South Orlando – The Saboscrivner

Runabout Brewing Co.

Runabout Brewing Co. (https://www.runaboutbrewing.com/) calls itself a “Kitchen and Raw Bar,” a brewpub that serves an assortment of Southern-accented comfort food (pizza, burgers, sandwiches, salads, oysters, and more) and has 20 beers on tap. Longtime readers know my wife and I don’t drink, but a cool and trusted friend loves this place, so we recently followed her advice and went out there for a Saturday lunch date. It is located at 4721 S. Orange Avenue in Orlando, south of downtown in a district I believe is called Edgewood, between SoDo and Pinecastle. We were among the first to arrive, a little before noon, but the place was pretty slammed by the time we left, probably full of loyal locals.

This hot and crispy jumbo pretzel (that’s what they call it!) is more than enough for two people to share. It has the best crackly texture, almost like it was lightly fried. It is also dusted with Tajin, a chili-lime seasoning that I’m used to having over fruit, not a baked (and fried?) good. My wife doesn’t dig on cheese sauces or dips in general, but I loved the lager cheese fondue dipping sauce.

These were some great onion rings, definitely beer-battered and served with sriracha aioli. I give these a strong and confident RING THE ALARM!

My wife ordered this lovely arugula and spinach salad, topped with feta cheese, Granny Smith apple slices, and sugar-dusted pecans. There is also a lemon vinaigrette dressing on it that she really liked. She added two buttermilk chicken tenders to the salad, which didn’t photograph well, but she seemed to like them. You can also get herb-seared steak, crispy fried oysters, a salmon filet, or three chilled prawns added onto any salad there.

I couldn’t decide between two entrees, but I had not had a good burger in a while, so I ordered this “hot stuff” burger topped with pepper jack cheese, fire-roasted peppers, and crispy fried pickled jalapenos and topped with chili sauce. It wasn’t the largest burger in town, or the thickest, or the prettiest, or the juiciest, but it was still tasty.
The fries were pretty standard — if you’re thinking they would taste like McDonald’s fries, you’d be right, but there isn’t anything wrong with that!

And while it isn’t on the menu on the website, they did offer an Italian sub on the lunch menu when we went, so I ordered it to go. I got some salami, pepperoni, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and vinaigrette dressing on the whitest sub roll ever. It looked underbaked but tasted fine, and it was a solid sandwich.The potato chips were house-made and stayed crispy all the way home, when I separated them from the sandwich so they wouldn’t get soggy.

It is quite a haul for us to get to Runabout Brewing from home, but I’d go back to meet friends there, absolutely. There might be bigger, better burgers and Italian subs elsewhere in Orlando, but I liked these, don’t get me wrong. I was impressed by the breadth and depth of the menu just the same, especially for a brewery-restaurant. Next time I’d probably try some seafood, especially since I love oysters so much, or the marinated and wood fire-roasted wings, since so many places serve wings but so few get them right. The menu on the website now displays collard greens braised with smoked turkey necks, which I didn’t notice at the time (or maybe they weren’t on the menu when we went), but I’ve enjoyed a lot of good collards lately, so I would definitely get those on a return trip. I am just glad to see so many local breweries thriving and serving good food, not just the lowest-effort bar food.

Woodlands

Woodlands (http://www.woodlandsusa.com/) is a vegetarian Indian restaurant on South Orange Blossom Trail, very close to my favorite Indian restaurant, Bombay Street Kitchen (which is not strictly vegetarian). That area is pretty far from me, so one day I went for lunch on a weekend while my wife was getting her hair cut and colored, knowing that whole process would take a few hours.

Woodlands specializes in dishes from Udupi, a town on India’s southwestern coast. Since I went alone and was a little intimidated by the menu, I ordered a few things, fully expecting to end up with lots of leftovers to bring home. I started with a tall glass of cool, tangy, sweet, creamy mango lassi:

I don’t even remember ordering this, but it is a soup called rasam, described on the menu as “Traditional South Indian Sour’n Spicy Soup.” The sour ‘n spicy aspects would have appealed to me, especially since I was ordering several carb-heavy dishes to come. It is made with tomatoes and tamarind and garnished with chopped cilantro leaves. I think I got it planning to dip the various baked and fried breads in it, not realizing that they would come with their own li’l dipping cups.

These doughnut-looking fritters are medju vada, which are like savory fried doughnuts made with lentils. They were served with coconut chutney (top) and sambar (bottom), a soup of lentils, vegetables, tamarind, and various spices.

These were paneer pakora, lightly spiced fritters stuffed with homemade Indian cheese called paneer. These were about the size of fried ravioli. For those who haven’t tried paneer, it is kind of a dry, firm, crumbly cheese that doesn’t get melty like mozzarella. It is similar in texture to feta, but firmer (and a lot less salty and pungent), and also similar in texture to tofu.The darker sauce is actually brown, and it is sweet, sticky, tangy tamarind chutney. The green sauce was a delicious mint cilantro chutney that had a bit of heat.

This was the onion rava dosa, which was different from smoother-textured dosas I’ve ordered elsewhere. It is a thin, crispy crepe made of cream of wheat and rice, grilled with onions and mildly spicy chilies. It has been too long since my visit, but now I’m wondering if I got the onion rava masala dosa, which is the same thing but stuffed with potatoes and onions. For a dollar more, that’s probably what I would have ordered! Anyway, it was awesome, and I could use one of these right now.

This was garlic naan, soft and fluffy bread baked in a clay oven called a tandoor. If you’ve ever had Indian food anywhere, you have probably tried naan, and you know how delicious it is. And garlic only makes things more delicious!

These were large, fried puffy bread called batura. They are often served with stewed chickpeas as chana batura (including at Woodlands), but these were on the bread menu without the chana. They are awesome, no matter where you order them from. Anyone remotely skeptical about trying Indian food would love these. Go ahead, take those batura.

Boy, I really carb-loaded at this meal! This is what I get for going alone on a whim, without having studied the menu in advance, and without having more experienced Indian food lovers joining me. Writing about this meal so many months later, I was reminded of the cafeteria at the Hindu Society of Central Florida in Casselberry, one of the greatest hidden treasures in the entire Orlando area. Guided by a knowledgeable friend and joining other friends, that was the first place I ever tried vada, dosa, sambar, and coconut chutney, many years earlier. I guess I defaulted to familiar favorites at Woodlands.

