still smiling after 2 weeks of food!

[smileyk8]

Ok so we got back this week and after reading so many of your reviews i thought i should give something back! Sorry if some are a bit delayed but i've been thrown back into work. I'll do my best.

Our party was: Me 21 yr old will eat anything but fish, DFather unknown identical twin/clone of grumpy who loves his food and DMother an equally good eater but significantly less grumpy! We stayed at POFQ and ate using the DDP. We were concerned that food would dominate our holiday and to a certain extent it did, but it added a whole new element to this trip and just required a little more planning.

4/24
Chef Mickey

Pluto eating my breakfast at chef mickey and then snuggling up to apologise! We booked for 7.30am and were there a bit early (first day so we got up very easily). There was loads of fruit and 3 types of omelette and plenty of hot food to keep my DF happy. The character interaction was great, maybe it helped that we had an early seating, but Minnie, Mickey, Goofy, Donald and Pluto all came around numerous times and spent lots of time with the young kids. I would say this was ideal for any young families. $70.93 Rated: B+


4/25
California Grill
Right, this was the important meal where we celebrated dad’s 50th. We were seated in the wine room with just a couple of other tables and fantastic views across Disney. DF grumbled that he wasn’t getting the atmosphere of the place, but after walking thru (to confirm the bday cake I’d ordered) I was really glad because it was noisy.

To the food!!! Starters I had the goat cheese ravioli- yes it was just one ravioli, but it was lovely. DM had crab cakes, which featured heavily in our dining plan as you’ll discover. She said they were great- I think the actual comment was ‘you can taste the crab’!!!! DF had spicy sensation sushi mainly because he wanted to try it and seemed reasonably impressed.

Entrée: So DM and DF both had Filet which I honestly can’t remember much about. If I remember rightly it came with asparagus (surprise surprise) and mashed potato. They both said the quality was amazing, but DF’s was a little cool so he had something to be grumpy about. I had pork with goats cheese polenta and it was absolutely fantastic. The pork just melted in my mouth and the polenta was rich yet creamy- oh I just have to wipe a dribble off my keyboard

Desert: All looked incredibly impressive, DM Butterscotch Buzz, DF something hazlenutty and I had the Strawberry crunch thingy. Mine looked better than it tasted, but no complaints. At this point they brought DFs cake out. If anyone wants details just let me know. Great service and atmosphere throughout.

$210.64 Rated: A (would have a * if DF was warmer)

Up next Alfredo's and Narcoossee's

 

[DisneyJo]

Great start, can't wait for more

 

[50 years Too!]

Hurry back. I can tell I'm going to enjoy this report!

 

[Kim321]

Looking foward to more! Yum, the pictures look great! We've got Cali Grill ADRs when we go in July; I can't wait!

 

[Minniespal]

Great start ~ Looking forward to reading more

 

[Booknut]

Looking forward to more! Lovely pics, I haven't seen some of those desserts from CG before!

 

[inky dinky doo]

Great pictures! I would love to have a bite of each, right now.

 

[wilma-bride]

Great reviews - looking forward to more

 

[smileyk8]

4/26
Cheesecake factory (mall at millennia) so I’ll leave that one there! (great meal tho for those that care)

4/27
A few piccies from epcot flower festival- tinkerbell's flower garden was lovely

Alfredo
I’d heard a lot of bad things about this place recently, but was eager to go with an open mind. This place is very open with a lot of tables and so was noisy. We had a couple of great songs where all the waiters took part in some sort of sing off with some antics that made us giggle, but it was generally a very lively place. The only problem with that was our waiter could not hear us and actually brought a couple of random items before correcting them!

I had to have the signature dish for starter (fettuccine alfredo) which was excellent- very rich tho and I couldn’t have had it as a main. DM and DF had mozzarella and tomato dish which looked a little bland- it was a good job we had some bread I think!

For main course I had the trittico di pasta because I couldn’t decide. I actually preferred the pasta dumplings which I left until the end (always save the best to last) at which time I was stuffed! There were a lot of carbs! DF had Polletto Ruspante all'Uva- chicken with potatoes and vegetables and he seemed only a little grumpy so it must’ve been fairly good and DM was very impressed by her Arrosto di Agnello- lamb shank which was really good quality and just fell off the bone.

