The Daily Dish - nightly reviews May 5-13!

[roxysmum123]

Hello everyone!

I'm just setting up my review thread for my upcoming trip!

I'm planning on updating this nightly from my cozy hotel room at Pop Century with reviews and photos of what has transpired over the course of the day.....food wise that is! I'm very excited to be able to share with all of you my thoughts on the meals of the trip, as well as some good food porn.

A little about me: I'm in my late 20's from Ontario, Canada, not far from Toronto. I'll be graduating college in June, and have completed all of my courses for this as of last week so this trip is somewhat of a graduation trip for me. This will be my 9th trip to WDW and I'm usually a solo traveller. This has made for some great experiences for me, especially with dining as I can always pick what I want to eat and when I want to eat it. I love food, even took a stab at culinary school right out of highschool (left because I'd like to have a life outside of a kitchen), so for me the dining is some of the best parts of a WDW trip.

HOWEVER this trip I'll be travelling with a family! I'm SO excited about this for a few reasons. I'm travelling with one of my best friends in the world and her husband and children. They have been a source of support for me for a few years now and have always been the people I can turn to anytime I'm in need of help. I'm SO fortunate to have them in my life, and very excited to be travelling with them. The other reason why this excites me so is that their kids are the same age my sister and I were on our first trip! I think that's neat beyond belief, as I can remember my first WDW trip pretty vividly still and look forward to being able to help create those memories for someone else. So the trip consists of 3 adults, and 11 and 8 yearold girls. And to avid food review readers you know what this means......lots of meals to try!

Here is what we have planned so far, and I will update as we add our QS meals and snacks. Our ADR's are:

Saturday (arrival day)
Dinner - Coral Reef

Sunday
Breakfast - Crystal Palace

Monday
Dinner - Fulton's Crab House (my friend and her husband)
Dinner - 50's Prime Time Cafe (me and 2 kids...wish me luck! lol)

Tuesday
Dinner - Yak and Yeti

Wednesday
Breakfast - 1900 Park Fare

Thursday
Lunch - Les Chefs de France
Dinner - Teppan Edo

Friday
Dinner - Restaurant Marrakesh

Saturday
Dinner - Artist Point

We're on the dining plan, so we have quite a few quick services to throw in there. I'm HOPING to visit Earl of Sandwich, Wolfgang Puck Express, Sunshine Seasons, Columbia Harbour House, Fairfax Fare (MUST try those new hot dogs), Flame Tree BBQ and Cookes of Dublin and obviously the Everything Pop Food Court.

As far as snacks go, I don't even know WHERE to start! Mickey Bars for sure, but all the other options are so overwhelming. I'd be glad for any suggestions you have!

My friend and I are also hoping to have an "adult day" where we do some drinking around the world, so here's hoping that can happen!

Anyways, this is getting long so I'll leave it here. I hope I get even just a few readers and can get your mouths watering as so many of the review threads before mine have done for me.

Cheers!

 

[deenbrad]

Sounds like a fun trip. I look forward to your review!

 

[Dancing Queen]

Can't wait to read your reviews!

Happy Travels!

 

[vettegirl]

Congrats to you on the graduation. Looking forward to hearing your live reviews! I leave the following week for WDW and your reports are going to really get me excited for my vaca!

 

[goofyintoronto]

Looking fwd to your reviews! You have a great lineup of restaurants.

Im from Toronto as well btw.

 

[roxysmum123]

Sounds like a fun trip. I look forward to your review!

Thanks, I hope I can give you some good reads!

Can't wait to read your reviews!

Happy Travels!

Glad to have you along for the ride!

Congrats to you on the graduation. Looking forward to hearing your live reviews! I leave the following week for WDW and your reports are going to really get me excited for my vaca!

Thanks for the congrats! I'm the same way, I'm all over the dining review pages before I travel too, lol. Good way to get the tummy grumbling!

Looking fwd to your reviews! You have a great lineup of restaurants.

Im from Toronto as well btw.

I'm in Hamilton, so not too far away! I'll actually be in Toronto Thursday for a movie screening !

 

[3Rouselings]

I'm looking forward to your reviews from New Brunswick!!!

 

[MickeyNicki]

Cant wait! I love reading live reviews!

 

[iloveeeyore]

CONGRATULATIONS on your college graduation! How wonderful that you have such a close friend who helps you out; it sounds like it's going to be a wonderful time!

I will be following your reviews! Can't wait to read!

 

[roxysmum123]

I'm looking forward to your reviews from New Brunswick!!!

Thanks! My friends I'm travelling with are Newfies born and raised (been in Ontario about 15 years now though) so I'm interested on their take with the seafood considering I think it's great I'm sure they'll have a more educated opinion, lol.

Cant wait! I love reading live reviews!

Yay! I was hoping you'd follow along, I've read all of yours, they've been so helpful in the planning process!

CONGRATULATIONS on your college graduation! How wonderful that you have such a close friend who helps you out; it sounds like it's going to be a wonderful time!

