Anniversary Dining Review - Sept'15 Trip and my introduction to Dole Whips! - 12/3 Updates!

[jknicholas]

these pics are making me wish my 8 day-away trip was sooner! LOL...

i have to ask - ive never heard of it... but brown cheese?! it must be the cheese from brown cows right - the same ones that make chocolate milk?

 

[kastoney]

Looks like a great day at Epcot. We love Tangerine Cafe too. The prices are great, portions huge, and most importantly food good. Speaking of good food your french meal looks delicious and love the Aurora photo bomb. Glad you liked the school bread. One of my favorites!

 

[snj0504]

these pics are making me wish my 8 day-away trip was sooner! LOL...

i have to ask - ive never heard of it... but brown cheese?! it must be the cheese from brown cows right - the same ones that make chocolate milk?

I know! It sounded so strange I can't believe my other half wanted to try it. Waffles with brown cheese - so odd!

The Disney Food Blog reviewed these a while back and had this fun fact for the cheese:
"The waffle is filled and topped with a traditional Norwegian Cheese called Ekte Geitost. It’s a type of Brunost, or “Brown Cheese” made from goat’s milk. The cheese is produced by boiling together milk, cream, and whey, until the sugars caramelize, giving the cheese its distinctive brown color and sweet flavor"

 

[snj0504]

My quote and response didnt come out right. Im still learning how to do this quote thing.

Oh, I hear ya! This is my first review of any kind, so I've been googling how to add pictures and reply to quotes and all that jazz so that I actually do this right!

I enjoyed your snacks around the world review. I really want to do this next year. Ive read so many rave reviews about the school bread that I must try it next year. Looking forward to more reviews.

We were the same way - heard all the rave reviews about the school bread for so long but for some reason never tried it. Found out we were definitely missing out!

Enjoying you reviews so far!

Thanks for following along!

Looks like a great day at Epcot. We love Tangerine Cafe too. The prices are great, portions huge, and most importantly food good. Speaking of good food your french meal looks delicious and love the Aurora photo bomb. Glad you liked the school bread. One of my favorites!

Yes, I was so surprised by how much food the Tangerine Cafe gives you for one meal! It's a great deal, especially if you're using the Dining Plan.

 

[Nohal]

I'm enjoying your reviews. Can't wait to read more.

 

[pumba]

reviews and photos are what gets most of us thru the wait for another visit to the House of the Mouse...thank you for your reviews so far and the photos...

 

[jknicholas]

I know! It sounded so strange I can't believe my other half wanted to try it. Waffles with brown cheese - so odd!

The Disney Food Blog reviewed these a while back and had this fun fact for the cheese:
"The waffle is filled and topped with a traditional Norwegian Cheese called Ekte Geitost. It’s a type of Brunost, or “Brown Cheese” made from goat’s milk. The cheese is produced by boiling together milk, cream, and whey, until the sugars caramelize, giving the cheese its distinctive brown color and sweet flavor"

i may just have to stop and try this next week!

 

[snj0504]

Day 3:
Grand Floridian Café

Today we got up early and decided to try another new spot – the Grand Floridian Café. We had read the menu online and saw several things that sounded really good, so we decided to give it a try for breakfast.

When we arrived for a 9:30am reservation, there was barely anyone in the dining room. As we walked up to the podium we heard them informing others that were waiting that their air conditioning was currently broken and that it was very hot inside – just to warn everyone in case they wanted to go somewhere else. Apparently most people took the warning, because the place was pretty much empty, but it didn’t feel THAT hot to us so we decided we had made the trek all the way over there – so we’d give it a shot anyways.

Once we sat down, we could definitely tell what they were talking about and it was REALLY warm in there. Luckily for us though, they fixed the problem and it was back up and running right before we even got our food, so it actually worked out pretty well.

I ordered the Vanilla-laced French Toast – brioche bread dipped in our vanilla flavored batter served with sausage

I LOVED this. The bread was perfect and was dipped in vanilla flavored batter that was excellent! It also came with a side of sausage that was pretty good as well – but pretty much just your average sausage links. The strawberries didn’t actually come with this meal but I saw another table get them with their pancakes so I asked for the side order just to have some fruit with the meal. I loved everything about this, and wish I could go back and get it again! Unfortunately, it looks like they changed the menu slightly and this has now disappeared. Overall, I give this a 9 out of 10.

