VDay Trip Dining Report highlights: Tea, Brunch with a Twist, V&A's UPDATE 5/13 Finished V&A's

[Gobbles!]

Bonus Treats:

We headed back to the hotel to swim and enjoy some pineapple vanilla swirls from the Poly. No pictures here though because we were taking advantage of just needing swimsuits and magic bands. So freeing! Just charge it to the band. They filled those little cups super tall. The kids were impressed. To be honest I was too until we discovered the gaping hole in the center of the awesome swirl. I’d be more impressed if it was solid ice cream. It started dripping quick though, especially with kids in charge of eating. The adults had to swoop in to lick up the drips before it turned into an Olaf in summer situation.

Sometimes it’s tough being a parent. Being required to keep the ice cream from dripping wasn’t one of those times. If you like pineapple and haven’t tried the pineapple ice cream in any iteration, it’s worth doing. It’s a creamy sherbert (yeah, I spelled it like people say it. What?) type. I think they make them as floats too, with pineapple juice for the drink portion. Also good.

Back at the Magic Kingdom later that afternoon we hit up Gaston’s Tavern. We had a special request from DD to buy Gaston’s mug souvenir cup for her brother since we had purchased the Belle goblet for her the previous year. So naturally we ordered LeFou’s Brew in the mug. They did something super awesome for us adult types. The put the drink in a plastic cup and then put the cup in the mug! Whoa! No need to rinse out the mug before stuffing it in the backpack. Amazing! Last year we drank directly from the goblet and then had to rinse it out. Or maybe we put it in the bag sticky. Surely not. I love LeFou’s Brew. I’ve read some reviews of people who were disappointed because they were thinking it was going to be like the frozen butter beer over at Harry Potter World, as I like to call it. It’s not. If you take the time to read what it is you’d know that it’s a frozen apple juice with a hint of toasted marshmallow topped with all-natural passion fruit-mango foam. It’s delicious. But if you go in expecting it to be butter beer you’re gonna have a bad time. I don’t think people still make that mistake anymore though, maybe just in the beginning when it first opened. I don’t know. I haven’t read any reviews about it in a long time.


LeFou's Brew in a cup in a souvenir mug.

It is funny how people assume the parks are straight up copying each other. You KNOW they have more sense than to pretend that the French countryside tavern in Beauty and the Beast served a butterbeer-like concoction. They know they can’t get away with that. At the same time, we all know what they were REALLY drinking in that tavern, and you can’t really expect the kids to go crazy for wheat flavored frozen drinks. What to do? Make something that looks like beer, but isn’t. And then make a foam that tastes good with the drink. Nailed it! The drink is frozen apple juice, which is pretty good when you get used to it. Now, the fun part is when you put the foam on it. Then the mango kind of punches a little acidity into it, which comes back to earth with the apple. And the marshmallow creamifies the situation. Yes, I made that word up. At least I think I did.

Does it look like they make this drink up in response to butterbeer? Heck yes it does. But it’s not an imitator or a duplicator. It’s more of a ‘that was a great idea. What can we make that’s frozen with a topping on it?’

 

[Viona Bringman]

Have enjoyed all your reviews so far! Your descriptions are wonderful, and the pictures are so well done that it is difficult to keep from drooling!
The Brunch review is at the top of my favorites of all I have seen, I would very much like to take DH to one of these.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences...looking forward to more... There is MORE, right?

 

[Gobbles!]

Have enjoyed all your reviews so far! Your descriptions are wonderful, and the pictures are so well done that it is difficult to keep from drooling!
The Brunch review is at the top of my favorites of all I have seen, I would very much like to take DH to one of these.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences...looking forward to more... There is MORE, right?

I'm glad you've enjoyed reading so far. The brunch was incredible! Don't worry there is more coming right up.

 

[Gobbles!]

Pecos Bill’s Tall Tale Inn and Café:

The kids both wanted the corn dog nugget meals with carrots, grapes, and water this time. The kids love the corn dog nuggets. DD loves everything about them. DS likes to take out the little hotdogs and eat those by themselves and sometimes eat the cornbread part separately. Sometimes. Sometimes the cornbread is just left behind. The adults decided to share the Beef Nachos. I have no idea why I haven’t tried the nachos before. Shortly before going on this trip I saw a picture of someone’s nachos and realized I was missing out. I love nachos and I really wanted to jump on that fixings bar. After seeing someone walk off with their nacho order, I made an executive decision that we definitely needed two orders of nachos to share between the three of us. It was a good call.


Corn dog nuggets. Note the empty corn dog shell. DS already attacked that one.


Water, carrots, and grapes for good measure. Plus the remnants of our LeFou's brew.

