Never eat more than you can lift Miss Piggy on DDP 8/31-9/6/2008*UPDATED 9/21*

[catne]

Wednesday, Breakfast
O.K. No early EMH for us today (actually, I don’t think there even was an early EMH on Wednesday, 9/3. That took some getting used to, the shorter park hours, and less EMH than busier times of the year.) Anyway, once again it was home-brewed coffee and delightful pastries for breakfast in the hotel room. Tuesday, we had stopped at Kringla Bakery in Norway/Epcot for 2 of their often touted pastries: the famous school bread and the almond-covered sweet pretzel. Here are these beauties:

Comments…well, first of all, both of these are definitely substantial pastries. The school bread is in a BK-whopper sized to-go box, and as you can see, it fills it completely. The bread was about 4” tall, at least. Now, I had read many descriptions of this item, so I knew that even though it looks like a sweet roll, that it was actually bread, with a pudding-like filling and loads of coconut on top. So I got what I expected, and being a coconut & pudding devotee, I really enjoyed the school bread. DH, not so much. I don’t know, maybe he was really expecting more of a sweet roll instead of the bread (although I had told him it was bread, he doesn’t spend hours reading Disboards so I guess he was not properly indoctrinated .)

He also thought there was too much coconut (AS IF! Obviously he does not understand coconut. Guess he didn't get that memo either. ) Well, that’s o.k. Just meant I didn’t have to share more than a bite of the school bread with him.

So, on to the sweet pretzel. This was huge, as you can see from the photo, the plate is nearly twice as long as the bread’s to-go container, so you can see it’s very large. The pretzel itself was probably between 1 & 2” tall, then topped with vanilla frosting/glaze and that absolutely covered with thin sliced almonds. We both loved the pretzel. Kudos to the really creative baker-person who came up with this delectable breakfast (or snack!) food concept. We’re used to the usual large chewy pretzels with chunky salt; have even had the variety with cinnamon/apple filling over at DHS. But this idea of coating a plain pretzel with a thick sugary glaze & smothering that with almonds: well, this made for an extremely satisfying breakfast. And have to mention my ziplock bags again-was really glad I had them for the pretzel, because when we ordered it to go yesterday, they put it on the oversized plate you see in the picture, put another of those plates on top and popped it into a paper bag. Kept it from getting crushed on the way back to the hotel, but no way would it have stayed fresh in a paper bag. Anyway, I liked both of these pastries very much, but DH really preferred the sweet pretzel. However, they were both so large, and so sweet, we actually only ate ½ of them for breakfast that day, and popped the rest back in the bags & into the fridge for later.

Breakfast cost: 2 snack credits
Actual cash cost would have been: $6.80


Wednesday lunch, Flame Tree BBQ, Animal Kingdom
Well, we originally planned to go to Typhoon Lagoon Water Park for the day, with Animal Kingdom for the evening. However, watching the morning news, the forecast for today was exceptionally rotten (they’d been forecasting hot and 30% chance of rain every day, but so far it had only spit at us for about 2 minutes once, so we figured we’d been beating the odds on the horrible September storms. But Wednesday, the weather guys were extra-seriously doom & gloom, and the chance of rain was supposed to be like 80%. Since the sky outside our window was black with roiling clouds we made the mistake of believing the weather guys this time, and we changed our plans. We had planned to go to AK Wednesday evening for “late” EMH hours (late meant open until 8:00 P.M, LOL…in May, late at AK was 10:00!) Since we weren’t going to the water park we decided to go ahead and try AK this morning, and use Wednesday evening to go visit the Adventurer’s Club for a last hurrah. So off we went…and had a great, very laid back, morning. Like even though we got there a good 20 minutes after rope-drop, it was walk-on Expedition Everest 3 times in a row. Did I mention we LOVE these reduced crowds!

Anyway, didn’t really plan to do much besides our two Animal Kingdom favorites EE and Lion King Festival (we did most everything else in May) so after riding EE, we just meandered around, people-watching, taking in the scenery and stopping to look at animals & birds in the various path-side areas. Since it was morning, there was a lot of activity among the animals. Shortly before it was time to go see Lion King, it was getting very hot & sticky (the menacing clouds had of course blown away without a drop of rain, and the sun was now beating down) We stopped by the Anandapur Tea cart in Asia for an iced coffee (DH) and a frozen mocha for me. I wish it had actually been a frozen mocha: I paid $4.50 for what was basically a glass of chocolate milk. Although the machine appeared to be stirring up frozen slushy beverage, what went into my cup was not the least bit frozen. Oh well, I was extremely thirsty so I took it anyway. But just a word of warning…if you’re really wanting a frozen beverage, the Anandapur Tea Cart on a hot morning is not the place to get it. Live and learn.

After Lion King, it was definitely lunch time. Our original plan had been to eat lunch at a new place (counter service at the water park.) But obviously we weren’t going to go to the water park just for lunch, now, LOL. So we decided to eat in AK. Now we ate at Pizzafari in May 2007, and Flametree BBQ in May 2008. Pizzafari was good, but we loved Flametree so we decided to go back there. DH ordered the same thing we had in May (1/2 slab St Louis ribs) but I decided that I’d at least try a different entrée this time, so I went for the smoked ½ chicken.

As you can see in the picture, these entrees each come with a good-sized cornbread muffin, and a cup of baked beans. They also come with drinks (we both had soda, don’t know why it’s not in the picture? Maybe DH was carrying them to the table while I was busy snapping pics.) We both chose the Minute Maid frozen lemonade cups for dessert (there are other dessert choices, but we love the frozen lemonade. Since it’s frozen fairly solid, with a lid, you can take it with you around the park, or can sit and eat it at a leisurely pace. Ultra refreshing on a hot day -tart & not too sweet.)

