Penguins with a chance of... SQUIRREL!!! Photo Dining Review - Final Update 8-18

[Nohal]

Great reviews and the pictures are wonderful.

 

[TheNewMrsB]

Loving the reviews and the pics. Especially the night pics @ Epcot - I just love hanging back and getting beautiful shots when the place is practically empty.

 

[Golf4food]

Back from our non-Disney travels (gasp! there are places outside of WDW?!?!?) for yet another update. Only a few left now, sadly. We'll just have to schedule another trip or two. Oh, wait. We already have. Nevermind.

Day four found us at DHS, which is the place, in my opinion, where theme park food goes to die. We normally do sandwiches at Starring Rolls - a safe option, at least - but had just had sandwiches for lunch and dinner the day before, and found nothing else of interest in DHS and so wound up at Toy Story Pizza Planet, where at least the pizza would not be a sandwich.

We both also had the same thing to eat: pepperoni pizza with a side salad.

I think this is pretty good pizza. It has a nice flavor, and is a little spicy. Tastes like canned sauce (probably is, of course). We don't come from a pizza Mecca so I think this is pretty good. The side salad is iceberg lettuce, a few cherry tomatoes, and a sprinkling of cabbage and carrot shreds. I went with the Ken's Ranch for dressing. It was just ok. About what you would expect from a CS side salad. It's kind of fun to sit inside the arcade (go up to the second floor), even if it is noisy. I think it's a fun place to go for something other than a sandwich in a park that is not exactly known for fine dining.

I gave Pizza Planet three penguins:

This is one meal where Tazicket and I differ greatly in opinion. I found my pizza to be running with grease and chewy. The flavor itself is mostly ok. It's food. Mostly. The side salad is a joke. It is like the Animal Kingdom Dinoland of side salads. Two tiny cherry tomatoes, a few strips of purple cabbage, some scattered carrot shreds, and a pile of nutritionally mostly worthless iceberg lettuce. (Learn from the Titanic - avoid the iceberg.) At least they have Ken's salad dressing, which I think is pretty good for a ranch dressing. The best I can say is that at least it wasn't another turkey sandwich or, worse yet, the ABC Commissary.

I gave Pizza Planet one and a half penguins:

Bill:
Two pizza combos: $16.58
Bottled Water: $2.50
Sweet tea: $2.19*
Tax: $1.23
---------------
Total: $22.50

* Caveat about the tea: it is still that Gold Leaf junk, which is the Dinoland of sweet tea. Should call it sweat tea. One small step above China Mist.


Considering I can get a large 16" hand made fancy and fresh pizza from one of our local mom and pop pizza establishments for less than $22.50 I will never be overly satisfied with Pizza Planet. But it is at least a safe option at DHS (there are so few...) and Tazicket enjoys it, so I won't die eating there once or twice a year... I think.


Thankfully, the bad/mediocre food is behind us. Up next is a meal we had not expected or even considered during our months of planning. Where did we go? What did we have?

Find out, after this commercial break. <Live audience: Crowd Groaning Noise here> <Those watching at home: throw something at the screen>






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[wilma-bride]

Absolutely loving these reviews while also creasing up at your vague Brit references to the strange names you 'Mericans call our scones, biscuits, crisps and chips

We absolutely love Sassagoula Floatworks at POFQ and usually make a point of eating there at least nce during any trip, even though we're not staying there - one of the better food courts, in my opinion.

 

[Lucia_27]

Loving the dining review!!! And, of course, the penguins. All WDW needs is a penguin Christmas ornament for me to put on my already overloaded penguin filled tree, and I will be overjoyed!

 

[Golf4food]

Loving the dining review!!! And, of course, the penguins. All WDW needs is a penguin Christmas ornament for me to put on my already overloaded penguin filled tree, and I will be overjoyed!

Disney penguin ornaments would totally rock. We should inundate them with constant emails and phone calls until they make us all one.

 

[Disney_Jem]

Hi! Great dining reviews, and I love your pictures. Not sure if anyone asked this already but what kind of camera are you using?

 

[NorweJenNY]

I appreciate a review with someone who has a good handle on photography! Nice shots!

I don't think I've ever seen a review where someone gets that close and personal with their food!

 

[LuvsDisney1330]

I'm in... Great reviews!! Love the pics.... Can't wait for more!

 

[J.C.&ALI'SMOM]

Great reviews, photos, humor, everything I just wandered in here today and have enjoyed it all! So I think I'll stick around.

 

[Golf4food]

Quick iPhone update during halftime of arena football game (go sharks! Check us out on NFL network).

