After a long, very tiring, but very fullfilling day at the Magic Kingdom I was exhausted, and ready to crash, but I felt like I had to go to dinner, since it was already included, and I didn't want to not be able to say that I ate at all the signature restaurants in one trip.
I arrived at the Wilderness Lodge at 8:30 for my 9:05 ADR. After a quick change in the bathroom, (there was no way I was going to wear the same sweaty t-shirt I'd worn all day in the parks to a nice restaurant,) I checked-in. I was told that I probably wouldn't be seated until close to my ADR time, so they gave me a pager, and I headed to the lounge to make myself comfortable as I waited for my table.
At 9:00 I walked back up to the check-in desk, where the girl apologized for the long wait. I told her it was no problem, after all, I had been there very early, and it still wasn't my ADR time yet. At 9:10 I was finally seated, at a four top, which I felt was unnecessary, but I suppose they were out of two-tops, and didn't want to make me wait any longer for my table.
I sat on the booth side of the table, which was a bad idea, because the whole meal I kept on just wanting to lay down and take a nap on the booth. That seemed a more enticing idea at the time then sitting through a three-course meal, but like I said, I wouldn't let myself skip dinner. (This would happen a few times throughout my trip, where it would've been a better idea to skip the meal then force myself to go, but I always went.)
My server this evening was Paul, and he explained to me what I was entitled to on the deluxe plan, an appetizer, entree, and dessert. I asked him if I could have the cheese plate as my appetizer, since it's kind of seperated from everything else on the menu, and he said of course I could.
Before being served my cheese plate I was served some nice sourdough bread. Like I said in my California Grill review, I'm not a huge fan of sourdough, but this one was nice as well, and I do like the butter at Artist Point, though I'm not sure what it is exactly that makes it so great.
I was then served my cheese plate, which had three different kinds of cheeses on it, Fiscalini cheddar, Midnight Moon, which is a type of goat cheese, and Echo Mountain blue cheese. Also on the plate were raisins, a fig cake, walnut toast, and tomato-onion marmalade.
I started with the Midnight Moon. Usually when I have goat cheese it's creamy, but the texture of this cheese was almost more like that of cheddar. I thought this was a very nice cheese, and I really liked it with the walnut toast and the tomato-onion marmalade, which had a delicate sweet flavor. The blue cheese, which I've had before in one of their salads, is a very good, but not overly pungent blue cheese, though I usually prefer the more creamier blues. This was very nice with the fig cake, though I thought the fig cake had a slightly odd aftertaste. The last cheese, the Fiscalini cheddar, was my favorite, but that's no suprise as I love cheddar cheese, and this was a lovely sharp one, that I pretty much ate a la carte without bothering with the accompiaments.
For my entree, despite the fact that I had a lot of salmon at lunch, I ordered the cedar plank-roasted Pacific wild king salmon.
This was a lovely piece of salmon, and was cooked perfectly. Remember how I said in my California Grill review that I found a few things to be overly salted? This was another one. The outside was generously coated with salt and pepper, a little too much in my opinion, but it was still good. With the salmon came pear and smoked belly hash, which I actually thought was more interesting then the fish itself, though I did find that to be a little dry, though with the pear-ginger sauce, which was a wonderful, slightly sweet sauce, I thought it all worked out in the end to be a quite nice dish, though I prefer the buffalo steak I'd had the last time I had eaten here.
By the time I had finished my salmon I was almost completely falling asleep, and I couldn't imagine eating anything else, even though I knew I'd be getting dessert. I also didn't know how I was going to make it back to Pop, since I was barely even keeping myself sitting up straight at that point. Luckily this is the only day I felt so tired that I thought I might fall asleep at the table.
For dessert, which I really didn't even want, but ordered anyway, I had the berry cobbler.
This was a small piece of cobbler, as well as a scoop of black raspberry ice cream, surronded by raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries. I thought the cobbler part was kind of dry and too crumbly, but the ice cream and berries were actually very refreshing, and I managed to eat quite a bit.
There seemed to be some trouble with the tip here. I had given Paul my credit card to charge the tip, which I had rounded to the nearest dollar, but when he ran in through, it charged a penny less, so it went through as $12.99 instead of the $13 I had wanted to charge. He said it was really weird and he had never seen that before, and I agreed that it was weird as well. Obviously that penny wasn't a big deal, but I just wanted to share that.
Overall I really do like Artist Point, but after a few trips there I have pretty much tried everything of interest to me on their menu. So while I'd return, it wouldn't be my first choice just based on that.
You really should visit the photography board, we'd love to have you.
