The clampetts official dxdp review UPDATED...6/14..Flying Fish/chef's

[pharmgirl69]

For those of you who didn’t meet us during our pre-trip report. Allow me to introduce ourselves. We live in TN but I am originally from NJ, my mother lovingly calls us the hillbillies. She and Dad just moved down here and are still in culture shock.

DH - born and raised in TN. For all you Tennessee Vols out there, my husband bleeds orange. His name is JR, now you may think because we are in the south that may be "junior".....you would be right. Except when I first met him he introduced himself as J.R. (maybe to not appear to be the clampett he truly is). So as we go through this report, feel free to read junior or J.R., the two are interchangeable. JR loves southern food, steak, potatoes and does not have a very wide palate. Although I will give the guy credit, he tries just about anything

Me - Stacey, the clampett wannabe. I am a southern transplant and truly love the south. I love to cook for people, and love to entertain. However this trip is to celebrate my graduation from Nursing School, so needless to say I haven't had much time in 3 years to cook anything but hotdogs. So I think JR's alterior motive for this trip was to eat some real food for a change. I love fish, any kind of fish. I will eat something that swam, was submerged in muck or pulled from the oceans depths over anything that eats grass.

DD7 - ohhh she is probably the truest southern girl ever. She is pure country with my love of big city foods. She loves oysters on the half shell with a side of biscuits and gravy or grits. We upgraded her to an adult dining plan, knowing full well that she will not be happy eating pizza and chicken fingers while Momma enjoys lobster. She is an adventerous eater and will try anything and everything that Momma has on her plate (still trying to figure out how I can get out of sharing)

Thats us! The modern day clampetts and we are heading to the World for 8 days on May 16th and staying at POFQ....2 days after my graduation from Nursing School. Our ADR's are as follows, so stay tuned, I'm looking forward to sharing the good, the best and the most out of this world food with everyone.

Sunday - 5/16 - 2pm arrive....citricos at 6pm
Monday
QS breakfast and lunch
Dinner = Whispering canyon

Tuesday
Tusker House breakfast
QS lunch
Narcoossee's dinner

Wednesday
1900 Park Fare breakfast
QS lunch
Brown Derby dinner

Thursday
crystal palace breakfast
crt late lunch
cape May clambake

Friday
chef mickeys breakfast
QS lunch
Flying Fish dinner

Saturday
Akerhus breakfast
Lecellier lunch
coral reef dinner

Sunday
QS breakfast
QS lunch
california Grill dinner

Monday

Early flight home (


Sunday morning 5/16.....ok so even after the huge graduation party the day before, and being well, slightly, hung over (shhhh dont tell, we are in the bible belt after all)...we were up at the crack of dawn. DD7 was so excited she didn't know what to do with herself. Mom and Dad were picking us up at 9am so we had some time. We managed to force ourselves to eat breakfast (we prolly shoudve starved ourselves for a week before we went).

We arrived at French Quarter around 330pm and decided to just explore the hotel and of course DD7 wanted to immediately go into the pool. Well she was just gonna have to wait. She acted like we don't have pools in Tennessee. We unpacked and headed over to the Grand Floridian for dinner at 6pm at citricos.