In May, we sat at a table right next to the beautiful pond right behind the Flametree building…I know people complain about the birds & squirrels begging in that area, but they didn’t bother us in May (probably because the toddlers two tables down were feeding virtually their whole meal to the birds. They had the flock around their table.) We just found it so scenic and tranquil back there. Disney does theming like this so well. I know it’s all fake, but lordy, it’s a very, very good fake, especially for those of us who will probably never get the chance to see the real thing. So we were heading back that way this time, too. But somehow, trying to negotiate around a family with 2 strollers who basically blocked a good portion of the path while they argued about where to eat, we took a wrong fork in the path, missed the turn for the little pond area, and ended up going further down. Where we discovered a wonderful covered picnic pavilion that was on the shores of the bigger section of the Animal Kingdom’s Discovery River...looks like a lake at the place. I didn’t even realize these tables were down there…and here’s the view from our table:

Isn’t that just picture-perfect! Even though it was now hotter than blazes (pushing 90 degrees with high humidity) it was very comfortable here. Completely covered, so all shaded, and a wonderful breeze coming off the water. We really lingered over lunch!

Oh, yeah, back to the lunch. Well, first off, DH did not care so much for the ribs this time. Although they were not totally dried out, they were too dry for him so he did have to add extra BBQ sauce. He skipped the beans this time, said he wasn’t sure stomach could handle them at this point in the vacation (did eat them in May, said they were O.K. then.) He ate some of his corn muffin, but just wasn’t all that hungry. So overall, he wasn’t all that happy with the meal this time. He did eat most of his frozen lemonade, and enjoyed that thoroughly. I had to disagree on the meal, though…the chicken I had was outstanding. Moist and good smoky flavor, with just a tiny glaze of sauce (the way I like it…don’t care for slathered-on-BBQ-sauce.) I never eat the beans, so no issue there. Love, love, love these corn muffins…they’re a moist, sweeter recipe of cornbread…they’re almost dessert-quality sweet. Which is the way I like them! I ate most of my chicken, and all of my muffin. Anyway, as I said, the scenery & the shady breeze was so nice, we lingered over our frozen lemonades. Eventually, though, we finished and headed out of the park. But we’ll remember this spot for future lunches in the AK.

So, Flametree BBQ for lunch: I’d give it a 10 out of 10. Good service, good food and spectacularly lovely place to eat a counter service. DH, probably a 7 out of 10 (but I have to say…he actually had the beginnings of what would be a 24 hour stomach virus, which we didn’t realize until later that night…so that may have been influencing his opinions on the food that day.) Anyway, he did say he’d love to go back and get the chicken next time, because he’d had a bite of mine and thought it was much better than his ribs

Cost for Lunch: 2 counter service
Actual Cash Cost would have been: $30.08

 

[catne]

Ok girls go ahead and laugh at me all you want, cuz I am laughing too! For my next trick I am going to take him to Ted Montana's grill and order him a Bison burger instead of a beef burger and see if he notices

poor guy is gonna go vegetarian on you if you keep sneaking in mystery meats like that!

Seriously, though...what he doesn't know can't possibly hurt him, right

 

[catne]

Dinner at Boma, 9/3/2008

Alright, so we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge at little early to wander around, and figured we’d check in and go get a drink at Victoria Falls. We got there about 30 minutes early, and explored the inside of the Lodge. Wow, very impressive lobby. Awesome attention to detail, and liked the display cases all over with authentic artifacts & such. Well, we went to check in, were told it would probably be 20 minutes at least, so we took our pager-thingy and started to head for the bar. We’d just figured out how to get to the bar, when our pager went off…all of about 2 minutes after we checked in, so we figured this was a good sign.

We were seated; the place was no more than 1/2 full. Our server Brahim, took our drink order…you can order adult beverages at the tables in Boma! Yippee. I ordered the Sunken Treasure, described as Malibu Rum, Midori, orange juice, pineapple juice and Sprite with a splash of BOLS Blue Curacao. It tasted as good as it looked. Wasn’t frozen slushy drink, but nice and fruity.

and DH had the Safari Amber (on tap there.)

Boma décor is nice. The tables are jammed in pretty tight, but it wasn't busy or crowded when we were seated. Brahim told us to help ourselves at the buffet, and described the various stations to us. He made a point of telling us we could start wherever we wished, there was no “order” you had to go in. Well, as we walked up to the buffet, we got our first inkling that things were not quite right at Boma…first off, no matter what the waiters were telling people, there was a “set order”, at least there was according to the people who were in line. Apparently, the herd mentality had set in, started by a group who decided the proper way to do the buffet was to start at the far right with as many plates as they could juggle, and work their way from right to left through everything but the desserts. As if this was a once-through the line cafeteria so you had to get everything in one trip! O.K., the meats and such were on the far right, then the hot veggies & such, and then the cold salads & fruits basically in the middle. So we were heading towards the cold fruits & salads, vaguely in the middle of the buffet, because we prefer to start our meals with the salads & such. Well, when we tried to step up to an empty space of about two feet in front of the cold salads, we were immediately chastised by some people standing at the buffet dishing up hot veggies that “the line starts way back there,” and they pointed way over to the right at the beginning of the hot meats area.

A woman just in front of me said “my waiter said there is no set line, start wherever I want. Well I want salad so I’m going to get it.” We said “our waiter told us the same thing.” So we figured strength in numbers, and went ahead and got our salads (there was a break in the supposed line, after all. And the line-bossers weren't even up to the salads yet.) We got our salads, and by then, there was now a break in the line by the soups, so we grabbed a couple of bowls of soup too, and headed back to our table. That was a tricky passage, because by now there seemed to be an awful lot of traffic with people trying to come & go every-which direction. And so many children on the loose, it looked like free-play-time at a day care. Here’s my first plate & soup:

