Yamasan Sushi and Grill

Yamasan Sushi and Grill (https://www.yamasanorlando1.com/) is a beautiful little Japanese restaurant that has been around for a decade or so, in the Mills Park complex on Mills Avenue, just north of Virginia Drive.  I have driven by it literally hundreds of times, but never stopped in to eat until this past Monday, a rare weekday off.  My wife and I were already nearby and craving sushi, so we decided to try it, not knowing anything about the place.  (Longtime readers know I usually research restaurants and study menus in advance, but not always!)  Anyway, I’m so glad we did, since we had a wonderful experience.

Yamasan’s menu is absolutely huge, and they have all kinds of Japanese food, not just sushi.  They have hot and cold appetizers, bento boxes, noodle and rice dishes, poke bowls, hibachi grill options, and even a Japanese/French fusion menu.  The thing is, I’m a roll guy.  I love ornate sushi rolls, especially with raw fish and lots of ingredients to keep things interesting.  Most of the “Yamasan special rolls” are in the $15-$25 range, and some are even more expensive than that, so I figured it would be an expensive meal, but probably worth it.

However, our lovely server Maggie let us know that Yamasan recently began offering an all-you-can-eat menu, where for the price of $47.95 per person, you had a pretty large variety of selections to choose from — not the entire multi-page menu, but still a lot.  There is a 9o-minute time limit, and everyone in the party must choose the all-you-can-eat option.  Even my wife was on board, because if you were even thinking about ordering three rolls, you come out ahead, and we each ordered more than that!  If you show up hungry, it would be foolish not to.

I took the liberty of photographing both sides of the all-you-can-eat menu, since it isn’t available on Yamasan’s website as of now:

I am going to include the regular menu prices with each description below, just to show you how much money we saved by doing all-you-can-eat instead of ordering a la carte.

I started out with the tuna carpaccio appetizer ($21.95 on the regular menu), which was very small, but it’s all good, because we had a lot more food coming.  This was two pieces of lightly seared tuna topped with creme fraiche, black caviar, grated pecorino Romano cheese, fleur de sel (very posh sea salt), truffle oil, and capers, with wild field greens drizzled with raspberry dressing on the side.  Needless to say, there’s a lot going on in this little app!  It was so magnificent, I implored my wife to try the second piece, and she liked it so much she ordered another portion for herself (also $21.95). 

She got one piece of escolar sashimi ($12 for three pieces on the regular menu), and I got three pieces of mackerel sashimi ($12 for three pieces on the regular menu).  I love mackerel, because it is always lightly pickled, and I grew up eating pickled herring (one of the foods of my people). 

This was the Japanese mentaiko udon ($18.95 on the regular menu), a decadent noodle dish from the Japanese/French Fusion part of the menu.  These super-thick, super-chewy udon noodles were topped with salty salmon roe that pop in your mouth, finely shredded nori (roasted seaweed), more grated pecorino Romano cheese for an umami punch, and what I’m guessing was salty, punchy cod roe mayonnaise on the right side of the photo below.  That’s what they put on the mentaiko fries I tried many years ago at Susuru, anyway.  This was another dish that was as gorgeous as it was tasty.

I loved everything about this, and I was even considering ordering it before we discovered the all-you-can-eat menu (and that this was included in it).  Again, my wife impressed me by trying it and pleasantly surprised both of us by liking it.  But what’s not to like… unless you already don’t like salty, fishy flavors?

The rolls started to show up next.  This was a Dynamite roll ($11.95 on the regular menu), with tuna, yellowtail, wasabi, and scallions, a nice opening act for the superstars about to arrive.  It was dynamite!

And here’s a gorgeous tray with three of my selections: the Salmon Tower roll in the front, the Capitan roll in the middle, and the Unforgettable roll in the back.  Lord have mercy!The Salmon Tower roll ($19.95 on the regular menu) is pressed into that rectangular shape, and it includes green shiso (perilla) leaves mixed with sushi rice, smoked salmon, salmon roe, kani (krab), mayonnaise, and eel sauce.  I wasn’t sure what shiso/perilla leaves were supposed to taste like, but my research tells me the flavor is a cross between basil and mint — both good flavors to go with the salty, smoky richness in this roll.

The very traditional Capitan roll ($18.95 on the regular menu) includes fried calamari, avocado, Cajun seasoning, topped with smoked salmon, wasabi, creme fraiche, mango salsa, and eel sauce.  Okay, so it isn’t traditional at all, but I love fusion cuisine, and I already said I’m a sucker for sushi with a lot going on!

I really should have turned the tray around for a better pic of the Unforgettable roll ($18.95 on the regular menu) in the back, but I forgot.  Yes, I forgot the Unforgettable roll.  I’m here all week, folks.  Anyway, it includes spicy tuna and barbecue eel, and it is topped with avocado, seafood sauce, eel sauce, crispy fried noodles, and masago (red flying fish roe).  Each of these was mighty fine.

Here were my wife’s first two roll choices, which curiously came out some time after my first three.  In front, you can see the Mango Tango roll ($17.95 on the regular menu), with tempura shrimp and cream cheese, topped with mango, shredded coconut, and eel sauce.  It’s always a crowd-pleaser.Behind it is the Sweet Sixteen roll ($17.95 on the regular menu), with shrimp, krab, cream cheese, and a rice paper wrapper, topped with mango and strawberries and drizzled with a “mayo sauce.”  I like some sweet flavors with my sushi, like eel sauce, and I’m never sad to see mango show up, but that one was a little too desserty for me.

This was her next roll, the Lover roll ($18.95 on the regular menu), with krab salad, topped with tuna, spicy mayo, a tiny Hokkaido scallop, and red caviar (masago) on top.  There was something else in this Lover roll that wasn’t listed that was brown and had kind of a funky flavor that didn’t fit.  At first, I feared the chef sneaked mushrooms into this roll, because it definitely wasn’t a fish.  The menu listed tempura flakes, but we didn’t see any or feel their familiar, pleasing crunch.  It turned out that it was inari, also known as bean curd, or fermented and fried tofu, a common sushi ingredient which she likes, but I don’t — especially when I’m not expecting it.  But once she got too full, I poked the inari out of each piece with a chopstick and dutifully finished the rest of the Lover roll.

