Hello,
I thought I'd give a dining report on where and what we ate during our trip last week. We had a couple of disappointing meals and a couple of pleasant surprises over the week.
Sunday 1/22
Lunch at Beaches and Cream
This was the usual Beaches and Cream meal of burgers, hot dogs, etc...followed by ice cream. I like having the option of fruit with your meal instead of fries. Nothing to report really....it was good as usual. We love the fountain cherry cokes.
Dinner at Ohana
This was our first time trying the new menu at Ohana. The salad was delicious as ever but I did miss the dumplings. The wings and shrimp were tasty. The wonton chips were pretty blah, imo. I didn't really care for the sauces and thought the sauces they previously served with the meats were better. The meats were plentiful, though I don't know that I find pork, steak, turkey and sausage necessary....I think I'd cut out the pork (but I'm not a fan of pork to begin with....though it was quite good). The turkey was moist and outstanding this time. Previously I'd had it here and it was dry. The teriyaki glaze on the sausage was delicious. I thought I'd miss the pineapple and caramel sauce, but the bread pudding dessert was wonderful and it was nice having a real dessert to look forward to, even though we were so stuffed!
Monday Jan. 23
Dinner at Raglan Road
I wasn't sure what to expect here, but after reading the menu I decided to have two appetizers instead of an entree. My dh and I shared the chicken appetizer, which was good. We very much liked the dipping sauce. Then for my dinner I had the Goats' Town and the Crab Me Silly appetizers. Dh had the Kevin's Kudos loin of bacon with cabbage. The Goats' Town was delicious and turned out to be more of a salad than I expected...but it was a pleasant surprise. It was definitely too much goat cheese for one person. I think it would be good to serve some sort of bread or crackers with this for that reason. The Crab Me Silly is basically just a crab cake in puff pastry. It was a decent crab cake....not bad at all, but not outstanding. The loin of bacon was interesting...kind of like tough dry ham...but not something I think either one of us would order again. Dh enjoyed the cabbage. We didn't get dessert because the kids needed to go back to the room by the time we finished dinner.
Desserts from the Boardwalk Bakery
I stopped by the Boardwalk Bakery later this evening and picked up a fruit tart for myself and the chocolate mousse cake for dh. Both were delicious! I had planned to get a dessert each night but this was the only time I ended up doing it because I just kept getting too tired.
Tuesday Jan 24
Breakfast at the Fountainview Cafe
This was just my ds and I who were at Epcot for the EMH this morning. We split a chocolate croissant and a breakfast sandwich puff (puff pastry wrapped around eggs, cheese, sausage and bacon). The breakfast pastry puff is one of the best breakfast items I've ever eaten. I craved it for the rest of the week (oh, geez, I'm thinking about it again....YUM!). The chocolate croissant was also very good....much better than the one I had on another trip at the bakery at MGM.
Lunch at Cosmic Rays
We had planned (earlier in the day, not weeks in advance or anything...) to try the new Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station for lunch, only to discover that it was closed. I hope they haven't given up on this concept yet because I was looking forward to something different....I really wanted some Pad Thai! So we ended up going to Cosmic Ray's to watch Sonny Eclipse. Ds and I got burgers, dh got chicken strips, dd5 got chicken nuggets and dd1 got corn dog nuggets (okay the nuggets were for me....she mainly eats fries anyway....). I enjoyed my burger with some fried onions from the topping bar and I appreciated that they had honey mustard for the corn dog nuggets. The chicken strips were good, but the chicken nuggets looked awful. My older dd rejected them in favor of her dad's strips...and I think the baby may have eaten one or two of them...otherwise they got thrown out. The kids liked the entertainment from Sonny. This was our first time eating here so we were pleasantly surprised.
Wednesday Jan 25
Dinner Around the World at Epcot- Yakitori House and Lotus Blossom Cafe
We decided to have a sort of snacking dinner this evening getting some of our favorites around World Showcase. I ended up being in the mood for Chinese which is unusual for me. Dh got a Shogun Combo at the Yakitori house which we all had a few bites from then we headed around to China where I got the salad with peanut dressing (yum!) and we all had a couple of egg rolls. The egg rolls were very good...and yes, I have had bad egg rolls before. These had plenty of flavor. We also shared a Bubble QQ Tea, which was to say the least, very interesting. I think that's something you just need to try for yourself. Its probably one of the most bizarre food items I've ever tried.
