8/24-8/31: A first timer and a vegetarian on free dining (reviews w/ pics)--updated!

[smartestnumber5]

Finally I got to experience all (okay, just a tiny bit of it) the food of Disney on free dining and write my own dining reviews. Yay!

Vital Information: Stayed at Pop for 7 days—8/24 to 8/31. Ate TS at California Grill (twice), Artist Point, Boma, Whispering Canyon, Spoodles, and Raglan Road as well as CS at Sunshine Seasons, Tusker House, Pop, Boulangerie Patisserie, Kringla Bakeri og Café, Sommerfest, Starring Rolls, and Rosie’s All American.

Me—24 year old vegetarian (though I was lenient this trip with gelatin and animal stock). This is my 5th trip to Disney. I like to eat often in small to medium quantities and have an insatiable sweet/chocolate tooth. I have some acid reflux issues which are improving now that I’ve doubled my dose of prilosec. Though I'm usually not that discerning about the quality of food—okay, good, great are often the extent of my comments--I’m trying extra hard to be detailed here.

GF—30 year old meat-eater. Her first trip to Disney (She liked it! She liked it!). She likes to eat large sized meals about twice a day late in the day. She's a bigger fan of savory over sweet and fruit over chocolate for desserts and she needs a lot of coffee everyday (she gives Disney coffee a huge thumbs down by the way). While I’m working on dining reviews she’s been sleeping for hours—recovering from the trip. She’s not used to the grueling days of Disney World!

 

[smartestnumber5]

We arrived at Pop a little before 6 pm on 8/24. This was actually 2 hours later then planned as our flight was delayed because of mechanical problems. We arrived, checked in, took some pictures, and went out to Magic Kingdom arriving around 8 pm. We had a 9:50 ADR at California Grill so we only got a few rides and I was in commando style pulling GF around. I hadn’t eaten in hours so I wanted to stop and get a dole whip which I’d heard so much about from Aloha Isle.

1 snack credit later I was eating pineapple flavored ice cream. I enjoyed it, but somehow it wasn’t what I had expected and it was more acidic than I had anticipated (should have guessed as much—it is pineapple after all). I had a few bites of it but worried about putting to much acidic stuff in my tummy and GF finished it off.

An hour and a half later, we checked in a little early at the California Grill and were given a pager and pointed toward the observation deck (the lounge was full). We waited for at least 20 minutes—I suppose people didn’t want to give up their seats right before Wishes. That was fine, except GF was already pretty worn out from getting up early and the flight and being pulled around Magic Kingdom by me. She is also very easily bothered by crowds—which of course were out in full force at MK and California Grill was pretty busy too. So that made dinner get off to a rocky start. Even after we were seated (during Wishes) she was still not feeling great and we had to go outside after everyone cleared from Wishes to get her away from people for a few minutes. Our server was very accommodating about this. We came back in and around 10:30 put in our order. We decided to just use 2 TS credits for one person and share and order a little OOP.

With the 2 TS credits we ordered the Yoshi Deluxe Sushi Platter, the (vegetarian) Tortelloni, an iced tea, and the Bananas and Butterscotch “Buzz” for dessert. In addition, we paid for an extra iced tea, the three cheese flatbread, and the romaine salad OOP. Overall, this meal was excellent.

Food-- and a half (out of 5)--as close to perfect as possible given our tough grading!
Atmosphere— —We probably would have preferred a little less noisy and a little less crowded—but the noise and crowds were not even rising to the level of being bothersome (except the crowds of people coming and going outside for Wishes did make GF anxious).