We weren't sure how long it would take us to get over there so we left kinda early but that was ok because this resort is breathtaking and I really enjoyed relaxing and taking it all in (aside from the fact that I'm Ocd about being late for anything). I love the smell in the lobby and the beautiful landscaping. We found citricos and were almost immediately seated.....early!
Our waiter arrived at our table and explained to us the deluxe dining plan and our choices etc., etc., this was good because we had no idea what we were doing. Yeah, yeah, I know...maybe I should back up and explain. We live in a very small town. The only restaurants available to us are fast food or chain buffets. If we go into Knoxville then we have more choices but I’m just not that motivated to drive an hour and 15 minutes for dinner. Now, here is where it gets a little tricky. I’m from NJ so we had lots and lots of choices for fancy restaurants back home and my mother, well, my mother is ocd about being “proper”. So I did a lot of teaching to my dd7 about the appropriate way to butter her bread, napkin on her lap, please don’t lick your fingers. I also did a lot of explaining what certain ingredients were. I don’t think this was a geographical difference with me and my family, I think was more because I’m addicted to The Food Network and watch so many chefs use some weird ingredients that I don’t think you can even have shipped into an area like ours. So anyway.....enough yabbering....on to the review.
You will have to forgive me because I got soooo excited about having REAL food, I forgot pictures of the appetizers. I do get much better though and think we got pics of everything except some of the counter service stuff.
Anyway, Shelby (DD7) couldn’t decide what she wanted so we decided that I would order the Sauteed Shrimp with lemon, white wine and feta and tomatoes. She would order the Gateau of crab and we would split them both. Poor hubby couldn’t find an appetizer that he liked (remember? Steak and potato kinda guy and no way into seafood (except shrimp), but I will give him credit, he tried just about everything as you will see later in the week). He ended up ordering the cripsy risotto based on the waiters suggestion. Shelby and I LOVED our appetizers, and even JR liked the shrimp despite the lemon (yeah, he doesnt like lemon either). However, JR did not like the risotto balls. This was a weird appetizer, even for me and I love mushrooms. He said they were “ok” but definately not an order again.
Now the main course, JR ordered the braised ribs, Shelby couldn’t decide (again) so we decided to split again. I ordered the swordfish and she ordered the grouper.
grouper

swordfish

Braised ribs

Dinner was fantastic. The sauce in the grouper was a little much for Shelby so we switched and she very quickly gobbled down my swordfish.
Now the best for last. Dessert!!
Shelby had the seasonal fruit thingy....its not on Allears menu and I forget the name. She liked it but she really liked Daddy’s fancy chocolate tart. I had the tropical fruit creme brulee. Dessert was good, the creme brulee was a little too “fruity” for me.

creme brulee

Daddy’s fancy chocolate tart

Seasonal fruit tart

Overall I would say citricos was a good start to our vacation. It was so great to eat some real food after living on hotdogs and hamburger helper for 3 years. We were real excited for the rest of our meals. Tomorrow is MK day and whispering canyon! Woot!!

citricos dinner: $200.92
Tip: $38.00

oh and PS...nothing too exciting to drink with dinner this night, we were still recovering from the graduation party

Sealed with a kiss

 

[pharmgirl69]

Ok so my husband just pointed out to me that I did not actually "review" the food. You will soon see how we went Disney just wanting to eat some good food and left with an advance palate and very stong "opinions". You would think we were the actual judges on Next Top chef by the time we left.

So here is the actual taste review.

The braised ribs my husband loved. He said they were very tender and delicious. The grouper had a sauce with it that was a little spicy for shelby. She general likes spicy things but it was a bit overwhelming for her. The swordfish was wonderful and I wish I didn't have to switch and could have eaten all of it. (because of course before Shelby gave me her dish, she ate all the mussels out of it).

 

[I'mwithGrumpy]

Love your review so far! I had to laugh, I am a California transplant to Tennessee. I love Tennessee during the summer, just so beautiful...hate the mosquitoes..winter makes me want to move to Florida!
Looking forward to the rest of your reviews.

 

[Mom2Elliot]

Love that your DD is so adventurous! My DD, not so much, but I'm working on her Can't wait to read more!

 

[mandibc11]

I'm excited to read your reviews! I hope you had as good a time as we did that week

 

[Symans3honeybees]

Can't wait to read the rest of your taste review

 

[princessallegra]

Loving your reviews so far!!! Your DD sounds like me at that age! My mom and i would share and split meals all the time.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Fabulous first review, you DD sounds like my DS will give anything a try not so my DD.

Looking forward to more.

 

[MJMouse]

Great review! And AMAZING pictures! What kind of camera do you use?

