The summer Florida heat this July 4th can be daunting at times so what better way to cool off than enjoy a nice smooth ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. Out of all the Ice Cream chains out there Cold Stone is my favorite because of their high quality ingredients and sweet and creamy ice cream textures mixed in with their great toppings.

Signature Creations at Cold Stone Creamery

They have a lot of choices to choose from including unique signature creations such as “Cheesecake fantasy”, made with cheesecake ice cream, graham cracker pie crust, blueberries and strawberries. I chose Founder’s Favorite on this occasion which is a sweet cream ice cream with pecans, brownie chunks, fudge and caramel.

Ice Cream Choices at Cold Stone Creamery

Toppings including kit kats, Reese’s peanut butter cups, butterfingers…

Traditional toppings such as roasted almonds, peanuts, pecans…

All ice cream creations are offered in three sizes: “Like It” (5 oz), “Love It” (8 oz), and “Gotta Have It” (12 oz).

By mixing nuts, fruits and candy into the smooth and creamy ice cream on a frozen granite stone (Marble Slab and other places do it too but not as good!), they create these ice creams that explode with tastes and sweet ice cream goodness.

Ice Cream on the frozen granite slab, the Cold Stone

My ice cream: The Founder’s Favorite, really good.

Tasty Chomps Rating!!!!
4.5 out of 5 Tasty Chomps!!!!

I noticed that there were quite a few Cold stone’s in other areas that have closed recently, no doubt a sign of the economic downturn. Hopefully Cold Stone’s can stick it through and stay around !

Cold Stone Creamery
(407) 599-9800
4954 New Broad St
Orlando, FL 32814
www.coldstonecreamery.com

Via: Lindsay Mannering

here is a condensed version !

1. There’s a 25% chance that the hotdog you’re eating today came from somewhere in Iowa, where 17.6 million market hogs and pigs call home. And over 150 million hot dogs will be eaten today.

2. If you’re eating salad today, more than three-fourths of the nation’s supply of head lettuce comes from the Golden State. Your tomatoes probably came from Florida, your potatoes from Idaho or Washington, and your watermelon from Georgia, which produces over 1 billion pounds of the fruit a year.

3. Beer is the 2nd most popular drink in the world behind tea.

Finally, at the end,

4. Humans up-chuck on average 1.28 times a year, the oldest hurl ever found is 160 million years old

Sangria’s in Oviedo

Sangria’s is hidden in a plaza on the corner of Red Bug Lake Road and Aloma Ave in Oviedo next to the Home Depot. It is a strictly tapas restaurant with a great selection of wines and of course, sangrias which is a wine punch made with red wine and fruits.

Tapas are small appetizer dishes served cold or warm and are meant to encourage conversation among diners rather than focusing on a large meal in front of them.

The tapa tradition began when Castile’s king, Alfonso X of Castile or Alfonso the Wise, recovered from an illness by drinking wine mixed with small dishes between meals. After regaining his health, the king ordered that taverns were not allowed to serve wine to customers unless the beverage was accompanied by a small snack or tapas.

Tapas derives from the word tapar or to cover, because original tapas were slices of bread or meat and they were used to cover the glasses of wine to prevent fruit flies from entering the sherry wine. Also the meats tend to be saltier to enduce more drinking and thus more profits for the owners.

At Sangria’s I am greeted by a kind and smiling Spanish woman with dark hair, possibly one of the owners. Sangria’s is small inside, decorated with iconic posters of Spanish flamenco dancers and Spanish bull fighters with a small bar in the back of the room. The rapid beats of the guitar of the flamenco music plays in the soundtrack to Sangria’s.

First, a dish of sliced bread is presented. The bread is fresh and fluffy with a slight taste of sourdough and served with some olive oil and pepper. It was really good bread.

I ordered two dishes. The first is the Pulpo a la Vinagreta ($7.95) which is octopus in vinagrette sauce served cold. The octopus is served on a bed of sweet tomatoes and crisp onion pieces and with a dash of cilantro. Although the octopus was a bit chewy, as is most octopus, the dish was well put together and tasted great.

