Florida Food Report, From a Warmer Time …

As the weather gets colder, it’s always nice to think of warmer times and trips to warmer climates. Following is a blog entry from my other blog about all the food Mary and I enjoyed during our trip to Florida this past July. I hope you enjoy it, and that it helps warm you from the inside out.

A word of warning; This is truly the longest blog entry I’ve ever written. Back in late July, Florida Film Commissioner Paul Sirmons described his reaction to reading this entry: “…wow, I just went to the website link and read your ENTIRE account of your Orlando trip… You certainly made the most of everything you could do in Orlando! Good for you! Especially gastronomically speaking! I got hungry just reading all your descriptions of the food.”

So, here it is …

Sitting next to Mary at one of the flat grill dining counters in the Mikado Japanese Steakhouse in the Marriott World Center Resort in Orlando on Tuesday, July 11, 2006, a single thought was running through my head. I had just finished reading Anthony Bourdain’s “The Nasty Bits” and, because of him, was considering turning the following week in Florida into a culinary experiment. Why not order at least one thing that I normally wouldn’t order at each and every meal for those seven or so days?

Yeah, why not?

As we ate our chicken broth soup and salads, teppan-yaki Chef Mr. Thi began cooking everyone else’s entree but mine. Mary had ordered Surf ‘n Turf (shrimp and steak) with fried rice, which Mr. Thi prepared right in front of us on the flat sizzling grill. At the same time, the sushi chef in the kitchen was preparing my combination sushi-sashimi platter out-of-sight. Mr. Thi didn’t at all mind that I was shooting him with a widescreen video camera, and hammed it up quite a bit for my lens, juggling utensils, cutting slabs of meat with a knife so sharp someone asked if it was a Ginsu, and cracking eggs for the fried rice by throwing the eggs in the air and catching them on the edge of the spatula. One egg simply vanished in mid-air only to fall out of his hat later.

For dessert we passed around servings of fried ice creams with chocolate sauce or honey, ginger ice cream, and an amazing red kidney bean ice cream that surprised everyone with its distinct but enjoyable flavor.

The Marriott World Center has an array of restaurants to fit any meal and satisfy a variety of tastes. The selection also includes a food court near one of the resort’s many pools. Mary and I visited the Solaris Restaurant for every breakfast over the four days of the education conference she was attending, and one dinner as well. That first morning, Mary was downright ecstatic over the huge bowl of banana oatmeal crème brulee that had been delivered to our table. Of course, I went right for the breakfast buffet. Chef Sheilah made for me an omelet of chorizo sausage, roasted red bell peppers, chopped Vidalia onion and bacon pieces. The buffet also rendered up some rather ethereal sushi-grade salmon, a few stout sausages, and a crumbly cheese containing whole blueberries.

Interestingly enough, Chef Sheilah and her cohorts use a brand of pan that’s very inexpensive. I know this because I use the same ones at home … Lincoln brand fry pans with a Wear-Ever non-stick finish and a replaceable blue handle that keeps your hand from burning. That 7″ pan Chef Sheilah used for my omelets only runs about $15.

After her morning conference sessions Mary came up to our room on the 27th floor …

… with the box lunch the conference organizers had provided. I’d found a bag of cinnamon-sugar sweet potato chips that Mary said were just a bit too strange. That is, until she realized they were sweet potatoes! They were still a little strange though and we ended up pitching the unfinished bag.

With a group of 34 people it was difficult to find rooms that could seat all of us for dinner. The Solaris had a separate area where all of us could have breakfast together. But we’d eaten in two shifts at the Mikado the previous evening. Hawk’s Landing Steakhouse on the other side of the Marriott facility had even less room and we ended up eating dinner in three shifts.

That’s where the wackiness came from.

Hawk’s Landing serves huge food. Many of our group simply couldn’t eat that much. Almost as soon as we’d sat down in the last group, food started coming in from the other room from the other two groups. Trays of huge asparagus spears with Hollandaise, leftover steak and pork chops, another couple trays of asparagus, extra tomato salad and small balls of fresh mozzarella, and yet more asparagus, all delivered by those who couldn’t finish them. And as our group wound down, even before our food was served, leftover leftovers ended up at one end of the table in front of our secret weapon, a former Marine named Dan, who finished off just about everything. I have video footage of the rest of the empty table … and then Dan, with numerous plates in front of him, the food being peppered by school superintendent Ron, who seemed to enjoy grinding pepper for anyone who wanted it.

