Pei Wei

About a year ago a new kind of “Asian” restaurant appeared in Orlando. It’s name is Pei Wei and is owned by PF Chang’s. The restaurant offers similar food to its upscale big brother but in a cafeteria style atmosphere. It is located on Colonial Drive near the Orlando Executive Airport.

Pei Wei has two entrances, one for Take Out and one for Eat In. When you enter through the Eat In door, you are automatically in line for ordering. Their menu is varied and interesting and is constantly updated. Their beverage selection includes bottled beer (in the traditional tub of ice) and bottomless fountain beverages (woo-hoo!).

When you order and pay, you are given a red, palm-sized plastic disk with your order number engraved into it. You find a place to sit (difficult at lunch time), inside or in covered area outside, and fasten the be-numbered disk into the awaiting jaws of an alligator clip which is perched at the top of a cup containing paper-wrapped Pei Wei chopsticks. For those that are silverware-capable (the PC version of chopstick-capped), there is silverware, (also condiments: spicy mustard, chili garlic sauce, soy sauce, and lemon wedges) available at the beverage station.

While you wait for the food to be prepared and brought to you table, you can admire the efficient kitchen and food dispatch system. When you place your order, a “work order” gets printed in the open kitchen area and at the dispatch station. The next available cook takes your work order and prepares the dish. More than one cook may be involved in the preparation of your food as the cooks appear to be in “zones” depending on which cooking implement they man. The “dispatcher” also maintains a queue of work orders and measures the length of time it takes an order to make it through the queue. When an order leaves the kitchen, the dispatcher finishes it (for example, tops is with peanuts and a lime wedge if it is Pah Thai) and delivers the food to the appropriate table. When all the items have been delivered, the dispatcher takes the disk of number and leaves you to your meal.

Occasionally a member of the waitstaff will ask you if you would like a refill of you beverage, but the staff usually leaves you alone. Be careful, however, if you are dining alone and go to the restroom or go up for a refill (please don’t confuse the two), your food may be missing when you return as the sometimes over efficient waitstaff cleans your table in preparation for the next customer. The name of the game is getting the customer in, feeding them, and getting them out fast, Fast, FAST!

The food is excellent and I would easily consider this (along with Chang’s) the best Asian food in Orlando, but it is not really authentic Asian food, it is an idealized American version of Asian food.  As such, it uses fresh, high quality ingredients and lighter sauces to make for seemingly healthier dishes…no Chinese lead-gut after eating here.  Even the tofu is quite tasty and is of much higher quality than the flavorless white cubes found at other restaurants.  My favorite dish is the chicken Pad Thai.  Large chunks of chicken breast, slices of tofu, bean sprouts, scallion, egg, peanuts over rice noodles are accented with a wedge of lime and sprigs of cilantro.  Mmmmm-Mmm!  After you are finished, just walk away.  You can put a stop to all this.  While I can’t promise that Lord Humongous will clean off your table, it will likely be cleaned by the aforementioned waitstaff.

A typical meal with fountain drink costs about $9, but it is well worth it.  I have not found a dish yet that I have not liked and usually hit the place about once a week.

Panda Express

Yes,yes, I know. It’s “Mall Chinese”. Well, yes and no. Panda Express has started building stand alone establishments that some may even call restaurants. Now I am a long time Panda Express aficionado and have cherished the ability to walk into almost any mall in the country and be guaranteed a least an acceptable meal if I am hungry. Ever since the demise of the “Cajun Grills” of the food court, Panda has had my back and my wallet.

As alluded to previously, this is a stand alone Panda Express located near the Mall at Millennia in Orlando. I had never been to the new Panda Expresses before and was curious how it stacked up to my previous experiences in mall culinary cuisine. From the outside, it looks like a standard fast food place…similar, in fact, to the Krispy Kreme located next door.

If you had any worries that the interior would make you loose touch with your comfortable concepts of what Panda Express should be, FEAR NOT! It is as if you walked straight from the parking lot…and into the food court at the mall (sans the non-Cajun, Cajun restaurant and the Queen of the food court, Flamers). The familiar, glass encased, multi-colored progression is there: fried rice, lo mien, orange chicken, beef w/ broccoli, and even the tub of ice cubes with various bottles of Arizona Iced Tea and water stuffed into it. In fact, the only two differences I noticed between the communal mall Panda and the rugged individual Panda are the catering menu and the fountain drinks with FREE REFILLS.

