This past week was filled with good food and sunshine in Orlando, Florida! Anyone who has been to International drive knows that there is an overwhelming amount of restaurants of all kinds which tends to make dinner decisions pretty difficult, especially in a large group. There were many good meals eaten this week, but by far the best one was at Marlow’s Tavern. The most appealing part of this restaurant was the variety on their menu: something for everyone! Of all the different things on the menu to choose from, I kept going back to the same dish: white cheddar grit cake, sautéed spinach, Roma tomato, shallot, roast tomato beurre blanc, and shrimp.
I’d never had shrimp and grits before but I heard that it is delicious. I have a feeling that this dish is much better than the traditional shrimp and grits because it was absolutely phenomenal. When I think of grits, I think of an oatmeal-like rice; this was not the case for this dish. The grits were baked with white cheddar into a cake that reminded me of cornbread, then they were topped with spinach, tomato, and shrimp. There wasn’t just a few pieces of shrimp like most restaurant’s give you; this dish had so much shrimp that I couldn’t eat it all. All of this deliciousness sat in a pool of ‘roast tomato beurre blanc’ which is a French butter cream sauce with roasted tomato mixed in. The grit cake soaked up the sauce which gave it a rich buttery flavor. This was easily one of the best meals I’ve ever had, so good that I might have to try making it myself since its so far from home!