6 Days of Dining - With Pictures :)

[neatokimmo]

Hello!
My mom and I just got back from our trip to Disney with the free dining plan and since it was so helpful before we left, I wanted to post what we liked and did not like.

Background - we aren't big on sweets and I am allergic to greens. So you notice we went a little heavy on the steaks

Day One- Lunch - Cosmic Rays
We swore we wouldn't hoard our credits and would each order a lunch. So we did and got the huge chicken/rib combo platters. I thought it was just as good as Applebees. We ate at 11:00 and it wasn't crowded and the food was very fresh. We did not like the chocolate cake, it was like a fancy little debbie snack. We were able to order OJ which I liked because I was tired of Coke.

Dinner - Kona
Our first encounter with a smoothie. We didn't meet a smoothie we didn't like on this trip! We started with the crabcake appetizer (which I carefully ate, yikes, look at all that green stuff!) which was excellent. It wasn't a bit fishy like some crabcakes could be. The salad had a very light dressing that my mom really liked because she ate my lettuce too! My mom ordered the filet, medium, and it came out perfect. I stole a bite and it was so tender she really didn't need a steak knife. I ordered the Mahi Mahi which looks odd in the picture but it was so very good. It had a cream sauce that was slightly cheesy that blended the flavors of the stir fried bok choy and fried onion very well. It was probably the best fish I had ever eaten! We finished the meal with the banana creme brulee (did not like, I don't think this was baked all together, it looked like jello pudding with torched bananas on it..tasted like it too) and the white chocolate cheesecake (it was ok, it was very thick and heavy). All together an excellent meal since we don't like desserts anyway (and please ignore the bite marks on the desserts, forgot to take a pic!)

Atmosphere and service...
Cosmic Rays was just fine, we sat for awhile and watched it get packed at 12:00. So eat early if you can!
Konas wasn't what I expected. Its in a lobby area of the Poly very near the monorail entrance. It was a little weird having people walk past us all the time and watch us eat. I wouldn't want to eat there for a special occasion, but it was fine and dandy for free dining. Our service at both places was just normal, I didn't notice anything odd because we were on the plan.

Days 2-6 coming soon!

Kim

 

[neatokimmo]

Day Two!
After seeing all the food we ate in day one, it's easy to understand why we skipped breakfast. For lunch we ate at Tusker House and had their excellent chicken sandwhich. As you can see from the picture, we still hadn't learned our lesson and ordered 2 of them. I hate to keep using Applebees as my reference so let's say it was better than what you get at Chilis. The cheesecake was actually better than Konas, it was lighter and didn't hit you so hard. Notice the lettuce, I think they were trying to kill me on this trip

Dinner - Boma YUM YUM
This was the best buffet I had ever eaten at. I really liked the prime rib, the beef/egg/raisin dish, the lamb and beef sausages, the salmon with sauce and the ham/cabbage cold dish. I tried most of the soups and my favorites were the seafood gumbo (pictured) and the regular gumbo. One thing I really liked is they were carving two prime ribs, one well done and the other on the rare side. Its sometimes hard to find carvings meats that aren't overcooked, my prime rib was very very good. For dessert we had the famous ZEBRA DOMES. I didn't like any of the other desserts so poor me had to eat lots and lots of domes. They could barely keep them on the buffet, people would fly to the dessert side when the girl brought them out

Atmosphere and service-
Tusker House is air conditioned, that's all you need to know
Boma was a very interesting place to eat. They had a live band (well drums..is that a band?) and the decorations were very nice. It was tucked away on a lower floor out of the way. Our server did a very good job taking away plates and refilling drinks. Our ressies for Bomas were much later than when we arrived because we were told there was no availability. They placed us on the walk up list and we were seated in 20 minutes!

Days 3-6 coming soon!

Kim

 

[Schucraig]

Great reviews! I can't wait for more!

 

[sandybobandy]

Great review and yummmmm!

 

[CanadianPaco]

Excellent reviews! Way to go!

 

[neatokimmo]

Day 3
We were determined to eat more veggies today so we went to the Seasons in The Land building at Ecpot. We went to the stir fry area and got the 2 main dishes with sides. Flavor wise, it was lacking. It really didn't taste like stir fry so I would say definatly skip it, the sauce was so salty..that was all you could taste. It really tasted like a cheap budget frozen meal. The desserts were pretty good though, I got the strawberry shortcake which was more fruit twangy than sweet and my mom got the key lime pie. Her pie filling was really good, it was very light and almost melted when you put it in your mouth. So thumbs down for the entree, but yay for the desserts!

