This is a tale of two Thais.
I recently visited two new Thai restaurants, each with good food but each distinctly different from the other in its style and experience.
On one end of the spectrum is Orchid, a splashy and elegant restaurant with a hip vibe that befits its Park Avenue milieu.
And then there’s Chai Thai, a modest, unpretentious and unadorned eatery with a family-style mien. Unfortunately, it, too, has an ambience that matches its Curry Ford Road locale. (Isn’t there an Extreme Makeover: Urban Street Edition yet?)
But even with its decidedly downscale décor, Chai Thai delivers delicious Thai favorites. So does Orchid, but its menu also extends to more ambitious fare that is based on Thai seasonings and ingredients that may be unfamiliar even to devotees of the area’s many Thai restaurants.
Short rib massamam ($22), for example. It featured a large beef short rib, braised and then sautéed with potatoes and small pieces of sweet bell peppers with a chili sauce and a bit of roasted peanuts. That the meat was not the most tender hunk of rib I’ve had – a bit more braising might have helped – does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the dish.
And part of the enjoyment of this entrée, and indeed most every dish served here, was the elegant presentation, which almost invariably included luminous purple orchid blooms as plate garnish. (Yes, orchid petals are edible, but frankly I enjoy looking at them much more than ingesting them.)
More traditional entrees occupy the menu, including pad Thai (would it be possible for a Thai restaurant to operate without pad Thai?) I ordered mine with chicken ($14) and was surprised when the server asked me how spicy I wanted it. Pad Thai is done without spicy seasoning and is traditionally served with a condiment tray that includes crushed peppers and chili sauce, as well as chopped peanuts, for the diner to add at will.
There was no condiment tray, but the mix of rice noodles, bean sprouts, tangy chicken and ground peanuts was nonetheless delicious.
I also had the pad Thai ($9.95) at Chai, and again I was asked how spicy I wanted it. Are Thai restaurants going the way of Indian restaurants, succumbing to the uninformed notion of the dining public that these cuisines are nothing but spicy foods?
Chai Thai’s version was equally as good, the only difference being the presentation – and the price, which probably had something to do with the presentation. Orchids aren’t cheap.
Chai doesn’t decorate with orchids, but the crispy duck ($14.95) was a beautiful presentation all by itself. It was a fully platter of sliced meat with cispy crunchy skin topped with basil. There was a small amount of sauce, barely enough to wet the fluffy jasmine rice, but it wasn’t missed.
InWinter Park I ordered the Orchid duck ($24) and was surprised that what I was served was basically a salad. I didn’t think I was ordering a salad – the menu didn’t say anything about greens – and I certainly wouldn’t have ordered a $24 salad. When a server noticed my dismay he removed the dish from my table and the charge from my bill.
At Chai I had the red curry with beef ($9.95), which I ordered medium-hot. It was perfectly spiced, hot enough to put some heat on the tongue but not so much that it scorched the taste buds for the myriad other flavors.
Orchid did a nice yellow curry with chicken ($14), although here the spicing was more muted.
Both restaurants also offer one of my favorite Thai appetizers, stuffed chicken wings. These are wings that have the upper bone removed and its cavity filled with chopped chicken meat, clear noodles and vegetables. It’s then breaded and deep-fried to create a drumsticklike treat. Both were tasty and similarly priced, Orchid’s for $6 and Chai’s for $5.95. Orchid offered an unusual appetizer called mieng kum ($10), which was an assemble-yourself morsel. It included mounds of fresh ginger, tiny cubes of lime, onion, peanuts and – don’t be frightened – tiny freeze-dried shrimp. These were accompanied by fresh spinach leaves to wrap the ingredients in. Despite the woefully small leaves, it was an interesting and filling starter course, except there wasn’t enough freeze-dried shrimp, words I never thought I’d say.
I seldom order desserts in Thai restaurants, but I had to try the coconut sticky rice with mango ($7), a long pad of sweetened rice topped with slices of cool mango. It was quite nice.
Orchid is in the small space that was occupied by Bistro on Park before it moved across the street. The walls are a sedate mocha, and colorful, geometric-centric paintings adorn the walls. And, of course, there are plenty of orchids that line the small bar, which also, it seems, doubles as an office for the owner.
Chai Thai doesn’t have the decorative accouterments of Orchid, but each does a fine job with its common cuisine.

