An odd name – it comes from a book about Florida by Patrick Smith. But it’s a good restaurant, though not the best steakhouse. If you’re a prime rib lover, this is your place, but be prepared to pay dearly. The restaurant has been known to close on evenings when the hotel’s capacity is low, so always call first.
Though it is situated in the Rosen Shingle Creek hotel’s golf clubhouse, the atmosphere is more along the lines of a hunting lodge. Very clubby. Service has always been first-rate.
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I’m thinking Agave Azul might be a more attractive restaurant in the evening. During the day, the bright sunlight streams in through the front windows and makes everything in the restaurant look as though it’s in shadows. Seated at a table in the back of the restaurant, I felt as though the power had gone out.
I know for certain there was no electricity in the food. I had the enchiladas rancheras, two enchiladas with a soupcon of pork, chopped onions and bell peppers. They were topped with melted cheese, which had actually started to recongeal, and sauce. It was accompanied by a bit of rice, lettuce, sour cream and guacamole. And there wasn’t a thing that was memorable about it. Service was perfunctory.

Located inside the Sapphire Falls Resort at Universal Orlando, Amatista is supposed to represent the tropics, though the decor is a bit more North Polish. The food, though, is recommendable. Ostensibly Caribbean, it is presented in a creative and stylistic way.

Dinner at Bice is not an inexpensive night out. But when you consider cost vs. quality, you’ll find that Bice is not overpriced.Just consider the restaurant’s signature dish, ravioli stuffed with beef short ribs and spinach. The pasta was delicately thin and tender, and the braised meat inside had a rich, fatty mouthfeel that blossomed with the sauce of mushrooms and Marsala wine. Absolute heaven.Or another from the list of primi piatti, big, fat tortellini filled with spinach and ricotta and dressed with a sauce of butter and sage.From the secondi my companion had the scalloppine di vitello, flattened medallions of veal sauteed with a darkly rich mushroom sauce and served with a timbale of potatoes similar to a potatoes Anna dish.I chose a special of the evening that featured sea bass in parchment. Enclosed inside the envelope with zucchini, yellow squash, red and green peppers, and a few salty olives, the fish took on all the vegetable flavors while maintaining a fresh and moist texture. The taste was buttery and absolutely delicious.
Desserts are worth lingering over.

This oddly named restaurant is a replica of Marley’s home in Kingston, Jamaica. The menu has traditional Caribbean fare, such as jerk chicken, oxtail, beef patties and such (no curried goat, however). One taste of the food and you’ll understand why Marley is a music legend. Note: after 9 p.m. only adults over 21 admitted. There may be a cover charge for entertainment (usually $7). Food is served only until 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, but the music keeps playing — and the drinks keep pouring — until 2 a.m.

Forrest Gump, in the movie of the same name, quotes his mother as saying that life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. The movie, you see, takes place in a time before candy companies started putting maps to their assortments on the inside lid.Still, Mother Gump was wise in her way. So I can’t help but think that if she were to visit Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., a chain restaurant new to Universal’s CityWalk, her reaction might be: “Sometimes life is like a carton of frozen shrimp, you know exactly what you’re gonna get.”There’s little to recommend here, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that the menu is dominated by what Bubba called “the fruit of the sea.” It isn’t quite as extensive as detailed in the movie when Bubba, in a memorable sequence, lists every possible way to cook and serve shrimp. “You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp Creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that’s about it.”He didn’t mention Lt. Dan’s drunken shrimp, which had andouille sausage in what was supposed to be a spicy bourbon sauce. It was more sweet than spicy, and there was nary a hint of boozy flavor.One of my guests had the “dumb luck” coconut shrimp, which had a nice jacket of breading and was deep-fried just right and delightfully ungreasy. They were served with a dipping sauce that was supposed to be a marmalade but which was undistinguishable. There were also fries that tasted as though they had been made quite some time before they were served.

Cafe Tu Tu Tango is at its best as a celebration destination. You’ll have more fun – and the food just might taste better – if you go with a big group. Order a table full of tapas and share. Be careful: The cost can really add up fast.The Cajun chicken egg rolls ($6.25) were a favorite, with blackened chicken rolled inside a wonton skin with corn and cheese. Red onions and a touch of cilantro added just the right flavor notes.The duck and mixed greens salad ($7.25) was one I had enjoyed six years ago, and it was still good on my recent visit. It featured shredded duck meat served on flatbread atop mesclun greens drizzled with balsamic vinegar.Tu Tu’s setting is a Spanish artist’s garret, Spanish, I suppose, because for the Mediterranean slant of the menu. Every inch of wall space is occupied by paintings, drawings, sculptures and oddities, all of which are for sale. Should you purchase one, another will be slapped up in its place in no time flat because there are artists in residence dappling, scribbling and shaping new works of art right before your very eyes. According to literature distributed by the restaurant, it isn’t uncommon for a guest to sit down and see an artist staring at a blank canvas. But by the time dessert is finished the artist is signing his or her name to a finished piece. Some of the art looks as though it was completed that fast, but having the artists working there among the diners is part of the fun.

The food here is deliciously good, and the atmosphere is grandiloquent. But the prices are a bit steep, apparently geared toward the expense-accounted business traveler.
Seafood pescatore features a saffron seasoned fish stock tinged with tomato, with an abundance of seafood, including an Australian lobster tail, two impressively plump scallops, shrimp, clams and mussels. Under it all was a nest of fresh pappardelle pasta.
The al dente ribbons were part of my companion’s entrée of pappardelle ai bistecche, which was listed under the menu’s pasta heading, though in truth this was a steak dish. It featured 10 ounces of New York strip from Harris Ranch, cooked to a perfect medium-rare and sliced, the noodles piled on top with a sauce of mushrooms and tomato ragout. Quite nice.
We had started our meal with the mozzarella stuffed Bella meatballs, three bocce ball-sized orbs of moist ground meat braised in Barolo wine. The meatballs were more enjoyable than the calamari fritte, which was a little too damp.
Service was exceptional.

One of Darden Restaurants’ most recent acquisitions, and easily their most upscale. The steaks here are very good, and the service is attentive if not downright solicitous. I had the Delmonico, basically a bone-in ribeye, that was had a flavorful, well-seasoned crust and beautiful red center. The higher fat content of the cut made it juicy and tender. My companion chose the Kansas City sirloin, offered as a special on the night I visited. Also a bone-in cut, the steak had a characteristically coarser texture but was cooked just as perfectly as the other and was every bit as flavorful.
Atmosphere is clubby and posh.

Confisco Grille serves an ambitious menu of soups, salads, sandwiches and burgers, plus full dinners of meats and seafood. I had the “fully loaded” baked potato soup, which featured a potato puree broth surrounding a mound of mashed potatoes, which held up a potato skin boat filled with cheese and bacon bits. There wasn’t much in the way of soup, and it was all rather heavy for a first course. For the entree, I had a pork chop, a big, thick and ultimately tasty chop. It was a lot of food, and it was more creative than I was expecting for the drab atmosphere. The ambience at Confisco Grille is a little dark and depressing. There are a couple of windows to the walkway out front, but for the most part, you’d never know you were in a theme park. And I’ve come to realize there are a lot of parkgoers who look for just that sort of environment so they can avoid sensory overload. Whatever. Unless you really want to just sit down and have someone wait on you – and there’s a lot to be said for that – you can find pretty good food at the concession stands around the park. One of my favorites was the Enchanted Oak Tavern in the Lost Continent area. The restaurant is inside what is supposed to be a hollowed-out tree. There is inside seating but also a nice balcony that overlooks the main lagoon. It’s a pleasant place to sit.