Kona Cafe, Narcoosees, Via Napoli and Jiko Reviews (Updated 4/21)

[johnnyblz20]

So just came back from an amazing weekend on the DxDP with DW 31 and DD 7. We have APs and go to Disney every other week at least. This was the first time we decided to try the a dining plan since we already have TiW. While it didn't save us a ton compared to using TiW it was very convenient and we really liked just being able to scan our magic bands after each meal. The only weird thing was how you have to put the tip then give the receipt back to the waiter then get the receipt back and sign it again .

So back to our getaway weekend. We decided on doing a 2 night stay at the CBR Friday and Saturday night for my bday. I wanted to enjoy the signature restaurants that we haven't been to yet and I must say we were VERY impressed.

To start our trip off we arrived early at CBR and was able to check in early at 1030am. We stayed at Trinidad North which is very close to the large pool with the water slides. I had booked Via Napoli for lunch and had dinner reservations at Narcoosees later that night. We went up to Disney Thursday, but just for the day and ate at Kona Cafe. Saturday we ate at Tusker House character breakfast in the AM and had reservations for Jiko for dinner.

I'll start off the reviews with Kona Cafe at the Poly and go from there.

 

[johnnyblz20]

Kona Cafe

This restaurant is located on the floor right off the monorail right before getting to Ohana. It is a very open area. We had a reservation for 12pm and arrived 10min prior. They didn't open until 12 so we waited about 10-15min and was buzzed in. We had a nice table for 4. A nice addition to the restaurant was the display of all their deserts and their sushi bar. It helped me a lot in choosing my dishes.

This is a pic from the front of the restaurant where we were sitting looking back into the kitchen. Even though we were near the front and next to the open lobby it was not very noisy and allowed us not to feel cramped at all.

We thought the menus offered a large assortment of options. There were a lot of things on the menu we wanted to try but we stuck to one app and one entree each.

Sticky Wings-Glazed Chicken Wings with tangy Mustard Drizzle and Toasted Sesame Seeds

I forgot to grab this pic before I had one of the wings, but it was amazing. They had a Teriyaki Glaze over them with a honey mustard drizzle. The sauce was awesome. Very sugary and thick. On the side of them was some small greens and pickled ginger. They were NOT spicy at all and probably the only thing I would change about them, but everyone loved them including DD7. I dipped them in ranch for a little sauce.

Lump Crab Cakes- with Jalapeno-Lime Cream

This was my DW's pick for her app. Again I forgot to snag the pic before she ate one of the crab cakes. You DO get two crab cakes and they were great. I always worry ordering crab cakes or something like a Lobster roll from new places because many of them barely have any actual lumps of crab or big pieces of lobster. These were not the case at all. There were a good amount of large chunks of crab in them and had a nice tang to them. I didn't taste a huge amount of jalapeno in the cream we dipped them in, but it was a nice cool refreshing sauce to use.

Lava Roll- Togarashi-spiced Tempura Shrimp, Bay Scallops, spicy Mayo, and Chives

This along with the Volcano roll looked amazing when we walked by the display, but I went with this one and was NOT disappointed. Didn't know what Togarashi was prior to ordering it, but googled it and it's just a chili powder. Instead of a green seaweed they used some kind of white rice paper to wrap them and had some sesame seeds around it. The shrimp were tempura fried and were not overly greasy like some can be. There were a large amount of small bay scallops in the middle under the large sushi piece that you cannot see and they were sitting in a large pond of spicy mayo. I LOVE spicy and this dish does not disappoint. The mayo was very spicy, but amazing. They brought out soy sauce to dip them in, but I had them bring a side of eel sauce (which I love). This was one of the best shrimp tempura rolls I've had and the portion was huge.

Pan-Asian Noodles- Yakisoba Noodles, Wok-seared with Vegetables and your choice of Chicken or Tofu in a Ginger-Garlic Sauce

DW ordered this as her entree and chose chicken instead of steak or tofu. I of course had a bite or two. The chicken was very good and not chewy at all. The dish had a nice spice to it. The one thing we both agreed on was how it had way too many vegis in it and not enough noodles or meat. She loved the dish but would have preferred more noodles and chicken. She said she'd order it again and just ask for less vegetables.

Garden Salad & Mickey Ravioli

My DD ordered the salad as her app and the mickey ravioli. She enjoyed them and didn't really have any complaints. This dish was nothing special compared to any other kids menu.

DD and I decided to go up to the counter to look at the deserts again before deciding on one to share. She chose the Kona Kone

It was pretty unique from a normal sundae in the fact that it had cotton candy wrapped around it. The shell was a regular waffle cone and it had chocolate and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce poured on top. It was a large portion and something great if you want to split it with a group.

This is one of the better Table service restaurants we've been to. We were planning on doing our normal reservation at The Plaza while at MK, but I decided to try this place and it was a great choice. We liked it much better than the GF Cafe as well. We just felt it had more options to choose from and we loved the atmosphere it had.

 

[vettegirl]

Nice review of Kona. I agree their menu selection is wonderful!!

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[CTJKLAB]

We recently had dinner at Kona (4/4/14) and had an awesome meal. I had a special, grilled salmon over black rice. It was perfect! My husband had the pork chop which was cooked perfectly and very tender. We had the warm apple tart for dessert and the creme brulee, both were out of this world. Worth a stop!!!!

 

[guinness408]

Trying kona in august for the first time and your review has me really excited!

 

[Later_Mater2009]

Love any and every review. I have one more ressie to make and im so torn. Thanks for all your wonderful pics

 

[DLo]

Thanks for the reviews. We like kona too ! Looking forward your via Napoli as I trying to decide if I want to switch our chefs de France to there .

