The Epic 16 day Feast...Oh, and we got married too! Update 11/17 Jiko

[daisygirl902]

Background Info
Wow – what a trip…I have yet to figure out just how much weight I have gained on this trip, but it was definitely an epic food extravaganza to beat all others!

The trip began on September 18th, and I am sitting in the airport on our way home as I type this. That's right, we spent 7 days on DDP (with our wedding in the mix), 4 days on a DCL Cruise, and 4 days on the Super-Deluxe Dining Plan (I’ll explain this momentarily)!

Because it was our wedding trip, we traveled and dined with a whole bunch of others, but for the purposes of this report I’ll stick to reviews for just the food consumed by the 2 of us….believe me you’ll be shocked to see exactly how much we managed to consume…This is my first attempt at a dining review so hopefully I do OK!!

I’ll be doing a full trip report later for the trip in general with reviews on the resorts and the rest of our experiences, I’ll be sure to link to it here – for this one I’ll try to stick just to our dining experiences.

The first 7 nights we stayed at Boardwalk Villas using the regular Disney Dining Plan. After that we stayed at Poly for 1 night with no DDP, and then left for the 4 day Bahamian Cruise on the Disney Wonder.

We returned to 3 nights at Animal Kingdom Kidani on the Deluxe Dining Plan….however when we checked in I noticed they had given us 5 days worth of dining credits. Me, being the very honest person that I am (and not wanting to get charged for them later) went to the concierge to tell them about the mistake. After 30 minutes and 3 cast members trying to figure out what happened and how to fix it, then gave up and said “It's too much hassle and too risky to fix it, just keep them – Happy Honeymoon!” (apparently they would have had to actually cancel our reservation to change it and if they did that they may not have been able to reassign us a room or something...). It was just one more bit of Disney magic for our trip!!

After these 3 nights, we checked into Jambo with no dining plan for the last 2 nights…which was great because we used our leftover credits for our “checkout day” for lunch, dinner, and pizza delivery for the last day!! It worked out perfectly.

OK so I got a bit off topic there, sorry….you’ll learn as I go that I am long winded at times, as well as not the most “on task” person in the world…but you’re stuck with me at this point, so good luck!

The Cast
Me, Kelly – 33 years old…the planner of the family, I was responsible for not only planning our Disney Wedding and our own personal dining plans, but also somehow got nominated to plan the dining plans of 5 other groups attending the wedding…not sure how or why, but that’s how it happened. I’m a true foodie, will eat pretty much everything at least once, love sushi (actually anything containing rare or raw tuna) and desserts of all kinds. I am a very healthy eater in my “normal life” but throw it all out the window at Disney every time I go…I literally eat what I want when I want while on vacation…in my “normal life” you would never catch me eating, for example, deep fried batter covered in powdered sugar…but at Disney I say “bring on the funnel cake”!!

DH, Adrian – 27 years old and a “go with the flow” type of guy. He has input to where we eat and what we do, but he is pretty easily distracted, so I can easily switch things up without him really noticing . He loves basically all Disney food, but in particular was on the hunt for “the best steak ever”, something to compete with the Porterhouse he ate at Yachtsman Steakhouse last year. Did he find it? I’ll let you know later on…..

Where did we eat?
Most of our breakfasts were eaten in the room, or at CS locations, lunches were for the most part CS or snacks, with our big meals eaten at TS locations at dinner time.

In this report I’ll focus on the TS, but will add in brief reviews of the CS as I go through. I have lots of pics of almost all of our food, with the exception of most CS meals and some of the cruise food as well.