But to wrap up this review, Woodlands is one of Orlando’s best-known and best-loved Indian restaurants, and I guarantee that you won’t miss meat if you go there, with all the delicious, flavorful vegetarian options to choose from. I love meat, but I was overwhelmed by all the choices, and I really enjoyed everything I tried. Whenever I make it back (and who knows when that will be), I would love some suggestions of what to order next time!

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.

Chain Reactions: Vicky Bakery

Vicky Bakery (https://vickybakery.com/) is a beloved Cuban bakery chain with 26 locations (and a food truck), mostly throughout South Florida. Despite growing up in Miami, I never visited Vicky until they opened a location in south Orlando last year! (My family would always go to Latin American Cafeteria, right by our house in Kendall, or the superior La Carreta instead.)

But Vicky Bakery is a great addition to Orlando, a city with lots of good Latin food and amazing bakeries, but lacking in the wonderful Cuban cuisine that is so ubiquitous in and around Miami. I have been three times now, only because it is pretty far from me — all the way down near Orlando International Airport. If it was closer, I guarantee I would go a lot more often, so maybe I’m better off. But after three visits, I figured it was time to write a review, because I love it.

Like most good bakeries, when you walk into the Orlando location of Vicky Bakery, you are face to face with tempting baked goods arranged in glass display cases. This case of croquetas, empanadas, and pastelitos is right next to the cash register, facing the entrance:

There are other cases with more sweet stuff elsewhere:

On my first visit, I ordered buttered Cuban toast, a croqueta de jamon (ham croqueta), empanada de carne (beef empanada), a pastel de carne (beef pastel), two pasteles de queso (cheese pasteles), and a pizza pastel (take a wild guess).

Everything was very good, but the combination of savory and sweet in the beef and pizza pasteles, with their light, flaky, crispy layered pastry crusts and shiny tops glazed with sugar put those over the top for me.

I also ordered the medianoche (“midnight sandwich”), a variation on the classic pressed Cuban sandwich with roast pork, sweet ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and yellow mustard. I like the medianoche even better, because it is served on a slightly sweet yellow bread rather than the traditional Cuban bread. My mom introduced me to these when I was very young, and it probably launched my love of savory-sweet food combinations. I have to say, with no exaggeration, that it was the best medianoche I’ve ever had. Everything came together perfectly. Some Cuban sandwiches are too dry — usually the fault of dry pork that was cooked too long or not juicy enough to begin with, or stale bread — but this one didn’t have me wishing for a “sandwich lubricant.”

I also tried the Vicky sandwich, with thin-sliced cantimpalo sausage (similar to pepperoni or spicy salami), sweet ham, Swiss cheese, and butter on a French baguette — a more continental sandwich.

On my second visit, I got the pan con bistec (steak sandwich), which is steak (usually top round or sirloin) sliced very thin, with sautéed onions onions, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, mayonnaise, and crunchy, salty potato sticks on Cuban bread pressed until it had a crackly texture. It was good, but I usually find this sandwich a bit lacking, like it needs more of a hit of acid than just the tomato to balance out the salt and fat.

You can see there wasn’t a whole lot of steak either. ¿DONDE ESTA LA CARNE? (Where’s the beef?) Unfortunately, it couldn’t measure up to the best pan con bistec I’ve ever had, from Sanguich de Miami.

I also got the croqueta preparada, a traditional Cuban sandwich (like the medianoche, but on pressed Cuban bread instead of the sweet yellow bread) only with a twist: six croquetas pressed into it — three in each half! Vicky serves croquetas de jamon (ham) and croquetas de pollo (chicken), and they let me try both. If you think Cuban sandwiches are awesome (and they are!), try a croqueta preparada next time. It really brings a rich, decadent sandwich to a whole other level. Sanguich de Miami also served the best croqueta preparada I’ve ever had, but the one from Vicky Bakery is the best I’ve tried in Orlando.

Don’t forget to sign up for e-mails from Vicky Bakery, because they mailed me a birthday coupon for $7 off any order, and unlike some restaurants, there was an almost three-month window to use it. On my third visit, I felt like some kind of player, a big timer playing with the house’s money, knowing I could get a $7 discount. Mr. 305’s got nothing on me!

I couldn’t resist the pizza pastel again, and it was just as good as always.

I figured I should probably try a cafe con leche, to make this review more complete. (Don’t worry about the photo, which was just a red cup with the Vicky Bakery logo on it.) It was absolutely delicious — strong and sweet, like I like my women — but I just can’t drink coffee anymore. Every time I do, I get acid reflux and the unpleasant feeling of my heart wanting to jackhammer its way out through my rib cage and fly around the room like some mad bird. And worst of all, both awful sensations hit me hours after drinking the coffee. I don’t even get a temporary energy boost at the time, just intense physical discomfort late in the evening. This was a small, and it still made me feel like I was going to discorporate into individual atoms. Not worth it for me, but for all of you coffee drinkers, you’ll really like it.

And then I tried the last sandwich I was really interested in, the pan con lechon, with finely chopped pork marinated in citrusy, garlicky mojo criollo, served on the same terrific pressed Cuban bread with a lot of sautéed onions. I loved it. Sometimes pan con lechon sandwiches are a bit dry and/or flavorless, but Vicky nailed this one. I liked it a lot more than the pan con bistec from my previous visit.

Over a year ago, there was a rumor that a second Orlando-area Vicky Bakery was going to open in Winter Park, near the intersection of 17-92 and Lee Road, which would have been a heck of a lot more convenient for me. At some point, that fell through, so I figured I had better get down to the one and only location sooner rather than later. I’m sorry I waited so long, because it was fantastic, and my second and third visits were equally good.

It is probably just as well for me that it is a schlep, because I don’t need to be eating this food too often. But when I’m in the mood for Cuban pastries and sandwiches, I drive past several Cuban and other Latin bakeries in order to get to Vicky Bakery, because it really is that damn good. Miami was a strange place to grow up, and I always felt like a stranger at home there, but the Cuban food can’t be beat. I’m glad we have an authentic taste of home available in Orlando, even if it feels like a mission getting down there.