Then our food came. A beautiful French onion soup with thick layers of cheese, more tomato salad, grilled swordfish for myself and a 2″ thick grilled pork chop for Mary, followed by ramekins of rich and thick crème brulee.

It was odd, though. When our group closed down the restaurant, there were no leftovers. Even Dan’s plate was clean. Did we learn how to order from the other groups, or were we …

Best leave that one alone.

Ron found another tall pepper mill at the Solaris the next morning, a green one with the handle painted like a golf ball. For this meal, Chef Sheilah made for me an omelet of rock shrimp and chopped Vidalia onion with just a bit of Chihuahua cheese. Again I had plenty of cheese blintzes, sushi-grade salmon and stout sausages, but this time Mary had a simple bowl of Cream of Wheat. It was all nicely done of course, and as well peppered as you wanted Ron to make it.

With Mary at conference sessions in the morning, I wandered the resort and conference center taking pictures. At the newstand in the lobby, I stumbled across an interesting book; “The Florida Cookbook“, by Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart. I’d been burned by this kind of book before, looking for inspiration for my “Michigan Cuisine” book and, after buying, finding nothing worth much. But this struck me differently. After buying it and looking through it in more detail, it’s causing me to rethink a number of layout and organization issues. I like this book.

To go with Mary’s box lunch and an episode of “Cash Cab” on the Discovery channel, I’d found a bag of good potato chips with a light coating of sea salt. It was much better than the sweet potato chips from the day before.

Before heading across the street to Downtown Disney and Cirque Du Soliel “La Nouba”‘s permanent home for a performance, we all met at Champions Sports Bar for a quick dinner. While Mary enjoyed her barbecue pulled-pork sandwich, fries and Michelob Light, I had a Cajun blackened fish sandwich (something I’d not heard of as a sandwich) with fries and a Guinness draught.

Standing in front of the Cirque Du Soliel theatre, Mary and I noticed a Wolfgang Puck’s just a couple hundred feet away. We wandered down, looked at the menu for the upstairs upscale dining room and, feeling on the verge of an amazing meal, made a reservation for Saturday evening. We then went back to see “La Nouba”, one of the most incredible things we’ve ever witnessed in our lives. Anyone with the chance to see this show … should.

Friday morning I wasn’t feeling at all like there was anything on the breakfast buffet I hadn’t tried. Going back to that first time at that buffet, I had Chef Sheilah again make for me an omelet of chorizo sausage, roasted red bell peppers, chopped Vidalia onion and bacon pieces. Mary had apple oatmeal with raisins, along with some fresh fruit from the other end of the buffet. Not a challenge in the bunch but a good meal anyway.

In the evening, it was back to the Solaris again, but this time for their seafood buffet. There were way too many crab legs on the steam table, but I was able to have some crab cakes and grilled steak from the station where I normally saw Chef Sheilah in the morning. Seeing something strange, I asked Chef Louie what was in a bowl on the cold bar. He told me a guest had once come up to him quietly, in confidence, to whisper, “There’s something wrong with your potato salad … it tastes like fish!” Chef Louie had sautéed some scallops, then mixed them with a honey Dijon dressing to create an amazing salad. I had seconds of this before we finished off our meals with tall glasses of tiramisu over chocolate brownie and topped with whole coffee beans.

Saturday was our last day with the rest of the group and we met for a late brunch at the Solaris. The stations were rather busy so I elected to have scrambled eggs, with some of that good blueberry cheese, some cheese blintzes, more sushi-grade salmon, and stout sausages. Mary finally waited in line for some fresh pancakes, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

We went to the airport with the rest of the group, as the airport would be the best place to get a rental car for the next few days. Mary and I sat in the front of the bus from Mears Transportation, finding ourselves talking with a very chatty driver named John. John’s no normal bus driver. With a complexion and massive physique similar to The Rock, the former Marine/bodyguard/executive driver/Sony Records staff member answered so many of Mary’s questions, he ended up pouring his huge heart into the conversation, complete with the story of his damaged marriage, and his dreams for the future. When he picked up the microphone to talk to the whole group, his work at Sony in New York became very apparent with his silky-smooth delivery of his daughter’s word of the day, “charity”, and what to do with that word to help others. Later on the trip, on the occasions when things weren’t quite right, we’d wish for John’s presence, sometimes laughingly, but at least one other time very seriously.