Bread and Olive Oil

Three Cheese Flatbread

Romaine Salad

Yoshi Deluxe Platter

Tortelloni

Bananas and Butterscotch Buzz

I had been hesitant about paying $9 for a salad when there were more exciting things on the menu, but I had a craving and GF and I were very pleased by the it—especially the croutons. The flatbread was great—onions, sundried tomatoes, cheese, and pesto on top. I especially liked the pesto (but then I am a big pesto fan) as it added a lot of flavor. The flatbread was so good, in fact, that we got it again a few days later. My GF greatly enjoyed the Yoshi Deluxe Platter, though it was way too big to function as an appetizer for a single person. She was excited about it though and ended up taking the leftovers (i.e. most of the platter) back to our hotel intending to eat it later (Ha—as if we were going to have room left for leftovers the next day). GF though the tortelloni tasted a little “goaty” (she hates goat cheese, which seems to show up in a lot of the vegetarian appetizers and entrees at Disney restaurants) but I didn’t notice it. Though we both agreed that the entrée was well done and we ate it all, it was quite different than what we expected. It’s sauce was pea-based which both of us thought was unusual and not that pleasing to us, but the menu description didn’t make clear the emphasis on peas. When it comes to dessert GF and I often don’t agree. I go for chocolate while she goes for fruit. I go for sweet while she goes for flavorful. We agreed upon the bananas and butterscotch “buzz” with the agreement that next trip to California Grill I would get to pick the dessert (the chocolate one of course). Well it turned out that we can both agree on bananas, caramel sauce, bits of coffee flavor, and butterscotch custard in between phylo dough. We devoured every bit of it despite being pretty full already.

On the money end of things:

2 TS Credits—
Yoshi Deluxe Platter—24
Tortelloni—22
Iced Tea—2.19
Banana Buzz—10
Subtotal = 58.19
Tax & Tip = 13.97
Total = 72.16


OOP—
Flatbread—10
Romaine Salad—9
Iced Tea—2.19
Tax—1.38
Tip (already included)—3.81
Extra Tip—5.00***
Total—31.38


***It ended up that we accidentally tipped about 40% on the OOP food because 18% had already been factored in to the total. I didn’t look carefully at the receipt so I added in tip for those items—thus tipping on the original total plus the original tip. We didn’t mind, but be careful when mixing OOP with dining credits—check receipts carefully. Though we did this mixing at least three times this was the only time that the tip was automatically factored in.

More to come soon...

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoying reading your reviews ~ Looking mforward to more.

 

[Sazzo'sMommy]

Keep up the good work in reviewing! Fellow veggie here...I love CG too! Great job; keep them coming with pictures! Hope your GF really had a great time!

 

[smartestnumber5]

Day 2—Friday 8-25

Today was a day at Epcot. I had a pop tart in the room for breakfast, while GF just had coffee (she doesn’t eat breakfast). She described the coffee as having no coffee flavor; it tasted like water w/ a carmely flavor. She noticed when she pushed the button to get coffee that half the time hot water came out and half the time dark liquid came out. Are they watering the coffee down?

We arrived at Epcot around noon and had lunch around 12:40 at Sunshine Seasons. I chose this counter service restaurant because I heard good things on it on the disboards, especially that it had good vegetarian options. The reviews were correct!

We decided to use 2 CS credits but share all the food. We chose the Grilled Vegetable Cuban Sandwich and Roasted Beets and Goat Cheese Salad, Strawberry Shortcake and Chocolate Mousse Cake, and an Iced Tea and Coke.

This was very good for CS. The sandwich was pretty good, but a bit luke warm. It was nothing exceptional, but had a lot of cheese and mustard, both of which we love. But beware non-mustard fans—this sandwich isn’t for you. The salad had yummy candied pecans, goat cheese, and beets over lightly dressed greens. GF though the greens could use more flavor, probably because she wasn’t eating the goat cheese with them. (She hates goat cheese—says it tastes like “goat” although she’s eaten goat meat and when I asked said it tastes nothing like goat cheese. When pressed she indicates there is some unpleasant farm-like aftertaste in goat cheese which she doesn’t like.) I didn’t mind the light dressing, but more dressing would have been fine as well. GF rates the strawberry shortcake as excellent—light and fluffy with fresh fruit. I only had a few bites so have nothing to add to that review. We both enjoyed the chocolate mousse cake even though we usually disagree about desserts. I picked it because it was chocolate and it looked so good, and there’s hardly a chocolate cake in the world that I could dislike. GF, however, liked it more than most because it had a good enough chocolate flavor that it did not need a lot of sugar (as many chocolate desserts do).

