Seafood – The Saboscrivner

Washington D.C. Part 5: Momofuku CCDC

EDITOR’S NOTE: Momofuku CCDC closed in May 2020.

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It’s hard to choose what was the best meal of my trip. China Chilcano‘s Peruvian-Chinese-Japanese fusion feast with friends was legendary, and the Union Market was everything I love, with a trifecta of sandwiches, again shared with friends. (Well, we shared the experience, but they didn’t want any of my three sandwiches, even though I offered!) But Momofuku CCDC (https://ccdc.momofuku.com/), the Washington D.C. outpost of celebrity chef David Chang’s New York City restaurant empire, was also a meal to remember — once again improved exponentially by the excellent company.

I had sampled one of David Chang’s iconic dishes once before, his pork belly bao, when I visited the Momofuku-affiliated Milk Bar bakery on our NYC honeymoon back in 2009. As great as delightful Chef Christina Tosi’s baked goods were, I was overjoyed that they were serving those famous bao there, and so lucky I got to try it. I’ve tried to duplicate that pork belly bao at home over the years, but I’ve been waiting a decade for a chance to sample more food from the Momofuku family.

I am in a group that held an evening business meeting at our big professional conference, and we scheduled some dine-arounds for our members after the meeting. There was a list of D.C. restaurants near the convention center for people to choose from, and I volunteered to “host” a group at Momofuku CCDC, just because I wanted to eat there so badly. Four people signed up, and the five of us walked over together. I knew most of them, but mostly just by their impeccable reputations, and none of them knew each other. I made everyone do an icebreaker (which could have gone badly but didn’t), and by the end of our incredible dinner, I think everyone parted as frolleagues — colleagues who had become friends.

One of the CCDC specialties is bing bread, which is kind of like a cross between a pancake, a tortilla, and a pita. It was soft and fluffy and warm and steamy, and perfect to spread things on or rip pieces off to dip into stuff. Somehow a group of information professionals failed to make any “Bing” jokes, but it had been a long day and we were hungry.

My bing bread came with salted chili pimento cheese, topped with bread and butter pickled kohlrabi ($7). Pimento cheese is rapidly joining onion rings as something I’ll order whenever it’s on the menu, and I loved it. It has been a few weeks since this meal, but I’m 90% sure this was served chilled, which I always prefer to warm versions.

One of my companions got the bing bread with chicken liver mousse, topped with fennel jam, Chinese five spice seasoning, and toasted almonds ($15). I desperately wanted to try it because I love chopped chicken liver, but we had just met on the walk over here, and I didn’t dare ask her for a taste. She seemed to really enjoy it, though.

These were my garlic noodles, with crab, shrimp, corn, green tomato relish, and Thai basil ($33, which is out of my comfort zone for what I’d normally order as an entree, but I was at Momofuku CCDC and probably won’t ever make it back!). I’m so glad I splurged, because it was amazing.

Someone else ordered charred broccoli with smoked béarnaise sauce ($13). It normally comes with XO vinaigrette, but she’s a vegetarian so she asked them to hold it. I discovered XO sauce recently, and now I’m a little obsessed with it — a rich, savory umami-bomb of a condiment made with dried shrimp and scallops, cured Chinese ham (or bacon or lap xeong Chinese sausage), chilies, onions, garlic, soy sauce, and/or oyster sauce, cooked into a thick jam, sometimes with oil added, and in this case, vinegar. I should have asked if they would serve the XO vinaigrette on the side so I could try it, but it didn’t occur to me until just now, because these are the things I dwell on, weeks after the fact.

I’m not seeing this on the menu, but it looks like the same charred broccoli dish served with softshell crab, so that must have been a special that night. My colleague demonstrated his good taste, between the softshell crab and his seersucker jacket. (I was sporting mine too, and miraculously didn’t get anything on it.)

And this has to be the spicy cucumber, served with crushed almonds and togarashi seasoning ($7). This would be a great restaurant for vegetarians, since they had several options that are much more interesting and luxurious than their usual choices of fries or a salad.

After dinner, four of the five of us, now bonded over this magnificent meal, piled into a Lyft to attend a fancy party at the Library of Congress. (Not a hoax, a dream, or an imaginary story!) Then we split up almost immediately once we got there, but at least we’re all cool now. And at least they didn’t see me completely wipe out on some slippery marble stairs in the Great Hall. Luckily I wasn’t carrying anything and didn’t hurt myself, or worse yet, anyone else.

Washington D.C. Part 4: Union Market, Red Apron, Neopol Savory Smokery

There’s nothing I love more than exploring a good food market or food hall, and I’ve been to a lot of the greatest ones in the country. Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market and Seattle’s Pike Place Market are my two all-time favorites, but I’ve also had way too much fun at Baltimore’s Lexington Market (home of Faidley’s Seafood, which I have reviewed right here!), San Francisco’s Ferry Building, and Columbus, Ohio’s North Market. You can keep your fine dining experiences, with chefs who decide what you’re going to eat and obsequious waiters who hover behind you. Not my idea of a good time! Give me a sprawling maze of food stalls with local luxuries, exotic eats, stunning sandwiches, and gorgeous groceries, and I’m in Saboscrivner heaven.

On my trip to D.C., one of my frolleagues (a professional colleague who became a friend) invited me to the Union Market (https://unionmarketdc.com/), figuring I would have a great time. She knows me well, because she was spot-on. She and her husband, former D.C. denizens, were kind enough to pick me up, and we met another D.C.-based frolleague there. I was so grateful to the three of them for hanging out with me, showing me around, and indulging me as I tried this and that, as I probably would not have made it to the market or even known about it, if left to my own devices. Originally founded as the Centre Market in 1871, the Union Market has gone through many iterations over the decades, always changing to stay current and relevant, until it evolved into the hip foodie destination it is today. I’d kill to have something similar here in Orlando!

I was first drawn to a sign that said Neopol Savory Smokery (http://neopolsmokery.com/), with a picture of a fish.

Regular readers know I love my fish smoked, cured, and/or pickled (the food of my people), so my one friend and I headed straight to Neopol. It was almost impossible to choose, but my seasoned friend (the D.C. local) chose a smoked salmon BLT with avocado ($10):
I went with a smoked whitefish salad sandwich ($10) on really nice, fresh, sliced white bread, adorned with lettuce, tomato, and onion. I love cool, creamy, smoky whitefish salad, and it’s really hard to come by here in Orlando. I’ve made it myself before, but even finding the golden smoked whitefish (sometimes called “chubs”) is a difficult task around here, and then you have to pick out hundreds of needle-thin, plastic-like bones. This whitefish salad sandwich was excellent, and a heck of a lot easier than attempting to duplicate it at home.

One super-cool thing I noticed about Neopol was a sign that said several of their employees are deaf, so patrons should make sure their have someone’s full attention and make eye contact before placing their order. This made all the sense in the world, because I noticed the Union Market is very close to Gallaudet University, the largest university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the United States. The entire market is very deaf-friendly, with deaf employees and interpreters who can speak and understand American Sign Language (ASL), plus lots of deaf patrons, many of whom are affiliated with Gallaudet. This article from Gallaudet’s website has more information.

These major urban food markets usually have a butcher shop displaying beautiful steaks, chops, sausages, and seafood that I wish I could take home to prepare, except I’m usually far from home. So I couldn’t believe it when I saw a gleaming glass case full of my absolute favorite: cured meats. This was Red Apron Butcher (https://redapronbutchery.com/), a place you have to see to believe!

