catne
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or the "isn't that cute" oldsters do Free Dining Disney Dining Review, with pics, for 8/31-9/6/2008
Characters: DH & me, age 52, traveling sans kids..."isn't that cute" is what we heard twice in one week from different people about our plan to go to Disneyworld with no children...at "our age"..."that is just so cute!"
Stayed at Pop Century (first time at a Value, we liked it...see resort review at http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1946530.)
I tried to get pictures of everything...some turned out good, others not so much. New to this taking pictures of food, so was quite a bit of trial & error going on.
On to the reviews:
Sunday 8/31/08: lunch at Everything Pop
Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
Snack at Aloha Isle
Sunday, August 31, 2008 Lunch at Everything Pop, Pop Century Resort
Checked into Pop Century at around 11:45 our room was ready, so we took a load of stuff up. Room looked great & we liked the location. Called the desk to ask about our fridge and they said Housekeeping would deliver it soon, so we headed over to Everything Pop for lunch.
We were surprised how large the place was. Every time you went around a corner, there was another set of tables. DH commented how good Disney is at making a humongous place appear smaller here we were with hundreds of tables around us, yet from any place you couldnt really see that many tables...seemed a lot less giant-commercial-enterprise that way. And it was virtually empty. At around 12:30 in the afternoon, we expected some sort of lunch crowd. None. There were one or two people in line at each station. Same when we checked out. Ive never seen a restaurant so empty at lunch time. The help at the counters were fast & fairly efficient (the people in front of us had their order messed up, but frankly Im not sure it was the help that screwed up the people seemed awfully ditzy to me.) Anyway, they had no trouble getting our order straight.
We had looked at the various menus, and decided on the flatbreads. We decided to get different choices & exchange bites. DH chose the reuben, with iced tea and the carrot cake for dessert.
I chose the Mediterranean, with the legendary Pop tie-dye cheesecake for dessert and Pops "signature" drink: frozen coke.
First off, the basic rule of thumb on Disney portion-sizes held true on these: you get a lot of food on Disney meals. These were both large...as you can see in the pictures, these were served on standard-dinner-sized paper plates and they filled the plate. Both flatbreads were very good. The reuben had the right mix of ingredients and was interesting to have those flavors on top of a crispy flatbread instead of the usual rye bread. The Mediterranean was a delicious mix of flavors. Although Im not that much of a green olive person, in a mix of meat & cheese like these I do like the zesty taste the olives add. I really preferred my flatbread to DH's: somehow the Mediterranean toppings made more sense on a flatbread.
Loved the frozen coke havent had one of these in years & years (I normally drink nothing but diet soda, so frozen cokes are usually off-limits but this was a vacation! Brain freeze here I come.)
On to the desserts. DH was too full from his flatbread to try the carrot cake, so it went back to our room fridge for later. I gamely forged ahead to try the famed tie-dye cheesecake. This really is a very beautiful looking dessert. The colors are spectacular (cannot imagine how much dye goes into these things to get the intense colors and probably do not really want to know!) On to the cheesecake: It was fresh. The texture was good. The taste was fine. The color was outstanding. But it is just regular cheesecake. So, it was good. Thats all. Dont know why I expected it to taste better...guess because the colors were so intense, I expected the taste to be richer
?
All in all, it was a good lunch. Id give it an 8 out 10. Good food, good service. A little disappointed in the dessert (although for looks, Id give the tie-dye cheesecake a 10 out of 10.) Would we go back sure. Cost was 2 Counter service credits. Cash cost would have been $29.74...not a bad start to free dining.
Later, dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
Characters: DH & me, age 52, traveling sans kids..."isn't that cute" is what we heard twice in one week from different people about our plan to go to Disneyworld with no children...at "our age"..."that is just so cute!"
Stayed at Pop Century (first time at a Value, we liked it...see resort review at http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1946530.)
I tried to get pictures of everything...some turned out good, others not so much. New to this taking pictures of food, so was quite a bit of trial & error going on.
On to the reviews:
Sunday 8/31/08: lunch at Everything Pop
Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
Snack at Aloha Isle
Sunday, August 31, 2008 Lunch at Everything Pop, Pop Century Resort
Checked into Pop Century at around 11:45 our room was ready, so we took a load of stuff up. Room looked great & we liked the location. Called the desk to ask about our fridge and they said Housekeeping would deliver it soon, so we headed over to Everything Pop for lunch.
We were surprised how large the place was. Every time you went around a corner, there was another set of tables. DH commented how good Disney is at making a humongous place appear smaller here we were with hundreds of tables around us, yet from any place you couldnt really see that many tables...seemed a lot less giant-commercial-enterprise that way. And it was virtually empty. At around 12:30 in the afternoon, we expected some sort of lunch crowd. None. There were one or two people in line at each station. Same when we checked out. Ive never seen a restaurant so empty at lunch time. The help at the counters were fast & fairly efficient (the people in front of us had their order messed up, but frankly Im not sure it was the help that screwed up the people seemed awfully ditzy to me.) Anyway, they had no trouble getting our order straight.
We had looked at the various menus, and decided on the flatbreads. We decided to get different choices & exchange bites. DH chose the reuben, with iced tea and the carrot cake for dessert.
I chose the Mediterranean, with the legendary Pop tie-dye cheesecake for dessert and Pops "signature" drink: frozen coke.
First off, the basic rule of thumb on Disney portion-sizes held true on these: you get a lot of food on Disney meals. These were both large...as you can see in the pictures, these were served on standard-dinner-sized paper plates and they filled the plate. Both flatbreads were very good. The reuben had the right mix of ingredients and was interesting to have those flavors on top of a crispy flatbread instead of the usual rye bread. The Mediterranean was a delicious mix of flavors. Although Im not that much of a green olive person, in a mix of meat & cheese like these I do like the zesty taste the olives add. I really preferred my flatbread to DH's: somehow the Mediterranean toppings made more sense on a flatbread.
Loved the frozen coke havent had one of these in years & years (I normally drink nothing but diet soda, so frozen cokes are usually off-limits but this was a vacation! Brain freeze here I come.)
On to the desserts. DH was too full from his flatbread to try the carrot cake, so it went back to our room fridge for later. I gamely forged ahead to try the famed tie-dye cheesecake. This really is a very beautiful looking dessert. The colors are spectacular (cannot imagine how much dye goes into these things to get the intense colors and probably do not really want to know!) On to the cheesecake: It was fresh. The texture was good. The taste was fine. The color was outstanding. But it is just regular cheesecake. So, it was good. Thats all. Dont know why I expected it to taste better...guess because the colors were so intense, I expected the taste to be richer
?All in all, it was a good lunch. Id give it an 8 out 10. Good food, good service. A little disappointed in the dessert (although for looks, Id give the tie-dye cheesecake a 10 out of 10.) Would we go back sure. Cost was 2 Counter service credits. Cash cost would have been $29.74...not a bad start to free dining.
Later, dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
)
Great pics! Thanks for sharing, can't wait to see more!!!
