Eating around the world deluxe style. COMPLETED!! 11/6/08

[abc999]

We (me, DH, DD4.5, DS2.5) will be headed to the world in 10 days. We will be on the Deluxe Dining Plan, we have the following planned (at least I have the following planned, the kids do not know about the trip and DH leaves all the planning to me):

9/17 Kona Lunch (page 2) Narcoosee's Dinner (page 2)
9/18 50s Prime Time Lunch (page 2), Riverside Mill (page 2)
9/19 Yak & Yeti Lunch (page 2), Boatwright Dinner (page 2)
9/20 Liberty Tree Tavern Lunch (page 2), CRT Dinner (page 2)
9/21 LeCellier Lunch (page 3), Tokyo Dining Dinner (page 3)
9/22 Princess Storybook Breakfast (page 3), Tutto Italia Lunch (page 4), Yachtman's Steakhouse Dinner (page 4)
9/23 Chef Mickey Late Breakfast, possibly Earl of Sandwich or POR foodcourt for sandwiches to eat at the airport - See Closing Thoughts (page 4).

The question is to review or not to review?

 

[oybolshoi]

why wouldn't you?

 

[adsrtw]

My vote goes for reviewing! Enjoy your trip.

 

[MickeyNicki]

For me it is always a REVIEW! I love to read other people dining experiences, it helps me plan my own stuff!

 

[abc999]

why wouldn't you?

I need encouragement

 

[oybolshoi]

I need encouragement

Well, then ...

I encourage you to take lots of pictures and take good notes (or ask for copies of the menus) and then come back here and post those pictures and tell the rest of us about the good, the bad, the ugly, and the brilliant of your Disney Dining experience.

Remember - there are no rules!

 

[wilma-bride]

Definitely review - and take loads of pictures

 

[abc999]

Well, then ...

I encourage you to take lots of pictures and take good notes (or ask for copies of the menus) and then come back here and post those pictures and tell the rest of us about the good, the bad, the ugly, and the brilliant of your Disney Dining experience.

Remember - there are no rules!

Thanks for the encouragement. I shall review!

Here is the cast of characters... Me - I will not eat onions, scallions, celery, peppers and ginger. DH will pretty much eat anything but eggs. DD is a pretty adventurous, she will try anything at least once "How do you know you don't like it, if you don't try it". Her favorites include crab legs and steak, she does not like mushrooms. She will probably eat off DH and my plates. DS is a little tougher, he is at the age where we can't really reason with him, although we did get him to try shrimp yesterday. His favorites include steak, he also loves fruit and anything sweet. He will probably eat the kids meal that DD is entitled to.

I will probably start the review the saturday (Sept 27) after we get back.

 

[adsrtw]

Great! I can't wait!

 

[Melisa1]

looking forward to it and hope you have a great time!

 

[TigerKat]

Glad you decided to review, I can't wait!!!!

 

[suzimar57]

review, review, review!!!

 

[Minniespal]

Looking forward to reading your reviews

 

[abc999]

I expect to do the first review on 9/27 or 9/28. I can wait for the trip, one week from now I will be at the WORLD!!

 

[abc999]

I screwed up and posted Narcoosee's before 50's Prime Time

 

[abc999]

OK, as promised, I would review the restaurants and food that we ate at while on vacation at Disney. I don’t have any pictures, since DH did not want pictures of his food taken. As a compromise, he would help me by giving me his opinions on his meals, as long as I didn’t take any pictures. He was so adamant about no photos of his food that DD (4.5) got upset when I tried to take a picture of her with the candy monkey that the candy lady in Japan made for her. Anyway, on with the review…

Our first meal was lunch at the Kona Café. We had an ADR for 12:45, but we were very hungry after not eating much breakfast before our 7:00 flight. So, we decided to head over to see if we could get in earlier. The place was empty and we were seated right away at a table right next to the area where the dessert chef works.

DH ordered the Crab Cakes, Island Chicken Sandwich and Crème Brulee. I had the Wings, Steak Plate and Kona Kone. DD had the Chicken Strip Meal with Pasta. DS (2.5) shared our food (mostly DD’s). There were 3 cylindrical crab cakes on the plate. DH said that they were OK, he was not impressed and they were better at some of the other places (he had crab cakes 3 times this trip). The Chicken Sandwich had a big piece of chicken breast and it was very dense, not dry, just dense. The Crème Brulee was very good.

The wings were excellent. DD had 2 of them and she thought they were good too. There were probably 8 wings on the plate. They were a juicy and the not overly sweet like I thought they would be. I would have been happy with just a big plate of those wings, as I didn’t really care for my Teriyaki Fried Steak. The plate came with 2 small scoops of sticky rice, 2 very big pieces of steak, which was dipped in bread crumbs then deep fried, some pineapple salsa and a dish of macaroni salad. The steak was OK, but there wasn’t much flavor to it. The macaroni was room temperature, which was kind of weird.

The chicken strip platter consisted of pasta (DD doesn’t like sauce on her pasta), 5 good sized grilled chicken strips, a fruit bowl and some green beans and carrots on a Mickey plate. DS devoured the chicken strips, he ate 3 of them. DD had some of my wings, so she only ate some pasta and 1 of the strips. She didn’t like the green beans, because they had no taste.

The total cost of the meal was $67.03, $4.69 tax and $12.07 tip.