Thursday Jan 26
Lunch at Flame Tree Barbeque
Flame Tree is one of our favorite counter service locations and it was nice to be able to use our DDE card here. Dh and I shared a pork and a beef bbq sandwich (we cut both in half and traded off) and ds enjoyed one of his favorite foods...ribs. We also got a side of onion rings, which were delicious. The girls ate our corn on the cob and shared some baked beans. I know we got a kids' meal for our older dd, but I can't remember what it was! Everything was good as usual, though the corn is your typical previously frozen corn on the cob, which I don't care for. The kids don't mind at all and love it!
Dinner at Nine Dragons
We spent this evening in Epcot and got fastpasses for Soarin' before doing anything else. Then we decided we were hungry. Dh suggested Nine Dragons, to which I countered with Marrakesh (never eaten there, still want to try it). Then he suggested Oktoberfest, which I shot down. He then suggested LeCellier....which was tempting, but I didn't want to take the kids there. So we asked if there were any openings at The Garden Grill.....about a 20 min. wait. We considered this our backup and decided to try Akershus with the princesses. They had seating available, but at the same time as our fastpasses. We declined. Then we decided to head to Nine Dragons, figuring if they were full (which in our experience they never are...) we could do Garden Grill after Soarin'. Nine Dragons was able to seat us immediately.
Strangely we always end up, if not at the same table, in the same section of this restaurant...in the far right corner by the windows. Dh and I ordered the dinner for two with the sesame chicken and stir fry shrimp and the kids got egg rolls with rice. We shared our soup with them as they are big fans of wonton soup. Our meal was delicious, though unfortunatly dh had to take our youngest out of the restaurant before we got our ice cream. The ginger ice cream here is amazing...little chunks of candied ginger in it. I also like the red bean ice cream, which is different but good. We always like Nine Dragons so I'm confused by all the bad reviews it gets. Granted it is pricey for pretty standard Chinese food....but we don't have any good Chinese food at home.
Friday Jan. 27
Lunch at CBR food court-
Pretty standard stuff here....we had burgers and chicken strips. I also got a rather good fruit and cheese tray to share with the baby....apples, grapes, brie, cheddar and swiss with a few walnuts. I swear this little one lives on fruit and cheese (and fries when we're out...). Nothing to mention here really...decent standard food court fare.
Dinner at Akershus, Princess Storybook dining
Another long story here....we had ADR's for Shutters at CBR, but when we looked at the menu we decided we were no longer interested. Apparently the menu has changed since the last update on AllEars. So before heading to Epcot for the evening we called WDW Dining to find a place to eat. The kids' first choice was the Garden Grill but they were full for the night. So we decided to give Akershus a try....they said they were open any time after 7:45 so we booked it. They do require a credit card guarantee here, so we would have incurred a $10 per person charge if we cancelled after booking, since we were beyond the window for cancellation.
We arrived to quite a crowd outside and quite a few unhappy guests. There seemed to be many people returning to the podium to see if they were going to be called soon and quite a few who found out they had already been called but missed it. It took quite a while just to get checked in because of other guests stepping ahead of me to check on their status. One family actually stormed off before the host could find their reservation, and apparently they had been called half an hour previously and didn't respond. After checking in I made sure to stay close to the door so as to not miss our name.
We were seated in a reasonable time considering the crowd, which thinned greatly when they seated a party of 13. We were directed in to get a picture with Ariel, then taken to our table. I liked the way we had a choice of entrees plus the koltbord (cold buffet). We very much enjoyed sampling from the buffet....they had a brown smoked goat cheese that was amazing. Lots of salads, smoked fish and meats, breads, etc... The kids each made a sandwich. The baby once again had fruit and cheese, as well as one of her favorites...shrimp. My ds and I both ordered the venison stew and dh ordered the braised lamb. Our entrees were delicious. My dd ordered the kids' chicken which was good as well. For dessert we got a sampling of Norwegian items...rice cream with strawberry sauce, lingonberry tart and chocolate mousse. They were all wonderful! I love lingonberries and was thrilled that they featured prominently in dessert as well as in the entree...the venison was in a lingonberry demi-glace. Delicious. I was very pleasantly surprised here. We also had the princesses who were all very sweet, particularly Belle who realized that my dd didn't get Ariel's autograph and ran to the back with dd's paper to "try to catch her before she left"....which she did. The princesses in attendance were Ariel, Belle, Mulan, Jasmine and Aurora. I recommend this one highly, but I'd probably try for off hours because prime dinner hours seemed to be pretty out of hand.
I have two more days of dining to finish...Ohana Breakfast, Crystal Palace dinner and The Plaza....but I have to go for now...I'll finish in another post later!
