Violet & Chernabog Do Disney Dining: Veggies and seafood abound!

[TillyMarigold]

We - DH, DD8 and I - are pescetarians (going on 15 years) and have enjoyed the food at WDW each time we've been there. Thank you for taking the time to write these reviews. They are great.

Thanks! We're only on day 4 of 10 ... although there are fewer photos as it goes on.

Sunshine Seasons is a must do for us, we love it! Last time I had the Seared Tuna salad as well and really enjoyed it. I would definitely get it again!

Welcome!

Thanks for the revoew of the Wild by Desgin tour. We are very much looking forward to do it and I am excited about getting into the park early! But I will miss the opening show which really is very cute! We will just need to catch it on another day!

We tried, but ended up waiting 40 minutes for an AK bus to show up on our last day. But being in the park early was awesome. Did you know even the board that covers the tip board before park opening (when no one is there) is themed?! It was beautiful. I guess we'll have to see the AK opening show next time. We saw the MK one too.

 

[TillyMarigold]

On Wednesday, September 9, we had booked the Undiscovered Future World tour, so we headed to Sassagoula again for breakfast.

IIRC Chernabog got a platter of pancakes and bacon. He said he wanted the pancakes after having seen mine on Monday, and could tell he would need protein. He also got orange juice and coffee. I should add this was the day the weather started to get really hot.

I got a coffee, a bottle of orange juice, a cinnamon roll, and a cup of strawberry yogurt. (Disney yogurt is not vegetarian, boo ... but I admit at home that whether or not we have vegetarian yogurt is entirely a factor of whether we've been able to get to Trader Joe's lately or not. Anyway it was Yoplait light.) The woman told me it could either be a CS plus a snack or four snacks. I said I'd pay OOP for it. I think the total was about $9.50. (By the way, when I was opening the fridge to get a bottle of OJ, one fell out as I opened it, and it exploded! Even though it only fell maybe 3-4 feet and it was plastic. I felt *so* bad.)

The cinnamon roll was pretty large and also pretty good. It wasn't as overly gooey as some are. But it seemed a little too sweet after the one I'd had at Boma the day before.

 

[TillyMarigold]

First off, everyone say "hi" to Chernabog! He's lurking (stalking me, actually) I keep telling him to get his own login, but he won't.

Anyway, so remember how I said that that Wednesday, September 9, was the start of the really hot weather? And we had an Undiscovered Future World tour booked? Well, we spent the last hour or so of that tour standing out on the Epcot marina (behind China) in the sun. So by the time the tour ended at about 1 pm in a gift shop in China, we were exhausted and overheated and my plantar fasciitis was killing me ... and we were starving. So I changed my shoes and we headed out immediately in search of food.

Here's the problem: despite having worked at Epcot, I can never remember the order of the countries. I can only find China if I'm coming at it clockwise (from Mexico/Norway) ... if I'm going in the opposite direction, I tend to get China and Japan mixed up. I also constantly (constantly!) think Germany is where Morocco is and vice-versa.

We had planned to have lunch at Tangierine Cafe, but ... remember I said we were in China? And I always swap China and Japan in my head? Right. So we started walking counter-clockwise from China, thinking it was Japan ... and ended up in Norway. Oops. Now, Kringla Bakeri has good sandwiches, but we were having dinner at Akershus that night, so we didn't want to eat there.

So we started walking clockwise again, back past China, to where I always think Morocco should be ... and ended up in Germany.

Since none of the options we'd seen so far were very appealing, we decided to keep going.

And so when we got to Liberty Inn, at about 1:30 (remember, I couldn't walk very fast) after 6 hours without food or drink, we said "F*** it" and decided to go for veggie burgers. Tangierine Café would have to wait for another day. (Actually, we never got there.)

They only had 2 registers open and every single one of the four lines had someone ordering who needed at least 6 meals with a ton of substitutions, none of whom understood what they could have on the dining plan. All in all, it was about 1:50 when we finally got food.

Chernabog ordered a frozen Coke as his beverage, a veggie burger, and the same apple pastry I'd had at Columbia Harbour House on our first night (it was called something else, but it was the same thing). I got a large diet Coke, a veggie burger, and something called "Rocky Road Chocolate Brownie mousse."

The frozen Coke was a huge icee kind of thing like the raspberry lemonade we'd had earlier in the week, but of course it tasted like Coke. Since Coke is meant to taste artificial, it worked much better than the raspberry lemonade did, and Chernabog loved it.

