DAY 6: Narcoossees Dinner aka the worst meal of the trip
People have probably heard me whine about this all over the dining boards when I first came back, but it is no secret that our much-anticipated meal at Narcoossees was basically the worst part of our trip... but for the sake of completeness, I will include it in my review here. It's problematic for me, because I planning my next trip which will be Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday at the parks and Monday - Friday on the Dream with my parents. They will fly in Sunday and we will stay in the MK area and I would like to have a nice meal with them but they are pretty basic eaters... so in the MK area the basic steak and seafood restaurant is Narcoossees. I have a huge dilemma... do I give them another chance to screw it all up or do I chalk it up to a bad night and give them another try? I would not ordinarily try them again so soon but of all of the MK menus it is the one that I think would most appeal to and impress my parents... and I was thinking we could do DxDDP and burn a whole ton of credits there that night, especially if I can score a 2 bedroom for that one night at GFV and really impress them. SIGH.
But back to our actual experience there... so part of the problem is we actually spent a lot more time at Epcot than I had intended.
The plan was to leave Epcot by noon after doing breakfast, soarin' and a few other leftover things... but we love Epcot so much we ended up staying there until 3pm. It was a longer day than anticipated and very very hot and I still had not had a text that our room at the Poly was ready so we left and went back to boardwalk and went to check in at the Poly. As it turns out, our room had been ready but we never got the text... but I started clock watching and worrying about how long it would take to get to the room so we just freshened up in the 'Ohana bathroom and headed over to the GF. I had a change of clothes but we ended up going in our park clothes just because the timing didn't work so well. I wondered if maybe we were not treated as well as we could have been because we were in park clothes instead of dressed up but at California Grill, our neighbors were in park clothes and our waitress was just as nice to them as she was to us so I think if you get a good server you have a good server. Ours was not AWFUL or the worst I've ever had but she was not good. And honestly if the meal had been fine she would have been "fine" at average, nothing to write home about... but because our meal was so bad, the combo of the less than attentive server made it even worse than it should have been. But I am getting ahead of myself.
So we ended up at the GF with enough time to check out the gingerbread house. The kid was suitably impressed and let me take a pic of him with it.
This was a great start to our evening, as the GF lobby is so pretty and festive and the gingerbread house is definitely worth seeing if you are there during the holidays.
Then we walked over to Narcoossees to check in for our 5pm ADR... which is normally my tip for a great time. If you'll remember, we checked in at CA Grill at the same time and it was pretty empty, we sat in the lounge and had a drink and were seated shortly after an awkward exchange with the lounge waiter. We showed up at Narcoossees around the same time and it was PACKED full of people... kids running everywhere, no seats in the little lobby area. It was not really shaping up to be a relaxing atmosphere. I requested a window table but it was not happening at this time... it took a while to get seated and by the time we were all of the window 2-tops in the section they were seating were taken and we were on the inner ring. I will admit this right now... these are the WORST tables in the restaurant. It basically puts someone with their back to the aisle. Since I was trying to make it a good experience for my son and since the view was from the other seat and since it was not a character meal, I let him have the better seat while I sat on the aisle, but I do not like these kinds of seats with all of this activity going on behind my back and me not knowing what is going on. It did not help that they had the butterfingers brigade working that night and they dropped everything from an entree dish to an entire tray right in that aisle 3 times during our meal. but someone's gotta get the crappy seat at the crappy table, right? We were still looking forward to our meal here.
I ordered the beverages and ordered myself a glass of wine now that I no longer had kids circling my legs, saving the non-alcoholic beverage to use with dessert. I ordered the:
Chateau Ste. Michelle Eroica Riesling, Columbia Valley
It was fine. This is the more expensive version of the Reisling I drink at home that is $12 a bottle even on Martha's Vineyard, and I bet like $10 a bottle off island... so I expected it to be better since it was the more expensive version... per their website $22 a bottle (vs. $10 for the one I drink). I didn't really like it much better than the cheaper version... in fact, I think I prefer the cheaper version. I like my reisling a little sweeter and honestly my favorite was the chateau san michele harvest select sweet reisling (also $10 for the bottle, I'm a classy broad what can I say? lol) but I do drink the regular version a lot and found it a bit less acidic than the eroica. For some reason I really do not like too much acidity in my wine... and it can be dry without being too acidic but if I were given the choice I'd pick the cheap one, even if someone else was paying. But still it was good enough for me to have wanted a second glass later in the meal... but unfortunately between the time I wanted it and the time it was time to order dessert our server never came back. I am not a wine person either... meaning, I have pretty unrefined tastes. One time a friend of mine who was dating a man 25 years her senior got into a big fight with him to break into his expensive wine collection. I had no idea til later that we went through a few several hundred dollars a bottle wines... and honestly, I'm pretty happy with my $10 wine. So take my wine review with a grain of salt, unless you are like me and then get the cheap Chateau St. Michelle if you have the choice. I was just glad to have a reisling available though so that is a score for Narcoossees and I bet I would order it again. I also bet that it might be a bit more acidic for a reason and probably pairs really well with certain things but damn if I know what!
