PrincessAurora
<font color=blue>Hmpphh! Who needs that boy in gre
- Joined
- Oct 26, 1999
- Messages
- 1,368
OK, here it is! The last installment. Now I did forget one new little gem in Animal Kingdom I want to mention. The Royal Anandapur Tea Company - http://allearsnet.com/menu/menu_tea.htm This is a GEM of a place if you like real tea vs. Lipton.
They have wonderfu loose blends that they make into tea bags right there. They also have coffee drinks as well. If you like tea PLEASE check this out! It is on the way to Everest on the right hand side. It has lovely seating areas. I would hate this to go away because people don't come.
When we were there, most people seemed to be ignorant about the different types of tea. Tink and I had the following:
Silver Needle - One of China's best white teas. Brews at a pale yellow/reddish liquor and has a delicately sweet flavor.
Keteada - grown at a high elevation in Central Africa, this wonderful bold black tea is sure to please the palate.
China Green Jasmine - Classic scented green tea from Fouzou Province with jasmine flowers.
When we were there, most people just asked the CMs for "tea" or "hot tea" and were given most probably their mild house blend. When we asked for "Silver Needle" or "China Jasmine", first they just stared and then broke out into smiles figuring out that we were asking for SPECIFIC teas and were overjoyed.
I can't sing the praises of this enough. Also if you are one of these people from Starbucks - "I want a low fat, soy, dolce latte with hazelnut" - go home. I know - harsh - but true. I had this lady in front of me that was like this: "I want a grande capp with chocolate syrup". The guy stared at her like she was from Mars and said "You want a Mocha?" which is what she asked for and she says "do you have chocolate syrup that I can put in AFTER" and he is like "no" and I just want to hit her in the head with a lemur and feed her to the Yeti because I get that way when confronted with pretentious coffee bar freaks. Don't be one of these people. Have the wonderful teas. Enough said. GO HERE!
OK, now to our last dinner at Raglan Road. I know this place is new but I changed my dinner ressies from Flying Fish to here because I wanted to try it. First the restaurant is BEAUTIFUL, just gorgeous. All dark wood and cool hanging light fixtures and a wonderful bar. Our hostess starts to take us to our table, sees my lime green Mickey Head with PrincessAurora on it and goes nuts. She asks if I was at Akershus. I say "yes". It seems that her boyfriend was our server Kjetil. She said he was feeling a little down that day and we really made his day. He had been talking about us and how I offered to marry him and everything. OK, I'm guilty, can't blame a girl for tryin. I told her she was younger and prettier anyway. It was SUCH a small world. He was trying to find the DIS boards but couldn't so she gave me his email and I sent him the link when I got home. Hope he is still lurking or that he will join the cool kids and be part of our club!
As everyone got settled, I went to find JackSplat. I found him at the bar and said howdy! It was sooo cool to run into all these people. They started playing "Black Velvet Band" and as I was singing along under my breath could say that my group (The Soiled Doves) version was better. Anyway, I just wish the rest of the evening was as good.
First we ordered drinks. Grumpy was grumping about the lack of selection! HELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It wasn't good enough that Guiness was on draft. It should have been on a hand pump. 7 English beers werent enough even though he was forced to drink Millers in most places because of a derth of good beers in the parks. I told him if he wants 100 beers, go somewhere else. Ireland and the UK dont have that many.
Tink and I had a WONDERFUL cider that was darker and had a caramel flavor to it.
Now here was the main downside. As lovely as this place is, it was VERY crowded, packed with kids and they were LOUD! This was the ONLY bad kid experience we had this trip. There was one table that gave a BABY metal utensils (KNIVES) to bang together, flail around and I could hardly hear myself think. The "parents" just ignored this. In addition to annoying everyone around them, the baby could have severly injured himself but do the parents care? Nope. Not at all. Maybe they figured that they had so many that if they lost one, oh well. Bad parenting really gets me.
OK, rant over - back to the food. I'm sorry that I don't have the full descriptions for all the items but I couldn't take a menu. I got the descriptions off Debs site for the items that were available.
STARTERS:
Down the Middle - a hearty Irish tomato and vegetable broth $5.50
It was really nice. Light but flavorful. Translucent onions, small bits of veggies, not too overpowering.
Goats Town - Herb-crusted grilled Irish goat's cheese salad served with fruit compote $12.00
Tink thought is was really nice but thought the berry compote was a bit sweet. I thought it was complimentary. Grumpy was just grumpy.
I think that I should have gone with my first impulse and had the Baby Back Ribs in Guiness and honey glaze for an entree even though it is a starter for two but I went against my first impulse. Never do that.
