College Park – The Saboscrivner

Zeytin Turkish Cuisine

Let’s face it — dining out is usually an impersonal, almost mechanical experience where you pay for food, you get your food, you eat, you leave, and you go on with your life. That’s the bare minimum of what we expect, and sometimes that’s what we crave. But how often do any of us visit a restaurant where you feel a warm welcome, like you’ve stepped into someone’s home and they are legitimately happy to see you? There are a few places like that around Orlando — Mediterranean Deli and Se7enbites immediately come to mind.

Another one is Zeytin Turkish Cuisine (https://www.facebook.com/ZeytinTurkishCuisine), a restaurant that has been around for eight years, but I only recently discovered it for myself. I’ve been a late bloomer throughout my life, but finally trying this wonderful food, prepared with skill and love and accompanied by some of the kindest, warmest hospitality I have ever encountered, I wished I had made to this College Park eatery long ago.

This was the lavas bread ($4.95), which you have to order at any Turkish restaurant, and especially at Zeytin. It usually arrives to your table in a dramatic fashion, huge and round, puffed up with hot air, which you then pierce with forks and knives to deflate. Then you tear off pieces of the warm, soft bread (kind of like a pita, but so much better) and dip it into various dips. It was packed in a brown paper bag and mostly deflated by the time I got home, but still just as good as we’ve had before, from elsewhere.

The main reason I went to Zeytin was because my wife was craving babaganush, that smoky, creamy dip made from roasted eggplants, sometimes with garlic, tahini paste, and olive oil added to it. She asked me to find the best babaganush in Orlando, and I received several helpful suggestions on the Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps!, the burgeoning community of local foodies founded by the civic-minded mensch Ricky Ly. One suggestion stood out to me, from Michele Bourassa, a familiar name from the Foodie Forum. She was the co-owner of Zeytin, and she invited me out to finally try her restaurant. How could I refuse such an offer? I had read great reviews for years and always meant to try it, but I’m rarely out in the College Park area. I called in my order on the way there, and it was all ready by the time I arrived. Michele could not have been nicer, and the babaganush ($8.50) could not have been better. Seriously, I’ve never had its equal, and my wife was over the moon with happiness.

But Michele (a true ray of sunshine and the perfect “front of house” person any restaurant would be grateful to have) and her husband, chef and co-owner Zeynel (everyone calls him “Z”), threw in some extras for us, which they did not have to do! Despite just ordering babaganush, they sent us home with the equivalent of their mixed appetizer platter, with multiple dips to accompany our lavas bread. (I tipped above and beyond, the least I could do for her unheralded generosity.)

This container held their two creamy, yogurt-based dips: cacik, yogurt blended with cucumbers, garlic, dill, and fresh mint, and haydari, thicker yogurt blended with crushed walnuts, garlic, and dill. Both were so refreshing, but I personally preferred the haydari.The word “Zeytin” is Turkish for olive, a favorite delicacy of Chef Z, and we noted that each dip was topped with a kalamata olive. I made sure my wife ended up with all of those.

This container held two separate dips as well: esme on the left, a spicy melange of tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, onions, cornichons, parsley, garlic, crushed walnuts, lemon juice, and olive oil, and soslu patlican on the right, my personal favorite Turkish dip, with sauteed eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic. My wife isn’t into anything spicy or overly tomatoey, so I got to enjoy both of these myself — and let me tell you, I enjoyed them. That was such an unexpected and unnecessary bonus, and we were both so grateful.

Because I wanted to try a meat dish and see how Zeytin handled one of my favorite Turkish dishes from elsewhere, I also ordered the Iskender kebab ($24.95), ground lamb mixed with seasonings, shaped into a loaf, broiled, and served as thin slices. Unlike the more common doner kebab, which uses the same meat, the slices in the Iskender kebab are served over cubes of sautéed, buttered bread so the juices and spices saturate the bread. Normally it is topped with tomato sauce and yogurt, but I figured that might make the dish a soggy mess by the time I got it home.

