La Madeleine Country French Cafe in Alexandria, VA

As per a DC resident's suggestion, I found myself across the Potomac River in Alexandria, VA. This city had a neighborhood known as Old Town which reminded me a bit of St. George Street in St. Augustine. It was somewhat historic and had all sorts of shops and restaurants on a 16 block stretch from the Metro station down to the river. Fake trolleys drove up and down the streets. Ghost tours were offered. All that typical tourist stuff that old cities like this have. While in Alexandria, I had dinner at a restaurant called La Madeleine Country French Cafe. This restaurant turned out to be a chain, set up very similar to a Panera. I wasn't a fan.

I ordered the sandwich/soup combination that the restaurant offered. For my soup, I had the cream of potato, topped with cheese and bacon. The soup was alright for what it was, but very typical of a creamy soup like this.

For my sandwich, I had the Croque Monsieur. This was basically a ham and cheese sandwich with a garlic cream sauce. If the ham and cheese had all been inside of the bread, I don't think I would have had issues here. Unfortunately, La Madeleine melted an excess of swiss cheese on top of the sandwich. This ended up being cheese overkill, with the abundance of goopy cheese taking precedence over all other flavors in the sandwich. It was too much, and I ended up leaving about half of my half sandwich. If there was less cheese inside of the sandwich, the cheese on top wouldn't have been too bad, but the combination of inside and outside cheese was the turning point for me. Pasta salad was served on the side, which I also didn't care for. It had a very strong tomato taste which I wasn't liking.

I don't think I'd return to a La Madeleine location again...

Marti's Deli & Cafe in Boca Raton, FL

During an early morning visit to Boca Raton, I stopped for breakfast at Marti's Deli & Cafe (or as the sign reads from the road: Bagel & Deli). I ordered an egg & cheese sandwich on an everything bagel. The sandwich had a nice portion of egg with plenty of melted cheddar. The bagel was nicely toasted, although it could have used some more seeds on top.

Overall, this was a satisfying breakfast sandwich for a good price. No major complaints here!

Appleton's Hometown Cafe in Lake Mary, FL

I had a breakfast at Appleton's Hometown Cafe in Lake Mary.
I had the Greek Omelet with hash browns and a biscuit. The omelet was filled with gyro meat (whatever that might consist of), olives, spinach, and feta cheese. I'm sometimes hesitant to order omelets in restaurants based on past disappointments, but this omelet was good. It was really tasty, as was the hash browns and the greasy biscuit. Also, real butter > margarine. I don't see any appeal of eating something called Whipped Spread out of a plastic tub...

One final thought about Appleton's. Don't visit around Christmas. I have no problem with decorating for the holidays. I like doing it myself, but the line was crossed in Appleton's to the point where the decorations became obnoxious. Everything at the table should not have a reddish tint from the reflections of the red mylar on the walls...

Animal Kingdom's Yak & Yeti Local Foods Cafes

Continuing my day at Disney's Animal Kingdom, I had lunch at the Yak & Yeti Local Foods Cafes. This is a fast food attachment to the full service Yak & Yeti restaurant with outdoor seating.

I was considering eating at the actual full service Yak & Yeti, but after looking at their menu, I changed my mind. It seemed they had pretty standard dishes that you could get at any Chinese Restaurant, but charged about $30 per dish. The Local Foods Cafes also featured some pretty standard Chinese dishes, along with some burgers, all for much less money. If I wanted to spend top dollar on Chinese food, I don't think a Landry restaurant in a theme park is the best choice.

I ordered the Shrimp Lo Mein. It had plenty of shrimp served over noodles with a somewhat limited selection of vegetables. It definitely could have used more variety when it came to the vegetables in the dish, but it was still pretty tasty. It was a whole lot of food too. Much more than what it looked like.

I also split an order of Pork Egg Rolls. This had to be one of the greasiest egg rolls I've ever eaten. The hot oil was dripping off of the roll when I picked it up! I don't know what happened here, but it wasn't a good thing!

Moving away from the food/restaurant pictures for the rest of this post, I'll say a few things about the new stuff in Animal Kingdom to please the obsessive Disney fans who cause a big spike in this blog's traffic whenever something Disney related is posted.

First new thing was the whole carnival themed area that was added to Dinoland. I didn't quite understand the purpose of the whole area, except as a cheap theme to tie in some carnival rides. What do dinosaurs have to do with carnivals or roadside attractions? I went on the Primeval Whirl roller coaster while in this section of the park. Kind of a stupid ride, but it is what it is. I love roller coasters, but wild mouse coasters really do nothing for me.


Moving on to Dinosaur. Last time I rode this, I'm pretty sure it was called Countdown to Extinction. Very cool ride, but stupid storyline. As someone who has spent way too much time in Natural History museums, the Carnotaurus on this ride really bothers me. This ride portrays the carnotaurus as a large animal, equivalent to a tyrannosaur, when in reality they were much smaller dinosaurs. Even smaller than the iguadon that you are trying to rescue in the ride. I would have expected better scientific accuracy from a ride partly narrated by Bill Nye the Science Guy...


