Central Florida Fair Food

I visited the Central Florida Fair and had some carnival food. I avoided deep fried Oreos, deep fried Twinkies, deep fried bacon, or anything else deep fried and got food from a booth selling steak. The food was being cooked in big skillets and smelled much better than much of the other fair food.

I tried a sandwich called the Big John. This featured a roll filled with mashed potatoes, mushrooms, onions, peppers, and sirloin tips. The steak was nice and moist with good flavor. Mashed potatoes on sandwiches always seems strange at first glance to me, but it worked here. Overall, this was a much better choice than a corn dog...

MidiCi in Kissimmee, FL

I was invited to try a new restaurant in Kissimmee called MidiCi. Located in a shopping center near the intersection of Osceola Parkway and 441, MidiCi is a quick service style restaurant. Neapolitan pizza seems to be the star here, with the entire kitchen centered around a wood-fired oven. You can either choose to order of the menu, or customize your pizzas by selecting what you want on your pizzas. I wanted to leave the flavor combinations to the experts, so everything I tried came straight off the menu. 

We started out our visit with the House Cheese Board. This consisted of a selection of house cheeses: black truffle cheese (sottocenere al tartufo), smoked mozzarella, goat cheese, gorgonzola, and parmigiano-reggiano. The cheeses were accompanied with fresh pears, king walnuts, organic honey, and wood fire-toasted ciabatta bread

House Meat Board: This was similar to the cheese board, featuring a selection of cured meats. There was black truffle salami (tartufo), prosciutto di San Daniele, spicy Italian salami (calabrese), Neapolitan salami, and rosemary ham (cotto). The meats were served with gourmet pickles, two mustards, and wood fire-toasted ciabatta bread

Burrata with Melon & Prosciutto di San Daniele: Fresh soft burrata cheese, fresh melon, prosciutto di San Daniele (imported from Italy and aged 24 months).

The Devil's Pizza: Crushed Italian peeled tomatoes (sauce), fresh whole mozzarella, housemade all natural spicy sausage, spicy Italian salami (calabrese), all natural Fresno chilis, all natural Italian chilis, parmigiano-reggiano, organic non-gmo extra virgin olive oil, and fresh organic sweet basil. The pizza had a fair amount of spice for what is essentially a fast food restaurant.

Pizza Bianca e Prosciutto: Fresh whole mozzarella, oregano, fresh garlic, parmigiano-reggiano, organic non-gmo extra virgin olive oil, topped with prosciutto di San Daniele and baby arugula after bake. Of the two pizzas I sampled, this was my favorite.

Nutella Calzone with Fresh Berries: Our signature Neapolitan dough, light, thin, soft and chewy, baked fresh with Nutella, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. Topped with a hint of balsamic reduction and shaved coconut. I've had similar desserts at other fast food Italian chains. This was better.

The Drowning Gelato (Affogato): Italian vanilla gelato by Italian Master Gelatiers Leo Leo Gelato, drowning in espresso. I'm not a big coffee person so the espresso flavor was a bit strong for my liking.

Everything I tried at MidiCi was delicious. The pizzas were done really nicely. All the appetizers and desserts were quality. I look forward to returning to MidiCi in the future!

NY Jewish Food (Regal Kosher Deli in Plainview and Russ & Daughters in NYC)

In my travels around the New York area, I ended up eating at two restaurants serving Jewish/Kosher style foods. One was Regal Kosher Deli on Long Island and the other was Russ & Daughters in Manhattan.

Regal Kosher Deli in Plainview, NY:

Regal Kosher Deli is located in Plainview, NY on Long Island. They are a kosher deli serving pretty standard jewish foods. I ended up eating here on two occasions.

Pickles are delivered to every table upon being seated. They serve half sour and full sour pickles. Being that the half sour pickles were devoured before I could take a picture, it's obvious what everyone's favorite type of pickle is.

Bowls of coleslaw were also served with the pickles.

I tried two different types of knish on my visits here. My first knish was a plain potato filled knish. This one was square with mashed potatoes filling the flaky crust. Pretty tasty.