I asked for both the tomato sauce (see above) and the yogurt (see below) on the side, so I could apply my own, and also my wife could enjoy the sliced lamb plain, free of tomato-based sauces, as she always prefers. The yogurt was cool and creamy, and they gave us so much of it! Back at home, the cubes of bread crisped back up very nicely in our toaster oven, and I chopped some pickles and sprinkled some Penzey’s Turkish seasoning blend into the yogurt. Whatever yogurt I didn’t use with three separate servings of the Iskender kebab, I enjoyed with some chicken later in the week.

I asked if the Iskender kebab came with rice, and it does not, because of the crouton-like cubes of crispy bread underneath. But I figured the rice would be really good at Zeytin, so I asked for a side order of rice. As my wife and I both hoped, it was a buttery rice pilaf with chewy orzo pasta, much like the rice from the dearly departed Beyti Mediterranean Grill, our friendly neighborhood Turkish restaurant that opened in 2020 and closed in 2022. Even when my wife didn’t feel like eating meat, she would send me to Beyti to bring home lavas bread, babaganoush, and that rice. This takeout meal from Zeytin was like revisiting some old friends who were a little different, but had become even better.

Michele also included four pieces of freshly made pistachio baklava for us, a truly sweet and unexpected treat that wowed us in every way possible. It was some of the best baklava we’ve ever had, and not just in Orlando, either.

The following weekend, I took my wife to see an awe-inspiring stage production at Orlando’s Renaissance Theatre, Josephine, a one-woman show about the incredible life of American icon Josephine Baker, starring a local icon, triple-threat (actress-singer-dancer) Tymisha Harris. Afterwards, we headed on to dinner at Zeytin, a mere week after bringing home that bountiful takeout order. I had forgotten that you need to make a reservation for the small dining room, but we were so lucky a table was available, and Michele was able to seat us right away. I introduced Michele to my wife, who quickly and rightfully pointed out that she loved Michele’s kind heart. The only reason you wouldn’t agree is because you haven’t met her yet.

The dining room was pretty full when we arrived that Sunday evening. It seemed like a lot of the crowd was made up of regulars, and we could both understand why. Natural light streamed in and reflected off the beautiful hanging lights made of multicolored glass mosaics, which Chef Z had gotten from Istanbul. There was a fish tank near the entrance, close to our table, and we entertained ourselves throughout our dinner watching the aquatic antics of a tiny turtle.

Michele asked her husband to get our lavas bread ready even before we placed our order. As great as our feast was at home the previous week, most restaurant food is so much better consumed hot and fresh in the dining room itself, and Zeytin was no exception. Here was the steaming, soft lavas bread, fully puffed and fluffed up, ready to be deflated, dipped, and devoured.

We had to order the finest babaganush in Orlando all over again:

And Michele was kind enough to hook us up with small sample dishes of haydari, esme, and smooth, creamy hummus (which I always try to say in a sexy voice like Gal Gadot, but it sounds more like an old man with phlegm caught in his throat, coming from me).

I suggested we order moussaka ($21.95) to share, figuring we would have leftovers that would heat up well. The baked casserole of sliced eggplant, ground lamb, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and garlic was topped with a bechamel sauce and molten-hot, melty mozzarella cheese. It was very similar to lasagna, but with layers of eggplant instead of pasta sheets. For this reason, I like the tomato-based Turkish version of moussaka better than Greek versions that don’t have the tomatoes. And while I’ve had a similar version of moussaka at Cappadocia, another Turkish restaurant, Zeytin’s version is definitely my favorite in the city. The moussaka came with a mountain of that wonderful buttery rice pilaf with orzo, which we both loved.

