The Return of Violet and Chernabog: Now with Bonus Sprogs! 7/14: 'Ohana Breakfast

[Symans3honeybees]

You guys look great!! I had my eyes on your "crocs" most of the time. I've been wanting to get a pair just like yours. Was it comfy?

 

[TillyMarigold]

You guys look great!! I had my eyes on your "crocs" most of the time. I've been wanting to get a pair just like yours. Was it comfy?

Thanks!

I ended up wearing them more than anything else--I would wear something else to start the day (sneakers or Keens) and then when my feet got tired/hot, switch to the Crocs (they're very light to carry around). They're not the most supportive shoes I own, but they're not bad either--I have pretty bad plantar fasciitis and my feet were fine on this trip. They're also very cushiony and have the nubs on the insole that sort of massage your feet. The only issue was that every time Chernabog was behind me in line, he would step on them. Also, Crocs get slippery when wet.

The only thing I did was get a tube of Blister Blocker (made by Band-Aid and found in the Band-Aid aisle) and apply it at the top of my arch where the last strap wraps under every several hours to prevent rubbing. I keep it in my "blister kit" with moleskin, band-aids, hand sanitizer, and a safety pin.

Between the conference and the parks, I took 6 pairs of shoes on this trip! High-heeled loafers for the conference, dress sandals for the dinner-dance the first night of the conference, sneakers (Skechers Shape-Ups), Keens, FitFlops, and Crocs.

 

[TillyMarigold]

Monday morning we slept in and then took our first foray to The Mara at about 9 am. Call me a grump, but I hate the rotating screens that most of the food courts have--you can never read the whole menu before it changes, and having two different formats (list and pictures) with different things on them is confusing.

So we ordered the first thing that caught our eye--breakfast croissants--and I decided not to think about the fact that they prep them by having a tray of croissants stuffed with bacon ready and then add the eggs to that (so they took the bacon off a croissant to make my sandwich). I was fascinated by the chiller cabinet that had all sorts of options for veggies, fruit, and drinks; but in the end, I just went with boring and safe and grabbed orange juice and of course had coffee.

Frankly I don't think eggs on croissants is a good idea in general ... I always feel like croissants are too insubstantial and flaky to support eggs. These were good, fresh croissants, but that meant they were very flaky and soft and buttery. The sandwich would have been better on a bagel or English muffin or even a regular biscuit. The eggs were also nice and fresh, they'd just been brought over to the prep station while we were standing in line.

The restaurant as a whole was pretty cool with its jungle theme, plus it had a TV playing classic Mickey cartoons (actually they were doing Chip 'n' Dale while we ate breakfast) so that was a nice bonus. Everything was very clean and the cashier and dining room CMs were extremely friendly, much more than at the POFQ food court last year (did I mention I really disliked the POFQ food court?)

In short, the food was just fine but nothing I'm dying to have again, but we were optimistic enough to get 4 more meals from the Mara over the course of our stay.

 

[gilsan]

Okay, so first of all, the crème brulée was so good that he called the waitress over to tell her that it was the best crème brulée he'd ever eaten in his life (and Chernabog has something of a crème brulée obsession). I had a taste and it was incredibly good, and that's saying something since I can take or leave both peaches and white chocolate. The torta was similarly pronounced the best cake thing he'd ever had in his life. The cobbler was the worst thing on the plate, but he would like to make it clear that if he'd had it on its own without the other two, he would have been very happy with it. Actually, he was very happy with it; but the other two were amazing and the cobbler was "just a good cobbler."

DH had this when we ate a FF and also thought the creme brulee was excelent

 

[Symans3honeybees]

I have just ordered a pair of your crocs online. Woohoo!!

 

[TillyMarigold]

Animal Kingdom is our favorite park, so of course we decided to spend our first full vacation day there.

What's important to understand about me and vacations is this: in real life, I am completely, 100%, ultra Type A. I am that way until the minute I get to Disney World. Once I get to Disney World I prefer to have no plans, no itineraries, I do not do rope drop and I do not use touring plans. So this actually fits in very nicely with the sort of laid-back experience that makes the Animal Kingdom fun.

