eating most of it, which was fine with me, but I was relieved she suggested it in the first place.

I really liked how rich and creamy the pork bone broth was, how tender the thin slices of chashu pork and bamboo shoots were, and how springy and chewy the noodles were. I always think I’m going to hate the bamboo in tonkotsu ramen, expecting it to be tough and fibrous like a cross between chewing on celery sticks and saxophone reeds, but it is more like al dente lasagna noodle sheets. The soft-boiled egg halves were cooked to gooey perfection as well, although I chomped them both rather than letting the yolks mix into the tonkotsu broth. The broth was served on the side in our takeout order, which was the ideal way to do it, to keep those great noodles from getting soggy.

I had no idea Kabuto also has a happy hour menu, since it wasn’t on the website. If you dine in between 4:30 and 7:00 PM, you could get much cheaper sushi rolls, and if I had known, we might have done that instead of ordering takeout. Here’s a photo, because the people need to know about this great deal!
In fact, we returned two weeks later to dine in and take advantage of happy hour, since the food was so good.

My wife started out with two pieces of escolar sashimi ($4) and two pieces of tako (octopus) sashimi ($4):

Then we went hard on those happy hour rolls! I got the same spicy tuna crunch roll and spicy salmon crunch roll we liked so much at home ($5 each; right center and bottom), as well as the full-priced mango passion roll we loved (top left):

We also got the Philly roll ($4; top right), the fire dragon roll ($5, bottom left), and the lobster sensation roll ($5, center). I always gravitate toward “Japanese bagel” rolls, with smoked salmon and cream cheese (the food of my people!), but the Philly roll was regular (non-smoked) salmon with cream cheese. Still very pleasing. This was my first fire dragon roll, with salmon, asparagus, and avocado inside, and topped with yellowtail, thin-sliced serrano peppers, and dollops of “house-made kobachi sauce,” as the menu said. It looked and tasted more like sriracha to me.

Finally, the lobster sensation roll isn’t listed on the regular menu, but it contained lobster mixed with cream cheese and was lightly fried in tempura batter. Really good stuff. I’m sorry I didn’t take more close-ups of this beautiful sushi tray.

There are also daily specials at Kabuto that we didn’t order, but I snapped a photo of the menu from the day we went, since they aren’t on the website either:

There is no shortage of good sushi restaurants in and around Orlando, but Kabuto Sushi & Grill is definitely the closest to us. It may not be super-upscale, but that isn’t The Saboscrivner’s style anyway, and it is still a really nice place with fresh, delicious, unpretentious sushi and ramen, tucked away in Winter Springs, where foodies rarely dare to venture. Please dare. In the meantime, we will keep enjoying this friendly neighborhood restaurant moments from our home.

CLOSED: Thai Singha

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLOSED: Uncle Dendog’s

UPDATE: Sadly, Denni Cha, the chef-owner of Uncle Dendog’s, moved his family to Austin, Texas, in 2022, so Uncle Dendog’s is no more. Orlando’s loss is definitely Austin’s gain.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been obsessed with comic books, to the point of making it a serious field of academic study. Heck, this food blog is even inspired by a comic book series called Chew. (Check the page heading, in case you’ve never glanced at it before.) But as much as I love the characters, I focus the most on the creators who write and draw them, and I can always identify their unique, defining styles. For example, the legendary Jack Kirby (co-creator of most of the Marvel characters you would recognize) specialized in burly, square-jawed heroes and imposing alien technology surrounded by crackling energy. Jim Lee‘s human figures look like flawless gods and goddesses. Arthur Adams draws huge monsters and super-cute women, always with extraordinary attention to detail. Kevin Maguire and Steve Lieber are masters of expressive faces, who can convey so much emotion — and especially humor — with just a look.

Where am I going with this? Well, as a self-proclaimed food writer, I don’t pretend to be the expert on food that I am on comics, but I feel like I’m at a point where I recognize the signature styles and flourishes of some of the talented chefs who prepare the food I love so much. I can always identify the best comic creators by their written voices and artwork, whether they work on a mainstream superhero comic, a crime graphic novel for “mature readers,” or a deeply personal, autobiographical, self-published story, and some chefs stand out to me the same way, even when they transcend cuisines.