The nachos themselves come with tortilla chips topped with seasoned ground beef, tomatoes and lettuce according to the menu I’m reading. Though I don’t remember the tomatoes and lettuce on there. After we loaded them up and started eating I was super embarrassed because I didn’t put any cheese on them and I was worried that we were eating nachos without cheese, but I think we did find some hidden amongst the chips. The thing I didn’t like about the nachos was that I needed more room! There are so many great toppings to add to the nachos I ran out of room or at least worried the toppings were just going to spill onto the tray. I don’t have much experience with this bar and was in a hurry to get in and get out, so it wasn’t until the end as I was leaving when I noticed the little cups for salsa. Otherwise I might have used my nacho room a bit more wisely. I’ll be sure to add the nachos to my list of good meals for the MK. Can we send out a request to any buffet with sour cream (or anything of similar trickiness to get off of the serving utensil) to add a second utensil to scrape the sour cream off of the first? You have to get a scoop at least 3 times the size you need in order to get enough weight onto the scoop. Then you have to calculate the approximate arm/wrist force needed to glop/splat (depending on the force) a tiny amount of sour cream onto your nachos without touching your nachos with said utensil. Or maybe everyone else notices the little cups and nicely spoons the sour cream in there and can actually wipe the scoop on the side of the cup without worry of contaminating the rest of the sour cream with a dirty scoop. Oh. Maybe that’s how you solve that problem. Perhaps the little cups should be next to the sour cream. Please tell me they aren’t there. I’d hate to say that and then find out the cups were sitting right there the whole time and I didn’t see them because I was too busy thwipping sour cream onto my nachos without any contamination thank you very much.


A look at both nachos.

In general, I have found nachos at a restaurant to be either gargantuan sculptures (featured in many Mexican restaurants), ballpark offerings (hot dog container filled with chips, covered in a ‘cheese sauce’), or really disappointing tapas helpings (5 chips, each chip individually loaded with toppings). Nachos here bring to light the ballpark nacho. With this type, there are plenty of chips, and cheese (yes, DW. Cheese was present). Also, the ground beef makes them a little more substantial. The beef has a nice taco beef seasoning that would make fast food tacos proud. The biggest signature part is that they are served in a small paper bowl, which makes adding toppings potentially problematic. DW did a pro job of loading the nachos up, and they were delicious. We did have to make a concerted effort to dump toppings from some of the early chips to make sure that the later chips could be loaded up, but it was a small price to pay for quantity and quality. The nachos were messy and delicious, and will be the way to go for me at Pecos Bill in the future. The key is to make sure you load your toppings up. As a postscript, my previous go-to food here was the burrito. It is pretty good and pretty big. If chips and cheese are ‘not yo’ style, the burrito is a pretty good (and very shareable) option.


A closer look at one of the nachos.

 

[Gobbles!]

Breakfast:

The kids finished off the donuts and milk in the hotel room. I’m pretty sure there was another “It’s broken!” moment again. After getting to the MK GM was able to grab a true iced mocha from Sunshine Tree Terrace. No picture of that. I made the most of the situation and told GM that we were going to ride the carpet ride while she did that because I knew she wouldn’t miss that ride very much and we could check off another ride on our list. No time wasted!

This is our tricky day. It’s our second MK day. It’s our last park day. It’s V&A day. To top all of that off it’s also Valentine’s Day. So that means careful planning, food wise. For me eating at Victoria & Albert’s is almost like preparing for a marathon, sort of but not really. You have to be mentally and somewhat physically prepared. It’s normally a 7 course menu but on Valentine’s Day they serve only a 10 course meal. You have to be prepared for all of that rich food. If you don’t normally eat a lot it’s going to be tough but you could still do it. As long as you are mentally prepared for each course you can make it through and eat everything. Just like running you have to be physically prepared but there’s also a huge mental part to it too. But all of this starts with what you eat throughout the day. You don’t want to starve yourself during the day then you might just fill up too quick at dinner and then you’ll lose. But you don’t want to eat too much during the day then you’ll be too full starting out and then you’ll lose. I’m not sure if any of the adults got any donuts on this second morning. We might have let the kids finish them. We did have granola bars that we may have eaten. Lunch was going to be important.

Note: when she says it’s ‘rich food’ she doesn’t JUST mean it’s super expensive. This stuff is deceptively filling. You’ll be all “oh, that’s a super small portion!” But by the time you get to the end you will feel the impact. There is an art to this, and the best approach I’ve tried is to make sure you eat small portions throughout the day. That way you never get hungry enough to overcompensate and eat more than you need to before dinner. Once you get there, you’ll want to stretch each course out to enjoy all the flavor, but I suppose we’ll get to that when we do the dining review.


Pinnochio Village Haus:

We’ve eaten here on our last couple of trips and I wasn’t planning on doing it again this trip but DD requested it so we went. As I said earlier flatbreads are pretty big. So we decided to share one flatbread: Caprese flatbread. We also got an order of breadsticks with marinara sauce. DD had macaroni and cheese with a smoothie, apple slices, and apple juice. DS had chicken nuggets, smoothie, apple slices, and apple juice. I’m still not sure why we haven’t learned our lesson on that darn juice. All. Trip. Long. I know for a fact that some of this juice was wasted.


