Epicuriouser & Curiouser: A Dining Review ~ 10/19-10/28/07

[PrincessTiff]

More please!

 

[Zeebs]

Am enjoying this so far its nice to see a report from someone that is adventurous with food. The few I have been reading lately have seemed to find the food "it a bit spicy" on quite a few ocassions. We love to try new things when we travel as well.

Kirsten

 

[wilma-bride]

Great start to your reviews - more please

 

[oybolshoi]

Great start so far!

Ahhh, Raglan Road ... I love their Celtic Sangria and their beer flights and their whiskey flights and their bread pudding ... pretty much in that order!

The hubby and I have never tried Boma although we've heard a lot of good things about it. We, like you, are really not buffet people. We always end up at Jiko, which you definitely need to try if you haven't already.

Looking forward to reading more.

 

[TigerKat]

Great start, can't wait for the rest!

 

[honeybee30]

Day 2 was full of dining firsts:

• First character breakfast (Did I run screaming? It’s a distinct possibility.)
• First time not eating lunch at Tusker House on AK day (Trauma much!)
• First dinner at Narcoochies (That’s coochie coochie in the Charo sense. Not a comment on the surf and turf, which was actually quite good.)

I must admit that I had less than Disney motives for booking a character breakfast at Donald’s Breakfastosaurus – 1. I wanted to get into the park an hour early, 2. I wanted to take pictures in front of the Tree of Life sans umpteen zillion other tourists, and 3. I wanted us to be the first 2 people to ride Expedition Everest. Alas only the first objective was realized, and I guess it serves me right for feeling scroogey about all the highly exuberant child and character interaction with Nescafe as my only buffer. Nescafe is cold comfort, my friends. I must give credit to DGF who had misgivings from the beginning. Why, oh why, am I so persuasive?

What went awry, you ask? First of all, it was raining as we boarded the bus for Animal Kingdom, but we were troopers. We put on our plastic Mickey ponchos and squished through the park entrance promptly at 8am in our Disney Crocs. Objective #1 – great success! By the time we reached the giant tree, however, it was dumping rain, and DGF flat-out refused to remove her SLR from its protective enclosure despite my suggestions that she turn her poncho into a tent to shield the camera from the rain. Objective #2 – no go. If I’m being honest, there was really no hope for the victorious completion of objective #3 because we were never going to outrun the other Breakfastosaurus patrons in the mad dash for EE at rope drop. I mean those 8 year olds can move!

Despite these setbacks, I thought that the food at Donald’s Breakfastosaurus wasn’t half bad. Of course Donald’s Breakfastosaurus turned into Donald’s Safari Breakfast in November and is housed in what is now the shell of my once favorite counter service in all of WDW (I’m not bitter or anything). Still, I’d bet much of the breakfast offerings have stayed the same. Here’s my plate:

There was blecky coffee and decent OJ. There were biscuits, donuts (mmmm Crispy Creme), swirly french toasts, scrambled eggs, nasty hashbrowns, sausage links, pineapple, and little ramekins of syrup. The best part of the whole spread was the breakfast pizza and the crunchy, crunchy bacon. Once the characters showed up DGF stopped eating, so I’m not sure what she thought about the food.

Meeting the characters was a bit surreal. Donald was pretty cool, but Goofy gave me a shoulder rub, which was a little disconcerting:

For the most part, they all took quick pictures with us and moved on. This was Ok with DGF. Of course there were a few awkward moments, such as when Pluto attempted to dance with me and I just stood there staring at him like an idiot, or when DGF commented a little too loudly, and I quote, “Mickey is a chic!” It was a solid observation, but I’m glad it was noisy in there and no one seemed to hear her. I just don’t think the world is ready to let that cat out of the bag, or mouse out of the closet, as it were.

I don’t mean to suggest that we, and I can safely speak for both of us here, dislike the characters, but we’re similar to the toddler sitting at the table next to us who enjoyed them from across the room but screamed whenever one came near him. We appreciate the characters better from a distance, like in the parades or on the planning video. It is with some trepidation that I booked us an 8am reservation at Crystal Palace for our January trip, but I’m determined to complete Mission: Impossible - Character Breakfast. Only this time I will be the only one standing in front of Cinderella’s Castle and the first person to ride Space Mountain!

After breakfast, we wandered about AK until our tummies alerted us to the fact that it had been at least 2 hours since we'd eaten last. Time for a snack – or elevensies, if you are a hobbit and have been smoking that good South Farthing weed!