The veggie burgers were actually really good. They are vegan Gardenburger Malibu burgers, but we had them with cheese. (My understanding is that the Malibu burger is actually sold commercially as the California burger.) They had nice big chunks of vegetables in them--this is not the sort of veggie burger that's pretending to be a meat burger. They had nice, soft whole-wheat buns and were very hot, which was nice. Liberty Inn does have a toppings bar so we were able to get lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, and (for me) pickles. I remembered in time that the chopped green vegetable stuff was most likely relish (which I hate) and not chopped green chiles (which is a staple on burgers and most other foods here in New Mexico). I wished they had some other sort of mustard besides yellow, though ... brown or dijon, at least.

Chernabog loved the apple thing, which is not surprising since he'd liked it when I had it earlier.

The Rocky Road mousse is something I didn't see on any other QS menus. It was a light, whipped chocolate mousse with chunks of dark fudge brownie and mini marshmallows in it (I know, I know--not vegetarian). It had claimed it had walnuts also, but I didn't get any. Maybe they were just a flavoring of the mousse itself. This was so good. The mousse was light and airy and not too rich. The brownie was rich and moist and the marshmallows were ... well, they weren't stale, which is about the only thing that could go wrong with them, so they were perfectly nice marshmallows. The chunks of brownie were small enough that I didn't have to cut them up with my spoon, but there were enough of them and enough marshmallows to get some of each with every spoonful. All in all, it was my favorite QS dessert of the trip. It was also a fairly small portion (a bit smaller than the cakes or the apple thing, although still perfectly adequate), which was nice since you didn't go into brownie overload.

So all in all, the meal at Liberty Inn was really good and we think we would have liked it even if we hadn't been starving, even if we hadn't wanted to give into veggie burgers so soon.

I've always loved the dining area there, btw ... it felt like an outdoor courtyard or plaza like you'd have in the center of a city, but enclosed of course. And at one point, the fife and drum corps marched through! Other than that, it was quiet. It's too bad the bathrooms are outside, though.

No pictures--we were too hungry.

 

[Flossbolna]

We tried, but ended up waiting 40 minutes for an AK bus to show up on our last day. But being in the park early was awesome. Did you know even the board that covers the tip board before park opening (when no one is there) is themed?! It was beautiful. I guess we'll have to see the AK opening show next time. We saw the MK one too.

I hate it when buses don't show up!! I knew that the tip board is covered: When you are admitted to the Oasis prior to opening (the opeing show happens just in front of the tree of life), and while everyone is waiting at the rope, they actually have a small ceremony for "opening" the tip board!

 

[TillyMarigold]

We knew that the Undiscovered Future World tour included VIP seating [standing, actually, but prime real estate] for IllumiNations, so we knew we didn't want to go far from Epcot for dinner the night we did the tour. Actually, we originally planned to do Big River, but (get ready for this) we read so many reviews complaining about how Akershus is terrible because (gasp!) they have so much fish, that we decided we wanted to eat there.

This would make us approximately the second family ever to choose to eat at Akershus for the food and in spite of the princesses.

Our reservation was for 6:30 and we got there about 6:15 and stood in a long line. It turned out a lot of people in the line were walk-ups ... I guess they hadn't read the sign board at the front of the park that said that every restaurant was taking walk-ups except Akershus and Le Cellier. But the real problem was that Akershus's computers were down, so instead they had a loooooong printed list of everyone's reservations in tiny type and they were looking up reservations on that, plus the girl working the hostess stand had only just started (apparently in the last day or two) so there were both a trainer and a manager trying to help her out.

We checked in about 6:25 and stood around outside until about 6:40 ... not too bad, although it was the longest wait we had.

We went inside:

And had our picture taken with Belle. Who was clearly new and very confused by the idea that adults would come to a character meal and she had no idea how to react to us. Which was fine, we weren't dying to have our picture taken anyway.

Our waiter's name tag turned out to say "KJ" and that was how he introduced himself (kay jay), but the hostess had told us his name was really ... Kjell, I think. Something that started with KJ, those weren't his initials.

Anyway so he came out, looked slightly startled to see two adults, gave us menus (we'd been given lunch menus by mistake), told us about the buffet, took our drink orders (can't tell you want we ordered, nothing interesting, Chernabog always orders a Coke and I think I had iced tea) and then was off. He came back with our drink orders, took our meal order, and then was off. We went up to the buffet. Which OMG was heaven if you like seafood ...