The kid had apple juice. To give kudos where kudos are due, Narcoossees was the winner here with the mickey straw. No other restaurant had these (or gave them out) and the kid enjoyed the heck out of this straw, even to the point of making me take it home.
They also brought out the bread, which was just ok. I like a crusty, chewy bread. This had a flaky/crunchy crust and a soft inside. I could take it or leave it, so I left it. The kid had a piece and I was surprised he liked the softer texture but he did.
Then we got to placing our order. The waitress never offered that the kid could order off of the adult menu but when I asked she said it was not a problem. There were literally no appetizers on the kid menu or adult menu the child would eat, so I ordered two to try myself and they both came out at the same time.
The first was the
Barbecue-grilled Shrimp and Grits
Low Country Grits, Cherrywood-smoked Bacon, and Pickled Green Tomato Chow-Chow
I thought this was just ok and definitely NOT as good as the shrimp and grits I had at the coral reef. The shrimp were overcooked (you can kind of see how burned the one on the right is) and the balance of flavors was not quite right until I hit my last bite, which contained a well cooked shrimp (flame must have been hotter at one end than the other) and more bbq sauce and then it was a very nice bite. I read another review where someone's came out inedibly (is that a word? lol) burnt so it seems like they are having a bit of trouble controlling the grilling of these fast-cooking crustaceans. Mine was nowhere near inedible but the char flavor was a bit too heavy (until I read that review I figured it was part of the bbq part). Also there was WAY too much grits for the amount of shrimp. In my coral reef entree the whole plate was perfectly portioned for a bite of shrimp and grits in every bite and nothing left over at the end. I left more than half of these grits and that was even eating some plain and letting the kid try some.
I also ordered the:
Maine Lobster Bisque
Butter-poached Lobster, Coral, Chervil
When I ate this I also thought it was just okay. I was warned that the plate was VERY hot when it was first put down (whut? why should the plate on a bowl of soup that had no reason to be under a broiler be that hot?) but I had the shrimp and grits first and let it sit for a while. By the time I got to it it had a pretty thick skin on it and was fairly cool in temperature and the plate had cooled down just enough that I could move it holding it with my napkin. At the time I figured that was all because I let it sit a while (and you are probably not supposed to) but I took my photo immediately after it was set down and as you can see, it came out with the skin on it. Also in retrospect, since I am being a highly critical picky you-know-what, I think also that a good signature quality waitress should have asked at the point when I said I was going to be having BOTH appetizers whether I wanted them both together or one at a time. I think one at a time would have been better as the table was too small and the dishes were too big to have them side by side. Again it is not something I would necessarily dock a server's tip for and had the food been on point I may not have even noticed but with how the food was, the not so great service stood out much more. Anyway I ate however many spoonfuls had lobster in it and was done with this too.. I prefer the cream of lobster soup at Coral Reef. Maybe I am just not a lobster bisque person though so I can't say it was bad, just not to my taste and tepid and skinned over in a scorching hot bowl. If I had to guess I would say that they dished this out way before they served it and the heat lamp heated up the bowl but that the soup was insulated under the layer of skin. Again for a signature, not really ok.
Then came the entrees which were not great either. I had ordered the kid's filet "plain." Unlike at CA Grill when we had a discussion about what exactly that meant because I was not content to not be 100% explicit about it, here I just asked for it plain so I do take some blame here in not being absolutely explicit about what I meant or making it clear enough. I also asked what the side options were and asked for "Just tater tots" so again, the fact that it came with a veggie was kind of my fault because I didn't specify no veggies, just a double order of tater tots. But what is completely inexcusable is the fact that it was ordered medium and it came out purple and cold in the middle. Here is the description and the plate:
Grilled Grass-fed Filet Mignon or Black Angus New York Strip Steak
Boniato Potato Mash and Broccollini with Red Wine-Oxtail Reduction
So as you can see, it came with a smattering of tater tots, the broccollini and steak covered in sauce. From the top it looks well cooked enough but if you scrutinize (which I have, to determine whether I am nuts or not) you can see the sides look kind of purplish. I've seen other pics of this dish and it does not look like that. So I cut into it and it was cold and RAW. not rare but RAW. Now I am one of those people who rarely complains in a restaurant... my boyfriend will often complain on my behalf because I'll be sitting there making do. But this was for my child and the rules are different when it's for your kid. There was no way I could feed him raw meat, so back it went. By the time she came back to see how things were, my hungry child had finished that pile of tater tots. So off went the steak to be cooked more. I reiterated that I did not want ANY sauce, ANY veggies, just the steak now please and thank you (as in please do not put ANOTHER ladle full of sauce on top of the steak after you cook it more).
