Best Off-Site Restaurant's Thread

[castlegazer]

Dux at the Peabody Hotel on I-Drive is by far one of my favorie restaurant experiences whenever I am in town.
http://www.peabodyorlando.com/asp/vgT_f_b_wine_dine2.asp?page=BarsRestaurants&restaurant=dux

 

[tednvon]

Hello....here is my vote for Shell's on 192 east of Disney...Free peanuts, cold beer and excellent sea food for a great price...Ted

 

[kylara]

Mine are all over the Orlando area since I am a local.

For chain resturants:

Perkins - love the bread bowl salads
Orlando Ale House
Panera Bread - great soups, salads, and sandwiches


Local:

Pannullos - but it is up in Winter Park
O-Boys Bar-B-Q - it is the best, but again it is in WP
Boston Fish House - again in WP
The Melting Pot - located on Sand Lake
Amalfis - great Italian over in NE Orlando area
La Forcetta's - in Kissimmee (on S. John Young) Italian
Tarantino's - in Kissimmee - another Italian place

 

[Gretchen]

We have only eaten at a few:
Liked: Perkins at the Crossroads. Good regular food at a good price, really nice people working there. Chevy's at the Crossroads. Incredible mexican food, even the chicken tenders for the kids were good. Service was the best. Did I say I loved the food?

Yuck: Jungle Jims at the Crossroads. Expensive horrid food. Service was ok, nice waiter. Did I say the food was horrid? Bleah!
That's it!
Gretchen

 

[vald1977]

What a good idea for a thread.

Favorites: Giordano's. Great food and great prices. I would go there again. Red Lobster at Crossroads. Very good food and sevice. I would go there again.

Okay: Jungle Jim's. I thought it was just okay, nothing special.

Luckily, we didn't have any really bad eating experiences.

Next trip I would love to try steak n' shake and sonic.

 

[maciec]

Keep the votes coming in please!

 

[ncbyrne]

SONNY76 - Can you please give more information on the location of the "all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet"? Was it a BONANZA restaurant, that also offered breakast as well as dinner buffet? What was it near? I did a search for all area restaurants and came up blank. This sounds great for our next trip, but we don't want to drive up and down I Dr until we find it!

 

[trola2]

We loved TONY ROMA'S on our last trip. (we ate there twice!) and we will definitely be eating there next weekend! Also Bennigans has always been good. Pizzareia Uno, Macaroni Grill, and even Red Lobster. Bennigans has to be the best as far as reasonable prices, and I think Tony Roma's follow that by a close second.

 

[leanne11]

We woke up at HRH went to brkfst. at the hotel rest. $15.95 a-peice for the buffet. when i got the bill for 4 of us i died, it's just eggs and no characters, so i complained and they told me to take my car and make a left at the front of the hotel univ. blvd. and were they right.....we found a Bonanza (don't worry they are on every corner) for $2.99 and i paid $15.00 for all 4 of us, same food eggs and bacon..........loved it and we went back for dinner i think it's about $6.99 .....also try Golden Corral (also in every strip mall) on Fri. they have a steak on the buffet for $7.99. i also saw alot of sizzler's though i heard they might not be as clean...oh..also attached to the Bonanza was a cheap souveneir shop, i mean cheap they will give you a coupon for the store, we saw gifts, mugs, and shirts in the parks for 3x's as much and they were here..i think it was a bargain world...

 

[jx3smom]

Our favorite off site places are:

1. Bahama Breeze-we go there every trip and LOVE the place.
2. Romano's Macaroni Grill-we just discovered it a few trips ago and we're looking forward to dining there again in April.
3. We always stop at a Cracker Barrel on our trip to WDW. We've driven down 12 of the 14 times we've been there.

We haven't been to the Crab House in many years but we used to like that, too.

 

[Snoopymom]

Not much to add, but I looooove the apple margaritas and salsa at Chevys and there's an English Pub called The Fox and Hound way down on I92 that has the best pints, chips and beef stew. It's small and smokey though.

 

[Sonny76]

Last year our hotel was down by Wet & Wild. After eating their breakfast we left for the parks. The Bonanza All You Can Eat Breakfast Buffet was on the left hand side on our way to the park down International Drive. The place was on I-Drive.
Anyway, I am hoping it is still there because it was wonderful! There were alot of choices, from biscuits and gravy to pancakes, plus sas.-bacon, all kinds of fruits etc. We ate at that place every day for the rest of our stay.
We filled up on the buffet and it lasted us until late afternoon. We tried other places for dinner on I-Drive that had buffets also and I didn't find a bad one. We saved alot on the food bill.
Just remember to put soda in your room at the hotel instead of paying $2.50 for a can of coke. We did that also since we are soda drinkers.
Hope you werent waiting long for the reply. I just saw this.