You may remember Rincon Cubano Cafeteria as Elijah’s Grill from a few years ago. Elijah’s moved to Eustis, of all places, and RCC moved in. They even kept the old phone number.
They must have kept some of the recipes, too, because just like Elijah’s the food here is first-rate.
The Hound stopped in recently and had the pernil, or roast pork shoulder. They referred to it on a hand-written specials menu board as pulled pork, but this wasn’t like what you’d find in your basic barbeque joint. The meat, which was moist and flavorful, was in large chunks and topped by a piece of delicious crispy skin. Woe to the person who takes this heavenly piece of epicurean epidermis and sets it aside. It’s OK to do that with chicken skin. But with pernil you have to eat the skin. And that’s that.
The dinner also came with a choice of rice – I had the white rice premixed with beans, because if I had ordered them separately I would have just mixed them together anyway. I also had a choice of fried plantains, tostones or yuca. I had the boiled yucca but I asked for the garlic sauce on the side. I had sampled the sauce on a previous visit and it was so strong that no one would speak to me for two days. The yuca was so good that it didn’t need any sauce, just a bit of salt to bring out the flavor of the pasty root.
I also tried one of the restaurant’s Cuban sandwiches, which had lots of thinly sliced ham and pork with a slather of yellow mustard and some tangy dill pickles.
The Cafeteria part of Rincon Cubano’s name is a bit misleading. This isn’t the kind of place where you grab a plastic tray and slide it along the rails as someone dishes out the food you point to. In fact, you place your order at the front counter and no rails are involved whatsoever.
But you can point at what you want, but you have to go to the other end of the counter. That’s where the few hot items that are offered each day are on display. This is unclear to those unfamiliar with the setup, and in fact if you just walk in the door and up to the counter and order from the menu board on the wall, you’ll miss out on the specials because they’re not listed there.
Back up by the order station, however, a few of the appetizers are displayed in a heated plastic cube. Be sure to point to a tamal, because they’re pretty good. The Cuban version of the tamale is mostly cornmeal with just a few flecks of meat that we’ll agree for the sake of argument is ham. This one didn’t need more meat because the steamed cornmeal was delicious on its own.

Rincon Cubano Cafeteria is at 3327 N. Forsyth Road, Winter Park. The hours are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. No alcohol is served but credit cards are accepted. The phone number is 407-679-5600.

In the world of steakhouses, there are two distinct types. There are the family style restaurants with casual settings and, often, for some reason, peanut shells scattered about the floors. These are your LongHorns, your Lone Stars and Outbacks, among others.
Then there are the high-end steakhouses, with no peanuts on the floor or in the pricing. In this category you’ll find the Del Frisco’s, Shula’s and Ruth’s Chrises.
Some of these restaurants fall under the same corporate umbrella – Lone Star and Del Frisco’s, for instance – sort of like Toyota and Lexus.
But just as luxury cars brands have their lesser models (a Lexus ES350 is basically just a Camry), so too the luxury steakhouses. Think of them as the low end of the high-end meateries. Or a third category: not casual enough to be a family restaurant and without the quality to be considered top-notch.
There are three restaurants that I would put in that category based on my previous experiences: Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar; Palm Restaurant; and the Capital Grille. The dinners I’ve had at these restaurants in the past have been OK but not good enough to justify the hefty price tags. I thought it might be time to check back to see if there have been any changes, especially in light of Darden Restaurants buying the Capital Grille (and getting LongHorn Steakhouse in the deal).
I don’t know if the new ownership had anything to do with it, but the Capital Grille was the most improved among the three, and that includes service and overall experience as well as the steaks.
And what steaks. I had the Delmonico ($40), 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 ($40), 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.
So here’s the surprise: Capital Grille serves steaks graded USDA choice, not prime, although you wouldn’t know that from the pricing. Just as with luxury cars there are quality levels within each meat grade. CG is obviously purchasing the upper echelon of choice.