All in all, after eating at the Mara and going back to our rooms to shower, we didn't get to the Animal Kingdom until about noon (we had terrible bus luck with every bus up until we Belle and the kids arrived, and then again once they left ... crazy huh?), and since we had a 6:00 ADR at Restaurant Marrakesh in Epcot, we decided not to eat lunch at all, but instead just snack throughout the day.

Now, I told Chernabog I wasn't really in the mood for a snack yet, but he decided he needed one of the new elephant cupcakes at Kusafiri Bakery. Actually he debated between the elephant one and the zebra one, and I told him that I didn't really want a cupcake but if I were going to have some of his, I personally thought the elephant one sounded better.

So, the elephant cupcake is a chocolate cupcake with a gooey chocolate center, with white icing and the same sort of caramel and coconut as you find on schoolbread (so, sort of a take on German chocolate cake), with a white chocolate elephant lollipop stuck in it. The cupcake was about the same size as a standard cupcake, not the huge ones like you get in other places.

Chernabog says:
It's a two-person dessert. I think it's far too sweet and rich for one person to eat. Well, I can easily imagine a five-year-old devouring the whole thing ... and then complaining of a stomachache the rest of the day. Also, the chocolate [elephant] seemed sort of waxy. I mean, it was pretty decent chocolate, but the cupcake itself was so good and so moist and with the stuff in the middle, and the frosting was so good and the coconut was so fresh, that the elephant suffered by comparison.

Since I don't like white chocolate, I can't comment on the quality of the elephant, except to say that I think of white chocolate as being a little waxy in general. But I did eat about a third of his cupcake--I had only been going to have a taste, you know, for scientific purposes but in fact it was everything he said it was and more. Seriously, this was an absolutely incredible cupcake. (And I don't know about where you are, but around here cupcakes are the hot new thing that everyone has at parties and things, so I've eaten my share of interesting cupcakes.

Awhile later, we finished with Africa and after stopping at Flights of Wonder, I spotted the Royal Anandapur Tea Company kiosk and remembered my wish for a slush the day before, so I stopped and bought a large frozen chai.

The chai was pretty good ... some people like their chai sweeter and milder than others, and I am not really one of those people--I prefer it heavily spiced and lightly sweetened. The frozen chai was the other way around and I know some people love it that way, but it's not my favorite. But as something cold to drink on a hot day, it was pretty good. Better than the frozen raspberry lemonade slush I'd resisted the day before (I've been tempted by them before, and it's always a mistake, they never live up to the hype).

I have to say that the paper straws at AK and AKL never bothered me before; but that's probably because I always drank my drink so fast that they didn't have time to dissolve. For better or for worse, however, I had a more leisurely time drinking the chai because it was frozen, so my straw did turn to mush. I vowed to get an extra straw the next time I ordered a frozen drink at AK.

We hung out in Asia at the gibbons--all 5 of them were out: mother holding the new baby, father, and the two daughters, one of whom is a juvenile and the other a very young adult (they were both juveniles when we met their keeper on the Wild by Design tour last year). They were all swinging around and grooming each other, and there was a keeper there talking to people. So we stayed there awhile.

We decided to move on, and Chernabog decided he wanted some glazed nuts. Fortunately there was a glazed-nuts cart right there, selling both almonds and pecans (he wanted the latter. However, the line had all of a sudden gotten incredibly long (like 20 people) so we decided to come back later.

While we were on Maharajah Jungle Trek, I tried to convince Chernabog that our next snack should actually be a jalapeño cream cheese pretzel instead of the pecans, because the glazed nut carts are everywhere (although apparently he'd never noticed them before) but you can only get the jalapeño pretzels at AK. However, when we finished with Maharajah, it started to pour, so we decided against eating right then and eventually started making our way to Epcot for our Marrakesh reservation without getting any more snacks.

 

[Leota]

So far, so good! I loved your last review, esp. since I also avoid CAFO meat. DH, however, will eat whatever, whenever. In Vegas, I did break down & eat a burger because DH was really craving BLT Burger one night. This coming trip to WDW will be my first since commiting to no CAFO. I am planning to be a bit flexible for the F&W Fest events & booths, so it was good for me to see you were flexible when need be as well. I won't beat myself up as hard when I fudge...