Adam ordered the Lobster Hash – two poached eggs, lobster hash, asparagus, and hollandaise

Adam absolutely loved his meal as well. In fact, he said it was the best thing he ate our entire trip and continuously talked about wanting to go back and get it again. There were big chunks of lobster in the hash and you could definitely taste the lobster, the eggs were cooked perfectly, and the hollandaise sauce was delicious. This was also a very big serving but came with a big price tag - $18.99. A lot for breakfast, but after hearing him talk about it for the rest of the trip – he deemed it worth every penny.
He gave this a 10 out of 10.
*Unfortunately, this also seems to have disappeared from their menu recently! It’s sad that both of our meals that we loved so much are now replaced, but at least we got to try them before they were gone.

 

[snj0504]

Day 3:
Carrot Cake Sandwich

Another item on our must-try list from reading reviews was the Carrot Cake Sandwich from Hollywood Studios. We had read that we could find one of these at the Writers Stop, but we ended up running across one in Sweet Spells – which is right next to Starring Rolls.

Carrot Cake Sandwich

We both thought this was just OK. The cake part was really good, but there was something about the filling that just didn’t hit the spot with us. We only gave this a 5 out of 10.

 

[snj0504]

Day 3:
Rosie’s All American Café

For lunch at Hollywood Studios, we stopped at Rosie’s All American café that is located down by Tower of Terror and Rock’n Roller Coaster. I didn’t see anything I was too crazy about here, so I decided to wait it out for another location and Adam just ordered his lunch here.

He got the Fried Green Tomato Sandwich - Jalapeño Ranch, Pepper Jack, and Arugula on Ciabatta Bread served with Coleslaw or French Fries

He really liked this, and said he would definitely get it again. The jalapeno ranch on it wasn’t very spicy at all but tasted really good and the bread was really good and soft. The tomatoes were also really thick and he said he liked that when you bit into them, the breading actually stayed on and didn't slide off like it usually does. It was a little overkill on the arugula, but it didn’t hurt the taste any and overall he gave it an 8 out of 10.

AND, another surprise here – since we were wearing our anniversary pins they gave us 2 celebration cupcakes for free!

I think anything free tastes pretty good, but these were actually really tasty and I really loved the icing on them which is saying something because I’m usually not an icing person at ALL. For free cupcakes, they were very good and we gave them an 8 out of 10. They actually tasted better than a few of the cupcakes we’ve tried at Starring Rolls – mostly because of how moist they were and that awesome icing!

Day 3:
Min and Bill’s Dockside Diner

I decided to walk over by the lagoon and try Min and Bill’s Dockside Diner for my lunch.

I ordered the Smoked Sausage in a Pretzel Roll - with Sauerkraut and Mustard served with Chips

I hate sauerkraut so I ordered it without it, which they didn’t have any issue with.
I waited FOREVER to get my food here that day as well. I don’t know if it was just the time of day, but I seriously probably waited 10 minutes after I ordered for them to finally give me this pretzel dog.
And after I got it, I was extremely disappointed. I hated this meal. The pretzel roll was hard as a rock on the ends, and without the sauerkraut they PILED the mustard onto this thing so I couldn’t really taste anything else. I ended up eating parts of the sausage outside of the roll and threw the rest away. I think on another day if the roll wasn’t completely hard and there was less yellow mustard it would’ve been salvageable, but I only give this a 3 out of 10 on this day.

Day 3:
The Boathouse

So forgive our lack of pictures on this review, but we ate at the Boathouse restaurant at DTD and completely forgot to take pictures!

We ordered some of the oysters they had on special for an appetizer and they were REALLY good! I had never had oysters before, and the bartender gave us some pretty good descriptions and suggestions for what we should get as 'oyster newbies'. I was surprised at how much I liked the oysters and would definitely get them again!

For entrees I ordered the Filet Mignon Sliders - Two sliders with Maitre d' Butter served with fresh Cut Fries. The bartender also recommended I try these with blue cheese on top of them, and they were perfect! They cook them to order and they tasted amazing! Next time I go back to the Boathouse, I'm ordering the same thing for sure because I liked them THAT much. I give them a 9 out of 10.

