CoolDisneyCat
North Carolina
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2003
- Messages
- 4,676
Hello, and welcome back to my reviews! If youll remember, you were last with us at Kona Café on Tuesday night. Now we jump to Wednesday, where CoolDisneyCat (aka, Mom) and I (CoolDisneyCats DD23) continue our Dining and Desserting with Flying Fish Café. Enjoy!
Day 4 Wednesday, December 15
- Dinner Flying Fish Café, The Boardwalk
We like to try a new restaurant with every trip, and Flying Fish was the first of three new places we enjoyed! Our PS was for 7:30, and we didnt have to wait at all. Our waitress Theresa was wonderful, very knowledgeable about the menu, and eager to answer any and all questions. Neither Mom nor I are all that crazy about fish, so it was nice to have Theresa explain to us the different types of fish and how strongly they were flavored, etc.
As an appetizer we ordered the crab cake. Its just one fried (not broiled) crab cake, but its almost solid crab very little filler. Its spicy and delicious, an excellent starter.
For our main course, I ordered the chefs special Grouper w/ Florida Rock Shrimp. Mom ordered the 12oz. NY Strip steak. Wow. This meal was one of the best weve ever had at WDW!! My entrée was superb the sauce was light and flavorful, the shrimp just melted in your mouth, and the grouper was excellent. Moms steak was incredibly tender, and the char (which we later learned was made up of soy sauce, lemon juice and garlic, among other things) made it extra wonderful.
For dessert we ordered the chocolate soufflé, which Theresa (unlike our waiter at the California Grill in March) was kind enough to tell us would take 20 minutes to make. We didnt mind the wait b/c it gave us time to digest! We ordered hot chocolate w/ Rumplminze (not sure if Im spelling that right!), which is 100 proof mint liquor. Um, I could only drink half of mine. Anyway, the chocolate soufflé was wonderful, but really, really hot. They served it with a chilled vanilla sauce, which they poured into the center of the soufflé. After only a few moments, the formerly cold sauce was too hot to eat!
We highly recommend this restaurant to anyone, even if you arent a big seafood fan. The steak was one of the best weve ever tasted, and both of us liked my fish, and like I said as a general rule, we dont really like fish! It would be a great place for an adults-only dinner, but kids certainly wouldnt feel uncomfortable in the fun décor. Well definitely be returning on our next trip!
Day 5 Thursday
- Dinner Le Cellier, Epcot, Canada
Thursday night we had the CP dinner package for the 6:45 CP and 8pm Le Cellier. We got some popcorn before the CP, though, b/c 8 is pretty late for dinner (for us) and we were hungry!!
We arrived at Le Cellier about 10 minutes late, b/c the CP didnt let out until 7:45. We hurried over to Canada as quickly as we could, but the crowd wasnt moving very fast, and its kind of a long way! The young man at the host stand was very nice, and he apologized that we had to wait about 15-20 minutes for our table. He was amazed that we were so cool about waiting, and I think he kind of hurried things along for us after he apologized the third time, and for the third time we said, Its no big deal; well get seated when we get seated; we arent in any big hurry. The problem was ppl w/ CP dinner packages earlier than ours were just kinda wandering in, and they were getting seated before us. These 4 guys w/ a 7:50 seating time got there after us (they were rather ah under the influence), but they got seated before us; they hadnt seemed in a real big hurry to be on time, either. Oh well.
Anyway. We were sat in the Yukon area of the restaurant along the back wall. That was perfectly fine w/ us, b/c the tables at Le Cellier are SO CLOSE together!! Its the only problem with eating there. Getting to the bathroom from the front door is like an exercise in military planning and maneuvering.
We both ordered the cheese soup, and it was wonderful. We love eating it with the pretzel bread! When we asked for more pretzel bread, our waitress brought us two sticks hot out of the oven. They were so good Im practically drooling just thinking about them!
For our main course we both ordered the filet mignon, and I added a 6-oz. Lobster tail to mine, which was $10 extra. Im glad I did, b/c my steak was overcooked. The first half was only a little overcooked, so I didnt send it back, but by the time I got about half-way through, it was way too done. Since Id already eaten half of it, I figured it was too late to send back, so I just enjoyed my wonderful mashed potatoes and the lobster tail. Moms filet was very good, and she also loved the mashed potatoes.
