"I'm Just Here For the Food" A Late October Dining Review Updated x 4 5/07 Now Complete

[Misha72683]

Hi! As we are a week away from Disney, I thought I would at least post the first post of my very first Dining Review. We all love food, so I knew that I would much rather write a dining review than a trip report. I love reading dining reviews and I can't wait to write my own!

Introductions

Mark, Alex, Nicholas and I last fall. All in Star Wars shirt, of course. ​

Me- My name is Michelle and I'm a 30-something stay-at-home mom, who does some freelance writing on the side. We live in a small town in Ontario and my hobbies include writing, cooking and knitting. Oh and eating. Food is a passion of mine.

I'm the driving force behind our decision to go to Disney. This trip has been in the making for me since 1988, which is when my aunt and uncle offered to take me and my parents said no. Since then I have dreamed of going to Disney when I grew up. But when I hit my 20s, other vacations took priority and I kind of forgot about Disney for a while until I was pregnant with my first child. I knew I wanted to take my kids to Disney and that I wanted to do it when they were fairly young, to really capture the magic. I love all things Disney and my top 3 movies are The Lion King, The Little Mermaid and Robin Hood, with Peter Pan getting an honorable mention. Ariel is my favorite princess.

That leads me to Mark, my loving husband. Unlike me, he's never had any desire to go to Disney. Still, he loves me and when I told him I really wanted to take our boys, he agreed. The conditions were that he didn't have to plan anything and that he got input on where we eat. Like me, food is very important to Mark, and we often plan our vacations around where we are going to eat. When he's not giving into my whims, Mark is busy finishing up his degree in Economics. Mark might not have had an any desire to go to Disney World, but he loves Disney movies. His favorites are Aladdin, Monsters Inc. and Mulan. Belle is his favorite princess.

In addition to Mark, my lovely best friend T will also be accompanying us. T and I have been friends since we were toddlers, in fact this November we will celebrate 30 years of friendship and what better way to do that than with a trip to Disney? T is a treasured part of our family and I'm so thrilled that she's going on this trip with us. Like Mark and I, T loves food. In fact, the title is a paraphrase of what T says whenever the trip comes up. She's interested in the magic, but mostly she just cares about the food. Her favorite Disney movies are Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and 101 Dalmatians and Belle is her favorite Disney princess.

As mentioned up-thread, I have two children. Alex and Nicholas. Alex is 4 and he's a sweet, funny, adventurous little boy. He loves all things Disney, just like his Mama. Right now he has a strong preference for the Disney Jr. characters, but he's also crazy about Mickey Mouse and he'll tell you that Snow White is his favorite princess, with Princess Sofia a very close second. Nicholas is 2.5 and he's the most determined little boy I've ever met and one of the most loving. He does everything at full throttle. He can't communicate as well as his brother, but he's very excited about the trip and especially about meeting Mickey Mouse. Alex eats like a normal 4 year old, the only exception being his deep love of sushi, but Nicholas is a foodie-in-training. He loves food and he would rather have souvlaki than chicken fingers and there are very few foods that he won't try.
--

Table of Contents:
Be Our Guest (dinner)
Food and Wine
Biergarten
Crystal Palace
Old Port Royale Food Court
Akershus
Backlot Express
Hollywood & Vine
Old Port Royale Food Court/Columbia Harbor House
Harambe Market
Boma
Wolfgang Puck Express
Disney Snacks and Dining Plan Breakdown

 

[vettegirl]

Looking forward to your reviews!!

 

[OasterP]

Fun! I'm excited to read!

 

[luvpooh]

Looking forward to your reviews. Our trip will overlap a couple of days with yours.

Did you know that your youngest can get his own food from most of the table service places you're eating? Any of the all you can eat places, he can help himself (well, I guess you can do it on his behalf, might be a little messy if he does it, haha). Our son is just under 3, so some of the TS places for which we have ADR's are AYCTE as well.

