Baja Burrito Kitchen

Baja Burrito Kitchen offers up the usual variety of Mexican favorites, including tacos, burritos, quesadillas, salads, and more. It has a rather mild flavor, not really in tune with more traditional Mexican food, but it is good in its own way. The food is light and refreshing, and the flavor doesn’t linger long after you are done eating. They have an excellent salsa/condiment bar as well, ranging from very mild and refreshing salsa to habanero salsa that will satisfy your hot and spicy cravings. These salsas and condiments are a great complement to the food. They also supply unlimited chips and salsa while you dine in.

A quirk I found while ordering tacos is that they offer you either lettuce and cheese or onions and cilantro as toppings. I would prefer to have all of the above on my tacos, and there’s an easy way to get it. Order your tacos with the lettuce and cheese because onions and cilantro are available at the salsa and condiments bar.

The unique and refreshing flavor is a nice change of pace to the other styles of Mexican food available here in Orlando. I think the price is a bit on the high side considering the quality and quantity of food, but it’s not too high that you would want to avoid Baja Burrito Kitchen altogether. Two tacos or a burrito will cost around $6 after tax, not including a drink. Expect to pay around $8 per person with a drink, which I feel is a bit high for a self serve restaurant. It is a great place to visit on occasion because of its light and refreshing offerings, but I don’t frequent it because of the price.

Update: make sure you read my lastest review on Baja Burrito Kitchen. The place really grows on you.

Baja Burrito Kitchen on Urbanspoon

Orlando Lacks a Flavor to Call Its Own

Orlando lacks its own distinct flavor. No one makes a trip to Orlando for “our” style of BBQ, or pizza, burgers, or any other type of food. What’s great about Orlando food though, is the variety. Many Orlando residents are transplants from around the state, country, and even the world. After living here for a while, they often begin to miss a particular type of food from back home, and often decide to open up an eatery, from a small hole in the wall fast food joint, to a high class restaurant, serving up some of their favorite food.

One place in particular, What’s Your Beef? was opened because the owners, Mike and Lisa longed for the Italian beef style sandwiches they frequented back in Chicago.They couldn’t find this anywhere in Orlando, and decided to open up their own shop. Personally, I’m glad they did because I may have never been introduced to this excellent sandwich otherwise.

We have an excellent variety of food available in Orlando and the surrounding area. We have several eateries with great BBQ offering different styles. We have high class steak houses. We have New York style pizza, gourmet pizza, and Chicago style deep dish pizza. You can get just about every flavor of Asian cuisine, from Chinese and Japanese, to Vietnamese, Korean, and Thai. There are countless Mexican (and Tex Mex), Spanish, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and other Latin American eateries, both fast food, and high class. There are numerous other types of food, including places dedicated to Chicago style hot dogs, Indian food, Mongolian BBQ, burgers, and so on. The main point of all of this is to get you to break out of your routine of going to the same place. Get out there and try some of the excellent food Orlando has to offer.

Buy Local Orlando

Buy Local Orlando is a program started to boost local businesses in the Orlando area. It costs $99 for businesses to join, but it is 100% free for consumers. The best part is that all participating merchants offer a discount to consumers that present a Buy Local Orlando card. You can obtain a card at participating merchants, or print one after filling out this online form. There are merchants in a number of categories offering discounts, but dining is our focus of course. I’ve only used my card at the downtown Pita Pit so far, and I got a free soda with my pita. This program is a great way to save some money and support local businesses.

Domino’s New Pizza Recipe

Domino’s has received a great deal of criticism over the years about the quality of their pizza. And, with the new year, they have decided to unveil a new pizza recipe in response to the criticism. They now use 100% real mozzarella cheese, have added some spices to the sauce, and top the pizza off with a garlic Parmesan crust.

I gave the pizza a try, getting a pepperoni and onions, and pepperoni and green peppers pizzas. The sauce and cheese are a marked improvement. I could do without the newly flavored crust though. It doesn’t taste all that good, and seems like over processed and cheap garlic butter. The cheese is definitely a better quality, and the sauce has some flavor now. It is not the bland pizza it once was. It still isn’t gourmet pizza, but it’s not at a gourmet price either. I would say the improvements actually make the pizza worth the price now. Overall, the improvements are good, except for the garlic Parmesan crust.

They’re also running a special hoping you will give their new pizza try, 2 pizzas with 2 toppings each for $5.99 each. It’s a great deal, normally costing around $20, depending on location.