After saying goodbye to the rest of the group, we found a decent rental agency, L&M, that handed over the keys to a Suzuki Forenza for the rest of our vacation on our own.

We found our friend Hallie had taken the best possible care of us. A cancer patient with multiple myeloma, she had accepted our fundraising efforts over many months to help pay her medical bills. For our last few days in Orlando she insisted we take some of her resort points for a two-bedroom apartment with full kitchen and two person Jacuzzi at The Fountains on International Drive. It turned out to be a wonderful place for Mary and I to simply spend time together in good comfort.

In the evening we made our way to Downtown Disney, getting totally confused and probably driving a good ten miles out of our way. We made it to Wolfgang Puck’s Orlando Café just in time to be more confused with multiple lines and matching podiums, all within twenty feet of each other. Finally being seated at a table in the upstairs Dining Room we met Larry and Sean, our main servers, followed shortly by Guy, who would be our wine steward. We were given some wonderful warm black olive bread, some white bread, and plates of extra virgin olive oil to dip it in. Our waterboy, Pedro, was continually filling our glasses, and as Guy served the wines he’d selected to match our entrees, we started with the Duck Three Ways appetizer. Three square white dishes on a black plank of wood each looked like an amuse bouche. The first was seared foie gras with warm spaghetti squash, which we both really liked. In the middle was a foie gras mousse on an apricot tart. Mary didn’t care too much for this, but I could have eaten an entire plate of it! In the third dish was what was supposed to be duck proscuitto with port braised figs. However, ours ended up being proscuitto-wrapped port braised Granny Smith apples instead of figs, which we only got one piece each of and could have eaten entire plates of.

Once the appetizers were finished and Sean raked the crumbs from my side of the table, we had a chance to look around. But we didn’t really dare. Mike, the restaurant’s manager, was instantly at our table. “I noticed you were looking around … do you have any questions?” Ok, that was embarrassing! Mary’s right there, just look straight at her from here on out, no more trying to figure out the open kitchen … it’s OPEN fer cryin’ out loud …

The entrees were, well, some of the most amazing food we’d ever seen or eaten. Mary’s slow braised center cut beef short ribs with white corn polenta and caramelized baby carrots (with greens still attached!) just melted in the mouth. All of it. And as for my seared sesame-crusted ahi tuna with wasabi potato puree, braised baby bok choy and microgreens, all arranged to form a tall but miniature volcano on my plate … it looked like something straight out of Iron Chef. And tasted amazing.

After Sean raked the crumbs from Mary’s side of the table, I’d wanted the chocolate tower for dessert. Unfortunately, the pastry chef hadn’t been happy with those, so I had the chocolate raspberry cake. A triple-layer beastie, I could only eat two layers, wondering all the time if it was the chocolate or the raspberry that was the strongest flavor (they balanced perfectly). Mary, however, lucked out with a triple dish like the one our appetizer had come on. The vanilla bean gelato in the center was good. However, it’s now five days later and she’s still talking about the lightly-fried, melt-in-the-mouth banana pieces that were in the outer two dishes.

Incredible. Neither of us had ever had a meal like this one. After a cup of strong coffee, paying the bill of near $150, and saying goodbye to manager Mike at the bottom of the stairs, we wandered across the sidewalk for a showing of “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”, right there on Disney property. Great presentation, fun movie … and if you haven’t seen it, be sure to watch the credits past the end.

Out on the sidewalk again, we passed Dan Akroyd’s House Of Blues just as a fight started near the door. Fortunately the staff out there brought it to a halt rather quickly. However, as I made sure Mary was behind me while the fight was brought under control, I found myself wishing for bus driver John. Mary felt the same way.

