Where to Eat in Pine Hills Right Now
Caribbean markets, Jamaican bakeries, Haitian kitchens, a pan-Asian plaza and Vietnamese specialists — the full Pine Hills bench, organized by the roads you will actually drive.
3 minute read
There is no ranked list for Pine Hills — our rankings have not reached this neighborhood yet, and our Pine Hills hub says so plainly. So this roundup is built the old way: by driving the corridors, reading the menus and following the lunch crowds. What you find along West Colonial Drive, Pine Hills Road and Silver Star Road is one of the deepest benches of Caribbean, Haitian, Jamaican, Vietnamese and Latin cooking in Orlando, most of it in modest plazas, nearly all of it aimed at the neighborhood first. Here is where to eat in Pine Hills right now, organized the way you will actually drive it.
West Colonial Drive: the main event
Start at Caribbean Supercenter, 5111 W. Colonial Drive, a West Indian supermarket with a kitchen attached — the smartest two-stop in the neighborhood. The market stocks the pantry of the Caribbean diaspora; the kitchen turns it into patties, oxtail stew, jerk chicken and curry chicken. Eat there, then shop with a full stomach and better judgment. We profile it properly in our Caribbean Supercenter piece.
Golden Krust, on West Colonial a few blocks west, is the Jamaican bakery-and-grill standard: flaky patties — beef first, then chicken and vegetable — plus jerk chicken, oxtail and curried goat, and coco bread built to hold a patty sandwich-style. On the same corridor, Little Haiti Paté Kodé at 5555 W. Colonial Drive makes its name literal: pâté kodé, the Haitian fried patty, alongside griot, akra (malanga fritters) and fried fish. And for Puerto Rican cooking just east along the corridor, El Fogón de Bebo at 4560 W. Colonial Drive — plainly labeled, that is on the Barnett Park side of Pine Hills Road — draws a following for mofongo, alcapurrias and chuleta kan kan.
Under the paifang: Orlando Chinatown
At 5060 W. Colonial Drive, the red-tiled paifang marks Orlando Chinatown, a pan-Asian plaza opened in 2002 with space for more than 60 Asian businesses. Inside one parking lot you can build an entire food crawl: groceries and Chinese barbecue at Enson Market, Taiwanese pineapple buns and red bean pastries at Sun Pearl Bakery (there since 2004), hand-pulled noodles at Walala, skewer-style hot pot at Malu Bian, Taiwanese desserts at Meet Fresh, and Vietnamese cooking at Huong Viet and Phở TD just across the street. Our field guide to the plaza walks it storefront by storefront.
Pine Hills Road: the Haitian corridor
Head north on Pine Hills Road and the language of the menus changes. Island Jam Caribbean at 2615 N. Pine Hills Road spans the island map — Haitian dishes like lalo and Port-au-Prince-style oxtails alongside red snapper and Haitian spaghetti. R&G Cuisine at 3413 N. Pine Hills Road does Haitian staples including griot, fried goat and baked macaroni. Rita’s Cuisine, down at 731 N. Pine Hills Road, opens early and serves the neighborhood all day. Caribbean Corner Kitchen at 4102 N. Pine Hills Road leans Jamaican — oxtail, escovitch fish, jerk pork and loaded jerk chicken fries. The full Haitian run, including the bakeries, is in Haitian Kitchens of Pine Hills.
Silver Star Road: the northern run
Silver Star is Evans High School’s street, and it eats like it. Benita’s Kitchen at 5419 Silver Star Road serves Haitian plates and patties — chicken pâté, beef pâté, fried tilapia, baked macaroni — a short walk from the school. Further west, Belinda Take Out at 6900 Silver Star Road does Haitian takeout built for family dinners: fried red snapper, ribs and house juices. Love Bird’s Jerk Spot at 6311 Silver Star Road covers the Jamaican side with jerk pork, jerk ribs, festival bread and fish cooked to order.
How to choose
Short on time? Do Colonial: Supercenter for lunch, Golden Krust for a patty to go, Sun Pearl for something sweet. Want a sit-down dinner? Go Vietnamese — the hot pot and snail dishes at Mama Lau & Oc or the regional range at Huong Viet, both covered in Vietnamese on West Colonial. Feeding a family on a budget? Haitian takeout on Silver Star. However you choose, place Pine Hills on the Orlando Top Spots Map in your head where it belongs: not a detour from Orlando eating, but one of its centers.
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