OverRice

OverRice (https://www.overricecfl.com/) started out as a food truck that serves Hawaiian and Filipino food at various locations around Orlando.  As much as I love both cuisines, I never encountered the truck in the wild.  Luckily for us all, OverRice also opened a brand-new, permanent, brick and mortar restaurant location at 1084 Lee Rd in Orlando, west of I-4, between two other restaurants I like in the immediate area: LaSpada’s Original Philly Cheese Steaks and Hoagies to the east and Mee Thai to the west.  I attended a soft opening at the OverRice restaurant after work on March 2nd, and let me tell you, it was amazing.  I wish I had tried the food truck sooner, because the delicious food from the restaurant lived up to all the hype and praise I had been reading and hearing for years.  I can see becoming a regular there, and I won’t be alone.

OverRice has long scrolls of brown paper hanging on the wall to the right of the entrance, with the menu hand-written in huge letters.  You order and pay at the counter, take a seat, and wait for deliciousness.  Mayra was very patient as she took my order, considering I wanted to eat something there and take the rest to go.

The standard plate lunches can be ordered Filipino style (served over jasmine rice with pancit noodles and one lumpia, a crispy spring roll filled with pork), or Hawaiian style (served with two scoops of jasmine rice and one scoop of ono macaroni salad).  You can choose between braised Papa’s Filipino adobo pork spare ribs, marinated and grilled huli huli chicken thighs, or kalua pig, pork shoulder seasoned with Hawaiian sea salt and wrapped in banana leaves while it is slow-roasted for eight hours.

The walls are brightly decorated with hand-painted art that makes you feel like you’re in the islands.  A bamboo (or fake bamboo?) wall separates the open kitchen from the small dining area.  

For the soft opening, they served everyone a lovely tropical mocktail made of pineapple juice, apple juice, and muddled mint, blended and poured over crushed ice.  It was a delightful and refreshing little surprise.

I had to try the Papa’s Filipino adobo pork dish while it was hot, especially with the pancit noodles and lumpia spring roll (the Filipino style option).  I chose wisely.  I’ve had different versions of adobo, pancit, and lumpia before, at DeGuzman Oriental Food Mart and the late, great Taglish, and I already knew I would love the flavors.

The bone-in spare ribs were fork-tender, and the bones slid right out.  The savory flavors were incredible.  The sweet, sour, sticky sauce was perfect for dipping the crispy lumpia, but I ended up stirring it into the soft, fluffy jasmine rice.  The pancit noodles were nice and tender, mixed with shreds of carrot, cabbage, and sautéed with lots of garlic. 

This is OverRice’s version of sisig, a Filipino dish of fried pork belly chunks tossed with onions and chilies in a soy and citrus sauce.  I wonder if the citrus involved is calamansi, which are kind of like limes, but smaller and rounder, and with orange flesh inside.  Regardless, the sisig was delicious.  Totally different from the version I loved so much (and miss) from Taglish, which shows a wealth of variations in Filipino cuisine, which I am still learning about.  I ended up stirring in some jasmine rice, which was included, but packaged in a separate container for my takeout order.  The rice did a great job soaking up those incredible flavors. 

OverRice offers Spam musubi, the popular Hawaiian snack of grilled Spam and rice wrapped tightly in nori (seaweed).  One of my favorite restaurants in all of Orlando, Poke Hana, also serves Spam musubi, so I’ve had several before.  But OverRice also sells chicken and kalua pig musubi, all for $3.50 each, and I couldn’t help but get a kalua pig musubi so I could try this classic Hawaiian pork dish too.  It was so good, very tender after being slow-roasted for eight hours in those banana leaves, with a subtly smoky flavor that permeated the rice.

I didn’t think my wife would care for the adobo, which is why I enjoyed that at the restaurant.  But when I brought home the rest of the food, I asked her to try the kalua pig musubi and the pork belly sisig, and she pleasantly surprised us both by liking both.  I don’t know why I was surprised, because both were really delicious, and even the sisig wasn’t spicy.  I was thrilled she was now a fellow OverRice fan!

Finally, I can’t go to any deli, sandwich shop, grocery store, or Hawaiian restaurant and not sample the macaroni salad or pasta salad, whenever they are available.  Poke Hana’s macaroni salad is absolutely the best I’ve ever had.  I found a recipe online for Hawaiian-style macaroni salad and have made it a few times before, to great success, but mine still isn’t as good as theirs.  Well, OverRice makes a very similar Hawaiian mac salad recipe (with a side order for $4 if you don’t get it in a Hawaiian-style plate lunch), so it is also pretty amazing.  The major different is that OverRice tops theirs with finely diced nori, so that added some additional tastes and textures once I stirred it into the cool, creamy, chewy mac salad.

I just wish I had tracked down the OverRice food truck sooner, so I could have tried their wonderful food years ago.  But I was waiting months for this permanent location on Lee Road to open, and I was so happy and lucky to attend one of the first soft openings.  This is a place I can see returning to again and again, and hopefully turning others onto.  If you were a fan of the food truck, don’t despair.  It will be continuing, so keep checking the website for updates as they work through their soft opening hours at the restaurant.

