COMPLETE: Live - Beauty and the Feast - September/October 2019

[orlandoamber]

Originally Posted by Tinkermom

Thank you for getting me into the spirt of food planning 😊

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Happy food planning it’s my favourite part of the planning pre-trip!

[orlandoamber]

After a trip to the outlets after Seaworld, we got peckish at around 10.30 and headed to Citywalk for some light bites.

We ended up in NBC Grill where last year we really enjoyed the black and blue kettle chips and Wisconsin fried cheese bites, so we ordered both again, with a coke and pink lemonade to drink.

The black and blue kettle chips are house-made kettle chips, blue cheese crumbles, white queso, applewood smoked bacon and chives.

They are sooo good. It’s almost like an alternative way of having nachos.

The cheese bites are pieces of fried white Wisconsin cheddar served with housemade marinara.

They are small enough that you can have maybe 3/4 at once with the sauce and they’re super fresh and cheesy. You can get a real cheese pull out of some of them!

The bill came to:

We really like it in NBC but think it will mainly be a starter/snack place for us like it was here in future as these small plates are far better than the entrees. Ours were okay when we visited last year but were nothing stand out, and we saw a few burgers being returned which looked almost red inside this time - but it’s definitely a must visit for the smaller plates!

[orlandoamber]

Just waiting for some lightning to pass at Volcano Bay so I thought I may as well update with today’s food so far. We have actually been super lucky with the weather this trip as it’s been glorious sunshine every day, with the only rain last Monday on the night at MK and a little bit today.

This morning we headed to universal studios and IOA for a few hours, sampling a cookies n cream fudge from honeydukes in the Harry Potter area. It was $5.28 including tax.

This definitely beat the butter beer fudge we got last year. It was so good - we finished it super quick between the two of us! Really creamy and definitely tasted like cookies n cream.

We then decided to get the bus to Surfside Inn and Suites, the new Universal hotel, and walked to Giordano’s from there. It took just less than 20 minutes.

They specialise in deep dish pizzas and do a lunch special for $9.95 each which is:

We decided to share everything we got, ordering one deep dish sausage pizza and a deep dish pepperoni pizza. For sides we got a Caesar salad and the garlic Parmesan fries. To drink it was just a water and coke.

This was really, really good. We haven’t had this style of pizza before and we thought it was super tasty. I think I just preferred the pepperoni over the sausage as it was more cheesy. Cheese pull alert!

The sides were also both great. I loved the garlic Parmesan fries.

The bill was:

We would really recommend Giordano’s and the lunch deal was so reasonable! We will be back.

[3disneykids]

When did the cookie place come to Disney? Did I miss it or is it new ?

[orlandoamber]

Originally Posted by 3disneykids

When did the cookie place come to Disney? Did I miss it or is it new ?

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I think the cookie dough truck is only a few months’ old! They do a couple of different cookie dough tacos as a snack credit and individual pots of cookie dough too.

[orlandoamber]

Tonight we went to Teak Neighbourhood Grill. It’s a little bit of a drive off the more well known path, but after our experience we think it is well worth it.

On a Monday they do any of the signature cocktails for $5 including the following:

I went with Strawberry Bliss and W opted for the Cucumber Cooler.

Mine was lovely and tasted strongly of strawberry rather than alcohol which is how I like it. W’s was really refreshing but he described it as tasting a bit like a salad due to the cucumber!

We came here purely for the burgers so although there is an extensive menu of other items, we just focused on this page:

Although it doesn’t mention it on the menu, you actually get a side included in the price so they are really good value.

I opted for The Pig which was a burger patty cooked medium with smoked ham, bacon and pulled pork, topped with white cheddar cheese, onion jam and herb mayo. It was served on pretzel bun. I went for the garlic bistro fries.

Wow... that is all that can be said. The burger was immense! It was so big but I had a good go at it and almost finished it. There were so many toppings and loads of cheese. Highly, highly recommended. The fries were also really good and rich in garlic flavour.

W went for the Drunken Monk which was again a burger patty cooked medium topped with onion jam, roasted cherry tomatoes, smoked bacon, herb mayo, provolone cheese, Teak chips, and melted white cheddar cheese. It was similarly served on pretzel bun. W went for the sweet tots as his side.