Day 1 – Tutto Italia (1 TS)
Day 2 – Whispering Canyon (1 TS)
Day 3 – Teppan Edo (1 TS)
Day 4 – Tony’s Town Square (1 TS)
Day 5 – HDDR (OOP - Wedding Day)
Day 6 – Wolfgang Pucks (1 TS)
Day 7 – Flying Fish (2 TS)
Day 8 – No TS
Day 9 – Kona Breakfast (OOP), Animator’s Palate Dinner
Day 10 – Parrot Cay (regular menu)
Day 11 – Parrot Cat (Pirate Menu)
Day 12 – Triton’s
Day 13 – Sanaa Lunch(1 TS), Artist Point (2 TS)
Day 14 – CRT Breakfast (2 TS), Narcossees Dinner (2 TS)
Day 15 – Boma Breakfast (1 TS), California Grill Dinner (2 TS)
Day 16 – San Angel Inn Lunch (1 TS), Jiko Dinner (2 TS)

Up next - the reviews start with Day 1 - Tutto Italia.

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

Count me in.
CONGRATS!!!

 

[Koda Bear]

Get home safely! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait for more!!

 

[MickeyNicki]

Congrats! Cannot wait to read all about your trip

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Congratulations! Can't wait to read all of your reviews!

 

[lindsayp]

grats! and i'm in!

 

[daisygirl902]

We arrived in time to unpack and shower up to head right over to EPCOT to meet our dining time of 6 PM for Tutto Italia. It was a great start to the trip, dining wise. The food and service were great and met our needs for a good solid arrival day.

We skipped the appetizers for this meal, although they served a great assortment of crusty breads with dishes of olives and marinated mushrooms for the table. Adrian doesn’t really like mushrooms but since all of us were raving about them he tried one and gave it a thumbs up! The bread came with a dish of tasty olive oil to dip it in, the only thing missing from the meal was a bit of balsamic vinegar drizzled into the oil….without it the oil was a bit bland for my taste.

Adrian eating his teeny-tiny Mushroom

Adrian had the Farfalle (bowtie pasta, Italian prosciutto ham, peas, parmesan cream). He proclaimed it the best pasta he has had in a long time. He loved the parmesan cream sauce, and the peas and prosciutto made it amazing. It was cooked perfectly and the flavors were great.

I had the Tortelli Di Vitello Al "Chianti" (veal and Chianti ravioli, parmesan cheese, sage butter, roasted tomato). The pasta was very obviously homemade and super tender, the meat filling was flavorful and had a melt in your mouth delicate texture, and the sauce was light and didn’t over power…it complimented the ravioli well and did not overwhelm the delicateness of the pasta. All in all a great dish!

For dessert he had the Chocolate Panna Cotta which was like a rich, delicious chocolate Jello. I know that doesn’t sound great but it really was….Jello was the only texture we could use to describe it though…but the flavor was amazing.

I had the Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake….which did not disappoint. As I said earlier I normally eat very healthy at home, so on vacation Cheesecake is one of my weaknesses…I always regret when I don’t order it and someone else does. This version was smooth, perfectly sweet, and had amazingly fresh flavors throughout.

We all enjoyed Tutto Italia immensely. It was Adrian’s parents first Disney experience and it was a great way to start an epic trip!!

 

[daisygirl902]

Count me in.
CONGRATS!!!

Get home safely! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait for more!!

Congrats! Cannot wait to read all about your trip

Congratulations! Can't wait to read all of your reviews!

grats! and i'm in!

Thanks for all of the well wishes and for following along everyone!!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Congratulations on both your marriage and the free DXDP upgrade

Looking forward to the rest of your reviews.

 

[butiflfeet]

Congratulations and great start to your reviews! I can't wait for more

 

[princess aleya]

Congratulations!! Great report so far, can't wait to hear more.

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

great start...

 

[daisygirl902]

Congratulations on both your marriage and the free DXDP upgrade

Looking forward to the rest of your reviews.

Thanks a bunch! What I found even funnier about the "free upgrade" is that I had to basically argue with the lady at the front desk to even convince her that we had too many credits....she kept telling me that it was correct...I was like "OK I am happy to accept them, but let's do the math together....3 dining credits per day for each adult for 3 nights is 18 credits...we have 30." then she would stare at me blankly and say "No, 30 sounds right to me". It was kind of hilarious really...they never did figure out how it happened - apparently no one there had ever seen it before! Disney Honeymoon Magic!

