Stringbean&Wingnut
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2010
We returned to Tokelau, and, just like the day before, we were starting to anticipate dinner long before our ADR time. That night, we had dinner at Jiko planned, which we were both looking forward to, given our awesome experience there the year before.
When I went on the Disney site, there was an earlier ADR available for Jiko, but there was also a nice and early ADR available for Bistro de Paris, which we had an ADR for 3 days later. However, Epcot had EMH's until midnight that night, and I was starting to think that Epcot may be more peaceful this night, rather than waiting until that Friday.
I brought the idea up to Wingnut, and he agreed, so the switch was made. Bistro tonight, Jiko on Friday. (Admittedly, "overhaul" may have been a bit of a strong verb to use in the last update..)
Which then led me to get super-excited: WE WERE GOING TO BISTRO DE PARIS IN A FEW HOURS!!!
Those who read my trip report remember the night I discovered that Bistro de Paris was joining the dining plan (and how I apparently over-reacted...
), and how excited we both were.
(He was. I swear.)
And then some other stuff probably happened and we were in the World Showcase.
(As I said, I don't take TR notes, so an unexplained 3 hour gap in photos doesn't help with the storytelling!)
(Logically, I'm going to go with we switched the ADR around, got fancied-up for dinner, and monorailed to Epcot.)
(But since we literally missed the Osborne lights by ONE DAY (their last day was 1/7) and (shhh don't tell Wingnut) I did, in a moment of pure Disney planning insanity, price out what it would be to move up our trip by one day (answer: a lot.), I still wish we had gotten to see them during our trip. So in the spirit of that, here are a few Osborne lights pictures from December 2010, during the trip we took with my parents:
(Yes, I know this interlude makes no sense, but really, does much in this TR?)
(Interlude over.)
As I was saying...and then we were in World Showcase!
We went up to the Bistro de Paris podium (tucked in a little corner behind Chefs de France, fyi), and checked in. The waiting area is pretty small, with just a handful of chairs. I'd imagine that during busier wait times, most of the people will be waiting outside in the general vicinity.
I decided to go to the bathroom quickly before our dinner started, and was directed to the bathrooms in Chefs de France. I'm not sure if Bistro has their own bathrooms upstairs as well.
We hung out for a few minutes, watching the hostess walk up and down these stairs every single time a party was seated.
Soon enough, our name was called, and we too were led up the stairs and into the restaurant! We were seated by one of the window tables, which I was excited about.
My view:
Wingnut's view:
The restaurant:
When we were settled in, our fantastic server brought over two small cups of soup, compliments of the chef. Our best guess, attempting to remember this awhile after the fact, was that it was a vichyssoise. It tasted like a very light, liquefied cheese.
Wingnut and I were a bit bemused as to how to properly consume the soup. (For perspective, my regular spoon is at the right of the photo.) The spoon that the soup arrived with was Barbie-sized in comparison. But it seemed rude to pick up the cup and start drinking. So we both spooned teeny delicious drops at a time, savoring the wonderful light flavor.
Our server came back, and seeing our completely emptied bowls, commented that "the only problem with this dish is that it's small!!"
We whole-heartedly agreed with that statement.
Next, individual baguettes and butter arrived.
Wingnut: Ah, the baguette. Possibly one of my top 5 breads of all time.
The bread was warm and very well-done, crispy on the outside, nice and soft in the middle.
For my appetizer, I ordered the butternut squash soup with toasted croutons, chestnuts, and shrimp.
Oh. My. Goodness.
This had to have been the most incredible soup I've ever eaten in my life. Seriously, honestly, hands-down, THIS. It was amazingly tasty, and AMAZINGLY rich. It really did feel like I was eating the most delicious butter ever. (I kind of was.) It felt so bad for you, but so wonderful at the same time. The soup was warm and rich, and the shrimp were delicious. The chestnuts were nice and buttery, a great compliment to the dish.
Wingnut had the escargot with a parmesan crisp for his appetizer.
He loved his appetizer as well, saying that the sauce was very very good, and very buttery. "Everything was very buttery". The escargot were in a ravioli, which he said was humongous.
On to entrees! I had decided on the chicken, which came stuffed with tapenade, and was accompanied by rice with vegetables, and spinach.
(I'll admit, when this was first set down, I had a brief moment of "but where's the chicken?"
