Day 4: Dinner at Kona Cafe
After a fun day at Epcot, we caught the monorail and headed over to the Polynesian for our dinner at Kona Café. We used to live in Hawaii and being at the Polynesian always feels a little bit like visiting an old friend. This is one of our favorite restaurants on property and we have made a point to eat dinner here every trip. We even went there for dinner in our Woody and Jessie costumes before
MNSSHP last September.
We arrived early for our 8:25 ADR and explored the gift shop for a few minutes before our pager went off notifying us that our table was ready. During our dinner we had the chance to talk with another patron who happened to work at Space Mountain. He shared some funny stories with us and it was entertaining talking with someone who worked at WDW. Unfortunately the conversation we overheard from the guests on the other side of our table was not as fun. This one mother kept snapping at her son who couldn’t have been older than four and telling him to “shut up.” Luckily, they were just finishing up as we sat down so they weren’t there too long.
Our server came by and introduced herself and asked us what we wanted to drink. DH ordered a Kona Pale Ale and I ordered a virgin Pina Colada.
When our server returned with our drinks she also brought us some of the delicious bread with honey macadamia butter.
For our appetizer, we both order the Pot Stickers (wok-seared duck dumplings with creamy ginger soy sauce). They were, as usual, delicious!
DH has a favorite entrée that he orders every time we’re at Kona Café, Tuna Oscar (served with fried green tomatoes, tempura-fried jumbo lump crab, and wasabi hollandaise). This is one of his favorite meals on property one of the reasons we make a point to come to Kona Café for dinner every trip.
I on the other hand order something different just about every time we visit Kona Café. This time I went with the Pan Asian Noodles (Asian noodles with shrimp, peanuts, seasonal vegetables, and soy-peanut sauce). I found this dish to be very tasty and filling without being too heavy. I loved the combination of sweet and savory in the sauce.
For dessert, we both ordered the chocolate fondue; we’ve found this to be a great sweet way to end a meal without being too heavy. The dark chocolate sauce came with fresh slices of pineapple, strawberries, kiwis, crispy cookies, and macaroons. Everything went well with the chocolate (well, I’m not a big kiwi fan so I passed those to DH). DH also ordered a café mocha to have with his dessert as his non-alcoholic beverage.
In addition to our delicious desserts, our server brought out a dessert for our anniversary. It was a puff pastry filled with chocolate and topped with custard and cream. I remember that the chocolate part was delicious and the rest was good but we didn’t eat the whole thing, we were so full at this point.
We left Kona Café very satisfied and walked back to the TTC to catch the monorail and return to Epcot for some evening extra magic hours!
The Ratings:
Food
Summary: Everything was delicious and prepared well. It’s nice to try something new and find that it is just as good as other items on their menu. Nice to have other options for the non-alcoholic beverage included with the DxDDP other than soda.
Decor
Summary: Nice open area with Polynesian theme and colors, the beautiful bamboo fans remind us of one of our favorite bars in Waikiki.
Service
Summary: Our server was not bad; she just seemed really scattered and overwhelmed. Her visits to our table were infrequent but our food came within a reasonable time frame. Water refills could have been more frequent.
Cost
$84.26 (1 credit per person)
Overall
Summary: Kona Cafe has always been consistently good and we’ll definitely return on our next trip. We’ll actually be back this trip also, but for breakfast instead of dinner.
On Deck:
Day 5: Breakfast at Boma
