For entrees, we wanted us some rare beef, so DH & I both ordered the Yachtsman Prime New York Strip Steak 12-oz Strip Steak, Peppercorn Brandy Sauce, and White Cheddar Potato Gratin 42.00 There's also a bit of green veg included on the plate.
OK, when we first were called to be seated, the hostess made a production of stopping by the butcher window which you have to walk past to get to the seating. She explained the butcher was "custom" cutting strip steaks from prime aged beef. Well, I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, as my Granny used to say...and frankly we were not impressed as ALL steaks are "custom cut" no matter where they come from. I mean, it's not like there's a steak plant out there where the steaks are uniformly grown to the same size & shape. The steak always has to be cut to order. Anyway, this step in the seating process was kind of bizarre, we thought. We've been to restaurants where they have all the steaks sitting in a cold case over in an alcove, and you pick which steak you want. Not here...no, you just look through a picture window at a butcher in a fridge whacking away at a slab o'beef. Whoa, ain't that fancy-schmancy. Not really...I can actualy watch this kind of chop-the-beef-show at my local grocery-store meat dept. back in Nebraska any day of the week. Heck, I can even request a "custom cut" at my local store. Just don't understand why cutting the steaks in front of the clientele is supposed to impress us with how good the beef is?
OK, back to the cooked food. Frankly, the star on the plate...drum roll please: Was the potatoes
Yeah, I know they look kind of nondescript on the plate, not real purty to look at. But I'm an Irish girl so the song of the taters is "in my heart and in my soul, and on my hips, as I grow old " (to paraphrase vintage Rod Stewart.) But seriously, these au gratin potatoes really were the outstanding feature on this plate! The.Best.Au.Gratin Taters.EVAH. Instead of chunks of boiled taters (or the cheater version involving frozen hash browns) this dish was layers of scalloped potatoes glued together with really, really good, slightly sharp White Cheddar. No blarney: this is tater heaven. The veg was a little smear of cooked spinach, totally beneath our notice, fer shure. We both left the spinach.
You've probably noticed by now that I haven't said much about the steak. OK, here goes: severely underwhelmed. This steak...which both Miss Hostess & Mr. Waiter (and Ms. Menu, for that matter) all make a point of telling you is "Prime" beef...well: Sorry. Tasted more like mediocre sirloin. And tougher than a lot of sirloin I've had. Seasoning seemed to be mostly a salt rub on the steak itself, though the peppercorns were of course quite peppery and the brandy sauce gave it a nice boozy gravy. But frankly, without that sauce to dip it in, the meat was just about tasteless. It was grilled perfectly rare as we requested so the issue wasn't with the cooking, just the meat itself was well below expectations.
It just wasn't that good...I gave mine no more than a "B." Not bad enough to send back, but no WOWZERs either. When I decided not to finish mine, hubby finished it. He said mine was actually better than his...his was more like a C+ ...just slightly above average. We've actually had better steaks at Outback (I know, sacrilege...but have to keep it real here.) We've also had far better steaks at other non-signature Disney restaurants, including Le Cellier, The Wave, Kona Cafe, Turf Club and Grand Floridian Cafe. And all of those places were 1 Table Credit places. Heck, we ate at the other restaurant at Yacht Club -- Captain's Grill -- in September 2009, and hubby said his steak at Capt. Grill was better than the Yachtsman Steakhouse. This steak was certainly not a $42 entree, IMO. $20, maybe. $30 because it was at Disney, maybe. But no way worth $42.
Moving on to dessert. I chose the Signature Banana Napoleon which is "Custard, White Chocolate and Banana Mousse, and Crispy phyllo, $9.00" This was good, albeit slightly difficult to eat, The custard (rectangular portion with the chocolate wafer on top) was delicious--like a cross between cheescake & creme brulee), but the phyllo with banana mousse was almost impossible to cut into with just a fork: could have used a sharp knife! "Crispy" phyllo was a bit of an understatement...it was so crispy it almost exploded when I did manage to chop a chunk. Once I got it into mouth-size pieces, it turns out, some phyllo layers were tough, some crispy which was probably why it was so difficult to cut through/bite through, until you hit a crispy layer, and that just crumbled. Tasted good, just a mess to eat. The mousse between the layers of phyllo was delicious, and it had an extra strong banana flavor...so strong I kind of wondered if they used a banana liqueur for flavoring. The dessert was good: I ate most it.
