Category: Kissimmee

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s

The Baker’s Son by Valerio’s (https://thebakersonusa.com/) is a Filipino-American bakery/cafe that first opened in Jacksonville, but opened a second, much larger location in Kissimmee this past Thursday, December 4th.  (The address is 4797 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee, FL 34746, in front of the Target.)  I have been following its progress, excited about sampling new and unfamiliar sweet and savory baked goods, as well as any drinks and dishes they might serve.

According to the website, owner-operator Jun Valerio is a third-generation Filipino-American baker, and his family owns multiple Valerio’s bakeries on the West Coast.  Jun and his wife Kathleen ran Valerio’s locations in California, Seattle, and Canada before opening their own spinoff, the first Baker’s Son location, in Jacksonville, which has a larger Filipino population than the Orlando area.  But now that they have opened in Kissimmee, I have a feeling they will have a huge hit on their hands with mass appeal that will reach beyond Filipino locals and tourists.

I finally made the hour drive to the new Kissimmee location on Saturday morning, hoping to beat the lunch rush, but instead I found myself in a slow, serpentine line that wrapped around the entire store.  There weren’t any employees directing traffic, but customers walked to the left upon entering to grab any packaged breads and sweets off the shelves, then found their way to the end of the line.  I estimate it took me an hour and 15 minutes from entering the store to ordering my food and paying at the front counter, but I chatted with the guy in front of me, and everyone was patient and polite, helping point the newcomers in the right direction.

The full menu is not on the website, so I took photos for my dozens of readers, so you can study in advance.  Try right-clicking on these menu photos and opening them in new tabs for slightly larger images.

This is the coffee, tea, boba, and signature drinks menu:

Here is the food menu, with merienda (snacks), rice plates, sandwiches, burgers, healthy eats, and breakfast sweets:

And this is the Cloud Series (The Baker’s Son’s version of milkshakes), plus soft serve ice cream:

The coffee drinks people were picking up from the cafe counter all looked delicious, but coffee makes me feel terrible.  I, on the other hand, have never met a cold, refreshing, citrusy drink I didn’t like, so I got the fresh calamansi juice.  Calamansi is a fruit that is similar to lime, and its juice adds sour notes to many Filipino recipes.  This was similar to limeade — sweet, sour, and so refreshing.  

After how long the line took, I didn’t know how long it would take for the food I ordered to be served, so I asked for an empanada when I got to the counter.  They looked really good.  This was a little smaller than a typical Cuban empanada:

It had a saucy, seasoned beef filling with some peas, but it was nothing like the picadillo filling I’m used to in Cuban empanadas.  It was definitely saucier, and the fried shell had a really pleasant salty-sweet flavor and didn’t taste or feel greasy.   

I really wanted to try something with longanisa, a sweet and savory Filipino sausage.  They offer a longanisa burger, but since I was planning to eat there after waiting that long, I chose something that would not have traveled well: loaded longanisa fries.  These were really crispy fries that any fry lover would love, topped with crumbled longanisa sausage, caramelized onions, creamy garlic sauce (like an aioli), and an over-medium fried egg.  It was so delicious and decadent.  

I’ve had bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches on my mind recently, so since I didn’t get a burger, I opted for the tocino glazed bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, served with sweet glazed bacon called tocino, scrambled eggs, American cheese, and a crispy hash brown patty on a pillowy-soft roll called pan de sal (literally “bread of salt”) that had been grilled to crisp up its interior.  Pan de sal (sometimes stylized as pandesal) is one of the specialties of The Baker’s Son, so I’ll come back to that a little later.  

This was sinigang popcorn chicken off the merienda (snacks) menu.  I certainly didn’t need it, and it was a bit of an impulse buy, but the guy in front of me said he was going to get it, and I trusted him.  He said it should have a sour seasoning sprinkled on it, but even though mine was good, with a crispy, crunchy batter, it didn’t taste sour to me.   While writing this, I found out that the sour sinigang flavor usually comes from tamarind. 
I ate most of the above food on site, but took most of the chicken home with me, where I will try it with my huge collection of condiments and sauces.

But since I was at a brand-new bakery, I couldn’t leave without buying some bread.  I bought the smallest bag of pan de sal they had.  These were smaller rolls, like dinner rolls, but they had much larger bags with larger rolls, more like what I had with my bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich (think of typical burger buns).  They are made with flour, eggs, yeast, sugar, salt., and powdered milk, so they will be nice and light and fluffy and slightly sweet.  They reminded me a bit of Japanese milk bread.

This was pan de coco, more small, fluffy rolls  stuffed with a sweet spread made of young coconut.  (If any MCs are looking for a new stage name, may I suggest “Young Coconut”?)

And this box of Spanish bread is a bit like buttery, soft brioche, with a sweet, buttery, creamy filing in the center.  I would have been fine with one or two, but they only came in boxes of six.  

They had so much more to choose from, including a lot of sweeter breads, rolls, and pastries, many of which had lots of icing and/or ube (sweet purple yam) filling.  But I knew my wife wouldn’t be terribly interested in any of these, so I reigned myself in.  I like to make sandwiches at home, so I could level up my sandwich game with all these different rolls.

