***** (5 stars)
This hotel is ideally located in the theater district, and near Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden. Rooms are spacious and the staff is welcoming. There is a small cafe and bar off the lobby that serves a well-prepared if limited menu.
St Martins Lane Hotel
45 St Martin's Lane
London WC2N 4HX
United Kingdom
***** (5 stars)
Great traditional brasserie convenient to the theatre district. Frequented by locals, which is always a good sign. Nice wine by the glass selections. Very welcoming staff.
Côte
50-51 St Martin's Lane
London WC2N 4EA
United Kingdom
***** (5 stars)
Excellent museum for adults and children that clearly tells its chronological story. Lots of buttons to push and things to climb on for the kids, and a deeper level that's easy for adults to absorb through just the right amount of signage. At Coventry Garden for tourist shopping and food, but I recommend walking over to St Martin's Lane for much better dining options.
London Transport Museum
Covent Garden Piazza
London WC2E 7BB
United Kingdom
***** (5 stars)
Always a required stop in London. There's a reason this restaurant has been in business more than thirty years.
Our favorite aspect is that they will give you a blind wine paring, so if you're into wine it is really fun to guess with no preconceived notions. Great service and hospitality.
Pied à Terre
34 Charlotte Street
London W1T 2NH
United Kingdom
***** (5 stars)
This has long been our favorite restaurant in London. It’s certainly the most romantic. The food is sublime, the service is welcoming, and the wine list is a vast resource of reasonably priced treasures. This is always one of our stops on every visit to London.
Clos Maggiore
33 King Street
London WC2E 8JD
United Kingdom
***** (5 stars)
Wow! That’s my review.
Seriously, it’s amazing that Orlando has another new world-class restaurant. It’s been an amazing couple of years for Michelin-quality places opening up, and Foreigner is right at the top of that class.
If it doesn’t seem like this restaurant has only been open a few weeks, that’s because Chef Bruno and his team have been honing their presentation for four years in pop-ups.
Now they are taking full advantage of this beautiful new space, presenting ten courses, beginning at the ten-seat counter, and ending at the communal dessert table.
Each course is assembled in front of you. Chef Bruno’s interaction with the diners makes the presentation a delight. And his friendliness encourages interaction among everyone, making Foreigner a really fun and relaxed environment.
With so many standouts, it’s hard to pick a favorite, and with half the menu changing every two weeks, you won’t see many repeats.
My favorites were:
Regular or reserve wine pairings thoughtfully accompany every course.
My only wish is that the souvenir menu included more description of the ingredients, as with so many complex courses, it’s hard to remember all the twists and turns!
If you’re looking for a sublime dining experience, Foreigner is the real deal.
Foreigner Restaurant
2816 Corrine Dr
Orlando, FL 32803
***** (5 stars)
I was skeptical when I saw where this new RusTeak location is on a map, because it's pretty much a stealth business park, hidden in trees, off a side road, and RusTeak is in the back.
And yet, just a week or so after opening it was packed at lunchtime, so they're doing something right.
A lot of things, actually.
First, the room is great. High ceilinged, trendy, with a great bar separate from the dining areas. The bar also opens to the outside via a counter, so lots of seating possibilities. The place just looks cooler than most Orlando restaurants.
The cocktail menu is a great place to start exploring. I enjoyed my Rum and iced coffee concoction very much. There is also a pretty extensive and reasonably priced wine list.
The menu is a single page, perhaps because they are still in a soft opening, but there is a nice variety. I loved my 55th Street sandwich, which was essentially a Reuben made with cole slaw. The smoked pastrami was wonderfully meaty and abundant.
The half wedge salad that accompanied it was a bit odd. It was Romaine rather than iceberg, which is fine, but there was no dressing, just cheese crumbles and a drizzle of balsamic.
The mushroom brie bisque was wonderfully rich and flavorful.
As I said, they were busy, and there weren't a lot of servers, but they did a good job of keeping up, although it was never really clear who our server was, and I think they still have some communication issues to work out amongst them. But all in all this is a promising start, and just the kind of restaurant we need in this part of town.
RusTeak
1681 Amazing Way Ocoee
Ocoee, FL 34761
***** (5 stars)
There is no question in my mind as to what the best restaurant in Orlando is. This is it. While Orlando received four Michelin-starred restaurants last year, they were very odd choices. I have no doubt that Doshi is better than all of them, and expect it to receive its acknowledgment soon.
