Exploring The Villages: Local Restaurants and Dining Delights

Exploring The Villages: Local Restaurants and Dining Delights

Exploring Central Florida's Dining Scene - Episode 6

In this episode of Mature Adults with Donna and Mike, the hosts discuss the restaurant scene in and around The Villages, Florida. They share their insights on the varying quality of food and service at the many country club restaurants in the area, and highlight some of their favorite dining spots. The episode covers a wide range of dining experiences from casual to upscale, including Japanese, Italian, and classic American cuisine. They also talk about the unique features of some local eateries, such as special requests for pizza crusts, memorable waitstaff encounters, and the importance of fresh ingredients. By the end of the episode, you'll have a comprehensive guide to the best places to eat in Central Florida.

00:00 Introduction to Mature Adults Podcast
00:57 Exploring Central Florida Restaurants
01:04 Country Clubs in The Villages
03:23 Dining Experiences and Service Quality
06:16 Favorite Local Eateries
09:32 Memorable Waitstaff and Service
11:35 Special Occasions and Fine Dining
12:40 Turner's and Local Sourcing
14:04 Booking Challenges at Popular Restaurants
14:36 Exploring the Rose Plantation in Fruitland Park
16:04 Dining at The Oaks and Other Local Favorites
16:58 Chain Restaurants and Fast Food Options
17:33 Seafood and Italian Dining Experiences
20:48 Chinese Food in The Villages
22:48 Culver's and Other Unique Eateries
23:13 Kosher Style Delis and New York Comparisons
24:11 Concluding Thoughts on Local Dining

Transcript

Exploring The Villages: Local Restaurants and Dining Delights

[00:00:00] Mike: Welcome to Mature Adults with Donna and Mike, the podcast where wisdom meets curiosity and life's next chapter is celebrated. 

[00:00:17] Donna Hoover: Whether you're navigating retirement, pursuing new passions, or simply looking for a fresh perspective. This is a place to embrace the beauty of aging and discover all the opportunities that come with it.

[00:00:30] Mike: Join us twice a month as we explore topics that matter to mature adults from health and wellness, to travel, finance, real estate, storytelling, and many more. Together, let's redefine what it means to thrive at this exciting stage of life.

[00:00:48] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth and 

[00:00:49] Donna Hoover: Donna Hoover, 

[00:00:50] Mike Roth: and we're here on mature adults. This should be episode number six. 

[00:00:55] Donna Hoover: Okay. 

[00:00:56] Mike Roth: And today we're gonna be talking about restaurants. Here in and around The Villages, Florida. So we're talking about Central Florida restaurants, and the first thing or comment that I'd like to make is the difference in nomenclature about restaurants here versus other places.

The Villages, they must have 15 different country clubs. And each one seems to have their own restaurant, which is open to the public. And the connotation of country club and restaurant is, to me, living in other parts of the country and working all over the country meant that you were going to a first class place all the way.

[00:01:38] Donna Hoover: It's very different here. It's very different there. The standards are a little bit looser. 

[00:01:44] Mike Roth: I'd say a lot lower for most of the country clubs.

[00:01:47] Donna Hoover: Yes 

[00:01:47] Mike Roth: .In Cincinnati, I was a member of the Banker's Club, and it was on the top of the Fifth Third Bank it downtown. So it didn't have a golf course associated with it, but it had first class dining meeting rooms and the staff was exceptionally attentive.

Great waiters and waitresses, and the chefs were fantastic. No other way to describe it. And it was a real treat to go up there and have a meal, whether it was lunch or dinner. They even served breakfast, in my mind we're crazy enough to be downtown Cincinnati at seven in the morning.

The breakfast were great too. But the connotation of country club here in The Villages isn't the same at all. I'm not sure if any of 'em actually serve breakfast anymore. 

[00:02:30] Donna Hoover: I have a first question I ask is these are not, country clubs that are only for villagers, right? So anyone from anywhere can come in and go to them. 

[00:02:41] Mike Roth: Right?

There's no residency required. They don't check IDs. 

[00:02:45] Donna Hoover: So therefore, the concept of a country club has already been obliterated with that. 

[00:02:50] Mike Roth: But they put the name in. 