don’t know where to start on Boma’s food. I know a lot of people just adore the food here. So far, we’ve loved nearly every bit of food we’ve tried at Disney restaurants…or at least liked most of it, and we’ve had good dining experience everywhere. Sorry to say, at Boma…not so much. I really, really wanted to like the food here. But by & large, it was just strange combinations that “didn’t work” for me, or dishes spiced in such radically different ways I just could not enjoy them. As I've mentioned, I'm fairly wimpy on "hot" spicy foods...DH, on the other hand, likes hot-spicy foods. But at Boma, they seem to have two quantities for spice on the recipes: way too much hot stuff, or no seasonings at tall (totally bland.) Starting with this plate: the chicken corn soup was very colorful, lovely to look at. But pretty blah tasting -.didn’t taste bad, just but not something I wanted to waste more than a taste on. Was like a soup made out of canned corn with little or no additional seasoning. There were some nice chunks of meat in it, but they were equally tasteless. DH felt the same way. Moving around my plate: the pineapple was fresh, and good. The Mediterranean couscous was good, liked the veggies in it. I honestly do not remember what the brown stuff was or how it tasted. Next on the plate was the kool slaai (cole slaw.) Did not care much for the dressing on it…again, very bland. I like both usual variations of slaw dressing-either the sweet or the vinegary type. This was like a runny white sauce, no flavor. Up by the soup bowl, mostly tucked under the edge was one of the few things I liked of the cold dishes: this was a watermelon/tomato salad. There was some kind of light vinegar & oil style dressing on it…it actually was quite tasty.

DH’s first plate, and soup:

Top right, that’s coconut curry soup. Now ordinarily, DH likes spicy hot food. This was too much. Two small bites were enough for him, one teeny taste convinced me no more. He also had the couscous (top of plate) and liked it. Agreed with me about the nothing-sauce on the slaw. The pasta salad was very yellow with what appeared to be either cheese or mustard. Don’t know what was actually making it yellow, but was not cheese or mustard because again this was one of the blah-bland foods. Looked good, no taste. The lettuce salad was just lettuce salad, it was o.k. but nothing special. He also enjoyed the marinated tomatoes and watermelon salad. So that was it for our first round.

By now, it was getting crazy busy in the place. I cannot believe the size of some of the family/groups they had seated while we were getting & eating our salads—there had to be at least 3 different 12-15 people groups at giant tables. Plus all the usual 4, 6, or 8 groups. You had to walk way out of your way to find a path through. Not pleasant at all. And the noise level was of course growing by the minute.

Anyway, this time we headed toward the meats and hot dishes. There was a very distinct line there now…about 20 people ahead of us. That would have been o.k., but what kept happening was major line jumping. A mom would be in line, and pretty soon she’d be joined by a kid, then another kid, then dad would walk by & drop off another kid. You get the picture. Took us at least 10 minutes to get to the beginning of the meats, and then we kept getting held up by the line jumpers. The woman immediately in front of me looked like she was going to deck the next kid taking cuts…I would have claimed I didn’t see a thing if she did! Anyway, DH & I were both kind of leery of the foods by now, so we decided to load two plates with everything we might consider a taste of…so here’s plate one:

That’s Potatoes with Afritude at the top. Can you say “way too hot” I did not believe DH when he said I wouldn’t like them at all…teeniest bite so spicy hot it burned the end of my tongue. Literally. Not temperature hot, spicy hot. Let’s just say if was a burning Afritude. Should have listened to DH. Next was the ribs. Now we were looking forward to these, they were fabulous looking ribs…appeared to have a BBQ glaze on them, and when we forked them onto the plate, you could tell they were juicy & meaty. So bit in with gusto…wrong! Almost spit it out…that wasn’t BBQ sauce. It was cinnamon…think sauce made with Red hots…again, so much cinnamon hot spicy it about burned the mouth. Dang it. Next was the corn bread…was expecting good corn bread, like on the other Disney buffets, or like the cornbread muffins at Flametree. NOT! Plain tasting (not sweet) and very dried out. Next was the prime rib. This was good. But like the cornbread, it was not as good as prime rib we’ve had at other Disney buffets like Cape May, Hollywood & Vine and Tusker House. It was drier, and very little seasoning. (See the pattern here…everything seemed this way…there was no happy medium on spices & seasoning. Either way too much, or way too little with few exceptions. The last thing on the plate…don’t actually know what it was called but looks like an egg casserole with cheese on the top. This was o.k, it actually did taste like egg casserole but don’t know what all was in it. Looked like sausage on the bottom, but didn’t taste like sausage.

On to the other plate:

O.k., we start with another severe disappointment, because it looked and sounded delicious: the almond-encrusted salmon. Lordy, we’re both big salmon fans and up until this encounter have never met a salmon dish we didn’t love. This one…ewwww! Don’t know what exactly they used to make the “encrusting” sauce, but the main ingredient had to be pepper…it was hotter than hades. Didn’t realize salmon could be so easily ruined. Below the salmon was coconut rice. Had to get this, because I love coconut and I love rice. In keeping with the overly-seasoned everything, I really expected a strong coconut flavor here. Wasn’t. It was a very mild flavor (not quite bland.) Next to that was the Marrakesh couscous…think this was the same as what we’d had at Tangierine Café in Epcot the other day. It was good. The final thing on that plate – the white stuff with the tomatoes on the top left – was pap and tomato relish. Now, I knew pap was supposed to be bland! I got this mostly out of curiosity because I’m an avid reader and have seen reference to “pap” in so much literature over the years I just couldn’t turn down a chance to see what it really tastes like. Well, all the usage of “pap” to refer to extremely bland foods were correct. It tastes like nothing. Literally, nothing. No.taste.at. all, LOL. However, the tomato relish with it was actually quite tasty, so as a combination with the pap, it was good. So, to sum up the hot dishes. We tried it all, and had our tongues burned repeatedly by overly spicy hot foods. We ate the prime rib, the couscous, the rice and the pap/tomato relish. Lots of food left on the plates, even though we were taking small helpings.

At this point, the lines near the rest of the hot food offerings were ridiculously long…beginning to look like TSM or Soarin’ snake-lines! They should have been putting up "stand by wait times" and issuing fastpasses for the various food areas Anyway, we’d managed to get fairly filled, and were totally tired of waiting in line for foods that looked great but disappointed. So we decided to skip the rest of the hot offerings and head for the desserts.

