Sunday Brunch: Great
Moments with Fine Disney Dining
by Reuben Gutierrez
12 May 2013
This past April has by chance
become a month of fine dining as I've had the
great fortune of eating at a different table
service restaurant within the Walt Disney World
Resort! Luckily I've been working a lot of
overtime, so it's been an affordable and lucky
month of adventures in food. I may use it more
often than I should, but adventures are really
what happen when you sample food in this
wonderful resort. Not only are you enjoying food
from around the world, you're enjoying food in
places from all different places, time periods,
and cultures.

The half curtain window treatments simulate
those found in restaurants in NYC
Our first dining adventure takes
us to an elegant, yet humble, Italian restaurant
that looks as if it's been plucked from the
streets of New York City and placed in
Hollywood. With dozens of celebrity food fans
decorating the lobby and dining room, this mama
and papa run restaurant is
Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano at
Disney's Hollywood Studios. I've had some
excellent Italian food here, but by far my most
favorite item was the Spaghetti and Meatball
Cupcake.

While not the best tasting
cupcake I've had, it certainly is one of the
most creatively deceptive. It looks a lot like a
small cup of spaghetti with a single meatball on
top. The base is a chocolate cupcake topped with
white buttercream. Long strands of 'spaghetti'
are actually piped buttercream (probably created
with a size 3 or 4 round tip for all you pastry
chefs out there) that seemed to be tinged with a
faint yellow. The 'meatball' is a chocolate cake
ball (though my friend Randi and I debated
whether or not it was a brownie or cake) rolled
in a chocolate sprinkle flake coating. The
'spaghetti sauce' is a delicious strawberry
sauce with white chocolate shavings playing the
part of parmesan cheese. In Hollywood, actors
pretend to be someone else, and at Mama
Melrose's, the dessert does just that!

After the previous week's star
studded tour of Italy, my friends and I stormed
the castle and dined with Disney's finest
royalty at the most regal of tables in the land:
Cinderella's Royal Table. In celebration of my
friend's book launch, our trio schmoozed with
princesses, feasted like kings and queens, and
ended our meal happily with a trio of desserts.
The dessert trio was my favorite part of our
meal.

The Chef's Dessert Trio allows
Cinderella's guests to enjoy small samples of
each of the desserts the chefs have whipped up.
Cinderella seems to think her guests need to
have a more worldly palate so she 'sent her
Chefs around the world to discover new
desserts.' While around the world is quite a
broad term, it seems that her Chefs only made it
around the country. The three desserts are a
Strawberry Jam and Key Lime Cheesecake, White
Chocolate Custard, and a Flourless Chocolate
Cake. The chocolate cake was just okay. For a
flourless cake though it was pretty dry,
probably due to an excess of cocoa powder that
may have been used in its place. The White
Chocolate Custard was great, very similar to a
mousse, but a little more like ice cream in
flavor and consistency. The Strawberry Jam and
Key Lime Cheesecake was by far the best. A small
cup of graham crust was lined with the
strawberry jam and the cheesecake baked on top.
I wish I had ordered the full version for my
dessert as the tiny two bite sample was not
enough. Overall, the dessert was a terrific
fairy tale finale to a fine meal.

Leaving the Castle in the
Enchanted Forest, we journey to another kind of
forest, one that is nationally protected to
conserve nature's beauty. Artist's Point at the
Wilderness Lodge takes guests to the Pacific
Northwest to a restaurant decorated with
incredible murals painted by artists who
captured the elegance and majesty of America's
National Forests. Additionally, Artist's Point's
atmosphere is further enhanced by its excellent
food.

The Cedar Plank roasted King
Salmon is the restaurant's signature dish, with
fresh caught Salmon all the way from Alaska.
They actually deliver your filet of salmon on
the cedar plank it was cooked on, proving that
the smoky rustic flavor of the cedar is true. Of
all the fish in the sea, salmon is my favorite,
and no cuisine does it better than the
culinarians of the Pacific Northwest.

Being surrounded by forests, I
found myself pining for the sea, so the
following week brought me across the country and
to the shores of New England at Yachtsman
Steakhouse in the Yacht Club Resort. An elegant
dining room with nautical elements in both d'cor
and architecture, Yachtsman Steakhouse offers an
incredible selection of beef. Though today,
we'll be looking at another offering: the
Artisanal Cheeses.

This week I was joined by our
favourite Canadian Dining Companion Alex, whose
favourite food is cheese. Naturally the cheese
plate had to be ordered, and after all my cheese
sharing meals with Alex, I think this one has to
be the best of them all. Five different seasonal
cheeses were each paired harmoniously with five
different accompaniments ranging from breads,
spreads, and pickled fruits. My favorite was the
Vermont Creamery Bonne Bouche, a 'good mouthful'
of creamy young cheese, highlighted with a
citrusy flavor, which was enhanced with pickled
blueberries. Blueberries and dairy are always a
perfect pair and the characteristics of the
Bonne Bouche and the blueberry complement each
other very well.

Family and Friends share a meal at Kona
From the shores of North
Atlantic we sail around the world to the
tropical seas of Polynesia where we end our
month of fine dining at the incredible,
delectable
Kona Caf' at the Polynesian Resort.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I love the Kona
Caf'. It is the underdog restaurants of the
Polynesian as most guests flock to the Spirit of
Aloha Dinner Show or the popular family style
buffet 'Ohana. The night we ate here, we
actually tried to get a walk-up reservation at 'Ohana
for my friend John's birthday dinner, but alas
its popularity changed our plans and we
journeyed to the greatest consolation prize of
them all: Kona.

Kona boasts delicious entrees
with Asian and Pacific Island influences. I
ordered the Pan-Asian Noodles, a blend of
Yakisoba Noodles in a ginger-garlic sauce with
chicken and Wok-seared vegetables. This is a
rich man's Ramen. While not expensive by any
means, Kona's Pan-Asian noodles were the
freshest stir fry and noodles I've had in a long
time. The tangy ginger and strong savory garlic
accent the vegetables and chicken with a strong
contrast to each ingredient's natural flavor.
While we didn't get a chance to share a
seemingly endless meal at 'Ohana, my friends and
I were completely satisfied with the surprise
Polynesian meal we didn't expect to have.

April is the absolute perfect
time to visit Walt Disney World. The weather is
beautiful as the humidity has not yet set in,
but the ocean breezes continue to sweep the
state under the cheery Florida sun. Though the
best part of this season is the crowds of Spring
Break have already gone and the ones for the
summer season are no where in site. Low crowds
means it is quite easy to get into restaurants
(except for'Ohana) without having a months in
advance reservation. For each restaurant my
various friends and I had dined at this past
month, the reservation was made either a few
days in advance if not the day of, aside from
Cinderella's. Even still, Cinderella's Royal
Table requires months to almost a year in
advance reservation, and we were quite lucky to
snag one merely two months before. April has
proven to be an incredible opportunity to try
delicious food and venture to places around the
country, the world, and our imaginations.