We were at Blizzard Beach today and were ready for an early lunch just before 12. Lottawotta wasn't too busy and luckily there were still tables available with umbrellas.
I chose the fish basket, this was quite good. The fish was hot and the batter was crispy. It was quite a big portion with 3 pieces of fish. Dessert was a fruit cup which was a standard disney fruitcup made up of melon and grapes.
DH chose Pizza (again) but on the
DDP the pizza comes with fries. This was to much food for him and the pizza was the standard pizza you get all over disney.
He chose a Ice Cream cookie sandwich for dessert, which was good.
This is a good waterpark CS, it's only problem is lack of indoor/sheltered seating. While we were eating it started to rain really heavily and people who'd just bought food really had no where dry to go and eat it.
We headed to Flying Fish tonight. This was another signature restaurant we'd never tried but as I love seafood I was really excited about this one.
We arrived and were seated slightly before our ADR time. This restaurant is a lot noisier than Citricos and Artist point, and seemed to have a more informal atmosphere. We didn't get a great table as we were a little too close to our neighbours and there was a large party seated behind us who were really loud, but the most important thing was the food!!
After sitting at our table for 10 minutes our waitress came across and said she'd be with us in a minute. Another ten minutes later, she finally came and asked us to order drinks. We ordered a bottle of wine, and my DH asked if there was a vegetarian entree option, as there was nothing listed on the menu. She said she'd bring the chef to talk to us and soon she came back with the chef, and put our bottle of wine on the table.
The chef was really nice and DH told him he was happy to eat whatever he wanted to cook, as long as it didn't contain meat or fish. He said he would make him a sampler plate which was fine by us. After the chef had left we realised we were going to have to open and pour the wine ourselves as our waitress had disappeared again. I can honestly say this is the first restaurant I've ever been to where I've had to open the wine myself, thank god it had a screw top or I may have had to go out and buy a corkscrew!!
Anyway she finally came back and took our order, and I asked for a drink of water, which she said she'd bring back with some bread. She came back, with water and no bread and walked off before we had a chance to ask for some. By this point we'd been seated over 45 minutes and still not even a crumb of bread had passed our lips.
Finally someone brought out our appetisers. I went for the crab cake. This was really good, the coating was crunchy and the crab inside was nice and sweet. The remoulade had a bit of a kick to it and the vegetable slaw was good. It wasn't blow your mind good like Citricos crab appetiser, but it was good.
DH went for the cheese plate. He rated this as superb. Each cheese had it's own accompaniment including raisins and honeycomb, and they left a menu detailing each cheese.
He wasn't too keen on the bruschetta type bread they served it with, but luckily the server who brought our apps out had realised we didn't have any bread and had brought out the normal bread for us.
For my entree I decided to try the signature dish of Potato wrapped snapper with Creamy Leek Fondue and Red Wine Butter Sauce. This was also really good, the snapper was cooked perfectly and the red wine sauce paired really well with the buttery leeks. Overall a really good dish.
DH had the sampler platter prepared by the chef. He said this was a really well put together dish, that included roasted parsnips, baby carrots and turnips, mushrooms and green beans and some sort of grain cooked with garlic. The grain was really nice but I'm not sure what it was exactly.
Now we were onto dessert. I'd seen the two tables on either side of us wait around 25 minutes with the dessert menu in front of them, before our waitress actually appeared to take their order, so I was expecting to be in for a long wait. As it was we only needed to wait about 15 minutes, so we were in luck!!
I ordered the Zabaglione with seasonal berries. The berries were lovey but the zabaglione was just ok, there didn't seem to have any taste of alcohol in it, whereas it's been quite potent when I've tried it at other restaurants.
DH chose the fig tart. This was really good, the pastry was crisp, the filling was moist and tasty and he really enjoyed the caramel sauce.
Overall I felt the service really let this meal down. The food was all good but we were in there well over 2 and a half hours which I don't mind if it's a well paced meal, but to have to wait 20 minutes to order a drink, 45 minutes before getting any food, having to open wine yourself, not getting bread before appetisers just added together to create such bad service it was laughable. This was the only restaurant I tipped less than 20% on alcohol and the only restaurant I was really glad we were on the free DDP and not having to pay OOP. I don't think the bad service was anything to do with the dining plan though, as all her tables were getting the same level, regardless whether they were on the plan. She was very pleasant but I felt she just couldn't cope with the demands of waiting on four tables, (she did look heavily pregnant and I wouldn't like to be running around a restaurant at that stage).
We will be heading back to Flying Fish, but it's probably bottom of my list of signature restaurants.