Steve Mahanahan
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2010
- Messages
- 26
Is it wrong to say the thing you were most looking forward to on a honeymoon is the food? I hope not.
For about a year before our wedding, my wife and I were (and are back on) a pretty strict low-carb, no sugar, no starch diet. It's worked wonders, but I'd be lying if I didn't miss some of the stuff we had during our week at Disney. We decided on the DxDP months ago because of how many signature restaurants we were interested in, and adding up the receipts at the end we definitely came out on top (by over $500!) We had some great food, some horrible food, and a lot of fun, and the camera was there most of the way. However, there are some things we didn't take shots of:
- No pictures of drinks. "WE GOT A COKE, YAY!" Exceptions have been made for the times our servers brought out complimentary/specialty drinks or champagne toasts.
- No pictures of snacks. Didn't want to whip out the camera for a piece of school bread or a Mickey bar (note: we didn't have any Mickey bars or Dole Whips the whole trip, which I think is a felony in certain areas of this board.)
Don't like that we didn't take those pictures?
Also, I have a fairly strong allergy to raw/sauteed onions, so I spent most of my meals talking with the chefs and making sure everything was acceptable. For the most part, they were very accommodating.
Each review will show the food, our take on it, and a rating out of 5. I hope you enjoy it!
Day 1, Dinner: California Grill - Below
Day 2, Lunch: Liberty Tree Tavern UPDATE 8/16
Day 2, Dinner: Citricos
Day 3, Lunch: Coral Reef
Day 3, Dinner: Le Cellier
Day 4, Lunch: Teppan Edo
Day 4, Dinner: Artist Point
Day 5, Breakfast: Kona Cafe
Day 5, Dinner: Jiko
Day 6, Lunch: Mama Melrose
Day 6, Dinner: The Brown Derby
BONUS STAGE - Day 6, Room Service and Day 7, Breakfast: Whispering Canyon Cafe
If you count those up, we've got 38 dining credits worth, not 36 - more on that later.
ANYWAY HERE WE GO
I guess a picture of us is important so we'll start with that:
Here we are thanking our officiant, Pastor Colonel Sanders, for a wonderful ceremony. (In all seriousness, he's a very sweet man, and took a lot of time with us the days leading up to the ceremony.)
Jamie and I mingling. No idea why her mom looks so frightened.
California Grill
We checked in to Wilderness Lodge around noon and our reservation wasn't until 9:05, but to be honest we were so excited to be there/tired from driving that we weren't really hungry for much outside of the granola bars we'd brought for most of our breakfasts (and no, no pictures of those either!) We picked up our refillable mugs and were very thankful that our room was first floor facing the MK and only about a 30 second walk from Roaring Fork - I refilled the mug over 30 times during the week, and DW was right around the same amount.
We drove to the Contemporary since we were going to take advantage of EMH that night after dinner, but it was a bigger hassle than we expected - a thunderstorm rolled through that afternoon (and pretty much every afternoon) and the roads weren't in great shape, plus traffic was surprisingly heavy for 8:30 in the evening. We got there with enough time to look around the Contemporary (Jamie quote: "It looks like a baggage claim") and we headed up to our reservation. The restaurant was less full than I'd imagined - but I guess it's not the busy season and I'm still glad I made advance reservations everywhere. We were seated at a window table, but unless I sat right next to DW, my view was blocked by the corner support. I had a good view of the water parade, though. He took our drink orders (virgin daiquiris for both of us) and got our apps started.
I had the flat iron steak flatbread, no onions:
Very good. The barbecue sauce had a good kick to it, and the entire dish tasted very fresh. The only complaint I have (and this is a recurring theme) - portion sizes are a bit too large. We very quickly learned to leave a ton on the plate while on the DxDP if you don't want to feel perpetually stuffed.
DW had the Tuna Three Ways:
She's a tuna fanatic, so she had to order this. According to her, the poke was the best of the three. Also in shot: Remnants of the bread and butter.
For entrees, DW had the pork tenderloin:
And I had the Oak-Fired Filet:
Loved them both! Broccolini seemed a little out of place and the stems were tough, but aside from that - perfect.
The fireworks started right as we finished the entrees so we watched them from our seats. We tried to take pictures of the fireworks, but the glare from the windows didn't cooperate. Afterwords we had our dessert orders taken - DW had the Peach Crostata (something I hadn't seen on an online menu before coming down):
And I had the Valrhona Chocolate Cake:
A few things about desserts before we go any farther:
- Those little edible 'congrats' things? Cute, but boy oh boy do they taste bad. Taste like rejected Hershey bars.
- As the week went on, I trusted chocolate offerings in general less and less. Overall I found the fruit-based desserts to be better tasting, or at least less overpoweringly sweet. Maybe cutting out sugar has made me overly sensitive to it, I don't know.
With that out of the way, the desserts were good. Hers was very warm and hearty, and my cake was pretty good too, if not a bit overloaded on chocolate paired with the ice cream.
Service was friendly, if a little terse once we mentioned we were on the Dining Plan (this would be a pretty common trend the whole week, as you'll see.) Overall, a very good meal to start off the honeymoon!
