Day 8: Thursday, October 18th, 2007:
We were hot and we were hungry, so I took them to Flame Tree BBQ for lunch after I whined that I don't want to go to Pizzafari. Ok, I probably should have just bitten the bullet, but I don't like it there much. Yak and Yeti wasn't open or I would have tried it. Sure, I ate at Flame Tree already a few days earlier, but I really like Flame Tree more now because of the view:
I didn't take any photos of the food, but I had the BBQ pork sandwich and they had chicken. Sadly, I think the food quality at Flame Tree isn't what it used to be. I used to prefer Tusker House, and I'm willing to give its new format a try sometime.
I didn't go into much detail with Flame Tree, but it's become pretty average over the years. I liked it much better a few years ago.
So I'll skip to the dinner portion of the program. I have my food porn, complete with at least one blurry shot!
Again, we repeated the same strategy to get to Wilderness Lodge as we had for Kona Cafe. We bussed over to the Magic Kingdom, then took the boat to the resort. We noticed a lot of guests were raring to go for the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party, and a poor pirate left his saber onboard the vessel. So far, on this trip, I took a lot of boat rides. I don't ride the boats much, but I managed to get on the MK ferryboat, the Friendship boat back from the Studios twice, and two different MK resort boats. Not too shabby!
After checking in at Artist Point for our ADR, we were seated within about 5 to 10 minutes. I ordered a Northern Exposure, a sort of mudslide drink, but I didn't take a photo of it. It was on the drink menu at the restaurant, but not at the Territory Lounge next door. I didn't quite understand why they did that. Do they think the booze hounds in the bar don't want frothy drink goodness?
Anyway, we all decided to go for the fixed price menu, which included a couple choices for starters, entrees and desserts. We all started with the soup:
Smoky Portobello Soup with Shiitakes and Chive Oil
Don't look into the Eye of Mara!
Sorry. These bowls look like the soup is looking at me, and I just couldn't resist the
Disneyland reference.
I love this soup. This ain't your ordinary mushroom soup! This is soup heaven, and the consensus was that this soup rocked our socks.
I wish my entree wasn't blurry, but it was the beef filet. However, we all didn't care for some salad-y thing they were going to serve with it, so we asked if we could substitute the sweet potato-hazelnut au gratin. And they were very accommodating!
Blurry beef...it's what's for dinner!
I order my steak medium rare. My sister likes hers medium. However, Artist Point cooks their steak under what most places do, which isn't a bad thing. If you're the type that can't get your rare steak still moo'ing, Artist Point will make sure it's perfect for you. I thought my sister's medium was pretty darn inviting, but even though my steak was rarer than I order, it was still excellent. And the sweet potatoes? Since they were doctored up, I eat them. And they were like dessert! The crunchy texture of the streussel-like nutty topping was a good compliment to the sweet potato.
And we still had room for dessert!
Coffee Two Ways: Mochaccino Bread Pudding and Vanilla Latte Creme Brulee
Coffee brings out the flavor of chocolate, and this was no exception! I felt that there was more chocolate-y goodness going on than what I expected! Did I mind? Are you crazy? Of course not! Woot for chocolate!
I would totally order that again. I'd like the entire dinner again. I never had a bad meal at Artist Point. No wonder it's still on my top choices. There was, however, a bit of bad news during dinner. Sharon's daughter called, because someone tried to break into her house while she was gone. Her daughter had been in the house only a couple hours earlier. So Sharon's daughter was surprised to get a phone call from the home security company. The alarm scared away whoever broke in, and we were thankful the daughter wasn't at the house when it happened.
So Sharon was on the phone throughout dessert, finding out about the break in, and her damaged door. Mom pulled out her phone to check how Dad was. So if you were at Artist Point that night and saw what appeared to be two rude women on their cell phones at the table, both were dealing with emergencies of sorts. Dad was ok and Sharon was making arrangements to get her door replaced.
After that drama, we all decided to take it easy and head back to the Beach Club Villas.
While I liked what I ordered, I now have other dishes I know I'd want to try. Well, until this menu changes. 
In fact, back when I cohosted some Epcot events for the RADP and MouseFest meets, I hosted a Beverly meet that the MouseFest pocket guide described as a "test of endurance and carbonation." (Thank TDC_Nala for the great ad copy!) 
And sissy drinks get extra bonus points. 