Kid chicken nuggets, Mac Cheese, smoothie, apple juice, and apple slices being whisked out of the picture for immediate opening.

I’m not going to get the caprese flatbread again. For the record I don’t like the pepperoni and, say it with me, I’m not a big fan of sausage on pizza so I’m not going to get the sausage and pepper flatbread. (Side note: I LOVE sausage on homemade pizza. Sausage like Tennessee Pride or Jimmy Dean logs cooked and crumbled on a pizza is amazing. I’m not a fan of the Italian sausage balls found on most pizzas. There’s some spice in that that I don’t care for. I was the weird child growing up that didn’t like pizza because of that same flavor in most pizza sauces. I’m ok with pizza sauce now fortunately, but it made for a rough childhood. I was the 9 year old ordering the salad bar at Mazzio’s pizza. But don’t worry, I still enjoyed playing the TMNT arcade game with my siblings. I wasn’t THAT weird. ) That leaves the caprese. I enjoy the flavors. The part I don’t like is biting into the cheese or tomato slices only to have them pull off in one entire piece from the flatbread. It leaves my face messy and a gaping hole in the remaining flatbread. Sigh. Maybe I can remember to try cutting up the cheese and tomatoes so that they don’t come off in one piece. The breadsticks are basic breadsticks but I liked them. It was just enough food to hold me over. I didn’t want to finish off the kids’ juice because I knew that would be too filling. Thus we ended up chucking them when the kids had enough.


Caprese flatbread


Bread sticks and marinara sauce

I’m a fan of the flatbreads in general. Pretty much anything that is pizza-esque gets my vote of approval. But then again, I was a ‘normal’ child who would eat pizza every meal if it were an option. So there’s that. I do agree with DW about how awful some sausage can be on pizza. When those whole anise (fennel) seed things are in there that take up half of the sausage, it’s a bit awful. As we like to say, “It’s not good when you detect a heavy note of … aynoose” if you know what I mean. But as pepperoni goes, these are pretty good flatbreads. Perhaps a little on the greasy side. The caprese is always a pleaser for me. I take bigger bites, so I don’t pull off nearly as many greens. One of the benefits of having such a big mouth. I’m really a fan of the balsamic sauce on there. If you think it’s weird and you want to avoid that, you should get it to try on the side or something if they do that. It really makes the flatbread good. It has that tangy sweet addition. Like high class barbecue sauce, but without the smoke.

I’m also going to add here that I was, again, very appreciative that my mom was with us to wrangle the kids during meal times. While we were ordering the food she went upstairs (who knew there was upstairs seating at Pinnochios?) to find an open table. While we were still in line I felt a small tap and turned around to find DD5 by herself telling me where we could find our table. I really like that she’s independent and wants to do things on her own. I usually let her do quite a bit on her own but it’s usually during non busy times at our zoo. It was pretty crowded in the restaurant and I was surprised my mom let her find us just to tell us where they were sitting. When she pointed though I understood. I looked up and saw my mom and DS waving at us from upstairs. GM could keep an eye on DD the whole way through the restaurant. I was impressed that she made her way down to find us and then back up with no problems.

DD is so smart and has such a great sense of direction. At least she does when she wants to. As the saying goes, she is way above average. Just like all the other kids.

 

[Gobbles!]

The kids’ dinner:

For those who are curious, we left the park pretty early. We completed everything we wanted to do there and headed out by 3:20. We went back to the Poly to swim for a few hours. Our reservation was at 7:15 that evening. We picked up food to go from Capt. Cook’s for the kids to eat in the room. I don’t have pictures because I was getting ready for our fancy dinner. I think both kids had the hotdog meal with apples and a cookie. I kept a journal throughout our trip to remember some of the details from the day but naturally I never finished writing that last day because I was busy getting ready for dinner and then it was really late when we got back and I was too tired.

Since DS2 is too young and definitely not potty trained we had to hire an in-room babysitter for the kids because all three adults were going out tonight! We’ve used Kids Nite Out for several trips now when we go out to eat just the two of us. They are really great. They’ve handled bottle feeding when DS was just a baby. The sitter arrives with a bag (usually) of fun things for the kids to do. In the past, they’ve had toys and coloring pages. This time was a little different. The lady only brought a book. DD said they watched movies and read the book and that was it. She still had fun. The sitter arrived at 7. I think both kids went to sleep pretty early. So when DD says movies with an ‘s’ she probably just means one, if that. Her normal bedtime is 8:45. DS’s is usually around 8, give or take an hour depending on whether or not he takes a nap. DS actually woke back up an hour before we got there and was still up when we got back. He went to bed a little too early that night and turned it into a nap.

