Restaurant: Sno Tea Caffè
Location: 4498 N Alafaya Trail #270, Orlando
Have you ever felt like you were missing something just to discover that it was in your pocket the whole time? Well, I recently had that experience. Let me explain, my wife and I have been taking the kids to Sno Tea for years, and you may have seen my posts about their popcorn chicken and different boba teas from time to time. The popcorn chicken, desserts, and teas are great, they are relatively close to my house, and the kids love it there. BUT I was very naive in thinking that was all they really had, and they, very politely, invited me to dine in and try anything I wanted and to give them an honest review of their food. My suggestion, you guys should stop by here if you want a delicious meal at a good price!
We ordered soooooooo much food, you can just scroll down now if you want an idea of everything we got. We started with the Fried Calamari, Popcorn Chicken, and Fried Chicken Thigh from their appetizers. We then moved on to try their Braised Pork Rice, Pork Katsu, Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, and their Fried Chicken Breast (not on the menu) as our main entrees. We were just two people! Lastly, we came back at night after we picked the kids up from school and had their Shaved Snow and Taiwanese dessert with grass jelly, egg pudding, taro and boba because the kids were SUPER jealous that we went without them.
Everything was great! The Beef Noodle Soup reminded me of Taiwan so much with the huge chunks of tender meat in a warm and delicious broth. The Braised Pork Rice with the marinated egg was absolutely fantastic and just put a big smile on my face. The popcorn chicken and calamari were both yummy delicious treats. However, there were two dishes that really surprised me. The first was the Fried Chicken Thigh. This was not fried like the other dishes I mentioned. The thigh is actually dipped in a liquid batter and fried so the skin is super crispy while the meat remained very juicy. The way this was fried made the crust the star and I couldn’t get enough of it.
The other dish was the Pork Katsu for me. The rice with the scrambled eggs and sweet onions was the perfect combination to go with the crispy and juicy Katsu. it reminded me of a lunch I had with my dad at a Japanese restaurant in Miami years ago when I would work summers at our furniture shop, and he ordered me a simple rice dish with a scrambled egg mixture on top. I’ve been looking for this dish for years, and it was right by my house the whole time. I felt like Anton Ego from Ratatouille when he took that first bite of ratatouille and was brought back to his childhood. Just awesome!
So apologies for the super long post this week, but there was just so much food to talk about. Without further ado, here are the pictures and I hope you get to stop by and try for yourself.