We let ourselves down with desert as I could only manage some- really good- choc ice cream while DM and DF played with their tiramisu that they both wanted to eat, but couldn’t. Apologies for that!
$143.32 Rating: B

4/28
Bahama Breeze- Lake Buena Vista
It’s become tradition and we love it there. We had a long wait as we only had sat night free from food, but it was worth it

4/29
Narcoossee’s
After a day off the plan we were ready to hit this 2TS meal.

I have to say it was fab visiting the Grand Floridian, but it was so much bigger and more spread out than I imagined. We were seated straight away with a castle view (if you bent your neck slightly unnaturally) and got a slightly OTT server. I mean it was good service but a bit sickly- he kept calling me ‘me lady’!!! As he swept my bread crumbs off the table ‘it doesn’t mean your messy, you just enjoyed your bread me lady’ weird and strange. This was also the first of many places to take my wine glass away when my parents ordered wine. I know it’s unusual for a 21 yr old to go on holiday with parents and I actually didn’t want any (drinking legal age UK is 18 so I’ve got over it now) but that wasn’t the point. ‘You can have some in a couple of years’ was responded with ‘actually I can have some now!’.

Anyway, you don’t need to know that- food time!!! We started with crab cakes for DM and DF who both enjoyed them and I had seasonal salad which had blue cheese and candied walnuts which DM gratefully received. Great, light starters.

Both DM and myself had been considering filet mignon for main, but were convinced to try surf and turf which came with lobster tail. Now, neither of us had had lobster before but we weren’t overly impressed by it- seemed rubbery and tasted of crab sticks, but the steak and asparagus were great. We tried tho! DF had Scallops and said they were melt in your mouth good. Big thumbs up there.

We weren’t stupidly stuffed so I managed to have sorbet selection- lovely and fresh, DMs top scoring crème brulee (I think key lime flavoured) and we can’t put our finger on DFs- something mousse like that can’t have been that impressive but also not too bad!

$200 spot on! Rating A*

Next up Mama Melrose and Kona Cafe

 

[wilma-bride]

More great reviews - that waiter must have been modelling himself on an old-fashioned British butler 'Yes, milady'

Looking forward to hearing about Kona - we have an ADR there in August

 

[Marc A.]

Smiley, at Cal. Grill, was your dad's sushi sampler considered an appetizer and thus covered on the DDP?
thanks

 

[smileyk8]

Smiley, at Cal. Grill, was your dad's sushi sampler considered an appetizer and thus covered on the DDP?
thanks

Yep to both. I think there was only one of the sushi dishes wasn't covered by the DDP- the deluxe sushi platter. The waiters are very good at pointing out what's incl and what isn't. A lot of the menus had more than one appetizer section that could be used on DDP- if your not sure def ask

I've just had a thought that snakes in grass sushi wasn't incl either, but there was def a choice of a few dishes

 

[SheenaXena21]

Great reviews so far!!!

 

[smileyk8]

Thanks for all the lovely comments, hope my reports aren't too long. I just can't help it, the food was too beautiful

4/30
Mama Melrose
Our TS in the studios, we were thinking of doing the fantasmic package but the seating times offered seemed very early and we didn’t like the thought of being tied to see the show if the weather was bad. So we arrived a little bit early and had a wait of 20mins which we used to hunt out some water. On our trip we encountered a CM with a toy stitch who followed me shouting stitch language and blowing kisses- odd but very cute (stitch that is!).

To the restaurant- inside is separated into a couple of rooms that are decorated with fairy lights to give that al fresco feeling. Our waiter (Ben) was from morocco and whilst very friendly we ended up feeling very sorry for him as he told us his family history! For starters I had field greens (it was becoming a it of a habit, but was necessary for me to attempt desserts), which was good, DM and DF ordered Artisan breads and Mozzarella and tomatoes and shared them and it looked great. Either one alone may have been a bit dull tho.

Our main meals were Pork Marsala for me and DM- I hadn’t realised how much I like pork until this holiday, again very good quality and served with asparagus. DF had the wood grilled chicken with pipette pasta seemed reasonably happy. Desserts were warm choc truffle cake that seemed to be a small round choc cake with the middle scooped out and filled with warm choc sauce. Nice but the edges were a bit hard. DF had hazelnut cheesecake and he scoffed it so it must have been good.
$135 Rating B+

5/1
Kona Café
Oh I was looking forward to this one. Before we were planning on DDP we were just going to go here and CG so I had high hopes. It didn’t let me down. I had provisionally decided what I was having from the menus on all ears and all of it was on the menu- hurray!

