This Pho 813 location has a really lovely interior design. If it wasn’t in the nightmarish parking lot across from the Millenia Mall I would be a frequent visitor.
The lemon grass bun bowl has a broth different from other places I’ve tried. And the Bahn Mi, while not the best or cheapest in town, is a very credible rendition.
Very popular place, with quick service once you get to the front of the line.
Whoever put the menu together, really likes chicken on their biscuits. Instead, I opted for a traditional bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, and it was fine, but not any better than you would get from McDonald’s.
The iced cinnamon biscuit was quite good.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/maple-street-biscuit-company-winter-garden
I had given up on this place ever opening after it spent a year or so in construction and then… nothing. But it finally made it, and it is a good addition to the neighborhood. I’ve long thought that Lakeside Village was the perfect spot for a genuine sit-down Mexican restaurant.
We were greeted graciously and service was excellent throughout. I really like the interior; it’s nicer than the other San Joses.
The food is pretty much the same. Good salsa with the chips. The cheese dip is a challenge; really runny.
The top-shelf margarita was excellent.
My wife enjoyed her quesadilla, which was nicely browned.
My tacos pastor were pretty good, The pastor included the traditional pineapple bits, but was a bit on the dry side compared to others I’ve had.
As others have noted, it’s a bit pricey, but I guess every place is these days.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/san-jose-s-original-mexican-restaurant-windermere
Somehow I’d never made it to Delaney’s Tavern. I really liked the place and wish we’d tried it sooner. It’s now incorporated into a hotel across from the hospital. Parking is available in the structure behind it; just be sure to get a paper slip from your server so you can get out of the garage.
The menu offers the kind of eclectic dishes I’d put on the menu if I owned a restaurant. We started with both the crab beignets and the arancini. Both were good; I’d definitely have the crab again. It’s pretty large, so one app would have been enough for the two of us.
My French dip was very good. I liked that the dipping sauce wasn’t overly salted as it sometimes is. The accompanying potato wedges had a nice parmesan crust.
Service was friendly and well-paced.
4 Stars
I’ve never been a big fan of Rick Bayless’ Chicago area restaurants, but I enjoyed our visit to this one in Disney Springs. The huge space is probably bigger than all of his Chicago restaurants combined! I’m sure it can get noisy at night, but a Monday lunch was sparsely populated.
The “Half & Half” was a nice combination of guacamole and pumpkin seed hummus, served with chips, jicama, and cucumber, plus red and green salsas.
My wife loved the Smoked Salmon Ceviche Tostadas. Conchinita Pibil was also good.
As with everything at Disney Springs, it’s very expensive. But on the bright side, Margaritas at our Monday lunch were only $5 instead of the usual $19.
Service was good.
4 Stars
This is a nice local public house serving elevated pub food. We went for Sunday and ordered off the regular and brunch menus.
The BLT dip was primarily creamed spinach, topped with some diced tomato and bacon crumbles, and served with excellent seasoned crostinis. Not a very large serving, but a nice starter.
My wife enjoyed the Odd Bird, a tender chicken breast sandwich with a fairly spicy buffalo sauce.
I had the Smoked Ham and Sausage Benedict, which was exactly as you’d expect from the name. Perfectly cooked poached eggs, and a good Hollandaise sauce, but I didn’t care for the flavor of what the English muffins had been grilled in or spread with. The accompanying home fries were delicious.
Service was superb.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/general-public-house-winter-springs-2
3 Stars
This is an entertaining place to get okay sushi. It’s quite fun being able to select your items from the conveyor belt. Even more fun is ordering from the touchscreen and having your dish delivered right to your table on the upper conveyor. Even the drinks are delivered by robot (although they aren’t exactly foolproof, and beer is still delivered by hand).
You’re not going to have the best sushi of your life here, but the prices are reasonable for a tourist area, and it is entertaining.
4 Stars
This is a really nice upscale setting for sushi. The presentation is lovely, and the service was welcoming. There is a very limited assortment of fish: tuna, salmon, whitefish, and octopus, but the quality and preparations are excellent. There are also some creative dishes, such as the Brie Djo: rice wrapped in strips of seared salmon, cream cheese, brie cheese, and fleur de sel.
Creative cocktails and wine are available. Shout-out for the excellent wine glassware.
2 Stars
Mediocre is the word that kept springing to mind throughout this meal. I really wanted to like this place, but I just couldn’t. From the moment you look at the menu and see that they charge for chips, and that tacos come on flour tortillas, you know you are in a tourist restaurant, not a Mexican restaurant. And with drink prices ranging up to $32 a drink, the pricing verifies that. But let’s give all that a pass.
The house Margarita, which is a mere $10, is one of the best house Margaritas I’ve had anywhere. If only everything else were as good.
The antojitos platter includes okay taquitos, a very, very thin queso dip, and weird beef empanadas. The empanadas were edible, but had clearly been prepared in advanced and then spent only seconds in a deep frier. As a result they were pale white, and the insides were still at refrigerator temperature. Surely this was a mistake?
The Chill Platter was a combination of a fairly tasty shrimp cocktail, an oddly spiced white fish ceviche that was okay, and a tuna tartare that seemed iffy.
Service was largely missing, even though we were there at lunch on a slow Saturday. Let’s just say the glass of chardonnay ordered before the meal was delivered as dessert.
Better options are available.
5 Stars
I think a lot of us in Orlando were stunned when the first Michelin awards came out, and the stars went to two sushi counters and two hotel steak houses. This is the last of the four I have dined at, and it is the first one I think is close to a Michelin star. I started out skeptical, but the food won me over.
The room is similar to when it was Norman’s and is still challenged by the domed ceiling that reflects and concentrates all the noise, despite the weird grassy mound in the middle of the space. Noise level was fine the weeknight we were there, but the restaurant was only about 25% occupied.
The menu presents a bit of sticker shock, but when you realize most of the steaks are big enough to share, it’s actually reasonable for a Ritz Carlton dining room.
We started with oysters for half our party and hamachi crudos for the other half. The oysters were excellent, but the hamachi crude was stunning. This dish, which has become a bit of a staple in high-end Orlando restaurants, was easily the best I’ve had, combining caviar and spice in a glorious way, and the serving was generous enough to be satisfying.
For entrees I shared a ribeye, and it was also wonderful. A Japanese guest in our party said it was the best beef she had ever tasted, and she is used to having Wagu. I agree, it was the perfect balance of tender, fatty, charred and juicy. Others in our party had the scallops and the gnocchi, and thought they were excellent. Shout out to the best steakhouse spinach ever, elevated by cream and kimchi!
Desserts were beautiful, but perhaps not at the level of the rest of the meal–beautiful but not remarkable. But the starting fruit juice amuse bouche, intermezzo sorbet, and mignardises served at the end of the meal were all terrific.
Service was very good, including the wine service. I took a couple of rare old bottles, and the staff seemed genuinely grateful to have the opportunity to experience them. $50 corkage per bottle is fine for a restaurant at this level that provides such excellent glassware and service.
We were graciously thanked on our way out, and I found myself already anticipating my next visit. It’s fun to be pleasantly surprised.