Foody Forty in Florida - Nov/Dec 2018 - COMPLETE!

[00swan]

Brilliant - have loved reading your report - thank you

[YLL]

Originally Posted by Wordsworth

Day 11

Today was V&A day.

We started the day at Animal Kingdom, where (after FPing the safari ride) we had a FP for FOP. We really enjoyed this ride, although again I wouldn’t wait in the standby line for it (and I say that as the kid who waited in line for Splash Mountain for more than 2 hours in the heat of July after that ride opened!).

I’m a little ahead of myself though as after the safari ride, we first decided to head over to the Yak and Yeti local cafe for breakfast and spent 2QS credits on:

Canadian Bacon English Muffin - Eggs, Smoked Gouda, Canadian Bacon on a toasted English Muffin with Hash Brown Bites.

and

Breakfast Burrito - Eggs, American Cheese, Chorizo, Peppers and Onions with Hash Brown Bites.

The muffin was better than the burrito; the burrito wrap was pretty unpleasant and none of the spicier flavours came through. As DH doesn’t really enjoy hash browns but I never met a potato I didn’t like, I ate most of those.

After riding FOP we started to walk back over towards Asia, as we had a FP for the River Rapids ride. This was just as well as it was much busier than it had been on the recent cold day, when unsurprisingly no one wanted to ride! As I could still feel the grease in my mouth from the burrito, we decided a refreshing treat was in order. We used 2 snack credits on:

A dole whip (Mine) and a Mickey ice cream sundae (DH). I think mine was better; DH gave me one of the cookies but it was cold and hard.

I have a feeling that after Kali we grabbed a FP for Dinosaur, and then called it a day and headed back to the WL. There I decided I wanted to try a treat I’ve seen a lot on here:

The magic cookie bar! It was really magical, so much so that DH asked if we could spend all of our remaining snack credits on these!

We got ready for V&A and got our pic taken in front of the WL Christmas tree. We decided to take a Minnie van across to the GF since we didn’t fancy the boat or bus in our gladrags (my hair would have frizzed terribly LOL) and (once i’d worked out how to use the app) this was quick and painless. We had a lovely driver and chose to tip him in cash as we’d read that tips through the app took a while to reach them. The cost via the app was just over $20.

Onto dinner in the main dining room; we were presented with our personalised menus and the format of the dinner explained. I will say that they do come across as a bit obsessed with explaining the price of the meal - it’s in the email you get a week or so before, they go through it again when they call to confirm and then the waiter explains it again when you arrive. I don’t know if they’ve had issues with people arriving and not understanding the pricing of the meal, but we thought it was a bit unnecessary.

We already knew we would do the wine pairing, as I really enjoy those experiences, and having reviewed the additional courses and heard the waiter’s description of them, we decided to both add the turbot. DH loves fish so was excited about this.

This is where the V&A didn’t live up to the standard I expect of a fine dining restaurant - the waiter reappeared at our table two minutes later to tell us there was no longer any turbot. He admitted he was embarrassed about this and I can understand it - for me, rather than personalising a menu with my name, I’d prefer that you can supply the dishes on said menu! We were also not exactly dining late, so for them to have run out...not great in my opinion.

With that complaint out of the way...onto the food pictures!

The langoustine amuse Bouche put us back on track - the flavours of this really popped in your mouth. I particularly liked the hit of lime.

The bison dish disappointed us both - the carpaccio-style bison was so thin that you couldn’t really taste it at all; in fact the horseradish cream seemed to overpower everything else on the plate.

Bread served with salted butter; who wouldn’t like this?

This was easily the dish of the night. The cod and scallops were cooked perfectly and that cheese sauce had amazing flavour. (The fact the fish course was our favourite made DH even more annoyed about the missing turbot!)

Bonus dish - in all honesty I can’t really remember this one now, but I do remember being disappointed that what looked (at first glance) like a sprout wasn’t a sprout!

Second bread course and the truffle butter was another highlight - they removed this before the third bread course and DH was devastated.

The quail was cooked well and I particularly enjoyed this course.

Again the pork was cooked well but I wanted more wow! from the topping; I also felt that for my tastes the proportion of pineapple to pork was out of balance.

Third bread course and RIP truffle butter, we miss you.

The beef dish was another winner - the meat was melt in the mouth tender and the chimmichurri sauce was really delicious!