 

[DisneyJo]

Loving your reviews so far and can't wait to read more

 

[lilandvisma]

Makes me wish we would have gone to Konas again for our past visit!! Everything looks YUMMY!!

 

[johnnyblz20]

Via Napoli

We had a 2pm reservation for this restaurant, but because we had a 6pm reservation at Narcoosee's we wanted to get here early. We arrived to a large line outside the place, but luckily because we already had a res I bypassed it and checked in at the desk. We waited maybe 5min and got right in.

The place is very open and noisy. Definitely don't come here expecting a nice quiet romantic meal, but the atmosphere was pretty cool. You will have two people helping you. One person gets your drinks and then you have a regular server for everything else.

Again we had the DxDP and was able to order an app, entree, and dessert each. The weird thing was the lady let my daughter order from adult menu and said it was allowed because we were on the DxDP, but after talking with other restaurants it is NOT allowed and she should have ordered from the kids menu. Either way it did work here and we all enjoyed it very much.

Here are pics of the menu. The top was all the apps then under that was the pizzas they offer. You can order a create your own pizza on the DxDP, but you will have to pay extra for each of the toppings, which are $3.50 each.

Arancini- Fried saffron risotto balls filled with mozzarella and meat ragu
This was the app I and my daughter picked. She didn't like them too much but I loved them. You definitely get the texture of the rice. It has a nice creamy taste to it and the tomato sauce went great with them.

Calamari Fritti - Corn crusted rings served with spicy tomato sauce
My DW ordered this as her app and really enjoyed them. The added pepper flake they put in the tomato sauce added some nice spice. The calamari were cooked very nice except for a few that tasted overally chewy, but I don't think you can go to any regular restaurant and find them cooked perfectly. These were good and would get them again. They just weren't nothing amazing and taste like many other restaurants' calamari.

Pizza Margherita - Tomato and mozzarella kids size pizza
This was my DD's cheese pizza. She enjoyed it very much. It was a little smaller than ours, but still pretty large.

Carciofi Wood Fired Authentic Pizza Napoletana- white pizza, fontina, , artichoke, mozzarella, truffle oil
This was some of the best pizza I've ever had. The size of these individual pizzas are huge too! It had a white garlic type of sauce on it and was cooked perfect. Had some nice burn marks on the crust and was not soggy or real greasy.

Piccante Wood Fired Authentic Pizza Napoletana- tomato sauce, mozzarella, Italian spicy sausage
This was the pizza my DW ordered. Had italian sausage sprinkled all around it. I didn't feel it was very spicy, but was a nice addition. The sausage they used was not very large. Looked like they chopped the pieces of real fine instead of big chunks of meat. Again the crust under it was not greasy or soggy and cooked real nice. You can definitely taste the wood fire grill they used.

Zeppole Di Catarina - Ricotta Cheese Fritters, served with whipped cream, chocolate sauce
These were amazing! They were basically little round doughnuts that you dip in the chocolate sauce. They gave me around 8-10 of them I think.

Coppetta di Gelato - Chocolate or vanilla Italian sundae
My DD ordered this. It was your normal ice cream sundae. She loved it.

This was a miniature ice cream cookie they brought me because it was my birthday.

Ruota di Carretto - Vanilla gelato cookie sandwich
My DW ordered dessert from the kids menu because she was really full. This was basically the regular version of the sandwich I got as a bday dessert. It was two cookies with ice cream in the middle. Nothing special about it, but pretty good and refreshing.

I would definitely recommend eating here. The portions of the food are very large and the pizzas were some of the best I've ever had. The funny thing about this place is all the guy wait staff looked the same. Had dark shorter hair, same type of build and had the same italian accent you'd here if you were in Italy.

 

[chinarider]

Arancini- Fried saffron risotto balls filled with mozzarella and meat ragu
This was the app I and my daughter picked. She didn't like them too much but I loved them. You definitely get the texture of the rice. It has a nice creamy taste to it and the tomato sauce went great with them.

Are there only three of these served with the appetizer? Are they decent size? If paying OOP, are they worth the cost? TIA

 

[johnnyblz20]

Arancini- Fried saffron risotto balls filled with mozzarella and meat ragu This was the app I and my daughter picked. She didn't like them too much but I loved them. You definitely get the texture of the rice. It has a nice creamy taste to it and the tomato sauce went great with them. Are there only three of these served with the appetizer? Are they decent size? If paying OOP, are they worth the cost? TIA

You do only get three. They are pretty good size. If I had to compare them I'd say around the size of a lime. They were pretty filling because it's filled with the rice and it's creamy.

 

[chinarider]

You do only get three. They are pretty good size. If I had to compare them I'd say around the size of a lime. They were pretty filling because it's filled with the rice and it's creamy.

Thanks, that does sound pretty large. My DD and I will be there next month and was thinking of sharing those , a pizza (ind) and dessert. We are not on the DP this trip so, it makes me look at planning things out differently.

 

[butiflfeet]

Great reviews so far! I can't wait for more!

 

[pixie08]

Via Napoli looked great. We are trying it for the first time in 2 weeks! Thanks for the review.

 

[Kimmers127]

You do only get three. They are pretty good size. If I had to compare them I'd say around the size of a lime. They were pretty filling because it's filled with the rice and it's creamy.

Is there meat in these?

 

[johnnyblz20]

Is there meat in these?

There's some in the tomato sauce but not inside the balls.

 

[Kimmers127]

There's some in the tomato sauce but not inside the balls.

Perfect, that's exactly what I was hoping! Thanks.