We were too full to each have our own dessert (we ate a lot of pretzel bread ), so we both ordered the chocolate cake to go. I still havent eaten mine (why? Im crazy, I guess), but Mom had hers a few days later and said it was wonderful.
Day 6 Friday
- Lunch Grand Floridian Café, Grand Floridian
Well, let me tell ya, getting into the Grand Floridian the Friday before Christmas is like storming Fort Knox! We didnt make a lunch PS b/c it was about 1:30, and we figured it was late enough that we wouldnt need one. Haha. The guard wouldnt let us in the gate w/o a PS. We turned around, made a PS for 1:40 and went back in. He was incredulous, but once he saw our name on the PS list, he let us in. This place was our 2nd of 3 new restaurants.
Actually it was probably a good thing that we had a PS b/c the Café was pretty crowded. We didnt have to wait, though, and we had a wonderful table in the back of the restaurant by the window. We had a really nice view of the quiet pool, and we watched the ducks swim around and then waddle across the grass. Ducks are cute.
For an appetizer we ordered the garlicky spinach dip, and it was very tasty. It was so hot we could hardly eat it at first, but once it cooled we ate nearly all of it. It wasnt some huge portion like a lot of places give you, so that was nice for only 2 ppl. It wasnt too garlicky, despite the name, and it was nice and cheesy.
Mom ordered the Floridian burger, and I had the cheese steak. I wish Id gotten a burger, b/c even though my cheese steak was good, you cant get a burger that good in NC!! It was cooked just perfectly (medium rare), and I couldnt even have a bite b/c it had guacamole on it, which I cant stand. I think she did that on purpose. Anyway, the fries were really wonderful, big and thick and crispy.
At the Grand Floridian Café the desserts are miniature, and as a dessert connoisseur I think everyone should have miniature desserts! Mom and I were both able to get two, and it was wonderful! We both got the key lime pie, which was different than most key lime pie b/c it had caramelized sugar on top, giving it a sweet, crunchy finish. I got lemon cheesecake, which was to DIE for! Mom got the hazelnut chocolate mousse, which was a little too hazelnut for me, but still very good. We both agreed that the lemon cheesecake was the best.
- Dinner Tchoup Chop, Royal Pacific Resort, Universal Studios (gasp!)
Holy mackerel! Breaking all rules of convention, we ventured off site for the 3rd of our new restaurants. And boy am I glad we did, b/c this meal was one of the best we had all week! Tchoup Chop is one of the two restaurants at Universal owned by that bamming and kicking-it-up-a-notch tv personality and chef, Emeril LaGasse. While his show isnt one of my favorites on Food Network, I surely did enjoy the mans restaurant.
Our reservation was for 6pm, and we didn't have to wait at all. However, the first table where we were seated was awful! It was smashed up against a large party, and the servers all had to squeeze in between our chairs and the party members'. We requested a different table, and were moved immediately. The hostess put the next group that walked in the door at the same table; I have no idea why; it seemed like it would be inconvenient for everyone!!
Tchoup Chop continues the Thai/Indonesian theme of the Royal Pacific nicely. It has a lily pond running down the center of the restaurant, and its decorated in shades of blue, turquoise and orange. It has a very peaceful, zen-like feel to it, and its not a very large restaurant. Definitely make a reservation if you want to go. The dress code says smart casual, but I wore jeans and a nice sweater and was dressed like 99% of the ppl in there, so dont spaz about that one.
As a guest of Tchoup Chop, youre very, very well taken care of. One waiter isnt enough. Oh no. You must have 3. One, ours was named Chris, comes to greet you when you sit down. He says something like, Hello, my name is Chris, and Ill be taking care of you tonight along with Sean and Mike. Mike will be bringing you water shortly. Would you like bottled or tap? Then he departs and Mike appears with the water. Hes the drink waiter, and he keeps your drinks full. Between the main course and dessert he even replaced our water glasses with fresh new ones, as though the ice melting into the water was sacrilege. Sean was our food waiter, and it was his job to go over the menu with us, take our order, bring our food, etc. Chris would pop by from time to time to make sure we were ok. How could we not be with so many ppl seeing to our every need? On our bill where it would normally have your servers name, it instead read team 2.
