Mediterranean Street Food in Maitland, FL

Mediterranean Street Food is located in a tiny building in the middle of a strip mall parking lot in Maitland. They have been around for quite a while, but I recently gave them a try for the first time and ordered some takeout.

I had the Doner - Gyro Bowl. This was served in a container lined with a large flatbread, filled with rice, then topped with the meat, seasoned onions and tomatoes, and a salad. Tzatziki was served on the side.

Also ordered a Falafel Bowl. Very similar, with a cucumber salad replacing the onions that came with the gyro. Interesting that the falafel were flatter, more disk-like than what I typically see elsewhere.

I enjoyed the food here. The portions were huge and were a good value for the price. Everything was flavorful, and there was plenty of vegetables to counter the main item. I'll be back.

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!

Firehook Bakery in Washington DC

While in DC, I ended up exploring the Dupont Circle area. While in the neighborhood, I ate lunch at a restaurant called Firehook Bakery. They ended up being a local chain in the Washington area and I passed a few more Firehooks in my travels around DC.

Based on their pastry and cake selections, they definitely didn't appear to be a chain. All of this stuff looked delicious! Unfortunately, I was there for lunch rather than dessert so I didn't try any.

I had the soup and sandwich lunch combo. I choose tomato bisque for my soup, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was creamy, slightly spicy, and had just enough tomato flavor so it wasn't overpowering. This was actually one of the best soups I've had in recent memory. A slice of bread was served alongside the tomato bisque for dipping. The sandwich was pressed and filled with turkey, cheese, and roasted red peppers. Pretty tasty, but nothing exceptional. The soup was the definite winner out of the two parts of this meal.

I enjoyed Firehook Bakery. When it comes to bakery chains, Firehook was definitely towards the better end of the spectrum. Way better than some of the larger bakery chains (like Panera). I'd return here.

Panera Bread in Boca Raton, FL

On my last visit to Boca Raton, I had lunch at Panera Bread. I had the You Pick Two with a cup of Black Bean Soup and half of a Sierra Turkey Sandwich. Soup was good, but the sandwich was a bit skimpy on the other toppings besides turkey (especially if you do an image search for the sandwich and compare). Panera is essentially a fast food restaurant though, so my expectations of the food looking good weren't great to begin with!

Lakeland Farmers Market

After running a 10k race in Lakeland, I found myself wandering around downtown and came across the Lakeland Farmers Market.

They had a good selection of vendors. The food choices included at least three fruit stands, at least one selling locally grown organic fruits and vegetables. There was honey, bread, kettle corn, an ice cream truck, prepared Italian sandwiches, and more. The variety of edible items at this farmers market was really nice!

Here's a bread vendor:

One of multiple vendors selling fruits & vegetables:

They had plenty of non-food items too, including plants, clothes, jewelry, and more. Here's a plant vendor:

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to the Lakeland Farmers Market. It could compete with some of the better farmers markets in the Orlando area...

Olde Hearth Bread Company in Casselbery, FL

I came across a bakery that makes really good bread in an industrial park in Casselbery, FL called Olde Hearth Bread Company. While they weren't much of a retail store, they seemed more than happy to sell me a few loaves of bread when I visited. Olde Hearth appears to do most of their business by supplying bread to other local restaurants.

I tried their NY style rye bread, a few semolina rolls, and a loaf of chocolate mango bread. I think the rye was my favorite. Not only was the loaf of bread huge for the low price they charged, it tasted really good and had plenty of caraway seeds in the loaf, just like a good rye bread should.

The semolina rolls were my least favorite. Still pretty good though, although I've had better elsewhere...

The chocolate mango bread definitely was the most unique. It had pieces of chocolate and dried mango baked into the bread. I found the bread was really good toasted so the chocolate got all soft topped with some butter. Apparently they bake this bread for the Tusker House Restaurant at Animal Kingdom.

