Miwa Hibachi & Sushi Express in Ocoee, FL

I recently had dinner at a fast food Japanese restaurant in Ocoee called Miwa Hibachi & Sushi Express. I ordered the shrimp teriyaki meal, served with fried rice and vegetables. They gave several good sized shrimp, and then asked if I wanted some extra teriyaki chicken from the last person's meal that they cooked. I took Miwa up on their offer and sampled their chicken as well. The meats were tasty, although typical for what is served in hibachi style restaurants like this. The vegetables mostly consisted of cabbage and broccoli. The rice was good as well.

Miwa's portion size was huge. I couldn't finish all the food. It was definitely a good value for the price. I don't get out to Ocoee all too often, but I'd return here again sometime in the future...

Kyoto Sushi & Grill at UCF

Kyoto Sushi & Grill is one of the newer restaurants to open in the shops surrounding the UCF Arena in Orlando. It is a semi-fast food restaurant, where you order your food with a cashier, and then the food is brought out to your table.

I ate here once previously for lunch and had a California Roll. On my second visit, this time for dinner, I had the Hibachi Chicken. Miso soup and salad were served first. The soup was good and the salad had the typical ginger dressing that everyone loves.

Soon enough, the main course, a huge plate of chicken, vegetables, rice, and noodles was served. It was mostly good. The chicken was tasty, but I found a bit too much of it to be fatty. They offered an upgrade to all white meat, and I should have gone for it. Regardless, I shouldn't need to be spitting out an unedible bit every few bites. Rice and vegetables were good, although they were a bit stingy with them. Looking at the picture below, it's hard to even spot the vegetables on the plate, and they are one of my favorite parts of the meal! The menu stated the chicken was served with soba noodles, but instead, we got the typical Japanese Steakhouse noodles. Still good, but not soba...

Besides the unedible chicken bits, I liked Kyoto. The food is mostly tasty, the prices are pretty reasonable (especially for lunch), and the portions are quite large. I think next time I'll either try a bento box or the hibachi shrimp.

Boba Tea from Bento Cafe in Orlando, FL

I had a Mango Boba Tea from Bento Cafe in The Plaza in Downtown Orlando. While I was pleased with the food here on a previous visit, their boba tea was a disappointment. It tasted like plain taro milk tea to me with no hint of mango. Lollicup still has the best boba tea in Orlando...

Iron Sushi in Downtown Miami

On a Saturday afternoon, I did some exploring of Downtown Miami. After checking out some museums, street fairs, and some very cool mass-transit systems, I was starting to get hungry. I decided to get my lunch from a restaurant called Iron Sushi.

Iron Sushi is a take out Japanese restaurant that seems to do a lot of delivery business to the surrounding office buildings. The restaurant itself was tiny, with a few places to sit inside as well as several outdoor tables on the sidewalk.

I started out with some miso soup. Iron Sushi was very generous with the amount of tofu and seaweed in the soup, and that's a good thing!

Next, I had a California Roll made with brown rice. Sometimes I have found brown rice sushi falls apart much easier than the standard white sushi rice, but this wasn't the case here. The rolls were very solid with no crumbling, filled with krab, avocado, cucumber, and topped with masago.

I really enjoyed the eating experience at Iron Sushi. It is my only time ever eating sushi outdoors on a city sidewalk, surrounded by humongous skyscrapers, listening to salsa music being blasted from the inside of a take-out Japanese restaurant...

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.

Knightstop Sushi

I was at the University of Central Florida and got some sushi from Knightstop in the Student Union. I walked in about 5:50 and they closed at 6:00 pm. Because of this, the sushi choices were a bit scarce. They had a few fancy rolls for just under $10 which was more than I wanted to spend or this box of California Rolls and Inari. Since Knightstop was closing, the sushi chef was cleaning up for the night so I couldn't request a new roll. Because of this, I ended up with the only roll left in my price range.

The California Rolls were good, filled with krab, cucumber, and avocado. They were a standard California Roll and tasted like they should. I don't like inari that much, which is why this was not the ideal roll for me. It consisted of sweetened rice inside of a fried soybean wrapper. I didn't think the inari was anything great, but I did finish all three.

Salmon from Hibachi Express

I returned to Hibachi Express in Casselberry, FL for a second visit. This time I tried their Teriyaki Salmon. It consisted of pieces of salmon served over stir fried vegetables with steamed rice on the side. I had no complaints, but if I come back and eat here again, I think I will ask for them to leave out the mushrooms in the vegetables.

