Harmoni Market in College Park, FL

I ate lunch at Harmoni Market in Orlando's College Park neighborhood during an unexpected detour caused from an I-4 closure. The service was a bit weird when we entered, the group of employees standing at the bar ignored us for a few minutes until someone finally told us to sit anywhere. This awkwardness was followed by a drink being served in a cup covered in lipstick stains, but after the initial weirdness, the food and service were good.

I ordered the Rockin Goat Flatbread. It consisted of rock shrimp, arugula, goat cheese, homemade mozzarella, and tomato sauce all on a whole wheat flatbread (baked by the Olde Hearth Bread Company). Although they called it a flatbread, it was technically a variation of a pizza. Seafood and pizza combinations always seem strange to me, but I liked this a lot. I'd gladly get it again! My only real complaint was that Harmoni was really stingy with the goat cheese. For a flatbread with goat in the name, I was expecting less mozzarella and more goat cheese crumbles.

When looking over Harmoni Market's menu, it seemed to be somewhat overpriced (especially on the sandwiches). Since I shared the flatbread and there were plenty of rock shrimp on it, what I ordered wasn't too bad. It came out to about $5 a person and filled me up.

Asian Buffet in Orlando, FL

I tried a restaurant creatively named Asian Buffet on Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, FL. It was your standard Chinese buffet, although they did have some unusual foods that I haven't seen on other similar buffets.

I started out by trying some of the Chinese standards. Lo mein, chicken with broccoli, shrimp, bok choy, and and egg roll. None of it was exceptional, but none of it tasted horrible either. It was middle of the road Chinese buffet food.
Next up at Asian Buffet, I tried some of the assorted dim sum style dumplings that I cannot properly name. There were pork dumplings (I liked them the best). The ball that resembles a hard boiled egg was filled with a sweet bean paste. The other two sugar coated dumplings were also quite sweet, but I didn't like their spongy consistency.

Finally, I tried some of Asian Buffet's sushi items. I find eating raw fish from buffets to be a scary thought, so I stuck with only items that were cooked here. I had some ebi Nigiri, inari filled with seaweed salad, and a delicious purple seaweed salad. I find this purple seaweed to be delicious, but it seems really rare that a restaurant will be serving it. From Google, it looks like this was either kombu or hijiki.

Anthony's Pizza in Casselberry, FL

The last time I ate at Anthony's Pizza was way back when smoking was still allowed in Florida restaurants. I don't remember much about the food, just that the smoking/non-smoking sections did nothing in the small restaurant. The place smelled horribly like an ashtray and left me with no desire to return any time soon.

Fast forward to 2009. After receiving several email recommendations that Anthony's has the best pizza around, I decided to go back and give them another try. Anthony's had a wait when I walked in, so that was a good sign about having good food. The servers initially seemed really flustered by the amount of people in the restaurant, but overall, the service was okay. The half spinach, half meatball pizza that we ordered came out pretty quick. It was a really good pizza with a nice thin crust, a good sauce/cheese ratio, and it was pretty tasty. The sauce had a bit of a strange flavor that I couldn't quite place, but it was otherwise pretty good. I'd gladly get another pizza from Anthony's!

Carlos 'n Charlie's in Lake Mary, FL

I tried the new Carlos 'n Charlie's in Lake Mary, FL. Carlos 'n Charlie's is a chain based out of Mexico that currently has two locations in the United States. Given the entire United States to pick from, how a chain in Mexico chooses to open a restaurant in Lake Mary's upscale Heathrow neighborhood is beyond me.

Tortilla chips in a paper bag and a bowl of salsa were served first. Pretty standard, although the salsa was a little too chunky for my liking. For the meal, I ordered Shrimp Baja Tacos. Or at least I thought I did. On the menu, it had a choice of fish OR shrimp tacos. The tacos I got had both fish AND shrimp. I didn't mind since I was having trouble deciding between the fish and shrimp when looking over the menu, but I could definitely see people having issues with getting both. Besides from the fried seafood, the tacos were filled with cabbage, onions, refried beans, and were served with a cup of really sweet sauce. The tacos did taste okay, but weren't worth the price in my opinion. At $13, I really would have expected some sort of side with the tacos, especially since you can get better seafood tacos elsewhere for more than half the price!

I also found it interesting that Carlos 'n Charlie's had a DJ playing music, but I couldn't hear what was being played. The noise level in the restaurant was so obsenely loud that I had trouble hearing the people sitting across the table from me. I couldn't tell what the DJ was playing, I just knew there was some sort of music adding to the ambient noise pollution. Perhaps the noise levels wouldn't have been an issue if I was drunk like many of the restaurant's other patrons at the surrounding tables...