Here’s a screen shot from Red Apron Butcher’s website with everything they offer. We desperately need this place back home! Well, maybe my wallet and my cholesterol don’t need it. This is the stuff that dreams are made of:

Luckily for me, Red Apron also offers tempting and very reasonably-priced sandwiches:

I knew I had to sample their Italian sandwich ($12), which comes with “4 meats” (I checked, and they were hot cotto, pork cotto, cappicola, and bologna), sharp provolone, pickled peppers, iceberg lettuce, onion, and an herb vinaigrette. It was a top-notch Italian, as you might guess. I liked how finely-shredded the lettuce and onions were, and how the dressing held it all in place, so it was less likely to slide off the soft roll.

But figuring I would bring leftovers back to my hotel room for a quiet dinner that evening, I decided to pick a second sandwich. That’s my classic go-to plan, to eat half of each sandwich at the market (or wherever I am) and save the other halves for later. It was so hard to choose, since everything on the menu looked so good. But a chorizo burger or a meatball sub wouldn’t be quite as good back in my room later, without a microwave to heat them up. So I eventually went with a simple grilled cheese with spicy smoked pimento cheese (so not such a simple grilled cheese after all!) on toasted white Pullman bread ($7). I love pimento cheese, and I’m getting to the point where I’ll usually order it wherever I can find it, since everyone’s version is a little different — kind of like how I am with onion rings, chili, and Italian subs. However, I prefer the bread in my grilled cheese a little more buttery and a little less toasty.

Meanwhile, my other friend got an Indian dosa from DC Dosa (I passed due to having a fantastic dosa relatively recently), and her husband went to TaKorean Korean Taco Grill. A place like the Union Market is so perfect for hanging out with family or friends because everyone can get whatever they want, and then you just reconvene at the communal tables to eat together. It’s also a fantastic place for sharing your meals and trying new things.

Finally, I took a deep dive into the world of falooda, the sweet Indian dessert drink that can be layered with a variety of interesting ingredients. My friend was raving about her cool, refreshing falooda from the Toli Moli Burmese Bodega (https://www.tolimolidc.com/), and on this ridiculously humid day, after a huge lunch, I easily succumbed to peer pressure and ordered one for myself. According to the website, “Toli Moli” translates to “a little of this and a little of that,” which is a perfect way to describe the falooda drinks.

I am pretty sure she ordered the Royal, which contains pomegranate-ginger jellies and basil seeds suspended in paprika-infused milk, vanilla ice cream, and housemade rosewater syrup. I almost ordered that too, but the guy at the counter suggested the Mango Mogul, which contains layers of mango jellies and basil seeds floating in turmeric-infused almond & coconut milk, mango sorbet from Washington D.C.’s own Ruby Scoops Ice Cream and Sorbet, and housemade rosewater syrup. I was a little skeptical about the almond and coconut milk, but I do love mango, so I went for it. It reminded me a bit of the sweet boba tea slushes I’ve had at Orlando Vietnamese restaurants and teahouses, only with the chewy stuff in a thicker milkshake. (And I tend to hold the chewy stuff, but when in Rome — or D.C. — do what the locals do!) Falooda might be the next trend to hit Orlando, so you heard it here first.

Once again, I would probably have never discovered the falooda on my own, much less ordered it, so I was grateful to these fellow foodie frolleagues for broadening my horizons this day, and for showing me what has to be one of the most delicious destinations in D.C. I loved the Union Market so much, and this lunch with these friends was definitely one of the highlights of my conference. I never would have made it there without them, or even known to seek it out, but I’m so glad I did, and when you’re in D.C., you should too.

IKEA Midsummer Smorgasbord

For many relationships, a trip to the sprawling Swedish furniture store IKEA (https://www.ikea.com/) is a gauntlet to run, a compatibility test, or an exercise in survival. It may be the event that seals a couple’s fate, as to whether they should move in together or even spend their lives together. I like seeing the different room layouts and knowing there are almost infinite options when it comes to affordable, whimsically-named Swedish home furnishings and accoutrements, even though I never seem to need anything there. So I can dig that TORMUND, that EDDARD, scope out that cute YGRITTE or consider that intriguing BRONN, but I’m pretty good at avoiding unnecessary impulse buys (except for food). It’s just neat to browse around there. My wife, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with it. She trusts me to be the hunter and the gatherer, and I am happy to have the adventure and save her the schlep.

But my favorite parts of a trip to IKEA are the cafeteria at the beginning and the food market at the end. They have lots of imported Swedish foods that are tasty and cheap, most of which you can’t get anywhere else in the Orlando area, so that’s the big draw for me. I love exploring new grocery stores as much as I love exploring new restaurants, especially international ones. And as my wife has learned, I can usually be counted on to come home with new treasures and wonders, as well as new stories.

Even though I’m sure you’ve heard of IKEA’s super-cheap breakfasts and controversial Swedish meatballs before, you may not realize that every December, IKEA throws a traditional Julbord, an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord buffet. It happens to have a lot of foods I love: not just the tasty meatballs, but najad salmon (thin-sliced, marinated, smoked salmon, similar to our nova salmon but with dill added), different kinds of pickled herring, cheeses, ham, sausages, desserts, and more. It’s one day a year, and I’ve never been able to make it. There is always something going on at work that day that keeps me away.

But this year, I heard about IKEA hosting a Midsummer Smorgasbord this past Friday evening, probably similar to their holiday Julbord, with a lot of the same dishes. This one was another all-you-can-eat affair, for only $16.99, or $12.99 if you’re an IKEA member (which I am not). Heck, I could easily eat more than $16.99 worth of smoked salmon alone. That stuff is amazing!

A friend of mine was patient and cool enough to meet me there, and he even picked us up advance tickets. Yes, IKEA was probably selling tickets for this buffet weeks in advance, and it got quite crowded the evening of the smorgasbord. But my friend and I are old pros at this kind of thing. We arrived early and lined up ahead of the growing crowd, because when it comes to buffets, early is on time, and on time is late. We came to PLAY, to go big before we go home.

This was the bill of fare:

My friend had survived the holiday Julbord before, and he said tables were going to be at a premium. He offered to hold our table to give me a chance to get through the line, and then he would go when I came back. It was a self-sacrificing move, the epitome of taking one for the team, so of course I offered to do the same and let him go first. But he is such a mensch, he held his ground and insisted. I took him up on his generous offer, but in retrospect, I wish I had forced the issue and said we would brave the line together and take our chance finding a table at the end of our quest. But more on that later.

This was the Swedish cucumber salad — thin-sliced cucumbers in a vinaigrette with pickled red onions. I always say that I’m trying to develop my palate for pickles, so I took a healthy scoop.

I’m a sucker for potato salad — one of my favorite ways to eat potatoes. Baked? Boring, unless you load them with more and more unhealthy toppings! Mashed? Often boring. Smashed? Heeeey, those are just mashed, but you left the skin in there! Fries? Sure, but you have the shortest window to finish them before they become inedible. Chips? Okay, I’m always on board for chips. Hash browns? Perfection. But serve them soft and chilled, tossed in some mayo or vinegar, add finely-chopped vegetables, herbs, and spices, and I’m down.

This was a cabbage-based salad — essentially cole slaw, both creamy and vinegary at once, with a nice coolness and a refreshing crunch.

Hard-boiled eggs (not actually deviled eggs) topped with that wonderful thin-sliced, marinated, smoked najad salmon. I could have happily eaten nothing but this and gotten my money’s worth.

More hard-boiled eggs, topped with red seaweed pearls that serve as vegetarian caviar. In my haste of making my way through the buffet line, I took this photo but forgot to take any of these.