I also ordered a side of yellow rice ($1.00), and found it to be one of the most flavorful rice I’ve had. It was aromatic and light yet at the same time had a special type of saffron seasoning that made my taste buds salivate.

I also chose the Pinchos de carne y chorizo ($7.95), three skewers of beef and chorizo sausage baked over wine. Pinchos get their name from the toothpick like skewers that they use for it. My pinchos were amazing: the beef chunks were bursting with flavor and were tender to the tongue. The chorizos, though very salty, went well with my drink and were savory to the bite.

In addition to tapas and wine, Sangria’s also serves salads, sandwiches, paella, and desserts on their menu. Overall, I would definitely recommend Sangria’s especially if you go for their happy hour on Monday and Tuesdays after work with a group of friends. Good company, good food, what more can you ask for? 😀

Tasty Chomps rating!!!!
4 out of 5 tasty chomps!!!!

Lol whatre they talking about ???

During our trip to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, in the fictional South Asian “village” of Anandapur the annual summer rains began to pour over Central Florida. 🙁

This led us to find refuge in the halls of the Yak and Yeti restaurant, one of the only sit-in dining restaurants in the whole Animal Kingdom park. To my disappointment, there were no yak or yeti to be found on the menu that day (I am a fan of Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel by the way) but there was steak and shrimp as consolation.

I am typically wary of theme-park food: overpriced, tasteless, and usually completely battered and fried. I know that the parks have a virtual monopoly on the food business on premises and that’s how alot of money is made, but hey! its a recession… I guess that five day stay deal with unlimited meals really is a good deal after all (I’m not staying five days though 🙁

When we stepped inside, we were soaking wet and the place was freezing cold… At least we were out of the rain for the moment to dry up and take our seats at the table.

The first thing I noticed about the restaurant was the decor: random artifacts from Asia, statues of various deities from eons past, the cracked yellow walls like something out of British colonial India from A Passage to India. Quaint, I thought.

Tables were scattered through out the restaurant, mostly full with vacationing families.

At our table, our waitress was kind and helpful, always attending to our orders and requests and checking up on our drinks through out the visit.

The menu at Yak and Yeti was a Asian “fusion” which usually means a lot of different dishes but none done really well. I was surprised to find and at the same time afraid to try, the “pho” the national dish of the Vietnamese, a beef rice noodle soup, on the menu. It was also $17.99 here, when you can get a large bowl down in the Mills 50 district for no more than $7.50. I gave a sigh and moved on.

Our first order for appetizers were the steamed and fried pork filled pot stickers ($7.99). The dumpling skin was too tough and had the consistency of light rubber. The pork meat filling was flaky and chewy and definitely tasted like it just came out of the freezer, maybe even just microwaved. The bamboo steamer that the steamed dumplings came with was pretty cool though the banana leaves were a tad tacky as it did nothing to add to their “flavor”.

For our entrees, we decided to split up and share our meals since the prices were pretty ridiculous. I ordered the Shaoxing Steak and Shrimp ($24.99) which came with skirt steak, tempura-battered shrimp, jasmine rice, veggies, and a sweet and sour dipping sauce. The steak was surprisingly good, seared to my order of medium-rare. It reminded me of the latin style churrasco flank skirt steak that I enjoy at latin restaurants but had a hint of a soy sauce marinade. The “tempura” shrimp really wasn’t authentically tempura as it was fried in what looked like a corndog batter. It was enjoyable nonetheless. The veggies were kind of plain and the rice was fluffy and warm (definitely a plus since I’ve known some places to botch even plain rice). Is it worth $24.99 ? Not really, but in theme parks where good eats are rare and hard to find at times, it was definitely a commendable dish on their part. I would say that its my favorite dish I’ve tried so far at Disney.

I noticed that the dipping sauce they like to use is actually a thai sweet chili dipping sauce ( you can buy it at the local asian market.), they used that for everything.

I also got a side order of pork egg rolls ($5.99) and they were also surprisingly good. I don’t understand how so many places mess up such a simple dish but luckily Yak and Yeti did a good job with theirs. I think they used the same meat from the dumplings, but it was a good and meaty bite.

My fellow guests also enjoyed their plates (as seen below).

