Took a trip to Orlando for a long weekend with my family -- I'll be posting reviews of hotels, restaurants, attractions as applicable, here's our latest experiences at what have been two of our favorites -- Kimono's and Rainforest.
My wife and I managed to get out alone on Saturday evening and decided to stop at Kimonos for some Sushi. As a preface, let me give my displeasure with the flat-rate self-parking at the Swan. At least the "real" Disney resorts have free parking if you're willing to hike it. $8 for the privilege of parking your car for a long walk into the Swan is a bit unreasonable.
That being said, we were looking forward to Kimono's having enjoyed sushi and karaoke there a few years ago. We still love the decor and set-up, but apparently the seating is self-serve. Of course, no one bothers to tell us that on arrival, nor did they tell the next 10 groups of guests that arrived. We should know. We ended up sitting at the sushi bar just next to the entrance, and heard each group of guests end up as confused as we were. A simple, discreet sign at the entrance might do the trick. The restaurant wasn't overly busy, but the servers and manager all had a rather harried look to them --- I'm thinking that perhaps a few people didn't show up for work that night and they were in the weeds.
Service was adequate, and the sushi chefs were friendly and engaging. I've never understood the roundabout way that some sushi-bars arrange for taking orders, however. We filled out the card indicating our sushi choices, and were told to hand them, as is custom, to the men preparing the food behind the sushi bar. But our drink orders were taken by the bar waitress, who also handled the billing for the sushi. So she ended up having to do a lot of running around at the end of our visit, from the sushi bar to the cocktail bar to the register, and vice versa. This led to an awkward, and slightly tiresome delay when we were ready to leave. Happens a lot at sushi restaurants -- a quirk of the way such restaurants are organized, I suppose.
I can't equivocate here -- the sushi was sub-mediocre. It pains me to say that, because we really did have a good time bantering with the staff, but my eel was undercooked, the salmon smelled fishy (sounds silly to say that if you haven't eaten sushi before, but frankly speaking, sushi fish should never smell like fish), the egg was syrupy sweet, and the spider roll didn't crunch -- it was almost gummy in texture, worth an outright "gross" and a grimace when we tried it. We also had salads with ginger dressing, which was also very sweet.
Perhaps it was just a bad night. The sake was good, though.
Sunday evening we went to the Rainforest with our two daughters DDs 6 and 2, and my mother, who is 85 years young. It was about 5:00 p.m. on arrival, and there was only a 10 minute wait. Although the 10 minutes ended up being about 25 minutes, because after leading us back into the Gorilla room, we had to wait there in the middle of the restaurant for quite some time while they bused our table. No big deal, though. Anyone who's been there knows how easy it is to distract kids with the various sights and sounds in the restaurant.
For drinks, they now offer a cool souvenir plastic cup with blinking colored lights in the base. With an alcoholic cocktail, that will set you back a hefty $13.99 for the privilege of taking the cup home, but the battery is replaceable, and it is awfully fun to drink out of one.
My mother is on a restricted diet -- bland food only, so I tried to order her the pesto chicken pasta dinner, with just plain grilled chicken and pasta, sauce on the side, and was pleasantly relieved to find there was no problem at all with tweaking the order. My older daughter had the kids cheeseburger and our younger the macaroni and cheese. The burger is definitely the deal, because you actually get three burgers -- and they aren't exactly tiny. She ate one, and we took the other two home. The mac and cheese is just sort of there, but I guess that's what mac and cheese does on the plate, right?
The french fries served with most of the dinners are excellent, crispy on the outside, hot and meaty on the inside. Perfect. I had the Cobb salad, which was a veritable mountain of food. In retrospect, I wish I had ordered the dressing on the side. It was good, but there was so much of it mixed in with the vegetables, etc., it became a bit cloying. My wife opted for the house cheeseburger as well, and had no complaints. You definitely pay a premium for the atmosphere in there, which for our money is unparallelled within the Disney-property dining options.
One service note -- our server was a very friendly guy, and took our orders promptly and courteously. However, when the food arrived, the kids meals and my wife's burger arrived, but my mother's food and mine did not. As is the case in many such busy restaurants, the food is not always delivered by the table waiter, but by separate kitchen staff. She plopped down the 3 orders, and didn't bother to wonder why two of us weren't getting any food. The manager happened by in a moment, however, and we mentioned it to him. He immediately radioed into the kitchen, apologized profusedly, and my mother and I were eating within a few minutes.
All in all, I would advise caution when considering Kimono's. They deserve a chance, but I'd check the atmosphere in there upon arrival and decide accordingly. With the Rainforest, you really can't go wrong. If the food's not your thing, just hang out with a blinking drink and watch the animatronics show.