And this was my last stand: the Dream of Dream roll ($20.95 on the regular menu), which you have to say in the old-timey newsman voice of the late, great David Lynch, as you can bet that I did.  It was a fitting way to end our unexpected feast at Yamasan, with tuna, salmon, shrimp, krab, tempura flakes, regular AND spicy mayo, eel sauce, and black caviar.  Back in 2009, David Lynch quoted The Upanishads on Twitter, in those days before it became one of the worst places on the Internet: “We are like the dreamer who dreams & then lives in the dream.”  Later, in his brilliant third season of Twin Peaks in 2017, Lynch’s character Gordon Cole had a dream in which Monica Bellucci repeated the line.  And that’s all I could think of while I ate the Dream of Dream roll.   

So if you add up the prices of everything we got, had we ordered a la carte:

Two tuna carpaccio appetizers ($21.95 x 2) +
Escolar sashimi ($12 for three pieces, since we would not have been able to order just one piece) +
Mackerel sashimi ($12 for three pieces) +
Japanese mentaiko udon ($18.95) +
Dynamite roll ($11.95) +
Salmon Tower roll ($19.95) +
Capitan roll ($18.95) +
Unforgettable roll ($18.95) +
Mango Tango roll ($17.95) +
Sweet Sixteen roll ($17.95) +
Lover roll ($18.95) +
Dream of Dream roll ($20.95) =
A whopping $232.45 (plus tax and tip)!

We would never run amok like that if we were ordering off the regular menu… or would we?  I always say we know how to party, and why doesn’t anyone ever party with us?

But instead, we paid $47.95 x 2 = $95.90 (plus tax and tip, of course).  YOU’RE WELCOME.  And thank you to Yamasan Sushi and Grill!

Well, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, I am thrilled to report that our first visit to Yamasan surpassed my wildest dreams (or dreams of dreams).  I would happily go back, because even if it isn’t a cheap dinner, you will eat like a king and go home satisfied and ready to crash for the night.  I feel like we got our money’s worth, and then some.  And it’s such a nice little restaurant (with comfortable booths!), I would recommend it even if you don’t go with the all-you-can-eat option, even though I personally think it’s a no-brainer.  Ask for Maggie — she was the only server on duty, so she was slammed, but she will take the best care of you, as she did for us.

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.

Lim Ros Thai Cuisine

Lim Ros (https://limrosthairestaurant.com/) is a new Thai restaurant in Maitland that opened in the fall of 2024.  According to the website, “Lim Ros” means “to taste” in Thai, and there is plenty to taste on the menu.  It is located on the bottom floor of a fancy-looking apartment building on the corner of State Road 17-92 (aka Orlando Avenue, which turns into Mills Avenue as you head south) and Lake Avenue.  The interior of Lim Ros is modern, spacious, and upscale, with high ceilings and lots of natural light that make the dining room look even larger.  When we went for lunch a few weeks back, it wasn’t very busy, but I imagine it is poppin’ on Friday and Saturday nights.

My wife started her meal with a Thai iced tea, as she will at any Thai restaurant.  This one was sweet, creamy, slightly smoky, and refreshing, as they should be.

She also started with an order of summer rolls, her go-to appetizer at any Vietnamese restaurant we visit, so she wanted to try them on a Thai menu.  The soft rice paper wrappers held massive amounts of finely shredded lettuce, chewy rice vermicelli noodles, julienned carrots and cucumbers, Thai basil, and shrimp , but vegetarians and folks who keep kosher can also order them with tofu instead of shrimp.   That is peanut sauce on the top, even though it looks like it could have been cocktail sauce. 

I’m not a big summer roll guy, but she insisted I try half of one, and these were a lot more substantial than the usual summer rolls at Vietnamese restaurants.  Thicker.  Girthier, if you will.  Okay, that’s enough of that.

After being introduced to life-changing larb last year at Isan Zaap Thai Cafe, my favorite Thai restaurant in Orlando, I decided to try the larb gai here at Lim Ros.  It is a spicy, tangy, refreshing, cool salad made with ground chicken and various crunchy vegetables and fresh herbs: carrots, red onion, cilantro, mint, kaffir lime leaves, roasted rice powder, and served with cucumber slices for scooping and crisp iceberg lettuce leaves for making lettuce wraps.  Dig this gorgeous plating:

I must admit I preferred the taste and texture of the larb at Isan Zaap, which was made with ground pork and pork liver, as opposed to the ground chicken in this larb gai.  This one also seemed to have a lot of funkiness from fish sauce.  Trying to roll up some larb gai lettuce wraps was a messy business, and my fingers smelled like fish sauce for a day or two after this meal.

For entrees, we both ordered off the lunch menu, which has some nice specials.  Everything comes with a house seaweed soup and a crispy fried spring roll, so you get a filling meal with a couple bonus items for less than the price on the regular menu.

My wife defaulted to pad Thai, a safe choice for her because she isn’t into spicy food at all.  If the classic dish of rice noodles, eggs, bean sprouts, chives, peanuts, and pork sounds basic or unadventurous, I would disagree, because every restaurant’s pad Thai is different, and a truly great one can be a monumental discovery.  She said this one was just okay.  I tasted it, and she agreed with my criticism, that it lacked the acidic tang from citrus it needed to achieve perfect balance.  To be fair, that is my biggest complaint about most versions of pad Thai that I try. 

Since my go-to Thai dish, drunken noodles, wasn’t on either menu at Lim Ros, I decided to try something totally new (to me): Panang curry.  Here is the whole lunch platter:

This is the actual Panang curry, with Thai eggplant, Thai basil, kaffir lime leaf, chili, and pork (which I chose, but you can also choose chicken, tofu, or vegetables, or beef or shrimp for a $2 upcharge).   I wanted something spicy, and I would have to describe it as “medium hot,” but next time I will challenge myself with “Thai hot.”  I added all my rice to the bowl of curry and mixed it all up, so that alone dampened the heat level.   
I was surprised that the Thai eggplants were little, round, and green, not at all like the huge purple-black eggplants all of us are used to.  They looked like tiny round watermelons on the outside, and they had a texture similar to zucchini.

This was the house seaweed soup, which reminded me a lot of the standard miso soup served in Japanese restaurants, but with a delicious “roasted” flavor from the seaweed.  Umami?  Maybe your mommy.  There were tiny little white tofu cubes in there, along with all the seaweed, carrot, onions, and scallions.  It was a very nice soup, and it reminded me that I never order Thai soups, but I should branch out.

And the spring roll was a standard spring roll — no big surprises there — but you can’t go wrong with a spring roll!  I took the shredded cabbage and carrots home, mixed in with most of my larb gai, so I had a whole meal for the following day. 