The line for the desserts was again about 20 people in front of us. However, it was a smaller area, so the people were packed in a little tighter than the meat line had been. It was even more obvious when people tried to do the kids-joining-the-family line-jumping bit. It soon became apparent that a number of the people in line ahead of us were from some of the very large groups, and they were just holding places for their entire table. There were several teens that were continuously “joined” by siblings, cousins, and others who were just "getting a cookie for little Joey", etc. I said something to the woman in front of me about is this a line or not, and I could not believe how crowded this place was. After about the 3rd time of kids cutting, she & I started telling these kids to get in line & wait their turn...or there was no way we'd ever get a dessert. I sure hope that it's not always that crazy busy & noisy in there.

So, after at least 15 minutes of waiting & such, we got to the dessert buffet and again decided we better just get a bite of anything we might like, cuz there'd be no stand in line another quarter hour to try anything we missed!

So, here’s the 1st dessert plate:

Top of the plate is cherry crisp/cobbler. Good, but nothing spectacular. Pretty average. Next are the two little cheesecake-tartlets, one with blueberries & one with strawberry. The cheesecake was tasty, fruit was fresh but the flaky crusts was blah. Looked great, tasted like nothing. Just to the right/below the strawberry tart is coconut flan. Now flan is a fairly plain dessert, but I expected the coconut to add some flavor. It didn’t…added texture but still a very bland dessert. Next was the banana bread pudding-a little with vanilla sauce, and a larger serving with chocolate sauce. I really liked both of these, but especially liked it with the chocolate sauce. Then, to the left of the bread pudding is the famed zebra dome. These were very good, but very sweet and rich. I don’t think I could eat more than one of these (and after the bread pudding, I actually only ate about ½ of this one.) Above the zebra dome is tiramisu. This was again a fairly bland version of this dessert, tasted mostly like cool whip with a bit of cocoa, and a bit of coconut…nowhere close to the taste of the tiramisu we had at Mama Melrose.
Here’s DH’s dessert plate:

His top of the plate is the bread pudding, also tried some with the vanilla and some with the chocolate. He vastly preferred the vanilla sauce (said he’s missing the proper chromosomes for true chocolate adoration.) Being an avid blueberry guy, he liked the cheesecake bite & berries, but agreed the tartlet crust was blah. He was not all that impressed by the zebra dome. The item to the left of the zebra dome is a pineapple mousse…this was outstanding. Remember absolutely nothing about that little square white thing with what looks like cinnamon on it. Whatever it was it didn’t impress anything on our memory! The pyramid thing was a pumpkin cake-it was moist and spicy; we liked it except for that white stuff. Which looks like a nice little dollop of cream or glaze, but was actually some kind of hard-as-a-rock candy topping. Couldn’t even break it with a fork, had to like peel it off the top before we could fork into this cake. Odd. But as I said, the cake itself was tasty.

So, of the dessert, we liked the bread pudding with both toppings, the zebra domes, the berry cheesecake tarts (without the tart shell), the pineapple mousse and the pumpkin cake. (there were also several kinds of plain old American cookies, but we skipped those in favor of the fancier stuff.)

Anyway, Summing it up…the majority of the interesting sounding foods we tried were startingly over-spiced with very strong flavors, or were totally bland. We like a lot of variety and ordinarily welcome the opportunity for new tastes & flavors…these combinations just did not do it for us. We did not try any of the regular “American” foods like the mac & cheese, chicken tenders and such…maybe they were good. However, would have had to wait 10-15 minutes to go back and try them, so we didn’t. The desserts were mostly good, but I would not return just for the desserts. The décor is nice, the service was good. The set up of the buffets encourages traffic messes, since people tend to try to form lines going the entire length instead of following waiter’s directions. If they put up small barricade at the end of each section so it appeared they were separate sections people might be more apt to follow the suggestion that they go in stages. All in all, the foods we tried were not worth the effort and aggravation to get them.

Rating for Boma: 5 out of 10. And that’s mostly for the alcoholic beverage and the desserts.
Would we go back…no way.

Cost: 2 Table service
Actual Cash cost would have been $57.48
Total DDP savings for the day $94.36
Adult Beverages & tips OOP came to $27.25.

Total FREE DDP savings to date for trip: $437.46 in four days

 

[Evan&Kimberly]

I ate there(Boma) for the first time Sept 8th and boy did I think it was going to be great! NOT,maybe I just caught them on a BAD Night because the food was bland and sweet,really did not have much spice, and the pork had a wild taste, a strong taste sometimes pork can taste like that,but hey everyone can have a bad night will I go Back No,but I am going to try Tusker House next Year I bounced back, and for the Tangierine Cafe I found the Swarma platters to be Okay I think that it would have been better if it was piping hot,my food was closer on the side of being luke warm really closer to cold but it was my first day in WDW and I was not going to let anything upset me,so I ate it and made the best of it, and it held me over to dinner,no complaints,would I pay OOP for this meal NO,My total came to over 18.00 dollars for lunch thanks FREE DINNING!!! your reviews!

 

[JerseyJanice]

First of all, let me say that I am loving your reviews! The photos are great, and your descriptions are both fun and informative to read. We were at Pop the week before you for the Free Dining plan and loved it! Both the resort and the restaurants were wonderful for us.

We went to Boma back in 2002. After seeing it touted so much on the boards, I was really looking forward to our meal. What a disappointment! One of the worst meals we ever had at WDW, and we normally love their buffets. I think we definitely hit on an off-night because a lot of the items we tried were ice cold and dried out as if they’d been sitting there a long time. The fat on the prime rib was snow-white and hard--that’s how cold it was. Still, I didn’t care for the spices they used. To me, everything was cloyingly sweet or totally bland. I didn’t find anything hot and spicy, and I like incendiary foods.

It’s still raved about here, so I was tempted to give it another try this past trip, but after reading your review, I am very glad I did not.

Keep the reviews coming! I’m enjoying them immensely.

 

[Joshua_me]

Let me first just say that we are thoroughly enjoying your reviews !

You have a great, relaxed and very humorous writing style that makes reading them a pleasure.

With all the DIS I read, I'm amazed I've never even heard of 'school bread' in 'Norway'. It looks DElish. Gotta put that one the list of 'must try's'.