Since we were dining here on a Sunday evening, I couldn’t resist ordering one of my favorite Turkish dishes: lahmacun ($19.95), a throuple of soft baked flatbreads topped with ground lamb, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices. I figured I would end up with plenty of leftovers that would heat up well in the microwave at work, but they were so good, they never made it into my workday lunches. I loved the lahmacun (pronounced “llama-JUNE,” but with a soft “j,” as in “bougie”) from Beyti while it was open, and I have even made it from scratch before. But Zeytin’s version blew me away, filling a hole in my heart and staving off my regular Sunday evening despondence for a while. I was impressed that it essentially came with a whole side salad, with chopped romaine lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, and parsley tossed in a very light vinaigrette dressing, which you can roll up inside the lahmacun to eat, like a veggie wrap with meat on the inner wrapping. But there was so much salad, that even after eating all three lahmacun pieces with it, I was able to pack the rest in my work lunch the following Monday. (I also ate the lemon wedges like orange wedges, which is what I usually do with lemon wedges.)

Here’s a close-up of one of those decadent discs. I just loved them. The thin outer crust was nice and crispy, but not overly crunchy, and the lahmacun dough got pleasantly soft underneath the cooked lamb and vegetables.

If you put a gun to my head (please don’t) and forced me to name my five favorite world cuisines (excluding regional American foods like barbecue, Jewish-style delicatessens, and Hawaiian), Turkish would definitely make my top five, along with Italian, Mexican, and probably Japanese and Cuban. That’s a hard decision to make. What about Indian? What about Chinese, in all its varieties? Greek? Vietnamese? I love them all, and so many more, but the local restaurants in Orlando made me a true devotee of Turkish flavors, and Zeytin reminded me what I love so much about them.

On top of that, I can’t get over how kind and sweet Michele was. I didn’t get to meet Chef Z, but he sounds like a pretty amazing person too. The fact that she reached out to me to invite me to their restaurant was such a nice gesture. I had been meaning to visit for far too long, but that personal touch is what finally made it happen. They hooked us up on that first takeout trip — I would be impugning whatever journalistic integrity I have if I failed to admit this — but they did it because they are such nice people, not asking for anything in return except for us to return. And it only took a week for us to do so, because it was that damn good.

Some Turkish restaurants may have expanded too much in recent years and aren’t as consistent (or as good) as they used to be. You may find others closed at random times throughout the week when they’re supposed to be open. But I can’t imagine Zeytin disappointing in any way, not after our recent experiences. All of their meats are halal, and everything is prepared from scratch — fresh produce, fresh everything. I am thrilled to consider myself a Zeytin convert now, and the next step is to become a regular. Please join me in doing the same!

So much of College Park has minimal parking (ironic), especially the stretch of Edgewater Drive closer to Princeton, but this is the north end of College Park, and Zeytin has its own parking lot. The restaurant is located at 4439 Edgewater Drive, just off Fairbanks Avenue, and very convenient to access via I-4. It is only open for dinner, and if you intend to dine in, definitely call 407-988-3330 to make a reservation. Plan your next date night or family dinner here. The extroverted, effervescent Michele and her husband, Chef Z, will make you feel like family, or probably even more welcome, depending on what your family is like.

I swore I wouldn’t end with this, but I can’t resist: HAIL ZEYTIN!

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!

Tornatore’s Cafe & Pizzeria

My wife recently said I like pizza more than anyone else she’s ever known. I’m not sure if that’s accurate, because even though I have strong opinions about what constitutes good pizza (and she and I often disagree on good pizza), I really don’t indulge that often. I published my last pizzeria review back on March 1st (Tomasino’s!), and I’ve only had pizza three times in almost five months since then (two to be discussed in forthcoming reviews, and the subject of this review). Now if she had said I like subs more than anyone she’s ever known, I wouldn’t be surprised at all, and I wouldn’t doubt the veracity of the statement either. I like subs more than anyone I’ve ever known. Yes, even more than YOU. Come at me, bro.