So they got it half right.
this is his plate after I cut it up and after he started to eat it again. As you can see, there are remnants of another stalk of broccollini gone to waste that I removed from the plate, but no additional sauce thank god. I'm not sure if you can see from the pictures just how charred the outside of the steak was (I think it was due to the sauce being on there and carbonizing on the grill) and how not medium the inside is. Now my kid will eat medium rare steak, but I usually just order him medium because it gives me a little swing either way. As I said, I am not going to be sending my kid's medium steak back because it came out medium rare or even medium well. But this steak was medium rare on the outside and as you can see in the pieces that he did not eat, still quite rare in the middle. it was red and cool (not cold like it had been before). They DID give my child another small handful of tater tots, so he ate those, but this is the point at which he said "mom, I can't eat this and I don't want any more." It didn't matter if I DID want to send it back again because after the food runner dropped it off, the next time I saw the waitress was when it was time to clear the plates and order dessert.
So the other thing is, because I'm a mom, I kind of forgot about my own food while I was making sure his needs were attended to, so of course by the time I even turned to my plate it was ice cold. Which if that was the worst thing would not have been so bad. But it wasn't. Here is what I ordered:
Butter-poached Twin Maine Lobster Tails
Brentwood Corn Soufflé, Malted Popcorn Sauce, Citrus Gremolata
and it had the Delta asparagus too.
I was actually so agitated by my kid being served raw meat that I took a blurry pic of my own. Which is highly unusual if you look at my other pics, so here it is. Also sometimes my pics ar dark, but the color is pretty accurate on that picture. My lobster was undercooked and hadn't quite gone that bright orange that it turns when it is all the way cooked. I knew it was supposed to be that way because our neighbors had one that looked right. By the time I cut into it, and realized it was uncooked, and my waitress was MIA, I just kind of had enough. I didn't care much for the asparagus either but I don't like huge fat stalks of old asparagus where you have to peel off the skin of the stalks. Bigger is not better (just my opinion though!) I like thin baby asparagus. Just a preference but by now I'm grumpy as hell and why not complain about the damn asparagus too? The corn souffle was really good though, I can't complain about that. I finished that, ate a few bites of lobster trying to convince myself it was just cold and not undercooked and then the whole mess was taken away mostly uneaten and uncommented upon by any staff at the restaurant.
I was just so done by then I didn't feel like flagging anyone down about it and making a stink. It was our last meal on the DxDDP and we were paying OOP from here on out so I just really was feeling kind of tired and defeated and not in the mood to sit there and wait for them to throw mine back in whatever they do to cook it further... since I was so unimpressed with kiddo's redo especially. So I just let it go.
Then we ordered dessert. Here the kid was made whole. He ordered the:
Chocolate Brownie-Banana Split
I was in a mood by now but he loved the heck out of this dessert. He said the brownie was yummy and the ice cream was yummy and the chocolate sauce was yummy and they miraculously left the banana off like I asked. This is a REALLY good sized kid dessert unlike some of the others and the kiddo thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm feeling less charitable so my thought is "how hard is it to not mess up a brownie with ice cream?" I didn't try it so I can't really comment but the kid left happy with chocolate on his face so I can't complain at all about this dessert.
mine however, I can complain about, lol.
Coconut and Chocolate Crème Brûlée
Layered Coconut and Chocolate with Whipped Chantilly Cream and Toasted Coconut
I love chocolate and coconut and this has been favorably reviewed by other DISers so I went for it. The thing is, it's not creme brulee. It's pudding. It did not taste bad at all... it was pretty good actually for what it was, but what it was is NOT creme bruleee. it did not have that eggy, custardy flavor and texture that I adore about creme brulee. it was coconut flavored vanilla pudding layered on top of chocolate pudding with the thinnest brulee layer I've ever had. So yeah, I will fully admit that not much would be pleasing me at this point but the takeaway is if you love creme brulee, this isn't it. But it IS tasty and chocolatey and coconutty so if that's what you want then order it, because it is not a bad dessert. I have seen other reviews say it is more like a pudding than a creme brulee... but if I ever go back I'm going to have to do the cheesecake I think.
