Altamonte Springs Sweet Tomatoes

I ate at Sweet Tomatoes in Altamonte Springs, FL once again. The restaurant is basically a big salad bar, and since it's a salad bar, just about any plate of salad that you eat there looks about the same. If you want to see a plate of salad, read about my last visit to Sweet Tomatoes. Instead of salad, I will discuss the other food items served in the restaurant. To be more specific, I think I will talk about Sweet Tomato's soup and pizza...


I had chicken orzo soup, which I thought was kind of flavorless and was mostly broth. The focaccia pizza isn't normally anything good, but on this visit they had a Greek pizza topped with artichoke hearts, feta, peppers, tomatoes, and other good stuff that actually tasted pretty good...

Lunch at Fuji Sushi

I ate a lunch bento box from Fuji Sushi in Lake Mary, FL. It started with some miso soup...

The soup was followed by the bento box, filled with Teppan Chicken, cucumber salad, rice, dumplings, a spring roll, and a California Roll. It tasted just fine, but was a bit more expensive when compared to Bayridge Sushi's similar lunch bento boxes.

Pizza @ Gio's Cafe I

I ate at Gio's Cafe I in Sanford, FL for dinner after someone had read about it in an Orlando Sentinel review. It was a Greek/Italian restaurant which sounded interesting, and it got a positive review.

I was actually expecting more Greek food and less Italian. The Greek food probably took up a quarter of the menu, while Italian took up the remaining three-quarters. Nothing Greek sounded too impressive to me either, and it seemed kind of overpriced. Everyone ended up getting garlic knots and pizza, both of which were recommended in the newspaper. The garlic knots were okay, but they could have definitely used triple the amount of garlic that was given on the rolls.

The pizza was served, and I definitely disagreed with the Orlando Sentinel review. I thought it was a pretty bad pizza. The crust was a little thick for my liking, but that's just based on my personal preference. My real issue was with the cheese. The layer of cheese that was put on top of the pizza was very thick and dense. While the pizza was hot, all of the molten cheese poured off of the crust onto the plate. As it cooled, the cheese's chemical bonds solidified, but they didn't stick to the pizza. As I would take a bite, all of the cheese would pull right off of the slice. It was very chewy, and a lump of this chewy cheese is still stuck in my throat hours later as I am writing this.


Another issue that I had was that the restaurant wouldn't sell me a side salad with the pizza. According to the waiter, side salads were only available if I was eating an entree. Otherwise I would have to buy a much more expensive meal-sized salad. Perhaps I should have ordered an entree though. It seems you can't go wrong with spanakopita, and I'm sure it would have been better than the pizza (that I'm still working on freeing from the back of my throat)...

Pasta from Ikea

On the way home from Universal, I stopped at Ikea to eat dinner. I had a vegetable pasta combo. It included a salad, pasta topped with vegetables and alfredo sauce, and garlic bread, all for $3.99. It tasted good too!

Speaking of Ikea food, check out this blog. They have a really interesting post about what Ikea stores serve in their restaurants around the world. France and Norway look like they serve some good food!

Chicken Pot Pie From Toojay's

I ate at the Toojay's in Altamonte Springs, FL. Whenever I eat at a Toojay's, it seems I normally get some sort of sandwich. I had a coupon during this particular visit for half off a dinner, so I passed on a sandwich or a wrap. I ordered the chicken pot pie. It came with a choice of a house salad or a soup, and I choose the salad.

The chicken pot pie followed. It wasn't an actual pie, and instead was a bowl with some pie crust on the bottom, pie filling poured over the crust, and then had a second piece of pie crust on top. The pie tasted good enough, although I would have liked more vegetables in the filling. There were some carrots and potatoes, but that was about it for the veggies.

Bayridge Sushi Bento Lunch Box

I ate lunch at Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL. Bayridge Sushi has very good priced bento boxes for lunch, with most of them under $7. I ordered the Hibachi Salmon Bento. Miso soup and salad came out first.

The actual bento box soon followed, filled with salmon, rice, California Rolls, dumplings, and fruit. It was good, but my only complaint was about the salmon. It tasted fine, but should have been cut into smaller pieces. The pieces of fish given were very hard to eat with chopsticks, especially the pieces of salmon with lots of skin. Besides from this minor complaint, Bayridge Sushi's lunch bento boxes are very good!

Amelia's Cheese Ravioli

I ate at Amelia's Italian Restaurant in Casselberry, FL for dinner. I ordered their Cheese Ravioli, which was served with bread and a salad.

Their ravioli was okay, but was really nothing spectacular. It was basically the pasta covered in tomato sauce (which I found to be much too watery), and nothing more. The pasta tasted fine and was what was expected, but nothing more...

Return to the Chop Shop

I had eaten at the Chop Shop Restaurant in Deltona, FL once before just after they opened. The restaurant was up to par last time with decent service and good food. Tonight I returned to the Chop Shop to eat dinner for a second time and it seems the restaurant has developed some problems.

