After another short break, I'm back with the concluding post. Man, we had a great trip! I'm gonna do Yachtsman dinner and Kouzzina breakfast on the same post, and then end with some "final thoughts."
Here goes...
We spent our last full day, Monday, basically just goofing off. We grazed on leftovers in the room, and mulled over our dinner options. We spent probably 45 minutes reading menus of nearly every non-park restaurant at WDW before deciding on an old favorite: Yachtsman Steakhouse. Why? Two reasons: it's always been delicious, and it's one of the easiest restaurants to get to!
We were seated shortly after arriving, and we were given a nice table with a view of Storm-a-long Bay. Score! Our server, Oscar, has been at the restaurant during its entire 20-year existence, and he's waited on us several times before. He quickly brought us one of our favorite parts of the meal: bread service!
Onion rolls, sourdough rolls, butter sprinkled with sea salt, and roasted garlic. My favorite are the onion rolls, b/c they're both softer and sweeter than the sourdough. Add some of the creamy, salty butter and the rich garlic...oh man, it's one of my favorite things in all of WDW!
We both started with the lobster bisque.
Described as "Maine lobster, herbes de Provence bescuit, roe chantilly." Oh man. This was amazing. It was rich, a little spicy, the "bescuit" was savory and fantastic, and the "roe chantilly" added a nice boost of seafood and creaminess. My mouth is actually watering as I type this. That was some killer soup!
For her main, Mom got the "shrimp and grits" appetizer.
aahh, they're looking at me!
She was a bit surprised that the heads were still on, but they'd obviously been separated ahead of time, b/c they just slid right off. That sounds gross, I guess, but it was no big deal, and Mom's pretty squeamish about that sorta thing.
The dish is described as "jumbo prawns, buttery hominy grits, Berkshire pork sausage and mushroom ragout, and Creole butter sauce." I'm a little confused by the "hominy grits" bit. How else do you make grits?!
But anyway. While she didn't really care for the ragout, b/c she's not much of a shrooms eater, she made short work of the rest. The shrimp were grilled perfectly, and the grits were rich and buttery. A really delicious take on a low-country classic.
Mom also got the spaghetti squash side for us to split.
Oh. My. God, fellow DIS'ers! This dish maybe be one of the best things I have ever eaten! The description reads as follows: "maple butter roasted, candied pecans, anise hysop." Gah! It was so amazing. Buttery, savory, just a little sweet, buttery...a nice sweet crunch from the pecans....We decided to go w/ this as a change of pace from the truffle mac and cheese (and we'd just had mac and cheese at Flying Fish the night before), and we were SO GLAD! Just fantastic. Order this if you have the chance, and I promise you won't regret it.
For my main, I ordered the filet.
I gave Mom a nice size chunk of this, b/c that was our plan all along. The filet was cooked nicely, and the sauce was delicious and not too heavy. The mashed potatoes were wonderful! Lumpy and with some skin in. That's just how I like my mashed potatoes.
As we were contemplating dessert, Oscar brought us a little cup of tiny Madelines, still warm from the oven.
I ate one before we got the pic. These were delicious: warm, crispy, light and not-too-sweet. Perfect lil cookies.
For dessert, though we were getting dangerously full, we got this delicious chocolate cake.
I can't remember what it's called, and it's not on any menu I have a copy of. Bother. It has salted caramel gelato surrounded by caramel powder (not cocaine; calm down), and the cake is brownie, chocolate cake, peanut butter, and chocolate icing. Whew! Very rich. Very delicious. The gelato was quite salty, but it was delicious when combined w/ the cake. This dessert would've been too rich for one person after our heavy meal, but it was a good amount for us to split.
Overall, Yachtsman was wonderful. We hadn't been in several trips b/c we've been limiting our signatures to just one a trip (this trip blew that away...), but after this fantastic meal, it might be our signature for next trip! Oh, PS: Oscar said the restaurant will be closed for two weeks in August while they replace the floor.
Ok, let's move on to our last Disney meal, breakfast at Kouzzina!
We had a 10:30 ADR, but the place was almost empty. The ended up sending all the servers home but ours, so we were surrounded by people in an empty restaurant. That was a little annoying.
We started out with the phyllo dough.
It's warm semolina custard stuffed into phyllo and sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar. I didn't take the picture until I'd already cut it in half, so it's a little messy. This was really good, warm and sweet w/o being sickly sweet. I wish there'd been a bit more cinnamon, tho: it was a nice complement.
For breakfast, Mom got the Kouzzina stack.
Artichoke spread on eggs (scrambled), sweet potato hash, bacon, and kalamata olive toast. Our server suggested spreading the artichoke stuff on the toast, but the butter they serve is so good I liked the toast better the old-fashioned way. Honestly, I wasn't too crazy about the artichoke spread, but Mom really liked it. This was a good breakfast: the eggs were cooked perfectly, the hash was good, and it all came together nicely.
I ordered the waffles.
Whipped mascarpone and pecans on top, chicken sausage on the side. I got it w/ no honey, b/c I don't like honey. I topped it w/ syrup instead. This was so good!! The mascarpone wasn't too sweet, but it was nice and cool. The pecans were crunchy, and the waffles were crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy inside. The sausage was just a little spicy, and a nice complement to the syrupy waffles. All in all, a great dish!
We enjoyed our Kouzzina breakfast, except for the issue w/ the crowding into one section. We chose a late seating time b/c we were checking out, etc, but next time we go we'll try to eat a bit earlier.
Gonna do a new post for the summation bit, b/c this has gotten long...brb!