Here’s that good stuff: a huge platter of the marinated, smoked najad salmon, served chilled and thin enough to melt in your mouth.

At this point, I had moved my tray past the cold items and was in front of the hot stuff. There were attendants asking everyone what I wanted, so it was harder to photograph everything as I worked my way through. But they had three different kinds of Swedish meatballs: the classic beef-based, chicken, and vegetarian. I asked for some of all three kinds, with a bit of gravy.

They also had shrimp salad, boiled and mashed potatoes (I opted for boiled), and steamed vegetables, which heavily featured asparagus, one of my faves.

Then I made it to another chilled area with some cubed Swedish cheese, three different kinds of pickled herring, and four kinds of desserts. As always, I tried to get a little bit of everything, and regular Saboscrivner readers know from my recent pilgrimage to New York’s Russ & Daughters Cafe how much I love pickled herring. These were served straight out of the glass jars they sell in the food market downstairs, and I made a mental note to return and get some for the road if I liked it. (Spoiler alert: of course I did!)

So this was the first heroic plate I assembled with all the cold items. Loved the najad salmon, the three kinds of pickled herring, the potato salad, and the cole slaw. If this was all I ate, I would have been totally content. The cheese was sharper than I expected, which is rarely a bad thing. The different herrings included one in a mustard and dill sauce (at 12:00), pickled with dill (at 3:00), and spiced matjes herring (at 9:00), which I tried at Russ & Daughters.

And this was my hot plate. The white stuff in the top right was a creamy lemon caper sauce, maybe the only thing I didn’t love, because I just don’t care for capers. The potatoes and vegetables could have been seasoned a little better, but they were okay. All three kinds of meatballs were great. Very tasty, with nice textures I enjoyed.

They were serving coffee, tea, and cola, but these were the Swedish fountain drink options. I tried the lingonberry drink (very subtly sweet) and the sparkling lemon fruit water (quite refreshing).

And finally, my desserts. The angel food strawberry shortcake was a little bland, as angel food cake always is. The chocolate dome on the top had a thin chocolate shell, covering sticky, gooey marshmallow filling. It was just okay. But the other two items were very good. The wedge of chocolate cake was rich and gooey, like brownie batter. I loved it, and I knew that even though my wife doesn’t share my love for the IKEA cafeteria, she would have loved that. The chocolatey thing on the bottom was covered with coconut flakes and had a rich, gooey center that reminded me of cocoa, coffee, caramel, and spiced Biscoff cookies.

Well, as you can see, I ate like a king. But this story doesn’t have the happiest ending because even though I made my way through the line pretty quickly, being near the front of it, my buddy who saved our table wasn’t so lucky. When I returned, he went off to get in line, and I waited, doing my best to be polite and not eat without him. But he came back empty-handed almost 15 minutes later, frustrated that the line hadn’t moved at all! IKEA has two sides to its cafeteria, one on the left and one on the right. But for this big event, which they sold advance tickets for and could have easily anticipated the turnout, they only had the left side open, leading to major slowdowns and delays. After all that, my friend, a good enough friend to have picked up our tickets, didn’t get to eat!

Now, I offered to share all my food with him, and you can see how much I grabbed. Hey, I always like to share my food with my friends, and I wasn’t sick or anything, but he wasn’t having it. I offered to wait too, but he was frustrated and didn’t want to waste even more time getting into that unmoving line again. I felt really guilty, and he tried to make me feel better by saying he had a huge lunch, but I still felt like a heel. But it wasn’t my fault, or his. Despite how good most of the food was, IKEA really needs to work on its organization and have enough people available to meet the demand if they’re going to host big events like this, especially when they have the perfect means of knowing how many people will be coming, and therefore, how busy they will be.

Anyway, we hung out and caught up, I ate, and then we headed downstairs to the market. You can see they have four different kinds of pickled herring in small jars for a very affordable $2.99, including three of the ones I enjoyed at dinner.

I picked two out of the refrigerated case, SILL INLAGD and SILL MATJES.

These were the two desserts I liked, including the gooey brownie-like thin chocolate cake. Apparently KAFFEREP is memorable moments with laughter and cake and/or pastries.

I also got a bag of frozen PANNKAKOR, Swedish pancakes that are more like crepes. I made these for my wife on Saturday morning and served them with some good bacon, ricotta cheese, and blackberry preserves. (PANNKAKOR totally sounds like a forgotten minor character from Masters of the Universe, which was not one of my favorite childhood cartoons.)

My whole IKEA market haul:

So after years of trying and failing to make it to the IKEA all-you-can-eat buffet, I finally got to eat all I could eat, while my poor friend didn’t get any food at all. It was good, but I don’t think I’ll rush back next Midsummer or lose any sleep when I inevitably can’t make it to the December Julbord. I got it out of my system. But if you go on a normal day, they really do serve some surprisingly good and cheap food at IKEA. If you go with your significant other and eat first, you might forestall one of those infamous IKEA passive-aggressive fights. And if you’re brave enough to attend one of the all-you-can-eat events, even after reading this, buy your tickets in advance, arrive early with your entire party, go through the line together, and take your chances getting a table. The alternative is far, far worse.

The New York Adventure Part 5: Russ & Daughters Cafe

Russ & Daughters Cafe (http://www.russanddaughterscafe.com/) opened for business in 2014, but it still feels like a time capsule of old-school Jewish New York, particularly representative of the early 20th Century Lower East Side. And it should, because the original Russ & Daughters “appetizing store” is still going strong after opening over 100 years ago, in 1914. The sit-down cafe appropriately opened a full century later, with gleaming retro interiors, luxurious booths, and tantalizing displays, reminiscent of the original.

This was another pilgrimage for me. My wife and I have been to New York more than once before and even hung out in the Lower East Side, but never made it to the original Russ & Daughters storefront. The more accessible and comfortable Cafe didn’t even exist when we were last there for our honeymoon in 2009. So I studied the menu in advance, determined to do it right.

I started us out with two mini potato knishes, which came with some good deli mustard. I’m much more of a knish guy than my wife, and since I didn’t indulge in knishes at Ess-A-Bagel or Junior’s, I figured it was now or never. They did not disappoint. They were very soft, with a nice oniony flavor in the potato filling and a soft, yielding dough shell I could cut with the side of my fork. If you don’t know from knishes, those baked (or occasionally fried) pockets of dough stuffed with potatoes or other fillings, I highly recommend them, especially if you’re anything like me and sometimes crave a mustard delivery device. Publix has started carrying the Gabila’s brand in the frozen food section, and those are some of my favorites. But these were no slouches.

My wife ordered the Shtetl platter: an everything bagel with smoked sable, after I turned her onto it at Ess-A-Bagel. While she said it was all very good, the bagel was smaller than Ess-A, and they skimped on the sable. You can see the thin slices they served her, whereas Ess-A packed their much larger bagel with thicker slices and chunks of the good stuff. I ended up with all her tomatoes and onions, as well as the goat cream cheese, which was a little funky for her tastes, despite how much she loves goats. It wasn’t baaaaaaaaad.

As the self-proclaimed Dean of Sardines, I am also a lifelong fan of pickled herring. My family used to bring in bagels on Sunday mornings at our suburban Miami home, always with cream cheese, nova salmon, and a jar of Vita or Skansen brand pickled herring, and I have loved it ever since. The most common kinds that you can even buy at Publix are boneless herring fillets, shiny and silvery, either in a wine and vinegar sauce or a sour cream sauce, both sweetened and packed with onions. Definitely not something to serve or eat on a hot date, but way more delicious than they sound. I guess they would have to be, right?

