Be Our Guest, Part 2

(This is part two of my Be Our Guest dining experience, for part one, which includes appetizers, drinks, and more restaurant pictures, please click here.  For more pictures of Be Our Guest, please visit my dining picture library on Flickr).

Remember how I said before that the menu initially struck me as somewhat uninspired?  Turns out, I'm an idiot.  I should have expected a place this grand wouldn't stop short of perfection when it came to their food.

Dinner came out and was completely well-timed, we'd finished our cured meats and our French onion soup, and we'd fallen in love with the ambiance, and then the food.  But when we saw dinner?  I think all of us around the table had our minds blown.  The simplicity of the plating didn't take away from the pure elegance of the individual meals...  Everything looked utterly succulent.  And I know this is going to be really bizarre to even mention, but this is one of the few restaurants I can think of where you can actually smell, like really smell, the food as it's being served to you.  Again, call me insane, but Disney is one of those places where everything has a smell, and I mean this in totally a good way...  I once spent an extra 5 minutes in a mall bathroom because the smell of the soap reminded me of Soarin, so I do genuinely mean I love all the smells around Disney...  But sometimes, no matter how great the meal, the scent of the environment overcomes the fragrance of the food...  For example, Rainforest Cafe, T-Rex, Sunshine Seasons, Garden Grill, Everything Pop...  All have decent enough food, but all very aromatic places in and of themselves.  The smell of your food just kind of gets lost in the general aroma of the environment.  Not so at Be Our Guest, though.  As the food is served, the savory deliciousness of a fresh, warm, incredible meal is in the air and it hits you like a wave.  It's so wonderful to get a meal and just to be able to take in every aspect of it before taking that first bite.

I ordered the famous sauteed shrimp and scallops, served in a puff pastry, and topped with a creamy lobster sauce.  Being from New England and a frequent visitor to the Maine coast, I won't lie...  I'm kind of a seafood snob.  I know how I like it and, even at Disney, more often then not, if I order seafood I either find it to be simply OK, or just not good.  While the shrimp was ever-so-slightly overcooked, the scallops were these perfect, buttery little pillows that I couldn't get enough of, and the lobster sauce was divine.  Even the puff pastry was crunchy, buttery without being oily, and not liquid logged as I was so worried it would be when served with a cream sauce.  The purist on me has a hard time getting on board with carrots (which were very close to raw) and spinach that were mixed in and I'd have liked maybe a little more sauce, but overall the dish didn't disappoint and it certainly has earned the hype it has generated.  The portion size was appropriate, not so much that I felt stuffed (because you know I ate the whole darn thing), but not so little that I felt cheated out of a good dinner.

The same could be said of everybody's meals, though I have to say the rotisserie Cornish hen and the strip steak were real stunners.  If I hadn't enjoyed my dinner as much as I did, I think I would have regretted not getting the Cornish hen.  The seasoning was out-of-this-world and it was so juicy and tender, the skin was to die for.  Served with fingerling potatoes (perfectly done) and asparagus (simply steamed...  Nothing fancy here), as well as a gravy that, if we weren't out in public, I'd have probably eaten by the spoonful.  The seasoning and the spice was so unique...  Cinnamon, maybe?  But it paired so beautifully with the hen.

The steak also did not disappoint...  It was cooked perfectly, seasoned beautifully, and the butter was simple, but flavorful.  It's pretty tricky to walk the line between a garlic butter that compliments a steak, as opposed to completely overpowers it, and this butter did the trick.  The seasonable veges and fries were fairly standard, if not something of an odd side to an otherwise classic dish.  While neither were bad, they weren't anything truly amazing in the way the side for the hen or my seafood dish were.

Finally, the thyme-scented pork.  I'd heard a lot of buzz about this dish, a lot of complaints from people (who I suspect are used to thoroughly overcooked pork) that the pork is underdone.  That wasn't our experience...  While the thyme aspect wasn't as strong as I'd liked or hoped, the pork was done exactly perfect.  Not an overcooked disaster, not so raw it was still oinking, with a fair amount of juice and a nice, even pink color throughout.  The gravy was, again, phenomenal and, again, the side vegetables are the same, nothing special, side as the steak had.  The mac-and-cheese was ridiculously good, even to me who tends to not like oven mac-and-cheese.  Lots of cheese flavor, the noodles weren't overly soft, and it was seasoned beautifully.  I personally thought it was fabulous and should be promoted from side dish to entree.  Again, here's another dish that I'm dying for the recipe to...

