Just Back 3/5/16...some AMAZING meals, disappointment at Signatures. (TONS OF PICS!) FINISHED

[Jetta8300]

Riverside Mill Foodcourt- 4/6 mornings we ate breakfast at Port Orleans Riverside's food court. Hubby always had the omelet, I always had some sort of version of the create your own oatmeal. He thought the breakfast potatoes that came with the omelet were really bad, he said they were drenched in oil and some kind of seasoning that he hated. But he really liked the omelets and the biscuit you could choose instead of the potatoes. The oatmeal was a nice healthy option to have, they had all sorts of fruit, nuts, and it was a good start to the day since I was eating a ton for lunch and dinner. It was ADORABLE in there and there was always plenty of seating even when it was super busy. (Side note-WE LOVED THIS HOTEL. Cannot say enough good things about POR. It was GORGEOUS)

 

[BigAlsGal]

Good reviews! I booked a meal at Boatwrights because of your delicious looking food!

 

[AntJulie]

Great reviews and pictures...Thanks for sharing!

 

[suse66]

Everything looks amazing! Thank you for sharing your reviews.....we have Yak and Yeti booked for lunch on our AK day and I am so excited to try it now!

 

[MichiganScott]

Some of these photos make me want to eat my screen.

 

[cleophus12]

Don't know if I missed your review of Trattoria al Forno or if you just haven't had time to post it. I am anxious to know your thoughts on that. We just ate there a few weeks ago and I have to say it was one of the most disappointing meals I have ever had at WDW. While the food wasn't awful and portions were plentiful, the service was sorely lacking. Our server, who shall remain nameless, acted like she couldn't care less if she got a tip or not. We were a table of four: two DVC members, an annual passholder, and a spouse. At the end of the meal when I asked her about the DVC discount, she appeared offended. She then took my card and my friend's annual pass, but never even asked if anyone else at the table was a member or passholder. My mistake was in not giving her my husband's card also because she only gave me and my passholder friend the discount. I will just say this was not my usual WDW dining experience, and I will not be returning. When I want Italian, I will go to Epcot and eat at the Italian restaurant there.

 

[elaine amj]

Enjoying your reviews so far.

 

[Jetta8300]

Don't know if I missed your review of Trattoria al Forno or if you just haven't had time to post it. I am anxious to know your thoughts on that. We just ate there a few weeks ago and I have to say it was one of the most disappointing meals I have ever had at WDW. While the food wasn't awful and portions were plentiful, the service was sorely lacking. Our server, who shall remain nameless, acted like she couldn't care less if she got a tip or not. We were a table of four: two DVC members, an annual passholder, and a spouse. At the end of the meal when I asked her about the DVC discount, she appeared offended. She then took my card and my friend's annual pass, but never even asked if anyone else at the table was a member or passholder. My mistake was in not giving her my husband's card also because she only gave me and my passholder friend the discount. I will just say this was not my usual WDW dining experience, and I will not be returning. When I want Italian, I will go to Epcot and eat at the Italian restaurant there.

That's a shame you had a bad experience! We really enjoyed our time there. I will be posting the rest of the photos tonight from the trip.

We did not have to deal with any of the issues you did though, we are not AP holders or anything... We were not on any sort of dining plan either so we were very uncomplicated. Our service there was one of the best places of the trip. We had a female server... She was extremely excitable and enthusiastic, and just overall really great. I'll definitely post everything tonight.

 

[nimbuscat]

I really shouldn't have read this. Now I want ADRs at Boatwright's, Yak & Yeti, and Wolfgang Puck. Thanks for the review!

 

[starousse]

Excellent review so far. I completely agree with you regarding the signature places. We ate at Cali Grill several months ago and it was the most horrible meal of the trip. $240 later, my husband was starving when we left.

 

[OasterP]

Thank you for doing this report - I always love reading about the different experiences! I've not eaten at the ones you have reported on so far, and some of them look delicious!

