Best Calamari in Orlando

It's been a couple months since our last post but I promise you, we've got a valid excuse.  On April 13th, we welcomed our new baby girl Harlow Josephine to the world.  She is our first child and simply a delight to have around.   Needless to say, dining out will be a little tricky for us with a newborn to look after, but we're gonna do our best to keep the reviews coming and continue our search for the best calamari in central Florida.

Crap food but a Firkin good time!

Instead of making babies like the creator of this blog, my wife and I went out to make some noise at the bowling lanes at Firkin & Kegler. But before we started hurling balls down the lane we needed some high octaine grease energy.

With this post as evidence I found the perfect item to provide such energy. While the wife settled for some sausage pasta (top corner) I dove into the fried squid, for $8.95.

While the picture doesn't look half bad I must reveal the truth. First, you see that white space on the plate? The calamari actually took up that entire area, but as I took this picture it actually shrunk; similar to when you over cook something in the microwave. Second, it must have been cooked in the microwave because it was very dry and contained white areas that crunched like a thick and stale Tostitos chip. However, there were a few pieces that had a nice crunch and tender inside, but finding one was like panning for gold. While the lemon did add some color and intensify the flavor of my drink, it was the cocktail sauce that saved the day. Relentless dipping into the cocktail sauce provided the means to finish the dish!

After the meal we headed over to the lanes and had a Firkin good time! The best calamari has eluded us yet again!

This review is the result of quite a few recommendations to try a central florida franchise that goes by the name Broadway Ristorante & Pizzeria, or more commonly known as "Broadway Pizza."  We visited the one located on alafaya trail, just across the street from the University of Central Florida.  We were particularly interested in this place because of what we had heard about their "buffalo calamari", dipped in buffalo hot sauce and served with blue cheese.  Even though our main goal with this blog is to seek and find Orlando's best calamari in it's purest form, it's nice to try a new or different take on an old classic now and then.

As much as we love calamari, we do understand the health hazards of eating an overabundance of fried foods.  We like to think of it as an occasional treat, so that's why we feel it's so important to get the good stuff when we decide to indulge.  As much as we'd like to have a fresh review posted here  every couple of days, they will most likely be a little more spread out than that.  

Lisa Marie and I have both been "pescatarians" or "pesco vegetarians" for a little over a year now.  You may ask why there are two separate terms for this lifestyle, well I found out that many hardcore vegetarians may actually get offended by the phrase "pesco vegetarians" because it implies that it is a type of vegetarianism.

Personally, I've never found offending a vegetarian to be any real threat to my own safety or anyone else, but I guess I can understand their protest.  Simply put, we eat like vegetarians, but we also include fish or other invertebrate seafood in our diet.  I think if we tried hard enough, we could go 100% vegetarian, but giving up sushi and calamari, just doesn't seem to make life worth living!!

When making the lifestyle switch to a healthier vegetable based diet, you do find yourself exploring many new ideas for dinner and this happens to be one that we love.  I like to call it "calamari for vegetarians" because it reminds me of calamari, but is obviously quite different in taste and texture, but still very delicious.

It's actually fried Cauliflower.  Fried cauliflower is a middle eastern dish which as you may know, middle eastern cuisine is heavily rooted in vegetarian style cooking.  We've made this dish at home quite a few times and it never disappoints. Here is a recipe for fried cauliflower very similar to the one we use. Try it out, it's cheap, easy, healthy (even though it is fried), and very interesting....enjoy!

This review is a little off-beat from how they will typically be done for a couple reasons. It was kind of a surprise review if you will, since it wasn't really planned ahead. Lisa was on her way home from work Sunday night and decided she wanted to pick up an order of calamari along the way.

Keep in mind she is 6 months pregnant so her decision may have been triggered by someone else tugging at the old hunger strings! The other reason that this review is a little different is that we are doing it from home, so the presentation of the calamari won't be in it's best form and we take that into account during the review.

Thanks to those of you who have already emailed us with some great suggestions on places to try here in town. Some of you have some very interesting takes on how you like your calamari. One reader told us how he always demands that his calamari be tossed in buffalo sauce and served with blue cheese dressing just like chicken wings! We found that to be a very unique idea. Until we get more reviews up next week, we'll be adding little tidbits here and there, so in the meantime, here is yet another video clip of how to make your own delicious calamari at home. This one provided by expert village which has thousands if not millions of videos on how to do anything! enjoy and have a great weekend!