Dining Reviews (GFC, RFC, AP, Plaza) with pics - day three (Artist's Point) added

[Quinn222]

We chose places this time with an eye towards what the kids with us (13 year old twin boys) might enjoy. We actually made a couple of changes along the way but our starting ADRs were for 3 dinners: Grand Floridian Café, Rainforest Café at AK, and the Plaza. There were five of us and we were figuring on breakfast and most lunches at the resort (Wilderness Lodge).

Day 1: We arrived at WL about 10:30am and hung out at the pool until our rooms were ready.
Lunch:
Lunch was from Roaring Forks and eaten outside in the shade. Three of us had the Turkey and Brie sandwich and the boys has cheeseburgers. The Turkey and Brie was fantastic and two of us shared one. It was plenty big enough for two average eaters. I guess the burgers were good, the boys ate enough of them over the next few days! Forgot to take a photo.

Dinner:
We headed over to the Grand Floridian Café for an early dinner before MNSSHP.

Atmosphere: This is a really pretty place. It was also quiet with well spaced tables. The service was perfect. By the time we left the place was full and there were lots of children. All of whom were adorable (of course) and seemed to be having a good time. It was still quiet, even when full and with lots of kids. Oh, the new kids menu is here and I saw quite a few of those Mickey plates going by. Kids menu a la carte was the mac and cheese and the burger.

Here's the adult menu:

The adults shared the cheese platter (one of the boys had some as I recall too.) It’s described on the menu as: ‘a sampling of Stilton Cheese, Irish Cheddar and Purple Haze Goat Cheese’ – It also included some sort of marinated figs (sweet marinade) and some seedless red grapes. I don’t even like goat cheese but this was fantastic.

Dinners were:
Me: Pan-Roasted Salmon - roasted vegetable provencal, kalamata olives and sweet onion marmalade. I never order farm raised salmon in restaurants, I don’t know why I did this night but it was very good.

Mom: The daily special, which was some sort of halibut in a citrusy beurre blanc. She said it was also very good but she liked my salmon a little bit better.

Sister: Shrimp and Prosciutto Penne Pasta - with asparagus tips in asiago cheese sauce – She said it was delicious and loaded with perfectly cooked shrimp.

Boy 1: Cheeseburger. It looked like one of the better burgers I’ve ever seen.

Boy 2: The crab cakes from the appetizer menu. He normally has a big appetite but he didn’t finish these. My sister tasted them though and said they were excellent.

Dessert: (forgot to take pictures!) I had the tiramisu (yummy!), my mom and sister had the hazelnut chocolate cake (also yummy). The boys skipped, they were saving themselves for candy. The nice thing about desserts here is they are a normal, smallish sized portion for a reasonable price. Not those monstrous ones you so often see in restaurants these days.

Out of 5 stars:
Atmosphere: 4 stars (tablecloths would have pushed this up to 5)
Noise: 5 stars (it was quiet!)
Service: 5 stars
Food: 4 stars. It was all delicious but it could have been a little bit more imaginative.

Conclusion: We’ll be back here often. As a matter of fact we tried to get back in here another night but they were booked solid. Highly recommended for all families, couples, and singles. Just watch out for Park Faire next door. One little one got a glimpse of some of the characters in there and wanted to eat there instead!

Edited because I forgot to tell you what it cost: With 2 glasses of wine ($9.00 per glass) and three glasses of lemonade about $123.00. However, I have the DDE card so our total was $99.52. With tip, $120.00, which I thought was a fantastic price for dinner for 5.

Day 2 coming soon!

 

[Stacerita]

Thanks for the reviews. Great pics too!

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoyed reading your reviews ~ Thanx for sharing.

Lovely piccies

 

[Quinn222]

Day 2
Breakfast: Assorted rolls and pastries from Roaring Forks eaten in the room while we got ready for the day. Everything was fresh and tasty.

Lunch: We did Epcot this day and came home by way of the monorail. The boys went on the MK and we grabbed a boat there back to WL. Lunch was sandwiches in Roaring Forks. My mom and I had had the Roast Beef and Blue Cheese on Foccaccia. It was excellent but only if (like us) you really like blue cheese, because that’s pretty much all you taste.

Dinner: Rainforest Café at Animal Kingdom. I had some real doubts about this place but my sister thought the boys would like it and the menu seemed very varied. I knew it was going to be loud but that was ok for this kind of place.
We lucked out and got a table where there was a waterfall on one side of us and a walkway and wall on another, so that gave us a little more space than most people in there had. If you’ve not been there it’s dark and the tables are packed in there one on top of the other. Since we were in the last reservation group of the day the place was clearing out steadily as the evening went on. As expected it was loud. There were also a lot of flashing lights. We did not anticipate that one of the boys would find the noise and lights hard to handle. Unless you know you and your kids can handle a ton of visual and auditory stimulation I’d avoid this place. Actually I’d avoid this place period.

