Eola General Market
Tucked away in Thorton Park, just a couple of blocks away from Lake Eola hides one of the nicest little gems around. The Eola General is a small local market concept that is stocked with a very well curated beer and wine collection alongside many fresh local produce options, some extraordinary pickled vegetables, local coffee, honey and more. What had really stole the show for us was the food they are serving, it’s fresh, inspired, and pretty great too.
Top to bottom: Jerky Board, Cheese board, Pickle board
To start they gave us a preview of their boards three boards are available, The Daily Cheese Sampler which is a varying selection of their cheeses, The House made Jerky Platter, which is homemade jerky served with boiled peanuts and a pickle selection, finally there is the Pickle plate, a variety of house made pickles with Lemon Aioli & Mustard In house marinated pickled chow & boiled peanuts. The jerky was phenominal, everyone at the event was eyeballing that hard as people took pictures, the pickled everything was also incredible. I am not quite sure what their process is but I don’t even want to know I just want to enjoy it, lets just say there is definitely a reason they jar and sell all their pickled vegetable (I don’t even care for pickles that much but I bought 2 jars to take home). Next up we got into the sandwiches which are unique in their own right and delectable enough to make an impression on anyone trying them.
Pickle Chips
The General
First off we had the General which their website describes as “Our take on chicken & waffles! BBQ braised chicken, crispy kettlechips, & creamy southern slaw” and it is damn good. So what the website doesn’t tell you is that they use a corn bread batter for the waffles which in a way curbs the sweetness of a typical waffle mix and enhances the flavors within. Warning this thing is messy so stock up on napkins because you're going to be stuffing your face with this thing.
Chris got the Bagel which is a good take on a simple bagel sandwich with scrambled eggs, bacon, house cheese blend, arugula,& southern aioli on your choice of bagel, and you can’t really beat solid simplicity. Finally we got a little taste of the Buffalo Cauli which is buffalo cauliflower, braised greens, seasoned tomatoes,& citrus-cilantro-cashew sauce on marble
rye (a thank you to @tastecooksip for letting have some of that).
Washing this all down with some wines which I won’t name or recommend for the sole purpose of forcing you to talk to their in house wine guy who is absolutely incredible, but I will say this...there is a 40oz bottle of wine which is pretty brunch status OG if you ask me. Though it is probably better if you just ask them so get yourselves on down there and check this place out.
