When dining at The Coral Reef, she and my mom ordered the mushroom soup as an appetizer. The soup was served cold. Upon questioning, the bowls were removed, and replaced with hot soup.
The only downer meal was breakfast at the Caribbean Beach Resort food court. It seemed like they cooked the food the night before and left it under heat lamps.
I do find it odd that there is a dish (chicken caeser salad) can be inconsistent from one restaurant to the next. One would think there is a SOP for a lot of dishes.
PS: For anybody wondering how I've been so many times - I live in Orlando and half my friends are College Program.
We have had some good meals at table service restaurants (the ones you can still get into) and in fact I find Raglan Road is now one of my favorite standbys. Usually a short wait, great food, great beer and entertainment to boot.
I won't go there again.
At EPCOT, we really enjoyed the large restaurant in China when we visited last Christmas. Not a huge menu, but what we got was delicious.
On my last trip (one year ago):
On our first night, we were supposed to eat at Teppan Edo. Although not adventurous, we experienced the restaurant in 2003 and the food quality was good, reasonably portioned and priced, and the experience was a lot of fun. However, I booked the reservation using Disney's online reservation system, which was new at the time, and encountered problems once we arrived. They phoned our room and told us the system had experienced an error and overbooked the restaurant. They neglected to tell us this until the day of our Epcot visit despite that I made the reservation three months prior. What they should have done is given us a comp at another available restaurant. What they did was... nothing. No other Epcot restaurants were available that evening, which screwed up our trip as we had planned to experience the fireworks followed by dinner, then Extra Magic Hours. Instead, we had to eat outside of the park and experience the fireworks another night. That is some weak food service.
That night, we ended up eating at Raglan Road. My full report is here, but the gist of the review is that the food is very good, the beer is even better, and the entertainment takes the cake. Excellent service, too. We had a gorgeous waitress that had a taste for good food and beer. My kinda girl. For my money, the best place to eat and/or drink in Downtown Disney, and the quality has remained consistent over my two visits.
We experienced the Spirit of Aloha show the following night. My full review is here. The food was surprisingly good (though the chicken was dry), the show was decent, and the service was excellent. We more than made up for the steep $60/person charge in food and drinks. Overall, a very worthwhile experience if you're with a rowdy group, though I'd only do it once.
We tried lunch at the 50's Prime Time Café in Disney's Hollywood Studios. This place is really hit-or-miss. The food was passable on two separate visits, our server was fun and excellent on our second trip but bland and inattentive on our first, and the milkshakes were excellent on both occasions. I'd rather eat at the Prime Time, Brown Derby, or elsewhere.
On a side note, did Disney screw up their grammar on this one? I do believe it should be '50s Prime Time, not 50's Prime Time. Robert - can you help me on this one?
Opting for something a little quieter, we tried this year's winner of TPI's Best Theme Park Restaurant award, Bistro de Paris. The pricing was what you'd expect at a Disney table service restaurant, which is surprising considering the quality this place offers. In terms of food, I actually enjoyed my meal at downstairs' Les Chefs de France better. However, the atmosphere is much more serene at Bistro, which is a nice respite after a day of sensational overloading. You won't find strollers or wife-beaters here. The service at both restaurants is professional, friendly, and attentive. Plus, the chef slipped our table some free samples of his latest dish. Nice touch.
We ended our trip at Biergarten, which has been a hit on three separate occasions, even with a vegan. I've never been too impressed with the food, which is somewhat bland, but the beer selection and entertainment are excellent. The price is right, too.
I am suprised in the Sunshine Food Fair due to me liking it immensely, but it was for breakfast.
DLR needs to have better food, less food options and chances. They have also had 55 years to iron out the wrinkles. :)
If you've had a bad experience like the hair in the food, I would definitely write a letter about it - these are things that, like you said, they happen but shouldn't. Disney should be way more careful about that and accomodating when they make the error (and take it off the bill at least!).
I think the problem is trying to compare "Sit down dining" and "quick service" i work at Rainforest(AK) and i would never expect food from the Electric Umbrella to be as quality as ours..but i can understand being upset with a $10 plate of crap
Come to the Rainforest Animal Kingdom and ask for Big Ben...i got you :)