Restaurant Review - TooJay's Original Gourmet Deli, 10185 West Colonial Drive, Ocoee, FL

If you are looking for enormous corned beef sandwiches on thick-cut rye bread with hot deli mustard, then TooJay’s Original Gourmet Deli is for you. But TooJay’s has a lot more than just deli food, although that is their specialty.

In fact, when we recently dined at the Ocoee location for dinner, it took me a while to read through the regular menu and special dinner menu. There are soups, salads, and sandwiches, plus dinner entrees such as meatloaf, lasagna, pot roast, and also baked salmon with dill sauce, peppercorn crusted steak, and even vegetarian options. All of the dinner entrees come with slices of rye bread on the side and a choice of soup or salad. There are also specialty drinks such as old-fashioned egg creams and Dr. Brown sodas.

The kid’s menu also offers a lot of choices as well with grilled cheese, hot dog, peanut butter and jelly, French bread pizza, or mac-n-cheese (available for $3.75), and hamburger, cheeseburger, chicken tenders salad, chicken tenders, or a Jr. tuna melt (available for $4.75). While the kids’ entrees don’t include a drink, they do include a choice of two of the following: applesauce, French fries, Mandarin oranges, red grapes, chocolate pudding, mini Black and White cookie, or carrot sticks with Ranch dressing. The hard part is trying to convince your kids that they cannot choose both the chocolate pudding and Black and White cookie as their sides.


Grandpa decided on a hot Pastrami sandwich on rye bread ($7.95) which comes with cole slaw and a pickle. He also elected to get an extra side of fries ($1.75). The sandwich had the meat rolled on the bread and was a huge amount. However, for those with an even bigger appetite, TooJay’s offers the Jaynormous sandwich ($14.95) that has a pound and a half of your favorite deli meat. I can’t even imagine eating that! Grandpa loved the Pastrami and said it was very lean and delicious.


Grandma, went for sweet and ordered the Cheese Blintzes dinner ($10.75). This is three crepes filled with a sweetened cottage cheese, fried, and served with fruit topping and sour cream. Since it was a dinner, it also came with the rye bread and Grandma ordered the cup of matzo ball soup as her appetizer. The soup was very flavorful with chunks of carrots and celery and a large, but light, matzo ball that fills the whole cup. She polished off all of the blintzes, smearing each with the blueberry fruit topping and sour cream first.

Knowing how large the portions of food at TooJay’s are, I decided on the Half Sandwich and Soup or Salad ($7.95), ordering a Corned Beef on rye and a cup of the matzo ball soup as well. I put a bit of the hot mustard on the sandwich and yum! The corned beef was very lean and the matzo ball soup was comfort food at its best.

LB ordered the peanut butter and jelly sandwich with applesauce and chocolate pudding on the side ($3.75). The sandwich was cut into quarters, which was nice, although my son thought there was too much jelly (I’ll have to order “light jelly” next time). He, of course, wanted to dig into the chocolate pudding as soon as they set down his plate, but I pulled it off his plate until he finished his dinner.

BB ordered the French Bread Pizza, with French fries and the Black and White mini-cookie ($3.75). The pizza was a small baguette sliced diagonally with sauce and cheese and was pretty good. He actually got full on the pizza and fries and had to take the cookie home.


All of the adults were also full so we didn’t order any desserts although they are very tempting. Besides large slices of chocolate cake, TooJay’s also has smaller desserts such as the mini-cookies and mini-Napoleans and mini-Eclairs. In fact, you have to pass the deli and dessert counter on the way out and we ended up getting a little dessert “to go” to eat at home later.

Website: http://www.toojays.com/

Restaurant Review - Texas Roadhouse, 1150 Blackwood Ave, Ocoee, FL

Well, pardner, there's a new steakhouse chain in town and it's called Texas Roadhouse. There are locations popping up all over Central Florida. And, of course, the home base for this here restaurant is in... Indiana. Yeah, not Texas. So don't get the chili on the menu expecting good ole' homemade Texas chili with all meat and no beans. Because there are plenty of beans here.

