(The retelling of this story required a bit of Contemporary floor location Googling, so forgive me if I am completely confused about the location of our whereabouts at any given time.)
(I'm confused as to my whereabouts at most given times, so that wouldn't be entirely bizarre.)
We arrived at the Contemporary, and got off of the monorail on the 5th floor. We had purposely left a bit early so we could scope out the shops in search of the souvenir for my mom, so we went down a floor to the store by Chef Mickeys (The Fantasia Shop?). No success there, but I was finally able to get a better look at the Mary Blair mosaic.
(No, that didn't mean that you guys got to see a good picture of it!)
Is this the 5-legged goat? I was trying to find him, and this guy was pretty high up and so it seemed like a good possibility.
We were still a bit early for our ADR, but nonetheless we decided to make our way to the check-in for California Grill. I had read online that we needed to check in on the 2nd floor, and so we went on the elevator, pushed the button...
And somehow ended up on the third floor. I have no idea how that one happened.
We peeked around what seemed to be a check-in desk (no pictures, I was far too baffled as to our whereabouts to photograph), and decided that the resort had too much of an "airport" feel to it for us. Moving on, we chose to get to the second floor via staircase, rather than hopping on the Mysterious Elevator of Wonders again.
And lo and behold, we found the check-in desk for the California Grill!
They said that they would be able to seat us in a few minutes, and asked us if we'd like to go upstairs or stay downstairs to wait. Upstairs, please!
We hopped aboard the Magic Super-Secret Escorted Elevator (not of Wonders, this guy seemed to know what he was doing), and ascended to the 14th floor.
We entered the restaurant, where they told us it would just be a few minutes before we were seated, and lingered awkwardly in the busy lounge area until we were seated at our table, and I FINALLY took another picture.
CASTLE VIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looking the other way.
I was SO excited that we were seated at a window table overlooking the Magic Kingdom. We were seated at around 5:30, and Wishes was scheduled for 8 that night. I knew it was a long shot to still be in the restaurant by that time, but at that moment, I was very hopeful that it would happen.
Place setting.
Our friendly and sweet server greeted us, dropped off the menus, and also handed us a copy of the dessert menu to start drooling over already. (She already knew us all too well!) While we perused the menu, I took a few more pictures of our gorgeous view.
The castle was starting to do its slow color change.
You can see one of the chefs at work in the reflection of this one.
We were then brought over some bread.
Actually, neither of us remember having any of the bread (although I'm positive that I would have). Wingnut: Did I have any? I seriously don't remember.
If I had to guess, it was an apparently unmemorable sourdough bread. With the now-prevalent salted Disney butter.
Wingnut had known what he wanted for his appetizer for quite some time: the Spicy Kazan roll.
W: O.M.G I want that right now. It was SO good. The sushi was fantastic. It had a slight spice to it. The sauce had bay scallops in it.
I had been very torn between one of the soups and a flatbread, debating my decision literally until I placed the order.
(Clearly, not a soup.)
In the end, I went with the herb rotisserie chicken flatbread - with arugula, chicken, figs, and balsamic vinegar. It was REALLY good, and I loved the figs on it.
Wingnut tried a bite, and he thought it was good as well. He's not a big fan of flatbreads, so that's pretty high praise right there!
For my entree, I went with the filet, which was Waygu beef accompanied with Purple Stokes potatoes, broccolini, pumpkin seed oil, and teriyaki barbecue sauce.
This was the best filet I had on the trip (and yes, I did have a lot of filets!), but it was also the only one that was the amazing Waygu beef. It was extremely tender, and I loved the flavors of the different accompaniments on the plate. Everything was wonderful and delicious.
Wingnut chose the cast iron-seared bison - truffle mac & cheese, brussel sprouts, cipollini, smoked bacon, glace de viande.
W: This was the second best bison I've ever had (stay tuned for the best bison!). It was really flavorful, and the potatoes and spinach under the meat were really good. (When asked about the mac & cheese
"It's truffled macaroni and cheese. Nothing can trump that combination."
By this point, it was 6:30, and the conversation at our table had turned to a constant "we're not going to make it to Wishes" (him) vs "we might make it" (me).
W: It's only 6:30. We are not going to be sitting here for another hour and a half.
Me: Oh, FINE. Eat your bison.
Soon, it was dark outside, the castle glowed brightly, and I took a blurry picture.
I reconsidered the dessert menu for the 80th time, and since California Grill is very focused on "seasonal" ingredients, and this was all the way back in January, pretty much all of the desserts were centered around coffee, which I am not a fan of. This pretty much left me with the option of the Bananas and Caramel.
Unfortunately, this was a disappointment. The cream was sickeningly sweet, and the pastry was very hard and sticky. Not in the mood to make an emergency trip to the dentist, I gave up on this one pretty quickly. The little caramelized bananas on the side were pretty good though!
Wingnut, not having the same dislike of coffee as I, had a vaster array of desserts from which to choose. He went with the Gianduja Mousse with Cocoa Nib Tuile - hazelnuts, cappuccino Anglaise, and Bailey's ice cream.
W: That was just awesome. The little mousse dome had a praline center, and it was on top of a praline cookie. The dome was unbelievable, and had a slight crispy waferness of cookie.
("Slight crispy waferness of cookie" - all Wingnut)
He did feel bad that he had an awesome dessert while I had the disappointing plate in front of me. I repeatedly reassured him that the last thing I truly needed after all of our meals was yet another dessert, and this was perfectly fine with me.
Our desserts were delivered at 7:30, again spurring another round of "yes we will"/"no we won't". I had to admit, this was closer than I thought we'd get, and I noticed the tables nearby lingering over their desserts and coffee.
Our lovely server brought the check over at 7:40. I knew we weren't going to make it (if only we hadn't shown up for our ADR super-early!!). The tables nearby started packing up, and were replaced with exuberant diners excited to see Wishes from their tables. I knew we'd seen Wishes several nights in a row now, and as hopeful as I'd been that we'd see it from the California Grill, our only option at that point was to watch it from the balcony.
Wingnut said it was up to me if I wanted to stay and watch it there, and I'll admit that I was tempted, but I decided to let it go, and we headed out of the restaurant at 7:50, for 2 reasons.
One, and I think I've mentioned this before, Wingnut really isn't THAT big a fan of fireworks shows. Yes, he'll sit through them, but he isn't really a "WE HAVE TO SEE ILLUMINATIONS TONIGHT" kind of guy. He watches them more because he knows I love them. So I knew he wasn't that interested in seeing Wishes that night.
Also, (or two), I knew that if we were to stay and watch the show, the monorail would probably start to be pretty crowded, as they'd be heading from the MK. Why not beat the crowds back to the monorail loop while we had the chance?
We headed back to the monorail platform, and I got to catch a few glimpses of the show when we looped around Bay Lake.
Overall, we LOVED our dinner at the California Grill. Despite my disappointing dessert, we both thought the food was amazing, and would definitely, definitely return. The view of the MK was beautiful, and I can only assume that Wishes as seen from there is great. It is very high on our list of "absolutely must-do again!'s"
We monorailed back over to the Polynesian, grabbed some more waters from the store, and headed back to Tokelau, probably watching a few more episodes of
Community before we went to bed.
I absolutely, positively missed International Gateway and you're right....everything is very, very um...brown. 
So ready for some random comments? Here they come!