)
This was a very unexpected presentation, but a great dish nonetheless. The chicken was very good, with the olive tapenade rolled inside of it. The rice and vegetables was just that, good, basic rice and vegetables. The spinach (which is that dark little oval), I could not eat more than a bite of, however. It had been pureed, and had no texture beyond just smooth spinach. (I'm picky about food texture anyways though, I hate things that are too creamy like sour cream and mayonnaise.) Wingnut gave it a try, and just shrugged with a nonchalant "it's just pureed spinach".
Wingnut had chosen the lamb:
He said: "It was incredibly tender lamb. The potatoes it came with were crusted with mushrooms and nuts, it was very unique."
Even though I was pretty stuffed at this point, a word on the dessert menu had caught my eye, and I was determined to have it.
Souffle!
This was the absolute definition of what a souffle should be, nice and light and airy and wonderful. It was raspberry-flavored, with chocolate on the bottom, and a raspberry sorbet on the side. As full as I was, I ate every single bite.
Wingnut decided on the blueberry flan:
He enjoyed his dessert as well, saying that it was more of a creme brulee on top of a cookie than flan. He said that it was very good, and it came with a raspberry sauce and raspberries. And a little cute berry face.
Our view by nightfall:
Overall, we really enjoyed our experience at Bistro de Paris. Wingnut said, "if you are looking for a very classic five-star dining experience, this is it. Our waiter was very nice and engaging." I agree, Bistro is definitely a special-occasion kind of restaurant, I thought that the food was great, the atmosphere is wonderful, and the staff was all very welcoming and personable.
When I had been first planning our ADR there, I had thought about possibly trying to time our meal around Illuminations, and attempting to get a window table. After eating there, I definitely will caution anyone with that plan that the window tables are in very short supply, and many of them, like ours, are around the sides of the buildings, so only one side of the table would even have a view of the lagoon (and ours was pretty obstructed by the trees).
Our meal lasted around two hours, so I would also take that into consideration if you wanted to see Illuminations that night. The pacing of the meal never felt slow to us, it was nice and relaxed.
By the time we left the restaurant, the sun had set, and the air had grown much chillier than it had been that afternoon.
When I went on the Disney site, there was an earlier ADR available for Jiko, but there was also a nice and early ADR available for Bistro de Paris, which we had an ADR for 3 days later. However, Epcot had EMH's until midnight that night, and I was starting to think that Epcot may be more peaceful this night, rather than waiting until that Friday.
I brought the idea up to Wingnut, and he agreed, so the switch was made. Bistro tonight, Jiko on Friday. (Admittedly, "overhaul" may have been a bit of a strong verb to use in the last update..)
Which then led me to get super-excited: WE WERE GOING TO BISTRO DE PARIS IN A FEW HOURS!!!
Those who read my trip report remember the night I discovered that Bistro de Paris was joining the dining plan (and how I apparently over-reacted...
), and how excited we both were. (He was. I swear.)
And then some other stuff probably happened and we were in the World Showcase.
(As I said, I don't take TR notes, so an unexplained 3 hour gap in photos doesn't help with the storytelling!)
(Logically, I'm going to go with we switched the ADR around, got fancied-up for dinner, and monorailed to Epcot.)
(But since we literally missed the Osborne lights by ONE DAY (their last day was 1/7) and (shhh don't tell Wingnut) I did, in a moment of pure Disney planning insanity, price out what it would be to move up our trip by one day (answer: a lot.), I still wish we had gotten to see them during our trip. So in the spirit of that, here are a few Osborne lights pictures from December 2010, during the trip we took with my parents:
(Yes, I know this interlude makes no sense, but really, does much in this TR?)
(Interlude over.)
As I was saying...and then we were in World Showcase!
We went up to the Bistro de Paris podium (tucked in a little corner behind Chefs de France, fyi), and checked in. The waiting area is pretty small, with just a handful of chairs. I'd imagine that during busier wait times, most of the people will be waiting outside in the general vicinity.
I decided to go to the bathroom quickly before our dinner started, and was directed to the bathrooms in Chefs de France. I'm not sure if Bistro has their own bathrooms upstairs as well.
We hung out for a few minutes, watching the hostess walk up and down these stairs every single time a party was seated.
Soon enough, our name was called, and we too were led up the stairs and into the restaurant! We were seated by one of the window tables, which I was excited about.