I got the standard 2 entrees w/ fried rice and an eggroll, but with the bottomless fountain drink (I am sooooo daring, I know…not that going to Panda Express for lunch makes me exactly a Hemmingway or anything). The entrees were Kung Pow Beef and Orange Chicken, both listed on the window sticker as “spicy” (see my review of Wonderful Chinese Express for my previous adventure in spicy [or not] Chinese food). I do have to admin, the Kung Pow was actually spicy. Those little dried red peppers were evident in the food and really gave the food some kick. If you are accustomed to ordering spicy food in a Chinese restaurant and getting something a little below the bell pepper region of the Scoville Chart, you have been warned.

The food was about a half step above the normal “Mall Chinese” level and the free refills of beverage was appreciated. The beverage of choice was sweet tea today (after all, I am in the South) and in my opinion it was a little too sweet. It was not as refreshing as it should have been and you couldn’t drink very much of it. The eggroll was the standard “been sittin’ under a heat lamp” mall quality eggroll and definitely did NOT have that “fresh out of the grease” taste.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I would definitely go back there if I am in a hurry and need quick eats. The sad thing is, this place is actually well above average for Orlando Area Chinese food that I have found so far. The quest continues.

20060815  Addition

The cost of the meal was ~$8.50.

Brian’s BBQ

quickie lowdown summary: I’m not normally a BBQ fan, but I was very pleasantly surprised with Brian’s BBQ in Deland. The menu consists of typical BBQ fare: smoked pork, chicken, beef, baby-back ribs, steaks to order… that sort of stuff. Prices are reasonable with most dinners between $10 and $15, and lunches around $7. Servers are friendly and the kitchen is quick at both lunch and dinner. Highlights include a salad bar with a large number of items, good menu selection with lots of substitutions for sides, and large portion sizes for the money (especially at dinner…)

The restaurant is in a working-class section of town, so its easy to find and not full of pretentious people. The parking lot is ample and has plenty of area lighting, so parking is no problem even during peak hours. The building itself has a well kept facade, and a seating area outside. Landscaping is almost nil, but a) this is deland and b) who cares.

When you walk inside the country music is present but not overbearing (a pet peeve of mine). Decorated in a country/southwest lots-of-wood-paneling theme, the restaurant displays banners from the numerous BBQ cook-offs and food competitions it has placed in. Since the main counter is right at the entrance, someone is there to greet and seat you almost instantly. My biggest gripe with Brian’s is the hella-uncomfortable booths. As a ‘bigger’ guy (read: Fattie McFattson), there is no room between the table and my belly, which tends to make you hunch over when you eat. And since there is no padding on the wooden bench or back, you have to shift positions often so as not to get a sore rear. Next time, I will ask to be seated at the booth that has one bench and two chairs on the other side.

The menu is chock full of options. Besides the typical BBQ stuff they also have a nice selection of seafood, sandwiches and appetizers. As you’re being seated, you walk by the salad bar which had quite a few items on it including normal salad veggies, potato salad, macaroni salad, puddings, and soups. It was also stocked often – whenever I go to a new place with a salad bar, I always check to see how often they’re attending it. The person waiting on it did a good job, and it was kept neat and clean and most importantly full of the stuff I wanted. We ordered an appetizer of corn nuggets covered in powdered sugar. They came out within just a few minutes and were nice and hot. A good start to the meal priced at $3.99.

I ordered the monterey-hickory chicken breasts. It was 2 grilled chicken breasts covered in barbecue sauce and monterey jack cheese, then a layer of bacon and sauteed onions and mushrooms (which I gave to one of my dinner-mates… not a shroom fan). I chose steak-fries and baked beans as my sides, and the whole thing was served with a slice of texas toast garlic bread. I was highly impressed with the whole meal. The fries were crisp (which they make a big deal about – the menu says if your fries aren’t crisp, send em’ back), and the baked beans had a very unique, smoky flavor to them. the chicken breasts were juicy and tender and the sauteed onions were cooked perfectly. The garlic bread was nice and strong in flavor and not over cooked (like desert-croutons) nor undercooked (which makes it soggy). I was told that the mushrooms were very good as well, and there were plenty of them. Portion size was big so I went home feeling plenty full.