The other odd thing about the sitter this time was her communication. Obviously you leave your cell number in case they need to contact you. No one has every contacted us. I left DH behind to meet the sitter since I had scheduled the sitter so close to our reservation time. I was being tricky and wanted to give us enough time for a 10 course meal without getting into the 6 hour mandatory buy your sitter a meal time. We booked her for 5 hours. My husband made it before our reservation and arrived only 5 minutes after we did. The difference? I hadn’t accounted for wearing high heels. I’m a fast walker, faster than most, with normal shoes on. High heels is another story. I never wear heels so I haven’t mastered fast walking in heels. My mom went bare foot until we reached the monorail. Anyway, DH was left behind to greet the sitter. When he met back up with us I immediately wanted to know everything he said and everything she said. He told me that she would be texting throughout the night with updates. What? Does she know where we are eating? “Yeah, I told her.” Ok. Of course my phone was on silent so it wasn’t a big deal. But I still felt super awkward writing back to her. She just told me when the kids fell asleep and when DS woke up and that he was asking for me. That sort of put a damper on my evening…slightly. Is she saying that so that I hurry back? Or is she just sharing? I don’t need to know that. Anytime he wakes up he asks for me. That’s just added information to make me anxious during a time where I’m not supposed to be anxious. Ah, well. It worked out. We hurried through coffee at the end a bit more than I would have planned because of her text. I think she probably would have felt bad about that if I had told her. I think she’s just someone who wants to tell you everything and she didn’t mean anything by it. Except to let me know that I’m loved and/or missed. That was longer than expected, but that’s the side plot for the evening for those wondering what happens to the kids when the parents go out at Disney.

So, as the more laid back of the two parental units, I generally just hang out while DW discusses whatever needs to be talked about when we leave the children with the Parent Night Out people. In this case, as DW noted, they were worried about making it to the Grand Floridian in heels. I was wearing standard non-spiked shoes, so I volunteered to stay behind and catch up. Fortunately for me, the person coming to watch the children was very early. I believe she showed up around 6:45 for the 7:00 gig. Unfortunately, my lack of having much of anything worth saying possibly led her to believe I wanted more reassurance that she would be fine with the children. So as a result, I was given comforting information for the next 15 minutes, and I had to sprint to the monorail.

When one is waiting for the monorail, one has plenty of time to think about how they should have probably just run all the way over to the Grand Floridian lobby, because it would surely be faster. Fortunately, I got to use the wait time to cool down from my running. When the monorail dropped me off at the Grand, I believe I was 5 minutes early. They suggest you get there more towards 15 minutes early, but that wasn’t too bad. The way you enter V&A in general is that they see you standing around in the Citricos lobby and come out and get you. After I got there, we had quite a bit of time to stand around waiting before they noticed we were out there. I would have felt very late if they had swooped out immediately, looking at their watch and shaking their heads. Moral of the story: built in waits for Disney transportation can be quite helpful. I would have looked awful had I run all the way to V&A, and this way I got to catch my breath and look like a normal human being.

Also, a tip for the V&A gentlemen callers. A jacket is required at V&A. I think they told me the rules had been relaxed a little bit so that now you may take your jacket off at the seat, but that just feels funny to me. I keep mine on. But here’s a fun trade secret: they will provide you with a jacket if you request one. I love a good excuse to wear a coat when it’s 80 degrees outside just as much as the next guy, but I don’t like to pack my own coat in the luggage. It just gets all wrinkly and takes up space. So when I make my reservation (and when they call to confirm the reservation a week out) I mention that I would like to use one of their jackets if possible. They have never had a difficulty in finding one for me, and they have always been very good about estimating my size. As for the jacket, it usually isn’t anything I would wear to a red carpet or anything like that, but it’s dark in there and who cares? I noticed that the jacket I was loaned this time was considerably nicer than the previous jackets I’ve used. This one was a more modern cut, with the kind of unfinished lapel that has really big stitching. I probably butchered that description, but I’m not really into fashion so much. I just know it’s more like the nice suits you see when you go looking nowadays.

 

[Gobbles!]

Up next will be the Victoria & Albert's Valentine's Day dinner review, obviously. However, it's only partly finished, as in just the intro. So it will be another few days before it's ready. Sorry for the long waits. But I promise it is coming! I'll post it in parts as they get written. Mainly just waiting on DH's part.

 

[tigerlilly]

Once again ...great reviews!! Can't wait to hear Victoria and Albert's!!!

 

[Gobbles!]

Once again ...great reviews!! Can't wait to hear Victoria and Albert's!!!

Thank you! Hopefully I'll start posting it in a couple days.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Awesome reviews. Can't wait for V&A's!

 

[Gobbles!]

