Umi has a pleasant vibe. The menu features not only the expected sushi selections but also kitchen foods that include robata grilled meats and a couple of ramen soups.

Everything is delicious and prettily presented, to boot.

Let me just put this right out there at the beginning: Viet-Nomz might just be serving the best Vietnamese food in the area. Those of you who know me know that I don’t make such statements lightly.

I put off visiting this small, fast-casual restaurant for a long time because too many other businesses in this spot opened and closed too quickly. I didn’t hold up much hope for another newcomer, especially one with such a cutesy name. But after six months of seeing more cars in front than I ever did for any of the other restaurants that have occupied the University Boulevard space, I decided to pull over and try it myself.

It would be almost enough to go here to sit at the bar, sip a glass of wine and eat strips of bacon while listening to live jazz. (Instead of salty peanuts they put rashers of crispy bacon on the bar here.)
On my first visit to Vines I dined in the main room. I sampled the onion soup, a hearty bowl of beefy broth topped with stringy cheese. For my entree I had the braised beef short rib, oh-so-tender meat that had long given up the bone, served with polenta infused with blue cheese and Brussels sprouts roasted with bacon. (They love bacon in this joint.)
On another visit, I decided to make a feast of a couple of appetizers while sitting at the bar. I selected the steak tartare and seared day boat scallops. The tartare looked as though it were a burger patty ready for the grill. It was surrounded by the usual accouterments, capers, onions, as well as hot sauce drizzled on the plate and a pile of salt. It was topped with a raw quail egg, cracked open and still in the shell. The bartender/server asked if I had ever had the tartare there before and I allowed as to how I had not. She made the suggestion that I blend everything together, the hot sauce and salt included, before eating. It was good advice. The meat was fresh tasting and delicious, and the salt and hot sauce added just the right flavor notes.
Service on the whole was superb.
The dining room is classy and upscale (check out the video wall of fire), which matches the prices.

The space that held Cricketers Arms didn’t sit empty too long after that British pub closed. It’s now called The Whiskey, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that any place with such a name is more about the drink than about the food. But based on my recent visit, that isn’t the case at all.

Oh, it’s very serious about the drink part, especially with cocktails featuring the eponymous liquid. There is an interesting craft cocktail menu with some intriguing entries.

The folks at the JW Marriott recently opened two new entities, Whisper Creek Farm: The Kitchen and Whisper Creek Farm: The Brewery.

You’ll notice The Kitchen as soon as you walk through the front door of the hotel. It’s just off the lobby, to the right. The Brewery is a little harder to spot. In fact, you’d need a staff person to escort you through the warren of corridors and passageways to the kitchen office where the vats, tanks and necessary gauges have been set up in a corner. It’s definitely not a show brewery such as the one at Cask & Larder.

But the Kitchen is on full display, and what it’s churning out is surprisingly ambitious. I say surprisingly because when it was first announced it was downplayed somewhat, as though it would be more of a bar-menu venue.

But while portions are meant to be more of the small plate size — or, reasonable portions, as I like to think of them — the items are well above the ranks of bar snacks.

Wine 4 Oysters Bar & Bites is a charming little restaurant on South Alafaya Trail in the Shoppes of Eastwood. It’s a small storefront space with a few tables and chairs along one wall and a bar on the other. That the spaces at the bar seem to fill up before the tables lets you know that this is a neighborhoody kind of place.

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.

Not your typical wine bar. It’s two stories, serves some serious food, and it’s all overseen by a certified master sommelier, George Miliotes, who loves to introduce his guests to new wines. If he makes a suggestion, take it.

The website admits that the dining experience is meant to be Spago-like, though they chose not to name it such, even though there are now five Spagos worldwide. But the food is classic Puck, with touches of his native Austria and of course the designer pizzas that made him famous.

Like Udipi Café Woodlands is all vegetarian, and it’s all good. Dosai are intimidatingly large crepes wrapped around myriad fillings; Uthappam are Indian-style pancakes that resemble latkes. A house specialty is chana bhatura, a big puffy bread that looks sort of like an expanded Jiffy Pop. But with better stuff inside.
All of the staff I had contact with were friendly and helpful, taking time to explain the various dishes. Although with a clientele that was mostly Indian on one of the nights I visited, not much explaining is necessary.