We had an 8:20pm ADR for dinner at Kouzzina on Halloween. The Boardwalk was quite the happening place that evening!
I love this location. Great place to be if you have to wait to be seated. Which we did. We were a bit early and checked in at 8:10. They gave us a beeper and we sat outside and people watched until we got buzzed at 8:40, 20 minutes past our ADR time, which was the longest we waited for almost anything, rides included. Not to bad eh?
Once we were seated we waited....and waited...and after 10 minutes or so, a server finally showed up and got our drink orders. At least we think that's what he asked for. It was so LOUD in there. My grandmother didn't really hear a word the server said all night and I had a lot of trouble as well.
The restaurant is really pretty and I love the open kitchen....but with wood floors there is nothing to absorb any of the noise. It might be ok at 5pm when they first start seating, but at almost 9 with a full house.....you couldn't hear yourself think, much less a server speaking to you.
View of the kitchen from our table:
One of the chefs came out and spoke to us about what Gram could eat. Being a Greek restaurant, we figured she would have a lot of options and she did for the most part. But what we both found really disappointing was that the Feta cheese Kouzzina uses is made from cow's milk. Real feta should be made from sheep's milk (which has no lactose), and at this kind of establishment we expected the real thing.
The chef who spoke with us was really nice. Gram asked about the Lamb Burger, and the chef told us that it had the cow's milk feta already mixed in with the meat. But they could make her a pattie from the lamb meatballs that are served with the appetizer sampler.
I should mention that after our server took our drink orders we did not see him again for quite sometime. It was actually the chef who took our food order.
Our server finally delivered our drinks and bread sometime shortly before the first course arrived.
The Bread and Butter with Black Sea Salt:
The bread was a very good multigrain variety served somewhat warm. Good butter but my Gram hogged most of the salt!
We had barely started on the bread when the
Crisp Calamari with Lemon, coated in Arborio Rice Flour with Garlic Yogurt and Spicy Yogurt Dipping Sauces arrived.
I first have to mention that I HATED the way this was served. See the cone thing on the left in this photo?
That's what the Calamari is served in. Here's a shot of the actual food:
I hated the serving dish because you can't really see the food....and that's the first impression. The food is hiding away. I'm 5'8 and I could barely see in to the cone, so I imagine anyone shorter wouldn't get a view of the food until it's on a fork or plate. Also, when the calamari cone first came out, we had no dipping sauces. Our server dropped off the food and ran away before I even noticed they were missing. It was a good 15 minutes before we could track him down again, and by then the calamari was getting cold. We didn't get any sauces because I guess they thought we were both lactose intolerant, although I thought I made that clear at the beginning of the meal when we were discussing Gram's options that I am not. It was also on the special request form that Gram was the only one with special dietary concerns.
So we started to nibble on the calamari while waiting for the sauces. And that's when the overwhelming issue of the night really began - SALT. Way too much of it.
Gram has Addison's Disease, a type of adrenal and sodium insufficiency. She has to add salt to everything to get enough so her tastes of what constitutes too salty is way off from most people's. Even she thought the calamari was too salty - so that's really saying something.
When the sauces finally came, I took a taste of the Garlic Yogurt dip. Big mistake. Now, I LOVE garlic and used to be of the belief you can never have too much of it. Apparently, I was very, very wrong. There was a ton a raw garlic in this dip and it really knocked my socks off in a bad way. Imagine sucking on a raw clove of garlic.....that's kind of what this dip was like.
And the spicy yogurt dip...well it lived up to it's name. I couldn't really taste much of it after the garlic dip.
I think the calamari could have been good if it wasn't so salty. The texture of the Arborio rice flour makes for a great coating and it wasn't too oily. But it was so salty my tastes buds couldn't really recognize anything else.
Our entrees arrived next, brought out to us by another server.....ours was no where to be found.
Gram had the
Char-grilled Lamb Burger made with the Lamb Meatball mix as I mentioned earlier. It was served with Sweet Potato Fries.
It looked so sweet and innocent. But then Gram took a bite. It was quite spicy. Now as I've said before, I like spicy food. But Gram does not. So she didn't like this burger. Now usually, I'm of the thinking that a customer simply not liking something is not reason for the restaurant to have to take it off the bill. But when something is spicy, I think the menu should state that. No where on the menu at Kouzzina was there any indication that the Lamb Burger, or the Lamb Meatballs, are spicy.
The sweet potato fries were pretty good - but too salty.
I ordered the
Avgolemono: egg-lemon soup with chicken and rice. I also got the
Sauteed Brussel Sprouts with Capers and Lemon to go with it.
Brussel Sprouts, ready for their close-up:
The soup presentation was interesting. The bring you out the bowl with the chicken and rice in it, and then someone else comes with a pitcher they pour the liquid from. Pretty schnazzy. But instead of focusing on fancy presentation I wish they would train their chefs on the proper use of salt. Again, I think this could have been really good if it wasn't so darn salty! It had good texture, it was hot, lemony, and the rice and chicken were cooked nicely......but all that gets overshadowed by the salt.
The Brussel Spouts were just OK. They were one of the few items that weren't completely oversalted, but they were a bit hard and undercooked. I liked the sauce...it was lemony and had a hint of balsamic vinegar. They were sprinkled with some shredded cheese that was good, but it wasn't a dish I would bother ordering again.
Gram complained to the server about the spicy burger as he was clearing our plates and he said that he would take it off the bill. I appreciated that, but it would have been nice of him to be around shortly after she sampled it to offer her something else to eat!
I really wanted to find something good about Kouzzina so I decided to order dessert. They didn't have anything Gram could eat except that nasty Rice Dream faux ice cream. It tastes like cardboard, so we especially didn't want to pay theme park prices for it.
I went with the
Galaktoboureko - Semolina custard in a baked phyllo dough with Vanilla-Praline Ice Cream. Hmmm.....Apparently I forgot to take a picture of it. Sorry!
I had sampled this item at a local Greek food festival a week before and LOVED it. It's somewhat like Baklava, but instead of the nut filling you get a delicious custard. The Kouzzina version was a huge piece, and it was quite good. Just not AS good as what I ate at the Greek Food Festival back at home. The little ball of vanilla praline ice cream it was served with was DIVINE! I wish I had just ordered a bowl of that!
I had noted our birthdays on the ADR, so AFTER I finished my dessert, they made a stink and shouted some things and Greek and presented me with the standard Disney cupcake:
Umm, thank you, but I never understood why they give you those after you've already ordered and eaten dessert. I was able to get a box and took it back to the room with me though.
When we got our check, the chef we had spoken with earlier in the night came out and apologized for the spicy burger.
After taking the burger off, and adding in a small Pellegrino to drink and my TIW discount, our bill came to $38.95.
I was so excited about Kouzzina and had really been looking forward to it. But sadly, it fell below our expectations. The poor service coupled with the salt issue did not really make for a Disney-worthy meal. I was really wishing we had gone next door to Flying Fish instead!!
Total Rating - A measly 3
Now before you consider writing off Kouzzina, I have to say a few more words. I've worked in a restaurant. I know how things go and sometimes for whatever reason(s) things just don't come together. So I would be willing to try Kouzzina again. There is a restaurant where I live that was pretty awful the first two times I visited. But thanks to a friend, I ended up going one more time and now I frequent the place.
But since Kouzzina is at Disney and there are still so many other things I want to try, and old favorites I know are fabulous, I won't be eating here anytime in the near future.
