I thought there’d be more piano. Or even some piano.

I mean, the place is called Cafe-Boutique Piano, so I don’t think my expectations were unwarranted. Granted, I dined fairly early in the evening at the Hannibal Square restaurant that opened last year, and midweek when live music in restaurants is scarce. But the decor sports a player piano in one corner, so it’s not like they’d have to hire a musician.

With a fairly small dining room, it certainly is boutiquey, though I have to say I don’t know why the name has the strangely placed hyphen.

 Mongolian barbecue isn’t new to Central Florida, many others have offered it, but with little success. I remember one place that had diners go through a buffet line of raw ingredients, including beef and chicken, and fill up plastic bowls to hand to a cook who manned a large, round cooking grill hanging over a fire source. The cook would dump all the ingredients onto the grill and stir fry them in front of the guest, then hand them back in a bowl (different one from the raw-ingredient bowl).

It’s a bit different at the Mongolorian BBQ, a long-anticipated restaurant from the owners of Chi-Kin and Poke Hana that finally opened on Colonial Drive’s Mills 50 District. You can still pick your own ingredients, if you want, and watch them being cooked, though now they’re stir fried in on of several specialized vessels behind the counter.

You want to know what’s the worst thing for a restaurant critic? It’s a mediocre restaurant. The extremes are easy. Give me a great restaurant, one with terrific food, great service and the right atmosphere and I can write about it for days.

Or give me the opposite, a place where nothing works – terrible food, untrained and clueless servers and uncomfortable surroundings – and the review practically writes itself.

But a place in the middle? There’s not a whole lot to say.

When we think about restaurants in Winter Garden we immediately think of Plant Street and the downtown area. And by we I mean me.

That’s very short-sighted, I agree. And I’m bound to expand my thinking after a very pleasant lunch at Gochi Japanese Kitchen, which indeed has a Winter Garden address but resides on Colonial Drive.

It occupies a surprisingly large space in the Winter Garden Regional Shopping Center. It doesn’t open until noon, and while I was waiting for the doors to be unlocked, I watched a man come out and sweep the sidewalk in front, even though it really didn’t look like it needed it. A few moments later I was seated inside and that same man turned out to be our server. (And a gracious and competent one at that.)

I hadn’t been to DoveCote since it underwent major ownership and chef changes, so I figured it was time to stop back in.

I published my first review of DoveCote seven years ago this month. The restaurant debuted in July of 2016, the newest tenant in what was then known as the Bank of America building in the space that for many years had been the popular Harvey’s Bistro. (Harvey’s closed in 2009 and a couple of short-lived concepts had a go at the location before DoveCote took over.)

F&D Woodfired Italian Kitchen on Curry Ford Road was the first of what is now three locations for the local restaurant group. It opened in 2018 in a building that over the past few decades has been home to numerous restaurants. Most of the previous tenants apparently faltered because the small space made it difficult to turn a profit. But F&D seemed to be making a pretty good go of it.

Then the developer, National Real Estate (which despite the name is locally owned by husband and wife team Giovanni Fernandez and Elise Sabatino) decided what that block really needed was a multistory, mixed-use building – developers gotta develop, right? – so F&D would have to move. It closed in April of last year.

I winced when I first heard that a restaurant planned for the Mills 50 District would be called Pigzza. Did anyone not? Back then, in May of 2021, the project was announced as a collaboration between the owners of Stasio’s, the Milk District Italian cafe and market, and Pig Floyd’s Urban Barbakoa. So it sorta, kinda made sense if there were to be a fusion of barbecue, pizza and Italian dishes.

In the end, Pig Floyd’s Thomas Ward is the sole owner of Pigzza, whose tagline is “an Italianish joint.” And with the barbecue connection still intact, you’d expect the menu to be filled with pulled pork pizzas and pastas aplenty. But this little Pigzza has none.

Well, it has some, but surprisingly few. Which ultimately is a good, astute even, choice. Subtle is almost always the better way to go.

Wine 4 Oysters Bar & Bites, the restaurant and raw bar from East Orlando, has opened its second location in Bay Hill Plaza on Turkey Lake Road in the Restaurant Row District. There are some differences between the two W4Os: the new location has a full liquor bar but a more compact menu, though the roster of oysters is still robust.

The biggest difference between the two is that the Bay Hill Plaza location shares a space with King Cajun Crawfish even though they are separately owned. But as Tatiana Golenkova, who owns the Wine 4 Oyster with her husband, Andrey Makhotin, told me, this sort of setup is becoming more common – think of it as a mini food hall – and has advantages such as being able to use each other for overflow seating. Also, customers can order from either restaurant’s menu despite where they happen to be seated.

But there’s plenty on Wine 4 Oysters’ menu to keep you satisfied.

Doshi, the modern Korean restaurant that opened last year in Winter Park, has two distinctions: It was designated a Recommended restaurant in the second edition of Michelin Guide, a considerable honor for a first-year restaurant.

It also is the only restaurant to my knowledge in Central Florida to have electronically and remotely-controlled bidets in the restrooms. As distinctions go, the Michelin thing is much bigger. But I also have to wonder if the other thing has moved us into a brave new era.

The Michelin recognition is deserved. The restaurant, from brothers Jimmy Tung and Johnny Tung of the Bento Group, grew from of a ghost-kitchen operation called Doshibox that worked out of the Collab Kitchen on Curry Ford Road. Doshi occupies a small space in an outparcel in front of Nordstrom Rack at the intersection of Lee Road and Orlando Avenue in Winter Park. 

The long-awaited Kavas Tacos + Tequila has finally opened at Pointe Orlando from the folks who brought you Taverna Opa, also at the Pointe, and Tapa Toro at Icon Park. With Kavas, they add Tex-Mex and Mexican street foods to their portfolio of Greek and Spanish cuisines.

The atmosphere at Kavas is lively, along the lines of Taverna Opa but without all the napkin tossing. And whereas Opa has belly dancing and Tapa Toro flamenco, Kavas has the occasional performance of a fire dancer.