Fantastic Hummus Food Truck in Orlando, FL

I leaving Audubon Community Market in Winter Park when I spotted a food truck with a big banner on the side that read Falafel Sandwich. This was a brand new truck to me and I'm a big falafel fan, so I knew where I was eating. Upon closer inspection, I found out this truck was called Fantastic Hummus.

They had a few other types of sandwiches, but I stuck with falafel. The sandwich was served on pita, stuffed with plenty of falafel, lettuce, tomato, pickled turnips, and sauce. This was definitely a good sandwich, especially since I was venturing into uncharted food truck territory.

I liked how they gave extra pickled turnips on the side. Pickled turnips are hard to find around here, even at most middle eastern restaurants that I've visited and I have even resorted to making my own. Being able to snack on these turnips without waiting a week for the pickling to happen was a nice treat!

Being that middle eastern food is a big street food staple in other cities like New York, it is definitely about time Orlando got a truck selling falafel!

AMC Dine-In Theatres in Downtown Disney

I was invited to the media event for the opening of the new AMC Dine-In Theatres in Downtown Disney. AMC offered us bloggers and other media type people to come try their food and watch TRON Legacy for the complete dine-in theater experience.

The theater itself had extra wide rocking seats. There was a counter for the food in every row, although I personally thought it was too far away from the seat. I wasn't able to comfortably reach my food without sitting on the very edge of my seat which was especially distracting when the movie started. One cool little feature on each counter was the call button to summon your server for drink refills or whatever.

For food, we started out with two appetizers. The first appetizer was the Parmesan Fries. These were standard French fries with grated cheese on top.

Wings & Things Sampler: Came with buffalo wings, potato chips, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks.

Smoked Salmon BLT: For some reason I was really hoping for lox on here, but it was the more traditional type of smoked salmon on the sandwich. Big slab of fish on a bun with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a garlic basil sauce. More potato chips came served on the side.

Buffalo Chicken Flatbread Pizzetta: Pizza made with buffalo wing sauce rather than the more traditional tomato. Was topped with blue cheese and chicken.

AMC had tables set up in the lobby with many of their menu offerings on display. Here's a few of the foods I didn't get a chance to try:

Overall, I liked my food at the AMC Dine-In Theatres. The prices were good too, with some of the sandwiches being equivalent to what a large popcorn costs at other theaters. The Downtown Disney AMC was already one of my favorite theaters in Orlando, so now food makes them even better!

Cookes of Dublin in Downtown Disney

It has been a while since theme park food has been featured on this blog. That's too bad since theme park food can be surprisingly good, especially at Disney. The last time I had Disney food was for the pre-opening of Star Tours back in June where we were treated to an ice cream buffet. The last time I ate in an actual restaurant at Disney was for the media opening of the AMC Dine-In Theaters in May. Seeing the pictures that were popping up all over the internet of delicious looking foods from the Epcot Food & Wine Festival (which I did not attend - too expensive), I figured it was about time to go on another Disney food adventure. The Festival of Masters was going on at Downtown Disney so we ventured out to view some artwork and eat lunch. The mentioned lunch happened at Cookes of Dublin.

Cookes of Dublin is the fast food Irish restaurant attached to Raglin Road in Downtown Disney. They have foods you would expect like fish and chips, but I was intrigued by their pies. I've actually though of eating here a few times in the past to try their pies and they always end up being sold out. It must have been my lucky day on this visit, because they had plenty to choose from. I went with the Fisherman's Pie, filled with mashed potatoes, carrots, shrimp, salmon, and scallops in a doughy pie shell. I wasn't exactly sure what would be inside the pie when I ordered, but the variety and size of the seafood was a nice surprise. The swirly mashed potatoes on top were a nice touch as well. I suppose this was sort of like a seafood version shepard's pie...

Fried Shrimp were also ordered at the table. These were exactly what they were described as, battered shrimp deep fried and served over fries. My pie was definitely the winner by far...

Cookes of Dublin is definitely worthy of another visit to try more of their pies. Expect to pay Disney prices, but they are cheaper than Raglin Road next door (which I really want to return to one day). Best of all, they satisfied my craving for theme park food for the moment...

Theo's Kitchen in Orlando, FL

I tried a Greek restaurant in Orlando called Theo's Kitchen. Theo's was located on Curry Ford Road in a strip mall. Apparently they had moved recently to this location when I stopped in. 

 

I decided to get a gyro. Theo's Kitchen was very generous with just about everything on the sandwich. There was a good amount of meat, huge dollops of tazitiki, lots of feta, and plenty of lettuce and tomato. I've had gyros from other Greek restaurants that are really dry and stingy with toppings, so I was very happy with this sandwich when this was not the case. And to top it off, it tasted good too!

 

Twisted Cuban Food Truck in Orlando, FL

There is an annual Halloween Festival in Downtown Longwood and food trucks were involved this year. The festival was located in Reiter Park, where the baseball fields and playgrounds were removed and replaced with a mysterious grass covered hill. The trucks attending were Gastrotruck, The Batter Bowl, and a truck that was new to me called The Twisted Cuban.

I tried their Cuban sandwich. It consisted of ham, roast pork, swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard on pressed Cuban bread. The sandwich was very tasty and was plenty to eat. It was also made extremely quickly by the standards set by most of Orlando's other food trucks that I've tried. I'd get more food from them in the future!

