Orlando Food Critic Blog

  Credit where credit is due I found myself around the Mall at Millennia today and in dire need of something to eat. There are of course all the usual suspects around the area, Cheesecake, Duffy’s and Brio etc. But as it had been a long time since I had my Jack Daniels sauce fix, I plunked for TGI Friday’s. …

Irish Coffee I have just watched a celebrity chef decimate the preparation of what was called an “Irish Coffee” and adulterate the concoction with the addition of Peppermint Schnapps, Vanilla Extract and that most heinous of errors whipped cream, making it more of a “Peppermint Bark Coffee”. My many friends in Ireland would be mortified if I did not attempt …

It is reported that the first publication of a Margarita recipe was in the December 1953 issue of Esquire magazine, but its history and creation go back much further. Numerous claims on the original invention include, Carlos Herrera in 1938 at the restaurant Rancho La Gloria and created for a former Ziegfeld Follies dancer who it is claimed was allergic …

On Thursday, you can get a great meal and help the victims of the Orlando nightclub attack at the same time.  Hundreds of restaurants around the state are participating in “Dine Out For Orlando United” donating their proceeds for the day to the One Orlando Fund. The day long event is being led by the states restaurant industry group, the …

Wagyu vs Kobe   It would have difficult to miss the increase in menu listings featuring “Kobe” meat products. Kobe Burgers, Kobe Steaks and even Kobe hot dogs have been appearing on menus up and down the length and breadth of the U.S.A for some years now. Unfortunately, authentic Kobe beef is very rarely seen on restaurant menus in the USA …

The Canadians are coming…………………………. Or more precisely they are already here in the form of Poutine!!! Over the past few months we have seen a significant increase in the number of restaurants and bars adding Poutine to their menu offerings, and if we needed any other indication that this was a hot trend, Disney Springs has recently announced the addition …

What is A Gastro Pub? One of the fastest growing trends today is the gastro-pub, but how did this concept come into being? Well, to understand the beginnings of this trend we have to go back to the United Kingdom at the end of the 1980s. Up until this time six national brewers dominated the market for beer sold in …

Burger 101 Before I start this piece I would like to add, that as with all food, taste and preferences are subjective, the following descriptions are purely my opinion based on years of sampling product both good and bad. Let’s start by saying what a burger is not. A burger is not any of the following: Mushroom – Vegetable – …

Food Poetry on a Skate Board   Words like “Fusion”, “Gastro Pub”, “Farm to Table and Artisan Butchery”, have crept into “Restaurant speak” over the past couple of years, and with menus and restaurant concepts now gathering influences from all over the globe, cutting through what they actually mean and more importantly how they impact the customer is becoming ever …