Spoleto in Orlando, FL

I was invited to try a new Italian restaurant called Spoleto. They are located across the street from UCF in a very new shopping center at the corner of University and Alafaya. This is Spoleto's first location in the United States, with two more stores opening soon in Winter Park and the Florida Mall. They are already a good sized chain with over 380 locations in Brazil, Mexico, and Costa Rica. I always find it interesting when an international restaurant chain chooses Central Florida as its stepping off point into the US market. I wonder how much market research went into deciding that UCF would be the ideal spot to begin expanding into this country?

Spoleto is a quick service style restaurant. You go up to the counter and pick your pasta, sauce, meats, and toppings. Everything was then tossed and cooked together by a chef, and then you pay and bring your food to a table to eat. The same thing goes for flatbreads, salads, or desserts.

I ordered the Potato Gnocchi in pesto with spinach, sundried tomatoes, caramelized onions, kalamata olives, roasted garlic, and an Italian cheese blend. All this was topped with a house-made giant meatball. It seems like restaurants like this find the need to yell something as something happens. At some places you get a "Welcome to Blank" as you enter. Other places get you bad singing if you leave a tip. At Spoleto, the entire kitchen would yell out "Polpette Grande" whenever a meatball was ordered. I enjoyed my gnocci!

Brick Oven Baked Lasagna.

I also tried the Artichoke and Goat Cheese Focaccia. This flatbread was topped with artichoke hearts, tomatoes, red onions, mozzarella, goat cheese, and B&W Farms baby arugula.

I tried the Nutella Bread with fresh strawberries for dessert. Nutella and fruit is delicious, but an entire flatbread of Nutella was overwhelming.

Spoleto was an enjoyable dining experience. I found it to be a notch above some other of the fast food Italian restaurants that have opened recently in the Orlando area, so that's a good sign for them.

Olive Garden New Menu in Orlando, FL

Olive Garden recently introduced a new menu and I was invited to sample some of their new dishes. This menu tasting happened at the Olive Garden on International Drive in Orlando. It had been quite a while since I had dined at an Olive Garden, so I was looking forward to trying what Olive Garden deemed to be their best new items that they wanted to share with the media...

The event started with a basket of breadsticks. There wasn't anything new about the bread. They were the same Olive Garden breadsticks that people seem to either love or hate.

The first new item was the Polenta Shrimp alla Greca. This consisted of shrimp over polenta topped with olives, capers, and tomato sauce.

Spicy Calabrian Wings came next. These wings were served with a gorgonzola dipping sauce and a freshly made spicy sauce made from chili paste and oil. The wings were slightly spicy, but still weren't overpowered by the flavoring.

Crispy Risotto Bites:

Two new salads came next. Both of these salads seemed like the same base salads that Olive Garden always served, only covered in toppings. The first was the Antipasti Italian Meats & Cheeses. The salad was topped with sliced salami, pepperoni, and mozzarella. For some reason this salad was very poorly tossed with certain bites soaked in dressing, while other bites were completely dry. The other new salad was the Roasted Tomato Caprese. This one was topped with roasted tomatoes, kale, and balls of fresh mozzarella. I preferred this salad out of the two, with the exception of the kale. There was far too many chewy kale stems and not enough of the parts of the leaves that were a bit more tender.

The Smashed Chicken Meatball Sandwich was described on the menu as: Focaccia bun with roasted bell peppers and mozzarella. Served in a spicy diavolo tomato sauce. With parmesan garlic fries.

The next two dishes were part of Olive Garden's Cucina Mia section of the menu where you get to pick your own pasta and toppings. Based on what we were served, I'd avoid this section of Olive Garden's menu. The Large Paccheri with Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato lacked any hint of sun-dried tomato. The paccheri noodles were either way undercooked or were sitting out way too long. Pasta shouldn't be bent and then hold whatever position you bend it into. The meatballs were the same that was used in the smashed chicken meatball sandwich, but here they were forgettable without the flavors that the sandwich's sauces provided.

The second Cucina Mia dish was the Vegetable Penne Primavera. The penne was topped with marinara with zucchini, red peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Those vegetables must have been chopped up really finely in the sauce, because all I detected was tomatoes. This was a pasta dish like something I would cook at home when I'm feeling lazy. Make some pasta and pour a jar of tomato sauce over the top.

Chicken Abruzzi consisted of grilled chicken, cannellini beans, kale, and other vegetables in a broth. Out of everything served, this was one of my favorite dishes. The chicken itself was a bit dry, but I liked everything else here. The broth was nice and flavorful. The beans were hearty and the vegetables were nice and tender.