Food: out of 5. We felt the food was fresh and somewhat healthy (compared to the burgers and fries of many CS places) and it had numerous vegetarian options.
Atmosphere: out of 5. Though it was the middle of the lunch time rush and somewhat busy in the area in which you pick up food, we went to the eating area off to the side and managed not to feel crowded having a 4 person table to ourselves.

On the $ end of things--2 CS credits:
Beat & Goat cheese salad—7.09
Cuban veggie sandwich—7.59
Choc Mousse Cake—3.99
Strawberry Shortcake—3.49
Tax—1.72
Total—28.06

 

[LErin26]

Love reading the veggie reviews!! I'll be there in 20 days to taste the veggie offerings at the "World"

 

[smartestnumber5]

Our dinner ADR for the night was at Artist Point at 6 pm. We arrived early and explored WL for a bit and then checked in around 5:40 pm. The restaurant was almost empty—only three or so tables occupied. We dressed up a bit more than we had for California Grill and we felt Artist Point was definitely a fancier atmosphere. Given the emptiness it was very quiet and the host, the person who seated us, and our server all spoke in somewhat hushed tones. We wondered if Disney specifically chose quiet people to work in this restaurant. GF very much enjoyed the change in noise and crowds from last night’s dinner.

Once again we decided to use one person’s TS credits—2 TS credits that is—and share. Our server cheerfully agreed that how we used the credits was up to us. We decided on a cheese plate (to share), the Cedar Plank Salmon (for GF), an iced tea, and the Coffee Two Ways (to share). In addition, we payed OOP for the Smoky Portobello Soup.

We started with bread and butter which I thought was fine, though GF was a little obsessed with it. She said she liked it because it was a bit sweet and reminded her of sourdough. She thought the butter was the best in Disney as well. Next was the cheese plate. This was not exceptional, and not as good as the one we had later at California Grill, but we certainly enjoyed it. It came with crispy bread pieces, but not enough (there never seem to be enough when it comes to cheese plates) and raisins and fig as accompaniments. We didn’t bother much with the accompaniments, as we weren’t that excited by them. We did ask the server what kinds of cheeses they were, but she just gave us their names, two of which we had never heard before. I know one was a cheddar—that one was very good and we had to do some rationing of it. Another GF though tasted “goaty,” so I had that one all to myself. I can’t seem to remember the third one. I do remember liking all of them. I think this was a good appetizer to choose.


After the cheese plate the portobello soup came. I had heard good things about this soup on the disboards so I was excited to try it. While I didn’t ask about ingredients, I assumed it must be made with chicken or beef stock. Though I’m a vegetarian, lately I’ve been more lenient about such stocks because so many soups are made with them. So I went ahead and ordered it. It turned out that the soup had a very strong bacon taste which GF and I both detected. I was half convinced that there was bacon in it, but GF usually has a pretty discerning taste for meat, and she couldn’t find any bits of bacon—just mushroom. Even after being assured there was no bacon in the soup, I found it unpleasant due to the bacon taste. I know the description said “smoky” but I guess I didn’t realize how smoky they meant. GF had some as well and she didn’t care for it either; she described it as “thick and disgusting, like drinking fatty bacon.” I didn’t find it quite so inedible, and ate most of it.

Next was the salmon. Of course, I had none of this, but did taste the vegetables and dumplings which were very good. GF says the salmon was good, but she was expecting something exceptional—it being Artist Point’s specialty. She also couldn’t detect any difference between this salmon which was baked on a cedar plank and any other salmon one would have at a nice restaurant. Also, it was slightly dry.