Petrifries are an AK tradition for us, and although we’ve never tried the seaweed flavored ones sold in Japan, we are pretty well convinced that these are the best McDonald’s french fries served anywhere on earth.

As part of our tradition, we like to eat these while resting on a bench found along the walkway going towards the Nemo musical. It would be inaccurate to say that we people watch from this location. Mostly people walk by and watch us shamelessly guzzling our french fries. Then they go and buy some for themselves cause they can’t have any of mine!

* An aside (not an interesting aside, just a plain old aside): Petrifries is one of those little Disney witticisms that really keep us vacationers on our toes, sort of like Tangierine Café. See it’s funny cause they craftily supplant tangerine with Tangier. I naively attributed this pun to the fact that Tangier is in Morocco and the Tangierine Café is in the Morocco pavilion. Giggle, giggle, giggle. But how wrong I was to underestimate the power of Disney Imagineering. If you were a big dork like me and actually looked up tangerines on Wikipedia, you’d discover the following: “Historically, the name tangerine comes from Tangier, Morocco, the port from which the first tangerines were shipped to Europe. The adjective tangerine, from Tangier or Tanger, was first recorded as an English word in 1710.” Now that is one multivalent subtlety. In other words, like ogres, it has layers.

Upon closer inspection, the root word “Tanger” leads me to suspect that the astronauts’ drink of choice may be a major player here as well. Tang is orange, citrussy, and quite possibly the main component of the Tangierine Cocktail sold at the Tangierine Café. Unfortunately, I looked it up on Wikipedia, and Morocco does not have a very prominent space program, so there goes that theory. In case you were wondering, this digression does have a point, which is this: a WDW vacation is no excuse for mental flabbiness. Physical flabbiness, on the other hand, is a common side effect of eating large quantities of Petrifries.

Stay tuned for Day 2, Part 2 ~ Pizzafari & Narcoossee’s

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

That's it, BOMA is now officially on my must do list for our next trip. I'm all over that food!

 

[honeybee30]

Thanks to PrincessTiff, wilma-bride, & TigerKat for tuning in!

Am enjoying this so far its nice to see a report from someone that is adventurous with food. The few I have been reading lately have seemed to find the food "a bit spicy" on quite a few occasions. We love to try new things when we travel as well.

Thanks! I do love the spicy food & the stinky cheese. My girlfriend is more adventurous than me, though. She went to culinary school and learned how to cook all those creepy French delicacies that involve the internal organs of geese.

Great start so far!

Ahhh, Raglan Road ... I love their Celtic Sangria and their beer flights and their whiskey flights and their bread pudding ... pretty much in that order!

The hubby and I have never tried Boma although we've heard a lot of good things about it. We, like you, are really not buffet people. We always end up at Jiko, which you definitely need to try if you haven't already.

Looking forward to reading more.

oybolshoi, is in da hizzouse! Seriously, I love your dining and trip reports. I admit I’m a lurker, but I actually think that I read about the Celtic Sangria in your last food trippie and thought it looked really good, which it was, so thanks for the tip! That whiskey flight sounds dangerous, though. You’d definitely have to keep me out of DTD after one of those. I might stumble into the art gallery and end up spending 2k on a painting of Winnie the Pooh!

Boma is definitely worth a try, but if given a choice, I agree that it’s tough to pass up Jiko. We’re eating there again in January. I’ve got a hankering for some sweet potato and goat cheese tamales.

That's it, BOMA is now officially on my must do list for our next trip. I'm all over that food!

I hope you like it as much as we do!

 

[passthepixiedust]

You have me laughing and salivating all at the same time! Can't wait to read more!

 

[mickeysgirl17]

Thanks for the update. Patiently waiting for more.

 

[TigerKat]

oybolshoi, is in da hizzouse! Seriously, I love your dining and trip reports. I admit I’m a lurker, but I actually think that I read about the Celtic Sangria in your last food trippie and thought it looked really good, which it was, so thanks for the tip! That whiskey flight sounds dangerous, though. You’d definitely have to keep me out of DTD after one of those. I might stumble into the art gallery and end up spending 2k on a painting of Winnie the Pooh!

 

[honeybee30]

Whenever Disney changes something, I ask myself: why does Disney keep changing stuff? Disney World is a big place. They could always add on without taking away, right!? Since I like to give my inner-child free reign while at WDW, let’s revisit the toddler analogy from breakfast – I get mad when something I like gets taken away from me. They took Tusker House counter service away. Booo! Not a very mature attitude, granted, but after encountering an onry Yeti, out-running a meteor shower back in the Paleolithic era, and saving a baby elephant from poachers, we were hungry, so I begrudgingly agreed to have lunch at Pizzafari.