Orlando is home to some real innovators and creative dynamos who have built a strong culinary culture here, and one of my favorite local chefs is Denni Cha. He has been cooking since he was nine years old, ever since his grandmother taught him to cook in the kitchen of her Korean restaurant. I first discovered his food in the summer of 2020, when he ran a Japanese pop-up called Itamae Densho out of The Local Butcher, the Winter Park meat market that also hosts previous Saboscrivner review subject Swine & Sons and Da Kine Poke. I reviewed the gorgeous, almost otherworldly looking chirashi bowls I brought home from Itamae Densho — maybe the most beautiful things I saw in 2020, an otherwise ugly and stressful year. They were like little landscapes in a bowl — multiple kinds of fresh fish and vegetables over rice, even adorned with edible flowers and ziggurats of fractal romanesco jutting past gleaming orbs of salmon roe.

Unfortunately, Itamae Densho is no more, but Chef Denni is back with his latest venture, something far removed from chirashi bowls but still totally in character and on brand: Uncle Dendog’s (https://www.instagram.com/uncle.dendogs/), a food truck (really a trailer) that specializes in Korean corn dogs and other street foods with a foreign, fusiony focus. Follow his Instagram page to see where he’s going to turn up next!

I was the first person to arrive at Uncle Dendog’s this past Friday night, set up outside Orlando Brewing, the brewery and taproom south and west of downtown Orlando. Not being a drinker, I had never been there before, so I didn’t know how busy it would get later or how the parking situation would be. But I do prefer to grab my food on the early side, especially since I was bringing it home after work.

I have taken the liberty of posting photos of the menu, although it may change from week to week or even night to night. I knew I had to try one of Uncle Dendog’s signature K-Dawgs, so it was just a question of choosing which one.
But I knew he had a new special, just weeks after opening for the first time, and that was what drew me out on this rainy evening.

This was it: “Not-So Native Fry Bread Tacos.” For many years, I’ve heard and read about Navajo-style tacos, a Southwestern delicacy of meat, cheese, peppers, corn, beans, sauces, and more, served on crispy, pillowy, salty, greasy fry bread, a traditional staple food of Native Americans throughout the American Southwest.

Fry bread may be delicious, but it has a fraught, controversial history in Navajo culture due to the lasting effects of colonialism, when the U.S. government gave the Navajo people flour, sugar, salt, and lard as they were forced to relocate onto desolate, dusty reservations where they could no longer grow traditional, healthy crops like corn, beans, and squash. There is a schism within the Native American community, and even among Native American chefs, about whether fry bread is an unhealthy, lasting symbol of oppression or a tasty treat born out of resistance and resilience. It is absolutely not my place to decide or judge which side is right, but I can say a few non-controversial things with certainty, though:
1.) Chef Denni Cha is of Native American (and Korean) descent,
2.) He told me a while back that he planned to offer fry bread tacos as a tribute to his Native American heritage, so I’ve been looking forward to them ever since, and
3.) They were one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Yes, in my LIFE.

But first things first: I asked Chef Denni’s lovely wife and partner, Monica, which K-Dawg (Korean corn dog) she recommended, and she told me to go with the Korean in Bogota ($10), a massive meat treat with the lightest, crispiest batter coating a perfect, smoky, salty sausage. Korean corn dogs are definitely Internet- and Instagram-trendy right now because of how photogenic and eye-catching they are, and this one was no exception. It was a true fusion: an all-beef Nathan’s hot dog lovingly skewered, dipped in a special batter, and fried until it is crispy outside and lusciously soft inside — an archetypal Korean corn dog even if I had ordered it plain. But Colombian hot dogs and hamburgers are famous for being served with lots of condiments and toppings, so this was a tribute to those — hence “Korean in Bogota.” More fusion. More loving, respectful tribute. Just like in comic books, this was a legit crossover.
As the menu said, the corn dog is topped with shiso-cilantro garlic aioli, salsa rosada, pineapple salsa, and crunchy potato sticks, and sprinkled with sugar, for a variety of colors, flavors, and textures — salty, crunchy, spicy, creamy, fruity, greasy, soft, cool, sweet, hot. (When I asked about the sugar, Denni said “Korean Hotdogs usually get heavily dusted in sugar. We do so much else with them that we just lightly sprinkle it.”) Anyway, I’m glad I took this home and ate it over a table, because it would have been really messy eating standing up at the brewery or in the parking lot outside.