On to the food the appetizer menu is incredible. Before we went, Id looked at the menu online, but Id never gotten past the appetizers b/c they all looked so good! Sean told us the appetizers were small, so we could feel free to order more than one. We decided to order 3 and split an entrée. We got the dumpling basket, eggrolls w/ orange chili sauce, and crispy shrimp. They were indeed small, so definitely order more than one! There were 2 eggrolls, 4 shrimp, and 4 fairly small dumplings. Its nice that way, though, b/c there are too many yummy choices to get just 1!
The sauce that came w/ the shrimp was very spicy, but it was really good. Normally youd wrap the shrimp in the lettuce that came w/ them, and then dip it all in the sauce, but we dont like lettuce. I imagine that extra step would add a whole other layer of texture to the dish. The eggrolls had an orange chili sauce that was sweet and spicy and incredibly tasty. The dumplings were steamed and came w/ a sake soy sauce that was a nice complement.
Our entrée man, once we tasted it we wished wed each gotten our own! We ordered the filet mignon (again, but I wasnt in the mood for something really spicy or exotic that night), and it was amazingly good. The meat was so tender you couldve cut it w/ a butter knife, and it just melted in your mouth. Man, its making me really hungry writing this!! The roasted potatoes w/ it were, oddly, not good. They tasted like theyd been frozen and then (badly) thawed. I dont know, it was really weird that something as simple as potatoes could be messed up when everything else was so wonderful.
We ordered separate desserts b/c I really wanted the banana cream pie, and Mom doesnt like bananas. She got the Hawaiian chocolate chocolate cake. My slice of pie was HUGE, and it was really good. A lot of banana cream pie or pudding is really, really sweet, but this wasnt. It relied on the natural flavor of the banana, not a bunch of sugar, and thats what I like. Mom really liked her chocolate cake it was solid, flourless chocolate cake with white chocolate sauce drizzled on it. She said it wasnt too dense or too sweet like a lot of flourless chocolate cake, and she really liked that.
Well definitely be returning to Tchoup Chop on future visits! The food, service and atmosphere were all wonderful, and we couldnt have asked for a much better meal.
Thats all for now! Stay tuned for part 3, coming soon!
Day 4 Wednesday, December 15
- Dinner Flying Fish Café, The Boardwalk
We like to try a new restaurant with every trip, and Flying Fish was the first of three new places we enjoyed! Our PS was for 7:30, and we didnt have to wait at all. Our waitress Theresa was wonderful, very knowledgeable about the menu, and eager to answer any and all questions. Neither Mom nor I are all that crazy about fish, so it was nice to have Theresa explain to us the different types of fish and how strongly they were flavored, etc.
As an appetizer we ordered the crab cake. Its just one fried (not broiled) crab cake, but its almost solid crab very little filler. Its spicy and delicious, an excellent starter.
For our main course, I ordered the chefs special Grouper w/ Florida Rock Shrimp. Mom ordered the 12oz. NY Strip steak. Wow. This meal was one of the best weve ever had at WDW!! My entrée was superb the sauce was light and flavorful, the shrimp just melted in your mouth, and the grouper was excellent. Moms steak was incredibly tender, and the char (which we later learned was made up of soy sauce, lemon juice and garlic, among other things) made it extra wonderful.
For dessert we ordered the chocolate soufflé, which Theresa (unlike our waiter at the California Grill in March) was kind enough to tell us would take 20 minutes to make. We didnt mind the wait b/c it gave us time to digest! We ordered hot chocolate w/ Rumplminze (not sure if Im spelling that right!), which is 100 proof mint liquor. Um, I could only drink half of mine. Anyway, the chocolate soufflé was wonderful, but really, really hot. They served it with a chilled vanilla sauce, which they poured into the center of the soufflé. After only a few moments, the formerly cold sauce was too hot to eat!
We highly recommend this restaurant to anyone, even if you arent a big seafood fan. The steak was one of the best weve ever tasted, and both of us liked my fish, and like I said as a general rule, we dont really like fish! It would be a great place for an adults-only dinner, but kids certainly wouldnt feel uncomfortable in the fun décor. Well definitely be returning on our next trip!
