January Dining Review and Pictures - Update 12/8 Sunshine and Liberty Tree

[Flossbolna]

We had a fantastic morning in Epcot and were debating where we wanted to eat lunch in the World Showcase. The last two years we had eaten at CS in Mexico and C always loved it, while I had the worst salad ever there! I had been trying to sell C on the CS in Morocco since I love Middle Eastern/North African cuisine. However, she never really wanted to eat there. So this time I had already settled on eating in Mexico again when C suggested that we should try Morocco this time!

We were still not too hungry after our wonderful breakfast and decided to share the Chicken & Lamb Combo Shawarma Platter - served with hummus, Tabouleh, and a Tangierine CousCous Salad with a Fresh Moroccan bread (thanks to allears.net for the full description!):

It was absolutely wonderful!! The second picture above shows quite well what was on the plate – starting with the bread going clockwise: bread, chicken, hummus, tabouleh, couscous, lamb. The white sauce in the extra container was a light yoghurt dressing which we used as a dip, I saw others who would just pour it over everything.

The meat was well seasoned with spices, bot not too much. Both meats were minced or shreded in a way before they were put on the big rotation skewers. In this mixtures they added quite a bit of spices, so it tasted more like an exotic meatloaf than a piece of grilled meat. The sides were very good, too. I even enjoyed the tabouleh which is a kind of salad made from parsley. I don't like parsley that much, but this was really good, not too overpowering! The only thing that was not perfect was the bread, it was just a bit boring. I have read that some people substituted it with the pita bread, we should have done that, too.

At 13.95 $ it was not a very cheap meal option, but it was actually plenty of food for the two of us! I am really looking forward to eating there again – and actually returned already once on this last trip!

Also Tangierine Cafe has really nice outdoor seating which we enjoyed a lot on our first day in the Florida sun coming from grey and cold Germany.

 

[torsie24]

Great start!!

Can't wait to hear more, thank you for sharing and taking such greaat photos.

Your pancakes look sooooooo yummy!!

 

[luckytobeme88]

I am so glad that you have found time to post this review for our view pleasure.

 

[TigerKat]

How on earth did I miss this wonderful review? Signing on a bit late...

 

[2trips06Mom]

I have been enjoying your reviews and pics. Thanks for taking the time to share them. I look forward to more (and eating CS at Morocco now too)!

 

[DWGal210]

Hi Magdalene! I thought "ooh, dining review!!" in your siggie and came right over!

I need your insight since we tend to eat at the same places each trip and I want to break us from our rut. So thanks for the good suggestions!

And Kona Cafe is on my must-try list as well, I will for sure have to make that ADR!

 

[Dizneydaz]

Great start to your report!

We have yet to make it to Kona for breakfast. But it is one of our favs for dinner. Getting up early is hard for us since we come from California and waking up at 7 a.m. in Florida feels like 4 a.m. to us. We usually just grab afew things in the room before heading out. By the end of our trip we've adjusted to the time change and to make at least one sit-down breakfast. This year DD10 wants to do 'Ohana again (it's become our tradition to have a nice late breakfast on our last day since we don't go into the parks.)

Awaiting more...

 

[Joie29]

Yum! Tangierine Cafe looks fab...I keep trying to figure out a way to fit in into our next trip, but DH really prefers a sit-down meal for lunch and dinner...maybe we will have to stop in for a nice snack.

Another wonderful review!

 

[Nancy for Disney]

Great reviews so far. Tangerine Cafe is on my "must do" list for my next trip.

 

[brookelizabeth]

Your reviews are GREAT! The Tangerine Cafe platter looks delish...maybe we'll try that for our Epcot CS. I love how C suggested it!

 

[MiNniEDrEameR]

I'm in!!! great reviews!!! Kona is my favorite breakfast place because of Tonga Toast always a must on my vacations!!!

 

[Flossbolna]

Great start!!

Can't wait to hear more, thank you for sharing and taking such greaat photos.

Your pancakes look sooooooo yummy!!

Hi Torsie! Nice to see you here! The pancakes were yummy!!

I am so glad that you have found time to post this review for our view pleasure.

Thanks for the nice comment!

How on earth did I miss this wonderful review? Signing on a bit late...

Unfortunately I am a bit slow in updating... So you have not missed much yet.

I have been enjoying your reviews and pics. Thanks for taking the time to share them. I look forward to more (and eating CS at Morocco now too)!

Thanks! I am happy that I could convince someone to eat in Morrocco!

