A Signature a Day Keeps Reality Away: A Sep '15 Dining Report - Updated 4/11 x2

GoofySon'sMom · Nov 22, 2015

kastoney said:
For my entree's, I started with a cup of their tomato bisque

I ordered this on the recommendation of @GoofySon'sMom and boy was she right. This was creamy and delicious with a mild tomato flavor and the croutons added some great texture. It was probably one of the best tomato soups I've ever had and will be on my must order list from now on ; ) Thanks Vickie!

I am so glad you enjoyed it! I agree that it is one of the best tomato soups! Glad I didn't steer you wrong!

cinderkelly · Nov 23, 2015

kastoney said:
Overall we had another great meal at The Plaza. The service was fast and friendly, food good, milkshakes superb, and most importantly the price is barely more than a quick service. With our tables in wonderland card we saved $7.89,

The a Plaza looks like a solid choice! I wish I could partake in the milkshakes but my body and dairy don't play well together :scared:

so I'll just have to drool over your pics!

kastoney said:
Up next another signature, but this time with disastrous results.

Oh no! Can't wait to hear that story :listen:

Casey is totes adrobs with Aurora!

Xclusive2WDW · Nov 23, 2015

I am a huge fan of Sunshine Seasons, they always have nice selections and their servings are a great value for the prices. You're very descriptive of the flavors you all partake in, I may have to give those oysters a try next year when I go to the world.

samsteele · Nov 23, 2015

I've always loved the Vegetarian Sandwich at The Plaza. And I tell myself its vegetarian so it must be healthy and low-cal. Umm, no. Not with all the gorgeous mozzarella and pesto. Plus the milkshake/float and banana split I usually order with it. Oh well. A girl can always "tell" herself anything. It is really, really tasty if you are good with all the toppings they cram into it.

PghPiratesGirl · Nov 24, 2015

This looks like it's worth a visit just for the tomato soup!! YUM!
Just joining in, you have an adorable family! :flower1:

GoofySon'sMom said:
I am so glad you enjoyed it! I agree that it is one of the best tomato soups! Glad I didn't steer you wrong!

Niki Andiokno · Nov 25, 2015

I have been meaning to tell you MOST EXCELLENT REPORT. Your family is so cute. It is also fun to get you Hubby's professional opinion on some of these places. Can't wait for more.

Madilynsmommy · Nov 25, 2015

Love your report!!! So awesome to read!!

pregnantw4thprincess · Nov 26, 2015

In suspense

kastoney · Nov 27, 2015

Saphire5742 said:
What, no video?

Ask and you shall receive

Saphire5742 said:
No discerning eyes here, but that's probably because I don't like those cherries.
Casey sure is quick!
That is a wonderful waitress. Casey must have been overjoyed.

We've always had wonderful service at The Plaza and this was no exception

Saphire5742 said:
Oh no! Hopefully this was the only one with disastrous results

Thankfully we'll get it out of the way early and it will be smooth sailing from there

Dis_Yoda said:
Those milkshakes look so good, even the vanilla (I may have also ran 9.5 miles today so everything super calorie ladened looks so good to me)

One of these day's we will get to the Plaza - we haven't been there in years as we always end up going somewhere else.

Your waitress seemed she was on top of it to give her all those cherries!

I may have walked 9.5 feet today yet everything in your reports always looks good to me ; )

I can't believe you all haven't been to the Plaza in so long. We really do prefer it and Liberty Tree Tavern to the counter service options for lunch.

Wood Nymph said:
Vanilla milkshakes are really good.

I'm sure they are, I've just never been a fan for some reason. Of course that never keeps me from tasting Jason's ; )

disneyAndi14 said:
We are trying The Plaza for the first time in April, the soup looks really good and tomato basil is one of my faves, I'm sure milkshake will be on the agenda as well. Would you recommend the Reuben? I love a good reuben.