We have ADR's for The Wave in Dec. for Xmas eve. Can't wait !

Thanks for taking the time to write such a great review of your trip.

 

[catne]

wow, thanks for the compliments on the reviews, folks...I enjoyed writing them and glad someone out there is enjoying reading them. Nice to hear that there are a few others out there that weren't so impressed with Boma. You know, it wasn't just that the spicy-hot foods were too hot, it was the spices used to make them that hot. Even I can take a little bit of hot-hot but when that heat is produced by massive quantities of cinnamon...yuck. Oh well, now we can say been there,done that.

Still have two more days to write up, have good notes written at the time so I'm not going to leave much out. But I had to take a break from writing for a couple of days because I have been a bit "under the weather" with massive hay fever the last 10 days...just got to the point I had no more energy. Usually doesn't get me this bad, so I guess it's been a good year for the allergen-producing plants. Starting to feel a little more rested today.

Hope to get finished up this weekend with reviews for Thursday 9/4 (Pop foodcourt for lunch & Kona Cafe for dinner) and Friday (breakfast pastries from Everything Pop, lunch at Pizza Planet at DHS and Cape May Cafe at Beach Club for dinner.)

 

[sandybobandy]

Great job!!!

 

[frdeb1999]

Love your review and pics!! Looking forward to the rest!!

 

[catne]

Breakfast…remains of the day

Thursday did not start out very well. Over night Wednesday, DH had stomach problems…don’t think it was specifically related to Boma. He really had not eaten all that much at Boma, because he did have an inkling of the rumbly-tumbly as early as Tuesday so his appetite had been off. And if it had been the food there, I'm sure I would have shared his discomfort - I tend to have a more sensitive tummy. Disappointed from Boma, yes; actual discomfort, no.

Anyway, after only a few hours of sleep, he was very short on get-up-&-go for theme-parking, so he was going to sleep in for awhile. We had not picked up any new pastries on Wednesday, but I still had ½ my school bread from Wednesday (which meant I had a normal-size pastry left, LOL), as well as part of some other desserts we hadn’t finished so there was plenty for my in-room breakfast. The school bread was still good. After my “leftovers” for breakfast I just lazed around the room, doing the barista-bit with my Senseo coffee maker. I spent a couple of hours filling in details on my various trip & dining notes, and watched the weather channel (they continued to hyper-talk hurricanes, but so far no storm problems in Orlando that week. The strangest thing about this trip & the weather was getting back to Nebraska and having the weather guys barely mention tropical storms & hurricanes after listening non-stop to doom & gloom weather forecasts all week in Florida.)

Lunch-Burger & Bland
Anyway, DH slept in most of the morning, but by 11:00 he was up, feeling better (he was hungry) but he was also looking for something fairly bland for lunch. And he didn't want to immediately leave the resort to eat at a park...wanted to make sure stomach problems were really on the mend! I seconded that notion, and remembered reading a review some time back that mentioned a big bowl of chicken soup at our resort food court - Everything Pop - so we headed over to see about an early lunch.

We got over to Everything Pop shortly after 11:00 and found out that about ½ of the counters were still serving breakfast, which DH wasn’t interested in. The station which offers Chicken soup was the area which has oriental foods, and it was just getting ready to start the switch from breakfast foods to lunch. They told DH it would be at least 20 minutes before soup was available, so he just sat with me while I ate. After looking at the menus, I decided I was hungry now, and one of the things available at 11:10 was the burgers & fries, so I ordered a double cheeseburger and fries. For dessert, I chose the double fudge cake, and had one of those lovely frozen cokes to drink.

The burger was fresh & juicy, and the bun was good. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the “wheat” buns but frankly other than the darker color it tasted like a classic burger bun (and that’s what Disney does best…they’re using something that LOOKS incredibly healthy, but it just looks that way, LOL.) Anyway, healthy or not, I enjoyed the burger. The fries were good: they’re the kind I prefer with little bits of peel left on. Reminded me of “good old days” fries like you used to get at greasy little cafes & diners…except these were not near as greasy, and they needed salt (guess that’s the Disney nod towards healthy fries, not frying in lard, and no salt!) The frozen coke was instant brain-freeze, naturally. Doesn’t make any difference I know not to slurp too fast, do it anyway, every time. The fudge cake was very fresh, and incredibly rich tasting. Those pre-packaged desserts so often get slammed in dining reviews...I guess we have incredibly good luck with them, because we've never had a stale one and they've always tasted as good as they look. I really enjoy the Disney desserts, even the packaged ones have the awesome Disney attention to detail (that little striped white chocolate/dark chocolate curl on top is so cute.) All in all, would give the double cheeseburger/fries combo an 8 out of 10…it was tasty, cooked properly, and you just can't beat how handy it is to be able to have food choices at your resort.

Once the Oriental section made the switch over, DH went to get a bowl of the chicken soup. Even though they’d just opened for lunch, the soup was hot. Sorry, no pictures of the soup (I forgot to get the camera back out.) It’s called “big bowl of chicken soup” on the menu, and it really is quite large - if you were serving it at home, you'd call this a serving bowl, and the contents would probably fill 2 normal-sized soup bowls. This was not canned-chicken soup...there was a lot of good-sized chicken chunks in the soup. DH only ate about ½ of it. In the interest of his "Bland" lunch theme, he got the plainest looking dessert available...a yogurt parfait with strawberries for dessert. But the soup filled him up so much, he really didn't want to test the tummy too much, so we took the yogurt back to the room fridge. Along with his soup, he had a bottled water. Said the soup was hot, full of chicken and somewhat bland…which was exactly what he was looking for. Fit what he was looking for...8 out of 10. Not the best chicken soup, but basic & filling.

Well, after lunch, he was feeling better, so we headed of to the Magic Kingdom for the afternoon.Crowds were nice and small so we had a great time. Our dinner reservation was for the Kona Café at the Polynesian.

Would we eat again at Pop? Sure, the food is good enough. Like I said above, we'd give it an 8 out of 10 on the rating. Place was clean, help was cheerful. Plenty of seats, we were eating early (he got his soup around 11:40 or so) but still, there could not have been more than 20-30 people using the food court while we were there.