I don’t think OverRice is serving any desserts, at least not yet, but if you dine here and decide you want to stick to the theme for dessert, it really isn’t that far from Hanalei Shave Ice for the tropical flavors of Brandy Ford’s refreshing Hawaiian shave ice, or another sweet new addition to Orlando’s culinary scene I will be reviewing in the weeks to come, Samapaguita Filipino Ice Cream.  Until then, aloha and paalam, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos!

Bad As’s Burgers

Bad As’s Burgers (https://badassburgersfl.com/) is the newest restaurant venture from John Collazo, the chef and owner of Orlando’s beloved Bad As’s Sandwich.  I’ve been to Bad As’s Sandwich dozens of times and tried almost everything on the menu, to the point that my detailed review from 2019 barely scratches the surface.   But never content to sit still or rest on his laurels, Chef John launched his new burger concept on Curry Ford Road in late 2022, and my wife and I recently tried it.

At Bad As’s Burgers, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: smash-style burgers made with high-quality Australian wagyu beef, with a variety of creative toppings on fresh-baked buns.  Just a warning to vegetarians and vegans — there are no veggie burger options at Bad As’s Burgers, at least not yet.

Similar to the menu at Bad As’s Sandwich, there are plenty of chef-created combinations to choose from, or you can build your own burger.  My wife is the opposite of me, in that she likes burgers and sandwiches very plain and free from extraneous toppings, condiments, and sauces.  She ordered a plain burger with a side of fries, and she seemed to really like it.  These fries look and taste a lot like McDonald’s fries from times past, and that is because they are fried in beef tallow, just like McDonald’s used to, at least through the 1980s.

When I placed our order at the register, she didn’t notice on the menu that you could get sautéed mushrooms as a topping, but she really likes mushrooms.  (That makes one of us.)  Luckily for her, you can also order a generous side order of the mushrooms:

I was having a hard time choosing from all of Chef John’s creations, but when I saw they had a daily special that wasn’t on the regular menu, it became an easy decision.  This was the Drew, a burger topped with French stewed onions, crispy onions, Bleu cheese, and some kind of tangy aioli.  I had actually been fantasizing about French onion soup that very day, so it was a perfect burger and a perfect decision.

Here’s an extreme close-up of the Drew:

Chef John is great at mixing up different aiolis, which I knew from Bad As’s Sandwich.  But I just love ketchup on burgers, too.  Sorry, not sorry!

I opted for sweet potato fries so we could try both kinds of fries, and they were spot-on, with nice, crispy exteriors and soft, yielding centers.  In fact, we both agreed that we preferred them to the beef tallow fries, despite our shared ’80s McDonald’s nostalgia.

My wife couldn’t resist a chocolate shake, and she said it was great.  I appreciated Bad As’s Burgers not following the milkshake trend of adding a lot of sticky, messy, drippy stuff to the outside of the cup, hoping to appeal to the Instagram crowd but creating sticky situations.

I think Bad As’s Burgers will continue to survive and even thrive in a market full of fast-casual burger joints because of Chef John Collazo’s creativity and insistence on the highest quality product.  This doesn’t feel like a corporate chain “gourmet burger” place because it isn’t.  It has that uniqueness and love that you find in the best locally owned and operated restaurants.  Is it the cheapest around?  Absolutely not, but you pay for quality.  As much as I love the cheap, tasty sliders at White Castle and Krystal, if you go to Bad As’s Burgers, you can expect top-quality beef, toppings, fries, and even fresh-baked buns.  You taste every bit of effort, care, and attention to detail with every bite, just like at Bad As’s Sandwich.  And even if you consider it a splurge, sometimes you just have to treat yo’self.

Reyes Mezcaleria

Reyes Mezcaleria (https://www.reyesmex.com/), a  Mexican restaurant in the North Quarter neighborhood near downtown Orlando, is very different from most Mexican restaurants I’ve ever been to.  It is truly upscale, to the point of being “fancy.”  The dining room is beautiful, something it has in common with the other Good Salt restaurants owned and operated by Jason and Sue Chin, like the seafood-centric Osprey (a favorite of mine for oysters) and the Southern-influenced Monroe in downtown Orlando (which I’ve been to once so far, but have yet to review).  The Chins, who are James Beard Award semifinalists, have terrific taste for concepts, décor, food, and talent, like the Executive Chef of Reyes, Wendy Lopez, who started there in 2018.

That happened to be the first year I visited Reyes Mezcaleria with my wife and my best friend — so pretty much my two best friends.  We had a lovely dinner after a long day at MegaCon, and I took a lot of pictures with my old cell phone camera that came out awful, making the stunningly plated food look as unappetizing as possible.  After some online people joked and complained about my photography, that inspired me to start this very food blog, so congratulations?  Thank you?  Or possibly, you’re welcome?

Anyway, my wife and I didn’t make it back to Reyes until this past December, after catching a matinee performance of the musical Hadestown in downtown Orlando.  We are so rarely downtown, so it worked out perfectly.  We over-ordered, but we ended up with a lot of leftovers that heated up really well at home.  We got at least three full meals out of all of this fine food.

