Briefly Orlando

I was in Orlando on business, which is rather rare. Instead of having to spend the days outdoors lining up for rides, here I was stuck in a conference room while the day was bright and sunny outside.  However, what we missed during the days, we made up during the evenings.  A couple of dinners at restaurants here were quite memorable and here’s a brief summary of my impressions.

We were meeting on the sidelines of Orlando SeaWorld and BoneFish Grill seemed like the best place nearby. This is clearly popular with the touristy hordes, but the food is actually quite good.  The dish to try here is their signature dish, Bang Bang Shrimps, a large bowl of crisp batter-fried shrimp tossed in a creamy, spicy sauce.




Dinner at the upscale Todd English’s BlueZoo restaurant was probably the most satisfying dinner of this short trip to America’s vacation city.  The elegant interiors with its dim-lighting and background music makes this a good choice for a special dinner date - very different from the typical mediocre Disney restaurants.



For dinner, I had teppan-seared jumbo sea scallops followed by chilled Maine lobster tail with caviar, pickled fennel and vanilla corn froth.  Both dishes were amazingly good.  I had ordered a mains of Mahi Mahi with warm dijon crab sauce, whipped truffle potatoes and heart of palm.  This not only sounds good but is every bit so on the palate too!  Finally, a dessert of chocolate cake with raspberry ice-cream brought this decadent dinner to a very fitting end.

During my flight back to India, Emirates upgrades me to First Class, which gave me a chance to indulge once more.



Airline food has a bad rap, deservingly so.  However, when you travel First on the best airlines of the world, things can be very different as you can see from the picture above.