orlando – Page 12 – My Urban Pantry

legoland

June 24, 2012Leave a comment

my sister and her clan come every summer for a few weeks. They spend a few days in Orlando and we usually take in one theme park during their visit. This year we we hit Legoland. It opened within the last year and as Z is an AFOL (adult fan of Lego) it is amazing we hadn’t already been there. We managed to hold off until they arrived and went on an impending bad weather day last week. They warned us as we parked. They warned us at the ticket booth. The grey clouds threatened. The heavens had unleashed the day before and they ended up unleashing the day after but we were determined and headed out anyway. As it turned out the rain put us at arms length and didn’t dampen our spirits at all. The ‘bad’ weather even had the added benefit of keeping the crowds away and we were able to walk onto almost every ride. The roller coasters are geared in size and scope to six year olds and really nothing to write home about but there were quite a few kid sized standouts for the day. In the ‘City’ (a sub Lego brand) all the kids were invited to different schools, boating, flying, driving. Driving?!!? Yeah, they take the tiny (P is 3) kids through drivers ed and plop them in a car. You’d think this would go nowhere right? Wrong. She put her foot on the tiny pedal and was off.

So. Much. Glee.

As much for her as me! They put the itty bitties in their own size cars -age 3-5ish on a single one way track and the 6-12’s in their own model on a slightly scaled up two lane course. You would think the small set would be the worst drivers but somehow were not. At the end they gave out drivers licenses to carry off. So great.

We stopped for lunch across from Coaster-saurus and had pulled pork with slaw on flat breads. They were a mixed bag of fresh and dry breads but the meat was nicely flavored and tender, kind of a kid friendly sweetish bbq sauce and in name only cilantro slaw. They came with baked chips that they kids kinda shunned but I liked. Not terrible and on par with Disney food. Good not great, semi-plentiful and slightly pricey with a Legoland tax at about $9 for a sandwich, chips and drink.

We ran out of time and had to rush through the monumental land of Lego buildings so that we could stop by the gift shops on our way out and hit the Granny’s Apple Fries stand before we got in the car for the hour ride home. Truth. Fried Granny Smith Apple fries to dip in whipped cream all kissed with a touch of sugar and cinnamon. It smacked of apple pie in less sugary and less crusty way. Not exactly healthy but yummy and something different than the standard churro or funnel cake.

We enjoyed Legoland. It is definitely geared to the short set and they loved it.

honey bbq gator ribs

June 12, 2012Leave a comment

headed out in a freakish day of rain to the food truck bazaar a few weeks ago on a Friday night primarily because my one of my favorite food trucks, The YumYum Truck posted a tweet that they were selling loaves of their amazing bananatella bread. They change some cupcakes monthly and we usually get a sexy six and each pick three-one for dinner and two for a rainy day. I usually opt for the monthly changes as they become somewhat seasonal and usually whatever option is either vegan or gluten free. One of my current favorites being the Lady Bird -which they say on their wesite is the following:

Many ask, “What is the Lady Bird?” Lady Bird is not only Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife, but its also our Gluten-Free cupcake option! Available every day, the Lady BIrd is based on

traditional Southern Hummingbird Cake and has pecans, pineapple, and bananas mixed into a spice cake topped with cream cheese.

What’s not to love? But, since I can’t and shouldn’t live on cupcakes alone we picked up dinner from our other favorite, Big Wheel Provisions. I had a tame (by Z standards) Florida Blackened Shrimp & Grits with charred corn & red-eye gravy – with some lightly wilted arugula. Z on the other hand chose honey barbeque gator ribs. Yeah, gator. A sweet honey bbq sauce and chives smothering a little rack of gator ribs. They were not too meaty as a gator isn’t really a huge beast in general but there was some kinda meat on them to knaw if you are so inclined. A little tougher than I would have liked but a pretty good flavor. Something to try and we did.

burgers

May 21, 2012Leave a comment

originally this post was named pine twenty2 for a restaurant that came recommended by a friend at work and we visited over the weekend. It is in the heart of downtown Orlando and we got there around 6:20 on Friday night. We were a little surprised at how empty it was and figured we were just too early. It says build your own burgers, Bordeaux and barbeque in giant letters on the wall. When we walked in we were confronted with a counter service where you have to fill out a big checklist for your burger that has sections starting with burger type, bun, cheese, sauces, toppings and finally premium toppings. There were also check boxes for sweet potato or pine fries (shoestring) on the front and various others on the back of the form where all the pre-decided burgers resided. We missed quite a bit of menu options based on feeling hurried through the process. I messed up my first form with their golf pencils and had to stash it in my bag and grab another. I do see now where I missed fried pies on the back which surely would have been added to our order and how did I miss the Bordeaux? Anyhow, I settled on beef, regular bun, mild cheddar, Chipotle aioli, charred onions and Applewood smoked bacon. Not too inventive but I would know based on those items if I would be back to potentially try something a bit more challenging. The burgers came out pretty quickly. I am happy to report the burgers were super juicy and my choice of toppings were goopy enough to satisfy me. I inexplicably love a goopy burger. The fries were kinda funny and I felt like I was shoving them in my face and realized after the fact I should have used a fork on them. We really enjoyed the food though and will be returning soon.

