Hungry Howie's in Deland, FL

Way back in the day, I listed Hungry Howie's Pizza pretty high on the pizza chain hierarchy. Of the big chains, Papa John's was near the top. Domino's was near the bottom of the list. Hungry Howie's was second or third on the list. Then all the nearby Hungry Howie's near me closed.

I was out in Volusia County and ended up at the Hungry Howie's in Deland. The pizza was very different than I remembered Hungry Howie's serving. The crust was thick and puffy. I remember it being much thinner than this pizza was. The flavor of the cheese and sauce were fine. It seemed like they drenched the entire pie in a disgusting amount of some sort of butter sauce. I very much did enjoy the sesame seeds on the crust.

Hungry Howie's (or at least this Hungry Howie's location) was not what I remembered at all. It was worse. If this was a good representation of the chain's pizzas, they have moved way down in my hierarchy of pizza chains.

Something else that bothered me: I ordered this pie in the days of COVID-19, but before Deland's mandatory mask order - not that it would probably make a difference since people aren't following the rule in Seminole or Orange County). Not a single person working in this store who I saw, both front of house and who I could see in the kitchen, was wearing a mask. Seems like a standard safety thing that all restaurants should be following. If Hungry Howie's ignores masks, I can imagine there's other food safety things that might be ignored. Not saying they were violating any other rules, but that seems like a logical next step...

Run & Run Chinese Restaurant in Lake Buena Vista, FL

I had lunch at a Chinese take out restaurant called Run & Run in a shopping center off Palm Parkway in Lake Buena Vista. Run & Run was located in a strip mall that definitely catered to tourists filled with gift shops and overpriced restaurants. Because of this, I was a little apprehensive to see the prices here, but the really weren't bad. Run & Run was equivalent to most other Chinese take outs not located on the edge of Walt Disney World.

I ordered the Kung Pao Shrimp lunch special. This consisted of the main dish, fried rice, and a canned soda. The shrimp were good sized in a sauce that was spicier than what many other Chinese restaurants serve in an equivalent dish. This was mixed with mushrooms, green peppers, carrots, baby corn, and peanuts. The shrimp was a little mushroom heavy for my liking, but was otherwise tasty. The fried rice was a bit plain, being basically rice mixed with scrambled egg. Not much else was going on in there. Overall, Run & Run was a pretty standard Chinese take out. Not the best I've had, but not the worst either. I might stop back here at some point if I'm looking for Chinese food near Disney in the future...

China Bell in Kissimmee, FL

I was in Kissimmee and wanted to get a quick lunch. I ended up at a Chinese take-out in a strip mall along 192 called China Bell.

I ordered one of their lunch combinations which came with shrimp with broccoli, fried rice, and an egg roll. The shrimp were nice and large, served with lots of broccoli and carrots in a brown sauce. The rice was a little bland and needed to be spiced up with soy sauce. The egg roll was good, but pretty standard. Overall, this was a perfectly acceptable meal from a Chinese take-out. Very similar menu and food to most other take-out places.

Triple Eight Café in Altamonte Springs, FL

Triple Eight Cafe is the third consecutive Chinese restaurant that has filled this particular location. First there was Wonderful Chinese, followed by Asian Express, and now there's Triple Eight Cafe. What sets Triple Eight apart is that although the menu is mostly Chinese, they also have a section of Italian food and sandwiches. Triple Eight is also a full service restaurant as opposed to it's predecessors who were fast food. On my first visit to the restaurant, I had a combination dinner that started with a bowl of wonton soup and egg roll. The soup's broth was a bit plain tasting, but I did enjoy all the extra vegetables that don't normally come in wonton soup. There was cabbage, carrots, snow peas, water chestnuts, and large pieces of sliced pork. It definitely made the wonton soup more interesting than most.

For the main course, I had the chicken with black bean sauce. The large portion of chicken was cooked with green peppers and onions alongside brown rice. I have a pretty high salt tolerance, but I found the black bean sauce to be overly salty. The chicken definitely had to be mixed with the rice to take away some of the saltiness. 

I returned to Triple Eight Cafe a second time and ordered wonton soup for take out. Again, the broth was very plain tasting, but I enjoyed everything else in the soup. I'm not entirely sure if I like this place...

Viet-House in Altamonte Springs, FL

Orlando has a really nice selection of Vietnamese restaurants in the Mills 50 District. That's good since Vietnamese food is generally really tasty. Once outside Mills 50, Vietnamese food gets a bit harder to find. I can only think of a couple Vietnamese restaurants in Seminole county, so I was happy when I saw that a new restaurant had opened in Altamonte Springs called Viet-House.

The tiny restaurant is located in a building behind a gas station at the intersection of 436 and 427. You order at the window and eat at some nearby picnic tables. There isn't an inside here. Viet-House seems to specialize in banh mi but also offer soups and appetizers. I found out the hard way on my first visit that they close at 4:30. When I returned on another day to give them a try, I had their combination banh mi.

The sandwich consisted of various types of sliced pork products (I'm going to hide my ignorance of Vietnamese meats by leaving it at that), pate, pickled vegetables, lettuce, tomato, and cilantro on a French baguette. The banh mi was good and was very filling for under $5.

I also shared these summer rolls, filled with shrimp, pork, noodles, bean sprouts, cucumber, and basil. They were somewhat messy to eat, but tasty.

Eating Vietnamese food in a gas station parking lot is definitely a different experience than eating in one of the nicer Vietnamese restaurants in Orlando, but the food was good regardless. A banh mi sandwich does seem like a perfect type of street food, so perhaps this is actually an ideal location for the food!