Whatever you do, relax -- you're on vacation!
My wife and I managed to get out alone on Saturday evening and decided to stop at Kimonos for some Sushi. As a preface, let me give my displeasure with the flat-rate self-parking at the Swan. At least the "real" Disney resorts have free parking if you're willing to hike it. $8 for the privilege of parking your car for a long walk into the Swan is a bit unreasonable.
That being said, we were looking forward to Kimono's having enjoyed sushi and karaoke there a few years ago. We still love the decor and set-up, but apparently the seating is self-serve. Of course, no one bothers to tell us that on arrival, nor did they tell the next 10 groups of guests that arrived. We should know. We ended up sitting at the sushi bar just next to the entrance, and heard each group of guests end up as confused as we were. A simple, discreet sign at the entrance might do the trick. The restaurant wasn't overly busy, but the servers and manager all had a rather harried look to them --- I'm thinking that perhaps a few people didn't show up for work that night and they were in the weeds.
Service was adequate, and the sushi chefs were friendly and engaging. I've never understood the roundabout way that some sushi-bars arrange for taking orders, however. We filled out the card indicating our sushi choices, and were told to hand them, as is custom, to the men preparing the food behind the sushi bar. But our drink orders were taken by the bar waitress, who also handled the billing for the sushi. So she ended up having to do a lot of running around at the end of our visit, from the sushi bar to the cocktail bar to the register, and vice versa. This led to an awkward, and slightly tiresome delay when we were ready to leave. Happens a lot at sushi restaurants -- a quirk of the way such restaurants are organized, I suppose.
I can't equivocate here -- the sushi was sub-mediocre. It pains me to say that, because we really did have a good time bantering with the staff, but my eel was undercooked, the salmon smelled fishy (sounds silly to say that if you haven't eaten sushi before, but frankly speaking, sushi fish should never smell like fish), the egg was syrupy sweet, and the spider roll didn't crunch -- it was almost gummy in texture, worth an outright "gross" and a grimace when we tried it. We also had salads with ginger dressing, which was also very sweet.
Perhaps it was just a bad night. The sake was good, though.
Sunday evening we went to the Rainforest with our two daughters DDs 6 and 2, and my mother, who is 85 years young. It was about 5:00 p.m. on arrival, and there was only a 10 minute wait. Although the 10 minutes ended up being about 25 minutes, because after leading us back into the Gorilla room, we had to wait there in the middle of the restaurant for quite some time while they bused our table. No big deal, though. Anyone who's been there knows how easy it is to distract kids with the various sights and sounds in the restaurant.
For drinks, they now offer a cool souvenir plastic cup with blinking colored lights in the base. With an alcoholic cocktail, that will set you back a hefty $13.99 for the privilege of taking the cup home, but the battery is replaceable, and it is awfully fun to drink out of one.
My mother is on a restricted diet -- bland food only, so I tried to order her the pesto chicken pasta dinner, with just plain grilled chicken and pasta, sauce on the side, and was pleasantly relieved to find there was no problem at all with tweaking the order. My older daughter had the kids cheeseburger and our younger the macaroni and cheese. The burger is definitely the deal, because you actually get three burgers -- and they aren't exactly tiny. She ate one, and we took the other two home. The mac and cheese is just sort of there, but I guess that's what mac and cheese does on the plate, right?
The french fries served with most of the dinners are excellent, crispy on the outside, hot and meaty on the inside. Perfect. I had the Cobb salad, which was a veritable mountain of food. In retrospect, I wish I had ordered the dressing on the side. It was good, but there was so much of it mixed in with the vegetables, etc., it became a bit cloying. My wife opted for the house cheeseburger as well, and had no complaints. You definitely pay a premium for the atmosphere in there, which for our money is unparallelled within the Disney-property dining options.
One service note -- our server was a very friendly guy, and took our orders promptly and courteously. However, when the food arrived, the kids meals and my wife's burger arrived, but my mother's food and mine did not. As is the case in many such busy restaurants, the food is not always delivered by the table waiter, but by separate kitchen staff. She plopped down the 3 orders, and didn't bother to wonder why two of us weren't getting any food. The manager happened by in a moment, however, and we mentioned it to him. He immediately radioed into the kitchen, apologized profusedly, and my mother and I were eating within a few minutes.
All in all, I would advise caution when considering Kimono's. They deserve a chance, but I'd check the atmosphere in there upon arrival and decide accordingly. With the Rainforest, you really can't go wrong. If the food's not your thing, just hang out with a blinking drink and watch the animatronics show.
Whatever you do, relax -- you're on vacation!