That Wing Spot

That Wing Spot (https://www.instagram.com/thatwingspot/) is one of the many successful restaurants from chef-entrepreneur Kwame Boakye, one of the nicest men in Orlando. He brought us Chicken Fire, which started as a humble food trailer in 2019 before moving into its permanent location in the Milk District on East Colonial and Bumby. It remains one of my favorite restaurants in Orlando, and I crave it often. More recently, in 2023, he brought us Cow & Cheese in Maitland, serving up some of the city’s best smash-style burgers.

In between, he rolled out the first That Wing Spot location on South Orange Avenue, which is pretty far from me, so I admit I’ve never made it down there. But since then, Kwame opened up a combination That Wing Spot/Cow & Cheese at the intersection of University Boulevard and Goldenrod Road in Winter Park. I no longer had any excuse, so I made my way down there to try those wings, and of course I had to catch up with an old favorite, too.

At the combination That Wing Spot/Cow & Cheese (better than a Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell!), you order at touchscreen monitors, just like at Chicken Fire and the original Cow & Cheese. I was bringing wings and fries home for my wife, but I figured I would enjoy a little treat while I waited: The Doc, Kwame’s signature smash-style burger from the Cow & Cheese side of things. I sang its praises in my original review: “an Oklahoma-style burger, featuring ‘thinly sliced onions smashed into two angus beef patties, each topped with premium American cheese, CC sauce, and deeply caramelized onions, all on a fresh baked toasted brioche bun.'” This one at the new combo location was as messy and as good as the decadent Docs I’ve enjoyed at Cow & Cheese on my past visits, even though I wolfed it down while it was still too hot to fully appreciate.

The burger came out much faster than my order from That Wing Spot, and by the time I was done with it, the wings and fries were ready to go.

I got an order of 20 wings divided into two separate flavors for myself, knowing I’d have leftovers for the following day. I started with KB’s Sweet Heat (KB for Kwame Boakye, of course). I love sweet and spicy flavors together, but I was expecting something a lot spicier, considering the endorphin rush I get from Kwame’s Nashville-style hot chicken tenders at Chicken Fire. There, the medium makes my eyes water and the hot makes my nose run, but they taste so good, the pain is worth it (and I need to drink milk with those tenders). These wings were tasty, but didn’t come close to that level of heat.

My second wing flavor was That Fiery BBQ, which was both sweeter and spicier than KB’s Sweet Heat, with the added bonus of a smoky flavor from the barbecue sauce. I liked these more and would totally get That Fiery BBQ again. Aw heck, who am I kidding? I would definitely try other flavors next time, but I would get both of these again!

I ordered That Big Wing Combo for my wife, which comes with ten or fifteen wings, fries, and a dipping sauce. She asked for Plain Crispy wings, which we both thought could have benefitted from a sauce or seasoning — any sauce or seasoning at all. They were nice, meaty wings, and definitely crispy even after the drive home, but all of Kwame’s sauces and seasonings are so good, even a simple mild buffalo sauce or smoky-sweet “secret” dry rub would have improved the experience with these.

We upgraded our regular fries to Kwame B’s Secret Rub fries, which was as wise a move as getting the plain wings was unwise. These crinkle-cut fries were completely covered in a savory-sweet seasoning that was reminiscent of barbecue-flavored potato chips, and I would put that stuff on any food, including vanilla ice cream. I was completely on board for these, and even my seasoning-averse wife really liked them. Seasoned fries superior, plain fries inferior. Needless to say, they would have been crispier if enjoyed in the restaurant, but at least they were still warm by the time I got home.

That Wing Spot’s house-made bleu cheese AND buttermilk ranch are both worth trying. Don’t settle for just one! I tend to prefer bleu cheese with my wings, the thicker and chunkier the better.

There is one well-known wing joint around here that my wife loves, but I HATE. I can’t stand their wings, and their food always upsets my stomach… but their bleu cheese dip is excellent, so I will still go there to pick wings up for her but always get bleu cheese for myself, since she’s not a dipper or a sauce person anyway. But unlike that restaurant that will go unnamed, here at That Wing Spot, everything is good, and it doesn’t make me sick. I can have it all (even one of the best burgers in Orlando along with these fine wings and fries), and I sure did on this visit. And I will again! Thank you, Kwame. I hope you’re always planning your next restaurant concept, because you’re three for three so far!

Caravan Uzbek & Turkish Cuisine

Night and stars above that shine so brightThe mystery of their fading lightThat shines upon our Caravan
–“Caravan,” lyrics by Irving Mills, music by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol

It took me 45 minutes to drive to Caravan Uzbek & Turkish Cuisine (https://caravanhalal.com/) on a late Saturday afternoon, arriving right at 5 PM to pick up takeout that I ordered online at 4:15. The restaurant looked nice inside, but it was too early for dinner, so it wasn’t busy. For this first visit, my wife didn’t feel like driving all the way to South Orlando with me, but I was more than happy to race back home with dinner in my heating bag. I had been wanting to try Caravan ever since I first heard about it some time last year, since we both love Turkish food, and a lot of our old favorites had either closed or let us down. And I’m obsessed with trying new cuisines, so I was even more excited to try Uzbek food for the first time.

Interestingly, the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan isn’t even next door to Turkey. While Turkey straddles Europe and Asia and borders the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the south, Uzbekistan is further east and completely landlocked by five different countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. Since you were dying to know, Uzbek and Russian are the main languages spoken, and like Turkey, Islam is the majority religion, even though both countries are considered secular states. Still, with majority Muslim populations in both Turkey and Uzbekistan, that explains why all the food at Caravan is halal.

We started out getting a mezze platter, the combination of cold dips that is so refreshing and rewarding at almost every other Turkish restaurant we have enjoyed in the past. We got five different dips, all packaged conveniently in separate plastic containers with lids that snapped on tightly, leading to no spills or leaks on the way home, which is always nice. Each dip was topped with a grilled olive, which was a nice touch.

Hummus, which you’ve surely had before, in one form or another:

Babaganush, the smoky eggplant dip that is my wife’s favorite:

Ezme, my personal favorite, which is like a spicy Turkish pico de gallo with finely processed tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, hot red pepper paste, parsley, and lemon juice. This was a terrific version of ezme, like some of the nicest, freshest salsa or pico ever.