Coming up later: Dinner at the Kona Café

Cost of Lunch at Everything Pop: 2 counter service credits
Actual Cash Cost would have been: $27.65

 

[catne]

Kona Café for Dinner, 9/4/2008

The original plan had actually been to try Ohana’ (we’ve never been) but after DH’s problems with upset stomach during the night, I called dining reservations first thing Thursday morning to cancel, figuring he probably would do better with a menu restaurant where he could pick blander foods should he still be unsettled. We also kind of wanted something close to Magic Kingdom, since we were missing the early EMH so he could sleep in, we would probably want to be in MK that afternoon & evening. So Reservations suggested we stay with the Polynesian, but switch to the Kona Café. I've always wanted to try that one, too, so I said let's do it. There were actually several times available, but since we wanted some park time after dinner, I took the earliest slot, which was 5:45.

DH was feeling much better and we did spend the afternoon in the MK. Hopped the monorail to the Polynesian around 4:45. We stayed at the Polynesian in May 2007, but only ate at Captain Cook’s (counter service) so we were interested in exploring both the lounge & Kona Café. It seemed to be very busy at the restaurant and the bar, so we checked in and were given a pager. They said it would probably be 20-30 minutes (we were checking in at least 15 minutes early, so that wasn’t a bad wait at all. And we had arrived early on purpose so we’d have time for a cocktail.)

So we found 2 stools at the bar and commenced trying something new (well, I did. DH didn’t trust experimentation at this point, so he went for a plain old rum & coke.) I almost ordered the lapu lapu (the one they serve in a pineapple) but backed off at the last minute because of recent reviews which said those drinks were extremely strong. I figured if DH was going to get sick again, it wouldn’t help to have a tipsy wife, LOL. So instead I ordered an Island Sunset. This is absolute scrumptious: Spiced Rum, Coconut Rum, Melon, and Peach combined with Guava Passion Fruit Juice. It is a very pretty orange, and I swear there was orange juice in there too but not according to the ingredients. Suffice to say I was going to count it as my fruit serving for the day! Oh, my I probably could have sat & drank these all night. Sorry I didn’t remember to get a picture until we were in the restaurant, so I had already finished half of it!

The lounge, and in fact the restaurant, are just over on one side of the 2nd floor of the main lodge at the Polynesian, and the whole thing is open 2 stories. We found the lounge to be a little loud (they did have a big screen t.v. going in there, with…the weather channel, of course. Since they had the closed captioning going on it, don’t know why the television volume had to be so loud. And to add to the noise level, just on the other side of the television lounge area, there was actually a guy playing live Hawaiian music on a guitar, although we couldn't hear the music, we could hear the crowd gathered around him to listen. We were able to hear the actual music once we were in the restaurant! Anyway, we weren’t sitting at the bar more than 10 minutes when our pager went off, so we took our drinks and were seated in the restaurant.

We were given one of the tables at the banquette bench seating (where it’s a long, long bench down one side, and small tables that seat 2 or more people. They can slide tables together for larger groups. So I was sitting on the bench, DH across from me on a chair. We had a couple at a table for two on my right. On the left, they’d pushed 3 tables together to seat a family of 6 (plus an infant off the other end in a high chair.) There was probably 2 feet on each side of our table from the other parties. So it was fairly close, but we had no problems with it. We were able to have a nice conversation without having to raise our voices, and were not distracted by conversations around us. Décor is vaguely South-Seas/Polynesian as you would expect. It’s not over-the-top Hawaiian luau in the Kona Café…enough to get the idea, but not covered with coconuts & leis.

So, on to the food. We asked Debi, our excellent server, about the beef on the menu as to which cut was available with little or no sauce. She suggested the prime rib. So DH ordered the prime rib which comes with a horseradish sauce on the side, and I ordered the teriyaki steak. She went to put our orders in, and returned with the Hawaiian bread and macadamia nut butter. OMG! We have had “Hawaiian” bread from the bakery at the grocery store. NO COMPARISON. This from Kona was straight from the oven, so fresh and warm…with the macadamia nut butter it was absolutely out of this world delectable. I think I would return to this restaurant just for the bread and butter…that good. You could make a meal of this bread & butter.

We quickly ate at least ½ of this bread (almost forgot to take the photo!) then decided we just better slow down or we’d be full before our entrees showed up. Debi walked by and noticed my Island Sunset was about gone…she asked if I wanted a refill but I said I was seriously thinking about a Pina
Colava (I’ve heard so much about these.) She said if I like Pina coladas and raspberries, this was the drink for me and she’d have one out in 2 shakes. Well, she did…complete with umbrella:

O.K., the Pina Colava: Bacardi Razz rum blended with pina colada mix and raspberry puree, served frozen. So simple, but oh-so-good. I was in love. I amend my previous suggestion: now I know the perfect meal would be the Pina Colava and the Hawaiian bread with macadamia nut butter. (Well, at least it covers fruit & grains for your balanced meal, right?) Debi brought a refill on DH’s rum and coke, although he had to try my Pina Colava, too…he agreed it was by far the best frozen slushy umbrella drink I’ve ever ordered.

Well, I was already in heaven when our entrees showed up. Here’s mine:

The menu describes this as Teriyaki-style New York Strip - sirloin strip grilled with pineapple teriyaki glaze served with mashed Yukon gold potatoes and stir-fried broccolini. I describe it as mmmmmmmmmm (steak with pineapple glaze.) And mmmmmmm. (Yukon gold potatoes.) And well, I guess that’s o.k. (that was the broccolini)

DH’s plate:

It’s described as Slow Roasted Prime Rib, Yukon gold potatoes and stir-fried broccolini. His personal description of the food sounded much like mine (with all the mmmmm’s going on our seat mates must have been wondering about us...probably went home & told their friends they would have had a great meal at Kona, except for the weirdos sitting next to them who kept going "mmmmmm" so much and taking pictures of the food. )

We both agreed the beef was well-seasoned, and cooked to perfection exactly as we ordered it. His prime rib was classic, not overly seasoned and not dripping with fake "au jus" like some places do. Instead, the taste of the beef was predominant, and it was a fine piece of beef. The teriyaki sauce on my NY strip was fairly subtle, a little tangy-sweet with just the right amount of pineapple chunks to accent the beef: but not overwhelming the flavor of the steak. Both my steak and DH's prime ribe were quite good-sized (estimate 10-12 oz. each) and nicely marbled for flavor, but not overly fatty. Those “Yukon” gold potatoes really did look golden (or at least a nice yellow) and they tasted like they had been first baked, then mashed with a lot of butter. Very, very good.