I will be following your reviews! Can't wait to read!

Thanks for the congratulations, I'm pretty excited about it! It took a while to find the right program for me so it's nice to be able to share in my success with good friends both live and on the Dis!

Thanks everyone for following along, can't wait to start eating on Saturday! Is it bad that the dining is some of my fave part of any Disney trip?!

 

[roxysmum123]

So I've started packing for my trip

I'm very excited to be going back to WDW, especially with my travelling companions. I very recently changed a reservation and am having that last minute ADR panic as we speak.

The one I changed was my Teppan Edo ressie. That is where I am booked now, but previously we were booked at Tutto Italia. When I booked it the menu was big and beautiful, and the new menu is just garbo in my opinion. Not nearly the variety that was offered before and the items I had wanted to try are now gone. I can appreciate it's gone from being a Signature menu to a regular TS offering, but really it's a lot of pasta it can't be that hard to maintain the old menu. So I made the executive decision to change it to something different. I was thinking Via Napoli but my friend had a strict "I'm not eating pizza at Disney World" instruction for me when planning the meals so that kinda put the stop to that. I asked her if she wanted Japanese steakhouse where your food is cooked in-front of you or Irish bar with live music and dancers (obviously Raglan). The girls think the idea of the chef cooking in-front of us is brilliant so Teppan Edo it is. Honestly I'm not that upset because I love that place, but I think I'll still go to Raglan one or two evenings for a pint and some of their Guinness short ribs if they still have them.

My current ADR panic is Yak and Yeti. I've been twice and while it's nice and all it leaves a little to be desired in my opinion. Part of me wants to switch to Boma, but my friend's iffy on buffets and we're already doing two for breakfast. I love Boma, love the food, love the atmosphere, etc etc etc and I really want to show them AKL and all its glory. If you were to change from Yak and Yeti, what would you change to? Or would you just keep the reservation as is and visit AKL just to look around? As much as I want to do Boma, I think I'd be pushing my buffet limit with my friend

Whats a WDW vacation without last minute second guessing your ADR's right? lol

Cheers

 

[iloveeeyore]

We find AK to be kind of a 3/4 day park...so we go to DTD on our AK days. You could do RR on your AK day and do BOTH RR and TE. Just a thought. We had a terrible experience at Y&Y.

 

[TigerKat]

I wasn't very impressed with Yak & Yeti last time we went. I'd try Sanaa at AKL!

 

[pumba]

I am hoping that when I return from OUR TRIP...not doing anything live while we are there...I will read your reviews and look at my reviews and see if we went to any of the same cs or sit down ...
We are doing (family of 7)...Princess's at Norway breakfast...Crystal Palace for dinner...Biergarten for dinner..House of blues (maybe) for dinner..hopefully we will enjoy Pop's food court too...
WE love Earl Of Sandwich and we are looking forward to our trek back to that place...Also would like to try WGP express next to Earl...we shall see...


Have a great flight out and put a green ribbon or something green on your back pack or fanny pack or wherever..
I have green ribbon on my fanny pack..because green means you are from the Disney site...and we are the Dis'ers.

 

[roxysmum123]

Hello everyone!

This is going to be brief as I'm getting ready for breakfast with a certain honey lovin bear but I owe you guys from last night. I'll be adding my dinner review on my mid-day break though!

SO my PSA is: Disney now has free wifi, yay AND boo. Yay because I don't have to sell my first born child to get online and write these, boo because now EVERYONE is using the internet so it's slow as molasses. I couldn't even get on the Dis last night to write my reviews. Ugh. Here's hoping tonights better.

At POP and right after checkin we grabbed lunch at the food court. I didn't take photos because, well, it wasn't that pretty. We had:
2 of us had the Philly Cheesesteak Wraps with fries. They got a "meh, it'll do". It was actually kinda gross, but it did the job considering I hadn't ate anything but animal crackers on the plane. I won't be ordering this again.
1 of us had the Angus Burger and it got a "not bad". Typical burger really.
The winner was this roast beef monstrosity that my friend got. It was on a giant hunk of focaccia bread and absolutely DELICIOUS! If we eat here again, I'll be ordering that!
For dessert we all got cupcakes which were nice and sugar loaded, just what I was hoping for. Actually my friends one girl got a brownie and she seemed to really enjoy that too, just wait till she gets the brownie sandwich at the Earl tonight, lol.

Off for breakfast, will write a review for Coral Reef this afternoon. Also having Dole Whips with some DisBrides, so VERY excited for that!!!

Cheers

 

[CanadianPaco]

Looking forward to your reviews! And bring back some of that Florida warmth back to Ontario!!!!

 

[roxysmum123]

Hello everyone from sunny Orlando!

To continue on from my previous post...Coral Reef!

