Hard Rock Cafe World Burger Tour (Orlando, FL)

I was invited to the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando to sample some new burgers from their World Burger Tour menu. As they described it, World Burger Tour is a limited-time offering of Hard Rock Local Legendary Burgers, inspired by the taste and flavors from cafe locations around the world. The World Burger Tour is available at participating Hard Rock Cafe locations around the world now through June 25, 2017.

The burgers being sampled from the World Burger Tour included the:

Seminole Cattlemen Burger (Florida, United States) – pay tribute to the tribe! This Legendary burger is a combination of zippy swamp cabbage, also known as hearts of palm, fresh tomato and tupelo breaded gator tail atop a seasoned Seminole beef patty and smothered in Seminole wing sauce

English Breakfast Burger (London, England) – a Certified Angus Beef patty topped with sliced ham, a sausage patty, a fried egg, a Portobello mushroom, arugula and garlic aioli and served with a side of baked beans

Kimchi Burger (Seoul, South Korea) – a tradition years in the making, Certified Angus Beef patty topped with Sriracha-seasoned kimchi, bulgogi sauce, fresh tomato and lettuce and Sriracha mayo

Jambalaya Burger (Louisiana, United States) – this big easy burger features spiced up Certified Angus Beef fixed with Cajun mayo, pickles, andouille sausage, pepper jack cheese and a jammin’ jambalaya rice cake.

The Jambalaya Burger was my personal favorite of the burgers sampled. The jambalaya rice cake was an interesting touch which I've never seen before. It looked like an onion ring from the outside, but was filled with jambalaya deliciousness inside.

Aloha Friday Farmers' Market Dinner in Orlando, FL

I received a media invitation to the Aloha Friday Farmers' Market Dinner hosted by Slow Food Orlando at Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Studios Orlando and went to check out the event.

Before taking a look at the food, here's a bit of background about Slow Food Orlando:
Slow Food envisions a future food system that is based on the principles of high quality and taste, environmental sustainability, and social justice. We are working for food that is Good, Clean and Fair. We work with producers and co-producers: farmers, chefs, citizens, educators and other activists to ensure that the food shed of Orlando and beyond is safe, healthy and delicious! Please visit www.slowfoodorlando.org for more information.

 Music was provided by Volcano Joe and the Hot Lava Band.

 Orlando Brewing and 4 Orange Vodka served alcoholic beverages for the event.

 Starting off the food for the evening, I had a salad from the 'Create your own salad station' provided by Hearts of Christmas Farms. It was set up like a typical salad bar until the salad bowl was handed to an attendant who tossed the salad with dressing.

 My salad consisted of a nice variety of lettuces, cucumbers, carrots, red onion, sun-dried cherries, sunflower seeds, parmesan cheese, and was tossed with ginger soy dressing. The ginger soy dressing was really tasty!

 The bread that accompanied the salad came from Olde Hearth Bread Company in Casselberry. Olde Hearth definitely has some of the best bread in the area, including this swirly, two foot long bread stick.

Deep Creek Ranch Livestock served All Natural Roast Beef Sandwiches. These sandwiches consisted of Italian style roast beef with fresh mozzarella, giardiniera, and sweet peppers on semolina bread.

Emeril's Tchoup Chop was also serving food at the event. I'm not entirely sure if Tchoup Chop was serving local food, or if they were just there since the restaurant shares the Royal Pacific Hotel. Tchoup Chop provided two different sushi rolls. Each plate had a spicy tuna roll and a salmon roll with cream cheese and vegetables which were topped with a spicy sauce.

Palmetto Creek Farms from Avon Park set up a Pork Taco Station. These freshly made corn tacos were filled with roast pork carnitas, shredded lettuce, guacamole, tomato salsa, and chipotle sour cream.

Wild Ocean Seafood Market had this wonderful display of fresh fish set up, but more importantly, they were also serving Port Canaveral Shrimp Dumplings.

These Ruby Red Shrimp Dumplings were served with bean sprouts, cilantro, and basil, all in a red curry broth. Out of the evening's food choices, these dumplings were my overall favorite!

Finally, after all of that food, there was still dessert! From what I could gather, the dessert was made by the Royal Pacific Hotel itself.

The Blueberry Upside down Cake consisted of layers of cake and blueberry, with chocolate at the bottom and topped with whipped cream and chocolate.

I really liked the Florida Peach Cobbler, with it's peach filling and edible printed decorations on top.

Fresh ice cream was also being made using huge canisters of nitrogen. I've never seen a setup like this before, but it was really interesting to watch. Fog from the super-cold nitrogen surrounded the ice cream mixer until it was ready. They had both caramel and mango flavors. Both were very tasty...

