Grease in West Palm Beach, FL

I was in West Palm Beach and had dinner at a restaurant called Grease. They had a sports bar vibe in the restaurant, only much more upscale than the typical sports bars that I've visited. I didn't know this before visiting the restaurant, but Grease has the same owners as Rocco's Tacos across the street.

I ordered the Seared Rare Tuna Sliders, topped with wasabi-mayo, pickled ginger, and cilantro. These three sandwiches were very tasty, except they weren't served rare as advertized on the menu. I was actually debating whether I should trust seafood that isn't fully cooked from a burger place before ordering, so I was perfectly fine with tuna burgers that were served well-done. If you're going to call something a seared rare tuna slider though, I would expect the tuna burger to still be pink on the inside. Regardless, these sliders were still really good and I did enjoy them.

I did enjoy the sliders, but just like Rocco's across the street, everything here was a bit pricy. For the prices they charged, including fries with their sandwiches would have been nice. Overall, Grease was alright, but nothing worth going out of my way to visit again.

Gatorville Pool Bar & Restaurant at Wyndham Orlando Resort

I was invited to try the new Gatorville Pool Bar & Restaurant at Wyndham Orlando Resort. The Wyndham Orlando is a sprawling hotel at the intersection of International Drive and Sand Lake Road. They are currently under renovations and will eventually be connected to the new I-Drive Live complex that is being built on the site once occupied by the Mercado mall. I was quickly escorted to the pool when I arrived at the Wyndham. The Gatorville Pool Bar overlooks two of the swimming pools at the hotel and I was greeted with appetizers.These included shrimp and veggie spring rolls as well as skewers of beef and chicken satay. The appetizers were good, but much better food was on the way.

A tray of sushi and summer rolls were soon served to the table. The dinner was described as having Floribbean style foods, but so far everything had an Asian theme. I was good with that and always enjoy some sushi. I tried the summer rolls, California rolls, spicy tuna rolls, and soft-shell crab (spider rolls?).

Salads followed the sushi. First up was a spinach and goat cheese salad with rye bread croutons.

Next was a pasta salad topped with salmon. It seemed the food was fitting more and more into that Floribbean description.

Once the appetizers and salads were finished, the main courses were served. There were these Lollipop Lamb Chops cooked in garlic, rosemary, sugar and vinegar. The meat was nice and tender!

Then there was this plate of Crispy Fried Snapper and Prawns. The snapper was one of my favorite foods of the night and the size of the prawns was amazing! I would have mistaken them for spiny lobster if the menu didn't say otherwise!

Various sides were served as well. The jalapeno cornbread was very moist and tasty.  

 

I enjoyed the pot stickers. But then again, it's rare that I find a dumpling that I don't like.

Tostones were also served. I honestly can't say I've had enough of these mashed and fried plantains to be a good judge of them, but I liked these.

Bananas Foster was served for dessert. It was cooked at this station where the chef flambeed the bananas.

The bananas were then served over crepes filled with vanilla ice cream. Ice cream crepes are awesome...

And with that, my meal at the Gatorville Pool Bar was complete. I enjoyed both the food and the dining experience in general. I've gone to other local hotels in the past for dinner, but the Wyndham was completely off my radar for some reason. Now that I know about it, I just might have to stop in again for another meal some day!

Wildside BBQ in Kissimmee, FL

Wildside BBQ is a local chain in the Orlando area. I was recently near Disney on 192 and decided to give the Wildside in Kissimmee a try. It wasn't until halfway through the meal that it clicked that this was the same restaurant as the Wildside BBQ in Thornton Park or College Park (neither of which I have tried). They also apparently own Pacino's a few miles up the road on 192. Three barbecues and an Italian restaurant is an interesting combination... 

 

I went with something simple and ordered a pulled pork sandwich with a side of mashed potatoes. The pork was nice and tender and was topped with a squirt of sauce. The potatoes were mashed with the skin, which I always like.

Overall, my meal at Wildside BBQ was good. I'd go back here, although next time I'll probably try one of their non-barbeque items on the menu.

Downtown Pizza/Off the Traxx in Melbourne, FL

Downtown Pizza is a restaurant in the historic section of Downtown Melbourne. This tiny shop doesn't exactly have an inside and pizza is ordered from a window on the street. The weird thing is, nobody knows what I'm talking about if I mention Downtown Pizza. Regardless of the signage outside and having their own storefront, people seem to refer to this place as Off the Traxx, which is the connected bar located next door. Perhaps if I went to Off the Traxx for drinks before pizza I'd be referring to this place this way too, but why do that when I'm coming for some really good pizza by the slice?

The slices from Downtown Pizza are good sized with a really thin, crispy crust. The sauce and cheese always seem to have a good ratio, and are overall cooked to perfection on my visits.