I hope you all enjoy the Plaza as much as we do. I've enjoyed all their food, but the reuben is definitely my favorite. They do it very well.

When are you going in April? We'll be there 15-24

GoofySon'sMom said:
I am so glad you enjoyed it! I agree that it is one of the best tomato soups! Glad I didn't steer you wrong!

With a recco coming from you I knew we wouldn't be steered wrong ; )

kastoney · Nov 27, 2015

cinderkelly said:
The a Plaza looks like a solid choice! I wish I could partake in the milkshakes but my body and dairy don't play well together so I'll just have to drool over your pics!

Not sure what I'd do without dairy, except for maybe drink more ; )

cinderkelly said:
Oh no! Can't wait to hear that story

Casey is totes adrobs with Aurora!

Thanks on Casey. Bad dinner story commencing momentarily.

Xclusive2WDW said:
I am a huge fan of Sunshine Seasons, they always have nice selections and their servings are a great value for the prices. You're very descriptive of the flavors you all partake in, I may have to give those oysters a try next year when I go to the world.

Definitely get the oyster if you can. They were oh so good.

samsteele said:
I've always loved the Vegetarian Sandwich at The Plaza. And I tell myself its vegetarian so it must be healthy and low-cal. Umm, no. Not with all the gorgeous mozzarella and pesto. Plus the milkshake/float and banana split I usually order with it. Oh well. A girl can always "tell" herself anything. It is really, really tasty if you are good with all the toppings they cram into it.

Veggies + Dairy + Fruit + Herbs = Healthy meal to me ; )

PghPiratesGirl said:
This looks like it's worth a visit just for the tomato soup!! YUM!
Just joining in, you have an adorable family!

Thanks for coming along. I'm a huge Steelers fan, so its good to have a fellow PGH teammate along ; )

Niki Andiokno said:
I have been meaning to tell you MOST EXCELLENT REPORT. Your family is so cute. It is also fun to get you Hubby's professional opinion on some of these places. Can't wait for more.

Ahh, thanks so much. Glad you're enjoying

Madilynsmommy said:
Love your report!!! So awesome to read!!

Thanks so much.

pregnantw4thprincess said:
In suspense

Suspense ending soon...

kastoney · Nov 27, 2015

Hollywood Bad Derby

After chilling at the hotel for a bit we were off for some frozen fun at MGM for the evening. Unfortunately it was pouring rain so we'd ultimately miss the fireworks, but we had another surprise in store for Ms. Casey.

Bit of background, I'm that mean mother that doesn't let her daughter dress up at Disney. I know, I know insert ridicule here. But in my defense Casey has about a gazillion princess dresses and we dine with a different princess almost every evening so doing what she does everyday at Disney never really seemed very special me. Plus carting a child around in a long polyester dress and tennis shoes for the day in the hot Florida fun doesn't equal my idea of a good time.

But this year they were offering frozen makeovers at MGM (which Casey like every other 4 year old on the planet loves frozen) and somehow that ironically managed to unfreeze my heart. I found a happy medium in getting her my version of a non-princess princess dress and as you can see below she was beyond happy and thrilled with the results.

I'm not sure we'll ever do this again, but it was definitely worth it for her. After her makeover my child who clearly suffers from low self esteem strutted around MGM like she owned the place ; )

After the big reveal we were able to use one of our magical free fast passes to ride Toy Story

Before checking out One Man's Dream and seeing those frozen chics and their historian freeze-up the American Idol experience, before it was time for dinner.

As for dinner we had gotten a reservation the night before for Hollywood Brown Derby. I'd never eaten there before and it was one of those mythical places from my childhood that I wasn't sure I'd ever encounter. The timing seemed perfect so we thought we'd finally try it out. I would come to regret that decision.

