One Vegetarian and one Omnivore: UPDATE 4/19: California Grill

[kelleigh1]

Figures...drunken idiots come from my neck of the woods.

Tiramisu and key lime pie...YUM! Those are two of my favorite things.

 

[smartestnumber5]

That night we decided to go to Downtown Disney and eat at Earl of Sandwich. We'd heard great things about it and hadn't gotten to try it last trip. We got there a little after 7pm and weren't all that hungry yet. We went to check and see how late Earl of Sandwich was open. It was pretty crowded but there was a CM near the door who told us 11:30 pm. We looked around a bit at the Marketplace and I got some yummy things at Goofy's Candy Co for later.

Then we headed back to eat. The same CM we asked about the closing time came up to us while we were in line and said “oh you’re back again." He said something I couldn't hear. GF thought he had asked, "What do you want for free?" GF replied loudly, "For free?" He chuckled and said, "Well..." and there was an awkward moment. I was just because I hadn't heard what he had said in the first place. Finally he just said, "What were you thinking of getting? What kind of meat do you like?" and then he suggested a couple of things. Then he smiled and told us to have a good day. Later GF explained that she thought he was offering free food. She thinks she ruined the offer when she said "Free!?" so loudly.

I got an ultimate grilled cheese sandwich that had blue cheese, brie, and swiss and tomato (left off the bacon) and GF got the original (cheddar, roast beef, and horseradish).

She got a banana-strawberry smoothie and I got the earl’s lemonade, and we split some chocolate pudding and whipped cream. We pretty much loved everything. The sandwiches were great, and we thought the bread would be especially good for breakfast sandwiches. GF's smoothie was especially good. I swear it tasted like ice cream--I think maybe it was made with frozen yogurt? The Earl's lemonade was very good too, although on the menus online it had been "Earl's Iced Tea." A small difference maybe, but one that made a difference to me. I thought it would be iced tea with lemonade added but it seemed like the opposite. It was really acidic and since I have stomach acid problems, I couldn't drink that much of it. The pudding was also yummy.

We decided that we enjoyed Earl of Sandwich a lot more than the meal at Grand Floridian Cafe for lunch and even Rose and Crown. We thought that maybe we should give more CS places a try rather than always going for TS.

Food: We're definitely coming back. In fact, I kept trying to scheme about how we could go back in the few days left of our trip!
Atmosphere: very busy inside--have only 1 person in your party wait to pick up your order and go for an outdoor table

 

[lennon2004]

Good reviews, thanks for sharing.

 

[curiouser]

Great reviews so far!!

The story of the drunken guys was pretty funny!! I can't believe I never though to just melt peanut butter in the microwave for my ice cream, either! Although I don't really keep peanut butter in the house for fear of eating the whole jar with a spoon!

Is the first thing from Goofy's a cookie?

 

[princesstigerlilly]

Great reviews so far! FWIW, I have ordered the veggies in phylo at RC and thought it was great! Mine was served very hot and crispy, but had it not been so hot it would have not been so good.
I can't wait for more reviews and photos!

 

[smartestnumber5]

Our fourth day we had breakfast at Whispering Canyon at 10:30 am. We arrived right on time and were starving by the time we got there. We had to wait a few minutes to get seated and were then given a round table towards the back of the room. We had been intending to have a light breakfast--sharing a pastry basket and eggs or something like that. What had really drawn us was the all you can drink milkshakes. The idea of non-stop milkshakes just sounds like such a good idea ! But you know what happens to plans. When we sat down and were starving and our thought process was, "Well we could pay $9 for an omelette, or we could pay $11 for an all you can eat skillet. The answer's obvious, right? So we both went for the skillet. I also ordered a chocolate milkshake. GF held off on ordering a drink because they only listed chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry as milkshake choices. Last trip she had had an orange creamsicle milkshake and she had her heart set on that again. But since it wasn't listed on the menu, she figured they didn't have it anymore I encouraged her to ask and when she saw how good my milkshake looked she did; it turned out they did have her flavor.

