marissamayhem
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2010
- Messages
- 85
Hello everyone! 
I'm pretty new to posting on this board but I've been reading and lurking for months in preparation for my Disney trip that I just got back from 3 days ago. I suppose I will introduce myself a little. My name is Marissa and I'm a 20 year old college student. This trip I just came back from, I went on with my best friend Julie. I pretty much decided on a whim in June that we were going to go and it has been chaos planning ever since. The trip was amazing though so it was definitely all worth it.
I really wanted to get pictures from all the places I ate but more often than not, I would be so hungry that I just forgot.
The only restaurant that I managed to get good pictures from was Sanaa, so I figured I would review it. Here goes!
Before I begin, I have to say, I LOVED Animal Kingdom Villas Kidani Village. We stayed at Pop so walking into the lobby at Kidani was a pretty huge difference. It was gorgeous and if I was a rich woman and not a poor student, I would stay there in a heartbeat.
You go through the lobby and down the stairs to reach Sanaa. We were right on time for our ADR at 2:45pm and we got seated in about 5 minutes. The host took us to our seats and he was super nice. He told us about the restaurant, the meaning of the name, and was all around great. I would give his name, but I don't remember it. I usually have problem remembering names unless that server is OUT OF THIS WORLD amazing.
I first noticed the beautiful theming.
The entire restaurant is gorgeous. The canopy of trees above us was really neat. I only managed to get one picture of the animals. Sadly, we weren't seated by the window. (Even though the place was practically empty. I didn't even notice until we has already gotten our bread or I would have asked to be moved.
) The last picture up there shows how dead it was. There was only one other family in my line of vision while we were there. It was definitely a nice, relaxing restaurant to be at. I forget our servers name though. He was very nice and very efficient with refilling our drinks. Although I don't think he had much else to do since the place was so empty. 
Julie got a Raspberry type smoothie and I got a mango one. Hers was good, but I'm not a huge fan of fruit/berry type drinks. She loved it though. My drink was AMAZING. I was in love with it. So in love that I finished it before the meal came and got myself another one. I would definitely go back to Sanaa again if only for the smoothie. I'll also note that the straws were paper, environmentally friendly straws. I'm assuming it's because of the animals much in the same vein as the no straw rule in Animal Kingdom. I must say, I've never used one before and they were fine. They got a little soggy after a while but that was it. I think we should ditch plastic straws all together now, because the paper ones were fine.
ETA: I just realized that I got my servers butt in the picture of Julie's smoothie. Whoops!
We started out with the bread service. It was $8.99 and you got to pick three breads and three accompaniments. The breads we chose were Naan bread, Paneer Paratha, and Onion Kulcha. The accompaniments were Red Chile Sambal, Mango Chutney, and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Hummus. The Naan bread was my definite favorite. It's the bread pictured on top. (We had actually already started eating it before I remembered to take a picture. I was really hungry!) It was amazing because it was warm and soft in parts, but in the parts where it "bubbled" it was really crispy. It's the bread that has it all! It went really well with all the accompaniments. Underneath the Naan is the Paneer Paratha. I didn't really like this bread that much. It was floppy and fell apart easily. I didn't eat a lot of it. Julie liked it so I guess it was just a matter of taste. Then under that bread was the Onion Kulcha. This bread fell apart easily too but tasted better. I really liked it with the Hummus. As for the accompaniments, the hummus was our favorite. It was very tasty. The mango chutney was good, but I didn't really enjoy fruit and bread so I barely touched it. The red chile sambal was really good but VERY HOT. Our server said it was the most popular accompaniment. I say, proceed with extreme caution if you get this! 
It was at this point that our server came out to tell us that the kitchen had lost our order somehow and that it would be a little bit of a wait. We didn't really mind so we decided to get up and take some pictures of the Savannah outside the windows. I only got that one shot above though because I felt funny about going over there even though there was almost no one sitting there. It was really cute seeing the giraffes munching on the tress too, but it only just reminded us of how hungry WE were so we went back to our table.
In what seemed like a VERY short wait, we had gotten our food. Julie got the Tandoori chicken (above) and it was VERY good. It was pretty much chicken on top of a bunch of greens on top of more naan bread. The chicken had that cooked over a fire, almost burnt taste to it, which we both LOVED. She barely ate the greens though but ate most of the bread. The sauce on top of the chicken (whatever it was) went really well with the chicken as well.
What I got was like a combination plate. You get to pick two meats you want and then get a side of rice. I didn't really want two meats so I asked my server if I could pick something from the meat section and then something from the vegetarian section. He said it would be fine so I picked the chicken in red curry sauce and the spinach with paneer cheese. The chicken was very good, not spicy at all and tasted really good mixed with the rice. As for the spinach and paneer cheese, I still can't tell if I liked it or not. Have you ever felt that way about something? You don't like it, you don't dislike it, but you wouldn't say you're indifferent about it? It's a strange feeling.
After we were done our server brought the check and told us that since the kitchen messed up our order, he wasn't charging us for my second mango smoothie. Overall, I'd definitely give Sanaa a 4.5 out of 5 stars. The restaurant was unique and the food was (the most part) very good. I will definitely visit again. 