And plenty of peanuts as well. Just like the other "Roadhouse" restaurants in town, Texas Roadhouse has roasted peanuts in the shell everywhere -- barrels of them while you are waiting for your table and then bucketsful on each table while you are waiting for your food. LB was particularly pleased about this part of the restaurant and now refers to Texas Roadhouse as "the peanut place".

I did like the different way Texas Roadhouse sets up the waiting area, which is huge, by the way, all covered, with inside spaces and outside spaces, benches, and the barrels of roasted peanuts, shells on the floor please. There is also a box of toys for the kids to play with. The most unusual thing is that you are not handed a beeper like in other restaurants; you are handed a card with a number on it. Then, you wait for your number to be displayed on the electronic boards throughout the waiting area - kind of like waiting in line at the deli. You can also call ahead and be placed on the "virtual waiting list", which is nice. We usually call when we are leaving the house and only have a few more minutes waiting time when we arrive.

Inside, the decor is all light wood, cacti and armadillos. In one part of the restaurant is "Willie's Corner" with Willie Nelson memorabillia - turns out Willie Nelson is part owner of the chain. Didn't know he hung out in Indiana.

As soon as we sat down, our servers produced a baskets of rolls, and took our drink orders. The rolls were wonderful, hot and fresh and yeasty served with cinnamon butter. By the time she came back with our drinks, we had to ask for another basket of rolls.

The menu is much like you would expect with salads, steaks, ribs, chicken, some seafood, and Country Dinners such as Pulled Pork and Country Fried Sirloin. There is also a coloring children's menu. One thing I really liked about the children's menu was that there are two sizes of kid's meals - Andy the Armadillo size for younger kids and then Ranger size for heartier appetites. Andy kid entrees are $2.99 - $4.79 and offer a hot dog, mac-n-cheese, mini-cheeseburgers, chicken strips, or sirloin bites. Ranger kid entrees are $5.99 - $6.99 and offer a larger size chicken strips, a 6 oz sirloin steak, or ribs. All kids meals come with a drink and a choice of a side: apple sauce, green beans, veggies, fries, mashed potatoes or baked beans. LB got the mac-n-cheese off the Andy part of the menu ($3.29) with green beans on the side, and BB chose the Ranger Ribs ($6.99) with fries. Another nice thing about the kids' menu was that the offerings were also listed on the adult menu, with prices. I don't know how many times I've had to pry the kids' menu from my little one just so I can read the menu while he is trying to color something. This way was much easier. I ordered the 6 ounce Dallas Filet ($14.99) with a house salad and loaded baked potato on the side (extra 99 cents for the loaded -- comes with sour cream, cheese and bacon bits). Apparently, there is not much vegetarian on the menu, including the sides. The house salad comes with hard-boiled egg, the green beans have bacon pieces (as I found out later) and, get this, the sweet potato jackets are cooked in bacon fat. Really! I originally wanted the sweet potato loaded instead of the baked but I found out that a loaded sweet potato at Texas Roadhouse is not brown sugar and cinnamon butter. Here, a loaded sweet potato means marshmallows and caramel. Bleech - I hate marshmallows and I thought the caramel would totally drown out the sweet potato (of course this is my own opinion, you may hear marshmallows and caramel and think "Oh yeah, baby!"). Grandma got the Country Fried Sirloin with fries ($9.99) and Grandpa ordered the Sirloin Beef Tips on mashed potatoes ($9.99).

One strange (annoying?) thing is that every half hour or so, the whole staff will line dance to a country song in the aisles. I hate when Johnny Rockets does it, I hate when Joe's Crab Shack does it and now I hate when Texas Roadhouse does it. To me, it just clogs the restaurant and makes it hard to find a server if you need something.

When the food came out, EVERYTHING was huge. The plate of mac-n-cheese (Kraft) was large. LB tasted one bite of the green beans with bacon and declared that they tasted nothing like green beans and didn't eat anymore. I was worried about that. Grandma's sirloin was covered with a slightly spicy country gravy and the steak filled her whole plate. She also got another plate with the large order of fries. She said the steak was excellent and was just like chicken-fried steak. Grandpa liked the Sirloin Tips and that was a big serving as well. BB's ribs were fantastic. Lots of meat, smoky-tasting, and literally falling off the bone. BB exclaimed, "Mom, these are the best ribs I've ever tasted," and we had to agree. Grandpa decided he would get the ribs next time. My food was good as well. The house salad was so generous that I passed the rest onto BB as I didn't want to get too full. The loaded potato was cheesy and bacony and oh-so-good. The filet looked absolutely tiny especially sitting next to the baked potato but it was done perfectly and actually filled me up. It was pretty thick so that must have been why.

