Day Three Continued...
"More Great Food!"
After leaving the sweltering heat of Epcot, it was time for a brief rest at the pool.
Here's the fountain in the courtyard area leading to the pool:
And here's the pool!:
Looking up at BLT:
I have to say - the pool slide is great!
But the pool is TOO SMALL! There were times on the trip where we felt like there was hardly room to move in the pool - or you'd bump into someone. So definitely a thumbs down in that regard. Now, I know you can pool hop over to the pools at the main Contemporary building, but we kind of liked the idea of just going downstairs to the pool, without having to trek all over the place. Plus, it was nice that they had a refill spot by the bar to fill your refillable mugs.
Anyway, before long, it was time to head up to the room and get ready for dinner! Tonight was dinner at Sanaa! (Haha - here we just left AKV, and now we're headed back there for dinner!)
Sanaa is located at the new Kidani Village building at AKV. We tried it early last summer not long after it opened and we loved it! We were so excited for tonight's dinner!!! They serve Indian food and have a beautifully whimsical decorating style in the dining room.
On our way to dinner, I was super excited to get an email on my Blackberry - a new client! Yay! It's a woman who works with my mom who wants to go to Disney later in 2011. I emailed her back and started talking over ideas with her!
When we got to Kidani Village, we had some time to relax before our ADR time, so we walked around a bit and took pictures of the lobby and the savannah....
We were seated in the middle of the dining room - not next to the big windows, but that's okay, we still had a great view of the awesome decor. The pillars in the room are made to look like elegant tree trunks that open up to giant leaves on the ceiling that sort of resemble giant lilly pads....
This was our last meal on the Deluxe DDP, so we were still in the "appetizers included" group. So we started with two "sharing" type appetizers.
The first one was the bread service. (You get to choose your breads and spreads.) The spreads we got were red chile, mango chutney, and garlic pickle. I really liked the red chile - it was nice and spicy.
Then we also shared the salad sampler. This is also one where you get to choose from a list of selections. We chose Potato/corn/spinach, carrot/tangerine/mint, and watermelon/radish.
Both dishes are shown in the photo, along with the spreads...
Everything was SO GOOD!
We started with drinks too, of course!
Brian got beer, and I got the African Star Mojito!
Our server during our dinner was Sessler. (Very unique name!) We chatted quite a bit during the evening and I found out that he also does theatre and singing. He even sings in the choir for the Candlelight Processional during the holidays! Very cool!
Now - on to the entrees!!!
Brian ordered the tandoori shrimp with basmati rice:
And I got the sustainable fish dish. Tonight's fish was salmon served with zucchini, carrots, onions, shrimp, and scallops. (My mouth is watering just remembering it....)
After dinner, we found out from Sessler that they were doing away with the rice pudding dish there. (Being replaced by some kind of tapioca pudding.) So I HAD to get it. It's really good - very different from what we think of as traditional rice pudding, but still really good. Brian had it last year, and I knew that's what I wanted on this trip.
We overheard a different server at the table next to us discouraging those people from getting the rice pudding because "it's not like regular rice pudding." I think she told them they should just get the chocolate cake or something....
Grrrr..... This gets me to another topic that I feel really strongly about..... Please Disney, do NOT dumb down your menus because of a few picky people with non-adventurous palates! There's plenty of places for people to get "American" food - in Disney and ALL OVER! I can get that at my local Applebee's! In Disney, I like to get stuff I don't get at home!
Okay - sorry - off my soapbox now. It's just that if we wanted "regular" stuff, we'd go to Liberty Tree Tavern, or something like that. But we don't want that!......
Well, I was super happy to be getting the rice pudding, and Brian ordered the dessert sampler - which had chai cream, passion fruit kulfi (like ice cream), and chocolate cake.
Dessert Sampler:
Rice Pudding (that's Mango sauce on the bottom):
Sessler was also super nice and got us a Mango pudding to try, since it's a new recipe from what I had last year. It was good - but I have to say I think I liked last year's better.
Mango Pudding:
And the chai cream was REALLY good. It was like a light weight pudding/mousse that tasted like chai. (And I love getting chai latte's in the winter time!)
They let me keep a menu!
It was time to depart from this FABULOUS dining experience and head back to BLT. We decided it would be kind of cool to do the Magic Kingdom EMH since we could just walk home afterwards instead of waiting for a bus.
On the bus to MK, we started talking to a woman, who happened to be at that table next to us! (The table that was discouraged from trying "different" food.)
We were talking about all of our great dining experiences, where we like to stay, etc. We also started talking about DVC. They weren't members, but had thought about it. Of course, we raved about how much we love it; and that our only regret was not buying in sooner. We chatted all the way back to MK! I gave her my email in case she had any questions, but never heard from her. (I hope I didn't scare her off! I guess not everyone is comfortable getting too involved with strangers...
)
Next up...... another late EMH at MK!!!!!
Your dinner looked wonderful, but Im too scared to take DBF anywhere off the beaten path, he is so boring when it comes to food 
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who has a HM story to tell! We should start our own special club!
We were in MK so I missed it but I heard allll about it! No fire - thank God! 
