Dining at Disney

Every meal at Disney seemed to be better than the last. We had a week of absolutely delicious meals, we only had one bad meal, but everything else was fantastic. The meals were so good they deserved a write up of their own.

We'd never done the Disney Dining Plan before, when I was first looking into it I wasn't sure if it was worth it or not, but now I can say with absolute certainty it def was. With the Disney Dining plan, you're basically prepaying for the majority of your meals. The dining plan gives you one quick service meal (we used this for lunch), one snack (we used this for breakfast mostly) and one table service meal (which we used for dinner). The quick service meal is something you walk up to the window and carry back to your table yourself, so it was perfect for lunch. And the snack can be almost anything, from a muffin or a piece of fruit for breakfast, to even ice cream in the afternoon. With also a nice meal for dinner. The table service and quick service gives you an entree, drink and dessert (although we didn't always want the dessert). For dinner a lot of the menu's also had a special menu option which also gave you an appetizer or salad but you were limited to that special menu choices to pick from. The meal plan just didn't cover a glass of wine (obviously), and the tip, or anything extra we wanted to order. Overall the meal plan worked out great, it was nice to prepay for everything and then just use your card to deduct from everyday.

For our meals I did some research on places to eat at. There were so many good ones to choose from it was hard to narrow it down. I tried to spread around the locations too, one in EPCOT, one at our hotel, one near the Magic Kingdom, and also based on what looked good. The five restaurants we picked were:

• Chefs de France
• Ohana
• Captain's Grille
• Boma
• California Grill

For our first meal we ate at Chefs de France in EPCOT. It's amazing how they design the restaurants, the atmosphere was so perfect, it really felt like we were in a french bistro, complete with our waitress and her adorable French accent. For dinner we did the fixed menu option, and started with the Salade au bleu (romaine hearts, blue cheese dressing, bacon, walnuts, croutons). For my entree I had the Gratin de macaroni (Baked macaroni with cream and gruyere cheese) and mom had Filet de Saumon, ratatouille sauce Choron (Broiled salmon, tomato Bearnaise,ratatouille made with onions, zucchini, eggplant and bell peppers) - both were delicious! And for dessert we had Profiteroles au chocolat  (Puff choux with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce) and Gauteau au chocola (Chocolate mousse cake, vanilla ice cream). We thought this meal was great, but turns out we'd have some more great meals throughout the week!

On Tuesday we spent the day at the Magic Kingdom, so we planned to go to dinner over there at the Polynesian resort at their Ohana restaurant. When I was a kid I loved the Polynesian Resort, and their luau show, Mike & I even went to the luau when we went to Disney. Not wanting to do the big luau show this time, Ohana was the perfect choice and boy was it good. It was a fixed menu with tons of food, that just kept coming, and all of it was delicious. Listen to everything they give you,

Appetizers/Accompaniments
Pineapple-Coconut Bread
Mixed Greens with Mango-Poppy Seed Dressing
Honey Coriander Chicken Wings
Pork fried dumplings - These were amazing!!

Skewers - Prepared over an oak fire
Oak Grilled Chicken
Asian Barbecued Pork Loin
Marinated Sirloin Steak
Spicy Grilled Peel - n - Eat Shrimp

Accompaniments
Egg Noodles tossed in a peanut sauce with pineapple
Stir fried vegetables

And the dessert - OMG - This was FANTASTIC!!!
'Ohana bread pudding served a la mode with Bananas and Caramel Sauce

Thursday night we did a low key dinner at our hotel on the other side at the Yacht club at the Captain's Grille. It was very good, I can't remember exactly what we had this night, I think we may have ordered one of the specials they had that evening but it once again did not disappoint.

We made our first trip to Animal Kingdom on Friday. I think Mom was skeptical of both the park and also my dinner choice for the evening. Although we only spent a couple hours at Animal Kingdom it was cool to check it out and we loved the African Safari ride. For dinner that night we were to eat at the Animal Kingdom Lodge at Boma. I picked it partly in honor of Mike being in Africa but also because it got really good reviews. It's a buffet that features different African dishes with an American flare of course to appeal to all the kids. We loved it, it wasn't something we would've traditionally picked but there was some really good dishes that we'd never tried before.

We saved the best meal for last, the California Grill at the Contemporary, omg, was this meal delicious. It was probably one of the best meals we've ever had, everything about it was perfect, the atmosphere (a more upscale restaurant), the location (on the top floor of the contemporary resort overlooking the magic kingdom at sunset), and the food. The food was phenomenal. After dinner when we were walking around the restaurant we saw all the articles and press that the restaurant has received, write-ups in all the major national newspapers and the reviews were glowing for good reason.

We had a delicious vegetable flatbread to start off with, all I can remember is that it had shaved asparagus on it and mushrooms, and other vegetables, but it was unlike any other flatbread I've ever had, all I can say is it was delicious. I had the most amazing ravioli's for dinner, they were Artichoke and Pleasant Ridge Reserve Cheese Filled Raviolis - with spinach, black garlic, and parmesan foam. They were so different from traditional ravioli's. And mom had a salmon with with Spring Pea Risotto, buttered petite carrots, and Pino Noir glaze. And for dessert we ordered Bananas and Caramel - Crispy baked phyllo squares layered w/banana, caramel, mascarpone mousse, and caramelized banana - There are no words to describe how much we enjoyed this meal, just take my word for it - it was amazingly delicious from start to finish - I can't wait to go back to dinner there again!