I would definitely recommend The Baker’s Son, even though people might want to wait a little longer to avoid the long lines.  Most new restaurants will have a certain amount of hype involved, and I did make the choice to go on the third day it was open, but I suspect it will calm down soon enough (and probably be a lot more chill on normal weekdays, rather than the Saturday of its opening week).  Most of the people waiting inside with me were Filipinos of all ages, and I could sense their excitement and pride in The Baker’s Son.  I couldn’t be happier for them, or for the Valerio family and their staff, or for the rest of us, having a bakery/cafe like The Baker’s Son as an option in the Orlando area.  Head down to touristy Kissimmee when you can, and please let me know what you ordered and what you thought!

CLOSED: Candee Lee’s Soul House

EDIT: I learned that Candee Lee’s Soul House permanently closed in October 2025, barely two months after I wrote my review!  What a damn shame.  The food was really good.

***

Candee Lee’s Soul House (https://candeeleessoulhouse.com/) is the dream of Chef Tony Tone Blakey, a Culinary Institute of Virginia alumnus, a former chef at Walt Disney World, and a personal chef.  Inspired by his mother, the titular Candee Lee, he opened his soul food restaurant in a touristy stretch of Irlo Bronson Highway in Kissimmee, Florida, in March of 2025, and I had been wanting to make it down there to try it for a long time.

Anyone who knows me and my family would not be surprised to learn I did not grow up eating soul food, but it a nostalgic treat to me every time.  I discovered soul food the summer between my junior and senior years of high school.  As a teenager obsessed with the TV series ER, I thought I might study to become a doctor, and somehow I scored a prestigious(?) internship at the University of Miami School of Medicine in downtown Miami.  I felt like such an accomplished and sophisticated adult, taking the Metrorail from suburban Kendall into downtown every morning and home every evening, even though I was placed in a hematology research lab and assisted with mundane experiments that never seemed to cure any diseases.  A lot of the time, they drew my blood to use as the “control” for the daily experimentation, adding insult to injury for this young, unpaid intern.  The highlight of those long and frustrating internship days was eating lunch in the med school cafeteria, where every day they offered a cheap daily special that was usually soul food.

That summer internship made me realize I had no future as a medical researcher or a patient-facing doctor, but I fell in love with ham hocks and collard greens, fried cabbage and yams, and my beloved oxtails — one of my favorite meals to this day.  I looked forward to those nourishing lunches so much, knowing my days would be halfway over at that point, and I still think about that cafeteria soul food today.  It could be said that I’ve been chasing those tastes ever since.

Anyway, there have never been many soul food options in Orlando.  I loved Nikki’s Place when I reviewed it a few years back, a historic restaurant located in Parramore, near downtown Orlando.  But when I learned Chef Tony Tone had opened his own restaurant, I couldn’t wait to try it, even though it was much further from home.  Well, while Nikki’s Place has the old-school atmosphere of the soul food restaurant from The Blues Brothers, Candee Lee’s Soul House is modern, full of natural light and bright red and blue painted walls, and located in a suburban strip plaza, looking a bit like a fast food spot.  I had a rare Wednesday off work this week, so I drove down there with a friend to try it for the first time.

I took the liberty of photographing the menu displays on the wall, since they didn’t quite match up with the menu on the website.  You can choose between lunch plates with one entree and one side (only Monday through Thursday, from 12 to 3 PM) or dinner plates with one entree and two sides (any day, anytime).  The entrees include chicken (either fried wings or garlic and herb-roasted leg quarters), boneless fried catfish filets, and fried bone-in pork ribs (three for the lunch or six for the dinner).
There are also chicken or fish sandwiches which are supposed to come with coleslaw, homemade pickles, and one side, which I did not read carefully at the time.  (More on that later.)  The chicken and fish sandwiches ($12 and $15, respectively) are half-price on Wednesdays, which was one of the reasons I timed my first visit for a Wednesday.

Here is the menu of sides and drinks.  I wanted to try most of the sides, and between my friend and I, I got to try five, which isn’t bad at all.  

My friend and I didn’t have the sheer numbers necessary to order the Family Box (which serves 4-5) or the Big Mama (which serves 7-8), but here is the information, for anyone who might live or vacation down that way with a large group:

At this point I should note that it is a long, thin restaurant space, where you order on the far end of the counter and pay closer to the door, and the only seating is a series of red stools along a long counter on the opposite wall.  There aren’t any tables, and I’m sure a lot of people get their food to go.

My friend, a Mississippi boy, ordered the fried catfish dinner, which came with two huge filets.  He let me try a piece, and it was excellent.  I loved the breading.  It is definitely some of the best fried catfish I’ve had anywhere around here (up there with my favorite seafood restaurant High Tide Harry’s, and of course the iconic Nikki’s Place). 
For his sides, he got the collard greens with smoked turkey and the “Better than ya mama’s” grits.  I’m not a big grits guy, but I tried a bite of his, and it was definitely better than any grits I’ve tried anywhere else.  They were buttery and rich and a bit gritty, and definitely not instant grits (as no self-respectin’ Southernah uses instant grits).  Chef Tony Tone definitely takes pride in his grits.

The whole reason I planned to take a Wednesday off work just to drive the hour each way to Candee Lee’s Soul House was to try their oxtails, which are only served on Wednesdays.  We got there a few minutes after they opened at noon, but when I asked for the oxtails, they said it wouldn’t be ready until 1:00.  Okay, okay, that’s not a problem.  We would still eat, and I’d order other stuff and get the oxtails to go.  No problem, right?