Texas Roadhouse is family-friendly and a good value for the money. We will definitely come back (ya'll).

Restaurant Review - American Pie Pizza Company, 336 Moore Road, Ocoee, FL

Kid's Night Review: I like American Pie Pizza Company as they have lots on the menu that the whole family likes and it is not your typical pizzeria/Italian menu. Sure, you'll find the pizzas, wings, and calzones, but they come in unusual flavors such as the Ranchkin Calzone (one of my favorites) that comes with chicken, bacon, mozzarella, tomato and ricotta and is served with a side of ranch for $8.29. But, I'm here to talk about their Monday night Kids Night. Just by pure luck, Hubby had a work appointment on Monday night and the boys and I decided to go to American Pie (I had no idea it was Kids Night.) I found out that Kids get a free kids pizza for every adult entree ordered so I paid for one of the kids' pizzas ($4.25) -- still sounds good to me! For myself, I ordered the Greek Salad ($7.69), and ordered each boy the kid's pizza -- cheese for LB and black olive for BB. They actually have Cheese or Pepperoni as the kid options but BB asked for black olive instead and the counter order girl said sure. She handed me the large number to put at our table so the runners could find us with our order.

The boys had already run off to choose our booth based on the PS2 game that is featured. Each booth in the restaurant has an associated small flat-screen TV that plays a certain PS2 game. You can get the controllers just by giving your driver's license and then the kids can play while you are waiting. It can get pretty crowded on some nights and sometimes we don't get a booth, much to BB's chargrin, but since it was a Monday night (and, smartly, kid's night when a restaurant tries to get more people to come in) the boys had their pick. The boys started to play a PS2 wave runner game while I went up to get the drinks.

I wasn't interested in the PS2 game, so I watched the music videos that are featured on other large-screen TVs hung all around the restaurant. I watched a few songs by Daughtry and Matchbox 20 when one of the runners came by with a 3-cup holder for each of the boys. BB's had a cup with pizza sauce, another with cheese and the third with sliced black olives, while LB's had just the pizza sauce and cheese. He also brought a small round flat with raw flattened pizza dough on it. Huh? I asked what this was and he explained that on kid's night, kids get to make their own pizzas. Wow, cool! The boys were very excited and LB yelled out that he decided he wanted black olives, too. The runner said he would bring back another cup of olives. The boys had a lot of fun spreading the sauce carefully over the dough and then adding the olives and cheese. Well, BB was careful with it. LB was good with the sauce and then just dumped a pile of cheese and olives in the middle of his pie. Another runner came by and picked up the pies to take them to the oven. She offered to take away the cups as well but both boys decided they wanted to eat the rest of their toppings, including slurping up the sauce. Oh well, no harm in that. LB was very excited and claimed he couldn't wait for his pizza to come. In fact, they didn't even finish their PS2 game and just talked about their pizzas and what they thought they were going to look like and taste like. Hmm, I'll have to start having them help me in the kitchen with dinner!

A short while later, my Greek salad came. It was a generous portion with two garlic bread knots on the side topped with big pieces of garlic and Parmesan cheese. The salad itself had chopped tomatoes, chunks of feta cheese, a pile of pitted Kalamata olives, and the house dressing on the side (I asked for no onions). I had to share half of one of my garlic knots with the boys while they waited, impatiently, on their pizzas. Their pizzas arrived and the boys dug in. I really think making it themselves helped because they both polished off their entire pizzas. I guess pride of workmanship makes one hungry. My Greek salad was delicious as usual with the crisp veggies and the bitingly tangy dressing. I like to mix in the feta cheese with the dressing as it gives it more of a "Greek" taste that I like. It was too much for me (although I had no problem finishing the garlic knots) so BB offered to help me finish the last of the salad. It was a lot of fun, the kids were occupied and eager to eat, so I'll have to remember to come back the next time we are looking for a place to eat on a Monday night.