Lastly, we had the Coffee Two Ways—mochaccino bread pudding and vanilla latte crème brulee. Finally, something to get excited about! We were debating between the berry cobbler and the Coffee Two Ways because both were said to be excellent and I though GF could enjoy both (in addition to liking fruit desserts she also is a big fan of coffee, bread pudding, and crème brulee). However, I definitely preferred the Coffee Two Ways and GF said I should choose given she had used the entrée section of the TS credits. It was a delicious choice. The bread pudding was much more chocolaty than coffee-flavored—in fact, when you got to the middle of it there was liquid chocolate—but it was still great. About half way through devouring the dish, GF suggested that she eat the rest of the crème brulee and I eat the rest of the bread pudding. Though I liked the crème brulee as much as the bread pudding, I figured this was her way of indicating that she really, really, really wanted the rest of the crème brulee, so I agreed. We both decided that we would go back to Artist Point just for dessert—meaning we would only order dessert.

(We realized the next night at dinner that our server had taken 4 TS credits off instead of just 2 TS credits. Since she seemed to understand what we wanted to do with the credits, and since soup could hardly be construed as a whole second entree, appetizer, and dessert, we figured it must have just been a simple accident. GF talked to the conceirge at Pop about it and showed them the receipts. They looked up all of the credits we spent and saw that the extra 2 credits had indeed been taken off at Artist Point, but saw that we didn't have a second meal there. So they happily credited the credits back to us.)

2 TS Credits
Artisan Cheese Plate—9.00
Salmon—29.00
Coffee Two Ways—8.00
Iced Tea—2.5*
Tip—8.73
Tax—2.91
Total—60.14

* I’m just guessing on the price here. I found that most of the time the receipts at CS places didn’t include the prices of anything. Sometimes this was also true of the TS places, but at least there I could easily write in the prices.

OOP
Portobello Soup—7
Tax—.46
Tip—2.26
Total—9.72

Food: and a half out of 5. It would have been 3 if the restaurant had been only 1 TS credit, but we were expecting exceptional food given it’s status as a signature restaurant. GF says, however, that the bread & butter and dessert alone deserve 4 .
Atmosphere: 4 out of 5. Even as it got busier during our meal, it never reached the level of busy or crowded, and there was little noise which we appreciated. However, it was a bit fancier than I felt comfortable with and when we first arrived and everyone spoke to us in hushed tones, we felt our voice levels would be way too loud.


After dinner we headed to downtown Disney where I discovered Goofy’s Candy Company—I had never been before—boy was I missing out! I asked about what counted for snacks and was told “anything under $4”—yes! I decided on a piece of peanut butter chocolate fudge and a create your own pretzel rods (dipped in milk chocolate and covered with sprinkles and caramel sauce). I also bought some chocolate pirate coins for GF who was waiting outside.

GF hasn't eaten the coins--she might keep them for a souvenir. The fudge was mediocre—I didn’t even eat it all and I love fudge. The pretzel rods, though, were great! Largely, however, I attribute their greatness to my choices of toppings since I did “create” them myself.

Pirate coins—2.5
Tax—1.7
Total—2.67

2 S Credits
Fudge—3.5
Create your own pretzel—3.5
Tax—.46
Total—7.46


Food: 4 out of 5. I fell in love with the create your own candy option.

 

[MickeyNicki]

Great reviews, thanks for sharing them!

 

[purpliequeen]

Great reviews and pictures!

 

[smartestnumber5]

Day 3—Tusker House, Pop, and Boma

Today was an early day at Animal Kingdom, so after a few rides we stopped at Tusker House around 11:15 am. I had heard that the veggie sandwich here was not all that good, and since Animal Kingdom generally doesn’t have very many vegetarian options, I stuck with a pretzel and figured I’d eat back at Pop if I was hungry later. I got a pretzel with cheese at Harambe Fruit Market while GF opted for the ½ Rotisserie Chicken platter, cheesecake, and a large drink.

