La Luce, By Donna Scala, Orlando, Florida

Restaurant Info:
La Luce by Donna Scala
14100 Bonnet Creek Resort Lane
Orlando, FL 32821
407-597-3600

What surprised us the most about Orlando was how early a lot restaurants closed especially for the young crowd (young as in 18-32!) in Orlando. We returned to our hotel around 8pm after a whole day at Sea World and found ourselves very hungry, but very dirty as well. After showering and dolling up for dinner, we came across a dilemma, where can we go and enjoy a nice dinner at 9:30pm? Better yet, what is still open? Despite the fact that we were in Orlando, a drive to any of the Disney resorts would have taken 15-20 minutes and a drive to the other parts of the city would take even longer. As we flipped through a coupon book and called several restaurants to see if they were still open, most of them said they were closing in 30 minutes for last seating. For such a tourist city, we were disappointed that Orlando didn't accommodate late night dining (like Las Vegas, NYC, Miami).

After calling about 5 restaurants and learning everything was closing in 30 minutes, we resorted to eating in the hotel we were staying at, the Hilton at Bonnet Creek. We had reservations about eating in our hotel because we knew it would be expensive and maybe too pretentious. However, we were down to our last resort (pun?) Our hotel had 2 very upscale restaurants that were opened until 11pm; one was Bull and Bear, a steakhouse, the other was La Luce, an Italian restaurant by Donna Scala featuring traditional Italian food with Napa influences. Donna Scala has several restaurants in northern California and Florida, both featuring local and fresh ingredients and grass-fed beef. She and her family also own an olive farm to make their own olive oil in Napa Valley. We chose La Luce after seeing their delicious appetizer menu.

The restaurant decor is beautiful and comfortable. La Luce was going for traditional Italian food with a familial atmosphere with long dinner tables, leather chairs and benches with large pillows. And for those who are going for an intimate setting, there are also booths. No matter where you sit, you will have a view of the pool, the wine bar, the in-house pizza oven or one of the many modern Italian artwork.

We were starving when we got to La Luce, so the fresh bread the brought out was especially enticing to us at first sight.  Upon tasting the bread offerings (fresh focaccia, peasant bread, and a crispy Italian flatbread), we were wowed and pretty sure that we were in the right place. We ordered a bottle of chianti to go with this delicious bread as you can see below (in stylish black and white!).

Our waiter was very knowledgeable about the restaurant/menu and recommended several of his favorite appetizers. For starters, we ordered their fried Spanish olives with almonds, an appetizer we wished that we had come up with ourselves. They were absolutely excellent. The salty Spanish olives were lightly coated with a flakey batter and deep fried, giving them some softness in the middle but a crunchiness from the batter. An interesting addition to this appetizer were the pan-fried Marcona almonds (sauteed in rosemary and garlic) that helped cut the saltiness of the olives.

For our entrees, we ordered the duck confit with Andouille sausage and white beans. We love duck and you can never go wrong with confit. The meat was tender and fell off the bone. The sausage was crispy on the outside and made from scratch packed with a delicious smokey paprika. The white beans were incredible and had a very balanced make-up: they were smokey and sweet and didn't have that starchiness that you would normally get with improperly cooked beans.

 In addition to our duck confit, we ordered agnolotti pasta, resembling of little pillows stuffed with a creamy cheese. Agnolotti is a really rustic and simple ravioli that really evokes images of Tuscany and hearty Italian cooking. The pasta was elegantly served with a simple white truffle and cheese sauce that stuck to the pasta beautifully, really imparting the dish with strong and beautiful flavor.

With all the entrees, appetizer and the rustic bread, we were looking at an Italian feast for 2. Everything had fresh flavors and kept the simple spirit of Italian cuisine, while still giving off a distinctive modern and creative flare. To end our special feast, we tried some of their desserts (all fresh made in-house, except for gelato which is from a local creamery). Tricia had two flavors of gelato: pistachio and hazelnut. The ice cream came accompanied with freshly made biscotti and a pine nut cookie. The gelato was phenomenal- smooth and very flavorful. The biscotti was good too, but the showstopper was the pine nut cookie. It must have been loaded with butter, because it literally melted upon first bite. The cookie was so good that there has been a serious push to get Tricia to make something comparable since the return to Ithaca!

Siddharth had butterscotch pudding. Sounds tame, right? Definitely wrong. Firstly, the "scotch" aspect of the butterscotch was real - an 18-year old Macallan, to be exact, was used to put this pudding together. The pudding was served with shaved chocolate and fresh cream on top, along with homemade English Toffee (covered in sea salt) on the side. Everything in this dish was perfect. This is flat out one of the best desserts we've had in a restaurant. We're not the only ones that think so either!