 

[clapton]

Thanks for the great reviews and pictures. I totally agree with the Cali grill review, have eaten there and was not impressed, not worth the money. We really liked Trattoria Al Forno also, have eaten dinner and breakfast there and both were very good. I really think dining at Disney can be hit or miss, sometimes meals can be great at a certain place and the next time you go it's not. Luckily there are a lot of dining options to choose from.Thanks again for all the work putting this together!

 

[Lisa F]

Don't know if I missed your review of Trattoria al Forno or if you just haven't had time to post it. I am anxious to know your thoughts on that. We just ate there a few weeks ago and I have to say it was one of the most disappointing meals I have ever had at WDW. While the food wasn't awful and portions were plentiful, the service was sorely lacking. Our server, who shall remain nameless, acted like she couldn't care less if she got a tip or not. We were a table of four: two DVC members, an annual passholder, and a spouse. At the end of the meal when I asked her about the DVC discount, she appeared offended. She then took my card and my friend's annual pass, but never even asked if anyone else at the table was a member or passholder. My mistake was in not giving her my husband's card also because she only gave me and my passholder friend the discount. I will just say this was not my usual WDW dining experience, and I will not be returning. When I want Italian, I will go to Epcot and eat at the Italian restaurant there.

Wow, I am pretty sure that the discount should be off the entire table, not just each individual item. I've never heard of that! It sounds like she went through some special effort to be spiteful to you. It might warrant a call about it.

 

[Jetta8300]

Thank you for doing this report - I always love reading about the different experiences! I've not eaten at the ones you have reported on so far, and some of them look delicious!

You're welcome! I'll post everything else tonight after the little one goes to bed!

We really enjoy doing as many new restaurants as we can each trip. We like to experience something new and different each time, including the food, hotels, etc. We had never been to most of these places before. The only repeats were Kona Cafe, Cali Grill, and Jiko. And Jiko and Cali Grill are the only signatures we have been to only once. (Mostly because we were the least impressed with these in the past, and decided to give them another try). But it really keeps things new and fresh! We're always surprised how much we like something we never thought we would.

 

[pumba]

that big platter of breakfast delicious looking..HOLY MOLY..delicious looking is not enough..

 

[Jetta8300]

Dinner at California Grill had some good points, but overall we left hungry after $180. We liked this meal better than Jiko, and the service here was very good. I've read some reviews lately about bad service, but I have to say, the service was one of the best experiences of the trip. We had a gentleman in his 50's or 60's, and he was phenomenal. We were mainly disappointed again in my entree choice, the filet, which was again about 5 bites of food as I said earlier. This place was PACKED. And very very loud. I don't notice restaurants being loud much, it's not something I'm picky about. But this place was freakin loud. It didn't necessarially bother us, but I didn't remember this from our previous visit. There were a lot of large groups of businessmen, some kind of "how to make money" conference going on.




The round rolls were nothing special, but the square (probably focaccia bread) was soft and AMAZING.



We had a 6:00 reservation, so we did not watch the fireworks or anything. I had a glass of wine and my husband had a beer. We each had an appetizer, he had FISH TACO appetizer, with cilantro tortillas and chipotle crema. He liked these. Didn't love them, but liked them. There was a lot of strong mayo flavor and the tortillas fell apart really easily, but it was a good start.



I tried the Sonoma Goat Cheese Ravioli. It tasted as I expected one goat cheese ravioli would after seeing about a billion pictures of the thing. It was definitely tasty, and I do love goat cheese! But I wasn't a huge fan of the broth it was in. I was picturing more of a sauce, and this was soup. but I did really enjoy it!



My husband's entree was delicious. If I would have ordered this, I would have left happy He got the seared Jumbo Scallops with sweet potato puree, pink lady apples, and pomagranite pinot noir syrup... It really was fantastic and a very good portion size for scallops. he enjoyed this very much. It was about 3x the size of the filet. Everything about it was perfect.