Overall, the meal was OK, but we probably won’t be going back for our next trip (which we booked bounceback for already)

 

[abc999]

That evening, we had dinner at Narcoosee’s. We had an ADR for 7:00 and we arrived a couple minutes before that. I asked for a window seat, as Wishes were scheduled for 8:00 and was told that the wait might be longer. I opted to not wait for a table, but they gave us one at the window anyway. The kids had a blast watching the castle change colors and watching the fireworks from the window was amazing. We didn’t really see anyone that was not dressed to code. DH ordered the calamari, DD had the chicken noodle soup and I had the fried shrimp for appetizers. DH and I both had the surf and turf and DD had the steak.

The calamari was good, but nothing to write home about. The shrimp was excellent. The batter was not too heavy, and the shrimp was cooked just right. The only problem was there were only three of them. The chicken soup was good. DD loved it because it had Mickey shaped pasta in it. The tenderloin medallions of both surf and turfs were excellent. We both asked for them medium rare and they were cooked to perfection. DH said his lobster tail was very good, but it was bland even with butter. My lobster tail was horrible, it was very mushy. I complained about it and the waiter brought me a new one. The new one was much better, I gave some to DH and he said his was even better than my second one. DD and DS both enjoyed her steak and she like the mashed potatoes as well.

We were so full that we decided to bring dessert back to the resort to eat later. I got the Almond Crusted Cheesecake and finally got to it for breakfast the next day and it was amazing!!!! I would go back just for the cheesecake. DH got the seasonal fruit dessert, which was strawberry shortcake. We didn’t get to the strawberry shortcake until 2 days later and it was good, but not even close to the cheesecake.

We would definitely go back to Narcoosee’s, for the view and the cheesecake. The cost of the meal was $185.31, $12.97 for tax and $32.50 for tips (DH had a beer and drinks are not included in the tip calculations).

 

[TigerKat]

I'm really excited to try Narcoossee's in November. That cheesecake is definitely on my radar!

 

[abc999]

We had lunch at the 50’s Prime Time Café on our agenda for our day at DHS or MGM. We arrived 15 minutes before our ADR time and waited in the waiting area to be seated. There were numerous TVs around us showing various shows from the 50s. These kids were shown to our table where Aunt Elaine was our server. Aunt Elaine sat down with us and took our order. I had the Shrimp Cocktail (if you haven’t realized already, I love shrimp), on Aunt Elaine’s recommendation, the fried chicken. DH ordered the crab cakes and meatloaf. DD ordered the chicken soup and chicken nugget with fries.

We each ordered cokes and when they came, we thought they tasted off. So, Aunt Elaine went to check and they had switched the diet Coke and regular Coke lines. They bled the lines, but I was still able to taste a bit of diet in the regular Coke and she even made me do a taste test. We ended up with lemonades instead.

DD was upset because there were no Mickey noodles in her soup this time, instead they had elbows. The chicken nuggets and French fries were fine. The kids also had some of my friend chicken.

DH said his crab cakes here were much better than the ones at the Kona Café. They were more patty shaped here, had more flavor and had more crab in it. His meatloaf was good, but the portion was small for him. He cleaned his plate and then had some of my chicken.

Now, my chicken was amazing. The skin was crispy and the chicken was moist. There was a leg, a thigh and a huge breast. I ate the leg and thigh and a little of the breast, I am a dark meat person, so I didn’t really care for the breast. The mashed potatoes that came with it were also good. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell Aunt Elaine that I did not want the collard greens and wanted another veggie. I piled my chicken bones on top of the greens and got chastised for not eating my veggies and trying to hide them. All of the cousins sitting around us got to shame me.

The dessert menu at the 50s Prime Time Café is on a view finder, which was a neat touch. I picked the hot fudge sundae, DH got the apple cobbler ala mode and DD got the kid’s ice cream sundae. The hot fudge sundae was good and it was huge. DS and I shared it and we still couldn’t finish it. DH said the apple cobbler was good and I don’t think DD had a ice cream sundae at Disney that she didn’t like.

Finally, Aunt Elaine slapped the bill on the table and welcomed us back to the real world. The meal was $77.65, $5.44 tax and a $14 tip.

 

[abc999]

DH and I lived in central Florida for over 4 years and we were supposed to meet up with some friends in the evening at Downtown Disney. Well, some things came up and the friends couldn’t make it, so instead of heading to DTD, we decided to eat at the resort. We called to try to get a table at Boatwright’s, but they told us the wait was probably half an hour. So, we opted for the Riverside Mill. We should have waited…

DD wanted pasta, so we ordered a penne with shrimp, sauce on the side for her at the Pasta station. DH and I both got the roast beef from the carving station with corn and mashed potatoes. We have refillable resort cups, so we didn’t need a drink, but we got 2 orange juices and an apple juice to bring back to the room. For dessert, we got a Mickey Rice Crispy treat for DH and Itzakadoozie pops for the kids.

First the bad, DH and I both like our meat medium rare, we will go medium and rare if the meat comes that way. Well, there was no choice on the meat, it was well done. We should have decided to get something else at that time, but we didn’t. The meat was dry, so we went back and asked for more mashed potato gravy and soaked it. The mashed potatoes were good and so was the corn.

Now the good, or the very good, DD’s pasta was very good, the kids loved the pasta and the shrimp was cooked to perfection. They were not cheap on the shrimp either; there were probably 10 of them in there.

The total for this meal was probably around $45-$50. We did get 3 certificates for the 2 snacks and a mesh bag. We decided to wait until the day we left to cash in those certificates and we shouldn’t have. During the week, they ran out of mesh bags 