Piper's Downtown in Orlando, FL

I was in Downtown Orlando and tried a new restaurant called Piper's Downtown in The Plaza. Based on the coming soon sign in their window, I'm assuming they weren't officially open yet. I ate there anyway...

Piper's is a sports bar, and as much as I don't like the environment in these type restaurants, I was mostly pleased with the food. We ordered a pizza, and being that this was bar pizza rather than Italian restaurant pizza, I wasn't expecting much. Sometimes in a sports bar like this, a pizza will consist of something frozen that was microwaved just for you. When the pizza was served, I was actually really surprised that Piper's makes real pizza, and it was pretty good! The pizza had a nice thin crust with a perfect proportion of cheese to sauce. I found the sauce to be somewhat flavorless, but besides from that, I was happy with the pizza!

I found out from the Orlando Sentinel Last Call Blog that this location in The Plaza was originally a NYPD Pizza. That kind of explains why Piper's has a pizza oven.

Afterwards, we walked over and watched the Creedence Clearwater Revisited concert that was going on up the street in front of City Hall. It was somewhat sad to watch...

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Taco Bell's Black Jack Taco on Halloween

On Halloween, Taco Bell was giving out their Black Jack Tacos for free from 6pm till midnight. After I was done with my Halloween fun for the night, I ventured over to the nearest Taco Bell to try their newest featured food item.

The taco had a black taco shell which was completely purposeless. It tasted just like a normal taco shell, and I highly doubt Taco Bell used blue corn for the color. It's probably a whole lot of food coloring. The inside of the taco was a standard beef taco with lettuce and cheese, along with the addition of a pepper jack sauce. It tasted like a slightly spicy ranch dressing. Besides from the sauce and the colored shell, this Black Jack Taco was pretty much a normal Taco Bell taco. Taco Bell tacos aren't something I eat very often, but it did taste okay. I can't complain about the price either...

Happy Halloween

What happened to the trick or treaters? Two years ago, over 100 came through collecting candy. This year, only 19. Still better than last year's 10...

Gatorland's Gator Hallow

I went to Gatorland for their Gator Hallow Halloween event. Since no visit to an alligator farm would be complete without tasting gator meat, I ordered some Fried Gator Nuggets from the snack bar before tour left (it turned out Gatorland doesn't actually raise alligators for meat). I really liked the deep fried alligator, especially with hot sauce. The saying goes that gator tastes like chicken, but the truth is that it really does. In terms of taste, consistency, and look, gator tail and chicken does look a whole lot alike. Not too surprising though since reptiles and poultry aren't that far off. Chickens are a close living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex...

Once I finished eating my alligator, the tour started. While I was disappointed by Halloween Horror Nights at Universal this year, I was surprising pleased with Gator Hallow. For $10, they gave a really entertaining tour that was really well done. Having a tour with different guides along the way to move the story along definitely adds something to the experience that you don't get in the standard Halloween maze where you just wander through while people jump out and shout boo. Gatorland had plenty of hoards of zombies, aliens, bigfoot, and of course, gators...


I'd gladly do Gator Hallow again next year...

Devil McDonald's in Orlando, FL

Late one night, I found myself in the Sand Turkey District of Orlando. I was sort of hungry, and the person I was with suggested Mcdonald's. As we pulled up, I recognized the location as the devil Mcdonald's pointed out on the Tasty Chomps blog. I'm fascinated by pareidolia, or the tendency of the human brain to see faces in inanimate objects, so I enjoyed the outside of this McDonald's building. Looking at the front of the building, I see eyes, a big grin, and red glowing devil horns. Perfect for Halloween, but could it be foreshadowing at how the food might taste?

This is a Bistro Gourmet McDonald's, meaning they serve much better tasting food than your average McDonald's. The only problem with the Bistro Gourmet McDonald's is that the Bistro Gourmet part of the kitchen is almost always closed whenever I'm at one of these locations. That leaves your standard McDonald's menu as the only choice.

Person I was with ordered some fries. I had a few, tasted okay, like fast food French fries should.

I decided to try a BBQ Grilled Chicken Snack Wrap. It consisted of chicken, lettuce, cheese, and barbecue sauce wrapped in a tortilla. They were really heavy with the sauce, leaving a puddle of the spicy sauce in the lower half of the wrap. The grilled chicken had a strange consistency, reminded me of boiled chicken from Chinese restaurants. It definitely didn't seem grilled to me. Overall, the wrap wasn't horrible. It was far better than some of the other sandwiches I've eaten from McDonald's. I would have preferred something off of the Bistro Gourmet menu though...

