Hollywood Studios and the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater

Disney gives you a free ticket to one of their parks on your birthday. It was recently someone's birthday, so I went along to Hollywood Studios (or MGM as many people still call the park). Eating happened at the Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater Restaurant in the park.

I ordered the Shrimp Pasta, which consisted of bow-tie pasta, shrimp, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, Spinach, sun dried tomatoes, capers, and Feta. I liked the pasta a whole lot. Feta and olives always seem to go well in pasta. At $20, the pasta was a bit overpriced, but it's in a theme park so that's expected.


The restaurant is set up like a drive-in movie theater. There is a screen up front that shows old science fiction movie clips while everyone eats in tables shaped like cars. Our waiter kept on asking to borrow my camera, and he would then run off elsewhere in the restaurant and take these "postcard" quality pictures of the screen.




Besides from eating, we rode rides and watched shows such as the Great Movie Ride:

Star Tours:

Rock N Roller Coaster:


The new Lights, Motors, Action Stunt Show:

Muppet Vision 3D:

And one of my personal favorites, Tower of Terror:


The biggest surprise of the day was the newest ride at the park, Midway Mania. I really wasn't expecting much from this ride, based on the fact that it's a dark ride that consists entirely of watching movie screens and also because Disney's other shooting dark ride isn't very good. I wasn't expecting much, but this ride was very cool. I was ready to go back on for a second ride, but the park had closed for the night.

Pan Pan Bakery Desserts

I pass by Pan Pan Bakery at the intersection of 17-92 and 434 in Longwood, FL almost daily, and the place always appears busy. With all of the customers, I figured it must be good and gave this Colombian Bakery a try.

I ordered a guava & cheese roll, a strawberry turnover, and a pineapple turnover.

My favorite was the pineapple turnover. It consisted of pineapple jam baked in a flaky crust.

The guava and cheese roll wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Inside of the sugar topped bread, there was guava jelly and a slice of cheese. Too much bread here, and not enough guava. I could have done without the cheese.


It seemed Pan Pan Bakery specialized more in breads than desserts since their selection was somewhat limited. Maybe one day I'll return to try some Colombian bread.

Cajun Food on Fat Tuesday

Happy Fat Tuesday!

In celebration of today being Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras, I'm posting some previously unpublished Cajun food that was eaten before the existence of this blog. This is an Andouille Sausage Sandwich with peppers and onions and a plate of Shrimp Gumbo. These were eaten at Universal's Mardi Gras event, where along with the fun parade and concerts, they also set up several food stands throughout the park selling Cajun food that isn't half bad. I especially like their Jambalaya, complete with whole crawfish, but unfortunately, I don't have any pictures.

Of course, for more Cajun food in Orlando, I really liked the jambalaya and po boys from the Crooked Bayou.

To get closer to New Orleans for today's Cajun theme, I dug up some pictures of food from a trip to Memphis, TN in 2006. Here is some Alligator Gumbo that I ate at the Rum Boogie Cafe on Beale Street. From what I remember, the alligator gumbo tasted great. The problem was with the amount. What I ordered was considered a dinner, but the amount of gumbo that was actually served was kind of sad. They put a little pile of iceberg lettuce next to a cup of the gumbo and charged double the price of just a cup of gumbo alone. Eating outside at the restaurant along Beale Street was a great environment, although it didn't make up for the horribly slow service in the restaurant.

Chicken Cannelloni from Romano's Macaroni Grill in Altamonte Springs, FL

I ate at the Romano's Macaroni Grill in Altamonte Springs, FL. I ordered their Chef's Trio.

A Caesar salad was served first.

I had Chicken Cannelloni for the main course. I consisted of pasta rolled around chicken, spinach, and cheese. The cannelloni was topped with a cream sauce, more cheese, and some tomato sauce.

Dessert came last. I had a slice of chocolate cake. It was good, but it was way too rich for me to eat much of the cake.

I had no complaints about the food. It was a pretty good deal to get all that for $12, and it all tasted good. Much better than Olive Garden.

Dynamite Roll from Fuji Sushi

I ordered take out from Fuji Sushi in Lake Mary, FL. When I went to pick up the food, I was surprised how empty the restaurant was. On my previous visits to Fuji Sushi, the restaurant has always been crowded, but tonight it looked like there were only two tables eating in the whole place. And then I was ignored. It took about five minutes before anyone came over to help me while the restaurant employees had a clear view of me while they were all at the sushi bar talking. When someone finally did come over, I paid for my food and took it home.

I had my miso soup first. Real miso soup from Japanense restaurants like Fuji is so much better than the instant miso from supermarkets. No complaints here.

