Thai Thani in Celebration, FL

I had dinner at Thai Thani in Celebration. Located in a space which was once one of the last few holdouts of Gooding's Supermarkets, Thai Thani has no resemblance to once being a food store. The restaurant was about half full when I ate there, yet all the servers were acting flustered and apologizing about how overwhelmed they were. It was strange to see all the servers act like this, when in all actuality, the service was fine besides all the apologizing.

I had the Chicken Red Curry. This was a coconut milk based curry with string beans, eggplant, basil, bell peppers, peas, and bamboo shoots. Steamed rice was served on the side. It was pretty standard for a Thai restaurant curry dish, which is good. Only complaint was that I ordered the dish with medium spice and it had no heat at all. Still tasty though. I'd eat here again.

UK Food #2: More London (Rock & Sole Plaice, The Rajdoot, Cinnamon, Marlborough Head, and Kabab & Burgers)

This is part two of food from London. A friend who grew up in London gave me a list of foods he misses now that he's in the US. The list included fish & chips, curries, Yorkshire pudding, and donor kabab. This post is about eating foods from that list in London...

Rock & Sole Plaice:

This is where I had fish & chips in England. They were located near Covent Gardens, but seemed to be a few blocks outside the really touristy area. I was told I should get fish and chips from a restaurant specializing in the food rather than eating it in a pub or elsewhere. Rock & Sole Plaice fit this criteria.

I ordered what I was supposed to. The portions were huge, as they should be because this was one of the most expensive meals I had on my trip. The fish was bigger than the plate, deep fried in a crispy batter. It was tasty, but I think I had my expectations a little too high for having a stereotypical British food in London. It tasted like fish & chips, but nothing mindblowingly different from fish & chips in the US. Especially for the price here, it was just okay...

I also wasn't a big fan of the fake malt vinegar served with the fish & chips. There was a bottle of malt vinegar flavored sauce on the table which I'm assuming was this. It was much weaker than actual vinegar and lacked the sourness. If I'm eating authentic fish & chips in London, I want actual malt vinegar to pour all over everything!

I got the tip later on that you'll find some really good fish & chips if you take a train to Brighton. Makes sense getting better seafood at a beach...

The Rajdoot:

In order to cross curry off the list, I got the recommendation to try The Rajdoot. This Indian restaurant had a small ground level dining room with more seating in the basement. It took me a moment to realize that I was hearing mostly American accents coming from the other diners in here. The restaurant was recommended to be by another American tourist. It was strange and the only place where I noticed this happening on my trip. 

I was trying to decide between lamb or chicken and the server recommended a dish called the Rajdoot since it came with both. Can't go wrong with a dish named after the restaurant. This was lamb and chicken tikka with onions and tomatoes. It was very tasty and wasn't one of the standard Indian restaurant menu items where you could get anywhere.

Cinnamon:

My second Indian food experience in London was at a restaurant called Cinnamon. This was located on Brick Lane, which was a neighborhood lined with Curry Houses. Like New York's East Village Little India neighborhood, each restaurant had someone outside trying to get you to dine at their establishment. A restaurant called Cinnamon won my business for the evening. The meal started with papadum and sauces being brought to the table. Pretty standard as far as these go in Indian restaurants. What I wasn't expecting was the upcharge for this on the bill when it was automatically brought to the table.

I ordered the Butter Chicken as my main course. There's no competition for this one. This was the worst butter chicken I've ever had. There was no detectable flavor besides butter and the sauce kind of separated resulting in a pool of melted butter over everything else. I've had butter chicken plenty of times before and have always liked it, but unfortunately I didn't finish most of this particular dish.

If I find myself back at Brick Lane again in the future, I don't think I'll be visiting Cinnamon...

Marlborough Head:

In order to cross Yorkshire pudding off the list of British foods to try, I had to figure out where to get it because I wasn't finding it on menus. Turns out Yorkshire pudding is a side item served with Sunday Roasts in pubs. When Sunday came along, I took myself to a pub called the Marlborough Head.

The Sunday Roast came with sliced lamb, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, peas and carrots, and the Yorkshire pudding. The lamb was nice and tender, drenched in gravy with an accompanying mint sauce. The rest of the sides were pretty standard and tasted as they should. The Yorkshire pudding ended up being pretty much equivalent to what I know as a popover. I like popovers, so I enjoyed the Yorkshire pudding and I was able to cross it off my list.

Kebab & Burgers:

My experience with a doner kebab was from a booth called Kebab & Burgers in the Camden Lock Market. This was another very cool market that I found accidentally. There was all sorts of booths selling foods and products located under railroad bridges and in old horse stables surrounding a lock in the nearby Regent's Canal. 

