Chesapeake Bagel Bakery in Ft. Lauderdale, FL

I spent a few days in Ft. Lauderdale. While down there, I sampled some of the city's food. The motel I stayed in didn't supply breakfast because of COVID reasons, so I ventured out to find food on my first morning there. I ended up a restaurant called Chesapeake Bagel Bakery. It took me way too long to get the pun in the restaurant name...

I had the Nova-Nova sandwich. This was an everything bagel, topped with Nova lox, red onion, capers, tomato, and cream cheese. 

I very much enjoyed this sandwich. Good bagel, and they were generous with the amount of lox and toppings in the sandwich!

 

UK Trip Travel Food: Grasmere Food (Co-op Food, Lucia's Coffee and Bakehouse, and Emma's Dell)

I took a trip to England in the summer of 2019. During this trip, I rented a car in York and drove to the Lake District. I wanted to see a national park outside of the United States to see how parks like this are done elsewhere. I picked a random destination within the Lake District and ended up in a town called Grasmere. 

Co-op Food:

When I arrived, I checked into were I was staying, hiked up a mountain, and then got back just in time to take shelter from a thunderstorm. By the time the storm let up, all the restaurants in Grasmere were closed for the day. That is, except for the small convenience store sized supermarket called Co-op Food. Here, I bought some of their ready-made food options for dinner. This included a Chimichurri Chicken Flatbread, olives, and biscuits. 

Lucia's Coffee + Bakehouse:

I had breakfast the next morning at a place called Lucia's Coffee + Bakehouse. I had a freshly baked Cumberland Sausage Roll, served with homemade ketchup. 

Emma's Dell:

Lunch was had at a restaurant specializing in crepes called Emma's Dell. I had a crepe called the Highland Fling. It was filled with smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, and served with a chive crème fraiche. I had tea to drink. Tea leaves were served loose in a french press.

During the meal, I felt like somebody was trying to watch me eat from the next table...

Here's a picture of a Luxury Dairy Ice Cream truck in the mountains, just because mountains need to be photographed.

 

Market on South in Orlando, FL

I've ended up at Market on South in Orlando on a couple occasions recently. Market on South was described to me in a way that made it sound similar to East End Market or Plant Street Market, as in one building that houses several separate food centered businesses. Technically, that's what Market on South is, but the separate entities are all sold from one single counter inside the building. Until my first visit there, I also didn't realize that everything sold at Market on South is vegan.

Dixie Dharma is the name of the food vendor inside of Market on South that serves sandwiches. I tried their Carolina BBQ Pulled Jackfruit Sandwich. The menu described it being topped with crispy fried onions, garlic pickle, arugula, preserved lemon & coca-cola reduction, all on Texas toast. This was my first time ever trying jackfruit on a sandwich and it was pretty tasty.

I also traded a sandwich half with the person I ate here with and tried the Florida Fried Green Tomato Sandwich. This had deep fried green tomatoes, with smoked eggplant remoulade, garlicky kale & chow-chow on Texas toast. Of the two sandwiches I tried, I preferred this one. Both were good, but this one had a little more going for it. I did like that Dixie Dharma didn't pretend that they we serving meat when they weren't like I've seen done in far too many vegan/vegetarian restaurants. My main complaint with both of the sandwiches was the Texas toast. The white bread didn't do it for me...

Valhalla Bakery is the bakery portion of Market on South. It seems like most of their baked goods are doughnuts, but when I saw they were advertising King Cakes for Fat Tuesday on their Instagram, I stopped in a picked a few up. My most recent experience with vegan baked goods before this from a bakery which will not be named was like eating corrugated cardboard that was supposed to be a brownie, so my expectations weren't high. These King Cakes luckily exceeded my expectations. I had a Publix King Cake the day before, and these were way better. I'm not sure how Valhalla Bakery does it with no eggs or dairy, but the cakes were moist, held together well, and didn't fit the stereotype of vegan baked goods at all. Unfortunately, babies were not supplied with the cakes.