I was overjoyed to order a sampler platter with four different kinds of pickled herring to try: regular pickled (along the top), roll-mops (two long, thin fillets wrapped around pickled onions), schmaltz (fat) herring on the bottom left (cured in salt and sugar), and matjes herring on the bottom right (mature schmaltz herring cured for a longer period of time, tinted red by sandalwood). The matjes herring was juicy but incredibly salty, sour, and tangy, even by pickled fish standards, and even by my own standards. It was a bit much — still worth trying, but I definitely wouldn’t order it again.
Anyway, the platter came with a mound of sweet, vinegary pickled onions, surprisingly tasty pickled beets, and a sprig of fresh dill.

But wait, there’s more! My herring platter also came with slices of soft, fresh-baked pumpernickel bread and three different dipping sauces: a creamy mustard sauce with dill (top), a thicker and sweeter mustard (left), and a sweet cream sauce (right). I cleaned my plate, eating everything as a careful ritual: tear off a piece of pump, dip one side lightly in one of the sauces, add a piece of fish (never mixing the different kinds), top with pickled onions, repeat. I think they brought just enough bread to cycle through all the different possible combinations and permutations. It was good pumpernickel, and I have been craving more ever since. In fact, I bought some upon returning home, but wouldn’t ya know it? It was better in New York. (Must be the water!)

We left with these delightful little coffee-flavored hard candies from the Netherlands, a nice alternative to a mint (although after eating all that fish, a mint might have been better for my breath).

Oh, here’s a bonus shot of the original Russ & Daughters appetizing store, the one that opened in 1914. It was a short walk from the much newer Cafe, and an even shorter walk from the equally legendary Katz’s Delicatessen (which is coming, Saboscrivnerinos!). I went inside just so I could have the experience, but it was a mad mob scene. I took a number — 446 — but they had only just called 404. There are no tables to eat anything there, and whatever I would have wanted to buy was perishable and would never have survived the voyage home, so I left empty-handed.

I was very sad that the timing of our New York adventure occurred before June 12th, the start of the New Catch Holland Herring season at Russ & Daughters. These are supposedly the best herrings in the world, and you eat them standing up, holding them by the tail and lowering them down into your mouth, like cartoon cats. Back in that more innocent time when it was cool to like Louis C.K., he brought Parker Posey to Russ & Daughters on a date in an episode of Louie, and they ate the New Catch Herrings together. Just like when he showcased Veselka on another episode of the show, I have wanted to go to there ever since. Mission accomplished!

The New York Adventure Part 1: Ess-A-Bagel

My wife and I are celebrating our TENTH wedding anniversary in October, and we both wanted to make a big thing of it by returning to New York City, where we spent our honeymoon in 2009. We haven’t had a chance to return in this entire last decade, but since my wife is a college professor and I’m also in academia, October is a pretty busy time for us, and it would be impossible to get away then. So we opted for a mid-May getaway, during the empty and quiet weeks between the spring and summer semesters, before New York starts to rival Florida’s heat and humidity. We also had some personal and professional milestones to celebrate, so the timing was right and the stars lined up for us. We planned to take in the sights, see shows, and eat like kings.

Just as we did on our honeymoon, we chose our hotel based on its proximity to the legendary Midtown Manhattan bagel restaurant Ess-A-Bagel (https://www.ess-a-bagel.com/), considered by many the best bagel shop in the bagel capital of the world (sorry, Montreal!). And wouldn’t you know it — we ended up reserving the exact same hotel, just under a different name and new management, ten years later. It was meant to be!

So here is where the magic happens, this hole-y site. I’m always taken aback by just how small and cramped many iconic New York restaurants and businesses are, and Ess-A-Bagel is no exception. You enter and automatically line up, make your way down the counter until someone calls you, place your entire order with them, pay at the end, and hope there’s a tiny table available for you by then.

Ess-A-Bagel boils and bakes some of the largest bagels I’ve ever seen, with all the classics represented: plain, sesame, onion, garlic, salt, everything, pumpernickel, and cinnamon raisin, among others. Here’s a gigantic everything bagel, which is our favorite — coated with sesame and poppy seeds, toasted onion and garlic, and coarse kosher salt crystals.

You have a ridiculous choice of cream cheese and tofu-based spreads, all made fresh in-house. This is like heaven. The choices are unlimited, but you cannot go wrong.

In addition to all the standard cream cheeses, Ess-A-Bagel has a large selection of smoked, cured, and pickled fish, all standard Jewish fare that accompanies bagels. Most people are familiar with nova salmon — sometimes referred to as lox, although most lox is MUCH saltier than the more familiar nova your basic brunch spot offers. It pairs so perfectly with cream cheese. But when you get out of Orlando, you have far more fishy options for your bagels, and these are everything to me: smoked whitefish salad, large golden smoked chubs (whitefish), pickled herring fillets in either a sweet wine-based sauce or a sour cream-based sauce (both with plenty of sweet pickled onions!), rich smoky sturgeon, and the finest of all the smoked, cured, and pickled fishies: buttery sable, which sounds far more appetizing than “black cod.” Sable is the finest thing you can eat, and here is an article I found with a recipe and more information about it, for the uninitiated. These are the foods of my people, and they fill me with such joy.

You also have a wide variety of tuna, salmon, and other seafood salads.

And some pasta salads, potato salad, cole slaw, and additional vegetarian options, sold by the pound to enjoy as sides.

You can also order bagel sandwiches with the sliced deli meats and cheeses of your choice, but it seemed pointless to me to come all the way to New York and Ess-A-Bagel for a turkey, roast beef, or ham and cheese sandwich. (Despite its traditional Jewish specialties, Ess-A-Bagel is not a kosher restaurant, and I’ve never kept kosher anyway.)

The day we left for New York, we woke up at 3:30 AM to catch our 6:30 AM flight, got caught in morning rush hour traffic from Queens to Manhattan, and made it to our hotel to find out our room wasn’t ready yet. At that point, it was 12:30 PM — nine hours since we got up, and we hadn’t eaten anything yet. So we walked to Ess-A-Bagel just in time to join the long lunch line, and by the time we got our food and snagged one of those aforementioned tiny tables, almost an hour after that, it didn’t occur to me to take any pictures. Mea culpa, although some long-suffering Saboscrivnerinos may be relieved.

That first day, my wife ordered a toasted and buttered everything bagel, with a quarter-pound side of whitefish salad on the side. I wanted a bialy, that lovely cross between a bagel and a roll (baked, but never boiled!) with an indentation in the middle for baked onions, but they didn’t have any left. (See this Food Republic article for some bialy background!) So I got an everything bagel with sun-dried tomato cream cheese and my sweet, sweet sable. I also ordered a huge, fluffy salt bagel to tear off chunks and scoop up a quarter-pound of smoked shrimp and crab salad that looked and sounded great, and tasted even better. Everything was magnificent. My wife had fond memories of an apple cinnamon muffin from our last visit a decade back, but that was crumbly and dry, failing to live up to her nostalgia the way the bagels and fish did.

Our second day in the city, we wanted to take it relatively easy and eat a light lunch in our room, in preparation for seeing a show that evening. I walked back to Ess-A-Bagel to bring everything back to our hotel, and that time I remembered to take some photos.

My wife tried my sable the previous day and understood what I had raved about on and off for the last ten years, so she asked for an everything bagel sandwich with sable (left), and I happily obliged. I decided to try something different: a bialy sandwich (finally!) with baked salmon salad (right), at once smoky and creamy, so it didn’t need a layer of cream cheese.

