Feb 17-21 Trip Dinning Review (2/24 Sanaa, Tokyo Dinning, Bon Voyage Breakfast)

[KennesawNemo]

Sanaa: We had our arriving day lunch there. It was great. We tried to request a window seat but there was a long wait. The restaurant is nicely decorated.

The food was really good. We had Indian-style Bread Service with all Nine Accompaniments: it was just so so so good. All breads are fresh and we literally loved all nine accompaniments with each of us had a different favorite.



For entry, I had Boerewores Sausage Sandwich: it was quite good, the only minor complaints is that there was a little bit too much sauce which made the bread soggy. I also had a mojito. It was very refreshing!



DS13 had Tandoori Chicken: it was a huge portion but it was so good DS managed to stuff it all down.


DH had Potjie Inspired: with butter chicken and aloo masala. All are good but we loved the masala more than the chicken.



DD4 had a chicken noodle soup from kid's app section and she finish it all. There was sooooo much food we didn't have any appetite left for dessert. Next time, we probably will get bread service, share entries and order dessert. Service was also really good there.

 

[MiracleCream]

Following, what a great review of Sanaa!

 

[KennesawNemo]

Tokyo Dinning: This was not original planned. I wanted to eat around the world, but it was soooo hot and crowded. I made a last minute reservation. We were there at 12pm and the restaurant was not very busy. They gave us a nice window table and the view was awesome. It was nice to sit there and cool down.

We had Edamame for appetizer. The only complaint was that the portion size was too small. For $5, we got about 15 pods. I cook edamame often and joked I can buy 3 bags of edamame from Asian market with $5.


I ordered Shrimp and Crab Tempura. It was hot and fresh. The tempura coating added another dimension the to the natural flavor of the vegetables and sea food without overpowering it. The dish came with three kinds of dipping salt. I liked the green tea one most. Only complaint is that I finish the tempura too fast and left a lot of rice with nothing to go with it. I wish they would give some miso soup with the dish.


DH ordered Gomoku Deluxe Nabeyaki Udon. We eat authentic Japanese food a lot so this was just okay. It wasn't bad but nothing to write home about. The grilled chicken was a little dry.


DS had Volcano Roll. According him this was good, but he is a sushi maniac. He even loves Publix sushi.



DD had Seafood Yuzu Shio Ramen: this was good for her. It was light yet flavorful. I didn't take a picture.

We still wanted to eat around a world later so didn't order dessert. The service here was really good. I always admire the service industry people in Japan. They are just so dedicated to their job and always manage to have a smile on their faces. One thing I did feel is that the price point is a little too high for the amount of food you get. I get it that it's disney, but I think they are still 10%-15% too expensive.

 

[KennesawNemo]

A little bit of eating around the world. My original plan was to get one thing from each country, snack, entree, dessert or drink. But it didn't work. It was just too hot and crowded. (9/10 crowd level). We did try couple different things.

A gelato from Italy: DD was complaining we didn't get any dessert during lunch so we ordered it for her. It made her happy and she instantly quit whining. (We control sugar very strictly at home. We only have dessert when we eat out so I gave her a pass for whining. )


A big Pretzel from Germany: for reasons I don't quite understand, the kids loved it, especially my dd. It was so big, it was her snack for two days. lol.
I also got a Grapefruit Beer: It was light, slightly sweet, cool and refreshing. Just what I needed under the sun. No picture here.



School Bread from Norway we all enjoyed this one. The kids fought over the cream on top.


I think this is the Deconstructed Cheese Cake from one of the Festival of Arts booths. It was so hot that DH and I literally could not even look at it. But the kids loved it. DD may or may not shed couple tears because her brother got one more piece of strawberry than she did......


We had dinner that day at Sunshine Season. It was pretty bad and gross. But I always like the Strawberry Short Cake there. It was not overly sweet and the strawberries were all very fresh. I didn't take a picture.

 

[KennesawNemo]

On our second full day, we spent the morning at the BoardWalk.