The white pizza is also really good, with no sauce and big pools of ricotta cheese.

This continues my trend of finding exceptional pizza in Melbourne. Still haven't figured out why this area of Florida seems to have a disproportionate amount of good, NY style pizzas as opposed to Orlando where pizza seems to be disappointing more often than not. Old Skool Pizza and now Downtown Pizza. I wonder what good pizza will be discussed on this blog next?

Wall Street Cantina in Orlando, FL

Wall Street in Downtown Orlando: It is a short block of bars and restaurants, many with the same owner, and most not worth visiting for the food based on my experience. On a recent cold night, I had dinner at one of these bars/restaurants called the Wall Street Cantina.

I was here once a couple years ago and the food was forgettable. On this visit, I tried the Orange Ave Tostada and the food this time was much tastier than I remembered. Three crispy tortillas were layered with shredded chicken, refried beans, cheese, sauce, and topped with lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and sour cream. For a Mexican themed bar, this tostada was surprisingly tasty. Even though it looked very messy, I think I'd get this again on a future visit...

Sandbar Sports Grill in Cocoa Beach, FL

When I ate at this restaurant back in 2011, I was under the impression that I was eating at Captain J's Ocean Deck. Apparently Captain J's is the restaurant next door. I have since found out that this blog post is actually about Sandbar Sports Grill. Read on:

Sandbar Sports Grill is a bar in Cocoa Beach located a block away from Ron Jon. I wasn't expecting much when I ordered a pizza from a place like this, but it turned out to be surprisingly good. The crust was thin, bubbly in spots, and almost cracker-like. Cheese and sauce were in good proportion and had good flavor. Definitely not a bad pizza for a beachside bar...

Tailgaters Smokehouse at UCF

I ate at Tailgaters Smokehouse in the shopping area surrounding the UCF Arena in Orlando. Tailgators is a sports bar, and the as my meal progressed, the restaurant fit perfectly into the stereotype of sports bars having bad food. But it wasn't just the food, service was bad here too.

I ordered a Chicken Cheesesteak sandwich, served with tater tots. After a very long wait with a very inattentive waitress, our food was finally served. The sandwich was a bit smaller than I was expecting and was very bland. Couldn't taste any seasoning whatsoever on the chicken and the bread reminded me a bit too much of a hot dog roll than what cheesesteaks are normally served on. I did like the tater tots though.

While the sandwich wasn't all that, definitely not worth the $12 it cost me total for the meal, it was edible and I finished the food. I really shouldn't have finished though because the food left some sort of coating on the inside of my mouth that I could not get rid off. It was a slimy feeling and tasted sort of bitter. Drinking water would not remove it. Eating something else didn't get rid of the coating, and brushing my teeth (multiple times) didn't help either. Whatever this was, it was very unpleasant and I can't say I've experienced a bad taste in my mouth that was so persistent elsewhere. Interestingly enough, I kept this to myself until a few hours later when a friend brought up the bad taste in her mouth from her grilled chicken sandwich...

Moral of the story: Avoid the chicken from Tailgaters.

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...

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!

Beef O' Brady's Cuban Sandwich

My Cuban Sandwich from Beef O' Brady's in Deltona, Florida wasn't very authentic. Compared to other Cuban sandwiches that I've eaten, this was more along the lines of a ham sandwich with pickles. There was no roast pork here, but that's what you get when Cuban food is ordered at an Irish sports bar. Not that the restaurant was even very Irish. The only food on the menu that seemed remotely Irish was the fish and chips, but there were plenty of American hamburgers. For what it was, the sandwich was decent tasting, but was nothing that will have me rushing back to visit Beef O' Brady's again soon...

Kook Sports Bar

I was doing something at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel just outside of Downtown Disney. It was dinner time, so I ate food from Kook Sports Bar inside of the hotel. I really don't like sports bars all that much, with the TVs all over, and food that's generally not all that good. The only other option inside of the hotel was a restaurant called The Outback (not connected to the steakhouse chain) which charged far too much for what I saw on the menu. Kook Sports Bar also was really overpriced, but was far less than the Outback. Going by the location, the high price has to be somewhat expected.


I ordered the Blackened Grouper Sandwich. The waitress told me it was the best thing on the menu, but it tasted average to me. Nothing was wrong with the sandwich, but it was nothing special either, and definitely not worth the $14.95 price tag. It consisted of a piece of blackened grouper on a sesame bun with lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. Fries, ketchup, and tarter sauce came on the side.

Besides from the high prices, I had no major complaints about the food, but there was nothing special about the place that would get me to return to Kook Sports Bar any time soon. They will do fine without me with all of the Disney tourists...