I definitely enjoyed the Aloha Friday Farmer's Market Dinner! It was humongous amount of food, all of which was really good. Even better, the majority (if not all) of the food came from local sources and everything seemed to be really good quality. I need to check out more of Slow Food Orlando's events in the future!

Shrimp and Grits from T.G.I. Friday's

I had this buy one, get one free coupon for T.G.I. Friday's, and used it at the Friday's off of Kirkman Road in Orlando, located across the street from the main entrance to Universal.

I ordered the Spicy Southern Shrimp, which was basically shrimp and grits. It consisted of shrimp, andouille sausage, and scallions, all served over cheese grits. The food took a very long time to be served, and I was a bit disappointed when my shrimp and grits finally came. There were hardly any grits. There was probably a teaspoon sized scoop of grits in the middle of the plate, hidden under the shrimp and sausage. There was actually an exponentially larger amount of sauce on the plate than there was grits. Grits are cheap, so I don't see why putting enough on a plate so they can actually be eaten with shrimp would be that hard for Fridays. The picture on the menu looked very different that what I received. You could actually see the grits on the menu.

Also disappointing, the Gourmet Mac and Five Cheese that some someone else ordered on the healthy menu, which cost less than $6.00, was served on the same plate and had a much larger portion than my $14.00 Shrimp and Grits. I don't quite understand how a large portion of macaroni and cheese with chicken and bacon made it on to the healthy menu in the first place.

It seems like there is some sort of issue every time I eat at this Friday's location. It's always extremely slow, and there is always some sort of food issue.

Cajun Food on Fat Tuesday

Happy Fat Tuesday!

In celebration of today being Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras, I'm posting some previously unpublished Cajun food that was eaten before the existence of this blog. This is an Andouille Sausage Sandwich with peppers and onions and a plate of Shrimp Gumbo. These were eaten at Universal's Mardi Gras event, where along with the fun parade and concerts, they also set up several food stands throughout the park selling Cajun food that isn't half bad. I especially like their Jambalaya, complete with whole crawfish, but unfortunately, I don't have any pictures.

Of course, for more Cajun food in Orlando, I really liked the jambalaya and po boys from the Crooked Bayou.

To get closer to New Orleans for today's Cajun theme, I dug up some pictures of food from a trip to Memphis, TN in 2006. Here is some Alligator Gumbo that I ate at the Rum Boogie Cafe on Beale Street. From what I remember, the alligator gumbo tasted great. The problem was with the amount. What I ordered was considered a dinner, but the amount of gumbo that was actually served was kind of sad. They put a little pile of iceberg lettuce next to a cup of the gumbo and charged double the price of just a cup of gumbo alone. Eating outside at the restaurant along Beale Street was a great environment, although it didn't make up for the horribly slow service in the restaurant.

Eating Louie's Pizza at Halloween Horror Nights

I went to the second night of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. It was a fun event, but wasn't exactly up to par as to what the event has been in the past. There were eight haunted houses this year, and I went through six of them. I will return to go through the remaining two. Some of the haunted houses seemed to have a lot of potential to be really good, but didn't quite work out right. Others were just plain bad. Out of all of the houses I went through, there was nothing that was really a huge standout.

My personal favorite house of the night was called The Hallow. It was filled with all sorts of classic Halloween imagery like Jack-o-Lanterns, scarecrows, cornfields, witches, and lots of other good Halloween stuff. This house could have been really good, but the actors in the house really seemed to be lacking. There were times where I would go several scenes without seeing a single actor, and when there was a monster, they just stood there. There was lots of potential here for improvement, but I still enjoyed the house.

Another one of the better, but still mediocre houses was the Body Collectors house. It was one of the houses with lots of potential, with great sets, characters, and the occasional good special effect, but something just seemed off in the house. I remember liking the original Body Collectors haunted house from a few years ago a whole lot better. I'll need to give this one another try.

Dead Exposure was a haunted house that I found really didn't work too well. Before going to the event, I was told by someone who went the night before that this was the best house at the park. I thought it was one of the worst. I found it to be lots of improperly used strobeing blacklights with an occasional glow in the dark zombie. The story had to do with someone taking pictures of zombies or something, hence all the flashing, but it was nothing obvious. It really didn't work, but the only redeeming factors were the people in the floor and ceiling...