So I decided to get the fried ribs lunch special, with three ribs, a side, a sauce, and a drink.  I love ribs in all their forms, but I’ve never had fried ribs before, and neither had my friend.  I gave him one, because this is how we roll.  The spareribs were a generous size, and they were definitely meaty.  They had a pleasantly crispy exterior, and they were still tender and juicy, luckily not dry at all.  I would have been really disappointed if they were dried-out and both crunchy and greasy at the same time, like how way too many sports bars ruin their wings in the fryer, but these were really good.   The meat didn’t exactly fall off the bone (which is a good thing, texture-wise), but it was tender enough to easily munch off the bone without leaving shreds behind.  By the time I finished my two ribs, it looked like a piranha had gotten to them.

These ribs came unsauced, unlike most restaurant ribs, but Candee Lee’s offers a few different house-made sauces in little ramekins, and I tried three of them.  There was an Angry sauce, which is a house-made hot sauce, there was another sauce that was sweet and spicy with a honey base, and then there was an Oooh Baby sauce that was their barbecue sauce.  The ribs were tender enough to tear off little chunks with my fingers and dip them in the various sauces to try them all, which was nice.  They were a good blank canvas, and all three of the sauces slapped.

For my side, I ordered the double meat baked beans, which were dripping out of the styrofoam box, but every drop was worth saving and savoring.  According to the website, these baked beans are slow-cooked in molasses and spices with ground beef and smoked sausage.  According to me, your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner, these are the best barbecue-style baked beans I’ve had anywhere in the Orlando area.  I absolutely loved them.  10/10, chef’s kiss, no notes.  (Spoiler alert: that will become a trend with the other sides.)

In an attempt to both kill time so we could get the oxtails and go, and also to try as many things as possible on the menu, I also ordered the chicken sandwich, which is half-price on Wednesday.  It included a large chicken thigh, breaded and fried to perfection, on a soft bun.  It was an awe-inspiring piece of fried chicken.  My only disappointment was realizing later that the sandwich did not include any coleslaw or house-made pickles, as promised.  I thought it seemed a little minimalist, but the chicken itself was so good, and I enjoyed dunking it in the three aforementioned sauces after giving my friend a piece, so I got distracted.  It didn’t occur to me until after we left that we missed out on the coleslaw and pickles, and therefore got an incomplete chicken sandwich experience at Candee Lee’s. 

This time, my side was the “million dollar” mac and cheese, which was so rich and buttery and cheesy that I had to pace myself to get through the modest scoop.  I don’t mind telling you, constant readers, that this might be the best macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had in the Orlando area.  It’s different from my previous favorite from Pom Pom’s Teahouse and Sandwicheria (which no longer lists mac and cheese on its menu after reopening in Sanford), but it is everything you dream of good mac and cheese being.  Truly the stuff that cheesy, buttery, carby, gooey dreams are made of.

By the time we got our food, chatted a lot, finished everything, and watched the restaurant get pretty damn busy during its first hour of operation, it was almost 1:00, so I asked if the oxtails were almost ready to get an order to go.  I paid, got a refill of the delicious lemonade (from a company called Tractor that I had never heard of before), and resumed talking with my friend.  By this point, they were even more slammed.  I asked for an oxtail update again at about 1:45, not out of patience yet, but starting to get close.  They eventually brought out the oxtails and two sides, and we finally hit the road for home closer to 2:00.  I know oxtails take a long time to cook, but if I had known they wouldn’t be ready when the restaurant opened at noon, I definitely would have timed our visit to arrive later.

These were HUGE oxtails, not like the small pieces in a dark brown gravy I’m used to from Jamaican restaurants, or even the ones I’ve had in the past from Nikki’s Place.  These slow-roasted oxtails had an orangey-red mirepoix gravy on them (comprised of onions, carrots, and celery, for those who were wondering), and the tails themselves were much longer segments of bone than I am used to, with rich, unctuous, fatty, tender meat clinging to them.   They were delicious, just different.Once I got home and started writing this review, I saw photos on Candee Lee’s Facebook page that the oxtails were supposed to be topped with a generous portion of fried onions.  I love fried onions, so much so that I obsessive-compulsively sample onion rings anywhere I can find them and make a special point to review said onion rings on this very blog.  I even have a catch-phrase: RING THE ALARM!  I was so sad and disappointed that once again, a key component had been left out of something I ordered, with no notice or warning.

But I cheered up a bit once I tried the same collard greens with smoked turkey that my friend got with his catfish.  Just like with the baked beans and the million dollar mac and cheese, these smoky, savory greens were the best collard greens I’ve ever had in my life.  Better than Nikki’s Place, better than 4 Rivers Smokehouse from 15 years ago, when you could always count on them to have great barbecue and sides, better than anywhere.  These are the greens you’re looking for!

And my second side, which I also enjoyed back at home was the macaroni salad, a side item I am now in the habit of ordering anywhere and everywhere I see it on the menu.  Just like my obsessions with onion rings, chili, and Italian subs, I can’t turn down macaroni salad or pasta salad, because everyone’s versions are different, and they’re almost all good to great.  Well, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, this macaroni salad was GREAT.  Once again, even though you’ve already heard this familiar refrain, this might be the best macaroni salad in the greater Orlando area.  There was a bit of yellow mustard in it, along with the mayo, shreds of carrot, and bits of celery and onion, and the elbow macaroni was perfectly al dente.  Perfect in every way. 