I use a Pentax K-7 dSLR. Most food pics taken with a Pentax DA 35mm LTD f2.8 lens - those that weren't with a Pentax DA 18-55 WR lens.

Love my camera.

 

[Golf4food]

After lunch at Pizza Planet we killed little time until the next showing of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular:

Ooooooooooh... How epic! How spectacular!

After that it was time to catch the Block Party Bash Parade, which we did by standing at the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Blvds - in the sun... twas hot, even for us Floridians (mostly because, as natives, we know better than to stand in the freaking sun... usually...)

After blocking and partying it was time to get some cool refreshment and go get a spot for our favorite stage show, Beauty and the Beast Epic Stage Spectacular (or something like that).

We already had a brownie from the Writer's Stop we had picked up earlier since word is they run out of snacks there fairly early in the day so that you are safer getting something early and carrying it with you if there is something you really want. Well a year ago I had one of their brownies and it was great, so we had to get another.

(For full disclosure this is last year's brownie as I did not photograph the new one - they look exactly the same and I had no free hand. Sorry. That is all.)


To go with the brownie we stopped at that little shop on the corner of Sunset, next to the place, by the thing... yeah, that one. <Insert proper name here if you know it... come on... somebody... anybody... Beuhler?>

*Breaking News! - the receipt says "Beverly Sunset". (Speaking of which, I can't think of anything I'd rather NOT drink while enjoying a sunset besides Beverly... carry on.)

Tazicket got a bottle of water and I got a strawberry ice slushie thing - whatever they call it.

We both were in store for a little disappointment (this is DHS food, after all). The brownie was quite dry and crumbling, though it did still taste fine flavor wise. It is FULL of giant hunks of chocolate and white chocoate, but the cake portion was dry like the Sahara (or the Magic Kingdom <rimshot> - it's a booze joke, get it? Cause there's no booze in the Magic Kingdom, so it is dry? Haha. Ha. Shut-up.).

The strawberry thing tastes about how it looks - fake. Note the neonish glow of artificial whatever. Yeah. If you took strawberry syrup, added a pound of extra sugar, and then mixed it with ice in a blender you'd about have the recipe. Great googly-moogly is it ever sweet. Won't be getting another one of those any time soon.


Bill (combined):
Brownie: $2.95 ($3.15 after tax)
Glacier Cup (The strawberry thing): $3.69
Dasani Bottled Water: $2.50
Tax: $0.24
--------------------
Total: $9.58



At least the Beauty and the Beast show was great as always.

But dinner... where did we have dinner?



Not in DHS.




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[wilma-bride]

You can keep your fake strawberry slush and your choc brownie, I'm loving the Beauty and the Beast pictures. My favourite show at Disney and I cannot wait to see it again - thanks so much for the excellent pictures

 

[vinotinto]

You have me in stitches! love the humor and the pics

 

[leanne11]

i have realized 2 things looking at yr pix...
1. never been to band b show(too girly for the boys
2.. stopped going to the parades long ago...but now both on my list..thnx....

 

[Golf4food]

A hot and tiring day at DHS left us in need of an afternoon nap, so back to POR it was. Fantasmic had two showings that night and we planned on going back for the second (and EMH) so we didn't have to be back at DHS any time soon.

This night's dinner had always been up in the air. We looked at all of the Boardwalk area options, Swolphin eateries, resorts... couldn't make up our minds. We had mostly settled on ESPN Club, but if you'll recall from a few posts ago we had found ourselves walking past Boatwrights at POR in the morning and had said to ourselves, "Selves, y'all should try Boatwrights sometime." Well, what actually happened was that we walked over to the concierge right away and made an ADR for dinner.

So we did have plans after all! Phew!

Boatwrights may have the best themeing of any moderate restaurant. Really nice work here.

Anyway, we walked around a bit killing some time before our ADR, but a storm came up and the weather had been a bit rainy for part of the afternoon. This seemed to cause a number of guests to decide that they would not venture back out to the parks and would instead stay and eat at the resort. As such there were quite a few people waiting when we got our buzzer and you could tell that the staff was not prepared (not enough servers for the sudden crowd) and some of the waiting guests seemed antsy. We took our buzzer and sat in the bar area for a little while - maybe 10-15 minutes past our ADR time - before we were called for our table. One can't help but think "O great, here we go... this will probably suck."

Thankfully, the wait for the ADR was the low point and everything was all uphill from there (uphill in a good way, not in the "I walked to school uphill in the snow" kind of way).