We were seated quite far into the restaurant and that made it a little quieter. We had some absolutely delicious warm Hawaiian bread with macadamia nut butter, didn’t have the butter but it was a fab start. For appetisers I had Kona Salad without nuts, after this request someone from the kitchen came over to check that I wasn’t allergic to them- very impressed by that. DM and DF both had crab cakes- 2 quite small towers that tasted very different to other restaurants. Couldn’t get out of them whether that was a good thing or not tho!

Mains: DM had beef teriyaki with mashed potatoes and broccoli and she loved it. DF Filet Mignon with asparagus- they had to get it in there somewhere! Whist I had turkey medallions. Had worried they’d be dry, silly me. The sticky rice and sweet chilli sauce were also lovely. Hmmm great choice. The dessert choice was difficult- we all said we could have had any of them. It ended up with me and DF having white choc cheese cake- very creamy with a hint of choc, couldn’t eat it all. DM had apple brown betty with no added sugar ice cream. She didn’t rate either particularly but did admit to feeling very full so it may have put her off.

One comment at this point: in many of the restaurants servers brought out entrée before clearing appetiser causing a bit of plate shuffling. I’ve never experienced this before and am not sure if it’s a common thing over there, but it really got on DFs nerves and was quite annoying.
$150.75 Rating A*

next olivia's cafe lunch and Jiko

 

[DisneyJo]

More great reviews

 

[Weeziblu]

great dining report.. looking forward to more!

 

[smileyk8]

5/2/07
Olivia’s café
We had a couple of free TS and thought we’d use one for lunch at Old Key West. I didn’t realise how big the vacation club places were- very impressive tho. We arrived very early for this reservation, like an hour and after wondering around for a bit asked if we could be seated early and we were within ten minutes.

We were seated outside and DM and I had mozzarella salad for appetiser which was much the same as the other ones we’ve have. DF had crab cakes, don’t think they were his favourite, but no complaints. DF had grouper sandwich for entrée and said it was very peppery and couldn’t have taken much more. DM ate steak salad, which seemed ok- nothing special but what can you do with a steak salad. I had chicken penne and really enjoyed it. I had been having pasta cravings and the sauce was lovely. Shame I’m not having pasta now!

We ordered a key lime tart and apple pie, both were very good and among the best desserts we’d eaten. There were real slices of apple in the pie and a strong cinnamon taste. DM had a latte. Again they brought out main meal out without clearing our plates and the service was a little off but the waitress was very apologetic. DF complained that we’d ‘wasted’ a TS credit on lunch, but money wise it didn’t cost much less.
$111.57. Rating: B+

5/4/07
Le Cellier
Oh my third favourite meal of the holiday. We had arrived at epcot early and explored for a bit but there were fairly long queues for most things so we attempted to ‘check-in’ a bit early. They told us they were running to time and we should come back at our ADR time- fair enough and we did only have a short wait.

We didn’t get any explanation of our area in Canada, really there wasn’t much point in being assigned one. Ohhh, the bread. DM and DF went straight for the ‘normal’ bread leaving me to have the first taste of pretzel bread and it was good. There just wasn’t much room in my stomach for bread as well as 3 courses of food! DM and DF both ordered duck two ways so I felt that I HAD to have cheese soup. The duck looked really good, not at all how I expected and quite a large dish. Now I wasn’t really looking forward to the idea of a soup of cheese, but it was amazing. Very rich and I was glad it was a small bowl but great.

DM and DF had the mushroom filet, great quality served over mashed potato. DF said it looked like it was missing something- we all said ‘asparagus’!!! I had the maple filet and oh my god the steak and the sauce were just soooo good. I know it’s not the signature dish but in my opinion it should be.

Desserts were sorbet for me- needed something light and really enjoyed them. DM had crème brulee but there was only one kind- I think the vanilla one, no maple one. She said she preferred narcoossee’s one. DF had smores more out of curiosity I think and it disappeared pretty quickly. I would definitely recommend this place.
169.69 Rating: A

Last ones are nine dragons and Park Fare coming up soon!

 

[Busymom85]

Great reviews. Thankyou for taking the time. I am looking forward to trying Le Cellier in Dec.

 

[swankybeth]

Thanks for posting your reviews, I am enjoying them.

 

[wilma-bride]

Thanks again for the reviews. I am interested to hear about 9 dragons as it has had pretty bad reviews lately - the menu really appeals to me though and I love chinese food I am so hoping you have good things to say about it