The Food Was Not Undelicious: May 25-June 1, 2007!! Completed - Post #794

[oybolshoi]

That Gospel Brunch sounds so good! Every time we're in DTD DH says we must do this next time, but somehow next time never comes! So much Disney, so little time! Some day we'll get there!

I know what you mean ... we still have places that we mean to try and the time always gets away from us. Gives us all a good reason to go back!

Anyway, we're leaving for Florida in six days I'll have to try to keep reading along while I'm there or I'll never catch up!

PS No food pictures doesn't put me off reading either!

CarolAnn.

Have a lovely trip and happy anniversary!! I can't wait to hear what you think of V&A when you get back.

Nice review, Brenda! We've enjoyed the HoB Gospel Brunch here in Los Angeles...good music indeed, no matter your religious affiliation or lack thereof!

Thanks! I think we'd definitely do it again although it would be nice to try it in another city.

And Cowboy Grimace is fine, thanks for asking. Had a nice Father's Day. Hope your Grimace is doing well, too!

Glad to hear it! Our Grimace is the same as always...grumpy and gambling!

(By the way -- loved the title of your installment. One of our favorite episodes since I come from a long line of bowling dorks!)

That episode remains one of my favorites even after all these years.

"Mimosa?"

"Please don't call me that; I'm a married woman."

Ok, I know I'll be smacked, but I have to be cliché here: "You're preaching to the choir."

I love bad jokes!

You're talking to a not very religious Jewish girl who happens to like all the holiday trimmings at WDW. I even did the Candlelight Processional dinner package in 2001 just to say that I did it. I'm sure I would have gone to the Gospel brunch if I was with others who wanted to go, too.

Good for you. Someday I'd like to get to WDW at Christmas and check out the CP - it sounds like it's really a geat experience.

BTW - somehow I just knew you wouldn't be bothered by Jay and me "coming out of the closet."

LOL! I don't know if I'm going to any Odyssey events this year, but I always show up early enough not to get shut out of a good table. I agree that assigned seating would probably work best, but it just never occurs to the event planners in any of the food and wine events other than Signature Dinners or the EEE.

I don't think we're doing any Odyssey events this year either. We're going to stick with pairings, PFTS, and maybe an EEE if it's the right one.

LOL! I was thinking about the menu, "Hmm, I like the breakfast items, but ...shrimp!!" Good choice!

Great minds...

You know, don't worry about the canceled ressie. I never make it past the sushi bar at "Wolfie's". Too much tasty fish for me to pass up on a whim. One of these years I'll make it to the dining room, too.

And one last thing...

If your verbs are "tense", treat them to a massage at SSR.

I'm actually glad we canceled it - we had so much fun that night at the Animal Kingdom and at the Magic Kingdom... wall-to-wall people but still fun.

Bwhahahahahahaaha!!! If the verbs are tense then so am I and I get the massage first - I'm going back to Mandara and the verbs can do whatever they want!

Brenda, thanks so much again. I think we may have to try the House of Blues brunch now too. All this yummy brunch talk is making me hungry...especially that BBQ chicken. Mom made some on Father's Day and now I'm in a BBQ chicken mood.

Breakfast at the Kona...now I have "Copacabana" stuck in my head!

Hi Kiki! This whole thread is making me hungry -

At the Kona... the Kona Cafe at the Poly...

Everybody sing!!

HOB sounds great Brenda! The menu looks delicious. Can't wait to hear about your Flying Fish dinner. We haven't eaten there since the late 1990's I think!

Thanks for reading! FF was awesome...incredible...fabulous!!

The HOB brunch sounds wonderful. There are so many places that I want to try there is no way to fit it all in one trip.
We have been to the HOB when we lived in NOLA but never to the gospel brunch.

Hey Melissa! You should definitely give the brunch a try some time when you get a chance - very much worth it!

I can't wait to hear all about Kona, although I already know what Jay had . We have plans to try the ever talked about Tonga Toast in Sept. I just can't wait.

Kona should be coming up tonight if all goes according to plan. If you read my October review then you already know what both of us ordered!
But we had a really nice little something happen here so I wanted to include the review. And we love breakfast at Kona so how could I not share the Tonga-love?!