The reason for changing the name of this post from pine twenty2 to burgers is this. I really don’t think the burger landscape in Orlando is that great but due to the fact that it is national burger month it is popping up everywhere I look. I popped in to let my friend know we had checked out the restaurant and enjoyed it and we were talking about the burger scene. Not an hour later he was in my office saying an Orlando Sentinel reporter wanted to chat about burgers based on a tweet he made. Something about Five Guys, Pine twenty2 or American Graffiti. He and I had a brief conversation that there weren’t many places around for a great burger. At lunch, I followed up with my table in the cafe and asked, ‘What is the best burger in town?’ I got three four of six responses of Five Guys. I don’t know how I feel about that exactly. I think their burger is ok – pretty good even, but hate the fries and wish that some of the comments had been something other than one chain. Five Guys can’t be all that there is. No one else could think of anything. That took us to a conversation about gourmet burgers, which I can’t decide should even be a real thing. Gourmet? Top quality ingredients. Check. Careful prep and cooking. Check. Not pressing every ounce of juice out of the patty. Check. I have a rather lengthy bucket list of burger joints across the US to try as we travel but chains they aren’t.

Picked up my mail as I came in the door tonight and there was a Publix Grape (quarterly wine circular from our local market) advertising turning your house into a gourmet burger bistro on the front cover. I guess gourmet burgers are a generic term in America now like love or Kleenex or Coke. Good thing I love them.

tako cheena

April 28, 2012Leave a comment

tried out a new place on Friday night called Tako-Cheena by Pom Pom. Owned by Pom Pom of a previous entry entitled ‘hype’ – I wasn’t impressed by her sandwicheria although it is a total darling of the locals and I should probably give it another try. I had read good things about this new venture other than the fact that they only took cash. It is a cross between latin and asian food serving up filled empanadas, takos (not a typo) and asian hot dogs. We invited a friend to join us and headed out for dinner. Take Cheena serves Mexican Coke and Jarritos fruity sodas. I chose Grapefruit which was sweetly tart and refreshing. It actually worked well with the fried foods, cutting the greasy factor. To start we tried a couple of empanadas, one chicken and one beef but I think we were delivered two beef with two sides of chunky salsa. It was a kind of tomatoey beef with some spices and corn and served super hot. For my main meal I ordered an unlikely combo of a Japadog and two tacos. I could totally live without the Japadog – a wierdly textured deep fried dog that could easily be pushed aside. The tacos were excellent though. I ordered two, both on flour tortillas, one panko crusted cod and one deep fried tofu. They had different toppings of salsas and crunchy lightly dressed crunchy slaw. I couldn’t stop tearing through them, crunching along and tasting the bright salsa and slaws. Finishing with Z’s favorite churros I wished we would have tried the apple potstickers. Next time.

tap room

March 20, 2012Leave a comment

nothing like heading out for dinner on St Patrick’s Day and trying a new restaurant to find out that it is a bar. We worked and lazed around the house yesterday recovering from a long work week. Around six we decided to head out for dinner and thought about where to go. I remembered that there is a semi new place called the Lake Nona Tap Room fairly close by. We googled the menu and it looked pretty promising with a full complement of burgers, fish n chips and that type of thing. So we headed over.

It is pretty solidly a bar serving green beer and four giant televisions showing ‘the game’ (in this case March Madness highlights). They have like 50 beers on tap at a hugely long bar. Probably the first time Z has been to a bar on St Pat’s. We found two seats together and placed our orders for coke and iced tea while we perused the menu. We decided on pretzel bread and cheddar ale dip along with a bacon and blue burger and a bratwurst on a pretzel roll.
The kitchen in back looked tiny but they really put out some good food. My burger was well cooked medium-super juicy and had crisp bacon and a good amount of crumbly blue cheese on a floated toasty roll. They hand cut potatoes into super thick chips that weren’t exactly crisp but pretty tasty. I used a bit of the leftover cheddar ale dip for those and was pleased with the result.
I am happy to have a local spot for a good burger so close to home even if they don’t quite know my name.