I don't know what steak folks have had at Coral Reef, but when we were there for dinner a few months ago, the steak was only fair at best.
I'm beginning to think Disney gets a variety of qualities of steak in its orders and sometimes good steaks get sent to 1TS restaurants, if they are running low on the poorer quality steaks that seem to be the norm at 1TS restaurants.
We had the best NY strip we've ever had (far better than the filet at Jiko) once when we dined at (of all places) Tony's Town Square. We've never had it again there. The steak the next time we ate there was fair at best.
There simply can't be that much difference in people's perceptions of what is a good NY strip steak. So, I've come to the conclusion that WDW orders so much meat that it arrives in huge loads -- and if one of the 2TS restaurants gets more than they need, they send it over to any 1TS places that are running low
That's my only explanation for why some people on this thread say they had the best NY strip steak ever at Coral Reef -- and why our steaks were just so so.
And why I had the best NY strip ever at Tony's -- with the experience never to be repeated again.
As for lunch at Coral Reef, we used to love it. It's gone downhill, in our opinion, and is way overpriced for what you get -- though OOP pricing doesn't matter so much anymore now that everybody's on the dining plan and the restaurant menus exist mostly to show those people who bought the dining plan what a good deal they got!
Last time we ate at Coral Reef for lunch, we ordered, among other things, the "Surf & Turf Appetizer". It was $10-12 and was literally two shrimp and two one inch squares of beef. Oy! That was enough for us. We haven't been back for lunch since.
We tried dinner once after that and, as indicated above, were disappointed. Not just the food. The ambience was terrible -- the place was jam-packed for dinner with crying babies and kids screaming and running all over the restaurant. Thank you
Disney Dining Plan!
We skipped Coral Reef on our most recent WDW visit a couple of weeks ago. We never would have done so a few years ago.