I think Chef Tony Tone should consider offering a side sampler on his menu, where diners can choose anywhere from three to five sides for a fixed price (factoring in small upcharges for the mac and cheese and greens).  Maybe someone doesn’t feel like heavy meats but really wants to sample as many sides as possible without paying $5.50 for a la carte portions or just getting one or two sides with a larger meal.  I think that would be a big hit.  Even though the fried chicken and fried catfish were both excellent, the fried ribs hit different in the best possible way, and the oxtail was on point, I thought all the sides were the stars of our huge and heavy lunch.

With all this said and done, I give a rousing recommendation to Chef Tony Tone and Candee Lee’s Soul House.  All the food was a hit, even though I am not thrilled about missing out on the fried onions on top of my oxtails and the cole slaw and pickles on the chicken sandwich.  Because the restaurant is an hour away in a direction I never travel in, sadly, I don’t think I will make it back down there, so I’ll never get to try the “complete” versions.  But if you’re ever in the area or just craving soul food, I still encourage others to check it out.  Just be on the lookout when you receive your food, and don’t hesitate to ask if anything seems to be missing.  And if you come for oxtails on a Wednesday, call first to confirm when they will be ready, so you don’t kill two hours waiting around there like my very patient pal and I did.

Istanbul Grill

I love Turkish food.  It might be my second-favorite cuisine of all time, after Italian, and the insidious social media algorithms are always sending me reels of the most amazing-looking Turkish street foods that always make me hungry.  Unfortunately, Turkish restaurants don’t always last here in Orlando.  I was a big fan of Beyti and Cappadocia, but they didn’t survive.  Luckily, I have a new favorite, Istanbul Grill (https://istanbulgrillorlando.com/), but unfortunately, it isn’t close to home like Beyti was or close to work like Cappadocia was (especially because my work and home are now one in the same).  It is way far south on Orange Blossom Trail, south of the Florida Mall, south of the 528.  It’s a haul — about 45 minutes each way in good traffic on a weekend during the day.  But I’ve brought home takeout twice from Istanbul Grill, and it was so worth it both times.

It is a big attention-getter to order lavas bread in a Turkish restaurant.  They walk it out to your table, this big, beautiful bread puffed up with hot air like a football, and then you stab it with utensils to deflate it (and watch out for the hot steam escaping).  It is very soft, and you rip off pieces and use it for dipping and scooping.  Of course, if you get lavas bread to go, it deflates on the long drive home, but if you’re lucky, it stays warm and may stay soft overnight if you have any left.

And why do you need soft bread for dipping and scooping?  For this mixed appetizer platter!  Almost every Turkish restaurant offers a variety of cool, fresh, refreshing dips, and you can usually order some kind of assortment.  My favorite is spicy ezme in the top left, almost like Turkish salsa — a combination of fresh tomatoes, onions, parsley, green and red bell peppers, hot peppers, garlic, tomato paste, and lemon juice.  My wife wants nothing to do with ezme, so I get it all.  In the top right, the tabouli salad is all hers — crushed bulgur wheat, parsley, scallions. and tomatoes with olive oil and  fresh mint.  She told me this is her favorite tabouli from any restaurant, Turkish or otherwise.In the bottom left, we have baba ganoush — fresh smoked eggplant puree with tahini (sesame paste), olive oil, labneh (strained yogurt thickened into a cheese-like form), mayonnaise, garlic, and lemon juice.  We both love this one, but it is her absolute favorite.  In the cup in the middle, we have cacik — a dip of creamy yogurt, shredded cucumber, mint, dill,  and garlic, perfect for cutting spice and mellowing out rich meats.  And in the bottom right, we have the old classic hummus — chick peas, tahini, olive oil, garlic and cumin.

As great as this mixed appetizer bounty is, I do wish Istanbul Grill served two more dips that I rank even above ezme: soslu patlican (eggplant sauteed with tomatoes, onions, and peppers, like a spicy ratatouille) and taramasalata (a creamy dip made with salted, cured fish roe).

For my first visit, I made sure to order lahmacun, one of my Turkish favorites.  These thin, round flatbreads look like pizza without cheese, but they are much thinner than even tavern-style pizza and not as crispy, and aren’t sliced.  They are topped with a delicious mixture of ground lamb, tomatoes, onions, and peppers, and then baked.  Here you get three in an order.
I’ve made lahmacun from scratch before, and I think I’m going to have to do it again soon, since I have ground lamb in the freezer and want to use it up before hurricane season gets hot and heavy.  Mine are pretty awesome, but not quite as perfect as Istanbul Grill’s.

Instead of eating lahmacun like pizza, you are supposed to roll it up and fill it with sliced tomatoes, red onions, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze of lemon juice.  It is so refreshing and light, much moreso than you would think a pizza-looking thing would be.

My wife ordered “mosakka” (often called moussaka on other restaurants’ menus), an oven-baked dish of eggplant with ground beef and tomato sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese.  If you’ve made it this far, you might be more familiar with the Greek version of moussaka, which is often assembled in layers and topped with a bechamel sauce, but both of us really love the tomatoey Turkish variant.  I tried a bite, and folks, you have to try this some time!  This is actually my preferred moussaka/mosakka.