The doner kabob was basically a gyro. Lamb cooked on a rotating spit was wrapped in a flatbread with lettuce, pickled vegetables, and sauces. Very tasty...

I actually had doner kebabs a couple more times while in London, but somehow lack pictures of them. Even the ones from very middle eastern neighborhoods were similar to this, with the main difference between them being the breads. The other two had everything stuffed inside a pita instead of wrapped in a flatbread.

Long Island Asian Food (Chaba Thai Cuisine and Tony's Sushi)

Here's a couple more restaurants from my travels. Today we're going to be visiting a couple restaurants in Long Island, NY serving Asian food. We'll start in Long Beach for some Thai food...

Chaba Thai Cuisine in Long Beach, NY:

Chaba is located in downtown Long Beach. They were a small restaurant but they were very busy with both people dining in and take out.

I had the Chicken Curry Noodles. I was a little afraid that this might be a boring dish of chicken, noodles, and sauce from how the menu described it. Luckily, this turned out to be a beautiful bowl of deliciousness. There was plenty of variety with lots of vegetables mixed in, arranged in a very structural fashion. The sauce was very tasty. No complaints about this meal.

Tony's Sushi in East Moriches, NY:

I had dinner on another evening at a restaurant called Tony's Sushi. They had the menu split into three different sections. One each for Japanese, Chinese, and Thai food.

I had the Singapore Mei Fun. There was a nice presentation with an orchid served alongside the mound of noodles, but the portion was a bit small for the price. The noodles tasted fine, although there really wasn't anything that made them stand apart from other noodle dishes I've had either. The annoying part of this meal was the employee's apparently urgent need to clear the tables. From the beginning of the meal when we were served noodles with duck sauce, all they wanted to know if they could take that away for us. Someone else ordered soup and salad with their meal. They were delivered at the same time, and the servers wanted to take away the soup before it was touched while the person was finishing up the salad. They did eventually take away someones plate before they were finished with it. It was strange. It seemed like they wanted us out really quick, but there wasn't a wait or lack of empty tables. Some manager probably told the servers to make sure they clear the tables and they really took the advise to heart...

Pearl's Chinese Restaurant in Orlando, FL

I had lunch at Pearl's Chinese Restaurant in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Orlando. They are in a strip mall, located a few doors down from a Publix. I ordered their Curry Chicken lunch combo. The combo started with a bowl of wonton soup. It was pretty standard as far as wonton soup goes. It consisted of broth, dumplings, and scallions. Strips of pork which is sometimes found in wonton soup was absent.

The soup was followed by a plate of the curry chicken and a bowl of steamed rice. The curry sauce on the chicken was tasty with a little bit of heat. Bell peppers, onions, and carrots accompanied the chicken.

I enjoyed my meal at Pearl's. The food was tasty enough and I'd return!

Garden Cafe in Orlando, FL

Garden Cafe is a vegetarian restaurant in Orlando that serves mostly Chinese food. The restaurant is located just outside of downtown on Colonial Drive in an old Pizza Hut building. The menu was interesting, with sections for different types of meats regardless of this being a vegetarian restaurant. This initially was a red flag for me, but I got over it. Vegetarians that try really hard to find substitutes to the meats that they no longer eat is something that I can understand, but I wish restaurants like this would embrace their food for what it is rather than pretending it contains meat.

Garden Cafe's lunch specials were a good deal. They were a few dollars less than most of the other items on the menu. I had the mixed vegetables in curry. This consisted of zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and mushrooms with a soy based meat substitute that had a similar color and texture to chicken. Brown rice was served on the side. As an omnivore, I really did enjoy this meal. It didn't seem like Garden Cafe was trying to overcompensate for the lack of meat like I've noticed at other vegetarian restaurants, nor did they charge far more than what the meal was worth since it was vegetarian. The flavors were nice and the meal was really filling.

I'd gladly return to Garden Cafe. After the demise of Udipi Cafe in Longwood, Garden Cafe takes my top ranking for vegetarian restaurants that I've tried in the Orlando area!

Mobay Bakery at Orlando Farmers Market

The Orlando Farmers Market that happens every Sunday at Lake Eola Park is one of my favorites in Central Florida. On my most recent food excursion to the farmers market, I had lunch from a booth serving Jamaican food called Mobay Bakery.

I tried their curry chicken. The chicken was normally served with rice, but they were out so they gave a beef patty instead. The curry chicken tasted good, although the chopped up bones in the chicken pieces did start getting annoying after a while. The beef patty was good (and better than rice in my opinion)!

