Publix Stardust Combo

I ate some sushi from Publix today. I had what they called a Stardust Combo. I can't think of how they came up with the name, but it was tasty. It consisted of Californa Rolls, Tsunami Rolls, Cucumber Rolls, and Tuna Rolls.

Dalli's Cheese & Meatball Pizza

I ordered take out from Dalli's Pizza in Lake Mary, FL. I ordered a half cheese/half meatball pizza. It was a pretty good pizza for the most part. The only problem was that the meatball half of the pizza was extra crispy, while the cheese half didn't seem to be cooked as much. Maybe they cooked the meatball side in a warmer part of the oven due to the extra toppings or maybe their oven needs some tuning up and cooks unevenly. Besides from the unevenly cooked crust, the pizza was pretty good.

Last time got food from Dalli's, I noted that there were all new people working in the restaurant. Most of the people working the kitchen here used to be older white guys including an old man that would get very upset and start yelling in Italian (I'm assuming) if an order was messed up. Now it seems the majority of the people in the kitchen are younger Hispanic people, so I am assuming the restaurant was sold. Regardless of the people working at Dalli's, the food is consistent with what it always has been, and the pizza is good!

T-Rex in Downtown Disney

I ate lunch at the T-Rex restaurant in Downtown Disney. The restaurant has been open for just over a week now so it's still very new.

I ate their Triassic Tortellini. It was basically tri-colored tortellini topped with sun dried tomatoes, peas, lots of basil, various cheeses, and alfredo sauce. It would normally come with mushrooms, but I asked for them to be left out. The Triassic Tortellini also came with a hunk of bread which was way too hard. I thought it tasted pretty good overall, but it wasn't worth the $17 that the restaurant charged for the pasta. But then again, it is a restaurant in Disney, and everything on Disney property is overpriced. If they gave you something with the pasta it would have been better though. Include a side salad and the price wouldn't seem as bad. This goes the same for the sandwiches on the menu here too. For a $13 sandwich, they don't even include fries. Fries are cheap, and people would be much happier getting fries than potato chips.

Similar to the neighboring Rainforest Cafe, T-Rex was filled with animatronic dinosaurs, sea creatures, and prehistoric mammals. I was actually kind of disappointed with the animatronics. Robotic dinosaurs have been around for years. I would think that a restaurant in Disney would invest in some robots with more realistic and fluid movements. Most of the animatronics here reminded me of construction equipment covered in rubber skin. Here are a few pictures of the animatronics and the rest of the restaurant:











The pictures below are of a section of the restaurant called the Ice Cave. Notice the walls are a bluish ice color.


Here, the same walls in this Ice Cave have now changed to red.

The color change is due to the simulated meteor shower that happens every half hour in the restaurant. That's right, every half hour in a restaurant that is very kid friendly, they simulate the event that killed off most life on earth. Whoever decided to include this in the restaurant is very demented...

Although way overpriced, the food tasted okay. The restaurant with all of it's creatures making lots of noise was cool to see once, but it isn't a place that I'll probably be returning to anytime soon. I've seen it, and there's plenty of other restaurants in the area that I haven't tried yet.

Ethos Vegan Kitchen

I ate at Ethos Vegan Kitchen in Orlando, FL. I am not a vegan, but it's fun to venture into the non-meat, non-dairy, animal product free world of vegan food.

I ordered the Udon Asian Odyssey, which was supposed to be Udon noodles with assorted vegetables. If you look at the picture below, those definitely aren't Udon noodles on the plate. Udon noodles are thick, round noodles that somewhat remind me of fuzzy worms when cooked. What was served were wide, flat noodles that seemed more along the lines of chow fun. I wouldn't have had a problem with the chow fun noodles if I was told that is what I was ordering, but I was expecting some udon. I'm guessing either Ethos was out of the udon and made a substitution without informing the customer, or they are assuming that the average vegan doesn't know much about Japanese noodles. I really don't like it when I order one thing, and get something else.

I also found the noodles to be way too salty. I love salty foods, but the amount of salt in here was over the top. Besides from the type of noodle problem, the pasta seemed like it would have been really good if it wasn't for the salt. Instead, I had to eat some bread and drink lots of water to counter out the overpowering salty taste.

While I have my complaints, I did think Ethos was better than some of the few other vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Orlando that I've tried. They have a long way to go before they can compare to Angelica Kitchen though...