The spinach knish was my favorite of the two. It was round (I'm assuming the different shapes are so they can tell different fillings apart easier?), filled with a potato/spinach mix. It had more going on in terms of flavor compared to the plain knish.

On one visit I tried a corned beef sandwich. This consisted of a whole lot of sliced meat between sliced rye bread. I have to admit that these jewish deli style sandwiches are a little boring for my liking. I know cheese can't be added because of the whole kosher thing, but they are too much of the same thing.

On another visit I tried what they called a stuffed sandwich. I ordered the Corned Beef, Tongue, and Hard Boiled Egg. When the sandwich was delivered, the waiter informed me that they were out of hard boiled egg. I'm also pretty sure the menu said there should have been coleslaw on here as well, but that was missing too. Without those components, this was basically a corned beef sandwich stacked on top of a tongue sandwich. I did enjoy the novelty of eating sliced tongue. That is not a cut of meat that I eat very often.

Regal Kosher Deli was enjoyable. They may have boring sandwiches, but that's expected in a jewish deli. That aside, I did like the rest of the dining experience in here...





Russ & Daughters in NYC:

I first heard about Russ & Daughters several years ago and they have been on my list of New York foods to try ever since. It took me several more visits to the city before I finally made it to Russ & Daughters. They've been around for 101 years, so the amount of time it took me to try the restaurant was probably nothing for them.

They specialize in smoked and cured fish. Their cases are filled with all sorts of lox, smoked salmon, mackerel, sable, and other seafoods. There's also a large selection of cream cheeses, bagels, desserts, and other jewish foods for sale. Russ & Daughters was a very busy place. I waited over a half hour to put in my order. People were buying quite a bit in here as well. Almost every order placed that I heard was at least $100. Russ & Daughters is a little gold mine...

I had an everything bagel with pastrami salmon with goat cream cheese. The salmon was thinly sliced with a peppery coating on the outside. The goat cream cheese was new to me. It still had the consistency of normal cream cheese, but with the distinctive earthy flavor that seems to be in all goat cheeses. The combination of it all was delicious...

I also tried a pickle. A customer in front of me was ordering gallons of these pickles, announcing that she takes the train from Vermont to replenish her pickles every time her supply gets low. With an endorsement like that, I decided I must try one. It was a very tasty pickle, although I don't know if I'd travel from out of state for a pickle. 

Joe Smoked Meat in Quebec City, QC

Smoked meats seem to be another food that's popular in Quebec. I passed several restaurants specializing in smoked meat, so I figured I'd try one. I ended up at Joe Smoked Meat in downtown Quebec City. Looking at their website now, it looks like they are a chain. Didn't know that at the time.

They had smoked meats served various ways. Someone I ate here with had smoked meat poutine. I decided to go with a sandwich instead and ordered the Assiette Garnie. Out of all the menus in Quebec City, I had the most trouble translating/understanding this one. Because of this, I picked my sandwich mostly because there was a picture of the Assiette Garnie on the menu. The sandwich reminded me of something found in a Kosher style NY Deli. Sliced meat was piled upon rye bread with spicy mustard. Fries, coleslaw, and a pickle were served on the side. I never confirmed for sure what sort of animal the smoked meat was from, but I'm assuming beef. The smoked meat in the sandwich was tasty, but I had the same complaint which I have in the Kosher delis. There was too much meat and not much else going on in the sandwich. Some other flavors would have been nice.

Happy Easter

For Easter food, you pretty much have two choices:

Special Rabbit Heads
Originally uploaded by Augapfel

You can have the traditional Easter candy, eggs, and ham, or you could go with the less popular option and eat the Easter Bunny. Here is a somewhat gory recipe for Rabbit Head Pasta:

Rabbit Head Pasta

Any takers?

Pizza Baked Spaghetti from Fazoli's

Last I heard, the Fazoli's Italian Fast Food chain was going out of business and closing up all of their stores. It seems that isn't the case though, because although some of the stores did close, there are still several Central Florida locations that are still open.

