Market Street Diner in Celebration, FL

It looks like the long time restaurant in downtown Celebration formerly known as Market Street Cafe has been rebranded to Market Street Diner. It's a subtle name change, but still a name change. It looks like the interior was renovated since the diner was known as cafe.

On my first time eating at the restaurant under the Market Street Diner name, I tried the Atlantic Fish Po' Boy. This was a huge filet of fried cod topped with lettuce, tomato, and tartar sauce, all served on a roll. The sandwich fillings overflowed off the bread, but still held together well. The fish was hot and crispy with a nice, flavorful batter. I had tater tots as my side.

The restaurant seems pretty consistent of how it was pre-name change. It's what you would expect from a diner type restaurant with food that seems slightly above average for this type of place.

The Daily Poutine at Disney Springs in Orlando, FL

The Daily Poutine is one of the newish restaurants which opened in the new section of Disney Springs. They are fast food with some nearby outdoor seating. I was a big fan of trying the different versions of poutine when I was in Quebec last year, so I was excited to try some Floridian theme park poutine.

I am not a poutine expert, but I wonder how many of the menu items here would be considered true poutine by connoisseurs of the food? When does a variation of the dish become something else? Looking at something like the restaurant's Latin Poutine where potato fries are replaced with yucca and there isn't gravy or cheese curds, would this still be considered poutine?

I have visited The Daily Poutine twice. The first time I was with someone who had never tried poutine, so we split the Classic. This consisted of french fries, beef gravy, and cheddar cheese curds. It didn't live up to some of the poutines I sampled while in Quebec, but I suppose was good enough for a theme park version of the dish. I've heard that the way to tell if you're having high quality poutine is if the cheese curds make a squeaky noise as you bite into them. The cheese curds here did not squeak...

The second time I dined at The Daily Poutine was when I was intrigued by their All-Day Breakfast Poutine. I'm not sure if this is a daily special or a temporary menu item, but it was advertised on signs sitting on the counter. It was described as fried potato puffs, sausage gravy, and cheddar curds topped with a fried egg. Again, this was veering away from what I think of poutine with tater tots instead of fries and white sausage gravy instead of brown gravy. Regardless, this breakfast poutine was actually really tasty. The gravy had a lot more flavor compared to what I normally think of when it comes to white gravy. I've been liking foods topped with fried eggs lately, so that topping made me like the poutine more.

The Disney version of poutine didn't quite make me feel like I was eating true French-Canadian junk food, but the food was decent enough. Definitely better than normal french fries topped with ketchup...

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.