It was hard for me to choose, but I made the game-time decision (standing at the counter placing my order) to go with lamb adana, grilled kebaps of ground lamb seasoned with red bell peppers.  Think of it as a grilled meatloaf with a firmer texture.  These were fine, especially when I added some of the house-made hot sauce, but I was hoping they would be a little more exciting, flavor-wise.  I almost always gravitate toward lamb dishes at Turkish, Middle Eastern, and Greek restaurants, but I probably would have been happier with the special beef adana, grilled ground beef shoulder kebabs tender seasoned with mint, red bell pepper, onions, chili flakes, and cumin.  There seems to be more going on in that one.  Leave it to me to choose the lesser adana!  Or maybe I should have tried a different lamb dish.  Luckily, there would be a next time.   They came on a bed of rich rice pilaf (which gets so much better with all the meat drippings soaking in) with a small salad and crunchy pickled red cabbage.

My wife had asked me to pick her a dessert, so instead of baklava, I brought home this kunefe, because she is in her pistachio-loving era.  This Middle Eastern dessert is a large “patty” of very fine shreds of dough that almost look like vermicelli strands, often with a sweet cheese filling, soaked in a sugary syrup and topped with crushed pistachios.  It looks a bit dry in this photo because the sugar syrup came in a separate little ramekin (not pictured) for us to pour over the kunefe when we got it home.  That definitely improved its looks, texture, and most importantly, its taste.  I didn’t try it, so I don’t know if this one had cheese inside or not, but she liked it, so that made us both happy.   

For our second visit, we got Istanbul bread instead of the fluffy, puffy lavas (that is actually quite thin once you rip it apart).  This was very similar to a thicker pita bread or a good pizza crust, minus toppings, and much thicker than the lahmacun.  It held up well dipping and scooping the mixed appetizer platter I brought home again.

My wife asked for an order of falafel, which came with four decent-sized discs and a little cup of tahini, which really surprised me when I took a big dip, expecting it to be hummus.  I like hummus (who doesn’t?), but straight-up tahini, not so much.    These looked darker than your average falafel, so she thought they were burned and ended up not having any after all.  I ate them a few days later, so I can vouch for them not being burned and actually being delicious.  I made them into two separate sandwiches (two falafels in each) on onion naan bread with homemade pickled cabbage, homemade pickled red onions, tomatoes, Istanbul Grill’s own hot sauce, and Flavortown Secret Sauce from my giant collection of condiments.  I should have taken a picture of one of those, because they turned out pretty.

One thing my wife ate with gusto was this order of four beautiful grilled lamb chops, seasoned to perfection.  I asked them to grill them as rare as possible.  Despite being very thin (much thinner than the thick lamb loin chops I buy at Costco), they were delicious, and seasoned so well.  The rice pilaf underneath them got better and better as it soaked up all those savory drippings.  She actually got four separate meals out of this, with one lamb chop and a little rice in each portion!

She surprised me by taking a big bite of the grilled pepper on the left, before I could warn her it would be too spicy for her.  It was.  She won’t do that again!  And I ate all the crunchy red pickled cabbage, of course.

This was my lamb shank, a tender, braised chunk of meat barely clinging to a large bone, which was stewed in a tomatoey gravy.  This is one of my favorite dishes to order at Turkish or Greek restaurants, but because I love it so much, I learned how to make braised lamb shanks myself at home, and my sauce is a lot thicker, spicier, and more robust overall, especially since I braise mine in the oven for five to six hours.  This was perfectly good, but just like I’m exceptionally picky about restaurant lasagna because I love my homemade version so much, I also like my lamb shanks a lot more than this one.  Sorry, Istanbul Grill.  It’s not you, it’s me. 

It came with a big styrofoam container of rice pilaf, which I dumped into the lamb shank’s somewhat thin gravy to soak it up. 

And this was the iskender style kebab, a dish I was introduced to a long time ago at Bosphorous, the first Turkish restaurant I fell in love with, and then Cappadocia (RIP) raised the bar even higher.  I didn’t eat this until the following day, but it consists of “signature house prepared meat” sliced  thin over “garlic bread” (I’m thinking fried Istanbul bread) topped with  a tangy, tomatoey “special sauce” and served with yogurt.  It is mildly spicy, acidic, and also creamy, and you get the crispiness of the fried bread underneath catching all those meat and sauce drippings.  The other Turkish restaurants used their doner kebap meat (think sliced gyro meat, all salty and garlicky usually grilled to make it a little firmer), but this was definitely different from those. 

Like I say at the end of too many of these reviews, we both really liked Istanbul Grill, but it is too far from home to return with any regularity, and too far to even drag my wife down there to dine in the restaurant.  But I recommend it, and I will challenge myself to keep ordering different things off the expansive menu whenever I return.  And FYI, there is a second location in Kissimmee, which is even further from me, but might be more convenient for some.

Paul’s Deli

My wife and I are not what you would call “Disney adults,” but I still end up at Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista once in a while, usually meeting visiting friends out there.  The only thing that brings me further south of Disney Springs, into the city of Kissimmee, is to visit a particular location of Coliseum of Comics once or twice a year, to catch sales or look for specific items that have eluded me elsewhere.  Those are usually quick missions I perform with surgical precision, hitting the back issue bins and jumping back on I-4, eastbound and down as quickly as possible.  However, I had time to kill after my last Coliseum mission, so I decided to linger in Kissimmee and grab lunch at a place I had been hearing about for years, that seemed right up my alley: Paul’s Deli, at 812 East Vine Street (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054659730673).