We started out by sharing some buffalo wings (Raging Thunder Buffalo Wings - 1 pound traditional buffalo wings served with carrots, celery sticks, and blue cheese dressing ) and an appetizer sampler (Awesome Appetizer Adventure - Great sampler for two or more, featuring Chimi-Cha-Cha, Big Blue Crab Delight, Caribe Chicken Tenders and Coastal Calamari). Everything on here was good.

Entrees:
Me: Nile Shrimp Enbrochette - Tender shrimp stuffed with succulent crabmeat, sliver of jalapeno and four-cheese blend, wrapped in bacon then fried to a crisp golden brown. Sounds good doesn’t it? It was awful. Small, overcooked, flavourless shrimp that were harder to find than a needle in a haystack. They were surrounded by some sort of tasteless fill (that I guess was cheese) and some bland bacon. I ate one of them.

Mom: Shrimp Platter - Shrimp scampi, Safari shrimp skewers, and shrimp enbrochette served with sweet mango and lemon butter sauces – She said hers was ok, nothing to write home about. She agreed that the nile shrimp were terrible though and she didn’t eat hers either.

Sister: Tuscan Chicken - Balsamic and tomato marinated chicken breast, charbroiled and dressed with cucumbers, Kalamata olives, tomatoes, and a honey-dijon mustard sauce. – She said it was ok but she ate very little of it.

Boy 1 – Bless his heart he ordered a cheese pizza and shared a slice with me. It was excellent. Very very good pizza.

Boy 2 - Caribbean Coconut Shrimp - Tender shrimp rolled in fresh coconut and fried to a golden brown, served with a sweet mango sauce – he said they were really good and he ate all of them.

We skipped dessert, we just wanted to get out of there.

Atmosphere: 2.5 stars – I’m giving this a neutral rating because I think some families would love this atmosphere. There were a lot of big groups with lots of kids and no one had to owrry about how much noise anyone was making.
Noise: 1 stars (huge din! But that might work for you)
Service: 1 star – slow, not attentive at all. Never came around to check if everything was ok. I always tip at least 20% and have for years. I didn’t this night. I didn’t undertip of course but I wasn’t as generous as I normally would be.
Food: 1 stars. Not worth a trip or the money. Way overpriced and nothing you couldn’t find at home and better.
Conclusion: We will never go here again and unless you have some compelling reason for going there I’d skip it.
Cost: 185.68 (no DDE here) and I left a $30 tip for a total of $215.68 our most expensive meal of the trip by far.

 

[bookworm61]

Great reviews. Thanks!

 

[shovan]

Great Review & pics!

Totally agree about Rainforest, not worth the time or cost.

Pleasantly surprised how good everything looked at GF Cafe, sounded delicous too!

The picture of the menu is a great idea!

 

[Quinn222]

Pleasantly surprised how good everything looked at GF Cafe, sounded delicous too!

It was great, easy relaxed food and atmosphere. I highly recommend it.

 

[Quinn222]

Day 3
Breakfast from Roaring Forks again.
The plan on this day was dinner at the Plaza followed by Spectro and Wishes. My mom didn’t want to eat dinner there though. She’s a firm believer in a glass of wine with dinner. The only place I could get into for dinner in the MK area was Artist’s Point. Not a hardship, we planned to eat there in December. So I changed Plaza to lunch and added AP for dinner.

The Plaza is a great place to take a break and relax in the middle of the day for lunch. It’s a casual little café but very pretty. I forgot to take pictures of most things here. My sister and I split a club sandwich and the server (Darlene, she was great) brought it out for us on two plates. We each had a milkshake as well. Not the best sandwich I ever ate in my life but it was good and I enjoyed it. One of the boys had (surprise!) a cheeseburger (I lost count of how many he atre this trip) My mom and one of the boys had the vegetarian sandwich and they both said it was very good. Here’s a picture of the Vegetarian sandwich:

This was $60.61 before DDE, $48.49 after. So pretty much $10 a person for lunch plus tip. Well worth it.

Now on to Dinner at Artist’s Point. We loved it. That pretty much sums it up but I’ll give you the details. The boys opted out of this one, choosing to head to Roaring Forks on their own. We had a menu from here that we got on arrival day so I was surprised to see just two days later that the signature wild salmon had been downgraded to farm raised. Price stayed the same though. Oh well, not a problem, none of us had planned to order it anyway. But be aware this changes frequently apparently and you do not want to be paying wild salmon prices for farm raised salmon.