So when I kept hearing hype and praise for an Italian restaurant that served great New York-style pizza and a great Italian sub, I paid attention. Word on the street (by which I mean the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook) was that this place makes everything from scratch — their sub rolls, their pasta, even their fresh mozzarella! It is Tornatore’s Cafe & Pizzeria (https://tornatoresitalianrestaurant.com/), a beloved favorite out in the College Park neighborhood, west of Winter Park and north of downtown Orlando.

I called in a large order, figuring it would be more than enough food to last the two of us a few days. Tornatore’s was doing very organized curbside pickup, with a table outside where a hostess greeted me. She brought my credit card inside to charge me, I signed the receipt outside, and they had my food bagged up and ready to go in no time. They even had a neat little disinfecting device for pens that I had never seen before, that you slide the pen through after each person touches it. I never even made it inside the restaurant, but I gazed through the glass window into a glass case of house-made desserts (not on the online menu) right in front. Had I but known, I might have done even more damage!

Anyway, I’ve written before about how pizza is never as good by the time you bring it home, so I ordered a single slice of cheese pizza ($1.95) to consume immediately, in the car, before even leaving Tornatore’s parking lot. It was New York-style pizza, one of my two favorite kinds (do any sharp-eyed Saboscrivnerinos remember my other favorite kind of pizza?), hot and thin and crispy with gooey, melty cheese. I’m glad I got the experience of trying a “control” slice the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

I brought home a 14″ medium pizza, among other things. This was Leah’s Pie ($14.95), topped with mozzarella, sausage, caramelized onions, and roasted red peppers — all things I love on a pizza. It was cut into six wide slices instead of the usual eight most places do, and I enjoyed them for the next several days after heating them up in our trusty toaster oven.
It was a great combination of toppings, and while I can’t call it the best New York-style pizza I’ve had in Orlando (Pizzeria Del Dio holds that title, just barely edging out Paradiso), it definitely makes my Top Five. And that is NOT meant to be a diss. It’s top-notch pizza in my top-notch pizza pantheon.

My wife had requested eggplant rollatini ($9.95) off the appetizers menu — thin slices of fried eggplant wrapped around parmesan herb ricotta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, topped with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese, and baked in the oven.
She usually doesn’t care for the acidity of tomato-based sauces, but she seemed to love this version of rollatini. And for an appetizer portion, she got three meals out of it!

Meatballs are a good way to gauge any good Italian restaurant, so I got us a side order of two meatballs ($4.95), served in marinara sauce and topped with ricotta cheese. They had a light, airy consistency and good flavor.

And we always like to gauge every Italian restaurant and pizzeria on its garlic rolls, so I got us an order of garlic knots too, for $5.95. You get six knots in an order, not five, but I had already given my wife one when I took this photo:

These are probably the biggest garlic rolls we’ve had from anywhere. They had a nice crispy, crackly exterior and were topped generously with garlic and parmesan cheese, but they weren’t as buttery as we like. Pizza Bruno still holds the championship belt for best garlic rolls in Orlando, and it’s hard to beat Tomasino’s for sheer butteriness.

However, when I unwrapped everything at home, I was very surprised to see these soft, fresh-baked rolls in a paper bag:

They must have come with the eggplant rollatini and the meatballs, so that was a pleasant surprise, since the menu didn’t mention them. My wife absolutely loved these, even more than the actual garlic knots! They were kind of like ciabatta bread on the outside, but much softer and fluffier on the inside — still warm out of the oven. Had I known these were coming, I probably would have skipped the knots.

But one thing I couldn’t bring myself to skip was the Italian sub ($10.95 for a whole). As I said earlier, I love subs, especially Italian subs, those choruses of cured meats, cheeses, vegetables, and some kind of vinegar-based sauce on a good roll. I’ve championed the best Italian subs Orlando has to offer: the LaSpada’s Famous hoagie from LaSpada’s, the namesake Stasio from Stasio’s, the Rocco from Manzano’s, and the Capone, that recurring special guest star from Bad As’s Sandwich. Well, I can clearly say I have a Top Five of local Italian subs, because the one from Tornatore’s rounds out that quintet.