La Luce was a ritzy place, but one that we found was well worth it. From beginning (bread) to end (gelato and the best butterscotch pudding in America), the meal was outstanding. Though, we were only in Orland for one week and have not sampled all of the cuisine that is present in central Florida, we feel safe in saying that La Luce offers one of the best dining experiences in the area (in expounding on all the great food, we feel almost remiss to have not mentioned until now that the service was excellent - our server was friendly, knowledgeable, and he even gave us recommendations about the other great places to eat in town!).

Conshohocken, PA - El Limon (Mexican Food!)

Restaurant Info:
103 Fayette St
Conshohocken, PA 19428
(610) 567-0120

Siddharth and I were in Pennsylvania for a night and found this restaurant on urbanspoon rated quite highly. Situated along a main road in Conshohocken, this tiny restaurant is hidden in between a BYOB restaurant and a Jimmy John's. Although the restaurant seemed small and crowded on the outside, El Limon was capable of seating all of their customers with little wait.


What I liked most about this restaurant was the open kitchen. Siddharth and I had the pleasure of eating at the counter right behind the cooking grill (pictured above to the right) so we could watch the two cooks. The menu selection is a bit limited compared to Garcia's where you can have any combination of dishes you want. They served traditional Mexican restaurant offerings like enchiladas, tacos and burritos (all a la carte, with the tacos and small ones at about $3 each!) with your choice of their mole sauce or tomatillo sauce. Everything was made fresh in house, including their tortillas, absolutely delicious.

I had a steak enchilada with the tomatillo sauce. The steak was tender and perfectly seasoned with the typical Mexican spices. I loved the tomatillo sauce as well. It was a bit tangy and a little bit spicy. It contrasted well with the spices from the beef. And I could taste that the tortilla was freshly made because of its softness and corn flavor. On the side were refried beans which were incredible, a lot better than Garcia's. I think it's because they fry them in lard which adds a whole lot of flavor. Unlike Garcia's, these beans were seasoned and served with a bit of cheese. The Mexican rice was also excellent. It doesn't look like they give you a lot of rice, but that mound of rice ended up being very filling.

 

Siddharth ordered sopes: one with chorizo and one with beef. Sopes are made with super-thick, deep-fried corn tortillas. The sopes come served like an open-faced sandwich, as you can see to the right. Neither of us had ever had sopes, and suffice to say we were very impressed. Texture-wise they are soft on the inside and crisp on the outside, almost like a corn-flour based hash brown. The chorizo and beef were both fresh cooked and delicious. The sopes were served with two sauces, a green tomatillo based sauce and a red chipotle sauce. Neither was overly spicy, but both were very flavorful. 

Another great quality of this restaurant was the unbelievable fast service. Even though there were no tables available for us to be immediately seated, the host allowed us to sit at the bar behind the kitchen. Our waitress took our order and immediately gave it to the cooks. We watched them both prepare our two entrees with great speed; one of them was cooking at least 3 pounds of chorizo on the grill while the other prepared the corn tortillas for the sopes and the enchilladas. Probably about 7-8 minutes after we ordered our entrees, our dinner was right in front of us, piping hot! 

The cooks (and waitress) were quite social and checked on us many times while we enjoyed our meal, asking how things were and whether we wanted to try anything else on the menu. Their persistence might be a bit annoying to some patrons, but Siddharth and I appreciate when the waitstaff or the cooks themselves interact with their customers and talking about their food with us, especially when we are trying something new.

Overall, El Limon was maybe surprisingly some of the best Mexican food we've had in the Northeastern US. The restaurant distinguishes itself by making great food in a hurry at dirt cheap prices. If you are ever in the area of Conshohocken, give it a try!

Blue Frog Coffee House, Ithaca, NY

Restaurant Info:
Blue Frog Coffee House
Pyramid Mall, next to Best Buy, Ithaca NY

Although new to the Ithaca area, Blue Frog Coffee House has already established itself in Cortland as a cafe serving local coffees and pastries, sandwiches, paninis, and even quesadillas. We had heard about this cafe from our friendly neighbor, Angelique, who requested that we write a review on it.

Cowboy Beans

This recipe here is slightly modified from other versions that I have seen in the past. Basically, for those not familiar, cowboy beans are really smoky, stewed beans. Almost like a cross between a good bean chili and baked beans. This is actually very easy to make. Here is the recipe:










Ingredients:

½ cup Diced Bacon

½ onion diced (any color is fine, to your taste)

5 cloves garlic minced

1.5 cups stock (chicken or beef)

2 cups black beans (divide into 2 batches of 1 cup each)

2 cups red kidney beans

1 cup white beans

1 cup fresh diced tomatoes

½ cup Spanish cured chorizo, sliced

2 sliced jalapenos

1 whole jalapeno, chunked for pureeing

2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp paprika

Cilantro

Thyme and oregano

Thani Thai

Thani Thai

11025 International Dr Ste F, Orlando, FL 32821

(407) 239-9733

Siddharth and I have a love-hate relationship with Thai food. There are times we really enjoy Thai food and its flavors but we've had our fair share of unimpressive offerings.