Quebec Boulangeries

While in Quebec, I had breakfast almost every day at a different bakery. Quebec City has some excellent bakeries and they are all over the city. My first bakery experience was actually in the Montreal Airport while I was waiting for a connecting flight to Quebec City.

Second Cup (Montreal Airport)

The restaurant was called Second Cup. It was a coffee shop which sold assorted pastries and sandwiches. I was initially going to get a sandwich, but even in Canadian dollars, the sandwich prices here were insane for something pre-made. The pastries were much more reasonable and I ordered an almond croissant. The croissant was filled with almond paste and topped with slivered almonds and powdered sugar. It was good for airport food, but much better croissants were coming in Quebec City.

La Boite a Pain (Limoilou)

In Quebec City's Limoilou neighborhood. This was my first experience in Quebec where I felt lost with not being fluent in French. Nobody in here instantly switched to English with my first word of bad French, and I was lost once entire sentences of words I didn't recognize were spoken to me. Turned out nobody working in here spoke English (Yay! It actually felt like International travel!), but I was able to get the point across that I wanted an almond croissant. It was much better than the almond croissant from the airport.

La Fournee Bio Boulangerie Artisanale (Limoilou)

I think I would say La Fournee Bio Boulangerie is my personal favorite restaurant that I found in Quebec City. The bakery items here were amazing. There were pastries, breads, sandwiches, and all sorts of other baked goods. The shelves of deliciousness were perfectly laid out, all looking beautiful. This was another place where very little English was spoken. The employee's very broken English and my very limited French allowed me to order here. Multiple times. I think I ended up here at least four times during six days in Quebec City.

Ham and cheese croissant.

Almond Crossant

Turkey sandwich. This was my least favorite thing here. Stick with the baked goods rather than a pre made sandwich.

Brulerie Limoilou
Brulerie Limoilou was more of a coffee shop than bakery, but they did sell baked goods. I stopped in here upon somebody's recommendation for a snack.

I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Nothing was wrong with it, but it was pretty forgettable in the big scheme of deliciousness which was eaten on my trip. It was a bit pricy as well for what ended up being half of a full grilled cheese. 

Paillard 

I had breakfast at Paillard one morning in Quebec's Old City. I couldn't really figure out if this restaurant was a chain or not, but I definitely got that vibe. The restaurant was doing a huge amount of tourist business. There were very few open tables and they had a constant line. I ordered one of their breakfast combos, which included a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant, fruit, and a coffee. The buttery croissant and bacon resulted in a very greasy sandwich. Still, it was much better than the Tim Hortons bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.

Al Bacio in Winter Park, FL

I was recently invited to a new restaurant and bakery in Winter Park called Al Bacio. They are located at 505 N. Park Avenue, very close to the Morse Museum and within walking distance of the SunRail station. When translated to English, Bacio means "to kiss." This should evoke the classic Italian gesture of placing one's index finger and thumb to one's lips and giving a kiss. They serve Italian, American, and Latin American food prepared by world-class pastry and Italian chefs. Al Bacio is open from morning to early evening serving breakfast, lunch, baked goods, coffees and a variety of appetizers complimented by a fine selection of beer and wine.

The dessert case is very prominent inside of Al Bacio. It was filled with all sorts of delicious looking pastries including cannoli, cheesecake, fruit tarts, and cupcakes.

For the media event that I attended, a choice of red or white sangria was offered.

We were also served a delicious selection of appetizers, hors d'oeuvres, and pastries.

Skewers of fresh mozzarella, artichoke hearts, and sundried tomato along with skewers of prosciutto wrapped melon:

Beef chimichurri:

Fried mozzarella and cheese empanadas:

 Desserts:

Canollis:

Sienafit was my companion on this food adventure to Al Bacio. You should be subscribed to her Youtube Channel. A few days later, she returned to the restaurant and sent me her first guest contribution to this blog:

A few days later I decided to go back and show a friend the the coffee shop. I asked if Al Bacio could make coffee drinks with designs in the foam/milk like they have pictured on their website. The waiter told me cappuccino could be made like this, so we ordered two. One of the cappuccinos was served with a nice star design on top made from foam and chocolate syrup. The other was just a plain cappuccino. My friend was a little disappointed his drink was not pretty as well. Cannolis were my favorite dessert at the media dinner. We got another to go with our cappuccinos.

