Food and Critters
May. 28th, 2007 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msmemory_archiveTwo themes for our vacation: Food and Critters.
Critters: Dolphin Encounter excursion in Nassau, Swimming with Stingrays at Castaway Cay. Plus lots and lots of birds - the white things with the long curved bills that seem as common as pigeons in Florida, ducks of all sorts, the brown birds shaped like mockingbirds lurking by the lunch buffet in Port Canaveral and on the terrace at Bongo's, red-wing blackbirds watching us eat at Serenity Bay. And even towel origami critters in our stateroom.
Food: Sunday there was a welcome onboard brunch, designed to get as many passengers quietly sitting as possible while they finished tidying the staterooms. Sunday dinner we ditched the main dining room rotation for a four-star dinner in the 4-star restaurant, Palo. I had the grilled shrimp appetizer with white beans and lobster sauce, and the rack of lamb with mustard glaze. Dessert was a chocolate souffle with chocolate and vanilla sauces.
Monday was our day in Nassau, so we had quick grilled panini at Goofy's Galley before going ashore for the Dolphins. Monday night was Formal Night dinner in Triton's, and we finally met our tablemates, Dana the new Master's graduate in Math & Finance, Wesley the cautious schoolboy from Georgia, and their mothers :) I forget what we ate.
On Tuesday, we spent the whole day ashore at Castaway Cay, Disney's private island, with a couple of Conch Cooler drinks and a yummy bbq for lunch. (And I badly sunburned the tops of my feet!) Tuesday, dinner in Triton's again with an unfortunately dry and bland mahi-mahi fillet, the one time I wished I had just gone to the family buffet instead.
Wednesday, our day at sea, we secured reservations again for brunch in Palo. OMG. All you can eat shrimp and crab legs, caviar, lots of little antipasto things like olives and mushrooms and peppers and prosciutto, salads of hearts of palm, fennel, and cucumbers, the expected fruit and rolls and mueslix stuff, eggs Benedict (or eggs Several Other People's Names), beef tenderloin, pasta, champagne cocktails, and then there was dessert after. (!) By the time we got to dinner at 8:30 I was almost ready to eat again.
Thursday they served us breakfast very early and hustled us off the ship. Which turned out all right in the end, since we were able to get to WDW and checked in to the hotel in time to have a late lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine-In at MGM Studios. This was my first encounter with the Blue Glow Tini, a sweet and tasty drink with a flashing ice cube in it (you get to keep the ice cube). We hadn't made dinner reservations in advance, hedging in case something went wrong, and Guest Relations told us there were none available by the time we got to Epcot. So we walked over to China, and said "Can you take a party of two without a reservation?" "Yes, what is your name, please?" I had a Szechuan Treasure "casserole" served in a hot iron pot, with loads of shrimp and scallops.
Friday was yet another foody day. At Downtown Disney, we had lunch at Bongo's Cuban Cafe, out on the terrace overlooking the water. My Chicken Asado was so tender it fell right off the bones; even served an entire half chicken I left nothing but bones. My side dishes were yucca and beans & rice. I was skeptical of yucca, having not had it before, but it turns out to be a bland, slightly fibrous, starch and an excellent vehicle for the intense garlic sauce. We split a side of fried sweet plantains, which counted for dessert too as they had been dipped in honey. That evening, we had dinner reservations at Les Chefs de France, at Epcot, the lesser of their two French restaurants. Tasty, as always, but no longer the impressive and expensive treat we considered it on our first Epcot visit (it hurts to have fancy foodie tastes!).
Saturday, our last vacation day, began with another trip to Guest Relations, which not only had no dinner reservations available for anywhere that interested us, it had no lunches either. So it was takeout Mexican at the little cantina, which had to settle before we could go on either Mission: Space or the Test Track. And dinner near our hotel at Flying Fish, which turned out more upscale and creative than the Legals knockoff I was expecting.
Altogether a thoroughly satisfying vacation, since I'd been looking for restful, good food, and lots of silly drinks - and I got pretty much everything I wanted! When can I go back? Can we afford a longer cruise next time?
Critters: Dolphin Encounter excursion in Nassau, Swimming with Stingrays at Castaway Cay. Plus lots and lots of birds - the white things with the long curved bills that seem as common as pigeons in Florida, ducks of all sorts, the brown birds shaped like mockingbirds lurking by the lunch buffet in Port Canaveral and on the terrace at Bongo's, red-wing blackbirds watching us eat at Serenity Bay. And even towel origami critters in our stateroom.