Sunday morning we were finally able to sleep in. A phone call came in at 7:15 a.m. as the resort’s office was a bit confused about what day our breakfast was with them, but it was still a relaxing morning. Later, we headed out for … brunch? Denny’s doesn’t have anything adventurous so I opted for the Extreme Grand Slam: two eggs over easy, hash browns, three pieces each sausage links and bacon, and three pancakes. The pancakes weren’t quite done, but as soon as Jason, our server, called me “young man”, it didn’t matter! Mary had a buffalo-seasoned chicken sandwich with seasoned fries and a three-layer chocolate cake, which looked suspiciously similar to the chocolate raspberry cake at Puck’s, but without the raspberry flavor.

We drove south of the resort area of Orlando into what was obviously a lesser-visited area. While still having countless hotels and souvenir shops, the hotels were more like Super 8’s (“Crappy 2’s”?) and the souvenir shops a bit more run down. Some attractions in the area were boarded up and for sale.

In the middle of all this, we went over a bridge over Shingle Creek and turned down a dirt driveway. At a shack near the river we paid for an hour’s worth of airboat rental. With no pilot supplied, we were shown how to drive an airboat having a 36″ fan and a top speed of 10 mph and, with Mary in the pilot seat, we were off! We’d been told to go as far as the Stop sign and then turn around and come back. Mary piloted our vessel the two miles or so to the Stop sign, with me taking pictures of her in the pilot seat and of our surroundings. The thick growth along the river was old and dense, making for an amazing environment to travel in.

At the Stop sign we swapped seats. We took it slower going back, shutting down the engine and drifting near shore to look for wildlife (gators?) I ran into a tree now and then, but as piloting those boats isn’t too difficult, it really wasn’t a big deal to get straightened out and going again after starting the engine. The bigger boats have a top speed of 60 mph and run in different environments than the calm river we were on. Still, I’d like to try one sometime.

In the afternoon we spent some time in the screened-in porch at the back of our digs near the lake. Mary tried unsuccessfully to make friends with a gecko hanging on the other side of our screen. There was a DJ at the pool making people do the Hokey Pokey in the water and other fun activities. We listened to the ruckus at the pool as Mary read a book and I organized the notes for this write-up. We started getting hungry about the time the DJ played Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville”, particularly since that was exactly where we were headed …

Finding Universal’s CityWalk wasn’t too difficult, but the walk to CityWalk from the parking garage can be a bit much! We passed the as-yet-incomplete Bubba Gump’s, took each other’s pictures on a surfboard on a stationary plaster ocean wave, passed by Emeril’s with just a glance at the menu, then shopped at the official Margaritaville store while waiting for our table in the dining room. Mary took pictures of a man on stilts making balloon animals, then pics of Jimmy Buffet’s plane, before we settled into Adirondack chairs outside for some cold bottled water. Finally, our table was ready.

I started with a rum and pineapple “Volcano Blast” while Mary enjoyed a melon margarita called “Off To See The Lizard”. Going back to trying something new I ordered some conch fritters as an appetizer, which came with a strip of fried plantain. Mary didn’t care for this too much so I happily finished them off … but not before we received our entrees. My crab cake sandwich and fries wasn’t too bad but really wasn’t exceptional either, the sandwich even being served on what seemed to be a wheat hamburger bun. However, Mary’s chicken, shrimp & sausage jambalaya looked and tasted great.

After dinner Mary got one of the girls on stilts (walking through the dining room, mind you) to make me a “very special hat” out of the balloon animal balloons. As the “thing” came together, I stopped another girl on stilts and asked for the same thing for Mary. Revenge is sweet, right? Well, wouldn’t you know it, mine came out looking like an oversized hat for a Dr. Seuss Who from Whoville, while Mary’s was nicely braided and even matched her outfit! I probably took out a couple eyeballs and a window or two with mine as we left the restaurant.

Monday morning saw us having breakfast at a time-share sales meeting. Do yourself a favor and oversleep. These things are rarely worth the time they hold you hostage.

Because the morning meeting ran twice as long as we were originally told, when we got back to Universal Studios to spend the day, it was lunchtime. At the Beverly Hills Boulandgerie across from the tribute to Lucy, we each had a roast beef sandwich on baguettes with redskin potato salad and dill pickle. Mary had a three-layer Black Forest cake with cherries in the bottom layer, while I had real Key Lime pie. (Did you know real Key lime pie isn’t green? It’s more … well, like custard.) We were then off for a rainy day at a very calm amusement park, which was fine for a couple old folks like us.