I have to mention here also that I was very sick for 2 hours after eating this meal. I don't know if I can blame it on poor food quality/bad temp or if they somehow cross contaminated it with something I was allergic to. I normally have a cast iron stomach and nothing bothers me so it had to be pretty bad to set me off.

Dinner - Le Cellier - TADA!
This was the meal I was looking forward to for months!!
Let's start with the smoothie, another fruity yummy in a tall glass. For our starters we choose the shrimp which had a spicy red sauce on it that was placed over cabbage. The cabbage had just a little bit of wasabi in it, the two mixed together were very good. I ordered the new appetizer, the crab/salmon one. It was basically lump crab mixed in with cream cheese and wrapped in a lot of smoked salmon. They gave you a fru fru cracker to eat with it which didn't last, so we spilt open the pretzel bread and spread it on there. The sauce was a citrus one that you think would not go with fish, but it really made the dish. Truthfully I could of stopped there but NO I HAD A FILET TO EAT!
Onward to the filet, I ordered the mushroom version, cooked medium since my tummy was off (I'm normally a rare kind of girl). I don't know really how to describe it, I saw many people eating their steak separate from the rice part but it was so good all together. I thought about licking my plate
But...if you think that is good, you should of seem my mom's strip steak. She didn't want to do the cream sauces and all that so she got the 14 ounce strip steak. I have to say that was probably the prettiest steak I had ever seen in my life. It was very thick and cooked over a wood fire and you could taste the smoke in every bite. If I had to choose, I'd say her steak was better than my filet but I was going for dishes I had never tried. Plus I knew I'd get some of that huge steak haha
Dessert was very good too. Keep in mind by now we were ready to go lay down somewhere and sleep it off. But no...we order the whiskey cake and the huckleberry desserts. The cake was made of thin layers of cake and mouse with a thick almost fudge like outer coating drizzled with cream. Keep in mind, I am not a big chocolate fan and this cake's plate was wiped clean. The huckleberry cobbler was also very good, we managed to pick out most of the berries, the ice cream was just too much.

Who the heck puts lettuce under a steak? I swear they are out to get me! For those who don't know (and I didn't until this meal) you can tell them about allergies and they will fix your food differently for you.

Atmosphere and service -
Seasons was very crowded even early because of Soaring being right next to it. If I had it to do over I would of ignored my tired feet and gone to the coutries and gotten something better.
Le Cellier doesn't really have a cozy nice atmosphere like what I've read in the past. They had to of added more tables, the place was jam packed full. There was EIGHT INCHES between our table and the next family. Luckily they were very nice and we ended up having more like a party of 6 instead of 2. This is the type of place where different people deliver your food, water & desserts so we didn't really see her much. Our table was in the main "runway" from the kitchen, so we had a lot of traffic but we could also see inside the kitchen which was sort of fun. If I was paying for this meal I wouldn't of accepted the location of the table but besides that it was ok.

Le Cellier - cool huh?
And look, there is duck in Epcot, just not the right kind Be warned, if you come out smelling like pretzel bread the ducks will cozy right up to you and let you pet them!

 

[DLo]

Thanks for the awesome pics. (even if some have bite marks )Looking forward to the rest.

 

[N2THRILLRIDES]

Thanks for the reviews and the great pictures of the food.

 

[neatokimmo]

Day 4
By day 4 we were just pooped and slept through a wake up call and an alarm. We managed to make it down to the POP food court right at 11 when they started serving lunch. We were happy to see our old friend, the Tusker House chicken patty on the menu matched with penne and a light alfredo sauce. I really was surprised by how good it was. The food court also allowed fruit for a dessert so that made me happy.

Dinner - Hollywood and Vine
I signed up for the Fantasmic package because I just knew free dining would pull in the crowds and we wouldn't get a seat. I really shouldn't of worried...

