My Somewhat Live Dining Reviews with Lots of Pics

[tndisneyfan]

Well I'm heading to WDW again so I thought I would go ahead and get a page set up to do my reviews. Some of you may (or maybe not) remember my dining reviews from May, here's a link if you're interested. May 2012 Reviews

So the cast will be me, DH, and DS(17). DH and I are both in our early 40's. I am a fairly adventurous eater. I'll try about anything. I love steak, ribs, and seafood but don't really care for olives. DH is somewhat picky but will eat more than he used to. He will not eat any fish or seafood and mushrooms are a big no no. He will not eat any mayo or sour cream or anything that he suspects has mayo or sour cream in it. DS(17) is fairly adventurous for his age. He especially like steak, shrimp, and king crab but will try most things. This will be our fourth Food and Wine Festival, we all enjoy sampling the varietes of food.

I will not be doing a totally live review. I hope to take pictures thru the day and do my reviews at night before I go to bed. We arrive on 10/7 and checkout 10-12 so my first reviews won't be until Sunday night.

We aren't on any DDP, everything will be OOP. We have only two ADRs, breakfast at CP and dinner at Teppan Edo. We'll be doing F&WF at least three times, and the rest will be counter service and snacks. We are also heading offsite to Texas de Brazil but I won't be doing a review of that. The picture quality will vary, some will be taken with my DSLR and others will be taken with my iphone.

Well I look forward to starting my reviews (and getting to WDW of course ) I hope some of you come along for the ride.

 

[Jiminy'sGirl]

Sounds like fun! I am here!

 

[MickeyNicki]

Cant wait!

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

I'm in! And I would love if you included Texas de Brazil as well!

 

[tndisneyfan]

Were Heeeeeeere!!!

OK, so we left about 9:30 last night and arrived at 7:30 this morning, Sunday morning. By some miracle our room was ready so we dropped off our luggage in the room and headed to DHS for some Rock n Roller Coaster action. We had decided to do DHS for a couple of hours then head to Epcot for the real action, Food and Wine Festival. So this is a review of some Food and Wine options and a couple of just regular Epcot snacks.

Chocolate Crepe from France

This is just a normal, always available snack. This is DS's favorite snack. It's just a crepe with chocolate sauce. Nothing special. IMHO the crepe is slightly rubbery but DS doesn't seem to mind. I only got one teeny, tine bite. He loves it so much he doesn't like to share.

No one really wanted anything from the France F&W booth so we just moved onto Belgium.

Belgium

Belgian Waffle with Berry Compot and Whipped Cream

DH pretty much ate this by his self. I tried a small bite of it but I didn't care for it. I thought the berry compote was too tart for my taste, but DH loved it. The waffle was hot and fresh and there was plenty of whipped cream.

Steamed Mussels in Beer Broth

Nobody in the family cares for mussels so I was forced to eat this all by myself. It was quite the sacrifice but I managed it . I don't eat mussels often and rarely get good quality mussels when I do, so I don't have much to compare this with. That being said, these mussels were delicous. I was afraid the beer broth would be too beer-ey, but I could just barely taste it in the sauce. The mussels were not chewy or fishy, they had a nice flavor. I thought it was a large serving, there were six mussels and a piece of bread. One of the mussels wasn't open and I was afraid to eat it. I've always heard not to eat a mussel that doesn't open on its own. I don't know if that's true or not, but I decided better safe than sorry so I only ate five. The bread was just a normal baguette type bread. A very good and reasonably priced serving IMHO.

Morocco
Baklava

We all split a baklava and a kefta pocket. This is the baklava of course. It was good, standard baklava. It had a lot of honey flavor (in a good way). DS said it tasted like he was eating ice cream.

Kefta Pocket

This is a family favorite. It kind of reminds me of a hamburger on pita bread. Its a ground beef patty with some seasonings in the meat, with grilled onions and either some kind of slaw or just some cabbage. I thought it was delicous, but DS thought it wasn't as good as last year. I don't think the cabbage/slaw stuff was on there last year and I think the cabbage taste turned him off. DH and I both enjoyed it though.

Singapore
Beef Rendang with Jasmice Rice

DH didn't want to try this so DS and I ate it. He really liked it but I didn't care for it. It had the texture of pot roast. It was sweet but spicy. It was pretty hot too. I consider myself to have a decent tolerence for hot foods and this was too hot for me. I guess I just don't like sweet and spice together. There was also a spice or herb in it that I just didn't care for. As I said DS loved it and ate all but two small bites of it. The rice was fine, just ordinary white rice.

