Our Quest for American Food - and Pictures of it

[Beth E. (NJ)]

Thanks for sharing your reviews and pictures. I really enjoyed reading it.

 

[Flossbolna]

Once again thanks for everyones nice remarks!!

Great review again! Thanks for posting lawyergirl's pics of Boma's buffet. I have an ADR there for October but I'm just not feeling the love for Boma, and seeing the buffet has sealed it for me. I think I will change it, as there are just too many different things for my non-adventurous DH and DD to really enjoy it. I am, however, thinking of changing it to Cali Grill and your review there helped in that decision, also! Did you ever think posting a food review would give you so much power!

I am glad that those reviews are actually really helpful to someone. I loved reading reviews to help me make plans for our trip. I always appreciated it when I could understand why someone liked or disliked a place as their reason for liking it might be my reason to not like it, tastes are thanksfully different!

Angel Food Cake

1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
1 1/2 cups egg whites (about 15 egg whites)
1 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla


Mix flour and 1/2 cup of sugar in a small bowl. Set aside.
In a large bowl whip egg whites untill they are frothy.
Add cream of tartar, salt, and vanilla. Whip on high speed untill the egg whites are stiff. Lower speed and gradually add remaining 1 cug of sugar and mix about 1 minute.

Gradually add flour-sugar mixture, one fourth at a time over egg whites. Fold gently with a spatula, just untill blended.

Pour batter into ungreased tube pan. You could also use a bundt pan or two bread pans. With a knife, gently cut through batter to remove large air bubbles. Bake at 375 for 35 minutes or untill crust is golden brown and cracks are very dry. Immediatly invert cake and cool completely.

eta.........I forgot to send this in a pm, sorry!!

Thanks a lot!! Since someone else was looking for the recipe, too, thanks for not PMing it! just a quick question: Does it have to be cream of tartar or can I use baking powder?? Now I just have to find something to do with 15 egg yolks!!!!

We never got out to the Munich area or to Nuremberg, which is the one place my husband would have loved to visit.

Well, you should come back to Germany then!! Bavaria is really beautiful and there is lots to see besides Nuremberg and Munich!

I am really enjoying your review! And I LOVE the photographs...makes me feel like I'm there. Thanks for taking pics of the restaurants...love the one of Pecos Bills and the one of the Flame Tree.

You're welcome. For me the atmosphere of a meal is an important part of the experience, so I was always looking for pictures of restaurants before our trip! Do you know that there is a restaurant picture thread here? It can be found here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1116965

 

[Flossbolna]

Wednesday, February 14

This is our last full day and I actually had breakfast that day again: a fruit cup!! Carola still had the rest of her Kona Cafe desert to work on... And I got a soft serve ice cream during that morning at AK... It was nice, but nothing special, but then, this is a very standard product, I cannot see that there cold be huge differences in taste...

Lunch at Lottawa Lodge (Blizzard Beach)

Carola and I split up this morning after another early morning with EE time at AK. I took the bus over to Blizzard Beach while Carola stayed at Ak and had another lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue. I tried to steer her towards trying lunch at Tusker House but she was set on getting the chocolate cake that she did not have for desert the first time we had lunch their. She claims the chocolate cake was fantastic. Unfortunately I have read somewhere that they sell the same prepackaged cakes at AK for desert now as in MK. So Carola's recommendation might not be up to date anymore

Back to my own lunch, I had a chicken wrap basket and ordered a Mickey Premium Bar for desert. They told me that if I bring my receipt later on, I could pcik up the ice cream then. I thought this was great, but then I ended up never going back there to pick up my ice cream, partly because I was busy experiencing the slides, but also because I did not want to spoil my appetite for dinner at Jiko.

The chicken wrap was very bland: remember that Mexico chicken salad in Epcot? It was mainly like that in a wrap (but with white meat), definitely very low calory but not very enjoyable. It came with a packet of crisps, that is what made it a basket. They were as expected... It filled me up enough, it was not as if I had a shortage of food during our trip. I has chosen the wrap because I wanted something light because I knew a big dinner was coming that evening. But I guess I would have been happier with just a snack and the ice cream...