Next up, I brought home an order of lightly breaded wings ($9). My wife loves wings, but as much as I appreciate sauces and condiments, she isn’t big on them, so I got these plain with her in mind. The order came with six huge wings in crispy golden-brown batter, and they were really good. The battered exterior was still crunchy and warm by the time I got home. I asked, and this batter for the wings is different from the batter he uses for the corn dogs and fry bread.

If you want something a little more exciting than plain wings, the other alternative is to get them tossed in a sweet, sticky kimchi sauce. When Chef Denni kindly asked if I wanted a little ramekin of the sauce on the side, I said YES, which is what you say if someone asks if you are a god, or if you want some sauce on the side. That sauce was so good, we poured it over the four and a half wings we hadn’t eaten yet, and it made them even better. Even after saucing, they stayed crunchy and never got soggy, even after reheating some leftover wings in the toaster oven the next day!
I don’t have a lot of experience eating kimchi, which is weird, because I love pickled vegetables, I’ll eat sauerkraut straight out of the jar or can, and I regularly cook braised cabbage at home. I need to develop my taste for kimchi, just like I did for pickles. But this sweet kimchi sauce made these fine wings even finer.

I saved the best for last, which speaks volumes, considering how great the corn dog and the wings were. I ordered two of the Not-So Native fry bread tacos ($10 each), one for each of us. They came in the same box and looked like the stuff that dreams are made of. Topped with braised beef, beer cheese, cilantro-garlic aioli, salsa, corn, black beans, and more potato sticks, they were another amazing, astonishing amalgam of fantastic, fabulous flavors and terrific, tantalizing textures. But what really took these from tasty street food to next-level works of art was the fry bread itself.
Chef Denni was very forthcoming when I asked him about the fry bread later on. He uses the same batter he uses for the K-Dawgz (corn dogs), only he lets it proof longer, for a total of 48 hours, to get to the right consistency for his fry bread. My wife described the texture of being like a really good, really thick “old-fashioned” doughnut (those wrinkly glazed ones, sometimes called sour cream cake doughnuts), only crispy on the outside. Denni agreed, saying he has compared them to “savory doughnuts” before, but more airy and fluffy. I swear, you’ve never had tacos like this before, and I’m 100% sure nobody else in Orlando is making these. The closest thing I could compare them to are sopes, but they are way better than any sopes my wife and I have ever tried. I can’t imagine anyone not liking these, unless you keep kosher (in which case, ask to hold the warm, gooey beer cheese) or are a vegetarian (in which case, ask to hold the delicious, tender, savory braised beef). Heck, even going to town on some plain fry bread would be a treat, maybe with some hot honey squirted on it like the best sopapilla ever. But don’t miss these Not-So Native tacos!

And here’s a mediocre photo of Uncle Dendog himself, Denni Cha, hard at work in the trailer, packing up my takeout order in his panda sushi apron. He actually took a moment to pose for me, but I said “Thank you!” like a boob before actually taking the picture, so he moved, and this is what I got — totally my fault. I’m sorry, Chef.

So what does this have to do with the comic book artists? Well, I told you I’m starting to identify local chefs from their styles, just like the artists I’ve admired for decades. And after having Chef Denni’s chirashi bowls at Itamae Densho and now his Colombian-inspired Korean corn dogs and Native American fry bread tacos, I think the common element that identifies and unifies his style as a chef is the sheer beauty of it. His serving dishes are the canvases of an iconoclastic visionary artist, whether they’re bowls with a base of rice or takeout boxes with paper trays inside. And he builds these mixed-media structures, assembling them from diverse, colorful, fresh, dazzling ingredients that you might not even think belong together, but that’s only because we don’t think like he does. Especially here in Uncle Dendog’s trailer/studio, he’s creating cross-cultural culinary mashups and remixes — appropriate, because he is also a musician — and elevating humble, familiar street food to eye-catching, awe-inspiring fine art. You’ll know it when you see it, because you won’t forget it… especially once you taste it.

