Finally, a good restaurant at Dubsdread. It’s Sam Snead’slike (the owners here were involved in developing the Sam Snead’s Tavern concept)  with an emphasis on simple foods.
The pot roast and filet mignon are standouts, and if you get the Buffalo shrimp, ask the kitchen to make them spicy. And the Tap Room burger is superb.
The rustic dining room is fronted by a wraparound porch that overlooks the Dubsdread Golf Course. It’s a lovely spot to enjoy Sunday brunch, and as luck would have it, the Tap Room serves an excellent one.

From the couple who brought you the wonderful Chef’s Table at the Edgewater, this space – just in the next room – offers a more tapas-like menu with a New Orleans glint. Grilled pork belly, fried chicken livers, boudain balls are all good choices. Service is first-rate.

The Maitland location is a new outpost for the popular MetroWest burgermonger. And make no mistake: burgers are the forte here.

Charming spot in the burgeoning Sanford downtown district. Chef Nat Russell puts a creative twist on well-known dishes, such as adding a sous-vide egg to Shrimp & Grits.

Three Birds is an attractive eatery in the heart of Winter Garden’s downtown district. Its corner location allows for lots of window light and the interior is rustic exposed brick, hardwood floors and touches of foliage, including vines that hang from the walls behind the counter and the video monitors that display the menu. (Interesting side note: Despite its name, Three Birds does not seem to have a Twitter account.)

Tibby’s is the latest project from the team that created the outrageously successful Tijuana Flats chain of Tex-Mex eateries: Brian Wheeler, Camp Fitch and Wheeler’s father, Chester. But don’t expect to find a Cajunified version of Tijuana Flats. This is a full-blown, full-service restaurant with an extensive menu of appetizers, entrees and desserts, and from what I tasted, all quite authentic. If what I experienced is any indication, Tibby’s will make those of you who are still lamenting the demise of Jockamo’s say, “Jockamo’s? Who dat?” All of the basic NOLA dishes — shrimp remoulade, crawfish etouffe, jambalaya, gumbo — are here and they’re all done well, based on family recipes. This one looks like it’s going to be a winner.

Like the original, the menu features authentic New Orleans fare. Also like the original, the food here is about as close as anyone in Central Florida has come to presenting a real taste of the Big Easy.

For my entree I chose the combo of jambalaya, crawfish pie and file gumbo. Both the gumbo and the jambalaya were excellent. The soup had a wonderfully dark rouxy base with good chunks of chicken and spicy andouille sausage, topped with a bit of fluffy white rice. The jambalaya had sausage and vegetables cooked into the rice.

I liked the crawfish in the etouffee, however. A more tomatoey roux served as the base with plump, chewy bits of crawfish and vegetables swimming around an island of rice.

For dessert, the bread pudding was crazy good. Big, buttery and gooey with sauce.

Toasted is the first grilled cheese restaurant to hit the Central Florida area, reflecting a national phenomenon for the childhood comfort food. But given that any child can make one of these sandwiches, why would anyone order one in a restaurant? Well, there are various gourmet options, but unfortunately the cheese is layered on a little too, well, cheesy. The burgers are slightly better.

The back of a staffer’s t-shirt at Toojay’s – the only t-shirt that didn’t have “Oy Vey” on it – read, “Is this where Harry met Sally?” The short answer is no, it isn’t. That’s also the long answer.

Sometimes being evicted can be a good thing.

The Townhouse Restaurant — or Town House, you’ll find it both ways, even on its website (or web site, if you prefer) — has been part of downtown Oviedo for decades. Some might even say it WAS downtown Oviedo. It had occupied a little box of a building at the corner of Broadway Street and Central Avenue on a spit of land triangulated by Railroad Street.

To call it rustic would be an understatement. It looked its age and was often unkempt. But it was comfortable, and it had a dedicated and loyal base of customers who were horrified when it was announced, in 2014, that the Townhouse house would be torn down to accommodate the broadening of Broadway.

But it didn’t mean the end of the Townhouse. It found new digs only several hundred feet up Central Avenue and now has more seating in a spacious restaurant with volume ceilings, a pleasant outdoor patio overlooking the Florida Trail bike path and a parking lot (which seemed to be used a lot by bikers who may or may not have been eating at the restaurant). And the old Colonial style sign has even been incorporated into the new building.