Our Disneymoon Dining Reviews and pictures 2/28-3/8

[shawnzgirl]

I have really enjoyed reading everyone’s Disney dining reviews and thought I should type up one myself. Our background is simple. I am 29, my husband is 31 (a very picky eater), and we were at WDW for our honeymoon. We spent our days eating and when we were not eating, we were traveling to the next restaurant to eat again. It’s a wonder that we didn’t gain any weight. We had a lot of fun but it’ll probably be a few years until we can return again.

We left SFO at 6:40 a.m. on Tuesday, February 28th so when we finally got checked in at our hotel we were starving. We didn’t have dinner reservations until 9:30 p.m., but the hostess at Flying Fish was nice enough to put us on standby and we were seated closer to 8:30. They weren’t taking any walk-ins by the way. We both had crispy calamari appetizers which we both loved. Shawn had ordered the appetizer for me because none of the other appetizers appealed to him (this would be a common theme for the trip). Prior to boarding the plane, we had a light breakfast at Perry’s…then traveling east the airline served a rather disgusting airplane frittata which neither of us tried…we proceeded to miss every other meal that day. So while I was in washing up in the bathroom Shawn was so hungry that he ate a calamari. He loved it and proceeded to eat every non-tentacle piece. So much for me getting a double order of calamari. I have to say they were my favorite appetizer of the trip. I loved dipping them in the sweet and spicy Vietnamese sauce.

Let me explain that I love seafood, but I’m less than crazy about cooked fish. I know the restaurant is called The Flying Fish, but I guess I was hoping that there would be some other type of seafood on the menu. But alas, I had 5 types of fish to choose from that night (Red snapper, yellowfin tuna, Atlantic salmon, New England Cod, and Mahi-Mahi). I went with the Potato wrapped Red Snapper with Creamy leek Fondue and a red wine butter sauce. The sauce was divine and I’ve never had potato wrapped anything before so I enjoyed pulling the potato off and eating it in the sauce. I picked at my fish which was good as far as fish goes. I guess I was a little resentful at my husband for eating the second order of calamari which could have been my dinner.

My husband is easy as long as there is some sort of roasted chicken on the menu. He chose the Roasted Free Range Chicken sans mushroom risotto cake and edamame. I told him to have them leave off the peppercorn sauce too since they were eliminating everything else but he didn’t want to be too pushy. He said it was the juiciest chicken he had ever had. It was by far the best chicken he has ever tasted (and we eat a lot of chicken)…if only it wasn’t so “peppery” on the outside.

Then on to the desserts: Shawn had the Valrohna Chocolate Soufflé’ which takes a little extra time to prepare. I had 3 large scoops of vanilla ice cream in anticipation of eating it with the Soufflé. Here’s where we went wrong…we’ve never had Soufflé and while it looks like lava cake, it doesn’t taste anything like lava cake and it’s not really sweet and it just isn’t our ideal dessert. We ate it anyway and we were so stuffed when the waitress came out and presented us with a crème brulee to commemorate our honeymoon. Now that was a delicious dessert but we were too full to do more than pick at it.

 

[renholder777]

Thank you for the review. My fiance and I are going to Flying Fish on our Honeymoon soon (six weeks, come on and hurry up) so I really enjoyed your pictures. Where else did you eat?

 

[shawnzgirl]

Wow, six weeks...that was crunch time for us. I hope you have a terrific honeymoon in WDW...Shawn and I had an absolute blast and everyone was sooooo incredibly nice to us. Like I mentioned in my first post, we did a lot of eating...I do mean a lot. The other restaurants in which we dined (and I will hopefully get to in my review) are: Donald's Restaurantosaurus, 50's Prime Time, Hollywood Brown Derby, Sasagoula Floatworks, Rainforest Cafe (AK), Planet Hollywood (3x's), Wolfgang Puck downstairs), Norway bakery, Sci-Fi Dine In, Rose and Crown, Akershus PSB, teppanyaki @ Epcot (2x's), Nine Dragons, Kona Cafe (2x's), Tony's Town Square, California Grill, Boatwrights(2x's), Hoop Dee Doo, Cinderella's Royal Table, and Fulton's Crab House. If you can believe it, we actually had more reservations made at places like Narccosses, Cape May, and Spoodles that we had to cancel because we were just so full!