 

[catne]

those desserts look soooo good! I hate good dessert pictures when I'm dieting (whine whine whine)

The rest of it looks good, too...and cute family

 

[PixieDustandEeyore]

loving your dining report...hope you had fun in disney world and got to swim lots in the ce-ment pond!

 

[Minnie824]

can't wait to see more! I'm so impressed that your DD ate all that! My DDs are 8 and 6 and wouldn't go near one of those things.

 

[91Coupe]

Can't wait to read about the food. There are some we have been thinking about trying.

Nice to see other people from TN and best of all a DD named Shelby ( mine is 11). Was yours named after the Mustang.

 

[arcticdisneylovers]

Great review, but more, more

 

[pharmgirl69]

Love your review so far! I had to laugh, I am a California transplant to Tennessee. I love Tennessee during the summer, just so beautiful...hate the mosquitoes..winter makes me want to move to Florida!
Looking forward to the rest of your reviews.

LOL I hate the dang "skeeters" down here. (howd I do? that was a TN word) My ankles and legs are constantly chewed up!!! Welcome to my review!

MJMouse....the camera is the new addition to our family, ok, not so new about 7 months old but it is my DH new baby. I call it "the beast" but its really a canon rebel. It is a good camera but I'm still liking the little portable disposable ones that dont matter if they get wet LOL. He loves it though and he does a good job preserving good memories for us.

91coup.....as a matter of fact, she WAS named after the mustang. When she was born my husband worked for Ford. He wanted to name her Shelby cobra. I drew the line at Shelby LOL. Thank Goodness we didn't have more, I couldn't handle a child named Fusion or F150.

Thanks all for the nice comments. I am taking my State Boards for my RN license next Thursday so I'm gonna try to squeeze in a few more reviews over the next few days but please forgive me if I get sidetracked. Thanks all for reading!!!!!!

 

[pharmgirl69]

So Day 2 was MK day. Since we used so many table credits, we decided we would pay OOP for breakfast and lunch today.
OK, so we are staying at the FQ and what would breakfast be without beignets. We have read so much about these that of course we had to try them. We got three of them

With DH being a huge breakfast person, we ended up eating the beignets as a dessert. Maybe they would have been better if we had eaten them right away while they were hot. They were a bit chewy and the powdered sugar about choked me. Now don’t get me wrong, they were good, but I absolutely LOVE a good pastry and I was a little disappointed. It was like they needed to be filled with something, chocolate wouldve been a good choice. Then again, when is chocolate NOT a good choice. My croissant sandwich on the other hand was delicious. The croissant was so flaky. I was a little turned off by the way they use an ice cream scooper to dump the eggs on it but nonetheless, after I scraped off a few eggs it was yummy.
Here is hubby’s breakfast. I told you, he loves breakfast!! Biscuits and gravy seemed to be the general theme for breakfast all week with him. He said the gravy tasted like the canned kind that I used to buy at Gordon’s Food Outlet. He loves MSG, so he was ok with it LOL.

I have no idea what got into Shelby this morning. She decided she wanted a chocolate muffin and oatmeal. What???? Not biscuits and gravy? Normally she does enjoy oatmeal (the prepackaged with MSG type). She did not enjoy this oatmeal though. I guess it wasn’t mommy’s and as much brown sugar as we put in it it still didn’t cut it. However, the chocolate muffin was gone in seconds. Not the most healthy breakfast but hey, this is vacation.

Off to the Magic

After a great morning at MK, our tummy’s were starting to growl. Unfortunately, the rest of the public thought the same thing. I didnt have any ADR for lunch so we just went to the closest place and that was Peco Bill’s.
I guess Shelby’s chocolate muffin didnt last too long because by the time I get done with the fixin bar she had already dug into her BBQ sandwich. I dont know whether the poor child was starving to death or the BBQ was really that good but she said she loved it. I did manage to sneak a picture because as you can see by the fork in the air, she was unwilling to stop momentum to let me pose the food.