Have a great time!

 

[Misha72683]

Looking forward to your reviews. Our trip will overlap a couple of days with yours.

Did you know that your youngest can get his own food from most of the table service places you're eating? Any of the all you can eat places, he can help himself (well, I guess you can do it on his behalf, might be a little messy if he does it, haha). Our son is just under 3, so some of the TS places for which we have ADR's are AYCTE as well.

Have a great time!

Oh, I know we can order him but quite honestly A doesn't eat that much and can never finish a child's meal, so N can share with him and then if he's still hungry, eat off our plate. And in most cases, he'd rather eat what we're eating than anything on the children's menu. And yes, I definitely plan on getting him his own plate at buffet restaurants. He loves buffets (he likes anywhere he doesn't have to wait for food).

 

[luvpooh]

Oh yeah I definitely meant the buffets. I'm not sure what we're going to do for our son at counter service places yet. He's more of a grazer, so I may share a meal with him and supplement with our snacks.

 

[nataliej_vk]

I'm from a small Ontario town too!! And we go Dec. 5-12!!! So excited to read this!

 

[samsteele]

Following along! Hoping you have a great vacation. You will love Boma. Be sure to arrive at least a half hour before your ADR so that you can go out back of the Animal Kingdom Lodge to see the animals. They usually have a guide available who can answer any questions you may have. Sometimes they have a bonfire going and you can roast marshmallows. If this isn't available before your ADR, maybe check to see if its on after you eat. The AKL is gorgeous and well worth a look. Their gift shop is also incredible and fun to snoop around in. Have a great time!

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

Joining in! Hope you have a great trip! Can't wait to hear about it!

 

[samsteele]

Also wanted to add re your Biergarten ressie, after you check in at the podium and are in the holding area before going into the restaurant, when the seater/host/hostess comes out to round up your large communal table group, make sure to get yourselves first right behind the seater so that when you get to the table, you have the choice of sitting at the farthest seats that are closest to the railing and have the best views of the stage. I do this for 1) the view and 2) in case my table mates aren't that friendly, I can look away at the stage show. Enjoy!

 

[heatherking06]

We r going dec 16-21 staying at Contemporary w free ddp. We also have breakfast ressi at hwv, have dinner at biergarten w candlelight processional after, also have 50's ressi for dinner all of these r new to us. Last time we tried Ohana, chef Mickey, and crt which r some of or favs! My son is 3 and his fav was def chef mickeys! DD is 7 her fav is Ohana and CRT! This will b our 2nd trip, my DH is not to thrilled w Disney either but goes for us. I will say that he doesn't mind it so much now that he knows what to expect.

 

[AllyinWonderland]

How exciting that you will finally be going to Disney World! My husband also wants nothing to do with the planning but does like to give input on dining choices. We will be there from 10/27-11/5 and also traveling with a very determined 2.5 year old, who does everything full throttle!

Have a great trip, I am looking forward to hearing about it!

 

[Misha72683]

Sorry for the delay, it took a couple weeks for me to get settled back into my normal life. We’re back from our trip and we had an amazing time. Disney was everything I always imagined it would be and the food was fantastic.


So, let’s get started. Back when I started planning this trip, I took the 180 days ADR thing very seriously and got up at 6 a.m and made my ADRS. I booked 7 ADRS that morning. Of those 7, only 1 remained completely unchanged, four others I ended up keeping the restaurant but changing the time or date and two I cancelled all together. In the end, I ended up making two of our ADRs the week of our trip (though one was a change from breakfast to lunch). When we go back I don’t think I’ll be as concerned with making ADRS unless there is a date/time I feel like I HAVE to have.


Our first meal was one of the ones that ended up changing. I originally booked Be Our Guest as a lunch for 10/29. But T really wanted to do dinner there if we could and in the summer, Disney released a bunch of slots during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and I booked a 7 p.m for 10/25, our first night at Disney.