 

[shawnzgirl]

Here's Day 2

Day 2

We woke up and rushed out to the bus stop headed for the Animal Kingdom…we had an 8:00 ADR for Donald's Breakfastosaurus. Entrance to the park was easy after being checked off of a list. We hadn’t been to AK before and it was a bit tricky finding the restaurant. We were seated in a small room with just 4 other families. Our server explained that there was a hot food buffet and a cold one which we should visit now. When the characters came out they would visit two other room first before reaching our room. It was off to the hot food bar for us. While in line, the characters were making their entrance into the restaurant for the first time that day. The hot bar consisted of biscuits, gravy, breakfast pizza, quiche, yummy hash browns, regular pancakes, choc. chip pancakes, bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs. The quiche was okay but I filled up on the hash browns which I proclaim as “yummy.” Shawn made a trip to the cold bar and sampled the fruit and muffins. We were also served coffee and orange juice. Our waiter was very accommodating and had a few silly antics up his sleeve…literally! The characters were in and out of our room but they always had a handler willing to use our camera to take pictures while we posed with the characters. The waiter was on top of it and had every table’s checks taken care of by 8:45 so that everyone can partake in the opening ceremonies.

Lunch @ 50’s Prime Time Café

We were dealt a rather boring server who wasn’t around much and didn’t participate in any of the antics of the restaurant….which was fine for us. There was another server in the room who had an incredible tongue-in-cheek sense of humor who we got a kick out of. I had a shrimp cocktail appetizer and Shawn had the fried cheese. The shrimp were good size on mine but otherwise it was pretty plain Jane shrimp that you dip into cocktail sauce before popping it into your mouth. Shawn wouldn’t even touch the fried cheese but he munched on the accompanying fruit and French bread.

The waiter made a few entrée selections when he first greeted us…they consisted of beef entrees. We normally don’t eat red meat (although I cheated every time we went to Planet Hollywood) so I chose the chicken pot pie which was delicious. They use a sort of phyllo dough to top the chicken stew like mixture. I had Shawn taste it but he didn’t like it at all. But I enjoyed it and that’s what really mattered anyway and it was pretty enough to get the attention of a lady returning to her dining room after visiting the bathroom. Shawn had an order of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. I tasted his meal and had to agree that it was even better than mine. So all in all, it was a slam dunk at Prime Time.

decisions, decisions, decisions

We finished our meal with a Dad’s super sundae and an order of s’mores. The super sundae was just too much for Shawn although he enjoyed it. I’m the one who ordered the s’mores but it turns out that I don’t like s’mores that much…too much chocolate. I did eat the crispy, toasted top of every marshmallow. It was more difficult of a task than picking the potato off the fish but I accomplished it!

Dinner was at Brown Derby that night for the Fantasmic! Package.

Shawn ordered Seared Sea Scallop with barbeque pork rib belly and corn relish. He devoured the sea scallop before I got a taste. He liked the bite and was done with his appetizer. At $8.39 it was a costly bite. It took some coercing but he did eventually try the bbq pork rib belly. I think the name and the fact that he hates to eat pork turned him off but he did enjoy it. I ended up finishing the pork because it made a great compliment to my crab cake which was also delicious. The saltiness of the nori crust was perfect with the sweetness of his pork rib belly.

Shawn and I were not thrilled with the entrees but we really wanted the Fantasmic tickets. Neither of us wanted buffet and Shawn dislikes Italian food unless we make it ourselves and he’s half Italian. Go figure. As I mentioned before he is satisfied with plain roasted chicken which is why he ordered Tanglewood Farms Rotisserie Half Chicken with toasted cashew-currant pilaf and natural juices. We didn’t care for the pilaf though. I had the Sesame Seared Ahi Tuna with Wasabi Whipped Potatoes, Sugar Peas, Ginger soy reduction, and coriander lime essence. It was pretty good…I was a little confused when the waiter asked how well done I wanted my seared tuna since the restaurant back home only prepares it one way. I went with the chef recommendation of medium well but in retrospect should have gone rarer. I didn’t care for my wasabi whipped potatoes. I don’t mind trying new things but since I don’t care for wasabi on my sushi or sashimi I wasn’t that surprised that I didn’t like them in my potatoes.