Monreale Bakery in Franklin Square, NY

I was planning on getting a bagel one morning, but then remembered the Monreale Bakery in Franklin Square, NY that I remembered passing a few days before. I decided I'd stop in and get some other type of bread. I was greeted by racks of freshly baked bread in the window, and then cases of Italian cookies and pastries in the cases inside.

I bought some bread and also had to try some of the desserts, so I selected a few to try. I took the food back to the house, all in this great box tied with red and white string.

I had this Semolina Roll topped with sesame seeds for my breakfast.

Although it doesn't show in the picture that well, bread made from semolina flour is more yellow than your standard white bread and tastes a whole lot better!

Later on, I tried the desserts I bought. I tasted this really good cannoli first, stuffed with it's ricotta filling.

I also tried this dessert. I'm not sure what it's called, but was similar to a empanada filled with the same ricotta filling as in the cannoli. It was good!


These Italian Bakeries seem to be all over this area of Long Island and Monreale was a good one. Question time: Anyone know of a good Italian Bakery like this somewhere in the Orlando area?

Trinity in Floral Park, NY

The original plan was to eat dinner at a diner, but after discussing how expensive most diners on Long Island became, we decided to try something new and go to a nicer restaurant (hopefully in the same price range). We ended up at a good Irish Pub in Floral Park, NY called Trinity.

The meal started out with a basket of Irish Soda Bread, crackers, and really good scones. Someone at the table ordered a beer, and somehow they put this clover design in the beer head. I've never seen anything like this in beer and have no idea how it's made.

I ordered Fish & Chips for my meal. I normally don't go for the fried fish, but this was pretty good. Drenching everything on the plate with lemon juice and malt vinegar makes it so much better though!

Someone else at the table ordered a Chicken Pot Pie. I traded a piece of fish for half of the pie and really liked it. It was one of the best chicken pot pies that I have eaten in a long time.

Another person at the table ordered Bangers and Mash. They didn't finish, so I tried one of the leftover sausages. It had a somewhat unique taste that I couldn't quite place, but was still good. Not as good as the Chicken Pot Pie though.

I really enjoyed Trinity and I'm glad I found it. It was way better than a diner!

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...

Limoncellos Waterfront Ristorante

A $5 off coupon brought me into Limoncellos Waterfront Restorante in the Sanford Marina along Lake Monroe.

Garlic bread was ordered as a appetizer. Rather than the normal Italian restaurant garlic bread, Limoncellos gave slices of bread with a bowl of roasted garlic in oil. It was unexpected, but was a nice surprise. I really like roasted garlic.

I was debating about whether to get gnocchi or a calzone, and finally ended up ordering the Calzone Primavera. The calzone was filled with red peppers, onions, eggplant, broccoli, ricotta, and mozzarella. I enjoyed it.

If you eat outside on the restaurant's patio, you get this wonderful view of the St. Johns River.

I liked Limoncellos. The view was great, the food was better than many other local Italian restaurants, and the prices weren't bad either.


UPDATE: I did like Limoncellos a whole lot on my first visit, which I wrote about above. Second visit, not so much. Horrible service, bad food, and the bottle of vinegar for my salad was filled with flies...

Pan Pan Bakery Desserts

I pass by Pan Pan Bakery at the intersection of 17-92 and 434 in Longwood, FL almost daily, and the place always appears busy. With all of the customers, I figured it must be good and gave this Colombian Bakery a try.

I ordered a guava & cheese roll, a strawberry turnover, and a pineapple turnover.

My favorite was the pineapple turnover. It consisted of pineapple jam baked in a flaky crust.

The guava and cheese roll wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Inside of the sugar topped bread, there was guava jelly and a slice of cheese. Too much bread here, and not enough guava. I could have done without the cheese.


It seemed Pan Pan Bakery specialized more in breads than desserts since their selection was somewhat limited. Maybe one day I'll return to try some Colombian bread.