Where to Eat in Oviedo Near UCF and Oviedo Mall

Finding a place to eat in Oviedo usually comes down to the loop between campus, the mall, and Center Lake Park, and most of that loop is chains with a drive-thru attached. Tabla sits in the City Plaza development at Oviedo on the Park, a few steps from the Amphitheatre and Cultural Center, which puts it inside walking distance of the one part of town people actually walk in.

This guide settles what to order and when to go. It covers Tabla's $14 weekday lunch, what a full dinner runs, which dishes hold up as takeout on the drive back toward UCF, and how to order food online before the 6 PM rush lands.

Quick Summary

Tabla is an Indian restaurant in Oviedo, set in City Plaza at Oviedo on the Park near the Amphitheatre and Cultural Center. The weekday lunch platter is $14, Monday to Friday, 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM. Curries run $23, biryanis start at $20, and Asian entrees are $20. UCF and Oviedo Mall are both a short drive away.

Lunch Between Classes, for $14

The gap between a morning class at UCF and an afternoon one is the hardest meal of the day to solve. Tabla's weekday lunch runs Monday through Friday from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM, and $14 covers the entire tray rather than one dish on it.

Every $14 lunch platter comes with:

• Lemon coriander soup

• A vegetable samosa

• One entree of your choice

• Butter naan and jeera rice

• Dessert

• A fountain drink

There are seven vegetarian entrees and six non-vegetarian ones to pick from inside that price, so the $14 does not change whether you take dal tadka or chicken vindaloo.

The same $14 also buys a vegetable or chicken pulao with raita, a chole kulcha or chole bhatura tray, or an Asian platter of fried rice, hakka noodles, or Thai red curry. Shrimp on the Asian platter adds $3, and it is the only thing on the lunch menu that moves the number.

Six courses for $14 makes this the rare place to eat in Oviedo where a full sit-down lunch costs less than a sandwich and a coffee on campus.

After the Amphitheatre, When the Kitchen at Home Is Not Happening

Shows at the Amphitheatre and Cultural Center end with a few hundred people walking back through Center Lake Park at once, and almost none of them want to cook. Tabla is the closest restaurant in Oviedo to that walk, which makes the tandoor list the obvious thing to look at.

The Mix Grill at $41 is the table order. It is the one plate on the menu that arrives and stops the conversation for a second, which is a useful thing after ninety minutes of sitting quietly in a park.

Kitchen hours run to 9 PM Monday through Thursday, 10 PM on Friday and Saturday, and 9 PM on Sunday, so check the show's end time against that before you count on a sit-down.

Shopping at the Mall, Then Actual Dinner

Oviedo Mall runs on food court logic, which works right up until you want a plate and a chair. Most restaurants near Oviedo Mall are built for a twenty minute turnaround, and Tabla is the short drive that puts curry on a table instead of in a clamshell.

The curry list is flat priced, which makes the decision about flavour rather than budget. All ten run $23:

• Makhani, the tomato and butter one

• Tikka Masala

• Korma, the mildest on the list

• Kadai, cooked with peppers and onion

• Jalfrezi

• Roganjosh

• Palak

• Madras

• Vindaloo, the hottest

• Tabla's Homestyle

Pair one with garlic naan at $6 and jeera rice at $5 and a single curry feeds two people who have been walking around a mall for two hours.

For something heavier, the Indian Delicacy list runs separately. Dal makhani, chana masala, aloo gobi and dal tadka sit at $21, malai kofta and navrattan korma at $22, and butter chicken and methi malai chicken at $23.

Few restaurants near Oviedo Mall hold a single price across an entire section, and it is the detail that makes this the easiest table to hand a menu to.

The Vegetarian Problem, Solved Properly

Anyone feeding a mixed group near UCF knows the shape of this: one person does not eat meat, and the default answer is a side salad. Tabla is a popular restaurant in Oviedo where the vegetarian half of the menu is the longer half.

• Twelve vegetarian mains on the Indian Delicacy list alone, from $21 to $23

• Paneer Tikka from the tandoor at $23

• Vegetable and Paneer Biryani at $20 each

• Four Thai curries at $20 each, red, green, yellow and massaman

• Alphonso Mango Paneer at $22, which is the one to order if you want to find out what the kitchen does when it is not playing it safe

Chaat covers the smaller appetite. Bhalla papdi chaat is $9, vegetable samosa and aloo tikki chaat are $10 each, and palak chaat and pani poori are $12.

Start with the palak chaat. Fried spinach leaves under yogurt and chutney is a texture most people have not had, and it makes a better argument for Indian food in Oviedo than anything written on a menu board.

When You Want a Wok, Not a Curry

Some evenings do not want gravy. They want garlic hitting a hot pan and something that arrives fast. Tabla runs a full Indo-Chinese and Thai section alongside the Indian one, which is not standard for an Indian restaurant in Oviedo or anywhere near it.

Twelve of the fifteen sit at $20, and the other three at $21. The Chilli Garlic is the one people come back for, and the version served as an appetizer at $15 is the smaller way into it.

Biryani, Bread, and the Order That Travels

Takeout on the drive back toward campus has one requirement, which is that it survives twenty minutes in a bag. Biryani and bread are the part of the Tabla Oviedo menu built for that trip, and no other food in Oviedo travels quite as well.

Breads run $6 to $9. Plain, garlic, butter, green chilli and rosemary naan are all $6, along with tandoori roti and onion kulcha. Paneer kulcha, cream cheese naan and lachha parantha are $7. Bhatura, Peshawari and Kashmiri naan are $8, and the two stuffed ones, lamb keema naan and chicken tikka naan, are $9.

Order the lamb keema naan and a raita at $4 and skip the entree entirely. Nobody will stop you.

Dessert Is Where This Menu Gets Strange

Most food in Oviedo ends dinner with a chocolate cake. Tabla ends it with gulab jamun creme brulee, and that decision tells you more about the kitchen than the entree list does.

The Dubai Chocolate Samosa at $9 is the one that gets photographed. The rasmalai tres leches at $7 is the one to actually order.

How to Order Food Online from Tabla Oviedo

The lunch window and the 6 PM stretch are the two times a wait shows up, and both are avoidable. You can order food online through Tabla's ordering page and pick a time that fits around a class or a show.

• Place the order through the Tabla Oviedo ordering page and choose your pickup time

• Pickup at City Plaza, the fastest option during the 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM lunch rush

• Dine in when you have the hour, since the soup and appetizer on the lunch platter arrive in sequence

Hours at Tabla Oviedo:

The gap between 3 PM and 4 PM on weekdays is the one that catches people out, so an online order placed for 4:05 PM is a better plan than arriving at 3:30 PM hopeful.