534 Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Orlando

So every year, Orlando has a city-wide Taco Week, where all the cool restaurants participate and offer $5 taco specials, along with other taco- and drink-related specials. This year, the week of celebrating is leading up to Cinco de Mayo, which is fun. Well I got tickets to a recent Orlando City game, and 534 is literally like two blocks away from Exploria Stadium, so I decided to stop by here to get my Taco Week tacos this year on my way to the game.

The space is inside of a beautiful brick building that has an expansive bar and four or five giant, luxurious wraparound booths. I got seated in one of the booths and my party and I felt like VIP's. Super friendly managers checked on us a few times and our server was one of the nicest ladies I've ever met.

Their Taco Week menu was really killer. I had to order three things from it. I started off with their $5, Sticky Asian BBQ Shrimp (2 tacos with sauteed blackened shrimp, green & red peppers, 3 cheese mix, avocado, shredded lettuce, tomatoes). These were the star of the show that night. Whatever sauce the shrimp were sauteed in was sticky and sweet and lovely.

Also, I wanna point out that their tacos were in slightly crisped flour tortillas, which is different from everyone going automatically to corn tortillas and I was fine with it. I like flour tortillas just fine.

I also had the Meat Lover's Taco (spicy tomato sauce, mozz cheese, layered crispy salami, pepperoni, and blackened ground sausage, sauteed leeks, mushrooms and pico). This was the most unique taco I have ever eaten. I'm not kidding. It was a meat lover's pizza inside of a taco, and I loved it. That's the description. That's all you need to make your decision. I recommend it.

And finally I got the Herb Roasted Creole Pork Taco (shredded lettuce, pulled pork, creole pickliz, jalapeno aioli, goat cheese, and avocado slice). The key here is the goat cheese. Pairing different things with goat cheese is somewhat of a passion of mine. And this pairing was a success. Pulled pork and goat cheese. Who would have guessed?

Overall, I really enjoyed myself here and the rest of their usual menu looked great, too, so I'll definitely have to come back and check...

Horrible experience at 534 Scratch Kitchen. Last night I went for the Bite 30 menu because of a great experience last year. I will take some of the blame for choosing the place I sat, but there was no excuse for the other things that happened. Apparently there is a very loud lounge next door to the restaurant, The District GastroBar, that must not have a bar or a bathroom, because people from there were constantly going back and forth between the restaurant and the bar. Each time they came in they left the doors to the entrance open - they look like book shelves. It was so loud that my date and I couldn't hear each other. Why is it necessary to have the music blasting at 6:00 PM? I could see if it were later in the evening, but 6:00 PM? Now on to the restaurant itself, the hostess was friendly and tried to keep the doors closed as much as possible. Our server J or Jay, was great. So those are to be put in the plus column. We ordered drinks and after waiting for what seemed like a very long time considering the small size of the crowd, I went to see what the hold up was. I could not find a bartender anywhere. Finally, two showed up, I guess they were in the kitchen, but when I asked if our drinks were ready, one of them stumbled around a bit and said our server would bring them to us. J came over with my boyfriend's drink, but not my wine. Another five minutes, I received my drink. The food was pretty good, I think the ribeye was over-cooked for medium rare, but passable. My salad and cheesecake were very good. We asked J for another round of drinks, he came right back with my wine, stating he poured it himself this time. How could something so simple as pouring drinks become such an issue? I don't think I will be going back, but they probably won't miss me or my $100.00. If you decide to go. take it from me, sit as far away from the book shelves as possible. Thanks, J, you did...

The location is good and the atmosphere was great and waitresses were excellent. But the cooking was awful and the bar was unprepared. The cook didn't know anything about cooking period, from style to difference in steak cuts. Sauté Shrimp is not grilled, it's cooked in a skillet with butter, salt, white pepper and fresh garlic rapidly until pink served in a neat circle with cocktail sauce. A Ribeye Steak is more circular than length. Every meal that came to the table was sent back for a discrepancy or two. But the lack of management is very important, how does the bar run out of liquor and beer when you're near the Soccer stadium? Is beyond comprehensive. No petty cash to buy for immediate use and no emergency deliveries from vendors when unexpected groups liquidate your standard stock. Excuse of we had a big party here yesterday that's why we didn't have the basic liquor, but we have the flavored liquor if you like. I have a very flexible attitude and forgiving, so another time your establishment will be able to provide the quality of service that was highly...