Our finish was Double Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee with a gingersnap sugar stick and White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Praline Cheesecake - with blood orange sauce on the side. The waiter was so sweet and brought out two glasses of champagne to celebrate our honeymoon…but Shawn and I don’t drink alcohol and we really don’t like champagne. I’m a sugar fanatic and I enjoyed my crème brulee and the sugar stick it was served with while Shawn picked at the cheesecake. He likes sugar too but tends to be pickier about it’s form.

 

[lauritagoddess]

Great reviews, love the pics!!!

 

[Mike N Kathy]

Good reviews ! love the food porn pics !! NEED More!!! plz finish hahahha

 

[Belle23]

Thank you for the reviews and great pics. Oh and Congratulations!!

 

[thelionqueen]

Great reviews and pics...the smore's looked heavenly..I am gettin' that!!

 

[jenrose66]

Great reviews. And I love when there's pictures!

 

[keypooh90]

Thanks for the reviews
!

 

[schatterjee]

I have to say it again - love the reviews and photos!

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoyed reading your reviews ~ Thanx for posting.

Lovely piccies.

 

[DeterminedOne]

Yummy - thanks for sharing! Congratulations on your wedding and Disneymoon. From reading your reviews it looks like you were on the premium or platinum package.(?) If so, I'd love to know what you and your DH thought of the plan.

 

[Kaycee]

Great pictures and reviews - thanks!

 

[Uncleromulus]

Well done!!
I agree-that scallop at the Brown Derby was a costly bite!!!

 

[disneymom727]

Thanks for sharing your reviews. I had to laugh when you were talking about the smores at the 50's Prime Time. I did the same thing, only ate the toasted top of the marshmallows! That was the best part.

 

[RC Fan]

Thanks for the reviews! Love the pictures!

 

[pennyplanner]

Best wishes on your recent marriage! Thanks for taking the time to post your reviews. I do enjoy a review with pictures!

I am not too fussy (okay, forget lima beans ) when it comes to eating and so I had to laugh at your husband's discovery of just how good calamari can be. Sorry you didn't get to eat it all!

Looking forward to more!

--penny

 

[TwingleMum]

Congrats on your recent wedding!! Great reviews loved the pictures..

 

[shawnzgirl]

By the way, before I start, thank you for all the well wishes out that you have posted. We're really looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together. Right now it's still a little too perfect but he's gone back to work a few days ago and when I start back in two weeks "real life" will kick in.

Day 3 started out with a quick grab and go snack from the food court at POR-Riverside. I had a butter croissant (which was buttery bunt not warm) and milk. Shawn had chocolate milk and a banana. The total was somewhere around $6.00 and we paid cash for it. It was one of our few out of pocket meals. I forgot to mention that we had another out of pocket snack the previous night at Wolfgang Puck’s. Had I known we would have so many leftover credits in the end, I would have used one or two to pay for that snack. We were on the Westside and we stopped in at the counter service Wolfgang’s. We ordered a very mediocre tuna sushi, a kid’s mac and cheese, and one soda for a total just under $20. The mac and cheese was rich, cheesy, and delicious but not quite worth the $6 we paid for it. The grocery store at the corner sells mac and cheese for 23 cents a box, of course you have to provide your own milk and heating element but I digress.

We spent the greater part of this morning on the Backstage Safari tour which was absolutely wonderful and generally educational. We were a little disturbed by the frozen food portion of the kitchen tour but I’m not an herbivore so I shouldn’t judge.

We had 11:30 reservations for Rainforest café in AK…which we were late for because we were filling out tour survey forms. We had a wonderful waitress who let us know straight up that we could have any non-alcoholic drink, an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert with our dining plan. I chose a drink that consisted of three different icee drinks layered in a giant mug with a toy gorilla in the bottom. Shawn chose a diet coke which was also served in the same type of keepsake mug. Unfortunately keepsake means you need to lug it around with you for the rest of the day.