Another member of my party had the pulled pork and let me have a taste of it. It was very juicy and, although not cooked in any sauce, had a seasoned tartness to it. We later found out that you can ask for the bbq sauce to be cooked right in with the meat if you prefer. They ordered a baked sweet potato which came out with cinnamon and honey butter and smelled wonderful… I wasn’t allowed a taste of that, unfortunately. On the downside, the dr. pepper had a ‘tang’ to it, which was probably just not enough syrup to carbonation ratio – but it gave me a chance to try the sweet tea which was actually very good. And I was not a big fan of their ‘award winning barbecue sauce’. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t taste like bbq sauce to me. I fixed that by mixing 1 part of their bbq sauce with 2 parts of their sweet sauce and bit of hot sauce.

Service was excellent. Our waitress was checking on us often, but not enough to be annoying. Glasses were refilled right on time. One of the things I try to do when eating out is eavesdrop on the other tables when they’re communicating with their servers. A guy at a table across from us commented to his waitress that the tea wasn’t as sweet as it normally was, so she went back and had another glass brought to his table in a minute saying something along the lines ‘I had them make a new batch just to make sure the right amount of sugar was used’ or something like that… whether true or not, the customer was happy and it showed the server was willing to put a little effort into pleasing him. The waiter behind us literally had to read the entire menu to an elderly couple (commenting about the items as he went) and was completely patient and relaxed with them. You pay for the bill at the front counter, so we didn’t have to wait for the server to come collect our money, when we were ready we could leave. On our way out the server asked if we wanted a refill on our drinks for the road which we declined (since we were already swimming in tea…) but it was definitely appreciated.

So, all in all I would give Brian’s BBQ 4 stars out of 5. Service was great, food was great, and there was a lot of choices on the menu. I dinged it a star only because the dining room booth was very uncomfortable and the soft drinks could have had their syrup levels checked. But it was a great meal and I definitely plan on going back again.

-liquidquick

Bases

In addition to the other crap I do, I also like to dabble in Macintosh Programming. I wrote this little utility a little while ago just to do some coding. It is a little program that converts between bases 2, 8, 10, and 16. What good is that do you ask? Not much, but it was quick and fun to write. It is at version 0.1, but does work and is free to use.

Enjoy.

Update

Having trouble posting the file…there will be a link soon.

20060814 Update

The link.

This one sums the whole Man vs. Nature thing

http://jimwoodring.blogspot.com/2006/07/greatest-nancy-panel-ever-drawn.html

Mead Day

This past Saturday was Mead Day.  I did not brew any, but I did drink some of my own.  I have this Semi-sweet cherry mead that has been aging for about a year now and tastes pretty good.  It will probably need another 6 months or so before it is really good, but I can wait.

I entered that mead and my sweet mead into a contest at my local homebrew club…no I didn’t win or place or even show, but my club is known for mead masters and my mead did get a nod of approval from them.

So here’s to Mead Day!  Go out and have a mead!

I think we know who gets mauled.

This doesn’t deal with food, philosophy, or mead…well I was drinking mead when I watched it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b–rTXDyWWk

Wonderful Chinese Express

Wow. How am I to understand the name of this restaurant? Is it supposed to describe a Chinese train that is also wonderful or a place where I can purchase Chinese people and receive them quickly? Unfortunately, it is neither.

Wonderful Chinese Express is my latest attempt at palatable quick eats in the Orlando area. It is located here, in Altamonte Springs, Florida. It was another case where my sense of adventure trumped my common sense. I went there around dinner time and there were no other customers. The interior is that of a normal fast eats Chinese restaurant. The customer orders from the counter and waits for his food. The only thing that I noticed that deviated from this standard formula was the apparent disdain they had for their built-in, backlit signs…they were blank. Instead, and what, in hind sight, suited the experience, were cardboard and plywood signs, lettered by hand, in Sharpie. Class. As my sense of foreboding grew, I looked at their paper menus.

