There is enough good food here to keep Flying Fish Cafe on the short list of the best restaurants at Walt Disney World.

The Fish itself, however, is a little stale. The interior, which was once exciting and invigorating, seems to have faded. And as far as service is concerned, I witnessed a waiter perform an act that would be unacceptable in even the greasiest of greasy spoons. But we’ll come back to that.

The menu, dated and printed daily, is a single sheet that, although presented in a confusing order, leaves no question that the restaurant is aptly named. I sampled only seafood entrees, although there is a steak and a chicken breast for those who wander in clueless, and I was not dissatisfied with any of them.
One of the specials – which are listed under the heading Chef’s Thunder, a reference to a Coney Island ride, one assumes – was a pan-roasted black grouper ($27). The fish itself was a fine fillet, firm with moist flakes, but it was the accompaniments of littleneck clams, baby artichokes, nicoise olives and olive oil that gave the dish a wonderfully briny note.

Another special on one of my visits was the whole crispy yellowtail snapper ($29), an impressive presentation that had the fish placed on the plate as though it were still swimming. The crispy fried flesh came off the bone easily, and its sweet flavor went well with the basmati rice and vinaigrette sauce.
The Fish’s signature dish of potato-wrapped red snapper ($27) remains on the revamped menu (indeed, so popular is it with regulars that Curry could remove it only at his own peril). John State was the first in the area to present this now common concoction and it’s still a winner. The fillet is wrapped with a long thin potato slice and deep-fried to a dark brown crisp. The creamy leek fondue may be new, but it still comes with the appropriate wine reduction sauce.

One of my guests had the oak grilled mahi mahi ($29), which was served on a wonderful risotto laden with lumps of rock shrimp. On another visit the same risotto was served with wahoo. Regardless of the fish, the risotto was an ingenue that upstaged the star.
For appetizers, the peeky toe crab cakes ($13) were full of meat that was complemented well by the ancho-chile remoulade. Ahi tuna tartare ($12) was slightly dull, but the oak grilled dayboat scallops ($12), served with fresh corn polenta and onion rings, were quite a treat.
As far as starters go, however, I enjoyed the frisee salad ($9) as much as anything. The frizzy leaves with a slightly bitter taste were accompanied by oven roasted beets, goat cheese, candied pecans and drizzled with an orange vinaigrette. Each component was distinct, and they all came together to make an excitingly tasty salad.

Goat cheese is best as an appetizer and not as a dessert, which was made clear with the goat cheese beignets ($8). The fritterlike nuggets were too savory for dessert, even with the Rainier cherries served with them. The Fish was the first restaurant in the area to present the omnipresent chocolate lave cake ($8), which is still good although I think some of the imitators now do it better.
B

ut it will likely be a long time before I taste a dessert as satisfying as the banana Napoleon ($8). A sheet of crisped phyllo dough was set atop a creamy vanilla creme brulee with large diagonal slices of bananas sitting nearby in a sweet caramel sauce.
Service was exemplary on one visit and stunningly bad on another. On that occasion the waiter brought a second glass of wine for my dinner guests and when he removed the used glasses he poured out the last drops of wine into the new wine. It doesn’t matter that they were the same wines, that was one crass act.

The interior of Flying Fish was designed by the late Martin Dorf, who also did California Grill and Citricos. It is a whimsical paean to the glory days of Coney Island, with booth backs that rise and dip like the tracks of a roller coaster and light fixtures of parachuting porpoises. Columns and decorated with fish scales and even the tiny tiles on the food bar surfaces appear fishlike. But the interior seems to have faded somewhat and it no longer seems special. One of my companions put it right: It seems like any other Disney restaurant.

On the surface perhaps, but in regards to the food, the tradition of high quality continues.