I'm pretty new to posting on this board but I've been reading and lurking for months in preparation for my Disney trip that I just got back from 3 days ago. I suppose I will introduce myself a little. My name is Marissa and I'm a 20 year old college student. This trip I just came back from, I went on with my best friend Julie. I pretty much decided on a whim in June that we were going to go and it has been chaos planning ever since. The trip was amazing though so it was definitely all worth it.I really wanted to get pictures from all the places I ate but more often than not, I would be so hungry that I just forgot.
The only restaurant that I managed to get good pictures from was Sanaa, so I figured I would review it. Here goes!
Before I begin, I have to say, I LOVED Animal Kingdom Villas Kidani Village. We stayed at Pop so walking into the lobby at Kidani was a pretty huge difference. It was gorgeous and if I was a rich woman and not a poor student, I would stay there in a heartbeat.
You go through the lobby and down the stairs to reach Sanaa. We were right on time for our ADR at 2:45pm and we got seated in about 5 minutes. The host took us to our seats and he was super nice. He told us about the restaurant, the meaning of the name, and was all around great. I would give his name, but I don't remember it. I usually have problem remembering names unless that server is OUT OF THIS WORLD amazing.
I first noticed the beautiful theming.
The entire restaurant is gorgeous. The canopy of trees above us was really neat. I only managed to get one picture of the animals. Sadly, we weren't seated by the window. (Even though the place was practically empty. I didn't even notice until we has already gotten our bread or I would have asked to be moved.
) The last picture up there shows how dead it was. There was only one other family in my line of vision while we were there. It was definitely a nice, relaxing restaurant to be at. I forget our servers name though. He was very nice and very efficient with refilling our drinks. Although I don't think he had much else to do since the place was so empty.
Julie got a Raspberry type smoothie and I got a mango one. Hers was good, but I'm not a huge fan of fruit/berry type drinks. She loved it though. My drink was AMAZING. I was in love with it. So in love that I finished it before the meal came and got myself another one. I would definitely go back to Sanaa again if only for the smoothie. I'll also note that the straws were paper, environmentally friendly straws. I'm assuming it's because of the animals much in the same vein as the no straw rule in Animal Kingdom. I must say, I've never used one before and they were fine. They got a little soggy after a while but that was it. I think we should ditch plastic straws all together now, because the paper ones were fine.
ETA: I just realized that I got my servers butt in the picture of Julie's smoothie. Whoops!
We started out with the bread service. It was $8.99 and you got to pick three breads and three accompaniments. The breads we chose were Naan bread, Paneer Paratha, and Onion Kulcha. The accompaniments were Red Chile Sambal, Mango Chutney, and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Hummus. The Naan bread was my definite favorite. It's the bread pictured on top. (We had actually already started eating it before I remembered to take a picture. I was really hungry!
) It was amazing because it was warm and soft in parts, but in the parts where it "bubbled" it was really crispy. It's the bread that has it all! It went really well with all the accompaniments. Underneath the Naan is the Paneer Paratha. I didn't really like this bread that much. It was floppy and fell apart easily. I didn't eat a lot of it. Julie liked it so I guess it was just a matter of taste. Then under that bread was the Onion Kulcha. This bread fell apart easily too but tasted better. I really liked it with the Hummus. As for the accompaniments, the hummus was our favorite. It was very tasty. The mango chutney was good, but I didn't really enjoy fruit and bread so I barely touched it. The red chile sambal was really good but VERY HOT. Our server said it was the most popular accompaniment. I say, proceed with extreme caution if you get this! It was at this point that our server came out to tell us that the kitchen had lost our order somehow and that it would be a little bit of a wait. We didn't really mind so we decided to get up and take some pictures of the Savannah outside the windows. I only got that one shot above though because I felt funny about going over there even though there was almost no one sitting there. It was really cute seeing the giraffes munching on the tress too, but it only just reminded us of how hungry WE were so we went back to our table.
In what seemed like a VERY short wait, we had gotten our food. Julie got the Tandoori chicken (above) and it was VERY good. It was pretty much chicken on top of a bunch of greens on top of more naan bread. The chicken had that cooked over a fire, almost burnt taste to it, which we both LOVED. She barely ate the greens though but ate most of the bread. The sauce on top of the chicken (whatever it was) went really well with the chicken as well.
What I got was like a combination plate. You get to pick two meats you want and then get a side of rice. I didn't really want two meats so I asked my server if I could pick something from the meat section and then something from the vegetarian section. He said it would be fine so I picked the chicken in red curry sauce and the spinach with paneer cheese. The chicken was very good, not spicy at all and tasted really good mixed with the rice. As for the spinach and paneer cheese, I still can't tell if I liked it or not. Have you ever felt that way about something? You don't like it, you don't dislike it, but you wouldn't say you're indifferent about it? It's a strange feeling.
After we were done our server brought the check and told us that since the kitchen messed up our order, he wasn't charging us for my second mango smoothie.
Overall, I'd definitely give Sanaa a 4.5 out of 5 stars. The restaurant was unique and the food was (the most part) very good. I will definitely visit again. 
) and I find that usually they just try to pretend that there's no problem at all and just hope you don't say anything. I respond way better to honesty, and am really impressed with that waiters professionalism. 
