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25 Years to Life Trip!


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Boots on the ground at MCO! Got a text that the room is ready, can go straight to the 90's bldg, 4th floor! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have never claimed to be an expert on anything.  I don't know much about beer, heck, I don't even drink... but someone explain to me why there are all of these empty bottles displayed at EPCOT?    

Awesome food pics Dan! Great family and fiend pics also. One of the beers in your beer pic is Bell's Oberon. Deliciousness in a bottle, brewed here in Michigan. Even better on tap. http://bellsbeer.c

So, where were we? The salt! The different salts were provided to complement the unsalted butter provided for these little beauties:

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Baked fresh daily. Got to watch one of the chefs kneeling the dough by hand for tomorrow's breads. Chef Eric is the bread and pastry chef, the one featured on TV making the gingerbread house.

Got to meet Chef Amee. She is the assistant to Chef Scott, the guy in charge who was not there last night. Chef Amee convinced Nancy to try the lamb, but made her dish with pork instead and provided a little side dish with the lamb as a taster:

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The lamb, served under a smoke filled dome for flair, I missed getting the dome:

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The lamb was delicious and very tender. Each piece was maybe about the size of a Ping pong ball, just a sample compared to a normal meal of one large entree. But we knew in advance that this was going to be ten courses, with items we would not normally try. Like lamb. Nancy had only tried lamb once before and did not enjoy that meal at all, not as soon as we entered the home and caught the scent. Well, she tried this and still didn't like it. I thought it was great.

Our second course if bread was a herb bread, sort of like a sweet bread or banana bread with fresh herbs and herbed butter. I like all breads and this was really tasty:

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A photo of Nancy standing at the viewing rail with the kitchen in the background. This is an area that used to be a walkin cooler and small office space for the chef:

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And Chef Angel preparing octopus:

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We didn't get to try the octopus, and I'm OK with that! I have had lots of fried calamari that was prepared well, and some calamari in a pasta dish (was like rubber bands), but I have never had octopus.

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Next up on the list was a Maine sea scallop prepared with a cream sauce with fennel. I'm not a huge fan of fennel, but figured that if I was to ever have it and like it, this would be the place. Nancy and I talked about some of the items we probably would not try, fennel was on my list earlier in the day as was sweet bread. Both of these were on the menu and I decided to "put on my big boy panties" and gave them a try.

This is a photo of the scallop (yes, one) in a scallop shell with the fennel sauce over the scallop and contained in the shell. The dish was carved from salt, with a bed of fennel infused salt used to generate an aroma to supplement the dish:

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It was really good and I loved the cream sauce with fennel.

Next up was a visit from Tom who prepared our poached egg over ravioli dish. Nancy enjoyed learning about how they created the corn foam topping over this dish.

Chef Tom:

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And the egg, ravioli, corn foam, polenta thing a ma jiggy dish:

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Another view after opening it:

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Next up we had a serving of veal, mini carrots and a pea soup/foam dish served with truffles and some other crumbled mushroom (I should have taken notes). Oh, and nestled on top of the veal is a smoky little piece of sweetbread to try.

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Another angle of my dish:

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The veal was excellent, really tender and flavorful, the pea dish was good, but I don't know if I could pick up the flavor of the truffle.

A close up of the carrots that were very sweet and fresh:

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So, the sweetbread - initially I really appreciated the texture and flavor of the crispy edges. Very smoky and texture like bacon so what's not to like? But as I continued I just couldn't bring myself to eat the whole thing. The texture of the center, combined with knowing what it was, just couldn't do it.

At this point we were allowed a break. We had been in the kitchen for two hours and still had two more to go! I had to put my jacket on again as we were escorted through the kitchen, out through the V&A dining room and allowed to wander the lobby of the Grand. We went to listen to the band:

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And enjoyed the view:

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Another angle:

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This will have to be my next break on the post, have to return the rental car and head back to get out to a water park!

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After taking our stroll and checking on the kids, we returned to the next course of slow roasted Kobe beef short ribs and filet. This was my personal favorite, served with a tomato based sauce that had been simmered for four days to turn it into a gravy:

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And another view:

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Melt in your mouth texture and great flavor. This came with a potato and shredded beef, cheese ball as a side.

Then we got coffee and tea with style:

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The tea:

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And for dessert:

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That is the first course with white chocolate, a dark chocolate ribbon and a dark chocolate mouse tipped with a 24 carat gold leaf flake on the top:

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We didn't eat the gold, although they said we could!

You would think one dessert course would be enough, but two is better!

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With this, we got to say our good byes, pay the bill (I've only paid that much once before when there were 12 other people and work was picking up the tab). It was fun and an experience we had talked about for years. Apparently, this is not an easy reservation to get and we were told that our travel agent must be very good. I would agree!

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Oh, I love all the V&A pics!  The Chef's Table really looks like it takes a "regular" meal at V&A (if there is such a thing) to an all new level.  Everything looked amazing but I really like seeing about all the interactions you had with the various chefs.  And corn foam?  I must have that one day.  And all those desserts.  I'm dying.

 

Y'all both look great.  Glad you had such an amazing dinner.

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If you're gonna eat a bar-b-que sammich in the south, then you have to dump that cup of slaw onto the meat and let the juice dribble down the back of your hand!  :parrot:

 

Hmmm ... I don't know about that.  If you have barbecue in the south, doesn't it need to be barbecue slaw instead of coleslaw?  At least in Lexington it does.

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Wow Dan,  that may be a meal report never duplicated.   Thanks for sharing, and kudos for booking it and going outside your comfort zone on some of those dishes.   You guys looked lovely all dressed up.   This trip will be hard to beat in the future for you.

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Very interesting coincidence - the big surprise of the day yesterday was to meet two other families who are close friends of ours and they had arranged for the vow renewal ceremony. The coincidence was that the chapel was directly across the street from the Abracadabra ice cream shop in Old Kissimmee! Anyhow, the ceremony was very nice, Nancy shed tears of joy, and we all headed out to dinner at O'Hana. Our chariot: uty3eqav.jpg Our friends at the chapel: unepe6um.jpg At O'Hana!: 5eme7u8u.jpg Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow that's great!!

 

Nice ride, awesome vowel renewal, and O'h'an'a?  That's what I call a good day tater!!!!

 

WBI

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I would have done the dine and dash.

I was tempted. But they put us at the back of the kitchen and those guys know how to use a knife!

By the way, not having multiquote option on Tap-a-Talk SMB. Switching to Safari.

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You didn't like the sweetbread?

I thought you said you liked all breads.

I thought you were smarter than that. Lol

Can't wait to see the rest of your meal. If it tastes as good as it looks you guys had a fabulous meal.

Also you guys look fabulous also.

Thanks, I had to get a new suit for this trip, the last suit kept shrinking while in the closet. Used to fit pretty good about 10 to 15 years ago :-)

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