Hi Magdalene! I thought "ooh, dining review!!" in your siggie and came right over!

I need your insight since we tend to eat at the same places each trip and I want to break us from our rut. So thanks for the good suggestions!

And Kona Cafe is on my must-try list as well, I will for sure have to make that ADR!

Welcome to my dining review! Kona Cafe is really nice, the dinner review will be posted shortly!

Great start to your report!

We have yet to make it to Kona for breakfast. But it is one of our favs for dinner. Getting up early is hard for us since we come from California and waking up at 7 a.m. in Florida feels like 4 a.m. to us. We usually just grab afew things in the room before heading out. By the end of our trip we've adjusted to the time change and to make at least one sit-down breakfast. This year DD10 wants to do 'Ohana again (it's become our tradition to have a nice late breakfast on our last day since we don't go into the parks.)

Awaiting more...

Thanks! Kona is a nice place, but it is more a simple breakfast, even though with great food. But Ohana is definitely more of an event.

Yum! Tangierine Cafe looks fab...I keep trying to figure out a way to fit in into our next trip, but DH really prefers a sit-down meal for lunch and dinner...maybe we will have to stop in for a nice snack.

Another wonderful review!

Tangierine Cafe was really a very upscale CS meal. I think everything was very good quality and when we were there it was not crowded at all. It was a great dining experience and felt more relaxed than our very rushed meals at some in park TS restaurants. But they sell snacks, too!

Great reviews so far. Tangerine Cafe is on my "must do" list for my next trip.

Welcome! I am impressed how many people can be convinced about Morocco!

Your reviews are GREAT! The Tangerine Cafe platter looks delish...maybe we'll try that for our Epcot CS. I love how C suggested it!

C really is a very sweet person! I find Epcot CS difficult since there actually are quite a lot of very appealing options. Sunshine Seasons is also a great place, we just really did not want to sit inside for lunch!!

 

[Flossbolna]

We thought it would be nice to have an easy dinner at our hotel followed by a quick trip over to the MK for Wishes and thus have an easy evening for our first day. Unfortunately we were not really hungry when it was time for our ADR at 5:25 pm. Still, we decided that we would try the restaurant and possibly just have something small. We had to wait for a bit, I think it was not even ten minutes, before we were seated.

After reading the menu C and I both decided to go for an appetizer each with the option of sharing a dessert afterwards. I also wanted to celebrate my first day at Disney by getting a beer and ordered the Kona Fire Rock Beer. It was really nice! Not too dark and not too bitter, but with a lot of flavor. Just my kind of beer!

We were served a loaf of their delicous bread. It has a sweet pineapple taste to it and the butter seems to be the same stuff we had for breakfast

I got the Kona Salad - Mixed greens, Maytag blue cheese, fresh fruit, red onions, and smoked almonds with a citrus vinaigrette. I asked for it to be without onions (don't like them and if they are raw I really hate them!!):

It looks like a small portion, but it was actually packed very dense and it was a lot of salad. The greens were baby greens, so very soft, but not soggy. The blue cheese was actually very strong, which was good as I love strong blue cheese, but in the end it got even a bit much for me. The fruit was pears which added a nice sweet crunch as well as the almonds. The vinaigrette had a distinct citrus flavour, but was not sour. After this description you will not be surprised to hear that I loved this salad!! I had it in 2007 and had bin thinking about how good it was since and it really was a great two years later!

C had the Shrimp and Coconut Curry Soup:

I don't eat shellfish, so I did not try this, but C loved it. She was very happy with her choice. To be honest, I did not like how plain it ooked. My salad was served in a rather fancy way. While I don't like dishes with more decoration than food, I think presentation is part of the experience. This looked like any cafeteria. I did not taste like cafeteria food, but I did not understand while the salad looks fancy and the soup looks so plain.

C and I absolutely agreed on what we wanted for dessert, so splitting worked great! We got the Banana-Chocolate Creme Brulee - with a chocolate spiral:

It was a very good crème brulee (which by the way my father calls screaming cream since brulee sounds similar to the German word for screaming: brüllen), but not very special. In my opinion crème brulee is comfort food: vanilla custard with caramel. It was served cold and personally I prefer it served warm, that's the way we got it on our holiday in France and it seems that the flavours come out better. There was not a lot of banana taste to it and the chocolate was on the bottom and wuite nice, but not too exciting. It was an absolute adaequate dish, but while I would return to Kona for my salad, I would most likely try a different dessert.