When we got to the restaurant Casey had to go to the bathroom. As we walked in neither she nor I saw that immediately inside the door was a steel baby changing station. It was just there sticking straight out from the wall in a very precarious place. I'm sure you can see what is about to come, but poor Casey walked right into the corner of it. She's a klutz like me and handles injuries really well because they happen to often, but with this one she was hysterical. I tried to calm her as best as I could and as I did several other folks mentioned how they had almost walked into it and what a bad place it was in. We eventually made it to the lobby and I explained what happened to the hostess and requested some ice. I saw her talk to a manager before she grabbed the ice, but never once did he approach or say anything to us. We were given some ice, but received no form of an apology. In case you can't tell dinner was not off to a good start. Strike one

We were finally seated and waited about ten minutes before we saw our server. Jason snapped this photo of me holding the ice on Casey's head while we waited.

He eventually showed up and asked what we wanted. We had to request some waters while we finished looking at the menu. Unfortunately the lackluster service continued, with long waits between seeing him and a condescending attitude. Strike two.

When we finally did order drinks, I got Casey one of the light up drinks to help get her distracted from her head. Thankfully it worked.

After all of that I was in the mood for something far stronger than wine, so I ordered their margarita flight.

This was a regular, mango, and pomegranate margarita and I thought a pretty good deal for $11.25. The pomegranate was my favorite as it had the best sweet to tart ratio, but the orange and regular ones were good as well. They all had healthy doses of tequila and sugared vice salted rims which was a nice change.

After placing our orders we ended up requesting bread as we received none.

The bread itself was nothing special, but their butter was very good.

After a long, long, long wait we finally received our entree's. Apparently we weren't the only ones as the table next to us literally walked out after waiting 30 minutes for their kids hot dogs to arrive and when they did they were cold. Casey had gotten some chicken soup as the poor kid was cold after having ice held on her head and downing her light up drink.

She said this was good and warmed her up.

Jason ordered the Pan Seared Pork Tenderloin

This was obviously pork with over a toma cheese sweet pepper polenta cake, peach marmalade, with a mustard demi-glace. The pork was cooked well, but marmalade was a bit too sweet of a pairing for his liking. The polenta had a nice cheddar flavor, but wasn't as creamy as we prefer. He ordered a class of their recommended cabernet to go with his meal. I don't recall what it was but it was tasty.

I got the Ashley Farms Free Range Chicken Breast to share with Casey.

This was served with a Roma Tomato-Preserved Meyer Lemon Chermoula, Roasted Peppers, Medjool Date Couscous, and an Espelette Oil Drizzle. Calling in my chef hubby for an assist a chermoula is a middle eastern marinade, medjool dates are also middle eastern and are larger than regular dates, and espelette is a type of pepper. Explanations out of the way, despite all the exotic ingredients this was quite blah. The chicken was cooked nicely and had a nice char to it, but was largely flavorless. Unfortunately the couscous was served cold and the red pepper flavor dominated the rest. Strike 3.

Ready to cut our injury, service, and food losses at that point we called it a night with no dessert. Obviously Casey's injury put a damper on the entire evening, but between the bad service and lackluster food I don't think we'll be back to the derby any time soon. In fact Jason didn't even know this was a signature and when he found out it was, he could not believe it and was rather shocked to say the least. So while Casey's rather large bump was gone after a few days, the memory of our worst signature meal ever was not. We did save $19.73 with our Tables in Wonderland card, but I cringed a bit at the server getting the mandatory 18% tip.

It was still raining after dinner to make sure our mood was completely dampened, so we headed back to the Poly to sleep off our bad food mojo instead of watching the frozen fireworks in the rain. But it wasn't a complete loss as we got to see this from our balcony before bed.

Up next, we make a food rebound in Animal Kingdom

samsteele · Nov 27, 2015

Oh my! I'm so sorry about Casey's injury and the bad Brown Derby experience. Everything about that was just so wrong. An apology, a good dose of immediate, sincere attention and at the very least some cheering up of an injured child with a comped glow drink should have happened. At the minimum. I think an inquiry along the lines of "Does your daughter need medical attention? A doctor?" would have also been called for since Casey is a child and it was a bad knock to the head. Absolutely mind boggling. Especially when she was dressed up in her Frozen attire & was trying so hard to be elegant and grown up. Shake my head at that. Shameful.

