Hong Kong Chinese Food in Sanford, FL

I picked up some takeout from Hong Kong Chinese Food in Sanford. I ordered wonton soup and a small vegetable lo mein. It was about a ten minute wait for the food. As I was sitting there waiting, I witnessed two separate people come in and order something, then get on their phones to start complaining about how horrible it is that they are being forced to wait ten minutes for their crab rangoons. Really? Ten minutes is too long of a wait for some freshly made food? My ten minutes went by rather quickly thanks to the unintentional entertainment, and soon enough my food was ready.

The wonton soup was good. It didn't have any shredded pork at the bottom, but it still had tasty wontons and a nice flavored broth.

For a small order of lo mein, the portion was huge. I would be scared to see how humongous a large would be! The noodles were mixed with broccoli, cabbage, onions, bean sprouts, carrots, and mushrooms. Not the best lo mein I've ever had, but it was still tasty. I'd get food here again...

Terra Mia Pizza in Lake Mary, FL

I've been wanting to try the pizza from Terra Mia for a while now, but I had difficulties tasting their food for the longest time. I tried visiting the Terra Mia in Lake Mary on a few occasions and each time there was either a huge wait or the restaurant was closed for the day. On another attempt to try Terra Mia's pizza, I visited their Longwood location only to find out they don't serve pizza there. Finally, the Pizza Gods must have smiled on me. On a recent evening, I was in Lake Mary and Terra Mia was both open and without a wait, and top it off, their pizza was really good too!

My pizza was topped with anchovies and kalamata olives. The crust was some of the thinnest I've had in the area while still having a nice rise around the edges. Somebody did a very nice job with the dough here. The flavor of the anchovies and olives combined with the salty cheese was a little strong, but I liked it.

With the majority of the pizza in the area being mediocre, it's refreshing to find someplace like Terra Mia that has good pizza!

Lone Cabbage Fish Camp in Cocoa, FL

I ate lunch at the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp, located on 520 between Cocoa and Orlando. It's one of those places that reeks of classic Florida, located right along the St. Johns River with a constant flow of airboat traffic going by.

 As I was exiting the car, I spotted this concrete gator:

Then I walked down to the river and saw this gator peeking out of the water. Is it strange that while looking at this guy in the river, I decided I wanted some alligator for lunch?

Once inside, I started looking over the menu and decided to do one better than just alligator. I ordered the combo which consisted of not just one, but three river dwelling creatures. The combo came with alligator, frogs legs, catfish, hush puppies, cole slaw, and fries.

Everything on the plate was deep fried (except the cole slaw). It was far too much fried food and I ended up leaving some of it over. The gator was the best meat on the plate, with the catfish being tasteless and the frog legs being far too slimy for me to eat more than one. I would even say the frog legs were undercooked based on the consistency. I've only eaten the meat a couple other times though so I'm no expert.

Overall, the food was actually pretty bad here. The gator meat was the only thing that had any flavor in my plate. Normally with fried foods, the flavor is in the batter, but this wasn't the case here. Really though, you don't come to a place like the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp for the food. You come for the riverside dining environment. You come for views like this:

Ichiban in Orlando, FL

I had lunch at Ichiban on Orange Ave in Downtown Orlando. After hearing nothing but good things about their food, I finally gave Ichiban a try...

I ordered the Matsu Bento Box. It started with a salad.

The box was filled with chicken, shrimp & vegetable tempura, california rolls, and fried rice. Everything in the box was delicious leaving me with no complaints about the food. This bento box did cost a bit more than other similar lunches I've had elsewhere. Given the downtown location and double meat, the higher price was fine, but it also would have been nice if they gave both soup and salad.

I enjoyed my meal and will be back...

Cayo Esquivel in Miami, FL

Continuing my weekend in Miami where I decided I really need to improve my spanish language skills, I found myself at a seafood restaurant called Cayo Esquivel...

One of Cayo Esquivel's daily specials was Salmon with almonds in pineapple sauce. It sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a try. Dinner rolls came out first along with a large plate of lime slices for the fish. Soon enough, the main course was served. The flavor combination on my salmon was interesting. I can't remember ever having pineapple sauce, especially over fish. The sauce was very smooth with the almonds adding a bit of crunch and wasn't quite as sweet as I was expecting. It was really good...

The salmon came with rice and a salad made mostly of cabbage with a great dressing. Kind of like cole slaw, only better...

