Restaurant Review: Shakers American Cafe (Orlando)

Ahhh. Shaker's American Cafe (and our delicious breakfast there) is one of the many, MANY reasons I love the internet, Smartphones, and apps like Yelp! and Urbanspoon.

On our last day in Florida, we were killing time while waiting for Ikea to open. We were both starving, so I got on my new iPhone and started searching for someplace nearby and good for breakfast.

Shaker's popped up on Yelp, and they pretty much had me at the words "grilled blueberry muffin". It was about 10 minutes away from Ikea and when they got there, we didn't have to wait for a table. The seating experience was a little odd. There isn't a hostess or anything. One of the waitresses asked how many were in our party, then she disappeared and a woman I later learned was the owner came to take us to our table.


I really wish we had been there for lunch, rather than breakfast, because everything on the menu board (except for the cabbage) sounded delicious. And I'm a sucker for chicken & dumplings.

We perused the menu for a few minutes. There was a lot to choose from, and everything sounded fantastic. When we were ready, someone came to take our order, and even though we both ordered huge omelets, I couldn't help but ask about the grilled muffin. She told us it was a large muffin, cut in half, buttered, and then grilled up to crispen up the outside. Sold! We ordered one to split. It came out first, and oh. My. God.

The muffin was absolutely perfect. Besides the awesomeness that grilling added to the texture, the muffin itself was delicious. I received a jumbo muffin pan at my bridal shower, and I think I may have to try and recreate this over the weekend.

Our meals came out a little bit later. And both plates were huge. I ordered the California omelet. It was three eggs stuffed with artichoke hearts, provolone and tomatoes. Topped with more provolone and served alongside home fries.



The home fries were delicious, and the omelet was very good. It needed more salt, and maybe some garlic or something. The omelet was also very wet. I know it was stuffed with tomatoes, and artichoke hearts, so that is to be expected, but it took away from it a little bit. My main complaint with my breakfast though, was the cheese on top. It was just slices of provolone. Nothing wrong with that, but it made it harder to get cheese in every bite. Every time you cut into it, all of the cheese tried to come with it.

This was a fantastic breakfast at a cool, local restaurant. I loved the collection of salt & pepper shakers all over the place. Each table has a different set, and they are literally everywhere. It reminded me of my grandmother. She collected them, and when she moved in with us and we had to box them up for the move, we had boxes and boxes full of them. Anyways... the food here is great, and if you ever stop by, definitely get a grilled muffin!

Three guesses as to why it's called Shakers =)

Restaurant Review: Big Fin Seafood Kitchen (Orlando)

Most of the time we were in Orlando, it was go-go-go pretty much the whole week. There is so much to see and do, that it doesn't leave much in the way of leisure time. On the Friday night we were there, we went to Animal Kingdom that day. Animal Kingdom is a lot of fun, but it's automatically going to be a shorter day, because the park closes so much earlier than the other parks (it closed at 7:00 the day we were there). Graham wanted seafood that night for dinner. Living in Arkansas, really good seafood is harder to come buy. Since we were in Florida (even though we weren't on the coast), we wanted to take advantage of our options. We asked the concierge at the hotel for a recommendation, since our hotel had HORRIBLE Internet service, and she recommended Big Fin.

On our way there, I read some reviews, and they were very mixed. Most people complained about the price, the portion size and most of all the service. The reviews kind of turned me off and then we couldn't find the restaurant, so we passed a Bonefish and decided just to stop there. But once we found out the wait was over an hour, we resumed our search for Big Fin. And I am SO glad we did.

We get there, and there is no wait at all. We were seated very quickly, and our waiter approached us for our drink orders almost instantly. And our server was AMAZING. He went over every aspect of the menu and recommended a few new items they had.

We ordered one of the new items on the menu for our appetizer and it was delicious. It was a flat bread with a smoky chipotle sauce. It was very good, but the texture of it made me feel like I was eating a frozen Totinos pizza. The taste was about 6,000 times better (it was sweet, smoky & spicy at the same time), but the texture of the crust, along with the very finely diced toppings were reminiscent of those terrible little pizzas.

But our entrees were fantastic. I had the blackened salmon with mashed potatoes and green beans. A lot of people complained about the texture of the green beans in their reviews, but these were amazing. Everything on my plate was amazing, and I told my husband that I didn't know why I kept eating the "stupid green beans". They were perfectly cooked. They were tender, but still had that little bit of a bite to them. The mashed potatoes were excellent, but it's hard to mess up mashed potatoes. The star was the salmon, though. The salmon was to die for. With their fish, you can order any of them cooked in whatever method you prefer, so I ordered mine blackened. When they brought my plate out, I know my eyes must have been huge. It was the biggest piece of salmon I have ever seen. And it was perfectly cooked. It just flaked apart, and had amazing flavor. The blackening did not over power the fish itself and it was just absolutely delicious.

Graham ordered the Fra Diavolo with scallops. It was very good, but not on the same level with my salmon. The scallops were huge and tender, and the sauce was delicious, but it didn't work too well together. Scallops are so easy to make, and they have his delicious, simple taste. They don't need much, and this sauce was overpowering. You couldn't really taste the natural flavor of the scallops. The dish was excellent though. There were huge chunks of artichoke hearts in the pasta and the sauce had just enough heat to it.

 

This was a pretty expensive meal, but only because we ordered an appetizer and a bottle of wine. But the cost of the entrees wasn't that much more expensive than what you'd get at any other nice restaurant. I mean, you have the option of ordering a $60 one pound king crab leg, but most of the items on the menu are between $20-$30.