We like things fresh here at Scott Joseph’s Orlando Restaurant Guide. That includes our reviews. The review for this restaurant was getting a bit stale, so we’ve taken it down for now. Scott will be returning to freshen it up soon.

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I’ve always been a fan of Park plaza Gardens, so at times the enthusiasm has flagged. There was a time in the ’90s and even into the 2000’s that the once venerable restaurant was a mere shadow of its former self. A few years ago, I strted to get excited about this place again.

I am even more enthusiastic about the quality and consistency of the food and service at Park Plaza Gardens now than I was four years ago.

Steak and fish were both highlights of my visits. The bone-in ribeye ($40) was a substantial steak, grilled to the requested medium-rare, and graced with the slightest hint of truffles in the demi-glace.

The New York strip au poivre ($37) also featured a fine piece of meat, but someone seems to have forgotten that poivre means pepper; it hadn’t the slightest hint of any. Instead, the sauce was a wild mushroom and cognac demi-glace.

If I had to choose one entrée that stood out among the rest it would be the crab-stuffed grouper ($32). The fish was firm and fresh-tasting, and the accompanying crabmeat added the perfect grace note. A caper sauce gave the two just the right saltiness. The plate was rounded out with fluffy jasmine rice and sautéed fresh baby spinach.

On a lunch visit I enjoyed the herb-roasted king salmon ($18), although I’m not sure where the herbs came into it. It was a long but slender steak with a good amount of fattiness in the texture. The salmon sat atop a mound of mashed potatoes and was surrounded by a puddle of roasted tomato coulis spiced with ginger, a lovely sauce.

But the blackened burger with blue cheese ($11) was disappointingly dry.

There were a number of good appetizers but the crab cakes ($13) were the standout. They had plenty of crab held together with a minimum of filler and with a light jacket of panko to give it a crispy crust. With a salad of baby greens, it was enough for a light entrée.

The pesto and goat cheese stuffed eggplant ($10) had the creamy richness of the cheese with the tanginess of the pesto with some more of that wonderful tomato coulis. Fried mac-n-cheese balls ($8), crusted with more panko, were only worth trying out of curiosity.

Special soups are listed as Chef Santos’ soup of the day ($7) with no information of who Santos is. He or she presented a chicken and corn chowder on one of my visits, but instead of being a thick soup, as most people expect a chowder to be, it was basically a brothy chicken soup with a few kernels of corn and small chunks of potato and chicken meat.

Actually one of the best starters at Park Plaza Gardens is the bread basket, which has delicious toasted bread with a little cheese and spicy pepper. How much better it would be with pure butter instead of the dish of over garlicked olive oil that is offered.

Service was very good on all my visits, and the cross-service among the staff ensures that no table goes wanting. The wine list is not extensive but has appropriate selections.

Park Plaza Gardens has two dining venues, the café that spills from the bar at the front of the building onto the sidewalk, and the more formal dining room in the back. That space had undergone a renovation back when the restaurant was rebranded with the Chef Justin name. It retains its outdoor ambience with red brick flooring and walls and towering trees, but all under the glass ceiling. An open window to the kitchen doesn’t offer diners much of a peek at the goings-on there but does add to the noise level.

I prefer the dining room, but to get an idea of PPG’s place in the Winter Park scene, take a sidewalk table and watch how diners and passers-by greet each other as the come and go. It is a neighborhood restaurant, just in a nice neighborhood. But in the dining room, Park Plaza Gardens can still be the special occasion restaurant it once was. Even more so now.