Category: Personal
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 344 – Matteo’s
Since moving to Orlando, I’ve been passively searching for a decent Italian restaurant. I was once recommended to Fresco, a surprisingly good restaurant for being stuck next to Kmart in the corner of a dark shopping plaza on Turkey Lake Rd. Well now we stumbled upon Matteo’s on International Drive, down the road from the Festival Bay Mall. It took over the former Whistle Junction spot about a year ago, but we hadn’t heard of it until this weekend, after spotting it while heading to the nearby Disney Character Warehouse outlet store.
As it turns out, Matteo’s is excellent, serving HUGE family style portions for a very reasonable price. They offer “half” portions as well, for an even more reasonable price, and even those dishes are enough to bring home plenty of leftovers.
My meal started with a good, but not great, cup of pasta fagioli soup, and Michelle had an excellent caprese salad, with fresh mozzarella and a rich balsamic glaze. Michelle’s dinner was equally good, a variation on chicken parmesan but with eggplant layered in as well. I know it was good because I ate the remaining half of it for dinner the next night. I tried one of Matteo’s specialities, veal layered with cheese, mushrooms, and a marsala sauce. I forget what name they gave it, but it was excellent (and was my lunch the next day).
We were stuffed and opted against dessert, but after chatting with the restaurant’s owners/managers for quite a while (very nice guys from New York), they offered a free cannoli to go, which we gladly accepted. And it was delicious, once we had the room for it a bit later.
I’ll definitely return to Matteo’s, not only for the good food, but also for the great people that work there. Despite its touristy surroundings, it’s a great restaurant for locals to enjoy.
Most surprisingly, they are technically a chain restaurant, with other locations in New York and elsewhere in Florida. But it’s all family-owned.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 343 – Cheese Fail
Last Christmas, Michelle gave me a cheese making kit. With this Christmas approaching, I finally got around to trying it out… and failing. My first attempt at making mozzarella at home resulted in a sloppy mess in a pot. But it was close! The curds formed and I was able to cut them, but they were far too weak to stay together. As soon as I tried to stir or spoon them, they fell apart. I know what I did wrong and will try again soon, hopefully with more success.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 342 – Art and Design
I returned to the Orange County Regional History Center for a special presentation by the Universal Orlando Art & Design team about how they take their ideas from concept to completion. It’s related to the exhibit that opened a couple weeks ago featuring their artwork from the last 10 years or so. It was an interesting and entertaining panel discussion followed by a Q&A session. (And you can watch the whole thing online, as I recorded it.)
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 341 – Absolutely Nothing
I got nothin’ to share. It was a completely ordinary day. I didn’t take any pictures. I didn’t do anything special. I didn’t even eat anything special. And, honestly, I’ve grown a bit tired of this whole daily photo thing. But since I’m down to the last few weeks, I’ll keep at it ’til 2011 is over. But today, I got nothin’, so here’s a big black box to represent it.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 340 – O Second Christmas Tree
Other than Michelle’s still-in-the-box pink Christmas tree, we finished decorating our house for the holiday with lighting and putting ornaments on our tall artificial tree. When we bought it a few years ago, it had strands of white and multi-colored lights permanently attached, which was wonderful… until they stopped working. Then we had to cut them off, branch-by-branch, and now we just wrap the tree in lights like any other Christmas tree. But I still have the ability to turn on either the colored, white, or both strands, though I generally leave them both on. These lights are LED, so they should last quite a while. And they’re remote controllable. High tech Christmas.