It initially took a while for the drinks to be brought to the table, and then took an even longer time for the waitress to come back to take our food order. I ordered their Jambalaya. Another person dining with me ordered something called the Seafood Trio, which included shrimp, scallops, and mahi-mahi. Someone else at the table ordered a mahi-mahi dinner. The waitress was asked if some substitutions could be made in the meal involving the side dishes. These involved replacing a baked potato for French fries and changing the vegetable side from zucchini to broccoli, both of which were on the menu as sides. The answer was a firm no. According to the waitress, the owners made it very clear that there are absolutely no substitutions on their new menu.

After an insane amount of time, the food finally came. Someone at the table noted the time after we had already waited a while. It took our food an hour to come from that point.

I had no complaints with my Jambalaya. It was actually really good coming from a restaurant that didn't specialize in Cajun food. There were nice big shrimp and a generous amount of sliced andouille sausage. It wasn't so spicy where it would leave you wanting a drink, but it wasn't bland either. There was a nice heaping portion on the plate, almost too much to eat.


My Jambalaya may have been good, but there was another issue at the table. Remember the Seafood Trio that was ordered and the whole no substitutions thing? It turned out that the Chop Shop was all out of scallops, so they substituted the scallops with a few extra shrimp. Instead of doing the right thing by telling the customer that the restaurant was out of a major component of the meal, they made this substitution without asking. It seems a bit hypocritical to me that customers don't have the right to ask for a substitution on a side item, but the restaurant can substitute a major component of the main dish without asking first. The person that ordered this Seafood Trio, which was actually an unannounced Seafood Duo for the night complained about this stating that scallops were the highlight of the meal, and the waitress was vaguely apologetic. She agreed that what happened was wrong, but she passed the blame on to the kitchen and said something should have been done about the situation. The manager/owner of the restaurant was requested, and the waitress announced that she was the manager. She did not offer to do anything about the situation...

I don't think I'll return to the Chop Shop anytime soon. My food may have been good, but the service was pretty bad...

Pizza from Dallis in Lake Mary, FL

I once again ate food from Dalli's in Lake Mary, FL. Today I had pizza.

I took the cheese pizza home and opened up a can of anchovies and put them on the pizza. I really don't know why people are so opposed to these salty little fish. I think the majority of people have never actually tried anchovy topped pizza and are just going along with some strange American cultural opposition to anchovies. If people would actually taste the fish, I think they would have many more fans...

The pizza itself was okay. I found the crust to be way too thick and chewy in spots, but otherwise the pizza tasted decent. When I went to pick up the pizza, it seemed like the restaurant may have new owners, based on a completely new group of employees that I have never seen in there before. The pizza seemed pretty consistent with what it has been in the past, regardless of the new people cooking the food.

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...

Hibachi Express in Casselberry, FL

I noticed a new restaurant had opened on 17-92 in Casselberry, FL and decided to give it a try. It is a fast-food Japanese Restaurant called Hibachi Express. The restaurant's setup was similar to most take-out Chinese Restaurants. In Hibachi Express, half of the counter was taken up by a sushi bar...

They had a nice selection of sushi, but it didn't seem like the turnover was large enough to be taking chances by eating raw fish. It wasn't exactly Fuji Sushi where the place was bustling for the sushi. I was actually the only one eating in Hibachi Express at the time.

Instead of the sushi, I went with the restaurant's namesake and ate Hibachi Chicken. The chicken was served over rice, broccoli, onions, zucchini, and mushrooms. I felt the chicken could have used a little more sauce, but otherwise the meal was pretty good, especially since it was from a fast food restaurant...

Qdoba Vegetarian Burrito

Had a coupon for buy a burrito, get one free from Qdoba. I used it at the Sanford, FL location and ate a vegetarian burrito.

Why no meat? Because the vegetarian burrito is the only one they have where guacamole is included rather than an additional $1.35 on top of the price of the burrito.

Fazoli's Fettuccine Alfredo

Fazoli's raised their prices. I ate at the restaurant in Oviedo, FL, across from the Oviedo Marketplace Mall. I had Fettuccine Alfredo. For a few dollars more than what this cost, I could have eaten at a non-fast food Italian restaurant...

Olive Garden's Grilled Garlic Shrimp...

I returned to the Olive Garden in Altamonte Springs, FL thanks to a $10 gift card that had to be spent. In the past, I'm not normally too impressed with what Olive Garden serves, but today was slightly better. I had the featured item, the Grilled Garlic Shrimp. There were several nice sized shrimp over angel hair pasta with peppers & onions all in a garlic sauce. It was good, but the dish was so simple, I don't think it was worth the $15 for something I could have easily cooked at home...

Cheese Pie from Carmela's in Longwood, FL

I ate a cheese pizza for lunch today from Carmela's in Longwood, FL. Last time I ate here, I tried a Grandma Pizza, but today I went with a normal, plain cheese pizza. The pizza was pretty good, although the cheese seemed a be spread a bit unevenly. It seemed like there was too much in a few spots, while other spots with the massive bubbles were lacking. It was better than other previous times that I have eaten pizza here where the pizza was really bad, but it wasn't as good as the Broadway Pizza that I had a few days ago...