Victoria & Albert’s:

And now the review everyone, or at least some of you, has been waiting for: V&A’s. As I said before this was a special Valentine’s Day menu which means it’s a 10 course only meal and it’s more expensive than usual. Gotta love holidays at Disney. However this is our favorite restaurant anywhere in the world. Note that is the actual world and not just Disney World. So we know that it will be an amazing meal no matter what and worth the money. I do miss the days of having the Tables in Wonderland card (is that still what it’s called?) and getting a 20% discount in the main dining room. The prices have gone up quite a bit since our first meal here back in 2003 but we still love dining here. Since we flew and only had so much room in our luggage DH just brought dress pants and a button up shirt. He borrowed a jacket from the restaurant. Of all the times we have been here (we’ll just say it’s ‘many’) this was the first time that we went inside the restaurant before someone came out to greet us. I don’t know if we were just too excited to get started or what. I think they were busy pretty busy at the moment and didn’t see us. Usually someone comes out to greet us before we can even get near the door. Since DH was borrowing a jacket we thought we would sneak up and quietly ask for the jacket, instead of waiting for someone to come out, greet us, and then go back in to get the jacket. After the jacket was acquired and we said our hellos to the hostess and Israel we were seated at our table. I was excited to have the purse stool next to me for my phone. In the past I’ve used it for my purse or camera but these days it’s for my phone. My phone is then handy for the important picture taking (and to respond back to the most talkative babysitter ever, sweet lady though).

DW is not kidding about this being our favorite restaurant in the entire planet earth, not just the capital W world. One of the down sides to asking to borrow a jacket is that you feel a little bit silly walking up to V&A without a jacket on. They make a fairly laborious point outlining dress code so that embarrassment can be saved by all parties, so walking up without the jacket feels kind of awkward. Also, if you plan to ask for a jacket when you get there but don’t tell them that, you might get a small lecture about how you will need a jacket and they have one available… if you need to borrow one… because you neglected to bring your own… like you were told to do… several… times… very specifically………

I have come up with the foolproof system of coat borrowing to avoid that lecture (which I have received enough times over the years to know I want to avoid getting). It’s a multi-part system wherein you take any opportunity to mention that you would like to borrow a jacket. This usually solves the whole situation because they will add that note to your reservation. HOWEVER, the situation may arise where they see you (essentially naked in public without a jacket) before they can review your reservation notes. At this point, the move is to be proactive. They will start by trying to establish if you are indeed eating at V&A that night. They ask because Citricos is a fine clothes atmosphere with no jacket requirements, and they don’t want to give you ‘the talk’ about your jacket if you’re not actually dining at V&A. At this point, you immediately answer with a run-on sentence such as, “yes, I’m with DH/DW/GM, party of three, and I was hoping I might be able to borrow a jacket for the evening.” Super simple, and it makes them feel a lot better that they don’t have to broach the sensitive subject of you not wearing enough clothes for fine dining. The greeting you get (with or without showing up in a jacket) has always been a very warm and friendly greeting in our experience. Even when I have been reminded about my lack of a jacket, they aren’t rude or anything. I just feel rather silly showing up sans jacket and knowing that they know that I should know that I need a jacket.

Some people out there will ask the question ‘why do you have to wear a jacket anyway? That’s just pretentious!’ I know a lot of people who think suits are just plain silly and antiquated. But my philosophy is that if you are about to go out for truly high end dining, you want pomp and circumstance AND good food. Together. If you just want good food, there are plenty of fine places to eat. Will they have the best food you’ve ever eaten? One of them will. You’ll never know what you miss if you never have any. If you don’t want to experience the service and the get-dressed-up-ness (clearly not a word, but you get what I’m saying), don’t worry about V&A. Go to Yachtsman, Shula’s, Jiko, or Be our Guest. Their food is really good. Heck, I think earlier I made an argument that you can have a life altering experience eating an eggroll from a food truck in Oklahoma. Good food abounds. V&A has the best food I have ever tasted, and if I were to pick a culinary staff to have a culinary battle royal against anyone on the planet, I would pick V&A every day of the week. HOWEVER, I argue that half of the reason to go to V&A is atmosphere and service, and atmosphere and service is a two way street. You can’t have an atmosphere of ladies and gentlemen in gowns and suits unless everyone actually wears gowns and suits. It’s almost like an interactive art piece where you transcend the everyday hubbub of normal mortal life to become a part of a fine Victorian Dinner. This is the kind of experience you don’t get in the US, except in a precious few (51) places.


Seated at the table.

 

[suse66]

Oh! I can't wait to hear all about your experience! We had the pleasure of dining at V&A's back in 2010 and adored every minute. We plan to go back in 2019 when we go to Disney for our 20th anniversary. It is such an exquisite experience!

 

[Gobbles!]

Oh! I can't wait to hear all about your experience! We had the pleasure of dining at V&A's back in 2010 and adored every minute. We plan to go back in 2019 when we go to Disney for our 20th anniversary. It is such an exquisite experience!

It IS such an exquisite experience. As you know, it's a wonderful place for you to celebrate your upcoming 20th anniversary.

 

[Gobbles!]

We were shown our menus to make sure our names were spelled correctly and to go over what was to come that evening (I think). Quite honestly when I’m having the 10 course meal or dining at the Chef’s table I do not want to know what’s coming. I feel like Anton Ego in Ratatouille…Surprise me! We opted not to get caviar nor the Miyazaki Japanese beef. We’ve never tried the caviar and plan to someday. We’ve had all fashions of Japanese beef at V&A and they are just as amazing as you hear. If you can go for the additional upcharge do it! It’s definitely something to try at least once, especially if you get to have a tasting side by side with the Australian Kobe-Style beef because there is a difference.

