Celebrating her 21st Disney Style - Real-time July 2021 Trip Report with Lots of Food Pics!!


Olga’s Cantina Review
In short, the girls LOVED IT! DD had a “drink” served in a Petri dish! A Rodian Ration($13.50). It was a Jell-O shot you ate with a spoon. In addition to vodka and schnapps, it had boba pearls, garnished with freeze dried raspberry, frozen crazins and some kind of “pops” on top. It’s the green drink below. She loved it!! She also had a Jedi Mind Trick, the blue drink below $16. Her friend had two Bespin Fizz at just $18 each. The experience of having drinks in Galaxy’s Edge, only $70 - Priceless!
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Happy 21st Birthday to your daughter - what a great way to celebrate a milestone birthday. And thanks for all the reports - I'm enjoying reading about your adventures both onsite and offsite.
 
We are back... sigh. Flight delay of 5 hours made for a terribly long travel day. If I want to stay married, I will NEVER book my family on Allegiant airline again. Three hour delay on the outbound. They have delayed or canceled EVERY flight we have taken! Our last cruise, we flew into Ft Lauderdale on Allegiant. Early morning direct flight. Because of our experience with Allegiant (and because I never travel on the day of the cruise!), we were a day early for our trip. But the majority of the passengers were scheduled on a cruise for that day. The flight was 8 hours late and we landed about 4pm, ship sail away time. These people missed their cruises!!! My heart broke for them. Enough about Allegiant Air, you have been warned...

Back to WINE BAR GEORGE FOOD REVIEW
I left off after the wonderful experience being greeted for my daughter’s special celebration and drinks. Next up, food!

DD had done her research. She watched YouTube videos to pick her celebration venue so knew the menu well.

We started with The Big Board ($59) a lovely charcuterie display. It was a hit! For cheese, we really enjoyed the blue paired with fig jam. Also delicious was the Brie paired with the fresh honey. The Swiss paired nicely with the pepper jam. We realized that we need to up our charcuterie game. Jaleo also pairs their cheeses with lovely jams. It really heightens the experience!!

As for the meats, our favorite was the mortadella ham. The prosciutto was also delicious. The accompaniments of olives, almonds, etc were nice. The only part that wasn’t a hit was the terrine and duck liver. Not our thing and way too much more to enjoy! It paired nicely with the French Sav Blanc from the Liore Valley we chose ($40).
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The DH found the menu quite limited, but it wasn’t his big day... DD knew exactly what she wanted- steak! And WBG does steak.

We ordered just one large salad - Frisée with arugula, walnuts and blue cheese- it was fantastic and plenty for four who had just eaten the most of The Big Board... the seasonal fruit was blueberries and it was tossed lightly in a citrus vinaigrette. ($10)

Next up the shared skirt steak platter served with roasted small potatoes, broccoli rabe, and a fantastic chimichurri sauce. It was ordered medium but served more medium rare (DD and DH were happy about that). The entire dish was outstanding! I’m not a steak eater, but LOVED the sides that came on the platter.

No desserts because we had the dome cake to share. It was just perfection!

The portions were so big, we did not have room to try more. The incredible celebratory dinner with wine and speciality cocktails, came to $192 before tip.

Overall- solid A. The venue was one of the best we’ve experienced - all that glass with the sun setting in the background- spectacular!! The service was stellar. They truly went out of the way to make DD’s special day perfect. She will remember it forever. The food was also extremely good. Only negatives, small menu and the barrel table with stools wasn’t comfortable for a two hour dinner. Small stuff, I know...
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Next up was a day off for the DH and myself. We had tickets for DHS, but with my sprained knee and his shoulder, We took a pass and sent the girls. We planned to go to Chinatown for brunch since we had an early ADR at Jaleo.

I mentioned we had lived in Shanghai, PRC for three years and love dim sum. With a little research, we found that Orlando has a legit Chinatown! It’s about 30 minutes from the park area, but truly authentic! Loaded with restaurants, grocery store, massage places... 01ABE142-F0F4-4ABC-86D6-2750476B6F25.jpeg5C9F7689-7226-43EA-A64A-4897276E7C59.jpeg Check this out...
 
OFFSITE DINING REVIEW, SHANGHAI LANE

We landed on Shanghai Lane. Not a true dim sum restaurant, the menu was actually very limited. But, we were thrilled because they had Xiao Long Bao! Also known as Soup Dumplings. This treat quickly became a family favorite in Asia. I’m happy to report Shanghai Lane did not disappoint!!

First, the place was newish and very clean. It is decorated with photos from all around Shanghai. That was fun! Best of all, the food was outstanding!

We had
soup dumplings -$6.99 for 6
fried pork buns -5.99 for 4
Noodle soup with pork and hot sauce (think dan dan noodles) - 9.99
2 bottles of water-.50 each

We loved it all! We knew we had Jaleo at 6pm, the DH’s most anticipated meal, so we did not order more. We did get DD soup dumplings to go.

We highly recommend this if you are looking for an off-site adventure.
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I’m enjoying your report! You offsite food reviews almost make me want to rent a car!
 
