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.

Sonny's Bar-B-Q in Sanford

I ate at the Sonny's Bar-B-Q in Sanford, FL. I had a pulled pork sandwich on garlic bread with a side of beans. It was on par with other pulled pork sandwiches that I've eaten in the past leaving me with no complaints about the food.

Although the food was good, I can't say the same for the service. When we entered the restaurant, we stood there for several minutes while we were passed from employee to employee, each saying "Someone will be right with you." Eventually we were seated and our waitress acted like we were bothering her by eating at the restaurant. Our food came long after tables with other servers that ordered after us. The service at Sonny's was equivalent to the service that you generally get at a place like Denny's.

Gnocchi from Buca Di Beppo

I ate at the Buca Di Beppo in Maitland, FL. My last visit to their location in Daytona Beach left room for improvement, but this time I enjoyed the restaurant a lot better. Just like my last visit to Buca di Beppo, the meal started out with a Mixed Greens Salad. Unlike last time, the salad was served as it was described on the menu. It wasn't just iceberg lettuce and had a mix of different types of lettuces, hence the mixed greens.

Mozzarella Garlic Bread was also ordered. I won't complain about garlic bread covered with melted cheese.

For the main course, I shared the Gnocchi al Telefono. I don't speak Italian, but does that name translate to Gnocchi of the Telephone? The gnocchi were topped with a tomato cream sauce with pieces of fresh mozzarella and basil. I had no complaints about the dish. The person I shared the dish with was unfamilar with gnocchi and didn't seem to believe me when I said gnocchi are kind of like potato dumplings. When the waitress was asked, she also denied that the gnocchi contained potatoes. That wasn't good enough for me, so I emailed Buca di Beppo's cooporate email address to find out from the source when I got home. It turns out their gnocchi do indeed contain potato.


One thing I thought was interesting about the whole eating experience was how many times we were told that Buca di Beppo was bought by Planet Hollywood. During the course of the meal, the staff mentioned this at least a half dozen times. It was printed all over the menu, and I thought this was a bit strange. Plenty of other restaurant chains are connected, but none that I can think of go out of their way to point out the parent company's other stores. When you go into Carrabba's, they don't point out throughout the meal that they are owned by Outback Steakhouse.

Cajun Chicken Alfredo at the New Patio Grill in Sanford

I ate at the newly opened Patio Grill in Sanford, FL. After a ten minute wait for a table, I ordered the Cajun Chicken Alfredo.

Unlike the pasta that I ordered at the Patio Grill in Longwood, the pasta at this location came with a salad. They also had a salad bar at this new Patio Grill that was available for upcharge of a few dollars instead of this side salad.

The Cajun Chicken Alfredo was served after the salad in a deep square bowl. The portion was quite large, and consisted peppers, artichoke hearts, and spicy chicken, all in over pasta in an Alfredo cream sauce. Two pieces of garlic bread were served on the side.

I enjoyed the food I ate at this Patio Grill. It all tasted good, and from the amount of people eating at the restaurant, it looks like the Patio Grill people have a winning restaurant on their hands.

Casa Del-Dio Pizza

Casa Del-Dio in Fern Park, FL used to always win Best Pizza in Orlando in the local papers. I ate at the restaurant back then, and the pizza was good. Then for some reason, I thought Casa Del-Dio went out of business. I tried going to the restaurant a few times, and they were always closed. I recently drove by, and they were open again, so I gave them a try. We had a large cheese pizza and some garlic bread.

The garlic bread was garlic-less. They put garlic butter/powder on the bread instead of actual garlic. That's never a good thing.


The pizza tasted okay, but it was overloaded with cheese. The cheese was way too much and out of proportion compared to the rest of the pizza. The overload of cheese kind of ruined what seemed to be a pretty good pizza otherwise. I never like it when there is more cheese than the pizza can handle, and it all overflows onto the plate while there is still plenty of cheese on the slice.


It seems other people enjoy this overload of cheese because Casa Del-Dio was quite busy with people eating pizzas...

Patio Grill Pasta with Vegetables

I ate Pasta with Vegetables at Patio Grill in Longwood, FL. The dish consisted of angel hair pasta, topped with carrots, zucchini, onions, yellow squash, mushrooms, and some cheese. It also came with a piece of garlic bread. When I ordered, the menu didn't list the vegetables that came on the pasta, and I really would have preferred for the mushrooms to be left out (mushrooms aren't even vegetables, they're fungus).

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.

Papa Joe's Pizza (Lake Mary, FL)

Papa Joes used to be a local chain of really popular Italian restaurants in the Central Florida area. Their Altamonte Springs and Lake Mary Blvd locations almost always had a wait, and then they started to expand. As they opened up more and more restaurants in the area, their food and service became worse and worse. After a while the restaurants weren't worth eating at anymore. Eventually other people must have gotten the same feeling because the restaurants seemed to no longer have waits to eat, and Papa Joes closed all of their restaurants except for two in Lake Mary and one in Altamonte Springs.

I went to the Papa Joes in the Colonial Town Center in Lake Mary, FL for the first time in years. I had garlic bread and a cheese pizza. The garlic bread was disappointing and was nothing more than a roll topped with that garlic butter stuff and some parmesan cheese. I don't think there was any actual garlic.

Papa Joe's pizza seemed to go into a downward spiral back when I used to eat at the restaurants more often until it wasn't worth ordering anymore. When I ordered the pizza on this visit, I was surprised with the result. The pizza was actually pretty good. My only complaint was about the sauce. I found it to be way too sweet, but other than that the pie was pretty good. It didn't come close to King Umbertos standards (best pizza ever), but was definitely a few steps above many other local pizzas.

More Ikea Pasta

I ate the same pasta from Ikea in Orlando once again. It seems I've been going there often lately to get their cheap food.

Speaking of Ikea, check out this new store in Brooklyn, NY. It's built on the site of an old shipyard. Instead of getting rid of the shipping stuff, they kept lots of it. They have huge shipping cranes in the store's parking lot!

Very cool!
Ikea in Brooklyn

Ikea Orlando Pasta

I ate at the restaurant in Ikea once again. I ate the same thing that I ordered last time too. I had pasta with alfredo sauce, topped with steamed vegetables. This came with a side salad and garlic bread. It was pretty good for $3.99, but I sort of realized that their food has declined over the years since I first ate in an Ikea up on Long Island several years ago where I was amazed with their good cheap food. It seems like their food has become more American and less Swedish. They definitely didn't have chicken tenders back then...

Pasta from Ikea

On the way home from Universal, I stopped at Ikea to eat dinner. I had a vegetable pasta combo. It included a salad, pasta topped with vegetables and alfredo sauce, and garlic bread, all for $3.99. It tasted good too!

Speaking of Ikea food, check out this blog. They have a really interesting post about what Ikea stores serve in their restaurants around the world. France and Norway look like they serve some good food!

Smoked Turkey from Butler Seafood House

I ate at the Butler Seafood House in Lake Butler, FL. It would seem from the name that the restaurant would specialize in seafood, but their seafood selection really didn't impress me. It was mostly deep-fried and the pictures that were on the menu really didn't look to appetizing. It seemed instead that the Butler Seafood House seems better at serving barbecue that seafood. It seemed like that was what everyone was eating there, and the outside of the restaurant had the smell of smoked food.

Because of this, I ordered the Smoked Turkey dinner special. It consisted of smoked turkey, potato salad, collard greens, baked beans, garlic bread, and hush puppies. Thanks to a mix up in the kitchen, I also received a second bowl of collard greens and French fries. It was pretty good...