Grub Crawl - Downtown: Kaizen, Jam-Eng, Loading Zone and Olives

I tried these places downtown today at lunch time. I've been waiting for the wather to improve and to save enough change for the meter.

Kaizen - I tried this izakaya that replaced (but I think is still associated with) Amura on Church St at the parking lot exit near the tracks at lunch. It is basically Amura with some trendy non-Japanese apps. I had the gyoza for $6 and the lunch sushi assortment for $12. The "new" items were mostly ho-hum and overpriced. I decided to cut my loses. The gyoza seemed to be the ones you can be pre-made at an Asian supermarket. Nothing like Tori Tori's. They actually are doing what this place proposes to do. I ordered these with the intent of comparing them with Tori Tori. The sushi was Amura-like. The rice wasn't properly crafted (sticky and mealy). The fish was ok. They served a sea bream called madai (possibly on the menu as nadai) and what they said was in the yellowtail family and called sumaji. It wasn't listed on the menu, so, I duckduckgo-ed it (because google shadow bans this site and spies on you) and couldn't find a result based on my pigeon English spelling of the fish. I did see that Florida State is considering it for a basketball scholarship however. The dish was a piece of the two discussed fish plus a salmon and a yellowtail and a tuna. The yt and tuna were actually very fresh. As were the first two. The California roll was supermarket bland. Like I said, the menu is now "expanded" to have Korean (why not call it Japanese?) Fried Chicken, an elote corn rip off, pork bao, fried rice an some other" traditional" Japanese izakaya fare. They have a 11 or 12 piece sushi offering at $35. Just go for the $60 sham (or the +$150) like they do at Kabooki at Turkey Lake or Kadence if you are going to try at "up scale" it. They also do ramen, katsu, donburi, teriyaki and some other traditional hot dishes. Some are on the lunch menu. At $12+ for a meal. I'm not sure if they redid the interior. It has been a while since I have been there. If they did, they should be embarrassed. It's dark, dingy and uninspired. Abused. There are wires protruding from the wall. A computer terminal looked like a baby was allowed to suck on the screen. And I saw that from across the room. No natural light. Little artificial light. The floors are tacky (not in a lack of sophistication kind of way but in a sticky and coated kind of way). Service was a bit out of sync. Up your ass when you wanted time and nowhere to be found when you wanted to be. No soda refill. So $3 for a half a glass of ice and four fingers of sugar water. I felt it was going to be ham fisted attempt at being au courant and it was.

Jam-Eng - Here is another place I haven't really been excited to try. I just did because I had to do as much as possible to justify a trip downtown. It's a six month old Jamaican and English mash up on the corner of Orange and Washington (I think). Diagonal from Elixir in an old bar spot. The front is take out. The interior is sit down. They have the usually Jamaican stuff (jerks, patties, ackee, etc) and some English stuff like Ploughman's sandwich and  maybe Shepard's Pie. The wife is British. I went with a jerk chicken sandwich for $8. It was pieces of drumstick on a sweet roll with lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese, French dressing and a bit of hot sauce. It was remedial. Tough chicken with icky bits still attached. Bland veg. Needless to say, I haven't been impressed by Caribbean fare - ever. At best some meats can be interestingly spiced. But something else usually ruins the experience. Or maybe it's because I forgo the "doochee" before I eat (or ever)? That is a what I think it is, right? They sell some packaged goods that looked interesting (ie Soursop beverage or Kipling's pastries). Mostly a pass though.

Loading Zone Philly Steaks - They replaced Beth's Burger Bar a few weeks ago. It's around the corner from Jam-Eng if you forgot. Cheese steaks and cold sandwiches. I did a regular whiz at $7. It was more of a "cheap-steak". Not much beef. Onion. Whiz. Way too much whiz. Geni's near Lyman high school is better. They are open until 2am. I can't recall how Beth's was set up. The brick walls seemed familiar.

Olives - They are a Greek/Med place below the movie theater. Open for three months. I was intrigued by a baklava cheese cake for $5 passing by. They were out. Took a $3 baklava to go so I could write about them. I will go back in a few months to try a gyro or bowl. The baklava was stale. Stale walnuts. Probably not made in house.

*I saw that a Thai place replaced Artisan's Table (that moved to Church St) on Pine. Name of Muy Thai. A new market is opening near Morgan and Morgan. The California burrito place near Kaizen has failed and is being replaced by Cucina. There is an infamous bar in Palm Beach named that. Some very unscrupulous people have been known to take their shirts off there. It was once Au Bar and was where that Kennedy cousin and Uncle Ted were before the cousin allegedly raped that girl in the Ninties. I wonder if they have started a chain of fast casual places. It had West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens outposts listed below it. The real place is also pretty good Italian restaurant. I wonder if it will be that kind of food. I'll venture down again once all these delights are open If I have enough change. Those meters must really piss off the homeless. I guess the city leaders that installed them (the meters not the homeless) hate the unfortunate.