On a side note in case anyone wonders what it is like to go to a water park in February: it is doable. There were warmer days during our time here and I should have gone on one of those, but it is so difficult to not go to the big parks early in the trip. So, take any chance you have, it might be the only one. That day I went it was very sunny, but quite windy and when you are wet that added a definite chill factor!! But I think this was one of the reasons why it was not crowded at all, I did not wait for anything for more than 3 minutes. Even the chair lift did not really have a long line. I really enjoyed Blizzard Beach, even going on my own was not too strange, I actually enjoyed touring in my own time. I will certainly take more time to enjoy a water park next time I am there! And I will research my dining options there better beforehand!!

Dinner at Jiko (Animal Kingdom Lodge)

Our last "real" meal (besides breakfast) at WDW was also our best. We had an ADR for 8pm and checked in a few minutes before that time. As with California Grill this was actually the only other friendly experience we had with the restaurant check in castmembers. We were told that unfortunately they were running a bit late and it would be about 20 min. Carola and I were debating getting a drink at Victoria Falls and took quite some time studying their drinks menu. But we could not really decide on anything, so wandered around the lodge a bit more. Unfortunately I was always afraid to get out of the area where the beeper would still have a connection so we never dared to venture too far with the beeper. I found that most castmembers did not really now where we could go with them either...

Finally we were called and the castmember who took us to our table was really excited that we were from Germany. She was a cultural representative from Namibia which used to be a German colony (until 1918, then it was administered by South Africa for the League of Nations until it became independent in 1990) and still has strong ties to Germany. She had learned German in school and was happily trying it out on us. She even came by later as remebered some more phrases! It was a great start to the meal!!

Jiko is an exceptional beautiful restaurant. I love African design and Jiko is a master piece in my opinion. Don't ask: Why didn't you take any pictures? Stupidity is the only answer I could come up with!!! I had been on the culinary tour offered every afternoon at AKL and had a lovely castmember explaining all the different elements of the restaurant and their meaning, mainly the are symbols for good luck, wealth and wisdom. We were seated at one of the tabels for two in the second row of tables from the windows. We had the last table and that was actually quite nice because we had no one sitting on one side of us as the tables are quite close. We dined when it was already dark outside and it was not very light inside either. I am personally someone who like light rooms, but here it was very atmospheric lightning. It was never so that I felt like I was sitting in the dark, but it was very dimmed down. I actually liked it very much and felt it would make for a very romantic atmosphere. One wall symbolizes the African sunset and sunrise and changes colour constantly, this is a fantastic feature!

Our server for the evening was Shellie and she was absolutely fantastic. I am still amazed about the level of service that is common in the USA, to the extent that I sometimes find it a bit intrusive. But Carola and I agreed on that she was so much better than any other server we had experienced! At the table next to us there was a couple who came for a Valentines Day meal and one of them seemed to be a regular guest at Jiko who always requested Shellie as his server (I told you the tables were close, could not help overhearing some of their conversation with Shellie...).

For our appetizers I had the North African-spiced Beef Bastela - with cucumber yogurt. It was little cups made from filo dough filled with rather spicy ground beef. It was served with a very nice fresh yoghurt sauce with cucumbers in it. It sounds a bit strange, but I liked it a lot! However, this was deifinitely a spicy dish, so if you are sensitive to anything mildly hot, don't eat it! The name fits, so if you know what "North African" means, you would know what to expect, otherwise, if you are adventurous, go for it, if you are not: don't order it, it is rather exotic!

Carola had the Tikka Marinated Ahi Tuna - with heirloom beans and Tikka yogurt. I was thinking about ordering this, too, but since I had the tuna at CG, I wanted to try something different. The tuna was very good, again with interesting spices.

