Dining reviews October 20th - November 8th

[lisaj]

Had a three week holiday and have been back four weeks today without writing a food review so here goes.

We planned our holiday for years and booked at 180 days out. We took lots of advice from dis-boards but did decide not to travel too far for breakfast each day as our daughter is travel sick on an empty tummy.

We are myself 39, DH 42, DS 9 and DD 5. We paid out of pocket as we like to have a huge breakfast and huge dinner and not much (sometimes nothing) during the day.

DH is a big fish and cheese eater but rarely does dessert. I am quite adventurous in my taste and will kill for chocolate and creamy desserts. DS is also fairly adventurous but DD is a real roast and two veg kind of girl.
arrival day Saturday October 20th Pepper Market, CSR

After a journey that took us 18 hours door to door we were fairly hungry but hadn't made advanced reservations. We ate at the PM last time we visited WDW in 2003 but to be honest we hated it. This time we were more impressed. The healthy options have definitely improved.

We had one adults beef stir fry, one side salad, two children's chicken nuggets meals (sorry still can't get my head round the American way of serving nuggets, chips and cookie on the same plate ) and a bowl of strawberries for $31 - a bargain. Went back to our room and took delivery of our food from Garden Grocer and stocked up on cookies YUM. Early night and hoping for no jet-lag

Sunday October 21st - breakfast Maya Grill and dinner Akershus

I know most on these boards don't like to repeat their meals but we love your American breakfast buffets and in our humble opinion the buffet at CSR at the Maya Grill can't be beaten
As we ate here every morning for a week I will just run through the food options here. There is a fruit table (cantaloupe melon and galia melon, watermelon, grapes, pineapple, bananas and apples) which we all enjoyed. A pastry and cereal table including three or four cereals, croissants, various muffins and danish pastries, jams etc. A cooked table comprising the standard grits, scones, oatmeal, waffles, bacon, sausage, ham and also breakfast burritos(?) containing scrambled egg and peppers. Very delicious and an absolute bargain at approximately $70 per day including tip.

Lunch time was just two lots of McDonald's fries in the MK at $2.99 each for the children plus snacks from our fanny packs.

akershus

We really enjoyed this one and would all come again. The family vote was a definite yes from all of us. The Princess interaction was excellent and the food was also generally good. We were greated by Sleeping Beauty and bought the photo package (at an extra $29.95). We also met Snow White, Jasmine (the best!) Alice in Wonderland and surprisingly Cinderella. My dd's favourite.

The starter is a cold table with choices such as cooked and smoked meats, smoked salmon and salads. Our family loved it but there were many families complaining about the lack of choice. For main course my DH (a fish lover) ate the cod with mussels which he said was lovely and did look good. I had the traditional Tjottkake (is that how you spell it?) which was very average meatballs to be honest. My son had the pasta and meatballs which was dry and he barely touched and my DD had the chicken and potatoes. We had ordered a birthday cake which was scrummy and full of cream although we hadn't had much choice in cake from this venue we really enjoyed it, however, they didn't bring us the dessert which we would have tried but to be honest it wasn't worth ordering it as we were just so full.

Cost including tip and cake $150
Return? yes like a shot.

 

[lisaj]

breakfast Maya Grill dinner Whispering Canyon Cafe

Had read mixed reviews about WCC but we would all give it another visit. The atmosphere is not enough to drag you back but all in all it was very pleasant and a nice meal.

We had the skillet for all four of us and we all had soft drinks (still jetlagged can't cope with alcohol - yet)

The bread and salad was good. Now at home I don't do green salad, in my honest opinion only rabbits should eat it but we had some really good dressings and I ate more lettuce in three weeks than I have in the other 39 years of my life

DH ate all the shrimp, my DS has a shellfish intolerence. Not serious enough to be called an allergy but makes him vomit if he eats it. We mentioned this to our server who brought it in a separate dish for us.

Chicken, ribs and corn were all good as was the potato. The children had the worms in dirt dessert (which we didn't order but came with the maincourse - luckily my two didn't like the look of it or I would imagine that they would have ignored the skillet).

The service was good not too rushed nor too slow and the fun and games were as we had read on the reviews. My DS refused to ask for ketchup as he was too scared of the reaction The horse race was fun for the children.

This was not a meal to get overexcited about and if we were annual visitors we would probably wait a couple of years before returning but we did enjoy it.
Cost with tip $100

 

[lisaj]

No, I haven't forgotten Tuesday we went to KSC for the shuttle launch and ate there and at our drop off point (all Stars Music) the less said about their food court the better. For any British readers think Butlins.

After another breakfast at Maya Grill we had a lazy morning by the pool on the 24th and then the children grabbed a snack from the store (La Tienda?) of a sandwich and cookies.

Dinner was at CRT. We paid in advance but the meal was so well worth it. I know there are a lot of people who think the meal is not worth the money but it was one of the best meals of our trip. While the dinner show is not as good as the breakfast one the meal is so much better. We arrived at 4.30pm for our 4.40pm reservation and were called straight through for our photo with Cinderella.


We had a table in the centre of the room and soon after being seated the two mice Suzy and Perla come out together with the Fairy Godmother. The entertainment is beautiful for those celebrating a birthday or anniversary but nothing special otherwise. The real beauty is in the setting just being in the castle is fantastic.