Okay, starting in the middle and going clockwise are mixed greens with champagne vinaigrette, a wonderful soft fluffy roll, cold marinated asparagus with a horseradish sauce, a tiny bit of pickled herring, one type of smoked salmon that was more thoroughly cooked, peel and eat shrimp with cocktail sauce, smoked salmon that was more like the lox you'd put on a bagel, shrimp salad, and some cubes of Swiss cheese. Chernabog's plate looked similar but without the peel and eat shrimp and I think he had more cheese of other types. I know he didn't take any of the horseradish sauce and ended up stealing most of mine.

What can I say? Every single item we ate at Akershus was absolutely outstanding. Top quality ingredients, perfectly prepared. I know a lot of people don't like the flavors of the items they offer, but if you do like those things, these were really outstanding examples of them. Chernabog (who if you remember, is British) has always claimed he hates pickled herring (which is common there), but he tried some of Akershus's and declared that if all pickled herring tasted like theirs, he'd eat it a lot more. On toast. (He eats everything on toast, I think it's a British thing). I can't really name a standout for you because all of it was so good. The shrimp salad, though, was zestier than it looks ... everything else pretty much tasted like you'd expect.

For our entree, we both ordered the same thing: Mustard-Glazed Salmon with Roasted Carrots and Baby Potatoes. It arrived exactly at the moment I put the last bite of my appetizer plate in my mouth.

Oh. My. God. Normally I can take salmon or leave it, but I was intrigued by the idea of the mustard glaze, and it was definitely worth it. It was a nice cut of fish, perfectly cooked, and the flavor of the mustard glaze really accented it beautifully. The mustard glaze was a little bit sweet (maybe it was made with honey?) but then there was a tarter, spicier mustard sauce on the plate. The two sauces were different but complimented each other.

But really, the sides were even better. The potatoes were baby fingerling potatoes, and they were roasted to exactly the right level of done-ness, but the carrots were what impressed me most (and I was already really impressed). By the way, I'm really not a carrot person, I only like them at all when they're roasted. If you look, the potatoes are at the back of the photo above--they have skins on. Everything to the right of the fish is the carrots. That's right, the chef roasted three different colors of carrots (orange, yellow, and white). I'd never even had white carrots before. They, like the potatoes, were perfectly done. Each type of carrot has a slightly different flavor. The carrots and potatoes were salted and very lightly seasoned, so that all you tasted was the carrots/potatoes, not the seasoning.

About this time, Cinderella came by, and asked whether we'd come to see her or the food. We told her that we'd come for the food because it was outstanding, but we certainly appreciated her inviting us.

About then (i.e. just as we put the last bite of our entrees in our mouths, btw we literally cleaned the plate, dipping the potatoes in the last of the mustard sauce that was on it), KJ brought us dessert. It was the standard Akershus dessert platter: rice pudding with strawberries, chocolate mousse, and school bread. We told him that we really appreciated how excellent the food was, because so many people come just for the princesses that you could serve them just about anything and they'd be happy, so we thought it was great that the chef clearly took such pains to make really excellent food. He sort of warmed up to us when we said that (after all, we were complimenting the food that's native to his country, which I'd guess not many people do, given how many complaints I see around here that the food at Akershus is "weird").

OK. Dessert. We were so excited about it (since the other two courses were so wonderful) that we started eating before we got a photo.

Chernabog hates rice pudding, but I literally had to spoon-fight him over the rice pudding they served us--it was his favorite of the desserts. I'm not into caramel and he's not into coconut, but we both agreed that the school bread was excellent. Not as sweet as we'd expected (actually, the same can be said for all the desserts), which given that most other countries' food isn't as sweet as in the US, I guess that makes sense. Anyway the lack of overpowering sweetness was a good thing, as it enabled us to eat all of the desserts. BTW I got more of the school bread in exchange for Chernabog having eaten most of the rice pudding. We split the chocolate mousse evenly, it was a dark chocolate mousse, very airy and again not too sweet. I think there were a couple of berries served alongside it, but I'm not sure.