Here’s a half of my bialy sandwich, generously stuffed with the baked salmon salad:

And her sable bagel, with nice thick chunks of the buttery, rich fish to melt in our mouths:

That huge everything bagel I showed you earlier came from this second visit. I also got a quarter-pound of their smoked tuna spread to go with that, and it was another good choice. I grew up eating canned tuna, to the point where I was shocked the first time I ever encountered rich, deep purple raw tuna in sushi in my late teens. My wife doesn’t like the smell of canned tuna, and it’s high in mercury and unsustainable, so I haven’t bought or even ordered it in years (although I am a huge sardine aficionado, and those are super-healthy and super-sustainable). But trying smoked tuna seemed like a worthwhile move, and it was far better than any conventional tuna salad I’ve ever had before.

My wife also asked for a black and white cookie, that New York deli and bakery classic. These should be more cake-like than anything — thick and moist, never crunchy or crispy. This one was unique for having a slight lemony flavor to the yellow cookie/cake underneath the layer of black and white icing that reminds us “We’re not so different, you and I.”

And then we went to see Hamilton, and I think it tied with seeing Tom Waits in concert in 2006 as the greatest musical experience… no, greatest cultural experience of my life. I love American history, and I come by it naturally. My dad was an esteemed history and social studies teacher, and now I teach a class that incorporates some U.S. history too. Combine that with my deep loves of musical theater (encouraged by my wife, a former child and teen actress) and hip hop, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning show always felt like it was made just for me. I have obsessed over the original cast album for over three years, so finally being able to see it (and in the greatest city in the world, no less!), being right there in the room where it happens, was awe-inspiring.

Like I said, we ate like kings over our few days in the City, so stay tuned over the next week (or let’s face it, probably longer) for more of our culinary New York Adventures, right here on The Saboscrivner!

Sette (pre-opening media event)

Well, folks, your friend and humble narrator The Saboscrivner has finally done it! Tonight I attended my first-ever media event to review a new restaurant: Sette (https://www.setteitalian.com/), the Italian restaurant owned and operated by Orlando’s beloved Chef Trina Gregory-Propst of Se7en Bites and her wife Va Propst. Located at 1407 N Orange Ave, Orlando, Florida 32804, Sette is across the street from scenic Lake Ivanhoe, in a spot where several restaurants have come and gone. This one is going to be different because of the people behind it, their vision, their hospitality, and their sheer culinary talent.

Chef Trina flexing her mussels in her spacious open kitchen:

This was an auspicious beginning for what I suspect will become one of Orlando’s hottest restaurants. Sette opens this Friday, March 22nd, and I suggest you get in as soon as you can. It will be open for dinner Tuesday through Thursday, 5:30 to 10:00 PM, Friday and Saturday, 5:30 to 11:00 PM, and Sundays 1:00 to 8:00 PM. You can call 407.704.7771 for information and reservations in the meantime.

The restaurant seats 150, and they have regular tables as well as high-tops, both inside and outside, and seating at the inside bar as well. I am pleased to report they have a parking lot (a rarity along that stretch of Orange Avenue near downtown Orlando), but I suspect it will fill up quickly.

Dig the homey, retro decor that screams “Italian restaurant!” without going into cliche territory. You won’t find any red and white checkered tablecloths, candles melted into Chianti bottles, or artwork of stereotypical Italian chefs with Super Mario mustaches.

The spacious and inviting outdoor patio:

Even the musical selections fit the vibe perfectly: mid-century standards by the Italian-American triumvirate of Frank, Tony, and Dean, two of the three major Louies (Armstrong and Prima, but no Jordan), some jazz, nothing grating or out of place.

A welcoming bar well-stocked with wine, staffed by friendly bartenders serving up incredibly creative cocktails:

Plenty of reds and whites I didn’t drink, but I was assured they have a great selection:

Most of the evening I nursed this blood orange Italian soda, which was crisp and clean and refreshing, and not cloyingly sweet like most store-bought sodas. The bartender made this using one of several Italian syrups. It looked like lavender, rose, and pistachio were among the other options, and I know they employ these in making cocktails as well.

I don’t always get excited about salads, but this Caesar salad, with garlicky dressing and garlic parmesan croutons, and shaved parmesan cheese over romaine, was one of the best Caesar salads I’ve ever had, and well worth getting pumped over.

I didn’t get to actually sample this beautiful Cucina salad, with romaine, cucumber, tomatoes, goat cheese, pine nuts, champagne dijon vinaigrette, and more of the garlic parmesan croutons, and I regret that.

Trina and Va make their pastas from scratch. I learned that all their extruded (shaped) pastas are vegan (think spaghetti, linguini, bucatini, etc.), but the flat pasta sheets, like their lasagna noodles, are not vegan due to containing eggs. I can say that the pasta dishes I sampled tonight are easily some of the finest pastas I’ve ever had the pleasure of trying, and I LOVE pasta, and I’ve been to Babbo in New York (long before we knew what Mario Batali was really like).

Their lasagna was one of my favorite dishes, made with one long pasta sheet, painstakingly folded and assembled with layers of beef bolognese sauce, ricotta cheese, and pecorino romano, on a bed of creamy bechamel sauce. Look at it! Bellissima!

This was my favorite of all the pasta dishes, though. These were so perfect, so chewy and thick. I loved every bite, every morsel. The sauce was so fresh and tangy. It was an unfamiliar noodle to me called paccheri (kind of like a thicker rigatoni), in my favorite Italian sauce of all: amatriciana, the slightest bit spicy and a little bit salty from cured meats like guanciale, or in this case, pancetta. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I love thick, chewy, fresh pasta, and this bucatini carbonara was so good. Tossed in eggs with crispy pancetta (bacon’s superior cousin), grated pecorino romano cheese, and peas, it was heavy and rich and oh so satisfying. I never understand why carbonara isn’t more popular across the U.S. as a breakfast dish, considering it’s pasta served with eggs, bacon (although pancetta is always betta’), and cheese.

More pasta: wonderful pesto linguini next to a stack of crispy fried eggplant, topped with a dollop of ricotta cheese, shaved pecorino romano, and fresh basil. I’m usually not the biggest fan of eggplant, but this was one of two eggplant dishes tonight that totally won me over and made me a fan.

I absolutely loved the clam linguini, served with small neck clams, crispy pancetta, fennel, and a thick, rich lemon white wine sauce.

Continuing with delicious bivalves, the Prince Edward Island mussels were on point, served in a lemon white wine sauce with fresh basil and grilled crusty bread. Hard to eat neatly while standing up, but totally worth it.

This antipasta dish was maybe the greatest surprise of the night: Italian sausage served with fennel and… it ain’t new potatoes, it ain’t olives, and it ain’t what I was expecting, always-disappointing grape tomatoes, ready to explode and burn the hell out of my mouth. Nope, this sausage and fennel is served with blistered GRAPES, and they work so well together, the savory saltiness and the sweetness and tartness of the grapes. I never would have thought of it, but that’s why Trina and Va are the visionary restauranteurs and I’m a librarian who writes about food as a hobby.

Despite all appearances, these are crispy eggplant “meat” balls, completely vegetarian, topped with sauce, dollops of ricotta cheese, and fresh basil, and served over polenta. This was the other eggplant dish I loved:

They served a similar preparation of actual beef meatballs too. I tried and enjoyed a few of them, in fact, but didn’t get a good photo. Trust me, if you like meatballs, you’ll love Sette’s meatballs.