My entree was the filet with tomato butter sauce, and heirloom tomato risotto. About a 3.5 oz steak with 2 teaspoons of risotto. Those are small cherry tomatoes on the side, again the entree looks much bigger in pictures than it actually was. The tomato butter sauce was delicious. I would have even been happy with the tiny steak if there was more risotto. Because that too was YUMMY. But very disappointing. My husband was like, "again with the portion size problem???" when it came out.



So we ended up going to Ghiradelli downtown Disney later on and split a sundae after some awesome shopping. The dinner had some good points, but we had been so let down with the entree portion sizes that after this we cancelled both Citricos and Monsieur Paul for the other choices which ended up being very nice meals!

 

[OurLaughingPlace]

That oatmeal looks fantastic! Is it a snack credit? Even though you get all of those toppings? We are staying at PORS this summer - definitely will have this oatmeal in the morning.
Really enjoying your reviews - thanks!

 

[Jetta8300]

After an amazing yet exhausting day at Universal Studios, we made a late reservation at Trattoria Al Forno in place of our previous reservation at Citricos. We were REALLY impressed with this place. First of all it's really nice inside. Very very pretty. All of the food was excellent, and so was the service. We had an extremely friendly and excitable server, and she was just really very good at her job. She did want to talk. a lot. But she seemed very passionate about the restaurant.





This Caprese salad was one of the highlights of the trip. AMAZING house made mozzarella and the right amount of balsamic. Enough for 2 people.



The lighting was low in here, and I didn't get a great pic of my husband's salad. He had the mixed greens salad with almonds, goat cheese, and vinaigrette. He was in love with this. Strange thing was, there wasn't goat cheese on it. It was shaved parmesean. But he liked that better so he didn't say anything. Either way it was fantastic.



Hubby got the lasagna. He also was in love with this. It was perfect. He doesn't like the super strong sausage kind of lasagna (neither do I) and this was more beef/meatball type than heavy sausage. But very cheesy, excellent!



I got the "Polpetta Gigante" a beef and spinach meatball with spinach ricotta cannelloni. YUM. This was very very good. Warning though, do not order this if you don't like strong spinach. The meatball was full of spinach and the cannelloni cheese also had a very strong spinach flavor (which the server did mention ahead of time, she was very descriptive). The sauce was different than the lasagna tomato sauce, the server told me it was a little bit spicy. I hate spice and I didn't think it was spicy at all.



Overall we were extremely impressed and would come back in a heartbeat. We were way too full for dessert unfortunately, everything coming out looked great!

 

[Jetta8300]

That oatmeal looks fantastic! Is it a snack credit? Even though you get all of those toppings? We are staying at PORS this summer - definitely will have this oatmeal in the morning.
Really enjoying your reviews - thanks!

Honestly I'm not sure if it was a snack credit! There were 2 sizes, maybe the smaller one would be. Although the larger one was only $3.99 I believe. And you can pile whatever you want in it! They had bananas, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, different raisins, granola, and like 3 different kinds of nuts. You could pick either oatmeal or yogurt.

 

[Jetta8300]

We spent the next day at Epcot snacking around the Flower and Garden booths. This was a ton of fun. We have been to food and wine before, and this was just as good without the long lines. We loved everything, except the choices in Italy. Those were GROSS. But here's some pics:

Maccaroon from France (we also had the grey goose slushies but sucked those down before I took a pic.)



Beef noodles from Japan. YUMMY



Frushi from Japan. Loved this.



Shrimp and Grits from the "florida" booth. SPICY. but very good!



Ribs from the smokehouse booth. YUM.



Pulled pork from the smokehouse booth. Yum...but too much bun for the meat.



Ravioli and Chicken Parm from the Italy booth. YUCK. The ravioli was nasty. Like chef boyarde on top of old frozen ravioli covered in peas and frozen veggies. The chicken parm was ok, but not great.



We also got what I believe was a Dole Whip from the "pineapple" booth. I've never had a dole whip but the women in front of us said it was a dole whip. The woman working at the booth said "we are trying not to call them that here". Maybe they didn't want ambushed. But they were definitely NOT pineapple soft serve like advertised. We liked them and they looked dairy free. Forgot a pic, oops! We like them that much.