DH and I both had a burger. I really loved the fixin bar. That was so awesome. There is nothing better than being able to make a meal just from the toppings!! I had mushrooms and banana peppers and lettuce.....i think a bunch of other stuff too, I dont remember but it was the shiznit!!! Or I was just starving too. ( won’t bore you with DH burger pic, he just had tomato and mayo)

The food at Peco’s was really good for a cs. It actually hit the spot. The only thing I wasn’t impressed with was that it was just sooooo crowded and the tables were disgusting by the time we found one. I ended up cleaning it with my wipes the best I could without Shelby accidently biting my arm cause she wouldn’t put the fork down. We would go here again, but I would plan for a different time.
Dinner!!! Woo hooo. Dinners are what I’ve been looking forward to for as long as I’ve been planning. Tonight is Whispering canyon.

WL was amazing. I was so impressed. It is amazingly beautiful.
Shelby and I had the combination platter appetizer. It had the spring rolls and seafood cake on it. The menu said it was for 2. I asked the server if we could split it and she said yes, but we are still entitled to an appetizer. I didnt understand. Yes, the blond hair is dye but that doesn’t stop me from playing the part very well. I asked again if we could split it. She explained something and I still didn’t get it. My husband just rolled his eyes and ordered. So I’m not sure what that was all about. But I digress....

So shelby and I shared this. Or should I say, I got the spring rolls and she ate all the seafood cakes. We could have eaten this as a meal. I always get scared when something says “seafood” because you never know what you are gonna get. Is it gonna be that fake pink “sea legs” that you get in the deli department? Well, let me tell you. The single bite I had of the cakes was wonderful. Not a lot of breading and if it was “sea legs” I didnt care. There was a slight bite and really brought out the flavor. Wonderful! No wonder Shelby scoffed them down before I could get anymore.
The spring rolls were good also. Different but good. DH got them as his appetizer.

He had a hard time picking an appetizer and I think he was a bit shocked when these came out of the kitchen. He isn’t a big chinese food person and I think he was expecting them to be like egg rolls. Well he was pleasantly surprised. He enjoyed these. They were not at ALL like chinese food. We had the same thing on our combo plate so no need to share. The BBQ meat they use in them is really tender and combined with the bbq/mayo sauce, they were delicious. Just a slight bite of spice and sweetness.
OK, I think I need to back up again. I have been telling Shelby all about this restaurant for months. Telling her all about the antics and different things they do. We read to not go to the bathroom cause that could spawn some antics etc.,etc., Well I guess this is what Shelby remembered because she mustve gone to the bathroom 4x hoping that something would “start”. Much to her disappointment, nothing did. Finally dinner came and I managed to keep her seated long enough to eat.
We ordered the canyon skillet.

It arrived family style. We all devoured it!!! The BBQ sauce that they use is wonderful, I was really enjoying the sweet/spice of it but it wasn’t overpowering. The plate had chicken, pulled pork, corn, mashed potatoes, beef brisket. I cannot tell you what the best part of it was because it was all good. The mashed potatoes were “real”. Shelby said the corn was really sweet. I stuck to the meat.....give me the meat. I tried it all, in fact, when our waitress came to take away our dishes I was still “picking” at the pulled pork right out of the platter. She said “I dont want to get my hand biten so I’ll just leave that for right now”. LOL, so much for teaching my daughter manners and etiquette. I covered up by telling her it was OK, this wasn’t a fancy restaurant. You can lick your fingers here. So maybe that wasn’t the best way to handle it but hey, that stuff was good ole home cooking (the south is starting to come out in me) and I didnt want to stop eating....until my husband reminded me that dessert was next!! OMG, I forgot dessert, where am I gonna put it!?!?!?
All of a sudden our waitress comes out to clear our plates. Shelby sees she is carrying 2 glasses of champagne with strawberries in them. Shelby asks what they are. Our waitress says “shhh dont ruin the surprise” Uh oh, whats going on? I then realize we are still wearing our Happy Anniversary pins.
The waitress tells us both to stand up and hands us the champagne. She gets the dining rooms attention and says “8 years ago, JR and Shelby were married. Were any of you invited to the wedding?” With a resonding NO...the waitress continues to say “Me either, and my feelings were kinda hurt, so we are going to recreate their kiss. Everyone tap your glasses as I count to 10 and they kiss” So we kissed as she counted 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1. It was hysterical and shelby enjoyed it too.
I ordered the deep dish bourbon pecan pie.

