Stay away from Armondo's if you want or know good Italian food. I grew up near Arthur Avenue and 187th Street in the Bronx, which is a mecca for real Italian cuisine. So when I was taken to Armondo's recently, I found the food there to be totally pedestrian. It's basically one step up from Chef Boyardee in a can. Jackson Heights has so many other wonderful eateries (Indian, Colombian, Peruvian, Thai...) that it's a pure waste of time and money to go to Armondo's. The restaurant basically caters to a tired white crowd in an otherwise ethnically rich neighborhood, and the people who go there have no spirit of adventure when it comes to eating. For shame!

Stay away from Armondo's if you want or know good Italian food. I grew up near Arthur Avenue and 187th Street in the Bronx, which is a mecca for real Italian cuisine. So when I was taken to Armondo's recently, I found the food there to be totally pedestrian. It's basically one step up from Chef Boyardee in a can. Jackson Heights has so many other wonderful eateries (Indian, Colombian, Peruvian, Thai...) that it's a pure waste of time and money to go to Armondo's. The restaurant basically caters to a tired white crowd in an otherwise ethnically rich neighborhood, and the people who go there have no spirit of adventure when it comes to eating. For shame!

I have to say that Little Saigon has possibly the worst Vietnamese food I've ever eaten. About thrteen years ago, I was working on a television commercial in Orlando and was taken by a Hell's Angel from L.A. who was working on our crew to the most fabulous four-table family-run Vietnamese restaurant imaginable on Colonial Drive. The Hell's Angel had done a tour of duty in Vietnam, had an adopted Vietnamese son, and really knew his food. I also spent a lot of time in Vietnam and adore the cuisine. So, when I went back to Orlando three weeks ago to take our daughter to Disney World, I had mouth-watering memories of a meal eaten there years back.

Sometimes, you should just let memories rest in peace and not try to duplicate a moment of magic. Well, I raved to my wife about the Vietnamese restaurants of Orlando and dragged her miles from our hotel, promising her an outstanding eating adventure. Sad to say, the restaurants along Colonial Drive were tired excuses for eating emporiums. The whole strip had changed, and gone were the intimate little Vietnamese family restaurants I remembered. Instead, the restaurants we found had succumbed to tourism and smelled of inauthenticity. So we ate at Little Saigon, taking the recommendation of several people who had sung its praises on Chow Hound.com.

What a mistake! The food was poorly prepared and a sad excuse for the savory, fragrant cuisine that is true Vietnamese cooking. We live in New York City and the Vietnamese food here is at least fairly true to what one finds in Vietnam, although nothing can compare with the real thing in the real place. But the food at Little Saigon in Orlando was in plain English, disgusting!

I would foreworn readers not to waste their time or money looking for great Vietnamese food in Orlando. It may have existed there years ago, but today's Vietnamese restaurants there are a fake. You'd better invest your efforts hunting up a good southern barbecue place, of which there are many.