We arrived at Disney around 3 p.m after a very long car ride and then checked into our room at CBR and then after unloading the car, we changed into our costumes and headed to the Magic Kingdom. At Alex’s insistence we dressed up as Star War’s characters. He was Darth Vader, I was R2-D2, T was C-3P0, my husband was Chewbacca and Nicholas was a baby wookie.


We got to the Magic Kingdom at about 5:30 and had time to go on a few rides, after I got over the fact that I was actually at Disney World. The sight of the castle overwhelmed me. We did the tea cups, the carousel (Alex loves carousels) and the Little Mermaid ride which was my personal favorite as it was like being in my favorite movie and then it was time for dinner.


We ended up being seated at 7:05, so not long after our reservation, and we were all impressed with our surroundings. We were getting to eat in Beast’s castle. We were seated in the ballroom and it was amazing.





Once we were seated it was time to order. This is my only complaint about the service. It took about 15 minutes after being seated for our server to come back and take our drink orders and by that point we were ready to order our meals, which we did. I’m not sure what the delay was (we had to get another server to track her down), but after that she was very attentive.


Though it’s not included on the appetizer, we decided to start with an appetizer. We decided to go with


Assorted Cured Meats and Sausages


There were four types of meat (sausage, two types of salami and prosciutto) and two types of cheese (I don’t remember what they were though one was a cheddar of some type) plus pate, pickles and pickled onions.


Mark doesn’t like strong cheeses so he disliked both cheeses, but he was happy with the meat and baggette. My kids love salami and bread, so they were thrilled with the choice, and T and I liked everything. It was a good starter and we were all happy with it. We were all brought a bowl of buns and sea salt butter that was very good.


After our starter, it was time for the main course. We’ll start with the worst and work our way up. My kids shared a meal, ordering the grilled steak and we substituted the grilled vegetables for French fries. This is the only one I forgot to take a picture of. I request medium well and it came out medium rare. It would have been perfect for me, but not so much for my kids though N ate a little bit, A wouldn’t touch it. On hindsight I should have sent it back, but they were happy with their bread and salami and French Fries, so I didn’t bother.


T decided to go with


Braised Pork served with mashed potatoes and green beans.


T says the pork was delicious and the beans were beans, but she didn’t like the mashed potatoes. Apparently they were a bit bland and the texture was off. She didn’t finish them, though she finished everything else. Since Be Our Guest is the only place in the MK that you can order alcohol, T took advantage and ordered a glass of red wine unfortunately we didn’t note which wine it was, only that it cost $15 and that she enjoyed it.


I ordered


Pan-seared Chicken Breast with seasonal veggies and roasted fingerling potatoes.


The chicken comes with a Spinach cream sauce that is delicious. The season veggies were squash and baby spinach and were mixed in with the potatoes. They were delicious. The chicken was a tad dry, but the cream sauce helped with that and overall, I really enjoyed my meal.


That leaves Mark, who ordered the


Grilled Strip Steak with French fries and herb-truffle butter.


Mark loved this meal, it was one of his top meals of the whole trip. His steak was cooked perfectly (medium) and apparently the truffle butter was out of this world (I tried a little bit and it was a really good). He said he would order this again in a heartbeat. He also added a Hoegarden to his meal and said it tasted like a Hoegarden, but it was good.


After dinner, it was time for dessert! I did take pictures, but they all ended up very blurry, so I’ll spare you. Alex chose the Grey Stuff which is served in a chocolate cookie shell. We all liked the Grey Stuff, but found the cookie shell to be hard. I probably wouldn’t order it again, but for the novelty it was good and Alex enjoyed it. T was full and didn’t want desert, so she let Nicky have hers and he chose the triple chocolate cupcake. Mark and I both tried it and thought it was very dense, but Nicky liked it. Mark ordered the lemon meringue cupcake and thought it was very light and refreshing. I had the strawberry cream cheese cupcake and it was delicious.