Hubby was looking for something light, so chose the Sorbet Trio, which is "Pineapple-Chili, Passion Fruit-Coconut, and Strawberry-Basil sorbet" for $7.00 This is actually a very large bowl of sorbet, so not all that "light" on the dessert scale. However, two of the 3 flavors had serious flavor issues, so hubby didn't eat much of it. The Pineapple-chili was excessively sour pineapple sorbet with pepper flakes sprinkled on top. Don't know how they found pineapple this sour, but someone should have tasted it & added some sugar! And the pepper...really? I mean, Really? Pepper flakes on your sorbet? You know, the kind they have in shakers at pizza restaurants. Don't know about you, but this idea went right past these midwestern palates. No thanks: sour pineapple & pizza pepper flakes are not an appealing dessert combo. The passion fruit/coconut should have been a pleasant duo, but again the fruit was incredibly sour, and the coconut must have been the unsweetened version because it did nothing for that sorbet. Again, we kind of wondered when exactly did the recipe for sorbet drop sweeteners? Because if they were depending on extra sweet fruit to handle the "sweet", someone should have tasted the fruit, lol. Which brings us to the only good tasting combo: the strawberry-basil. Well, actually,the basil was kind of a strange choice to combine with strawberry, but it pretty much worked. At least the strawberry sorbet was sweet! I wouldn't usually put such a strong savory on a sweet fruit for a dessert (for a salad, of course, sure) but we are all about trying different things, so this experiment worked out OK. Truthfully, if he was hungrier, he probably would have sent this dessert back for something different. But Hubby had about enough room for one scoop of sorbet, so that's what he ate...the strawberry basil. The other two pretty much puddled in the bowl while we waited for our check. The triangle thingy sticking out is a coconut extra-crispy cookie-like substance. I say cookie-like because it was more like a cross between a cracker & a cookie. Looked like it should be very sweet, but it was just mildly sweet. Guess it went with the surprise theme of this dessert...Surprise! NOT a sweet~
Alrighty, summing up Yachtsman Steakhouse...great service, slightly better ambiance than other Disney restaurants (and by that, I mean the tables were about 18 inches apart instead of 12 inches apart. So for double the cost, you get an extra 1/2 foot. Still way too close together.) Still too many children in there (I'm a mother of 4, been there, done that. Would never, in a million years, have taken any of my terrifically well-behaved kids to that kind of restaurant before the age of about 16. Maybe even 18. Total waste on kids...and most detract from the supposed ambiance. Love kids. Just not at expensive restaurants. Wish someone would explain to me why anyone would choose a 2 TS non-character-non-show signature restaurant to celebrate a 1 yr old's birthday? Not an extended family who's eating there & just happens to also be celebrating a birthday dinner. No, this was just the mom, dad, and baby. Really? I mean REALLY? Course the truth is the baby was fine throughout the 90+ min. meal, it was the extremely annoying mother who was the PITA. She put on this over-the-top-extra-loud-ultra-sing-song-voice every time she spoke to the baby...and kept that up through most of the meal telling him how clever/darling/wonderful/polite/big boy/sweet/handsome he was every time he used his spoon/took a drink from sippy cup / cooed / smiled / chewed / swallowed / breathed / blinked. You get the picture. And it wasn't a matter of she just had an unusually loud voice...nope. When she talked to her hubby - across the table - we could not really hear or understand a word she said. No, she just put on that cloying-fakey-wonder-mommy-of-a-wonder-child-voice while talking to baby, who was sitting right next to her. ACK! Like I want to spend $80 a person and have that as the floor show. Children should be seen & not heard, and so should Mommy, lol. I'm sure I'll get a flambeau for that little diatribe, but OH WELL! There's a time & a place for birthday babies in restaurants...and it's called early meal times at Mc Donalds....or Chucky Cheese.
The service was good, albeit very slow. Artificially slow, actually. This was the same experience as we had at the Cali Grill a couple of years ago. This weekend, we timed our 4 table service meals...the 2 signature meals were 95 and 100 minutes. The 2 NON-signature waiter/menu meals were 55 and 65 minutes (were also waiter/menu meals, not all you can eat family style or buffets.) We had adult beverages, apps, entrees, and dessert at 3 of the 4 restaurants so no extra courses adding time at signature places...they just paced everything out more. I appreciate not being rushed through courses, yes. But I would more appreciate not waiting for the next course, too. It was not busy in Yachtsman while we were there...majority of tables were empty. So I think they could have timed the food a bit better. But I guess they figure people won't feel they got their money's worth on "signature" dining if it's a short meal.
The total cash cost of our meal would have been $144 (including tax) but of course the DxDP covered all of that. We paid for booze & tip using our favorite little piece of plastic: the Disney Visa Rewards card (which we lovingly refer to as our other '
DDP' card...as in Disney Drinking Plan card ;-) We've had a great time for the last 3 years with the Visa Rewards card...we run Daughter's college room & board through the card...that produces many Disney Rewards $$$ for lots of loverly parental reward beverages. Don't know what we're going to do next year...she graduates in May...no more big bills to rack up the rewards points. ACK! We'll have to pay cash OOP. Will be a totally new experience for us, lol.
Anyway, scoring Yachtsman Steakhouse on 1-10 scale...sorry, just a 5. Just average.
:-( Would we return? No. Would we recommend? No. Over-priced and under-quality. Hope Flying Fish is better, otherwise I'm cancelling January reservations for signature restaurants and going into "never-again" mode!
These reports have helped me so much. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so maybe that will do!
I'm loving your description of the Yachtsman Steakhouse. Can't wait to read more. 