I'm really looking forward to following along as you finish your review. Thanks for taking the time to do them.

 

[TillyMarigold]

Warning: the first of the bad, high-speed, flash-less pictures are coming up. Someday I hope to know how to use my camera properly.

We ate at Restaurant Marrakesh entirely at Chernabog's request. You see, I hate, hate, hate couscous. I can't help it, I want to like it, but I just can't stand it. I had agreed to go to Marrakesh only on the condition that the menu had to have at least one dish that was not served with couscous. Fortunately, I saw that there was a seafood feast that looked pretty good, so I agreed.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As I had mentioned earlier, Chernabog and I had terrible transportation luck up until Belle and the kids arrived. Our trip from AK to Epcot was no exception, and we ended up not getting to Epcot until about 5:45 for our 6:00 reservation, then our tickets wouldn't work at the entrance* and then we lost each other and ... Anyway, so we reached Marrakesh at about 6:05.

I was still sort of dreading this reservation, because Marrakesh has a really bad reputation. We were seated right away, but it took our server awhile to appear, which didn't make me feel better ... and of course the seafood sampler was off the menu! (All the samplers were, only 1 feast was left of the "special" meals.)

Anyway so I had plenty of time to look around, and wow, this restaurant is beautiful!

Chernabog and I were sort of starving by then since we'd never gotten either the glazed pecans or the jalapeño pretzel at AK, so all I can tell you about the bread is that I have a vague memory that it was pretty good.

We both ordered the Moroccan Mint Tea.

I was very happy it was iced, but not very happy that the mint was spearmint, not peppermint. I once dated a guy who chewed spearmint gum obsessively, and I've never been able to stand the flavor since. (By the way, despite all evidence to the contrary, I really am not a picky eater. I swear!)

While we waited for our orders to be taken, we watched the belly dancer. She was excellent! Very talented, very happy-looking, very friendly. She danced for a while, then invited all the nearby kids to come up and showed them how to dance too.

The musicians were also very good and I apologize for the atrocious quality of this picture:

Chernabog said "to heck with it" (notice a theme here?) and ordered a new dish on the menu, Couscous M'Rouzia Fassi (Braised beef served with caramelized onions, raisins, honey, almonds and eggs):

He absolutely loved this. He said the beef was perfectly cooked and the flavor profile was unlike anything he could have gotten anywhere else. (Yes, I'm quoting.)

Given a choice between salmon with mushrooms or white fish with olives, I went with the latter, even though the last time I ordered a "tagine" (which I know is the name of the cooking dish) the food was served on a base of couscous that had been used to fill empty space in the tagine. And just to be clear, the only food on the planet that I absolutely despise and refuse to allow anywhere near me ... is olives.

(BTW, since I'll talk about it again later in the trip, this is a tagine, a clay dish that you put the food in and then bake the whole thing in an oven ... usually)

So I crossed my fingers and ordered the Mogador Fish Tagine (Marinated fish with olives, lemon confit, potatoes, green peppers and chermula sauce):

I'm sorry the picture is so bad. This was ... absolutely incredible! Seriously, it was wonderful. The fish was perfectly cooked and seasoned, and the little hint of lemon was a nice accent. Chermoula sauce is a lemon-and-hot-pepper sauce, which I didn't know, so it was just a bit spicy. The baby red potatoes were whole and were perfectly roasted. The green peppers were actually large chunks of some sort of chile pepper, thoroughly roasted, smoky and just a bit spicy. As you can see, there were big wedges of roasted tomatoes. There were only 3 little black olives that I easily ignored, and the sauce didn't taste like them at all. And no couscous!

Or in short, this entrée was amazing. It completely turned my evening around. Also, it turned out to be pretty much what I'd been expecting (and craving) with my fish the night before.