Day 5 Thursday
- Dinner Le Cellier, Epcot, Canada
Thursday night we had the CP dinner package for the 6:45 CP and 8pm Le Cellier. We got some popcorn before the CP, though, b/c 8 is pretty late for dinner (for us) and we were hungry!!
We arrived at Le Cellier about 10 minutes late, b/c the CP didnt let out until 7:45. We hurried over to Canada as quickly as we could, but the crowd wasnt moving very fast, and its kind of a long way! The young man at the host stand was very nice, and he apologized that we had to wait about 15-20 minutes for our table. He was amazed that we were so cool about waiting, and I think he kind of hurried things along for us after he apologized the third time, and for the third time we said, Its no big deal; well get seated when we get seated; we arent in any big hurry. The problem was ppl w/ CP dinner packages earlier than ours were just kinda wandering in, and they were getting seated before us. These 4 guys w/ a 7:50 seating time got there after us (they were rather ah under the influence), but they got seated before us; they hadnt seemed in a real big hurry to be on time, either. Oh well.
Anyway. We were sat in the Yukon area of the restaurant along the back wall. That was perfectly fine w/ us, b/c the tables at Le Cellier are SO CLOSE together!! Its the only problem with eating there. Getting to the bathroom from the front door is like an exercise in military planning and maneuvering.
We both ordered the cheese soup, and it was wonderful. We love eating it with the pretzel bread! When we asked for more pretzel bread, our waitress brought us two sticks hot out of the oven. They were so good Im practically drooling just thinking about them!
For our main course we both ordered the filet mignon, and I added a 6-oz. Lobster tail to mine, which was $10 extra. Im glad I did, b/c my steak was overcooked. The first half was only a little overcooked, so I didnt send it back, but by the time I got about half-way through, it was way too done. Since Id already eaten half of it, I figured it was too late to send back, so I just enjoyed my wonderful mashed potatoes and the lobster tail. Moms filet was very good, and she also loved the mashed potatoes.
We were too full to each have our own dessert (we ate a lot of pretzel bread ), so we both ordered the chocolate cake to go. I still havent eaten mine (why? Im crazy, I guess), but Mom had hers a few days later and said it was wonderful.
Day 6 Friday
- Lunch Grand Floridian Café, Grand Floridian
Well, let me tell ya, getting into the Grand Floridian the Friday before Christmas is like storming Fort Knox! We didnt make a lunch PS b/c it was about 1:30, and we figured it was late enough that we wouldnt need one. Haha. The guard wouldnt let us in the gate w/o a PS. We turned around, made a PS for 1:40 and went back in. He was incredulous, but once he saw our name on the PS list, he let us in. This place was our 2nd of 3 new restaurants.
Actually it was probably a good thing that we had a PS b/c the Café was pretty crowded. We didnt have to wait, though, and we had a wonderful table in the back of the restaurant by the window. We had a really nice view of the quiet pool, and we watched the ducks swim around and then waddle across the grass. Ducks are cute.
For an appetizer we ordered the garlicky spinach dip, and it was very tasty. It was so hot we could hardly eat it at first, but once it cooled we ate nearly all of it. It wasnt some huge portion like a lot of places give you, so that was nice for only 2 ppl. It wasnt too garlicky, despite the name, and it was nice and cheesy.
Mom ordered the Floridian burger, and I had the cheese steak. I wish Id gotten a burger, b/c even though my cheese steak was good, you cant get a burger that good in NC!! It was cooked just perfectly (medium rare), and I couldnt even have a bite b/c it had guacamole on it, which I cant stand. I think she did that on purpose. Anyway, the fries were really wonderful, big and thick and crispy.
At the Grand Floridian Café the desserts are miniature, and as a dessert connoisseur I think everyone should have miniature desserts! Mom and I were both able to get two, and it was wonderful! We both got the key lime pie, which was different than most key lime pie b/c it had caramelized sugar on top, giving it a sweet, crunchy finish. I got lemon cheesecake, which was to DIE for! Mom got the hazelnut chocolate mousse, which was a little too hazelnut for me, but still very good. We both agreed that the lemon cheesecake was the best.