This order of guacamole and house-made tortilla chips was $11, but the guac and chips were all excellent quality.  The guacamole was extremely fresh, and it was topped with some pickled red onions and crumbled chihuahua cheese.  The chips were dusted with a wonderful seasoning.

I requested to add chapulines, since the menu said we could do that for a $2 upcharge, but we were charged $4.  Whatever.  $2 is nothing, but it’s uncharacteristic for a restaurant of this caliber, and the people have a right to know.  I got a generous portion of crispy fried grasshoppers that had a really nutty flavor.  I’ve tried chapulines once before, at an upscale Mexican restaurant in San Jose, California, and didn’t like them much, but they were much better at Reyes.  I didn’t know if we were meant to sprinkle or stir them into the guacamole, but we just munched on them like nuts, or Chex Mix.  Yes, my wife tried a few!  She always makes me proud whenever she tries new foods. I recently attended a lecture about the future of food, and one scholar discussed how farm-raised insects are going to be a major protein source in the future, and we had better get on board, because it’s going to have to happen as global resources diminish and current animal husbandry methods rapidly become unsustainable.  I have to admit that I feel a little smug that I liked this particular batch of grasshoppers, so now I can be like “Have you embraced eating insects, the protein of the future?  I have, and now I’m part of the solution, not part of the problem!”

This was a “shroom” tamal ($12) that my wife ordered, because she loves mushrooms, one of the only foods I can’t eat.  The masa corn shell is wrapped around cultivated mushroom, squash blossoms, and poblano peppers, and topped with red onions, salsa verde, and what looked like micro-greens.  I ended up trying some of this after she ate all the fungus out of it, and had a really terrific flavor, especially from the poblanos, which I always enjoy in things.  I think those poblanos and the salsa verde made the tamal a little too spicy for her, so we both got to enjoy it after all.

This was an order of two Sonoran crispy fish tacos ($14), featuring red snapper, beer-battered and fried to absolute perfection.  The fresh corn tortillas were topped with shaved red cabbage for a different kind of crunch, spicy serrano pepper aioli, more pickled red onions, and cilantro.  I always appreciate good fish tacos (except for mahi; I just don’t like the texture and never have), and these were excellent.  Totally worth the price too, in case you were wondering.

Next up was the esquites ($9), Mexican street corn, served off the cob.  This would have been another great dish to share with a group, but I liked it more than my wife did, so I ended up having most of it.  The Florida sweet corn kernels were accompanied by hominy, more poblano peppers, pearl onions, lime aioli to give it some creaminess and some citrusy sour tang, and cotija cheese for a parmesan-like umami funkiness.  There was a lot going on, but I liked it all.

At this point, we were so full we could barely even touch the main attraction, which I realized was what I ordered way back on our first visit, back in 2018: duck enchiladas de Michoacan ($29).  Luckily, this photo and all the rest came out a lot better after this visit to Reyes.  We enjoyed this one at home, with slices of seared duck breast over the queso fresco and chihuahua cheese enchiladas (they are underneath, I swear!), accompanied by chile rojo and surprisingly spicy carrot escabeche, with a vinegary kick I loved and my wife wanted nothing to do with.  This is a quack-tastic dish, but both of us are fiends for any dishes involving duck.  The flaming (hot) carrots were a big hit with me, too.

The creative, gourmet dishes at Reyes Mezcaleria are a feast for the senses.  Enjoying them in the lush dining room, maybe with a cocktail or two, would be a true treat for anyone.  While I fully admit I prefer my Mexican food “downscale” (bring on the street tacos, burritos, and tortas), I’m so glad there are multiple options across Orlando, with a chef like Wendy Lopez pushing the boundaries of what people think of as Mexican cuisine and challenging them to accept upscale takes on traditional dishes.  Price-wise, Reyes remains a “special occasion” restaurant in my book, but I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for something special near downtown and are tired of the same old options.  There is no reason Mexican food can’t be luxurious, and Reyes is proof of that.

Polombia at Time Out Market (Chicago)

I’ve been meaning to write this review for a long time because it was one of my favorite finds from my work trips to Chicago last summer.   I love interesting fusion cuisine, like The Escobar Kitchen in Orlando’s Lake Nona, which expertly combines Puerto Rican food with sushi.  My wife and I used to love a Casselberry pizzeria called Del Dee’s, which served excellent New York-style pizzas along with Thai food (and one of the best Thai iced teas ever), due to the Italian husband and his Thai wife who owned and operated the restaurant.  Alas, it did not last.

Chicago is arguably a bigger food city than Orlando, and one of the few places that could honestly be called even more diverse.  That’s how we ended up with a restaurant as cool as Polombia (https://www.polombiachi.com/), a Polish-Colombian fusion restaurant located in the Time Out Market Chicago, a sprawling food hall with plenty of diverse dining options, from fresh pasta to barbecue, Greek to Indian, Southern to Korean, baked goods to bars.  The Time Out Market sounded like a great place to drag two work colleagues in a Lyft for lunch, and I already knew I had to try the most unique cuisine combo of all.  I definitely over-ordered at Polombia, a joint venture by visionary chefs Cynthia Orobio and Phillipe Sobon, but I wanted to try everything, so I regret nothing. 