The best part about the viewing of the menus is that you see a giant list of food items, and you know you will be eating most of them. When you dine at the regular table, it’s pretty fun deciding between options on each course. I usually make my decision based on some arbitrary ingredient instead of the main protein. I have found that all proteins cooked at V&A are as good as it is possible for them to be, so I instead find myself saying things like “ooh, this one has brussells sprouts! Sign me up for that.” Or “We get to eat hedgehogs! What’s a hedgehog?” The Japanese option is always good and should be tried at least once by anyone who likes beef a whole lot, but the price keeps it from being a regular order add on. Actually, I think even if it weren’t an additional cost I would still rotate around the menu. Half of the fun here is trying new things in a safe environment where you know you’re getting the best version of whatever the dish is. This is where we tried octopus for the first time, which is unheard of where we come from. But it is delicious. If you see it on the menu, it must be tried. However, I digress…


The full menu for the evening.

Moving on to drink orders. We opted to go with the regular old house water which is still a bottled water, not tap water. The wine ordering got a little bit confusing. In the past we have been able to split a wine pairing but we know that that isn’t done anymore. For a 10 course meal we have learned that we cannot each handle our own wine pairing. Trust me on that. So DH and I decided to share a wine pairing. The difference between a split and a share is that the split used to be poured in half pours between two glasses and the share is…you guessed it, we just drink out of the same glass. GM also wanted some wine but not a full pairing. We weren’t sure how to handle this with three people. Our first server suggested a couple of options: picking a glass or two on her own or they could bring out a bubbly, a white, and a couple reds. Or something like that. He said that our other server would help us out with that. The way he offered up the choice of a few different kinds it sounded to us like this was a common thing, however our other server looked at us like we were crazy when we mentioned the bubbly, white, and reds. Before we’ve asked about the favorite pairings of the evening so that we know about the best ones but that really wasn’t translating very well this time. I don’t really know where the breakdown in communication was happening. That wasn’t a very typical encounter at V&A’s for us. But we made it through and my mom enjoyed the 3 glasses of wine that she ended up with. Note that the pairings were just a couple ounce pours and the single glasses that my mom received were full pours. I don’t think I realized that the pairings were lighter pours than if a single glass was ordered. I kind of wonder if that’s always been the case or if they have changed that over the years? I like the lighter pours for being able to make it through all of the drinks but the price tag on the pairing especially for the 10 course pairing is sweat inducing. It’s more money than the Chef’s Table used to cost a few years ago.

The ordering of the wine was by far the most uncomfortable portion of the evening. It consisted mostly of everyone staring blankly at each other, trying to figure out what the communication problem was. This situation would not really have been mentionable except for the fact that it has never happened before. As far as wine pairings are concerned, they are super good when they are done well, and they are done very well at V&A. Our problem is that we want to experience the wine pairing itself, but we have the foresight to know that we aren’t going to handle 8 glasses of wine all that well. Looking at the wine pairing price, we assumed these were full wine pours. In retrospect, I probably would have been ok having the amount of wine we got all to myself. I believe they were half pours. But at the end of the day, all we cared about was trying the wine with the food. You don’t need a whole lot of wine to be able to do that. I’d say if you are a wine enthusiast, you should do a pairing for sure. If you don’t know the difference between shiraz and syrah, it’s still fun to try the flavor interactions with food (like Remy’s food explanation in Ratatouille). If you think that alcohol is the scourge of humanity and the source of all evil, you confuse me. But in that case, skip the wine pairing and just really enjoy the food.

One word of caution about the wine: if you used to drink alcohol, but stopped because of a pregnancy or in solidarity with a spouse because of a pregnancy, DO NOT GET A WINE PAIRING if it’s your first time back to drinking alcohol. It will end badly.

 

[Gobbles!]

On with the meal! We all enjoyed our own glass of Henriot Brut Rose NV for a champagne toast for Valentine’s Day to go with our Amuse-Bouche (uh-moo-zay boo-chay for spelling purposes in my head). Tonight’s Amuse-Bouche was Cauliflower Panna Cotta with American Caviar. This was AMAZING! Apologies because my word choice will not be creative today. I will over use “amazing” a million times. However, this was simply amazing. I’ve had V&A cauliflower panna cotta before and I was super excited to have it again. It is so silky smooth and delicious. A wonderful cauliflower taste with a hint of saltiness from the caviar. The little potato crisps that accompanied it were perfectly crispy and added another hit of flavor. The blade of chive was pretty and added both color and taste to the plate. Bonus, we got pearl caviar spoons to eat this with! I love those spoons. Silver kills the taste of caviar, too metallic, so these spoons are used instead. I think they are pretty but mainly just fun. Don’t worry, I was able to clean the little bowl with my spoon pretty darn well.


