Jessica Bryce Young at Orlando Weekly reported today that Cafe 118, the raw-food vegan restaurant in Winter Park, has apparently closed. It wasn't exactly fine dining, but it offered a more upscale dining experience than most vegan restaurants.

The name was a reference to the preparation of the food, with nothing rendered over 118 degrees, or essentially raw. If you think of veganism as extreme vegetarianism, the food here might be explained as extremely vegan. 

And it was good, too. In my review of the restaurant in January of 2009, I remarked about the high quality of the food, and I was surprised that I felt full for hours after eating there. Still, I thought a raw fod vegan restaurant would be a hard sell. I wouldn't have put a bet on a six-year run, so I hope that shows that there is some sort of demand for this type of restaurant.

Walt Disney World

Pam Brandon reports in her Disney Parks Blog that The Boathouse opened today at the Landing at Downtown Disney, which will be part of Disney Springs. 

Actually, the restaurant's full name is The Boathouse: Great Food, Waterfront Dining, Dream Boats (not to be confused with Dreamboats). As Pam notes, it's a big place and every seat has a view of the water.

Bob Getchell is executive chef. Getchell opened Sanaa at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge and then moved to T-Rex Cafe (I know, I know). The Boathouse was designed by Steven Schussler of Schussler Creative, who also developed T-Rex Cafe (Rainforest Cafe and Yak & Yeti, too). Getchell is a good chef, so we're keeping good thoughts.

The Boathouse: GF, WD, DB is open for lunch and dinner daily. With the recent opening of a massive parking garage (with signs that tell you which levels have open spots; thank you 21st Century!) parking it a bit easier, but the traffic getting to the garage is still a bear. 

Better to take a boat, dream or otherwise.

Note: Today's wine column is by Erin Allport of Wine on the Way.

It's always amazing to see the different types of personalities that come out at wine tastings. I have been on both sides of the table, the person pouring the wine and the person tasting the wine and having the 360-degree vision on this one, I have some simple things that you can do when attending wine tastings to make sure that you get the most out of the event and the money you spent to attend it.

1. Take care of yourself before the event – eat a snack and drink a couple of glasses of water before you go. This is the most important rule. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people get completely drunk - on accident - at wine events. Wine events give you "tastes," which is an illusion that you are not consuming a lot of alcohol. Every "taste" is typically one ounce of wine (spirits are the same, beer they give you a little more), if you do the math, tasting every wine at an event with 100 wines equals 100 ounces of wine, there are approximately 24-25 ounces of wine in a bottle so effectively, you will have drunk four bottles of wine. Not sure about the rest of you out there but four bottles of wine consumed in a three hour period is too much for any person of any size.

Disney's Polynesian Village Resort has been undergoing some renovations and it recently debuted a couple of new features, including Trader Sam's Grog Grotto, which is not to be confused with Trader Joe's. For one thing, there's plenty of parking available at the Polynesian.

Not that it would take many carloads of people to fill up Trader Sam's, a couple of SUVs should do it. That's because this new bar inside the resort holds only 50 people at a time. No surprise that people are waiting for hours for their turn to go inside.

What's the attraction? Well, the small space is chockfull of atmospheric gewgaws, from tiki style knickknacks to high-tech special effects.