DGF poses in front of my lunchtime bane.

Our chow:

I had the “Chicken Parmesan Sandwich,” while DGF had the “Hot Italian Style Sandwich” (isn’t that an appealing name). We both got a bag of potato chips, one of which we saved for later, but never got around to eating. What a waste of perfectly good junk food! Shame on us! Also in the background you will see 1 Coke, 2 straws – is that Joni Loves Chachi, or what? The environmentally friendly, biodegradable, cardboard straws that allegedly do not make animals choke when they eat them are not very romantic though. They feel strange and unnatural to drink through, unlike the strange and unnatural polycarbonate polymer plastic straws that we are used to. Stupid environment. Stupid cardboard straws.

This was a tasty lunch. It wasn’t Tusker House, you understand, but it was tasty nonetheless. My sandwich was pretty self-explanatory – a piece of fried chicken breast covered with marinara sauce and some kind of white cheese that I don’t think was parmesan – mozzarella maybe? It is served on a multi-grain bun, but the bread was too much and the sauce was too little, so I took off the top piece of bread and ate it open-faced. With some crushed red pepper and grated parmesan sprinkled on top, it was a little slice of all right. DGF’s sandwich, on the other hand, was much more complicated than mine. According to one online description, it contains “turkey, ham, swiss, and provolone cheese topped with Caesar salad and pesto marinated tomatoes.” She seemed to enjoy the veggies best, especially the pesto tomatoes.

The décor of Pizzafari is also worth noting. We sat in the very back on the patio behind the bug room, but as we passed through the different rooms in search of a table, we admired all the murals. I really liked the butterfly chairs that we sat on out back:

And the giant gecko sculptures:

Since we had eaten lunch in the bug room and we were pretty close to It’s Tough to Be a Bug, we decided to take in the show. Ahhh, nothing like dung beetles, stink bugs, and flying maggoty cupcakes to help in digestion….Where’s that wacky gecko when you need him?

We left AK around 2pm and headed back to AKL for a little nap. But before my nap, I had to say hello to me favorite giraffe, Jasper:

Isn't he cute! Savannah view was definitely worth the extra money. It was so fun to watch the animals from the balcony. The rooms at AKL are really nice, too. We spent a lot more time at the resort relaxing than we normally do, which made for a very restful vacation.

All rested up and refreshed, we set off for dinner at Narcoossee’s. After negotiating several modes of transportation & crossing several state lines, we arrived at the Grand Floridiot (a pet name for a lovely resort) on the brink of starvation. After all, we’d only had a buffet breakfast, hot Italian style sandwiches, and Petrifries to tide us over until dinner. Wasting away to nothing had commenced. Take a cab from AKL to anywhere, folks. That’s all I’m sayin’.

We wandered around the resort for a while just looking for the joint, but once we found it, I was really impressed. Narcoossee’s is a very pretty restaurant:

With a great view of the Magic Kingdom:

This was taken from the boat dock, where people also gather to watch the MK fireworks.

We were seated quickly after checking in with the hostess at a table for two set with candles. I would’ve liked a window seat, but I didn’t think to request one until it was too late. Window seats are in demand, so ask for one at check-in and be prepared to wait. The ambience is lovely, though, and it called for a special celebratory drink, so we started off with a glass of Iron Horse Fairy Tale Cuvee. This is a sparkling California wine that is specially made for WDW. It is bright with flavors of apple, and it went very well with our appetizers.

DGF ordered the fried oysters.

The oysters were big and creamy and did not taste like armpit, which is what most oysters taste like to me, so that’s a big thumb up!

I had the pear and endive salad. It was crisp, delicious, and peppery. The endive was tender, the pear and red onion sweet, the Maytag blue cheese stinky (Yeah, bring on the stinky cheese!), and the candied pecans nice and crunchy. The salad was well dressed with walnut-sherry vinaigrette. An awesome salad that alone would be worth re-visiting this restaurant for.

For the main course, we selected a Cloudline Pinot Noir, a delicious fruity wine out of Oregon, to accompany the surf and turf.

The surf and turf was a grilled filet mignon and a butter-poached lobster tail, served with potato gratin and green peppercorn brandy sauce.