So I finally read your dining review, and it is mouthwateringly, deliciously wonderful.

My family has never been to Ghiradellis, but I am SO getting them in there if only for that whipped cream.

Hi there Emma! Thanks for stopping by - glad you're enjoying the reviews! Oh yes...Ghiradelli is a must if you've never been.

And you may call yourself Timid Tastebud Girl, but you sound pretty adventurous to me. I know my brothers would never have touched the cheese plate or the quiche from Chefs, and that chicken flatbred from Jiko would have had them running for the hills.

Keep it coming!

I guess it's all relative... compared with my husband I'm a food sissy. But if you compared me with myself from ten years ago you'd say I was a Dining Diva!!! I never used to eat anything other than tuna fish and mac and cheese and look at me now... flatbread...polenta...foie gras!

Lori, I will put you on my prayer list too!

You're killing me here...

Sunday, May 27th - It's not Quite Breakfast; It's not Quite Lunch, but It Comes With a Slice of Cantaloupe at the End

This is one of my favorite episodes of the Simpsons. When Marge and Jacques are rubbing the bowling lane and he asks Marge if she's hungry...."FOUR ONION RINGS!!!" With that New York accent....Hysterical!!!

That is an awesome episode, isn't it? I don't think there's a single frame (ha ha!) that isn't amusing in some way.

How about the bowling ball moon above Marge's house when she and Jacques are sitting in his car outside one evening (I think it's the night he asks her to brunch)... just great stuff!

Anyway, I have followed your trip reports and dining reviews in the past and I really enjoy your writing style. This is the first time responding to them. Looking forward to reading more.

Mary Beth

Well thank you very much for reading everything and for posting to let me know you're here! I'm glad you've enjoyed the TRs and I hope to see you around.

 

[rentayenta]

You can have my Bloody Mary and I'll take your Mimosa!

What kind of good immature drunk would I be if I gave away my Mimosa and didn't mix alcohol?

 

[oybolshoi]

What kind of good immature drunk would I be if I gave away my Mimosa and didn't mix alcohol?

I knew I liked you for a reason!!

 

[rentayenta]

I knew I liked you for a reason!!

But we can steal DH's! He likes the mother of his children drunk!

 

[oybolshoi]

Monday, May 28th - Tonga Toast, Sausage, and Coffee...At the Kona, We Ate Too Much.

If there is one single WDW restaurant that Jason and I return to with lover-like frequency, it is the Kona Cafe. Waaaaaay back in 1997, a dark time when we stayed off property and never ate anything other than burgers and hotdogs at the parks, Jason and I tried Kona for breakfast on the advice of his brother, who said, "They've got this stuff there called Tonga Toast and it's deadly unhealthy in about 150 different ways, but it tastes really good. You need to go and you need to eat it - all of it. And ask them for the recipe."

Jay tried the Tonga and has been a devoted disciple ever since. It's a clause in our un-documented living marriage contract that every trip to WDW must include a breakfast at the Kona. Failure to book said breakfast can result in forfeiture of spa treatments or cancellation of afternoon tea.

For some reason I made our ADR for 10AM...I don't smoke but what was I smoking? We don't want to eat breakfast that late...we've got flowers to smell, Plankton to pose, pools to dip in. We decided to get to the Polynesian early and see if they could accomodate us with an earlier seating. Transportation pros that we think we're becoming, we hop a bus for the Magic Kingdom, swim upstream through all the people pouring into the park, and catch the resort monorail over to the Polynesian.

Self Portrait #78: We need coffee

I'm a big boy now...

Luck was with us on this day - the restaurant was busy but not overly so. We checked in and told the hostess we were hoping to eat earlier than the reservation time - no problem! She gave us a pager and sent us off to explore the second floor gift shop. We couldn't have waited more than five minutes before it was time to be seated. The staff was very friendly and we received many happy anniversaries from them as we were being led to our table, a cozy little two-fer in the far corner near the windows and the coffee stand.

Celebrating something? Wear your button. I can't stress this enough people - wear your button!!!

First things first we order the fresh fruit cup which we always share. We also ordered some pressed Kona coffee, orange juice for me, and Likoi juice for Jay. Likoi juice is a blend...passion fruit, orange, and guava juices mixed together and served in a glass. Jay loves this stuff but I can sum up my opinion in one word: Bleccccch!