Pappardelle Pescatore was another disappointing pasta dish. This contained sautéed shrimp, bay scallops and clams tossed with pappardelle pasta, fresh asparagus and tomatoes in a creamy, red pepper seafood sauce. I did enjoy the red pepper sauce. It was spicy and really flavorful. As for the rest of the dish, it contained two shrimp, two chewy clams, and one tiny scallop. The fresh asparagus only consisted of the lower stems and none of the tender asparagus heads. I'd be unhappy with this dish if I ordered it, especially when compared to how it appears on Olive Garden's menu.

The Chicken Primavera with Giant Fusilli was my favorite of all the pasta dishes. Two pieces of chicken breasts were served over the pasta. There were lots of vegetables mixed in with the slightly spicy sauce. This is what a primavera pasta should look like, unlike the Cucina Mia version of the Vegetable Penne Primavera seen above.

For dessert, we sampled the Wild Berry Layer Cake. I enjoyed all of the tart berries that topped the cake.

Overall, I don't think Olive Garden's new menu is going to change anyone's mind about the restaurant. If you were already a fan of the restaurant, you'll probably still like them. If you weren't, the new menu items probably aren't going to win you over.

Italio in Winter Park, FL

Everyone seems to like restaurants when they give out free food. Italio is a new restaurant in Winter Park that just gave out a whole bunch of free food. This place is a fast-food restaurant set up very similar to a Chipotle, only serving pasta rather than burritos. That is, except for what they call Piadinas, which sounds very much like a pasta filled burrito to me. For Italio's grand opening, they offered their food for completely free. I was told that the line wasn't worth the bother for most of the day, but I decided to see what happened by stopping in about a half hour before they closed at 9:30. Turned out they shut down their long line early, but they gave me a coupon to come back and have a free meal a couple of days later. I took them up on their offer and decided to get a pasta bowl on this visit.

Since this place was set up like a Chipotle, everything was self-selected. I choose whole-grain pasta, shrimp, alfredo sauce, chickpeas, spinach, black olives, bruschetta, sauteed peppers & onions, raw onions, basil, and mozzarella. The bowl of pasta was huge and was tasty too. It would have been nice if they tossed everything in the bowl together though. The pasta was hidden far beneath the other toppings, and the alfredo sauce didn't seep down to the bottom of the pasta either. It's a minor thing that I'd probably do myself next time if I return. Overall, the concept of pick your own toppings for pasta was interesting and there does seem to be an opening in Orlando for fast food Italian food after all of the Fazoli's closed. I foresee this place doing well.


 

Timacuan Country Club in Lake Mary, FL

I ended up at the Timacuan Country Club in Lake Mary and decided to get some food there. They had a make your own pasta station set up, so I figured that was the thing to go with. I had the chef make me a plate of penne with shrimp, scallops, peppers, onions, broccoli, and sundried tomatoes all in an alfredo sauce. I think I did a good job selecting items to go into the pasta and the chef did a good job cooking the food because I thought the meal was pretty tasty!

For bread to go with the pasta, the country club offered popovers. This is not a typical type of bread to be served with pasta, but I do enjoy a good popover. They also had a salad bar set up that I tried, but I didn't take a picture. Overall, not bad for a golf course country club!

Palm Tree Grille in Mount Dora, FL

I ate dinner at a restaurant called Palm Tree Grille in Downtown Mount Dora. Although the name wouldn't imply this, the restaurant had a menu featuring mostly Italian food. There were also some typical sandwiches (burgers, turkey, etc) that didn't seem very Italian on the menu.

Since the menu was mostly Italian, I figured ordering some sort of pasta dish would be a wise choice. I picked the Farfalle de Pesto, which was bowtie pasta tossed with a pesto sauce made from roasted ground garlic, fresh basil, served in an alfredo sauce with Romano cheese. This wasn't the typical basil pesto that I would expect from something with pesto in the name. Instead, the sauce had a much stronger alfredo flavor as opposed to the basil. It wasn't bad, just different. The portion was very large for the price and was also served with a side salad.

I'd return to Palm Tree Grille again. I don't know if I'd order the same farfalle de pesto again, just because it was a lot of the same. Regardless, this was an unexpected restaurant find in Mount Dora!

Island Pasta Company in Melbourne, FL

Island Pasta Company is located in Downtown Melbourne. They specialize in all sorts of pasta, with many of their dishes having a tropical influence.