Haydari, a creamy, yogurt-based dip with dill, mint, and chunks of walnut:

The website said we would also get spinach sautéed with onions as part of the mezze platter, but instead of that, we got cacik, another cool and creamy yogurt-based dip that is thinner, with cucumber, garlic, and mint. I was curious about the spinach and onions, but the cacik was good, so no complaints from me.

Instead of puffy, fluffy lavas bread like we’ve had countless times from Bosphorous, Zeytin, and the late and lamented Beyti, we ordered a Turkish bread called ekmek. We got two round pieces, dusted with light and black sesame seeds. They were more like standard loaves of bread that hadn’t risen very much, as opposed to true flatbreads like lavas or pita. I ripped off pieces of ekmek to dip with gusto, but my wife wasn’t super-into it.

I also ordered Uzbek bread, but was a little disappointed that Caravan just gave us wedges of store-bought pita, like I have bought countless times at various grocery stores:

The entrees we ordered were all really good, starting with an order of semechki, or lamb ribs, from the shish kebob section of the menu. I love lamb in all its forms, especially braised lamb shanks, but I realized I have never tried lamb ribs, despite being a gigantic fan of beef and pork ribs. The grilled lamb ribs were pretty tiny, without a whole lot of meat on the small bones, but the meat that was there was very tender, with intense flavor from the grill. There were six pieces in the order, and they were served on a soft flour tortilla that absorbed the delicious meat juices.

My wife chose the to’y osh, an Uzbek dish of Lazer rice seasoned with cumin, coriander, raisins, sautéed onions, and yellow carrots cooked until they were soft, tender, and sweet. It was topped with shredded beef that must have been braised, because it was really tender too. Like I said, this was our first time trying any Uzbek dishes, but it reminded me strongly of biryani, a popular Indian dish of rice mixed with meat and vegetables that may have Persian origins. The to’y osh was very subtly seasoned, lacking the strong flavors of biryani rice, but it was a heart, savory dish with a nice combination of textures.

Even though we liked everything except the store-bought pita (which I’m still going to salvage by baking it in the oven on the convection setting to crisp it up), the biggest hit for both of us was the fried laghman, the dish I’ve seen almost everyone order in the handful of Caravan reviews I’ve read so far. This was a dish of hand-pulled wheat noodles, and since I am a noodle nerd, the name laghman comes from the Chinese lamian (for hand-pulled noodles, like you would get at Mr. J Hand-Pulled Noodle in Ocoee), which also led to both lo mein and Japanese ramen. These long, chewy, thick noodles were stir-fried in a wok with fresh vegetables and tender strips of beef with a soy-based sauce — almost like lo mein. When I looked it up, I wasn’t far off — laghman comes from the Uyghur people, an ethnic, primarily Muslim minority who live in China (where they are horribly persecuted) and have other communities in Uzbekistan and the other Central Asian countries that surround it. This was also our first experience trying any Uyghur cuisine.

The laghman noodles looked like they would be spicy, and I was hoping they would be spicy, but much to my wife’s relief, they weren’t. The only spicy things we ended up with were the ezme and a chunky hot sauce that came with the lamb ribs. And I was all ready to use the cool, creamy, refreshing haydari and cacik to put out fires in my mouth, too!

This was an interesting first visit to Caravan, one that inspired me to do some geographic research before writing this review. I had been wanting to go there with a group for quite some time, so we could order a bunch of dishes and share everything, but that hardly ever happens anymore. Bringing home takeout to share with my ever-patient wife worked just as well, and we ended up with plenty of leftovers. I have no idea how often I’ll make it back to Caravan, just because it is so far from home, but I feel like we made some great choices for our first trip.

Adega Gaucha

Adega Gaucha (https://adegagaucha.com/) is an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse located at 8204 Crystal Clear Lane, Orlando, FL 32809, right in front of the Florida Mall, just south of the busy intersection of Orange Blossom Trail and Sand Lake Road. It opened about two years ago, and it is a single, locally owned restaurant, differentiating it from the similar chains Texas de Brazil (which I reviewed back in 2019) and Fogo de Chao (which I have been to twice, but never got around to reviewing). I grew up going to all-you-can-eat buffets with my family, and then they helped keep me alive through college and grad school. Because of my buffet background, I have a great appreciation for the variety and abundance of restaurants like this, even though I could never have afforded the typical decadence of a Brazilian steakhouse as a poor student. Despite the never-ending parade of patient waiters serving roasted meats on giant swords, my favorite part of this meal is always the sumptuous salad bar buffet, where I can gorge on some of my favorite foods, like cured meats, smoked salmon, and various fancy cheeses and roasted and marinated vegetables.

My wife, on the other hand, is not a buffet person, but she does appreciate a well-cooked (but never well done) steak, far more than even I do. We both like our red meat as rare as possible, and we share a fondness for marbled ribeye steaks, lamb, tender brisket, and gamey meats like bison. That’s why these Brazilian steakhouses are a rare and luxurious treat for both of us. We have gone to Texas de Brazil for a handful of special occasions in the past, and she suggested a return visit as a “last hurrah” before an upcoming surgery and a year where we’re both going to try to eat a little less and a little healthier. I suggested we try Adega Gaucha as an alternative, and I am so glad we did, because we both liked it even more than the vaunted, venerable old standby. Now I’m suggesting it to you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, and I will do my best to point out the little differences that set this singular local establishment apart from its chain competitors.

I am happy to report that Adega Gaucha is cheaper than the “big two” chains. The full churrasco experience for dinner is $55 per person, and lunch on weekdays is $40. I would much rather eat a big meal like this for lunch than dinner, and ideally on a weekend, because I can’t think of anything sadder than gorging at a nice restaurant like this while worrying about rushing back to work in the afternoon and trying to be productive. Luckily, Adega Gaucha offers all the same stuff from the dinner menu for their Saturday and Sunday brunch, lasting from 11:30 AM until 3:00 PM, for $45 per person. To compare to the Orlando Texas de Brazil, weekend lunch from noon until 4:00 PM is $60. That $15 makes Adega Gaucha seem like a bargain, and I haven’t even gotten into how good the food and service are!

We made a reservation for 11:45 AM on a Sunday, and we were the very first party to be seated and hit the gourmet table (salad bar and buffet), so I was able to pause for some photos. Here is the charcuterie — pretty standard pepperoni, dry prosciutto and cured ham sliced paper-thin, and genoa salami folded into pretty flowers, atop a mountain of cheeses. As one would hope, they had glass sneeze-guards in place, to prevent these decadent selections from people’s germs. I grabbed some of these cured meats, along with the fine smoked gouda in the middle of the cheeses.

