SupercalafragalisticexpialaDELICIOUS:9 days of Disney Dining with pics-Completed!

great review so far Christine, I'm so sad to see the pictures and realize our trip is over....until the next time that is!! Liz
 
So glad to read your review of Chefs, we're really excited about trying it for the first time!
 
So glad to read your review of Chefs, we're really excited about trying it for the first time!

We have heard so many mixed reviews about this place, but really it was very nice for us. You have to expect that the servers won't be very "How are y'all doin'" here. This is also a great chance to try something that you may not have thought to before like duck or tortiere, which I have to say can be delicious. Enjoy and let us know what you think when you get back!
 
Nice reviews. I'm almost sorry we didn't choose to dine at Chefs. Everything looks so good.
 

We have heard so many mixed reviews about this place, but really it was very nice for us. You have to expect that the servers won't be very "How are y'all doin'" here. This is also a great chance to try something that you may not have thought to before like duck or tortiere, which I have to say can be delicious. Enjoy and let us know what you think when you get back!

I'm glad you commented on the servers, we'll know what to expect and why. I already know I'm going with the escargot and the duck.:cool1:
 
Thanks for the reviews. I'm looking forward to hearing about Coral Reef. pirate:
 
Originally we had made ressies at Japan’s Mitsukoshi Teppanyaki which was supposed to have been completely refurbished and open for business by the time we arrived. About 3 weeks before out trip I caught wind on these boards that all was not going as planned in Japan. So taking the advice of several DISboarders, I managed to make a back up ressie at the Coral Reef. About a week later I got the call saying that Mitsukoshi was indeed behind schedule and could they make me another ADR. Since I already had a backup that I was happy with, they informed me that we would receive at our lunch at Coral Reef, VIP passes to Illuminations for that evening.

So on to the actual vacation. We brought the kids to Magical Beginnings at Magic Kingdom in the am and then headed over to Epcot well ahead of our 2:10 ADR. We walked through the Land and then the Seas with Nemo and Friends. We finally checked in at 1:45 at Coral Reef. We were told they were behind a bit and that we could wait outside. Well we did another tour of the Seas and then headed back to wait some more. Well we weren’t seated until 3:15! That is a long time to wait when you have 5 kids ages 4 and under! I normally wouldn’t wait that long for a walk up at home with the kids let alone when we had a reservation. Needless to say when the bread was put on the table it was gone and a new basket had been brought before we were served our appetizers. I have to say that we were too hungry to stop and take a picture. Sorry! :sad2:

Finally we were shown to a couple of tables on the main floor in front of the aquariums. I have to say this was very impressive! There were pretty large sharks, giant sea turtles and stung rays swimming by. We even got to see a diver go in to feed the fish. The kids thought all of this was great. Even Leah at 9 months was entranced. This made the meal a whole lot nicer for her mommy and daddy!

For our appetizers, I chose the Lobster Soup. I truly don’t remember it being very remarkable. I don’t remember any nice chucks of lobster. It was warm, and thick and creamy and that is all I remember.

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I also remember being disappointed tat I didn’t order what all of the rest of my party did, the Land and Sea! This was Grilled shrimp with cucumber salad and barbecued beef skewer with creamy Polenta. From Liz: “The appetizer of shrimp and beef was yummy. The sauce was very good over the beef, and the shrimp were well marinated and had good flavor.”

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For a main course I chose Blackened Catfish - Served over pepperjack cheese grits, topped with a smoked tomato compote, and drizzled with a balsamic glaze. I had never eaten catfish before and I enjoy Cajun spices so I thought, when in Rome… Well I took about two bites and it was quite yummy. But then I saw this thing sticking out of the fish that looked kind of like a vein you would see in chicken. I have no idea what the vascularization of a catfish is, but I grabbed the end and pulled. This vein/worm was about 4 inches long and slid out of the fish. I caught the waiter’s attention and asked him if this was a worm or something else. He assured me it was not a worm but could not tell me what it was. He quickly whisked it away and came back with the steak. To this day I am not convinced that it was a worm. Maybe someone else can tell me what it was that I found? I wish that someone had come back to let me know, but I guess they were too busy for that. In the meantime the steak was pretty good and I enjoyed the rest of my meal.

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Gary and Liz both ordered Grilled New York Strip - served with potatoes au gratin and beef demi-glace. The consensus was that it was ok. It wasn’t the best cut of meat but the flavor was very good. The potatoes and broccolini was very good as well.

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Roly ordered Grilled Mahi Mahi served over Israeli Couscous and Honey-Soy Glaze. Again, I don’t have his review but he seemed to really enjoy the fish.

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Paige had the mac and cheese and Naomi wanted the grilled chicken breast, both with celery and carrot sticks. They ate some but the fish was the main attraction. They loved their dessert of build your own sundaes. In fact I had to stay behind with Naomi while she finished every last drop!