I thought I'd give a dining report on where and what we ate during our trip last week. We had a couple of disappointing meals and a couple of pleasant surprises over the week.
Sunday 1/22
Lunch at Beaches and Cream
This was the usual Beaches and Cream meal of burgers, hot dogs, etc...followed by ice cream. I like having the option of fruit with your meal instead of fries. Nothing to report really....it was good as usual. We love the fountain cherry cokes.
Dinner at Ohana
This was our first time trying the new menu at Ohana. The salad was delicious as ever but I did miss the dumplings. The wings and shrimp were tasty. The wonton chips were pretty blah, imo. I didn't really care for the sauces and thought the sauces they previously served with the meats were better. The meats were plentiful, though I don't know that I find pork, steak, turkey and sausage necessary....I think I'd cut out the pork (but I'm not a fan of pork to begin with....though it was quite good). The turkey was moist and outstanding this time. Previously I'd had it here and it was dry. The teriyaki glaze on the sausage was delicious. I thought I'd miss the pineapple and caramel sauce, but the bread pudding dessert was wonderful and it was nice having a real dessert to look forward to, even though we were so stuffed!
Monday Jan. 23
Dinner at Raglan Road
I wasn't sure what to expect here, but after reading the menu I decided to have two appetizers instead of an entree. My dh and I shared the chicken appetizer, which was good. We very much liked the dipping sauce. Then for my dinner I had the Goats' Town and the Crab Me Silly appetizers. Dh had the Kevin's Kudos loin of bacon with cabbage. The Goats' Town was delicious and turned out to be more of a salad than I expected...but it was a pleasant surprise. It was definitely too much goat cheese for one person. I think it would be good to serve some sort of bread or crackers with this for that reason. The Crab Me Silly is basically just a crab cake in puff pastry. It was a decent crab cake....not bad at all, but not outstanding. The loin of bacon was interesting...kind of like tough dry ham...but not something I think either one of us would order again. Dh enjoyed the cabbage. We didn't get dessert because the kids needed to go back to the room by the time we finished dinner.
Desserts from the Boardwalk Bakery
I stopped by the Boardwalk Bakery later this evening and picked up a fruit tart for myself and the chocolate mousse cake for dh. Both were delicious! I had planned to get a dessert each night but this was the only time I ended up doing it because I just kept getting too tired.
Tuesday Jan 24
Breakfast at the Fountainview Cafe
This was just my ds and I who were at Epcot for the EMH this morning. We split a chocolate croissant and a breakfast sandwich puff (puff pastry wrapped around eggs, cheese, sausage and bacon). The breakfast pastry puff is one of the best breakfast items I've ever eaten. I craved it for the rest of the week (oh, geez, I'm thinking about it again....YUM!). The chocolate croissant was also very good....much better than the one I had on another trip at the bakery at MGM.
Lunch at Cosmic Rays
We had planned (earlier in the day, not weeks in advance or anything...) to try the new Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station for lunch, only to discover that it was closed. I hope they haven't given up on this concept yet because I was looking forward to something different....I really wanted some Pad Thai! So we ended up going to Cosmic Ray's to watch Sonny Eclipse. Ds and I got burgers, dh got chicken strips, dd5 got chicken nuggets and dd1 got corn dog nuggets (okay the nuggets were for me....she mainly eats fries anyway....). I enjoyed my burger with some fried onions from the topping bar and I appreciated that they had honey mustard for the corn dog nuggets. The chicken strips were good, but the chicken nuggets looked awful. My older dd rejected them in favor of her dad's strips...and I think the baby may have eaten one or two of them...otherwise they got thrown out. The kids liked the entertainment from Sonny. This was our first time eating here so we were pleasantly surprised.
Wednesday Jan 25
Dinner Around the World at Epcot- Yakitori House and Lotus Blossom Cafe
We decided to have a sort of snacking dinner this evening getting some of our favorites around World Showcase. I ended up being in the mood for Chinese which is unusual for me. Dh got a Shogun Combo at the Yakitori house which we all had a few bites from then we headed around to China where I got the salad with peanut dressing (yum!) and we all had a couple of egg rolls. The egg rolls were very good...and yes, I have had bad egg rolls before. These had plenty of flavor. We also shared a Bubble QQ Tea, which was to say the least, very interesting. I think that's something you just need to try for yourself. Its probably one of the most bizarre food items I've ever tried.