Congratulations and great start to your reviews! I can't wait for more

Thanks!

Congratulations!! Great report so far, can't wait to hear more.

Oh you will!! Day 2 should be up tomorrow morning!

great start...

Thanks!

 

[lizzyb]

Great start! Can't wait for the rest.

 

[bolgers love wdw]

Yum,yum,yummy!!
Can't wait to read on!

 

[daisygirl902]

We started out our day at the wonderful MK morning show and hung out in the parks till lunch time.

We didn’t take pictures of our lunch, because frankly it didn’t look very appetizing, however it was surprisingly good!! We ate at Columbia Harbor House – I had Shrimp and Fries, it came with about 7 or 8 large shrimp and a good sized portion of fries. The shrimp were fantastic, battered and cooked perfectly…I expected them to be way overdone but was pleasantly surprised!

Adrian had the fish and chicken combo – it came with a stick of beer battered fish and a couple of white meat chicken nuggets, again the portion was great and the food was fresh and tasty. For dessert he went all healthy on me and had a strawberry yogurt…not me! No sirrreeeee! I had “Apple Crumble” the name of which confused me as it had no “crumble” on top. It was more like an open faced apple tart…. But the crust was good and it was pretty tasty so I’m OK with it!

That evening, we headed over to Whispering Canyon Café for dinner which was an amazing and truly epic experience! For anyone who hasn’t been, you have to be willing to engage in a bit of foolishness to have a good time there, but if you are it’s worth it! We've been a few times and enjoyed it each time we went. I’ll deal with the food first, and then the experience…

Drinks first – Adrian had a Creamsicle milkshake, which was one of the best shakes I have ever tasted (besides of course the peanut butter and jelly milkshake at 50s Prime Time Café). It was creamy and tangy and just sweet enough…YUM! I had the (now very popular at Disney - they seem to serve this everywhere) Pomegranate Lemonade…which is actually way worse than it sounds…it has a gross aspartame taste, and I usually have no issue with aspartame…I stuck with Diet Coke for the rest of the trip!

Dinner started with corn bread and sweet butter which was amazing (I was still not in the mindset of remembering to take pictures of the bread at this point…I get better as the trip goes on). They also brought over the salad, field greens, tomato, onion with an apple vinaigrette. I didn’t eat much of this because to me, lettuce if kind of wasted space in my tummy when there is a whole platter of MEAT on the way!!

You guessed it - we all decided to share the skillet for dinner! The skillet never fails to disappoint in my opinion - I love it every time! Mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, pulled pork, beans, coleslaw, beef brisket, chicken, and ribs, all smothered in delicious BBQ sauce…I guess I am just easy to please because I don’t know how you CAN’T like this! My favorite is the pulled pork, I can basically make a meal out of it alone!

For dessert I went with my server’s recommendation and against my better judgment and had to experience my first of a few bouts of CHEESECAKE ENVY! I had the caramel apple pie, which is good…I mean it’s apple pie with caramel…it’s OBVIOUSLY good….however, and I know this may sound crazy because it’s apple pie…but it has too much apple! It’s REALLY thick…I dunno…maybe it was just seeing Adrian’s dessert looming large on the plate next to mine…

Adrian went with the safe bet – Smores Cheesecake. YUM! The cheesecake itself is smooth, creamy and tasty, and the added touch of the graham cracker crumbs, marshmallows, and the chocolate ganache…how could you go wrong with this? It’s a great all around dessert, and I was miserably jealous.

So now onto the WCC experience. Here's what happened when my friend asked for a refill on his iced tea...he was also tasked to build a straw capable of drinking this monstrosity...lol

At this point we were only a few days away from the wedding…my sister happened to be sitting across the restaurant and pointed this fact out to her server, who apparently talked to our server….well, you get the picture. So mid-way through the meal our server Britany comes over and says “Pick 2 colors of crayons” to each of us, and then walks away. Through the entire meal we were like “What is with the crayons???”