**I was perusing the Orlando Weekly (two editions actually) while I was at Kaizen. The first was a typically mendacious (this time politically charged) bleat by the Arab guy. How the place he ate at's owner supported Trump and how he overcame the (his own) bigotry (err I mean oppression/shame) and ate there anyway yet still wants protection from any intolerant liberal backlash/criticism so he has to give us his excuse. Stand by your convictions or take the heat for abandoning them. Are we really making food a political issue now, man? Isn't baseball a bridge too far? The second review (actually the issue from the week before) was a very funny take on a vegetarian place. I was like - wow this guy is finally getting it. Nope. It was another reviewer. A female girl. Kudos to you whomever you are. I vote for more of you. I hope you are one of six followers.

Selam, Orlando

I tried this Ethiopian/Eritrean spot on the corner of s strip mall with a Publix on Central Florida Parkway (between John Young and I Drive) at lunch on Wednesday. I guess they eat a little later than us, as I was the only one there at noon. However three other tables were seated as I ate. Let's start with an admission. I know next to nothing about this cuisine and the "next to" is comprised of one meal at Nile around ten years ago. Oddly, I was watching a show that explained the tension between the two bordering countries (once one) just as I read about this place a few months ago in the Weekly. My interest was piqued back then, but, the location pushed it down the list. I can never remember where CFP is. Anyway, onto the food. I ordered Gored Gored beef because it looked the fanciest and not because I'm a Nebraska fan. It was comprised of medium rare cubes of beef (shoulder?) in a brown sauce on a "injera". An injera is a large, purple pancake made out of some glutton free substance that I forget the name of. An article on the window (Sentinel I think) said it should be served warm. This was cold. Now how a little American white girl knows the proper temperature for an injera is a question we all should ponder (I'm guessing a search engine was involved), it does seem probable. I say this because the meat and sauce was served to me cold. And it wasn't appetizing and I hope it isn't customary. I asked if it was supposed to be this way and I didn't really understand the explanation. I posited that maybe Ethiopia is hot and they serve this cool as a result. That hypothesis was shot down, so I dropped the subject. As a result, they did bring out (unsolicited) a small bowl of a chicken dish I considered (they wrote it down as doro tibs but I think it is the next thing I am going to mention) and a bowl of sticky beef bits they wrote down as beef key wet). As I said, I think that's inverted and I don't use search engines (if you couldn't tell), so, it may be a misstatement. The chicken was little cubes in a light, sour sauce with onions and some other veg. It was nice. The beef was little, well done bits of beef in a thick, black, sweetish sauce. It was good too. The problem was that I didn't want to seem rude and leave the "gifts", but, they filled me up. So, I had to ask to get the remainder of my "real" meal to go. It was actually serendipitous. Nuking it for a minute at dinner warmed the sauce and took the sliminess from the beef. It was much better hot and closer to medium rare than rare. The portion was large. It cost $15. The place looks like a bad Mexican place looks. Dingy. Dark. Cheap furniture. Plastic table cloths. They have some decent murals, but, it needs a lot more. It seats about eighty. The layout is also not great. The spacing is out of whack. They have been open for a year. They said six months, but, I saw a Scott Joseph article on them on the window from last October. The Orlando Weekly has also reviewed them. Like they wrote, how often are you going to run across cuisine like this? That's their calling card. I'd try it just as a bucket list item. I'm not sure if I'd go through the bother a second time though. The cuisine was not that "different". Probably if I lived down there though.You eat with your hands. They have vegetarian options. The menu has beef, chicken and lamb. Around twenty dishes. I'm reminded of a bit I heard on sports radio last week. The question was whether you would rather eat soup for every meal or have to eat every meal with your hands. I guess that isn't a conundrum for some. Just remember what they do with their right hand if you are sharing. I meant to ask if the name is a spelling of "salaam". I heard one of the customers greet the owner that way. I guess a search engine could provide closure. I'll leave some mystery to life.