New China in West Melbourne, FL

On one of the first colder evenings of the fall, I decided some soup sounded good. I was in Melbourne and found a Chinese take-out called New China. I went in and ordered a quart of wonton soup. The soup was good, although a little on the salty side. There was plenty of wontons and each dumpling had a good amount of meat inside. No shredded pork at the bottom of the soup though. Overall, it was pretty average as far as Chinese take-out soup went. Not the best, but not the worst either.

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...

China Star in Lake Mary, FL

Today we're going to yet another Chinese take-out restaurant! China Star gets confusing because of the prevalence of the name in the immediate area. This China Star is in Lake Mary, right on the Sanford border. Go less than five miles away into Sanford and you have another take-out called China Star and a very scary buffet called China Star. I don't get the feeling that any of the China Stars are connected.

I've picked up food from this China Star on several occasions and they messed up the order for the majority of these visits. After a certain point I stopped getting food there, but I recently gave China Star another try. When I got the food home, it turned out they got the order correct!

I had the Curry Chicken Combination. It came with fried rice, an egg roll, and wonton soup...

The Curry Chicken was nice and spicy, mixed with onions, peppers, snow peas, and mushrooms. The portion was huge and turned into three meals by the time the chicken was gone.

I guess we spent enough so they threw in a bag of these Chinese doughnuts. Can't complain about free extras!

China Star got the order right on this visit, the food all tasted good, and the portions were huge for the price. I think I'll add them back to my list of options for Chinese take-out!

King's Wok in Longwood, FL

I picked up some Chinese takeout from King's Wok next to Albertson's in Longwood.

Once ready, the food was handed over in a big cardboard box. Being handed a box full of food is so much better than being handed a plastic bag filled with food. Just something about it makes the food delivery system feel better...

After returning home, I started with some wonton soup. It had a flavorful broth, plenty of good sized wontons, and shredded pork at the bottom of the soup container.

For the main dishes, I shared two different items. First was the Chicken with Black Bean Sauce. It came with plenty of tender chicken, peppers, onions, carrots, and water chestnuts. Unfortunately, I didn't like the sauce all too much. It had a sweet flavor, which I was not expecting, being that this dish is normally more savory than sweet. There weren't enough beans either. Overall, it was okay, but not the best.

Next was the Chicken with Broccoli. Can't get much simpler than this, consisting of what the name implies. I definitely preferred the sauce on here over the black bean sauce.

Except the black bean sauce, I enjoyed my Chinese takeout. I'd come back to give King's Wok another try!

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...

Lazy Moon Pizza

I've always heard good things about Lazy Moon Pizza in Orlando near UCF, so I went to give them a try. When I first walked in, I was kind of surprized how crowded Lazy Moon was on a weeknight. There wasn't a seat in the place, but I was I luckily already had plans to get my slice to-go. There were some issues with the girl behind the counter not understanding what I meant by ordering a "slice of plain." It seemed common sense to me in a restaurant that almost only serves pizza. Once my order was placed, I took a seat at the counter and watched the pizzas being made while I waited for my food. Lazy Moon was making the biggest pizzas I have ever seen, probably at least a meter in diameter. Lazy Moon was using an interesting cooking technique as well. The dough was tossed and covered with sauce, then put in the oven. After being half baked, the pie was removed and placed on a rack of cheeseless pizzas. From here, pies/slices were taken as needed, covered with cheese and toppings, and put in the oven again. I've never seen pizzas made like this, but soon my slice came out and I focused on my food.

For a judge of the scale of how huge this slice is, that paper plate is the standard 12 inch diameter plate. I've had whole pies smaller than this one slice! Probably due to the way the pizza was cooked, the cheese on my slice didn't seem to be melted enough. You could still see the individual shreds of cheese which kind of gave it a frozen pizza look. After seeing the cheese like this, I wasn't expecting much, but it actually tasted pretty good. The crust was nice and thin, I liked the sauce, and there was definitely the factor of getting plenty of food for your money. My only issue really was with the cheese, and it was a pretty big issue for me. The pizza lost a lot of points in my book for having barely melted cheese, but apparently this is the way Lazy Moon makes their pizza. Judging by the crowds they had, it didn't bother many other people either.

Riverwalk Pizza

I had a coupon for a free ten inch pizza from Riverwalk Pizza in Sanford, FL. I wasn't expecting much, especially for free, but the pizza was really good. It had a nice and thin crispy crust. I liked the sauce and it was well proportioned to the cheese. I think I'll definitely have to return to Riverwalk and get another pizza!

One thing I don't really get about the restaurant is it's building. The building is on the water in the middle of the Monroe Harbour Marina, and yet whoever designed the building made it so you don't have a view of the river from most of the restaurant's windows. Instead, you see the Senior Citizens Center across the street. I'm assuming the building was intended for restaurants when it was built (it originally opened with a Dalli's Pizza). People seem to like restaurants with views of water, so I don't really get why this building's architect choose not to make the St. Johns a focal point.

Specialty Pizza

I ate pizza from Specialty Pizza in Altamonte Springs, Florida. The pizza wasn't anything too great, but it was acceptable. I've had pizzas that have been much worse than this pizza, but I've also had countless better pizzas. Specialty Pizza must be owned by former Papa Johns employees or something. They seem to follow the same formula with very similar tasting pizzas, the same store setup, and even the same fake garlic sauce that comes in the pizza box...