Given Chernabog's baklava addiction, I had been expecting him to go for the baklava sampler, but he surprised me by ordering the "Bastilla: crispy leaves of pastry topped with vanilla cream and sprinkled with toasted almonds." I don't know what I was expecting (maybe something like my banana dessert from the night before), but it wasn't this:

But he LOVED it. The only problem was that even with the "Bastilla for one," there was way too much for him. He wished there'd been comparably less pastry compared to the amount of cream.

I ordered the "Marrakesh Delight: fresh fruit salad topped with mint ice cream, toasted almonds and orange blossom water."

Okay, so this was really good. All the fruit was fresh and there was a huge variety of it, although unfortunately it wasn't very well-distributed so you can't see all of it. Besides the cantaloupe and honeydew and grapes and blueberries you can see, I believe there were also apples, strawberries, and I think maybe mandarin slices, but don't quote me on that one. I'm not normally a fan of melon, but there wasn't that much melon in it, and I ate all of it. Topping the fruit with the orange blossom water and almonds was genius, and who would have thought that slivered almonds and mint would be such an interesting combination? It had a piece of the same crispy pastry as on Chernabog's dessert, and it was nice, although I don't think I could have eaten more than I'd gotten.

There was only one problem, and that was the ice cream. Now, when I saw "mint ice cream," I assumed it was some sort of Moroccan-style thing they were calling ice cream for simplicity. Or at the very least, that it would be some sort of mint gelato or something like Breyer's mint ice cream, which if you haven't had it, is like eating the inside of a York Peppermint Patty. (Or Haagen-Dasz Five, which is similar.) You know, something that really tasted like mint.

But no, this was your cheap, run of the mill, not very minty, artificially colored mint ice cream. It was okay, but the mint flavor wasn't strong enough to balance the fruit flavors the way it was meant to. And it had chocolate crunches in it! I'm pretty sure it was Edy's mint chocolate cookie crunch. Which is fine as a snack, I mean there's nothing wrong with it per se, but it didn't work in this dessert.

Getting the check was a little slow, but not too bad.

Or in short, I went in expecting to tolerate Marrakesh for Chernabog's sake, but it turned out to be a great meal. Fun and a great atmosphere, nice entertainment, extremely good food. Service was a tad slow at times, but certainly not what I'd call bad, just not completely up to Disney standards. The server brought us what we wanted with no major delays (just a couple minor ones) and was pleasant enough to us.

*We had this happen several times and were worried about the dreaded demagnetization of our Annual Passes. However, a CM finally explained to us that if the blue light flashes for your fingerprint, the ticket itself is fine; if it can't be read, then it won't ask for a fingerprint. What's more likely to go wrong is that the turnstile actually has to contact a computer server that stores the data about the fingerprint, and that connection can be flaky. So if the turnstile asks for your fingerprint, but then does not let you through, it's probably because the connection with the server had a momentary glitch. It is definitely not a problem with your ticket.

 

[Leota]

That fish dish sounds really amazing. I haven't eaten at Marrakesh is many years. I'd go for that fish in a heartbeat tho. I wonder if DH would give up one of our ressies to try Marrakesh? Last time I went, it was just my son & I. DH has never been.

 

[TillyMarigold]

Sorry, folks. The day after my last review, I left for my sister's wedding, and didn't get to update while I was back East. Anyway she's been successfully married, so here I am.

I had made a fairly early dinner reservation on purpose so we'd have time to go to La Cava del Tequila. Now, fair warning here: among other things, my degrees are in Spanish language and linguistics and Spanish translation, and I've worked off and on as a Spanish translator, professor, and language consultant for the last ten years, so if you don't want the language lecture, you'd best skip the next paragraph.