Restaurant Review - Chipotle, 10149 West Colonial Drive, Ocoee, FL

I decided to try Chipotle again, despite having a bad experience about 2 years ago at the Florida Mall location. Why was it bad? I found that most of Chipotle's food was very spicy and that there was no children's menu even though Chipotle was started by McDonald's and was a fast-casual restaurant. However, a new Chipotle opened in Ocoee and, they sent me a free burrito coupon in the mail.

Unfortunately, nothing has changed at Chipotle since my previous experience. I knew I was in trouble when I looked up at the menu board upon entering and still saw no children's menu. As I waited in line to get to the counter, I quickly scanned the menu for something my kids could eat. BB announced that he wanted a beef taco while LB said he just wanted beef and cheese. The menu is very simple at Chipotle. All pricing is calculated by what kind of meat you want: chicken $5.70, steak $5.80, carnitas (pork) $5.85, barbacoa (shredded beef) $5.85, and vegetarian (guacamole and black beans) $5.25. Then, you choose how you want it: burrito with rice, beans, your chosen meat, salsa, cheese or sour cream; fajita burrito which is the same as the regular burrito except you substitute sauteed peppers and onions for the beans; burrito bol which is everything in a bowl instead of a tortilla; tacos - three soft or four crispy; or salad which is like the bol but on lettuce.

When I got to the front of the line, I asked if they had a children's menu. The server handed me a card that said "Parent's Menu" which was not a good sign. Here is what it said, "We don't really have a kids' menu, but we'll put together anything your child will eat. Just gaze down our serving line, look at the ideas below, and then get creative." Listed below were ideas such as quesadillas, single tacos, bols, and chips & guacamole. By the way, none of these items had prices by them and most of them are not on the menu. It also had a "heat index" that showed that the ONLY items on the menu that were not at all spicy were the pork, rice, beans, and chips. Wow, so most of the menu items are spicy. Next up on the heat scale was the chicken, shredded beef, and, get this, mild salsa (!). So I guess the mild salsa isn't that mild! I asked how much a single taco was and the cashier said they were $1.95. BB came over to me at this point and reminded me he wanted a beef taco. I told him he couldn't because the steak was one of the spiciest things on the menu. This started an argument between me and my 8-year-old and I finally told him we were getting this all to go and that he would be happy with a chicken taco (they had run out of the mild pork and were making more but it wasn't done yet). Next, I had to figure out what to get my youngest one. I decided to get him a children's bol as it had suggested on the "Parent's Menu". I asked the cashier how much those were. She replied that they didn't really have children's bols - she would just ring up everything I chose as a side dish. This was getting more and more complicated and I could tell the crowd behind me was giving me looks so I just said, "Fine, we'll just have a side order of rice and black beans." As the server opened up the rice cover, I knew I was in trouble. The rice is actually cilantro rice and has strips of shredded cilantro all throughout. I knew my picky eater would never eat that and asked if I could get plain rice without the cilantro. The server called over to the cook in the back to make the plain rice. I quickly decided on a chicken burrito for me with rice, black beans, cheese, mild salsa, and sour cream.

As the server was packaging up our order to go, I asked the cashier some other prices for all of you readers. A side order of rice or beans is 65 cents. A small cheese quesadilla is 85 cents (I assume on a taco tortilla) while a large quesadilla is $2.25. I also decided to get an order of guacamole and chips ($2.25) with our order. Heading out of the restaurant, I noticed that the decor looks the same as the Florida Mall location with corrugated steel and light woods everywhere. However, there were also quite a lot of the very high tables with high stools that had no foot rests - another thing that wasn't very kid-friendly, I thought.

When we got home and unpacked the food, I discovered that they had forgot to add the beans to the serving of plain white rice for LB. Luckily, he decided he wasn't that hungry when we got home so I just made him mac-n-cheese. BB attempted to eat his chicken taco and finally had to ask for milk to cool down his mouth. I tried my chicken burrito and I couldn't even finish it since it was so spicy hot. I can't imagine how hot the other meats are if the chicken was this hot and it was supposed to be one of the least spicy. Also, we found out that guacamole was very spicy as well and the chips were over-salted. I looked closely and saw that they had used sea salt flakes on the chips, that's probably why they tasted so salty.