Forgoing ham (which can be so good when it’s good quality ham, but too many sub places use the cheap, slimy stuff), Tornatore’s Italian sub uses three of the best cured meats: salami (almost certainly Genoa salami), capicola (spicy ham), and prosciutto (one of the finest cured hams of all, especially when it’s sliced paper-thin like they do, and streaked with rich, creamy fat). Instead of industry standard provolone cheese, they use fresh, house-made mozzarella rounds (most impressive!), and finish it off with lettuce, tomato, thin-sliced red onion, pickled banana pepper rings, oil and vinegar, and… black olives.

If I had remembered the menu says black olives come standard, I would have asked them to hold them. As it is, I ate them on the first half of the sub, but picked them off the second half for the following day. It wasn’t listed on the menu, but they added a pesto spread on the wonderful fresh-baked sub roll, which was crackly on the outside (but not too crackly!) and pillowy soft on the inside. A little harder than the soft Cusano’s brand rolls at LaSpada’s, but softer than the crusty rolls at Manzano’s, it was a damn fine roll for a damn fine sandwich.

And finally, I have to

[AIR HORN!]
RING THE ALARM!
[/AIR HORN!]

Because Tornatore’s offers onion rings ($4.95), and I’m pleased to report you get a generous order of A-list onion rings, similar to the aforementioned Pizzeria Del Dio and Paradiso. For some reason, when Italian restaurants have onion rings on the menu, they’re almost always this really good beer-battered kind, the kind I always crave. Sharp-eyed Saboscrivnerinos know I can never resist trying and comparing onion rings wherever I find myself, and I was very happy with these.

So that was my whirlwind tour of Tornatore’s. I don’t make it out to College Park that often, but I was glad the place had ample parking, further north on Edgewater Drive from that cluster of restaurants with minimal parking, mostly along the street. I appreciated the efficient curbside pickup and especially the really terrific food. I’m impressed they make so much from scratch, even those desserts I spied through two layers of glass. The pizza was very good, but that Italian sub was a (cold) cut above. Whenever I make it back, I’d be tempted to get another one of those, but I wouldn’t mind trying their grilled sausage, pepper, and onion sub on that same delicious fresh-baked roll, with more of that fresh mozzarella. I’d also get some pasta next time, which is also made from scratch.

College Park Cafe

I’ve written a lot about being from Miami and growing up eating the best Cuban food in the country. If there’s one thing I hope I’ve shown the world on The Saboscrivner, it’s that Orlando has an exciting, burgeoning culinary scene, one that allows us to hold our own against other midsize-to-large cities. We even have Cuban restaurants, but even though some of them are good, very few compare to the plethora of excellent Cuban dining options four hours south of us in Miami. And nowhere is that more clear than with the legendary Cuban sandwich, AKA the Cubano. Plenty of good ones, but nothing that matches the iconic Versailles restaurant, the epicenter of Miami’s Cuban community and a can’t-miss destination for locals and tourists alike. Versailles’ Cuban sandwich is even featured in Jon Favreau’s delightful movie Chef, one of the best food-related movies ever made, which I strongly recommend to all my readers (most of whom have probably seen it already).

Well, dear readers (all those bakers’ dozens of you), I think I’ve finally located Orlando’s finest Cuban sandwich, one that can stand alongside los mejores en Miami, in large part because it’s larger than many of them. It’s at College Park Cafe (https://collegeparkcafe.com/), a humble diner in the College Park neighborhood near downtown Orlando, a place just far enough out of my regular radius that I rarely venture out that way. I’ve been seeing Facebook posts from them and from foodie friends, singing the praises of the Cuban sandwich and other food, so I had to try it for myself, and I’m so glad I did. A sign outside the diner advertises “The Best Cuban Sandwich In Town!”, and they ain’t kidding.