We were seated in the front room kind of under the edge of the boat ribs. I had hoped to be in the main room with the fireplace and tools, but no biggie - we can get that at any Cracker Barrel around town, right?

Our server was Chris and from the very start he dispelled any worries we had that the service would be bad due to the unexpected crowd. He was great. Took time to answer questions, explain the menu items, make recommendations, and never once made us feel like he was in a hurry or that we were wasting his time, etc. Just great. Totally unexpected.

If you'd like to see the menu you can click here and then the next four photos are also menu shots. http://www.flickr.com/photos/penglynns/4822488909/in/set-72157624344823697/

While we pondered the interesting menu options we were served a tray of warm cornbread:

We both thought this was really nice cornbread - not too sweet, not too dry.

I had the Grilled Pork Chop - Amber Ale Barbecue Sauce and Onion Rings (and I subbed Collard Greens for the listed Cheesy Grits):

The pork chop was thick cut and awesome. The barbecue sauce had a deep smokey flavor with just a little kick - very nice. I seriously wanted to lick the plate clean, but managed to stop myself before embarrassing us! The onion rings were easily as good as the ones at Sci-Fi - they were crispy, not overly greasy, and the onion pieces never pulled out of the breading. I'm used to collards that are cooked until all of the crunchy is gone, and these were a little more toothsome than I'm used to. They had a good flavor, though.


For dessert, I went with the No Sugar Added Lemon Poundcake with Strawberries:

I usually go for chocolate, but I wanted something a little lighter. This was really really great - very light, awesome flavor, and it was served on fire. Just can't beat it! We were treated to another rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" with dessert and had a super fun time!

I decided to go with the Grilled Tenderloin Medallions served with Crayfish, Honey-Mustard Sweet Mashed Potatoes, and Rum Demi-glace. I assumed this would be a pork tenderloin since it does not specify and comes with sweet potatoes (as normal a combination as you can get in Southern cuisine...) but no, this is beef tenderloin. I requested medium-well.

The tenderloin was tender and tasty. Quite nice. The sweet potatoes were interesting - different and hard to describe. Not bad, but very different to me. Not something close to anything my pallet is used to. The corn succotash with crayfish was tasty, not spicy, but heavily seasoned and added a nice rounding to the meal. I didn't eat much of the asparagus - not my favorite veg and I like mine very soft - these were more al dente as us the norm for asparagus.

For dessert I ordered the individual apple pie:

This was warm with a nice crust, sweet and full of nice cinnamon. Eddy's vanilla ice cream on the side. Hard to mess up something like this but also always tasty. As American as itself. Uncle Sam wants this. A salute to all pies, but mostly apple. I also enjoyed a cup of brewed, non-Nescrape with my dessert.


So we were quite pleasantly surprised by our Boatwrights adventure and would happily go back next time we stay at POR (which is likely, since it is our favorite Mod). Even though they were slammed by an unexpected crowd they rallied together to make it work, managers out on the floor helping, everyone refilling drinks for all tables, not just their own, etc. That's always a good sign of a well run restaurant.

For all of the above reasons we happily give Boatwrights an almost perfect 4.5 penguins:

Bill:
Pork chop: $21.99
Tenderloin Medallions: $26.99
Apple Pie: $6.49
Lemon Poundcake: $5.49
Coffee: $2.39
TIW 20% Discount: ($12.67)
18% Gratuity: $11.40
Tax: $3.30
-----------------
Total: $65.38

Total TIW Savings so far: $87.88 (Card pays for itself in savings! Woo hoo!)




So we returned to DHS to enjoy Fantasmic, which we both love, and then spend some time in the park at night (when DHS really shines, in our opinion), ride a couple of rides, and then head back to the room, exhausted, near midnight.

Only two more meals left, but they'll be good, we're sure...




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[onelilspark]

Dry like the MK. I got it!

 

[honeydiane1953]

U r a great photographer. ty so much.

 

[katmittens]

Great reviews, we will be at POR in Oct for 1 nite. We have not been to Boatwright's in many years. We may be giving it a try.

 

[Golf4food]

Dry like the MK. I got it!

Then you, sir/madam are a gentleman/woman and a scholar.

U r a great photographer. ty so much.

Thanks, but I pale in comparison to some of the other folk here on the DIS Photo board. I've got miles to go to catch up to some of those folks.

Great reviews, we will be at POR in Oct for 1 nite. We have not been to Boatwright's in many years. We may be giving it a try.

This Dining Review makes no warrants or guarantees. Past results are not an indicator of future performance. Reader accepts all responsibility. Void where prohibited by law. No cash refund ($0.05 in Maine).