No lines - the reason we rode Star Tours 4 times and mom almost lost her alfredo.
The food at Hollywood and Vine was just blah. Maybe by this point I was just tired of eating or I was spoiled but they could of done a lot more. The only thing that was really good was the peel and eat shrimp. I'm not quite sure what they boiled them in but it wasn't old bay which I don't care for. It was light and not salty. Everything else was really just so-so, just to give you an idea, I ate the mac and cheese. I never eat things on buffets that I can make easily at home, I think that defeats the purpose of going out to eat.

Salmon with cunchy coating, kid's chicken nugget, mac & cheese, peel and eat shrimp, flank steak (flank of what, I don't know), green beans, more of the Disney garlic potatoes, a weird mussel with italian dressing on it plus the same alfredo and penne from lunch with fake crab in it. The desserts were terrible, similar stuff to what is on Chinese buffets. I got a little cake that was still frozen!
Atmosphere and service -
The POP food court..how to describe...take 100 kids, fill them full of Coke, shake them up really well and make half of them dripping wet from the pool and you've got it! You can't hear yourself think in there but the food was pretty good
Hollywood and Vine - take 50 of the kids above and add in their tired parents and you've got H&V. Crowded, loud, people bumping into everyone, it was caos. Our server ran around like a maniac, I had never seen one person take care of that many tables. At one time I know he was waiting on 17 people and many of those tables flipped in the 30-45 minutes that we were there. It was just crazy!

 

[neatokimmo]

Day 5
We actually woke up early and had breakfast for the first time all week. We headed down to the POP food court again and shared an adult platter (see we can be taught..we are just slow learners that's all). The eggs were really good, the bacon wasn't salty and the sausage was just a little spicy. If you ignore the frozen biscuit (I'm southern, I know these things) it was a tasty breakfast!

For lunch, we headed back to Cosmic Rays, why mess with a good thing? We actually shared lunch too (look at us being good) which sort of backfired because they gave us a half chicken that was twice as big as the last ones. No pics, but it was one big bird!
For dinner we headed to the Contemporary Resort to try out Concourse Steakhouse. We started with the best smoothie of the trip, it was mango-ish, and deserved it's own picture - yum! We both ordered the scallop appetizer and it was an odd sort of thing. It had a VERY strong fish smell when they brought it to the table but had no flavor when eaten. All around us people were ordering the onion rings and they looked and smelled fantastic. So I'd recommend those, everyone seemed happy with them.
For our entrees, we hit the steak jackpot. We both ordered the strip steak with the red wine reduction. We ordered them medium but they were more medium rare and very good. The wine sauce was mixed with butter and chives and was a sweet/salty combo. They also had a twist on the Disney garlic potatoes and put cheese in theirs and added some broccoli steamed with garlic. For dessert mom choose the key lime pie again and we thought it was the best pie of the trip. I ordered the butterfinger cheesecake which was also excellent, it was the best cheesecake of the trip. It was light and almost fluffy and had a lot of candy sprinkled on top. We really enjoyed this meal food wise except for the appetizer.

This is mom's because they didn't put the pretty lettuce on mine and I didn't catch her before she ate one!

Atmosphere and service
The Concourse Steakhouse has the same issue as Konas, its out in the middle of a lobby type area where people can see you eat. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks this is weird, I dunno. It is also next to Chef Mickey so it is very noisy and the people lined up to get in practically drool over what you are eating. I felt bad for the little kids in Concourse too, they wanted to be next door. They really need to move Concourse and expand Mickey's, it was the longest line and busiest place in all of Disney (and the only place we heard them turning people away). Also, the monorails were fun the first 3-4 times then it got annoying because our table shook everytime. So it all boils down to what we paid for it (nothing, we stayed at the POP) but I wouldn't eat there on my own $ I don't think even though the steak was very good.

 

[Redwitch]

Thanks for the reviews and pictures. Yummm, how many days 'till my fillet at Le Cellier??

 

[neatokimmo]

Day 6 - Last day!
By this time we were really sort of tired of eating. We didn't wake up early enough for breakfast again so we had a very early lunch at the ABC Commisary at MGM.
One word - YUCK
Mom got the hamburger even though I told her not to. I swear I heard it nicker.
I got the fish basket. I was sad to see it wasn't the fish like what I got in the Magic Kingdom last time, I just figured they bought like items in bulk. It tasted ok, it was like a fancy fish stick.
Dessert saved this meal, they had Hagen Daaz bars, the toffee kind. We pitched out brunch and chowed down on the ice cream. Good stuff!!

