maduros on my mind

Current mood: hungry

Irish, Moroccan, French, Cuban, Polynesian.

With a friend, I accidentally began a quest to eat my way around the many restaurants in Orlando... and ultimately around the world (while remaining in a 30-mile radius).
Fast food from Japan, hummus amongst the arts (including a punked-out belly dancer). Even sushi. Yep, I tried it. And there is one thing I can say for certain about eating sushi - do NOT smell it.

And in the name of blog content, I'm going to start critiquing or reviewing each of the new places I try. Keeping in mind that I am certainly not a food critic, my tales will be based on personal taste and experiences in the eatery.

For my first report - Bongo's at Downtown Disney.

I had Bistec Empanizado, a lightly breaded Cuban style steak served with moro rice and sweet plantains.

The steak left a lot to be desired. Tough and chewy, tasteless.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was interesting. We sat by a double glass door leading to an outside dining patio. I found particular humor in witnessing the same server repeatedly push the locked door on trips in and out while cursing at himself for making the mistake again. Towards the end of our meal, a Latin band began performing in the dining room. Kinda fun... and fitting.

I've rushed through the details to get to the highlight of the evening...

The real story here... the sweet plantains. Four arrived, evenly spaced on my plate at 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 and 12:00. With very little curiosity, I tasted the rather unattractive brownish blob.
Holy freaking cow. My taste buds did a little dance. The plain-looking blob turned out to be a tender, sweet delight. The focus of my entire evening turned immediately to the fact that, sadly, there were only a pathetic four of these little blobs on my plate.

For the briefest of moments, I wondered what my friend might think if I reached over and stole the matching blobs from his plate.

Wowweee. I LOVE these things! Fully addicted.

I went home dreaming of sweet plantains. I woke up fantacizing about the next time I can get back over to Bongo's for more sweet plantains. Knowing it might be sometime, I searched online for a recipe. Hours later, I stood in the produce section of Publix ignorantly squeezing and smelling plantains in a vain attempt to choose the perfect ones. My first attempt at preparing the sweet dish? I'm still working on perfecting it, so I'd rather not mention the results of the first few attempts.

I can tell you this - I WILL be back at Bongo's. Perhaps just for a lemonade and an order of maduros... or two or three.