Great report, you have a bunch of stuff that's is very helpful as my wife and I are going Friday for a week and have ADR's at a WBG, Morimotos & Jaleo I was unable to get Art smiths :(. We have a day in Epcot planned and I expect we will spend a fair amount of time hanging at the resort (SSR) and at Disney springs. Thanks for sharing the fun your family had, (I agree that the budget airlines and be painful, we like JetBlue which does a bit better than some)
 
Great report, you have a bunch of stuff that's is very helpful as my wife and I are going Friday for a week and have ADR's at a WBG, Morimotos & Jaleo I was unable to get Art smiths :(. We have a day in Epcot planned and I expect we will spend a fair amount of time hanging at the resort (SSR) and at Disney springs. Thanks for sharing the fun your family had, (I agree that the budget airlines and be painful, we like JetBlue which does a bit better than some)
So excited for you guys! Any other ADRs in your plans? Wondering if we missed anything that was a must do! Homecoming was one of our least favorites. Behind all the ones you have booked! You will also hit the food and wine festival. We hit at at CA park and it was great! Will be looking for your report! Enjoy!!!
 
How awesome to spend your 21st in WDW! And how cool that your daughter wanted to spend it with her parents!! Amazing. Sorry that both you and your husband were battling some injuries. Sounds like you were both troopers. You had some really great meals! I'm all about the food on vacation too... rides are just things we do between restaurant reservations, haha. Wine Bar George is so outstanding - amongst the best hospitality I've seen on property (& honestly elsewhere) ... and the food is great too, and, of course, the wine. I had a great time reading about your trip this afternoon. Thanks for sharing!
 
So excited for you guys! Any other ADRs in your plans? Wondering if we missed anything that was a must do! Homecoming was one of our least favorites. Behind all the ones you have booked! You will also hit the food and wine festival. We hit at at CA park and it was great! Will be looking for your report! Enjoy!!!
Yes we booked Terralina in DS and topolino's at the rivera and I'm planning lunch and dinner at F&W the day we do Epcot. We really enjoy Morimotos and go most times we are at WDW. I still have one night to fill and may go offsite or just pick up a reservation if something interesting frees up (I'm thinking about Ragland Road but my wife did not love the food during a trip to Ireland a few years ago so it might be a hard sell). My girls are a bit spoiled as we get to Orlando a couple of times a year :) but we don't often go without the kids (which we are doing for this trip) so I get to try some meals with a bit more adventurous menus that wouldn't work well with our picky teenagers.
 
Our home-bound flights weren’t till 5pm so I made an 11:45 ADR at Homecoming- our first time visiting this restaurant (actually, ALL our dining experiences were firsts!). I’d read so much about this restaurant- all of it good! I’m also a YouTube researcher so had watched vlogs too. The food looked amazing!

To my surprise, it was one of our least favorites. It started with service. Our waiter seemed much more like he was in “sales” than “service”. I hate to blame him, I assume he was doing as he was trained or coached (or just rewarded??). But it started with drinks- we were traveling and did not want alcohol drinks (just $4.25 tea). He “refused” our choice and let us know we would not have the full Homecoming experience without Shines all around. We politely refused but it took a couple of times.

Next came food orders. DD and I decided to split a fried chicken sandwich served with house chips drizzled in refrigerator dressing with two sides (Mac and cheese and green beans). He quickly tells us “this is not enough food!” I explain the DD eats like a bird and we felt it was enough. He goes on to tell us that it is his job to ensure we have a good experience and we have not ordered enough food. It was way too much. The DH ordered the pulled pork sandwich served with an over easy egg and also came with chips. We
Managed to move him along, but with more effort than we enjoyed. It was uncomfortable. The food came out quickly.

The food was just ok- not great. To our surprise, we thought the fried chicken was bland. We’re southerners and used to more pepper- more kick in the breading. The bread and butter pickles seemed to way over power the taste of the sandwich. TBH, we all agreed Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich is just better!!

DH’s pork sandwich was much more flavorful. We all liked it! As for sides,DD did not like the mac and cheese- she found it to have way too much cheese... it swam in cheese on the inside and was at least an inch deep in melted cheese on the top. This made it swim in oil and she was turned off by that. The green beans were a huge miss- being from the south, these should have been reflected as haricot verts on the menus- they were way more French than Southern! The green beans were only slightly cooked. No self-respecting southern would put those beans on their Sunday dinner table. Chef Art Smith should be ashamed! DD longed for Nana’s green beans and did not care for these at all.

So, the meal that was WAY TOO LITTLE,
per our waiter, was mostly wasted. DH ate half his sandwich (just because it was so large, it was delicious!), DD left half her half of the sandwich. And the sides were barely touched.

Total of $63 before tip. 58059ACC-E67E-4C9F-B055-A1284B84C6FE.jpeg46060620-26A2-41F3-91C2-7FABDEEAAFF0.jpeg12095B04-1C36-4659-9AFD-E691DC08880B.jpegB678EE08-002E-4342-A3D2-84338267DBEE.jpegBD68DC2E-5925-42F2-A1A4-4C030E1FD4DB.jpeg34F20CD2-6347-43DB-8987-043262D45256.jpeg
 
I was thinking of trying for an ADR at Homecomin' or Boathouse in Nov. Based on your review & pictures it looks like we'll be hoping to get Boathouse.
 












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