Everybody at our table thoroughly adored everything about dinner...  How it looked, how it tasted, our server (who was a riot and was really getting into how completely into the experience we were)...  It was a meal you almost regretted finishing.  I know I certainly didn't want it to end.  This is a place where magic truly is everywhere and it's a fantastic experience to get swept into, and when the food is as good as the ambiance...  Pure heaven.

That said, as we wrapped up our dinner and started to think about dessert (do you know how hard it is to be a cupcake person trying to pick out what one cupcake you want in a place famous for it's cupcakes?), my brother and I started plotting on how we could finagle some of The Grey Stuff.  For those who don't get the reference, in the song "Be Our Guest," Lumiere sings: "Soup du jour/ hot hors d'oeuvres/ why, we only live to serve./ Try the grey stuff, it's delicious/ don't believe me? Ask the dishes." and Be Our Guest (place, not song) has The Grey Stuff... It's off-menu, available only at dinner, and while occasionally given when you ask for it, it's generally only reserved for people celebrating special occasions.  Which none of us were.  I was willing to fabricate some grand event, while my brother I think was going to rely on good, old-fashioned begging, but our server surprised us all by bringing it out for all of us (even my son, who ordered nothing at all) without any of us having to say a word.  I'd like to think that she noticed what a great time we were all having and how absorbed we were in the experience that she felt like she had to add that one, final flourish to put the experience right over the top...  Though the reality of the situation is that we were the last seating at the end of the night, and there was probably plenty to go around, so it was either our tummies or the trash.  Because the former sounds nicer then the latter, I'm going with that.

What to say about The Grey Stuff...  I loved it.  I love, love, loved it.  I'm honestly at a loss for words to how describe it.  All I can say is that it is magic, the absolute perfect end to the meal.  While most think it's a cookie-and-cream mousse, it's actually a panna cotta, which, while similar, makes the consistency creamier, a little lighter, and the sweetness less overpowering.  A small portion of it is piped onto this little rectangular plate, topped with little pearls, and "The Grey Stuff" is elegantly stenciled onto the dish with chocolate.  While I could have easily eaten an entire bowl of it, I liked the sweet, delicate little portion.  In a way, it really made it so much more special then if it was served as a traditional panna cotta or even a mousse is.

We did finish off the meal with desserts...  And it was truly hard to pick just one.  Hindsight being 20/20, I should have just ordered everything and sampled it all.  Usually dessert is an afterthought for me, not something I'm really excited about, but here...  I wanted to try them all.  I got the strawberry cupcake with cream cheese frosting and strawberry mousse filling, while the others got the passionfruit cream puff and the triple chocolate cupcake with chocolate mousse filling and ganache topping.  While they all were sensational, I think I got the best of the bunch (though we all thought that about our respective desserts).  I love how everything was topped with fresh fruit which looked absolutely flawless...  Seriously, next time I wonder why the package of strawberries I just bought all look like garbage, I'm going to know it's because they send all the perfect berries to Disney.  Anyway, Be Our Guest makes quite the showcase of their desserts, and the showcase is completely earned and deserved as I think that they're probably among the best on-property.  And Disney knows their cupcakes, so that's saying something.

After dinner, we were allowed to linger for a bit, and we made the most of our lingering.  I explored the West Wing, which was smaller then the ballroom, but filled with detail and arguably the best showcases of the all of the dining rooms rooms...  The room was disheveled, torn up, claw marks in the tapestry, the portrait of Prince Adam over the fireplace that was torn and obviously battered.  However, in the corner, was the enchanted rose.  In front of deep blue windows and sheer, ragged curtains is the enchanted rose on a simple wood table, along with the magic mirror.  If you watched long enough, you could see the rose slowly drop it's pedals.  It goes without saying that the enchanted rose certainly looked the part...  Disney magic at it's best, up close and personal, less then 3 feet away from where guests stand.