I helped myself to some melt-in-your-mouth nova salmon, leaving all the capers behind for diners who like them. Those white things I cut off are hearts of palm, which I have never developed an appreciation for.

This was beef carpaccio, another decadent delicacy, that I have never noticed at Texas de Brazil or Fogo de Chao.

My wife liked the sweet potato salad with raisins and dollops of goat cheese in the top left and the quinoa salad in the top right. I really liked the potato salad in the bottom left and the seafood salad in the bottom center. We both appreciated the tiny spheres of fresh, soft mozzarella cheese drizzled with balsamic vinegar in the top center. I am slowly developing a taste for beets, but I was a little too overstimulated to sample what seemed to be beet salad in the bottom right.

Back at our table, we were greeted by a basket of warm, freshly baked pao de queijo, Brazilian cheese bread — chewy little buns that my wife always likes a lot. She said these were better than Texas de Brazil’s version!

Something else Adega Gaucha does that Texas doesn’t is allow the table to select three sides. My wife chose fried yucca, which I am not into, and I chose caramelized bananas, which I figured we would both enjoy. They are so delicious. Go ahead, take those bananas!

I knew she would dig the sautéed mushrooms, so I let her take those. She liked them, but she found little marinated mushrooms on the gourmet table that she liked even better than these sautéed ones. Longtime readers know mushrooms are my Kryptonite, but I never claimed to be a fun guy.

Here is my plate after my first and only venture to the gourmet table, loaded up with some of my favorite foods in the world. Aside from things I have already discussed, I treated myself to sweet and spicy Peppadew peppers I could eat like candy (and have before), pink pickled onions, roasted red bell pepper, and one of the jewels of the gourmet table, candied bacon, which had a hint of spice and was a huge hit with both of us.

Then we turned our little red cards green to signal the gauchos to arrive with gifts of meat. (And how about Gaucho? The last truly excellent album by Steely Dan, if you ask me, but I give Aja a slight edge.)

I lost track of all the different cuts of steak the gauchos brought by our table, but between the two of us, we probably tried them all: filet mignon, top sirloin, the popular Brazilian sirloin cut called picanha, flank steak called bavette or fraldinha, and our beloved ribeye. Both of us always politely asked for rare, and the gauchos patiently offered us the rarest of the rare. I was overjoyed that none of the meats were over-salted, which is a major issue for me at both Texas de Brazil and Fogo de Chao, where on top of the encouraged gluttony, everything is ridiculously salty. I filled little metal ramekins at the gourmet table with fresh chimichurri, that wonderful, pungent condiment of oil, vinegar, garlic, and parsley, and fresh mango salsa that was tasty enough to eat with a spoon by itself. The mango salsa passed my “Would I eat this over vanilla ice cream?” test. Yes, it was that good — sweet and spicy and acidic and cool and refreshing and perfect in every way. I should have gotten a photo of it. I’m sorry!

But as good as the various cuts of steak were, for me, the highlights were the leg of lamb (also rare), the tender pork sausage called linguica, the roast chicken legs with crispy skin (capturing everything you would hope roasted chicken legs could aspire to be), and our absolute favorite meat at any Brazilian steakhouse, costela, the tender, juicy, marbled beef ribs that the gauchos serve sliced crosswise against the giant bones. As soon as the first gaucho visited us, we asked for the beef ribs, and you should too. Before we learned of the greatness of beef ribs at Brazilian steakhouses, we didn’t know to ask for it, and it rarely made appearances when we would dine at Texas de Brazil. But at Adega Gaucha, ask, and you shall receive.

Below, you can thrill to a later plate with more beef rib slices and two more delicacies that I’ve never had at Texas de Brazil or Fogo de Chao. You might have noticed the little dark round things at the top of the plate pictured above and the bottom of the plate pictured below. Those are chicken hearts, and they are wonderful, hearty (heh) fare. If you think that sounds gross, you are certainly welcome to your opinion, but they are such a delicious protein — dark and rich and slightly chewy, but so flavorful and extremely nutritious. I have bought chicken hearts before, marinated them in Italian dressing and then sautéed them, but mine always came out a little chewier than I feel they should be. I’ve had them on skewers, grilled over binchotan charcoal at Susuru and Tori Tori, two local Japanese restaurants that specialize in Izakaya-style pub grub like yakitori. But I had never had them like this, and I absolutely loved them. It’s funny that despite having all these different cuts of steak at my disposal, I liked the chicken hearts so much, but I did.

And that beautiful thing on the right is another hallmark of a meal at Adega Gaucha that I have never seen elsewhere: grilled pineapple, rich with butter, sugar, and cinnamon for a crispy, caramelized outer crust, like the best part of a pineapple upside down cake. This was a huge treat, serving as both a palate cleanser between the rich meats and a dessert. It was a damn delight, and we could not have been happier to end our meal with a few slices of the grilled pineapple, artfully cut off whole pineapples on the same kinds of swords wielded by the gauchos.

I have heard the cocktails and desserts at Adega Gaucha are as awe-inspiring as the meats and the gourmet table offerings, but we don’t drink, and we were too full for dessert, aside from that grilled pineapple. But next time (and there will be a next time!), I am ordering a Brazilian limeade, with fresh-squeezed lime juice and sweetened condensed milk. That has to be the best thing ever, to go with so many other “best things ever” we enjoyed and will absolutely return to enjoy again. In the song “Hey Nineteen” on Gaucho, Donald Fagen sang “The Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing.” For your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner, hopefully less pathetic than the narrator of that song, the beef ribs, leg of lamb, chicken hearts, chicken leg, linguica sausage, smoked salmon, caramelized bananas, mango salsa, and grilled pineapple made our first visit to Adega Gaucha a wonderful thing.

SoDough Square

I recently visited SoDough Square (https://sodoughsquare.com/), a new pizzeria that opened in 2022, for the first time. It was so good, I returned a week later, with a friend and co-worker, and it was just as good on that second visit. The original location for SoDough Square is at 419 Michigan Street, Orlando, Florida, 32806, directly next door and sharing a dining room with one of owner Rob Bair’s other restaurants, Tin & Taco, which I reviewed in early 2019. There are a few Tin & Taco locations around Orlando, and just this past week, a second SoDough Square location opened at 223 Fairbanks Avenue, Winter Park, Florida, 32789, directly next door to another Tin & Taco. Go Rob!

