We are going to fire up the DeLorean for a short jaunt tonight, as we only go back to December of 2010.
This is a return trip to a similar previous review of Teppanyaki, only now it is Teppanedo. If you remember, I didn't exactly make a new "best friend forever" with the tableside cook at this restaurant's previous incarnation, but for lunch today I promise to be a good boy.
I also discovered re-reading this review to post it again now, that I messed up in the first review I did here on Teppanyaki,,, I joined the Teppanyaki one with the first time we came and it was Teppanedo, I combined two reviews I guess into one and I apologize. I guess the sixties were better to me than I thought.
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It was cold, damn cold for the very beginning of December in Disney, but we pretended it wasn't. Smidgy was better at pretending then I was, she was the one who brought a winter jacket,,I"m in a spring jacket and the temp when we left Pop that morning to get to Epcot for rope drop was 38.
No, that is not Celsius!
We just kind of sauntered along pretending we were hot until Japan, passed what used to be one of our favorite DSA's in France which is now gone, to find out it's because it's a "meet and greet " area.
Or "greet the meat", something like that.
Had a smoke in Morocco's DSA, (oh, smoke, we have both quit smoking since then) then went and checked into Teppanedo.
We were met by a little tiny thing who checked our names, then handed us a buzzer and told us, "You, please, follow otha woman to inside next room, please, Nebo san."
"Otha" room was all of 12 feet away from the hostess station, and as we looked around for a place to sit the buzzer went off. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud, she could have just as easily leaned over from the hostess pulpit and said, "Psssst! you guys, you're table is ready, please leave".
Which now pretty much brings us full circle to the beginning of the chapter.
As some of you well know, we have eaten here before, with very bizarre and contrary results.
Once when it was still Teppanyaki it was our final day on the dining plan, and we found out too late that we were out of credits due to some waitress at Captain Jack's double swiping our card the night before.
Big mess, big argument with manager at Teppanyaki, he ended up winning, charging our visa card for the dinners instead of sorting it out and leaving it up to us to fix at the resort. ( see "guess who's coming to free dinner")
Apparently, I harbored a grudge self consciously, even after they changed the name to Teppanedo.
Problem was, self conscious never tell the conscious when it is having a problem, and in this case the old self conscious thingy seemed like it was hell-bent on getting me hurt.
It's one thing argueing with the manager with the Sharpies, it's another thing arguing with the chefs with the sharpys.
Last time we were here we got a huge strapping chef, and except for a little around the eyes he didn't look much more Japanese than I did.
So I ended up insulting his heritage!
And I made the mistake of saying to him that "Don't all cast members from each pavilion have to be from that country?
He avoided answering that question but I wouldn't give up, and kept asking him where he was born.
Finally, he admitted someplace exotic like Houston or maybe Dallas, but by now he's glaring at me.
I thought we were done, but I should have known better, now he's got me in his sights.
As our chef was going through the "shtick", the chef at the next table was just a bit behind our guy, but he was much more flamboyant, and I kept looking over to the next table watching the other chef.
Big no no I guess with Japanese chefs. It was like I was "cheating" on our guy.
I even nudged Smidgy and pointed at the other guy when suddenly I got a big, "WHACK" right in front of me with a big knife.
I had felt I need to explain myself and my self conscious was still running the show a bit and didn't really much care what I said,
and I said a bad thing.
With our chef glaring at me I told him "But look how much bigger's his volcano compared to yours, and look how much smoke he's getting out of it!"
Yes, I did, I know it's not right, but too late to take it back,
Never tell a chef someone has a bigger volcano then he does.
Let me tell you boy, I never took my eyes off those knives the rest of the meal you can bet your sweet .....
So.....
This time, i'm gonna be good, better than good, I'm gonna make our chef maybe, just maybe, like me.
This is third time now in this restaurant, everyb ody sits around the table, right?
3 times and I have sat in the same seat every single time, on the end, closest to the chef on his right. And it's not like I"m purposely heading there, it's the little waitress girl that wants me to sit "Shotgun" to the chef.
Or would that be "Ginseng Knives" in this case?
After everybody was seated, a waitress took our orders, fillet for me, Sirloin and shrimp combo for Smidgy.
Then our chef showed up, no, not the big guy with the little volcano but an older man, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
First thing he does is hand out these trays of 3 square empty compartments to everybody. Something looked familiar to me and I picked mine up and put it next to Diane's and it hit me;
"Hey, if we take all our 3 squares and put them together we will have a Sudoku puzzle, wonder if that's how they came up with it?"
Yes, I was babbling like an idiot, that's what I do when i want someone to like me.
The chef looked at me and I slunk down in my seat, not off to a good start.
Then he proceeded to go around the table and fill one compartment before he's start on the next one, 3 rounds later we are now all filled up with sauces, it was like he was dealing 3 card guts so I asked what the ante was.
Strike two!
Sauces? Sauces for what?
I asked him. Thought he'd appreciate "Grasshopper" asking the "Master" plenty meaningful question but no, he acted like it was an intrusion on his routine, but he kind of answered anyway.
"First sauce for meat,"
" Middle sauce for rice or chicken"
" Last sauce for vegetables."
Ok, here's what I want you all to do:
You figure out some way on GOD'S GREEN EARTH that you can pick up rice with chopsticks and dip them in a sauce, then make it to your mouth with enough nourishment to avoid starvation by the third dipping.
Then he went around the table and briefly verified what everybody had ordered from the girl first, and how they's like it cooked. Sitting where I was I was last, and showing my newfound go along attitude, I told him:
"Oh, I don't care. Whatever you want to make for me is fine, hamburger helper, beefaroni, doesn't matter to me, I'm easy, surprise me."