Japan
California Roll

OK people, this is what we're here for. Yep we spent 10 hours on the road for this.....California Roll. My son fell in love with it our first F&WF in 2007. I'm convinced this is the only reason he wants to come back. He won't eat any sushi anywhere else he just likes it at WDW, he says there's is the best. I'm not sure how you know that when you've not tried any other, but if DS is happy we're all happy. So anyways,,,,,he loved it and it was gone it about 10 seconds.

Japan, but not F&WF
Strawberry Kaki Gori

Dh and I love this snack. We share one nearly every time we are at Epcot. For anyone who hasn't tried it, don't be fooled into thinking it's just a snow cone. It's way better than any snow cone. The texture of the ice is different, it's almost like snow. The flavor is very strong too, you could really taste the strawberry flavor. I can't finish one by myself because it's fairly large and is very sweet.

Germany
Roast Bratwurst in a Pretzel Roll

Delicous as always. A nice little brat in a pretzel. The brown mustard really sets everything off. My only complaint would be that the pretzel roll was cool. It would've been better had it been warm.

We didn't snack too much today, it seemed we filled up pretty quick. Everyone was hot and tired from the long drive thru the night so we decided to head back to the room and unpack. We didn't partake in any alcohol today. We won't be drinking much but hopefully I will be able to throw a few pictures in. Lots of items looked good but you can't have everything in one day.

Now onto my nap and then decide what to do for dinner tonight......

 

[Jiminy'sGirl]

Wow..... everything looks so good. I am dying to try those mussels. I can't wait to get there - 25 days!

 

[TigerKat]

I'm in!

 

[tndisneyfan]

So the plan tonight was to have dinner at a resort and then head to Magic Kingdom for a little EMH. We debated around and finally decided on Port Orleans Food Court. I know this has a name but I can't think of it right now. We found this food court a couple of years ago thanks to the Dis. We love it so much we decided to stay at POR last June. We found out we like the food court better than the resort, so we decided we'd get our POR fix by driving over.

So on to the reviews.

Ham Dinner

DH went with the Ham Dinner. He's got this before, and the turkey dinner too. He said the ham is just canned ham cut into slices with a glaze on it. There were three veggies to choose from, mashed taters, corn, and mixed veggies. He went with the mashed taters and mixed veggies because the corn didn't look to suit him. The veggies were fine but not outstanding. It also comes with a piece of that lovely sweet cornbread. Overall a good meal but not outstanding.

Make Your Own Pasta

Cooking the pasta.

My pasta.

DS's pasta.

We've got this before and love it. You choose from marinara, alfredo, or pesto sauce. Then choose fetticini, spaghetti, or penne pasta. Then chicken or shrimp. I'm going to try to think of all the items to choose from. There was peas, artichoke hearts, spinache, olives, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, pruschuitto(I know I spelled that wrong), spinach, onion, red pepper. I know there's more but that's all I can think of. They put your meat and veggies in a pan and cook them for a while, that's the picture on top. Then they add the sauce and pasta a cook it some more. It takes a while to get thru the line because it's cooked fresh, but it's worth it. The line moves fairly quick. The middle is mine. The bottom, DS dumped part of his on a plate, he had a plateful and had just as much or more still in the box. The bread is just OK. It's just a chewy bread toasted with some garlic and butter. We both got the shrimp in our pasta and there were 8-9 shrimp in each, decent sized shrimp too. I'm a big eater and I was hungry, but I only ate half of mine. It's a very large serving and could easily be split.

Overall our meal was really good. It's worth a drive or bus ride over to POR.

Well after we ate no one felt like going to MK. Even though we had napped we were still tired from the ride down and time in the parks. We are thinking about driving over to Arts and Animation tomorrow and trying their food court. Not sure though.

I'll check back in tomorrow.

 

[tndisneyfan]

OK, I just finished this review and hit something on the laptop and lost it. So I'm going to try to do it again.

So on our last trip in May we wanted to check out the new Art of Animation resort but it didn't open until our last day so we didn't get a chance to go over. So today we thought we would drive over and eat lunch there.

I had a big description of what I thought about the resort, but I don't feel liking typing it out again. I'll just say it's a beautiful resort, at least the lobby and food court area is. I thought it would be cheesy but it's not.

We looked around a while and headed to the food court. We walked around looking at the menus. Nothing really caught my eye, so we all went with the make your own burger.

Make Your Own Burger

We all got the burger so I just took pictures of one instead of three different burgers that all look alike. It was just a standard burger, nothing special. I will say it was on a while bun not a multigrain bun like it said it would have. That's a good thing to me, others may prefer the other.