The pretzel was good (better than the one I had later in Germany), but I had to take off a lot of the salt. But the cheese was cold which made it a bit nasty. GF reported that her mashed potatoes and gravy were very good—I tasted the mashed potatoes too (without gravy though) and agree. She reports that the chicken was good as well, but “rotisserie chicken is good wherever you get it.” She liked the meal because there was plenty of food. We shared the drink and dessert. The cheesecake was average—I had much better at Boma that evening at dinner.

Luckily we had arrived at Tusker House early enough to avoid the lunch rush. GF didn’t have to wait in line at all to order, and when I went to find a table I noticed an almost empty room to the side of the main dining room (back where the restrooms are). This room was maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the size of the main room and had almost no one in it. So of course we chose the empty room and were happy to have found it as the main dining room was already approaching full. The only thing we didn’t like about this small room was the way the tables were set up. Each four seater table had been put in a row with 1 or 2 other similar tables, making a table for 8 or 12. Because the room was small, there weren’t that many of these 8 or 12 person tables, so it was inevitable that other people are going to sit at one of your tables. Luckily we were finishing up just as things started getting more busy, so we had the whole table to ourselves right up until we left.

1 S Credit
Pretzel—3.29
Tax—.20
Total—3.49

OOP
Cheese sauce—.99
Tax—.07
Total—1.06

1 CS Credit
Rotisserie Chicken—7.99
Cheesecake—2.99
Large soda—2.39
Tax—.80
Total—14.17

Food: out of 5. It wasn’t exceptional and we liked Sunshine Seasons better for variety, freshness, and veggie options, but Tusker House was good and did have large portions (which GF liked this early in the gluttony fest).
Atmosphere: and a half out of 5, for the small empty room.




We returned to Pop from AK around 3 pm and dinner was not until 8. I didn’t think I could last that long on a pretzel, so I used a CS credit for some more lunch—a sundried tomato calzone, a Mickey bar, and a drink.

We took the food back to the room and unfortunately the Mickey bar had begun melting. Fortunately GF graciously volunteered to begin eating it (and she kept on eating it until there wasn’t much left for me!). The few bites I had constituted the first Mickey bar I had ever eaten—strange when this is my fifth time at Disney World. The vanilla ice cream was very rich and creamy, and the bar was coated with a very thick layer of chocolate. GF made the mistake of looking at the back of the package and sees that this one bar contains almost half the saturated fat one should have in a day. Not like that stops us. (But GF is rather surprised that the tiny snack has so much fat in it – esp. because it seems to be mostly eaten by little kids!) The calzone is not what I was expecting. I was thinking at least some mozzarella cheese and whole sundried tomatoes, but the calzone was actually full of ricotta cheese (maybe there was some mozzarella mixed it, but I didn’t notice any) which seemed to have been mixed with chopped sundried tomatoes. It was kind of gooey and oozing. I did enjoy the shell part of it though. GF liked it better than I did and she ate a lot of this too. It wasn’t a great meal, but it did get me through til dinner.

1 CS Credit
Sun-dried Tomato Calzone—6.39
Mickey bar—2.90*
Cranberry juice—2.50*
Tax—.71
Total—12.50

* I’m just guessing on the price here. I found that most of the time the receipts at CS places didn’t include the prices of anything. Sometimes this was also true of the TS places, but at least there I could easily write in the prices.

Food: and a half. This might have been poor choosing on my part.

 

[tinkerrn]

Sounds yummy. Great reviews.

 

[ufgator]

Thanks for your great reviews and pics! You mentioned it was busy at Sunshine Seasons. I wanted to try it for lunch last time we were there but it was so busy. Did you have to wait a long time to order and pick up your food?

 

[sugarpie]

Thanks for the reviews. Your girlfriend sounds like a hoot with her "farmy" tasting cheese.

 

[smartestnumber5]

Thanks for your great reviews and pics! You mentioned it was busy at Sunshine Seasons. I wanted to try it for lunch last time we were there but it was so busy. Did you have to wait a long time to order and pick up your food?