My view:
Wingnut's view:
The restaurant:
When we were settled in, our fantastic server brought over two small cups of soup, compliments of the chef. Our best guess, attempting to remember this awhile after the fact, was that it was a vichyssoise. It tasted like a very light, liquefied cheese.
Wingnut and I were a bit bemused as to how to properly consume the soup. (For perspective, my regular spoon is at the right of the photo.) The spoon that the soup arrived with was Barbie-sized in comparison. But it seemed rude to pick up the cup and start drinking. So we both spooned teeny delicious drops at a time, savoring the wonderful light flavor.
Our server came back, and seeing our completely emptied bowls, commented that "the only problem with this dish is that it's small!!"
We whole-heartedly agreed with that statement.
Next, individual baguettes and butter arrived.
Wingnut: Ah, the baguette. Possibly one of my top 5 breads of all time.
The bread was warm and very well-done, crispy on the outside, nice and soft in the middle.
For my appetizer, I ordered the butternut squash soup with toasted croutons, chestnuts, and shrimp.
Oh. My. Goodness.
This had to have been the most incredible soup I've ever eaten in my life. Seriously, honestly, hands-down, THIS. It was amazingly tasty, and AMAZINGLY rich. It really did feel like I was eating the most delicious butter ever. (I kind of was.) It felt so bad for you, but so wonderful at the same time. The soup was warm and rich, and the shrimp were delicious. The chestnuts were nice and buttery, a great compliment to the dish.
Wingnut had the escargot with a parmesan crisp for his appetizer.
He loved his appetizer as well, saying that the sauce was very very good, and very buttery. "Everything was very buttery". The escargot were in a ravioli, which he said was humongous.
On to entrees! I had decided on the chicken, which came stuffed with tapenade, and was accompanied by rice with vegetables, and spinach.
(I'll admit, when this was first set down, I had a brief moment of "but where's the chicken?"
)This was a very unexpected presentation, but a great dish nonetheless. The chicken was very good, with the olive tapenade rolled inside of it. The rice and vegetables was just that, good, basic rice and vegetables. The spinach (which is that dark little oval), I could not eat more than a bite of, however. It had been pureed, and had no texture beyond just smooth spinach. (I'm picky about food texture anyways though, I hate things that are too creamy like sour cream and mayonnaise.) Wingnut gave it a try, and just shrugged with a nonchalant "it's just pureed spinach".
Wingnut had chosen the lamb:
He said: "It was incredibly tender lamb. The potatoes it came with were crusted with mushrooms and nuts, it was very unique."
Even though I was pretty stuffed at this point, a word on the dessert menu had caught my eye, and I was determined to have it.
Souffle!
This was the absolute definition of what a souffle should be, nice and light and airy and wonderful. It was raspberry-flavored, with chocolate on the bottom, and a raspberry sorbet on the side. As full as I was, I ate every single bite.
Wingnut decided on the blueberry flan:
He enjoyed his dessert as well, saying that it was more of a creme brulee on top of a cookie than flan. He said that it was very good, and it came with a raspberry sauce and raspberries. And a little cute berry face.
Our view by nightfall:
Overall, we really enjoyed our experience at Bistro de Paris. Wingnut said, "if you are looking for a very classic five-star dining experience, this is it. Our waiter was very nice and engaging." I agree, Bistro is definitely a special-occasion kind of restaurant, I thought that the food was great, the atmosphere is wonderful, and the staff was all very welcoming and personable.
When I had been first planning our ADR there, I had thought about possibly trying to time our meal around Illuminations, and attempting to get a window table. After eating there, I definitely will caution anyone with that plan that the window tables are in very short supply, and many of them, like ours, are around the sides of the buildings, so only one side of the table would even have a view of the lagoon (and ours was pretty obstructed by the trees).
Our meal lasted around two hours, so I would also take that into consideration if you wanted to see Illuminations that night. The pacing of the meal never felt slow to us, it was nice and relaxed.
By the time we left the restaurant, the sun had set, and the air had grown much chillier than it had been that afternoon.
The restaurant is so beautiful and the meal looks delicious!
I hate missing updates. It takes me forever to get caught back up and then I forget everything I wanted to comment on. 
SO true!!!
)
My ADR is on June 16th. I really hope they don't close until after that. If you read anything, let me know. Of course, the last time I had an ADR changed on me for closure I got special Illuminations viewing passes, so I guess I'll just wait. I'm sure I can get in at Yachtsman if it closes. I've never eaten there, so its also on my list!