I took a look at Hibachi Express' website and found some of the stuff on the Welcome page kind of amusing. The place has the typical setup as a Chinese Takeout, so it seems very deceiving how the restaurant is described. I think anyone who calls up to make reservations at Hibachi Express without seeing the restaurant will be disappointed when they arrive.

Hibachi Chicken Bento from Bayridge Sushi

Once again, I ate at Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL. I ordered a Hibachi Chicken Lunch Bento for $7.95, which started with miso soup and salad.

The soup and salad were followed by the bento, filled with the chicken, dumplings, rice, California rolls, and pineapple.

You really can't go wrong with one of these bento boxes. They come with a huge amount of food that is typically always good for a great price.

Dinner at Bayridge Sushi

I had dinner at Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL. I've never been here at dinner time, and it was even more packed than the place gets for lunch. It seemed like all you could eat sushi was the thing to get, with the sushi being made at a lightning fast speed. There was no question here whether the fish was out too long.

The unlimited sushi cost a bit more than I wanted to spend at $20, so I went with some individual rolls and miso soup.

I ordered a Wasibi Roll first. It was filled with half tuna and half salmon, along with cucumber and avocado. It was topped with orange and green fish eggs. I liked it, although the salmon kept on sliding out of the roll. It was a little spicy, but not too bad.

While everyone else ordered their second rounds of all you can eat sushi, I ordered a California Roll so I'd have something to do. It tasted like a California Roll should.

Kobe in Longwood, FL

I ate at the Kobe Japanese Steakhouse in Longwood, FL. They offered a deal where two people eat for for $25.00 after 9:00 pm, and that was my reason for visiting the restaurant. For this price of $12.50 each, each of the two people had to agree to order the same menu item. We ordered the chicken and shrimp. While waiting for the meal to be cooked on the hibachi grill, soup and salad was served.


The chef finally came out and started cooking. There weren't very many customers at 9:30 on a Thursday night, so we had the table to ourselves.

The food was plated as it was cooked, and included stir fried vegetables, noodles, shrimp, rice, and chicken. In the end, the dinner for two deal was kind of disappointing. It seemed Kobe just took one portion of food and split it up into two half portions. There was still lots of food, but there was definitely a quantity difference between this meal and a single meal. In a shrimp and chicken dinner, they served me only two shrimp. And while all of the other food tasted good, I do have issues with these shrimp. The shrimp that Kobe serves aren't deveined. I personally don't enjoy eating shrimp guts, and for the price Kobe charges, they should definitely serve cleaned shrimp. So in the end, this dinner for two thing really wasn't much of a special. Two people going to Kobe for their early birds seems like it would provide a whole lot more food for only a few dollars more.

Dynamite Roll from Fuji Sushi

I ordered take out from Fuji Sushi in Lake Mary, FL. When I went to pick up the food, I was surprised how empty the restaurant was. On my previous visits to Fuji Sushi, the restaurant has always been crowded, but tonight it looked like there were only two tables eating in the whole place. And then I was ignored. It took about five minutes before anyone came over to help me while the restaurant employees had a clear view of me while they were all at the sushi bar talking. When someone finally did come over, I paid for my food and took it home.

I had my miso soup first. Real miso soup from Japanense restaurants like Fuji is so much better than the instant miso from supermarkets. No complaints here.

I also ordered a Dynamite Roll with a mixed seafood topping. It was basically a California roll topped with cooked fish in an orange sauce. I didn't like the topping very much, and it didn't seem to be worth double the price of a normal California roll with the small amount of seafood that I spotted in the topping. For a California roll with stuff on top, I definitely liked Imperial Dynasty's California Earthquake better.


Fuji has been good every other time I've visited, so slow service and one roll that I didn't like very much won't scare me away from the restaurant yet.

Osaka in Lake Mary, FL

I ate at the Osaka Japanese Steakhouse in Lake Mary, FL. I had the Hibachi Chicken, which started out with some soup and salad. They ruin that soup in my opinion by putting all of those dried Chinese noodles in it.

The chef soon came out and cooked at the table, serving up mixed vegetables, fried rice, noodles, and the chicken. It was tasty, and it was much more reasonably priced compared to the nearby Kobe or Yokohama.