Actually the lines weren't bad at all. There were a lot of people doing what we were doing--standing back and looking at all the options trying to decide--which made things crowded. When it was time to get in line at each pod, though, there was usually on 2 or 3 people in front of us tops. And there was only one person in front of us while checking out (though we hit a line on the end...the ones in the middle were longer). So I'd say the whole thing--deciding, picking up, paying--took 15 minutes tops, probably a little less.

 

[Figment's friends]

Tell me more, Tell me more!

 

[i<3Disney]

We arrived at Pop a little before 6 pm on 8/24. This was actually 2 hours later then planned as our flight was delayed because of mechanical problems. We arrived, checked in, took some pictures, and went out to Magic Kingdom arriving around 8 pm. We had a 9:50 ADR at California Grill so we only got a few rides and I was in commando style pulling GF around. I hadn’t eaten in hours so I wanted to stop and get a dole whip which I’d heard so much about from Aloha Isle.

1 snack credit later I was eating pineapple flavored ice cream. I enjoyed it, but somehow it wasn’t what I had expected and it was more acidic than I had anticipated (should have guessed as much—it is pineapple after all). I had a few bites of it but worried about putting to much acidic stuff in my tummy and GF finished it off.

An hour and a half later, we checked in a little early at the California Grill and were given a pager and pointed toward the observation deck (the lounge was full). We waited for at least 20 minutes—I suppose people didn’t want to give up their seats right before Wishes. That was fine, except GF was already pretty worn out from getting up early and the flight and being pulled around Magic Kingdom by me. She is also very easily bothered by crowds—which of course were out in full force at MK and California Grill was pretty busy too. So that made dinner get off to a rocky start. Even after we were seated (during Wishes) she was still not feeling great and we had to go outside after everyone cleared from Wishes to get her away from people for a few minutes. Our server was very accommodating about this. We came back in and around 10:30 put in our order. We decided to just use 2 TS credits for one person and share and order a little OOP.

With the 2 TS credits we ordered the Yoshi Deluxe Sushi Platter, the (vegetarian) Tortelloni, an iced tea, and the Bananas and Butterscotch “Buzz” for dessert. In addition, we paid for an extra iced tea, the three cheese flatbread, and the romaine salad OOP. Overall, this meal was excellent.

Food-- and a half (out of 5)--as close to perfect as possible given our tough grading!
Atmosphere— —We probably would have preferred a little less noisy and a little less crowded—but the noise and crowds were not even rising to the level of being bothersome (except the crowds of people coming and going outside for Wishes did make GF anxious).


Bread and Olive Oil

Three Cheese Flatbread

Romaine Salad

Yoshi Deluxe Platter

Tortelloni

Bananas and Butterscotch Buzz

I had been hesitant about paying $9 for a salad when there were more exciting things on the menu, but I had a craving and GF and I were very pleased by the it—especially the croutons. The flatbread was great—onions, sundried tomatoes, cheese, and pesto on top. I especially liked the pesto (but then I am a big pesto fan) as it added a lot of flavor. The flatbread was so good, in fact, that we got it again a few days later. My GF greatly enjoyed the Yoshi Deluxe Platter, though it was way too big to function as an appetizer for a single person. She was excited about it though and ended up taking the leftovers (i.e. most of the platter) back to our hotel intending to eat it later (Ha—as if we were going to have room left for leftovers the next day). GF though the tortelloni tasted a little “goaty” (she hates goat cheese, which seems to show up in a lot of the vegetarian appetizers and entrees at Disney restaurants) but I didn’t notice it. Though we both agreed that the entrée was well done and we ate it all, it was quite different than what we expected. It’s sauce was pea-based which both of us thought was unusual and not that pleasing to us, but the menu description didn’t make clear the emphasis on peas. When it comes to dessert GF and I often don’t agree. I go for chocolate while she goes for fruit. I go for sweet while she goes for flavorful. We agreed upon the bananas and butterscotch “buzz” with the agreement that next trip to California Grill I would get to pick the dessert (the chocolate one of course). Well it turned out that we can both agree on bananas, caramel sauce, bits of coffee flavor, and butterscotch custard in between phylo dough. We devoured every bit of it despite being pretty full already.