Paul’s Deli had a few tables, but it generally seemed like a takeout establishment, much like Lawless Subs in Altamonte Springs and Ray’s Deli & More in Pinecastle.  Paul’s reminded me more of Lawless Subs, since it lacked the bodega/convenience store atmosphere of Ray’s, but it still had glass cases full of Boar’s Head and Citterio meats and cheeses, which they slice and sell:

Since they don’t have an official website, here is the menu.  You can order subs (the main draw), salads, pasta dishes, and a few sides and desserts.  Longtime readers know my enduring love for sandwiches, especially subs, especially Italian subs, so I had definitely chosen wisely.

I ordered two subs to go.  First up was the Italian hero, with Genoa salami, capicola, mortadella, ham, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, banana peppers, jalapeño peppers, and oil and vinegar on a really nice, soft sub roll.  Long-time readers know an Italian sub is one of my favorite meals in the entire world, and this one was perfectly fine.  As you can see, it sure had a lot of ham, compared to the other meats!

But even better was the Soprano sub, with sopressata salami, capicola, and fresh mozzarella, plus all the same vegetable toppings.  It had stronger, more robust flavors, and was just the better sub.  But I have no regrets about bringing both of them home.   Both of these were cold subs, by the way.  I am not a fan of my cured Italian meats served hot ‘n’ greasy.  I like the flavors and textures so much better when they are cold.

Just as I have to try onion rings whenever they are on a restaurant’s menu, I now have to try every version of macaroni salad and/or pasta salad that I encounter.  This was a pretty basic macaroni salad that was extremely light on the mayo, if they used any at all.  It had a nice, tangy flavor from little bits of cheese and a vinegary tang.  I ate this in the car in the parking lot outside of Paul’s Deli, balancing the little container on my thigh.     

While the menu only lists potato salad, they had two different kinds of potato salad the day I visited, so of course, for the benefit of this review (and my own curiosity), I had to try them both.  This one was creamier:

But this one was ultimately better, with some herbs and spices and crunchy stuff (maybe celery or pickles)?  I liked the macaroni salad better than either of the potato salads, though.

So that was my visit to Paul’s Deli, a fantastic place to get a sub in Kissimmee, except I’m never in Kissimmee.  If you live down that way or are visiting Disney, you are unfortunately nowhere near Stasio’s or LaSpada’s or any of the aforementioned delis and sub shops, so definitely check it out, and maybe try that incredible Soprano sub.  I probably won’t be back down there until the Kissimmee Coliseum of Comics has another big sale or a special guest writer or artist signing books, but I’ll make another pilgrimage to Paul’s whenever I return and probably get the Soprano again, maybe even with extra meat.

Chain Reactions: 4 Rivers Smokehouse

This is a review that is years overdue.  Ever since the first 4 Rivers Smokehouse (https://www.4rsmokehouse.com/) location opened in Winter Park, Florida, in 2009 (where the wonderful Hunger Street Tacos now stands), my wife and I have been huge fans.  As John Rivers expanded his barbecue empire, we became regulars, and I introduced many friends to it, both locals and out-of-towners.  It was some of the best barbecue we had ever eaten, and still is.  Even as talented newcomers have exploded onto the Orlando barbecue scene, like Git-N-Messy BBQ (RIP, Chef Chuck Cobb) and Smokemade Meats + Eats, 4 Rivers remains a homegrown favorite that remains pretty consistent, even with 13 locations throughout Florida.

If you’re reading a food blog (even this food blog, you dozens of stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!), you probably know that there are different regional barbecue styles: smoked brisket crusted with dark, peppery bark in Texas, pulled pork and ribs in Memphis, ribs with a sticky, sweet, tomatoey sauce in Kansas City, and in North Carolina your pork may come with a mustard-based sauce or a thin, vinegary sauce, depending where you are in the state.  Florida has never had its own barbecue style, but we’re already such a mishmash of cultures and cuisines from around the country and the world, it makes sense that John Rivers would take it upon himself to travel the country, try all the best stuff, and start his own restaurant to “de-regionalize” barbecue, as the 4 Rivers website explains.  It’s a great way to sample different barbecue styles, and if you don’t know the difference, then it doesn’t matter, and it’s just a great place to eat.

But even though my wife and I were regulars at the Longwood location for the longest time, we hadn’t been back to 4 Rivers in a few years, at least not since I started this blog in the summer of 2018.  The menu grew over time, and then shrank back, paring down to the essentials as the Winter Park location grew into a mighty local chain.  My wife’s favorite meats, the smoked prime rib and tri-tip steak (a California barbecue specialty) disappeared from the menu, and so did her favorite dessert, the brownie-like Texas sheet cake.  Plus, I was always on the lookout for new entrants into Orlando’s barbecue biz, trying to expand my palate and report back on the latest and greatest.