There are frequent references to "The Ditch" or "The Cave" to refer to La Cava around here. The first comes from using bad online translators (online translations are always bad, except Google's, which is highly variable), which will say la cava means 'he/she digs it.' The latter comes from the fairly obvious assumption that cava = 'cave.' However, both of these are wrong (ditch is cuneta or acequia; cave is cueva). However, la cava is actually the Mexican word for a climate-controlled area for storing alcohol--what we call a 'cellar' in English. So La Cava del Tequila = The Tequila Cellar. (Also, in the wine shop in France, when you enter the room where the actual wine is, the archway says "La Cave à Vins," which of course means The Wine Cellar.) /language geek

Ahem. Anyway. Besides all that, I also live in New Mexico and work primarily with Mexicans, so let's just say that I have high standards for both tequila and margaritas, and I know that both salted rims and frozen margaritas are done to hide inferior tequila, and that silver and gold tequilas should only ever be served in mixed drinks, while reposado and añejo tequilas are sipped straight. I don't know what I'll do without good on-the-rocks margaritas once I leave here, but that's not the point--the point is that you couldn't pay me to drink a margarita from the stand outside. But I had high hopes for La Cava.

We walked in and it was absolutely adorable, just like being in a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. The tables were packed close together and there were murals on the walls. The menu looked awesome and I could have looked at it all night, except for the part where I wanted some food and drink!

Like I said, we're pretty familiar with the types of tequila, but Chernabog rarely drinks it straight. So he very confidently ordered the Traditional Tequila Flight (1800 Reservado Silver, Herradura Reposado, El Mayor Añejo) and then had no idea what to do when he got this:

He had to call the waiter over to explain what to do, which is to take some salt (in the little dish), shoot the silver tequila, bite the lime, and shoot the tomato juice (okay, so we're probably the only people on earth who didn't know that--in his defense, he didn't go to college in the US ... I have no such excuse, I'm just lame). Obviously the other two are meant to be sipped.

I just asked him whether he had any opinions to offer and he said "If you don't know what you're talking about, don't order with a sense of resoluteness." Pressed further, he says he really liked it and it was quiet so he thinks that your experience will really depend on the clientele that's there at the time. He added that if we'd been there at the same time as the large drunk group that was leaving as we got there, we probably would not have enjoyed it so much, and it probably attracts drunken students. But he thought the server was very knowledgable, the mural was gorgeous, and the guacamole was awesome. You will just have to accept that he had no actual comment on the tequila.

Being married to a Scotsman, I've come to appreciate good Scotch (Scottish Scotch! not the American kind) if it's nice and flavorful, so he offered me some of the añejo to sip. I liked it, but it probably won't become my drink of choice.

Anyway, so I really had wanted to get something to nibble on, but because we'd had a big dinner, I didn't want anything big. So I ordered the guacamole. It was, as Chernabog said, awesome. I'm about 99% sure that it had been made right when we ordered it. It had giant chunks of avocado in it and was a bit spicy. My only complaint was that I wished there were more chips--it was good Chernabog was still full of couscous and didn't eat many.

I debated fairly seriously between all the incredible margaritas being sold. I didn't want anything too similar to the guac (like avocado) but I didn't want anything that would clash either (like peach). I wanted something that would complement it. Finally I settled on the prickly pear margarita.

Unfortunately it's not listed on the online menu I found, but it had silver tequila, Triple Sec, and prickly pear pulp (with a salt rim, boo ... completely unnecessary). It was very good and strong enough without the alcohol being completely overwhelming.

However, it should probably be mentioned here that living at high altitude, which we do, increases your alcohol tolerance. So possibly other people would find it too strong. I can only comment on the taste.

Anyway, two thumbs way up and we would definitely go back, but beware that since it's quite small, if there are loud drunk people there, it could be unpleasant.

The only negative is that to get to the bathrooms, you have to leave La Cava, cross the shopping area, go into San Ángel Inn, around the corner and down the stairs.

 

[catne]

loving your reviews (and your language lectures, lol.) We tried La Cava last September and enjoyed the margaritas. When it's not packed with people it's quite nice in there.

 

[TillyMarigold]

loving your reviews (and your language lectures, lol.) We tried La Cava last September and enjoyed the margaritas. When it's not packed with people it's quite nice in there.

Aw, thanks! I absolutely love your reviews, so it means a lot.

 

[TillyMarigold]

Okay, so when the AP pin code came out in January, we had a big debate: AKL which was totally within our budget, or Beach Club, which was just a tiny bit outside it. In the end, two things swayed us towards AKL: the possibilities of bad bus service at Beach Club and the fact that it's close to my two least favorite parks ... and the culinary possibilities. Both Jiko and Sanaa are in my top five restaurants at WDW, and Boma isn't far off that list.

