Chez Vincent still serves classic French

My guest made a good choice with the venison, a thin filet that was nevertheless cooked to the requested medium-rare and graced with a Montmorency sauce of sun-dried cherries in port wine.

Gagliano offers two types of escargot dishes: the more traditional with butter, garlic and parsley and one with the snails baked in tiny puff pastry. The snails were tender-firm and the pastry was chewy. The port wine sauce was a nice accompaniment.

Desserts are classic with a nice crème brulee and a tarte Tatin ($5.95). The brulee had a perfect burned sugar topping over a creamy custard. The tarte had firm apples coated with a sweet caramel created by the butter and sugar they were baked in.

Service is mature and professional. The surroundings are a bit rundown looking, but if you want modern, go next door to Hannibal’s, the stylishly modern lounge newly acquired by Gagliano. Luckily, he serves food there, too.

Over the years a number of Ethiopian restaurants have tried to make a go of it in Orlando but all failed. But Nile Ethiopian Cuisine has been around for a good year and a half now, about a year longer than any of the others. I think this one is going to make it.

At the base of all Ethiopian food – literally – is injera, a spongy bread that resembles an immense pancake. (Indeed, injera is cooked like a pancake.) It is made from teff, the world’s smallest cereal grain. Whatever food you order, injera will serve as the platform, covering the bottom of a large round platter, the various stews grouped on top of it.

Stews, called wat, are the most common dishes. These might include variations of beef or chicken, but pork is never served. There are a few seafood selections on Nile’s menu, but Ethiopia is a landlocked country and seafood dishes are not common. Vegetarian wat versions feature lentils or split peas.

Ethiopian restaurants are wonderful places for vegetarians to dine as meatless meals are a big part of the country’s cultural heritage. About half of Ethiopia’s population is Muslim and the other half is comprised of Christians who observe nearly 200 days of fasting annually during which meat, poultry and dairy products may not be consumed.

Most wat include finely chopped onions and berbere, a red paste that might be compared to an Indian curry in that it is made with myriad spices and can be quite hot. Less spicy foods, called alicha, can be found on an Ethiopian menu but I wouldn’t call them mild – they’re still infused with onion, garlic and green pepper and have multiple layers of flavors.

At Nile, the vegetarian kik alicha ($10.95) was one of my favorites. It featured yellow split peas blended with onions and green peppers seasoned with a touch of garlic.

Doro wat ($12.95), something of a national dish, had small pieces of chicken blended with berbere and onions and served with a whole hard-boiled egg. Gored gored ($12.95), another well-known dish, had cubes of beef seasoned with red peppers, mitmita (another hot blend of spices) and butter.

Nile serves its own tej, a wine made from honey. It’s a cloudy, pale yellow liquid with a taste that is just a tad bitter, despite the honey base. It is presented in a small bulb with a narrow neck that looks like it is the decanter. But you drink the wine from this vessel, holding it between your first and second fingers with your palm up.

Coffee is Ethiopia’s top commodity and the coffee ceremony is a big part of a traditional meal. The coffee service area occupies a space in the front of the dining room. The whole beans are roasted in a small metal saucepan while incense burns nearby. When the beans are roasted the pan is brought to the table and waved about so the guests can enjoy the aroma. Once the beans are ground and brewed, the coffee is poured from a clay pot called a jebena into small handleless cups. It’s a very strong brew with a chewy texture and an aroma that is earthy and slightly charred. Desserts are not a part of a traditional Ethiopian menu.

I always thought one of the problems with past Ethiopian restaurants was their choice of location. Nile should do well in this location, at least with the influx of tourists who are usually up to trying something new. The question is whether locals will swallow their pride in order to swallow some wonderful Ethiopian food.

Raw Food, Living Cuisine, Unusually Good.

Thai Singha

Don’t be too quick to judge Thai Singha. I did, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

I thought I had the place figured out before I even opened the front door. It looked nice enough, though quite small. It was, I figured, the sort of place I could pay a quick visit and if the food was even halfway decent give a mention sometime as place you could grab a quick bite.

But I was so thoroughly charmed by the graciousness of the staff and seduced by the exceptional quality of food that I realized this was a restaurant that deserved closer inspection.

You can understand my initial reaction. It is a typical shopping center storefront space. The dining room, while neat, is sparse. Table tops are set with laminated placemats and decorated with a vase with a fake flower in it. The walls have artwork that includes paintings on black velvet, though, thankfully, none of Elvis. And at the far end – far being a relative term – is one of those refrigerated display cases that you see in delicatessens. Those are always ambience killers, the fluorescent lights throwing a harsh glow into the room.

