The International Vegan Food Festival is Saturday, April 29, from 3 to 8 p.m. on downtown Orlando’s Wall Street. The event is free to attend and will have plant-based foods for purchase from more than 50 vendors. (Some of the vendors will be selling other things besides food so be sure to check before you bite.) The International Vegan Food Festival is sponsored by Orlando Bearded Vegan, which doesn’t narrow it down much.

Speaking of food festivals, I’ve learned that the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, which will run from July 27 through November 18, will again be missing the wine tastings, dinners and other events, including the popular Party for the Senses, that were put on hold during the pandemic. But a Disney World spokeswoman says that “the teams are evaluating for the future.”

I guess I was just expecting too much.

I got excited when the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort announced, in September, that it was opening Rosa Mexicano in a space at the Dolphin hotel. Rosa Mexicano is a small chain – the Orlando location is the 11th – that started on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 1984 and bills itself as serving “Mexican food in a fine dining atmosphere.”

What’s more, that atmosphere would be provided by the designer David Rockwell, whose portfolio includes Nobu restaurants worldwide, Union Square Cafe in New York and Gordon Ramsay’s Maze in London. His group also designs sets for Broadway shows and theaters. Locally, the Rockwell Group designed the Cirque du Soleil theater at Disney Springs and the interior of the now-closed Emeril Lagasse’s Tchoup Chop.

So, one of my favorite cuisines in a fine dining atmosphere inside a David Rockwell-designed restaurant? I’m there.

And by there I mean the Rosa Mexicano on the Upper West Side across the street from Lincoln Center for a pre-theater dinner.

Disappointment doesn’t begin to describe my feelings about that visit and the subsequent one I made to the new Rosa Mexicano in Orlando.

Daytona Grande

Mike Trudnak, who earlier this month left Aurora at the Celeste, the restaurant he opened in 2020, has reemerged in Daytona Beach at the Daytona Grande. He started his new job as the executive chef for the oceanfront resort on Thursday. On Monday, his former executive sous chef and sous chef from Aurora will join him on the coast.

“We’re trying to bring that Aurora magic over here,” Trudnak said in a phone conversation on Wednesday.

Not that it’s going to be Aurora at the Grande. In fact, Trudnak hasn’t even decided yet what he’s going do with the menu for the property’s main restaurant, though he said he expects the cuisine will reflect the diversity of his kitchen staff.

The hotel, which has been open a year and a half, is the only hotel with walkup access from the beach, according to Trudnak.

Our friends at Southeast Steel Appliance Warehouse in downtown Orlando are introducing a new line of products called LG Studio. I don’t know where they’re going to fit them all because the warehouse is already chockfull of manner of stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers and washing machines. (Do people still call them washing machines or is that an old-timey term?)

Southeast Steel has been carrying LG products for years, and most recently brought in the LG SKS, an upscale line of kitchen appliances. (SKS stands for Signature Kitchen Suite.)

LG Studio is also an upscale line, but with appliances for both kitchen and laundry. And the really attractive thing – literally, if you’re design minded – is that all LG Studio appliances are meant to match. So if you want a uniform look in your kitchen you can achieve that by shopping the LG Studio line.

If you’d like to get an idea of what they look like, stop in this Saturday, April 29, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Southeast Steel will have a display set up and an LG representative will be on hand to answer questions about the Studio line. Also, not incidentally, Southeast Steel is featuring a rebate on LG Studio appliances.

I plan on stopping by because I’ve always wanted to tell my friends I have an upscale washing machine.

Southeast Steel Appliance Warehouse is at 63 W. Amelia Street, Orlando (map).