CoolDisneyCat
North Carolina
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2003
- Messages
- 4,676
Holy mackerel! Breaking all rules of convention, we ventured off of Disney property for a meal dinner on Friday, December 17! And boy am I glad we did, b/c this meal was one of the best we had all week! Tchoup Chop is one of the two restaurants at Universal owned by that bamming and kicking-it-up-a-notch tv personality and chef, Emeril LaGasse. While his show isnt one of my favorites on Food Network, I surely did enjoy the mans restaurant.
Our reservation was for 6pm, and we didn't have to wait at all. However, the first table where we were seated was awful! It was smashed up against a large party, and the servers all had to squeeze in between our chairs and the party members'. We requested a different table, and were moved immediately. The hostess put the next group that walked in the door at the same table; I have no idea why; it seemed like it would be inconvenient for everyone!!
Tchoup Chop continues the Thai/Indonesian theme of the Royal Pacific nicely. It has a lily pond running down the center of the restaurant, and its decorated in shades of blue, turquoise and orange. It has a very peaceful, zen-like feel to it, and its not a very large restaurant. Definitely make a reservation if you want to go. The dress code says smart casual, but I wore jeans and a nice sweater and was dressed like 99% of the ppl in there, so dont spaz about that one.
As a guest of Tchoup Chop, youre very, very well taken care of. One waiter isnt enough. Oh no. You must have 3. One, ours was named Chris, comes to greet you when you sit down. He says something like, Hello, my name is Chris, and Ill be taking care of you tonight along with Sean and Mike. Mike will be bringing you water shortly. Would you like bottled or tap? Then he departs and Mike appears with the water. Hes the drink waiter, and he keeps your drinks full. Between the main course and dessert he even replaced our water glasses with fresh new ones, as though the ice melting into the water was sacrilege. Sean was our food waiter, and it was his job to go over the menu with us, take our order, bring our food, etc. Chris would pop by from time to time to make sure we were ok. How could we not be with so many ppl seeing to our every need? On our bill where it would normally have your servers name, it instead read team 2.
On to the food the appetizer menu is incredible. Before we went, Id looked at the menu online, but Id never gotten past the appetizers b/c they all looked so good! Sean told us the appetizers were small, so we could feel free to order more than one. We decided to order 3 and split an entrée. We got the dumpling basket, eggrolls w/ orange chili sauce, and crispy shrimp. They were indeed small, so definitely order more than one! There were 2 eggrolls, 4 shrimp, and 4 fairly small dumplings. Its nice that way, though, b/c there are too many yummy choices to get just 1!
The sauce that came w/ the shrimp was very spicy, but it was really good. Normally youd wrap the shrimp in the lettuce that came w/ them, and then dip it all in the sauce, but we dont like lettuce. I imagine that extra step would add a whole other layer of texture to the dish. The eggrolls had an orange chili sauce that was sweet and spicy and incredibly tasty. The dumplings were steamed and came w/ a sake soy sauce that was a nice complement.
Our entrée man, once we tasted it we wished wed each gotten our own! We ordered the filet mignon (again, but I wasnt in the mood for something really spicy or exotic that night), and it was amazingly good. The meat was so tender you couldve cut it w/ a butter knife, and it just melted in your mouth. Man, its making me really hungry writing this!! The roasted potatoes w/ it were, oddly, not good. They tasted like theyd been frozen and then (badly) thawed. I dont know, it was really weird that something as simple as potatoes could be messed up when everything else was so wonderful.
We ordered separate desserts b/c I really wanted the banana cream pie, and Mom doesnt like bananas. She got the Hawaiian chocolate chocolate cake. My slice of pie was HUGE, and it was really good. A lot of banana cream pie or pudding is really, really sweet, but this wasnt. It relied on the natural flavor of the banana, not a bunch of sugar, and thats what I like. Mom really liked her chocolate cake it was solid, flourless chocolate cake with white chocolate sauce drizzled on it. She said it wasnt too dense or too sweet like a lot of flourless chocolate cake, and she really liked that.