For my entree I had the Maize-crusted and Seared Pacific Sturgeon - with vegetables of the moment, tomato butter sauce, and crispy sweet potatoes. It was fantastic, this is the dish that made Jiko a must do on any trip for me! The fish was in this very light maize crust, fried, very moist and fresh. A really good fish, not fishy in a bad way at all. The crust added some nice texture to it. The vegetables of the moment were a lot of different vegetables (sorry, I am not sure I remeber correctly, I think there were tomatoes, peas, green beans, some kind of squash perhaps...) they were still very crisp and they were not boiled, more stir fried. On the bottom of the plate was this incredible sauce. I really like tomatoes and this was a dream of a tomatoe sauce! Very creamy, but not heavy tasting. I think there were some spices added to it, but they were not extreme at all, they just added some taste. On top of the fish were thin stripes of fried sweet potatoes. Those went extremely well with all the other things on the plate and added some nice crunch to the dish as well!

I could not help notiicing that the guy on the table next to us who had been many times asked Shellie to recommend a dish for his date who was a bit of a picky eater and they ended up with the sturgeon which was a great succes with them, too!

Carola had the Durban Shrimp Curry - Organic Florida sweet shrimp stew Durbanesque curry sauce, artichokes, tomatoes, sweet peas and colusari rice. You might wonder what a curry is doing at an African restaurant, but there are many Indians living in Africa (big parts of Africa having been British colonies just as India, even Ghandi used to live in South Africa), so there actually are lots of African curries as the Indian curry has been brought into the African cuisine. So that is actually what this dish was, very similar to an Indian curry. I did not try it, I am allergic against shrimp, but Carola liked it, but said it was quite spicy and hot.

Already when we got our Appetizers I was getting a bit annoyed that they obviously had forgotten to get us some bread as we could see that so many other tables had bread. I was not really needing the bread anyway, by this point in the trip we could only vaguely remember what it felt like to be hungry, but I was thinking I was missing some of the experience!! Well, just after our entrees had been served, Shellie appeared with the bread and spiced butter and announced that as requested by the chef they only serve bread with the main course. Ah! Now I knew I had not been derived of the special bread experience at Jiko!! The bread was a bit like a whole grain bread and the butter was full of spices. Not hot, more sweet. It was an interesting taste and it went well with my entree

I had told Shellie that I would like to get a glass of white wine to go with my entree ans saked for recommendations. She asked me what kind of wines I liked and I explained as good as I could (I find the American taste in wines to be very different from the European and therefore was not sure whether I could really explain what I like. For example I love German Riesling as it is sold here in Germany, but Rieslings from other countries and even German ones sold abroad tend to be overly fruity... Don't know whether this makes any sense). She came back with a wine that she recommended so I could taste it and I really liked it a lot, it was just what I like! It was called Mulderbosch, I can easily recommend getting a glas of that! But I would even more recommend to ask your waiter at Jiko what they suggest!

For desserts both Carola and I liked the sound of the Green Apple Mascarpone Trifle with roasted Granny Smith apples, apple-caramel sauce, whipped cream and pumpkin seed brittle. However, another of my food allergies is uncooked apples (as well as pears, see Kona Cafe review) so I asked whether the apples were really cooked in this dessert. Shellie said she was not sure but would check and came back to tell me that indeed the apples were cooked and whether there was anything else that was a problem for me to make sure I really could eat the dish. So we both ordered this dessert. Even when the server who had brought out all our dishes came to to serve desert he made sure that I could eat the desert and once again reassured me that they talked to the chef that the apples are cooked. My food allergies are really not life threatening, but I appreciated that my concerns were taken seriously and I was able to get the information needed.

I guess that most of you are not so much interested in my food allergies but in how we liked our desert. It was fantastic! I love apples and since I can't eat them raw anymore, I always like deserts that have cooked apples. The dessert was served in a high cone shaped glas and it was layers of mascarpone cream, apples and the caramel sauce. The caramel sauce was again nicely seasoned, I think I remember cinnamon. It felt very fresh and even though both of us were very full, we managed to finish it!!

Shellie aslo asked whether we would want any coffee or tea and mentioned that they offer a special selection of organic loose leaf teas we decided that we would love a good cup of tea to end the meal. I chose the Flowerly Earl Grey and Carola had the Vanilla Rooibos. Both teas were very good and they counted as our drinks on the DDP!!