We both thought Lim Ros was perfectly fine, but there are other Thai restaurants we like more, including another recent discovery I will be reviewing soon, so watch this space.  It’s a very nice restaurant and would probably be great for a date, a business lunch, or for bringing family and friends who are unfamiliar with Thai food and nervous about trying it.  If you want Thai and you’re already in Maitland or surrounding Fern Park to the north or Winter Park to the south, you can’t go wrong.  However, the next time my wife and I are craving Thai, I might drive farther in other directions.

Nuri’s Tavern

Nuri’s Tavern (https://nuristavern.com/) is a new pizzeria and bar on Pine Street in downtown Orlando, a place I almost never go anymore.  It usually takes the temptation of a concert to force me back downtown, but this time, it only took the allure of pizza… and nostalgia.  Nuri’s serves thin-crust tavern-style pizza, which you can get at Domino’s, but it definitely isn’t the same.  This style of pizza fills me with nostalgia for kiddie birthday party places in the ’80s, with video games, carnival games like Skee-Ball and Whack-A-Mole, cheap prizes, and creepy singing animatronic robots.

We didn’t have Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz Pizza growing up in Miami in the ’80s, but we had a place called Mark Twain’s Riverboat Playhouse in West Kendall, complete with the video games and carny games, a ball pit for kids to play in (absolutely disgusting, if you stop to think about it for a moment), and a dining room with animatronic, anthropomorphic dogs dressed up like a Dixieland band, holding musical instruments, awkwardly herking and jerking to recordings of very non-Dixieland oldies like “Windy” by The Association and “Spinning Wheel” by Blood, Sweat, and Tears.  Once per “show,” an spotlight shined on an animatronic of the great American writer and humorist Mark Twain, and he appeared to come to life during the robot dogs’ musical set.  I assume he would say something pithy and then disappear off stage.

You might be thinking this is odd on so many levels, and you would be right.  For one thing, anyone who knows and loves Mark Twain would know he was a huge fan of cats rather than dogs, and even rented cats from local folks when he traveled, to hang out in hotels with him.  But  keep in mind this place existed in Miami in the ’80s, where mountains of cocaine were surely commonplace, so there you go.  I know Mark Twain’s Riverboat Playhouse survived into the early ’90s, because once my middle school jazz band went there on a field trip as a reward, even though most of us probably felt like we outgrew it.  There was an even larger, more mysterious, more magical birthday party play-place called Pirates back in the ’80s, somewhere out on Coral Way.  It is also long gone, but it will always exist in my increasingly foggy memories.

Anyway, I bring this up because Nuri’s Tavern gave me major early ’80s birthday party play-place vibes, just meant more for adults rather than kids.  Like Primrose Lanes, the Milk District restaurant and hipster bowling alley owned by the same hospitality group, there are hipster bowling alley vibes at Nuri’s, as the founders always aim to create too-cool-for-school, Instagram-worthy destinations.

The walls are light wood-paneled, there are different kinds of cushy booths, vintage pinball machines, an antique telephone booth, a working photo booth (Nuri’s is big on booths), and even a scooter!


While the era of casual  family restaurants with “crazy crap on the walls” seemed to peak in the 1990s, Nuri’s really went big with its fun, kitschy, retro decor.  It also reminded me of visiting my late, great great-uncle and great-aunt in Canarsie in 1991 (when I was 13) and hanging out in their tricked-out  Brooklyn basement, which had a game room/mancave atmosphere long before anyone called rooms like that “mancaves.”  As you can see, there is a lot to look at once you order and wait for your food.

By the way, you scan a QR code at your table and then order and even pay on your phone.  I will do this (when in Rome, right?), but I admit I’m not a big fan.  That said, on both of my visits, a server stopped by our table to offer a print menu and take my order in person.  However, the restaurant wasn’t busy on either of these visits, so maybe they count on the QR code ordering process when they get slammed later on.

The pizza menu is divided into red and white sauce pizzas, and they are all twelve inches in diameter and sliced into rectangles and squares.  I’m always a red sauce guy, so for my first solo visit, I ordered the meatball pizza with red sauce, mozzarella and pecorino Romano cheeses, pickled giardiniera vegetables (not nearly enough; I could have used a lot more), oregano, and of course, savory mini-meatballs.  It was so light and crispy and delicious — not a heavy pizza like Chicago deep dish (really more of a casserole), Detroit pan pizza with its burnt, caramelized edges, or my beloved Sicilian, but almost more like a snack pizza.  Also, I posit that meatballs are the most underrated meat pizza topping.

I raved about Nuri’s Tavern all week and dragged my wife downtown to try it the following weekend.  She ordered this mango lime “mocktail” that was really sour, and neither of us liked it much.   Also, it was $8!

That time, I ordered the “meat x3” pizza with red sauce, mozzarella and pecorino Romano cheeses, sweet sausage, meatball, pepperoni, and onion.  It was also wonderful, just maybe too similar to the first pizza.  What really made a difference was requesting a swirl of pesto sauce on that pizza, which I found out about sometime after my first visit, even though it isn’t listed as an option on the menu.  I love basil with tomatoes, especially a good pesto sauce, and it totally made that second pizza sing.  It would be good on anything!

My wife is a white pizza gal, so she ordered the classic white pizza with mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, black pepper, and lemon.  While she doesn’t always like the strong flavors I do, she admitted it was a bit bland, and she probably should have chosen the broccoli pizza instead.  That probably would have been more flavorful, with mozzarella, pecorino Romano, and aged provolone cheeses, broccoli, lemon, and chili.  Oh well, next time!  And there will be a next time.  She ended up bringing most of her classic white pizza home, and I ended up eating most of it.

We also shared an order of meatballs, which were fan-freakin’-tastic.  I can’t say a single bad thing about these meatballs.  They were much larger than the mini-meatballs on the meatball pizza.

And just as good as the pizza and the meatballs was the Caesar salad we shared.  They use little gem lettuce (similar to romaine, but smaller and more tender), more pecorino Romano cheese, an excellent Caesar dressing with a lot of good umami flavor that almost certainly comes from anchovies, and the most awesome little “garlic crunchies” that added a lot of flavor and crunchy texture to the salad.  I’ve been on a Caesar salad kick lately, and this is one of the best ones I’ve ever had — and not just in Orlando, but of all time.

My wife ended her meal with some soft serve ice cream, which she loved so much at Primrose Lanes.  Both restaurants were shaped and formed by the same executive chef, Jason Campbell (formerly of Luke’s Kitchen and Bar in Maitland).  We love Luke’s and were also big Primrose Lanes fans, so I wasn’t surprised at all that Chef Campbell crafted the menu at Nuri’s.  Anyway, she was crazy for the soft serve here, too.  I believe this was a vanilla and pistachio swirl.

