Taste of Disney

Our evening had started well, with everyone enjoying our first visit to the Territory Lounge. So everything was going according to my plan, as we were all in good spirits as we checked in at the podium for our 8:00 p.m. ADR at…

We were seated immediately at the table that IMHO is the best in the house…if only it was still light outside. On our last visit here, we had an early ADR (5:30) and I remember thinking that I wished we had been seated at this exact table.

Here is a picture that I took during our last visit, we were seated this time at the table in the corner by the windows.

Though the view was somewhat diminished by the darkness, it was still a nice table. Tucked away in the corner, it seemed to be more out of the way and private…which facilitates the taking of pictures.

We were presented with this menu…

Already knowing exactly what I would be ordering here, I concentrated on the other options, in my attempt to guess what the others would choose. It was about this time that I discovered that after their successful lunch sharing at Whispering Canyon, my husband and daughter had made a pact to share all of their meals during our trip in an attempt to avoid overeating and gaining weight. What??? Isn’t that what a Disney World vacation is all about? OK then, whatever…Miss Benedict and Mr. Arnold. So as they began their negotiations on what to order for their “shared” entree (she wanted the Scallops, he the Pork Tenderloin), I tuned them out and concentrated on helping my son decide what to choose. Soon our server approached our table to take our orders.

Here is how that went down…

I went first…Portobello Soup and King Salmon, of course. No surprises there.

My son next…No appetizer, Chicken entree. Again no surprise.

Then daughter…Strawberry salad and then points to her dad and tells our server that they are sharing an entree (Hmmm, strawberry salad…good choice I’m thinking, as I quickly glance at the ingredients.)

And then comes the big surprise from my husband…

“I’ll have the Portobello Soup and then we will share the King Salmon.”

Wait, what???

Yes folks, all our bets had been placed and nearly all of them were on two items on a menu with 7 appetizers and 9 entrees. My family would not do well in Las Vegas, now would they?

Ok, let’s roll the dice then and see how we did, shall we?

She said this salad was downright boring…heavy on the greens and way too light on the good stuff. And the dressing (ice wine vinaigrette) was of no help, as she referred to it as being pretty much flavorless.

Next for my beloved…

Smokey Portobello Soup with Roasted Shiitakes, Chive Oil, and Sourdough Croutons

Now the first thing I noticed is that they again changed their serving bowl and this time it was not to our advantage.

Ok, I can forgive this, I guess…just glad I hadn’t offered to share with my husband.

But not wanting to negatively influence my husband’s first ever taste of this soup, I said nothing. After a few spoonfuls, he said, “I know you love this soup, but don’t you think it’s rather heavy on the salt?”

Note: You may recall that in my intro I mentioned that a few of my Disney food favorites had let me down on this trip. Sadly, the Artist Point Portobello Soup was the first to make my list of big disappointments.

And so, if you are keeping track, we are now 0 for 2 after the appetizers.

Yes, he ate the entire basket of bread, except for the slice that my husband and I each had. He said it was really good bread.

{FYI, it was their house-made sourdough bread with butter topped with blackened sea salt and some kind of dipping oil, which I didn’t try and remember nothing about }

Surprisingly after 6 slices of bread, he still had plenty of room for his entree…

Slow Cooked Crispy Ranch Chicken, served with Loaded Mash Potato, Caramelized Broccolini, Honey Mustard Emulsion and Poblano Ketchup
His Rating – 4/5
As his rating suggests, he really liked this…with the exception of the broccolini. In his words, “Caramelized or not, broccoli is gross!”

But my hopes for salvaging this meal for the rest of us were now entirely dependent on this entree…

Cedar Plank-roasted King Salmon with Butternut Squash Puree, Baby Fennel, Rapini, and Beurre Rouge

The salmon was delicious as usual…we all loved it, not a bit left on our plates. In fact, my husband was done with his 1/2 share rather quickly and started eyeing the salmon on my plate. Wanting to save a little room for dessert, I caved and gave him probably a 1/3 of my salmon.

But before moving on to our dessert, I need to say one more thing regarding our entree. While the salmon was perfect and deserved the rating of 5, the side dishes which accompanied the salmon this time would probably only rate a 2 or 3. I’m sorry but I just don’t consider puree a bona fide side dish, unless it’s for a baby. I can recall serving up many a jar of pureed squash to my three kids when they were babies…I think maybe one even liked it. Now of course, the Artist Point version was I’m sure much tastier than Gerber’s. The problem here is that it paled in comparison to what was served with the salmon during my last visit to Artist Point.

Mmmm…now that was a great side dish and one that I actually ate, instead of just taking a few bites (or sips since the puree did not actually require the use of teeth).

Ok, in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

So let’s move on now. My husband said he was full and wanted to go back to our room to watch a basketball game so that left the three of us to choose our one shared dessert from this menu…

The only dessert which we were all three able to agree on was the cobbler. However, the deliberations did not end there. Allison wanted to substitute vanilla ice cream for the black raspberry, while Andrew was adamant that we stick with the raspberry. So in the interest of world peace, or Disney World anyway, I attempted to propose a compromise to our server, “Could we maybe have the cobbler with two small scoops of ice cream, one black raspberry and one vanilla?” He gave me an odd look, nodded his head and walked away, only to return a minute or so later to say that we could have the cobbler with either two small scoops of vanilla or the one large scoop of raspberry that it normally comes with. Hmm…I think you are missing the point here. Ok, let me take a different approach…”Do you offer vanilla ice cream as a dessert on the Kids menu?” “Yes”, he replied. “Then bring us the Cobbler dessert (as it is listed on the menu) plus the Kid’s vanilla ice cream dessert.”

And that is exactly what we got…

Artist Point Cobbler with Seasonal Berries and House-made Black Raspberry Ice Cream & a scoop of vanilla ice cream served separately
Our Unanimous Rating 5/5

And in case you were wondering, that scoop of vanilla ice cream cost me $3.00 but was worth every penny since it prevented me from having to choose sides. Allison of course preferred the vanilla ice cream with the cobbler, while Andrew raved about the black raspberry. I told them that I thought both flavors tasted equally delicious with the cobbler, but just between you and me …the black raspberry was the winner here!

So although this meal got off to a shaky start, it ended up being solidly good.