This post probably should have come before the Royal Caribbean post but I got a bit sidetracked. Before going on our cruise, we spent 5 nights in Orlando before driving to Ft Lauderdale. I had a list of restaurants the length of my arm to go to while in Orlando but realistically I was never going to be able to try them all. Not only that but after spending all day in the theme parks I was absolutely wrecked tired as well. Word of warning: Don’t go to Universal Studios with a broken foot. But anyway, onto the food.
On our first night, we went to Shake Shack. It was my first Shake Shack and I was interested to see how it compares to Five Guys. I enjoyed it. I got a single ShackBurger. It was, I hate to say it, nicer than a Five Guys burger.
The chips, however? Not for me. I got cheese on them and as much as I like cheese, this was way too much cheese. If I had to choose between Shake Shack and Five Guys again I’d probably go to Five Guys. Even though I said Shake Shacks burger was nicer, I like the whole package and I can get that in FiveGuys.
On Tuesday we went to Tasty Takeover which is a food truck festival located in the Milk District. Every week there’s a different selection of food trucks. My plan was to get a dish from at least 2-3 different trucks but what really happened was that I saw a Mexican food truck, Tamale Co., and just got food there.
I asked the girl serving me to give me what ever she recommended because I really couldn’t decide what to order. Of course, I ended up getting 3 different types of tacos and 3 different types of tamales. It’s hard to tell from the pictures but it was a huge portion of food and I could barely finish it all.
LP got sliders from one of the trucks but for the life of me I can’t remember what the name of it was.
The next night I think we went to Taco Bell. I know, I know but I’d never been and I was STARVING. It was the first place we saw and I was dying to try it. Taco Bell should really open up here. It’s dead cheap and it could be that I was so hungry I’d have eaten anything, but it was really good. I was so hungry I didn’t take pictures. That just shows how hungry I was.
On Thursday we went to Bonefish Grill. It was recommended by a friend who lived in Florida for a few years. They suggested I try the Bang Bang Shrimp. Well, I’m so glad I listened. It was one of the nicest things I had while in Orlando and as soon as I came home I was frantically trying to come up with a similar recipe. I’ll post the recipe later this week (2 blog posts in one week? I know, right? Mental!). For starters, I obviously had the Bang Bang Shrimp. An absolutely huge portion and one starter would have been fine between us.
LP had the Wagyu Beef + Ginger Potstickers. If I hadn’t got the shrimp I’d have gone for this. The portion size was again, a typical American sized portion, i.e.huge!
For my main, I had Lobster Stuffed Shrimp (because I clearly didn’t have enough with my starter). It was nice but in hindsight, since I had already had shrimp for my starter I should have got something else.
For his main LP had Fresh Grouper & Shrimp – wood grilled grouper, lightly blackened and topped with three jumbo shrimp and a fresh citrus aioli. I’ve never heard of grouper before. I suppose you could say it’s a mixture between halibut and monkfish. I had it again when I was in Mexico as it’s quite popular over that side of the world.
For dessert, I had Key Lime Pie and LP had Creme Brulee. So obvious, so basic. I was too tired to try something different and I wanted an old reliable. Tbh, we probably should have skipped dessert.
Our last night in Orlando was one of my favourites. Not because of what we did, where we went or anything like that. But because it was the day I finally got to see LP say something was too spicy.
Let me give you a bit of background. There’s something wrong with LP, (I could have just ended that sentence there) and whatever it is in your mouth/nose/brain that determines spice. Nothing is spicy to him. I have made Mexican dishes for him that require 4 drops of hot sauce for the whole dish and I’ve put about 10-15 just in his portion. Nothing, nada. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings to get some chicken wings. I ordered mine medium and he went for the three hottest: Blazin, Mango Habanero, and Jerk. I would like to think I can handle a decent amount of spice and my medium wings were too spicy for me.
LP ate one of his Blazin’ wings and everything seemed ok. 30 seconds later and I could see him start to break out in a sweat. Then came the tears. Oh yes, something had finally broken him. Determined to power on through, that gobshite ate 3 more of them. I tried a 1cm size amount and I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out of my head it was so spicy. So yeah, best.day.ever. He would like me to point out here that he was perfectly fine with eating the Mango Habanero and Jerk (I think he’s trying to redeem himself but it’s too late for that.)
Food from the theme parks.
I didn’t tend to eat a huge amount in the theme parks. We were trying to fit in as much as possible. Some of the things I did eat were:
The Smoked Turkey Leg from Universal Studios.
Chocolate covered apple with nuts (that went ALL over my face) from Hogsmeade Village in Universal’s Islands of Adventure.
A Butterbeer from Diagon Alley – rotten, btw.
The Watrui Mahi Sandwich (Grilled Mahi Mahi, Pineapple Salsa, Signature Remoulade, Lettuce and Tomato on Coconut Bread) from Bambu Jungle Kitchen in Universal Volcano Bay.
The Salted Caramel Flan (Caramel flan, vanilla ice cream, caramel sauce, fresh-whipped cream, chocolate almond bark, chocolate covered pretzels) and the Chocolate X5 (Chocolate ice cream, chocolate chunks, strawberries, chocolate sauce, fresh-whipped cream, chocolate spirals, cherry) from Toothsome.
…. And a lot of Dunkin Donuts.