SoDough Square is unique in Orlando because it serves Detroit-style pizza, a unique pizza style that I had never seen in Florida before. These are rectangular pizzas cooked in steel pans, then cut into four or eight slices, depending on whether you order a small or a large. The slices crisp up from cooking in the pans, and the toppings go all the way out to the edge, which I appreciate. Lots of upscale, pricey hipster pizzas seem to be half crust these days, and that just seems like wasted real estate to me. SoDough Square proofs its own dough (fermented for over 24 hours), makes its own tomato sauce, and shreds its own brick cheese blend, which forms a crispy, caramelized crust around the outer edges of the rectangular slices, called “frico.” This results in a thicc slice of pizza, similar to the Sicilian style I love so much, but not nearly as heavy, bready, and casserole-like as Chicago-style deep dish. I’m a convert. I love it! If you have read this far, you probably will too.

At SoDough Square, you place your order on one of two touchscreen monitors and then wait. I was bringing home the pizza to share with my wife, but while I was there, I enjoyed a Detroit coney dog ($5.99), topped with a savory, beanless chili sauce, chopped onions, and yellow mustard. I rarely order hot dogs when I’m out of the house, since I can usually buy a pack of high-quality dogs for the price of one or two from a restaurant, but I will make exceptions anytime I’m near my beloved Arbetter’s in Miami, a Skyline Chili location, and now for the coney dog at SoDough Square. I love trying anyone’s different versions of chili, and if it comes in chili dog form, all the better.
It’s a magnificent combination of flavors and textures. The all-beef dog has a great snappiness from its natural casing, the chili was excellent (far more of a crowd-pleaser than Skyline’s polarizing Cincinnati-style chili that I nevertheless like), and you got a pleasant crunch from the onions. As much as I love mustard (which is a lot), I usually don’t partake in plain yellow mustard, but it brought a necessary acidic brightness to this perfect coney dog that a spicy brown or horseradishy deli mustard would not have been able to duplicate.

That soda pictured above is called Rock & Rye, from Detroit’s beloved Faygo brand, a favorite of Juggalos everywhere. I had no idea what it would taste like, but it reminded me of Big Red soda from Texas, if you’ve ever tried that one, or Barq’s Red Creme soda (a New Orleans classic that is impossible to find in Orlando). Vaguely like cream soda, maybe a bit like cotton candy or bubble gum. More about Faygo later, I promise.

Several of the specialty pizzas sounded good, but the one I’ve been hearing the most raves about and seeing the most tantalizing photos of was the Detroit Rob City ($15.99 for a small or $29.99 for a large), so I ordered a large to bring home. This absolute unit is topped with Detroit red sauce, SoDough’s brick cheese blend, whipped ricotta cheese, pinched sausage (I admit it, I laughed), Ezzo cup pepperoni, Mike’s hot honey, and fresh basil. WOW, what a combination. This was one of the best things I’ve eaten in quite a while. Everything comes together perfectly on this pizza!
The creaminess of the ricotta works so well cutting the saltiness of the sausage and pepperoni and the surprising spiciness of the hot honey. (As a semi-related aside, I bought a different hot honey at Aldi, one of their private label brands that is half the price of Mike’s, but it barely has any heat at all.) And I absolutely love fresh basil on any pizza, which works miracles when combined with the tomato sauce. This is food of the gods, folks.

I also couldn’t resist trying the T&T ($15.99 for a small or $28.99 for a large) for myself, but I knew my wife wouldn’t be into a pizza topped with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, sour cream, and crushed Doritos, so I just ordered a small. The tribute to Rob Bair’s Tin & Taco restaurants worked for me, and I was stone-cold sober when I enjoyed it back at home!

I also ordered a small garlic cheese bread for us to share ($8.99 for a small or $16.99 for a large), and it was awesome too. It is made from the same pizza dough, but topped with garlic parmesan sauce, the same brick cheese blend, grated cheese, and fresh basil, with a small dipping cup of the house-made red sauce on the side. Don’t sleep on this when you go! My wife liked it even more than the pizza, which I expected, since she doesn’t like tomato-based sauces as much as I do.

On my second visit with my friend and colleague, who loves pizza as much as I do and hot dogs even more than I do, I ordered us two coney dogs so we could each have one, and we split a small Enforcer pizza ($14.99 for a small or $27.99 for a large), with the same Detroit red sauce and brick cheese blend, pinched sausage, Ezzo cup pepperoni, applewood smoked bacon, pecorino romano cheese, and fresh basil. Very similar to the Detroit Rob City, but personally, I would rather have the ricotta and hot honey than the bacon. Here is my last slice of the Enforcer:

I also got three different Faygo sodas they didn’t have on my first visit. I drank the pineapple orange with my meal, chugged most of the root beer on my way home because it was such a stupidly hot Friday afternoon, and saved the grape for my wife, who said it smelled and tasted like grape bubble gum. (I didn’t taste it, but I thought it smelled just like a grape-flavored candy from the ’80s called Bonkers.) My friend tried the Faygo diet cola, by the way.
I’ve had better sodas, and definitely better root beers, but I’m always happy and excited to taste anything new. All three of the Faygo flavors I tried were pretty artificial-tasting, even by soda standards. But they are $2.49 each, and I don’t think you can buy them anywhere else locally, so why not try something new and different?

My friend and I then walked to John and John’s – A Pizza Shop, conveniently located mere moments away, although the sweat was pouring off my shaved head by the time we walked in there. He had never tried John and John’s either, and I figured I would keep blowing his mind by introducing him to another favorite of mine — my choice for the best New York-style pizza in Orlando. Needless to say, he loved it too, especially the gyro-inspired Mediterranean Blue slice, named for the Greek restaurant that was the previous tenant of John and John’s space. After that, we parted ways, and I went back to SoDough Square to order another cheesy garlic bread to bring home for my wife, since I try to be a mensch.