Reflections of Fear was the house that featured the events icon, Bloody Mary. The house seemed to be about phobias, but again, it didn't work too well. Out of the houses I went through this was definitely in the bottom three. The only cool thing in here was the claustrophobic hallways that you had to push your way through. Thinking about it, I don't think there has ever been a haunted house in this location (Jaws line) that I liked.

Then there was the Doomsday house. This was just as bad as Dead Exposure, but in a different way. I had no idea what this house was supposed to be. There were biker type people, people with chainsaws, and times when it seemed like the house had a nightclub vibe. It seemed very similar to the setup and execution of last years Texas Chainsaw Massacre house, but at least I had some idea of what was supposed to be happening in that house. I don't think I saw a single actor in here either from entering the house until I was three quarters through.

The remaining house that I went through was called Creatures. It seemed to feature rednecks, giant worms, and aliens. It took way too long for me to figure out what was going on here. The first half of the house seemed to feature no creatures, and just bars filled with people talking with southern accents and shooting at stuff. Then the second half seemed to completely switch to large animatronic aliens. It was a bit strange, but had some pretty nice sets and the aliens were cool. I think I'll need to try this one again when I go back to go through the remaining two houses.

While the haunted houses seemed to be lacking this year, the scarezones were wonderful. Upon entering the park, there was a Wizard of Oz themed scarezone called Path of the Wicked. It had the Wicked Witch taunting the crowds, the Cowardly Lion, The Scarecrow, the Tin man, Munchkins, and some very cool flying monkeys soaring over the street.






The Asylum in Wonderland scarezone was also very cool. It was a nice area poking fun on what could be considered Disney characters. Lots of fog, good lighting effects, and all of the characters seemed to be very good at ganging up on certain people here...


Another really good scarezone was The Skoolhouse. This scarezone seemed to be related to the Hallow haunted house with the classic Halloween theme. An old school house was built, and all of the actors here were dressed up as trick-or-treaters, all holding the classic Jack-o-Lantern candy baskets. Beyond the schoolhouse, the scarezone continued into a wooded area where all of the trees were covered in Jack-o-Lanterns. It was a very well done area, and one of my favorites.





The American Gothic Scarezone had some interesting monsters, but I didn't walk through this area after dark to get the full effect.




The Streets of Blood scare zone really didn't too much for me. Lots of people walking around in Victorian clothes, but that seemed to be about it...

The remaining scarezone called Fractured Tales was another very cool area. It featured fairy tale creatures and was a very fun area overall. The scarecrows at the entrance of the area were great...








The majority of the shows this year weren't anything all that great, although Brian Brushwood's show is always fun to watch.



Oh yes, FOOD!

On this visit, I had some pizza for dinner...



As far as theme park pizza goes, Universal makes good pies. Most theme park pizza is overpriced personal sized pies that seem to be nothing more than bad frozen pizzas. At Universal Studios, there is a restaurant in the New York section of the park called Louie's Italian Restaurant. Here, they make full sized pies rather than the personal sized pizzas. The taste of the pizza, the willingness of the employees to do special orders on the toppings, as well as the imperfections in the crust lead me to believe that the restaurant employees are actually making the pies in the back instead of just heating up pre-made frozen pizza.

On this visit, I ordered a Garden Vegetable pizza, minus the mushrooms. It was a good pizza, but I had problems with the crust and the toppings. I thought the pie could have been cooked a little bit longer to make a slightly crispier crust, although it seemed consistent with the pizza I have eaten here in the past. A generous amount of the toppings were piled onto this pizza. There was no lack of green peppers and onions, but they didn't seem to be cooked into the pizza too well. The toppings seemed like they were piled onto the pie halfway through cooking, so not all of them stuck to the cheese. It was a minor thing, and the pizza held together for the most part except for the occasional bell pepper that decided to escape.


As far as theme park pizza goes, this was a good pie. If you compare it to non-theme park pizza, it would be average, but still tasty.

Something interesting did happen while I was eating the pizza though. A guy in a wheelchair rolled up and dropped a business card with an American flag pin stuck through it. My initial thought was that he was handing out church propaganda to all of us pagans that were enjoying our Halloween event, but it was worse than that. He was begging for money. The card talked about how he was deaf and for a donation of $3, we could keep the pin to help with his expenses. I wonder if those expenses included the admission that he paid to get into the park, which would have cost somewhere between $30 to $70. As we were eating, he probably made about $50 in ten minutes before coming back the section of the restaurant where I was sitting and collecting his card. By the end of the night, he must have made a huge amount of money. Whether he was really deaf or not, no one should be subjected to being solicited for money while eating when you pay an overpriced admission to get into a theme park.

Other than that, Halloween Horror Nights was good, and so was the pizza...