CLOSED: Lombardi’s Seafood Cafe

EDIT on 10/18/2021: Lombardi’s Seafood posted this announcement on Facebook:
“As of today we are closing the cafe at Lombardi’s seafood. We are expanding our retail market offerings to include more prepared items, salads, produce, meats and grocery items that compliment our seafood. In order to accomplish this, we need the space that is currently occupied by the cafe. We appreciate all the love and support everyone has shown to the cafe over the years. We are excited for you to see what new changes are coming to the Market!”

***

Lombardi’s Seafood, located on Fairbanks Avenue on the Winter Park side of I-4, has been the premier place to purchase fresh seafood in the Orlando area since opening in 1961. That’s a 50-year culinary tradition, which is in itself rare in our young city. Rarer still, the seafood market remains a family business, now owned by a third generation of Lombardis. That’s a special thing, worthy of recognition and support. Lombardi’s Seafood relocated to its current location in 2015 and opened a casual restaurant inside the nicer-than-ever surroundings, Lombardi’s Seafood Cafe (https://lombardis.com/#cafe). I ate there once, shortly after it opened, but hadn’t been back for a while.

Well, my wife and I had both been craving seafood the entire month we spent in the hospital, so within the first four weeks we were back home this summer, I ate at Lombardi’s Seafood Cafe a whopping three times, including twice with her. And despite finding a flawless favorite fish early on, I made sure to order something different every time, for the purpose of constructing a more compelling and comprehensive composition of comparisons and contrasts. You’re welcome, constant readers! Just keep in mind that even though you can always buy fine fresh fish for festively feeding family and friends, the cafe is closed on Sundays, even though the market is open.

On my first recent visit, I was alone, and I was hungry. Figuring I would have leftovers, I started out with the smoked fish dip as an appetizer ($8). It arrived with a beautiful presentation: a substantial scoop of the smoky stuff surrounded by a refreshing rainbow of various vegetables: crunchy carrot and celery sticks, cool cucumber slices, piquant pickled jalapeños, and my absolute favorites, crunchy pickled onions in a shade I can only describe as “Barbie Dream House pink.” These things are so tangy and sweet and delicious, I make them at home in massive quantities and put them on everything. The smoked fish dip was good, but the pickled onions, adding that vinegary tang and crunch to the smoky, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth coolness, elevated it to a next-level app.

As much as I love my cured, smoked, and pickled fish, as well as raw fish in sushi and poke and canned fish like sardines, I don’t eat nearly enough cooked fish. I’ve never dared to buy or cook my favorite fish, grouper, but I jumped at the opportunity to try Lombardi’s grouper sandwich ($18), served simply with lettuce, tomato, and tartar sauce on the side on an excellent brioche bun. I ordered it blackened (the other options were grilled and fried), and it was perfect in every way. Easily in the Top Two grouper sandwiches I’ve eaten in my life, and the other was at a place we love in Clearwater Beach that I plan to return to and review in February 2022. (Let’s all try to make it that far!)Sandwiches and baskets come with two sides, so I chose the collard greens (stewed with slices of sausage; allegedly andouille) and sweet corn fritters that I forgot to photograph, but you’ll see them a little later. Anyway, I can’t recommend this sandwich highly enough. It was everything a fish sandwich should be, and the blackened seasoning imparted terrific flavor without overpowering the taste of the fish, and didn’t make it too spicy either. Apparently a lot of restaurants sneakily sell other, lesser fish that they label as grouper and price accordingly, but this is the real deal, and you don’t see it on many menus around Orlando.

Flash forward a week, and after my regular raves and habitual hype, I brought my wife to Lombardi’s to give it another try, years after our first visit. She surmised the Saboscrivner wouldn’t steer her askew and settled on the same sandwich for herself, this time with hush puppies (she didn’t care for these, but I sure did) and sweet corn fritters (I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t like these). She was a blackened grouper sandwich convert too — another grouper groupie, if you will.