Adam ordered the Scallop special of the day which came with deep fried scallops and a side of french fries. He said this dish was OK, but tasted a little chain restaurant-ish and nothing special. He liked my filet sliders way better and was definitely suffering from food envy that night. He gave this a 6 out of 10.

 

[Terra Nova guy]

Thank for your reviews. It's making me hungry though!

I ordered the Smoked Sausage in a Pretzel Roll - with Sauerkraut and Mustard served with Chips

Interesting review of the "pretzel dog". I had thought about trying this next trip, but maybe I'll pass on it...

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Fried green tomatoes look amazing - not something we have here. I had another weird but amazing dessert at Kringla last year - it was a brown cheesecake (not sure it was actually brown cheese just a brown-coloured cheesecake) Tasted fab like English peanut brittle!

 

[kastoney]

Your GFC breakfast looks great. We did breakfast there on our last trip and I was contemplating getting either the lobster hash or french toast and ended up getting regular eggs benedict for some unknown reason. Totally kicking myself now!

That fried green tomato sandwich looks and sounds amazing. How have I not heard of this? With all the lackluster options at MGM, this looks like a little southern island of heaven.

Glad to hear you all enjoyed Boathouse and your first oysters.

 

[PghPiratesGirl]

Loving reading your reviews so far!

 

[snj0504]

Fried green tomatoes look amazing - not something we have here. I had another weird but amazing dessert at Kringla last year - it was a brown cheesecake (not sure it was actually brown cheese just a brown-coloured cheesecake) Tasted fab like English peanut brittle!

The fried green tomato sandwich was definitely a very pleasant surprise! Oohh - brown cheesecake? That sounds interesting!

Your GFC breakfast looks great. We did breakfast there on our last trip and I was contemplating getting either the lobster hash or french toast and ended up getting regular eggs benedict for some unknown reason. Totally kicking myself now!

That fried green tomato sandwich looks and sounds amazing. How have I not heard of this? With all the lackluster options at MGM, this looks like a little southern island of heaven.

Glad to hear you all enjoyed Boathouse and your first oysters.

I was happy we found something good at Hollywood Studios too. I had NO luck with Min & Bill's, but we'll definitely be going back to get another fried green tomato sandwich next time we're there for sure!

Loving reading your reviews so far!

Thanks for following along!

 

[snj0504]

Day 4:
Earl of Sandwich

We got out of bed late on Day 4, so after sleeping in and lounging around the hotel room until lunch time, we decided to walk over to Downtown Disney for some food.
Earl of Sandwich had a HUGE line, and since we had never tried it before – we took that as a good sign that it’d be a good pick for some awesome food.
The line was long, but moves very quickly inside, so don’t let a long line in there steer you away.
When we walked in, they handed us a menu to check out while we waited in line to order. You order at one counter, and then make your way down to the other end of the counter to pay, grabbing some small side items along the way. Then you can grab yourself a seat and they’ll call your order number when it’s ready.

I ordered the Hawaiin BBQ Sandwich - Grilled chicken, ham, Swiss, pineapple & BBQ sauce. I also got a side of pasta salad and a chocolate chip cookie.



I REALLY liked this sandwich a lot. There was plenty of BBQ sauce, which was a huge bonus for me, and just the right amount of pineapple and ham and chicken. The side of pasta salad was also really good, AND this was the first chocolate chip cookie I had in this trip so far that I actually really liked as well! Overall, huge success with my meal here. I give it a 9 out of 10.

Adam ordered the Chipotle Chicken Avocado sandwich - Grilled chicken, bacon, cheddar, avocado, lettuce & chipotle sauce. He also got a side of mac & cheese and a bag of chips.



He really like this sandwich as well. Said that the avocado slices were a little large, but any avocado fans would probably really enjoy it. The mac & cheese, however, was his favorite part of this meal. I tried it as well and it was sooo good. Very hot, creamy, and delicious – would definitely recommend giving it a shot. The potato chips were really good too and not super salty like you sometimes find in those little bags of chips. He enjoyed this meal a lot as well and gave it a 9 out of 10 too.

 

[snj0504]

Day 4:
Sunshine Tree Terrace & Aloha Isle

So even though I call myself quite the Disney World addict, I have to confess that prior to this trip – I have never tried a Dole Whip! I have no idea why I had never bothered to try this little cup of heaven, but I’m so glad I finally remembered to add it to our ‘must-do’ list for this trip and FINALLY get to experience what everyone else raves about!