After dinner we were able to meet the Beast. The interaction here was pretty awesome. He made growling noises at the two Wookies and was happy to pose with us. We really enjoyed the experience at Be Our Guest. The food was really good and the atmosphere can’t be beat. I can remember seeing Beauty and the Beast in the theatre when I was 9 year old and eating at Be Our Guest was like stepping into the movie and it was amazing. It was a great way to kick off our Disney trip.


We used our DDP to cover this meal and it came to around $185 and we paid about $70 out of pocket which meant that the DPP covered $115.

 

[dizzy daisy]

Hi there! I'm hoping to follow along too.

Great start with the BOG review!

 

[DaisyNY]

Following along...we have not yet been able to secore dinner reservations for BOG...though it looks wonderful!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Great start - looking forward to the rest of your reviews and hopefully more cute outfits.

 

[Misha72683]

After Be Our Guest, we went to enjoy Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. We went on some rides, trick-or-treated, enjoy the fireworks and parade and generally had a great evening. We also ended up with a ton of candy:




The first thing I did was divide the candy into FOUR Ziploc freezer bags. One for T to take home with her, one for my kid’s to eat that week, one with just candy and one with chocolate and those two bags went in the suitcase right away. This definitely made up for my kids not going trick-or-treating on actual Halloween.

Since we had a late night, we slept in Monday morning and then headed to Epcot where we planned on spending the whole day. We had a dinner reservation, but our plan for lunch was to snack at Food and Wine. First though we stopped to meet a few familiar faces at Character Spot.





I am a horrible food reviewer and did not take any pictures at Food and Wine. We also didn’t get to try as much as I would have liked, but we did try several items. I’ll break them up in to food and alcohol. We used a mixture of Snack Credits, QS credits, paying out of pocket and the Festival sampler to pay for our meals and I’ll provide a breakdown of the various costs. The Sampler was $60 and came with a festival pin, reserved seating for the Eat to Beat concert (we didn’t go) and 8 credits to be used on food and alcohol (excepting samplers and champagne).


For food we ate:

Sustainable Chew
Ricotta & zucchini ravioli with tomato $4.75
T ordered this one and paid OoP because she hadn’t thought of using a SC. This was okay, nothing special. It was pretty typical ravioli, similar to the type I can buy at the grocery store and make at home. Alex hates pasta so he didn’t try this, but Nicky liked it.

Pork Spareribs with red wine, fennel, and cheesy mascarpone grits $5.50
We used a SC for this one. It was decent. Not one of our favorites, but we all enjoyed it. I’m not a huge fan of grits, but they were fine. The spareribs were really good though. Neither of my kids tries this one.

Hawaii
We used a snack credit for both items from this booth.

Kālua pork slider with sweet and sour Dole® Pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise $4
I’m allergic to pineapple, so I didn’t try this one, but everyone else liked it and it was the one of the only two dishes that Alex actually liked. Mark said this was his favorite thing we tried at F&W.

Tuna poke with seaweed salad and lotus root chips $4.75
We all liked this. I didn’t love the seaweed salad, but the lotus root chips were good and the fish had a nice spice to it. My kids found it too spicy.


Scottland
We used a QS credit for the first three items and then paid out of pocket for the cake.

Haggis with Neeps and Tatties: Traditional Haggis with rutabaga and mashed potatoes $4.75
This was T’s absolute favorite. She had never had Haggis before (Mark and I have) and she loved it. I didn’t try it because I don’t like Haggis or mashed potatoes, but Mark liked it. My kids wouldn’t touch it.

Fresh potato pancake with Scottish smoked salmon and herb sour cream $4.25
This was really, really good. The herbed sour cream was delicious and the pancake was nice and fluffy. We all enjoyed it. My kids tried the pancake part and liked it, though neither one of them wanted to try the salmon.