Another diner at the table ordered this Avocado Salad. I guess non-seafood items aren't ordered here often because the waitress seemed surprised and kept on asking ¿No pescado? repeatedly when taking the order...

El Palacio de Los Jugos in Miami, FL

I visited El Palacio de Los Jugos on Flagler Ave during a recent visit to Miami. It was in my conciousness since I remembered seeing an episode of VendrTV on the place so I decided to check it out.

El Palacio de Los Jugos was set up with several counters, each selling a different type of food. There was an outdoor pork counter, seafood counter, and sandwich/coffee counter. Inside, there was the juice counter as well as lots of fruits and vegetables for sale.



When I was going to order something, I realized that there was zero English being spoken here. It was really quite intimidating with my very limited Spanish language skills, but I was able to manage by walking up to the juice counter with Jugo de mamey, por favor. It got the point across and I received my cup of mamey juice.

Since this was the Juice Palace, I was expecting good juice. The mamey juice did not disappoint. It tasted like pumpkin pie in liquid form. The cup was huge and it only cost $2! Because I had previous plans for dinner (and they ended up being closed) when I happened upon El Palacio de Los Jugos, I unfortunately didn't try any of the food on this visit. I'm definitely making a point to return here to sample some of their Cuban food on a future excursion to Miami!

Santa's Enchanted Forest in Miami, FL

On my last trip down to South Florida, the tentative plan was to going to involve seeing Cirque du Soleil's Kooza. It turned out they had sold out several days in advance when I went to buy our tickets, so I decided to look for some sort of alternate form of entertainment. This ended up being a trip to Santa's Enchanted Forest in Southwest Miami...

Santa's Enchanted Forest turned out to be a huge fair with lots of Christmas themed dioramas. Being that it was a fair, they had all the appropriate deep fried carnival food...

There were also lots of other vendors selling pretty interesting foods. Lots of Latin-American foods and many of these vendors seemed local rather than touring with the carnival. Here's a stand selling steak kabobs cooked on a spinning rack over an open flame.

It was a cold evening, so I got myself a nice warm cup of hot cocoa...

It turned out I got my circus fix too. I suppose it was totally different from the circus experience I would have gotten from Cirque du Soleil, but I'm not complaining...

Anthony's Pizzeria in Orlando, FL

I picked up some takeout from the Anthony's Pizzeria at the intersection of Mills and 50. I had heard good things about their pizza so I was looking forward to giving them a try. I ordered a 16" pizza topped with spinach. After ordering, I browsed the nearby Asian supermarkets, and soon enough the pizza was ready.

This was a pretty good pizza. The sauce had a nice flavor and the cheese was nice and salty, although the amount of cheese seemed out of proportion with the rest of the pie.

A few months later, I decided to give Anthony's another try. This time around, I had the pie topped with eggplant. The crust was thinner this time and there wasn't an overload of cheese like the spinach pie. While the spinach pie was good, this eggplant pie was definitely better of the two. Different cooks perhaps?


Would I get pizza from Anthony's again? Definitely. Even the lesser of these two pizzas were still good and well made. The people at Anthony's definitely know what they're doing with pizza...

Mamacita's Mexican Bar & Grill in Hollywood, FL

On a cold winter evening, I made my way to the boardwalk in Hollywood, FL to find dinner. After a short walk, the scary mannequin outside of Mamacita's Mexican Bar & Grill drew me in for some food.

Like most meals at Mexican restaurants, tortilla chips and salsa came first. The salsa had a nice kick to it...

I ordered the Torta al Pastor for my meal. Mexican tortas are something I was completely unaware of until a few months ago. Once I was conscious of tortas though, I've been coming across them everywhere and it was about time that I finally try one of these Mexican sandwiches. The Torta al Pastor was filled with spicy pork, sliced avocado, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. Technically, it was the typical fillings found in a taco (except the mayonnaise) with a more substantial baked good holding everything together. I had nothing bad to say about the sandwich. It was cheap, filling, and delicious. The ocean view didn't hurt either.

Hong Kong Buffet in Orlando, FL

I ate dinner at Hong Kong Buffet located in the shopping center with Boardwalk Bowl on 50 in Orlando. The food was average as far as Chinese buffets go, but the restaurant was pretty empty so the turnover wasn't great. Hong Kong was okay to try once, but I don't think I'd make a point to return. Too many other Chinese restaurants around here with better food...