But then I saw that 4 Rivers brought back their smoked prime rib as a sandwich, just as a special for the month of December, and I knew we had to go back for it!  Even if you’ve been there before to enjoy the brisket, pork, chicken, ribs, and burnt ends, you must try the prime rib sandwich ($13.99) while you can.  It comes with thick slices of tender, medium-rare aged ribeye steak, first smoked and then finished on the grill, served on a grilled bun (like a potato bun) with melted provolone cheese, crispy onions, and creamy horseradish sauce.  It’s a masterful sandwich with a very generous portion of meat.  I got one with the works, and I got one for my wife with no cheese or onions and horseradish sauce on the side.  Here’s a cross-section of mine:

My wife and I both love ribs, and she occasionally asks me to bring home ribs from Sonny’s Real Pit Barbecue, because it’s so convenient.  But I think we had both forgotten how far superior the ribs from 4 Rivers are, because this 1/2 rack platter of St. Louis-style ribs ($20.27) was magnificent.  The meat is juicy and tender, and it easily separates from the bone.  The pork spare ribs are seasoned with 4 Rivers’ all-purpose rub (which you can buy), then smoked, then lightly brushed with a honey barbecue sauce that finishes them with a lightly sticky, shiny glaze.  They are awesome.  And even though the half-rack just comes with six ribs, each one is a good size, and we had more than enough food to get three or four meals out of everything.

Ordering the 1/2-rack rib platter on the 4 Rivers website,  it gave me the option to add additional meats for a small upcharge.  It had been so long since we had been there, I decided to add on some brisket for the very nominal price of $3.84, for a more complete review that would include another one of my old favorites.  It came with four decent slices of lean, smoky beef brisket.   I definitely prefer moister, fattier brisket, but that’s on me for not specifying my preference when placing the order.  It was still good, though. 

But that’s not all!  The platter is an amazing bargain because it comes with three sides you can choose.  At any barbecue joint, the sides should ideally be given as much care and quality as the meats, but they are too often treated as afterthoughts.  Not so at 4 Rivers Smokehouse.  I chose three of our old favorite sides: some of the best barbecue baked beans ever (made with pork and brisket!), my favorite collard greens (simmered with ham, onions, and garlic), and smokehouse corn (sautéed with smoked tomatoes, onions, and garlic and served with chopped cilantro; well worth a 50-cent upcharge).  You can always order sides separately if you don’t get a platter; the beans and collards are $2.89 each and the corn is $3.39, or you can add them onto sandwich orders for $1.75 and $2.25, respectively. But the platter is a gift that keeps on giving, because you can also choose between Texas jalapeño cornbread or  a dinner roll.  Of course I chose the cornbread, and of course I forgot to photograph it, but you can imagine what a square of cornbread looks like, especially if you’re reading a review of a barbecue restaurant on a food blog.

I remember when 4 Rivers Smokehouse was all the rage throughout Orlando — a beloved homegrown institution that always got recommended whenever locals or tourists wanted to know the best places to eat.  As it became more successful, it opened more locations and became more familiar, and I think people started to sleep on it, or worse yet, dismiss it as a monstrous chain that might sacrifice quality or authenticity as it expanded.  It was game-changing in 2009, but Orlando has grown so much as a culinary city since then, and now we have even more good locally owned and operated restaurants in the city, including some other great places for barbecue.  But just because 4 Rivers might not be Orlando’s hottest barbecue joint anymore doesn’t mean it has fallen by the wayside or rested on its laurels.  The food is still solid, and even if they took some of our old standards off the menu, the classics are still sticking around, and you can pay attention to the monthly specials for new or returning favorites.  We should not have stayed away this long, but 4 Rivers isn’t going anywhere, and now we aren’t either.  Just be aware that all 4 Rivers Smokehouse locations are closed on Sunday, so plan accordingly!

Jr Tropical Ice Cream

I think by now, we have established that I’m the “food guy” at work.  I’ve never been a fan of the word “foodie,” or anything else that sounds like baby talk, but I’ve embraced my role as the food guy, quick to make restaurant recommendations, show up with delicious snacks to share, or try to wrangle people to go out to lunch somewhere new and different.

My colleagues don’t always take my advice, especially when it comes to picking a place to go out to lunch, but today they did.  I drove three of them to a great, relatively new restaurant that none of us had been to before, but I had been reading good things about, that I had been wanting to try for a while.  That review is coming soon, but when we were almost back to work, someone mentioned ice cream, I mentioned I had heard about a new ice cream place that sounded good, and then they all demanded I keep driving and take them there next.

So we ended up at Jr Tropical Ice Cream (https://www.facebook.com/JrTropicalicecream), a small establishment on Goldenrod Road, in a little shopping plaza just south of East Colonial Drive.  I had driven by this place a couple of times, but never had a chance to stop and explore.  I saw in the window that Jr Tropical serves a bunch of unique flavors of ice cream, including several tropical fruits (my favorite, Miami boy that I am) and some Puerto Rican and other Latin flavors.  I was so excited my co-workers were on board, trusting me even though I hadn’t even been here yet myself.

Jr Tropical Ice Cream instantly reminded me of my favorite ice cream parlor I’ve ever been to, Azucar Ice Cream Company in Miami, which offers a lot of unique flavors based on tropical fruits and Cuban desserts.  I hope to make it back to Azucar some day to write a proper review, but in the meantime, I am thrilled that we have Jr Tropical Ice Cream here in Orlando.

Well, everyone loved it, I’m pleased to report.  It’s a delightful little place with a huge variety of ice cream flavors, all made in-house.  The young man and woman who worked there were extremely friendly and welcoming, and you could tell they took a lot of pride in their ice cream.  Not only do they have so many interesting flavors, but the prices are definitely right.