The first pasta dish on the menu caught my attention. It was called The Mediterranean and was a tri-color rotini topped with feta cheese, scallions, basil, garlic, roasted red peppers, and sun dried tomatoes in a marinara sauce. I'm not entirely sure why, but I pictured this dish differently from the menu's description. It definitely was a tasty pasta, but perhaps because everything except the basil and feta disappeared into the sauce, I found it a little boring. Next time I'm going to have to go with something more out of the ordinary like their Trenchtown Tortellini, served in an alfredo sauce with tropical fruit...

Cafe D'Antonio in Celebration, FL

It seems like I always end up at Celebration around the holidays. Perhaps the fake snow is a draw. Maybe it is the over the top Christmas lights synchronized to music. Whatever causes the magnetism to Disney's planned community at this time of year, food is generally involved in Celebration's downtown. This year's visit to Celebration happened on Christmas Eve and dinner was had at Cafe D'Antonio.

Celebration was packed and Cafe D'Antonio was booked solid all night. That is, except for at the bar. I've neglected to try any of the Antonio restaurants in the area until now, so we took those bar seats for our Christmas Eve Italian food. The meal started with a crusty bread dipped in olive oil, and the main course was served fairly quickly. I tried the Pappardelle al Salmone con Piselli e Mascarpone. This consisted of a bowl of wide noodles with salmon and peas in a brandy and mascarpone cheese. Wide noodles, salmon, and mascarpone was a different combination but it was very tasty.

I also split a Prosciutto Pizza with someone. The 14" pizza was topped with a thin slices of prosciutto with red onions. The pizza had a nice, thin crust with a good sauce/cheese ratio. This was a very respectable pizza in the land of theme parks.

Overall, I enjoyed my food at Cafe D'Antonio. The food was good and the menu was a bit more creative than the typical spaghetti & meatballs Italian restaurant. After the meal, the entire Celebration Christmas experience was had with getting covered in soap, watching people attempt to skate on teflon, and finding the obsessive home light shows. Relive with me in this video:

Dave & Buster's in Orlando, FL

I recently tried the new Dave & Buster's on International Drive. I had a general idea of what Dave & Buster's was before going, but I had never actually been to one.

After spending far too long trying to find parking in their small lot, we sat in the bar area to avoid more waiting. I ordered the Shrimp and Chicken Alfredo for my meal. The pasta had lots of chicken, a few shrimp, sundried tomatoes, and mushrooms. It tasted okay for what it was, but overall was pretty generic and reminded me a whole lot of pasta from Friday's or Chili's.

The whole thing about Dave & Buster's being an arcade made for adults didn't seem to hold true. To me, the whole setup seemed like a Chuck-E-Cheese where the kids could go run wild and unsupervised in the games while parents could get drunk and watch football in the bar. The games themselves didn't do much for me either. I had problems spending the money we had on our card, just due to the lack of desire to play any of the games they had there. Go up the street to Fun Spot for a much better arcade in my opinion, without wall to wall screaming kids and their drunk parents. Or even better, go to DisneyQuest...

Delmonico's Italian Steakhouse in Orlando, FL

I had dinner at Delmonico's Italian Steakhouse on International Drive near Sea World. This restaurant is apparently a small chain with a few locations in upstate New York and one lone restaurant here in Orlando.

The meal started out with some cheese covered garlic bread with a side of marinara for dipping:

I had the Chicken Riggies for my meal. This large plate of rigatoni was mixed with chicken, onions, olives, peppers, and mushrooms in a cream sauce. According to the vast knowledge of Wikipedia, chicken riggies originated in the Utica area of upstate New York. I wonder if chicken riggies was on the menu when I ate in Syracuse's Little Italy last fall?

Francesca's Cucina in Syracuse, NY

I had dinner at Francesca's Cucina in Syracuse's Little Italy. This was part of an event I attended, so there was no ordering involved and all the food was served family style.

A big antipasto salad was the first dish to come out, topped with all sorts of good stuff, including prosciutto, salami, cappicola, olives, cheeses, peppers, greens, and much more.

An unusually shaped ravioli in marinara sauce came next.

Then came a plate of rigatoni in a tomato cream sauce.

By the time the meal was done, my plate was also filled with some chicken marsala and some sort of white fish in a tomato sauce.

Finally, this huge plate of Italian desserts was served. It was piled high with cannolis, cookies, cream puffs, eclairs, and more. Sadly, most of the dish was untouched by fellow diners. I couldn't let this be and had to remedy the problem...


As I was leaving Francesca's Cucina, there were a few snow flurries falling. None of the snow stuck though...