Pork Egg Rolls

Its my birthday today and I got this free banana dessert from Thai Basil at lunch!

nom nom nom

Any suggestions for places to go for birthday dinners?

I recently decided to head out to Disney’s Animal Kingdom for the first time with some family and loved ones. It proved to be a great trip for me, despite the hot Florida sun beaming down on us from above and then the torrential afternoon rains, no fault of the park’s of course. I really liked the place and would love to go back. I would recommend Disney to build a few more crazy rides to try out though 😀

The Tree of Life – I think there are over 100 animals sculpted on this huge tree at the center of Disney’s Animal Kingdom @_@

I decided to trek out to the Ba Le (located off of Mills Avenue in the Mills 50 District of Orlando about 8 blocks north of Colonial Drive) this afternoon to get my fix of their renowned Vietnamese Banh Mi, or Vietnamese baguette sub sandwiches.

Ba Le is actually an independently owned franchise (do not be afraid: they make and bake all their goods on premises) selling its famously good brand of banh mi, those French-influenced Vietnamese sandwiches that had its own journey of sorts across the Pacific Ocean to the shores of America.

The origin of the Vietnamese banh mi sandwich is a reflection of Vietnam’s history in itself; its French baguette bread: the influence of 200 years of French colonialism, its various pork meat cuts: a cousin of Chinese pork slices, and its Vietnamese fish sauce and pickled carrots and daikon and other ingredients all culminating in the conception of the banh mi sandwich. Even Ba Le’s own trademark logo is a tribute to the French influence with an image of the Eiffel Tower in its center.

The French baguette and the Vietnamese style baguette are similar but there are slight differences in taste and texture. I always think the Vietnamese style, crispy and crackly crusted, is a bit lighter than the French baguette found at the local grocery stores.

The fillings of banh mi vary from xiu mai (meatballs) to sunny side up eggs to chicken to grilled pork to almost anything you want to put in a baguette sandwich. Recently in the US, the banh mi continued its evolution with polish kielbasa sausage and other meats put into the mix.

However, the popular way to get it is the banh mi dac biet option (special combo) which puts together a slice of all the most popular cold cut meats into one sandwich.

The meats, as demonstrated by this diagram from a recent New York Times article about the transformation of the ubiquitous banh mi, include: ham, headcheese (a type of ham made with pigs ear for crunch), pork liver pate, and cha lua (fish sauce seasoned pork roll).

There is also a special Vietnamese mayo sauce made of eggs and oil that is spread on the bread that gives it its incredibly addicting taste.There are also hot chilis or jalapeno peppers that are added for that extra kick as well as salt and pepper and vinegar, fish sauce and soy sauce if you like to add it to the mix as well.

Banh mi is like the fast food of choice of the Vietnamese, quick to make they are easy to carry and snack on during long road trips and really cheap (they’re $3.25 each for the dac biet special option and buy 5 get 1 free!).

As I entered Ba Le, two teenaged sisters sit idly by at the counter of Ba Le bakery and restaurant, undoubtedly the daughters of the owners of the establishment, like so many other children of Asian-owned restaurants across the US on weekends. Help out with the family business; it’s your filial duty they say.

In addition to banh mi, Ba Le sells various bakery items including cakes and patechaud (or pateso) a pork-filled meat patty, deli meats to go, baguettes, banh bao (steamed pork buns), Vietnamese dishes such as banh cuon, and even jackfruit (its fruit season in Florida).

I order the banh mi dac biet to go and one of the sisters heads back behind the counter to assemble the sandwich as the other sister takes my payment. The banh mi is soon ready.

My banh mi was delicious: the bread was baked soft and slightly sweet, the meats were all high quality and tasty and the pickled carrots and daikon crunched as I bit into them. Ba Le Bakery and its banh mi are definitely a tasty chomp. Chomp.

Ba Le’s deli display

The Deli counter and the magical cold cuts of banh mi

Fresh baked Vietnamese style French baguettes for sale

Banh bao aka Steamed pork buns

Cha lua or pork rolls, fried or steamed

Jackfruit for sale!

Pateso or Patechaud, the pork filled meat patty

Beef jerky from Ba Le?

Glorious Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich

Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich and the white radish daikon pickled and pickled carrots

Tasty Chomps Rating!!!!
4 out of 5 Tasty Chomps!!!