On the money end of things:

2 TS Credits—
Yoshi Deluxe Platter—24
Tortelloni—22
Iced Tea—2.19
Banana Buzz—10
Subtotal = 58.19
Tax & Tip = 13.97
Total = 72.16


OOP—
Flatbread—10
Romaine Salad—9
Iced Tea—2.19
Tax—1.38
Tip (already included)—3.81
Extra Tip—5.00***
Total—31.38


***It ended up that we accidentally tipped about 40% on the OOP food because 18% had already been factored in to the total. I didn’t look carefully at the receipt so I added in tip for those items—thus tipping on the original total plus the original tip. We didn’t mind, but be careful when mixing OOP with dining credits—check receipts carefully. Though we did this mixing at least three times this was the only time that the tip was automatically factored in.

More to come soon...

YAY another vegetarian reviewer!


AND YUMM the flatbread and dessert look soooooo good!

 

[i<3Disney]

Thanks for taking a picture of the calzone. Was that a special or is it always offered? I really love ricotta cheese so I might have to try that sometime.

 

[ufgator]

Actually the lines weren't bad at all. There were a lot of people doing what we were doing--standing back and looking at all the options trying to decide--which made things crowded. When it was time to get in line at each pod, though, there was usually on 2 or 3 people in front of us tops. And there was only one person in front of us while checking out (though we hit a line on the end...the ones in the middle were longer). So I'd say the whole thing--deciding, picking up, paying--took 15 minutes tops, probably a little less.

Thanks!

 

[smartestnumber5]

Our dinner ADR was at Boma at 8pm. We arrived a bit early and explored AKL before checking in. Of course, Boma was busy as usual so we got our pager and went in search of an uncrowded area with somewhere to sit. We went outside toward the pool area and grabbed a rock near the entrance to the hotel. After a few minutes the pager began giving off some very faint beeping noises—much fainter than any other pager I’ve had—but wasn’t buzzing. I assumed that meant they were ready for us and we went back in. upon turning in the pager the person looked for our name and then looked up and said, “I’m sorry but we’re running about 15 minutes behind so we’re not ready for you just yet” as if we were just impatient. I replied that the pager had been making noises and I assumed that was the page. Another person behind the podium explained that if you go out of range of the page the pager will “talk to you” and let you know. Well back outside we went. This time we spotted an area with tables and chairs down toward the Mara so we walked that way. Except 2/3s of the way there, the pager said “out of range” or something like that. So GF sat at the tables, while I walked back into the waiting area inside the hotel. Within a few minutes the pager began buzzing—I was sure this was the real thing this time! I went and got GF and we were seated.

We had a seat that was kind of in the middle of things and very close to the table next to us. This, along with the crowdedness and noise didn’t make for the best atmosphere, especially for GF. Our server came over and asked if we were staying at a Disney resort and then if we had the DDP. She alerted us that we could each have 1 regular drink (soda, iced tea) and 1 specialty drink (smoothie). We both thought it was really nice that Boma let you get two drinks! I opted for a Mango Smoothie while GF asked if she could have one of the press pots of coffee in place of the smoothie—she could. We both opted just to have water in addition to the smoothie and coffee since it was a buffet, and we’d need all the room in our stomachs we could save for the food. We both tried to start out with only a few small things on our plate for good picture taking. Luckily, I think this also helped us not stuff ourselves too badly too early on.

I tried the butternut squash soup, 3 kinds of hummus, watermelon rind salad, watermelon and feta (I think) salad, lentils, pasta salad, and cous cous on the first plate. And potatoes with afritude, fufu, falafel, mac n cheese, bread, rice, and tufu and green beans on the second.

GF had rice, ribs, prime rib, potatoes with afritude and bread on her first plate and some type of lentil and sausage soup. On her second plate she tried the fufu, coconut rice, and coconut crusted salmon and an unidentifiable item. I didn’t get pictures of the last plate, but it was mostly just her favorites from these two plates.

