THE Orlando Neighborhood Spot: The Strand
Seared scallops - one of their most common seasonally rotating main courses (Photo credit: The Strand)
May 28 • By Andrew Langford
Every city needs that great neighborhood spot. Maybe not as casual as the bar from Cheers or the diner in Seinfeld, but a local place where if you go ~just~ enough times, you’ll find everybody knows your name. A place where you can show up wearing almost any outfit and a dinner choice that’s as versatile as your go-to pair of pants - for just about any occasion or group, it always seems to work. In Orlando, that great neighborhood spot is The Strand.
Set in the always buzzing Mills/50 district, The Strand has made its way through a few menu iterations since opening in 2014. Longtime patrons may recall the fantastic and much-missed weekday lunch service and weekend brunch menu. Still, some of the strongest lunch items live on in a current menu which both reflect owners’ Alda and Joe Rees’ past experience in no-frills diners and elevated twists on contemporary American plates.
Throw in a cozy corner space complete with a TV playing Space Age sci-fi re-runs and you have the bones for a very good local restaurant. But most parties need a little liquid courage to get the night moving. The Strand takes care of this with a smartly crafted menu of wines and mostly local beers. For fancy cocktails you’ll have to walk down the block; then again, no neighborhood joint ever got away with serving their patrons $14 IV bags of alcohol.
With a drink in hand, appetizers should be the next priority so as to avoid a messy first impression with the wait staff. Indicative of the Rees’ mantra is a selection of items ranging from confident executions of classics, like pretzels, to elevated takes on southern fare such as shrimp & fried green tomatoes. Be sure to also ask your server for the daily specials and you may be lucky to get one of their delicious rotating gems like squid ink pasta with crab.
Squid ink pasta (Photo credit: Andrew Langford)
The hardest part of any meal at The Strand is deciding which direction to go with the main entrees - this is why it’s always best to show up with at least one or two other guests. Amongst the classics you have maybe the best burger in town, a satisfying slab of meat loaded up with bacon, roasted jalapeños and blue cheese dressing. Then there are the pricier dinner plates serving as a hagiography to the best ingredients to ever take root in the South.
The Strand Burger (Photo credit: Andrew Langford)
The Alabama Chicken with its full array of southern sides is a staple of the menu and their other meats are all well-executed, but it’s the seafood that steals the show. The seared scallops have had a near-constant presence on the menu for a reason and their red snapper stands out for the sublime lime compound butter used to both blacken the fish and provide an extra hint of richness to the already decadent Anson Mills cheese grits.
If the main menu forces a difficult choice, the dessert menu is only a slightly easier decision. This section of the meal seems to have the most seasonal variation, but some sort of olive oil cake is almost always on the menu - if it hasn’t already sold out. This happened on one of my recent visits, however, I had the opportunity to instead sample the bolo de bolacha - something of a Portuguese version of tiramisu. This may now be my favorite dessert of theirs, but any cake from The Strand is probably going to be a great exclamation mark on an already fantastic meal.
As a small, intimate space, it’s best to make reservations unless you have a small party and are willing to roll the dice on bar seating. Appetizers run from $6.50 to nearly $20, while main entrees are between $15 and $35. Whether you’re trying to impress visitors to Orlando, catching up with family or friends, or just looking for a date night meal, The Strand is a great option for all of those dinners where you just want to go to “that spot, right around the corner.”