As much as I could eat that grouper sandwich all the time, I was feeling shellfish, so I ordered a dozen oysters for myself at a very reasonable $1 each. For too many years, I trusted in the antiquated advice that you can’t safely eat oysters during months that don’t have an “R” in their names — namely, the sweltering summer. But I’ve been researching that rebop (dig my day job), and oyster harvesting methods have changed so much in modern times, it is quite safe. These briny beauties were plump, cool, luxurious, and perfectly shucked, unlike some other restaurants that don’t completely separate the oyster from the half-shell, those shuckers. No ill effects or stomach wrecks, I’m relieved to report.

I also got a sandwich with the fish of the day ($10), which happened to be black tip shark! I’ve never had shark before, so of course I had to try it, to report back to my stalwart Saboscrivnerinos about what it was like to devour the most dangerous, deadliest denizen of the deep. As a result, I ordered the shark grilled rather than blackened, to fully savor the flavor. I thought it was blander than the grouper (ordering it blackened would have probably helped), and it was a firmer fish — less buttery than the grouper, but not flaky either, like most white fish. I’d equate it to swordfish, as a point of comparison, although I think swordfish is more flavorful. I’m glad I wrapped my jaws around this shark sandwich, but I don’t know if I’d attack the apex predator again, as long as there are other fish in the sea. Note the hush puppies and collard greens as my two sides here. Still good!

I wrote this review on the eve of my third recent visit to Lombardi’s, again with my wondrous, winsome wife. You thought we were done? No, son, we’re just getting started!

Instead of raw oysters, this time we started out with an app we could both enjoy: a platter of fried clam strips ($10), served in a very light and crispy batter, not greasy at all. My wife preferred these clam strips to the ones at her family’s old seafood standard, another Winter Park landmark, Boston’s Fish House.

Since the clam strips were a platter, we chose fries (pretty standard fries) and cole slaw (nice and crunchy and cool, and not too much mayo) as the two sides. The hush puppies and corn fritters are the superior sides, for certain.

My wife’s first choice, the whole fried snapper, wasn’t available, so she opted for a platter of her own, with fried mahi ($13) and a double order of the corn fritters. These heat up remarkably well in the toaster oven, so fear not — we didn’t eat all the fried stuff in one sitting. Now I’m not a big mahi fan, but she likes it well enough, or thought she did. This mahi would probably have been better blackened or grilled, given that flaky texture that is kind of dry. It’s a generous portion of fish, that’s for sure, but it just isn’t the fish for me.

And me, despite the grouper’s gravitational pull, I opted to order the fried oyster po’boy ($15), with a handful of huge fried oysters on an excellent Cuban roll with lettuce, tomato, and remoulade sauce. I remembered to request a ramekin of those perfectly pink pickled onions to place on the po’boy. It was a sensational sandwich, with such a breathtaking blend of flavors, textures, and colors. Fried oysters are always good, and remoulade sauce is an ace accompaniment for them. But Lombardi’s sandwich game is so strong, right down to the radical rolls. The breathtaking brioche rolls from the other sandwiches really complete them, and so did this Cuban roll — so soft, yet lightly grilled for an ideal texture. It wasn’t just some tasteless white bread for pointless extra carbs, but a crucial component of this peerless po’boy.

So as you can see, 30 days in the hospital necessitated my wife and I go on seafood diets for a little while: when we see food, we eat it… as long as it’s seafood. I was saddened that we stayed away from Lombardi’s Seafood Cafe as long as we had, especially because it wasn’t for any real reason. Three for three, these were excellent meals, and so reasonably priced by seafood standards. It is worth noting that the cafe menu proudly proclaims that almost all seafood is caught locally, and even off their own boat, the F/V Bottom Line, out of sunny St. Petersburg on Florida’s west coast (y’all know it’s the best coast).

Also, for a $4 upcharge, you can purchase any of the fresh fish and shellfish available in the glass display cases and ask the friendly fishmongers to have the Seafood Cafe prepare it for you — even things that aren’t on the menu! How cool is that?