I started with meatless emparogi ($12), a lovely quintet of empanada-pierogi hybrids.  These beautiful little pockets of dough were stuffed with potatoes, caramelized onions, chives, sofrito (a classic Latin seasoning blend of garlic, onions, sometimes tomatoes, olive oil, and other aromatic herbs, spices, and vegetables), and a swirl of aji crema, blending elements of a spicy Colombian hot sauce with cool cream to balance out all the acidic ingredients.  There was also a version of these emparogi with all the same fillings, plus short rib, but I held off on that, at least for this dish.

This is bigos, or hunter’s stew ($8), rich with shredded beef, Colombian chorizo sausage, and sauerkraut in a tomato-based stew.  I have loved bigos at Polish and Ukrainian restaurants, and this was a unique take that added Latin American flavors.  It lacked the sweet, tangy touch I remember from the bigos I savored at Veselka in New York City, but this was a very different version of the classic dish.  I think I might have also enjoyed it more in the winter than a particularly hot day in July, but don’t get me wrong, I liked it, and I’m very glad I tried it.   

I couldn’t stop myself from getting an order of two arepa-ski ($14), cornmeal patties topped with ricotta cheese blended with honey, shredded pickled beets and carrots, and the protein of our choice.  Those choices included mojo-roasted chicken, vegetarian lentils, and coffee-braised short rib, so this time I opted for the short rib.  The order came with aji sauce that reminded me of a thicker chimichurri, bringing some acid and spice to contrast against the richness of the meat and the sweet creaminess of the ricotta.  I was so excited to order all this food, I didn’t notice on the menu that I could pick two separate proteins, or else I would have.  But I have no regrets.  These were some of the more creative arepas I’ve ever tried, and the short rib was incredible.  I always love short ribs, and these were so well-seasoned with the coffee rub and braised to ideal tenderness, I didn’t think twice about missing out on the chicken and the lentils.

These were a beauty to behold:

And for dessert, I got kolaczki ($4), six light rolled pastries filled with guava and fig preserves and dusted with powdered sugar.  I might not have bothered with desserts, but I couldn’t turn down two of my favorite fruits for pastry fillings.  The sticky sweetness of the guava and fig worked so perfectly with the light, buttery pastries, and I was so glad to have those flavors to choose from.   

Since this is an Orlando-based food blog, I try to space out my out-of-town reviews, and I’ve been saving this one for a while.  Orlando only has one Polish restaurant that I haven’t been to yet, but my wife and I dearly loved another restaurant, Polonia, that closed several years ago.  That really introduced me to Polish flavors and dishes that I now love and crave and dream about.  Being from Miami, I’m also familiar with all kinds of Latin food, and very fond of it too.

I’m always excited to try chefs’ interesting takes on fusion cuisine, blending together ingredients and dishes and entire cultures, creating something unique and new that pays homage to the original inspirations and influences.  While Chicago certainly has some traditional Polish restaurants due to its large Polish population, I absolutely had to try Polombia while I was there.  I couldn’t schlep all the way up there and leave without trying it.  This was the exact kind of meal that I started this blog to write about, and I’m so glad I was able to visit and work my way through the beautiful, singular menu that Cynthia Orobio and Phillipe Sobon created.

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!

Pho Huong Lan

Well, we’ve had another chilly few days, and when the weather gets cool, my thoughts turn to hot, hearty soups.  Pho Huong Lan (https://www.phohuonglan.com/) is my new favorite restaurant in Orlando for the two Vietnamese noodle soups I love so much: pho and bun bo hue.  For the uninitiated, pho is a hearty beef noodle soup featuring rare beef that cooks in the hot broth, as well as meaty add-ons like sliced brisket, chewy beef meatballs (nothing like Italian or Swedish meatballs), tender and unctuous beef tendon, and tripe.  Bowls of pho are infinitely customizable, as they come with basil leaves, bean sprouts, sliced fresh jalapeño peppers (much hotter than the standard pickled variety you get in jars), lime wedges to squeeze into the broth, and condiments like hoisin sauce and spicy sriracha.

Bun bo hue is a spicy red broth that usually contains thicker noodles and different cuts of beef and pork, and it also comes with fresh herbs, vegetables, and lime wedges to make every bowl unique.  I’ve tried them all over town, and Orlando is blessed with many Vietnamese restaurants that serve excellent bowls.  I can’t think of many disappointing experiences I’ve had with either kind of soup.  They warm your body and soul — perfect for chilly weeks like this one — but pho is one of the only soups I seek out to enjoy in the summertime, because it is so light and surprisingly refreshing.  But that said, of all the restaurants I’ve tried these two soups at, Pho Huong Lan makes the souperior versions of both.

Here are photos of the menu.  Pardon the contrast — yellow text on a white background is not the greatest combination.  You may want to right-click on the menu images and open them in new tabs for larger images.   

This really cool mural livens up the dining room, where hot pots simmer off to the side.  