All in all, I had a very bad family food experience at Chipotle. If you take your kids there on a regular basis, please let me know what you order for them because I can't figure out anything that my kids will like there. I'm probably not going back.

Restaurant Review: Ginza Japanese Steak & Sushi Bar, W. Colonial Drive, Ocoee, FL

My oldest son (BB) has been begging to go back to the restaurant "where they make the food in front of you" so this past weekend, we did a mother-son solo dinner at Ginza Japanese Steak & Sushi Bar restaurant in Ocoee, FL. This is one of those Japanese Hibachi steakhouses where the chefs become the show and chop and cook your stir-fry dinner right in front of you at a large steel cook surface surrounded by seating on one side. Ginza also has a sushi bar area at the front of the restaurant, which is where Hubby and I go for sushi occasionally when we don't have the kids, but with kids you can't beat the dinner show at the back of the restaurant. As a "party of two", I knew we would be seated with other diners as the hibachi tables hold eight people a piece. We were seated with a family of six that had just sat down, which was good so we all ordered together. On a previous occasion, our family of four had to wait a bit until they seated another couple with us before our chef came out to start our dinner. If you happen to have a party of eight, you've got a full table and are ready to go. The hibachi dinners range in price from $12.95 for chicken to over $30 for filet and seafood. However, these are FULL dinners. They come with an light onion broth soup, a salad with ginger dressing, a grilled shrimp appetizer (you get two shrimp - kid dinners get one), fried rice, noodles, stir-fried veggies, and your chosen meal. Kids' hibachi dinners start at $7.95 for chicken and then go up accordingly. From what I can tell, they only get slightly less food than adults so we usually split one dinner between the two boys when they both come. The family of six sitting with us did the same - each adult ordered one dinner and then two kids dinners to feed the four kids. One warning when you do this, make sure you divvy up who is getting the soup and who is getting salad first - to avoid a fight later. The family next to us must be old pros at this restaurant, they knew to ask to substitute two soups for the two salads ensuring all four kids got a soup. BB chose the Shrimp dinner ($9.95) and I chose the Chicken. I figured Hubby would eat BB's leftover shrimps so I wasn't concerned. After we received our drinks (kids get theirs in a styrofoam cup with lid and straw), the soups came. This is a very light onion broth with a few mushrooms, scallions, and fried onions thrown in. All the kids at the table ate it, including BB. LB loves it too so it is a real kid-pleaser. One thing, if your child still sits in a high chair, like the youngest of our neighbor family, just be careful with the soup - the high chairs are actually a little lower than the hibachi table so they may need some help reaching their food. Next came the salad with creamy ginger dressing. BB ate it up as he likes ginger but the other kids at our table didn't want to try it so it's not for everyone. I love the ginger dressing and even saved some of the leftover dressing for my meal. Then, the main event, our chef came out. He immediately interacted with the table and got the kids involved by asking questions and making (very) corny jokes. Even I had to chuckle at a few such as the "Japanese egg roll" where he rolled an egg along the cook surface and "hey, watch the butterfly" when he flipped a pat of butter into the middle of the table. All the kids just watched, fascinated, as he made our fried rice, noodles, and the rest of the meal, depositing big spatulas full of food onto everyone's plates when that particular food was complete. I've seen several of the different chefs here and they each have their own "schtick", all corny, but somewhat funny all the same. They even make it fun when they are cleaning up the workstation, getting huge billows of steam to rise up to the ceiling. So, be sure to remind your kids to eat, too, while they are watching the show. But the majority of the eating happens after your chef has left and you are staring at a veritable mountain of food on your plate. BB did pretty good, finishing about half of his meal. I did better, eating about three-quarters of my food. Ginza also provides two sauces to go with your meal - a broth-based ginger sauce and creamy sauce for the seafood. Most folks preferred the creamy sauce, as do I, pouring it over my rice and chicken. Yum! Service tends to get a little slow at the end of your meal and we had to wait for the check and to-go boxes. They also provide you with "dessert" -- which is really just three small pieces of canned pineapple -- although I don't know how you could be hungry after your huge meal. Ginza has good food for a reasonable price and a great show for kids. I highly recommend it.