I thought I was being good-natured, congenial, easy to please.
He just looked at me and I knew I was overdoing it.
Diane quickly told him I want the Fillet, cooked medium and he couldn't turn away quickly enough.
Then the girl brought us out all our rice bowls, a little perfectly round scoop in a small bowl with absolutely nothing on it, I guess that's where the sauce tray comes in. It actually looked like she had given us all a scoop of vanilla ice cream,,,, a line popped into my head,,, but I stifled it, nobody would get it anyway.
I would have just dumped the middle rice sauce over the cup that held the rice if the sauce had been seperate, but all three of the little sauce compartments are joined at the hip.
Ok, so how to get the gravy/sauce from the compartment into my rice bowl?
I looked around trying to get ideas,,, and what I saw was people basically just drowning their rice into the sauces as they would have the little bit the chopsticks held fall off once it got wet. Then they would try again. One lady was ingenous though:
she slyly looked around, looked right at me and saw I was staring at her, but she didn't care, I had already lost all credibility at the table,, and she slipped a spoon out of her purse.
She'd scoop the rice, then dunk it in the sauce, pop it into her mouth and put the spoon kind of under her plate for a mintue or so.
I didn't bring a purse.
Then I got incredibly sneaky.
He's still cooking my main meal so I don't want to tick him off too much yet, but I really wanted something on the dry lump of rice in the little bowl the waitress/server brought out to us .
After one feeble attempt at grabbing some rice and bringing them into the dipping station with the chopsticks I gave up.
And no, even with a fork the layout of the tray didn't exactly make dipping a forkfull an easy endeavor.
But, I had ordered a Coke for my drink, and the waitress brought it to me with one of those "bendy" straws, what we used to when we were younger call "hospital straws."
Carefully, very carefully, I slid the little rice bowl over onto the other side of the plate, and right next to the mini Sudoku sauce tray.
Since the method I had in mind would not really work well because the trays are so shallow, this is where the bendy straw came in;
Putting my finger over the long end of the straw, I could then come up below the table and stick the bendy short part in the sauce.
Releasing the end would create an imbalance in pressure and force some into the straw, recovering the end would then hold it inside by creating a vacuum. vaccuum. vackume,, there!
I swung the straw over to the rice and released the end again, and it ran out into the rice bowl.
After about 5 times of doing this I was starting to get a decent "gravy" on the top of the rice, and then the chef caught me!
I was in mid-transfer when suddenly he swung his head back at me like the snake in Honey I Shrunk the Audience!
I dropped the straw between my legs on the floor and gave him my best look, "What?"
He did wind up getting last laugh though, he knew someting I didn't know.
First he fried up on the table a bunch of bamboo shoots, seaweed, his volacano of onions of which I had stood up and cheered for, water chestnuts, genuine Kentucky Blue Grass, rutabagas and algae and glopped them all on all of our plates.
Then he made the main courses and my fillet was made to perfection, it seemed a bit small to me being pre- cut up, but it was very good. Smidgy's sirloin was good too, almost hard to tell the difference. She really like her shrimp too.
Finally it was all taken away and the desserts were brought out, again, I was the last one to get mine due to the order.
Smidgy got hers, the last one before me.
She, for some reason that only she would know why, ordered the "green tea pudding", when the waitress put it in front of her we both looked at it and said at the same time,,,,,,,,,,"IT'S SOYLENT GREEN!"
She asked for the camera and took a picture of it:
She said it was very custardy, tasted much better then it looked, best eaten with your eyes closed.
Well, of course it tasted better than it looked, nothing could taste that bad, it looked like pureed crabgrass shaped into a mold.
Then they finally brought out mine, just a small bowl of vanilla ice cream, that's all I asked for. Hey, the dessert choices here are as bland as you can get.
They rank right up there with Pepper Market at Coronado Springs. If you're on the dining plan there and ask what your dessert choices are they hand you a cookie!
But my little bowl of ice cream had a candle in it, lit.
Then they stuck one of those dumb chef hats on my head, I had forgotten she had put in the reservations that it was my birthday when they asked what we are celebrating.
I really hate this.
Glancing over at the chef he has a look on his face like "Ok, Smart Guy, who looks like a moron now?"
As you can tell by the joyous look on my face, he won.
We settled up, the last to leave and we started looking around for Oregonmommy who was supposed to be here ritht after us. Her family is also staying at Pop, but we havent' run into them yet.
It was not until we got up and looked around, that I then saw the chef that I had offended the last time we were here, he was right behind us at an adjacent table, can't believe I missed him. I considered saying hi, but not withe knife he was holding at the time.
On the way out Smidgy kept sticking her head in all the other rooms we passed and calling out, "Oregonmommy?", but no one replied. Even I would have been uncomfortable doing that, geesh, you could maybe end up looking silly and I don't do that.
With that we went back to the resort to run DNA samples on the Soylent Green sample we had brought back to see if it was anyone we know.
For the record, Teppanedo is one of my favorite Disney table service meals, it's up there with Le Cellier and Whispering Canyon. I have always gotten the fillet there and it's really good, just be careful with the volcano comments.
We are now pretty much done with the reviews from he past, sure, there were many other places we ate at, but I either didn't write about them in a report, or it just wasn't interesting or funny to me, and if I can't entertain myself writing them, my mindset is who would want to read them?
Smidgy (Diane) and I have a couple trips planned though, in April/May, and in August as well, so if you would like me to continue with the dining reviews,,, (hey, at least they'd be more current) please let me know.
But I promise they will still be, no matter how current, "Reviews You Can't Use."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,steve
Go to youtube and seach sushie moving, your fish was almost just as bad