So yeah, Nuri’s Tavern is terrific, and I would happily go back anytime.  (If anyone ever wants to go, let me know.)  Next time, I have to remember to check if those vintage pinball machines actually work, or if they’re just for decoration.  And you have to remember to ask for that pesto swirl on whatever pizza you get, unless of course you don’t like basil, in which case, don’t ruin your pizza on my account!

RusTeak

RusTeak (https://www.rusteakthorntonpark.com/) is a nice little “gastropub”-style restaurant in Thornton Park, near downtown Orlando.  My biggest gripes about all of Orlando’s “Park” neighborhoods (Thornton, College, Baldwin, Audubon, and Winter) is that there is rarely any parking to be found.  But luckily, RusTeak is right next door to a convenient parking garage, and that makes it a perfect choice for dinner out before attending a show at The Abbey, a small concert venue directly across the street, or heading out elsewhere for downtown events.  My wife and I almost never go downtown unless we’re heading to a concert, so we tried RusTeak for the first time back in April, on our way to a show at The Abbey.  I’m really glad we did.

RusTeak serves a salmon BLT sandwich, but you can substitute the catch of the day fish on the BLT for a $3 upcharge.  When we went on an early Thursday evening, swordfish was the catch of the day, and my wife is a mighty big fan of swordfish.  She ended up ordering the BLT, which came with grilled swordfish, Applewood smoked bacon, baby arugula, a tomato  slice, and lemon Dijon aioli on a toasted brioche bun.

Needless to say, that’s a very nontraditional BLT, but she loved the swordfish, shared the bacon with me, and left the bun and tomato behind, as she often does with sandwiches and burgers.  (Me being me, I took the bun and tomato home to make a sandwich the following day with some chicken I had just cooked.)   You can choose a side with all the sandwiches at RusTeak, and she went with house-made potato chips.  They were pretty simple — crunchy, with just salt, but no weird or wacky seasonings or dips.

I was having trouble deciding what to order, but my wife was facing a chalkboard with daily specials written on it, and she drew my attention to the board.  I was facing the other way and would have missed it completely.  I don’t even think I was going to get a burger, but one of the Thursday specials was a bacon jam burger served with crispy fried onions and a thick tomato slice on a pretzel bun.  The board said that burger was only $7, so I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but our patient server confirmed the price was right.  It didn’t come with a side for that price, but I figured my wife would toss a chip or two my way, so I was sold!  You can barely get a burger at McDonald’s for $7 anymore, and most gastropubby restaurants in the RusTeak vein would probably charge closer to $20 for a burger of this caliber.
And that $7 burger would have been a bargain at twice the price, I tell you.  It was a thick, juicy patty (no smash-style burgers here), cooked to a perfect medium rare, as I requested.  The photo makes it look ridiculously tall, but the pretzel bun was soft and nicely grilled, and it squished down as I held it firmly.  I was able to take nice bites out of that thing with minimal mess, and it was delicious.  The sweet, salty, smoky, stickiness of the bacon jam worked well with the juicy beef, crunchy and salty fried onions, and the hearty bun held up as well as anyone could hope for.  That’s a real deal, my friends — not just a tasty burger, but a legit bargain at a restaurant where you might not expect any sort of specials like that.

I have reviewed The Stubborn Mule before, another Thornton Park restaurant literally next door to The Abbey and facing RusTeak, and I believe the two restaurants share the same owners.  I should note that I also ordered a burger at The Stubborn Mule when we went there, and while it was bigger, I thought RusTeak’s burger was much better.

Since our concert at The Abbey (a musical stand-up comedy performance by the multi-talented Fred Armisen) was right across the street, we had plenty of time for a leisurely dessert to make my wife happy.  She was drawn to the pistachio bread pudding, topped with vanilla ice cream and a white chocolate drizzle.  It was HUGE!  Bread pudding is kind of like beets — something I never ordered or ate for too many years growing up, only to find out as an adult how awesome it could be.  I’m not the biggest pistachio eater (honestly, I could take or leave nuts in general), but my wife loves them.
The bread pudding was rich, thick, and buttery, and the portion was gigantic.  Even if we didn’t have a concert to get to, the two of us could not have finished it, so she killed the scoop of ice cream and we boxed up about two-thirds of the bread pudding to go.  I would definitely recommend it.

I can’t believe we had never made it to RusTeak before, but like I said, we rarely venture into Thornton Park or downtown Orlando in general.  The only reason I haven’t raced back is because it’s just out of our general radius (especially now that I work from home, further from downtown and all the “Parks”), although I wish it wasn’t.  Whenever I do make it back, I’d love to try the Calabrian mussels, maple bacon brussels sprouts, and cauliflower pancetta casserole.  Oh yeah, and the house-made ricotta with spinach-almond pesto, candied cherry tomato jam, and naan bread (that’s all one thing!).  I’d also be really intrigued by whichever burgers are future Thursday specials, since the one I tried was so good.  If you’re a fan of Winter Park’s venerable Ravenous Pig, maybe the first hip gastropub to open in the Orlando area back in 2007, you would love this place.

But especially if you’re going to a show at The Abbey, you can’t beat RusTeak for convenience, especially if you park in the Air Garage right next door, on Pine Street.  By the way, parking was only $10, which also seems like a bargain for anything near downtown, and you pay with your smartphone.  I have no idea what non-smartphone-havers like my parents or brother would do, but they wouldn’t be going to a fun dinner out followed by a concert near a major urban downtown area anyway.

Baar Baar (Los Angeles)

Baar Baar (https://www.baarbaarla.com/) in downtown Los Angeles (the locals call it DTLA) is the most upscale Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to, with a gorgeous dining room and a large, eclectic menu of gourmet dishes that definitely seemed “elevated” above the standard Indian cuisine I’m used to. This memorable meal goes back to late summer, 2023, when I was invited on my very first trip to L.A., joining our dean, an associate dean, and my director, only about a month after starting my current job.  I definitely felt like the odd man out, hanging with these big shots, but their warm welcomes and lack of pretension convinced me I belonged there.  Our dean, a very classy lady who knows how to throw a dinner party, ordered several dishes, mostly small plates meant to be shared.

These puffs were dahi puri, topped with tamarind, mango, yogurt mousse, and raspberry chaat masala.  These were very light and crispy (similar to pani puri I’ve had elsewhere), but the toppings added sweet flavor to go with the savory, lightly fried puffs.