Lucky maneki neko cats decorate the front counter, greeting customers.

For our first takeout order, I ordered pho for both my wife and myself.  Like any good Vietnamese restaurant, they package the fragrant broth separately in takeout orders, so the tender rice noodles don’t turn to mush before you get to enjoy it.  Mine is on the left, and it doesn’t look as clear as my wife’s broth on the right because it has oxtails (one of my favorite meats!) swimming in it.  

My wife ordered pho tai dap, with rare flank steak.  That’s her usual, but most local Vietnamese restaurants serve it with small, paper-thin slices of rare beef.  Pho Huong Lan surprised us both by serving it with a large piece of tender rare flank steak, served like chopped steak — not exactly in the form of loose ground beef, but close.  It cooked perfectly well in the hot broth at home, so don’t worry about that one bit. The rice noodles were thicker and more tender than the rice vermicelli most local restaurants served.  We both liked them a lot.

Here’s a close-up of the rare flank steak we both got.  I preferred this a lot to the slices of rare beef we are used to.  It was a lot more tender than those slices once it hit the broth.

I got a smaller portion of the rare flank steak because I chose the pho dac biet, my usual at most restaurants, with rare flank steak, brisket, beef tripe, tender beef tendon, and beef meatballs (which were also floating in the broth with the oxtails I added on for an upcharge).

Here is my beautiful bowl of pho, fully assembled at home, as perfect as such a thing can be:

On my second visit, I tried the bun bo hue, which came with thicker, chewier rice noodles and a different assortment of meats than the pho: “rough” flank steak, beef shank, the chewy and unctuous tendon I love, congealed beef blood, and a round slice of pork bologna.   I also paid the upcharge for beef short rib, another fatty and tender meat I love.  I am so happy that Pho Huong Lan offers oxtail and short rib options, which I don’t mind paying extra for.   
(In addition to the short rib and oxtail add-ons for the pho and bun bo hue, you can also add ox pennis [sp] to your noodle soup for an upcharge, something I’ve never noticed on any other local Vietnamese menus.  But as many times as people have told me to “Eat a dick,” I’m just not there yet in my development as an adventurous eater.)

Here is the assembled bun bo hue, which was so warm and comforting and refreshing on a chilly day.  It was spicy, but not nearly as spicy as other dishes I’ve had from other cuisines, and not even quite as spicy as other versions of bun bo hue I’ve had in Orlando.  Here, the heat complimented all the fresh flavors without overwhelming any of them.

Pho Huong Lan only serves pho and bun bo hue, with multiple options in multiple sizes.  If you’re looking for rice dishes, grilled meats, summer rolls, banh mi sandwiches, or any other Vietnamese specialties, the good news is you have many other great options in Orlando, especially in the same Mills 50 district.  I have reviewed plenty of them, and I remain a fan.  But if you’re in the mood for these two iconic noodle soups, I argue that Pho Huong Lan makes the absolute best versions in Orlando.  I’ve tried most of them, and this restaurant is streets ahead of its competitors.  Your mileage may vary, and I would love to hear what my dozens of readers think, but I feel pretty confident recommending Pho Huong Lan as the best I’ve ever had.

Wa Sushi

Wa Sushi (https://www.facebook.com/WaSushiCasselberry/) is a real treasure in the Seminole County suburb of Casselberry, 20 minutes north of downtown Orlando.  The small, serene location is located in a nondescript shopping plaza between an Ollie’s Bargain Outlet and a store called Sports & Pokemon (the two genders?), but it boasts some of the finest sushi and Japanese food in the Orlando area.

Wa Sushi used to be in another, even less auspicious location elsewhere in Casselberry, pretty far out of the way and hard to find, and our very cool next-door neighbors invited us there once.  It was good, but for whatever reason, we didn’t return until recently — our first visit in years, and the first to this new location.

You can find Wa Sushi’s menu on the Facebook page above, but they had a menu of specials when I took my wife there recently, for our first real date night in a while:

This was one of the last evenings of 2022, and we saw Wa was offering another special of toshikoshi soba, or “year-crossing noodles,” traditionally meant to be eaten on New Year’s Eve to let go of the hardships of the past year (since soba noodles are so soft and easily cut).  Well, we figured we could both use some of that.

Rather than try the version in broth, we ordered the toshikoshi ten zaru soba ($16), cold soba noodles served with a dashi soy dipping sauce and a side order of tempura-battered and fried shrimp and vegetables.  It was beautifully plated, and really good too, although I probably would not have ordered it if the dish wasn’t associated with the tradition of letting go of the hard times of the past year.

Close-up of the tempura shrimp and vegetables.  My wife ate the tempura sweet potato, and I had the onion and shishito peppers.

Here are the cold soba noodles, made from buckwheat and topped with some fine shreds of nori (seaweed).  They didn’t have much flavor at all, kind of like eating plain, cold spaghetti, but earthier.  The dashi dipping sauce helped immensely, as did the finely-diced scallions that also came on the side.   

