But I Don't Like Peas and Mushrooms! An Aug. '16 Dining Report *updated 10/13 Wrap It Up!*

[ariane37]

Hello! And welcome to my first attempt at a dining report. I think I do OK with trip reports so hopefully you won't all be bored to tears. My husband Steve and I took our 3rd "kid-free" trip Aug. 27-31st, staying at the Wilderness Lodge for the first time (loved it!)



We made 2 ADR's prior to getting down there and decided to wing it for the rest - well, almost wing it. We did make our other reservations either day of or day/night before and it worked out great. We find this much easier to do when traveling without our 2 boys, Ricky (14) and Christopher (10). We ended up eating at all new places to us with one exception, had lots of great meals and, if you got the hint from my title, I went a little bit out of the norm for me and realized my tastes have changed a bit since I was a young'un!

I have no idea how to do links but here's a list of where we ate:

Roaring Forks QS
Citricos
Trails End weekend brunch
Harambe Market
Skipper Canteen
Il Mulino
San Angel Inn
Territory Lounge
with a couple snacks in between

I hope you'll follow along while I relive our latest eating adventures!

 

[Denamac]

I'm here! DH and I will be doing our first kids free trip next year over Labor Day weekend. Looking forward to your reviews!

 

[VeronicaBride]

Looking forward to reading. We are 14 days away from our first adult only trip!

 

[suse66]

Looking forward to hearing all about your dining adventures!

 

[Klinger13]

Looking forward to your reviews!

 

[ariane37]

I'm here! DH and I will be doing our first kids free trip next year over Labor Day weekend. Looking forward to your reviews!

Looking forward to reading. We are 14 days away from our first adult only trip!

to you both and how awesome you're both doing kid-free trips! We love ours, which is why we keep doing them And eating without the kids is one of the best parts of those trips!

Looking forward to hearing all about your dining adventures!

Hi there, and thank you for coming over!

Looking forward to your reviews!

Glad you're here First review coming up soon!

 

[Anesthesia Fine]

I'm in! The spouse and I did a kid-free anniversary trip over Labor Day weekend last year and it was very food-centric; I'm looking forward to reading about yours!

 

[jesswindsor]

Looking forward to your reviews!!

 

[fallonkendra]

Looking forward to hearing all about it!

 

[xlsm]

Joining in!

We'll be doing Skipper's Canteen and San Angel in December, so I'll be using those reviews to live vicariously.

I'm glad you guys had a great trip to the Lodge! I'm missing WDW so much, I'm glad to have your dining reviews to get a quick fix. Disneyland was fun, but it's no World, that's for sure!

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

That is a lovely picture of you two.

 

[Candycane83]

Following!

 

[ArielSRL]

I'm here! I'm hoping to hook DH this June then talk him into a F&W long weekend adult trip for my birthday one year!

 

[ariane37]

8/27 LUNCH

We arrived at WL around 12:30 and were starving; we'd had a breakfast sandwich from DD at the airport around 7a.m. While we'd only planned 2 ADR's I did plan to eat a quick lunch at Roaring Forks, the QS location at the resort



So that's what we did! Our room wasn't ready yet so we went right over after dropping our bags with bell services. We both got sodas; I ordered the Turkey and Swiss sandwich:


With lettuce, tomato and chipotle mayonnaise on a Kaiser roll. Served with cucumber salad or house-made chips.

Even though its says cucumber salad OR chips, I wasn't asked which I wanted and was given both. The chips are the same as those served elsewhere on property and were perfectly salted and crispy. The cucumber salad was more of a pickled cucumber salad and also had red onions in it, and was really good with a light, refreshing viniagrette dressing.(you can see Steve got some, too)



I loved the sandwich! Nice fresh-tasting roast turkey on a soft roll. The chipotle mayo was spicy! Not so much I couldn't eat it or didn't enjoy it but enough that when I was done I felt it in my mouth, which is how I like my spice.

Steve ordered the Roast Beef and Blue Cheese:


With lettuce, grilled onions, and buttermilk chive dressing on focaccia bread. Served with cucumber salad or house-made chips.

Steve also liked the chips and salad, especially the salad. He said the roast beef was really good but wished there was more, said the bread was delicious but felt there way too much of it compared to the meat. I thought he still enjoyed it overall but quite a few times later in the trip he brought up the "sandwich with too much bread", so I guess I'd have to say he wasn't such a fan. Truth be told he's not a huge QS fan anyway, so as long as I can get him to eat it once in awhile I'm happy!

I think as far as QS goes, especially at the resorts, Roaring Forks was very good. This was the only time we ate a meal there so it's my only experience to go on, but I won't hesitate to eat there again once or twice on our next WL stay.