Our server was good—he didn’t do too much in the way of antics which was good for us. He threw us some coloring book pages of Disney characters and ordered us to entertain ourself with coloring. One of the pictures was of Ariel who the friend caring for our Kitties has a crush on. We thought we'd present her with the picture so we went about coloring. GF decided to add some lewd accessories to the picture for our friend's enjoyment I was a little nervous about what would happen if the server saw the picture thinking he'd probably hold it up and make an annoucement about it or something. I guess there were children all around though, so he couldn't really do that.

We noticed that one of the servers covering tables near us seemed to really enjoy her job. She would scream at the top of her lungs when someone wanted jelly or took the ketchup or whatever; she had a bunch of kids come over and literally *throw* jelly packets at one table. She actually had to stop the kids because they weren't really tossing gently and could have hurt someone!

GF and I were both pretty happy with the meal. I only ate the eggs, waffles, potatos, and biscuits—all of which were good. GF ate bacon and sausage too, but she didn’t like the sausage (but then, she’s not really a sausage person). She didn't try the sausage gravy. We were actually surprised that the breakfast skillet was actually significantly smaller than the dinner skillet GF had had last trip--and the dinner skillet had only been for her instead of both of us! We got refills once I believe, though I was tempted for more waffles and eggs. I love being able to have savory and sweet at breakfast.

A cousin of mine with 3 kids is planning to go to Disney next year, and she’ll prob b edoing it pretty cheap—staying offsite, mostly CS meals. But I thought we should encourage her to do a breakfast here since it’s only $11 per adult and the kids would love it. She and her husband would get a kick out of the antics too.

We quickly got stuffed, but still asked for refills on our milkshakes—a vanilla for me and choc for GF. It's just too tempting when they're free and never ending! Our server brought us to go cups for our milkshakes, but even after taking them with us we couldn't drink much of them and had to toss them.

Apparently I forgot to take a picture of the skillet because I can't find any. But I really thought I took one

Food: We'd definitely go back, especially given the price. I do love breakfast foods though, so I'd also be tempted to do a more classic buffet so I could have a little of everything.
Service: We might have waited a bit to get the refill on our milkshake, but great other than that. Both times at Whispering Canyon we've gotten servers who seemed to be able to read us well and didn't try any serious antics.
Atmosphere: Depends on whether you like seeing other people be made foods of. We like it (so long as they leave us alone!)

 

[smartestnumber5]

Is the first thing from Goofy's a cookie?

Yep! It's one of the big oreos dipped in milk chocolate and covered in peanuts and crushed peanut butter cups. YUMMMM!

 

[smartestnumber5]

This was by far the worst dining experience of our trip.

For a variety of reasons (which I'll leave for the trip report) we ended up waiting to eat dinner until very late and went to Downtown Disney to try to get into the Rainforest Cafe which doesn't take reservations. We arrived at 10:40 pm and were worried they wouldn’t seat us because it was so close to 11 (when they close). I rushed ahead to try to get a seat (because by this point in the night I was starving and starting to get cranky!) and GF followed behind. I looked for the entrance to the restaurant but only found the store; luckily I saw a bar about 10 feet inside the store, and went over to it and spotted the restaurant. There were queue lines leading to the restaurant—one for the elephant room and one for the gorilla. At the front of the elephant line was a group of people admiring the fish aquarium nearby. I couldn’t tell if they were in line or not so I went into the gorilla line which ended just inside the seating area of the restaurant. I stood there for a few minutes and not one employee looked at me or greeted me (even though they kept walking past). I didn’t notice a hostess podium, so I just stood there. GF came up and asked what was going on and I said, “I have no idea.”

I then noticed the podium nearby where a few employees were messing with menus and I went over to ask if they were still seating. Again, not one of them greeted me or even looked at me. After 45 seconds of that I finally said, “Excuse me, are you still serving?” The employee replied, “yes, but we’re closing soon so we’re making room” in a muffled tone I could hardly hear. We went back to line wondering if we had cut in front of some people in the back of the elephant line, or whether they were seating in both areas. Shortly after the large group looking at the aquarium was seated and we breathed a sigh of relief. We would get some food after all! A minute later the employee who had ignored me took us back. We were seated at what appeared to be the border of the elephant and gorilla room next to a smaller aquarium.