Cauliflower panna cotta and Rose drink

Cauliflower is pretty tasty, and as some of you crazy people out there probably know it is a veritable venus of versatile vegetation. You can eat it raw, roasted, or steamed. You can make it into pizza crust, rice, or mash. In this case, it was a panna cotta. In general, I don’t believe cauliflower has so much flavor on its own. It’s more like a cauliflower feeling. This is probably one of the reasons you can do so many things with it and still be able to sneak it in to your child’s diet without complaint. Having said that, the panna cotta we had tonight took the essential spirit of the cauliflower and distilled it so that you can actually taste what cauliflower tastes like. The panna cotta itself is super silky and smooth. So naturally, they throw a few perfectly crispy chips at the amuse to make a textural contrast. These chips by themselves are little works of properly seasoned perfection. I used them to scoop up the caviar and panna cotta into little super taste bites. The caviar added a nice briny counterpoint to the elegant creaminess of the cauliflower. I want to describe this dish as a salty sea captain (the chips) meeting an elegant lady (the panna cotta) and spinning captivating stories of his wife, his love, and his lady (which in this story is the sea, played by the caviar). For the record, in this metaphor the panna cotta is NOT named Brandy. That would be a blatant rip off of the 1972 hit classic Brandy, by Looking Glass. But if you wanted to change the name to Brandy, I’m good with that. If I saw this dish available anywhere ever again, I would likely order it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The chive added a nice oniony complexity to the dish. I would cast it as the drinks that the sea captain and lady were drinking.


Close up shot of the caviar, chive, potato crisps, and panna cotta


How every plate strives to look after a meal...clean.

 

[Gobbles!]

During any meal at V&A’s you will receive three different breads. Two of the breads are always the same and the third varies depending on the time of year you are visiting. The first bread that was brought out is the most important type of bread for getting the last drop of delicious sauce from the plate. It was the French baguette. It was brought out with an unsalted butter. A salt dish was also provided in case you wanted to add a little salt to your bread and butter. Naturally I tried a bite when it first came out and was nice and warm. I tried it with some butter and with butter and salt. It’s delicious both ways. I try to keep some of this bread around for as long as possible to help clean up the sauce I couldn’t get with my spoon or fork.

In the bread world, the French baguette is the electric organ player from iron butterfly. Nobody calls him by name as a superstar, but you couldn’t possibly listen to the performance of Inna Gadda Davida and properly appreciate it without him. The French baguettes that come from V&A are standalone hits in their own right, and would be able to carry any accompanying food items to glory. They have a great texture and excellent absorption for sauces. But they also just taste darn good. This last factor makes it difficult to keep the baguette around for the sauces. It’s one of the many challenges of V&A: bread consumption rate. I think it is a little funny, but also a testament to how good their baguette is that this is the only bread that comes with unseasoned butter. All the other butters have some fancy stuff to add to their accompanying bread. The plainest of the breads doesn’t need all that jazz. It just delivers a steady delicious.


French Baguette


Salt and butter. Naturally we attacked the butter before I remembered to take a picture of the lovely egg shape.

 

[Gobbles!]

The first official course was Loch Duart Salmon with Cucumber and Dill paired with Lail Vineyards Blueprint Sauvignon Blanc, Napa 2014.


The wine. Apologies for the lack of discussion about the wine pairing as it paired with each course. We did not take notes and frankly 10 courses is a lot and a lot to remember with 8 glasses of wine. Just know that each pairing really does enhance the flavor of the food. It can be a magical experience tasting the food on its own and then tasting it again with a bit of well paired wine.


A look at the full plate of salmon.

This dish was colorful! I was trying to avoid flash pictures but I took one for this dish so that all of the colors could really be appreciated. The little cubes of salmon were very tasty. It was a great course to get all of our senses going for the rest of the evening. Splashes of color everywhere and little taste bombs lined up across the plate.


This is the flash picture to give you a better idea of the brightness of the colors. Given it's not the best photo, but decent enough from my phone.


Another angle so you can see the cubes of salmon a little better. I loved the use of flowers to really brighten up the plate. It was really a beautiful presentation.

The biggest thing that stood out about this dish was the plating. I mean, just look at it. This was also a textural smorgasbord. You had the soft salmon with the crisp cucumber, and a crunch from those white meringues. At least I think they were meringues. That went with the creaminess of crème fresh. The slightly tart flavor of the crème balanced the salty notes from the fish. The largest problem with this dish was that the edges of the plate were tough to clean.


The aftermath. I loved the actual plate until it was time to try to get all of the sauce droplets off. Then I really didn't like the plate. However I did my best. This is definitely where the baguette comes in handy to try to get into all of the little craters on the plate.

 

[Gobbles!]

Next up was Alaskan Sablefish with Baby Bok Choy and Coconut Curry Broth paired with Dr. Loosen “Urziger Wurzgarten” Riesling Trocken, Mosel 2013.


This is our third wine of the evening.


The full plate shot of the sable fish.

