Category Archives: Mexican

March 10, 2012 · 10:00 am

Wall Street Cantina

The flowers my sister got me are blooming, and they look so gorgeous.

flowers

flowers2

flowers3

Yesterday, a bunch of my co-workers and I trekked to Wall Street Cantina in downtown Orlando for some Tex-Mex at lunchtime. Wall Street is a cluster of different bars and restaurants that is mostly known for its nighttime block parties, but the Cantina actually offers some decent food as well. It was far from authentic, but it hit the spot. Wall Street Cantina has a pretty big menu that is not limited to just Mexican food.

chips and queso

We started out with chips and queso, and I ordered the tostadas lunch special. It came with corn tortillas piled with refried beans, ground beef, and all the taco fixings. It was a lot of food, but that didn’t prevent me from cleaning my plate.

tostadas

Also ordered were the black bean burger, buffalo chicken sandwich and burrito.

black bean burger

buffalo chicken sandwich

burrito

Thanks to lunch specials, my tostadas only cost about $6 before tax and tip. I was really pleased with my lunch and it kept me full until well into the evening.

We have a fun day ahead of us. I’m going to go see this lovely lady get married!

bride

Weddings: love ‘em or hate ‘em?

5 Comments

Filed under Downtown Orlando, Lunch, Mexican

February 16, 2012 · 8:39 pm

PR’s Taco Palace

Warning: photos of greasy Mexican food ahead

Last night, I met up with my friends (and bridesmaids) Megan and Sarah to catch up over Mexican food at PR’s Taco Palace.

I’ve sort of fallen of the face of the planet since I’m two weeks away from my GMAT, so it was nice to take a break and reenter civilization for one evening. I’m always disappointed by the Mexican food scene in Orlando. I feel like there are a lot of Mexican restaurants that aren’t bad, but I haven’t found any that are great.

PR’s Taco Palace is quite the hole in the wall on the side of the train tracks on Fairbanks in Winter Park. It has a really fun dive bar feel, and when the train goes by, the whole place shakes.

salsa

I started out by eating my weight in chips and salsa then proceeded to order the shrimp enchiladas.

shrimp enchiladas

The spicy sauce on the enchiladas were really good, but the shrimp was a little bland.

Megan ordered a bean and cheese burrito, and Sarah ordered a taco and enchilada.

bean burrito

taco and enchilada

I found the food to be mediocre but the company and the atmosphere were great. However, I’m still on the search for great Mexican food.

Is there a cuisine type near you that is hard to come by?

14 Comments

Filed under Mexican, Winter Park

January 9, 2012 · 7:45 pm

Caddy Shanks

I had such a busy, but incredibly fun, weekend. On Friday, Kevin and I met up with friends at Caddy Shanks in Baldwin Park for the Orlando Magic game. Unfortunately, the Magic lost, but I still had a blast.

Caddy Shanks is an interesting concept. It’s a bar, but they also have a lot of toys, including a golf simulator, ping pong table, pool table, race car simulators, etc. The service was a little spotty. I don’t think they have designated zones for their wait staff, so sometimes you’ll have a different person asking if you need a refill every two seconds and sometimes you’ll be searching awhile for someone.

They have a pretty large selection of beer. I started off with a Shipyard Applehead.

applehead

Pumpkinhead is still my favorite, but I really enjoyed it. The seasonings reminded me of apple pie.

Caddie Shanks doesn’t have their own kitchen, but you can order select items off the neighboring restaurants’ menus. The wait staff at Caddy Shanks will order the food for you and pick it up and deliver it to you. Of course, due to the zone issues mentioned above, we were offered two other pizzas from La Bella Luna before Kevin’s came.

I decided to order grilled chicken tacos from Colibri.

tacos

The tacos were very good with a really fresh salsa accompanying them.

It was fun to check out Caddy Shanks and to kick off the weekend with friends.

In workout news, I was inspired by Brittany to try out BodyRock, which is a website that provides you daily quick but high-intensity workouts. They have a 30-day challenge underway, but I’m taking the workouts at my own pace since I’m just getting started. It’s a great workout, and I’m a sweaty mess by the end. So far all the workouts I’ve tried are under 30 minutes, which is a huge bonus. It makes it so much easier to juggle exercise, studying and work.

What are your thoughts on flavored beers?

Have you ever tried BodyRock?

11 Comments

Filed under Baldwin Park, Bar, Beer, Mexican

November 28, 2011 · 9:42 pm

His and her tacos

Taco night is always a crowd pleaser in our house, but after gorging on leftover Thanksgiving turkey, I was in the mood for some seafood. Kevin doesn’t like seafood, but lucky for him, tacos are easily customizable.

hers and his

Shrimp tacos for me and chicken tacos for him. I’ve actually never cooked shrimp at home before, and it was so easy. I bought the shrimp already deveined, so all I needed to do was remove the shell and toss in a pan. I took some of the taco seasoning from the packet and sprinkled it on the shrimp. The rest of the seasoning went to Kevin’s chicken tacos.

shrimp

shrimp taco

The shrimp took minutes to cook. I added some frozen corn and parsley leftover from the Thanksgiving artichoke gratinata, and dinner was done. I really needed a light meal to detox, and this was perfect.

In other fun news, Kevin’s sister got a new puppy! Meet Mimi!

Mimi

She’s a whopping two pounds and all sorts of adorable.

Mimi and I

Mimi and Kevin

How do you detox after overindulging?

18 Comments

Filed under Eating In, Mexican, Seafood

October 2, 2011 · 12:11 pm

Lime

The other evening, Kevin and I were in the Sand Lake area in search of a golf bag and decided to grab a quick bite at Lime Fresh Mexican Grill, which I had never tried before. It’s the same set-up as Chipotle or Tijuana Flats with an emphasis on fresh ingredients. Their menu is very long with a variety of Mexican offerings from soups to salads to tacos to burritos to quesadillas.

I liked that they had a variety of types of tacos and you could get them on either flour tortillas, soft corn tortillas or hard corn shells.

I ordered one ground beef taco with lettuce, cheese and pico de gallo. I also got a surfer taco, which came with grilled fish, shredded cabbage, pico de gallo and cilantro sauce. I chose soft corn tortillas for both. I love the heartiness and texture of corn tortillas.

beef taco

surfer taco

The ingredients really did taste fresh. Everything was really tasty. The food wasn’t as filling as Tijuana Flats or Moe’s either. The only disappointing part of the meal was the chips. They tasted a little stale to me and were not very well seasoned.

But the help-yourself salsa bar helps.

salsas

Kevin ordered three steak tacos with hard shells, which he really liked as well.

steak tacos

I would definitely return to Lime for inexpensive and quick Mexican food that is fresh and light. None of the food was greasy or too filling.

In wedding news, Kevin and I are narrowing down our venue choices to decide which ones we want to visit in person. We decided that we do want to get married in the Orlando area sometime next winter.

Have you attended any Orlando weddings? I would love to hear about the venues you’ve been to!

Do you prefer hard tacos or soft tacos? I usually prefer hard tacos, but when there are corn tortillas, I love the soft tacos!

11 Comments

Filed under Mexican, Sand Lake, Wedding