Last, I have to mention Expedition Everest. This ride was one of the highlights of the day. As far a themed roller coasters go, this is definitely one of the best, right up there with Thunder Mountain. Roller coasters always seem so much better when they build a fake mountain around the track. It had it's nice surprises and was really smooth. Only disappointment was that the robotic yeti wasn't working. Still, Expedition Everest is a really fun ride!

Basil Shrimp from Bento Cafe

I went to a movie at the new theater in the Plaza in Downtown Orlando. Although the theater serves actual food rather than the normal popcorn and candy, I passed on eating here. Instead, I went to Bento Cafe on the ground floor of the building.

I ordered the Basil Shrimp Bento Box. The shrimp were really good with plenty of basil. The rest of the box was filled with green beans, lo mein, salad, rice, and a butterfly cookie. Although the sides tasted good enough, I thought they could have been improved. There wasn't really enough of the sides to fill the box, so there was lots of empty plate below the food. Most bento boxes that I've had come with a California Roll too. Regardless, I'd definitely return to Bento Cafe!

Jerk Chicken Sandwich from Millie's Jamaican Cafe

I had lunch at Millie's Jamaican Cafe in Orlando near UCF. I had a Jerk Chicken sandwich that consisted of chicken, lettuce, and cheese on a roll. The spicy jerk chicken on the sandwich was really good, but it wasn't easy eating. There were still some bones in the chicken, so it wasn't exactly conducive to eating as one would normally eat a sandwich. Every few bites I had to spit out some bones. If I wasn't eating a sandwich and had just ordered plain jerk chicken, I wouldn't have issues with the bones, but sandwiches shouldn't be filled with non-edible parts.



The sandwich tasted really good, but the bones in a sandwich were sort of a turn off. I probably would return to Millie's, but I won't be getting a sandwich next time.

Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Lake Mary, FL

Someone had a coupon for buy one, get one free at Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Lake Mary, FL. If I want a smoothie, I will buy my own fruit and make it myself. Because of this, I don't frequent the various smoothie restaurants in the area often. When the free smoothie was offered to me, I gladly agreed to give Tropical Smoothie Cafe a try.

Upon walking into the store, the first thing I noticed was the horrible smell. Tropical Smoothie Cafe's odor was hard to describe, but reminded me of a combination of rotting meat and gas station bathrooms. If it was just me, I would have walked out right then, but the coupon holder was planning on buying a smoothie anyway. Apparently, I was told that Tropical Smoothie Cafe always smells like this. I was having serious doubts if I should be consuming any sort of food product from a store that had such a foul odor, but since I was investing no money in the smoothie, I figured I could order it and worry about drinking the smoothie later.

The first smoothie was ordered and the cashier took the coupon and money. She never asked what the second smoothie was. She just went on and proceeded to make two of the smoothies that the person I was with ordered. I had to go up and stop the smoothie maker as she started making the second smoothie of the same flavor. This seemed to upset the smoothie maker, but eventually she figured out how to make a second smoothie flavor.

And after all that, my Blimey Limey smoothie was made. It tasted like there was lots of added sweetener in the smoothie, where when I make my own, I only use fruit and juice. Other than that, the smoothie tasted okay. It still doesn't make up for the store's horrible smell and strange service.

Hospital Food at the Kuhl Cafe

I was visiting someone at ORMC and got hungry. I ventured down to the hospital cafeteria called the Kuhl Cafe. I had a wrap filled with fried eggplant, feta cheese, olives, spinach, and hummus, all inside of a spinach tortilla. Hospital food tends to have a bad reputation, but this wrap was really good!

Falafel Cafe

I picked up some take out from Falafel Cafe across the street from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. I've heard only good things about this place, so I decided to finally give it a try. For some reason I thought it was fast food, so I was surprised to see that Falafel Cafe was a sit down restaurant.

I had a Falafel Sandwich which came with a choice of soups. The lentil soup that I choose was interesting. It was very smooth, very similar to split pea soup, only with lentils instead. I've never come across lentil soup with this consistency. It was good, but I prefer the chunkier lentil soup that is more commonly found. The falafel sandwich was really good. There were nice sized falafels wrapped in Lebanese bread, along with lettuce, tomato, onions, parsley, and tahini. This was one of the better falafel sandwiches that I've eaten in the Central Florida area.

On the way out, I'm pretty sure I saw someone eating a plate of pickled turnips. I've only seen them in Lebanese restaurants, and it's been a very long time since I've eaten these. I definitely need to return to get myself some of these wonderful pickled root vegetables!

Cafe Panuzzo's Tortellini Alfredo

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.

T-Rex in Downtown Disney

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.