ENTREES:
Beef Stew
Grumpy had this dish and he liked it. He said the beef was tender and the gravy was really good. However what was missing with this and with my soup was bread. They don't bring you any and that is a real minus. GRADE: B
Celtic Chique - baby chicken finished with a light apple cider glaze. $15.95
This was Tinks dish. Sorry it is blurry but the camera refused to focus. The chicken was good, especially the glaze but the meat wasn't as flavorful as the chicken she makes. The potatoes were OK but nothing special, nothing added. Just a nice dish, nothing to make it a standout. GRADE: B
Herb/Leek/Mushroom Risotto
This was my dish. It had some kind of lawn clippings on it and shavings of cheese. It was disapointed. WHY is it that every time I'm at the World, my last meal is bad or not as good as X. The green beans on the side I ate which is a bad sign because I usually hate green beans. It's not that they were amazing but that they were better than my entree The leeks were not properly sauteed and they used too much of the green of the shaft.
Leek Anatomy 101: When cooking with leeks, you want to use the white part on the very bottom by the roots and a bit of the light green section but not too much. As the leek gets greener, it gets more bitter.
Well this was the problem with my dish. It was too bitter and too overpowered by the leek. I could hardly eat it (even afterwards and that is UNHEARD OF). GRADE: C
Well due to my lack of food intake while drinking my cider I am getting a little buzzed. I get up to use the ladies room, got really confused by the gaelic names on the doors and walk into the mens room. "hmmmmm, a line of drinking fountains - guess I am in the wrong place". Fortunatly there were no occupants at the time BUT when I opened the door the urinals were right there directly in front of me so if anyone opened the door to enter the bathroom, people in the hall could see men standing there peeing - just saying.
I wanted to get some dessert like the bread and butter pudding but Grumpy declared that all the desserts sucked. Don't listen to Grumpy, he is grumpy. So to keep the peace, I didn't push the dessert issue.
I will add that the presentation of the fish and chips is awesome. It is in a paper cone and the cone is inserted in a metal spiral thing. At first I thought they were the missing breadsticks. They remove the paper cone and then dump the fish and chips on your plate. They looked good....
OVERALL I would give this place a B. I feel that I didn't make the best food choices and as a result would give it another chance. Maybe if I sat somewhere else or came a little earlier. I will save it for my solo return trip as my next trip is shorter and pretty much booked. We'll see.
Well that is it foodies! Now I'm going to start on the Trip Report. Wish me luck!
They have wonderfu loose blends that they make into tea bags right there. They also have coffee drinks as well. If you like tea PLEASE check this out! It is on the way to Everest on the right hand side. It has lovely seating areas. I would hate this to go away because people don't come.
When we were there, most people seemed to be ignorant about the different types of tea. Tink and I had the following:
Silver Needle - One of China's best white teas. Brews at a pale yellow/reddish liquor and has a delicately sweet flavor.
Keteada - grown at a high elevation in Central Africa, this wonderful bold black tea is sure to please the palate.
China Green Jasmine - Classic scented green tea from Fouzou Province with jasmine flowers.
When we were there, most people just asked the CMs for "tea" or "hot tea" and were given most probably their mild house blend. When we asked for "Silver Needle" or "China Jasmine", first they just stared and then broke out into smiles figuring out that we were asking for SPECIFIC teas and were overjoyed.
I can't sing the praises of this enough. Also if you are one of these people from Starbucks - "I want a low fat, soy, dolce latte with hazelnut" - go home. I know - harsh - but true. I had this lady in front of me that was like this: "I want a grande capp with chocolate syrup". The guy stared at her like she was from Mars and said "You want a Mocha?" which is what she asked for and she says "do you have chocolate syrup that I can put in AFTER" and he is like "no" and I just want to hit her in the head with a lemur and feed her to the Yeti because I get that way when confronted with pretentious coffee bar freaks. Don't be one of these people. Have the wonderful teas. Enough said. GO HERE!
OK, now to our last dinner at Raglan Road. I know this place is new but I changed my dinner ressies from Flying Fish to here because I wanted to try it. First the restaurant is BEAUTIFUL, just gorgeous. All dark wood and cool hanging light fixtures and a wonderful bar. Our hostess starts to take us to our table, sees my lime green Mickey Head with PrincessAurora on it and goes nuts. She asks if I was at Akershus. I say "yes". It seems that her boyfriend was our server Kjetil. She said he was feeling a little down that day and we really made his day. He had been talking about us and how I offered to marry him and everything. OK, I'm guilty, can't blame a girl for tryin. I told her she was younger and prettier anyway. It was SUCH a small world. He was trying to find the DIS boards but couldn't so she gave me his email and I sent him the link when I got home. Hope he is still lurking or that he will join the cool kids and be part of our club!