After lunch we explored the resort a bit, took a ride on the boat and then the monorail waiting for our room to be ready and attempting to upgrade to AP's at MK but not wanting to wait on the immense bag check lines we kept seeing. Once we got our text we headed back to see where we'd be for the next 4 nights, which ended up being in a room with an excellent view!



Score on room location! We hadn't made an ADR for dinner but I had a few places in mind. Around 4:20-4:30 I hopped on the app to see what was available and booked Citricos for 5:50. This would be our 2nd visit there, our first being this past January on our 2nd kid-free trip. We absolutely loved it and were excited to return!

Once we were changed and ready to go we decided to take the bus to MK this time since it was raining on and off. From there is was a quick monorail ride to the GF and we were seated right away at 5:50 - we had taken a quick detour to MK GS to attempt the ticket upgrade again, but after quite awhile on the line it hadn't moved so we gave it up.

Adrian was our server for the night. Steve ordered his go-to drink, Grey Goose vodka on the rocks with olives. I was feeling old school and went with my college staple, a Malibu Baybreeze:



I know you all could probably figure out what these drinks look like without the picture, but I wanted to point out the napkin A few years back, Disney went from having "Walt Disney World" on their plastic bags, cups, napkins etc. to the more generic "Disney Parks' that you see now. So I really liked seeing the restaurant name on the linen napkins. On another napkin note, when we ate here in January our server was the very awesome Rony. He noticed I was wearing a black dress and brought me a black linen napkin to replace my white one so I didn't end up with white lint all over me We saw Rony again later in the evening and had a nice conversation with him.

Back to the food! Along with our drinks, Adrian brought a basket of their bread:



The darker 3 pieces up front were some type of whole grain bread, very good according to Steve and I did have one bite. However I was concerning myself more with the 2 pieces towards the back, which was their Kalamata olive bread! I've had dreams about this bread since our last visit.........I'd say you have to like Kalamata olives but the taste isn't overwhelming; if you do like them you can certainly catch the flavor and it is de-lish. Especially with the sea-salt butter they give you which I forgot to take a picture of. I need to be forgiven since it's my first dining report attempt! Next trip, all condiments will be photographed more than necessary, promise!

We moved on to appetizers, something else I'd been looking forward to since our last trip. I knew what I was getting but Steve likes to ask servers for their opinions on dishes and Adrian suggested their seasonal flatbread, which he decided to try for his app:


Wild Mushroom Flatbread: with Truffle Cheese, Tomatoes, Guanciale and Garlic Crema

Steve was extremely happy with this choice. The dough was crispy around the edge, softer in the middle but not mushy. They were not stingy with the ingredients on top yet it wasn't so packed that eating the whole thing (which he almost did) made him feel stuffed.
I had no desire to try this since, as my title indicates, I don't do mushrooms. I actually don't mind the flavor in some cases, but I don't eat the fungus itself and even though I've found a few things where I avoid eating that ingredient and still like the dish, I very RARELY order something with mushrooms as a main ingredient. But it just looked so good I couldn't resist a bite.......and you know what?

It was good!
The mushrooms were kind of crispy and didn't have their normal consistency, which is my main reason for not liking them. Loved the garlic crema, and I ate a whole piece. Still ended up ordering my own appetizer though, and I went with the Arancini that I had back in January:



Sicilian Street Food, crispy Risotto with creamy Mascarpone, spicy Prima Rosa sauce

Oh, what I wouldn't do to have these right now! They look small and they are, and at first you really want more than 3. But it's the perfect amount. They are quite filling so any more than 3 would be a (delicious) meal. And the sauce is a key part of the dish and just as I like it, not too tomato-ey yet not too sweet. Since Steve gave me a piece of his flatbread I gave him half of one of my Arancini. Fair is fair, after all. Plus I needed to save some room for dinner!

Being rather boring, I again ordered the same entrée I had in January - and as an FYI, I don't eat seafood so that's always out for me. Steve on the other hand
eats pretty much everything. So I got the Oak Grilled Beef Fillet:



With Potato Puree, Roasted Tri-Color Baby Carrots, Cippolini Onion Jam and Sauce Bordelaise

This was as good as I remembered from last time. The filet couldn't have been any more tender and the sauce/jam are a little sweet and taste so good with the filet. The potato puree (mashed potatoes) were smooth and creamy.

Our last time here Steve had the Beef Short Ribs. This time he went with another of Adrian's suggestions and tried the Scallop Risotto:



With George's Banks scallops, English Peas, Spring Carrots, and Parmesan Nage

How pretty is this! And he absolutely LOVED it. Those scallops were huge if you can't tell and the risotto was perfect. Knowing I don't eat seafood you can imagine I had no desire to try this. Another thing I don't eat - in fact something I detest - are peas. I haven't willingly eaten a pea since I was about 11 or 12. I have never even made my kids try them unless they wanted to and never buy them for Steve, that's how much I hate them. But that risotto looked so pretty........