The time on our check is 22:34, so assuming that we were seated by 20:30, the meal took two hours. But we never felt like we were kept waiting, it was just a relaxed meal. To be honest for a restaurant of that quality and considering that we had three courses and tea, I would have felt hurried if it had been less than two hours. But then I am European and we like to linger over our meal.

We used two TS credits each for this meal, the total amount (without the wine) with tax and the 18% gratuity included in the dining plan was 137,19 $, that is nearly the value of those 4 TS credits. I payed OOP for the wine (9,75 $ before tax) and we would have payed for Carolas Sprite, but didn't have to. As we liked Shellies service so much we left an additional tip as we felt that 18% was not enough.

As mentioned in the beginning, Jiko was great, exceptional, fantastic. In my opinion much better than CG. I like food that has interesting spices, so the food is more appealing to me. I love the decor and all its details. And finally, it was quiet! It might have been because we were ther actually on Valentines Day and many couples came for a special meal (a lot of locals obviously and many with the DDE card that was not valid for Valentines Day, we witnessed some problems in this regard, all handled very professionally though). But there were quite a number of well-behaved children around. I think they might have actually designed the room so that it has good accustics, meaning that it actually absorbs lots of the noise generated by the guests, adult or child.

That's it for today, next will be a final breakfast at Mara and my final remarks and thoughts.

 

[John's Mom]

Thanks for another great review! Jiko is our favorite WDW restaurant. Shellie is an excellent server and she really knows her South African wines.

I am one of the German, sweet, white wine lovers. One of my co-workers use to visit Germany every year on business. He would always recommend a wine that I would love. Each trip to WDW I stop at the German Pavilion and have a flight of white wine.

I'm looking forward to your next trip to WDW so I can read your dining reviews and trip report. Thanks for sharing!

Kathy

 

[andiepie]

Great reviews once again!

Pretty sure that cream of tartar is required for the angel food cakes. We use it in meringues and divinity candy. Yum! Angel food cake is a staple for my family for 4th of July holiday, so I'll ask my mother just to be sure. I think lemon curd (kinda like a lemon pudding, but not quite) requires a lot of egg yolks. Go to www.epicurious.com for great recipies for it, and well just about anything else you'd like to cook.

I have a friend who spent a semester in college in Munich. She lived with a host family in a town/region (I'm not really sure) called Neubiberg. She loved it there and brought home so much chocolate I became sick. I still have her postcards.

And thanks for that thread about the restaurant pics. I've been wondering where that was for so long!

 

[estherhead]

Now I just have to find something to do with 15 egg yolks!!!!

Aren't you from Bavaria? Bavarian Cream uses only egg yolks!

1 vanilla bean
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
3 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup sugar
5 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups whipped cream
6 sliced strawberries

Put the split vanilla bean in cream and slowly bring to a boil. Turn off heat and let sit for 1 hour.
Remove bean and scrape out seeds, add them to the cream and discard the pod. Sprinkle the gelatin into the milk and set aside.
Whisk the sugar and egg yolks together. Warm the cream mixture back up and slowly whisk into eggs. Place mixture over simmering water and stir until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooded spoon. Remove from heat and add milk and gelatin mixture.
Place bowl in ice bath and stir until at room temperature.
Fold in whipped cream and pour mixture into 6 (6-ounce) ramekins. Place in refrigerator for 4 to 5 hours or until mixture is set. Remove from molds and garnish with strawberries.


Yummy! Is Bavarian Cream really from Bavaria? Or is it like French Fries

 

[wilma-bride]

Wow, Jiko sounds absolutely fantastic. I really, really like the sound of the Sturgeon and I am not a fish person at all. I am off to have a look at the menu now - seriously considering this one for next April

 

[Flossbolna]

Thanks for another great review! Jiko is our favorite WDW restaurant. Shellie is an excellent server and she really knows her South African wines.

I am one of the German, sweet, white wine lovers. One of my co-workers use to visit Germany every year on business. He would always recommend a wine that I would love. Each trip to WDW I stop at the German Pavilion and have a flight of white wine.

I'm looking forward to your next trip to WDW so I can read your dining reviews and trip report. Thanks for sharing!