There are other Banh Mi shops in orlando as described here:
http://tastychomps.blogspot.com/2009/05/vietnamese-banh-mi-sub-sandwiches.html

El Potro Mexican Restaurant – Oviedo, FL

I enjoy El Potro for its authentic Mexiacan flavors, but especially for its special $7.99 all you can eat lunch buffet that includes tacos, chimicangas, tamales, enchiladas, fajitas, chicken wings, flan, fruit, salad, a sweet churro like dessert. Its a food overload for sure but worth the price! I’d eat here only once in a while though and in moderation because you don’t want to overload your body with 3000 calories for lunch.

man i love lunch buffets <3

I was attracted to Sazon 436 from its name and its reviews on urbanspoon.com. I mean, seriously a restaurant named after SR 436 aka Semoran Blvd? Sazon 436 also was the winner of Orlando Sentinel’s Foodie Awards for Best Puerto Rican – Reader’s Choice for 2008.

I decided to give it a try for lunch one day, and after driving past it a few times (the sign is rather hard to find from the road), I arrived at Sazon 436.

A elderly lady resembling what a grandma from Puerto Rico might look like greeted me and told me to sit wherever I liked.

The dining room was small: it can altogether hold only about 30 seats, I guess it creates an intimate feeling?

The place settings are simple and elegant with deep red napkin cloths and black tablecloths. Numerous still lifes bring to mind scenes from Puerto Rico. A view from a cabin window, fruits, a portrait of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo all hang around the room giving the place an ambiance of a Latin American art musuem.

After looking through the menu I chose the chicharrones de pollo, a fried chicken pieces appetizer. The tender chicken pieces came out freshly fried and delectable, made with fresh spices and topped off with some red lettuce for garnish.

I also decided to get the lunch special for $6.00 which I was told was churrasco (grilled flank steak) today but when it came out it was actually chuletas (grilled pork chops). The chuletas were a bit dry for my tastes but still very flavorful. The meal also came with a small side of rice and red beans (arroz con frijoles).

Overall, I enjoyed my meal alot but would like to try it out for dinner at night to see how it is. It really was a cut above other Latin American restaurants in the area though in terms of taste so for that I tip my imaginary hat off to you, Sazon 436.

Tasty Chomps Rating!!!!!
4 out of 5 TASTY CHOMPS!!!!

Sazon 436 Restaurant
1555 Semoran Blvd., Winter Park, FL 32792
(407) 628-9447

Pollo Tropical restaurants debut their Grilled Tropical Wings menu items. The wings are available in your choice of five piece ($3.59) or eight piece ($6.59, includes a choice of two regular sides) portions.

To mark the occasion, the restaurant will be giving away samples on Wednesday, July 8 at the Pollo Tropical locations in Central Florida, Tampa, Cape Coral and Naples. Just flap your wings (that’s arms for you nonflyers!) at the cashier will receive a free two-wing sample. Those that don’t flap their wings will be offered a single wing sample.

Pollo Tropicals new Grilled Tropical Wings are dusted with mild Caribbean spices and served with two sauces: Pineapple Rum and Spicy Amazon.

from the
Cooking Gal blog on Orlando Sentinel

I went home a few weekends ago and my parents cooked up some good old fashioned home cooked Chinese food.

My dad made a chicken mushroom dish and also a chinese-style curry chicken which we dip with french bread or eat with rice noodles. My mom made bitter melon soup, a acquired taste for sure. The bitter melon is truly bitter but very nutritious. I like to eat it with eggs some times.

Here is some info about Bitter melon that I picked out from wikipedia:

Bitter melon is often used in Chinese cooking for its bitter flavor, typically in stir-fries (often with pork and douchi), soups, and also as tea.Bitter melons stuffed with ground pork are served as a popular summer soup in the South.

