Here's my review, but it's from April 2009. -
When I was young we used to go to Disney once a year and we always dined here. We hadn't been back since the early 90's though and I was a little nervous about going here because of all the negative reviews I've seen. But since Portobello's has a lot of nostalgic value for me and my grandmother, so we decided to try it.
The hostess was nice, but we did wait about 20 minutes past our ADR time to be seated - the most of our trip.
Our waitress was pretty good though. She was attentive and kept our drinks full and didnt rush us out even though they were very busy that evening.
We shared an antipasti platter for the bulk of our meal. We had prosciutto, pecorino cheese, roasted garlic, crostini with caponata, and crostini with oven dried tomatoes. Everything on the plate was really tasty, but the oven dried tomato crostini were the clear favorite. Very sweet tomatoes on good olive oil brushed toasts.
I wish we had thought to order more toasts to spread the roasted garlic on instead of the regular bread they bring.
We then ordered the calamari. It was really good! The squid was fresh, tender, sweet, and not rubbery. The breading is better than most places - it has lots of herbs and is fried dark golden brown. The marinara they serve with it for dipping is wonderful, but is a tad spicy, which some people may not like. We asked for extra lemons, and our waitress brought us a huge bowl, instead of the usual 2 slices we get most places.
I ordered the caramelized white chocolate custard for dessert because it was something we remembered eating and enjoying when I was little. Well, the first time it came out the custard was good, but the top was just burnt...like they forgot to put sugar on it before they torched it. I told the waitress and she took it back and brought me out another one fairly quickly. I felt bad because this one had the same problem. But she seemed very determined to get it right for us and told us she would speak to the head chef and watch him make it. About 5 minutes later, she came back out, with the chef, who had the custard in hand. He had me check the dessert before he left and it was perfect that third time.
This meal was one of our cheaper ones since we shared appetizers as our whole meal. I enjoyed it and would go back. Not sure what happened with the tops of the custards, but they made sure it was right before we left, so I don't hold it against them too much. A good option for DTD dining.
