Good Food, Good People

The last few lines of yesterday’s blog post were about restaurants visited in the past couple of days since arriving in Florida. Not to make it sound as though I’m doing a survey of central Florida restaurants, but this Monday found me in another couple of restaurants, one at lunch, another for dinner. The point of it being, today’s fare raised my overall opinion of restaurant quality in the area around Maitland, Altamonte Springs, Lake Mary and Winter Park.

I had some business at my bank in Lake Mary, and finishing that my banker-friend took me to lunch at a nearby bistro called Dexter’s. I ate a GREAT salad of mixed greens, asparagus, artichoke hearts and roasted new potatoes, but the name was so complicated I can’t remember it now—something about ‘cast iron skillet…salad.’ It is a very stylish place with a comfortable patio excellent for enjoying a glass of wine and people watching. There are three Dexter’s in the Orlando area.

For dinner, it was one of those all-you-can-eat restaurants called Golden Corral, and volume is the drawing card here. There is a wide selection of entrees, vegetables and side dishes, salads and desserts, all worth the price of $10.95, if not always dish by dish lip-smacking delicious. The steak and pulled pork were both excellent, as were the tacos I made at the salad bar. But for me, the best part of the experience was the waitress (self-service is the custom) named Legina, who must be one of the friendliest, most outgoing and helpful restaurant employees I’ve ever encountered. Were extravagance of no concern I would have tipped her a hundred dollars.

It was a good day for meeting kind and friendly people. After dinner I stopped at CVS Pharmacy for a couple of things and there met a Japanese employee (thirty years in the US) who was the hit of my day. She almost fell over the counter when I spoke Japanese to her. From that moment she lit up like a Christmas tree, chattering away in Japanese. One more special person in my day.