These beauties were Kashmiri duck tacos, served birria-style, shredded with cheddar cheese, cilantro, and red onion — true fusion cuisine!   Instead of Mexican tortillas, the crispy taco shells were more like roti or parathas.  The four of us each got half a taco and savored every morsel.

These six gorgeous oysters came with guava and chili granita (almost like a sorbet), pickled cucumber, and shallots.  I love oysters, and these were so fresh and refreshing.  I would have been happy just having this platter to myself and nothing else, but of course we all shared these and everything else.

This fun and frizzy dish was sweet potato chat, an appetizer served with tangy-sweet tamarind chutney, sweet and sour yogurt (or “yoghurt,” according to the menu), and kale.

These were two lamb chop burrah kebabs (the second one is underneath, and you can see the bone), served with fresh mint, hemp seed chutney, and lachcha pyaz, a bright and pungent salad comprised of thin rings of red onion rings, ground spices, lemon, and fresh herbs.  I love onions, but raw red onions are intense, and so is the onion breath they create.  I was desperate to make a good impression on these three powerful, professional women, so I didn’t mess with the lachcha salad the way I normally would, dining on my own.  The lamb was wonderful, and the fresh mint really worked well with it.

This dish doesn’t seem to be on the menu anymore, but it was tandoori butternut squash, served with asparagus, millet khichdi (instead of rice as the base of this dish, it was a combination of millet and yellow moong dal, or mung beans), and rice papad, which are like very thin, airy, crispy crackers or wafers. 

While these look vaguely desserty, they were savory paneer pinwheels (notice how they look like three slices of something longer, rolled into a spiral), with makhani (a creamy, buttery, tomato-based sauce), topped with dollops of red pepper chutney, and pistachios.  I loved them. 

These were beef short ribs, always one of my favorite meats from any cuisine, served in Madras curry (a spicy British-Indian creation with a base of tomatoes and onions), with bone marrow Khurchan and baby  vegetables.  Between the tender short ribs and rich, unctuous bone marrow, which is like “meat butter,” I was in heaven with this decadent dish.

At Baar Baar, even a simple side of saffron rice was still cooked as perfectly as any rice could be.

And this was a side of pomegranate raita: cool, refreshing, creamy, tangy yogurt topped with pomegranate seeds. 

This gorgeous dessert doesn’t seem to be on the Baar Baar menu anymore, but it was called mango ghewar, and it consisted of malai kulfi (Indian ice cream flavored with cardamom, saffron, and rose water), mascarpone cheese mousse, mango jelly, and crushed pistachios.

Needless to say, this was a sumptuous feast, even shared by four people.  Like I said, our dean is a class act who knows how to party!  Few things bring me as much joy as sharing a bunch of different dishes with people over good conversation, and that’s what our dinner at Baar Baar turned out to be.  Not only was it the finest Indian meal of my life, but it was a reminder that all the decisions I had made in my life to get to this moment in time — this job, working remotely, getting to visit our gorgeous school in L.A. once in a while, collaborating with these amazing people, even being part of this grand gustatory gathering — turned out to be right.  This dinner was almost two years ago, and ever since then, I have been grateful every day for the new direction my life has taken.  I’ve also been falling more and more in love with Los Angeles and its culinary culture.  Even though Orlando is my home, I’ve had so many great meals in L.A. (sometimes solo and sometimes with colleagues and friends, like this one), and I have so many more L.A. restaurant reviews yet to come!

Cutting the Mustard IV: Mustard on the Beat

Well, it’s Memorial Day weekend, 2025 — a time for many people to get a three-day weekend and get together with family and friends for cookouts.  That usually means hamburgers and hot dogs, so that usually means mustard.  And because I am obsessed with mustard, that means it is time for my fourth Cutting the Mustard feature, where I spend the better part of a year hunting, discovering, sampling, and reviewing massive multitudes of mustard.  These take me a while to write because our fridge is only so big, and I can’t have too many open bottles and jars taking up space at the same time, so I try to finish jars before opening new ones.

For my first-ever Cutting the Mustard back in 2021, I reviewed seven different mustards.  In 2022, I raised the stakes by reviewing ten different mustards in Cutting the Mustard II: The Quest for More Mustard.  In 2024, I went above and beyond by reviewing 26 mustards (making up for skipping 2023) in Cutting the Mustard III: Mustardy Agreement.  And now I’m back again, with more of that yellow condiment you may tolerate, but I love!

Since I’m trying to eat somewhat healthier, with fewer carbs, I tried a lot of these mustards with Kirkland oven-browned turkey breast, which I buy at Costco.  It is a boneless, skinless, fully cooked, unsliced turkey breast that is relatively cheap, lean protein.  Best of all, it is a blank slate for any kinds of recipes or sandwiches, and it goes with almost any condiments or other accompaniments.  Kirkland oven-browned turkey breast is like the vanilla of meats, and I am not saying that as a diss to the turkey or to vanilla.  Everyone knows that really good vanilla is delicious, but what I mean is that almost any other flavor goes well with it.  So I guess I’m saying that turkey breast is like the capybara of meats, because it gets along well with everything the way capybaras get along with all the other animals.

Way back in Cutting the Mustard II, I reviewed Zakuson Russian Standard mustard, a real sinus-burner.  I got the Zakuson Canadian mustard on the left at the same store, the Eastern European grocery store Green Hills Supermarket in Altamonte Springs.  Instead of having that nasal burn like Chinese mustard, this one was toned down with a sweet maple flavor.  I usually find sweet mustards to be too sweet, but this one was mostly just sticky and bland.  I wouldn’t get it again. 
I think I found the Simply Supreme Craft Beer mustard at Clemons Produce, arguably Orlando’s best produce market, and my personal favorite.  In addition to the freshest fruits and vegetables from Florida and beyond, Clemons always stocks a huge selection of Amish products and other interesting condiments, sauces, sodas, and snacks, plus they have an Amish deli that slices Troyer brand meats and cheeses.  This Simply Supreme Craft Beer mustard is a Woeber’s product; I’ve reviewed their Sweet & Spicy and and Hot & Spicy Sandwich Pal mustards before, and both were better.  This one lacked the “zing” I always appreciate in mustards, so I could see it going better with bratwurst and other German-style sausages that have stronger flavors of their own.

I know I found the Duke’s spicy ground mustard at Winn-Dixie, and it was really good.  I would happily get it again and use it anytime I might employ a spicy brown or deli-style mustard.  I am a Duke’s mayonnaise loyalist, and I am happy to report this mustard was on par with the excellent quality of their mayo.