Our server came over and gave us the talk about the rainforest club—some discount thing—told us about the aquarium and one of the fish inside, and pointed out the specials. Of course, he recommended the most expensive one on the menu. He seemed pleasant enough. The only problem was that he was quite tall so looking him in the eye required craning our necks. Plus, given all the noise and the distance between our ears and his mouth, it was hard to hear him. A few minutes later we ordered. We decided on a side Caesar salad, a cheese pizza, and nachos w/out meat to share between us.

Our choices were largely determined by the prices which were rather steep. This was no surprise since we'd looked online at menus, but we decided to skip most of the entrees and just share some appetizer type things. They had a number of entree salads that sounded good, but we just couldn't stomach spending so much for a salad; so we went with the side caesar. We'd been hungry for a caesar salad for awhile anyway. (I didn't bother to check if the Caesar dressing had anchovies or not. Caesar dressing is another one of those non-vegetarian things that I've recently given in on. Anchovies in Caesar dressing, chicken and beef stock in soups, and gelatin in marshmellows--sigh. I blame GF--I wasn't eating any of these things til I met her! ) The menu we’d seen on all ears had some more interesting vegetarian or easily modified to vegetarian pizzas, but this menu had a bunch that were totally meat based and then the plain cheese pizza. So we had to go with the cheese. And nachos, well, they just sounded good!

Our salad came out first and we enjoyed it a lot. A casaer salad isn’t really anything special, but you don’t find good ones that often. It was also amazingly large—guess that’s why the prices are so high. We were chowing down on the salad (and too busy to take a picture of it) when the nachos and pizza came out. Both were larger than we expected, and we commented that—though we tried to order a little lightly this time—it looked like we’d be stuffed again. The pizza looked a little bit like one that came out of a box—not all that cooked…completely white crust and cheese barely melted. It tasted about how it looked—not very good. The nachos were good though. They were the kind with red, black, and beige chips and very cheesy with sour cream, salsa, and black beans around.

Our server didn’t come around much, but at this point we didn’t need anything so it didn’t much matter. After a few minutes with the entrees, though, we hit a snag. We had eaten through one layer of nachos and I saw something kind of yellow in the next layer. I figured it must have been a beige chip that was a bit discolored and ignored it, but about a minute later GF picked up the chip next to it and revealed a piece of paper sticking out of the nachos. She pulled it out and uncrumpled it to find the yellow copy of a receipt. (Actually in the picture above, you can see the receipt excedt it looks white, not yellow. It looks like there are three white blobs of sour cream in the picture. The left most blob, however, is not sour cream, but a receipt.)

Both of us were grossed out by the receipt. How did it get in there? Were they reusing chips? Did the receipt fall of a dirty plate into the vat of chips? How did they not notice it. The actually put cheese and beans on top of that layer and then did another layer of chips on top of that! Eww.

The next time the server went by, GF tried to call him over. He was one table away from us and saw her waving her hand and he called out, “do you need your check?” She shook her head and he said, “a box?” It was like he didn’t want to walk those 10 steps over to our table—where, by the way, it was clearly time for refills on our drinks and had been for quite some time. GF shook her head again and just motioned for him to come over once more. He came over and she pointed out the receipt and said “We found this in the nachos...” Before she could finish her sentence, he responded, “I’ll get that out of here.” But there was no look of surprise, no apology, he just swept in and took the plate away and started quickly walking away while GF was in mid-sentence. GF called after him, “could you take that off our bill?” He looked back at her, but didn’t actually respond. A few minutes later a manager came over holding the nachos and said, “These were you’re nachos?” We nodded. He said, “I can’t believe these went out like this. I’m sorry about that. I’ll take care of it" and quickly walked away.

We didn’t know what "taking care of it" meant. A few minutes later the server (who still hadn't refilled our drinks) came back over a few minutes later and told us that he had told the manager. We said the manager had come by and said he’d "take care of it." The server said that probably meant he’d bring us more nachos. I said we didn't want them--that we were already full and we just wanted them taken off the bill. I was thinking it was already almost 11:30 at night, and we were not about to pay for any nachos, even if they brought a new dish. I kind of thought they might offer a free dessert or take 50% off our bill or something. I should have kept my mouth shut, though, because GF said it came out sounding too nice. Guess it takes a lot more than seeming ticked for them to bother to try to make up for the dirty pieces of paper that probably came from other people's food that they served in your food .