We got some pastries from BoardWalk Bakery first. It was an Oreo Cupcake and a Mango Vanilla Panna Cotta. Both are very good, but the Oreo Cupcake was one of the best cupcakes I have ever had. It was DS's pick and I normally hate Oreo and was never really a cupcake fan. But this cupcake was light, fluffy, and had the right amount of sweetness.

 

[KennesawNemo]

Next we had Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast at Trattoria al Forno.

I really appreciate that there is a character buffet with male characters. I mean male human characters. I always feel boys are a little left out from that perspective. Would it be great if there is a character meal with princes and other male characters only?

Anyway, the character interactions here were really good. We have ate lots of character meals before and felt this is truly one of the best interaction. Maybe not THE best, that one goes to Garden Grill, but second to best for sure. Aerial and Rapunzel were sweet and patient with DD, listening to her telling them about her light up shoes. Flin and Eric was funny and witty. DD was totally swooned by Eric. I even got DH to pose with Eric which he never does. At home, DD calls herself Aerial and DH Eric so now she has a picture of two Erics together to look at.

Foodwise, we started with Variety of Pastries. They were all pretty good although I feel they can tune down the sweetness a notch.

We all had fruit salad next. No picture here.

I had Tangled Eggs: It was not bad, but not very exciting either.



DH had Swimmers Delight: He enjoyed this but wished there would be more smoked salmon. I told him I am sure there would be if cost was not an issue.



DS ordered Royale Breakfast: This trip my 12 year old started to order steak, which he never did before. He ordered this one medium well. I advised him to order it medium, but he decided to go with medium well. He liked his dish. Finished all and commented he enjoyed the potatoes a lot.

DD had Flounder's Flapjacks. Your typical pancake. No picture.

Service here was kind of weird. Our waitress wasn't bad but we saw her standing around chatting a lot. She brought us three fruit salads instead four and told us she would go and fetch us another one immediately. 15 mins later, we got all our dishes and she was still chatting casually with another group of servers. It took me three minutes, looking at her direction to remind her that we still need one more fruit salad. She also didn't refill our drinks. But when we asked for the check and another box to pack the two mini muffins to go, she packed us a full box of pastries. We were able to ate it as breakfast the next day. We still tipped her 20%.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

I'm loving your reviews! You have such great quality pictures and your kids are adorable! You had me cracking about your DD's reaction to her brother getting one more strawberry. During our last trip, my DS lunged out of his highchair to grab hand fulls of strawberries from the dessert platter at HDD and Garden Grill, and almost cried when I went to eat one hidden under the shortcake. My DD on the other hand looks at all fruit like it has 4 eyes and won't touch it.

You commented that you eat authentic Japanese food a lot. How "authentic" did you find Tokyo Dining to be? My DH lived in Japan for a few years and raves about the food, so I've been wanting to take him there, but didn't know if it might be a bit of a let down. He's been disappointed with the Japanese restaurants where we live (MI), but I was hoping Tokyo Dining might be a bit more authentic.

 

[wilma-bride]

Great reviews. We have a lunch booked at Sanaa in August, so your pictures and review have made me quite excited for it.

 

[KennesawNemo]

Following, what a great review of Sanaa!

Thank you!

I'm loving your reviews! You have such great quality pictures and your kids are adorable! You had me cracking about your DD's reaction to her brother getting one more strawberry. During our last trip, my DS lunged out of his highchair to grab hand fulls of strawberries from the dessert platter at HDD and Garden Grill, and almost cried when I went to eat one hidden under the shortcake. My DD on the other hand looks at all fruit like it has 4 eyes and won't touch it.

You commented that you eat authentic Japanese food a lot. How "authentic" did you find Tokyo Dining to be? My DH lived in Japan for a few years and raves about the food, so I've been wanting to take him there, but didn't know if it might be a bit of a let down. He's been disappointed with the Japanese restaurants where we live (MI), but I was hoping Tokyo .Dining might be a bit more authentic.

Thank you. I use a great app called Foodie to take pictures. It makes the food look so much prettier. Also it helps a lot when taking pics in dark environments.