Kathy

You see, in Germany most people acutally do not drink the sweet German wine that Germany is known for abroad, but rather very dry wines. But there are some really great wines (sweet and dry) made here!

Great reviews once again!

Pretty sure that cream of tartar is required for the angel food cakes. We use it in meringues and divinity candy. Yum! Angel food cake is a staple for my family for 4th of July holiday, so I'll ask my mother just to be sure. I think lemon curd (kinda like a lemon pudding, but not quite) requires a lot of egg yolks. Go to www.epicurious.com for great recipies for it, and well just about anything else you'd like to cook.

I have a friend who spent a semester in college in Munich. She lived with a host family in a town/region (I'm not really sure) called Neubiberg. She loved it there and brought home so much chocolate I became sick. I still have her postcards.

And thanks for that thread about the restaurant pics. I've been wondering where that was for so long!

You remeber correctly, Neubiberg is just south of Munich. I will have to check out the link for recipes, thanks!

Aren't you from Bavaria? Bavarian Cream uses only egg yolks!

1 vanilla bean
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
3 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup sugar
5 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups whipped cream
6 sliced strawberries

Put the split vanilla bean in cream and slowly bring to a boil. Turn off heat and let sit for 1 hour.
Remove bean and scrape out seeds, add them to the cream and discard the pod. Sprinkle the gelatin into the milk and set aside.
Whisk the sugar and egg yolks together. Warm the cream mixture back up and slowly whisk into eggs. Place mixture over simmering water and stir until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooded spoon. Remove from heat and add milk and gelatin mixture.
Place bowl in ice bath and stir until at room temperature.
Fold in whipped cream and pour mixture into 6 (6-ounce) ramekins. Place in refrigerator for 4 to 5 hours or until mixture is set. Remove from molds and garnish with strawberries.


Yummy! Is Bavarian Cream really from Bavaria? Or is it like French Fries

Thanks! It's a good idea! Did you know that the cream before you fold in the whipped cream in German is called "English cream" I know that in Britain it would be called custard, no idea what it is in American English. I think this quite neat: you add whipped cream to English cream and ger Bavarian Cream

It is unclear whether Bavarian Cream was invented at the court of a Bavarian king or whether it was invented at the French court during a time when the French king was married to a Bavarian princess. But there is some Bavaria in it

Wow, Jiko sounds absolutely fantastic. I really, really like the sound of the Sturgeon and I am not a fish person at all. I am off to have a look at the menu now - seriously considering this one for next April

I am much more of a meat person and eat fish only occasionly, but loved the sturgeon, so I can only encourage you to give it a try!

 

[Flossbolna]

Thursday, 15 February

Breakfast at Mara (Animal Kingdom Lodge)

This was our last day at WDW (fortunately we still had 10 days of fun in Florida ahead of us including an incredible swim with manatees at Homosassa Springs). We had arranged a pick up from Alamo to pick up our rental car at 9:30 am and packed all our bags before heading down to Mara to have a last breakfast there.

We had just two counter service credits left over, so it was perfect for getting a bit more a substantial breakfast. I got a Mickey waffle with bacon and a bottled diet coke for my breakfast, Carola used her credit to get a bottle of orange juice, an oatmeal and another yogurt parfait. We also used our refillable mugs for drinks, I actually kept my soda for later in the day. We both liked our choices. I love the combination of waffle, bacon and sirup. I think it is one of those things that is very special about American food: the combination of sweet and savoury. I really enjoy it a lot! And later in our trip we actually had big breakfasts a few times, so I got lots of those combinations!

We also had still 5 snack credits left over and got more drinks for those to take with us. I know that we could have gotten something more expensive than the drinks, but we would have bought drinks anyway and it is always more fun to actually buy a snack when you just want one instead of having something lying around.

My receipt from Mara is from 8:40 am and I was shocked how crowded the place was at that time. All the other days I actually was queing in fron of the main gates of one of the parks at that time, so I wouldn't have known where all the other people are. Now I knew: having breakfast. The other days I had been down at Mara at around 7:30 am with only a few people around. I was afraid it would take us ages to get our food, but it turned out that everything was actually quite quick. However, I think nearly all tables inside were taken, but we did not mind that as it was a sunny morning and we actually preferred to sit outside where there was plenty of space.