But as soon as I walked through the door I was greeted by a broadly smiling staff member who motioned to a table near the front of the room. And a few minutes later I was enjoying the first marvelous sips of tom ka gai, the traditional chicken soup with a coconut milk broth. The creaminess of the coconut was blended with the sour tinge of lemongrass and kaffir lime. Some fresh cilantro leaves added a note of fragrance.

They had me with the soup; the red curry with beef sealed it. The meat was sauteed with bamboo shoots and fresh basil in a red curry cream sauce that was spiked with red chili peppers. The evenness of the heat in the curry was what made it so flavorful. And the cook’s sense of balance was evident in all the subsequent dishes I sampled.

Such as the spicy basil duck, sliced breast meat sauteed with mushrooms, basil and chili paste to create a lovely brown sauce to spoon over fluffy white rice.

Or the traditional pad Thai with long flat rice noodles stir-fried with shrimp, egg, crushed peanuts and a smidgen of bean sprouts, garnished with a wedge of lime and a stack of bean sprouts. The shrimp, bland and slightly rubbery, were the sole disappointment among my visits.

Thai fried rice with pork was less oily than the typical fried rice from a Chinese restaurant. Besides the generous slices of meat it had egg, onions, bright red bell peppers, cilantro, a tomato wedge and slices of cucumber.

Among the appetizers the fish cakes were a favorite. Six discs fashioned out of minced fish and chili paste, deep-fried and served with a cucumber sauce that first coated the tongue with sweetness and then startled it with the heat of chili peppers.

Thai summer rolls had mostly noodles and julienne vegetables rolled in rice paper with just a bit of chicken in the mix. But the peanutty dipping sauce made them more flavorful.

If the main courses aren’t enough to convince you that this isn’t your average Thai restaurant, surely the desserts will, although these pastries are more western than eastern, more Viennese  than Siamese. They featured a lemon meringue ($4.95) inside a delicate sponge cake; and a chocolate cake base topped with a raspberry cream. Only rice pudding ($4.95), served in tiny ceramic dishes, might remotely be considered Asian. But all the desserts were delicious and impressively presented.

Aficionados of world beers will recognize the name Singha as the popular beer from Thailand. The owners obtained permission to use the name from the Boon Rawd Brewing Co. In fact the laminated place mats are advertisements for the beer. I suppose it would be a little like an American going to Thailand and opening a restaurant called Coors. But Singha also means lion, and the owners liked the good-luck karma a lion brings.

Thai Singha would have been noteworthy simply for being the first to bring Thai food to East Orlando. The fact that it is very good Thai food, wonderfully prepared with a careful sense of authenticity, and served by a staff who probably couldn’t give bad service even if they tried really really hard makes it all the more praiseworthy.

Waterford Town Center, 863 N. Alafaya Trail, Orlando, 32827
Lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. daily; dinner 5-9:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 5-10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Reservations: Not accepted
Beer and wine
Entrees: $8.95-$16.95
Credit: AE, MC, V
407-382-8201
 

Walt Disney World Restaurant Review: Narcoossee's

Every time I visit Narcoossee's at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa I leave thinking it really should be better than it is. Especially after my most recent visit when my check for one glass of wine, an appetizer and an entree totaled almost $60.

I'd like to say that the food was worth it, but it was not. The crab cake was very good -- plenty of crab and little filler. But the grilled scallop entree, which featured a corn and crab risotto and a sherry reduction sauce, was marred by scallops that had not been properly cleaned and thus were gritty on the tooth. The crab cake might have been worth the $13 charge, but uncleaned scallops shouldn't cost $32.

Making it all the less enjoyable was a server who was at first dismissive and then, when it came closer to paying the check, artificially friendly.

And Narcoossee's atmosphere has always been a slight poop deck above your basic wharfside kitsch. (As far as I can figure, its popularity is due primarily to its view of the Magic Kingdom across the lagoon.) The high conical ceiling and predominant wood surfaces make it one of the noisiest restaurants around. Those prices should buy the guests a better atmosphere. And better service. And far better food.

Circa 1926 in Winter Park serves an exciting menu

There are some who think the restaurant on the corner of Park Avenue North and West Canton Avenue is cursed. They site as evidence the businesses that have come and gone with frightening frequency in the last several years. They include East of Paris, which was too clever for its own good; Chapters, a concept that thought it was clever and good but was neither; and Zak's, which I thought was good, but which closed fairly quickly after it opened. Zak's was 2002, Chapters in 2003 and East of Paris 2005. So, yes, those were some pretty quick turnarounds.