I'm afraid I can't load my pictures (don't know how) but I did take some pictures here. I don't recall the children's starter but know there wasn't a choice. I had the spring rolls which were very tasty and DH had the BLT salad (he was so envious of my choice).

For main course I had the lamb which was gorgeous and he had the prime rib. The chocolate buckle dessert was wonderful and DH loved his rasperry sorbet.

The children had the ice-creams with the little chocolate crown and Mickey sprinkles on them but we had also ordered the glass slipper desserts for the two of them. Actually DS wanted one for his sister after seeing them on the cake thread but it didn't seem fair not to have one for him so I ordered him one too.

They cost an extra $12.50 each but were well worth it. The slipper is made from white chocolate and filled with a milk chocolate mousse. There are strawberries on the side and the slipper is placed on a sponge cake 'cushion'. The child's name plus prince/princess is piped on the plate.

We would go back here tomorrow and actually the meal works out very reasonably when compared with Akershus plus their photo package. (Plus with the exchange rate over here so favourable at the moment it was cheaper than a meal in our local Chinese restaurant )

 

[Minniespal]

Excellent

 

[jakenjess]

Great reviews! Three weeks! Sounds like heaven. Looking forward to more reviews!

 

[Belle5]

Really enjoying your reviews! I am wondering if "scrummy" means yummy or scrumptious. When Americans think something is distasteful we might say it was "crummy" but I didn't have that impression about your cake. Scrummy?

 

[pegryfun]

Hi,
My DH and I were at WDW late Oct. this year with the DDP (not Free). The weather was ok, some rain, cloudy most of our stay. We want to return again and were thinking of Sept this year, so my questions are (after reading about the free dining):
1. If they offer the free dining to the public do you think it would be the same dates as the offer to the "bounceback" and UK people?
2. If they offer this, is it at all Disney resorts? We liked Pop Century.
3. If we booked (we like AAA) now could we still get this offer after they announce it or should we wait until they do.
Thank you for any answers.

 

[pegryfun]

Sorry, Wrong thread.

 

[lisaj]

Really enjoying your reviews! I am wondering if "scrummy" means yummy or scrumptious. When Americans think something is distasteful we might say it was "crummy" but I didn't have that impression about your cake. Scrummy?

Hi, sorry yes scrummy is scrumptious. We had lots of fun with same language different language while over there!

 

[lisaj]

Thanks for reading so far!

thursday 25.10.07

Breakfast yes you guessed it over at Maya Grill again. Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern. We were going to the Halloween Party and booked to go here first. The characters are excellent. My DD was dressed up as Minnie Mouse and Minnie made such a fuss of her. We saw Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Chip and Dale. They spent quite a while at each table.

The food is quite plain but we all enjoyed it after a few days of rich offerings. The salad and bread to start were all good. The main course is macaroni cheese the sauce tastes like a processed cheese sauce but my son loved it and he HATES macaroni cheese at home. Beef, turkey and mashed potatoes. The vegetables were green beans again (everywhere seems to serve beans - do Disney have shares in American bean farms or what?) The beef disappeared pretty quickly and our server kindly brought us extra (twice) your beef is so much more tender than ours.

The dessert is apple crumble (sorry can't remember what you call crumble in the USA) with ice-cream. We ordered more crumble and the servers were so quick.

This meal cost us $105 with tips.

friday 26th October - boma

This was our last full day at CSR and we headed to DTD for some shopping. After reading the disboards for two years there was only one place to go for our morning snacks so the children endured the shopping with the promise of Goofy's candy company. We had two lovely servers who were happy to explain the 'make your own' system. DS chose a Mickey rice krispie cake and DD a gingerbread man and then they chose what to add. Those servers were so patient. We waited for them to be ready and then the children sat outside with their dad for 40 minutes eating them while Mum did the decent thing and hit the Christmas store!

Boma for evening meal. This was the best meal of the holiday but sadly the worst server no sense of humour and a Cruella de Vil attitude to children but the meal WOW!

There is the best selection of hummus I have ever tasted. Three really nice ones served with an african bread that looked like crab shells and tasted like half way between bread sticks and poppadoms. A nice selection of soups but I never made it to them. The salads were good, some standard salads like coleslaw and potato salad. The infamous watermelon rind salad tastes nothing like watermelon and everything like ginger and I loved it. The roast meats were really nice too and the children loved them.

Also, a children's selection of chicken strips and fries so my children ate roast meat, salad and fries. OUr server moaned about us allowing the children to visit the fries!!

A lot of stews/casseroles which I didn't manage to get to but the best of all was the desserts. There are a couple of hot desserts and cookies and krispie cakes but the nicest was the african desserts. The chocolate mousse is lovely with just a hint of alcohol, the coconut tarts were absolutely delicious and the zebra domes are pure luxurious chocolate with chocolate. I had three helpings much to the disgust of my son who thought Mum ought to have a little restraint!

The drink selection here was good too. Both adults had the red wine flight which comes on a mat describing each wine (about a third of a glass each so only about a glass in total).

If (hopefully when) we return we would visit here at least twice in the holiday. Even without characters for my youngest it was easily the most popular meal in an evening.

$120 including tip which considering the alcoholic beverages was fantastic value for money.

We were so full we had to go and have a walk around EPCOT for a couple of hours to work it off before bedtime.

Our last meal of the first week was at the Maya Grill for breakfast on Saturday before we headed to St Pete's for the next 6 days.