I need to tell you that I really regretted eating so much dinner. This pecan pie was prolly one of the best I’ve ever had. It was different and I loved it. It was not the real heavy rich kind that you can only eat 2 bites until you are in a sugar coma. It was light and airy, I wanna say it was almost custard like center but thats not quite it either. Whatever it was it was awesome! Next time I go there, I’m ordering it for dinner and then may have a seafood cake for dessert and then the skillet for an appetizer.
Shelby ordered the smores cheesecake

Shelby is our cheesecake expert. She loves cheesecake of any shape and form but.....she tried to eat my pecan pie!!!! Ummmm, no....this is mommy’s and I’m not sharing this time!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, i gave her a bite but daggumit this is MINE, eat your own. She enjoyed her cheesecake, said it was real creamy but I think she wouldve rather had my pecan pie. (me too!)
JR ordered the apple caramel pie.

JR’s 2 favorite things in the world are pineapple upside down cake and apple pie. So this was right up his alley. He said it was really good, then I caught him dipping his fork into my pecan pie!! Daggumit, ya’ll got your own, get out of mine!!!!!! (ok, did you see that? I said “ya’ll”.....pretty good huh?)
Basically dessert in a nutshell (no pun intended) was all about my pecan pie.
This was a good old fashioned dinner and we really enjoyed it. Yes it was loud, yes it was controlled chaos and I know some of the reviews don’t like it because of that. However, this is the personality of this restaurant and if you aren’t ready and willing for that then don’t make an ADR here but you would be missing some great food!!
And that was Day 2! Stay tuned for Day 3......AK, Tusker house, Yak and Yeti cs, and Narcoossee’s. Woo hooo

 

[tyandskyesmom]

Keep 'em coming!

 

[LuccaDrake]

Great report so far! I find myself reading it with a southern accent. And those seafood cakes looked really yummy. I could see how you could make a meal out of just that!

~Beka~

 

[Greta]

Great photos with your Rebel! We have one too and love it.
and Congrats on graduation...good luck on NCLEX, don't stress about it too much, everyone walks out thinking they failed but you won't!

Looking forward to hearing more and pat Shelby on the back for me, what an adventerous little girl! My DD14 won't try everything but when we are in WDW she tends to go for a little more than usual.

 

[pharmgirl69]

Great photos with your Rebel! We have one too and love it.
and Congrats on graduation...good luck on NCLEX, don't stress about it too much, everyone walks out thinking they failed but you won't!

Looking forward to hearing more and pat Shelby on the back for me, what an adventerous little girl! My DD14 won't try everything but when we are in WDW she tends to go for a little more than usual.

Thanks....I am stressing about it right now. I just got my authorization to test on thursday and we scheduled for next thursday. A little quicker than I expected but I'll be glad when next week is over LOL.....I cried after my LPN boards, I'm prolly gonna need a valium for this one.

Shelby is very adventerous, even when it comes to rides. She rode expedition everest 3x in the single rider line. Wouldve stayed all day if Daddy didnt tell her it wasnt fair to me and that I wanted to do something LOL.

Hopefully I'll take a break from studying and do Day 3 tomorrow. Stay tuned and thanks all for reading...I'm enjoying reliving our great trip!!