Dinner - Spoodles!
We were encouraged to goto Spoodles by a CM in the resturant booth at MGM. I went up to him and said "I don't mean to be too offensive but I just came from H&V and it sucked, sign me up for something good" and he did. We had yet another smoothie but this time they mixed it with yogurt, it was like a shake and so good. For our appetizers, mom choose the garlic butter shrimp and I got the flatbread. As soon as I saw her shrimp I knew I had made a mistake. Don't get me wrong, the flatbread was good, it was a pita type bread with olives, ripe tomato and white cheese all baked together. But mom's shrimp were a good 3 inches long butterflied. I had never seen shrimp of that size and I could see why they just gave you three. The sauce was light and the shrimp had a lot of flavor, something you sometimes loose with larger shrimp.
For our entrees, mom once again did the strip steak, have I mentioned she likes steak? I really wish I could remember the sauce they glazed it with, I just remember it being just as good as Le Cellier. I ordered the Seafood Stew which was scallops, shrimp, mahi mahi, clams, calamari, onions, tomatoes and potatoes in a light tomato and cheese based sauce. It was so good especially with some chunks of the bread they gave you tossed in. Something to keep in mind, I don't know who or what kind of shrimp they are buying, but the ones in my stew were excellent. I would of been happy with a few of those floating in broth. Dessert was also very good. We ordered the orange marmalade cake and a happiest celebration cake. The celebration cake was a square of chocolate cake covered in a thick fudge icing with a side of raspberry sorbet. They also included a sprinkling of fresh raspberries and drizzles the whole plate with fruit sauce. The sorbet was to die for, I would of given up the cake for another scoop of that. The marmalade cake was also very good, it was a ring of what I thought was cheesecake topped with a sour orange sauce and surrounded by a small chocolate ring to keep it all together. It was very good mixed with the fresh raspberries from the other dish.
I hate to say my camera batteries died during the afternoon parade and I couldn't take pictures of my lovely Spoodles. I wish I had pictures of these meals, if you have them will you PM them to me?
Atmosphere & Service
Spoodles is located in the Boardwalk Resort near the Dolphin/Swan Resorts right down the river from MGM and Epcot. It had the atmsphere that we missed in all the other places. We loved the open kitchen and mom got tickled when the appetizer guy said "yes chef" (she's a big hellskitchen fan). I also thought it was entertaining when the head chef kept saying stew - no greens and he sent the first one back because they must of sprinkled something on it. He said, let's try it again with nothing green on it. He's my friend

Snacks - We didn't mean to hoard our snack credits but we just weren't hungry enough to use them. I did buy three drinks out of pocket because I had either left my card with mom or they wouldn't take it. We brought water into the park because I'm not a Dasani fan. So we ended up cashing out our credits at the POP food court for 2 bags of baked Lays, 2 bags of Tostitos, 2 jars of cheese dip, 2 jars of salsa, 1 box of doughnuts, 2 bags of nut mix and a bag of Doritos to take home with us. We are currently in junk food heaven

I hope you found my reviews useful because I enjoyed reading everyone else's before we left. We had an excellent time on the trip and I'll be heading back with my little girl when she's old enough to remember some of it. I really hope they do a free dining promo in 2014

Kim

 

[WAHMto5]

Wow....great reviews and photos! Thanks a bunch and glad that you had fun!

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

I certainly enjoyed them. I think you hit just about every restaurant we will be trying the first week of October. Can't believe it's almost here!

 

[S.Poppins]

Great reviews and pics. We are eating at Le Cellier, Boma and Kona in Jan. I am glad you enjoyed all of them.

 

[noahynav]

Great reviews!! Thanks!

 

[lexmelinda]

The POP food court..how to describe...take 100 kids, fill them full of Coke, shake them up really well and make half of them dripping wet from the pool and you've got it!

Hilarious! Thanks for the wonderful, pictoral reviews. They're awesome.........

 

[angel's momma]

Thanks for the wonderful reviews!

 

[TigerKat]

Awesome reviews - I can't wait to be "tired of eating"!! We'll be trying KONA, LeCellier and Spoodles for the first time on our upcoming trip. Thanks for the pics too!!

 

[Tinkerbell_Girl]

Thanks for the reviews and pictures!!!