 What I think some people don't realize, especially those who sit in one of the other dining rooms, is that every 15-20 minutes, a lightning storm rolls through...  During the storm, the rose wilts slightly and loses a few more petals, and the portrait of Prince Adam quickly flashes to the ominous beast.  It happens in the blink of an eye, so if you're not paying attention, you'll miss it.  The crummy picture I took, it took me 15 solid minutes of staring at a wall to grab it.  I'd have felt nuts, but I got the impression from the staff that it happens pretty regularly.

At this point, it was well past park close and it was time to shuffle out the door.  Honestly, I can't think of a dining experience I wanted so badly to just last a little longer.  The food was exquisite and the ambiance was more like an ornate attraction then a restaurant.  On the way out, though, you have the option to make one last, very important stop...  Visiting with your host, the Beast.

Beast is a constant presence in the resteraunt, both with the theme and with the little touches here and there.  During your dinner, every 10-15 minutes, there's a grand announcement overhead that the Beast is delighted to have you as his dinner guests, at which point he comes out and does a little processional through the dining rooms.  He waves, bows to some of the little girls, and overall it feels like a grander gesture then just a character marching through the dining rooms.  It's funny because, every time he paraded through, the dining room erupted into spontaneous clapping...  Honestly, it was kind of special and really lent to the belief that you were real guests of a real person in his very real castle.

After marching through the dining room, he "retires" to his study for a very informal meet-and-greet.  This again is a perk only for those who do the dinner experience (this area is used for ordering during the lunch counterserve, I believe), but it's really a nice little perk, especially as even though I visited right when "Beauty and the Beast" was released for the first time in theaters, I never actually had the chance to meet Beast while he's wearing his formal outfit.

I'm pretty confident it was because we were at the tail-end of the night, but we weren't rushed at all.  We all got to spend quite a lengthy amount of time interacting with Beast (if you have a PhotoPass, there was a photographer there!), and he was quite a lot of fun.  I bragged about staying out of the West Wing (a lie), and he bowed and gave me a big hug.  He also posed again with just my mother, and again for the whole group of us.  Looking at our PhotoPass, the gentleman took well over 20 pictures.  Finally, we said our goodbyes and started out the doors.

Even passing out the door you pick up more details that are so easy to miss.  I actually stood by the suit of armor in the hallway for a bit and I thought listening to them gossip was a riot.  One of them asked about Lumiere and the maid, another went on about "the master's" temper.  A third frantically shouted out that he'd seen a girl walk through the castle, then they all frantically chattered about her being the one who could break the spell...  One sneezed, they all yelled "bless you."  Seriously, the running dialogue between all of them is easy to miss because it's SUPER quiet (and people who've done the counterserve experience have said that the crowd is so loud that you can't really hear them during the lunch service), but if you can hear it and have the chance to stop and listen to their conversation, you should...  It's pretty neat.

Leaving was honestly pretty depressing...  I'd have loved to see the other dining room, but I knew we'd made the most of our time there.  Even then, I kind of wanted to pull up a chair and order another round of dinner and dessert.  But I have to say, being one of the last out the door had some definite advantages...  We got to see Fantasyland completely guest-free, without being rushed out the front and we also got to see the castle, lit up at night and with nobody around.  Every once in awhile, you'd run across a photographer frantically setting up for night shots (I mean, besides me) before the cast started their center-walk and pushing folks out of the various lands and down Main Street.  I think it really added to the magic to be able to see an empty, lit up Magic Kingdom...  And taking the late reservation at the back of the park (so you have an excuse to see as much of the park as possible) was an unintentionally brilliant move on our part.

Overall, the Be Our Guest experience was amazing, certainly worthy of all the hype and buzz it's been generating.  This is now officially a dining experience that I've added to the list of restaurants I must do every trip...  A list that gets longer and longer, I might add...  Pretty soon, I'm going to have to upgrade to the highest tier dining plan just to be able to eat at all my favorite places on the same trip. 

Me with 3 dining credits a day?  Watch out Disney...

To see more pictures of Be Our Guest, be sure to visit the WDW Dining Pictures tab above.  There are more shots from around Be Our Guest, including closeups of the fabulous desserts, as well as pictures from other restaurants from around Disney.