Like most bitter-tasting foods, bitter melon stimulates digestion. Bitter melon is traditionally regarded by Asians, as well as Panamanians and Colombians, as useful for preventing and treating malaria.
Laboratory tests suggest that compounds in bitter melon might be effective for treating HIV infection and diabetes.

recipe from holy basil blog

INGREDIENTS: (4 servings as part of a meal)

3 pieces of black (wood ear) mushroom, re-hydrated in warm water, and finely chopped
2/3 lb. ground pork
1 shallot, finely minced
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
1 egg
2 med/large bitter melon, cut into 1 1/2 – 2 inch segments, removing spongy center and seeds
1 quart quality chicken stock
1 Tbl. fish sauce
1 small rock sugar cube or 1 tsp. raw sugar

STEPS:

Thoroughly combine the first 7 ingredients (black mushroom, pork, shallot, garlic, egg, S+P) in a bowl.
Equally divide and stuff the mixture among the bitter melon segments.
Bring chicken stock to a rolling boil and add the stuffed bitter melon.
Add the fish sauce and sugar. Bring to a boil.
Then, turn down the heat to low, cover with a lid and simmer for 30 minutes.
At this point, the stuffing should be cooked through, the bitter melon should be tender and its color has changed from jade green to olive green.
Taste the soup and add more fish sauce if necessary. Serve with steamed rice.

Bon appétit!

Tasty Chomps rating !!!
5 out of 5 TASTY CHOMPS!!!!!
(because it was made with tender loving care of my parents)

We woke up one Saturday morning hankering for some good barbeque to chow on so we decided to head out to Oviedo to visit the recently opened Dickey’s Barbeque/BBQ Pit.

Dickey’s Barbeque/BBQ Pit is a national franchise based in Texas, most accurately called a fast-food place that serves barbeque. Chain barbeque places are almost always a disappointment and Dickey’s Barbeque/BBQ Pit would continue that general curve.

The decor here is as bland as some of its food. It’s lit by flourescent long tube lights which gives it a cafeteria like feeling and the ambiance is that of a dining room inside a K-mart.

You order your meal first at the counter, priced by the number of meats or cheaper if you get a sandwich.I ordered the two meats platter: sweet pork ribs and pulled pork with baked bbq beans and waffle fries for my sides. A few of my friends got the beef brisket and pulled pork with macaroni and cheese and waffle fries for their sides. They also serve spicy polish sausage, smoked chicken breast, and smoked turkey breast for meats and baked potato casserole (kind of like mashed potatoes) among others for their sides.

The food came out pretty fast and we began to chow down.

First, the bad:
The pulled pork was disappointingly bland and tasted like it was boiled, needing a lot of sauce to have any flavor at all. The baked beans and macaroni and cheese were both also lacking in flavor and tasted like they came out of a can/box.

They also have a huge pickle jar where you can get free pickles. Also as a consolation to the mediocre meal is a much-welcomed, free soft-serve vanilla ice cream cone on the way out.

Tasty Chomps Rating!!!
3 out of 5 Tasty Chomps!!!

The rain started to fall across the Central Florida sky as I drove up to the parking lot of Chipotle on University Boulevard near UCF.

I looked around cautiously before approaching the short man standing next to his pickup truck, wondering quietly what did I get myself into this time.

I had met the man once before at a event at Jay Blanchard park; he came up and asked me if I liked dim sum, the Chinese brunch dishes. I said why of course…

He slipped me a piece of paper with his e-mail and said to write him because he sells dim sum . Ok…..

So here I was, after a few email exchanges, in the parking lot of Chipotle, as he takes out a ice cooler and opens it up. Inside are the dim sum pieces, frozen and wrapped in plastic trays.

I picked up the packages and brought them home to try for dinner using the steamer.

After about 15 minutes of steaming, they were ready.

First, I tried the ha gow, shrimp dumplings. The translucent shrimp dumplings were small and bite sized and tasted okay. I would rank it slightly above the frozen dim sum dumplings that you can buy at the asian markets.

Next were the siu mai dumplings. The siu mai tasted of minced shitake mushrooms and mixed pork and were slightly softer than I was accustomed to.

Overall It wasn’t the worst dim sum ever, but definitely not the best I ever had.

The man with the ice cooler of dim sum also had zhong or sticky rice dumpling wrapped in banana leaves as well as custard buns and other dishes. I might be coming back for that another time.

