Porkie's Original BBQ in Apopka, FL

I had lunch at Porkie's Original BBQ in Apopka on a couple occasions recently.  On my first visit, I tried a sandwich called the Sloppy Cow. This consisted of shredded pieces of brisket, topped with grilled onions and a horseradish sauce served on a round hamburger-like bun. I ordered collards and Brunswick stew as my sides. The sandwich was unique compared to what I see at most barbecue places. The brisket was nice and tender, had good flavor, and the horseradish added to the meat's flavor. I enjoyed the Brunswick stew, mostly because it isn't a food I see often in Florida's barbecue restaurants. The collards were good but forgettable.

I had the Pig Dip on another visit. Unlike the Sloppy Cow, I wasn't a big fan of this sandwich. Two pieces of pressed bread were filled with thickly sliced pork. An au jus for moistening up the sandwich was served on the side. The thick slices of pork were a bit chewy, had a little too much fat, and lacked flavor for my liking. The au jus didn't really help with flavor. It just made the bread soggy. I used more of the barbecue sauce on the table compared to the au jus. I ordered collards and Jim's Dirty Taters as my sides this time. I mentioned the collards were good but forgettable. I had forgotten I ordered them last time I was here. Still tasty enough on this visit. The potatoes were the best part of the meal on this visit. They were cut sort of like home fries and topped with all sorts of delicious seasonings.

My conclusions from eating at Porkie's a couple times now. Get the Sloppy Pig but skip the Pig Dip. Interesting that I liked brisket much better than pork at a restaurant named Porkie's...

Bubbalou's Bodacious Bar-B-Que in Apopka, FL

I've been to the Bubbalou's Bodacious BBQ in Altamonte Springs several times. It's generally pretty good, and has always been semi-fast food where you order at the counter and then have the food brought to your table with no other interactions with the employees.

When I decided to get some barbeque from Bubbalou's Apopka location, I was surprised to see that this restaurant is a full service. You are told which table to sit at. You have a waitress that gets everything for you. It's just like any other sit down restaurant. Bubbalou's is a chain, so I would have thought that all of their restaurants had to work the same way, but apparently this is not the case. Being served is better anyway. It takes away some of the tipping confusion that sometimes happens in places like the Altamonte store that are semi-fast food.

I ordered the Pulled Pork Dinner. Whenever I've tried Bubbalou's pork, I've always been happy, but today it was really fatty. There were a few good pieces of meat on top, but underneath was mostly gelatinous, chewy pork fat. A little bit would have been okay, but there was far too much and it seemed like they were trying to hide the fact that they were giving the inferior pig parts by placing all the good meat over the fat. For the sides, I choose mashed potatoes, black eyed peas, and collard greens. All three were good, although the collards were a little too salty. All this came with two pieces of garlic bread. The dinner was a whole lot to eat and I ended up leaving a lot of the pork over due both the fatty pork and a full stomach.

Giordano's Stuffed Pizza

I have heard good things about Giordano's Pizza. It is Chicago style stuffed pizza with multiple layers of crust with the sauce on top. I really have very little experience with Chicago style pizza, and I had never tried a pizza quite like what Giordano's sells. The restaurant was on my list to try for a while, an I finally made it to the location on Apopka Vineland Road near Disney.

The meal started out with some garlic bread. There was a decent amount of garlic on here, unlike some other Italian restaurants that just use garlic butter and no actual garlic.

Although I was planning to just have a cheese pizza, I realized that would defeat the purpose of the stuffed pizza if it had nothing but cheese. It was agreed that my half of the pizza would have ground beef, pepperoni, and black olives. The meat was baked into the pie in between the layers of crust along with cheese. On the top layer, Giordano's put more cheese, sauce, and the black olives. I came across this video of how Giordano's makes their pizzas:



The pizza was definitely unique, but I think I still prefer the more traditional New York Style pizza. This pizza had far too much cheese that all oozed out of the slices. Perhaps if it was given time to set, the oozing wouldn't be as big of a problem, but it was still too much. One slice on this pizza probably had just as much cheese as a few slices of a traditional pizza. The crust on this pizza was pretty good though. It was sort of flaky, sort of like a pie crust rather than the bread that normally makes up a pizza crust.

I didn't think Giordano's pizza was anything great compared to traditional pizza, but it's definitely a novelty. Because of the uniqueness, I would gladly return and give their pizza another try. This visit to Giordano's also introduced me to another Chicago specialty that I now need to try: The Italian Beef Sandwich...

Apopka's King Buffet

I ventured into the scary world of Chinese Buffets and ate at King Buffet in Apopka, FL. As far as Chinese buffets go, this place was average. Lots of food, most of it a bit overcooked with the same overall taste.

Here's a plate of chicken & broccoli, lo mein, shrimp, and beans...

Garibaldi Mexican Restaurant

I had dinner at Garibaldi Mexican Restaurant in Apopka, Florida. They are the best Mexican Restaurant that I have eaten at in the Central Florida area.

My meal started with some chips and salsa...


And for the main course I had Enchiladas Verdes. It was chicken enchiladas topped with Salsa Verde. It came with rice, guacamole, lettuce, and some other good stuff.


It was very tasty!