On our third day in Orland, we had planned to venture to Sea World. Instead of eating theme park food, we decided to look for a restaurant in walking distance to the park. Sea World is located on International Drive, along with several chain restaurants catered to the tourists. Siddharth and I are not fans of chain restaurants and their marked up prices on bad food. A hotel employee suggested Thani Thai as an alternative.

Indochinese Fried Rice

Rice. Now there's something that billions of people around the world can agree on. And it also turns out to be something that Tricia and I both enjoy! There's so many things to do with rice, but one of my favorite ways to prepare it is fried. Fried rice is a highly variable dish- it originated as a way to take care of leftovers. Basically, you take last night's dried out rice and combine with other leftovers and maybe some fresh vegetables/sauces to create a new dish. Both Tricia and I have our own trademark versions of fried rice, differing in the sauces, vegetables, and seasoning we prefer to use. I like to experiment a lot though, so I recently decided to combine some Indian elements into fried rice to create something more distinctive. So here, I present the results for my "Indochinese fried rice"!

Simple Texas Chipotle Slaw

This is a vinegar-based cole slaw with a bit of a kick. It's incredibly easy to make, and the only key is to allow enough time for the flavors to develop (a simple matter of leaving it in the fridge for ~4 hours).  Here are the ingredients:

1 medium head of green cabbage, shredded

¼ medium head of red cabbage, shredded

2 jalapenos, finely diced

4 shredded carrots

½ cup sugar

½ cup white vinegar

¼ cup oil (canola is good)

2 chipotles chopped with adobo sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

The amount of cabbage is obviously sort of approximate, but is roughly 10 cups all together. Simply combine everything and mix really well. Then give it 4 hours in the fridge. The result is a bright, sweet and spicy slaw that we all really enjoyed. The freshness and coolness of the slaw play really well with the heartiness of the beans for the record.

Kimonos - Swan Resort at Walt Disney World Resorts

Restaurant Info:
Kimonos
(407)939-3463

We're always craving for sushi since it's so tough to get fresh fish in the middle of NY state. After another long day at Universal Studios (and a delicious meal at Emeril's) we were starving, and we found Kimonos in a coupon book that was given to us by Siddharth's SFB conference (you can also get these if you're a AAA member).

This restaurant is inside the Swan Resort, a Disney Resort that is on Lake Buena Vista. The decor is a sort of modern Japanese with wooden paneled walls, bamboos bordering the ceiling, and kimonos (who would have guessed!) decorating the walls and tatami doors overhanging the bar. It was more of a lounge than a restaurant because most of the tables were pretty low and the chairs were more like love seats and single couches rather than dinner chairs. The sushi bar was small with just about 4 seats. The drinks bar was considerably bigger, and the main attention getter is the karaoke stage (perhaps a bit of an unfortunate addition). Kids are allowed to sing but are not allowed in the lounge past 11pm. When we went, several people had the courage to sing country and pop tunes.

The Fountain at Disney's Dolphin Resort Hotel - Orlando, FL

Restaurant info:
The Fountain

When you want simple and tasty fast food but without the long lines and pushing customers, The Fountain is a great place for a nice sit-down fast food restaurant with kids and those who like to dine alone. This restaurant makes all the service counter fast food restaurants at theme parks look like high school cafeteria food. 

We found this restaurant while walking through the Dolphin Resort Hotel after dinner and noticing their extensive milk shake menu. The Fountain was a very family-friendly, 1950's diner-like restaurant with modern furniture and specialized in sandwiches and simple desserts like malt milkshakes and pies. The atmosphere brings you back to your favorite old diner with bright bar stools at the counter, booths in the back, the sound of a heavy ice cream maker and a juke box playing last years hits. It was a great atmosphere to enjoy your comfort food at your own pace without feeling the pressure of other customers wanting a seat. We ate here for lunch after walking the Disney's Boardwalk, hungry.

Emeril's at Orlando, FL - City Walk at Universal Studios

Restaurant Info:
Emeril's at Orlando, FL

Siddharth and I are fans of Emeril and were quite excited to see his restaurant at Universal Studios. We had just finished walking half of Universal Studios and the 12pm sun was almost unbearable. Although Universal Studios had a few interesting themed eateries and fast food restaurants, we decided to splurge on a real gourmet meal at City Walk, another portion of the theme park that was free.