This new animated film looks like its going to be a tasty chomp…

The new 3D animated film Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, based on the children’s book by Judi and Ron Barrett, follows young inventor Flint Lockwood. Flint invents a machine that turns rain into food and instantly solves the world’s hunger problems.

http://www.cloudywithachanceofmeatballs.com/

Always on the lookout for good barbeque in Central Florida, I decided to stop by Woody’s. As a chain restaurant, its outlook was already not looking too great. There is a drive-thru option so I opted to get my barbeque to go.

I ordered the Woody’s Barbeque combo with pulled pork and beef brisket with baked beans and cole slaw as the sides (around $8.50) .

First of all the cole slaw tasted a bit off, the lettuce was chopped a little bit too small and so gave it too crunchy of a texture and the slaw sauce was eh. The bbq beans were better, and I liked how it was a tad bit spicy, but I got tired of it soon too. The beef brisket and pulled pork tasted the same, I really couldn’t tell the difference between them, it was just okay not the greatest but not the worst.

For dessert however, the banana pudding was absolutely delicious: sweet yellow custard creme over a soft breading mixed with slivers of banana ($2.99)

Tasty Chomps rating!!!
2.5 out of 5 not that tasty chomps!!

http://www.hulu.com/embed/umxmTijZLcnMhDPJjmYd5g

i want some. not!

Lac Viet Bistro – Colonial Dr

Lac Viet Bistro, located just past Bumby Avenue on Colonial Drive in a stand-alone yellow house is reknown for their Vietnamese cuisine offerings, having won best of Orlando awards in the past for Vietnamese food.

Lac Viet continues to be one of my favorite Vietnamese restaurants in the area because of its beautiful decor and unique Vietnamese dishes. On this evening, I dined out with my friend Judy, who had never been to Lac Viet before.

The decor inside is subtle, light, earth tones with slightly dim lighting. Paintings of Vietnamese women hang on the walls, historically reknown for their beauty, elegance, and veracity (one of Vietnam’s national heroes are a pair of fighting sisters: The Trung sisters who fought off Chinese invaders and established their own dynasty). Each of the painted women wear the traditional outfits of Vietnam from Ao Dai from the south to the Ba ba in the north, playing string instruments or combing their hair in pose. The ambience is beautifully delicate and peaceful.

For our appetizer,we order the banh uot cha lua, or rice crepe noodles with pork roll slices. It is actually a entree, but I like to have it as a appetizer because of its bite-size good-ness. The banh uot is white chewy rice noodle-y deliciousness and the cha lua was a great accompaniment to the noodles along with sliced cucumbers and soy bean sprouts. Don’t forget to season the noodles with the provided fish sauce mixture.

Tonight I order the Bun Cha Ha Noi which is a unique vietnamese rice noodle dish stemming from the north in the capital of Vietnam Hanoi with a side of cha gio (vietnamese spring rolls). However when it arrived I got bun cha tom (fried shrimp paste) and cha gio instead. I asked the waiter kindly, is this bun cha hanoi?

He replied oh no. I told him it was ok since they already made it and he brought me out a bowl of grilled pork to make up for the mistake. score.

huge bowls of rice noodles: not what i ordered but still good…

I like Lac Viet although the prices are a bit higher than most of the other Vietnamese places in the area. They also have a newly renovated outdoor dining option where you can sit outside and dine in a straw-laced setting (just like you were in Vietnam?)

Tasty Chomps RATING
4 out of 5 TASTY CHOMPS!!!!

Lac Viet Bistro
2021 E. Colonial Drive
Orlando, FL 32803
(407) 228-4000
http://www.lacvietbistro.com/

I have reviewed Bento’s before here, but I visited Bento’s again recently for a going away dinner for an old friend who will be moving to New York soon.

It’s funny how many significant moments we share through life around the dinner table.

This time, I ordered a bento box with chicken teriyaki ($7.75). I enjoyed the dish quite well as I could taste the flavor from the grilling and the sweet marinade that the succulent chicken teriyaki was made from. The bento box came with a small salad, rice, noodles and even a small cake. It was a great meal for a great value, reminding me of home-cooked chicken dishes that my grandma once made in my childhood.

My friends and family ordered various other sushi rolls and bento boxes as can be seen below.