[00:02:52] Donna Hoover: Yes. 

[00:02:52] Mike Roth: And. That is a misfit as far as I'm concerned. 

[00:02:56] Donna Hoover: They want you to feel fancy when you're going out. 

[00:02:58] Mike Roth: They tend to all have a bar.

Which is nice. And they tend to have a view of the golf course or the putting greens, which is nice. A few of them have excellent food. 

[00:03:08] Donna Hoover: Yes. 

[00:03:09] Mike Roth: I've enjoyed the food over the Havana Country Club. And 

Nancy Lopez Glenview, especially on their steak night, which unfortunately is Monday night the same night as we have Improv.

So I haven't been able to enjoy that a lot. I do enjoy steak, but the, many of the others are a little bit rundown, a little bit lacking in terms of service. And I guess the word that I would use to describe it is inconsistent. 

[00:03:36] Donna Hoover: Do you happen to know if they are individually owned or owned by a group or it's different?

[00:03:42] Mike Roth: Some groups own multiple properties and other groups just own one, I believe. But I believe it's all moving towards one of two groups that own most of those restaurant properties and. The quality of food tends to vary all over the place. 

[00:03:59] Donna Hoover: Yes. And service I can attest to. Yeah, varies. 

[00:04:03] Mike Roth: If we go in with the Mercedes Club, which we've done with more than 20 people some places force us to order, have our people order off a fixed menu.

And the English translation of that fixed menu is they pre-prepare the meals, put 'em in the freezer. And then they reheat 'em as people order them. 

[00:04:23] Donna Hoover: Is that right? 

[00:04:24] Mike Roth: Yeah. Very disappointing food. 

[00:04:27] Donna Hoover: Now wait, so if you go in with a club at 

[00:04:29] Mike Roth: certain places, venues, 

[00:04:30] Donna Hoover: They're going to make you order 

[00:04:33] Mike Roth: From a fixed menu.

[00:04:34] Donna Hoover: And what would be the reasoning behind that? 

[00:04:36] Mike Roth: Oh, that's the only way we can accommodate serving 20 people all at the same time or 30 people all at the same time. 

[00:04:42] Donna Hoover: I see 

[00:04:43] Mike Roth: That kitchen staff is unable to make that many. Custom meals seems to be something wrong with that. But even in that scenario, when we go into some of the finer country clubs it's guaranteed that it will be a two hour meal, maybe a little bit longer than that.

[00:04:59] Donna Hoover: Now, are you in favor of that or not ?

[00:05:01] Mike Roth: Fixed menu 

[00:05:02] Donna Hoover: No. The two hour meal. 

[00:05:04] Mike Roth: I wouldn't mind an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and a half, but two hours gets to be too long. 

[00:05:10] Donna Hoover: It's a little bit like that, when you go to Italy, but I can say that we did go to Arnold Palmer. Not that long ago. It was a ladies gathering on a Monday and there was a special that day and it was buy one get one free for lunch.

That is a crazy day to go there. Because everybody comes for the buy one, get one free lunch. Therefore they are incredibly busy and overrun and you'll be there a minimum of two hours. And some change. 

[00:05:44] Mike Roth: And in my business life, if I was gonna take a, prospective client out to a restaurant.

And before the days of, drinking at lunch, were outlawed. We had a couple of drinks before lunch. There's nothing wrong with a two hour meal or two and a half hour meal because it was a business meeting but in The Villages, probably more than half of the people.

Don't order an alcoholic beverage before the meal. And they just want their meal brought out, served and get in and get out, so to speak. We did a meal last night at Kumo, the Japanese restaurant, 

Kuma. 

[00:06:21] Mike Roth: Yes. And we had, I guess it was 10 people we got in and outta that place in. An hour.

[00:06:29] Donna Hoover: Their service is remarkable there. And the food is very good as well. Yeah. 

[00:06:33] Mike Roth: We go in late about eight 30 and the service was remarkable. The food is very good. It's not the best Japanese food I've ever had in my life, but it is very good. 

[00:06:42] Donna Hoover: It is very good. 

[00:06:43] Mike Roth: Okay. There's a large variety and we get to order of anything in the menu.