Tori Tori, Mills Ave

I tried this new (one month) Japanese bar/eatery (izakaya-esque) near the corner of 50 and Mills on Tuesday night? I decree that it is the new hot spot in town. It was even full at 9pm on a Tuesday. You order through the bartenders and they give you a number on a stick and the food is delivered to you. You can sit at the central (almost all encompassing) bar or one of the tables or booths on the periphery. I sat at the bar. Service was quick and attentive  The bar side seemed to tilt towards cocktail inanity, but, they had a good selection of whiskey (Japanese et al). The menu is in between snack food and a real menu. I had a salmon "handie" roll for $6, garlic fried rice with blue crab for $8 and pork belly fried gyoza for $6. The roll was ok/ The salmon wasn't clean. It still had sinews attached to the flesh. The owner has tinkered with the roll methodology and places a piece of baking paper in the roll to keep the rice from softening the nori wrapper. I wasn't clear on if this is something he invented on his own or if it is the proper way to do it per the Japanese. I've seem a lot of shows and been to Japan. It's the first I've heard of it. But, who doesn't love a gimmick or this kind of obsessiveness? And the price is on par with most places. They didn't give you soy sauce with it. Whatever sauce they did put on it was imperceptible. As such, it was bland tasting. And his little experiment left you tasting mostly nori. And dry nori ain't so good. Taste wise or texturally. The garlic rice was ok. The rice itself was overcooked, overworked and very garlic-y. It was oily as well. I saw some pieces of real looking crab. It's very dark in there, so, I can't say for certain if they chintz or not. Who knew chintz would pass spellcheck? It was a big portion that they give you a wooden spoon to eat with. The gyoza were the best. And I can't remember having better. Anywhere. The substitution of belly for that ground pork meat you usually get makes all the difference. Plus they were well fried. A bit oily. The bottoms were soft. I think they give you six. They place them on a mayo-y sauce that once again it was too dark to identify. And the price here is also in line with even medium grade Japanese places. The soda I had was a bit weak. They may need to test the tap if it's not a weirdo bitch cola knock off. The rest of the menu (as I recall poorly) was uni and crab and scallop handies (although they were already out of scallop and that can't happen if you only offer four item), some other fried rices, a lot of cool yakitori (like chicken hearts and cartilage) and I just can't recall the rest. Sorry. I just got of a plane after being on the road for two weeks and it was dark and the print on the menu is tiny. The interior reminded me of the bar next to Black Rooster. It's modern. Very square. One level. The outside is painted white. It's very LA. I can't remember the color scheme inside. I remember wood. The ceiling looks like they ran out of money and is exposed framing. The kitchen is open and in the rear. They have a fairly big parking area. The crowd wasn't all Rollins-y. Most of the people looked like they just got off work from other kitchens. It's from the guy who runs Domu, etc. I've been waiting for it for over a year and it met expectations. It will be on the Favorite's List just because it's open until 2am (when most places close at 9pm) and it's cool and they don't gouge you to make you think you are styling. If they tighten up the food execution, it will be a real triumph. Now, if the just did lunch too. Double check the 2am thing. Maybe that was just weekends? However, I think it is till open until midnight at least on weekdays. Not sure what days they close.

Dali's, Sanford *WI/OH/IN/MN Travel Notes

I tried this Laotian/Thai "café" on Rinehart Rd (in the former Chinese takeout spot in the strip mall with 5th Element and across from the Mercedes dealership) over two weeks ago at dinner. I had a pork stew special (that I have in my notes as Kam Loh or Leh, but, I remember that I was unsure when I wrote that down). Anyway, it cost $14. It was a little pricey for a similar Filipino stew I've had for $9 with sides. This one had five or six chunks of tender pork (probably shoulder) and three hard boiled eggs. The sauce is brown. Soy-centric. I don't think it came with anything. Maybe rice. The place looks like they just opened, but, they claim they have been open for 5 months and that many bloggers and the Orlando Sentinel reviewed them already. The menu seemed more tilted to Thai. My dish was Lao. Or so they told me. They have a medium sized menu. The lunch specials seemed to be around $10. The décor is even more minimalistic than it was before. If that is possible. They add a credit card fee. I'll probably try some other dishes in the future.

*Travel Notes - Wisconsin/Ohio/Indiana/Minnesota: Brat Coins (fried slices of brat) at Great Lakes Distillery in Milwaukee. Kassler Rippchen at Mader's in Milwaukee, Nopales (fried cinnamon dough in cactus shape) and Budin (dense bread pudding) at Mama Ines in Lafayette. Cheeseburger with tartar sauce and bbq sauce at Swensons in Akron. Pig tails, pig ears, pork skins with onion dip and smoked wings at Michael Symon's Mabel's BBQ in Cleveland. I also saw a milk shake machine in a gas station in Kenosha. You take a shake in a cup and put it under an automated mixing device and then you have a shake. I forget the name of the company that provided it. I have had other local specialties (ie beef on weck in Buffalo) and went to other places that have been on tv, but, these are the things that were new to me.

Grub Crawl - West and East Colonial: Mama Lau & Oc and Paris Banh Mi Cafe Bakery

I tried these two Vietnamese newcomers today at lunch. The first is in "Chinatown" on West Colonial. The second is near Mills on East Colonial. They both opened around five months ago.

