Comfort Suites Breakfast

I ate the included breakfast provided by the Comfort Suites that I stayed at in Marshall, TX. I had scrambled eggs, eggs with some sort of meat, a biscuit, and a waffle. These hotels don't seem to do much fruit in the breakfasts.

Gucci's Pizza in Marshall, TX

After a day of traveling, I ended up in Marshall, TX for the night. The motel clerk recommended Gucci's Restaurant as having the good Italian food, as opposed to the Italian restaurant right across the street. After eating, I really hope Gucci's can't speak for all Italian restaurants in Texas.

The pizza topped with half green peppers and half ground beef with a sesame seed crust was served. I am almost certain that Gucci's used pre-made pizza crusts. The crust was a horrible, dense, foamy bread. I say foamy because if the crust was poked with a fork, the holes would close up and appear that it was never stabbed. Although the crust had seemingly magical powers to heal itself, one thing it couldn't do was connect with cheese. Every bit of cheese, sauce, and topping slid right off the crust. Sometimes this happens if there is too much sauce on a pizza, but there was actually very little sauce on this pie. It's hard to tell exactly how much sauce the pizza started out with though because a lot of it got absorbed into the crust, making it kind of soggy. Perhaps this soggy crust couldn't provide a surface for the cheese to bond itself to.

Whatever caused the flaws with this pizza, I've had better pizzas than this pie from the frozen food section at the Supermarket...

Cajun Cabin in New Orleans

While traveling on a twenty hour road trip from Central Florida to Oklahoma, there was two choices for lunch. Option 1 was to stop at a fast food restaurant and eat the food in the car. Option 2 was to stop in New Orleans and find some authentic Cajun food to get to-go and eat in the car. I obviously decided to go with option 2.

After finding a parking spot in the French Quarter, I made my way to Bourbon Street and went on a very quick (15 minute) tour of the area, and then settled on a restaurant called the Cajun Cabin. They had fake trees in the dining room and alligators on the walls. The back of the restaurant was complete with a faux cabin filled with tables.

I ordered a dish called A Taste of New Orleans. It came with a cup of jambalaya, Red Beans & Rice, and some sort of gumbo. The jambalaya was the prettiest dish with it's bright yellow rice topped with a pepperoncini, but it tasted kind of bland. Regardless, it was still pretty good. I'm not normally a big fan of red beans & rice, but Cajun Cabin's beans were really good. I would say they were some of the best I've eaten. The gumbo was also really good. I'm not exactly sure what was in it, but it was much better than I was expecting.

Free Sonic Root Beer Float

On June 2, from 8:00 pm until midnight, all Sonic Drive-in stores gave out free root beer floats. I don't like root beer very much, but for free, I'd gladly try a float.

I went to the Sonic in Longwood, FL at 9:30pm and there were probably a few hundred people waiting for the free food. The parking was overflowing out into the neighboring bank and Walgreens, so I decided it wasn't worth the wait. About 11:30, I returned to Sonic and most of the crowds had disappeared. I got my float which consisted of soft serve vanilla ice cream and root beer in a styrofoam cup filled 3/4 of the way from the top. It was okay, but I really don't like the aftertaste that root beer leaves.

Unrelated to free root beer, I recently took a trip to Oklahoma and visited the History Center in Oklahoma City. While I was there, I learned some interesting trivia about Sonic. The chain started in Oklahoma and it seems every small town in the state has a Sonic rather than a Mcdonalds or Burger King. One one of their original menus, Sonic once sold a sandwich called The Whopper. It was a fish sandwich rather than a burger, but everyone knows who owns the copyright to that sandwich name now. Sonic official stopped the employees from riding roller skates in the 1990s, but yet the Sonic employees at the Longwood location are always on skates. From what I overheard another museum visitor, roller skates no longer happen in Oklahoma.

Phở 88

I have my favorite restaurants in Orlando's Little Vietnam, but on my last trip to the neighborhood, I decided to try something new. I ate at Phở 88, famous for the graffiti murals on the side of the building. I didn't know this at the time, but phở is actually the name for a type of Vietnamese soup consisting of meat and noodles. Perhaps if I knew this beforehand, I would have made a point to order a soup dish, but now I know for next time.

The meal started out with a Summer Roll appetizer. The two rolls were filled with shrimp, cucumbers, cilantro, and vermicelli noodles. A bowl of peanut sauce accompanied the rolls. These summer rolls were okay, but I've had much better elsewhere. The outside wrappers seemed thicker than what is normally served and they were quite gummy. The fillings could have used more variety as well. There was too much vermicelli and not enough vegetables.


For the main course, I had Grilled Shrimp served over vermicelli. It came with plenty of noodles with the shrimp and assorted vegetables on top. A vinegar based sauce came on the side. It was very tasty, although I remember getting a similar dish at Viet Garden in the past that came with probably double the amount of vegetables. But this wasn't Viet Garden, it was Pho 88 so I have no complaints...

Sweet Tomatoes

Salad bar, Chicken Lemon Orzo soup, and focaccia pizza from Sweet Tomatoes in Altamonte Springs, FL.

Beef O' Brady's Cuban Sandwich

My Cuban Sandwich from Beef O' Brady's in Deltona, Florida wasn't very authentic. Compared to other Cuban sandwiches that I've eaten, this was more along the lines of a ham sandwich with pickles. There was no roast pork here, but that's what you get when Cuban food is ordered at an Irish sports bar. Not that the restaurant was even very Irish. The only food on the menu that seemed remotely Irish was the fish and chips, but there were plenty of American hamburgers. For what it was, the sandwich was decent tasting, but was nothing that will have me rushing back to visit Beef O' Brady's again soon...