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The desserts ended up making the meal. We once again all chose differently. Liz chose the keylime pie. “The key lime pie was great, rich and cream, limey, delicious.” She proclaimed it was one of her favorite desserts of the week.

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Roly had Citrus Creme Brulee - with Berries and citrus zest. He seemed to enjoy this. There was nothing left when he was done but then with Roly there rarely is. :)

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Gary had a simple fruit bowl. He said the fruit was fresh and tasty. Nothing too complicated about fruit!

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And of course I had to try the The Chocolate Wave - with brandied cherries. The cake was delicious. It was the best part of my meal by far! I love the molten chocolate center and the rich chocolaty cake. I wasn’t a fan of the cherries on top. I love cherries but I am not usually a fan of anything soaked in liquor. I do highly recommend this dessert to anyone who loves chocolate.
The kids

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So in Conclusion, this restaurant was worth it just for the view. I can’t say the food was spectacular but if you are traveling with kids, I would definitely make an adr.


Up Next: Columbia Harbor House and California Grill
 
Excellent reviews - looking forward to hearing your opinion of California Grill :)
 
Great review so far. We are going next month and plan on dining at Coral Reef.
I am from South Louisiana, where catfish is basically a staple. I can just about assure you that the long wormy thing is just a vein. The techinical term I'm not sure of, but we find them in our fish all the time.
 
I am from South Louisiana, where catfish is basically a staple. I can just about assure you that the long wormy thing is just a vein. The techinical term I'm not sure of, but we find them in our fish all the time.

That is such a releif! I wish now that I had enjoyed the rest of my meal. I really didn't want to give Coral Reef a bad rap for this since I was fairly certain it was my lack of catfish knowledge that was the problem. next time I will order it again and give it a fair shot! Thanks so much for clearing that up and enjoy your trip! :flower3:
 
As stated above, in catfish it was most likely just a vein. Last September I also had the blackened catfish and thoroughly enjoyed it. Enjoying your reviews..........looking forward to the rest.
 
This was a much anticipated day for Gary and I. We had agreed to leave our girls with Liz and Roly for the day so that we could see Disney as an adult! This meant oh so many things. Space Mountain, the Haunted House and so much more! It also meant that we could eat in a classier restaurant and peacefully we hoped.

So our plan was to go to Magic Kingdom first thing and then head over to MGM after lunch. I had read a lot of good things about Columbia Harbour House so off we went around 11:45. It was already pretty busy but we managed to find a table in one of the many rooms. Being a maritimer at heart I ordered the fish and chip while my husband opted for the chicken strips and apple slices. It seems at Disneyworld, apple slices are the chosen alternative to fries. Nice to have a healthy choice but variety would have been nice too. We often collected the apple slices and the kids ate them while waiting for the bus the next morning. I enjoyed the fish, but I felt like there was not a whole lot of fish inside the batter. I prefer to have big chunks of fluffy white fish with my batter but these were pretty spare. Gary found the chicken strips pretty flavorless. He really made use of a dipping sauce. Next trip I will be on the hunt for the best fish and chips so feel free to offer your suggestions!

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Now here was the best part of the day and the reason for the title. We had 6:10 ADR’s at the California Grill. We wanted to make it back down to Magic Kingdom in time for Spectromagic since our girls were going to be there and I really didn’t want to miss their faces for that. So we checked in around 5:25 at the desk on the second floor. They said absolutely no problem and gave us a pager and then had us escorted upstairs to the fourteenth floor. A few minutes later we were shown to a beautiful table by the window overlooking Magic Kingdom.

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Our waiter, Abdou was fantastic. I started out with a Kir royale which I had seen on other posts and it lived up to the pictures. It was beautiful and so nice after a hot day at the parks to relax with such a nice fizzy drink.

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We placed our order and then Abdou suggested we take our drinks out to the observation deck and look around. We took his advice and walked out. It was truly beautiful up there and being Florida you could see different rain showers happening around but where we were the sun was shining and Florida heat was abounding so we didn’t stay out there too long.

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We came back in and perused the wine list for a nice glass to accompany our meals. I just couldn’t decide, so Abdou being the wonderful waiter that he is, came back with a few glasses and poured me a fair sized tasting of a few he recommended. I found one that was definitely to my taste, but of course by then I was already feeling a bit tipsy. Ok on to the meal!

We started out by sharing Yoshi’s Deluxe sushi platter. The sushi was very good but I kind of wish we had gotten one of the more artistic platters like the yellowfin tuna three ways or the double crunch rainbow roll. This platter lacked a bit in the presentation but we enjoyed it very much none the less.

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For our second course we chose very carefully because we didn’t want to end up so full that we couldn’t eat the main course. I ordered the "Simply" Heirloom Tomatoes - Served with red onion, reserve sherry vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and sea salt. This was absolutely delicious. There were so many different coloured tomatoes and they were so flavourful with the onions and vinegar. It was exactly what I had been looking for in the lightness department. I could never have handled a big flatbread. I highly recommend this dish.

