Thursday, October 18th (the conclusion)
After the day’s whirlwind of little voices and excitement from the nieces and nephew, Steve and I were admittedly looking very forward to a quiet, adult dinner out. Joe and Lisa had opted to cook in their villa (they are quite health conscious and wanted the kids to eat sensibly for as much of the trip as possible) so we knew they would be well taken care of while we enjoyed a few hours of couples time. Their plan was to have dinner, let the kids release the remainder of their pent up energy at the pool and playground, then tuck them into bed for a good sleep before our full park day tomorrow.
Our dinner destination that evening was a new restaurant for us: thanks to a gift card received from a dear friend, we were set to experience our first meal here:
Maggiano’s is located on International Drive, quite near to Wonderworks (the large upside down house). We found a place to park the car in the nearby parking garage (for a small fee…maybe $3 or $4?) and which left us with just a short walk to the building.
We headed inside to check in at the podium. They noted that there would be a short wait for a table, and gave us a pager which would alert us when the time came to seat us. We could see (and hear) that the interior was packed with people……while a delay to be seated is always a bit of a bummer, it’s generally a good indicator of food quality if a place is THAT busy.
The lobby, like most places in Orlando, was cutely decorated for Halloween. Autumn is such a fun time to visit Central Florida
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We walked around outside for about 15 minutes, enjoying the fresh (but warm) evening, when our pager buzzed us to return to the podium. We were escorted to our table, a great little half-moon shaped booth that gave us lots of space but still allowed us to sit next to each other rather than across. We ordered beverages (two strawberry lemonades on the recommendation of our server) and perused the menu for a little longer before placing our order.
I can’t remember exactly what the offer was, but they had some sort of special running where you received two full-sized appetizers, two entrees, and two mini desserts for something like $60. It was a good savings versus single items from the actual menu, so that’s what we decided on. Probably way more food than we needed (we certainly didn’t need two appetizers nor were we sure we’d even have room for dessert) but any left-overs could be taken back with us to the villa fridge if necessary
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For appies, we opted for the Italian Sausage Flatbread (my choice):
……and a plate of stuffed mushrooms (Steve’s pick…..I’m not a mushroom lover; not because of the flavor, but because of the texture. Blech).
Those appetizers smelled absolutely incredible and tasted even better. Everything was fresh and hot and perfectly seasoned: the ingredients on the flatbread, in particular, came together perfectly. While a first visit to any establishment is always a bit of a gamble as to whether it will be to a person’s taste or not, we suddenly had high hopes for our entrée selections.
Shortly after our appetizer plates were whisked away (and refills on our strawberry lemonades deposited on the table without having to ask), our entrees were brought steaming out of the kitchen. Steve had chosen Chicken Marsala with Spaghetti Aglio:
…….while I had opted for the Chicken Parmesan with Traditional Spaghetti:
So. Unbelievably. Good
. You could taste the quality in every mouthful: it was obvious that everything was homemade and authentically Italian. We also commented that it was easy to see why there wasn’t an empty table in the house: while it was slightly more expensive than some of the more common chain restaurants in town, it was miles ahead in quality. Portion sizes were huge: there was no way I could eat all of mine, and Steve’s was substantial enough that he wasn’t interested in any of my left-overs right then…..how often does that happen?
While we certainly weren’t feeling as if we needed (or even wanted) it, we were provided with the modified dessert menu (a smaller selection of items for the combo offer versus those which were available for patrons ordering a la carte). Our server explained that the portion sizes for the combo offer desserts were also smaller than the standard offerings, a “mini” serving so to speak. We heaved a sigh of relief as our stomachs groaned in protest.
Steve went with the strawberry cheesecake while I had the apple crostata with vanilla bean ice cream.
Okay, so when I said I was relieved that the desserts were not full sized, I lied. Or, rather, I changed my mind after one bite of that sweet, cinnamonny, flakey crostata. Oh. My. Lord. I would seriously come back and have dinner here just to have another one of those crostatas
. Their pastry was PERFECT and the taste rivaled the delights that my mom rolled out of her kitchen for decades, and she was the best baker I've ever known. This dessert was unbelievably delicious. Steve echoed similar comments about the cheesecake, and did everything but lick the plate after he was done. So good.
Our server was kind enough to box up our left-overs and delivered our doggie bag to the table with our bill. Our wait staff had been as superb as the food, so she earned herself a well-deserved gratuity. We would definitely make plans to return here again in the future.
Final thoughts: we loved Maggiano’s, and it definitely exceeded expectations. While it wasn’t a “quiet” meal per se (there were a lot of tables in each room and each were fully occupied, so there was a definitely a buzz in the air) it was very….comfortable. Families were meshing seamlessly with groups from the convention center and everything in between. The price was absolutely justified by the quality and the food taste was spectacular.
We rolled ourselves out the door, back to the car, and made the short drive back to Cypress Palms. We enjoyed a brief but relaxing soak in the hot tub at Pool 1 but the combination of the huge meal and the heat of the water had us feeling completely worn out. We headed to bed a reasonable hour, knowing we’d be up early to make park opening at SeaWorld with the inlaws: it would be their first visit to one of our favourite parks in Orlando, and we couldn’t wait to be their tour guides
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Next: animals, rides and lots of smiles at SeaWorld 
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......now I know why we always book sooooo early!). You'll probably get little pre-trip chatter here, so while you've given up Facebook for Lent, please don't give up the Disboards 
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. If only we could harness some of that energy and bottle it 
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. They are sweet kids, though, and a delight to be around.......even though they exhaust us LOL.
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Let me know if the Saturday night might work well for you. That's our arrival day, so we'll have no other specific plans. We'd love to meet up for dinner at Toothsome, Margaritaville, or the NBC Sports Grill.
The crostata looks divine 