So we are ready to eat dessert and she comes back with 2 paper chef hats that they made for us that said “Bride to Be” and “Groom to Be” in our favorite crayon colors….and of course made us put them on. We are pretty good sports so of course we oblige them!

Then she makes us stand up and cuddle up and dance while the entire 200 people in the restaurant sing “You are my sunshine”….and THEN demands that we kiss for 10 seconds (which is surprisingly hard to do while keeping it “restaurant appropriate”). It was very funny, and we had a good time.

Here is us goofing around at MK later in the night with our “best man” (the one on his back, obviously not a man) and my maid of honor.

Up next, Day 3 - Teppan Edo!

 

[lindsayp]

great reviews, everything looks yummy! i never had any interest in tutto b.c i assumed it would be like regular Italian that you could get anywhere, but it looks yummy!! i've never tried veal but those ravioli sound delicious! We love teppan edo, can't wait to read that review. Also, i wouldn't mind seeing any disney wedding pics if don't think its weird i love disney weddings haha:

 

[daisygirl902]

great reviews, everything looks yummy! i never had any interest in tutto b.c i assumed it would be like regular Italian that you could get anywhere, but it looks yummy!! i've never tried veal but those ravioli sound delicious! We love teppan edo, can't wait to read that review. Also, i wouldn't mind seeing any disney wedding pics if don't think its weird i love disney weddings haha:

There are some pics in my planning journal, linked in my signature - not weird at all - Disney weddings are not exactly "the norm"!

 

[PrincessBetsy]

Congrats on your marriage - you guys are so cute together! You are off to a fantastic start and I'm definitely looking forward to more reviews!

 

[daisygirl902]

Day 3 started out at DHS, we stayed until around noon, and then headed back over to BW on the boat to try out the BW bakery for lunch (we ended up eating a lot of lunches there actually). We both had the chicken bacon swiss sandwich (I got mine grilled), which was pretty good. The multigrain bread and all other ingredients were fresh, my only complaint is that the meats were all in a ball in the middle of the sandwich, so you kind of had to take it all apart and remake the sandwich to make it edible. The flavor was good though – it was pretty enjoyable. It came with a side of cucumber salad, which had absolutely no flavor. It was OK if you added salt and pepper, but nothing great.

The desserts….OMG the desserts….I had the peanut butter cake, which was so amazing. I am a huge sweets fan though, and this was a bit too intensely sweet even for me. I mean, I liked it and everything, but I only ate half which is totally unlike me. The cake was very moist and the frosting was delicious though – I enjoyed it very much!

Adrian had the fruit tart, which I think may have been one of his favorites on the trip. He loved it…the cream in the center was great, and the fruits were very fresh. All in all it was an amazing tart, well balanced flavors, not too sweet but still “dessert-like”.

That evening we went to Teppan Edo – I don’t have a lot of pics of the food, so I apologize in advance.

I had the spicy tuna rolls to start, they were phenomenal. The flavors were perfect, and it also had great texture.

For the main course I had the Shrimp and Steak and Adrian had the Chicken and Steak. Everything at Teppan Edo is served with a side of noodles and stir fried vegetables, and it was all phenomenal. The chef was great, very interactive and funny, and his cooking skills were second to none! It would be very easy to overcook shrimp and steak (I like mine on the rare side of medium-rare) but they were cooked to perfection.

For dessert we both had the Chocolate Ginger Cake, which was great as always. One thing I find is that the ginger flavor is very mild, I like things with a bit of kick so if I could change anything at all it would be to add a ginger syrup, or to add some chopped candied ginger to the cake itself or something.

Teppan Edo was another successful dinner…up next Tony’s Town Square, and some more Disney Magic!