 

[trola2]

I posted a week or so ago about Tony Romas and how much we enjoyed it on our December trip. Because of that it was on our list for this past weekend. I do have to say that if this recent experience had been our first visit, we would not have gone there again. The service was terribly slow. I had a sick child and requested a plain baked potato ASAP and it came fully loaded with our meal. The appetizers that were ordered never arrived, all the drinks were wrong and they even gave us the wrong change!! I"m sure a lot of that can be linked back to a bad server. Maybe he was new?? But, regardless, it won't be at the top of our list for our next trip. I just wanted to update since I had given a glowing report before.

Thank you for reading.

 

[KCMiller]

We ate at a few places off site on our last trip, with gift certificates I had bid for on Ebay - I paid $1.24 for a $25 GC for a breakfast restaurant called Le Peep, and had the best breakfast EVER - the restaurant was a little out of the way, though. Not hard to find, and if you were headed out of town going east on 4 like us, not a big deal. We also scored a $25 GC for $1.47 to a Cuban restaurant called Havana's #1 - it was incredible. I love Cuban food, and there's not an overabundance of that in central Ohio . It was an outstanding meal.

You have to do some due diligence to use the GC's wisely - you have to be willing to go somewhere unfamiliar, and maybe take a look at a map before you bid - but I love an adventure!

KC

 

[ardac]

I will be staying at Disney all star movies this spring, and am wondering how easy it will be to access offsite dining....I understand there are restaurants etc where the maingate hotels etc are and the crossroads area..........I will not have a car, but will take a taxi or take the disney transportation to the closest disney drop offs. How much is cab fare in the area>??..I have never been and have no clue how big the area actually is!

 

[akur]

Whenever I go, I try to eat at Yoji's (Japanese) on 192. They have good food and early bird specials. I use to love going to the Black Angus (10 years ago, when there was only one), but last time I was there I was dissapointed. I'd love to try the Colorado Mining Factory in Casselberry, but I've never had the time to drive up there. My brother loves Carrabas (but that's a chain). I also like Sam Seltzer's and Shells, but they're also far away. I also like China Jade Mongolian (near Florida Mall).

 

[akur]

Whenever I go, I try to eat at Yoji's (Japanese) on 192. They have good food and early bird specials. I use to love going to the Black Angus (10 years ago, when there was only one), but last time I was there I was dissapointed. I'd love to try the Colorado Mining Factory in Casselberry, but I've never had the time to drive up there. My brother loves Carrabas (but that's a chain). I also like Sam Seltzer's and Shells, but they're also far away. I also like China Jade Mongolian (near Florida Mall).

 

[maciec]

I can't believe how many positive experiences people have had dinning out. I thought for sure that the bad would out-weigh the good. Boy was I fooled.

Melissa

 

[Razor Roman]

Originally posted by ardac
I will be staying at Disney all star movies this spring, and am wondering how easy it will be to access offsite dining....I understand there are restaurants etc where the maingate hotels etc are and the crossroads area..........I will not have a car, but will take a taxi or take the disney transportation to the closest disney drop offs. How much is cab fare in the area>??..I have never been and have no clue how big the area actually is!

If you take a bus to Downtown Disney/Pleasure Island you might be able to walk (it would be a bit of a hike) to the Crossroads shopping center, where Chevy's and Perkins are... taxi is more likely. There are alot of resturaunts right there alone 535, so you could get to the Ale House, Bennigan's, etc. 535 has a lot of restauraunts on it.

 

[PrincessTanyuhKaypoo]

We are always in Orlando and I just wanted to add a couple that hadn't been listed:

My absolute favorite place to eat in Orlando is Kobe Japanese Steak House- while we usually go to the one on Kirkman we have eaten at the one by DTD and it was just as good! We don't like to be sat with other people but it's never been a problem here! This one is a drive but we had a great meal at Smoky Bones BBQ on Colonial I believe. It's a BBQ and Sports Bar- think Wilderness Lodge meets ESPN Club! Also we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress recently and had vouchers for the breakfast buffet in the food court- it was a little weird at first but once we figured out there system it was great! The french toast was excellent as was everything else we ate. I'm not sure about the value though, the vouchers didn't have a price or anything but for us it was great! As far as Tony Roma's goes- there is one over by the International Airport and we have eaten there quite a few times and always had a fantastic meal, but the one on I- Drive has been less than stellar.

Tanya