On a rare day I found myself with time to kill in Winter Park, I found a parking space along busy, bougie Park Avenue and went into the busy, bougie Ancient Olive, a store that specializes in different flavors of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  If you love to cook and especially if you make a lot of salads at home, this is a wonderful place to browse, especially since you can sample any of the flavored oils and vinegars before you buy them.  I love vinegars almost as much as I love mustard, and I have a little collection of them, but that’s not what you’re here for.  I decided to try two fancy mustards from unfamiliar but posh-looking brands.

This is Fischer & Wieser mesquite horseradish mustard, which was as delicious as it sounds.   The mesquite smoke flavor sets it apart from other horseradishy, deli-style mustards, and I loved it.  Here are two tiny turkey sandwiches on leftover pão de queijo, Brazilian cheese buns, with more of that turkey, a bit of cheese, tomato, and I probably put some hot pickled cherry peppers on those, since I bought a gallon jar and have been putting them on everything lately.  But if you’ve ever had pão de queijo before, you know they are really little, so these aren’t big sandwiches by any means.   

Here’s a close-up of the jar.  This would be terrific on turkey (obviously), roast beef, ham (especially a sweeter ham), you name it.

This is Edmond Fallot honey & smoked paprika mustard, another impulse buy from The Ancient Olive.  It is a French brand I’ve never heard of, but it looked interesting, and I’m a sucker for anything smoky, as I just demonstrated.  Lately I’ve been making nice pita bread sandwiches with the same turkey, and I tried the honey & smoked paprika mustard alongside turkey, feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickled onions, hot pickled cherry peppers, and I think some bleu cheese dressing, which I always get to have for myself when I bring home wings for my wife.

This isn’t a bad condiment, but it is very salty, even by mustard standards.   The smokiness is subtle because I think paprika is always a subtle spice, and I didn’t detect any honey flavor or general sweetness.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste anything like mustard either!

This small jar is still open in my fridge, with a lot left to go.  I bought some giant pork loins at Aldi recently, for even cheaper, lean, versatile protein to mess around with, and I intend to experiment more and figure out the best things to do with it.  I think it might go better with pork than it did with turkey and all those fresh-tasting accompaniments.

When I reviewed my favorite place in Florida, Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg, last summer, of course I picked up a few unfamiliar mustards while I was there.  I had never seen or heard of the MadeWith brand, but I bought their Organic Stoneground and Organic Horseradish mustards, but forgot to take any pictures of the Horseradish one while I was working my way through the bottle.  They were very similar, with a thick and almost creamy texture, but the stoneground was a little blander and the horseradish had more flavor without being overpowering or burning my sinuses.  MadeWith makes a big deal about their products not containing any GMOs, in case anyone is really into that.   
Yes, this was a turkey sandwich on a savory homemade waffle.  It was okay, but the waffle got too soft and soggy too quickly and lost its crispness.  And that Sir Kensington’s chipotle mayonnaise is awesome on anything and everything.  Despite my Duke’s love, I snatched up a few of these bottles when Publix put them on clearance earlier this year.  I’ve enjoyed two of Sir Kensington’s mustards in the past as well.

I also found this Pilsudski Polish style mustard at Mazzaro’s.  It was thicker and spicier than your typical Gulden’s-style spicy brown mustard, without being as bright as something like Ba-Tampte.  It was very good on the best pastrami sandwich in Florida, from The Pastrami Project food truck.  Chef-owner George Markward saved our Christmas AND Hanukah by being open on Christmas Day, so I brought home pastrami and brisket sandwiches for us, and the Pilsudski mustard was a good choice to accompany the best pastrami from a place not named Katz’s or Langer’s.

Last year, Beaverton Foods, the Oregon-based company that produces Beaver and Inglehoffer mustards, offered a sale with free shipping, so I ordered six mustards from them.  

Every so often, I will treat myself to a whole ham at Aldi, usually when they discount them after a ham-centric holiday like Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  I always joke about my “half-price Hanukah hams,” and how that makes me a good Jew and a bad Jew at the same time.  Anyway, I rubbed my most recent ham  with a blend of Beaver deli mustard and a pineapple-Scotch bonnet pepper Jamaican hot sauce from a company called Spur Tree, and then I made sure to use a lot more of the deli mustard on the ham sandwiches that followed.  It was a very tasty deli mustard,  but again lacking the brightness of Ba-Tampte, Boar’s Head, and Kosciusko, three of my all-time favorites. 
I should note that the Inglehoffer deli mustard in the round bottle tasted almost identical.  I wondered if Beaverton Foods just repackaged the same mustard for their two different brands, and upon checking the website (now that my bottles are long gone), they are similar, with a few minor differences.  I noticed they both contain sugar and soybean and/or canola oils, which was disappointing, especially since most mustards don’t contain (or need) any oil or sugar at all, and the Beaver deli mustard contains corn syrup too!  I’ve never been big on reading ingredient labels, which probably explains a lot about me, but I need to become more diligent.

Here’s that Beaver deli mustard again, for a taste test with one of those Deutsche Kuche soft pretzel sticks (I pronounce it “Douche cooch”) from Aldi.  The mustard in the middle is Bertman Original Ball Park Mustard, which I believe I found at Cavallari Gourmet, an upscale grocery store in Oviedo.  It’s a great store, but I can’t say the same about the mustard.  It didn’t have any zing or zip, and it was quite bland and uninspired.  I’m never sorry I tried anything, but I definitely wouldn’t buy it again.  Sorry, Cleveland — you might rock, but your Bertman mustard doesn’t.

On the other hand, the Beaver Coney Island mustard in the above and below photos, did indeed rock.  I loved this one.  The Coney Island mustard contains cucumbers, red bell peppers, red and green chili peppers, pimento, paprika, onion,  garlic, and tomato paste, and it had a lot of rich flavor, especially on the hot dog below.  Disappointingly, it also contained soybean oil, wheat flour, sugar, and corn syrup.  Seriously, Beaver?  Did you really have to go there?
When I think of Coney Island, I definitely think of hot dogs (specifically Nathan’s) and The Warriors, the great 1979 film and recent musical concept album.  But “Coney dogs” are a very specific style of hot dog that are not local to Coney Island in Brooklyn; they are from Detroit diners founded by Greek immigrants, and they are smoky dogs topped with a smooth chili sauce, raw onion, and yellow mustard, somewhat similar to the chili-topped hot dogs from Cincinnati chili parlors like Skyline Chili.  Here in Orlando, SoDough Square Pizza serves an authentic Detroit coney dog that I loved, but they just use regular yellow mustard.  I figured Beaver was trying to approximate the Midwestern chili flavors of Coney dogs rather than anything associated with Nathan’s or the historic Coney Island amusement park.