It looked, again, like a standard quick Chinese restaurant menu. There only appeared to be 4 of these menus in the whole restaurant, but I was somewhat comforted by seeing their catch phrase along the bottom:

You never tasted Chinese food this good!

Once Tried, Always Loved!!

It looked as if they added some sort of agent to the food that when eating and chanting the above mantra, cause a compulsion to return. Whew, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about not liking it.  Too bad for me, that wasn’t the case.

I ordered General Tso’s Chicken with fried rice and awaited my fate. The menu claimed that the General Tso’s Chicken was made with white meat and was “Chunks of boneless chicken sauteed with minces scallions and hot peppers”.

This was the variety of Generals Tso’s Chicken that was made with green peppers and carrots instead of broccoli. What, you haven’t had that type yet? Well, I’ll save you the effort of a quest…don’t bother. The chicken appeared to be cuts of white meat, but there no scallions and definitely no hot peppers. The taste was less exciting than a long term metronome accuracy contest. In fact, a man with no tongue would not be envious of me. To be fair, I did not ask for the dish to be spicy. I made the common error of assuming that because hot peppers were listed in the ingredient list and that there was a little stylized hot pepper printed next to the dish’s description in the menu, that I would not have to verify that the dish was, in reality, spicy.

The fried rice was a non-event. Now, by non-event, I do not mean that there was an event, but it was not exciting. I mean it was as if there was a negative event that was sucking all the interesting parts out of surrounding events and feeding them to the insatiable Void. When one thinks of Chinese style fried rice, one usually thinks of white rice, fried up until brown (or colored yellow) and with small chunks of vegetables, usually onion, scallion, and possibly carrots, and usually, but not always, some sort of meat. Also accompanying the stereotypical fried rice is a flavor reminiscent of fried food…it being fried rice and all. Not this rice. This rice had no other discernible particle of food that was not rice. Nor was the color of the rice brown. It was some sort of graying yellow…similar to what would happen if King Tutankhamun’s mummy got a mustard stain on his brand new wrappings and archaeologists are just now finding said stain.  The fried rice was so bland, it was as if it were sucking flavors from my tongue of past meals and also feeding them to aforementioned Void.

All this, for only $10 with a drink.

Needless to say, I won’t be going back there.

Notes on William James’ “The Dilemma of Determinism”

Two suppositions:
-    we make / discuss theories to give us and idea of thing which give us “subjective satisfaction”
-    if there are two ideas and one seems more rational than the other, the more rational one is truer

He believes that all of the achievements of mathematics and science are because of man’s indomitable desire make the world a more rational place.

The principal of causality is a postulate…so are uniformity and necessity.

Two words “encumber” past arguments about determinism, freedom and chance, because they are loaded words.

Hard determinism:  everything is preordained…all seemingly possible are illusions
Soft determinism:  hard determinism with a little free will
Indeterminism:  multiple possible realities

Chance means the probable, not the impossible

He says that if the world is deterministic, how can there be regret?  If something “bad” happens in a deterministic universe, how can we say that that thing is bad?  Because the thing was predetermined, isn’t then the whole universe bad?  I we then get rid of the idea of good and bad, why do we still regret?

As a result of the deterministic dilemma, he, James, is an indeterminist.

Po’ Boys

Today I went to Po’ Boys for lunch. It is a creole theme restaurant chain in Florida…yeah I don’t know why either. I went to the Orlando Kirkman Road location.

The restaurant’s catch phrase is “Who’s your daddy…” as their mascot is a crawdad named “Crawdaddy”. OK, the simple, straight forward approach. I can handle that.  Everything was clean and the waitstaff was friendly.
I was seated immediately and ordered an iced tea. They offer both sweet and unsweet tea, which is very important to me as I like my sweet tea pre mixed. The special of the day was a roast beef po’ boy sandwich…a roast beef sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, and in this case a special spicy sauce.

The sandwich was tasty, but nothing special. The pickle spear, however, was nice and crispy. Since the sandwich came with no side, I ordered the Cajun fries, to the potential detriment of all mankind. They were regular fries with a little Cajun seasoning sprinkled on them.
Everything was good, but not outstanding, and for a price of less than $10 for the whole meal, I will definitely go back. On my next trip I will probably try either the fried grouper po’ boy or the muffaletta.