After our meal, the cherry on the sundae was that they had one bathroom down for renovations. After waiting for 10 minutes for all of the men and the 8 little boys who were let in ahead of me unsupervised to clear out of the bathroom, i gave up and we went to wait for the boat to the MK. I'm a grownup, I can control my bladder, right? Well it was a bit of a photo finish at the MK but it all worked out ok. It was a wednesday night between
MVMCP nights and the park was PACKED wall to wall. I had some good FP+ made in advance and was able to pick up a few more SDFP for things like small world and tea cups (all of which had like 45 minute waits) but after being run into and almost run over by many grumpy people and being nearly unable to move, I started to realize that this was not where I wanted to be. We went on our Peter Pan FP+ and the kid started to get really agitated at the 25 minute fast pass wait, that is how busy it was. After some old guy nearly ran into me with this ECV and then started to scream at me for being in the way while the kid was ranting at me about how 25 minutes is NOT "fast pass" it is "slow pass" I invoked Lisa's first rule of vacation... if this isn't fun, do something else.
After the lousy meal and the crowds and stuff I pretty much hit the wall, so I pulled the plug on our MK evening and decided to go back to the room. After all, we hadn't even seen our room at the Poly yet. I'd never stayed there before so I was not sure what to expect of a DVC Lake view room but I figured we could see SOME fireworks, right? We had to be able to. So I texted the mom of the kiddo's new little friend and invited them over to our place for fireworks viewing and lack of crowds and that became our alternate plan. So we made our way back to the Poly and got our room and this turned out to be a great call, because this was the view of the fireworks from our room:
No crowds, in pajamas, sitting on the balcony with drinks in hand ordered from room service:
Island Sunset
Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, Coruba Coconut Rum, and Peach combined with our Guava-Passion Fruit Juice
It turns out that they will bring you any drink you want from the Tambu lounge for the price of the drink + gratuity (which I'd pay anyway) + $3 delivery fee. WELL worth it. IF you care, they will NOT bring you anything from Trader Sam's - that is a destination. But from the lounge, they are happy to bring it up to you. And it didn't even take very long. So the other mom and I sat on the balcony sipping these beauties (had to mix them back up as they melted a bit but that made them the perfect consistency for sipping... we didn't end up with any of the icy flavorless remnants you sometimes end up with with frozen drinks) and chatting while the kids laid in bed and watched classic mickey mouse cartoons giggling their heads off and messing up my bed before and after the fireworks... which as you can see, we had a great view of. So the magic was restored and all in all it was a good call to go back to the room early rather than fight the crowds at the MK. We were both pretty exhausted from our long day at Epcot and the next day was a planned rest day and we both really needed it.
but honestly I am still torn about narcoossees. I mean, I know what I got was not typical. When I got back I wrote a letter to guest communications and they refunded the entire cost of my meal + tip even though I was on the DxDDP (which I reminded him of), so really I made out (I turned around and put that money toward my cruise). My parents would really enjoy the menu... I mean literally my dad is the "shrimp cocktail - strip steak - ice cream with brownie for dessert" kind of a guy and my mom would be all over the whole lobster... but if the experience was like our last one that would be a disaster because my dad would make a scene... he does NOT like it when the people he feels responsible for get bad food. So i don't know. I want to have a nice dinner with them sunday night and something with a disney flair. There is the good old CA Grill but I worry it might be too fancy for them too... my dad is more of a "Strip" than filet guy. Yachtsman would work except it doesn't work with our plans of leaving the MK early afternoon and going in the evening until we close the place down. So I don't know. maybe 'ohana? *shrug* We'll see. I have time. But my kid still talks about the time we went to Disney and the places like Coral Reef that get bad reviews were some of our favorite meals and good old Narcoossees, which is almost universally well reviewed, was downright lousy. Even Disney signature restaurants have bad days, kiddo.
, but we had salsa! The salsa was good...especially on our tots which were perfect and the best thing on the platter. I just finished my TR section on it, talking about how the reviews here on the Dis had been so positive for so long, then started going downhill...but you guys seemed to have a great meal! Isn't it funny how things are so different from day to day? That's why I don't ever like to write anywhere off completely, and am usually willing to give it another try at some point. 
Friends have told me I looked 10 years younger on our trip than even in pictures not at Disney. Thinking I may have to just move there, lol.