The Stilton cheesecake was an interesting way to present a cheese course; I liked it but I think I prefer having a selection of cheeses.

Tea please; we’re British! I had the Mad Hatter blend (no milk) and really enjoyed it. There was a restaurant in Edinburgh that used to serve a soup course in these contraptions and it was fun to see it in action again.

Bonus chocolate dessert course (with my already tasted paired port in show). In all honesty the dessert course at a fine dining restaurant is generally never a highlight for me, and the V&A was no different. This was just ok.

For my thoughts on the maple chiffon dessert course, please see above comments on fine dining dessert courses!

Chocolates to finish - I selected raspberry and praline while DH chose raspberry and mimosa. I think we could have taken these away with us as I saw others around us leaving with a paper bag. We were just given our menus in an envelope (and I received a rose).

And that was the Victoria and Albert! What did I think?

I enjoyed all the courses served, some much more than others, but on final review it didn’t live up to the expectations I had. It may be that these were too high; I have been fortunate to do a fair amount of 1 and 2 star dining around the UK and the world, and this experience didn’t match up to that - which is frustrating on two levels.

(1) I do firmly believe that non-starred fine dining experiences can be equally as good if everything is done well, and
(2) the cost of this meal exceeded the cost of any of those other meals, and by quite some way in some cases.

I’m glad I did the V&A and I did have a great evening, but I feel my curiosity has been satisfied and I wouldn’t feel the need to do it again. For US fine dining I’d rather return to the Gramercy Tavern in NYC and do the tasting menu and wines there; we did that in the summer and it was fabulous.

I hope this isn’t too controversial - it is just my opinion!

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Completely agree - when I dined at V&A it was fine but far from mind-blowing, and at this price, it should be! I enjoyed dinner at Flying Fish, Monsieur Paul or Yachtsman much more, for instance.

[Wordsworth]

Originally Posted by 00swan

Brilliant - have loved reading your report - thank you

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Thank you for reading it! I enjoyed writing it.

Originally Posted by YLL

Completely agree - when I dined at V&A it was fine but far from mind-blowing, and at this price, it should be! I enjoyed dinner at Flying Fish, Monsieur Paul or Yachtsman much more, for instance.

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Yes, every dish at V&A needs to be a wow! I still enjoyed dinner there but definitely got more enjoyment per $ elsewhere.

Flying Fish was on my list, but I decided to go with Narcoossees on the seafood front. Maybe at some future point I’ll try FF!

[theCMG]

Thanks for the report, it's a great read

[wilma-bride]

Great report, thanks for sharing. I was there for some of the time you were, towards the beginning of your trip, and those cold days we had were awful. So disappointing about your experience at California Grill. I had been considering it for our 15th Wedding Anniversary meal this month, but having read your experience, that has somewhat pit me off. I think we'll stick with Yachtsman.

[Wordsworth]

Originally Posted by theCMG

Thanks for the report, it's a great read

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Thanks for reading!

Originally Posted by wilma-bride

Great report, thanks for sharing. I was there for some of the time you were, towards the beginning of your trip, and those cold days we had were awful. So disappointing about your experience at California Grill. I had been considering it for our 15th Wedding Anniversary meal this month, but having read your experience, that has somewhat pit me off. I think we'll stick with Yachtsman.

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Just don’t order a drink at the Cali Grill bar and you’ll be fine!

I’ve never realised Disney might hand out handwarmers at dessert parties before; the weather was so up and down the whole time.

[collybird]

I’ve added quite a few of your eateries to my off-site dining wish list.

Your scallops dish at Narcoossee’s looks and sounds delicious; I’ve never tried gnocchi but I love heavy sauces, mushrooms and scallops so I’d be all for giving it a try. In my experience Disney never get halibut right, very disappointing. Watching the MVMCP made for a lovely ending to your evening though.

You had much better luck at Tiffins than we did, I absolutely should have ordered the steak and lobster dish, and the mushroom soup sounds fantastic.

My mouth is watering at your Yachtsman review, we had a wonderful meal there last year and I would consider paying OOP for it.

I was disappointed by your breakfast at Yak & Yeti as it sounded very nice but neither dish looks enjoyable.

Getting a Minnie van to the GF for your V&A meal was a great idea, a lovely relaxing way to start the evening. The repeating of the pricing at V&A would have made me feel so awkward, I’d get paranoid they were insinuating I looked like a pauper and couldn’t afford to eat there. Very disappointing for them to run out of the turbot, you are right, that should not be happening at a high-end restaurant, and it is embarrassing for the waiter to have to deliver that news. I really enjoyed your review, it’s somewhere I’d love to try in the future, it’s disappointing to hear it didn’t live up to the price tag though!