Introducing – The Dole Whip Float (picture was post me eating the ‘swirl’ off the top – I was too excited)

I decided to try the float for my first dole ship experience, but I ended up going back later in the trip to just get the cup. I LOVED it – of course. I’m a fan of anything pineapple flavored already, so it was definitely a no-brainer that I would be all about this drink/dessert/happiness in a cup. No cons at all so definitely gave it a 10 out of 10.

Adam, however, is NOT as much of a huge pineapple fan as me and decided to try the next best thing close by – the Citrus Swirl.

He loved his option as well, and said it was better than the Dole Whip (craziness right??). Also, another thing that made this choice even tastier is that he got it for free! Wearing our anniversary pins again, the CM checking him out noticed and gave him the Citrus Swirl ‘courtesy of Mickey Mouse’ himself. He gave this a 9 out of 10.

 

[snj0504]

Day 4:
Sanaa

This entire day ended up being a day of first times for us in terms of food, so we decided to keep up that pace and go to a newer restaurant we had always talked about trying out as well – Sanaa.

I’ve wanted to try this place since it opened, but had just never made it over to the AKL to give it a shot.

We made dinner reservations here and went over pretty early, figuring we could just check-in and then watch the animals and walk around for a little while.

When we got there it was REALLY busy and they told us it would be at least a 30 minute wait – which ended up being almost an hour when it was all said and done.

We were both STARVING by the time we got to our table, but that ended up not being a problem at all considering how much food they give you here!

We unfortunately didn’t get to sit at a table near the windows, but that was OK since it was starting to get dark by the time we sat down anyways.

For starters, we ordered the Indian-Style Bread Service with 5 different flavors of Naan bread and all 9 accompaniments that are offered.

Description from menu - Five Breads - Traditional Naan, Garlic-Ginger Naan, Spiced Naan, Onion Kucha, or Paneer Paratha. Accompaniments - Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, Mango Chutney, Tomato-Date Jam, Tamarind Chutney, Coriander Chuntey, Garlic Pickle, Red Chile Sambal, or Spicy Jalapeño-Lime Pickle

This was awesome! It was sooo big for just the two of us, but we couldn’t stop eating it because it was just so good! I couldn’t tell you which sauces were my favorite, because I really couldn’t remember what any of them were. The only pointers we got was that they were placed on the platter in order from the mildest sauce to the spiciest sauce so I stayed with the 3-4 on the ‘mild’ side of the tray. Adam of course had to try them all, but only took one tiny bite of the hottest one and said it was VERY spicy. All it took was one taste and he was staying clear of that one moving forward. We both gave this a 10 out of 10.

Our server also told me that their soup of the day was a creamy tomato basil so I also ordered a bowl of that to start with.

It also came with little chunks of cheese in it that were soo good! And dipping the Naan bread in this soup worked out great as well. I give the soup a solid 9 out of 10.

For our entrees, I ordered the Potjie Inspired pick 2 option with Butter Chicken, Spiced Lamb, and Five Grain Rice Pilaf.

I really enjoyed this meal. The butter chicken was great, and the spiced lamb was just mildly spicy and not TOO spicy to enjoy. I also really liked the rice and it had a good nutty flavor that made it really tasty. Unfortunately, I was way too full from the giant bread service app and tomato soup to eat all of it, but I savored every bite and they even packed it up into little to-go boxes for me to take with me! I give it a 9 out of 10.

Adam ordered the Braaivleis - South African Braai Sampler Plate - Boerewor, Lamb Chop, and Pork Tenderloin with Seasonal Accompaniments

He really liked the lamb and the pork shank on this plate, as well as the vegetables. He also loved the potatoes that they put under the lamb chops. The only thing he wasn’t crazy about was the sausage (Boerewor). He said it wasn’t terrible though, just not AS good as the rest of the plate. He gave it an 8 out of 10.

 

[Jerusalem Gal]

Yummy! Following!!

 

[Vernie822]

Your meal at Sanaa looks SO good! We ate there for the first time this trip and declared the bread service the best thing ever. We ran into the same thing. Tried to check in an hour early for our ADR and they said "sure we can check you in but we are at full capacity tonight" - and we waited an hour. Worth it for the bread service, though!