College Park Cafe is open from 6:30 AM until 2:00 PM, so I planned to get lunch from here, knowing they aren’t open for dinner. I called in my takeout order and spoke to Barbara’s son Juan, who was very friendly and patient. I had to make a few stops on my way there, and Juan called me back to let me know they were out of something I ordered, and called back a second time when I was about five minutes away, to let me know my order was ready. I appreciated the communication. Later, I spoke to cook and owner Barbara Martinez over Facebook Messenger while I was writing this review, and she said her family moved to Orlando from South Florida a year ago and took over the diner in August of 2019. That’s when they added Cuban dishes to the large menu full of American breakfast and lunch classics.

Of course I ordered the Cubano ($10.50) for myself, and I chose one of my lifelong favorite foods, sweet plantains (maduros) as the one side the sandwich comes with.

Opened up to show off all the shredded, marinated, roast pork, thin-sliced sweet ham, melty Swiss cheese, yellow mustard, sliced pickles, and crunchy potato sticks on this sandwich. Potato sticks aren’t typical, but they were a nice touch — says the guy who likes to put chips in almost any sandwich.

And a cross-section, so you can see just how thick this sandwich really is:

Sweet plantains with black beans (more about them below):

I also got a side order of onion rings ($2.50) because this was my first visit to the College Park Cafe, and whenever I see onion rings on a menu, I have to try them. That’s why this review gets a [AIR HORN!] RING THE ALARM! [/AIR HORN!] tag. It was a great value for a generous order of small, mostly uniform onion rings that were still warm by the time I got them home. Served with some ketchup I keep chillin’ in the fridge for such rare occasions, they were a nice accompaniment to that awe-inspiring Cubano.

My wife wanted palomilla steak ($11.50), a thin, marinated, grilled Cuban-style steak, which came with rice, beans (she chose black beans), and salty fried plantains (tostones), which she always prefers to the sweet ones. I always plate the food when I come home with takeout, especially in these pandemic days, and that means I always try a little bite of whatever she ordered. She likes and orders steaks far more than I do, but WOW, I was in heaven after one bite of this thin, flat, tender palomilla. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I was reeling from the excellent seasoning. There was garlic, cumin, maybe the sour orange juice of a mojo criollo marinade. It was an explosion of deliciousness, all from one bite. And because my wife hates onions and I love them, I slid all the grilled, seasoned onions off the top of her steak to enjoy myself.

Tostones!

When I got there, I saw they had a rich-looking chocolate cake under a glass dome, as any good diner should. My wife always loves chocolate, so I got her a slice of that too. It looked like they have flan as well, but I had to save some stuff for future visits.

I would have ordered the Cuban frita sliders, small burgers made with a blend of ground beef and chorizo sausage, usually served on buns pressed in a plancha like the Cuban bread of a Cubano sandwich, and topped with potato sticks and onions. But unfortunately they were out on this visit. I discovered frita burgers relatively late in my life, on my most recent trip back home to Miami in early March, right before the pandemic struck, and I have a review of that restaurant written and ready to run on a week I don’t have anything new to report on locally. I don’t know of anyone in Orlando serving fritas aside from College Park Cafe, so I’ll definitely return to try those. I don’t think anything could keep me from ordering another one of those perfect, overstuffed Cubanos, though. That thing would be a bargain at twice the price. It really is that damn good, and not just by Orlando standards either.

So that’s College Park Cafe, a friendly neighborhood diner with all your timeless diner classics: Reubens, patty melts, Greek omelettes, country-fried steak, eggs Benedict, chili cheeseburgers, anything you can picture in your diner dreams. They even have an unlimited salad for $8.99 (for dine-in only), or $11.99 when paired with a few different entrees. But the Cuban food is the real star of the show, and it’s definitely some of the best Cuban food to be had in Orlando, good enough to hold its own in Tampa or Miami. The Martinez family is so incredibly nice, and I shouldn’t have to remind you that they could really use every bit of support. Plus, normally parking along Edgewater Drive in College Park is kind of a nightmare, but it wasn’t bad at all on a Saturday afternoon during a pandemic. Trust me — if you and the people you’re comfortable being within six feet of can’t decide between breakfast, diner food, and Cuban cuisine, have I got the place for you.