As we were paying the check, Aurora came by, and she was a riot. She asked us how long it had taken to get from Albuquerque to Disney World on horseback, asked if Chernabog had protected me from bandits along the way, and when we said we didn't want a photo, she looked at him and said, "You do want a picture of your princess, don't you?" So he took one.

Apologies for how hot and exhausted I looked--this was Wednesday, and I think I mentioned that Tuesday had been the day it really started getting hot, and it got progressively hotter all week.

As we were leaving, Ariel was about to enter our room and Snow White was entering the room Ariel was leaving, but we didn't feel like we needed to stay, three princesses had been enough. (We'd have stayed for Jasmine, Mulan, Mary Poppins, or Alice, but not for Ariel or Snow White.)

 

[TillyMarigold]

As much as people here are so into the adult beverage options and so are we, it was mostly too hot to be drinking alcohol except with meals, plus we're beer snobs. So we really didn't get any of the many cocktails being offered.

However, after dinner at Akershus we wandered around Norway, China, and Mexico a bit, then decided to get drinks to take with us to IllumiNations. I had really been wanting to try the green tea plum wine bao bing at the China pavilion. I know everyone goes for the peach snap, but it seemed so ... girly and Americanized. I really like both green tea and plum wine, so I went with that, and Chernabog ordered a glass of plum wine.

I should say here that the CMs at the China pavilion seemed absolutely delighted that someone would order something more authentic (after the "Really? You want the plum wine?"... guess no one ever orders it, which is their loss) and were very excited to know what we thought of them, and more so when we said we loved them.

We'd had Japanese plum wine before, but never Chinese. Assuming this is representative, Chinese plum wine is much lighter and less sweet than Japanese. BTW the bao bing was sort of orange in color, like the inside of a plum. I'd sort of expected it to be green like a Starbucks green tea frappuccino, even though I know green tea isn't really green. It was nice and cold and light and came in a fairly big cup, so there was probably about as much plum wine in my slush as in Chernabog's glass of wine. They were both excellent and refreshing and we really recommend them. In fact, Chernabog liked mine so much he had to get a non-alcoholic bao bing a few days later.

When we got to the reserved area for IllumiNations with our drinks, the CM looked at them and said "I see you've done this before!" as he let us in.

You'll notice that we hadn't really been eating snacks, in fact I seem to have messed up the list of snack credits I made and double-counted, so I don't know what all we used them on. Here's the list I have:

1. Sa 9/5: Pretzel, Magic Kingdom
2. Su 9/6 Raspberry Lemonade Slush, Epcot
3. Su 9/6 Gelato, Italy Pavilion, Epcot (not on DDP)
4. M 9/7 2 Mrs. Potts' Sundaes, Magic Kingdom
5. T 9/8 Jalapeño Cream Cheese Pretzel, Animal Kingdom
6. T 9/8 Bottle of Coke, Animal Kingdom (we could already tell we weren't going to use all the credits)
7. W 9/9 Green Tea Plum Wine Bao Bing and Plum Wine, China, Epcot (not on DDP, obviously)
8. R 9/10 Mickey ice cream bar and Mickey ice cream sandwich, WinterSummerland
9. R 9/10 Pretzel, Studios
10. R 9/10 Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, Studios
11. F 9/11 Soft serve waffle cone, Animal Kingdom
12. Sa 9/12 Bagel and chocolate chip muffin, Starring Rolls, Studios
13. Sa 9/12 Coke Float and Root Beer Float, Auntie Gravity's, Magic Kingdom
14. Su 9/13 Strawberry Oolong Bao Bing, China, Epcot (not on DDP)
15. Su 9/13 & M 9/14 Beignets, POFQ
16. M 9/14 Raspberry iced tea, Animal Kingdom (not on DDP)
17. M 9/14 Chocolate-covered coconut patties which we shared on the plane

 

[TillyMarigold]

One of the things that Chernabog had made me promise was that I would build in days for sleeping in. He's not a morning person.

That Thursday, September 10, was also our second sleeping-in day of the trip. I think we finally got up about 9:00 or 9:30. Because we'd been unimpressed so far with Sassagoula's breakfast options, and because we really love breakfast, and because we had no real plans until our 3:35 "dinner" at Mama Melrose, we decided to walk over to Port Orleans Riverside to see what options they had for breakfast.

The walk was lovely, it took maybe 10 minutes (and we were all the way in Building 1 at POFQ, the farthest building from POR). We walked through the lobby and rotunda of POR, past the gift shop and Boatwright's, and reached the Riverside Mill food court at about 10:35.