For dessert I got there first and tried one of everything while GF was still working on her last plate of non-dessert food. GF then got to taste all of mine and decide which she liked and didn’t like, and ended up getting only a few things for herself (no picture of her plate). My plate includes chai rice pudding, a zebra dome, peach cobbler, a milk tart, banana bread pudding, and unidentifiable object, cheesecake, and some type of tart with fruit cream in it.

My favorites were the butternut squash soup, hummus, the potatoes, the fufu, and the coconut rice I ate off of GF’s plate. And I didn’t care for the tofu and green beans (had a sauce that wasn’t really pleasant to me) or the watermelon rind salad (too hot, I think). We both thought the falafel tasted strange—not bad—as if it was made with potato and the pasta salad had some strong spices, maybe cumin, which I didn’t love and GF disliked. We had read some reviews of Boma which indicated that it tasted like everything on the buffet had been doused in cinnamon or ginger. While we didn’t agree with that, we did think that there were numerous items—like pasta salad and potato salad—of which one has a very specific idea how they will taste. And at Boma, they taste nothing like that idea, and that is a little disturbing. Even though we liked a lot of the other items, these weren’t that pleasing to us. Moral of the story: don’t stick to what you already know you like at Boma (you’ll be disappointed) – try new and different things. GF’s favorites were the prime rib (which she said was good, but not better than anywhere else one can get prime rib) and the coconut rice which had bits of coconut right in with the rice. She thought the coconut rice had a great texture b/c of the almost crispy coconut, and a mild, slightly sweet taste. She also liked the olive hummus best of the 3. As far as dessert, the cheesecake was very good—much sharper than the one we had at Tusker House—and I liked the zebra dome a lot (much too sweet for GF), and we both really liked the milk tart. The milk tart had a texture somewhat like cheesecake, but wasn’t made of cheese. It seemed somewhat denser and stickier than cheesecake – as if maybe it was made with sweetened condensed milk -- It was rich and moderately sweet like cheesecake, though.

The coffee was a lot better than the Nescafe stuff—it was excellent, in fact, says GF. Very dark and strong with a hint of some other flavor, either chicory or spice of some kind. The smoothie was also very good, though it tasted more like orange than mango. It was nice that we could have these options for our drink and nice that our server told us about them right away (though she probably benefited from our getting them as it increased the bill and hence her tip).

2 TS Credits
2 Buffets—51.98
Mango Smoothie—3.99
Press Pot—5.99
Tip—11.15
Tax—4.03
Total—77.14

Food 2.5/3 out of 5—Though I definitely enjoyed myself and loved having all of those vegetarian options (probably the most veggie options in Disney), I wasn’t as thrilled with Boma as I remember being. Perhaps it’s because we were on the DDP and had great places to eat every night. I did enjoy dessert much more than dinner.

Atmosphere: 1 out of 5—It was very crowded, noisy, full of children (GF thought these particular children were more bratty and badly behaved than the kids we’ve seen in other restaurants – maybe because it’s a buffet?), tables were close together, and every time I’ve gone I’ve had to wait in a crowded area—not for the anxious. It is a buffet though and it is very good, so it’s to be expected. I think it also didn’t help that we had gone to two signature restaurants the night before, as GF wasn’t prepared for the 1 credit restaurants which tend to have a lot more children, noise, and crowds.

Both of us agreed we enjoyed it enough to come back, but we’re not dying to do it’s not necessarily a must do. Plus all you care to eat places just increase the likelihood of us overeating and causing ourselves pain (which GF did but I managed to mostly avoid).

 

[smartestnumber5]

Thanks for taking a picture of the calzone. Was that a special or is it always offered? I really love ricotta cheese so I might have to try that sometime.

It wasn't a special offering. It's apparently part of the normal offerings of the Italian pod at Pop. If you love ricotta, you'll probably enjoy it much more than I did!