That's the preview of Al Bacio. Visit their website for their location, hours, and menu:
http://albacio-florida.com


 

Bagel King in Debary, FL

Bagel King is a local chain with several locations throughout the Central Florida area. One of their smaller locations is in Debary at the intersection of 17-92 and Highbanks Road. I've been to this location a couple times now. On my first visit, I tried a cheddar bagel with cream cheese. I don't think I had ever tried a cheddar bagel anywhere before this. I've had other types of cheese on bagels, but not cheddar.

On another visit to this Bagel King, I had an everything bagel with cream cheese. This bagel seemed skimpy with the amount of seeds. There were seeds on both sides of the bagel which is always a plus, but there seemed to be less seeds compared to other Bagel King bagels that I've had in the past. Perhaps I just got a bad batch.

While I enjoyed my bagels at Bagel King, I didn't enjoy how unpleasant the employees have been in this location. They gave the impression that they really didn't want to be there and seemed angry that they had to slice my bagel. Regardless, Bagel King's bagels are definitely better than chain bagels. Then again, there aren't any of the big chains in Debary (Panera, Einsteins, or Dunkin Donuts) so Bagel King seems to have the bagel monopoly in this city!

Croissant Gourmet in Winter Park, FL

SunRail has officially started service in Orlando as of this week. In order to try out the new train, I decided to ride to Winter Park to get some lunch. You can read all about my experience riding SunRail on a new blog that I started called FloridaTrainAdventures.com. After I got off the train, I walked over to a French restaurant called Croissant Gourmet.

Croissant Gourmet is a French bakery, serving all sorts of delicious looking croissants, pastries, crepes, and sandwiches.

I ordered a sandwich called the Croque Monsieur topped with an egg. I've heard this sandwich also described as a croque madame if egg is involved, but according to the menu this was a croque monsieur. The sandwich consisted of two slices of bread, ham, melted cheese, and a fried egg over the top. Once the yolk was broken, the runny egg was absorbed into the bread giving the sandwich an extra burst of flavor. A salad was served on the side.

I shared a cinnamon raisin roll for dessert. It had a nice, flaky, almost croissant-like texture that I enjoyed. The roll was topped with powdered sugar and was tasty.

I enjoyed my meal at Croissant Gourmet. The food was good, and although it wasn't the cheapest restaurant around, it was more affordable than a couple other similar French bakeries that I've visited. After my meal, I returned to the train station and rode home...

Termini Bros in Philadelphia, PA

While wandering around Philadelphia, I stumbled across the Reading Terminal Market. I had heard of this market in the past, but completely forgot about it until it was in my sights and bells went off in my brain that I should go in.

 

Inside, Reading Terminal Market sort of reminded me of Chelsea Market in New York, only on a larger scale. They sold almost every type of food stuff imaginable in here, ranging from Pennsylvania Dutch made cheese to Middle Eastern foods to Italian pastries.

The whole market was swarming with people, some taking foods to go, although the majority seemed to be eating in the tables set up in the aisles between the various vendors.

I had already ate lunch at Tony Luke's earlier in the day, so I decided I would get some dessert in the market. I came across a place called Termini Bros that caught my attention.

They had giant butterfly cookies in their display case. I have some happy food memories from when I was a little kid associated with these cookies, so I decided that I would get myself one.

The cookie was huge, probably a foot long from wing tip to wing tip. It was made of a flaky dough with a sweet cinnamon filling between the layers. I totally overdid it, but I devoured the entire cookie in one sitting.

We also got a cannoli from Termini Bros. They were filling these behind the counter as ordered, so it definitely made it more interesting than just getting a pre-made dessert from the case. The filling had a very strong ricotta flavor which I enjoyed. To me, this is what cannoli filling should taste like. The person who I split the cannoli with disagreed and prefers the typical Florida Italian restaurant cannonli filling which tastes more like icing.