Altamonte Mall Cinnabon

I got the free end of a cinnamon roll with a buy one, get one free coupon from Cinnabon in the Altamonte Mall. Cinnabon cinnamon rolls always taste really doughy to me, almost as if they aren't cooked enough...

Dunkin Donuts Everything Bagel

I ate an everything bagel from Dunkin Donuts. It was definitely lacking on the amount of seeds on the bagel...

Bad Subway Sandwich

I ate a turkey sandwich from the Subway in UCF. Today, my food wasn't prepaid or free, so I had to buy the sandwich. This Subway didn't offer the $5 footlong subs that all other Subways sell. Nice way to rip off poor college students. The sandwich wasn't even good. They were really stingy with all of the toppings, and only a few shreds of each topping. Next time I should stick with sushi...

RedBrick Pizza

I ate a pizza at RedBrick Pizza in Altamonte Springs, FL. RedBrick Pizza seems to be a relatively new chain that has been popping up in the Central Florida area. This was the first one to open in Uptown Altamonte, and others have since opened in Sanford and in UCF. I ate here when the restaurant first opened, but the pizza wasn't worth returning for. Someone I was with wanted to eat here though, so I agreed to give RedBrick Pizza another try.

I noticed something kind of ironic about the name. It's called RedBrick Pizza, but there are no bricks of any color in the restaurant. There are some red tiles on the wall, but no bricks.

The last time I ate here, I had a cheese pizza which was pretty bad. This time, I figured I'd try a pizza with plenty of toppings to see if they improved the pie. I ordered their Greek Pizza, which was topped with ham, peppers, onions, kalamata olives, and feta cheese. I'm not the biggest fan of ham, and I completely missed that part when reading the menu, but it really didn't taste too bad on pizza. The toppings really did improve the pizza, and without them, the pizza would have been pretty bad. The crust was nice and crispy on the outer edges of the pizza, but was soggy in the center of the pie. It didn't seem undercooked, it just seemed very damp. This wet spot caused some difficulties when pulling the slices apart. The pizza here was really overpriced too. They started at $13 for a 14 inch pizza (the largest size offered), and went up from there.

One thing I really didn't like in here was the TVs. There was a TV and remote at just about every table. I really didn't want to watch TV while I ate, so I choose one of the few TV-free tables. It may not have been a good choice though, because I got a clear view of the large, slow-moving, sloth-like people dining here as they slowly lifted (and dropped) slice after slice into their mouths with one hand, while controlling the TV remote with the other hand. It was kind of sad.

The building that RedBrick pizza occupies wasn't always here. It was once a normal strip mall before Altamonte Springs rebuilt the area into Uptown Altamonte. Before the new construction, almost exactly where RedBrick Pizza now sits, was a restaurant called Presto Pizza. Presto had the best pizza I've tasted in Florida. It was the whole New York pizza deal, with really thin large slices. Besides normal pizza, they had the more exotic varieties like stuffed pizza that you normally don't see in Florida. I haven't found another restaurant in Florida that has as good pizza as Presto had, but RedBrick Pizza definitely doesn't cut it...

Chipotle Vegetarian Burrito

I had a vegetarian burrito from the Chipotle in Lake Mary, FL. Here are two fun Chipotle facts that most people don't realize.
1- They don't use real cheese. They instead use a soy-based tofu cheese so it's vegan friendly.
2- It started out as an independent restaurant. Then McDonalds bought Chipotle's and expanded it all over the country, and has since sold the company.

Ikea Orlando Pasta

I ate at the restaurant in Ikea once again. I ate the same thing that I ordered last time too. I had pasta with alfredo sauce, topped with steamed vegetables. This came with a side salad and garlic bread. It was pretty good for $3.99, but I sort of realized that their food has declined over the years since I first ate in an Ikea up on Long Island several years ago where I was amazed with their good cheap food. It seems like their food has become more American and less Swedish. They definitely didn't have chicken tenders back then...

Knightstop Tsunami Roll

I had a Tsunami Roll from the Knightstop store in the UCF Student Union. I had no idea this place existed, and they had pretty good sushi too. It was the same Southern Tsunami brand sushi that is sold in certain Publix Supermarkets. The roll was filled with a shrimp/crab salad, tempura, cucumber, and was topped with scallions and some sort of sauce. I'd get it again...

Taco Bell Chicken Jalapeno Melt

I had a Chicken Jalapeno Melt from Taco Bell in Lake Mary, FL. It tasted okay, but that meat really didn't look like chicken to me...