Mama Lau & Oc - I already forgot what Lau means, but oc means snails (or that's what they said even though both of my different dishes were called oc). Shelled creatures are their specialty. I had the Oc Huang Canada Nuong Tien (Grilled Canada Escargots with Garlic and Peppercorns) for $12 and Oc Mong Tay Canada Xao Me (Stir Fried Razor Clams with Tamarind) for $12. They have Canadian and "other" (American I guess) options. The Canadians are bigger. I'm not sure that made them better. The snails came in the shell. I'd wager they are sea snails kept in a tank (so probably fresh and not really escargot - land snails). The shells were more "grilled" than the meat. It kind of boiled in its own liquid. They were ok. 5 or 6 large suckers. There was not a a lot of surface area for the tamarind to make a difference/attach itself to. The razor clam (singular) was a joke. One clam for $12! It was also tough and had a gritty taste in the middle (maybe its stomach). It also had a fishy taste. Probably frozen at some point. The sauce was ok. They also had clams and fish and I saw another patron with a bowl of red crustacean legs. He said they were a big shrimp. I think he meant spiny lobster or langoustine. I didn't see it on the menu. The menu also had phos and clear broth soups (and other items). I ordered a pho with all their beef options (eye of round steak, well done flank, well done brisket, soft tendon/sinew and meatballs) because the waiter said the broth was made with no additives and flavored by the marrow of the beef bones. I believe his mother is "Mama". It was ok. To be honest, I couldn't really sense much of a difference from all the others I've had. Not salty. The meats were of a good quality and not as well done as advertised. Big bowl. Lots of noodles. It was more reasonable at $11. I usually don't get seafood at Asian places because it just never seems to be fresh enough or cooked properly enough. And all the other options are usually a third of the price. I can't say that this visit did anything to rebalance the weight of evidence. Which is a shame because that is why you will probably be seeking them out. But, give them a try and maybe you will have a different experience or perhaps you won't know how seafood should be prepared so you won't notice anything is amiss. They took over a place that was a pho place and a Chinese place before that. Right against the main road to the left of the big red gate. I don't think they did much to the interior. Maybe they did the murals, but if the last place was a pho place, they could have inherited them. I can't recall. Service was great. The waiter turned me on to the next place. I'll always be grateful for that alone. I was hoping to work in a Mamalooshin (something that Howard Stern used to say and I don't remember what it means but I think it was something people in the sticks used to say) reference. That's not possible mow.

Paris Banh Mu Café Bakery - I thought another older place down the road was the banh mi place we were talking about at Mama Lau, but, this is a brand new store front one block west of Mills. It has a whole, serve yourself bakery area, packaged goods, a fancier pastry area, drinks, banh mi and daily specials (like curry and stew).. I had the special banh mi (the traditional pate, pork roll and pork) for $5 and a taro slushie for $3.50. Both were good. They bake their own baguettes here. It was a thinner sandwich. Not overstuffed. I didn't really see any evidence of a dressing (ie vinegar). So, it didn't get all over my shorts (as usual) as I drove down the road with my big Vietnamese cigar hanging out of my mouth. Boy that's a vivid image. I'd get into the food more if I wasn't so fascinated by these jello cakes and pastries they have. They look like those resin replicas of food at Japanese restaurants. Clear gelatin with fake flowers (eatable and hand created) inside and on top of cakes, etc. So cool. The small ones only cost around $7 too. The big birthday type cakes were $40. I'm getting one on my next visit and may just stare at it until it goes rotten. I've never seen their like. The place is big. Lots of room to sit and eat. Modern. Brand spanking new. The packaged goods also looked really interesting. Things that looked like nuts and corn nuts, but, were obviously something else. And not mass produced. The packaging looked semi-professional/small batch. I say I'm going back because they told me Tori Tori finally opened a week ago. I'm definitely doing that asap and stopping here for sweets after. Just need to find the time and get additional info on Tori. So funny how things work out. This was not on the agenda and cost $36 less and was the better experience.

Byblos, Lake Mary

I tried this Paramount replacement in the shopping center with the Amstar theater yesterday at lunch. I was assured by the owner (as I left) that the food would be excellent. I guess that warranty didn't include food poisoning. Which is a shame because it tasted pretty good. However, I'm not about to give them credit for furthering what is becoming a birthday tradition. At least this time I was at home when the excitement ensued and not walking back from Octoberfest. I had three apps to try and sample as much as possible. The hummus with beef shwarma ($8), the hummus with lamb (bel lahme) ($10) and the chicken livers at ($7). I'm not sure what is to blame. I ate the shwarma for lunch and didn't feel any discomfort. Which is odd because it was the first carving of the day and who knows how they store the meat. Maybe it was a delayed fuse. The other two I nuked for dinner after being in the fridge. The nuking should have killed any microbes and the fridge kept it fresh. Anyhow, I'm not sure how much additional information I should proffer for a place that ruined my birthday and caused me much pain. They have been open for six months. It looks exactly the same (down to the broken video menu). The prices seemed the same. The menu is almost the same. Now Lebanese. The main difference seems to be a carefree attitude towards germs. I won't be going back.

*The Cozee place next door is closed too.