Toppings Options

These are the options for what you can get on the burger. I got cheddar, bacon, and chipolte ranch. There was a line forming and I didn't want to hold everyone up asking question. I don't know if you can only get one cheese, one meat option, and one dressing or if you can get multiple options from each category. I wish I hadn't worried about holding up the line and asked. I don't think my burger had enough of the chipolte ranch on it, I could see it but not taste it.

I will say I was impressed with the fact that they had real silverware.

So after we ate our burgers we went back to see if we could find a dessert. None of us found anything that really called to us. There were cupcakes, but basically just plain cupcakes. I was hoping they had some specialty type cupcake but I didn't see any. There is a sampler with 4 small cupcakes in it but I didn't really want it. I know it had red velvet, chocolate, yellow, and I'm not sure about the fourth one. There were the normal pastries and gelato. Nothing really called to us so we skipped dessert.

Overall the food was fine but nothing special. They did have a few different type options but not really items we care for. The food court is beutiful, especially the lion king area. I will say I was slightly disappointed in the dessert options.

 

[tndisneyfan]

Well I just arrived back at Coronada Springs resort after the MNSSHP. We finally made it until midnight. I'm too killed to do a review tonight so I'll have to get back on it tomorrow. We had planned on eating at Columbia Harbor House before the party started. We got there about 5:40 and it was already closed. We were disappointed. We ended up going to Cosmic Rays so the next reviews will be Cosmic Ray.

 

[tndisneyfan]

So after finding out the CHH was closed we debated between Pecos Bill and Cosmic Rays. The last time we went to Pecos Bill it wasn't very good, so we went with Cosmic Rays.

I have to say, I'm not a big fan of the different stations. DH wanted the half a chicken but you had to get in a certain line to get it and we wanted something else from a different line. DH finally decided not to wait in line by his self and got a burger.

Bacon Cheeseburger

The burger was fine, nothing special. The toppings bar helps make the burger better. He said his fries were cold.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich

DS and I went with the grilled chicken sandwich. It was a pretty tasty sandwich, my only complaint is the bread could have been warmer. I did notice that the buns on all the sandwiches seemed to be white buns and not wheat. I made cheese fries out of my fries so I couldn't tell if they were fresh or not.

Overall a decent meal but we were disappointed about CHH.

 

[tndisneyfan]

During MNSSHP DS and I needed a snack so we headed to Main St Bakerey.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich

DS and I split this, it's way too big to eat by yourself. We get one of these nearly every trip and it was good as uaual. The cookie was softer than normal, which was a good thing because it made it easier to cut. We're not on the DDP but this is a great use of a snack credit for those who are.

 

[tndisneyfan]

We slept in a little today and arrived at Epcot a little later than normal. We killed some time in Future World waiting for F&WF to open.

Canada
Chicken Chipolte Sausage with Sweet Corn Polenta

DS and I shared this and we both enjoyed it. The sausage is a little spicy but it goes well with the sweet corn polenta. The polenta reminded me of cream corn and was slightly sweet.

Crafts Beers
Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss

I went here to get an Abita Purple Haze but they were sold out. I debated on what to get and the lady at the counter suggested the Berry Weiss. It was OK, a little too sweet and berryish for me. Purple Haze to me has a hint of raspberry with the beer, this had a hint of beer with the berry. More like a wine cooler. Not bad but not to my taste.

Terra
Chocolate Cake with Passion Fruit Sorbet and Coconut Foam

I have no idea why DS stopped here, I guess he didn't know it was vegan and the idea of chocolate cake suckered him in. I only had a bite, but the coconut foam was the best part. The chocolate cake was OK, considering it was vegan it was delicous. No one liked the passion fruit sortbet, it was very strong and tart.

German
Apple Streusal

DH and DS shared this and they both liked it. DH said the apples were still a little firm and not cooked down to mush.

We also got another Bratwurst that was just as good as the other day but I didn't want to post another picture of the same thing.

South Africa
Seared Filet of Beef with Smashed Sweet Potatoes and Braai Sauce

I liked the beef but thought the sweet potatoes were a little bland. The beef was a little on the tough side and hard to cut with a plastic knife. The sauce was a little spicy and I didn't really like it with the sweet potatoes.

 

[butiflfeet]

I'm really enjoying all of your pictures!

 

[MickeyNicki]

Interested in your Texas de Brazil meal...we decided to go there on our arrival night instead of Boatwrights. Helps that I have a buy one get one free deal for my birthday and at $50 a person that is a huge saver!

Loved the one in Tampa, hope Orlando is just as great!