Fantastic Hummus Food Truck in Orlando, FL

I leaving Audubon Community Market in Winter Park when I spotted a food truck with a big banner on the side that read Falafel Sandwich. This was a brand new truck to me and I'm a big falafel fan, so I knew where I was eating. Upon closer inspection, I found out this truck was called Fantastic Hummus.

They had a few other types of sandwiches, but I stuck with falafel. The sandwich was served on pita, stuffed with plenty of falafel, lettuce, tomato, pickled turnips, and sauce. This was definitely a good sandwich, especially since I was venturing into uncharted food truck territory.

I liked how they gave extra pickled turnips on the side. Pickled turnips are hard to find around here, even at most middle eastern restaurants that I've visited and I have even resorted to making my own. Being able to snack on these turnips without waiting a week for the pickling to happen was a nice treat!

Being that middle eastern food is a big street food staple in other cities like New York, it is definitely about time Orlando got a truck selling falafel!

AMC Dine-In Theatres in Downtown Disney

I was invited to the media event for the opening of the new AMC Dine-In Theatres in Downtown Disney. AMC offered us bloggers and other media type people to come try their food and watch TRON Legacy for the complete dine-in theater experience.

The theater itself had extra wide rocking seats. There was a counter for the food in every row, although I personally thought it was too far away from the seat. I wasn't able to comfortably reach my food without sitting on the very edge of my seat which was especially distracting when the movie started. One cool little feature on each counter was the call button to summon your server for drink refills or whatever.

For food, we started out with two appetizers. The first appetizer was the Parmesan Fries. These were standard French fries with grated cheese on top.

Wings & Things Sampler: Came with buffalo wings, potato chips, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks.

Smoked Salmon BLT: For some reason I was really hoping for lox on here, but it was the more traditional type of smoked salmon on the sandwich. Big slab of fish on a bun with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a garlic basil sauce. More potato chips came served on the side.

Buffalo Chicken Flatbread Pizzetta: Pizza made with buffalo wing sauce rather than the more traditional tomato. Was topped with blue cheese and chicken.

AMC had tables set up in the lobby with many of their menu offerings on display. Here's a few of the foods I didn't get a chance to try:

Overall, I liked my food at the AMC Dine-In Theatres. The prices were good too, with some of the sandwiches being equivalent to what a large popcorn costs at other theaters. The Downtown Disney AMC was already one of my favorite theaters in Orlando, so now food makes them even better!

Cookes of Dublin in Downtown Disney

It has been a while since theme park food has been featured on this blog. That's too bad since theme park food can be surprisingly good, especially at Disney. The last time I had Disney food was for the pre-opening of Star Tours back in June where we were treated to an ice cream buffet. The last time I ate in an actual restaurant at Disney was for the media opening of the AMC Dine-In Theaters in May. Seeing the pictures that were popping up all over the internet of delicious looking foods from the Epcot Food & Wine Festival (which I did not attend - too expensive), I figured it was about time to go on another Disney food adventure. The Festival of Masters was going on at Downtown Disney so we ventured out to view some artwork and eat lunch. The mentioned lunch happened at Cookes of Dublin.

Cookes of Dublin is the fast food Irish restaurant attached to Raglin Road in Downtown Disney. They have foods you would expect like fish and chips, but I was intrigued by their pies. I've actually though of eating here a few times in the past to try their pies and they always end up being sold out. It must have been my lucky day on this visit, because they had plenty to choose from. I went with the Fisherman's Pie, filled with mashed potatoes, carrots, shrimp, salmon, and scallops in a doughy pie shell. I wasn't exactly sure what would be inside the pie when I ordered, but the variety and size of the seafood was a nice surprise. The swirly mashed potatoes on top were a nice touch as well. I suppose this was sort of like a seafood version shepard's pie...

Fried Shrimp were also ordered at the table. These were exactly what they were described as, battered shrimp deep fried and served over fries. My pie was definitely the winner by far...

Cookes of Dublin is definitely worthy of another visit to try more of their pies. Expect to pay Disney prices, but they are cheaper than Raglin Road next door (which I really want to return to one day). Best of all, they satisfied my craving for theme park food for the moment...

Theo's Kitchen in Orlando, FL

I tried a Greek restaurant in Orlando called Theo's Kitchen. Theo's was located on Curry Ford Road in a strip mall. Apparently they had moved recently to this location when I stopped in. 

 

I decided to get a gyro. Theo's Kitchen was very generous with just about everything on the sandwich. There was a good amount of meat, huge dollops of tazitiki, lots of feta, and plenty of lettuce and tomato. I've had gyros from other Greek restaurants that are really dry and stingy with toppings, so I was very happy with this sandwich when this was not the case. And to top it off, it tasted good too!

 

Twisted Cuban Food Truck in Orlando, FL

There is an annual Halloween Festival in Downtown Longwood and food trucks were involved this year. The festival was located in Reiter Park, where the baseball fields and playgrounds were removed and replaced with a mysterious grass covered hill. The trucks attending were Gastrotruck, The Batter Bowl, and a truck that was new to me called The Twisted Cuban.

I tried their Cuban sandwich. It consisted of ham, roast pork, swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard on pressed Cuban bread. The sandwich was very tasty and was plenty to eat. It was also made extremely quickly by the standards set by most of Orlando's other food trucks that I've tried. I'd get more food from them in the future!

I tried the Twisted Cuban truck a second time at one of the Food Truck Bazaars. On this visit, I tried their fritas. These were two slider-size sandwiches consisting of burgers topped with fried onions. Unlike the traditional American beef burger, these contained other meats including chorizo which gave them really nice flavors.

King of the Gyro in Melbourne, FL

I got take-out from a middle eastern restaurant in Melbourne called King of the Gyro one afternoon. I decided to go against the restaurant's namesake and ordered a chicken wrap instead.

This pita was filled with chicken, garlic sauce, mayonnaise, and pickles. The pita was good for what it was, but I found it to be somewhat boring. There was too much chicken and not enough other sandwich fillings. The garlic flavor was nice, but more vegetables never hurt in my opinion.

King of the Gyro is located on the second floor of the same shopping center as Middle Eastern Aromas. While the food was alright at King of the Gyro, Middle Eastern Aromas is definitely the winner of the two middle eastern restaurants in the shopping center...

New China in West Melbourne, FL

On one of the first colder evenings of the fall, I decided some soup sounded good. I was in Melbourne and found a Chinese take-out called New China. I went in and ordered a quart of wonton soup. The soup was good, although a little on the salty side. There was plenty of wontons and each dumpling had a good amount of meat inside. No shredded pork at the bottom of the soup though. Overall, it was pretty average as far as Chinese take-out soup went. Not the best, but not the worst either.