Something we ordered came with the obligatory wee house salad with sesame dressing and miso soup, which I enjoyed:

This was ika geso ($11), a small plate of deep-fried squid legs from the Hot Tasting section of the menu.  After how tender and fried to perfection the shrimp were, we thought we would double down on the tempura shellfish.  These were chewier than a lot of fried calamari we have ordered around town, but I have a feeling this squid was a lot fresher, as opposed to some restaurants that may use frozen calamari.  They definitely tasted fresh.

My wife always loves a good selection of sashimi, or in this case, a beautiful portion of chirashi ($33) — select cuts of raw fish, selected by the chef.  There was salmon in here, ebi (shrimp), tako (octopus, one of her favorites, whether raw or cooked), ikura (orange globes of salmon roe), tamago (perfectly cooked and sliced egg), and unagi (eel).  I always love eel in sushi, but this was her first time trying it, and she liked it.  I’m always impressed by her willingness to try almost anything.

And we ordered three beautiful rolls to share:

In the foreground, you can see the ultimate tuna roll ($16): spicy tuna and cucumber inside the rice, topped with  tuna, wasabi-infused tobiko (fish eggs), and sweet chili sauce.  This one was awesome, but I’m always a fan of spicy tuna in any form. 

Here you can see the inferno roll ($14) in the front, and the mango tango roll ($13) in the back.  In the very front are slices of escolar sashimi ($2.50), just for her — a big fan of the butterfish.  The inferno roll features spicy salmon and cucumber topped with yellowtail, spicy mayo, and paper-thin slices of fresh jalapeño pepper.  Awesome combination.   
The mango tango roll in the back features tempura-battered and fried shrimp, mango, and cucumber, topped with crab salad.  I believe this was real crabmeat and not surimi (processed fish sometimes called “krab,” even though I like that stuff too).

I was really impressed by Wa Sushi, once again, all these years later, in a much more convenient location.  Last summer I wrote a review of Kabuto Sushi & Grill, another friendly neighborhood sushi spot close to our home, just on the Winter Springs side rather than the Casselberry side.  I even listed one of Kabuto’s dishes in my Top Ten Tastes of 2022, which came out in the last Orlando Weekly issue of the year.  Sadly, that very week, the last week of 2022, Kabuto announced it was closing permanently.  That’s when I resolved to get us back to Wa, to support them as much as we could moving forward, to help spare it a similar fate.  I know lots of local foodies already know how fine Wa Sushi is, and common consensus is that it is one of the best sushi establishments in the greater Orlando area.  It absolutely is, and to have it so close to home, a true treasure in Casselberry, of all places, means we have to protect it, support it, and shout our praise from the rooftops, both real and virtual.  So here’s my praise and my protection.  Let’s support all of our favorite restaurants as much as we can this year, especially those friendly neighborhood favorites we are lucky to have so near and dear to us.

Kung Fu Dumpling

I remember reading about Kung Fu Dumpling (https://www.kungfudumplings.com/) some time last year.  A new Chinese restaurant that specializes in dumplings and noodles sounded great, but it’s in Oviedo, at 7 Alafaya Woods Blvd #4000, right off Alafaya Trail — a direction I rarely drive in.  I tried it for the first time this past summer when I got home late from an out-of-town work trip, exhausted and hungry after dropping a co-worker off at home near there.  I figured I would end up with disappointing fast food, but when I drove by Kung Fu Dumpling and saw the lights on, you won’t believe how quickly I turned in there.

This is the inside.  There are several tables, but it was pretty quiet after 10 PM on a Sunday.  Since I didn’t even plan to stop by, I perused the menu and ordered at the counter, overjoyed that this long travel day was going to have a happy ending.   

The space is brightly lit with festive decor, and it’s sparkling clean inside.  I was relieved to hang around in the dining room while they prepared my food, after the stress of flying.  I was messing around on my phone, but it seemed like all the food I ordered was ready in about ten minutes.   

Kung Fu Dumpling offers many familiar dim sum dishes, and I couldn’t resist bringing home an order of homemade fried pork, shrimp, and chive dumplings (three for $6), since I know my wife likes those too.  If you’ve had these dumplings anywhere else, you know what you’re getting, and you’ll be very happy with them.  I figure some restaurants serve frozen ones, but these tasted very fresh.  

Pardon the shadows, but these were another dim sum favorite of mine, pan-fried pork buns (two for $5).  I wolfed these down, standing up in my kitchen, before I could even unpack my luggage.  We all know they’re never as good the next day!

I was thrilled to see my go-to standard Chinese restaurant dish, beef chow fun ($17), made with homemade wide, flat, chewy rice noodles, stir-fried with sliced beef, onions, and scallions.  Neither of us are huge fans of bean sprouts, so I asked them to hold those, and I was happy to not have to pick them out.  This was a shining example of beef chow fun.  In fact, one could consider it beef chow fun for the whole family.

I couldn’t help ordering a second dish I knew my wife and I could share: pad Thai ($15), a classic dish of stir-fried noodles (also homemade!) with eggs, chicken, shrimp, scallions, carrots, peanuts, and lime wedges to give it a little tangy tartness.  There is a mysterious sour-sweet flavor I often encounter in pad Thai that I love that might be tamarind, but it could also be lime.  Anyway, I don’t order pad Thai often enough at Thai restaurants, but I’m glad I ordered this version at Kung Fu Dumpling, especially with the homemade noodles.  My wife liked it too.