I had an easy lunch at Brown Derby about 5 yrs ago and simply had the cobb salad appie and grapefuit cake. It was very good and OOP wasn't that much more expensive than quick service. But dinner is a whole different ball game in terms of price & expectations at an established signature. Poor service on top of everything else? Just awful.

Your margarita flight looked good. Perhaps that's the best that can be said? Sounds like a definite once and done for your family.

MsGlassSlipper · Nov 27, 2015

Sorry for your bad experience! I'd heard such good things from people about Brown Derby, so we have a reservation on our next trip to try it out - hope that's not a total bust for us too. Anyway, I've just discovered your trip reports and love them - looking forward to reading more! I'm a gov't employee in the DC area too, btw

chocolateMinnie · Nov 27, 2015

Your HBD meal sounds like a nightmare. What dreadful service. I think we are so used to fab service at WDW that when we have poor service it strikes harder

suse66 · Nov 27, 2015

So sad to hear this! Poor Casey! At the very least the manager should have spoken to you and offered to seek medical attention for her. We had thought of trying HBD in March but the boys were horrified at not going to Sci-Fi. Sure sounds like we will be happier with burgers and shakes at Sci-Fi. Hope your next meal is better!

Saphire5742 · Nov 27, 2015

kastoney said:
Ask and you shall receive

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

ElsaCasey looks so cute and adorable! Reminds me of my niece who is Casey's age. She also has all the princess dresses and loves to pose for pictures. Anyway last year they went to Disneyland and since she is obsessed with Frozen (and still is) my sister made an appointment at Anna and Elsa's Boutique. Well much to my sister's dismay and surprise her daughter absolutely refused to let them touch her hair or put makeup on her! Glad your Casey had fun with the experience.

And that is quite the horrible experience you all had at HBD. That sucks! Hopefully it's smooth sailing and delicious endeavors from here on out

disneyAndi14 · Nov 27, 2015

Sorry to hear the meal and service was lackluster! Plus a bump on Casey's head, they should have been all the more attentive. I have read other reports about the painfully slow and chilly service there as well. Casey looked very cute with her frozen makeover.

auntfrannie · Nov 28, 2015

What a way to start your evening dinner! Sorry to hear about the injury but glad Casey bounced back. HBD is one of those places that I only go to when: a) I have a longer than usual vacation at Disney; b) I've already dined at 50s or Sci-Fi on the said longer trip; and c) I'm suffering from memory loss. It is so hit or miss on both the food and service.

GoofySon'sMom · Nov 28, 2015

Ugh! Very sorry to hear about Casey's injury! The manager definitely should have handled that better. Really sorry to hear that your meal continued downhill from there! I loved our Dine with an Imagineer meal in August and am planning a trip back for lunch in January. I think Julia will enjoy the theme of the restaurant and I do love the Cobb Salad. Hopefully we will have a better experience. We have had slow service in the past and I have heard horror server stories. Guess we'll see!

Vernie822 · Nov 29, 2015

I have been eyeing up the Plaza for a while now. Everything looks delicious. And who doesn't love a great tomato soup!? :thumbsup2

Elsa Casey is just adorable, she looks like she just ate it all up. The dress is perfect for walking around the parks (and the crazy heat). Not having kids I'm not sure what it's like to tote around multiple princess dresses but I can't imagine it's enjoyable haha.

So sorry that the day went downhill from there

What a terrible experience, it seems like. So bizarre that the changing table was in such a bad spot. Being that it's Disney you'd especially think that they'd offer up a sincere apology and a treat or something. I've always wanted to try the HBD but it doesn't seem like you guys had a pleasant experience in the least!

A Signature a Day Keeps Reality Away: A Sep '15 Dining Report - Updated 4/11 x2

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