The next morning I was feeling particularly sluggish. The mutant ninja bug bite on my rear kept me up a good bit of the night.
It was an Epcot morning once again – mostly because of our lunch ressies at Tuto Italia. It seems that we spent more time at Epcot eating, than anything else in our trip. I guess Epcot is to eating, as the TSM queue is to picture taking.
I have to admit – I was really nervous about Tuto Italia. Don’t get me wrong, I like “Italian food” – but I like American Italian. You know….Olive Garden…Johnny Karino’s…stuff like that. I typically refer to those establishments as “Fitalian” – which is short for fake Italian.
Now, I mean no offense to anyone when I make that statement, but I know that those restaurants cater to American taste buds. Tuto Italia – not so much.
In the months before our trip, I studied the menu super hard trying to figure out what exactly I was going to eat. Actually, I tried to focus on what Mark was going to eat since he is a little pickier than me. I was still undecided as we entered Epcot. Actually, we tried to get into Coral Reef, but they couldn’t tell me if I could have a seat until 11:30 – and that’s when our Tuto Italia reservations where. I am fairly certain that we could have gotten a seat, but I didn’t want to pass up a sure thing for a maybe.
The first thing I noticed about Tuto Italia, like Captain Jacks, was the smell. Except Tuto did not smell like old basement
, it smelled like bread baking.
To me, there aren’t too many better smells than the smell of baking bread. YUM! I was instantly re-assured that we made the right decision by coming here.
Our waitress was so cute, and sweet, but I think she must have been new. She kind of struggled through the ordering process, and to top it off, her English wasn’t all that great, so we had a bit of a communication barrier. It really just added to our experience though, and we all three got a few laughs out of the situation.
I decided to go with the Lasagna and Mark got a Panini.
First things first – they brought out a nice basket of bread…and oil. No herbs…just oil.
While we were eating our bread, our waitress comes to the table to inform Mark that they are out of paninis. No problem, he picked something else off of the menu. The waitress walks away and not 5 minutes later, the manager comes up to our table to inform us that they are not out of paninis after all.
Well, okay….Mark would rather have the panini then. Soon, the food arrived at the table:
The lasagna
This was good, but very very filling. It looks small, but I think I only got about half of it down. It is stuffed with cheesy goodness and has a great tomato/basil taste.
The panini
Mark really liked the sandwich, but didn’t really care for the salad that came with it.
Now, for the life of me, I cannot remember what our desserts were called – and I’m too lazy to look on All Ears
, but here are the pictures:
Mine:
Mine was great! I would order it again, no questions asked. The little puff pastries are filled with ice cream and smothered in warm chocolate sauce.
Marks:
Mark liked his too, and said it tasted like egg nog – which he loves. Before ordering it, he asked the waitress to describe it – and she informed him it was made with the “red” of the egg.
Last I checked, eggs really don’t have reds? After a few “huhs” and “whats”, we came to the conclusion that she was referring to the “yellow.” See what I mean about the communication barrier!
When it was time for the check, the manager came to our table again to inform us that Mark’s meal had been comped due to the panini mixup. We tried to talk her out of it (first time ever trying to get out of a free meal), but she absolutely refused, and apologized up and down for an incident that we really didn’t think was that big of a deal. What was really odd is, they didn’t even bring the check that allows you to tip, just the final bill that you have to sign. Like they didn’t want our waitress to be tipped? We were having none of that – and made sure to leave an appropriate tip based on what the full bill would have been.
After lunch, we headed to Soarin’ to check the wait times. I think it was less than 30 minutes, so we hopped on. I love me some Patrick!
Que Slingblade voice….”I like the way he talks, uhm hm.” I tried to sneak some illegal Soarin’ picks, but they give me motion sickness just looking at them, so I’m not going to torture anyone who may be reading this mess.
By then, I was ready to head back to the room. It was really hot, and getting really crowded and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to catch up with the sleep that eluded me the night before.
Whatever it was was NASTY. We ended up going to CVS to pick up some cream to get the inflamation to calm down, but it was so itchy I couldn't stop clawing. I'm sure that made for some interesting viewing for the tourists.
This decision nearly killed me!
Then I tried to talk him in to Universal. We havent been since 2001, and I was ready to give it another shot. I got vetoed. 
We decided to take advantage of EMH at Magic Kingdom.
It was worse than the Halloween Party.
It was worse than the night of my Dis Meet. 
It was CRAZY!