Louie's Pizza at Halloween Horror Nights

Since it's the week of Halloween, this week's posts will all be Halloween themed that somehow relate to food. Starting out, Louie's Pizza at Halloween Horror Nights:
I went to Halloween Horror Nights 19 at Universal Studios on their opening weekend this year. They had a movie theater usher as their main character this year, as well as characters from big feature films like Saw, Chucky, and the Wolfman.

The new roller coaster at the park wasn't open. Going for a ride was one of my main reasons for going to Halloween Horror Nights this year! They were running empty trains all evening, but for whatever reason they didn't have the ride open for riders.

It was nothing new, but for dinner I had a pizza from Louie's in the New York area of the park. I always thought Louie's pizza was pretty good in terms of theme park pizza, but this particular pizza was a little subpar. The crust seemed way too doughy, almost undercooked. Cheese and sauce were good, but the crust definitely could have been baked a few more minutes.


As for the rest of Halloween Horror Nights, I was pretty disappointed. Haunted houses weren't anything special. The scare zones in the streets were almost non-existent compared to what they did last year. There was no magician this year, and on top of that, hardly any rides were open. Regardless, here's two monster pictures I took...


Was I disappointed by the theme park Halloween event? Yes! Would I go again? Most likely!

Olde Hearth Bread Company in Casselbery, FL

I came across a bakery that makes really good bread in an industrial park in Casselbery, FL called Olde Hearth Bread Company. While they weren't much of a retail store, they seemed more than happy to sell me a few loaves of bread when I visited. Olde Hearth appears to do most of their business by supplying bread to other local restaurants.

I tried their NY style rye bread, a few semolina rolls, and a loaf of chocolate mango bread. I think the rye was my favorite. Not only was the loaf of bread huge for the low price they charged, it tasted really good and had plenty of caraway seeds in the loaf, just like a good rye bread should.

The semolina rolls were my least favorite. Still pretty good though, although I've had better elsewhere...

The chocolate mango bread definitely was the most unique. It had pieces of chocolate and dried mango baked into the bread. I found the bread was really good toasted so the chocolate got all soft topped with some butter. Apparently they bake this bread for the Tusker House Restaurant at Animal Kingdom.

Cody Jack's Seafood in Clermont, FL

I ate at Cody Jack's Seafood in Clermont, FL, not far from the Citrus Tower. Before entering the restaurant, I snapped a picture of the S.S. Oyster Bar in Cody Jack's parking lot.

Inside, Cody Jack's was a bit more of a bar than I was expecting. They had a very loud football games playing on their projection screens. Lots of alcohol was flowing, and eventually a band began to set up. For some reason, I wasn't getting the bar vibe from the outside of the restaurant. It wasn't a big deal though.

I ordered a crab cake dinner. It came with two really good crab cakes, really flavorful and plenty of crab meat in them. For the two sides, I choose the collard greens and cheese grits. I realized after ordering that my sides seemed really southern, not that it matters. The collards were bitter and could have used some more flavoring, but I liked the grits. You can't go wrong with cornmeal mixed with cheese!

I enjoyed my meal at Cody Jack's!

While writing this post, I found out this restaurant has a miniature golf course out back. If I knew that, I would have played a round of golf!

Twistee Treat in Lakeland, FL

When you want to eat ice cream, what better place to get it from than a giant fiberglass ice cream cone?

I stopped at the Twistee Treat in Lakeland, FL late one night and got soft serve strawberry ice cream in a waffle cone. The ice cream didn't taste very much like strawberry, but I've noticed this is often the case in ice cream shops that can make several flavors out of a single soft serve machine. It seems they add more color to the vanilla ice cream than actual flavor.

Although the strawberry ice cream tasted like pink vanilla, it was still pretty cool ordering ice cream from a piece of classic roadside architecture...

Firehouse Subs in Lake Mary, FL

Somehow I ended up on Firehouse Subs' birthday list, so I received a coupon for a free medium sub in the mail for my most recent birthday.
I went to the Firehouse Subs in Lake Mary, FL and ordered a turkey sandwich. Perhaps this picture was taken at a bad angle because it looks like the pickle was just as big as the sandwich. The sandwich was definitely bigger...

It was a pretty good sandwich, with turkey, cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, and onions on wheat bread. My only complaint was that the sandwich could have been toasted more. Interestingly enough, on my last visit to Firehouse Subs, they toasted the sandwich to the point of having burnt bread. Either way, I liked it!