Final thoughts:

On our second visit to WDW Carola and I agreed that we had a lot of really great food.

Caution, this is going to be a bit of long and winded back story, so preoceed to the next paragraph for the real final thoughts!

I love to eat well when on vacation and was always a bit apprehensive of food at WDW. After my first trip to a Disney park, Disneyland during a stay with my aunt in California, in 1992 I really wanted to go and see Disneyland Paris that had opened that year, but really did not have the money for it as I was just starting university. However, my sister one year got me as a christmas present a huge guide book for Disneyland Paris (then still called EuroDisney), it was the Unofficial Guide for Disneyland Paris (I think there was only ever one edition published) in a German translation. In the chapter on food it starts as follows: During the ten years that we have been reporting on Disney's American parks, we did not have many good things to say about the quality of the food offered there. Of course there are exceptions, but in general Disney's restaurants have to make an immense effort to reach at least the level of quality offered by McDonald's (my translation back into English from German). They then go on to say how great the food at DLP is. I finally got to go to DLP in 1995, 1997 and 2003 and never had great food there. The food was not bad, but I never found anything really good (besides my love for Cowboy Cookout Barbeque). So I was really afraid before our trip in 2004 that the food would be really bad! That was before I had discovered the disboards and dining reviews and such, so I only went with what I could get from reading guide books. Wow, was I relieved after our first meal at Boma during that trip: the restaurant was really as great as it had sounded before!

Back to the real final thoughts:

We had nearly constantly really good food. I think it is amazing considering how many meals they serve that they can keep up this level. I think one thing that makes it easier is that I found most restaurants have actually very limited menus with just a few choices, which then still manage to cover a lot of different tastes. I think part of this is also that Disney does not really mind if you find nothing you like at the one restaurant as you can just go to the next restaurant also owned by Disney which might be more to your taste. So instead of offering one restaurant with a big menu they offer "a menu of restaurants" to choose from and thus enable the individual restaurant to really concentrate on what they do best. This way they are also able to provide this huge variety which makes it especially appealing for me. And which enabled us to sample a lot of different types of American food!!

We had made our ADRs just after we booked the trip in October, a bit less than 4 months before our arrival at WDW. We got all the places and times we wanted, only Kona we did not get 5 pm but 5:20 pm which was still great! In 2004 we also had ADRs for all our meals (then still called Priority Seating) and I hated it to actually make up my mind ages before I got there where I wanted to eat. This time I had kind of accepted that this is the way things were at WDW. I used the crowd calender on the Unofficial Guide's website to plan which park we would visit each day and planned the meals to fit in with the park of the day and its opening hours. It actually worked very well and even added a nice structure to our touring. I did not mind it a bit (besides on our Downtown Disney day) that we had to be at a place at a certain time. But then we were two adults and had plenty of time for rather relaxed touring of the parks, so there was nothing to mix up our schedule.

We ate at many resort restaurants, mainly because we found their menus more appealing than the park restaurants. However, when reading the menus I found out that all the moderate resort sit down restaurants seem to have adopted the same generic very limited menu that was not appealing at all, so we only ate at deluxe resorts... As we had no car during our stay at WDW we relied on bus transportation. So I tried to make sure that we always had a park close by to transfer us on the way home. In 2004 we had made some bad experiences with travelling times to DTD, so we avoided it succesfully as a transfer point! We only did EMH at AK on our last evening, otherwise we avoided those, but used them as well as MK on the Pirate and Princess Parties nights as transfer point. It worked out great!