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Gary ordered the Hearts of Romaine Salad - Made with roasted garlic dressing, marinated anchovies, olives, aged parmesan, and croutons. He was looking for a Caesar salad and this for all intents and purposes was a Caesar salad but with olives in it. He just picked out the olives and polished off the rest.

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When ordering the main courses, for Gary it was a no brainer. There was a steak on the menu so why look further. For me it was so very hard to choose. I had heard so much about the pork tenderloin but I was a little concerned about the goat cheese polenta. Abdou assured me that it was not strong tasting at all and complimented the meat perfectly so I went for it. I was served Grilled Pork Tenderloin - Served with creamy goat cheese polenta, cremini mushrooms, Zinfandel glaze, and sage. This was fantastic! By far the best main course that I had eaten all week and remains so. The pork was cooked to candy like perfection and has a Dijon mustard coating around it. The polenta was to die for and I normally don’t like goat cheese and the mushrooms and whatever else was in this dish was just amazing. I would go back again just for that in a heartbeat. I even looked up the recipe on-line and printed it off, but it is long and complicated on not particularly diet friendly so I don’t know if I will ever attempt it myself. But I can dream right?

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Gary of course ordered the Oak-fired Beef Filet - Served with crushed red potatoes with Nueske's bacon, green beans, and teriyaki bbq sauce. He said this was the best steak he had eaten at Disney and as you are reading you can see he tasted quite a few. Nothing was left on his plate at the end either.

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Ok we barely had any room left but there was no way I was missing out on dessert. By this time we were feeling very relaxed and a little happy from the drinks and Abdou was our new favorite person. Gary looks at me and says “Let’s give Abdou a car!” Now I assure you that we didn’t have enough cash hanging around to give this man a good bicycle let alone a car. But he inspired some very nice feelings from us. Gary is not easy to impress either being one of the most skeptic people I know.

Now for dessert. Again there were so many things I wanted to try, but I figured I would be able to choose when the time came. I couldn’t. So being a normal woman, I decided to convince my husband to order something I wanted too. This wasn’t as hard a sell as I had anticipated. He is more of a chocoholic that I am so he ordered the Valrhona Chocolate and Cherry - Warm chocolate cake with molten center, house made cherry ice cream, and cherry sauce. I have to say looking at the pictures now I don’t remember the cherry part. I am pretty sure it was all chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream. Either way the cake is the important thing right? I have to say it was sinful. Gary’s comments went something like “It was chocolate and had ice cream. What’s not to like? It was mmm mmm good!”

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I went for the more creative Bananas and Butterscotch "Buzz" - Caramelized bananas and butterscotch custard stack with coffee caramel, cocoa nib, and crunchy plantain. Now this did not disappoint. It was spectacular. I have never had a more artfully presented dessert and the flavour had me wanting more even though I really had no room left. It was like layer after layer of butterscotch goodness. The bottom was like butterscotch soaked fried wontons with a disc of butterscotch ice cream between. Then there were some butterscotch sautéed bananas and then a disk of what looked like sesame seeds and poppy seeds which was a great contrast to the rest of the dessert. Finally the there was like a dollop of cream and a fried plantain on top. I could not have asked for more in a dessert.

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Here are Gary’s comments on the restaurant as a whole: “This was the best restaurant we went to. They were very well organized and we were able to advance our reservation from 6:10 to 5:30 simply by showing up earlier. This helped to accommodate our schedule better. The view of Disney World and the other resorts was tremendous and we could even walk out onto the roof to stand outside and take in the view. Service was outstanding and the Maitre-D even found time to come to our table to ask us how we enjoyed our meal. Our kickass waiter even took a nice photo of us.”

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I loved The California Grill! We watched the sunset over the horizon and had we not had to meet our children at magic Kingdom, we would have stayed until Wishes. It was a very romantic ending to a fun kid-free day! I will definitely return next time.

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Up next: Riverside Mill Food Court and Boma
 
What a wonderful review - California Grill sounds amazing. I am very tempted to see if the in-laws will have the kids for an evening next April so me and DH can dine there.

As for fish and chips, the best I have tasted around WDW were the ones at Raglan Road - so yummy :thumbsup2
 
What a wonderful review - California Grill sounds amazing. I am very tempted to see if the in-laws will have the kids for an evening next April so me and DH can dine there.

As for fish and chips, the best I have tasted around WDW were the ones at Raglan Road - so yummy :thumbsup2

California Grill was definitely my favorite meal of the trip. Definitely get the babysitting for it because if you do it right, this meal can easily last a couple of hours.

We loved Raglan Road too. Next time I would like to go there without kids too and go later when the music and dancers are playing. I also wanted to try a beer flight but with the kids I just wasn't in the mood last time. Are the fish and chips the same at Cookes of Dublin?
 
Love your reviews! California Grill was our favorite meal during our last trip. We have made reservations at 9pm the first day we arrive for this upcoming trip!
 
Great reviews! I love reading about the pork tenderloin at CG, it really seems to be a great dish!
 












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