And they have an extensive menu, which is nice. Other places. 

[00:06:52] Donna Hoover: And Kumos is down by Rohan Rec Center. 

[00:06:54] Mike Roth: They're on Kristine Way and they serve very good Japanese food. Okay. I'm not even gonna say style food because it's really. Tastes Japanese. 

[00:07:05] Donna Hoover: Yes. And then right down the way from there, if you're, I don't know if you're still talking about there, right down from there is Piesano's. 

[00:07:13] Mike Roth: That's, it's probably the best

Marinara sauce restaurant. That I've ever tasted, including all my years in New York and working all over the country. 

[00:07:23] Donna Hoover: That is saying something. I find it very enjoyable as well. And I can say one thing. My husband and I had this rivalry about what was the best pizza back where we lived in California and.

We could never agree never agree. And then we came here and went and had pizza at Pizano and it was the first time that we, really both found what we were looking for in a pizza at the same place at the same time. So that was really 

[00:07:51] Mike Roth: Piesano makes many different styles of pizza.

Their standard pizza has a softer crust and the way you grow up. In New York eating pizza is by taking a slice out, folding in half and eating it that way, but you need a more well done crust. And so I discovered I could ask the people at Paizano to give me a New York style crust. 

[00:08:17] Donna Hoover: Really?

[00:08:18] Mike Roth: And they do. It's excellent. Excellent. I don't think I've ever had anything bad there. 

[00:08:23] Donna Hoover: No. Neither have I and we have tried the pastas, the pizza. The salads. 

[00:08:28] Mike Roth: The salads are excellent. I love their Greek salad. Absolutely phenomenal. Actually when it first opened, before it opened, I was part of their test marketing, but, for a soft opening.

So I'm driving by the place. And in my golf cart, and some guy is standing on the sidewalk in front of it, says, Hey, come on in for lunch. It's free. 

[00:08:48] Donna Hoover: And they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. What? So 

[00:08:51] Mike Roth: I stopped the golf cart, hadn't had lunch, went in and I had a fantastic meal. It was the first time I had their garlic bread where it's put in like a garlicy syrup and it's a nice, fresh piece of bread.

And I loved it. I just loved it. And, been going there ever since they opened. 

[00:09:09] Donna Hoover: And I love that there's a choice because as you said, they serve the rolls and it has like a garlic, Italian kind of dressing in a sense. Over it. And so they're very, they're wet rolls, but then they also have the same rolls without anything on it, and they serve with butter.

And that tends to be my preference. A little bit of a purist on my rolls. But anyway either way. They have both. And then the service there has been pretty good too. And in particular Michelle. 

[00:09:38] Mike Roth: Oh, what a waitress she is. 

[00:09:40] Donna Hoover: What a waitress she is. If you can ask for her, get Michelle. She's wonderful.

[00:09:44] Mike Roth: We'd go in there and with 15 to 20 people from the improv and she would come around the table and she'd remember you and say, oh, yeah. You were drinking the the dosis and you were having the Heineken double zero. She would remember what everyone was drinking and then she'd go around from 

[00:10:02] Donna Hoover: pre, from a previous time, from a 

[00:10:03] Mike Roth: previous visit.

Yes. Then she'd go around and talk to everyone and get your order. But she wrote nothing down. And she'd come back with your order 20 minutes later, whatever it takes to the kitchen to make it. And the orders are always right. 

[00:10:15] Donna Hoover: Yes. Yeah. I find it quite amazing. And she, like you said, she'll remember you from a month ago.

Or longer perhaps. And she'll know what you ordered back then. And if and she'll remind you. Do you still want the. Meatballs, do you still want whatever it was? And yeah. And she doesn't make mistakes. It's pretty incredible. 

[00:10:34] Mike Roth: She's an incredible person. On the other end of the scale we'll talk about a a waitress in Pinellas Plaza in a I'm gonna call it a hamburger joint there.

And we went in with Rotary Club. So we went in with 15 or 20 people and. One of the ladies came in a little bit late and she said to everyone, oh, I wanna sit next to Sally. Could everyone move around so I could get in there? And so everyone was very gracious and moved around. The waitress had just taken our order, comes back, looks at us, looks at our order, and breaks down into tears.

