Eastern Chinese Restaurant in Tallahassee, FL

I went camping a few weeks ago up in Tallahassee. When you sleep in a tent around a bonfire, I hear you're supposed to make dinner yourself using primitive cooking techniques. What's 200,000 years of human evolution and the invention of the internal combustion engine good for if we still need to make food the same way as our ancestors? We decided to make full use of our human achievements and drove to the nearest shopping center to pick up Chinese take-out rather than cooking over a fire...

We ended up at Eastern Chinese Restaurant in a Publix Shopping Center. I started with some Wonton Soup.

I also had some Vegetable Lo Mein. These noodles had plenty of mixed vegetables, although the lo mein was sort of bland tasting. Some soy sauce and spicy mustard fixed that...

Just to get the most out of my camping experience, the next night I had a grilled venison steak and corn on the cob, all cooked under the stars. Honestly though, I preferred my Chinese food...

Hong Kong Chinese Food in Sanford, FL

I picked up some takeout from Hong Kong Chinese Food in Sanford. I ordered wonton soup and a small vegetable lo mein. It was about a ten minute wait for the food. As I was sitting there waiting, I witnessed two separate people come in and order something, then get on their phones to start complaining about how horrible it is that they are being forced to wait ten minutes for their crab rangoons. Really? Ten minutes is too long of a wait for some freshly made food? My ten minutes went by rather quickly thanks to the unintentional entertainment, and soon enough my food was ready.

The wonton soup was good. It didn't have any shredded pork at the bottom, but it still had tasty wontons and a nice flavored broth.

For a small order of lo mein, the portion was huge. I would be scared to see how humongous a large would be! The noodles were mixed with broccoli, cabbage, onions, bean sprouts, carrots, and mushrooms. Not the best lo mein I've ever had, but it was still tasty. I'd get food here again...

3-6-9 Chinese Restaurant in Casselberry, FL

3-6-9 Chinese Restaurant is located in a strip mall in Casselberry. I remember several different Chinese/Japanese restaurants occupying this space over the years. Sadly, we were the only customers in the large restaurant on my visit. I hope they do good business for take-out...

I ordered the Singapore Chow Mei Fun. There was a bit of a kitchen misunderstanding, so I ended up being served lo mein noodles instead. I was originally thinking about having lo mein, so I really didn't have much of a problem with the mix-up.  The noodles were served in a curry sauce with pork, shrimp, chicken, and vegetables. The lo mein tasted good, and the portion was huge. It turned into two meals!

To apologize for the mistake of using the wrong kind of noodles, everyone at the table got complementary ice cream for dessert! Can't complain there!

Asian Chao at UCF

I tried the Asian Chao in the UCF Student Union for lunch one afternoon. I ordered the two item combination and went with Kung Pao Shrimp and Beef with Broccoli. These were both served with a side of lo-mein. Although nothing great, it all tasted okay and was equivalent to the Chinese restaurants in the mall food courts. Being that the same franchise is in several of the local malls, I suppose that's how it should be.

The same dishes are so much better from many independent local Chinese restaurants though...

Pei Wei Asian Diner in Orlando, FL

Pei Wei Asian Diner is a fast food Asian fusion restaurant owned by P.F. Chang's. Their first location in Orlando was on Colonial Drive, just on the outskirts of the Mill's 50 District where you have a high concentration of wonderful private Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants. I think the main reason I had never tried Pei Wei was because of it's location. If I was in that area of Orlando and was hungry for something in this genre of food, I'd always pick one of the great Vietnamese places right up the street rather than an Americanized chain version of Asian food.

A few months ago, I saw Pei Wei had a promotion where they were giving out coupons for free Japanese Chile Beef Ramen on Facebook. Once I got my coupon, I stopped into Pei Wei one night and got my Beef Ramen to go. Interestingly enough, the two people in line in front of me both had the same coupon, so apparently Pei Wei was giving out a lot of free food.

Soon enough, I opened up my to-go order and started eating. The Japanese Chile Beef Ramen was really tasty, with beef, carrots, onions, bean sprouts, red chiles, and cilantro, all over noodles. To me, it tasted very similar to Chinese lo mein for the most part, but I didn't mind. I like lo mein! And most lo mein doesn't have hot peppers in it either! I'd go back again.

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!