Well definitely be returning to Tchoup Chop on future visits! The food, service and atmosphere were all wonderful, and we couldnt have asked for a much better meal.
Our reservation was for 6pm, and we didn't have to wait at all. However, the first table where we were seated was awful! It was smashed up against a large party, and the servers all had to squeeze in between our chairs and the party members'. We requested a different table, and were moved immediately. The hostess put the next group that walked in the door at the same table; I have no idea why; it seemed like it would be inconvenient for everyone!!
Tchoup Chop continues the Thai/Indonesian theme of the Royal Pacific nicely. It has a lily pond running down the center of the restaurant, and its decorated in shades of blue, turquoise and orange. It has a very peaceful, zen-like feel to it, and its not a very large restaurant. Definitely make a reservation if you want to go. The dress code says smart casual, but I wore jeans and a nice sweater and was dressed like 99% of the ppl in there, so dont spaz about that one.
As a guest of Tchoup Chop, youre very, very well taken care of. One waiter isnt enough. Oh no. You must have 3. One, ours was named Chris, comes to greet you when you sit down. He says something like, Hello, my name is Chris, and Ill be taking care of you tonight along with Sean and Mike. Mike will be bringing you water shortly. Would you like bottled or tap? Then he departs and Mike appears with the water. Hes the drink waiter, and he keeps your drinks full. Between the main course and dessert he even replaced our water glasses with fresh new ones, as though the ice melting into the water was sacrilege. Sean was our food waiter, and it was his job to go over the menu with us, take our order, bring our food, etc. Chris would pop by from time to time to make sure we were ok. How could we not be with so many ppl seeing to our every need? On our bill where it would normally have your servers name, it instead read team 2.
On to the food the appetizer menu is incredible. Before we went, Id looked at the menu online, but Id never gotten past the appetizers b/c they all looked so good! Sean told us the appetizers were small, so we could feel free to order more than one. We decided to order 3 and split an entrée. We got the dumpling basket, eggrolls w/ orange chili sauce, and crispy shrimp. They were indeed small, so definitely order more than one! There were 2 eggrolls, 4 shrimp, and 4 fairly small dumplings. Its nice that way, though, b/c there are too many yummy choices to get just 1!
The sauce that came w/ the shrimp was very spicy, but it was really good. Normally youd wrap the shrimp in the lettuce that came w/ them, and then dip it all in the sauce, but we dont like lettuce. I imagine that extra step would add a whole other layer of texture to the dish. The eggrolls had an orange chili sauce that was sweet and spicy and incredibly tasty. The dumplings were steamed and came w/ a sake soy sauce that was a nice complement.
Our entrée man, once we tasted it we wished wed each gotten our own! We ordered the filet mignon (again, but I wasnt in the mood for something really spicy or exotic that night), and it was amazingly good. The meat was so tender you couldve cut it w/ a butter knife, and it just melted in your mouth. Man, its making me really hungry writing this!! The roasted potatoes w/ it were, oddly, not good. They tasted like theyd been frozen and then (badly) thawed. I dont know, it was really weird that something as simple as potatoes could be messed up when everything else was so wonderful.
We ordered separate desserts b/c I really wanted the banana cream pie, and Mom doesnt like bananas. She got the Hawaiian chocolate chocolate cake. My slice of pie was HUGE, and it was really good. A lot of banana cream pie or pudding is really, really sweet, but this wasnt. It relied on the natural flavor of the banana, not a bunch of sugar, and thats what I like. Mom really liked her chocolate cake it was solid, flourless chocolate cake with white chocolate sauce drizzled on it. She said it wasnt too dense or too sweet like a lot of flourless chocolate cake, and she really liked that.
Well definitely be returning to Tchoup Chop on future visits! The food, service and atmosphere were all wonderful, and we couldnt have asked for a much better meal.
