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.
I was craving some Vietnamese food one evening, but my dining companions weren't quite adventurous enough to try anything out of the ordinary. My suggestion was ignored, and we ended up eating at the Olive Garden in Altamonte Springs, FL.
I guess those TV commercials do work because I ordered one of Olive Garden's featured items, the Four Cheese Stuffed Mezzaluna with Shrimp. It consisted of cheese ravioli topped with shrimp in a cream sauce. Salad and breadsticks were served first, followed by the Mezzaluna. It tasted okay, but just like my last experience at the Red Lobster next door, the shrimp were tiny. I was hoping for slightly bigger shrimp for a $15 meal, but I guess Darden restaurants don't combine pasta in a cream sauce and decent sized shrimp on the same plate. I guess you need to order something without cream to get the better shrimp at an Olive Garden. We had a very entertaining waiter on this visit to Olive Garden. John Paul sounded like he had an Indian accent, and rhymed all of his food offerings. Would you like some wine? It will make you feel fine. or Would you like some tiramisu. If not, it will miss you. His rhymes were one of the best things about the meal.
I ate at the newly opened Patio Grill in Sanford, FL. After a ten minute wait for a table, I ordered the Cajun Chicken Alfredo.
Unlike the pasta that I ordered at the Patio Grill in Longwood, the pasta at this location came with a salad. They also had a salad bar at this new Patio Grill that was available for upcharge of a few dollars instead of this side salad. The Cajun Chicken Alfredo was served after the salad in a deep square bowl. The portion was quite large, and consisted peppers, artichoke hearts, and spicy chicken, all in over pasta in an Alfredo cream sauce. Two pieces of garlic bread were served on the side. I enjoyed the food I ate at this Patio Grill. It all tasted good, and from the amount of people eating at the restaurant, it looks like the Patio Grill people have a winning restaurant on their hands.
In the shopping center at the intersection of Lockwood and Mitchell Hammock in Oviedo, FL, there is an Italian Restaurant called Cafe Panuzzo's. The neon lights out front attracted me to the restaurant while I was riding by, and I eventually returned to give Cafe Panuzzo's a try.
I ordered Tortellini Alfredo. It came with a salad and bread, both of which were served before the tortellini. It was pretty good bread. The tortellini itself tasted okay, but it was a bit boring. It was basically the pasta and sauce on a plate, and that was it. Adding anything at all to break up the monotony of the pasta would have been an improvement. Sprinkling some basil leaves on top or something would have helped. The food did taste okay, but it was nothing that will have me going out of my way to return to Cafe Panuzzo's any time soon to eat more boring food.
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.
I ate at Romano's Macaroni Grill in Lake Mary, FL and ordered the three course dinner that was offered called the Chef's Trio. It started out with a Caesar Salad: That was followed with a plate of Fettuccine Alfredo: And a slice of Lemon Passion Cake for dessert: The meal wasn't anything exceptional, but was an okay deal for $11.99 in this type of restaurant.
On the way home from Universal, I stopped at Ikea to eat dinner. I had a vegetable pasta combo. It included a salad, pasta topped with vegetables and alfredo sauce, and garlic bread, all for $3.99. It tasted good too!
Speaking of Ikea food, check out this blog. They have a really interesting post about what Ikea stores serve in their restaurants around the world. France and Norway look like they serve some good food!
Fazoli's raised their prices. I ate at the restaurant in Oviedo, FL, across from the Oviedo Marketplace Mall. I had Fettuccine Alfredo. For a few dollars more than what this cost, I could have eaten at a non-fast food Italian restaurant...
I ate at the Sweet Tomatoes in Altamonte Springs, Florida. I don't like places like this all too much, but they sent some buy one, get one free coupons, so why not. Last time I ate here, the restaurant resembled a retirement home with all of the elderly people eating here. This time, it resembled a Chuck-E-Cheese with the screaming pre-schoolers far outnumbering the elderly.
I ate a Pizza Pasta Sampler from the Fazoli's Italian fast food restaurant in Altamonte Springs, Florida. It came with spaghetti with marinara sauce, Fettuccine Alfredo, and a slice of pepperoni pizza. I'm not a big fan of tomato based sauces, but the marinara was edible. The fettuccine was good, but the slice of pizza reminded me a bit too much of high school cafeteria pizza. That's not necessarily a good thing in my opinion. For $2.99 though, you can't complain too much...