Unfortunately, since GF couldn’t stomach the microwave-tasting pizza, she was still pretty hungry. Guess I shouldn't have told them not to bring more nachos. I had another slice of pizza and she finished the salad. We never did get any refills on our drinks. Even though she was still hungry and we were ticked about how they didn't seem to care about serving us a receipt, we were just happy to get out of there.

When we got the bill I put our resort card in there like I had at every other restaurant without paying that much attention to the bill (other than making sure they didn't charge for the nachos). The server took the bill and then within 20 seconds came back and told me that to use a room card one has to fill out a section of the receipt first. That part of the receipt asks for name, ID number on the card, and tip. So you have to fill in the tip BEFORE the server runs the card—hence the server sees the tip before they return your card to you. Now I wasn’t planning on leaving a horrible tip to the server. After all, it wasn’t like the nacho thing was his fault. But, then again, he wasn’t a very good server. He never refilled the drinks. We had to twist his arm to get him to even come close enough to our table to tell him about the nachos. And he didn’t seem to care when it happened—not even an apology. So I thought a smaller than usual tip was appropriate and was debating whether to tip on the amount counting the nachos or not counting it.

I should have just used a regular credit card once he said that, but I didn't think about it. Once I found out he was going to see the tip before he gave me the card back I felt like it’d be horrible to make the tip too low, and quickly tried to figure exactly 15% of the total with the nachos. Looking back, that was certainly more than I should have left, but I couldn't give him a bad tip to his face. (Funny how human psychology works--that it's so much harder to do something like that to someone's face.)

We were soooo glad to get out of there!

 

[princesstigerlilly]

I am so grossed out about the reciept. Ugh. That server was lucky you were so nice. I am enjoying your reviews : Thanks for taking the time to post them!

 

[Liz]

Thanks for your wonderful reviews!

After having an outside table at Rose & Crown and freezing during dinner (this was December) I thought next time if its cold we'll ask to sit inside and we'll just go to the viewing area to watch Illuminations. I didn't know where the viewing area was but after reading your review I see that it wouldn't necessarily be a great option.

The receipt thing is just disgusting! I think they should have done more than just take the nachos off your bill.

Thanks again!

 

[dawgfan]

Thanks for the review.

 

[smartestnumber5]

Oops. I got my days mixed up! I already did the WCC review

 

[smartestnumber5]

On Monday we had lunch at Columbia Harbor House. We both had the ½ sandwich and soup combo. GF got clam chowder and tuna and I got veggie chili and hummus sandwich. Both were really good and a lighter meal—not so much fried stuff. We noticed everyone around us was eating chicken and fish baskets with fries though. Seriously we saw no one else at all with sandwiches or soup.

We'll definitely be back here

Dinner that night was at Spoodles. We just wanted appetizers and dessert. This was partly because last time our entrees were not so good, but the appetizers and desserts were wonderful. It was also partly because we're cheap and didn't want to be overly full (which we often are anyways).

Our server seemed really flustered everytime she came by, and she was a little bit negligent. It took her quite some time to come by and take our drink order, and then even longer to come back for our order. But she was also really nice and very apologetic, so we didn’t really mind. This just made us think all the worse of the Rainforest Café server—all we needed was a darn apology!

GF had a fancy drink with a glow light in it.

We decided to split the Mediterranean Dips and a Greek salad. I kept thinking we should get a flatbread too because it sounded like not enough food, but GF said we probably wouldn’t need it. And she was right--I was full by the time we were done with the two appetizers. For desset we had the sampler (no pic).

We actually had to ask for bread. The server said they usually only serve it when dinner is ordered, but she brought us some. The Mediterranean Dips were as a good as ever. I LOVE tzatziki (sp?) and it isn't that easy to find. The Greek salad was good too, although it wasn't the usual type of lettuce. I think it might have been endive or something which has more stringy and narrow leaves. It was still good though, just different than usual. The dessert sampler had ameretto gelato (yum!), choc pistachio cake (yum!), crème brulee (yum!), and orange cake (yuck). On our last trip I had the choc pistachio cake and GF had the creme brulee. Next time we'll just get those separately instead of the sampler.