So I stuck my fork in just a teeny bit. And damn, that was GOOD. Like OMG good. It did have that pea taste but whatever else was in it just mixed so well, and that risotto was so creamy, I had to keep tasting it. When Adrian came over to see how we were doing I had to tell her that as a pea despiser I thought that risotto was fantastic. Later on while we were talking to Rony he asked what we'd ordered. He told us there was lots of fresh fish stock in the pea stuff and Steve kicked me under the table because he knew that probably freaked me out. It kind of did because I also really get grossed out by the smell of lots of seafood, but I'm not sorry I tried it! Not sure if we'll be back to Citricos on our November trip since the boys really want to go to Narcoossee's again and we have lots of other places we want to go, but there's no doubt we'll be back on a future trip.

We had refills of our drinks but were a bit too stuffed for dessert unfortunately. After we left we managed to finally upgrade our AP's, walked down Main St. and took a spin on HM, then boated it back to our room to catch Wishes from our balcony. We did make a quick stop in Roaring Forks again to pick up a little snack for the room, something I'd seen in one of Kari's @kastoney's dining reports:



Magic Bar: graham cracker crust, coconut, some type of nut, chocolate chips, crushed m&m's (?)

It reminded me of a blondie brownie with all this yummy stuff in it. Spoiler alert, I had 3 over the course of our trip

So ended our first day, definitely a success on the food front.

 

[ariane37]

I'm in! The spouse and I did a kid-free anniversary trip over Labor Day weekend last year and it was very food-centric; I'm looking forward to reading about yours!

Aren't those trips great?? Aside from choosing our resort, thinking about where we want to eat is the first thing Steve and I think about!

Looking forward to your reviews!!

Thank you, and

Looking forward to hearing all about it!

So glad you're here

Joining in!

We'll be doing Skipper's Canteen and San Angel in December, so I'll be using those reviews to live vicariously.

I'm glad you guys had a great trip to the Lodge! I'm missing WDW so much, I'm glad to have your dining reviews to get a quick fix. Disneyland was fun, but it's no World, that's for sure!

Hey Samantha, so good to see you! I've been wondering how your DL trip was Not long now till you get to return to your Happy Place!

 

[ariane37]

That is a lovely picture of you two.

Aw, thank you!

Following!

Happy to have you!

I'm here! I'm hoping to hook DH this June then talk him into a F&W long weekend adult trip for my birthday one year!

Thank you for coming over I wish you luck on your plan with DH lol. Every time we go, Steve and I both say we need to go for F&W again, haven't been since 2007 and of course the boys were with us and young. Maybe we'll end up there when you are!

 

[suse66]

Everything looks great! As I love scallops and peas, I would be all over that risotto. My DH would have loved your meal choice! Those sandwiches look awesome from Roaring Forks too. Such a great start!

 

[xlsm]

First, I'm really sad, because the roast beef and blue cheese sandwich at Roaring Forks is my favorite, and the one your husband ended up with looks like a totally different creature than the one I love so much

The food from Citricos looks great, and I'm having some risotto envy right now.

My DH has a mushroom aversion, too, which kills me because the kids and I all love them. He's always willing to give things a try, so I've experimented over the years and we've found he will eat Portobello and shiitake mushrooms, because the texture isn't spongy and the flavor is a little more rich. It looks like that's what's on the flatbread, so he would probably like that...good to know!!

As for Disneyland, it was good! We had 5 park days, and then we took a few days to do other things like a whale boat tour, LA and the beach. We preferred California Adventure over Disneyland itself...Disneyland park was kind of depressing in a weird way?? We liked it, it just felt off. I'm not sure how to describe it properly, which is why I didn't write a TR about it. I'm going to do a PTR for our December WDW trip, which I'll start in October probably, and I might throw in some of the Disneyland stuff as filler there.
One thing that I thought was funny...everyone told me I'd be disappointed in Sleeping Beauty castle because of the size, but I loved it so much! It was one of my favorite parts of the park!



Looking forward to seeing more food!!

 

[ArielSRL]

Great first day! I have to admit...I'm not a mushroom fan nor a pea fan nor a coconut fan.....

The bread looked good...the steak looked amazing!

We've only done 1900 Park Fair at GF. Maybe on an adults only trip or once the boys are older, we will hit up one of the others.

Looking forward to more!

 

[DrunkJam]

Everything so far looks yummy!
Are the magic bars in all the resort QS? Or just roaring forks?
Citrico's looks awesome. Thanks for sharing.