And there we discovered ... the make your own omelet bar!

There weren't actually that many options: tomatoes, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, Swiss or Cheddar cheese, ham, and bacon. But still, that was better than what they had at Sassagoula.

It was at the omelet bar that I had my first run-in with a CM who spoke insufficient English to do her job ... although the difference may have been more cultural than linguistic. I couldn't seem to make her understand that I wanted an omelet with cheese, tomatoes, onions, and peppers, but no meat. Finally she was done piling my toppings into the bowl and said, "Anything else?" and I said "Um..." looking at the list of options to see if I'd missed anything [since it was almost time for lunch, there were a whole bunch of toppings laid out, but only some were for omelets and some were for the make-your-own pasta station that goes there at lunch/dinner], and she threw two handfuls of ham into the bowl!

Anyway, I made her pick all the ham out of the bowl, but didn't make her use a fresh bowl (which I know some people would have). Just as she passed off the bowls to the omelet-maker, Chernabog approached and declared he'd decided to get an omelet also, so he ordered one with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and Cheddar cheese.

Both omelets looked pretty much the same:

As you can see, I got mine with coffee and Fuse green tea with honey and ginseng, and Chernabog got coffee and OJ again.

They were really excellent ... in fact, I thought they were better than the omelet Chernabog had had at WPE, because that had a little too much cheese for me. This was nice and light and fluffy and perfectly cooked, and all the vegetables were top quality and fresh.* They were served with breakfast potatoes (yay!) that had bits of red onion in them and that were also seasoned (chives, maybe). They were perfectly cooked, just to the point of crispiness on the outside but still hot and soft inside. (Have I mentioned my potato addiction yet?)

The iced tea was *really* good, btw, and I've started buying it occasionally now that I'm back at home. Really light and refreshing when standing at the bus stop waiting after breakfast.

*I should point out that it's virtually impossible to get really top-quality fresh produce of any sort where I live, other than apples, so it probably doesn't take much to impress me.

 

[onelilspark]

That's the best Aurora I've seen in a long time. Also, I love the story with it! (Ok, and the salmon looks good!)

 

[TillyMarigold]

That's the best Aurora I've seen in a long time. Also, I love the story with it! (Ok, and the salmon looks good!)

Aurora was great, and the salmon was excellent. Akershus was some of the best food we ate ... but really, we had very little food that wasn't very good or better. The "worst" food we ate was probably at Sci-Fi, but that was good enough that we'd be happy to eat there again.

 

[TillyMarigold]

After brunch we went over to play mini golf at WinterSummerland, which was awesome as usual. It was also incredibly hot. In between courses (or maybe after the second one?) we got some Mickey ice cream from the cooler.

Chernabog got a classic Mickey ice cream bar:

And I got my favorite Mickey treat, a Mickey ice cream sandwich:

There doesn't seem to be much point in reviewing them since I'm sure everyone here has had about a zillion of them ... and also because really, it was so hot that anything at all that was cold would have tasted fantastic.

 

[TillyMarigold]

On Wednesday, September 9, we had booked the *****covered Future World tour, so we headed to Sassagoula again for breakfast.

Okay, I have to ask. I think we've all noticed around here that the starring out of words has been going crazy, what with not being able to write the name of Julie Andrews' co-star in Mary Poppins or use the acronym for the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor ... but is it actually correcting me for using a word that could be a misspelling of a word that might potentially be offensive if you were, like, five years old? Or is there now some sinister obscene insult that is abbreviated U.N.D.I.S.?

I swear that it let me put in the name of the tour when I first wrote the above comment. It is called the Un-DISCOVERed Future World tour, and my heart breaks to abuse that poor hyphen.

 

[Flossbolna]

And I got my favorite Mickey treat, a Mickey ice cream sandwich:

There doesn't seem to be much point in reviewing them since I'm sure everyone here has had about a zillion of them ... and also because really, it was so hot that anything at all that was cold would have tasted fantastic.

Actually, I would be interested to hear mor about the ice cream sandwich - I never had one, because I am bit scard by that cookie? What is the cookie like??

And I loved your comment about the stars int he name of your Epcot tour!