Orlando may be nestled inland, which may afford us some protection from hurricanes and flooding, but we don’t have immediate access to our state’s beaches and warm waters here. Luckily for us we have Lombardi’s, with their 50 years of seafood experience, a true mom-and-pop shop where you can buy the freshest Florida fish and cook it yourself, or seat yourself in the Seafood Cafe and leave the grilling, blackening, and frying to the experts. The Lombardi family runs a tight ship, so mullet over and give them a try, just for the halibut.

CLOSED: Jaber

UPDATED ON 9.15.2021:
On September 3, 2021, Jaber announced on its Facebook page that it was closing.

***

My wife and I were recently driving through College Park, a nice Orlando neighborhood near downtown, full of really terrific restaurants. We hardly ever make it down there, and I’m not even sure why we were in College Park this time around. But traffic temporarily stopped in front of Jaber (https://www.facebook.com/jaberorlando/), a restaurant on Edgewater Drive displaying a big banner advertising Lebanese cuisine, with huge color pictures of tempting, tantalizing shawarma wraps. We looked at each other and decided to pull over and stop in for lunch — a rare moment of serendipity, without reading reviews or online hype or studying the menu in advance of our visit. Sometimes you have to take a chance, especially when it comes to lunch. YOLO, am I right? (Did I get that right?)

Looking through the unique menu at Jaber, I realized it was a Lebanese restaurant with a Brazilian twist, with multiple locations in Brazil. This was going to be an interesting fusion feast. We started out with some esfihas, which are small Lebanese pastries. The menu listed open esfihas that look like petite pizzas, and closed esfihas that are more like little pockets of dough, pinched closed in a variety of pretty shapes, and baked. The open beef esfiha in the bottom right corner above ($2.49) was indeed like a wee pizza, minus cheese. My wife ordered the folded spinach esfiha ($3.49), the triangle in the top left, that was just like the delicious spinach pies I used to enjoy so much at Gyro Plus and Falafel King back in Gainesville, over 20 years ago, and much more recently at Tony’s Bakery here in Orlando. As much as I like Greek spanakopitas on thin, crispy, flaky phyllo dough, I always prefer this Lebanese style spinach pie enveloped in warm, soft, chewy dough. Jaber’s folded spinach esfiha was much smaller than the one from Tony’s Bakery, but it was still warm and soft and chewy and fresh, with the cooked spinach so well-seasoned inside, with garlic, lemon, and possibly even nutmeg, among other savory flavors.

My wife’s favorite, however, ended up being the folded sausage esfiha that I ordered ($3.49), the tempting pinched pastry in the bottom right of the above photo. It was stuffed with crumbled calabresa sausage (which I first encountered at another local Brazilian restaurant, Mrs. Potato) and olives! That was an interesting choice that she just loved. The soft dough was my favorite part, so I’m glad we split that one. And finally, in the top right of the above photo, we have a fried kibbeh ($3.49), the lemon-shaped fried shell of cracked wheat with crumbled, seasoned ground beef and minced onions inside. I liked this one more than she did because it was so oniony.

I am always up for anything with lamb, so I went with the lamb shawarma ($17.89) — a thin wrap (more like a lightly-grilled tortilla than the fluffy, puffy pita bread I’m used to with gyros) stuffed with thin slices of seasoned lamb, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and tahini sauce, like a Lebanese burrito. It was tasty, even though I prefer the huge gyro from Mediterranean Deli that is around half the price. The lamb shawarma came with fries which were similar to McDonald’s fries, but could have used a lot more salt. I was really hoping for better fries, on par with Mrs. Potato, but those were some of the best fries I’ve ever had.

I was able to resuscitate these fries by shaking a liberal amount of this “Chef’s Sauce” onto them. It was a delicious hot sauce that definitely breathed some life into them. I asked our server Bella what was in the hot sauce, and if they sold bottles of it. She came back with “peppers and garlic,” and a bottle was $11. Sorry, I think that’s way too much to pay for a bottle of hot sauce, even though it was good.

This was the Syrian rice ($7.50), one of several different international rice dishes on the menu. It sounded the best for sharing — rice and angel hair pasta, fried in butter, kind of like a rice pilaf from heaven. Some Turkish restaurants serve a similar buttery rice, and we both ended up loving it.