So all in all, it may have been a bit shocking that our first TS meal at AKL was nearly two full days after checking in--Tuesday morning breakfast at Boma.

As usual (I guess because there's only 2 of us), we got a window table. I weirded out the server by taking photos of the restaurant (why is that weird?):

What can you say? I love Boma--it's interesting.

What you have above is: goat cheese and chive potatoes; Boma's awesome cinnamon roll; grapes; grilled tomato; chakalaka (tomato and onion curry); potatoes that had some fancy name. All of it was very good ... except the grapes, which were not all the way ripe and were sort of gross. Which makes me sad, because usually I think Disney's fruit is outstanding. (Or else, living in the middle of the desert, I have low standards for fruit ... in which case the grapes must have been really gross.)

Oh, and I ordered OJ instead of Boma's special juice.

Chernabog's plate was almost the same as mine:

except that he also got himself some quinoa with raisins and cinnamon. He also got the Boma juice, and he discovered the proper way to eat chakalaka: mixed with pap.

There hadn't been any French toast out when I first went up, so I grabbed some. Boma's French toast is made with raisin brioche, so it is super rich. One piece was plenty! I also got a bit more of the goat cheese and chive eggs since the ones I'd gotten the first time were the last of the pan and were a bit runny, and some strawberries (they're the same grapes, I had set them on my napkin and then put them back on the plate). Chernabog had been contemplating a waffle, but when he saw the French toast, he got some of that instead. We agreed it was fantastic.

The strawberries were even sadder than the grapes, I'm afraid, and I guiltily left them on my plate. Not a good day for fruit in Disney.

Boma once again rocked my world by giving us coffee to go. And once again, I had a perfectly lovely time there and Chernabog pined for more authentic, exotic dishes. I pointed out to him that the usual African breakfast in 2010 is probably a slice of toast and tea or coffee.

 

[SnwflkCts]

Wow! I am just loving your reviews.

Now WHO could get weirded out by your taking pictures of the restaurants ... after all the DISSERs that SURELY must be taking alot of them! (HA HA - me included!) But you know I never saw anyone but ME taking them while at WDW!

Anyway ... just wanted to say how much fun your comments and reviews are.

Can you tell me where Royal Anandapur Tea Company is exactly? I swear I looked for it in Feb based on people's recommendations and I couldn't find it! I must just be blind. Any hints. I spend most of my life in AK WALKING from EE towards the Safari so if you can suggest what SIDE to look towards as I make that trek -- maybe next time I will find it!

 

[Linda67]

Great reviews

I would love to try breakfast at Boma, we have had dinner there and loved it

I am certainly going to visit La Cava on my next trip

 

[TillyMarigold]

Can you tell me where Royal Anandapur Tea Company is exactly? I swear I looked for it in Feb based on people's recommendations and I couldn't find it! I must just be blind. Any hints. I spend most of my life in AK WALKING from EE towards the Safari so if you can suggest what SIDE to look towards as I make that trek -- maybe next time I will find it!

It's on the water side, across from the Yak & Yeti QS place, I believe it's next to a DVC kiosk. There's sort of a planter thing in front of it, so you can't see it so well if you're right in front of it, you can see it better from the side.

 

[tink too]

Loving your reviews and photos. I am very fussy, but despite that, I like reading about all the more fancy and elaborate meals at WDW.

BTW, I must say that I am a Scot, but I detest Scotch Whisky. DH will have one only occasionally. It's not that he doesn't drink alcohol, but Scotch is not his favourite. Also, our local bakery does know how to make a proper eclair with choux pastry, but we can also buy the buns (which are often coated in sugar also) filled with cream.

 

[cbg1027]

Thanks for the La Cava review. I enjoyed the language lecture as well since I am a French major. I know you feel - some of the names of things in the France pavilion annoy me.

Ooooh prickly pear...I hope they have that one next time I go, it sounds good. That guac was fantastic! I thought it seemed really freshly made as well.