Re: Tokyo Dinning-- I don't think it's truly authentic as real Japanese food. I traveled to Japan before and go to couple Japanese restaurants here owned by Japanese people. It's different. However it's still above average/good depending on the dish you order.

Great reviews. We have a lunch booked at Sanaa in August, so your pictures and review have made me quite excited for it.

We truly loved Sanna. We even thought about going for 2nd time on this trip and will definitely be back in the future.

 

[KennesawNemo]

Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen Lunch

This was our MK day. I had planned to just grab counter service lunch but the heat and 9/10 crowd got me again. Plus we had been wanting to try this place for a while so I made a last minute reservation. It was nice to sit down for an hour or so to cool down. The restaurant was very nicely decorated with fun pieces. Our server was nice and funny and told many jokes which the kids truly enjoyed.

I ordered 3 appetizers to eat as entree and to share with the family.
S.E.A. Shu Mai: This was quite good. I like the stuffing a lot. This is quite a high compliment from me as I grew up in China and ate good Shumai all the time. This is the first time I saw edamame being added to shumai stuffing, but it was nice and such a smart move to add more health ingredients in your dish. DS and DH both loved this too. DD said the shumai was spicy and didn't touch it, but it was really not. She is weird when it comes to food flavoring.


I made these yesterday from scratch. Guess what I added in the stuffing? Edamame.


Next up is Shiriki Noodle Salad. This was a miss. Again, as a Chinese, I make a mean noodle salad with creamy peanut sauce and this is not even close to what I make. The dressing was too salty and sour and the noodle was a tiny little bit under cooked. That being said, I do appreciate all the different kinds of veggies offered in this dish.


The last appetizer was Orinoco Ida's Cachapas. This was good for me. The corn pancake and the avocado cream goes really well together.


DH ordered Perkins Thai Noodles. He told the server spicy would be ok and this turned out to be very spicy, even a little to much for him. We are quite good at handling spicy food so if you are not, maybe just go for mild or not spicy. Flavor-wise, he thinks it was just so so. Not bad, but not mouth watering either. I didn't try this one, but just the look of it was not very appealing to me. I don't like the noodle all drenched in sauce, it was supposed to be tossed only.


DS had "Tastes like Chicken" - Because it is! He had a funny comment: he loved the crispy coating of the chicken. But once he bite beyond that, to him, the chicken was no better than the grilled chicken you get at those counter service places, which is not very good. He did enjoy the rest of the dish and ate all the rice and veggies.


DD had grilled mahi miahi with green beans and brown rice. I didn't take a picture of that, but look at the dessert she got: isn't that the cutest fruit salad ever?! She was so excited to get this and ate the whole thing. Again, there may or may not be tears when DS wanted a slice of strawberry from her and I may or may not spent 10 minutes reminding her the importance of sharing....


Overall, we are glad that we ate here. The restaurant was nice and service was good. Food was hit or miss. We may not come back too soon but haven't crossed it off our list yet.

 

[KennesawNemo]

California Grill Dinner:

Let me start by saying this has become our favorite Disney dinning experience ever!

Before this trip, it was Monsieur Paul and Akershus. They are still both very good but California Grill is whole another level of nice.

Now I will also admit I messed up that night with picture taking. It was a long day and DD was very tired and wanted to sleep on me as a Koala before the firework started. I let her and messed up the camera setting on my phone during the process so lots of the pictures came out blurry.

I made the dinner reservation around firework time. Upon arriving, we were given a very nice window seat and this is our view. It was so nice that both kids spent couple minutes to just take that in.
We were given some sourdough bread (not entire sure) and olive oil dip with sun dried tomato and roasted garlic. OMG, that dip was amazing. I literally wipe the dipping dish clean with bread. Sorry, blurry pic here......

For appetizer, we ordered New Moon Roll to share. This was really really really good. It was fresh, not too heavy with sauce and has tons of lobster and eel inside. DS was in Sushi heaven and we let him had half roll by himself. He wants to come back for just Sushi after this time.