The Inglehoffer spicy brown mustard was pretty standard.  Here it is on the free Chorizo Sunrise breakfast sandwich I get from Einstein Bros. Bagels every year on my birthday: an over-hard egg, a chorizo sausage patty, cheddar cheese, smashed avocado, and jalapeño salsa cream cheese on a green chile bagel.  While I try my best to avoid chains and I have high standards for bagels, I admit I really like this breakfast sandwich and the green chile bagels from Einstein Bros.  They are much more like rolls than bagels, but I enjoy them a lot just the same.  And I always like mustard on my eggs and breakfast sandwiches, so this was a good combination.

Because we were both wondering, the Inglehoffer spicy brown mustard doesn’t contain any oil, the way the deli mustard does.

The Beaver hickory bacon mustard, which I had on this turkey sandwich on a depressing whole wheat roll, was tasty, creamy, and smoky, and it contains actual bacon, so watch out, kosher and halal folks.  But I would have been disappointed if I bought a hickory bacon mustard that didn’t contain bacon.  Unfortunately, it also contains sugar, honey, and high fructose corn syrup!  Like I said, I’m always happy to try anything new, but knowing how Beaverton Foods adulterates its mustards with oils and sweeteners, I wouldn’t get them again.  This is why I write reviews, folks, and why I hope people read them.  According to my monthly analytics, the jury is still out on that one.

I found this photo of my mustard collection from many years ago, long before I even started writing this blog.  You may remember most of these mustards from previous Cutting the Mustard reviews, but you can see I also tried the Beaver spicy hot stone ground and extra hot jalapeño mustards in the past (see them on the right, the two bottles of orangey mustard with red caps).   I bought them at Mr. Dunderbak’s, the good and fun German restaurant in Tampa, after trying them with my food.  It has been a few years since I’ve tried either of those flavors, but they were delicious and very hot — hotter than most other mustards I’ve had. 
The spicy hot stone ground mustard seems to be discontinued, but the extra hot jalapeño mustard does contain soybean oil.  Take several seats, Beaverton Foods!

But this is the spiciest thing I am reviewing here today: Matouk’s Calypso hot sauce, a mustard and Scotch bonnet pepper-based hot sauce from the Caribbean island of Trinidad & Tobago.  I loooove Trinidadian food (and if you like Jamaican food, you will too), but this sauce was a lot for me.  I put some on this simple chicken sandwich on a soft roll with tomato and probably a little onion, knowing me, and it was the most dominant flavor by far.  I love spicy food, but I needed to eat a bit of yogurt or drink some milk every time I used the Matouk’s Calypso sauce.  It made my tongue and lips tingle and burn that much, but despite all that, it is tasty.

It has been far too long since I’ve had a Jamaican patty, but this mustardy hot sauce would be great with them.

So after a whole year of anticipation (by absolutely nobody), this was the latest crop of new mustards I have found, sampled, and earnestly evaluated.  Somehow, it feels like a bit of a letdown after previous years, if I do say so myself.  But fear not, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos — I already have a dozen new mustards waiting in the wings to try, after a fruitful trip to South Florida earlier this year.  I went down to visit my family and attend a concert with my best friend, where we happened to eat one of the best restaurant meals of my entire life.  But I also stopped at an Italian gourmet market and two kosher grocery stores and stocked up on plenty of new and exciting mustards for the 2025-2026 year, so stay tuned, true believers!

The Butcher’s Nook

I first learned about The Butcher’s Nook (https://butchersnook.com/) the same way I learn about a lot of the best places to eat in and around Orlando: from a write-up by my brilliant friend Amy Drew Thompson, the multimedia food reporter for The Orlando Sentinel, our fine local newspaper.  Back in January of this year, she wrote a great article about the Mount Dora butcher shop/deli restaurant and its chef-owner Mario Pennaherrera, and I had been wanting to try it ever since.  Unfortunately, Mount Dora is over an hour away from me, but Amy Drew mentioned they would be opening a second location at a new food hall opening in Apopka, which is only half an hour away.  I’ve been tracking its progress ever since, and it finally announced a soft opening this past Wednesday.

Me being me, I left early enough to beat rush hour traffic heading west on State Road 436, and I was the very first person in line for the soft opening of the Hall’s on 5th food hall in quaint downtown Apopka.  The food hall was constructed in a  hundred-year-old building that used to be Hall’s Feed Store… and now it’s  a place that feeds humans, so that is fitting.  The developers really modernized it, adding a bunch of comfortable outdoor tables, light strings that I associate with hipster parties, and even cornhole boards.  It is already sweltering in mid-May, and I joked to some ladies who were also waiting outside that at least it isn’t August.  But if we all survive until November and December, it will probably be wonderful to dine al fresco at Hall’s on 5th.    

When you enter the building, there is a large indoor seating area with regular tables and smaller high-top tables against the wall, as well as a full bar.  If you’re used to East End Market, the venerable food hall in Orlando’s Audubon Park neighborhood, having an actual indoor dining space and a bar is a huge upgrade.  But then there are six food stalls down a relatively narrow hallway, and when this place gets busy, that hallway is going to be crowded and chaotic.  That’s why I made sure to be first — arrive early, order first, grab a seat, escape easily.  This is good advice for life in general, not just hip new food halls.

The Butcher’s Nook is the first food stall on the left side of the hallway.  After it come Empanada & Co., Soulicious Vegan Kitchen, and Parlor Waffle Kitchen.  On the right side, Thrive has a larger space, followed by Hawaiian restaurant Sweet & Salty Island Grindz, which also has a location I visited once at Henry’s Depot, the food hall in downtown Sanford.  The Hall’s on 5th website has a page with links to all the other vendors.

I was the first person in line at The Butcher’s Nook, and after briefly studying the menu on the wall, I ordered three sandwiches to go (and technically got three meals out of them!).
This is the Italian Americano, with prosciutto cotto, mortadella, Genoa salami, pepperoni, provolone cheese, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, red onions cut paper-thin (the best way to serve onions on a sub or hoagie), and some kind of beguiling vinaigrette on a soft sub roll.  I couldn’t resist unrolling this sub and devouring half before leaving the food hall with the rest of my bounty.  It is definitely one of the best Italian subs in Orlando.  