I loved the Boma review. I haven't been there for breakfast yet but just made my ADR for a December trip and now you have me even more excited about it!

 

[TillyMarigold]

Loving your reviews and photos. I am very fussy, but despite that, I like reading about all the more fancy and elaborate meals at WDW.

BTW, I must say that I am a Scot, but I detest Scotch Whisky. DH will have one only occasionally. It's not that he doesn't drink alcohol, but Scotch is not his favourite. Also, our local bakery does know how to make a proper eclair with choux pastry, but we can also buy the buns (which are often coated in sugar also) filled with cream.

I don't know where you are ... he grew up in Dundee in the '80s, so I can believe they didn't know how to make real éclairs. They just called the buns éclairs. Dundee is not exactly the culinary capital of Europe.

Thanks for the La Cava review. I enjoyed the language lecture as well since I am a French major. I know you feel - some of the names of things in the France pavilion annoy me.

Fortunately my French isn't good enough to be annoyed. La Cava del Tequila is a perfectly fine name for a tequila bar ... I blame bad online translators for the people who call it "the ditch."

By the way, el cava is the Spanish version of champagne (true champagne only comes from Champagne, France, of course).

 

[TillyMarigold]

Sorry for the delay, folks. I was away at my sister's wedding for a week, and then I've been working on a new project: a food blog! I'm trying this summer to eat only foods without any ingredients I can't pronounce. You can check it out here, if you want: http://summerofeatingreal.wordpress.com/


This is going to be a disappointing review much like the disappointing snacks we had. Because we'd had such a big breakfast at Boma and we were meeting Belle and the kids at 5 pm, we once again decided to just nibble through the day and then eat dinner with them (which was even more disappointing, but we'll get to that later).

First up, we hung out in Tomorrowland and rode Space Mountain. This was my first time to ever ride it so I wanted to mention it. I have to say ... I enjoyed it, but my first words to Chernabog afterwards were "I waited twenty-two years to ride that?!" Anyway so I'm telling you this so that I can explain how we did the MK counter-clockwise.

Our first snack was about noonish on the way from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland; we spotted a cart with nuts by the teacups and Chernabog was all "A-ha! You shall not deny me again!" Unfortunately, they only had almonds and not pecans. But those of you who have eaten the cinnamon-glazed almonds know that they are seriously addictive ... they were always my go-to snack when I was a CM, well those and the pineapple spears from Aloha Isle. We munched those across Fantasyland and were sorry when they were gone, except that of course I'd have had to keep eating them if they hadn't been, so it's probably just as well.

Next, it was lunchtime and we weren't very hungry but we wanted some caffeine, so we got bottled Cokes at the fruit stand in Liberty Square. They were Cokes, enough said, I think. We then worked our way through Frontierland, made a left turn into Adventureland and did that, made our way over to Big Thunder (which, weirdly, had no line), then went to the churro/pretzel cart in Frontierland at about 3:30, where we ordered one of each (a churro for Chernabog and a pretzel for me). By the way, the line was insanely long. It was manned by one clearly new CP CM and he had to ring up an order, step aside and serve, go back and ring up the next one, etc. And while I was 4th in line (Chernabog had run to get FastPasses from somewhere*), it still took about 20 minutes to get my food!

This is where things started to come undone. Both the pretzel and churro were overcooked and also had been sitting too long, so they were hard, dry, weirdly chewy, and mostly flavorless. Fortunately, at least, they had brown mustard to put on the pretzels. Unfortunately, I managed to get some on my khakis. We sat by the riverboat and watched the water, which was nice—this was the day it started to get really hot.

On the way out of the park to meet Belle, I used a powdered drink mix in the water I filled from the water fountain, and managed to get some of the powder on my hands ... which I later got water on, and not realizing that I had the powder on my hands, I proceeded to wipe my wet hands on my khakis also and get giant pink stains across my thighs, and no chance to go back to the hotel to change. Oh well.

*Since we had APs, I was able to pay with my KTTW card while Chernabog took my AP to get FastPasses. I have to say, if I ever go again without an AP, I will definitely get my tickets separated so we can continue to do the some-get-food, some-get-FPs thing.