There was a lot going on in this dish, as with most dishes here. So many different flavors and textures to mix and match. The curry broth was delicious. This was one of those just a hint of curry dishes that blended perfectly with everything. It wasn’t a punch you in the face curry. It was another saucy dish that you need to save some bread to enjoy with it.


You can see that there's a lot going on in this dish from this close up shot. So many different vegetables, flavors, textures, and colors.

So, I am constantly trying to get DW to let me do a curry for dinner. She’s always thoroughly against the idea. Alas, no curry for me. Imagine my surprise and excitement when I found out a curry was happening. It was up there with finding out that Russell Westbrook decided he would score the final 14 points in a game for a dramatic come from behind victory. For context, I am a thunder fan so this isn’t a measure of shock and horror as the opposing team.

Anyway, this wasn’t a traditional curry, but the curry broth was good enough for me. In a traditional curry, everything is cooked in the curry sauce for a long period, giving everything that delicious curry flavor. Here, the food elements were prepared and placed in the broth. It made for a very fresh curry. Tasty tasty. I think I remember this dish being a high point in the dinner. The sablefish is a very meaty fish, and held its flavoring well against the very flavorful curry. Also, there were little pears in the sauce (those white spheres) which tempered the savory. There was a lot of savory to be had in the vegetables. As I recall, this dish was the kind where you could enjoy it completely if there were no curry broth on the plate. But then the Curry broth is there, opening a new dimension to the dish. Very well thought out and perfectly executed.


Tossing in another flash picture for a better idea of the colors.


Clean plate club! Also note the fun fish knife at the top.

 

[Gobbles!]

This next plate was probably the most interesting as far as presentation: New Zealand Langoustine with Nage Crema paired with Maison Vincent Girardin Puligny-Montrachet Vielles Vignes, Bourgogne 2013.


Somehow I missed taking a picture of the wine with this course, but here is the langoustine pre butter sauce.


Close up without the sauce. Such a wonderful presentation.

Ah, langoustine, how I love thee. Langoustine is similar to lobster but has a milder taste, at least to me. I find it more buttery. This presentation was pretty incredible. I think it also wins for the dish with the most inedible pieces that I’ve had at V&A’s, but I think it was worth it as far as presentation goes. Again, all of the little components are well thought out and enhance the flavor of the dish. I could cut a bite of the langoustine off and drag it down a line of the sauce with chives or I could just eat it with the poured buttery, cream sauce. It was fantastic.


Butter sauce added tableside. Mmmm...buttery sauce.

I admit one of the first things I thought when I saw this dish was that it would probably make DD run in terror at the sight of it. At the very least, I imagined I could take the claw and chase her around the restaurant with it. Fortunately for my chances of being allowed to come back, DD wasn’t there. This was a very tasty dish, although as DW pointed out it has an exceptional amount of leftover pieces. I think when I was eating the langoustine, I was wishing there were more of them. I was thinking like a chicken wing setup, except you don’t have to worry about bones. Fortunately for me, it was not a 27 ‘stine setup. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the next course. Also notable, see the funny dots in the bottom right corner of the plate? That is a lime. Seriously. I think they called them finger limes. Super concentrated lime flavor in each little bubble thing. I’d never had or heard of it, but it’s exactly what was needed to balance the buttery sauce.


This is the best I could do minus eating the armored plates of the langoustine.

 

[Gobbles!]

The next bread came out: brioche. But not just any brioche, my favorite brioche. Truffle brioche with truffle butter! We always hope that we are visiting during truffle brioche season. We thought we may have missed it this year, but alas we did not. This is not something you use to soak up sauce. No. When this comes out you immediately spread on a bunch of truffle butter and you eat the entire piece of bread before it gets cold. Not that it’s not any good cold, it is. It’s just so amazing that you won’t be able to set it down until it’s all gone. You may run out of butter, which is a good thing. If you run out of brioche first, go ahead and just eat the rest of the butter by itself. It has truffles in it, you don’t want to waste that. My warning to you: keep an eye on the other people at your table, make sure you get your fair share of butter. Don’t let them hog it. Though I might be guilty of taking too much truffle butter from time to time.


Truffle brioche. Heaven on earth and in your mouth.


Truffle butter. Don't waste it!!

Alright, let’s get this out of the way straight up: brioche is delicious no matter what is in it, or even if nothing is in it. I once tried to make brioche, and determined that it isn’t just tasty; it’s a minor form of magic. I didn’t learn the proper brioche spell, and mine totally sucked. The best kind of brioche on the face of the earth is the kind that includes truffles. You might be able to eat truffle brioche without putting it in your mouth, just by breathing it in a lot. But then you would look like a weirdo so you eventually have to actually eat some. It is super good, and probably should just be written down as a minor dining course because nobody needs to use this bread for anything other than straight consumption with its complimentary butter. DW is right about the butter (I now give a significant glare to DW, who sometimes is the person at the table you need to keep the butter away from). [Oops......my bad.]