This is from the “Asian Wraps” section of the menu: a green scallion pancake wrap, with sweet red char siu barbecue pork stuffed inside ($10).  I’ve had similar scallion pancakes at Chuan Lu Garden, and this one worked well as a tortilla-like wrap.  I loved the combination of flavors and textures here.

This is a black sesame pancake ($5.50) that was very similar to a Malaysian paratha or roti, but not as buttery.  I know my wife doesn’t like onions or scallions, but she absolutely loved this, as I figured she would.  I resolved to return and bring her more, since I thought the pancakes and wraps were limited-time specials.  But looking at the Kung Fu Dumpling menu online, I’m pleased to say both the black sesame pancake, the green scallion pancake (also $5.50), and all the “Asian wraps” continue to be available.

So I returned to Kung Fu Dumpling a week or two later, bringing her two of those black sesame pancakes.  My wife also requested the teriyaki Buddha’s Delight ($14), a vegetarian dish with stir-fried tofu, broccoli, carrots, and onions (which I dutifully picked out and ate for her) in a lightly sweet teriyaki sauce.  I didn’t take a picture of it, but it came with fragrant jasmine rice.

And after over-ordering on my first visit, when I was delirious from travel fatigue, I stuck to one new dish the second time: Korean pan-seared braised pork belly over lo mein noodles ($16).  I hoped she would want to share this dish too, and I believe she liked the slice of tender pork belly she tried.  As for me, I loved it.  

So that’s my review of Kung Fu Dumpling, after two visits.  I’m still rarely in that part of Oviedo, where it approaches East Orlando and turns into UCF before you know it.  But even if you don’t live or work anywhere in the area, I still highly recommend Kung Fu Dumpling for your pan-Asian comfort food needs.  Whether you’re craving Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese flavors, you will find something you love here.  If you want late-night dim sum, they have you covered.  If you crave tender homemade noodles (as I so often do), you’ll be in for such a treat.  As the great thespian Keanu Reeves said after a grueling training session in The Matrix (1999): “I know kung fu.”  Now you, constant reader, also know Kung Fu.

El Rey De Las Fritas (Miami)

El Rey De Las Fritas (https://elreydelasfritas.com/) is one of Miami’s most famous and iconic casual restaurants, a Cuban diner that was founded by Victoriano “Benito” Gonzalez and his wife, Angelina “Gallega” Gonzalez, the current owner.  Over the decades, they expanded their restaurant to four locations, three in Miami proper and one in Hialeah.

My BFF (best food friend) and I ate lunch at the original El Rey De Las Fritas on my trip to Miami back in July, before picking up takeout from the nearby Sanguich De Miami to eat later.  The restaurants are located a relatively short walk from each other along Miami’s historic Calle Ocho (SW 8th Street), the legendary stretch of Little Havana that is the colorful and vibrant center of Miami’s Cuban community.  This was my first-ever visit to El Rey De Las Fritas, and I think we did it right.

Sitting at stools along the long counter for a classic diner experience, we started out by ordering four croquetas de jamon to share ($1.50 each).  My friend occasionally reviews the best croquetas in and around Miami in a recurring feature called “The Croqueta Diaries” on his own food and culture blog, so I was with a real connoisseur.  These were pretty classic, standard croquetas with the typical creamy filling of diced ham mixed with bechamel sauce, fried to golden perfection with cracker crumb coating.

I was surprised by how large the menu was, with so many Cuban dishes to choose from beyond the iconic fritas.  Because I didn’t study it enough in advance, I panicked and ordered a batido de guayaba (guava milkshake; $5).  It was really thick and didn’t have a strong guava flavor, and wasn’t even super-refreshing for this hot July day.  I might have been better off with some limonada or jugo de maracuya (passion fruit juice), or even a cafe con leche, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

But anyway, the whole point of going to El Rey De Las Fritas was to order the classic Cuban frita, a specially seasoned burger patty on a Cuban roll topped with diced onions and a mountain of crispy, freshly fried shoestring potatoes (papitas julianas).  It also comes with a tangy red sauce that looks like ketchup and smells like ketchup, but brother, it ain’t ketchup!  I opted for the frita especial con queso, a cheeseburger frita ($4.95, just a 20-cent upcharge for cheese).  It was even better than it looks, and you can see how good it looks.  Our fritas were definitely better than the ones we tried at Polo Norte in Miami, back in March 2020, and even those weren’t bad by any means.

I even brought a frita original ($4.75) to bring back to my wife in Orlando, since she likes her burgers sin queso (without cheese).  But she didn’t want it, so I brought it to work to eat at my desk, the same sad way I always eat my lunches.  But this day I had an unexpected leftover frita burger, so it was a lot less sad than usual. 

I got a little obsessed with fritas during the work-from-home period of the pandemic in 2020, so I experimented a lot with different recipes for the meat and the sauce, although I always used those crunchy fried potato sticks that come in a can.  Still, after finally trying the real deal at Miami’s most legendary frita joint, it’s hard to beat the professionals.  The iconic institution El Rey truly was the king of fritas.