For entree, I had Braised Pork Shank. This was really good. The pork was tend and melted in my mouth. The mushroom and zinfandel sauce were both very fragrant. If I had to complain about one thing then I would say the goat cheese polenta was a little too strong for me, but this is a very personal thing. Overall this is an awesome dish and I totally clean the plate. Sorry, blurry pic......


DH had Oak-fired Filet of Beef. He said this was one of the best steaks he has ever had. I tried a little bit and it indeed was heavenly. When reading the menu, I was not sure about the Tamarind-Barbecue Sauce but it turned out to be a very nice touch without taking away the beauty of the steak. Blurry pic again.....


DS had Lobster and Pork Ramen. This is quite a big portion of ramen noodles. He loved it and said the lobster, pork belly and onsen egg were all cooked to perfection. He loved it so much that I didn't get to try it...Once again, blurry pic.

DD had grilled salmon with green bean and somehow, she loved the green bean and also enjoyed the salmon. I didn't take a picture of that. As I said she was pretty tired so we were trying to pump some sugar into her. We told the server to bring her dessert with her dish. We got her a plate of California Grill Signature Puffed Rice Sushi. This immediately woke her up. It was such a fun plate. She even dipped her green bean in the chocolate sauce and maybe that's why she loved the green beans.


We watched the fireworks after we finished our entrees. We thought about stay seated since we had such a great window seat but at the end, we went out to the patio. The view was really good and it gave us such a different perspective of the firework. DH and I took turn held up DD and we held her and danced with her. It was so magical. There may or may not be tears and this time it came from me. (just one or two drops).

After the firework, we ordered a dessert to share. It was Warm Valrhona Chocolate Cake. This was really good. Rich, creamy, sweet but not too sweet, and we also loved the cashew clusters on the plate. It was a perfect ending to our meal.

Overall, we loved this meal. Sure this is signature dinning and expensive, but we all agreed we would rather eat here once than to eat at some regular table service restaurant twice. I don't think our schedule later this year would allow a Sunday Brunch but I am definitely adding it to my wish list now!

 

[wilma-bride]

Yum. I always think California Grill looks so good but DH can never be bothered to get dressed up to go to dinner at WDW. Maybe one day I'll get to go.

 

[MiracleCream]

California grill looks amazing! We are planning to do the Sunday brunch when we go in November. I cannot wait!!!

 

[DaisyNY]

Great reports...I love your daughter's dessert sushi!

 

[TigerKat]

Enjoying your reviews so much! We're going back to California Grill very soon after 5 years and you have me very excited!!

 

[TeresaNJ]

Enjoyed your reviews very much! Your daughter is adorable!

 

[Texans_loyal]

Thank you for your reviews on Bon voyage breakfast, I will have to add it to the list!

 

[Tksolomom]

Thank you very much for your reviews, especially Skipper’s Canteen

 

[NYCgrrl]

Re: Tokyo Dinning-- I don't think it's truly authentic as real Japanese food. I traveled to Japan before and go to couple Japanese restaurants here owned by Japanese people. It's different. However it's still above average/good depending on the dish you order.

I don't think any of the WS restaurants' menus I can think of are truly authentic. Some are just less so than others. Nine Dragons @ the China Pavilion offerings is more Chinese-American than anything else and Biergarten @ the German Pavilion is heavily Americanised as well; I avoid them both for that reason since I can with relative ease eat "the real thing" and count myself fortunate for the experiences. Conversely, the French Pavilion, does a pretty good job of taking me there even though I had to tell the crepe cart to hold on the filling.

I don't recall TD offering a dipping sauce with the tempura. The flavoured salts and out of the bottle condiments were what I recall being on our table. I would have preferred an umami laden sauce based on dashi and flavoured with mirin, daikon, with a touch of ginger root. Still, not having the sauce to distract from how lovely the veggies and protein was cooked gave for a different taste experience that concentrated on the method of cooking.

 

[TinkTank01]

Thank you for your reviews! I’m super excited for our Sanaa reservation now!