My wife was feeling overwhelmed by the large two-page menu in a new restaurant, but it was an easy choice once I pointed out the combo meals. She loves steak — far more than I do, far more than most men do — so she chose combo #7 with picanha ($17.99), a thin-sliced Brazilian steak, reminiscent of Cuban palomilla steak and Argentinian churrasco, if that helps place it in context. Unlike those, picanha is served with the fat cap attached. It was seasoned with garlic and herbs, and it arrived sizzling.

Her picanha steak combo came with even more of the unsalted fries, a mound of white rice, and a cup of stewed red beans. This was so much food, we brought these fries home along with the rice and beans, and I ate everything over the next couple of days, doused with some hot sauces from my own collection.

My wife also ordered a cappuccino with Nutella around the rim ($5.79), which would have been a great dessert, but she asked for it at the beginning of our meal and sipped it throughout. It was messier than she expected, with the thick, sticky Nutella around the rim of the cup, but she did what she could to scrape it in and stir it into the cappuccino. I didn’t try this, but she liked it, and how could it not be great?

I honestly don’t know when we will return to Jaber. It’s in a part of Orlando we rarely venture out to, and even though our food was good, I thought it was kind of pricey for what we got, compared to similar dishes we like from elsewhere. The esfihas and the rich, buttery Syrian rice were definitely our favorite parts, and I would still recommend it for anyone located closer to College Park, Winter Park, or downtown Orlando looking to try one of Orlando’s more interesting fusion restaurants.

One thing that would bring me back would be their All You Can Eat Esfihas offer for $19.99 (plus tax and tip, of course), on Tuesdays from 4:00 to 10:00 PM and Sundays from 12:00 to 4:00 and 5:00 to 10:00 PM. I really did like the esfihas we got, and I wanted to try others from the long list of options. Plus, they are small, and I have faith in myself to know I could put A LOT of those away and more than get my money’s worth on a future visit. The Jaber Facebook page posted about the all-you-can-eat special back in February and said you have to make reservations. I don’t know if they are still running this special, but it would definitely be worth investigating. If I see you there, it will probably be on one of those days!

CLOSED: BaanChan Thai Restaurant

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLOSED: Beyti Mediterranean Grill

UPDATE: I am heartbroken to report that Beyti Mediterranean Grill closed down in February 2022.

***

I love Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food, and my absolute favorite among those might be Turkish food. Two of my favorite restaurants in Orlando are Turkish, and I’ve written glowing reviews of both of them here on The Saboscrivner blog: Bosphorous and Cappadocia. But when I found out a Turkish restaurant was opening near where we live in Casselberry, my wife and I were excited, overwhelmed with hope it would be awesome. Well, Beyti Mediterranean Grill (https://www.beytifl.com/) opened its doors this week, in the old location of Rolando’s Cuban Cuisine on Semoran Boulevard, just north of the busy Red Bug Lake Road intersection. The restaurant is located right beyond where the overpass lets out, so it is easy to get to if you’re driving north on Semoran, but you’ll need to make a u-turn at the light if you’re heading south. They don’t have a sign up yet, so be on the lookout.

The owners used to own Turkish Bar and Grill in Altamonte Springs, but I’m sad to say we never discovered that restaurant, and it closed in February 2019. Well, they’re back in business at Beyti, and I am so happy to report that it is awesome. Even better than we expected, in fact, and our expectations were high. As usual, on a Friday night after a busy week, I ordered a lot of food, but the two of us will end up with multiple meals from this massive menu.

Turkish appetizers often include a lot of rich, savory dips, and my favorite is sauteed eggplant ($4.99), sometimes known as soslu patlican. In this dish, the eggplant is cooked with tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic, and it is probably my favorite thing you can do with an eggplant. I’ve had and enjoyed the Bosphorous and Cappadocia versions, and this was as good or better than both. It was definitely a larger portion for a smaller price.

My wife requested babaganoush ($4.99), which is a creamy and smoky eggplant dip, blended with tahini, yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and garlic. We both like babaganoush a lot, and this was a real winner — not too chunky, but not blended so smooth that it loses any texture. The smoky flavor came through very well. We were in babaganoush bliss.