The atmosphere was beautiful and quiet, the service was prefect, attentive and friendly without being overbearing. The manager and the assistant manager both came by and talked to us about the food, the restaurant and food in general, which was very nice.

There was a lot of great looking stuff to choose from on the menu and some of us ordered creatively, which our server, Rae, handled with aplomb.

Me: I started with the artisan cheese plate, followed by the heirloom tomato salad with dungeness crab, followed by the venison spring rolls. I had the Argyle Brut sparkling to accompany. I asked Rae to pace this however she wanted and she did a great job.

Mom: She started with the cheese plate as well (we shared this with my sister), then had the fresh field greens salad followed by the braised penn cove mussels. She drank the 3 Rivers Rose with her dinner.

Sister: Had the pork chop on mac and cheese. I can’t recall what she had to drink.

Since we tasted all around I can speak to everything. The cheeses were all great and complimented each other well. The tomato salad was beautiful with lots of really good crab and the dressing was perfect, light and refreshing. It added to the dish without overpowering any of the delicate flavours of the dish. The venison spring rolls were crispy and spicy and very good. My only quibble is they were served on top of a shredded slaw and where they rested on the slaw the wrappers got soggy and bloated. It was only a couple of spots though. The mussels were really amazing, very tender and the broth had a fantastic fennel flavour. If I had to guess I’d think it might have been boosted with a touch of pernod. The pork chop was tender and actually tasted of pork, which is pretty rare in this day of ‘white meat’ pork. The mac and cheese was to die for. I’d order a whole bowl of it. We did not have dessert since we had to get over to the MK for Spectro.

Atmosphere: 4 stars (again, a tablecloth would have pushed this to 5.)
Noise: 5 stars
Service: 5 stars
Food: 4 stars. I’d like to have seen a touch more creativity with the entrée choices. This place really shines on it’s starters and desserts.

Cost: Before DDE $126.21, after DDE $100.97 – a huge bargain! Service was perfect and we left a $30 tip. It was still a huge bargain.

Conclusion: This is a lovely restaurant with excellent food, carefully prepared, served professionally and with an attentive and caring staff throughout. Highly recommended.

 

[Schucraig]

Thanks for the great reviews!

 

[Quinn222]

Thanks for the great reviews!

You're welcome! The reviews here really help when I'm making my ADR decisions so I like to post mine too.

 

[Blondie]

I enjoyed your reviews and photos, thanks!

 

[shovan]

Oh my Gosh! I was waiting on your review of Artist Point & somehow missed it when you posted.

Thanks so much for the pics, they really help with making decisions.

I think I'm going to call later & see if we can get it for January. Do you think it was too fancy for a 4 yr old? We're going with sis & bro-in-law & our dear niece. I can book it for just myself & DH on the night they go to the Pirate & Princess party, but Sis said she thought it sounded delish too! But we were concerned that it might just be a little too nice for enjoyable meal with a little one along. What's your opinion?

Thanks again!

 

[schatterjee]

Great reviews! We didn't love Artist Point - but your review and the photo of that pork chop make me think I might try again with different choices!

 

[Quinn222]

I think I'm going to call later & see if we can get it for January. Do you think it was too fancy for a 4 yr old?

I'd say it depends on the four year old. I saw children in there though none that young. As long as she can sit quietly (because it is a quiet place) for a fairly long meal (by WDW standards) then I'd say she'll be fine. If not someone probably should be prepared to take her out. There isn't a lot of visual stimulation for a little one in there so you might want to bring something to keep her occupied. We really loved it so if you can fit it into your trip I'd say go for it.

 

[Quinn222]

Great reviews! We didn't love Artist Point - but your review and the photo of that pork chop make me think I might try again with different choices!

I'd try it again. To me this was place where you had to order fairly creatively and unless that famous salmon is wild, don't order it. We're going back in December and there are a few more things I'd like to try.

 

[shovan]

I'd say it depends on the four year old. I saw children in there though none that young. As long as she can sit quietly (because it is a quiet place) for a fairly long meal (by WDW standards) then I'd say she'll be fine. If not someone probably should be prepared to take her out. There isn't a lot of visual stimulation for a little one in there so you might want to bring something to keep her occupied. We really loved it so if you can fit it into your trip I'd say go for it.

Thanks Quinn! I think I'm going to book this for just my DH & myself!
A long quiet meal by ourselves might be just the thing we'll need on this trip with our dear niece along!