I admit that the Michigan Avenue location of SoDough Square is a hike from home, so I was overjoyed when I heard about the second location opening on Fairbanks, near Rollins College in Winter Park. But I will warn you right now, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos — the new Winter Park location does not have the coney dogs, so just keep that in mind. That’s a shame, because I can’t envision going there and not getting one of those dogs as a pre-pizza appetizer. But no matter which location you visit, you are going to be treated to some of the best pizza in Orlando, from Detroit with love.

Have you been to SoDough yet? Which pizzas are your favorites, and are you in love with the coney dogs as much as I am? What is the deal with Faygo? Is it something you had to grow up with? Hopefully I haven’t incurred the wrath of the Juggalos over that, but it won’t be my first time, and I doubt it will be the last.

CLOSED: Gully – An Urban Indian Eatery

EDIT: In September 2025, I found out that Gully – An Urban Indian Eatery closed.

***

Last month I visited a new Indian restaurant that opened in late 2022 on South Orange Blossom Trail, a long stretch of Orlando that is far from home but always worth the drive for good food. Gully – An Urban Indian Eatery (https://www.gullyfl.com/) has an incredible menu inspired by the street foods of Mumbai. It is full of fascinating-looking dishes that most Indian restaurants around here do not offer, but fear not, they also have plenty of familiar favorites that you can order a la carte, or off an all-you-can-eat buffet. Gully is mere blocks from my favorite Indian restaurant in Orlando, Bombay Street Kitchen, which also has a huge and unique menu that puts them streets ahead of competitors. Well, folks, I am pleased to say that Gully delivered a similar experience. I just wish they both weren’t such a schlep for me, but hopefully you will find yourself closer, so you can check either one out for yourself.

For my first and only visit to Gully (so far), there were so many things I wanted to try, but I am just one man. A man who can easily eat as much as two hungry men in a single sitting, but one man just the same (who is middle-aged and paying the price for my heroic appetite). I was so lucky that a dear friend from the Orlando Foodie Forum presented by Tasty Chomps!, a wonderful Facebook group I have been a member of for many years, organized a weekend lunch at Gully on a day I was able to join in. I met a few lovely people, all fellow foodies with adventurous appetites and generous spirits, and we had a legendary lunch and shared everything with each other — the perfect way to take in a new restaurant as exciting as Gully. Members of the Orlando Foodie Forum organized several group meals before the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which I was lucky to attend, but this was my first of these since 2019. Even though the threat of COVID is far from over and we can’t act like it is, people are getting more comfortable venturing out in public and starting to enjoy things like group meals with friends and even strangers again. Even I am. I missed it.

Gully is located in Laxmi Plaza, a small shopping center with several Indian businesses, including House of Spices, a huge Indian grocery store that we all visited after our lunch. It is awesome “one-stop shopping.” The restaurant itself has two separate dining rooms, with the all-you-can-eat buffet set up in the second dining room, off to the side. There is a lot of artwork featuring the legendary Indian actor Sanjay Dutt (who may have inspired the professional wrestling personality Sonjay Dutt, of AEW fame). While I consider myself a cinephile, I admit to not being well-versed at all in Indian films, and I don’t think I’ve seen any Sanjay Dutt movies yet. But my favorite movie to come out in 2022 was the big-budget, Telugu-language epic RRR, from India’s “Tollywood,” and it was awesome. A historical epic drama, an over-the-top action movie that practically turned into a superhero spectacular, a bromance, and a musical (with an Academy Award-nominated song), RRR has something for everyone. But I digress, and to bring things back around, Gully also has something for everyone.

For me, it is always a treat to order lassi with Indian food, those sweet, thick, creamy yogurt-based drinks that are refreshing and ideal for cutting the blistering spices. Most Indian restaurants offer plain or mango lassi, but Gully offered a lassi flight of four different flavors, and that sounded right up my alley. I was expecting little shot glasses, but the glasses were much larger than I expected. It was more than worth it to get guava, plain, strawberry, and mango lassi, and I loved them all. I sipped them throughout the meal, and it was almost like dessert in a glass (or four).

Of the six of us, one woman ordered the weekend lunch buffet, and everyone else ordered two or three dishes off the menu to share. A very nice and cool couple I met for the first time ordered this dish, the Gully samosa chaat ($8), with potato turnovers underneath a blanket of onions, chilies, tomatoes, crispy chickpea noodles, a drizzle of yogurt, and zesty spice dust.

I ordered this favorite for the table, knowing it would be a crowd-pleaser everyone would love to share: chole batura ($15) — a dish of curried chickpeas (chole) served with a puffy, fluffy, fried bread everyone can rip apart to scoop up the rich and savory chole. It was a hit in our group, as it will be in yours.

My friend ordered this mutton sukha ($12), a relatively small appetizer portion, which consisted of tender mutton, caramelized shallots, desiccated coconut, tomatoes, cilantro, and lime zest. I tried a piece that was so delicious, I would have been happy eating the whole plate.

These are lamb samosas ($10), but I’m pretty sure people snagged one or two before I could snap this shadowy photo. They are crispy fried turnovers stuffed with ground lamb shoulder, peas, and nutmeg, and served with mint yogurt tahini sauce. They were smaller than some potato-filled samosas I’ve ordered elsewhere, but this way, there were more than enough to share.

I didn’t remember what these were, so I had to reach out to the diner who ordered them. Thanks to Instagram user, local foodie, and new friend @meetmethroughfood for telling me these were called crispy onion blooms, even though those aren’t listed on the menu on Gully’s website. They were onion fritters fried in chickpea batter, similar to the onion bhaji I tried at Bombay Street Kitchen down the road.

I had a hard time deciding on a main dish for myself, so I made a last-minute, game-time decision of Parsi goat salli boti ($22), a curry made of tender goat meat, apricots, caramelized onions, poppy seeds, and slivered crispy potatoes (according to the menu, but I didn’t notice any potatoes). It was a little bit sweet from the apricots, but I love savory and sweet flavor combinations. It wasn’t spicy at all, for the benefit of sharing it with anyone interested, but I would have liked a little more heat. I’ve found that I can handle “hot” dishes at most local Indian restaurants just fine, but haven’t worked my way up to “Indian hot” yet.

I didn’t order this, but it was paneer methi chaman ($16), a vegetarian (but not vegan) curry dish of slivered paneer cheese in creamy fenugreek sauce with fried spices. I don’t think I tasted it.