DDP: I am really not sure what I think of it. I know that we saved a lot of money taking into account the food we actually ordered. I know that we saved a bit of money on the food we would have ordered if we had not been on the plan. I actually sat down before our trip and calculated what we would be likely to eat if we actually had to look for the money and I came out with 41 $ on avarage per night. So it seemed to be a good deal. I also enjoyed the freedom of getting whatever appealed to me most without taking the price into consideration. And it was great to try out so many different things. However, it was way too much food for me! I am actually not a light eater at all, but I found the portions way too big for me, especially with appetizer and desert. The jet lag seemed to reduce my appetite as well as the warmer weather on some days. I also really missed getting snacks during the day because I was so full from all the food I was constantly eating. And the idea of having the option of a quick one course meal now and then would be appealing to me, too! I am not sure I would get the DDP again. I think I would rather take the chance of paying a bit more, but have my freedom of adjusting my eating patterns (besides the booked ADRs of course) to what I feel like! And I think I would like to try a few more TS lunches to have the evening free for fun in the parks! But who knows what the DDP will look like for 2008 anyway?!

That's it! I have no idea when I will be back, hopefully soon. Lufthansa has just announced a direct flight from Frankfurt to Orlando starting in October, so I just take this as a sign to come back soon... Until then, thanks for reading so far and thanks to everyone who commented, it is good to know that people actually enjoy what I am writing! I am looking forward to all of your dining reviews after your future trips!!

 

[TigerKat]

Thanks for the great JIKO review. I'm dying to try it on our next trip and the Sturgeon is the dish I was considering! Your review is the first I've read that mentioned the sunrise/sunset wall. Is this something that the staff brings to your attention?

 

[winkers]

Thanks a lot!! Since someone else was looking for the recipe, too, thanks for not PMing it! just a quick question: Does it have to be cream of tartar or can I use baking powder?? Now I just have to find something to do with 15 egg yolks!!!!




]

I don't think it would work the same. The cream of tartar makes it stiffer. I just "googled" it and the German word for it is "Gereinigter Weinstein". Does that help any?

 

[SmallWorld71]

That apple desert from Jiko sounded divine!
Thanks again for the great reviews.

 

[Bama_C]

OK I am late to the party... I have just finished reading 9 pages of reviews and comments , and I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed every word! Your pictures are just fantastic, and your reports are wonderfully worded and thorough enough to get a real feeling for all your meals. Thanks for taking time with this and doing such a great job.

I love German food... for 2 years we lived close to a wonderful restaurant run by a couple originally from Germany (called Ol' Heidelberg Cafe Berlin). We went as often as we could, not as often as we would have liked being newlyweds and on a very limited budget. We loved it all ... from the warm potato salad and marinated cole slaw, to the Chicken Schitzel, to the homemade weiners adn sausages, to the cheesecakes and pastries made fresh daily. (Yep... there was a LOT to love about that restaurant.) I still have withdrawals when I think of it, because even though we have a plethora of eating establishments within 20 miles of where we are now... NOTHING comes close to our favorite little German restaruant. (It was actually voted one of the 10 best restaurants in the city at one time. Link here: http://www.10best.com/Huntsville/Restaurants/International/index.html)

Thanks again for terrific reviews.

pixidust: Pixie dusting you!!

 

[alabamagirl]

I enjoyed your dining reviews very much! I tired WCC on my last trip and thought it was fantastic! Thank you for sharing!!

 

[DiRTyBuNNy]

Wow, this is the first review I've been able to read from start to finish. The whole looking at America through German eyes made the review very captivating for me!

--Mr. DB

 

[irongirlof12]

Thanks for your detailed reviews, we are doing DDP on our next trip and its good to get some info upfront.

 

[wilma-bride]

I really loved your review and am disappointed they are over. You will have to go back soon so we can have something else to read

 

[PrincessTiff]

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

 

[whogirl'smom]

This whole review has been just great! We are doing the DDP in October and I have wondered myself if it will be too much food. I did like you and added up what I think we would have eaten if we weren't on DDP, and it looks like we will save a bit of money, so we'll see! I hate to waste food, but I will just have to learn to push my plate back sooner, to have room for the yummy desserts . Thank you for all the time you took to do this review; I have really enjoyed it! Hope you get to go back to WDW soon and try some new restaurants!

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

I love your report! It is fascinating seeing things I take for granted from a different point of view. Thank you so much for your time and trouble or it is it 'danke"??

I use Duncan Hines angel food cake mix and it has never failed me.
Also you do not need to worry about eggs at all!!!
Slightly Goofy