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.

Brown's New York Deli in Maitland, FL

I had lunch at Brown's New York Deli in Maitland. Apparently this restaurant has been here for over a year, but somehow I never noticed them during my countless drives past.

As soon as we were seated, a plate of pickles and coleslaw were brought to the table.

I had the Turkey Ruben for my meal. It consisted of sliced turkey, cheese, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing on toasted rye bread. Fries were served on the side. The sandwich was good, although it didn't contain the sickening stack of meat that I've seen at some of the more famous delis actually in New York. The amount of sandwich fillings here was much more biteable and more appropriate for one person to eat in a single serving.

After the sandwich, meringue cookies were served alongside the check. Meringues seem like they are either good or bad whenever I try them. There's never a meringue cookie that is just okay. These meringues fell in the good category. They were light and airy with just the right amount of crunch.

I enjoyed my meal at Brown's. I'd return here again!

Einstein Bros Bagels in Maitland, FL

I recently used Facebook to get a coupon for a free bagel at the Einstein Bros in Maitland. This building started it's life as a Perkins (or possibly Friendly's?). The original chain restaurant was replaced with The Loop, who served average pizza. After The Loop came and went, Za Bistro moved in. Out of the restaurants that have served food inside this building, Za Bistro was definitely my favorite. They had really good sandwiches and awesome pizza, but they didn't last either. That brings us to present day with Einstein Bros Bagels. It's not quite as exciting as creative Italian food from Za Bistro, but I can't complain about a chain that regularly gives out free bagels!

I had a sesame bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese. Can't go wrong with that!

Jeremiah's Italian Ice in Maitland, FL

When it comes to Italian Ice in Orlando, Jeremiah's is the best I've tasted. On this particular visit, I stopped by their location in Maitland.

I ordered a passion fruit gelati. Calling what Jeremiah's serves gelati is actually a bit tricky. In most other places, gelati would be plural of gelato, which is more along the lines of normal ice cream. Jeremiah's gelati is a parfait consisting of layers of Italian ice and soft serve ice cream. Out of curiosity, I did some searching and found that this type of gelati is a regional specialty coming out of Philadelphia. Don't set yourself up for disappointment by expecting the traditional gelati/gelato.

The Italian ice was nice and tasty. It was slightly tart and slightly sweet, but it didn't skew too far towards either flavor. Mixed with the soft serve vanilla, the gelati was pushed more to the sweet side. As hot as it was on the day I had my dessert from Jeremiah's, this gelati was nice and refreshing!

Like I said earlier, Jeremiah's has the best Italian Ice in Orlando in my opinion. Still, as good as their ices are, it can't compare to some of the Italian ice places up north. I'm still waiting for a store to open with a huge variety of flavors, at least double or triple of what Jeremiah's has, selling both cream and water ices, along with other types of ice cream. Jeremiah's may be the king of Italian Ice in Orlando right now, but there's a chance that they may be eventually be decrowned. And that could turn into a good thing for us. It could mean more places to get Italian ice in Central Florida!

NYPD Pizzeria in Maitland, FL

Several years ago, the original NYPD Pizza was located on Orange Ave in Downtown Orlando. This NYPD had awesome pizza, easily the best in Orlando. Not only was it really good, but they were also pretty authentic when it came to actually serving a product that closely resembled New York Style pizza. Lou Pearlman had some sort of connection to the store so on occasion you would see local celebrities from the various boy-bands that he managed in the restaurant which was always interesting. Eventually, NYPD started opening up more stores and the original location closed. I had not eaten in any of the new stores since the original restaurant closed, so when I saw that a new NYPD Pizza had opened along 17-92 in Maitland, I was excited to give them a try.

The service in NYPD seemed very scattered, but eventually we were able to place our order. We started with an appetizer of garlic knots. All four knots came attached to one another on the plate. It gave me the impression that these came pre-made from some central NYPD distribution center. Regardless, they were still pretty tasty.

There was a camera crew taking promotional pictures for the NYPD website on the night we ate here. The extension cords being draped over tables and bright lights made the wait between the garlic knots and the pizza a bit more interesting.

Then the pizza came. What a disappointment compared to what NYPD Pizza used to be. I know I may be a bit overly critical of pizza, this was just sad...

The sauce had a really strong oregano taste. Normally I don't mind oregano, but this was overpowering, and there was a whole lot of sauce. So much so that the cheese slid around on the surface of the sauce pond, inevitably coming off of the slice. This cheese also was completely tasteless. Somehow it was there, but yet had no recognizable taste. Was it low-sodium mozzarella? Or some sort of processed cheese? I'm not exactly sure, but what's the point if it has no taste? The crust was okay, but it had no real redeeming factors to make up for the sauce and cheese. A good New York Style pizza is sometimes so nice looking that I would consider it a culinary work of art. This slice is no art:

Compare to some of the nice looking slices of New York Style pizza I've had since the creation of this blog:

And then once again, compare to my second messy NYPD slice.

How does a restaurant that I once held in such high regard fall so far? Was it the expansion of NYPD into a good size chain with locations in several states? Since the store was pretty new, maybe they didn't get into their pizza making groove yet or perhaps I just caught NYPD on a really bad day. I hope so, but it didn't leave a good first impression as my reintroduction to NYPD pizza...

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.

Maitland, Florida Qdoba...

I ate a burrito from the Qdoba in Maitland, Florida. The mall that the store was in was extremely tricky to get into, and we were the only people eating in the restaurant at dinner time. I don't see the store surviving because of this.

I had a chicken burrito. It was tasty enough...