Thursday Jan 26
Lunch at Flame Tree Barbeque
Flame Tree is one of our favorite counter service locations and it was nice to be able to use our DDE card here. Dh and I shared a pork and a beef bbq sandwich (we cut both in half and traded off) and ds enjoyed one of his favorite foods...ribs. We also got a side of onion rings, which were delicious. The girls ate our corn on the cob and shared some baked beans. I know we got a kids' meal for our older dd, but I can't remember what it was! Everything was good as usual, though the corn is your typical previously frozen corn on the cob, which I don't care for. The kids don't mind at all and love it!
Dinner at Nine Dragons
We spent this evening in Epcot and got fastpasses for Soarin' before doing anything else. Then we decided we were hungry. Dh suggested Nine Dragons, to which I countered with Marrakesh (never eaten there, still want to try it). Then he suggested Oktoberfest, which I shot down. He then suggested LeCellier....which was tempting, but I didn't want to take the kids there. So we asked if there were any openings at The Garden Grill.....about a 20 min. wait. We considered this our backup and decided to try Akershus with the princesses. They had seating available, but at the same time as our fastpasses. We declined. Then we decided to head to Nine Dragons, figuring if they were full (which in our experience they never are...) we could do Garden Grill after Soarin'. Nine Dragons was able to seat us immediately.
Strangely we always end up, if not at the same table, in the same section of this restaurant...in the far right corner by the windows. Dh and I ordered the dinner for two with the sesame chicken and stir fry shrimp and the kids got egg rolls with rice. We shared our soup with them as they are big fans of wonton soup. Our meal was delicious, though unfortunatly dh had to take our youngest out of the restaurant before we got our ice cream. The ginger ice cream here is amazing...little chunks of candied ginger in it. I also like the red bean ice cream, which is different but good. We always like Nine Dragons so I'm confused by all the bad reviews it gets. Granted it is pricey for pretty standard Chinese food....but we don't have any good Chinese food at home.
Friday Jan. 27
Lunch at CBR food court-
Pretty standard stuff here....we had burgers and chicken strips. I also got a rather good fruit and cheese tray to share with the baby....apples, grapes, brie, cheddar and swiss with a few walnuts. I swear this little one lives on fruit and cheese (and fries when we're out...). Nothing to mention here really...decent standard food court fare.
Dinner at Akershus, Princess Storybook dining
Another long story here....we had ADR's for Shutters at CBR, but when we looked at the menu we decided we were no longer interested. Apparently the menu has changed since the last update on AllEars. So before heading to Epcot for the evening we called WDW Dining to find a place to eat. The kids' first choice was the Garden Grill but they were full for the night. So we decided to give Akershus a try....they said they were open any time after 7:45 so we booked it. They do require a credit card guarantee here, so we would have incurred a $10 per person charge if we cancelled after booking, since we were beyond the window for cancellation.
We arrived to quite a crowd outside and quite a few unhappy guests. There seemed to be many people returning to the podium to see if they were going to be called soon and quite a few who found out they had already been called but missed it. It took quite a while just to get checked in because of other guests stepping ahead of me to check on their status. One family actually stormed off before the host could find their reservation, and apparently they had been called half an hour previously and didn't respond. After checking in I made sure to stay close to the door so as to not miss our name.
We were seated in a reasonable time considering the crowd, which thinned greatly when they seated a party of 13. We were directed in to get a picture with Ariel, then taken to our table. I liked the way we had a choice of entrees plus the koltbord (cold buffet). We very much enjoyed sampling from the buffet....they had a brown smoked goat cheese that was amazing. Lots of salads, smoked fish and meats, breads, etc... The kids each made a sandwich. The baby once again had fruit and cheese, as well as one of her favorites...shrimp. My ds and I both ordered the venison stew and dh ordered the braised lamb. Our entrees were delicious. My dd ordered the kids' chicken which was good as well. For dessert we got a sampling of Norwegian items...rice cream with strawberry sauce, lingonberry tart and chocolate mousse. They were all wonderful! I love lingonberries and was thrilled that they featured prominently in dessert as well as in the entree...the venison was in a lingonberry demi-glace. Delicious. I was very pleasantly surprised here. We also had the princesses who were all very sweet, particularly Belle who realized that my dd didn't get Ariel's autograph and ran to the back with dd's paper to "try to catch her before she left"....which she did. The princesses in attendance were Ariel, Belle, Mulan, Jasmine and Aurora. I recommend this one highly, but I'd probably try for off hours because prime dinner hours seemed to be pretty out of hand.
I have two more days of dining to finish...Ohana Breakfast, Crystal Palace dinner and The Plaza....but I have to go for now...I'll finish in another post later!