[00:11:07] Donna Hoover: No? 

[00:11:08] Mike Roth: Yes. 

[00:11:09] Donna Hoover: Because she needed to know who would sit in what seat to give you the right food. 

[00:11:13] Mike Roth: And yeah, she had no idea. 

[00:11:14] Donna Hoover: Oh, at that point you can just ask who had the yeah. 

[00:11:18] Mike Roth: So she eventually calmed down. I think we got the order, but, 

[00:11:20] Donna Hoover: oh my, 

[00:11:21] Mike Roth: That, that might be a test for Michelle Sometime we let her take our orders and change our seats.

[00:11:26] Donna Hoover: Hey, I don't wanna, I don't wanna mess with her. She's golden. Yeah, 

[00:11:29] Mike Roth: She's, she is golden. She is golden. And we do have some good restaurants here in The Villages. The Chop House in. Like Sumter Landing, never disappoints on food or service. 

[00:11:40] Donna Hoover: We recently went there on our 25th anniversary.

And enjoyed a very nice meal and they give you a choice. When it's a special occasion, they'll give you some champagne or a dessert. Yeah, it's very, that's a nice, yeah. 

[00:11:53] Mike Roth: And that gets to the level of the service from a private club where they wouldn't know your birthday. Today's Kay's birthday, so Oh, really?

We're going out dinner to, in Leesburg to a a relatively new restaurant called Prime Three. It's primarily a steakhouse. It's owned by, I believe, three doctors. One is always. In attendance and they have a nice little bar but it's smaller than the country club bars. 

[00:12:18] Donna Hoover: And you've eaten there 

[00:12:19] Mike Roth: before? Yes.

Before, yes. We've gone with friends and their food was, a scale of one to 10. Someplace between a nine and a 10, maybe a nine and a half. 

Wow. 

[00:12:30] Mike Roth: Okay. Excellent service. Great food. Nice atmosphere right in the heart of downtown Leesburg. 

[00:12:37] Donna Hoover: Very nice. So 

[00:12:38] Mike Roth: I've enjoyed that place 

[00:12:39] Donna Hoover: there.

There's another too that we've been to called Turner's. Have you 

[00:12:43] Mike Roth: been to Oh, yes, I've been to Turner's. 

[00:12:44] Donna Hoover: I enjoyed that. I'm not a big, what are they called? The hush puppies. I'm not a, they don't mean a lot to me. However, when you go there and order their hush puppies.

You're in another dimension. They have those specialized butters that are, have different flavors blended into them. And the hush puppies are not greasy at all. And I understand too they're very delicious. But I understand too, they were getting and I think they still get a lot of their food from The Villages.

From The Villages grown. 

[00:13:15] Mike Roth: Yes. They tend to get I'm gonna call it extremely fresh. Yes. Produce as well as meats. There's still a lot of cattle farms around here, dairy farms they have a more limited menu than some places. 

Yes. 

[00:13:29] Mike Roth: A little bit more limited than I'd like. And they have a service I'm gonna call it a guarantee.

It's not really a guarantee, but they have a far bigger place. Then the number of people they allow to make reservations. I don't, in most places you want to fill the place, the capacity to maximize your profit margin. Clearly turn is not doing that 

[00:13:53] Donna Hoover: right? They, it is 

[00:13:54] Mike Roth: to the capacity of their servers and the kitchen.

[00:13:57] Donna Hoover: Yes. I think that the sourcing of, the produce and the meats that they get is. Pretty good. As well as, like you said, the service is good due to the fact that they don't crowd the place out. 

[00:14:09] Mike Roth: We tried to book their place for the Mercedes Club in the wintertime where we have, 30 or 40 people want to go to a dinner and they wouldn't book it.

[00:14:16] Donna Hoover: Really? 

[00:14:17] Mike Roth: Yeah. They wouldn't take the reservation. Too many people. 

[00:14:20] Donna Hoover: How interesting. 

[00:14:21] Mike Roth: Several places have done that. But. That was surprising that they had the room for larger parties, but they don't book larger parties. 