The only thing we didn’t find “all that” was this broccolini stuff. Which I’ve never heard of before. It tasted vaguely like a cross between asparagus and broccoli with maybe a little celery thrown in, but the long asparagus-like part of it was woody/stringy. Not a good texture for human consumption. Debi had suggested to us that very few people liked it…in fact she estimated 99% of it went right back to the kitchen, LOL. When Debi came to clear our plates and get our dessert orders, she congratulated us on being among the few who were willing to at least taste the broccolini. Then she sent us up to peruse the dessert choices (they had an example of each dessert sitting on a buffet-like counter towards the back of the restaurant. I liked this…being able to see what the desserts looked like. Except they all looked fabulous, which made it difficult to choose!)

DH is a traditionalist with desserts, so the dessert which looked like a fancy stack o’apple pie…the “Apple Stack” caught his eye right away.

This one is decribed as
Cinnamon, Sour Cream, and crisp sugared Wontons stacked with apples/syrup and topped with ice cream scoop. He loved this, and was very happy when it did indeed taste very much like a good apple pie…

I’m a sucker for a crème brulee, so I went for the Banana crème brulee, served with a flambéed ½ banana and Chocolate Spiral:

Whoa, if there is one thing Disney knows how to do, it’s crème brulee! Look at the perfect crackling on top...when they flame these desserts, they always get it just right...crackly but never burnt tasting. I took this picture after scooping into it…you can see this was not only a fabulous crème brulee, but at the bottom of the dish was a layer of very creamy, very scrumptious chocolate fudge. And the caramelized banana…what a taste sensation this whole dessert is.

Alas, as always, we could not do justice to these desserts. We were so full we could barely waddle out of the place.

So, to once again amend my dream meal…I’d come back here for the whole shebang! (well, I’d try to eat less bread…but that would be hard…so I could eat more of the dessert. And they can keep the broccolini next time. But everything else, I’d do exactly the same.)

How would we rate Kona…10 out of 10. Would we come back...Always. Great service, great drink choices, great steaks, great desserts. Nice décor, pleasant surroundings.

Cost of dinner at the Kona Café: 2 tables service credits
Actual cash cost would have been: $66.49

Adult Beverages & tips came to $31.71 in the restaurant, and $14.38 in the bar

Total DDP savings for the day was $94.14 for lunch & dinner (breakfast was leftovers)

Total DDP savings for the week to date is $531.60 for 5 days

 

[lynn46356]

Wonderful reviews. We tried the Island Sunset last year on our Disney trip. I agree it was very good. I'll have to try the other one next. This year my DH had the Backscratcher. If you are wondering, yes it comes with a two foot backscratcher in it. Of course, he had to have a second one also. Doesn't everyone need two backscratchers. We had to carry our backscratchers around with us in the MK later in the evening. What a pain! haha Thanks for sharing your reviews.

Lynn

 

[John's Mom]

Another great review!

 

[DrDeb]

Thanks for the review and great pix----- KONA is now my new favorite-- you are SO right about that bread and the desserts-- OMG take me back NOW!!!

 

[Joshua_me]

Well, I was already in heaven when our entrees showed up. Here’s mine:

Great time of day ! ^That^ looks incredible !!

 

[hill6]

Great review. I will be dining at Mama Melrose and The Wave when we go in November. Lots of very positive review for The Wave.

 

[catne]

Wonderful reviews. We tried the Island Sunset last year on our Disney trip. I agree it was very good. I'll have to try the other one next. This year my DH had the Backscratcher. If you are wondering, yes it comes with a two foot backscratcher in it. Of course, he had to have a second one also. Doesn't everyone need two backscratchers. We had to carry our backscratchers around with us in the MK later in the evening. What a pain! haha Thanks for sharing your reviews.

Lynn

I saw that on the menu, and I've seen a picture of here somewhere on the boards, so I do know it comes with a real backscratcher...I'll probably try that next time (I'm the "backscratcher" in our family...the one with the fingernails, so I need a backscratcher for me, LOL. But I would try to time my drink for when I wouldn't have to carry it around a park, especially after a couple of drinks...I know I'd forget it somewhere.)

Another great review!

Thanks, muchly.

Thanks for the review and great pix----- KONA is now my new favorite-- you are SO right about that bread and the desserts-- OMG take me back NOW!!!

Me too, me too! Don't know what we're going to do next year...on the one hand we want to keep trying new restaurants, cuz we still have quite a few we haven't tried. But on the other hand, now we know 2-3 that were really outstanding, and want to go back...too many choices, too little time! What's a Diser to do!

Great time of day ! ^That^ looks incredible !!

Don't I know it...I was posting that right before dinner time here...boy did I want another meal just like that...had to settle for baked chicken. Blah. So I look at my pictures and dream of Disney for next year.:

Great review. I will be dining at Mama Melrose and The Wave when we go in November. Lots of very positive review for The Wave.

Thanks for reading...hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

 

[Rebelmom67]

I am loving these reviews!! I put The Wave on our "to do" list just because of you.

 

[catne]

I am loving these reviews!! I put The Wave on our "to do" list just because of you.

I think you'll enjoy it...I predict that one of these days it will be overwhelmed with reservation requests like Le Cellier, but for now it's an "undiscovered treasure."