The Saboscrivner’s Top Stand-Up Comedy Specials of 2022

I’m a lifelong comedy nerd.  Growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, The Simpsons, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Eddie Murphy, The State, Ghostbusters, the Marx Brothers, Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis’ Justice League International comics, Tom Lehrer, Bugs Bunny, The Tick, Laurel and Hardy, Spike Jones, Seinfeld, and a dog-eared book of corny old Henny Youngman one-liners helped mold and shape my sense of humor.

I love good comedy, and I specify “good,” because there is so much bad comedy out there.  Too much, really.  Comedy is one of the hardest things to write and perform well,  so I have the utmost respect for the writers, actors, and stand-up comics who make me laugh, especially because laughing is such a better alternative to crying and/or screaming.  These days we need all the help we can get to not cry or scream.  I know I do.

I especially love stand-up comedy, so here is my list of my favorite stand-up specials to come out in 2022:

9. Patton Oswalt: We All Scream (Netflix).  Oswalt is one of my all-time favorite stand-ups and the last comedian I saw live before the pandemic struck, back in February 2020.  I always root for him as a fellow nerd who made good, but We All Scream meandered a bit too much for me.  It wasn’t as tight or focused as some of his previous specials, but I’m so happy he has found happiness in his life again after losing his first wife, and that he’s still doing what he does — almost an elder statesman of stand-up at this point.

8. Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel (HBO Max).  I wasn’t super-familiar with his work before, but this was a very bold, brave, heartfelt, and personal performance leading up to a huge moment.  If you’re going to watch it, please don’t read anything about it first, because almost every reviewer spoils it.

7. Atsuko Okatsuka: The Intruder (HBO Max).  I wasn’t familiar with her at all and still have no idea where she came from.  We just clicked on this randomly, and Okatsuka was silly, clever, and likeable.  I look forward to whatever she does next.

6. Lil Rel Howery: I Said It.  Y’all Thinking It.  (HBO Max).  This was just joyful.  Rel is a comedian who doesn’t set out to be some kind of bold truth-teller or a combative curmudgeon.  He just brings infectious enthusiasm to his stories and anecdotes, like a less obnoxious Kevin Hart, and it was delightful.  I enjoyed this special a lot more than his previous one, Live in Crenshaw.

5. Neal Brennan: Blocks (Netflix).  Another bold and fearless performance.  If there’s one thing I can’t stand about comedy, it’s “angry alpha bro” stand-ups who come out with a heel stage persona and try to be acerbic and confrontational, punching down and reveling in being bullies.  Brennan isn’t a bully by any means (unlike what his former collaborator has become), but I loved how confrontational he got at times here, discussing some big issues from his own life and life in general while being unafraid to alienate the audience.

4. John Gondelman: People Pleaser (Amazon Prime Video, Tubi).  Another new name and face for me, but I just liked the guy immediately.  He’s such a mensch!  Loves his wife, doesn’t punch down or go for shitty cheap shots, clever wordplay, good crowd work, terrific payoff at the end.  Whatever he does next, I’ll be paying attention.

3. Catherine Cohen: The Twist…?  She’s Gorgeous (Netflix).  This was as much a musical cabaret show as a stand-up performance, and I was enrapt.  Cohen’s stage persona is an attention-craving Millennial diva caricature, somehow sexy, raunchy, and deeply neurotic all at once.  Accompanied on the piano by unsung hero Henry Koperski, this was the kind of lounge act I’ve loved ever since I was a kid, even though they didn’t exist by the time I was born and haven’t made much of a comeback since then.  She’s a true star in the making, and I hope to see her perform her bawdy, melodramatic musical comedy live some day, before she gets too popular to keep playing in small, intimate cabaret venues.

2. Kyle Kinane: Trampoline in a Ditch (YouTube).  This was a recorded version of the tour set I saw Kinane perform in Orlando in 2018.  He has such a great deep voice, and he’s one of the best storytellers in the comedy game.  He is a self-proclaimed “dirtbag” who nevertheless seeks out the joy and wonder in everyday life.  A story he tells about taking his mother to a bowling alley left me in tears at the live show, and I was so glad it was included in this recorded version.  Yes, the link above leads to the entire show, completely free.  You’re welcome.

1. Tom Papa: What a Day! (Netflix).  As a performer, Papa is so cool, even though his stories about marriage and fatherhood are anything but cool.  He does everything Jim Gaffigan and Mike Birbiglia do on stage, only smoother, faster, and more effortless-looking — and don’t get me wrong, I like those gentlemen too, and I’ve seen Gaffigan live twice.  I discovered Tom Papa from his “Out in America” segments on the late, lamented Live From Here radio show (a reworking of A Prairie Home Companion that made it much more music- and comedy-focused and in touch with modern sensibilities, but was unfortunately another victim of the pandemic).  Papa has a few other stand-up specials, and each one is a breath of fresh air and well worth seeking out.  His stories may be about the mundane trivialities and annoyances of middle age, but his delivery is anything but mundane.