I went to Orlando to play trade show girl for work, and we stayed in the Universal Studios area. On my first night there, we dined at Emeril’s in Universal CityWalk. I had low expectations, because you never know what you’re going to get with a celebrity chef restaurant. I personally have never watched Emeril on tv, so it wasn’t like I was a fan of his anyway. But I knew it was a nice place, so I was excited, but only a little.

M and I were the only two that went with the prix fixe degustation menu. It started with the pan seared jumbo sea scallops with stone crab caramel, oven dried white alba clam shell mushrooms, and a balsamic drizzle. It was supposed to also have flash fried fresh soft shell crab, but that was obviously not there. I love me some scallops, so I’m happy whenever I get to eat them. I thought this was great! The scallops were nicely seared, rare in the middle, and the sauce went perfectly with them. It was a great start.

Next up was a crispy chilean sea bass with black truffle-australian lobster vinaigrette and organic red romaine lettuce. Another nice dish! I liked the scallops better, but this was still tasty.

Finally, a seared angus 4 oz filet mignon, chive mashed potatoes, and wild ramps with a worcestershire cream sauce. Ok, so I’m not really normally a steak girl, so this meat was fine by me. But oh my gosh, this worcestershire cream sauce was freakin heavenly. I wanted to bathe in it and drink it. I wanted to put it on everything I will ever eat again for the rest of my life. Seriously, I will eat steak every day for the rest of my life is it came with this sauce. I will eat cardboard if it was topped with the sauce. It’s beyond amazing. Oh, and if you order just the regular filet from the menu, it will come with a worcestershire sauce, but not the worcestershire cream sauce. They’re different!

The dessert from the degustation menu was a profiterole with cinnamon ice cream, white chocolate fudge, sweet cream. and fresh berries. We thought this was ok, but was disappointed that the profiterole was stuffed with cinnamon ice cream, and not cream. We expected a cream puff, but got a strange ice cream puff.

A couple of people got the souffle for dessert. It’s funny to get this because when they give it to you, they put the plate down, and then take a big hunk of souffle out, drizzle chocolate on it, and then put the hunk back in. It’s really awkward because it’s a production, and you have to watch it, they take their time, and have to work around you.

The service is good here, as it is a fancy and expensive place.  But because of that fancy service, you have to wait quite awhile for your food. They coordinate the service, so everybody’s food has to be ready. So be ready to wait and be hungry for awhile. But when you do get the food, it’s pretty darn good! I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the quality of the food here. I recommend it highly!

The weekend of Art Star Craft Bazaar was an especially beautiful and sunny one. While walking from center city to penn’s landing, I got drawn in by Bonte and their sign. It promised drink specials. I was sold!
I had been craving a belgian waffle for months, so I was happy to get one. You can get them all fancy, but I’m old school. I like them just plain with the sugar. I don’t need them stuffed or topped or anything. I got a passion fruit lemonade and it certainly hit the spot. It was a good idea to pick up these nibbles from Bonte because the food options at Art Star pretty much suck. It was also the same weekend of the Italian Market Festival, but I couldn’t handle the crowds. So after it was already over for the day, I stopped by Paesano’s to grab something to go. Paesano’s is a sister sandwich shop to Modo Mio. The Italian Market location is the second Paesano’s location. They sell sandwiches. And aside from a couple of sides, that’s pretty much all they do. But apparently, they do it well.
I’m terrible at decision making, especially when it comes to food, so I had no idea what to order. So I just decided to get the Paesano. I figured if they’re going to name the sandwich after the shop, then it’s likely to be a memorable sandwich. The paesano! Beef brisket, roasted tomato, ricotta, horseradish mayo, and fried egg in a long sesame seed roll. Whoa! This is a big sandwich! And clearly, it’s got tons of meat in it. The beef is plentiful and juicy, and you will make a mess! And how can you not love a sandwich with a fried egg in it? Everything worked really well together, and even the horseradish mayo. And this is coming from a girl who doesn’t care for horseradish. I now need to try every other sandwich there! Everyone at the paesano’s in the south philly location was friendly and extremely helpful.

We was supposed to go rollerskating, but guess what? It didn’t happen. They were closed. And I should have known better. But since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped at Sidecar. Oh Sidecar, how I’ve missed you. For a really nice friday night, it wasn’t nearly as packed as I thought it would be.

I’d certainly missed Sidecar, the bar and restaurant, but I’d definitely missed their sidecar even more. This particular sidecar was actually different than the ones I’d had here before, but I still liked it. The coloring was completely different. There was no cherry inside. But I didn’t care. It was still strong, and it still tasted great. The rim was still sugared. I still could have had many of these.

H/A was especially hungry since he hadn’t eaten all day, like a jackass, so he ordered up the margarita pizza and the chicken fingers. The pizza was actually pretty good, and had an extremely crispy thin crust. It was just simple with sauce, mozzarella, and basil. I’ve had the chicken fingers before and had liked them, but these were different, and not as good. They were still ok though. I guess this was one of the things that changed when the chefs changed. I ate all the salad that came with the chicken fingers because I wanted greens and it was really good!

C wanted something sweet so she went with the strawberry and rhubarb pie. She didn’t know what rhubarb was but was told it was sweet so she went with it. I’ve always been fascinated by rhubarb so I was excited to try this. And you know what? I liked it! It is sweet! It’s incredible that something that looks like a big red celery can be put into a pie and be tasty. It was served with a dollop of whipped cream on top and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. As usual, the service was, um, ok. Let’s leave it at that!