Address	Rosen Centre Hotel 9840 International Drive
City	Orlando
Phone	407-996-9840
Price	$$
Scott's Review

Banshoo is the latest in a mini trend of hotel lobby bars. Here, chef Yoshi prepares skillfully crafted rolls and nigirizushi for hotel guests and locals looking for fresh sushi. Banshoo means sunset, so naturally it is open only in the evenings.

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Address	2000 Premier Row
City	Orlando
Phone	407-447-6455
Price	$
Scott's Review

Bar Harbor Seafood, one of the companies that provides fresh fish, shellfish and other goodies from the sea to area restaurants, has been serving lunch from its South Orlando warehouse space for about a year now. I only learned of it recently, and stopped in thinking it would be an obscure, sparsely attended out-of-the-way lunch spot to try out. Well, it certainly is out of the way. But sparsely attended, no. In fact, I haven’t seen lines this long for a counter restaurant that didn’t specialize in barbecue and have the name Rivers attached to it for quite some time. Bar Harbor’s wholesale facility is on Premier Row, just west of South Orange Blossom Trail, in Orlando’s Central Park. Its neighbors are other warehouses and showrooms, and I’m thinking it was a lot of the workers from those other businesses that were cramming into the decidedly too small space where lunch orders are taken. (It’s the same space where the company offers retail seafood orders to those who don’t buy their fish by the tonnage. The menu features fish and chips, Ipswich clams, sushi rolls, cod sliders and such. Most of the cooking seems to be done somewhere else on the property -- one of the work... Read more

Address	118 Park Ave. S.
City	Winter Park
Phone	407-629-0042
Price	$
Scott's Review

A renewed look and branding for Orlando-based Barnie's, CoffeeKitchen has the look of a country kitchen, albeit one with five or six tables. The food, under the direction of former Norman's chef Camilo Velasco, is much more ambitious than your average coffee shop. The menu changes seasonally, but it is always wonderful.

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Address	7600 Dr. Phillips Blvd.
City	Orlando
Phone	407-801-8226
Price	$
Scott's Review

Located in the Marketplace at Dr. Phillips, bartaco, which insists on being lowercased, offers light bites and “upscale street food” in what it calls a beachy atmosphere, if photo collages of Arnold Palmer and other golfers make you think of catching some waves.... Read more

Address	Magic Kingdom Drive
City	Orlando
Phone	407939-3463
Price	$$$$
Scott's Review

Thankfully, the song from "Beauty and the Beast" for which the restaurant Be Our Guest is named doesn’t play over the sound system as often as I had feared. “Beauty and the Beast,” you may be aware, is set in France, so therefore the new restaurant has a French flavor, though it doesn’t adhere hard and fast to Francocentric fare. The menu, under the direction of chef Michael Deardorff, might be described more as French influenced. And the food I tasted was very good. My tablemates and I started with a charcuterie platter of cured meats, sausages, cheeses, pates and a surprise or two. What appeared to be ripe olives under the dark lighting turned out to be plump, sweet cherries (and delicious ones at that). We also tried the mussels Provencal, which featured delicious liquor of white wine, butter and garlic but unfortunately small and tough mussel meats. There was also a wonderful salad of fresh -- and locally sourced -- green beans and tomatoes. Three out of the five entrees that I sampled were winners. I loved the pan-seared salmon, a beautiful reddish pink in the center, with a tender-firm texture, served on a creamy leek fondue. Note that during lunch hours the rest... Read more

Address	3208 E. Colonial Dr
City	Orlando
Phone	321-236-2660
Price	$
Scott's Review

The name means good good, and it's that and more. The cuisine is Portuguese, and the standout items include a confit of duck taco with chopped crispy skin and orange dust.... Read more

Address	24 E. Washington St.
City	Orlando
Phone	407-650-4950
Price	$
Scott's Review

A humorless young woman took my order: single patty, swiss cheese, classic fries. To my request to have the burger prepared medium-rare, she responded, “They come out medium anyway,” as if that were the same thing. It’s not, of course. The same unsmiling woman was assigned to deliver my order, and she did so by walking through the dining area auctioning it off to the first person who would answer to my name, this even though all previous orders had already been delivered, only two other orders were placed after mine, and I was the only single diner among them, sitting alone in a restaurant that was largely empty. The burger was largely forgettable, though I liked the toastiness of the bun. The meat, however, was dry, as overcooked meat tends to be. The fries were above average.... Read more

Address	Portofino Bay 5601 Universal Blvd.
City	Orlando
Phone	407-503-1415
Price	$$$$
Scott's Review

Dinner at Bice is not an inexpensive night out. But when you consider cost vs. quality, you’ll find that Bice is not overpriced.

Just consider the restaurant’s signature dish, ravioli stuffed with beef short ribs and spinach. The pasta was delicately thin and tender, and the braised meat inside had a rich, fatty mouthfeel that blossomed with the sauce of mushrooms and Marsala wine. Absolute heaven.

Or another from the list of primi piatti, big, fat tortellini filled with spinach and ricotta and dressed with a sauce of butter and sage.

From the secondi my companion had the scalloppine di vitello, flattened medallions of veal sauteed with a darkly rich mushroom sauce and served with a timbale of potatoes similar to a potatoes Anna dish.

I chose a special of the evening that featured sea bass in parchment. Enclosed inside the envelope with zucchini, yellow squash, red and green peppers, and a few salty olives, the fish took on all the vegetable flavors while maintaining a fresh and moist texture. The taste was buttery and absolutely delicious.

Desserts are worth lingering over.

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