All in all we had a very good meal and I would like to return to Kona. I think they offer good food with a bit of an interesting twist to eat. Even if you are not staying at the Poly, the little boat from the MK is such an easy trip over to the Poly or you can take the monorail. Most of the MK restaurants do not really appeal to me, so Kona is a good alternative for a TS meal around the MK!

 

[Flossbolna]

I promise the next reviews will be up sooner. I have a real reason to finish this as I am planning on starting a Pre-Trip-Report soon!! My sister and I will travel to WDW at the end of January 2010. It will be her first trip to WDW after she has been my travel companion to both DL and DLRP. I am really looking forward to this, so doing a PTR seems a great idea!

 

[klacey1]

Subscribing!

 

[DWGal210]

Hi there! Thanks for giving me some tips on my dining choices - I appreciate it!

I love Maytag blue cheese - it's made here in Iowa, where I live, and it's my favorite blue cheese. They'll often have their booth at the state fair and farmer's markets all over the state and people just eat the stuff plain with crackers, it's so good!!

Glad you liked it and your salad looked great!

 

[Flossbolna]

Subscribing!

Welcome!!

Hi there! Thanks for giving me some tips on my dining choices - I appreciate it!

I love Maytag blue cheese - it's made here in Iowa, where I live, and it's my favorite blue cheese. They'll often have their booth at the state fair and farmer's markets all over the state and people just eat the stuff plain with crackers, it's so good!!

Glad you liked it and your salad looked great!

That's interesting that the cheese came form where you live. It was very good. I'd love to be able to get some to have it with crackers, sounds wonderful!!

 

[Flossbolna]

Today was our AK day and we had planned to start it with an early breakfast at Tusker House. Our ADR was for 8:05 am. Getting to Ak was a bit of a hassle. We really were not very lucky with morning busses at the Poly. We waited for 35 min for a bus and finally managed to get to AK a few minutes before 8 am. I think we were at the bus stop around 7:10 am and even when we arrived there were already people waiting to go to AK...

Well, we got to AK, enjoyed our walk during an absolutely empty park and checked in at Tusker House. We lined up to have our picture taken and were seated promptly. I think we waited around for about one minute or so. The lady who seated us told us that we were lucky that we would have the best server in the restaurant and that he was really cute. She did not lie! He was fantastic, always on top with the refills and with clearing everything away. He was cheerful and made even a bit of a show when he served the special juice they have there. We had the juice which was fantastic, very refreshing and still with lots of flavours! I liked it much better than the special juice we were served at Boma in 2008. I asked for hot tea and got a lovely little tea pot:

I did not take a lot of food pictures, this was my first plate:

There were the standard breakfast items, but also some special things. On my plate you can see a slice of ham. This was freshly carved and it was very juicy, not dry at all. It tasted really great! I combined it with the chutneys they offered in the station where you can also get the jams. Those are on and next to the ham. Also they had a sweet potato dish which you can see at the top of the plate. This had coconut in it and was delicious! Not on the picture is the banana bread pudding which was great, too. I think C'S breakfast was manly the banana bread pudding and nothing else!!

Our server had told us where the characters would appear and how they would rotate in the room and that they should get to us pretty soon. This was our first character meal so we really did not know how it would all work. The characters did not start to appear quite some time into our meal and then took some time to arrive at our table. In between there was also a break when they danced with the kids around the room. It actually took quite some time until they finally came to see us. It seemed a bit that they did not interact too much with us as we were adults, Daisy for example disappeared after I had taken a picture with C, so I am not on a picture with Daisy. We really wanted to get out into the park to start our touring when it got close to 9 am, so we only saw Mickey, Donald and Daisy. So if you want to be finished before 9 am, be prepared to miss out on some characters. We were fine with that, others might be not. That's me with Mickey:

I had read as a tip before this trip that you should get the bill settled during your meal, so that you can leave whenever you are ready. So when Mike came for our juice refills, I gave him my room key since we were charging to the room and got the bill shortly thereafter. That was really a great tip! We left a few minutes to 9 am and wandered to the tiny group of people who had arrived at a small rope just before Kilmanjaro Safaris. We all looked back to the tree of life and then we suddenly saw a sea of people walking towards us! That's when the CMs dropped the rope and off we went!! I even managed to get fastpasses and we were still the third party to be loaded on the first vehicle of the day!!

 

[Flossbolna]

I really need to finish those reviews quickly, I have started my pre trip report today! More can be found here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2208016

 

[DisneyMom5]

Enjoying your report Magdalene! Thanks!