As everyone got settled, I went to find JackSplat. I found him at the bar and said howdy! It was sooo cool to run into all these people. They started playing "Black Velvet Band" and as I was singing along under my breath could say that my group (The Soiled Doves) version was better. Anyway, I just wish the rest of the evening was as good.
First we ordered drinks. Grumpy was grumping about the lack of selection! HELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It wasn't good enough that Guiness was on draft. It should have been on a hand pump. 7 English beers werent enough even though he was forced to drink Millers in most places because of a derth of good beers in the parks. I told him if he wants 100 beers, go somewhere else. Ireland and the UK dont have that many.
Tink and I had a WONDERFUL cider that was darker and had a caramel flavor to it.
Now here was the main downside. As lovely as this place is, it was VERY crowded, packed with kids and they were LOUD! This was the ONLY bad kid experience we had this trip. There was one table that gave a BABY metal utensils (KNIVES) to bang together, flail around and I could hardly hear myself think. The "parents" just ignored this. In addition to annoying everyone around them, the baby could have severly injured himself but do the parents care? Nope. Not at all. Maybe they figured that they had so many that if they lost one, oh well. Bad parenting really gets me.
OK, rant over - back to the food. I'm sorry that I don't have the full descriptions for all the items but I couldn't take a menu. I got the descriptions off Debs site for the items that were available.
STARTERS:
Down the Middle - a hearty Irish tomato and vegetable broth $5.50
It was really nice. Light but flavorful. Translucent onions, small bits of veggies, not too overpowering.
Goats Town - Herb-crusted grilled Irish goat's cheese salad served with fruit compote $12.00
Tink thought is was really nice but thought the berry compote was a bit sweet. I thought it was complimentary. Grumpy was just grumpy.
I think that I should have gone with my first impulse and had the Baby Back Ribs in Guiness and honey glaze for an entree even though it is a starter for two but I went against my first impulse. Never do that.
ENTREES:
Beef Stew
Grumpy had this dish and he liked it. He said the beef was tender and the gravy was really good. However what was missing with this and with my soup was bread. They don't bring you any and that is a real minus. GRADE: B
Celtic Chique - baby chicken finished with a light apple cider glaze. $15.95
This was Tinks dish. Sorry it is blurry but the camera refused to focus. The chicken was good, especially the glaze but the meat wasn't as flavorful as the chicken she makes. The potatoes were OK but nothing special, nothing added. Just a nice dish, nothing to make it a standout. GRADE: B
Herb/Leek/Mushroom Risotto
This was my dish. It had some kind of lawn clippings on it and shavings of cheese. It was disapointed. WHY is it that every time I'm at the World, my last meal is bad or not as good as X. The green beans on the side I ate which is a bad sign because I usually hate green beans. It's not that they were amazing but that they were better than my entree The leeks were not properly sauteed and they used too much of the green of the shaft.
Leek Anatomy 101: When cooking with leeks, you want to use the white part on the very bottom by the roots and a bit of the light green section but not too much. As the leek gets greener, it gets more bitter.
Well this was the problem with my dish. It was too bitter and too overpowered by the leek. I could hardly eat it (even afterwards and that is UNHEARD OF). GRADE: C
Well due to my lack of food intake while drinking my cider I am getting a little buzzed. I get up to use the ladies room, got really confused by the gaelic names on the doors and walk into the mens room. "hmmmmm, a line of drinking fountains - guess I am in the wrong place". Fortunatly there were no occupants at the time BUT when I opened the door the urinals were right there directly in front of me so if anyone opened the door to enter the bathroom, people in the hall could see men standing there peeing - just saying.
I wanted to get some dessert like the bread and butter pudding but Grumpy declared that all the desserts sucked. Don't listen to Grumpy, he is grumpy. So to keep the peace, I didn't push the dessert issue.
I will add that the presentation of the fish and chips is awesome. It is in a paper cone and the cone is inserted in a metal spiral thing. At first I thought they were the missing breadsticks. They remove the paper cone and then dump the fish and chips on your plate. They looked good....
OVERALL I would give this place a B. I feel that I didn't make the best food choices and as a result would give it another chance. Maybe if I sat somewhere else or came a little earlier. I will save it for my solo return trip as my next trip is shorter and pretty much booked. We'll see.
Well that is it foodies! Now I'm going to start on the Trip Report. Wish me luck!