This is another vegetarian dish, sort of a ratatouille, with tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini served over rich risotto.

And these were arancini, crispy fried balls stuffed with risotto, tangy gorgonzola cheese, and figs, served over a pesto cream sauce, and topped with crispy pancetta (which can easily be left off to accommodate vegetarians) and a balsamic glaze drizzle.

Sette’s desserts were out of this world, as you would expect for the culinary wunderkind behind Se7en Bites. My favorite was their unique take on the classic Italian tiramisu, a semifreddo (semi-frozen), cool, creamy concoction with a thin layer of ladyfingers that reminded me more of the graham cracker crust in a good pie, texture-wise, with espresso and dark chocolate ganache along the bottom.

They also served us amoretti cookies, very soft and chewy almond cookies dusted with powdered sugar and served with the most delicious and delightful little glasses of milk. I thought there was something in the milk to make it sweeter, and it turned out it was “spiked” with white chocolate liqueur! I don’t drink, but once I found out, it was so tasty I at least had to finish my little cup. My wife will LOVE these cookies, since she loves anything almond-flavored.Almond lovers, they also serve a cocktail called “That’s Amore-etti,” with Real McCoy rum, almond syrup, DiSaronno amaretto, and almond milk. I can imagine these cookies pairing very well with it.

Tonight they also served an olive oil cake with rosemary-accented lemon curd and lemon mascarpone buttercream icing, moist and tangy and fresh-tasting. Loved it!

And while I’m not the biggest chocolate guy, this dense, brownie-like chocolate cake was garnished with fresh orange marmalade, candied oranges, and fresh chantilly cream. The chantilly cream was my favorite part, and I would happily eat an entire bowl of that as a dessert!

This was a particularly special night for me because it was the first media event I’ve ever attended at a restaurant. I’ve been reviewing and recommending restaurants and writing about food online for many years, on the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook and on the old Chowhound.com website before that. Despite all that, it took me forever to gain the self-confidence to match my passion for food writing — I didn’t start The Saboscrivner until last June, 2018, so as usual, I’m a late bloomer.

While I’ve met several Foodie Forum members at various lunches over the last several months, tonight was the first time I met many of our serious and devoted Orlando food and lifestyle bloggers. Of course everyone seemed to know and be friends with each other already, but I always feel like the odd man out, even when I attend professional conferences with my own colleagues in my field. Just about everyone I met tonight was warm and friendly, though. We were all caught up in sampling these delicious dishes at Sette, and I like to think I bonded with some people and didn’t embarrass myself or cramp anybody’s style.

I’ve been a fan of Chef Trina ever since she made her signature dark chocolate sea salt caramel pies for sale at Pom Pom’s Teahouse and Sandwicheria, years before Se7en Bites even existed, long before Guy Fieri helped make her nationally renowned by featuring her on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and Guy’s Grocery Games. I couldn’t be happier for her or prouder of her, and I was honored to be one of the local luminaries invited to chronicle Sette’s pre-opening event. Every dish I tried was better than the last, I found myself saying more than once tonight. Even though I was thrilled to be one of the lucky people to get this early look and taste, I would be raving about Sette no matter what. In fact, as I write this at 12:30 AM, knowing I have to be awake in three hours to catch a flight to one of those aforementioned professional conferences, I’m already planning to take my wife to Sette as soon as possible upon my return, to enjoy it as any guest surely will.

Trust me — Sette is going to be Orlando’s next big thing. Brava, Trina and Va! Brava.

Chain Reactions: Cooper’s Hawk

My BFF (Best Food Friend) who is actually my lifelong best friend, has been recommending Cooper’s Hawk (https://chwinery.com/) to me for a while. It’s an upscale chain restaurant, and he has raved about the location in Doral, Florida (near Miami) before. I’ve been meaning to get back out to Waterford Lakes with my wife so we could try our local location, but between the heavy traffic and the sprawling, Fury Road-invoking parking lot, we typically avoid the east side of Orlando.

But my wife was hungry, and after going through the usual litany of all our regular restaurants, we decided to try something new and treat ourselves a little. Cooper’s Hawk is a winery on top of being a restaurant, but even though we don’t drink, the menu was huge and intriguing. If you do like wine (and going through my friends’ Facebook pages, it sure seems like most people love wine!), you should definitely check it out. It looks like they offer a huge selection, all from their own label, so you wouldn’t find any familiar wine brands there. But you enter through a wine retail store with a busy bar, and I’m sure oenophiles will find something to love on the way into the restaurant, or even while waiting for a movie at the Waterford Lakes Regal theater.

It was seriously hard to choose. The menu is close to the legendary Cheesecake Factory with regard to choices. There are steaks, seafood, chicken, and pork, Italian, Asian, and Mexican-inspired dishes, burgers and sandwiches, and more. I strongly recommend studying the menu in advance, but I recommend that for most restaurants.

I’ve never been a pork chop fan. Most of the ones I’ve had are relatively bland and dry, especially compared to all the other wondrous things you can do with pork: a world of sausage, salami, ham, prosciutto, capicola, pulled pork, al pastor, ribs, cochinita pibil, roast pork with crispy skin, pork belly, pancetta, bacon, osso bucco, German eisbein, chicharrones.

But my wife loves a good pork chop because her family used to eat them a lot, so I wasn’t surprised she selected one of the two different pork chop dishes on the menu: a maple-mustard-pretzel-crusted pork chop, served with Mary’s potatoes (whipped with butter and cream), an assortment of oven-roasted vegetables (including mushrooms, my old nemesis), and crispy onion strings I knew I would be eating, because she hates onions and I love them.

When it arrived, the plating was beautiful, and the pork chop was the thickest either of us had ever seen! She thought it was the tastiest pork chop she had ever eaten, and even I, the pork chop skeptic, was absolutely blown away by the few bites she shared with me. Pure perfection, dear readers. She doesn’t even like mustard, but aside from a few bites that really startled her and cleared out her sinuses (she probably bit down on whole mustard seeds), she loved the flavor. And it was so tender and juicy, despite not being a fatty piece of meat at all. It was easily the best pork chop I’ve ever tasted, and I would totally order it myself on a future visit, as long as I could substitute the vegetables for another side. (Our lovely server assured us the kitchen can usually substitute anything, since everything is made from scratch in-house.)

As much as my wife is drawn to hearty steaks and chops, my greatest meat loves are usually cured, smoked, braised, or stewed in a sauce until rich and tender. I always love short ribs, even though I rarely cook them at home (although I should). Cooper’s Hawk offered a braised short rib dish, as well as another dish with gnocchi pasta in a short rib bolognese sauce that also included pancetta (yes!) and San Marzano tomatoes, the best tomatoes. When I make my own sauce at home, I use canned San Marzanos. It makes a difference! Anyway, they make everything from scratch here, even the pasta, so I was sold. And even though I was experiencing major cognitive dissonance by choosing that over so many other tasty-sounding dishes I love, I’m so glad I did. To paraphrase the old knight guarding the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I chose wisely.

It was a better pasta dish than most that I’ve ordered from Italian restaurants, rich and hearty and extremely well-seasoned, with nice tomato chunks (sometimes I get turned off by huge, slimy tomato chunks in sauce), fork-tender short rib pieces, a bit of additional salty richness from the pancetta (a secret weapon I use in so many good recipes), and wonderfully chewy gnocchi dumplings. The white stuff on top is creamy burrata dolce, a fresh, buttery cheese made from mozzarella blended with cream.