Bayridge Sushi Shrimp Tempura Bento Box

Last time I ate at Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL, I ate their Salmon Lunch Bento Box. I returned to the restaurant, and this time I ordered a Shrimp Tempura Lunch Bento Box. Miso soup and salad came out first, both of which were good. The box soon followed and consisted of shrimp and vegetables fried in tempura batter, California Roll, dumplings, rice, pineapple chunks, and a maraschino cherry. The tempura itself tasted okay, but I don't eat deep fried food that often, so fried taste got to be a bit much by the time I finished the shrimp and vegetables. Deep fried broccoli is a bit strange to me though. It kind of defeats the purpose by taking something healthy and sending it to the other side of the healthy spectrum.

Yokohama Japanese Steakhouse

I ate at the new Yokohama Japanese Steakhouse in the Super Target Shopping Center in Sanford, FL. It's a hibachi style Japanese Restaurant where they cook at your table. The first thing I noticed in the restaurant was that the chairs were too low for the table. I'm an average height, and the table was kind of high, so I imagine it would be much worse for a shorter person. The second thing I noticed was that for some unknown reason, they dressed their chefs up as cowboys. Someone must have thought it would be a good idea to put the chefs in cowboy hats and bandannas, but it just caused the chefs to look silly.

As for the food, it tasted good, but was overpriced. My Hibachi Chicken was a few dollars more than what the already overpriced Kobe charges. For that extra money, the portions here seemed to be smaller and they didn't include the noodles that most other Japanese Steakhouses serve. I have issues with most Japanese restaurants that serve these noodles, assuming the stupid Americans think they are eating something exotic like soba or udon, when in fact it's just a box of spaghetti. When the noodles don't come though, I miss them. Yokohama should move above all of the other Japanese Steakhouses nearby and actually serve a more traditional noodle.

The meal started with some soup and salad. The menu said miso soup, but they served the normal steakhouse onion broth. I don't like it when places switch menu items without telling you.

The cowboy chef came and cooked the food soon after. Everything was good, but something I especially liked was the mustard sauce. It's rare to find a Japanese Steakhouse that serves this and it's very tasty. The other thing I liked was that the shrimp were already cleaned and they didn't make a show out of cleaning them. This meant that they were really clean and weren't covered in those strings of shrimp guts like you get at Kobe.

After the meal, Yokohama gave a plate of sectioned oranges for dessert.

Overall, most of the food tasted good, but I don't think I would return to the Hibachi part of the restaurant. It cost a bit too much, and giving less of basically the same food as their cheaper competitors isn't an incentive for me to return. I did notice that most of the people eating here were sitting in the non-hibachi area of the restaurant, so this may be the way to go if I do return. From what I saw while glancing over the menu, it seemed you could order similar food for a lower price without the show. And the sushi looked good too!

California Earthquake from Imperial Dynasty

I ate at Imperial Dynasty in Longwood, FL. I noticed one of their sushi specials on the way in was something called a California Earthquake. It was described as a California Roll topped with baked fish. It sounded interesting, so I ordered the roll and a wonton soup.

Imperial Dynasty has good wonton soup. Unlike most other Chinese restaurants, they put lots of good vegetables in their soup. Besides from the standard wontons, pork, and scallions, Imperial Dynasty also put cabbage and carrots in the soup. Adding more vegetables to a soup is never a bad thing in my opinion.

As for the California Earthquake, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was still really tasty. The sign with the specials said the California roll was topped with baked fish, so I was expecting actual big pieces of fish. Instead, it was more like a fish salad. The fish was broken up into small pieces and mixed with other ingredients (it said something about eel sauce) to make the topping for the roll. All of this was topped with crumbled tempura batter and decorated with some radishes carved into flowers. I would definitely get the California Earthquake again.

Publix Stardust Combo

I ate some sushi from Publix today. I had what they called a Stardust Combo. I can't think of how they came up with the name, but it was tasty. It consisted of Californa Rolls, Tsunami Rolls, Cucumber Rolls, and Tuna Rolls.

Knightstop Tsunami Roll

I had a Tsunami Roll from the Knightstop store in the UCF Student Union. I had no idea this place existed, and they had pretty good sushi too. It was the same Southern Tsunami brand sushi that is sold in certain Publix Supermarkets. The roll was filled with a shrimp/crab salad, tempura, cucumber, and was topped with scallions and some sort of sauce. I'd get it again...