I have only eaten two “signature dining experiences” at Walt Disney World.  The first was at Cinderella’s Royal Table back in 2009 when my wife and I took our daughter on her first trip to the World.  The second was on our last trip in September of 2013 when we met up with some friends of ours for a meal at Flying Fish Cafe along Disney’s Boardwalk.

Flying Fish Cafe only serves dinner.  It is one of only 13 “signature dining experiences” at Walt Disney World.  Signature dining experiences are meals that will cost two table-service credits if you are on the Disney Dining Plan compared to the standard one table-service credit meal at most restaurants.  The food and restaurants, with minor exception, are more upscale.  However, they are still kid friendly as we dined with my daughter, who was eight at the time, and our friends brought their four-year old son.  The wait staff did not make us feel that they were out of place in the restaurant.

The attire for Flying Fish is resort causal meaning you can get away with wearing a golf shirt and shorts but wearing tank tops and cut-off shorts will get you turned away by the cast members.  The restaurant has a very open feel and being right on the boardwalk adds to this open feeling.

 

Now, on to the important of the review…..the food!  The food here is excellent and very well prepared.  My family chose this meal are our “marquee” meal for the trip which means we didn’t strictly follow the Disney Dining Plan for the meal.  We still used it to pay for our main course, dessert and soft drinks.  But we were prepared for the extra cost of appetizers and adult beverages.

Both my wife and I started with an appetizer.  I went with the Caesar Salad while my wife got the Fresh Mozzarella di Bufala to share with our guests.  The Caesar Salad was above and beyond the standarad Caesar Salad one would get at a chain restaurant.  The dressing wasn’t too heavy but it also wasn’t too oily either.  I find most dressings go one way or the other at most restaurants.  This dressing was more like the dressing that I make at home except done only better.

My wife always goes to the tomato and mozzarella salad on the menu.  She finds them better than most salads at a lot of restaurants.  Plus, she loves the fact that you can assemble the salad your self and get the right amount of tomato and cheese in each bite.

After our appetizers came the main course.  The main course was fantastic.   I’m not a big seafood eater but there are options for the non-seafood eaters on the menu.  I went with the Char-crusted New York Strip Steak with the sauce on the side.  The portion of the steak was healthy but not too much.  The steak comes with fingerling potatoes which were cooked to be firm but not a mashed potato.  The potato does an excellent job of complimenting the steak and vice versa.  I tried the sauce which came with the steak.  I wasn’t 100% sold on the sauce at first.  I didn’t want it to overpower the steak which it didn’t.

My wife got the surf and turf which is a strip steak and potato-wrapped red snapper.  My wife ate the red snapper at the restaurant and took the strip steak back to the room.  The snapper was also excellent and you could barely taste the potato but you knew it was there.  I tried a bite of it as well and found the taste very appealing.  Maybe an entree selection for next time.

My daughter got the bowl of Mickey pasta which a pretty standard bowl of pasta.

The goodness of the meal didn’t end with the main course.  We moved on to dessert.  Yes, we still had room but barely.  But the desserts sounded soooo good when we looked at the dessert menu.  I went with the dessert speciality of Flying Fish Cafe: A Trio of Concession Sweets.  This is three mini desserts in one.  A popcorn mousse with caramel corn, a cherry-limeade popsicle, and S’Mores Whoopie Pie Lollipop.  I didn’t care for the S’Mores Lollipop, the popsicle was take it or leave but I could eat the popcorn mousse every day.

My wife had the Sinful Dark Chocolate Delice Creation.  It was the closest thing on the menu to just a plain chocolate cake.  One of the members of our party asked after looking through all the choices, “what happened to just serving a plain chocolate cake for dessert?  Why does everything have to be so fancy?”  So my wife went with that option.

Both kids in the party got the Mickey’s Chocolate Puzzle which is an “interactive” dessert with white chocolate puzzle pieces with sugar “paints” and chocolate cupcake.

Overall, I would highly recommend Flying Fish Cafe to anyone looking to have a signature dining experience at Disney.  The food and service are excellent and you never feel like you are being rushed for the next party to be seated.  It has a great location between EPCOT and Hollywood Studios.  Guests could walk from either park to the Boardwalk to catch a dinner reservation.  I rate it:

5 Donalds for an excellent meal.  I would eat here again but I would like to try some of Disney’s other signature dining experiences before going back.

You can follow the blog on the Dad For Disney Facebook Group.  The group is 172 members strong and continues to grow every day.  Please tell you friends and share the magic of the Dad For Disney group.

You can also follow Dad For Disney on Twitter @DadForDisney.

Thanks for reading.