I saw that a few of the dishes come with buttermilk onion rings, even though they weren’t listed on the menu as a side dish. I asked our server if I could order onion rings as a side, and she said yes, but they are big, so the order would only come with three of them. But since I have a little recurring feature I like to call RING THE ALARM! (AIR HOOORRRRRRN!), I had to try them. And guess what: they were magnificent onion rings. She wasn’t kidding when she said they were big. They were the size of sour cream glazed “old-fashioned” doughnuts! If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.

The onion rings (more like onion bracelets!) were battered, not breaded (thank all that’s good in the universe), with a rich, thick, crispy golden crust that stayed in place, with the slightest hint of sweetness and not greasy at all. I’ve never had such puffy, fluffy onion rings, but they were a marvel to behold. They weren’t served with any dipping sauces (shame, because I’m sure Cooper’s Hawk has some good ones), just sprinkled with some kind of salty seasoning that I must admit made they way too salty. I think they’d be damn near perfect if you ask them to hold the salty seasoning. Normally I enjoy salty fried foods, but it was a little much and took away from how great they were, otherwise.

Well, we couldn’t go to such a nice new place and not order a dessert! I was stuffed and didn’t even finish my gnocchi, but my wife loves chocolate and really wanted to try the chocolate cake. It is made with Valrhona chocolate, with layers of hazelnut ganache and served with vanilla ice cream, all made fresh daily in-house. I had one bite of ice cream and one bite of cake, and even though I’d probably never order chocolate cake as my dessert, both were great. The cake was very moist and the ice cream was rich and creamy, not icy at all, and no greasy mouthfeel. My wife seemed to love it, but she finished the ice cream and brought the majority of the cake home.

A funny thing we do at every single restaurant we visit is for me to ask my wife, usually rhetorically, if her parents would like the place. Most often, I could answer the question myself with a big fat “no.” They don’t go out to eat as much as they used to, and her mom is a relatively picky eater. Great lady, I love her to pieces, but she likes what she likes, and one thing she doesn’t like is trying new foods! (My own parents and brother read The Saboscrivner, and they often comment on how they probably wouldn’t go where I go or order what I order, but I appreciate them along with all my other readers. There are dozens of us! DOZENS!)

But anyway, when I asked if her parents would like Cooper’s Hawk, we both agreed that they probably would. So a week later, when we were celebrating my wife’s birthday, we were able to wrangle them out of the house for a celebratory dinner there — the first meal the four of us have had out at a restaurant since her birthday the previous year!

My wife doubled down on the masterful pork chop, getting it as one of the Build Your Own Surf and Turf options, pairing it with pistachio-crusted grouper (one of her favorite fish). She loved both, devouring the grouper on the spot and saving most of the pork chop for the next day. It came with the same Mary’s potatoes and vegetables as last time.

My father in law ordered the same pistachio-crusted grouper and seemed to love his.

My mother in law ordered crab cakes, one of her go-to dishes anywhere, and swapped the fries and Asian slaw for Mary’s potatoes and excellent macaroni and cheese. She has high expectations for her crab cakes, and these did not seem to disappoint. They were mostly lump crabmeat, with very little filler. (She asked and they answered!)

And after recently reading an article about Nashville hot chicken, which I enjoyed so much on a trip to the legendary Hattie B’s in Nashville last year, I decided to try Cooper’s Hawk’s version, served open-faced on a buttermilk biscuit with blue cheese slaw and a side of rich, creamy macaroni and cheese, which was one of the better mac and cheese dishes I’ve enjoyed anywhere in Orlando. The slaw wasn’t creamy and intense with blue cheese like I was hoping; the multicolored shredded cabbage was mostly dry.

I think the hot chicken was perfectly good, but it didn’t have the intense crunch, flavor, or heat of Hattie B’s, so my quest continues. It was barely spicy at all, but Hattie B’s hot chicken was practically too spicy for me, so I think it would be a little much for most unsuspecting Cooper’s Hawk diners. It came with a lot of sliced pickles, and I ate them all. I’ve traditionally never been a fan of pickles, but I’m trying to develop an appreciation for them by sampling all the different kinds of pickles I can. I love almost all other pickled vegetables (peppers, onions, giardinera), so I figure it’s only a matter of time. Readers, feel free to recommend pickles, whether they’re store-bought or from certain restaurants!

I am fully aware this is an awful picture, despite bringing my “good” camera. Sorry. Mea culpa. I think my photography has been better in general lately, but pobody’s nerfect.

My wife and her parents are big dessert people, so we were all psyched to see what Cooper’s Hawk might bring out in honor of my wife’s birthday. This is what she got: a lovely chocolate-covered strawberry and a white chocolate truffle. She wasn’t really into either, so I got to enjoy both:

After that, they went to town and shared a few desserts:

The same good chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream:

Very good, tart key lime pie in a graham cracker crust (my mother-in-law’s choice, and I only wish I had taken more than one bite):

And banoffee pie, which is a rich pie made with bananas and a gooey toffee filling, all nestled into a graham cracker crust. Very sweet, rich, and heavy. I should note that the fresh whipped cream on all these desserts had vanilla bean specks in it, and it was delicious. I could easily and happily just eat a big ol’ bowl of that whipped cream with a spoon and consider it a swell, satisfying dessert.

Trust me, the fact that we got my wife’s parents out to dinner at a new restaurant, and that they liked it, speaks volumes right there. Dear readers, if your parents visit Orlando and they balk at anything too unfamiliar, this would be a fantastic place to bring them. It would be a great date night restaurant, a happy hour spot with friends, or a place to kill time before or after a movie at Waterford Lakes. It’s not cheap, but every single thing we tasted was remarkable, and the service was superb on both of our visits. And if you like wine, then face it, Tiger, you just hit the jackpot! If I had to compare it to anything, it would be the ambiance and upscale feeling of Hillstone with the expansive depth of the Cheesecake Factory menu (but better quality across the board). My Best Food Friend has never steered me wrong, and he was completely on the money with Cooper’s Hawk.

Boston’s Fish House

I crave seafood pretty much all the time. I don’t think it’s a shellfish impulse, but I like to say I’m on a seafood diet — if I see food, I’ll eat it, especially if it’s seafood.

While Orlando isn’t swimming in an abundance of seafood restaurants like our neighboring cities on Florida’s two coasts, we have a few local favorites. Shortly after we started dating back in 2006, my wife and her parents introduced me to Boston’s Fish House (http://www.bostonsfishhouse.com/Home). Modeled after the coastal seafood establishments of New England rather than beachy, tropical Florida seafood shacks, Boston’s specializes in fried favorites: shrimp, scallops, fresh fish (usually cod and/or haddock, but also farm-raised catfish), oysters, and clams. But if you don’t want your denizens of the deep deep-fried, they also offer broiled salmon, pan-seared mahi, and even a chilled Maine-style lobster salad sandwich, which you probably know better as a lobstah roll.

However, my in-laws always opt for the seafood combo platter, which comes with a mountain of fried shrimp, scallops, fish, onion rings, and a choice of oysters, clam strips, or whole belly clams, a rare treat that you rarely see at any Florida seafood restaurants. Oh, and you get two sides with it too! This platter comes in two sizes, the smaller Mate’s Platter and the larger Captain’s Platter. You get more than enough food for two hungry people to share if you order the Captain’s Platter, so it’s just a question of everybody being on the same page. For example, my mother-in-law doesn’t like scallops so she asks them to substitute extra fish. My wife and I agree that the fish is the blandest part, so I’ll usually ask if we could get clams AND oysters but no fish. They are always really cool and patient regarding these substitutes.