Cupid Roll ($10.95) – smoked salmon, crab, red snapper, asparagus, tempura fried and topped with eel sauce and red tobiko

Chicken Curry Katsu Bento Box ($7.75)- the orange colored curry sauce was spicy yet creamy and delicious at the same time

chirashi bowl!! a sushi bowl classic ($9.50)

Bento Cafe
151 S. Orange Ave
Orlando, FL 32801
(407) 999-8989
http://www.bentocafesushi.com

Lollicup Boba Tea and Coffee Zone

I remember one of my first nights here in Orlando, full of hopes and dreams, as a freshmen attending the University of Central Florida. It was my first time away from home, away from family, away from everything I had known the first 18 years of my life. Full of romantic idealism, I looked upon the City Beautiful and said one day, I will leave this place better than I had found it, and anything was possible.

I didn’t know then what paths lay ahead for me over the next few years, the struggles and the success, the friends made and lost, the endless nights of talking til the sun arose and awakened the earth for another new day.

On one of these nights I had driven to the Pine Hills Chinatown development where, tucked in a corner, was Lollicup Boba Tea and Coffee Zone, one of their first stores in Orlando. Quang Vu was the warm and friendly owner of Lollicup in Orlando, a business school graduate of UCF who set out to make it out on his own as an entrepreneur. I’d always admired him for that.

At this point, Lollicup had two stores in Orlando: one here at Pine Hills and another one at the Fashion Square mall. Every weekend, young and hip teens would get dropped off for the company of each other and a taste of the sweet and strange-yet-fun sensation of black tapioca pearls in flavored milk tea. Sip, slurp, and up the giant straws go the little black balls, surprising the mouth with its soft and chewy sensation.

Today, those stores have closed but Lollicup continues on at three different locations in Central Florida, one across from the Florida Mall on Orange Blossom Trail, one downtown on Colonial Drive near Mills Ave, and finally one in a plaza on the corner of Semoran Blvd and University Blvd in Winter Park.

On this occasion near the Winter Park location, we celebrate the grand opening of Reign, a streetwear boutique also started by a few alumni of UCF. After always awe-inspiring “step up 2 the streets”-like performance in the rain by Fresh off the Beat dance troupe, I decide to head over to Lollicup with a friend for an old favorite: taro milk tea with boba, a thick and purply nectar of the gods.

Inside, the decor is hip and playful, filled with colorful tones and influenced by the furniture of the chic and swedish Ikea store. A place to go to hang out and enjoy some tea, or slush, or coffee, or as TI once said, whatever you like. Today they also serve sweet and tart, frozen yogurt at Lollicup.

Our server Steven is quick and fast with the boba tea making skills and we get our drink in almost no time before the rush comes in.

My friend and brother Victor, who himself is a avid dancer and lover of boba tea, enjoys the first sip.

Victor Ma, a dancer of the legendary Tinikling, enjoys a sip of almond boba milk tea

After all these years, the taste of Lollicup’s boba tea still remains the same: absolutely refreshing and delicious.

—-
Tasty Chomps Rating
4 out of 5 TASTY SLURPS!!!!

Lollicup Boba Tea And Coffee Zone
106 S Semoran Blvd
Winter Park, FL 32792
(407) 629-2622
http://www.lollicup.com/

Special Features include: free wifi for your lap top needs 😀

I just received this email regarding an event at Padrino’s Cuban Bistro off of John Young Parkway and SR 417 from Sarah. I will probably drop by because I have been dying for some lechon!

————

Check it out!

Padrino’s Cuban Pig Roast is on Saturday June 13th 12p.m.-3p.m.

Because of the great turnout for the first Pig Roast Padrino’s has decided to hold one the second Saturday of every month. For only $14.99 (plus tax and gratuity) a person, you can enjoy all you can eat carving station which includes white rice, moros, black beans, sweet plantains, yucca, and one drink (soda or beer)

For more information on the restaurant you can visit their website at http://www.padrinosbistro.com/

Padrino’s Cuban Bistro
13586 Village Park Drive
Suite 304
Orlando, Florida 32837
Ph: 407.251.5107Fx: 407.251.5109

this is what i hope to find this saturday. drools…