(I last left you outside of Artist Point...)
We loitered outside of the entrance to Artist Point for only a few minutes before we were warmly greeted and led inside the restaurant.
We were the first ones to be seated, so I took a few quick pictures of the ambiance before other people arrived.
Our table was right next to one of the large windows overlooking the area of the Wilderness Lodge that we had entered through earlier.
Our view was also of a bit of some roof.
Candle on our table:
Our server, Izzy, arrived quickly, and he was absolutely fantastic. Izzy was extremely attentive, funny, and knew literally every single aspect of the menu, and was more than thrilled to describe every dish we were considering in detail.
He brought over some of the usual Disney bread with salted butter, but this version came served in a gold panning tray to go along with the Pacific Northwest theme. (Izzy joked that we could try our hand at finding some gold while looking over the entrees.)
The bread, which I'm going to guess was sourdough, I'm also going to guess was good, since it really doesn't stick out in my mind. W: "Standard, decent bread. All of the restaurants have good bread, I guess."
Your intrepid travelers:
(I have to apologize for the pictures in this update, the lighting in Artist Point was a bit tricky, so the food photos to come are not so great. But there are pictures of everything we ate, do not worry!
)
For my appetizer, I was eyeing the Salt Roasted Heirloom Beets - truffled goat cheese, cider pached pink lady apples, spiced walnuts and mulled wine vinaigrette. Now, I had literally had beets once before this, and that was just a sliver of one as garnish. But I had thought it was pretty good, and wanted to give this a try.
W: Are you sure that you're going to like it?
Me: No. But I want to try it.
(
Is this reminding anyone else of our conversation at Citricos? 
)
W: Do you want me to order something you'd like if you end up not liking the beets?
(Side note: Wingnut LOVES beets.)
Me: No, get whatever you want. If I don't like it, then the beets are all yours.
Wingnut ended up choosing one of the few appetizers that I wouldn't even go near, the Penn Cove Roasted Oysters with Dungeness Crab Ceviche.
W: It was very good. I'm glad that I tried it, but I would have been better off getting something else. It was my own fault.
The "something else" that he totally wishes he had gotten, and still talks about being envious of?
My salt-roasted beet appetizer!
As it turns out, Wingnut had absolutely no reason to worry that I wouldn't like this dish, because he barely got a bite for himself! (Yes, I did share, I'm nice.) I LOVED this, the flavors and textures were amazing together. W: "It was very very good. I wish I had gotten that."
Wingnut made me take this picture of my plate practically licked clean. He was thrilled that I loved my appetizer so much (probably because he was also hoping that this meant that beets would make more of a regular appearance in our household. Spoiler: they haven't.)
Soon enough, it was time for entrees, and Wingnut and I ordered exactly the same thing: the Char-grilled Buffalo Striploin Steak - with marble potatoes, garden vegetables, and Shiraz Gastrique.
My plate:
His:
Wingnut loves Brussels sprouts, and so he was really excited to see the festival of them on his plate
.
Remember
back during my California Grill review, I alluded to Wingnut's favorite buffalo steak? Well, this was it!
W: "I thought that this was probably one of the best dishes I've ever had. The Brussels sprouts were a nice touch. (S:
) The cast-iron sear gave it a nice caramelized flavor.
I was really glad that I had tried this dish as well, the meat was delicious, and I loved the vegetable accompaniments. You can see on my plate that there was little bits of flaky salt on top of the meat, which made it taste even, well, meatier and richer.
Of course, after this, we had to have dessert as well!
Wingnut chose the...well, I don't have the exact name of this dish here, but I'll go with Chocolate Cake with Berry Shooter and Fresh Berries.
That sounded convincing!
Basically, this was a little chocolate cake accompanied by a berry juice "shooter" and whipped cream.
W: "This was literally the best dessert on Disney property. The chocolate cake was unbelievably good, and the shooter was really unique and tied the whole dish together."
I knew what I had wanted to try since we first made this ADR, the Berry Cobbler.
I absolutely loved loved LOVED this dessert, it was chock-full of berries, the cake had warm berries inside of it, and it was topped with a layer of ripe fresh berries. The black raspberry ice cream was absolutely perfect with the dessert.
I'm pretty sure Wingnut and I didn't end up sharing either of our desserts that evening!
Overall, we both thought that Artist Point was the nicest meal from beginning to end. We loved the ambiance of the restaurant, and all of our dishes were fantastic. Izzy was fantastic as well, his enthusiasm about the menu made us that much more enthusiastic about what we were eating as well. Towards the end of the meal, he discovered that we were from NJ, and began to rhapsodize about the Northeast.
"Tell bagels and diners that I say hi!!!" were his parting words to us. I told him that
we had started off the trip at a NJ diner, and he wholeheartedly approved.
As we left the restaurant, we agreed that Artist Point is unquestionably a must-do for us in the future!
The horror...just kidding!
I'm in the you didn't miss much at Sci-Fi camp. I've made ADRs there for most of our trips and we always end up cancelling them. Love WPE, though. I really like it when something everyone raves about on the Dis really lives up to the hype and, in my opinion, WPE is one such place.
Its a neat store and they have some cool stuff, but why would I pay sixty-five dollars for a t-shirt??? Oh, right...I wouldn't.
It's so beautiful! I'm glad you liked it, even if you don't want to stay there! It's weird, I'm not nature-y or outdoors-y at all, and yet, that place feels like home to me!
I guess Disney World encompasses all of the Hardiness Zones!!