I also ordered a Dynamite Roll with a mixed seafood topping. It was basically a California roll topped with cooked fish in an orange sauce. I didn't like the topping very much, and it didn't seem to be worth double the price of a normal California roll with the small amount of seafood that I spotted in the topping. For a California roll with stuff on top, I definitely liked Imperial Dynasty's California Earthquake better.


Fuji has been good every other time I've visited, so slow service and one roll that I didn't like very much won't scare me away from the restaurant yet.

Falafel Cafe

I picked up some take out from Falafel Cafe across the street from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. I've heard only good things about this place, so I decided to finally give it a try. For some reason I thought it was fast food, so I was surprised to see that Falafel Cafe was a sit down restaurant.

I had a Falafel Sandwich which came with a choice of soups. The lentil soup that I choose was interesting. It was very smooth, very similar to split pea soup, only with lentils instead. I've never come across lentil soup with this consistency. It was good, but I prefer the chunkier lentil soup that is more commonly found. The falafel sandwich was really good. There were nice sized falafels wrapped in Lebanese bread, along with lettuce, tomato, onions, parsley, and tahini. This was one of the better falafel sandwiches that I've eaten in the Central Florida area.

On the way out, I'm pretty sure I saw someone eating a plate of pickled turnips. I've only seen them in Lebanese restaurants, and it's been a very long time since I've eaten these. I definitely need to return to get myself some of these wonderful pickled root vegetables!

Town House Restaurant

I ate at The Town House Restaurant in downtown Oviedo, FL. Apparently they had the Best Breakfast in Orlando in 2005, judging by the sign in the window.

I ate the Greek Village Omelet, which consisted of three eggs (presumably from the Oviedo Chickens), feta cheese, gyro lamb, onions, and black olives. I'm not normally an egg person and was actually planning on getting something from the lunch menu. I found out when I got to the Town House that only breakfast is served on Sunday. Because of this technical difficulty, I ended up with the omelet. As far as omelets go, it was good and had plenty of flavor. The feta was good, but I think the omelet could have definitely used some spinach.

The omelet came with some very good homefries and a tasty biscuit.

Pizza from Papa Joe's (Lake Mary Blvd)

I ate dinner at the Papa Joe's located in the Target/Publix shopping center on Lake Mary Blvd in Lake Mary, FL. Their other Lake Mary location was already discussed here on Watch Me Eat, so I'll be comparing a bit.

My dining experience started with some bad air. One of the employees was sitting right outside the restaurant's entrance puffing away at a cigarette. Every customer entering the the restaurant had to walk through her cloud of smoke.

Once inside, garlic knots and pizza was ordered. I was impressed with the garlic knots. Compared to the garlic bread that I had at the other Papa Joe's, these were delicious. The was plenty of garlic, and the bread was cooked to perfection. No complaints here.

I wasn't very impressed with the pizza. I found the sauce to be really sweet (like at the other Papa Joes), and the pizza seemed very hastily made. Everything was uneven about the pie. Some areas of the pizza had hardly any sauce and too much cheese. Other areas had pools of sauce and no cheese. Even how the pie was sliced was uneven, resulting in some huge slices and some tiny slices. Overall, the pizza was edible, but was a disappointment after the good pizza that I had on my last Papa Joe's dining experience.

I did notice that Papa Joe's has some pizza lunch specials that I think I'll need to return for. They advertised having Grandmas pizza and stuffed pizza, both of which aren't very common in Florida.

On the way out, the same employee was still sitting outside, still smoking her cigarette. I wonder if she was getting paid to give lung cancer to Papa Joe's customers? I made sure to do lots of fake coughing as I walked by...

Lake Mary Chipotle

I brought home takeout from the Chipotle in Lake Mary, FL. I had a vegetarian burrito, stuffed with rice, black beans, roasted peppers & onions, hot salsa, corn, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and lettuce, all wrapped in a tortilla. The burrito was huge, and I'm guessing there was probably a day's worth of calories in there, even though it's a healthy vegetarian burrito.


I really wouldn't mind getting meat in the burrito, but then it's a trade off with the guacamole. They charge over a dollar to put a little scoop of mashed avocado in a meat burrito, which really isn't worth it in my opinion. If given a choice between meat or guacamole, I would choose the guacamole over meat any day.

Shrimp with Chinese Vegetables from China Wok III

I ate Shrimp with Chinese Vegetables and wonton soup from China Wok III in Sanford, FL. I'm not sure what differentiates between Chinese Vegetables and Vegetables (both were on the menu), but my shrimp were good! Bok chow, snow peas, carrots, water chess nuts, and mushrooms were all served with many huge shrimp, all topped with a white sauce. Steamed rice came on the side.


China Wok III is definitely one of the best take out Chinese Restaurants in the area!