Royal Palm Bay Villas, Orlando, Kissimee, Florida , USA.

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America may not be the gourmet capital of the world but the food served up in their restaurants and bars is invariably wholesome and plentiful. In the large, cosmopolitan cities just about any cuisine can be found if you look hard enough. The more familiar gastronomies of France , Spain , Italy and Germany are readily available, as are those familiar Asian ones from India , Bangladesh , Thailand , Japan and Vietnam . Miami , with its large Hispanic population, offers everything South American from Argentinean to Cuban, Chilean, Mexican, and Peruvian. And all of this at prices that range from the reasonable to the exorbitant.

Orlando is large enough to offer a wide range of restaurants too plentiful to detail. Suffice it to say that there are all the usual American chains represented many times over in both Orlando and Kissimmee . There are a large range of steak houses, sea food restaurants, Tex-Mex, burger and sports bars. Even burgers taste better here than at home, especially if you can track down a buffalo burger.

Downtown Disney, with its Pleasure Island complex, offers a wide range of places to dine. Disney's Boardwalk has the only brew pub in Orlando , Big River , where you can dine in style while quaffing the excellent beers brewed on the premises. From here you can watch the evening firework display in Epcot whilst being amused by the street entertainment, which in this case does not involve putting your hand in your pocket. Universal's City Walk likewise affords dining and entertainment. The chain of Orlando Ale Houses offers a vast range of domestic and imported beers in bottles and on draught, and an impressive food menu. But, despite the name, they do not brew their own beer.

More expensive, but offering a whole evening of entertainment for all the family, are the themed dinner shows. There is the mysterious Sleuths Dinner Show, the swashbuckling Pirate's Dinner Adventure, Capone's Dinner and Show where Broadway meets the underworld, jousting at the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament, romance at the Arabian Nights, and the Outta Control Magic Comedy Dinner Show which speaks for itself. Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede offers down-home fun in the form of two shows featuring Wild West horse riding, buffalos, ostrich and pig racing, singing and dancing.

For a quieter evening out you cannot beat the Disney town of Celebration . Here there is a modern cinema, the Sherlock Holmes English Tea Room, the New England seafood restaurant at the Celebration Town Tavern, and much, much more. In the weeks before Christmas the evening brings a fall of artificial snow in a Victorian styled street to create the atmosphere of a traditional Christmas.

All in all eating out is a pleasure with such a wide variety of opportunity that it must be possible to dine somewhere different on every day of the year. Few places are open on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day but even on those days you can rely on the American staple of Denny's to provide you with much needed sustenance. Some of these are even licensed to sell alcohol!