 

[msce2]

Okay, I have to ask. I think we've all noticed around here that the starring out of words has been going crazy, what with not being able to write the name of Julie Andrews' co-star in Mary Poppins or use the acronym for the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor ... but is it actually correcting me for using a word that could be a misspelling of a word that might potentially be offensive if you were, like, five years old? Or is there now some sinister obscene insult that is abbreviated U.N.D.I.S.?

I swear that it let me put in the name of the tour when I first wrote the above comment. It is called the Un-DISCOVERed Future World tour, and my heart breaks to abuse that poor hyphen.

I was trying to figure out why you had put the ****'s in. I just figured it was something secret to the DIS that I was missing out on.

Great reviews, and I must say how surprised I was at your Akershus review. I have never heard anything good about it, and now I wonder what was so terrible. The salmon looks amazing, and I didn't see much on your plate that I would at. It is now on my list to try!

 

[TillyMarigold]

Actually, I would be interested to hear mor about the ice cream sandwich - I never had one, because I am bit scard by that cookie? What is the cookie like??

And I loved your comment about the stars int he name of your Epcot tour!

The cookie sandwich is kind of like ... it's a soft, fairly thin cookie, and unfortunately telling you that it's the same as the sort of cookie as you'd get in a generic ice-cream sandwich you'd buy at the grocery store probably isn't very helpful. It is dark chocolate, almost more like cake or a brownie (but denser), and if you squeeze it too hard you get a thin layer of chocolate cookie on your fingers. It's probably most like a very thin, dark chocolate brownie. I guess it tastes like what an Oreo would taste like if it were soft instead of hard, or like a chocolate cookie you'd get in a fancy box of cookies (as opposed to a really soft cookie like you'd get at a bakery).

The ice cream is hard ice cream (not as hard as hand-scooped ice cream though) and is cookies-and-cream flavored, so it is cream-flavored and not vanilla, and has bits of chocolate cookie in it also.

 

[TillyMarigold]

I was trying to figure out why you had put the ****'s in. I just figured it was something secret to the DIS that I was missing out on.

Great reviews, and I must say how surprised I was at your Akershus review. I have never heard anything good about it, and now I wonder what was so terrible. The salmon looks amazing, and I didn't see much on your plate that I would at. It is now on my list to try!

Maybe it's now considered bad to not be totally in love with the DIS. You know, to be un-DIS.

The salmon was amazing ... really all the food at Akershus was. I think maybe a lot of people don't like seafood? We're big seafood fans, so we figured there'd be plenty of variety even if not all of it was great. But all of it was (my only complaint is he brought our entrees so fast I didn't have a second shot at the buffet! but not *too* fast, he brought them as soon as I set down my fork and Chernabog had finished before me).

In any case, there were other things on the dinner menu that looked interesting to try, but I think when you go to any sort of restaurant that serves food you're unfamiliar with, you need to be willing to accept the possibility that the food will turn out to be not so much to your liking. (I don't mean bad, I mean "this is well-done for what it is, but I just don't particularly like it.") I think that's part of the experience--how do you know if you like something if you never try it? I felt that way about the saganaki at Kouzzina--well-done, but now that I've had it, I'm not sure I'll ever want to order it again. (Kouzzina, btw, was one of the best meals of our trip, despite the bad reviews.)

But I think a lot of people think "I'm on vacation, I don't want anything going in my mouth that I don't absolutely love" and I understand that too. I went at the beet salad. I think Chernabog might have tried it (if he did, I'm sure he liked it because he liked everything, and he's not a big fan of beets normally), but I know from experience that I don't like beets even when they're well-prepared. Other than that we mostly skipped the more "normal" foods like the meats, fruit, and pasta salad—other than the beet salad, what you see on my plate is as weird as it gets.

 

[MomsOf2boys]

I'm enjoying your review. I still have a few pages to read to catch up but it makes my afternoon go quickly....

Oh yeah...

I am at work... so I will read fast.

 

[TillyMarigold]

(You call this dinner? I call it lunch. Or maybe linner. Is that a word?)

I'd had really good luck with making reservations, I hadn't waited on hold at all when I called at 5 a.m. on my 90+10 day and of course I'd asked for Fantasmic! first. (I don't wait in lines. Period. It was either the dining package or we were skipping Fantasmic!) We'd really considered MM the only realistic option, too. (I always say there are three ways to vacation. People around here frequently say that either you get up early and go, go, go or else you have a miserable time. The third option, to me, is to have a relaxed time, realizing that means you may miss some things, and accepting that. In other words, if we hadn't gotten the MM FDP, it would have been okay--we just wouldn't have seen Fantasmic!)

