Melissa's Chicken and Waffles: On-the-Go Southerner's Dream Come True

There has been a great rise in sophisticated food trucks in Florida in recent years.




Gone are the days in which you had to go to the outskirts and sketchy parts of town to find sketchy vehicles serving you incredibly delicious street food delivered by people that may have gone to prison once upon a time. Gone are the days in which you may need to be able to speak a second language to get the spectacular dish that has everything in it. This is now a growing business with Twitter and Facebook to connect to the avid foodies. Credit cards can be used, there’s been an increase in the variety of street food, and you no longer have to fear for your life while eating outside.

And now we have Melissa’s Chicken and Waffles which (spoiler alert for the rest of the review) has the greatest chicken and waffles in town.



This truck can usually be found on the Downtown Orlando side, on the Milk District, and the UCF area. However, by miracle, it was on my side close to Tourist Country outside a bank. I rushed at the opportunity. Their menu is quite small, as it never drifts away from the concept of the chicken and waffles. I ordered the original one, even though there were some tasty variations of the dish (One featured eggs, cheese, and bacon for crying out loud).


I am repeating the spoiler from before: these are the best chicken and waffles. They seriously are.



The waffles were thick enough to hold the chicken and gravy. The chicken was meaty and flavorful enough to make Chik-Fil-A feel silly. The gravy was hearty enough so that you swore up and down you were at a Southern Belle restaurant. So when you fold this up and put this all together, you have a dish that manages to strike multiple taste buds at the same time: the sweet, the savory, and the salty. A chef once told me you need to hit them all to achieve the perfect dish, but chicken and waffles is more than just a filling combination, it is one that can satisfy multiple cravings in a row.



Bottom Line: Those of you in Downtown, I may actually envy you for once---especially if this place continues to crawl your streets. The food truck doesn’t look sketchy at all, but delivers food that matches the best of the sketchy foods I grew up with. A Southern staple on the go? Count me in every single time. Great food truck, one of the best in Central Florida hands-down.


Final Verdict: Recommend


Melissa’s Chicken and Waffles
Orlando, Fl
Multiple Locations

TooJays: A Smoothie of Eatery Types That Entices the Young and (Especially) Old

In the Dr. Phillips area, I was scouting the area for a place to eat and asked the guys working Office Depot where to go. One of them recommended TooJays. TooJays was right around the corner, within walking distance. The spot sounded familiar enough that I was pretty sure it wasn’t a mere Florida staple.



Except it is.


Similar to Ale House, TooJays has many locations but remains a heavily-invested Florida institution. So inside I went. The most interesting thing about this particular restaurant was that the median age and average age was well above 50. I felt rather out of place. The menu can describe the reason for this: its soul food for the older Floridians. It’s a mix of Southern comfort food and Jewish deli blended together with a vast array of dessert options. Aside from the newborn in the corner, I was the youngest person there.

Some places get by simply because there are so many options that you have to come back a couple extra times. TooJays boasts a massive, massive menu that ranges from sandwiches to lunch items to heavy-hitting dinner choices---as well as a breakfast menu and a bakery-like area. At first I opted for one of their sandwiches, but instead went with a turkey dinner—since I never get those outside the Thanksgiving season or a trip to Mills Ave.



But, the appetizer I ordered was one of the best I have ever had the pleasure or consuming. Their Loaded Latkes, which is a potato pancake version of the typical potato skins, is a beautiful work of art that made every other item in the location look pretty dismal. Thick pancake bites covered in cheese, bacon, sour cream---it’s all a hungry American can possibly ask for.



The traditional turkey dinner left plenty to be desired. Surely it has all the elements: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables, but none of it was different or special or something you just couldn’t make at home. The turkey wasn’t really cooked with anything and depended on the gravy to provide the kick.


In other words, it was nothing like the beauty of those Latkes.




Bottom Line: TooJays is what happens when you blend a nice old-school Florida atmosphere with a New York deli and garnish it with some Southern twang. I am sure there’s plenty of good food to go around, as the bakery looked delicious and their sandwich options is extensive enough to make Paneras look bad. Although the turkey wasn’t that great, I see lots of potential within the restaurant. I think this works best with a nice big group of people so the variety of food can increase.

Or with some elderly retired person willing to pay for it all, because this place apparently caters quite well to them.

Final Verdict: Lightly Recommend

TooJays
7600 Dr Phillips Blvd #116
Orlando, Fl

Pazza Luna: Decent Food Under Wasted Opportunity Circumstances

Pazza Luna is a small restaurant hidden in a small plaza outside a small quiet neighborhood. Like most places in this blog, blink and you will miss it. A co-worker praised and praised this place in the outskirts of the Kissimmee area (which is far bigger than one can initially imagine) and told me that it’s run by a Puerto Rican family. Hmm, an Italian restaurant run by Caribbeans. Sounds like an adventure in cuisine.




The day I went began with oddity. Inside, it got mildly eerie because there was nobody there. And by nobody, I mean not a single soul. The dining room was clean but didn’t have a single soul. The kitchen didn’t have any movement. Place was open…but there was nobody home. Anybody could have robbed this place blind. I stuck around for a little longer to see if anyone would notice a customer. Finally after about three minutes, I was being seated. The lady tells me how business over there varies depending on the day. This level of unpredictability would drive someone like me insane.

Now, the garlic knots. The place says their claim to fame is their rolls of bread. The bread arrived on a small basket and literally on a bed of oil, butter, and garlic. This is the worst food to have on a first date unless you have tic-tacs the size of jawbreakers.





But it is indeed the best garlic knots I’ve ever had, as it was bursting with whimsical flavor, calories, and was rich enough to pose as a great appetizer. These garlic knots made the actual appetizer look bad, even though their mozzarella sticks were indeed a light delight. I decided to go with their most popular item, which according to them is the meat lovers baked ziti: which was pasta, meat sauce, meatballs, sausages.





The baked pasta was a bit underwhelming. I came in to this restaurant with the notion that maybe the Italian food would attempt to have some sort of Puerto Rican kick. You know the kind with the extra spices, extra flavor, and the cooked-from-home sentiment. The pasta itself was just a base as it didn’t have much flavor. All the flavor came from above with the blend of cheeses, sauces, and meats. Once you got past the top layer though was a layer of plain ol’ ziti. Mixing the pasta up with some oil or basil (or anything) would have helped plenty.




What did save this experience though was the bread and the dessert. Their spumoni, which is ice cream chunks surrounded by a hard chocolate shell with whipped cream and chocolate sauce, is a pure delight from start to finish. If I ever were to roll around here again my meal would be four helpings of bread and this dessert. The spumoni was one of the better desserts I’ve had in Kissimmee.

Bottom Line: Pazza Luna has good food, but fails to separate itself from the usual Italian crowd (In spite of their warm, and scrumptious garlic knots) even if the founders came from the Caribbean. Kind of like Cuban Chinese cuisine (which exists, believe it or not), Caribbean Italian would have made a great fusion of flavors, styles, and foods. Sadly, this place doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity as they deliver merely good Italian food—nothing more, nothing less. If you live around here, give it a shot. But if you live far, I don’t see how you will feel satisfied making the lengthy journey (and past true-blooded Italian places) to dine here.



After all, if you are like everyone else, it would explain why the place didn't have a single other soul during my entire time there....




Final Verdict: Lightly Recommend

Pazza Luna
2932 Pleasant Hill Rd
Kissimmee, FL 34746