Two people ordered butter chicken ($19), that beloved classic dish, but the photo I took was so blurry that it made the beautiful dish of pulled tandoori chicken in creamy, orangey tomato sauce look unappetizing, so I spared you. All these curries in the metal serving dishes came with fragrant basmati rice, as one would expect.

This was a basket of beautiful garlic naan bread ($4) we all shared, baked and seasoned to perfection.

As if the food and company weren’t great enough, our dishes were delivered to the table by a ROBOT! I understand a few Orlando restaurants are using serving robots, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen one in action. Folks, I am so sorry I couldn’t get a good picture of the robot. Believe me, I am still kicking myself, because I am an ’80s kid who grew up loving friendly, helpful robots, and still has a major soft spot for them.

So that was my first Gully experience, but I hope to return when I can and work my way through the voluminous menu. Everything was top-notch. I just wish my two favorite Indian restaurants weren’t so far away, but I’ll just have to plan special trips in the future. But I can’t recommend going with friends highly enough, so you can share and maximize the delicious dishes you can all try. It’s the best way to experience a restaurant like Gully, as opposed to flying solo. That Orlando Foodie Forum has changed my life for the better over the last several years, including introducing me to some legitimate great friends and fellow culinary explorers and risk-takers. That’s where I was first inspired to start my own food blog, after some kind compliments on my writing and complaints about the quality of my photography. And since then, it has been a hell of a ride for me and my dozens of stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!

Friends Indian Cuisine

Friends Indian Cuisine (https://friendsindiancuisine.com/) is a new halal Indian restaurant on South Semoran Boulevard, just north of Curry Ford Road in South Orlando, south of State Road 408. It opened earlier this year (2022) and is building a loyal following due to excellent word of mouth. The location has hosted a handful of restaurants before, but hopefully Friends is here to stay. I have dined in twice and brought home takeout another time, so I couldn’t wait on this review any longer. The short version: Friends is fantastic. It’s another great recommendation to Orlando’s Indian restaurant scene, which I am slowly but surely working my way through.

From my first takeout trip, I brought home the two dishes I know my wife likes: butter chicken (left; $13.99) and palak paneer (right; $12.99) — both mild, for her sake. The butter chicken is a delicious dish that was her gateway to appreciating Indian food: shredded dark meat chicken (all leg meat) stewed in a creamy tomato sauce. It is very similar to chicken tikka masala (also on the menu for $14.99), but I’ve brought both to my wife before, and she prefers the butter chicken. I love it too. The palak paneer is cubes of cottage cheese (the paneer part) cooked with spinach in a creamy sauce. It is another great gateway dish for people unfamiliar with Indian cuisine, especially vegetarians. I’ve ordered an extremely similar dish called saag paneer at other Indian restaurants, but I just researched the difference: palak paneer is always made with spinach, while saag paneer can be made with spinach and/or any other leafy greens, particularly mustard greens. Mystery solved!

I ordered lamb karahi ($14.99) for myself: boneless lamb strips cooked with tomatoes, onions, and green bell peppers in a curry sauce, served over basmati rice that came on the side. Normally I order hot lamb vindaloo at Indian restaurants, but I switched it up to try the karahi for the first time. I still got it hot, but it was a lot less vinegary and pungent than the vindaloo.

I brought home an appetizer portion of vegetable pakoras ($4.99), a serving of six mixed vegetable patties dipped in chickpea batter and fried until golden-brown and crispy. I thought my wife would like them too, but I ended up enjoying them more than she did, especially with tamarind sauce for dipping.

This was an order of tandoori paratha (top; $3.49), which is whole wheat bread layered with butter, and regular butter naan (bottom; $2.49, or you can get it with your entree as an alternative to plain basmati rice). I wanted my wife to be able to compare and contrast them, but they were very similar. Both breads were soft and warm from having been baked in a clay oven called a tandoor, and we really enjoyed both. I am more used to buttery, flaky Malaysian-style parathas than the Indian variety, so this tandoori paratha was much more naan-like. But trust me — I could eat these naan-stop.

If you don’t feel like ordering off the menu, or if you’re a newer convert to the wonderfulness of Indian food, Friends Indian Cuisine offers a daily all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for $12.99 on weekdays and $14.99 on weekends, from 11:30 AM until 3:30 PM. I’ve had the lunch buffet twice now, and it is terrific. The dishes on the buffet are all mildly spiced for a wide range of palates.

Here are all the options from my most recent visit:

You grab your plate near the naan bread, aloo pakora (crispy battered and fried potatoes that were replenished right after I took this photo, of course), a lentil soup, that I did not try, and sweet gulab jamon, a dessert dish of cake-like balls in a sugary syrup.

Here you have plain white basmati rice, palak paneer (which we have already established is awesome), mixed vegetable curry, and aloo cholay, a dish with cubed potatoes and chickpeas cooked in a spicy curry sauce.

Moving down the line, they offer vegetable rice pilaf, chicken biryani (terrific), chicken curry, chicken korma in a creamy cashew sauce, butter chicken (I love this so much), and moist and tender tandoori chicken thighs and legs.

And finally, you can get cool, creamy raita (a yogurt sauce that is perfect for neutralizing spicy dishes), green chutney, tangy-sweet tamarind sauce, intimidating-looking green chili peppers, chopped red onion, lemon and orange wedges, a green salad, and rice pudding, another sweet dish.

This was my first plate, where I sampled a little bit of everything. The butter chicken, tandoori chicken, palak paneer, and chicken biryani were my favorites from the lunch buffet.

On my most recent trip to the buffet with two work colleagues, I got an order of vegetable samosas ($4.99) for us to share. These were perfect potato pyramids, with seasoned potatoes and peas in lightly fried, crispy crusts. They split one and liked it, and I was too full to try mine until the next morning at home, but it was still great then.

Since Friends Indian Cuisine is so convenient to my job, I look forward to becoming more of a regular over the months and years, even as I branch out and continue to try other Indian restaurants throughout Orlando. My family NEVER ate Indian food when I was growing up in Miami, and I never ate it that often until the last few years, in my quest to discover the best food anywhere and everywhere and share my thoughts on it. Now I’m making up for lost time, and I’m thrilled to recommend one more great local Indian restaurant to expand my palate and my experience.

And hey, if you were expecting a Friends reference since I always make pop culture references in my restaurant reviews, sorry to disappoint you, but I always hated that show.