Be warned in advance: Boston’s gets REALLY crowded in the evening, especially on Fridays and weekends, especially with the “early bird crowd.” Most of the time, I’ll call in a takeout order and pick it up, bypassing the long lines that queue up.

On our most recent visit, I ordered two platters but decided to experiment a little, beyond the fried standards. No matter what, the clams and oysters are served fried, along with the onion rings. Here they are:

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the onion rings, since this is a recurring Saboscrivner feature we like to call RING THE ALARM! [Insert AIR HORN NOISE! here.] A lot of people go ga-ga over Boston’s thin, crispy onion rings, sporting the same batter as their fried seafood. I like them, I certainly enjoy eating them (usually dipped in their tartar sauce or ketchup), but I just can’t rank them among my favorite onion rings, which are generally more of a beer-battered style.

But moving past the fried stuff, you have some options with the shrimp and scallops, beyond just getting them dipped in the same old batter and fried. One of our favorites is to get them broiled in butter and topped with crushed Ritz crackers, which happen to be my favorite crackers and the not-so-secret ingredient in my favorite pie recipe. Here are those beautiful, buttery, broiled crustaceans and mollusks from my wife’s order:

I happened to be craving pasta this particular evening, so I thought I’d get the food home and make some fettuccine really quickly, then toss it with my shrimp and scallops that were broiled in garlic butter and white wine:They came out great, needless to say.

Since we ordered two platters, we got four sides between them, and my wife and I both love the broccoli salad they make at Boston’s: crispy, fresh broccoli florets tossed in a sweet, creamy dressing with bacon, golden raisins, and pumpkin seeds. It’s delicious and refreshing, and it makes us feel like we are eating slightly healthier, because broccoli.

But who are we kidding? Between the plethora of fried foods, rich shellfish, and all that butter, they also make really nice garlic bread, which I can never refuse when we indulge at Boston’s:

So that’s pretty much it. I don’t even remember the last time we ate at the actual restaurant, but we live just close enough to Boston’s that the food is still hot by the time I get it home. Always hot, and always good. Stop by, just for the halibut.

And now I feel like I’m floundering, so I will clam up.

The Coop

John Rivers has built a successful restaurant empire from right here in the Orlando area, starting with his first, tiny 4 Rivers Smokehouse location in Winter Park that grew into an empire throughout Florida and even beyond. We love 4 Rivers for barbecue, and I will get around to reviewing it here eventually, even though we’ve been there countless times over the last decade.

Mr. Rivers founded The Coop (https://asouthernaffair.com/), his Southern home-cookin’ restaurant, back in 2014, also in Winter Park. I made it our goal to be there on opening day, and my wife and I were within the first 20 or so people lined up for lunch that first day. At some point they started serving breakfast, and one morning a few years back, we met John Rivers, the man himself. We had to gush a bit over how much we love 4 Rivers and The Coop, and I can tell you he could not have been friendlier, more down-to-Earth, more humble, or more welcoming. He even treated us to breakfast that morning, which he did NOT have to do. He does a lot of charitable work with these restaurants as well, and is an all-around mensch.

Anyway, The Coop serves some of the best fried chicken in Orlando and all kinds of down-home Southern sides and other dishes. Chicken and waffles? Chicken and dumplings? Roasted chicken? Shrimp and grits? Fried seafood? Pimento cheese? Biscuits? Cornbread? Delicious breakfasts? Decadent desserts? You name it, they have it.

I have lost count of the times we’ve been there since it opened five years ago. I have also brought my best friend from Miami there, and lots of co-workers as well. This review is based on our two most recent visits.

Even though I love a good fried chicken thigh, The Coop’s roasted chicken is quite good, so I’ve been ordering it more often. You can get a quarter- or half-chicken a la carte, or with two or three sides and a biscuit or cornbread. I always get collard greens at The Coop and 4 Rivers. Theirs are some of the best greens I’ve ever had. They are slow-cooked with smoked pork, and I always add some generous dashes of pepper vinegar to them. I can even drink the juice when I finish those greens, it is that delicious. That square thing below is actually a biscuit, and it is flaky and rich. Feel free to add butter, jam, syrup, or dip it in your meat juices or barbecue sauce, but it doesn’t need anything.

Thighs and legs are my favorite parts of any bird, so I always go for the dark meat quarter chicken (or sometimes the half, if I’m hungry enough). The skin is attached, brushed with barbecue sauce or some kind of sweet glaze but not smoked like the chicken at 4 Rivers. It is always moist, juicy, and tender. I asked for it with a side of Alabama white barbecue sauce, which might look like ranch and smell like ranch, but BROTHER, it ain’t ranch. It is creamy, peppery, tangy, and subtly sweet, so it goes well with any kind of chicken, especially with that skin.

I also chose the side called “Hoppin’ John,” a Southern stew of rice, black-eyed peas, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and okra. It is always okay, never quite as good as I think it’s going to be, but some people go gaga over this dish.

My wife loves fried catfish more than anyone I’ve ever met, so she vacillates between ordering fried chicken and catfish at The Coop. She ordered catfish both of our last two visits, which comes with grits and hush puppies. These are grits cooked the real, traditional way, as “NO SELF-RESPECTIN’ SOUTHERNER USES INSTANT GRITS.” The Coop takes pride in its grits!

This was from one visit:

And this was from a different visit. This time, the hush puppies came out later, hot, crispy, and fresh. She’s not so big on hush puppies, which is great, because I ate them, dipping them in the remoulade sauce that came with the catfish. (She has never been into condiments or sauces or dipping things in other things, whereas I obsess over that.)

As for me, I switched things around and created a new dish. I’m not wild about grits, believe it or not, which is ironic because I love the way shrimp is prepared in shrimp and grits, that classic Low Country cuisine dish from the Carolinas and Georgia, stewed with salty, smoky andouille sausage and sometimes tasso ham. Totally kosher, am I right?

I had a crazy idea, but I didn’t know if they would let me get away with it. I asked if I could get the shrimp with something other than grits, and the patient girl told me that some people get the shrimp ladled over white rice. I had other plans that day, and asked if I could get the shrimp over macaroni and cheese! (The Coop has really nice, creamy macaroni and cheese, by the way. It is never dried-out.) She indulged me, and this is something they should seriously add to the menu, because it was forking amazing. In fact, inspired by my bravado and culinary creativity, the older gentleman in line behind me requested the same thing! Dear readers, have I become a dreaded “influencer”? Say it ain’t so!

And they always have beautiful cakes there, so my wife got this piece of chocolate cake wrapped up to go, which she loved.

So yeah, come to The Coop for the excellent fried chicken, but stay for everything else! Just don’t bother showing up on Sundays, because it is closed. Of course, now I have incepted the idea into your heads that you will crave Coop food on Sundays, as we too often do.

My Top Five Dishes of 2018 list made the Orlando Weekly!

I’ve been a huge fan of the Orlando Weekly ever since I first moved here in 2004. Now this city is my home, and if my finger is ever on the pulse of local culture, the Weekly is a major reason why.

In 2017, they offered me my first professional gig as a food writer when they asked me to list my Top Five Dishes of 2017. It was a huge honor for me, and I’ve been coasting on it all year.

I recently had the opportunity to make a new list for the Orlando Weekly, with my Top Five Dishes of 2018, and they were kind enough to even link to this very blog! Please check it out, and check out my Saboscrivner reviews of these excellent local restaurants as well:

LaSpada’s Original Cheese Steaks and Hoagies

Kai Asian Street Fare

Cappadocia Turkish Cuisine

Poke Hana

Orlando Meats