[00:14:29] Donna Hoover: They don't have those little frozen packets in the freezer waiting to be reheated.

[00:14:33] Mike Roth: They're making, that's a, they're making it from scratch and using good product. 

Yeah. Let's talk about another good restaurant. It's in Fruitland Park. Just after where 466 A turns down to two lanes instead of four lanes. 

This place in Fruitland Park is called the Rose Plantation. 

[00:14:50] Donna Hoover: I love that place. 

[00:14:51] Mike Roth: Yes, ,it's a converted house. I guess they, they put a very nice sized dining room in, they have a little piano. They have a. Semi outside dining area under a cover. And then they 

[00:15:01] Donna Hoover: No, go ahead. I was gonna ask you when you said that, because the last time we went they were just building onto the back more so that you could sit outside.

[00:15:10] Mike Roth: Oh yes. Another porch. 

[00:15:12] Donna Hoover: And I didn't know the last time we went. It was not completed yet. 

[00:15:15] Mike Roth: Okay. I hadn't seen that. The last time we were there, they had some tables under oak trees out in front of the restaurant. 

[00:15:24] Donna Hoover: Okay. 

[00:15:25] Mike Roth: Okay. Very elegant place. Great food. Great desserts. Good service. 

[00:15:30] Donna Hoover: They also do the same where, you know, if you order two for one no, not two for one.

If you order a salad there, the lettuce is so incredibly fresh, you would swear they just picked it. Out of the garden. And then they make their own dressings from scratch. And I think some of their other things, some of the gravy and things, and I don't know if it's everything or just certain things, but it is definitely a higher caliber of quality.

[00:15:54] Mike Roth: Yeah. They used to have a Mat d head chef over there named Pauly, and when it was first opened he did a great job in there. Yeah. And then Pauley left and he opened his own place in the Continental Country Club on Route 44 called The Oaks. And it's a higher class restaurant and we've had a hard time getting the Mercedes-Benz Club in there ' cause he didn't want to give up that many seats.

But I think in August we have. 24 seats and we can order off of the full menu. 'cause he's got a great menu. 

[00:16:27] Donna Hoover: That's a win. 

[00:16:28] Mike Roth: Yeah. 

[00:16:28] Donna Hoover: Yeah. 

[00:16:29] Mike Roth: And they have a absolutely phenomenal key lime pie for dessert. 

[00:16:34] Donna Hoover: And does it have the graham cracker crust? Yes. 

[00:16:37] Mike Roth: The graham cracker crust. Okay. But then again, Piesano's has great desserts too.

They do. I went through a period where I ordered desserts instead of full meals there. And their terra musu was just wonderful and no other way to describe it. But, so we do have some good places here, in addition to the chains like. 

[00:16:58] Donna Hoover: There's two J's, that's two j's. There's a few of those. 

[00:17:01] Mike Roth: Yeah.

We have Red Lobster. 

[00:17:03] Donna Hoover: They have five guys, hamburgers that's all the way to California. We had that back there. 

[00:17:07] Mike Roth: Yeah. I 

[00:17:07] Donna Hoover: Panera. 

[00:17:08] Mike Roth: Yeah. I'm back on, on five guys. Oh, okay. Back to five guys. Because when I went in there and ordered a hamburger. And I don't remember what condiments I had on it, but I all I could remember when I ate it was, that was the way my mom made a hamburger.

Really? Yeah. The french fries were excellent too, but exceptionally filling. 

[00:17:27] Donna Hoover: Yes. 

[00:17:28] Mike Roth: So I avoid the french fries. And then from a seafood perspective. A few years ago, bluefin opened up a seafood restaurant in Brownwood, which was excellent. 

[00:17:39] Donna Hoover: Yes. 

[00:17:40] Mike Roth: And an Italian place opened up, what the heck is it called?

In Spanish Springs. 

[00:17:46] Donna Hoover: Yes. It took the place of another Italian place. And 

[00:17:50] Mike Roth: I 

[00:17:50] Donna Hoover: cannot remember the name of it either. 

[00:17:51] Mike Roth: 1812 House, Augustine House was the name of the one that it took the place of. But it's up there and they serve excellent food. So when we do a car show up at. Spanish Springs, from five to 9:00 PM we'll take an hour and a half out, have a dinner in the Italian restaurant up there.