Rating:
out of 5
NEXT TIME: Liberty Tree Tavern!
For about a year before our wedding, my wife and I were (and are back on) a pretty strict low-carb, no sugar, no starch diet. It's worked wonders, but I'd be lying if I didn't miss some of the stuff we had during our week at Disney. We decided on the DxDP months ago because of how many signature restaurants we were interested in, and adding up the receipts at the end we definitely came out on top (by over $500!) We had some great food, some horrible food, and a lot of fun, and the camera was there most of the way. However, there are some things we didn't take shots of:
- No pictures of drinks. "WE GOT A COKE, YAY!" Exceptions have been made for the times our servers brought out complimentary/specialty drinks or champagne toasts.
- No pictures of snacks. Didn't want to whip out the camera for a piece of school bread or a Mickey bar (note: we didn't have any Mickey bars or Dole Whips the whole trip, which I think is a felony in certain areas of this board.)
Don't like that we didn't take those pictures?
Also, I have a fairly strong allergy to raw/sauteed onions, so I spent most of my meals talking with the chefs and making sure everything was acceptable. For the most part, they were very accommodating.
Each review will show the food, our take on it, and a rating out of 5. I hope you enjoy it!
Day 1, Dinner: California Grill - Below
Day 2, Lunch: Liberty Tree Tavern UPDATE 8/16
Day 2, Dinner: Citricos
Day 3, Lunch: Coral Reef
Day 3, Dinner: Le Cellier
Day 4, Lunch: Teppan Edo
Day 4, Dinner: Artist Point
Day 5, Breakfast: Kona Cafe
Day 5, Dinner: Jiko
Day 6, Lunch: Mama Melrose
Day 6, Dinner: The Brown Derby
BONUS STAGE - Day 6, Room Service and Day 7, Breakfast: Whispering Canyon Cafe
If you count those up, we've got 38 dining credits worth, not 36 - more on that later.
ANYWAY HERE WE GO
I guess a picture of us is important so we'll start with that:
Here we are thanking our officiant, Pastor Colonel Sanders, for a wonderful ceremony. (In all seriousness, he's a very sweet man, and took a lot of time with us the days leading up to the ceremony.)
Jamie and I mingling. No idea why her mom looks so frightened.
California Grill
We checked in to Wilderness Lodge around noon and our reservation wasn't until 9:05, but to be honest we were so excited to be there/tired from driving that we weren't really hungry for much outside of the granola bars we'd brought for most of our breakfasts (and no, no pictures of those either!) We picked up our refillable mugs and were very thankful that our room was first floor facing the MK and only about a 30 second walk from Roaring Fork - I refilled the mug over 30 times during the week, and DW was right around the same amount.
We drove to the Contemporary since we were going to take advantage of EMH that night after dinner, but it was a bigger hassle than we expected - a thunderstorm rolled through that afternoon (and pretty much every afternoon) and the roads weren't in great shape, plus traffic was surprisingly heavy for 8:30 in the evening. We got there with enough time to look around the Contemporary (Jamie quote: "It looks like a baggage claim") and we headed up to our reservation. The restaurant was less full than I'd imagined - but I guess it's not the busy season and I'm still glad I made advance reservations everywhere. We were seated at a window table, but unless I sat right next to DW, my view was blocked by the corner support. I had a good view of the water parade, though. He took our drink orders (virgin daiquiris for both of us) and got our apps started.
I had the flat iron steak flatbread, no onions:
Very good. The barbecue sauce had a good kick to it, and the entire dish tasted very fresh. The only complaint I have (and this is a recurring theme) - portion sizes are a bit too large. We very quickly learned to leave a ton on the plate while on the DxDP if you don't want to feel perpetually stuffed.
DW had the Tuna Three Ways:
She's a tuna fanatic, so she had to order this. According to her, the poke was the best of the three. Also in shot: Remnants of the bread and butter.
For entrees, DW had the pork tenderloin:
And I had the Oak-Fired Filet:
Loved them both! Broccolini seemed a little out of place and the stems were tough, but aside from that - perfect.
The fireworks started right as we finished the entrees so we watched them from our seats. We tried to take pictures of the fireworks, but the glare from the windows didn't cooperate. Afterwords we had our dessert orders taken - DW had the Peach Crostata (something I hadn't seen on an online menu before coming down):
And I had the Valrhona Chocolate Cake:
A few things about desserts before we go any farther:
- Those little edible 'congrats' things? Cute, but boy oh boy do they taste bad. Taste like rejected Hershey bars.
- As the week went on, I trusted chocolate offerings in general less and less. Overall I found the fruit-based desserts to be better tasting, or at least less overpoweringly sweet. Maybe cutting out sugar has made me overly sensitive to it, I don't know.
With that out of the way, the desserts were good. Hers was very warm and hearty, and my cake was pretty good too, if not a bit overloaded on chocolate paired with the ice cream.
Service was friendly, if a little terse once we mentioned we were on the Dining Plan (this would be a pretty common trend the whole week, as you'll see.) Overall, a very good meal to start off the honeymoon!
Rating:
NEXT TIME: Liberty Tree Tavern!