Seared sea scallop with spinach-cheddar gratin and crispy bacon $4.75
This was our least favorite item from this book. We all found the scallop was a little over-cooked. Mark hates spinach, so he didn’t touch the sauce, but I liked it and thought it added something to the scallop and so did T. I was eating the spinach mixture with a fork and actually liked it better than the scallop.

The Tipsy Laird: Whiskey-soaked cake with lemon cream and toasted oats $3.25
As I said above, we paid of OoP for this one. It was really good. Moist and sweet and very refreshing. My kids really liked this one and wanted me to order another one right away. It was the only sweet item we got from F&W and I think it was a good choice.

Farm Fresh
We used SCs for both these items.

Loaded mac n’ cheese with Nueske’s® pepper bacon, cheddar cheese, peppers and green onions $4.25
This was my favorite item from F&W and Nicky loved it as well. Mark thought the cheese was a little too strong, though T really enjoyed it. This was creamy and tangy and the bacon and peppers really added to the mac and cheese taste. I would eat this again in a heartbeat.

Griddled “yard bird” with braised greens $4.50
This was good, but the chicken was a little dry and none of us really cared for the greens. I chose to have the sauce on the side instead of on top and I don’t know if that made a big difference.

We all had different favorites and none of us hated any of the dishes we tried, but Scotland was probably the booth we liked the best over-all and the Sustainable Chew was the one we liked the least as both the spare-ribs and the ravioli were just ok.

Now, let’s move on to what we drank. Unlike the food this was actually divided over multiple days, I’m just putting it all together here for convenience.

Chew Lab
The Smoking Hibiscus $8.75
We used the sampler for this. This was universally our least favorite drink. It looked gorgeous, but the smoky taste was just too much for all of us.

Dominican Republic
We used the sampler for both drinks.

Frozen Dominican piña colada $11.00
I didn’t try this one because of my allergy, but T and Mark both said it was good. Typical pina colada. This was a decent size for a sample.

Frozen sugar cane cocktail $9.00
This was surprisingly sour. I kept expecting it to be sweet and it wasn’t. It was tasty and actually kind of refreshing, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to ever drink it again. Like the pina colada, this was a decent size and took us a while to finish.

Farm Fresh
Hard cider flight: Woodchuck Raspberry Hard Cider, Wyder’s® Dry Pear Hard Cider, Two Henrys Elderberry Hard Cider, ACE Hard Pumpkin Cider $10.25
We paid OoP for this (since flights aren’t covered by the sampler) and we all loved it. All four ciders were really good. Mark didn’t like the pumpkin, but he doesn’t like pumpkin anything, however T and I both loved. I think it was my favorite drink of the festival. Our only complaint was that we couldn’t differentiate between the elderberry and the raspberry, though they were both good.

Hawaii
Kona Brewing Company: Big Wave Golden Ale $3.50
T paid OoP for this one. I’m not a huge fan of beer, but this was okay. T and Mark are bigger beer fans than I am and they both liked it and said it was very good.

Ireland
Kerrygold® Irish Cream Liqueur $8.00
We used the Sampler here. This was good. Your typical Irish Cream, but since I love Irish Cream, that’s a good thing.

Mexico
We used the sampler for both items.

Mexican sangria $8.50
None us liked this. It was too strong and a little bitter. All I could taste was alcohol with a bitter aftertaste.

Guava margarita $8.75
Like the sangria, we found the margarita to be very strong. I’m also used to blended margaritas and this wasn’t. Plus, as you’ll see again later in this report, T and I joke that one of the things we learnt from our trip is that we don’t like guava. Mexico was kind of a bust for us.

Poland
Frozen Szarlotka Apple Pie$9.00

The only thing I took a picture of! We used the sampler again here. This was excellent. Not too strong and it tasted like a frozen apple pie. Our only complaint was the topping. It was really delicious but some of the clumps were huge and it was weird trying to drink them. We would have preferred it if they’d left the topping off.