Restaurant Review: Passage to India (Orlando)

Orlando is a much bigger city than Little Rock, so while we were honeymooning, I was excited to be able to take advantage of the some of the instant deals on Groupon. We drove by an Indian restaurant on our first night there, and Graham commented that we should have Indian food one night. Then one day I was browsing through deals on Groupon and found one to Passage of India. It had decent/mixed reviews, was fairly close to our hotel, and I had $10 in Groupon bucks burning a hole in my pocket.

When we arrived, I was a little uneasy. It didn't look like the nicest shopping center, but decided to give it a try. When you get inside, the amount of Indian decor is a little overwhelming, but if you look past the ornate decorations, you'll notice a pretty long row of "best of..." awards the restaurant has been the recipient of.

The lady working the front was on the phone, trying to give directions, but once she was off the phone we were seated quickly. The service was excellent, but we didn't have just one dedicated server. I think about four people ended up waiting on us by the end of the night. But as long as my food is good, and my drink glass stays full, I'm okay with that.

We shared an appetizer to start; the vegetable samosas: "Two flaky pastry parcels of mildly spiced fresh peas and potatoes." They came out with two sauces. The menu doesn't say what the sauces are, and we weren't told what they were, but they we're both quite good. The dark one was sweet. I'm not a fan of sweet & savory, so I didn't use that one. The green one though... delicious. I googled "green sauce" "Indian food" and figured out it was some variation of a cilantro sauce. Whatever it was, it was delicious and if I ever attempt to make Indian food at home, I'll definitely play around with that one!

 

For our entrees, I knew I wanted something with some heat to it. My friend Heather is the one who introduced me to Indian food, so I texted her asking for a recommendation. One of her suggestions was the Chicken Vindaloo. The menu description ("Succulent pieces of chicken marinated in vinegar and spices and cooked in a hot Goan sauce with potatoes") sounded fantastic, so I ordered that. Graham had the Chicken Methi: "Boneless Chicken Cooked in Fenugreek leaves and Mild Spices in curry Sauce." They don't have the description of about half of their dishes on their online menu, but I pulled this from Amruth Indian Cuisine (a local Indian restaurant's website). We also ordered some naan on the side.

The food was a little slow coming out, but it was worth it! Both of our meals were absolutely fantastic. My chicken was so tender, and fell apart with the slightest poke with my fork. The sauce was definitely hot, but not so hot that I didn't enjoy my meal. The naan was perfect. The amount of oil on the second piece we ordered (yes, it was that good!) was glistening with a little too much oil. It didn't taste any different, it just made me feel like the five vacation pounds I gained was just going to turn into ten. Graham's chicken methi wasn't spicy, but it was delicious. While mine was bright red (with the exception of Italian food, I always use the darkness of the red as an indicator of spice), his was dark brown. His didn't look as appealing, but the flavor was awesome. The spices mixed together very well.

If I was an Orlando local, I would definitely return here some other time. The portions were huge, the prices were reasonable, the waitstaff was friendly and attentive, and most importantly, the food was delicious!

Restaurant Review: Crave (Orlando)

Once Graham and I decided we would be honeymooning in Orlando, I signed up to receive groupons from there as well. Around the park there are tons of chain restaurants, and I didn't want our dining experiences while on vacation to be limited to TGI Fridays and Chili's.

We're both sushi fiends, so when a Groupon for Crave popped up one day, I checked out their menu and then promptly purchased it.

The night we had planned to have dinner there, we stumbled upon it accidentally when we headed to Super Target and found it was right across the street. The restaurant is in a very nice shopping area of town. It's by the Mall of Millenia, which is home to a Bloomingdales, a Neiman Marcus, loads of other high end stores and there is an Ikea in the same shopping center.

The restaurant was very nicely set up. The kitchen area was open, which I like. They had the sushi area over in it's own little corner and dividing the restaurant, they had the biggest wine rack I've ever seen in my life.

They weren't very busy when we arrived, so we were seated promptly. This place doesn't have the greatest reviews, and most of the bad reviews were in regards to service, and price. Price is what it is, but for the most part our service was excellent. Our water greeted us promptly, brought the drinks out fast (the sangria was delicious!) and checked back with us multiple times during out meal. It did take forever to bring out my husband's second beer, but that was the only service related flaw.

They even brought us warm towels =)

For an appetizer, we ordered the Mediterranean Plate ($9.95), which was hummus served with roasted garlic, roasted red peppers, cucumbers, kalamata olives and warm pita. This was absolutely delicious. The hummus was different than any I had ever had. It tasted like traditional hummus, but it was also slightly sweet. I asked the server if he could find out what was in it, and came back and told me it was honey. I'm not a fan of mixing savory & sweet things together, but this was excellent.

So pretty & so tasty!

Now, I'm aware that a huge plate of hummus is not the typical starter for a sushi dinner, but oh well. We're not the your typical couple =)

We ordered three sushi rolls. We typically do four, but the appetizer was huge, and their rolls were definitely on the pricey side, so we decided to start with three.

The Keilani: Shrimp tempura, fresh water eel, avocado, spicy sweet sauce; $16.95
The Sumo: Spicy salmon, mango, cilantro, asparagus, sweet sauce, tempura flash fried; $13.95
The Crunchy Spicy Tuna: Spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber, seaweed salad, crunchy flakes, sweet sauce; $16.95

All three were delicious, but the Sumo was by far my favorite. It was put together perfectly, the flavors all went well together and it definitely had some heat to it! The Keilani was my least favorite. It was tasty, but too sweet for me.

Only getting three rolls turned out to be a very smart idea, because we were both beyond stuffed when we left. After a $30 Groupon (and after adding in the tip), we spent about $90, and it was totally worth it. The sushi rolls tasted fresh and the appetizer was really amazing. It's definitely a good spot for a quiet dinner away from the theme park madness if you're ever in Orlando.