Circa Thai Food in Tallahassee, FL

While up in our state's capital city, I stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Circa Thai Food & Sushi. They had some good lunch specials going on and I ordered the Green Curry Chicken. It came with a choice of soup or salad, and I went with the miso soup.

The curry chicken came on a large fish shaped plate, with a side of pad thai noodles and rice. Unlike so much of the Thai food I've had lately in Central Florida, this curry chicken was good and spicy. The portion was huge and the price was good too. No complaints about my lunch.

One of the highlights of the restaurant, although I did not partake, was their sushi buffet. A conveyor belt ran through the center of the restaurant, filled with various rolls and sauces. $12 allowed you free reign to take whatever moved on by. I was really thinking of getting the all-you-can-eat sushi, but Thai food sounded better to me on this particular day.


We need a restaurant with a sushi set-up like this in Orlando!

Kafe Kalik in Orlando, FL

I ate dinner at Kafe Kalik in the Premium Outlet Mall (no more Prime Outlets?) on International Drive. This Bahamian fusion restaurant had most of the stuff you would expect from a Caribbean themed chain restaurant, although their sushi bar did seem a little out of place.

My meal started out with a side salad. Nothing about it screamed Bahamas to me...

I had the Curry Shrimp for my main course. This large portion of shrimp, carrots, onions, potatoes was drenched in a spicy curry sauce over jasmine rice.

I enjoyed my meal. The shrimp tasted good, the portion was large, and they did a nice job with the presentation too. My only real complaint was that we never got the bread that was supposed to come with our meal. I'd gladly go back to Kafe Kalik next time I'm at the outlet mall!

China Star in Lake Mary, FL

Today we're going to yet another Chinese take-out restaurant! China Star gets confusing because of the prevalence of the name in the immediate area. This China Star is in Lake Mary, right on the Sanford border. Go less than five miles away into Sanford and you have another take-out called China Star and a very scary buffet called China Star. I don't get the feeling that any of the China Stars are connected.

I've picked up food from this China Star on several occasions and they messed up the order for the majority of these visits. After a certain point I stopped getting food there, but I recently gave China Star another try. When I got the food home, it turned out they got the order correct!

I had the Curry Chicken Combination. It came with fried rice, an egg roll, and wonton soup...

The Curry Chicken was nice and spicy, mixed with onions, peppers, snow peas, and mushrooms. The portion was huge and turned into three meals by the time the chicken was gone.

I guess we spent enough so they threw in a bag of these Chinese doughnuts. Can't complain about free extras!

China Star got the order right on this visit, the food all tasted good, and the portions were huge for the price. I think I'll add them back to my list of options for Chinese take-out!

3-6-9 Chinese Restaurant in Casselberry, FL

3-6-9 Chinese Restaurant is located in a strip mall in Casselberry. I remember several different Chinese/Japanese restaurants occupying this space over the years. Sadly, we were the only customers in the large restaurant on my visit. I hope they do good business for take-out...

I ordered the Singapore Chow Mei Fun. There was a bit of a kitchen misunderstanding, so I ended up being served lo mein noodles instead. I was originally thinking about having lo mein, so I really didn't have much of a problem with the mix-up.  The noodles were served in a curry sauce with pork, shrimp, chicken, and vegetables. The lo mein tasted good, and the portion was huge. It turned into two meals!

To apologize for the mistake of using the wrong kind of noodles, everyone at the table got complementary ice cream for dessert! Can't complain there!

Spice Cove in NY

Back in July of 2007, I visited Manhattan's Curry Row for some Indian food. This neighborhood is lined with Indian restaurants, each one with someone standing outside, competing with one another for you to come eat at their store. It sounded like walking down a carnival midway past the games, only dealing with food. On this visit, a restaurant called Spice Cove won my business.

Spice Cove offered a dinner special that included an appetizer, soup, and a main course for a really good price, so I went with that. Red Lentil soup was served first. It was really good, and the deep red color of the soup was great. I've never come across another lentil soup that color.

Next, the vegetable samosa appetizer was served. Yummy!

For the main course, I ordered Chicken Vindaloo. While I love spicy food, this dish was a bit extreme. The chicken seemed to be a variation on curry chicken, served over rice, but I could not handle the heat of the dish. I probably drank more water during the meal than what I actually ate. I did enjoy it, but after the meal wasn't as fun when I had to find a bathroom in the city at midnight to get rid of all of the liquid I drank to counter the spicy. Thank goodness there are Starbucks on every corner...