My husband and I just celebrated 20 years of marriage! For our anniversary dinner, my wonderful husband decided to take me to the California Grill at the Contemporary. We intentionally had late reservations so that we could see the Magic Kingdom fireworks during our dinner. There is a long balcony that the fireworks could be watched from if we didn’t have a good table (which we did). This is a Disney deluxe dining experience (so it can be a little pricey).
To start off with, the girls checking us in were very sweet and engaging. Then we were escorted up the elevator to the restaurant on the 15th floor of the Contemporary resort. We stood out on the balcony for the 5-10 minutes that we waited for our table to be ready. The hostess explained to us the way the restaurant dims the lights for the fireworks and that we are welcome to leave our table and go to the balcony if we would like to watch the fireworks from there.
Our waitress came over (her name was Jessica and she was AMAZING) and took our drink orders – we both ordered water with lemon. It’s important to note at this point that I made a comment about not being able to have wine. She came back very quickly with our water and bread basket. The bread was a fresh sourdough served with Sonoma butter topped with sea salt. The simplest way to describe it… Yum!
The cheese tray is 5 different cheeses… and oh so wonderful. I do have to admit that I try cheese platters/trays at restaurants when they are offered. It is one of my favorite things to try at new restaurants. The cheese platter came out with bagel crisps and several other things that I didn’t even remember what all they were right after Jessica told me. Mike ordered a spicy Kazan roll for his appetizer. This spicy sushi dish did not disappoint. It had the perfect balance of heat and sweet.
Now for the only slightly negative for our experience there. At this point, we had to ask to be moved to another table thanks to a family argument going on at the table next to us. The management and Jessica quickly had us moved to an equally nice table so that we could enjoy our dinner.
Oh my, how to describe the entrees? Mike ordered a filet mignon that came with asparagus and mashed potatoes with a teriyaki glaze. The steak was cooked to perfection – moist and tender. I had ratatouille… I don’t even know what all was in that, but it was ever so good! There was zucchini “pasta” on the bottom with red and yellow tomatoes, eggplant, artichoke hearts, and a few other veggies all basted with a tasty yellow tomato sauce.
We decided to pass on dessert. However, we were very pleasantly surprised when Jessica brought a chocolate cake with a chocolate bar saying Happy Anniversary to our table. She also brought us 2 glasses of sparkling apple cider to toast such a memorable occasion.
Overall, this was a wonderful anniversary dinner… and I just might make Mike take me back!
Photo Credit: Loren Javier