This Longwood cafe is small, only 65 seats, but it’s an appealing place with an exuberant staff and a menu of family heirloom recipes not likely found at the other local Greek restaurants.
The recipes, says Mayerion Mykonos’ owner, Dimitrios Salivaras, have been handed down from his grandparents to his father, who still uses the recipes at the family’s restaurant of the same name in Tarpon Springs, to him. Salivaras cooks those recipes with ease in full view of the entire restaurant.
In fact, Mayerion means open kitchen, nothing more exotic than that, though the pronunciation (MY-eer-e-on) and spelling in Greek alphabet on the menu might make you think so.
Several of the dishes definitely have an exotic taste, even in their simplicity. My favorite among the entrees was the chicken Mykonos ($10.95), which featured several hearty chunks of chicken breast meat sauteed with tomatoes, onions, feta cheese and various fresh herbs to create what the restaurant calls its Mykonos sauce. Not the prettiest dish you’ll ever be served, but certainly tasty.
For an array of tastes the combination platter ($11.45) of pastitsio, moussaka, gyro meat and stuffed grape leaves is the way to go. At many Greek restaurants it’s difficult to distinguish between the moussaka and the pastitsio, and indeed there are similarities. But here they were as distinctive as they were delicious. The pastitsio had large macaroni layered with ground beef and cheese, topped with a thick bechamel sauce. The moussaka had ground beef layered with thick slices of eggplant, baked with the bechamel.
The stuffed grape leaves, called fila here but also known as dolmades, were filled with a rice and ground beef mixture and topped with a sauce made of lemon juice and eggs, a nice complement to the pungent flavor of the grape leaves.
The gyro meat was not special, neither was it served with pita bread. In fact an appetizer dish of three spreads ($9.95), which included a wonderful tzatziki and a rather garlicky feta cheese spread, dips that would ordinarily come with pita, were served with regular leavened bread, good bread, mind you, but not what you’d expect with these spreads. When I asked the server why they didn’t use pita he answered, quite honestly, pita bread is too expensive. One could argue that the profit earned from demanding nearly 10 bucks for three spreads would buy a few packages of pita.
There was more honesty, this time from a different server, when I asked about the fresh fish selection of the day. He told me one wasn’t offered because it came in frozen and hadn’t thawed. When I spoke to Salivaras later on the phone, he told me he buys only the freshest ingredients, including seafood. He may want to have a talk with his staff on that point.
Still, the baked grouper ($17.95) I had instead of the fresh fish of the day was good enough. It was a large fillet, tender and prepared simply with herbs and oil. My guest’s roast leg of lamb ($9.95) was fairly plain and unremarkable, though the juices from the meat were perfect on my rather dry dish of rice. Dinners come with a choice of side dish and either the potatoes or the vegetables make a better choice than the rice.
Diners also get a choice of soup or salad with each entree. The soup on each visit was the traditional avgolemeno soup of chicken broth thickened with egg. Instead of the usual rice Mykonos uses orso. The soup was better on the first visit; it was too watery the second time. Still the soup was better than the salad, an unimaginative Greek salad whose only attraction was a small square of feta cheese sitting oddly atop the lettuce.
For appetizers I heartily recommend the patatokeftedes ($5.95), but don’t eat them there. Have the waiter box up the wonderful patties of mashed potatoes and feta cheese, take them home and have them the next day with fried eggs. A meal fit for Zeus.
The combo appetizer of charbroiled shrimp, octopus and squid ($14.95) offered some different tastes and textures. The shrimp were rather plain, but the half octopus with its black-charred crust and the tender rings of squid drizzled with oil were both wonderful.
For dessert the rice pudding ($1.50) was good, but the galatobutoko ($2.75) was stellar, a creme custard layered in phyllo dough and sprinkled with cinnamon.
Besides being honest to a fault, the servers were all friendly and helpful, and Salivaras made a point of saying hello to every table from over the kitchen’s glass partition.
Mayerion Mykonos is small and narrow but quite comfortable. The tables are uncovered and set with a large container of sea salt and a small pepper grinder. The walls sport bas-relief sculptures of typical structures and landscape features found on the island of Mykonos.
Just for the record, Salivaras’ family is actually from a small island next to Mykonos, but they named their restaurants for the more recognizable tourist mecca. The Mayerion in the name may confuse some – it certainly confounds the directory assistance people when attempting to get a phone number – but don’t let it dissuade you from enjoying some of the fine food from the Greek Isles.

This story originally appeard in the Orlando Sentinel’s Florida magazine Sunday, August 17, 1997.

CATCH OF THE DAY – HIS KITCHEN SKILLS WERE RUSTY, SO HE ENROLLED IN A NEW YORK CULINARY – PROGRAM.TO TEST HIS PROGRESS, HE DECIDED TO THROW A DINNER PARTY. BUT THESE – WEREN’T JUST ANY GUESTS….

I must be crazy. What was I thinking?

Im in a kitchen, preparing a dinner that is scheduled to be served at 7 p.m. Its 5 oclock. Im serving a four-course dinner and only the soup course is ready, and thats only because I made it yesterday and its to be served cold.

But the entree, which will require turning pork chops into compact disks that will be sauced with a prune cream gravy, isnt close to ready. The rice isnt cooked, the vegetable isnt even prepped, the salad dressing isnt made and the cherries that will be the major star of the dessert still have pits in them.

If my guests were just some friends over for a night of conversation and food, it would be only minor cause for concern. If it really got down to it, I could just throw out the menu and order a pizza.

But the guests I have coming this evening are four of Central Floridas most reputable chefs. Theyve been invited to eat this dinner that I have not yet prepared and critique me.

Its a little bit judge not lest ye be judged by others and a little bit walk a mile in the other mans shoes.

Its a little bit insane too.

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