I returned to the Altamonte Springs Fazoli's and ordered Pizza Baked Spaghetti. It was one of their featured menu items and consisted of spaghetti in tomato sauce, pepperoni and sausage, topped with melted cheese. I normally don't like pasta with tomato sauce, but this was better than I was expecting. They were very light on the sauce and the spicy pepperoni and sausage took away from some of the tomato taste. I'd get this again.

Polonia in Longwood, FL

I ate at Polonia in Longwood, FL. Polonia is a Polish restaurant located on 17-92 in a former fast food restaurant building that has housed many different restaurants. The building started out as a Captain D's, and then became several different restaurants serving various types of Asian food. I would say my most interesting experience eating in one of these incarnations was when the building housed a fast food Chinese restaurant. As I was eating my meal, two Red-Eared Sliders walked out of the kitchen and across the dining room. I've seen some interesting animals in restaurants (rats!), but this was the only time I've ever seen turtles wandering around a restaurant. Knowing that turtles and salmonella go together, I never returned to the restaurant, or the future restaurants in the building.

That is, until Polonia opened. When they opened in this location, the local Orlando newspapers all started to write good reviews of the place, so I gave it a try. Polonia broke the chain of fast food Asian restaurants by setting up a sit-down Polish restaurant, and there were no reptiles, amphibians, or rodents in sight. I've since returned to Polonia a few times, and it's generally pretty good. This visit started out with a basket of some good rye bread.

For the main course, I ordered the Big Polish Platter, which came with stuffed cabbage (in tomato sauce), three pierogies, a fresh kielbasa, and sauerkraut. The stuffed cabbage was okay, but I found it to taste a bit too much like plain meatloaf. There was some rice mixed in with the ground beef, but not enough. The sauce was good though. For the pierogies, I had the choice of meat, sauerkraut and cheese, or potato & cheese. I went with the potato & cheese, and I have no complaints about them. It's amazing how much better fresh pierogies are compared to those frozen pierogies from the supermarket. The kielbasa was good and tasted like a Polish sausage should. The sauerkraut was interesting. It wasn't as tart and was very finely chopped when compared to most sauerkraut that I've eaten, but it was still good.

Overall, the food was pretty good for the most part. All that meat and the lack of vegetables was a little more than I'm used to eating in one sitting, but I guess that's the way they eat in Poland.

I wanted to get some poppy seed cake for dessert, but they didn't have any on the day I ate at the restaurant. They had apple strudel instead, but I'm not a big fan of cooked apples. Poppy cake or rolls are much better...

Lunch @ Orlando's Texas de Brazil

I ate lunch at Texas de Brazil on International Drive in Orlando, FL. Texas de Brazil is a Brazilian Churrascaria where waiters come around and slice various meats off of swords onto your plate.

I started at the salad bar. Besides from the normal salad, they had lots of good stuff like various cheeses, olives, crab cakes, meats, tabouli, and soups. They also had some really interesting stuff that I had never seen before such as caper berries (left side of the plate between the pasta and chorizo). Capers are one of my favorite salty foods, so I really liked these. Apparently normal capers sold in supermarkets are immature when they are pickled. If they continue to grow, they become caper berries, which were served here. It was a good salad bar, although it seemed like they had room to serve twice as many items with the amount of space between each dish. Maybe that's for dinner (not that I'm complaining).

I finished my salad and returned to my table to get served meat on swords. My favorite choices were the chicken wrapped in bacon, the sausages, pork ribs, and sliced pork. I'm not a big fan of beef, and when it's not well done, I get grossed out by the blood dripping out of what I am about to eat. It seemed like the majority of the steak and beef served wasn't cooked to my liking, and I only got one piece that was close to being cooked throughly. I have tried a Portuguese Churrascaria in the past, and it seemed all of the meat was automatically cooked to well done, including the steak. I wish they at least came around with some skewers of cooked steak here to give you a choice on how well the meat was cooked. With the exception of the steak being served dripping in blood, I liked everything else. I'd go again...