Food: Sunday there was a welcome onboard brunch, designed to get as many passengers quietly sitting as possible while they finished tidying the staterooms. Sunday dinner we ditched the main dining room rotation for a four-star dinner in the 4-star restaurant, Palo. I had the grilled shrimp appetizer with white beans and lobster sauce, and the rack of lamb with mustard glaze. Dessert was a chocolate souffle with chocolate and vanilla sauces.
Monday was our day in Nassau, so we had quick grilled panini at Goofy's Galley before going ashore for the Dolphins. Monday night was Formal Night dinner in Triton's, and we finally met our tablemates, Dana the new Master's graduate in Math & Finance, Wesley the cautious schoolboy from Georgia, and their mothers :) I forget what we ate.
On Tuesday, we spent the whole day ashore at Castaway Cay, Disney's private island, with a couple of Conch Cooler drinks and a yummy bbq for lunch. (And I badly sunburned the tops of my feet!) Tuesday, dinner in Triton's again with an unfortunately dry and bland mahi-mahi fillet, the one time I wished I had just gone to the family buffet instead.
Wednesday, our day at sea, we secured reservations again for brunch in Palo. OMG. All you can eat shrimp and crab legs, caviar, lots of little antipasto things like olives and mushrooms and peppers and prosciutto, salads of hearts of palm, fennel, and cucumbers, the expected fruit and rolls and mueslix stuff, eggs Benedict (or eggs Several Other People's Names), beef tenderloin, pasta, champagne cocktails, and then there was dessert after. (!) By the time we got to dinner at 8:30 I was almost ready to eat again.
Thursday they served us breakfast very early and hustled us off the ship. Which turned out all right in the end, since we were able to get to WDW and checked in to the hotel in time to have a late lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine-In at MGM Studios. This was my first encounter with the Blue Glow Tini, a sweet and tasty drink with a flashing ice cube in it (you get to keep the ice cube). We hadn't made dinner reservations in advance, hedging in case something went wrong, and Guest Relations told us there were none available by the time we got to Epcot. So we walked over to China, and said "Can you take a party of two without a reservation?" "Yes, what is your name, please?" I had a Szechuan Treasure "casserole" served in a hot iron pot, with loads of shrimp and scallops.
Friday was yet another foody day. At Downtown Disney, we had lunch at Bongo's Cuban Cafe, out on the terrace overlooking the water. My Chicken Asado was so tender it fell right off the bones; even served an entire half chicken I left nothing but bones. My side dishes were yucca and beans & rice. I was skeptical of yucca, having not had it before, but it turns out to be a bland, slightly fibrous, starch and an excellent vehicle for the intense garlic sauce. We split a side of fried sweet plantains, which counted for dessert too as they had been dipped in honey. That evening, we had dinner reservations at Les Chefs de France, at Epcot, the lesser of their two French restaurants. Tasty, as always, but no longer the impressive and expensive treat we considered it on our first Epcot visit (it hurts to have fancy foodie tastes!).
Saturday, our last vacation day, began with another trip to Guest Relations, which not only had no dinner reservations available for anywhere that interested us, it had no lunches either. So it was takeout Mexican at the little cantina, which had to settle before we could go on either Mission: Space or the Test Track. And dinner near our hotel at Flying Fish, which turned out more upscale and creative than the Legals knockoff I was expecting.
Altogether a thoroughly satisfying vacation, since I'd been looking for restful, good food, and lots of silly drinks - and I got pretty much everything I wanted! When can I go back? Can we afford a longer cruise next time?
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Epcot...
Date: 2007-05-28 06:52 pm (UTC)Re: Epcot...
Date: 2007-05-28 11:46 pm (UTC)Re: Epcot...
Date: 2007-05-29 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 02:31 am (UTC)We were drawn there a number of years back after multiple guide books had listed their Choclate Lava Cake as the best dessert in any restaurant in the disney area. I don't know about "best" but it was damn good.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 06:09 pm (UTC)But yes, it's really quite an excellent restaurant: the tuna sashimi/tartare appetizer was small but delicious and intense, and both main dishes were great. And it was so close to our hotel room (in the Boardwalk Inn) that we could put our names in, run back to the room and get dressed in something a little more appropriate well before getting called...