Little Saigon in Orlando, FL

I ate dinner at Little Saigon in Orlando's Mills 50 District (or Colonialtown, Viettown, Little Vietnam, or whatever else the neighborhood is known as). Little Saigon has won all sorts of awards, including best Vietnamese in this year's Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards. As the sign in front of Little Saigon said, they are "One of America's Top Rated Restaurants."

The meal started with a Summer Roll appetizer. These rolls filled with pork, shrimp, vegetables, and noodles were tasty, but they were also very skinny compared to the Summer Rolls from the neighboring restaurants.

I had the Hu Tieu Thap Cam. It was a soup filled with roasted pork, shrimp, krab, scallions, cilantro, and clear rice noodles in a broth. A plate of bean sprouts, jalapeno slices, basil, and lime was served on the side to be added to the soup. It was really tasty and was a whole lot of food, all for $6.50!

Of the Vietnamese restaurants I've visited in Orlando, Little Saigon appeared to be the fanciest. The restaurant itself had the nicest interior, but as far as the food goes, Little Saigon wouldn't get my pick as the best in Orlando. The food was good, but little things like the skinny summer rolls and a somewhat stingy portion of vegetables for the soup make me think of some of the neighboring restaurants that serve equally tasty food and are pretty generous with the portions. Good, but not the best...

Happy Teriyaki in Longwood, FL

I had dinner at Happy Teriyaki in Longwood, FL. This place has been here for a really long time, as long as I have lived in the area. They never seem busy, but must be doing something right to still be around after all this time. Their menu is mostly Japanese/Sushi with some Chinese items mixed in.

I had a bowl of Udon Soup. This huge bowl of soup came filled with chicken, shrimp, fish cakes, a fried egg, assorted vegetables, and udon noodles, all in a clear broth. It was really tasty and was way too much food! The egg was a bit too runny for my liking, but otherwise I had no complaints!

Asian Chao at UCF

I tried the Asian Chao in the UCF Student Union for lunch one afternoon. I ordered the two item combination and went with Kung Pao Shrimp and Beef with Broccoli. These were both served with a side of lo-mein. Although nothing great, it all tasted okay and was equivalent to the Chinese restaurants in the mall food courts. Being that the same franchise is in several of the local malls, I suppose that's how it should be.

The same dishes are so much better from many independent local Chinese restaurants though...

Curry Chicken from Mehek in Princeton, NJ

I'm running low on my supply of restaurants/food stuff to write about at the moment, so for the next few posts I'll be digging into the Watch Me Eat archives for previously unpublished food adventures. Memories are fallible, but I will do my best to keep these posts as accurate as possible. Mistakes in the details may happen though. Feel free to correct!

Today we are going back to September, 2007 to the lovely town of Princeton, NJ. After some exploring of the town, I ate lunch at an Indian restaurant called Mehek, located right across the street from the University.

Mehek had a take-out counter on ground level and a dining room upstairs. We ate on the second floor. It was after the lunch rush, so we were the only ones eating at the time. Because of this, I chose to order off the menu rather than get the lunch buffet that was offered.

I had the Curry Chicken. The dish came with a bowl of chicken and vegetables in a curry sauce, along with a side of rice, and basket of roti. I love the flavors of Indian food, and the food from Mehek was no exception. The curry was delicious, and I'm always amazed how much flavor the seemingly plain basmati rice has.

If there weren't six states between Florida and New Jersey, I'd gladly return to Mehek!

Asian Buffet in Orlando, FL

I tried a restaurant creatively named Asian Buffet on Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, FL. It was your standard Chinese buffet, although they did have some unusual foods that I haven't seen on other similar buffets.

I started out by trying some of the Chinese standards. Lo mein, chicken with broccoli, shrimp, bok choy, and and egg roll. None of it was exceptional, but none of it tasted horrible either. It was middle of the road Chinese buffet food.
Next up at Asian Buffet, I tried some of the assorted dim sum style dumplings that I cannot properly name. There were pork dumplings (I liked them the best). The ball that resembles a hard boiled egg was filled with a sweet bean paste. The other two sugar coated dumplings were also quite sweet, but I didn't like their spongy consistency.

Finally, I tried some of Asian Buffet's sushi items. I find eating raw fish from buffets to be a scary thought, so I stuck with only items that were cooked here. I had some ebi Nigiri, inari filled with seaweed salad, and a delicious purple seaweed salad. I find this purple seaweed to be delicious, but it seems really rare that a restaurant will be serving it. From Google, it looks like this was either kombu or hijiki.

Pine Garden Chinese

I was doing some shopping for a birthday present in the Waterford Lakes Town Center outdoor mall and started getting hungry. After wandering from store to store in search of a giant Pez dispenser in the horribly designed mall, I stopped by the Pine Garden Chinese Restaurant. I ordered the Kung Pao Chicken lunch combo, which included wonton soup, rice, and the chicken. I wasn't too happy with the food. Everything was pretty much tasteless. The soup tasted like oily water with wontons floating in it. Kung Pao chicken is normally somewhat spicy, but Pine Garden's chicken was very bland. The price was good, but I don't think I would return to Pine Garden any time soon.

Golden China Buffet in Lake Mary

I ate at the Golden China Buffet in Lake Mary, FL. The food tasted okay for the most part. I thought their dim sum pork rolls were really tasty (especially from a Chinese buffet), and those deep fried sesame balls are strangely delicious. This place always used to be packed, but on this visit we were one of the few occupied tables in the restaurant. If a buffet doesn't have enough customers, that means they probably don't have a very good turnover on the food. I try to avoid empty buffets...