Where are the grapes?

Seriously, where are the grapes? The fruit all tasted wonderful but I really wanted some big honking grapes in there...I eat the grapes and Jay eats the pineapple and everyone is happy.

I'll just take an IV line for this, OK?

It's the 100% Kona Coffee French Press Pot!! We tried this for the first time last October and we are hooked!

How hooked? So hooked that we bought a French press for ourselves at Christmas.

Not hooked enough? So hooked that we had to buy another bag of Kona beans on this trip because we'd burned through the ones we bought last fall in about three months.

Still not hooked? Jay eats coffee beans.

When it comes to breakfast at the Kona we have to be the most boring guests ever... our order never deviates. I don't even know why we look at the menu; I guess we're just trying to be polite.

Something tells me they don't eat this in the Pacific Islands...

There you have it: Tonga Toast. What is it exactly? The menu reads: banana stuffed sourdough bread, rolled in cinnamon sugar. It comes with a choice of ham, bacon, or sausage. If there is such a thing, I think this dish qualifies as breakfast nirvana for my husband.

Boring and predictable still taste good to me!

It's nothing to get excited about...it's not sexy like the Tonga, but it's some of the best French Toast I've ever had on property. And this time I chose bacon instead of sausage... that's slightly daring.

We were stuffed by the time we finished eating, and had asked the waitress for the bill so that we could start making our way over to Epcot. It seemed like she was taking a rather long time to come back to us when she suddenly appeared with this:

It's too cute to eat, but we'll try.

We were totally surprised. We actually were wearing our anniversary buttons in the hopes that we might catch a little dust at Epcot (didn't happen) but it never dawned on us that one of the restaurants might do something, especially at breakfast! Two cream puffs nestled in whipped cream and covered with Mickey-head candy confetti...a very tasty breakfast dessert and a super-sweet gesture on the part of the Kona staff that gave us warm fuzzies all morning.

I asked Jay to take a close up shot just to show everyone what Mickey-head confetti candy looks like.

Where can I buy these?

In conclusion I'd just like to say that after ten years of pretty constant trips to WDW, it is our gluttonous opinion that the Kona Cafe still serves one of the best breakfasts on property. It's the one restaurant constant in all of our visits and I would recommend that you give it a try some day if you haven't already!

Thanks for reading - Flying Fish coming soon to a thread near you!

 

[S.Poppins]

On page 10, just finished Chefs de France. I should be writing a paper - but what the heck... First of all, Jason eats like me. I love "stuff" or as my DH refers to it "all that crap". Every Wednesday night we have a leadership meeting before church. We have an executive chef that goes to our church and cooks for our school - long story as to how he ended up cooking for a school instead of a restaurant, but it is a blessing!! Anyway, tonight he made his special Italian subs. The first thing DH asked was, "Is he putting all that crap on it?" Crap: ie - lettuce, onion, tomato, italian dressing. No, Chef put it on the side. I told Chef I would gladly eat my husband's crap! DH ate a sandwich with meat and cheese only. Yuck! Anyway, I digress.

I had adrs for Chefs in January. But I kept looking at the menu and decided my family would probably be happier at Le Cellier. I am dragging DH to California Grill (he doesn't know). He does not care for exotic food. Example: ate at Western Sizzlin' with his parents last week - loved it.

Uumm, I think the florist sent you the nice anniversary surprise. I checked out the florist website...My guess is they thought, "Wow, this woman is an awesome customer. We need to treat her well!!!" I think instead of ordering a basket, on the last day of our trip I will make my own basket out of all the cute Disney toiletries, some Goofy candy, left over snacks, all the overpriced blinky toys the kids have talked their overindulging granparents into buying, I may even throw in a balloon...and present it to my kids - and send my DH the bill.

Okay, I am diving back in. After I go find a snack.....

 

[andiepie]

It's so unfair... that Tonga Toast looks so good, but I'm allergic to bananas. Do you think that they'd replace the banana with pineapple?

And after all that coffee, Tonga toast/French toast, and then a anniversary breakfast dessert... were you bouncing off of the walls from all of that sugar?!

 

[praisehisname]

Something tells me they don't eat this in the Pacific Islands...