Popcorn, King Kong, & Godzilla

I went to the Winter Park Popcorn Flick in Central Park on May 28. They were scheduled to be showing King Kong vs. Godzilla, but it never happened. When I got there, they gave out free bags of popcorn as seen below:

Once it was dark enough out, someone from the Enzian started talking about the movie and the title screen of the DVD was brought up. As soon as this happened it started pouring and the audience scattered. So much for the movie in the park...

Gnocchi from Buca Di Beppo

I ate at the Buca Di Beppo in Maitland, FL. My last visit to their location in Daytona Beach left room for improvement, but this time I enjoyed the restaurant a lot better. Just like my last visit to Buca di Beppo, the meal started out with a Mixed Greens Salad. Unlike last time, the salad was served as it was described on the menu. It wasn't just iceberg lettuce and had a mix of different types of lettuces, hence the mixed greens.

Mozzarella Garlic Bread was also ordered. I won't complain about garlic bread covered with melted cheese.

For the main course, I shared the Gnocchi al Telefono. I don't speak Italian, but does that name translate to Gnocchi of the Telephone? The gnocchi were topped with a tomato cream sauce with pieces of fresh mozzarella and basil. I had no complaints about the dish. The person I shared the dish with was unfamilar with gnocchi and didn't seem to believe me when I said gnocchi are kind of like potato dumplings. When the waitress was asked, she also denied that the gnocchi contained potatoes. That wasn't good enough for me, so I emailed Buca di Beppo's cooporate email address to find out from the source when I got home. It turns out their gnocchi do indeed contain potato.


One thing I thought was interesting about the whole eating experience was how many times we were told that Buca di Beppo was bought by Planet Hollywood. During the course of the meal, the staff mentioned this at least a half dozen times. It was printed all over the menu, and I thought this was a bit strange. Plenty of other restaurant chains are connected, but none that I can think of go out of their way to point out the parent company's other stores. When you go into Carrabba's, they don't point out throughout the meal that they are owned by Outback Steakhouse.

Kook Sports Bar

I was doing something at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel just outside of Downtown Disney. It was dinner time, so I ate food from Kook Sports Bar inside of the hotel. I really don't like sports bars all that much, with the TVs all over, and food that's generally not all that good. The only other option inside of the hotel was a restaurant called The Outback (not connected to the steakhouse chain) which charged far too much for what I saw on the menu. Kook Sports Bar also was really overpriced, but was far less than the Outback. Going by the location, the high price has to be somewhat expected.


I ordered the Blackened Grouper Sandwich. The waitress told me it was the best thing on the menu, but it tasted average to me. Nothing was wrong with the sandwich, but it was nothing special either, and definitely not worth the $14.95 price tag. It consisted of a piece of blackened grouper on a sesame bun with lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. Fries, ketchup, and tarter sauce came on the side.

Besides from the high prices, I had no major complaints about the food, but there was nothing special about the place that would get me to return to Kook Sports Bar any time soon. They will do fine without me with all of the Disney tourists...

Knightstop Sushi

I was at the University of Central Florida and got some sushi from Knightstop in the Student Union. I walked in about 5:50 and they closed at 6:00 pm. Because of this, the sushi choices were a bit scarce. They had a few fancy rolls for just under $10 which was more than I wanted to spend or this box of California Rolls and Inari. Since Knightstop was closing, the sushi chef was cleaning up for the night so I couldn't request a new roll. Because of this, I ended up with the only roll left in my price range.

The California Rolls were good, filled with krab, cucumber, and avocado. They were a standard California Roll and tasted like they should. I don't like inari that much, which is why this was not the ideal roll for me. It consisted of sweetened rice inside of a fried soybean wrapper. I didn't think the inari was anything great, but I did finish all three.

Shrimp Boil at Sanford's Earth Day Every Day

On Earth Day (April 22, 2009), I visited an event in Sanford called Earth Day Every Day. While I was there, I ate some food being sold by a stand set up by a restaurant in Downtown Sanford called Two Blonds & a Shrimp. I've never been to the actual restaurant, but I've heard good things about them. I had their Shrimp Boil, which consisted of shrimp, potatoes, chorizo sausage, and some celery. Everything in the shrimp boil tasted good, but I didn't think the shrimp were appropriate for the type of event. The shrimp still had their shells on, so they had to be peeled. This required two hands, but since this was a fair type event, there wasn't really any seating. This meant that the shrimp had to be peeled while holding the bowl of food, along with a napkin filled with shrimp shells. Eating the Shrimp Boil turned out to be a big mess...


Not food related, but they had this very cool solar car at the event. Also a screech owl...

Romano's Macaroni Grill

I was in the Tampa area and ate at the Romano's Macaroni Grill in Carrollwood, FL. Although there were some other menu items that were tempting me, it seems I always end up getting the Chef's Trio on my visits to Macaroni Grill. I started with a Caesar Salad.

For the main dish, I choose something called Pasta Milano. The dish consisted of bowtie pasta, chicken, sun dried tomatos, and a garlic cream sauce. I had the restaurant leave out the mushrooms that normally come with the pasta. I liked the Pasta Milano. It definitely could have used another vegetable (spinach?), but otherwise I enjoyed it.

For the dessert, I had Lemon Passion cake. I really like those huge mint leaves that Macaroni Grill tops their dessert with...