We'll definitely be back for appetizers and dessert

 

[disneyfan551]

The receipt in your nachos is AWFUL!! The service in RFC isn't that great, and the hostess staff is horrible, but we always return! The kids in our group love the animals/theming!

 

[smartestnumber5]

We've been to Tusker House before and just like last time I decided against the veggie pita. (I've heard too many bad reviews.) I went for a pretzel from Harambe and a smoothie from Tamu Tamu. The smoothie was pretty yummy, though not as good as the one at Earl of Sandwich. The pretzel was your average pretzel. I like hot pretzels so I was happy.

GF went for the salmon this time around (last time she had the chicken). She should have stuck with what she knew. At first, she was impressed that she could get salmon at a CS restaurant. But it turned out that the salmon wasn't that good. (She did manage to eat it all though ). She also got a sticky roll. Though I'm usually pretty nuts for sweets of all kinds, sticky rolls just aren't my thing. I believe I had a few bites and GF finished it. It was nothing exceptional.

We'll go back for GF, but she'll get the chicken this time. And I'll probably stick with my pretzel and smoothie

 

[smartestnumber5]

We were both excited to try this one since we'd read good things about it on the DIS. We both chose the soup and 1/2 sandwich. GF got clam chowder and tuna and I got veggie chili and hummus sandwich.

It was really good and a lighter meal—not so much fried stuff. However, we noticed everyone around us was eating chicken and fish baskets with fries. GF remarked, "I don't get it. You can get fried stuff at almost every CS--why is everyone else eating the fried stuff?" Oh well, more sandwiches and soup for us.

The veggie chili was more like a soup--not nearly as thick as chili. Still, it was good and definitely nice to have a veggie soup option. The hummus sandwich had some type of slaw on it which was pretty good. I'm not a mayo fan (and I'm guessing like most slaw it was made with mayo) but I liked this sandwich.

GF described her sandwich as hearty but light on the stomach. Not really remarkable, but just a nice option as opposed to fried things or huge combo plates (yeah, like she's being forced to buy those big combo plates ). The clam chowder wasn't really remarkable, but she's a big clam chowder fan (a big tuna fan too) so it was a great meal for her.

We'll definitely be back next trip !

 

[themarquis]

Smartest's GF here!

Honey, did you realize you did *two* reviews for columbia harbor house!? Hee hee....

Anyway, I'm posting because A) I never realized she wrote all these reviews in the first place (I'm a bad girlfriend! ) and they were highly entertaining to read ... and B) because while I was reading them, she kept remarking in a mournful tone of voice that she didn't get a lot of responses to her reviews and that she must be the "unpopular kid" on the DIS.

Poor baby .... sniff sniff.

So I wanted to encourage people to leave her some responses! It would really help her self-esteem!

 

[inky dinky doo]

I'm glad you bumped these reviews up! For some reason, I didn't see them the first time around (where was I???). I would have been so irritated by the wait and the run-around at Ohana, but luckily, you all enjoyed your dinner there, anyway. My family loves the "meat on a stick" place, but we usually have a big group with us when we go there and I think that adds to the fun.

I love your pictures and all the details you included in your reviews. I see a couple of things I want to try next time. I think Earl of Sandwich's ultimate grilled cheese and the strawberry/banana smoothie sound yummy! But, I wouldn't go to Rainforest Cafe on a dare. I've heard bad reviews of that place before, but your experience was horrible.

Thanks for posting!! Now, quit yer pouting. We love you, too!

Pat

195 days and counting . . . again!

 

[joiev98]

Thanks for the great reveiws! We will be eating at O'Hana, and Whispering Canyon Cafe next month for our first ever trip! I am glad the food was good ( I hope we have a better experience regarding waiting at O'Hana!)

 

[smartestnumber5]

Smartest's GF here!

Honey, did you realize you did *two* reviews for columbia harbor house!? Hee hee....

Oops.