What a fiasco at California Grill, how embarrassing for you, the entire night would have been soured for me. I am glad to hearing your credits were refunded, but saddened to hear Disney didn’t have the courtesy to call when they said they would.

I loved seeing all the pictures of your festive goodies.

Oh, you must do Food and Wine, it is wonderful!

Thank you for sharing, this was a wonderful report!

[Wordsworth]

Originally Posted by collybird

I’ve added quite a few of your eateries to my off-site dining wish list.

Your scallops dish at Narcoossee’s looks and sounds delicious; I’ve never tried gnocchi but I love heavy sauces, mushrooms and scallops so I’d be all for giving it a try. In my experience Disney never get halibut right, very disappointing. Watching the MVMCP made for a lovely ending to your evening though.

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As much as I loved WL and RPR, I did miss our offsite dining faves. I can’t believe I never made it to Denny’s for breakfast and I only went to Chili’s once.

I love gnocchi but then I think I’ve made my position on potato clear through this report!

You had much better luck at Tiffins than we did, I absolutely should have ordered the steak and lobster dish, and the mushroom soup sounds fantastic.

My mouth is watering at your Yachtsman review, we had a wonderful meal there last year and I would consider paying OOP for it.

I was disappointed by your breakfast at Yak & Yeti as it sounded very nice but neither dish looks enjoyable.

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I’m pleased we went to Tiffins in the end as I really liked it, but I think Yachtsman was ultimately the best Disney table service meal in terms of my enjoyment.

Getting a Minnie van to the GF for your V&A meal was a great idea, a lovely relaxing way to start the evening. The repeating of the pricing at V&A would have made me feel so awkward, I’d get paranoid they were insinuating I looked like a pauper and couldn’t afford to eat there. Very disappointing for them to run out of the turbot, you are right, that should not be happening at a high-end restaurant, and it is embarrassing for the waiter to have to deliver that news. I really enjoyed your review, it’s somewhere I’d love to try in the future, it’s disappointing to hear it didn’t live up to the price tag though!

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I wish now I’d got a picture in front of the Minnie van but it just didn’t occur to me.

The weirdest thing about the turbot was that it appears to have been on the menu for a while, so it’s not that it was even a one night only special!

Re the pricing, I can only think past guests have perhaps expected signature-level pricing and been surprised.

What a fiasco at California Grill, how embarrassing for you, the entire night would have been soured for me. I am glad to hearing your credits were refunded, but saddened to hear Disney didn’t have the courtesy to call when they said they would.

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I think we all have the expectation that Disney is always going to be magical, so when it falls short it’s so disappointing.

I loved seeing all the pictures of your festive goodies.

Oh, you must do Food and Wine, it is wonderful!

Thank you for sharing, this was a wonderful report!

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I really want to do Food and Wine now, but I think it’ll be a couple more years yet. Thank you for reading!

[Rescuer]

Your report was fab, loads of delicious looking food. I have always fancie V&A, its a shame it wasn't quite up to its hype, imagine a place like that running out of something...

Your experience with the CM at California Grill was shocking, I would have been seething, its a shame it upset you so much and spoiled your night. We only had one encounter this trip with an obnoxious cast member and I too put in a complaint.

Not great about the connecting flight with BA, we haven't had that issue with them (touch wood) but at least I know what to look out for now. We have our next 2 flights booked with them.

[Wordsworth]

Originally Posted by Rescuer

Your report was fab, loads of delicious looking food. I have always fancie V&A, its a shame it wasn't quite up to its hype, imagine a place like that running out of something...

Your experience with the CM at California Grill was shocking, I would have been seething, its a shame it upset you so much and spoiled your night. We only had one encounter this trip with an obnoxious cast member and I too put in a complaint.

Not great about the connecting flight with BA, we haven't had that issue with them (touch wood) but at least I know what to look out for now. We have our next 2 flights booked with them.

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Thanks for reading! From your report I think we have quite similar tastes

On BA, the key thing is logging into the website after a change and checking you can see your e-ticket. If you can, you’re grand; if you get an error give them a call! We always fly indirect with them though and it’s usually fine, not sure what’s been happening recently.