But don't forget that before that spate of revolving door restaurants, the space was occupied by Park Avenue Grill, which opened in 1988 and closed more than a dozen years later only after it was sold to someone who didn't have the same standards as the original owners.

And that is what I assume sealed the fate of East of Paris and Chapters, too. Zak's I can only guess was a matter of poor management -- the quality of the food certainly wasn't at issue.

And it is management of the latest tenant at 358 Park Avenue North that ultimately will determine the success of Circa 1926. It won't be the food, which is inventive and skillfully prepared. And it won't be the service, which, on my visit, was professional and congenial. And it won't be the atmosphere, which is the toniest on the avenue since Luma on Park opened.

No, if Circa tanks it will be the sole fault of the management team, which has made some rather clueless moves.

Take for example the Web site, which just barely exists at circa1926.com. The address of the restaurant is listed as 58 Park Avenue. And the phone number listed apparently is a nonworking one. You might think the absence of a Web site is a petty oversight, but given that this restaurant has been in the works for well over a year, you'd think someone could have had a working site up and running even before the kitchen's stoves were fired up.

And on a recent stroll up Park Avenue, a friend and I thought we would pop in for an appetizer and glass of wine. But the restaurant was doing business that was brisk enough that the man at the host stand thought he could give attitude to people showing up without reservations. As the dining public retrenches further with the recession such unkindnesses won't go unremembered.

But in spite of all that, Circa is a very good restaurant and one I hope will be around long enough to break Park Avenue Grill's old record and whatever curse may still be floating around the old place. (The name, by the way, is a reference to the year it is believed the building was constructed, though no one seems to know for sure.)

The menu is under the direction of James Slattery, who until recently was the executive chef of Rosen Shingle Creek's A Land Remembered steakhouse. (Slattery was also the subject of a profile I wrote for the Orlando Sentinel about his move from a career in chemistry to one in the kitchen.)

Slattery describes the food as "Classic American but with my twists." I'm not sure what that means, but chicken-fried frog's legs with vanilla brandy glaze might be a clue. Most of the menu is less twisted.

Well, there was the appetizer called a dirty martini with grilled artichokes and pickled asparagus ($12). It featured tomato water spiked with a bit of gin poured over meaty artichoke hearts and more or less garnished with the asparagus. Interesting and ultimately delicious, but a bit too odd to order twice.

My companion's crawfish beignets ($9) were much more mainstream, even if they were related more to Southern fritters than Louisiana beignets. There was a big pile of the deep-fried fritters, which were filled with chopped crawfish meat and served with a remoulade of celery root.

For my entree I chose the veal chop stuffed with prosciutto and goat cheese ($32), a lovely piece of meat with only a subtle bit of the promised stuffing. The goat cheese was especially mild flavored. But the veal chop itself was perfect. The dish was rounded out with creamed potatoes, giant spears of grilled asparagus and creamy sauce Diane.

My friend had the pan roasted Long Island duck breast ($29), an ample serving of tender medallions graced with a sun-dried tomato reduction sauce. A creative wild mushroom bread pudding, which was more like a typical stuffing but tastier, was also included.

Desserts include such enticements as chocolate cream pie ($7), pecan pie with Tahitian vanilla gelato ($6) and lemon pound cake with strawberry coulis ($5).

There are two main and distinct dining areas at Circa. The front room is open and very comfortable. French doors open on warmer evenings to give an al fresco feel. The alabaster bar features a back wall with water trickling down and lighting that gives it more of a waterfall effect. In the front corner, a pianist plays old standards, just like a supper club should, and sets a romantic mood.

The front tables look a little chintzy. They have white cloths wrapped and stapled to the underside of the tables and then a sheet of glass on top.

The back dining area offers a more intimate setting, but it seemed pretty dull when I peeked back there.

Upstairs is a lounge worthy of South Beach. A beautifully decorated and chic atmosphere that will feature live music and dancing.

The waiter who served me and my guest was very good and quite accommodating. He had excellent menu knowledge and answered questions with authority. Maybe some of his professionalism will rub off on the guy at the door.

I hope so. Circa was a long time in the making, and I'd hate to see some mismanagement ruin it for the rest of us.

at Rosen's Shingle Creek: Italian for the Upper Crust

I recently reviewed Cala Bella for Orlando Style magazine. Here's the review:

at Portofino Bay Obscured by Blue Haze

The Ravenous Pig -- Getting Better All the Time.

T-Rex: the Restaurant, the Review.