Trevi Pasta

This was a stressful week, but it ended well. I was able to pick up my wife from her job on Thursday evening (after an unexpected emergency that ended up working out). That was nice, because I almost never get to do that. As usual, I suggested going out to dinner to decompress, and as usual, I offered her a bunch of options. She is a much pickier eater than I, and too often, her catch phrase when trying to choose a restaurant or even a type of food to eat is “Nothing sounds good.”

But that night, she was craving fresh pasta, ideally squid ink pasta. I’m not typically the biggest fan of going out for pasta because let’s face it — restaurant pasta dishes are expensive, and I buy good-quality DeCecco pasta, cook it perfectly al dente at home in well-salted water (with no oil, ever!), and either make my own sauces or doctor up a good commercial sauce like Mezzetta or Rao’s. But I’m not hardcore enough to make fresh pasta from scratch, so it’s a rare and worthwhile indulgence. There was only one possible place to go: Trevi Pasta in Orlando’s hip College Park neighborhood near downtown. https://www.trevipasta.com/

Trevi Pasta is a very small, family-owned operation famous for fresh, homemade pastas and sauces. They also have delicious gelato and other Italian desserts, and some Italian groceries.

Get this — they didn’t have squid ink pasta that night, but they told me they would have it this weekend. But the chef had a very small amount in the kitchen, and he brought it out for us to try, just to be a cool and good guy! It was served simply, with olive oil and herbs, and it was black as the night, briny, and al dente AF:

Trevi Pasta regularly changes their offerings, so don’t be like us and ask what they have, since they post a huge menu right near the entrance:

Here’s another version of the menu:
https://www.facebook.com/TreviPasta/app/1637598386514901/

My wife chose the potato gnocchi, usually a favorite of both of ours, but this gnocchi blew away the starchy store-bought kinds we usually get. She got hers with alfredo sauce and a huge, soft looking blob of burrata, that smooth, soft blend of fresh mozzarella cheese and cream.

I went with the spicy “inferno” pasta, and I chose tagliatelle — wider than fettuccine, not as wide as papardelle. I paired it with amatriciana sauce, my favorite pasta sauce, which I often make at home from scratch with San Marzano tomatoes, pancetta, onions, and lots of crushed red pepper flakes. I opted to get mine with meatballs too, and I ended up with four delicious little meatballs with a dense, spongy consistency and lots of flavor.

We both agreed they were the best bowls of pasta we’ve had in a very long time.

The only thing that didn’t blow us away were the rolls, which were on the hard side:

Then for dessert, we went back to look at some of those beautiful gelato flavors, and the nice lady at Trevi Pasta allowed us to sample a few.

My wife chose two scoops: panna cotta and cookies and cream (sorry about not having a photo), and I went with pineapple (I’ll always try anything pineappley) and passion fruit. Both were rich and intensely-flavored and refreshing. Passion fruit is not a fruit or a flavor I usually try, but it was so good — maybe even better than the pineapple!

Each gelato came with a tasty wafer cookie stamped with “Buon Appetito,” which was a nice touch.

I can’t say this was a cheap meal, but it was one of the more delicious restaurant meals either of us have had in a long time, and I don’t mind paying for very high quality. Trevi Pasta’s pasta, sauce, meatballs, and gelato were all masterful, and I have zero regrets. They will also sell any of their fresh pastas by the pound so you can prepare them at home.

In fact, I went back earlier today and picked up some freshly-cut squid ink fettuccine pasta, since we only got a tiny taste the other night. It was beautiful, delicious, and the same perfect texture after cooking for three and a half minutes in boiling water as salty as the sea.