There are two ways to enjoy this restaurant: ala cart table dining, or at the six-seat chef’s counter. We chose the latter, and it is definitely the way to go. The experience is individually curated and largely prepared by Chef Mike, while the other chefs tend to the rest of the room.
Chef Mike fills you in on the Korean history behind each of his dishes. The menu is inspired by the food a king would have eaten 500 years ago. To describe the menu as Korean is to completely undersell it, though, as each dish incorporates modern refinements, techniques, and sourcing.
The ten tasting menu courses included fifteen dishes, and absolutely every one of them was outstanding. My favorites were:
– The incredibly complex, savory, and somewhat spiced “porridge,” which was more like a chowder with tender mini rice cakes.
– The delightful oyster preparation, which was lightly cooked to bring out the flavor of the oyster, yet still fresh and citrusy with yuzu and cilantro blossom, as you would expect in a raw oyster course.
– The A5 Wagyu, which was the single best thing I have put in my mouth during forty years in Orlando. For the past decade we’ve all had lightly seared Wagyu with nothing done to it to interfere with the delicate fatty flavor of the meat. But what if you lightly marinated it, seared it, and served it with a smear of black garlic and top-grade caviar? The flavor absolutely explodes in your mouth, creating something wholly new, and far surpassing the individual ingredients. Alternate that with bites of acidic Asian pear and you have a dish worthy of the best three-star Michelin restaurants I’ve been to. Congratulations to Chef Mike for daring to create this out-of-the-box dish.
– I also need to give a nod to the dessert, which is hard to describe. Think of a tiramisu, but one made of many layers of crepes so thin and tender they become a single sort of coffee-flavored mousse. Another amazingly creative dish.
You will not leave hungry, that’s for sure. Fortunately they are happy to pack the final savory course, a royal hot pot, for you to enjoy the next day.
The wine service, provided by host Austin, is impeccable, and an interesting flight of wine pairings is offered, although there is also corkage available if you wish to bring your own wines. We did both.
The atmosphere is perfect. Low lighting in the stylish dining area, and a livelier counter experience for the tasting menu. As with the best high-end restaurants, the kitchen is organized and professional, so intimate conversation is easy, even at the counter.
Again, I cannot stress enough how far above the other restaurants in town Doshi is hitting. I am already anticipating our next visit.
Doshi
1040 N Orlando Ave
Winter Park, FL 32789
* (1 stars)
I like Taco Bell. This is the only Taco Bell near us. Unfortunately, this is the worst Taco Bell on the planet.
I think it's really unfair when people have a bad experience at a restaurant one time and leave a one-star review. But when you have a bad experience at a restaurant literally dozens of times, it means… well, it means you like Taco Bell, it's the only Taco Bell near you, and it is the worst Taco Bell on the planet.
Of course there are the expected staffing issues when you don't pay a decent wage, and the resulting not being open when you say you are. I can give them a pass on that.
But how can the tortilla chips be rancid 20% of the time? Do they have a special process for aging them to imperfection?
How can they be out of major ingredients like onions, or lettuce, or–get this–taco shells?
Oh, and here's a helpful note: if you want Diet Mountain Dew, be sure to order MTN DEW® Baja Blast™ Zero Sugar, because they've been out of the latter for years and never updated the menu.
Taco Bell
7970 Winter Garden Vineland Rd
Windermere, FL 34786
***** (5 stars)
This is a third location for Thai Thani. I tried their Celebration restaurant many years ago, and it was just okay, but I really like this location. It's much better than the Thai restaurant that formerly occupied this spot.
To call it a Thai restaurant actually undersells it, because the enormous menu also offers a full sushi bar, plus pan-Asian items such as samosas.
We enjoyed all of the sushi items on both our visits. Fish quality was great and sauces very flavorful.
Yum Nua, a traditional Thai beef salad was as good as I've ever had.
Samosas we're wonderful, lightly fried with a great Indian curry flavor.
Papaya salad was very refreshing.
In fact, the only thing I don't recommend–ironically–is the Pad Thai, which was very gloppy.
They also have a very reasonably priced lunch menu.
Thai Thani
7555 W Sand Lake Rd
Orlando, FL 32819