I tried the Twisted Cuban truck a second time at one of the Food Truck Bazaars. On this visit, I tried their fritas. These were two slider-size sandwiches consisting of burgers topped with fried onions. Unlike the traditional American beef burger, these contained other meats including chorizo which gave them really nice flavors.

King of the Gyro in Melbourne, FL

I got take-out from a middle eastern restaurant in Melbourne called King of the Gyro one afternoon. I decided to go against the restaurant's namesake and ordered a chicken wrap instead.

This pita was filled with chicken, garlic sauce, mayonnaise, and pickles. The pita was good for what it was, but I found it to be somewhat boring. There was too much chicken and not enough other sandwich fillings. The garlic flavor was nice, but more vegetables never hurt in my opinion.

King of the Gyro is located on the second floor of the same shopping center as Middle Eastern Aromas. While the food was alright at King of the Gyro, Middle Eastern Aromas is definitely the winner of the two middle eastern restaurants in the shopping center...

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.

Happy Halloween 2011

NaraDeva Thai Restaurant in Orlando, FL

A couple weeks ago, the local food bloggers were invited to a dinner at NaraDeva Thai Restaurant in order to sample many of their delicious foods. I'm honestly not an expert on Thai food by any means, and I've actually been disappointed lately with many of the other local Thai restaurants that I've tried. Because of this, I happily accepted the offer to try NaraDeva in order to find better Thai food. They are located near the Mall of Millenia in the SuperTarget shopping center, in a space once occupied by Bear Rock Cafe.

Once I arrived at the restaurant, I quickly spotted the group of food bloggers congregating on the restaurant's patio for drinks. I tried the coconut water and Thai iced tea. The iced tea was my personal favorite of the two.

Once we were inside and seated, the feast began as plate after plate of food started arriving at the table. Appetizers came first with chicken curry puffs and chicken satay. The chicken curry puffs reminded me somewhat of Indian samosas, filled with potato and chicken. The chicken satay was served on skewers with a peanut dipping sauce.

The next plate of appetizers included shrimp rolls and steamed pork dumplings. The shrimp rolls were interesting, consisting of a whole shrimp wrapped in pork and a spring roll wrapper.

After the initial two plates of appetizers, various types of salads started arriving at the table. One of my favorites was the crunchy shrimp salad. This mixed green salad was topped with several large fried shrimp, drizzled in a creamy dressing.

Another highlight was the laab. Ground spicy pork was mixed with roasted rice, onions, shallots, dried chili and mint leaves. I had never heard of laab previously, but it was surprisingly good for something as simple as a ground meat mixed with a few other ingredients.

The spicy beef salad was topped with thinly sliced pieces of grilled steak with cucumber, tomatoes, scallions, and cilantro in a spicy & sour dressing.

Another one of my favorites was the spicy crispy duck salad. This was similar to the beef salad, only with delicious duck rather than steak. The duck was nice and tender and had a wonderful crispy outer crust. The spice wasn't that apparent at first, but the spicyness eventually culminated after a few bites.

On to the main courses, the pork fried rice was different from the typical Chinese restaurant fried rice (I'm not always a fan of Chinese fried rice). This was somewhat sweeter and had a whole lot more flavors involved. Way better than I was expecting!

I definitely wasn't expecting the beef jerky. The first thing that comes to mind when I hear beef jerky is gas station snack food that I tend to avoid. This beef jerky shared little resemblance to a a Slim Jim. The beef was crispy but was still moist. It was served alongside rice soaked in pandan sauce which was completely new to me. Bright green rice is very cool!

The prawns in tamarind sauce were served over a bed of vegetables. I love the garnishes on almost every plate. A pile of shaved carrots topped with an orchid makes always makes food more interesting!

Crispy duck in red curry sauce was another one of my favorites from the night. The duck had a nice crunchy outside and was really tender inside. Many times I've had duck where it had so much fat that it was almost too much trouble to eat. Nara

It was a while since I had soft shell crabs, so I was happy when these were delivered to the table.

The deep-fried whole snapper was very impressive. It's not very often that I get to eat from a whole fish. Figuring out how to best break into the fish to get to the meat was a little intimidating at first, but was a minor difficulty. The crispy skin of the fish was very flavorful while the inside was moist and flaky.

Just when I thought the feast would stop, desserts started coming out of the kitchen! The black sticky rice with coconut and palm sugar caramel was interesting. I've had black rice a few times before, but never as a dessert. The coconut cream sauce topping was very nice. The sticky rice with pumpkin custard was also fun. I never really thought of pumpkin as an Asian vegetable with it's association with Halloween/Thanksgiving, but why not? Pumpkin is good on everything!

The sticky rice with red beans was served wrapped in banana leaves. This was my favorite dessert of the night. Not only is unwrapping food from steamed banana leaves a whole lot of fun, it also smelled great, sort of like black tea. The rice/beans were very moist, not too sweet, but the coconut cream dipping sauce made it a dessert.

The Thai coconut custard was served in tiny ceramic cups and sort of reminded me of a coconut flavored flan.

And finally, there was the Thai doughnuts with pandan coconut custard dip. The doughnuts by themselves weren't very sweet, but they were definitely made into a dessert with the green pandan sauce.

The event was organized by NaraDeva Thai in conjunction with Traveler Foodie, and I really appreciate being invited. I was definitely not expecting the feast that I was treated to, with all of the food being some of the best Thai I've had lately in the Central Florida area. I'll definitely be back!