Shawn should have ordered the coconut shrimp skewers as an appetizer but he didn’t since he ordered a shrimp sampler that included a few. He ordered the buffalo chicken wings instead which tasted like buffalo chicken wings. He doesn’t eat buffalo chicken wings though so he ate half of my skewers. Turns out that he doesn’t eat shrimp scampi or shrimp enbrochette (the other 2/3 of the shrimp sampler he ordered) either. I tasted the scampi and enbrochette that he left behind and I wouldn’t have enjoyed that meal either. They have a special menu that they give you with the regular menu with their most requested items…the shrimp sampler was one of the meals. I went for the lobster stuffed with crabmeat which was huge! But alas it was just okay. If we were to go again I’d stick with an order of the safari shrimp skewers...we really did enjoy those. Ready for pictures? Here we go…

We finished up the meal with an order of Bananas Fosters for each of us. It was cold…really cold. I know the main ingredient is ice cream but it was like the whole thing had been assembled and frozen. Don’t get me wrong it was good and I finished it, it was just cold. Shawn wasn’t as crazy about the dessert but he did finish it…so it was better than the cheesecake at Brown Derby and the soufflé at Flying Fish. In the end we were a little surprised that we had racked up $150 bill for rather mediocre seafood. The cost was about the same at Flying Fish and while I’m not a cooked fish lover, I can appreciate that Flying Fish is a superior quality.

We had 4:00 reservations at Fulton’s Crab House in hopes of finishing dinner prior to seeing La Nouba that evening but we skipped them since we just weren’t that hungry. By 5:00 we were looking to grub and Planet Hollywood was the way to go. Shawn has a predilection to Planet Hollywood’s Cap’n Crunch Chicken strips…it’s his most requested meal which I wouldn’t mind making if I didn’t have to deep fry those suckers. So I’ll occasionally make them as party appetizers otherwise he has to wait until we make a pilgrimage to Vegas (they’ve closed so many of the other ones). Lucky for him there was a PH right smack dab in the middle of Downtown Disney. I’m not sure if we have ever had a meal at PH in all of our visits…we usually each order a chicken crunch appetizer and a side of fries which we share. This time we were faced with the entire menu. It was early enough in the day that we could use the free PH meal voucher. I had my heart set on a pasta dish…which pretty much meant that I’d be getting the pasta pomodoro since I was using the voucher. We were also going to use a dining credit for the other meal. Turns out that for the burger platter you can have any burger other than the celebrity so Shawn ended up using the voucher to get a turkey burger. I’m not a PH expert nor am I a burger expert but what is it about a burger served on an English muffin that demands a premium price therefore excluding it from voucher use??? Now I was the one using the dining plan so I went with a chicken crunch appetizer and the LA lasagna. The LA lasagna was delicious and I ended up ordering it 3 times while we were in WDW but I don’t think I ever got a picture of them. Think really large, round versions of deep fried raviolis. I never could eat more than 1 ½ of the 4 but I enjoyed them immensely. Shawn ate half of the appetizer and we wrapped the other 2 to go. He enjoyed the turkey burger. Since we were only using one dining plan credit, we only had one appetizer and one dessert. This combined with 2 entrees and 2 drinks really was the ideal amount of food for us. I’m not sure why we didn’t take any pictures this night…but I don’t have any until the next morning’s tour. We finished the meal with an order of white chocolate bread pudding which is just okay…nothing spectacular. Shawn enjoyed it more than I did but that’s probably because there was a honking scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. A side note, I had wanted to have the dessert sampler as our dessert but they have to deduct 2 credits for it even though it is only 2 or 3 dollars more than the other dessert options. Since we only had one dessert credit, there was just no way they could allow us to make up the difference in price.

After dinner it was back to Wolfgang Puck (downstairs café) to get a late night snack. It was a little after 11 and we decided to just use one credit. Shawn’s affinity is for cap’n crunch chicken strips and mine is for sushi. We started with a crispy calamari appetizer which was just way too salty to eat. Sushi can only be ordered as an entrée so we selected a sushi platter that had a not very flavorful miso soup, salty edamame, ½ CA roll, ½ spicy tuna roll, 5 pieces of sashimi nigri, and 3 pieces of sashimi. I enjoyed the sashimi and nigri but just like the night before, the sushi rolls are so very plain and are comparable to the prepackaged rolls you buy at Costco or Von’s.

Throughout the meal I was excited about dessert. They have a dessert station with all the makings of a sugar fantasy. They also have a display case showcasing the different sugar forms of the night. We went with the apple crème brulee which wasn’t apple tasting or crème brulee tasting. In a word it was “yucky.”

One other complaint about this restaurant is the noise level…it’s very loud!!! We were seated near a large group of business men who had a few drinks but it was disturbing how loud the restaurant was. Service was just okay also…not very friendly…not around a whole lot.