Everyone except me ordered a small, for a very reasonable $2.99.  You can try up to two different flavors in a small.  Me being me, I asked how many flavors you could try in a medium for $4.50, expecting three, but you can get *four*.  They had me at four! 

You can also upgrade to a small waffle cone for $3.75, a large waffle cone for $4.90, a waffle bowl for $5.60, or get a banana split for $5.57.  What isn’t listed on these TV menus is that you can also get ice cream in half of a fresh coconut, which they cut in half right then and there.   I don’t even know why I didn’t get my ice cream in half of a coconut.  Even though we all knew we had to go back to work, I would have totally felt like I was on vacation.  Next time!

So the next four slides are my less-than-perfect photos of all the flavors of the day.  I’ll type them out to make it easier:
Tamarindo/tamarind
Acerola/West Indian cherry
Parcha/passion fruit
Guayaba/guava
Almendra/almond
Mango piña/mango pineapple

Piña/pineapple
Guanabana/soursop
Arroz con dulces/rice pudding
Guava piña/guava pineapple
Maiz/corn
Piña colada/pineapple coconut

Fresa/strawberry
Vainilla/vanilla
Birthday cake
Panky (we asked about this one, and Panky is a popular Puerto Rican wafer cookie, so this is chocolate ice cream with crumbled chocolate Panky wafers mixed into it)
Chocolate
Anis/anise (the flavor of black licorice)

Coco/coconut
Ron con pasas/rum raisin
Tres leches (literally “three milks,” a traditional Latin American dessert that is one of the richest, creamiest, most decadent and delicious desserts ever, made from a sponge cake swimming in a combination of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream)
Nutella
Cookies and cream
Chocolate chip

And here are all the toppings and syrups that are available.  None of us opted to get any toppings or syrups on our maiden voyage, but when I return, I may add some sweetened condensed milk to whichever ice cream flavors I choose.  It’s so good, a lot of the time I’d rather just spoon or pour some condensed milk out of a can than eat a conventional dessert like cookies, cake, or a lesser ice cream.

But these were not lesser ice creams, constant readers!  They all had a thick, rich texture with a nice “mouth feel” — no gritty iciness from freezer burn, no weird mouth-coating fattiness like you notice from some cheaper, low-quality ice creams.  We lingered to enjoy them inside the shop because it was so hot outside, and I appreciated nobody asking if we could eat them in my car on the short drive back to work.  That’s how you get ants!

One colleague sampled the West Indian cherry and thought it was a little sour.  He ended up getting a small with the parcha (passion fruit) and the rum raisin, and he raved about how terrific the rum raisin was.  That’s an underrated ice cream flavor, if you ask me.  Rum Raisin isn’t flashy or sexy, it doesn’t have half of a candy store mixed into it, kids would probably think it is gross, but it’s kind of sophisticated and adult, and you could pretend you were on vacation trying it, or at least pretend your workday was already over.

And what about my four flavors?  I started with the passion fruit myself, then asked for guava, then mango piña, and topped it all off with the corn flavor.  I’ve had a sweet corn ice cream before at Wondermade in Sanford (another fantastic local ice cream shop), so I wanted to try this one.  It tastes a lot like sweet corn, but it was a uniform consistency with no kernels or anything.  It was good, but the fruit flavors were the real draw.  I loved them all, but I am obsessed with pineapple, mango, guava, and passion fruit and anything with those flavors.  I was an easy mark, but they didn’t disappoint at all.

Another colleague got the tres leches and let me sample a taste of it.  It was so good, I preferred it to my top layer of maiz ice cream.  It definitely had cinnamon in it, so it reminded me almost more of horchata, that sweet Mexican rice milk flavored with cinnamon, than tres leches.  But unlike most of the other ice creams that were a uniform consistency without chunks, this one had the texture of little pieces of chewy cake.  It was great.

When I return to Jr Tropical Ice Cream, I will try some new flavors.  Even growing up in Miami and developing a taste for tropical fruits, I don’t think I’ve ever had guanabana, the fruit also known as soursop, despite being a popular juice and milkshake flavor at Cuban restaurants.  Next time I’ll try that, and also the straight-up pineapple and coconut flavors… and also the rum raisin my co-worker raved about so much.

This is a great little place that everyone should stop into and support.  And if the location on Goldenrod, just south of Colonial, isn’t convenient, there is a second location of Jr Tropical Ice Cream down in Kissimmee.  It might be September now, but we all know it’s going to be hot and humid up until Thanksgiving here in Orlando.  I hate the heat and humidity, but say what you will about it, it remains perfect weather to cool down and treat yourself with some ice cream.

If you feel like ice cream is too much of an indulgence and too “dangerous” or “naughty” to keep around, then don’t buy it at the supermarket to fill your freezer — just go out and treat yourself here once in a while!  A trip out to an ice cream parlor, especially a locally owned one like Jr Tropical Ice Cream with so many unique flavors, will make it seem so much more special than going through a pint (or a gallon) of mass-produced, corporate ice cream without even thinking about it, while binge-watching your favorite shows at night.

And when you go, remember to ask for your ice cream in the coconut, for the truest tropical experience.  Learn from my mistake, a mistake I will not be making a second time!