- Dinner Tchoup Chop, Royal Pacific Resort, Universal Studios (gasp!)
Holy mackerel! Breaking all rules of convention, we ventured off site for the 3rd of our new restaurants. And boy am I glad we did, b/c this meal was one of the best we had all week! Tchoup Chop is one of the two restaurants at Universal owned by that bamming and kicking-it-up-a-notch tv personality and chef, Emeril LaGasse. While his show isnt one of my favorites on Food Network, I surely did enjoy the mans restaurant.
Our reservation was for 6pm, and we didn't have to wait at all. However, the first table where we were seated was awful! It was smashed up against a large party, and the servers all had to squeeze in between our chairs and the party members'. We requested a different table, and were moved immediately. The hostess put the next group that walked in the door at the same table; I have no idea why; it seemed like it would be inconvenient for everyone!!
Tchoup Chop continues the Thai/Indonesian theme of the Royal Pacific nicely. It has a lily pond running down the center of the restaurant, and its decorated in shades of blue, turquoise and orange. It has a very peaceful, zen-like feel to it, and its not a very large restaurant. Definitely make a reservation if you want to go. The dress code says smart casual, but I wore jeans and a nice sweater and was dressed like 99% of the ppl in there, so dont spaz about that one.
As a guest of Tchoup Chop, youre very, very well taken care of. One waiter isnt enough. Oh no. You must have 3. One, ours was named Chris, comes to greet you when you sit down. He says something like, Hello, my name is Chris, and Ill be taking care of you tonight along with Sean and Mike. Mike will be bringing you water shortly. Would you like bottled or tap? Then he departs and Mike appears with the water. Hes the drink waiter, and he keeps your drinks full. Between the main course and dessert he even replaced our water glasses with fresh new ones, as though the ice melting into the water was sacrilege. Sean was our food waiter, and it was his job to go over the menu with us, take our order, bring our food, etc. Chris would pop by from time to time to make sure we were ok. How could we not be with so many ppl seeing to our every need? On our bill where it would normally have your servers name, it instead read team 2.
On to the food the appetizer menu is incredible. Before we went, Id looked at the menu online, but Id never gotten past the appetizers b/c they all looked so good! Sean told us the appetizers were small, so we could feel free to order more than one. We decided to order 3 and split an entrée. We got the dumpling basket, eggrolls w/ orange chili sauce, and crispy shrimp. They were indeed small, so definitely order more than one! There were 2 eggrolls, 4 shrimp, and 4 fairly small dumplings. Its nice that way, though, b/c there are too many yummy choices to get just 1!
The sauce that came w/ the shrimp was very spicy, but it was really good. Normally youd wrap the shrimp in the lettuce that came w/ them, and then dip it all in the sauce, but we dont like lettuce. I imagine that extra step would add a whole other layer of texture to the dish. The eggrolls had an orange chili sauce that was sweet and spicy and incredibly tasty. The dumplings were steamed and came w/ a sake soy sauce that was a nice complement.
Our entrée man, once we tasted it we wished wed each gotten our own! We ordered the filet mignon (again, but I wasnt in the mood for something really spicy or exotic that night), and it was amazingly good. The meat was so tender you couldve cut it w/ a butter knife, and it just melted in your mouth. Man, its making me really hungry writing this!! The roasted potatoes w/ it were, oddly, not good. They tasted like theyd been frozen and then (badly) thawed. I dont know, it was really weird that something as simple as potatoes could be messed up when everything else was so wonderful.
We ordered separate desserts b/c I really wanted the banana cream pie, and Mom doesnt like bananas. She got the Hawaiian chocolate chocolate cake. My slice of pie was HUGE, and it was really good. A lot of banana cream pie or pudding is really, really sweet, but this wasnt. It relied on the natural flavor of the banana, not a bunch of sugar, and thats what I like. Mom really liked her chocolate cake it was solid, flourless chocolate cake with white chocolate sauce drizzled on it. She said it wasnt too dense or too sweet like a lot of flourless chocolate cake, and she really liked that.
Well definitely be returning to Tchoup Chop on future visits! The food, service and atmosphere were all wonderful, and we couldnt have asked for a much better meal.
Thats all for now! Stay tuned for part 3, coming soon!