So that, that's worthwhile. 

[00:18:12] Donna Hoover: I'm waiting to try that. We haven't been to it since it's been renamed and taken over. 

[00:18:16] Mike Roth: Oh, you'll really enjoy it. It's very good. The prices are high. Okay. But the service is high and the. Quality of the food is high. So it's a a restaurant that makes good sense.

The ones that don't make good sense are where the prices are moderate to moderately high, but the service is poor or the quality of the food is, there's a lot to be desired. 

[00:18:39] Donna Hoover: There, now you made me think about Meza, that's another Italian restaurant. Over in the Colony area. And their food is very good as well.

[00:18:47] Mike Roth: I would put them in the middle category. 

[00:18:49] Donna Hoover: Yeah. It's not, the old country clubs that we were talking about. No, it's not the old country clubs, 

[00:18:55] Mike Roth: but it's very good. It's, but it's not the Italian restaurant that I used to experience as a young guy in New York on Long Island.

It's missing something. 

[00:19:04] Donna Hoover: Yeah. New Yorkers have a very distinct preference, preferences for the things that they like for sure. 

[00:19:10] Mike Roth: If you're gonna order a Veal Marsala or Veal Piccata, the view is supposed to be hit with a hammer and softened up and thin, and they don't always do that.

Or they're buying the wrong cut of meat. But that brings us to. Wolfgang's, 

[00:19:24] Donna Hoover: oh, I have not been there yet 

[00:19:25] Mike Roth: at the Brownwood Hotel. Wolfgang Puck's Kitchen. 

[00:19:29] Donna Hoover: How is it? 

[00:19:30] Mike Roth: We've been eating in there three or four times. It's an excellent meal. It's a little pricey for what it is. A, a much more limited menu than I would've expected, but the food was very high quality.

And it's always got the. I'm gonna call the hoi polloy people there. Okay. The people who are staying in the hotel and want a little bit, something extra in terms of a meal. It's right across from Brownwood. So it's easy to get to plenty of parking. We've enjoyed several meals there.

[00:19:58] Donna Hoover: We've not eaten there. They had those in California as well, and I had been to one in Sacramento which was fine. That one in particular was nothing remarkable. But it was fine. I think it might've been different because the one that I went to back there was in a mall, and maybe it's a different level of quality.

[00:20:16] Mike Roth: Could be. The mall may dictate a different caliber of chef. 

[00:20:21] Donna Hoover: Perhaps. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't extremely. And here 

[00:20:24] Mike Roth: in The Villages we have some really nice if you like the Japanese Benihana style where they cook the food on a hot table in front of you and they throw the food up in the air and you open your mouth.

They land a piece of chicken or shrimp in your mouth. Yes. It's fun for an occasion. I, we took I took Steven there for his birthday a few years ago, my husband and it was very enjoyable. Yeah. And the food was good. 

Yeah, the food was good. Found generally disappointing was the Chinese food here.

I spent 15 years in LA and almost every Chinese restaurant there had it, a Chinese chef. It was just in from Hong Kong or Taiwan. And they didn't speak much English, but the service was great and the food was fantastic. And. I miss that here. 

[00:21:08] Donna Hoover: Yeah I'm not a big fan. I like the Chinese food taste wise, but generally speaking, because of a lot of sodium MSG, a lot of oils, it's just you can ask with 

[00:21:19] Mike Roth: no MSG.

[00:21:20] Donna Hoover: Yeah, you can ask. Good luck with that. 

[00:21:22] Mike Roth: I could feel MSG in my wrists. 

[00:21:25] Donna Hoover: What's interesting about it, and this should go on our health talk, but there are multitudes of names for MSG. Oh no. So even if they look on the label. And do you have MSG in your food? They're gonna say, no. Yeast extract is another name for M S G..

And it goes on from there. There are many names. So even if they showed you a label, which they probably won't, and they won't know, they'll just say, oh no, MSG. 

[00:21:51] Mike Roth: Okay. There's a place up on Wedgewood Lane, which I consider the best Chinese food in The Villages. It's called. The Kung Fu Chef.

