Wa Sushi, the popular Casselberry restaurant, was closed for almost exactly a year, from February 2020 to February 2021. The reason for closing was not pandemic related – we didn’t start seeing closures until the following month. Instead, according to a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page at the time, there was an issue with drainage at its original location that forced it to close and look for a place to relocate.
But really, if you had to close your restaurant for a year, 2020 was the perfect choice.
The last time I had the sandwich known as the Abigail, it was at George’s Gourmet Cookie’s in a small storefront space at the corner of Lee Road and Orlando Avenue in what was then the Kmart-anchored shopping plaza. The sandwich, a take on a reuben, was revelatory. And even though it was in 2016 that I had it, that sandwich came to mind often – usually anytime I ordered a reuben elsewhere only to be disappointed in comparison.
Sometime during the haze of the pandemic, George’s moved to Park Avenue, taking over the former Brandywine Deli space. Gourmet Cookies was dropped from the name, but not from the menu, and it is now known as George’s Cafe.
When I went by Shin Jung on June 27, 2019, a day after a fire had swept through it, I look at the damage and thought, “No way they’ll reopen here.”
Shin Jung has reopened there.
The building, a converted original single-family home, perhaps the only one remaining within miles in either direction on Colonial Drive, has a new look, one that is more open and brighter, thanks to new picture windows on the front and side.
A canopy across the front makes it look less housey. There’s even a new side patio for outdoor dining.
It’s a transformation for the better – the last time I was in the old place I found it dark and dank and in need of tidying.
Gatlin Hall Brewing has finally opened on South Orange Avenue and with it two new concepts – Willy’s Original and Frenchy’s Wood-Fired – from the team that owns and operates Big Fin Seafood Kitchen and Russell’s on Lake Ivanhoe. And the new brands couldn’t be more diametric to the existing full-service restaurants.
But their offerings are certainly familiar. Willy’s offers a line of smash burgers and it’s pizzas that are wood fired at Frenchy’s. They are two-thirds of the dining options, along with Da Kine Poke, at the food hall, which is anchored by the brewing facility.
It’s a big boxy space with the food vendors lined up next to each other on one of the short ends looking out at the communal open-seating area and bar on one of the long walls. Those seated at the bar can look past the numerous taps to see the array of polished chrome that is the brewing facility.
On the end opposite from where Willy’s and Frenchy’s operate, a garage-style door opens to an outdoor beer garden space with additional seating and play areas.
It had been just over five years since I’d last visited the Stubborn Mule, one of the more durable restaurants to occupy a space in the Sanctuary condominium complex in downtown’s Thornton Park. So when wanted to find a nice outdoor space to dine with friends recently, I thought it might be time to go back. I mean, there was no reason to be stubborn about returning.
The menu has changed over the years, I think for the better. For one thing, it’s been pared down a bit and has gotten rid of extraneous items, such as the flatbreads.
If I hadn’t visited TaConsentida in September, I might have suspected it was observing October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month because this is one of the pinkest places I’ve seen. Even the tacos were served in pink tortillas.
That’s not the oddest thing, though, there’s also the name: consentida translates to spoiled, which isn’t the best name for a restaurant. In this case, according to my Spanish language advisors, the context is more like a spoiled child than a rancid rellenos. Ta consentida would mean so spoiled, so by eliding the two words – TaConsendita – it plays on the Mexican menu, which is kind of clever.
Primo, the Melissa Kelly-fronted restaurant at the JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes, has reopened after a planned shutdown for renovations. But this was more than a refresh to change carpeting and touch up the paint – it’s a major redesign of the sprawling and open space, and the result is like a whole new restaurant.
Or it would be if the menu didn’t still feature Kelly’s fine Italian cuisine with its emphasis on hyper-local sourcing. But more on that in a moment.
The redesign, by Brooklyn-based Dutch East Design, is a startling change from the previous decor. When it opened, in 2003, as a second outpost for Kelly’s original restaurant in Rockland, Maine, Primo featured dark wood accents and moody lighting. Wood beams on the ceiling and rustic chandeliers leant, along with the open kitchen, a farmhouse feel.
For me, pizza has always been a spur-of-the-moment food. It’s what you order when you’re too tired to cook or don’t want all the trappings that come with going out to a full-service restaurant. Most of the pizzas I’ve consumed in a nonprofessional setting have been last-minute orders.
But Brad’s Underground has introduced pizza by appointment only. Want one of Brad’s pies for your dinner tonight? Maybe the day after tomorrow. (Maybe.) And you say you’d like it for dinner? That’s fine, you may eat it whenever you like, but you may have to pick it up at 2 o’clock.
The ability to schedule a pizza is something of an improvement over Brad’s previous business model, which as near as I could tell involved hopeful customers sending him a message via his Instagram page and waiting, sometimes Godot-like, for a response. For some it would take weeks to receive an invitation to place an order; others never did hear back, leaving them to post lamentations on various social media platforms wondering what poor life choices they must have made to render them so karmically unblessed. At least that’s how I read it.
My take? Brad Czerkies – whose nickname is apparently, and perhaps ironically, Flash – is something of a marketing genius. Because the surest way to make people want something is to tell them they can’t have it.
The Marketplace at Avalon Park had its much anticipated grand opening last weekend, officially debuting to the public with 11 food vendors.
It’s a big, urban warehousey kind of space in the center of the downtown area. Marquis-style lightbulbs spell out Marketplace over the awning that covers the many outdoor tables.
Inside is a big open space with tables and chairs in the center and the vendors lining the perimeter.
Epcot on Monday opened its long awaited restaurant Space 220, an upscale dining experience with an expansive room and windows that look out into space and the Eastern Seaboard, 220 miles below (give or take a couple of hundred miles).
It’s a cool immersive effect with diners seated near large windows that look out to spacecraft zooming by, astronauts zipping around on hoverboards, and the green vastness of the curve of the earth (take that, Flat Earthers!). It’s sort of like dining at the Coral Reef restaurant in the Living Seas pavilion but with space through the windows instead of sea creatures (though the sea creatures have the advantage of being real).
No Elon Musky rocket is needed to access the restaurant, which is located on the Centauri Space Station. Instead, you’re whisked upward in a space elevator – excuse me, Stellarvator, which I’m sure should have a trademark symbol after it. During the ride, you can look through the glass bottom to see Epcot and Florida slipping away; look overhead to see the space station coming into view.
It’s a very smooth transport, almost like you’re not moving at all. (Click the video below to get a feel for it.)
Entrance into the big, open dining room offers an impressive wow.
