Neither UncleR or I had ever been to Cali Grill before this trip. When we were making ADR's for our Disneymoon, I looked at her and said: "Listen, I'm eating sushi at Cali Grill if it kills me. I'm going to book us there for dinner during Wishes."
She looked at me like I was crazy. We were well under the booking window, and surely there wouldn't be any Wishes ADR's remaining at one of the most coveted restaurants in all of WDW.
When I looked at her a moment later and said, "We got it for 9:10!" she started dancing around the living room.
We decided to forgo Disney transportation on this evening, and instead took a taxi from the Boardwalk over to the Contemporary. (Only $12 if you're interested in knowing, and worth it a million times over for not having to take a crowded, loud bus full of sticky children returning from spending all day in the parks while you're wearing your fancy schmancy Cali Grill clothes) We were a few minutes early for our ADR, so we sat outside and people watched until our stomachs started screaming at us to go check-in at the podium. We checked in at the magic 4th floor desk at about 8:45 and were immediately whisked up to the Cali Grill in the Wonka-esque elevator reserved for CG guests. While you're riding up in the elevator, the "concierge" that takes you up to the top of the hotel recites some sort of spiel on the standards the restaurant uses when selecting their ingredients. We, apparently, got a newbie. And he stumbled over his words and laughed nervously the entire time. As we were stepping off the Wonka elevator, the girl who was obviously given the task of training this young man apologized profusely while explaining that he had been "training". We assured both of them he did great and stepped off into the restaurant's foyer.
We checked in at the desk and since we had been given our pagers downstairs, the hostess suggested we sit in the lounge for a drink or two before we were seated. Liquor sounded lovely, and so we headed straight over.
We plopped down at the bar and the bartender (whose name escapes me and I didn't write it down) came right over. Here was my instruction to him:
"We want something fruity, sweet and refreshing."
He left and when he returned, he was holding two of the most lovely drinks I've had the pleasure of drinking at Disney. He whipped us up one of their specialty drinks, the Twisted Mai Tai, which has rum, creme de noyaux, orange and pineapple juice, and a splash of lime.
All I can say is yum. Yummy yum yum.
While we were getting our drinks, our pager went off. We paid our new best friend, the bartender, and went and met our hostess. As she was leading us to our table, she wished us congratulations and informed us that they would be seating us in the restaurant's Wine Room. She said the Wine Room is private, quiet and allows diners to dine in a much more intimate setting. And she was right! We were led to the back of the restaurant into a small room with approximately 6-8 tables, the lights were dimmed, the walls were lined with wines and best of all, the noise of the rest of the restaurant that had been assaulting our ears as we walked towards our table was immediately gone.
Our table:
I apologize for the lack of pictures of the Wine Room itself, but at this point, we'd been traveling since 4:00 in the morning and we were exhausted.
Our server was David, and he greeted us warmly and wished us many congrats, before he promptly plopped himself down at our table in one of our extra chairs and started explaining the menu and our dining options with the DxDP.
We absolutely loved David. Every time we thanked him for anything, he'd give us a little wink and say, "Oh please. You make it so easy!"
Even though we still had our mai tai's, UncleR and I decided we couldn't waste a visit to Cali Grill by not ordering a glass of wine. After all, we were in the Wine Room, so we asked David for his recommendation based on what we were having for our entrees, and off he went to fetch our wine and our bread.
The bread, which is good, but neither of us ate any beyond a few bites because we needed to save room for what was to come:
The wine David selected for us was a Provenance Merlot, and it was amazing:
Since UncleR and I had obsessed over, errrr, researched the Cali Grill extensively before our trip, we knew exactly what we would be having for our appetizers.
UncleR ordered the crispy, asian rock shrimp salad, which is served with with asian pears, red onions, soy reduction, and wasabi cream.
I'm drooling now just remembering it. It was absolutely wonderful. I would have liked to have eaten more of it, had I not had my appetizer...
I, like I said above, was coming to Cali Grill for the sushi. For my appetizer, I order the spicy kazan roll, which has crab, shrimp, bay scallops, tuna and a spicy, fireball sauce.
It is served with a cucumber salad and pickled ginger. I tasted the cucumber salad, and promptly decided I couldn't waste stomach room on a garnish and went back to licking my plate of the sushi.
It was delicious, amazing, and everything I had hoped it would be. UncleR tasted and agreed. The scallops themselves are in the middle of the dish in between the sushi rolls, and hidden underneath the fireball sauce. They are tiny, melt-in-your mouth scallops that are so delicious your eyes roll back in your head and you want to slap the table ala: "When Harry Met Sally".
I wanted to lick the plate, but I refrained, cause goshdangit, we were at Cali Grill.
UncleR finished all of her shrimp, but I do believe she left some of the salad, as she was saving room for what was coming next...
And that shrimp pasta!
I promise one in the morning. 
Tony's looked wonderful!
Love ya' back lady.