It's not a fancy place. And it's a clear step above the the Chinese takeout kitchens that seem to be in every in every shopping mall or strip center here. And they serve a higher quality food, good quantity, fast service. And always felt that was fair. But we don't have much of the exotic, Chinese food.

If you go in and you want to have a baked Beijing Duck you have to order it yesterday. 

[00:22:27] Donna Hoover: Oh. 

[00:22:27] Mike Roth: Takes a while to prepare. 

[00:22:29] Donna Hoover: Yeah, true. 

[00:22:30] Mike Roth: Or bring it in from someplace else. 

[00:22:32] Donna Hoover: What is the one called the Panda? Panda Express. 

[00:22:35] Mike Roth: Panda Express. Yeah. 

[00:22:36] Donna Hoover: That one I don't think is way up there. 

[00:22:38] Mike Roth: No that's way, that's to me it's way at the bottom.

Yeah. If you absolutely have to have a fast meal. 

[00:22:44] Donna Hoover: And it has to be Chinese. Oh, 

[00:22:45] Mike Roth: there's nothing better than Panda Express. Then we'll get, then we're down to the level of Culver's. Why would you cook a hamburger with butter on it? 

[00:22:54] Donna Hoover: I don't know. 

[00:22:55] Mike Roth: I guess you have to be from Wisconsin to get that.

[00:22:57] Donna Hoover: Is that what it is?

[00:22:58] Mike: Yes. Yes. 

They do have good soft serve ice cream or 

[00:23:02] Donna Hoover: Custard. Yes, they have custard. Yeah, that's, yes, it's 

very good. Yeah. I think it's a matter of taste again. Like you from New York, you have certain things that you like and 

[00:23:10] Mike Roth: certain you've got, I'm gonna call 'em certain standards.

Okay. And certainly we do have Two Js here, which is a kosher style deli. We have two branches operating. While they may make some. A pretext about having kosher style food. It just doesn't taste as good or as fresh. I don't know whether they're using commissary kitchens or preparing their corn beef from pastrami locally.

It just doesn't. 

[00:23:35] Donna Hoover: Now you're comparing it to what you ate in New York again. 

[00:23:38] Mike Roth: Yes. But I also. In Cincinnati, which was a very German city and had a lot of Jewish people too. When I wanted to get a good New York style pastrami sandwich or corn beef sandwich, I. I get in the car and drive two hours to Indianapolis.

[00:23:53] Donna Hoover: Wow. You were committed. 

[00:23:55] Mike Roth: Oh yeah. That was a great sandwich, 

[00:23:57] Donna Hoover: it had to be. That's 'cause then what, two hours back too, right? 

[00:24:00] Mike Roth: Oh yeah. Two hours back. 

[00:24:02] Donna Hoover: Wow. 

[00:24:03] Mike Roth: Was that whole afternoon, for lunch. 

[00:24:04] Donna Hoover: Yeah. 

[00:24:05] Mike Roth: But you got a great sandwich, 

[00:24:07] Donna Hoover: right? 

[00:24:08] Mike Roth: And there is no place like that here, go to South Florida. We're gonna come back to the food and restaurant topic. I think we beat it to death for today. 

[00:24:16] Donna Hoover: Okay. All right. Now I'm hungry. 

[00:24:18] Mike Roth: Okay. So it's almost lunchtime. Hope everyone goes out and grabs something to eat. 

[00:24:24] Donna Hoover: Yes. At one of these fine restaurants that we've detailed out for you today.

[00:24:28] Mike Roth: Yeah. Whether it's fish and seafood or Italian. Pizza, 

[00:24:33] Donna Hoover: American Kosher, or steak, 

[00:24:36] Mike Roth: whatever you like. We got it here in The Villages and we'll be talking more about it. 

[00:24:40] Donna Hoover: Alright, 

[00:24:40] Mike Roth: Thanks everyone for listening. 

[00:24:41] Donna Hoover: All right. See you next time. 

Thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed it. You've been listening to Mature Adults with Donna and Mike. We release a new episode the first and third Monday of every month. If you have suggestions for future topics, email us at Mike donna281@gmail.com.