Even though the dips both came with soft pita wedges, we couldn’t resist ordering the lavash bread ($3.99) to tear apart and dip into the dips. It usually comes to your table inflated to the size of a football, but this one deflated in the ten minutes it took me to drive this bounty home. Still, the bread was warm, soft, and fluffy, if no longer puffy. I give it props over Bosphorous and Cappadocia for being dusted with regular and black sesame seeds, a very nice touch.

This is lahmacun, which is a soft, thin Turkish flatbread topped with seasoned ground beef in a rich tomatoey sauce. The order ($9.99) came with three of these, and they are one of my favorite Turkish dishes anywhere. I only ate one tonight, so these are my most eagerly awaited leftovers. It is even thinner than a typical pita bread, maybe about as thin as a thin crust pizza, but very soft — not like the crispy, crackery crust of most thin crust pizzas, and even softer than the pita and lavash breads.

This is a gyro plate with double the meat ($13.99). The garlicky gyro meat, a mixture of seasoned lamb and beef, was fantastic — so savory and not greasy at all, like so many gyros from so many other places. This was my wife’s choice, and clearly she has good taste. But this way I got to have some too, without feeling guilty for tasting too much of her food. What you can’t see in this photo is that the gyro meat completely covers a large portion of fluffy, buttery rice pilaf, with the meat juices dripping down and seasoning the rice even further. Note the crispy, vinegary pickled cabbage, lettuce and tomato in a very light vinaigrette, half a charred jalapeno pepper, and four more soft pita wedges.

I was very curious about the restaurant’s namesake dish, the Beyti ($10.99). The menu describes it as chopped lamb, garlic, hot peppers, and parsley, wrapped in pita bread and topped with tomato and yogurt sauces. It reminded us of a Turkish enchilada with the yogurt sauce filling in for a crema or sour cream on top, and the thin pita wrap reminiscent of a tortilla. The luscious lamb inside was formed and shaped into a long, dense meatloaf, so after being sliced, it was like there was a thick lamb meatball inside every segment. I was happy to see more cabbage and another hot pepper with this dish, as well as marinated red onions.

We ended up with even more vegetable accompaniments, enough to keep me in salads for a few more days!

The owner included two of their stuffed grape leaves, which he assured me were made fresh by hand, not served straight out of a can. I’ve had canned dolmades, and I have to admit that I love them, but there’s nothing like the real deal. They were served chilled, with seasoned rice inside, but no meat for you vegetarians to worry about. I was torn about ordering these, because I’m such a fan of stuffed grape leaves, but I had already ordered so much food. As a result, this was a really special surprise touch, and he assured I’ll order the grape leaves every time I return.

Finally, here’s a photo of an additional large container of the great buttery rice pilaf (I’m not even sure what that came with), along with an order of the most delicious pistachio baklava that the owner was also kind enough to include for free. It was such a generous gesture, and one we’ll never forget. I love baklava, and I’m not exaggerating when I say this is some of the best baklava I’ve ever had. It was still warm, extremely fresh, chewy (some baklava is flaky and dry), and perfect in every way.

I just want to say that I brought this delicious food home the evening before our anniversary. In this pandemic year, we haven’t gone out to eat at a restaurant together since the first days of March, and don’t intend to resume that old habit anytime soon. So all of my restaurant reviews since March have been of takeout food. I already warned my wife that this isn’t going to feel like a festive anniversary, but she’s perfectly content eating at home. Tonight’s dinner felt extra special, being home together, still thankfully safe and healthy, and eating one of the tastiest meals we’ve shared in a while from a wonderful new restaurant right in our neighborhood. While we enjoyed our first of several Turkish feasts over the next few days, for a little while it felt like nothing was wrong in the country or the world. We had each other (eleven years married!), and we had Beyti Mediterranean Grill, a welcome new addition to the Casselberry culinary scene, one that is well worth the drive from anywhere in the greater Orlando area, easily as good or better than our other established Turkish restaurants, and considerably cheaper. We wish them all the best and look forward to becoming regulars in the months and years to come. Seriously, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos — RUN, don’t walk to this one.

CLOSED: Valisa Bakery

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

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

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

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

Tripleta close-up:

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

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

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

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