I borrowed this picture from a fellow DISer (hope you don’t mind!) because we must’ve dug in before we took one. It really was as good as it looks. Both the steak and lobster were superbly cooked (Just say no to chewy lobster!) and the sauce complimented the filet perfectly.

For dessert, I had to try the almond-crusted cheesecake with cherry sauce, but DGF really wanted to try the key lime crème brulee. We were both pretty stuffed, so we flipped for it and ended up sharing the cheesecake. Looks like we’ll have to go back to try the crème brulee…

Don't you love the edible picture of the princesses! So cute! It's the special touches that make dining at WDW so magical.

With dessert, we had a pressed pot of Narcoossee’s premium blend coffee.

Finally, some triple octane! MK~EMH here we come!

A gorgeous dinner that was also extremely rich. Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped for that extra bucket of popcorn on the way out of MK.
Poor tummy!

Upcoming installments: Day 3 ~ Boma for breakfast, Food & Wine Festival for lunch, & Todd English’s bluezoo for dinner

 

[wilma-bride]

Wow, wow, wow - that surf and turf looks divine

 

[DISNEYDUET]

We visit Narcoossees often and I can never get past the cheesecake. DH usually orders something new each time but that cheesecake is to die for!

 

[phabric]

Enjoyed reading your review. Looking forward to more.

 

[oybolshoi]

Oybolshoi, is in da hizzouse! Seriously, I love your dining and trip reports. I admit I’m a lurker, but I actually think that I read about the Celtic Sangria in your last food trippie and thought it looked really good, which it was, so thanks for the tip! That whiskey flight sounds dangerous, though. You’d definitely have to keep me out of DTD after one of those. I might stumble into the art gallery and end up spending 2k on a painting of Winnie the Pooh!

Awwww, thanks! On our first visit to Raglan Road I started with the Sangria and then we ordered a beer flight and a whiskey flight simultaneously ... by the end of the evening we found ourselves outside of Earl of Sandwich laughing hysterically at their signage (who doesn't want a hot roast beef smoothie at midnight?).

Boma is definitely worth a try, but if given a choice, I agree that it’s tough to pass up Jiko. We’re eating there again in January. I’ve got a hankering for some sweet potato and goat cheese tamales.

I wanted to try those tamales the last time we were at Jiko but I couldn't by-pass their cheese plate. I hope you've got some pictures to share with us when you get to the Jiko portion of your review.

Really enjoyed day 2, especially Narcoosee's - we really enjoyed our dinner there. It's a lovely little spot with great ambience. The food wasn't bad either.

 

[honeybee30]

Wow, wow, wow - that surf and turf looks divine

The quality and preparation of both the filet & lobster tail were excellent. A real treat!

We visit Narcoossee’s often and I can never get past the cheesecake. DH usually orders something new each time but that cheesecake is to die for!

That cheesecake was pretty darn good.

I always think I’ll try something new, but I then I’ll cave and get the old standby. I can’t go to Flying Fish without getting the snapper and I can’t go to Cali Grill without getting the pork tenderloin. I like what I like!

Enjoyed reading your review. Looking forward to more.

Thank you for reading!

 

[honeybee30]

Awwww, thanks! On our first visit to Raglan Road I started with the Sangria and then we ordered a beer flight and a whiskey flight simultaneously ... by the end of the evening we found ourselves outside of Earl of Sandwich laughing hysterically at their signage (who doesn't want a hot roast beef smoothie at midnight?).

I bet plenty of people without teeth would be thankful for a hot roast beef smoothie any time of day. Too bad they don’t make a hot Italian style sandwich smoothie. Now that would be tasty!

I wanted to try those tamales the last time we were at Jiko but I couldn't by-pass their cheese plate. I hope you've got some pictures to share with us when you get to the Jiko portion of your review.

We tried a tamale as part of the appetizer sampler and it was the best thing on the plate. It was very mild, but rich and flavorful. I’d like to try their cheese plate, too.

Really enjoyed day 2, especially Narcoosee's - we really enjoyed our dinner there. It's a lovely little spot with great ambience. The food wasn't bad either.

Thanks! We had a great time at Narcoossee’s. Any night that starts off with champagne and ends with cheesecake is all right by me!

 

[PinkPrincessZ]

Your writing style and sense of humor is wonderful! I look forward to hearing more.

Are you planning on writing a TR as well?

 

[TigerKat]

That's it! Narcoosee's is going on my list. We love our fried oysters and those looked some good. And then steak & lobster, who could ask for a more romantic dinner than that!!!