After seeing and doing all we wanted to, we headed back toward CityWalk for dinner at the Hard Rock Café.

The menu was full of recognizable items, that is, recognizable to anyone who knows how rock stars both cook and eat. The menu started out with the Waborita, a margarita made with Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo brand of tequila (rated third best in the world by Bon Appetit magazine).

I ordered Mad Anthony’s grilled skirt steak with sweet potato fries and a Miller Lite. Mad Anthony is [formerly ed.] Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, and as I had never tried any of his sauces I took the opportunity. The thin layer of his barbecue sauce on the tender skirt steak was extremely tasty and completely enjoyable. Mary ordered the chicken and sausage penne pasta with tomatoes and white sauce, which she liked a whole lot but ended up taking a lot of back to our room anyway.

Back at the resort we snacked on a box of Reese’s Pieces that we’d picked up at (where else?) E.T.’s official retail store.

At Denny’s Tuesday morning, a full week after starting our Florida adventure, we asked for Jason as our server once more since he did call me “young man” … I again had the Extreme Grand Slam while Mary opted for a blueberry-stuffed pancake.

With plenty of time before our flight, and half a tank of gas that we’d already paid for, we made the drive out to the Space Coast and the Kennedy Space Center. Finding the Visitor Center to be $38 each was discouraging. On our way out, Mary asked me to take a picture of a sign next to the Kennedy parking lot that read “Warning: Drainage Ditches Infested with Poisonous Snakes”. I got out, and as I lined up the shot, I kept hearing “Closer … get closer … watch your step!! {giggle!}” Yeah, ok, got the shot, thanks.

At the Space Center I kept hearing what sounded like thunder. Mary said, “Around here, it could just be them moving things. BIG … things.” Driving further north we found the Enchanted Forest wildlife sanctuary, part of the Environmentally Endangered Lands Program. Almost as soon as she pulled into the driveway, Mary pulled over and walked up to a large gopher tortoise about fifteen inches long, who seemed to pose for the picture she took …

At the station, WWII veteran Vernon told us about the trails we could explore and then pointed us to the trailhead. We followed the trail past an active gopher tortoise burrow with babies in it, through the Florida scrub to a Mesick Hammock with a massive canopy. But those rumblings I’d heard back at the Space Center were getting louder, not quieter. Mary said, “You know, sometimes there’s a lot of noise and nothing happens”. After a quarter mile or so, after Mary’d taken a picture of an orb spider and I’d gotten bitten by something that had crawled into the leg of my shorts, it started sprinkling. NASA’s moving things? I didn’t think so anymore. Of course, once we hit the sandy desert area where there was no more canopy, the sky cut loose with some serious rain! We plodded back to the station to drip-dry in the screened-in outdoor presentation area.

While waiting for the rain to let up, we spotted a huge and beautiful banana spider on the screen in the framework of the screen we were in. With a body a couple inches long, her leg-spread was a good four inches front-to-back. The gold-colored web she’d spun was in at least two layers, with her tiny male and a lot of food inside. We took a number of pictures of her from all sides and all angles, with her only moving once to do some web repair.

Back at the airport we checked our bags for the flight home and met up with Rita, who we would take home from the airport back in Michigan. After deciding to go to the Macaroni Grill instead of Chili’s, Mary and I ordered the Pasta Milano, a perfect bowtie pasta with grilled chicken, sundried tomatoes and mushrooms in a garlic cream sauce, which, because it was served piping hot with lots of black pepper, caused us to drink plenty of cold fluids before getting on the plane for home.

It seemed a perfect ending to a culinarily satisfying trip.

2 Comments

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  1. Hey, Dave!

    Is your wife in the NEA? I was down there until about the 8th of July for the NEA national convention. And guess where we stayed? That is one nice hotel.

    Weird.

    The strangest thing was that the national convention of Palestinian Ramallah was also there. They had these big hookah pipes set up right in the hotel hallways. They even demonstrated them for us, but we didn’t try it. We’re not that daring.

  2. She’s in both the NEA and OEA. However, we were there for the High Schools That Work annual convention, which apparently happened the week after you were there. Yup, nice place … and huge!

    Seems to me hookah pipes are gaining in popularity. That in itself is weird.

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