So after mini-golf we took the bus to the Studios (stopping at DTD along the way, which took forever), saw Indy and I forget what else (the Studios is our least favorite park), started One Man's Dream, then left for our MM reservation. We got there at 3:25 for a 3:35 reservation.

Mama Melrose was the only restaurant, other than Akershus whose computers were down, that we really had to wait at. And if you've eaten there, you know their waiting area is tiny. There were several large groups that were there also. And everyone was talking very loudly in a mish-mash of languages. (Which, I mean, is fine--I'm bilingual myself--but it hurts my brain to hear multiple conversations in different languages at the same time especially when I speak more than one of those languages, it's much harder to process than when everyone is speaking English or Spanish or any other single language.) I was really starting to regret having picked MM, it was the meal we were least looking forward to.

Then at 3:45 we got seated, and it got much better. Mama Melrose is meant to be one of those classic old dark Italian restaurants with wrought-iron chairs and exposed brick--you know the kind I mean. (If you *don't*, think of the restaurant that Kermit and Miss Piggy went to in The Muppet Movie, where Steve Martin was the waiter.)

Youniss was our waiter and he was from Morocco. He was also responsible for the large group of about 10 people at the table next to ours who had been seated just before us. He would go to them and do whatever, then come to our table and do the same thing.

So after he explained the dining package to them, he came over and explained it to us. He gave me the voucher and said, "You be at the show one hour before showtime at the latest. Show is at 8:30, you be there at 7:30. Not 7:35, is too late. You want to be there at 7:29, is okay." He explained that we each got one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert.

He brought us our drinks and bread with olive oil and we ordered our appetizers and entrees (just after he brought drinks and bread to the other table and took their appetizer/entree orders). Just as we were putting the last bite of bread in our mouths, he brought the appetizers (right after he brought the other table's appetizers).

I had the tomatoes and mozzarella:

Yes, this was just as good as it looked. In fact, possibly it was better. The mozzarella had been described as "fresh" and they weren't joking. It was probably the freshest mozzarella and the ripest, most flavorful, juiciest tomatoes I can remember having. (And I love both mozzarella and tomatoes and eat them a lot.) The only problem was that there weren't more. Oh, and the pickled onions were just kind of meh, but I suppose it could just be that I don't like pickled onions.

Chernabog had the mussels:

That pic was really blurry but I think shrinking it makes it look more normal. Anyway he loves mussels but it's really hard to cook them properly so he doesn't normally order them. But he decided to just go for it. He said these were the best mussels he'd ever had, cooked just enough but not too much (because it's really easy to overcook mussels, it's really rare to not have any at all that are tough, but these were perfect). You can see they came with red peppers, pickled onions, and garlic bread. I don't recall his opinion of any of the other things because he was busy exclaiming over the mussels.

Just as we were putting the last bites of our appetizers in our mouth (notice a theme here?) someone brought our entrees. When I reached up to take mine, I knocked my fork on the ground. I asked her to bring me a new one, and she said okay.

That was the last we saw of any service people for nearly an hour. Finally, after waiting nearly 10 minutes, Chernabog snagged me a fork off another table. But since we didn't know yet how much our experience was about to go downhill, here's our entrees.

I had wanted to have the Eggplant Napoleon, which by all accounts is grilled eggplant over white bean ragout. However, when I got the menu, I saw that the eggplant was now breaded and fried, which would have been okay-ish even though I didn't want something heavy and greasy, and served over pasta, which wasn't--I had been really looking forward to those white beans! So instead, I had the penne a la vodka, made without the pancetta.

This was, quite simply, excellent. It was nothing fancy at all, just good quality pasta with good quality vodka sauce and nice fresh cheese on top. It was exquisite. (It was also enormous. I'm a big eater, but I managed barely more than half of it.)

Chernabog had the spinach and fresh tomato flatbread.

His definitive statement on the subject: "This is a pretty good pizza, but really, it is just a pizza." But he ate all of it. His portion wasn't quite as large, so he had some of my penne, and also thought it was excellent.

In case you couldn't tell, Mama Melrose had the best food of any restaurant up to that point. But.