I didn’t get to try W’s burger as they were far too messy to easily share (although he had a bite of mine when I was defeated!), but I am told that it was also excellent and the plate was clean incredibly fast! I did try a couple of the sweet tots which were essentially tater tots made with sweet potatoes; they were good but didn’t beat my fries in my opinion.

We both said that the onion jam was a strong flavour on our burgers and really made them taste different to burgers we’ve had before. We really liked it.

The bill came to:

The first I think we’ve seen with only 20% - 25% tip suggestions!

We absolutely loved this meal and it was great to go somewhere a bit different. Thanks to the dibbers who recommended it as we wouldn’t have made it there without you

[orlandoamber]

Today we went to Busch Gardens. We saw that the weather had been quite stormy all afternoon in Orlando, so we were pleased to be in beautiful sunshine in Tampa - until around 4.30 when buckets of water started falling from the sky we are currently sat on the coach back dripping wet! But we had a fab day and did all of the rides, most more than once - it was dead in there!

We aren’t huge fans of the Busch Gardens food but as you’re a captive audience in there, we have no choice but to sample some of it.

Today we opted for chicken tenders and fries with a coke and water from Zagora Cafe first.

These were just standard tenders and fries but were nice and filled a hole.

Later on we went to Dragonfire Grill and from the Asian Wok section we chose a chicken and beef platter with noodles and vegetable spring rolls.

I always like vegetable spring rolls so these were a hit for me, but would’ve been made better with some sweet chilli sauce. The beef and broccoli side of the dish was nice, but neither of us really liked the chicken which turned out to be orange chicken which was really tangy - more of an orange flavour than we’d have liked.

Finally before we left we visited Zambia Smokehouse where we had the Smokehouse Sampler. This was supposed to be ribs, chicken and brisket but for some reason we received a sausage rather than brisket.

The sausage actually turned out to be the standout meat for me - it was really nice. W also enjoyed the sausage and the ribs. The chicken was pretty good too. W actually declared this platter better than the flame tree barbecue one at Animal Kingdom, but I don’t agree!

Time to dry off now before we visit Longhorns tonight.

[orlandoamber]

So last night we got to Longhorns at 9.58 after racing around the outlets picking up some final purchases as it would be our last trip there, including this fab T-shirt for $7.99 from the Disney character warehouse!

They seated us and locked the door behind us as they close at 11 and don’t accept anyone after 10, so keep that in mind if you plan to head to Longhorns later on!

We had a voucher for a free appetiser and opted for the Wild West shrimp.

The portion size of this was huge! They were really good shrimp and had a bit of a kick that was easily cooled by the accompanying ranch sauce. We both really enjoyed them.

As we were both going for steaks, we got a salad which came between the appetiser and entrees. We both opted for the Caesar salad.

This was nice. W loves Caesar salad and cleared the bowl.

For entree I ordered the 6oz Flo’s Filet with the loaded baked potato (it is loaded with sour cream, cheese, spring onions, chives and bacon).

The baked potato was really good but I was a little disappointed with the steak. It was more medium than medium rare as I had requested, and it was pretty much covered in pepper to the point I had to scrape it off. Once I had done so it was much better, just not cooked exactly how I’d have liked. I didn’t say anything as I figured the pepper was just how their steaks came (W’s was the same) and it was late so I didn’t want to quibble over medium rare or medium. Overall it was nice but just not as good as I’d hoped.

W had the 12oz ribeye with mashed potato.

W said his mash was good (I tried it too and it was nice) but he was jealous of my baked potato - he hadn’t read the sides part of the menu properly and didn’t realise it would be loaded! He also enjoyed his steak but rather than medium rare as he had requested, it was more rare. We figured that perhaps both of our steaks had been put on at the same time when W’s would obviously require more cooking than mine so mine ended up a bit over done and his under done. He also had pepper covering his steak but he doesn’t mind a pepper flavour so it was fine for him.

The bill was as follows, totalling $49.82 including tax (pre-tip).

Overall Longhorns was nice and we would give it another go if we were shopping at the outlets but I’m not sure we’d make a trip out especially just to go there.

[dixonsontour]

Love the t shirt, giordanos, teak and longhorn. Drooling.

[tink111]

All your food looks fab! Making me hungry ! Looks you’re having a good trip 😁