 

[catne]

Breakfast in the room with our Senseo coffee and pastries from Everything Pop. DH opted for an apple turnover

This was tasty, but about ½ the size of the mega-turnover he had on Monday from the Main Street bakery. Guess the excess pixie dust grows ‘em larger in the Magic Kingdom, LOL. Seriously though, if they do all come from the same bakery, then someone makes the decision which outlet is going to get “special” versions like the MK extra large turnover & cinnamon rolls. This one tasted just as good, but was much smaller (and approximately the same cost.)
I was craving chocolate, so I picked the chocolate chip croissant:

Well this certainly was loaded with chocolate. As you can see coming out the sides, it’s not just sprinkled with chocolate chips, it also has a chocolate filling…somewhat like a chocolate fudge pudding, but stiffer consistency like soft frosting. Although it wasn’t actually shaped like a croissant (rectangle instead of crescent shaped), the pastry was light & flaky like traditional croissants. Yum…as a confirmed chocaholic I can now vouch for the Everything Pop chocolate croissant. It’ll fix what ails ya, chocolate-wise. But it was so rich, I did have to save a bit for later.

Pastries from Pop: 9 out of 10 (slight downgrade because DH knew the double-size apple turnover was available elsewhere. But actual taste-wise & freshness factor the pastries were 10 out of 10.)

Cost for breakfast: 2 snack credits
Actual cash cost would have been: $5.53

Well, after breakfast in the room, we decided to head for Hollywood Studios for one more shot at Toy Story Mania. Crowds were light in the Studios, and we had a great morning.

Lunch at Toy Story Pizza Planet
Decided to try another DHS counter service. It was just shortly before 11:30 and we were fairly close to Studio Catering Company, so we wandered over. Surprise: it wasn’t open yet and couldn’t even see anyone around setting up. Maybe they don’t open until later? So we decided to try Toy Story Pizza Planet, despite the bad knocks I always read about Disney pizza. First off, it was open before 11:30, so we were in luck. Second, the crowds at DHS were still very small, and there was only one party in front of us in the line, so no delays getting our food. There were actually more people playing in the video arcade than in the restaurant part of the place.

The people behind the counter were fast, efficient and friendly. Our food was up in about 5 minutes, so they must have the pizzas half-baked. They were piping hot without being dried out at all so I don’t think they were fully cooked and just sitting under heat lamps. We got our food and headed outside to one of the many patio tables outside. It was a little cooler that morning since it had been cloudy and rainy off & on that morning so it was nice to be able to sit outside without the sun beating down on us. We were close to the door in case we needed to move if the rain started up, but we lucked out…no more drips until just after we finished. Here’s our food from Pizza Planet:

Top left on the tray is DH’s personal-size pepperoni pizza, bottle water & coke, garden salad with ranch dressing, chocolate chip cookies, and my personal-size cheese pizza. Keep in mind this pic is taking from an angle so perspective is off...the two pizzas really are the same size (luncheon plate sized.)

So, I will start by saying this to all those who complain loudly about how bad Disney pizza is: o.k., it’s not the absolute best pizza in the world. But then, we’re not in Chicago or New York, are we? And if we were there, we'd sure be able to get really fab pizza, but no rides on Tower of Terror, no Toy Story Mania, no 3-D Muppets...you get the picture. So, given the entertainment advantages of our location, we liked the Disney version just fine!

DH got the pepperoni pizza but I’m picky about pepperoni so I opted to play it safe with plain cheese pizza. The crust was more of the thick deep-dish variety, and it was warm & chewy. Since we both prefer this type, we thoroughly enjoyed it. The sauce quantity was on the light side, but it was flavorful enough. The Mozzarella cheese was melted properly on top. The pizza meal comes with a garden salad, we both chose ranch dressing. It was nice to have a fresh salad with fast-food lunch. DH chose bottled water, and I had a coke. Dessert is a large, warm chocolate chip cookie. Again, I think it was fresh from the oven because it was still a little warm even after sitting on the tray cooling while we ate the pizza & salad. The chocolate chip cookies were superb…they tasted like homemade classic toll house cookies…the chocolate chips were still soft & melty. Yum…we actually managed to finish this dessert!

All in all, we actually like Pizza Planet’s food. For a rating, I’d say 8 out of 10. Not the best, but certainly a satisfying meal.

Cost: 2 counter service credits
Actual Cash Cost would have been:$22.50

On the way out of the park to head back to resort for afternoon R & R, we stopped at Starring Rolls to use our last two snack credits to get breakfast pastries for Saturday Morning. We’d had the muffins from Starring Rolls earlier in the week, so we were looking for something different. DH spotted apple Danish…that was all the farther he looked. I really did mean to try something new, but when I spotted Starring Roll’s luscious looking chocolate croissants, I decided I had to have another one. Here’s the picture of our last Disney breakfast, Saturday 9/6/2008.

I know this part of my review is a tad anachronistic – putting Saturday breakfast just after lunch on Friday - but since we got up & left very early Saturday morning, the Friday reviews will be the finale. And we actually did buy these pastries right after lunch on Friday, so I am just putting the pic in here right after Friday lunch for your viewing pleasure! The Starring Rolls croissant was a little bit larger than the Everything POP version, was plumper with more chocolate filling and a lot more powdered sugar on top. I really like the POP version...I loved the Starring Rolls version. I am beginning to think the reports I've read that all the baked goods come from the same bakery cannot possibly be true. This is the 2nd time we've purchased the "same" item from 2 different bakeries and gotten fairly substantial differences (not just cosmetic.) So I'm thinking the prepackaged desserts may all come from the same bakery (which makes sense) but the fresh items are probably really made on location? Anyway, even though this one was definitely more chocolatey (and richer) I did finish it all on Saturday morning! DH enjoyed the apple Danish; said it was tastier than the usual grocery store bakery version and tasted much more like home-made baked goods: the apples did not taste like canned pie-filling as is so often the case in rolls like this. We gave the Starring Rolls pastries a 10 out of 10.
Cost: 2 snack credits (Our last ones…so sad to see it zero )
Actual Cash Cost would have been $5.52

Last Installment, coming soon: Friday Finale Dinner at Cape May Cafe