Here’s a good shot of the other half back at home:

This is the L’Diablo, with prosciutto cotto, hot capocollo, spicy salame Calabrese, n’duja (an awe-inspiring, orangey-red spicy salami spread, kind of like a pâté), smoked provolone cheese, arugula, and Calabrian chili aioli on a ciabatta roll.  I love a spicy Italian sandwich, and I’d give this one a 9 out of 10.  The only way it could have been better was to be served on the same kind of sub roll as the Italian Americano, because I will always prefer a soft white sub or hoagie roll to ciabatta bread.  But credit where credit is due — this ciabatta was softer than many I’ve tried elsewhere.  

And this is the Nooky, with prosciutto di Parma, burrata (fresh mozzarella stuffed with stracciatella, or stretched cheese curds, and clotted cream), Grana Padano cheese (a hard cheese similar to parmesan), arugula, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic glaze, and fig jam on the softest, freshest, fluffiest focaccia bread.  This was another damn near perfect sandwich, with the saltiness of the prosciutto, the creaminess of the burrata, the one-two punch of sweetness from the balsamic glaze and fig jam, and that incredible focaccia. 

I ordered these three sandwiches on purpose, so I could try all three types of bread offered by The Butcher’s Nook, and these contained the best combinations of my favorite ingredients.  I later contacted chef-owner Mario Penaherrera on Facebook to ask him which brands of Italian cured meats he uses, and he told me they serve Veroni, Citterio, Leoncini, and The Spotted Trotter — all high-end charcuterie purveyors; no Boar’s Head here.

Their website advertised a few other awesome-looking sandwiches, like the Downtown (corned beef, pastrami, gruyere cheese, caramelized onions, and Russian dressing on ciabatta) and The OG (mortadella, burrata, pesto, tomatoes, and extra virgin olive oil on focaccia), but those two weren’t on the menu at Hall’s on 5th, so they probably just serve those in their original Mount Dora location.  It’s all good — I chose wisely and enjoyed the heck out of all three sandwiches I chose.  And that reminds me of the sage advice from the late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon: “Enjoy every sandwich.”  I try to live my life that way, and if you go to The Butcher’s Nook, I guarantee you will enjoy every sandwich you order from there.  

Walala Asian Noodle House

Earlier this year, I met two foodie friends at a relatively new restaurant in Orlando’s “Chinatown,” a huge plaza in Pine Hills on West Colonial Drive that is absolutely full of Asian-owned restaurants and other businesses, including Enson, a sprawling supermarket.  I’ve eaten at a few places in the Chinatown plaza and reviewed two of them, both of which have since closed.  But one that I know isn’t going anywhere anytime soon is Walala Asian Noodle House (https://walalaasiannoodlehouse.toast.site/), specializing in hand-pulled noodles in rich, beef-based soups from Lanzhou, China.  The noodles are called lamian, the term that gave us both Chinese lo mein and Japanese ramen.  Don’tcha love etymology?

Back in 2023, I visited and reviewed Mr. J’s Hand-Pulled Noodle in Ocoee, but I really preferred my meal at Walala.  Not only was it a lot closer to home, but everything had more flavor.  Of course, it helped that I went with two friends, and we shared everything.  That said, we all ended up with the same kind of long, thin lamien noodles, even though Walala also offers Japanese ramen (but there are so many good places for ramen already, especially my favorite, Ramen Takagi), Hunan-style rice noodles (which we all thought might be too similar to the familiar noodles in pho), hor fun noodles (I’m assuming wide, flat noodles like in beef chow fun or ho fun, even though hor fun cracked us all up), and they added knife-cut noodles  to the menu after our visit.

It was my choice to start with a tea-infused boiled egg for each of us.  I know, I know, in this economy?  But before eggs became a luxury good, I was experimenting with pickling eggs with different combinations of vinegar, herbs, spices, and other seasonings, and I enjoyed similar tea eggs at Mr. J’s.  (Anyone else reading that in the late Arleen Sorkin’s voice?  Seriously?  Just me?)  Just like at Mistah J’s, we had to peel the eggs ourselves, but these came pre-cracked:

Due to the cracks, they took on beautiful patterns from the tea infusion process:

We shared an order of rich, chewy pig ear slices tossed with spicy chili oil and fresh herbs, including lots of fresh, bright-tasting cilantro.  This is probably better than you are thinking.  They were cartilicious!

One of my friends got braised beef boneless short rib soup with the hand-pulled noodles.  I was tempted by it, because I love any braised meats and especially short ribs, but she let me try a piece, and it was an excellent choice.

Another friend, much more familiar with Lanzhou cuisine than the rest of us, ordered braised honeycomb tripe soup with the same hand-pulled noodles.  I enjoy some unpopular organ meats (give me all the liver, beef tongue, beef tendon, and chicken hearts you have!), but I’ve never developed a big appreciation for tripe, despite all the times it has ended up in my pho and I still eat it.  It’s a texture thing, but this tripe looked a lot different from the style most Vietnamese restaurants add to pho. 

I ended up getting the large sliced beef shank noodle soup because I love lamb shanks so much, and because this one also came with beef skewers on the side.  I couldn’t pass that up!  The meat was very tender, the broth was a little spicy and very unctuous from all the meat (including bones and fat), and the noodles were nice and springy and chewy.  Totally different consistency from Italian pasta or the rice noodles in pho.

Why didn’t at least one of us order a different kind of noodle?  The world will never know.  (But they also offer rice noodles and ramen, although you can get good-to-great ramen at so many other places.)

Anyway, Walala does something I’ve never seen a restaurant do before.  If you eat all your noodles but still have a lot of soup left, they will bring you another order of plain noodles to add back into your soup, and it’s free!  It almost sounded too good to be true, but two of us tested it.

And here are the heavily seasoned, slightly spicy skewers of slightly chewy beef.  These are individual cubes, not whole pieces, so it was very easy for us to share.  

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try the Chinese pickles, but there are so many interesting things on the menu, including new knife-cut noodles they didn’t have on my initial visit (wider and flatter noodles, essentially shaved off the block of dough straight into boiling water, so they end up with beautiful fluted edges), a return trip can be easily justified.

So that’s Walala, although you’re probably hearing A LOT more about it, since it just received a prestigious Michelin recommendation at the recent ceremony last month.  I personally have more faith in my own taste and that of my friends, acquaintances, and mutual followers than a non-transparent process and anonymous reviewers from a tire company, but I am still thrilled for Walala and all the other local Michelin award recipients (see my recent reviews for others).  Regardless of my own skepticism and misgivings, those awards will drive more business their way, and I don’t begrudge that to anyone.  It’s one of the most unique Chinese restaurants in Orlando, and especially if you love noodles like I do, you must get over there as soon as possible.