Ok this dinner was weird. I really enjoy the place, and I had booked it because I loved my meal there last year and what I'd wanted was still on the menu. Lobster Ravioli **drools**. I'd been looking forward to this for a while. I get there and....NO LOBSTER RAVIOLI!!!! Needless to say there was wind out of my sails. There was, however, a "Lobster Orecchiette" on the menu. It was described as "with white cheddar cheese and basil oil" for around 26$. I figured it'd be around the same idea. My server had other ideas. This is the conversation that followed
Me: I'd like the Lobster Orecchiette
Tony (great server btw): No you wouldn't
Me: Yes, I would
Tony: No, you wouldn't, you'd like the Mahi Mahi
Me: No, lobster.....
Tony: No, Mahi Mahi......
Me: I came for the lobster ravioli, it's not here, I'm going for the runner up
Tony: It's lobster mac and cheese....you want the Mahi Mahi
Me: I'd like the Mahi Mahi please.

Now I know some people would be very put off by him being so pushy, and he did it to me again over dessert (apparently I didn't want the key lime mousse, I wanted the Baileys and Jack Daniels one), BUT I do appreciate a servers knowledge of their product and willingness to keep me from making a food mistake. I can make lobster mac and cheese at home, and for a heck of a lot less money than 26$.

So 3 of us had the Mahi Mahi

It was delicious. I hate fish, the thought of it makes my toes curl, but I really enjoy Mahi Mahi. It's more of a chicken taste and not fishy at all. It came with rice and a coconut lime sauce of some sort. You really couldn't discern coconut or lime from it but I'd definitely return to order again. The portion was very big and I couldn't finish it all.

My friends daughter had the steak but swapped out the regular side for an order of fries. Tony actually made her cover her ears while he asked her parents if it's ok for her to have fries instead of veggies, lol.

It also was very good. Not a drop of it went to waste because once she was done with it we all demolished it. A great steak, I'd recommend it for any non-seafood person visiting the Coral Reef.

I think I'll skip the kids meals because you can only write so much about cheese pizza every night

For dessert I had the Baileys and Jack Daniels Mousse. It was delicious, after getting a lesson from Tony on how to properly eat it (insert spoon to bottom of glass, twist and pull up).

Whatever those little balls were on the top, they were crunchy and yummy. I'd order this dessert again for sure, and I really don't like alcohol in my desserts.

My friends husband ordered the cheesecake and I thought Tony was going to cry. He basically told us it was awful and we'll hate it and don't do it. Well her hubby did it anyways and while it wasn't the worst thing he's ever had it certainly wasn't the greatest. It looked pretty, but it was apparently a mousse and not a cheesecake so there's some false advertising going on there. Her daughter got the creme brulee and it was her first time trying something like that and she loved it. Literally licked the bowl....until we caught her doing so and gave her heck, lol.

All in all I'd recommend Coral Reef, but know that the Lobster Ravioli is gone baby gone.



For breakfast this morning we did Crystal Palace. I didn't take any pics because I think buffet food plates are the dirtiest of food porn. This was the first and last time this place will happen for me. The characters didn't make it to our table until about an hour after we arrived which was fine, I get it, but our server was brutal. It took him about 20 mins to get our bills because he had to check about 5 times how to sort them out (apparently having one bill 1 adult and one bill 3 adults 1 child is rocket science). He was absent most of the meal and didn't offer us any more drinks than our initial glasses of juice. He also never cleared any plates from our table so we had a nice tower in the middle going with the 5 of us. We would have loved some water as it was already pretty hot out but apparently that wasn't on the menu today. We noticed other servers seemed great, very attentive to their guests needs and always around so I guess we just got a dud. The food was good though, nice and hot and well cooked. The puffed french toast really is yummy, but it's a donut IMHO...not french toast. If you go here, don't expect to be in and out quickly because it won't happen. If you want a nice leisurely meal then this may be the buffet for you. I might return again if I could be guaranteed to have a better server.

Thanks for reading, more tomorrow!!

Cheers

 

[dreamscometrue101]

Loving the review and the pics.

Sorry you had a dud at Crystal Palace. We had a server like that last time and it does make for an unpleasant experience.

 

[iloveeeyore]

I'm pretty sure we had the same server at Coral Reef. Funny! I had that mahi mahi and it was very good. Your photo is one of the nicest I have seen of it and it makes me want it!

Not another bad review of CP! We are going to try it for ourselves but we are keeping our expectations way low for this one!

Thanks for taking the time to do this report. We are reading every word! Keep eating!

 

[princesspooh323]

I like the food and characters, but I have to agree that the service is horrible. We are always thirsty there, because it takes forever to get refills.

We were not impressed with coral reef when we went. Sounds like you had a bit of a better experience. We had to wait over an hour, and at that time our kids were 1 and 6. Then we were seat way in the back where it was very dark and not a very good view of the fish. The food was good, but the lack of kid friendly atmosphere made for a stressful dinner. It is good that my our waiter was helpful, but it seems a bit bad that there are so many things on the menu that the staff is saying to avoid.