Sustainable Chew
Frozen Chew-tini $7.50
We used our final sample credit here. The food might have been a miss for us at this booth, but this was delicious. It was T’s favorite drink of the festival and Mark and I enjoyed it as well.


Cost Breakdown

Food Total: $44.75. We paid $8 out of pocket and the rest was covered by the DDP. We used 1 QS credit and 5 SCs.

Alcohol: $84.25. We paid $13.75 OoP. With the sampler we saved $10 plus T got a free pin out of it. We think the sampler was definitely worth it since it was nice to pay that cost upfront instead of at each booth and since we only used it for the more expensive items, it was worth it.

Next up: Alex’s favorite meal of the trip

 

[Misha72683]

Sorry, it's been so long, life got a little crazy. But I'm back and I have more food opinions to share!

So after spending the afternoon in Epcot, it was time for our second TS meal of the trip. Remember how I mentioned how much my ADR plans changed? Well this meal was one of the few that stayed unchanged (I did play with the time a little) from 180 days out. As soon as we started planning out meal, we knew we wanted to eat at Biergarten.


Alex can't wait to be seated.

Biergarten is communal seating, so when we were shown to our table we were seated with a family of 3 from Ohio who seemed a little apprehensive about eating with toddlers, not that I can blame them. We arranged our seats so that they were as far from the kids as possible and then once we'd ordered our drinks, we headed to the buffet. The kids went with us and they pointed to the stuff they wanted while we filled their plates. They both ended up with a variety of food. My mom is of German decent and my ILs emigrated from Eastern Europe, so in our family we eat a lot of schnitzel and sausage and potatoes, so the food at Biergarten was quite famiiar to my children.


A's Plate: Salami, some type of sausage I can't identify, Bratwurst, Cold Potato salad, roast potato, some kind of tomato and cucumber salad, a regular bun, and a pretzel bun.

Alex is a picky eater. We would run into problems later in the trip with his refusal to eat, but he ate about 80% of his plate at Biergarten. He didn't like the cold potato salad, but I didn't think he would and was surprised when he chose it (my SIL makes a similar one nad he doesn't like it), but everything else was a hit. He's a big fan of meat and Biergarten delivers that.


N's plate: Two types of sausage, roast potatoes, schnitzel, and two types of buns.

Nicky had a little less variety than Alex, but he also cleared his plate. Nicky loves food and he was obviously very happy with his meal.

Of the adults, I only got a picture of my plate:

Bratwurst, rotisserie chicken, roast pork, roast potatoes, saurkraut, cold potato salad, pretzel bun and regular bun plus some kind of fruit preserve.

I really liked the food. The only thing that I didn't love was cold potato salad, but then I'm not a huge fan of potato salad. The meat was very good and I remember really liking the fruit preserve, though I don't remember much about it. T and Mark both liked the food as well.

I stuck to pop, but Mark and T both ordered bear. Mark ordered the litre of beer and I think he went with the basic Hoffstedder. T had the beer flight, which had four options. There was one that she didn't like, a really dark, malty beer and the grapefruit was her favorite. I really should have written this information down.


Desert: A variety of cheese, the preserve, some kind of cake with vanilla sauce, some type of blueberry desert (in the cup) and Bavarian cheesecake.

I forgot to write down the names of the deserts and there were more that I didn't take. The only one I didn't like was the blueberry one, the other two were very good and I particularly liked the vanilla sauce. I preserve a cheese plate for desert, so I was happy to nibble on yummy cheese. As we enjoyed desert, the band was playing and Alex hit the dance floor. He had a great time.


Look at that face, he was having the time of his life.

All in all, we really liked Biergarten. The service was good and so was the food and the kids had a blast. Alex declared it was his favorite meal of the whole trip and it was tied for T's top spot. We will definitely eat here again.

This meal was covered by the DDP plan and I believe it around $185 and $50 of that was OoP.

 

[phabric]

Looking forward to more of your reviews.

 

[Jerusalem Gal]

Love! Waiting for more!