Mmmmm, that looks so good! I don't know HOW I'm going to do it, but I have got to fit a Kona breakfast in somewhere...

Denise

 

[S.Poppins]

Oh yeah. The duck story was funny. My kids were very worried that DH was going to injure one of the hungry, persistant little guys at Casey's. DH did not know that every time he was not looking DS was throwing food for them....right by DH's feet. It was very funny to watch.

 

[rentayenta]

I am even more excited to be trying Kona, for brekkie no less, after reading your review! The Mickey candy confetti is too cute! I love that the staff was in such a celebratory mood! If only had they known if they would have served a sundae they would have gotten flashed!


Your report rocks!

 

[S.Poppins]

Just finished Jiko. Looks amazing. The filet looked great! Another one that I read and thought - nope, no go with boring DH. Although he may like the filet. Maybe I could ask for some chicken strips for his appetizer.

Lavender ice cream Sounds like a body wash or candle scent to me. I didn't care for the ginger ice cream in China either. Just give me some chocolate ice cream.

I tried the flourless chocolate cake at Boma. It was not rich and not good. The one at Jiko looks better.

PIMP....

Is it Pretty Impressed? Do I win a prize? Since joining the Dis I have become an expert at decoding acronyms. Which has improved my personalized license plate deciphering.

Side note to all: Your family will not find it amusing if you insist on using acronyms to describe every location at WDW. "When we are at MK, we will ride SM, BTMR, and then we have ADRS at CRT, which IMHO is not worth 2 TS on the DDP, but ITA that everyone should try it once." They are already putting up with waiting for you to take pics of all their food before they can eat, writing notes on your napkins, making them wear lime green, and giving unsolicited advice to strangers in line when you overhear them discussing meal options. They will draw the line at some point.

 

[S.Poppins]

You look lovely! Even if you only have one leg!

That is too funny!!! It does look like Brenda only has one leg! And we thought all that weaving and stumbling was due to the alcohol!

 

[ncseric]

They are already putting up with waiting for you to take pics of all their food before they can eat, writing notes on your napkins, making them wear lime green, and giving unsolicited advice to strangers in line when you overhear them discussing meal options. They will draw the line at some point.

Get a Blackberry or other handheld... then you just look like a geek on vacation checking e-mail.

 

[S.Poppins]

FWIW......I am stumped. What does this one stand for. It is midnight here and I need to go to bed.

Last night, we did not have kids. So DH and I were sitting in our pajamas watching TV when a commercial for Ocean's 13 comes on. Why not? My doctor had just given me a new drug to help with my chronic fatigue problem, so let's go to a movie in the middle of the night! Seemed like a good plan until this morning.

I am all caught up on this report!!!!

 

[S.Poppins]

I am trying to post enough tonight to make up for all the time I have missed. Would not want to lose my position as President of the Timid Tastebud Girl Fan Club!

 

[passthepixiedust]

I have always wanted to go to 'The House of Blues Gospel Brunch' and now more than ever! I wonder how I can trick Keith into doing it? Um... I mean, I think I should get Keith tix cause I know how much HE would love it! (did that sound sincere? think it'll work?)

Wow this thread moves fast!

 

[burly]

We love the Kona. we have not done breakfast yet. But it is our first night ritual. Love it.

 

[jakenjess]

I LOVE Tonga Toast! We've been to Kona for breakfast a few times and it never disappoints. I've also been reading rave reviews of dinner at Kona, but we've never managed to stray from breakfast there. I agree, that juice doesn't sound appealing to me, but we had a juice blend there many years ago (I think it was our '92 trip) that was to die for, but the next time we went and asked about it they didn't serve it anymore. It was a strawberry drink with maybe banana? I don't remember the details, but it was GOOD!

 

[Karen Mouse]

Kona does sound great - and I love that confetti! Did you find out if you can buy it? I still never get why you have savoury stuff and sweet stuff on the same plate though - We just dont do this in the UK. Keep the sausages away from the banana bread for goodness sake!

Its like when I see people putting waffles and syrup next to bacon and eggs

 

[cocowum]

OMG Kona looks amazing. (insert rubbing belly smilie here)

Maybe, I need to rethink my ADR's