This is a second location for a restaurant called 310 Park South, which was named for its address on Park Avenue in Winter Park. But 310 Lakeside is not at 310 Lakeside, it’s at 301 Pine. Very confusing. The food here is mostly straightforward — steaks, pastas, salads. And most of it is done well enough. The lake on whose side the restaurant sits (actually, it’s across the street) is Eola.

The restaurant recently moved to a better, more visible location. But it left some of its creativity and artisanalism behind. The food is good but safe.

It’s much more interesting for its on-site beer brewing than the food, which is rather mundane. This is a non-Disney-owned restaurant, operated by Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Group out of Tennessee.

Brick House fancies itself as a “man cave.” Take that as you will. I wish they’d spend less time thinking about the man cave concept and a little more about the food, which is marginal. Brick House is a fledgling chain out of Houston.

Although it is pot themed the food contains no THC or CBD. But the sandwiches are good anyway.

It’s big and splashy, but early indications are that more effort was put into the ambience than into the food, which is under the direction of James Beard Award-winning chef Guillermo Pernot. It would seem the vibrant flavors of Cuban cuisine have been dumbed down for the tourist trade. Even the drinks are disappointing. It’s bad enough that they can’t seem to make a decent mojito, but you’d think they could at least have a stellar Cuba Libre.We started with a salad of watercress with crumbles of Cabrales, the tangy blue cheese of Spain. Fresh, but indistinguished.
A fish course followed comprised of sea bass a la plancha a Chino-Cubano. Yes, a Chinese version of a Cuban dish, complete with fried rice and a sesame sauce. I found it rather strange, although the quality of the fish was good.
The meat course had grilled skirt steak on a sugar cane skewer paired with roast pork stuffed mofongo — not an ingredient in the bunch that I don’t love. Yet it was all almost flavorless, without any seasoning. It looks like this will be another Latin restaurant that’s afraid of offending the delicate palates of tourists. That’s a shame.

One of Orlando’s many — MANY — bars, but one of the few that pays attention to the quality of food it serves.

It’s big and modern and offers so much more than sushi, although the sushi is some of the best of what it does, especially the deftly executed nigirizushi. Dragonfly also features robata grilling, a popular cooking method in Japan but still fairly uncommon in the U.S. A robata grill uses special charcoal that heats to one thousand degrees (oh, how I wish I could do that on my Weber). The intense heat sears the skewered meats that are leaned against it, which results in tender, juicy bites. We tried the chicken, and it was impressively tender. We also tried the braised short ribs, served with pickled carrots, shiitake and tamago. They weren’t the most tender short ribs I’ve had — and a bit difficult to pick apart with chopsticks — but the flavor was very nice.

It’s more sports bar than restaurant, and more sports than bar. The food is marginal, but you can usually get a good cold beer and watch your favorite sports on one of the 108 television monitors. There are even televisions in the restrooms, so it doesn’t matter how many beers you have, you won’t miss a second of play.

What is served in this little eatery in downtown Orlando has a lot more in common with Tex-Mex than Mexican, with a definite leaning to the, uh, gringo side of the border. But they do serve some decent food in a delightfully grungy atmosphere.
The menu is a bit salacious, with such entries as Dirty Sanchez, Drunk Gringo, Mouth Hugger and 1 Night Slam. Mainly, it’s tacos and burritos. I had the Drunk Gringo, which has nothing to do with alcohol. Instead, it simply means that it is the burrito into which everything is loaded. (Drunk. Loaded. Get it?) So instead of just one meat — or protein, as it is prosaically referred to on the menu — you get roast pork, ground beef and chicken. You also get beans and rice and lettuce and cheese and onions and…you get the idea.