We had gotten our entrees about 4:35 pm. We finished them about 5:05 pm. And waited, and waited, and waited. Youniss came and asked the other table how their meal was, but not us. He brought them the dessert menu, but not us. He took the other table's dessert order, but not ours. He brought their desserts. He brought their check. He took their payment. And we were still sitting there with empty entree plates and no dessert menus. Finally at 5:35, he came and asked us what we wanted to order for dessert. We pointed out that we didn't have menus. He pulled them out and stood over us while we read and ordered. (Chernabog told me later that if he'd realized I'd already gotten the Fantasmic! voucher, we would have left, but he thought it came with the check.)

And then he disappeared again. At about 5:45 we flagged down a manager and told her how disappointed we were and pointed out that we'd finished our entrees 40 minutes earlier (and had received them over an hour earlier) and still didn't have dessert. Just then Youniss appeared with dessert and the check.

For dessert, Chernabog had the tiramisu. He loves tiramisu, orders it everywhere (that or creme brulee), and is usually disappointed. This is because a restaurant we often went to when we were first married very briefly served the absolute best tiramisu either of us has ever eaten. Anyway so he pronounced this far above average but nowhere near as good as Harvest Moon's.

I had the honey ricotta almond cheesecake, which was light and fluffy and wonderful, not as heavy as cheesecake usually is. So overall the desserts were better than average although nothing extraordinary (and we had some extraordinary desserts on this trip), but we were too angry to really enjoy them. Or take pictures, obviously.

So overall, Mama Melrose tied for second-best food of the trip, but had far and away the worst service, and was the only restaurant where we tipped less than 15%. We would probably give them another chance, though, especially if we wanted to see Fantasmic!

By the way, that turned out to be the first week for the new separate entrance to Fantasmic!, so actually we didn't need to arrive as early as we did.

 

[Flossbolna]

The cookie sandwich is kind of like ... it's a soft, fairly thin cookie, and unfortunately telling you that it's the same as the sort of cookie as you'd get in a generic ice-cream sandwich you'd buy at the grocery store probably isn't very helpful. It is dark chocolate, almost more like cake or a brownie (but denser), and if you squeeze it too hard you get a thin layer of chocolate cookie on your fingers. It's probably most like a very thin, dark chocolate brownie. I guess it tastes like what an Oreo would taste like if it were soft instead of hard, or like a chocolate cookie you'd get in a fancy box of cookies (as opposed to a really soft cookie like you'd get at a bakery).

The ice cream is hard ice cream (not as hard as hand-scooped ice cream though) and is cookies-and-cream flavored, so it is cream-flavored and not vanilla, and has bits of chocolate cookie in it also.

Thank you very much for the detailed description, it actually sounds great, I think this will go on the must do list for my January trip!!

 

[msce2]

I'm so sorry to hear about your MM experience. I hope the manager handled the situation. There is no excuse for you to have to wait an hour before your server checks in. Maybe if your server had spent less time worrying about telling you when to arrive at Fantasmic and more time getting dinner done so you could actually get there?

We did the MM Fantasmic Pkg in May 2009. After reading so many horrible reviews we really didn't have high expectations for our dinner there, but H&V was out, and Brown Derby was 2 credits so MM it was. However, our entire experience was outstanding and it is now on our must do list. (I hope we get a good server!)

 

[TillyMarigold]

Thank you very much for the detailed description, it actually sounds great, I think this will go on the must do list for my January trip!!

It was definitely on mine! I seem to always be the person whose hard chocolate goes sliding off the Mickey bar on the ground, and then I'm left with plain vanilla ice cream, which I don't like. So I almost never get them. I get the sandwiches instead.

I'm so sorry to hear about your MM experience. I hope the manager handled the situation. There is no excuse for you to have to wait an hour before your server checks in. Maybe if your server had spent less time worrying about telling you when to arrive at Fantasmic and more time getting dinner done so you could actually get there?

We did the MM Fantasmic Pkg in May 2009. After reading so many horrible reviews we really didn't have high expectations for our dinner there, but H&V was out, and Brown Derby was 2 credits so MM it was. However, our entire experience was outstanding and it is now on our must do list. (I hope we get a good server!)

The manager didn't really do anything. Honestly, since we're not big DHS fans, it wasn't a huge problem because we didn't have anything we particularly wanted to do. (Actually, we rarely have anything we particularly want to do, we're very laid-back except when it comes to food.) But I'm sure we could have found something more entertaining than staring at each other.