CLOSED: Jade Sushi & New Asian

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jade Sushi & New Asian closed for good on November 5th, 2022.

***

For a guy who writes about food, I rarely leave work to go out to lunch, even though I work near some of our city’s best restaurants. Nope, I pack mostly-healthy lunches in a lunch box with baked chicken, sometimes cans of sardines, hard-boiled pickled eggs I pickle myself, big salads, vegetables, berries. Everyday stuff. Boring stuff. And I eat alone in our break room and usually choke it all down quickly so I can get back to work. Not festive, folks. Not blog-worthy. This Onion article hits really close to home for me: https://local.theonion.com/man-brings-lunch-from-home-to-cut-down-on-small-joys-1819577433

But today was a rarity, because not only did I go out to a nice lunch, but I met a lot of super-cool people from the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/orlandofoodieforum/), the community that keeps me in the loop and eating well in the first place. If I’m any kind of authority on local food (and I am, at least for friends, co-workers, and students), it’s thanks to that place.

Seven of us assembled at Jade Sushi & New Asian (http://jadenewasian.com/) in the College Park neighborhood near downtown Orlando: myself, Foodie Forum and Tasty Chomps food blog (http://tastychomps.com/) founder Ricky Ly (who I’ve known online for years but never met), and other super-cool people who probably don’t want me to list their full names: Krystle (another fellow blogger, of http://www.theorlandogirl.com/ fame), Monica, Mia and Aranya, and Lani (who I owe a debt of gratitude to, for welcoming me into the world of pie championship judging earlier this year). I always feel awkward in social situations, like I’m not going to belong, but this was a very friendly and welcoming group, and I like to think I clicked with them.*

*Speaking of “clicked,” I’m sure at least one careful Foodie Forum reader at this gathering was like “Really? This is the guy who elected to take the group picture?”

We ordered lots of food, and everyone was very generous and laid-back about sharing. We tried fried chicken wings in spicy-sweet Korean red sauce, pork belly bao, and they brought out thin slices of hamachi (a fish similar to amberjack) for us all to sample, which was really nice.

A few of us ordered spicy tan tan men, which is thin, ramen-like noodles served with ground beef in a spicy, oily red sauce. I love a similar dish at Chuan Lu Garden with ground pork, but this might have even been better because it also came with soft-boiled egg halves like “fancy” ramen (to me, that’s any non-instant ramen), beautiful chili threads as a garnish, and I opted for a bit of sliced cha shu pork with mine as well.

I’m pretty sure Ricky took this picture with my camera phone:

And here’s my terrible photography again!

Ricky has been promising to give me a food photography tutorial, so today was our chance. I felt extremely relieved and vindicated when he quickly concluded that my phone camera is just the worst, rather than my eye or my talent as a photographer. Hey, it’s not a fancy phone, but you would plotz if you knew how little it cost, and how little I pay for my plan per month. That allows me to go out to eat slightly more often and write about my experiences here. The downside, dear readers, is you have to look at my blurry-ass food photos from time to time.

Well, I can never resist a deal on sushi, and Jade has some great lunch specials, including two rolls for $11. I opted for two standards, intending to share them: a spicy tuna roll and a bagel roll with smoked salmon and cream cheese, because that is the food of my people. I haven’t had sushi in a long time, and they totally hit the spot.

Other people ordered some beautiful-looking bento boxes and ramen bowls. Jade Sushi & New Asian has a huge menu (http://jadenewasian.com/menu/), so take your time looking it over so you can make the best choices. Better yet, go with a bunch of friends (or friendly Internet strangers) and share everything!

I have been to Jade twice before, and from those prior visits, I strongly recommend the “sizzling evil ribs” (great name, even greater dish) and the Stormtrooper roll, with smoked salmon, asparagus, and fried jalapeno, wrapped with escolar, spicy mayo, and eel sauce.

So today was better than most days. I left work, ate a terrific lunch at a restaurant I love, and hung out with some friendly fellow foodies for the first time.