Hope this coffee is cofveve. Remember that meme? That sure came and went fast, right?

Product: Coffee Intense candies
Origin: Turkey

First looks

Nick:
Last time we tried a coffee treat, it didn't taste like anything, so I'm all alerted now like one of the cats when they hear the wind blowing or each other running up and down the stairs at midnight when I'm trying to fall asleep. The bag says "INTENSE" right on it, so I'm cautiously optimistic. They smell really great, but I've learned by now the smell often has at best an accidental relationship with the taste, so I'm trying to keep myself from getting too excited. We'll see. Don't let me down, Turkey. I hope this candy makes my mouth INTENSEly pleased.

Katie:
As a coffee person, I'm already keyed to like this just from the smell. Seriously, I'm not even verbal without my cup in the morning. Poor Nick will try to talk and ask how I slept, the only reply I'll make (if I even make one at all) is some grunting until I'm at least a few sips in.
Anyway.
This has to be better than Turkish Delight. It just has to. Right? I mean...if there's any fairness in the universe at all, it just has to.

Post-bite thoughts

Look at this kid's veins. And yet it took three tries to get the
needle in the right spot last time he had blood drawn! 

Nick:
You know that speech Batman gives at the end of the Dark Knight where he's like "Sometimes people deserve more," and it shows Lucius Fox typing his name into the sonar machine and it blows up and Batman is like "Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded"? Next time you're watching that, just imagine a shot of me eating this candy. I think this might be my favorite thing we've gotten in a Munchpak; it tastes just like a solid little drop of delicious, sweet coffee. I am INTENSEly pleased! Great job!

Katie:
I was going to work in Gordon's speech from the super end where he's like "he's the hero we deserve, but not the one we need right now" but I totally deserve this. This candy is delicious. Definitely pick yourself up some if you're in or near Turkey or Google it to buy yourself. The coffee taste is wonderful.

PS from Nick: Hey, it's the last post of 2017! I'm glad we ended the year on a positive note. (Even though we wrote this review back at the beginning of November and just scheduled it for today. Hi future me! I hope Disney was fun! Ha ha!)
PPS from Katie: Since this is going up before the New Year, have a Happy New Year! Please make a plan to get home safely before you go out. The world is better with you in it! Also, of course Disney is going to be fun. I hope you figure out it's always fun in 2018. #smdh

Musssed up again

Product: Zozole Musss--cola-flavored candy with fizzy filling
Origin: Poland

First looks

Katie:
Last time, we got lemon and orange. This time, we have cola. Even though we liked at least one flavor each before, the fizzy filling has me feeling less than optimistic. Is it filling with pop rocks? Fizzy goop? Really hoping for a second win for Poland here but...I don't know. Nick, what do you think?

Nick:
I'm conflicted. On the one hand I remember generally liking these last time, but when it comes to soda candy, all bets are off; it's usually nasty, and I'm afraid this is going to be weird. I can see some kind of inner center that I'm guessing is the fizz, but how is that going to come out? I'm scared the containment is going to be breached and whatever weird fizzing agent has been imprisoned in there is going to come rampaging out all over my mouth. Fingers crossed. Katie's making a not terribly pleased face while enduring hers, so now I'm really worried.

Post-bite thoughts

The white dust is the illegal drugs Nick has started
doing to handle some of these snacks. jk
(or am i)

Katie:
At first, it was just a flat cola taste. Not bad, not great but not bad. Then, the inner containment suffered a warp core breach. My mouth got flooded with sour (the face Nick saw) and I was like "yuck". Then, it was gone and the candy went back to tasting like flat cola again. If it wasn't for that inside stuff, this would be a small win.  Since it is in there, I can't say this is for me. Sour fans will maybe like the sudden onslaught though.

Nick:
I think mine broke, because there's absolutely no fizz; it tastes like they just put sour lemon candy powder inside a cola-flavored shell. Zero fizz. The cola part actually tastes surprisingly good, and the sour lemon isn't bad either, but they don't really quite go together; it tastes like someone squeezed a fresh lemon into your Coke, and the flavors just don't work for me. Less bad than I feared, but not as good as I hoped. I think the lemon came out gradually it might not be bad, but I had to bite mine in half to actually get inside, and that was, uh, not the most pleasant candy experience I've ever had.

Gold pun

Product:  Kreams Gold Chocolate-Flavoured Sandwich Biscuits
Origin: India

First looks

Nick:
For extremely cheap cookies (the tube says "Buy three packs for $0.99" - no expense spared here Munchpak!!!!) these actually smell kind of good. I guess I'm expecting cheap Oreos? That or they're cheap because they look like the creepy button eyes from Coraline and the beldam has finally figured out how to escape by selling surprisingly good-smelling, uh, sandwich biscuits.

Katie:
They do look pretty fancy. As Nick said, the smell is pleasant. I'm hoping the biscuit won't be too dry or too flimsy. Three for $.99 seems a little suspicious though. When things are too cheap, my first thought is usually "what's wrong with it?". We'll see soon, I suppose.
Also, watch Coraline if it's still on Netflix by the time this posts. It's a really good movie.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Not bad! The texture is where I'd expect these to fall down, but they're pretty nice and crunchy. I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the chocolate, which isn't quite as sweet as I'd like. For the price, these are pretty good, but I'm not sure I'd get them again; I'd probably just get Double Stuf oreos, open them up, eat the frosting and toss away the outsides. I hope someday a future archaeologist is going to find this and decide this is why the American empire fell.

Katie:
I agree, not bad at all! I likely couldn't eat a whole sleeve of these on my own--there were at least six cookies in there--but they'd be good to share with a few other people. I thought the chocolate was good on both the amount and sweetness but I'm not a huge chocolate person. 

PS from Nick: Aren't all women supposed to be huge chocolate fans? Has Cathy been lying to me all these years? Ack!!!!! (I don't remember if I've used this joke already, but I don't care. Next you'll be telling me you don't care about shoes! Ack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I guess I shouldn't embrace regressive old gender stereotypes I learned from newspaper comics. Ack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PPS from Katie: I don't care about shoes. I have exactly two pairs of shoes and even that feels decadent and excessive to me. And one of those are a pair of sneakers that I only got because they have the old Magic Kingdom map printed on them!

Caleb's Kola has become Katie and Nick's Kola after an exchange of dollars!!!!

Product: Caleb's Kola
Origin: Florida

First looks

Katie:
I'm surprised they didn't go with Caleb's Cola to make it match more but maybe that was too close to Coke. I'm not picking up any scents but as I've mentioned before, I'm often stuffy. The color is lighter than other colas but that likely says nothing about the taste. I'm neutral on the prospects of this soda.

Nick:

Post-sip thoughts

Katie:
Caleb's soda is kind of flat. Mine has ice in it so maybe that watered it down a bit. Nick is drinking from the bottle so we'll see what he has to say after he's done using it to make fart noises. This is all right, I guess. If you don't like Pepsi and somehow hate Coke, but still want a cola...maybe you'll like this but I found it to be on the taste-less (as in lacking a taste not that it's tacky or shameful) with little carbonation. Who would have thought tiny bubbles would make or break the taste of soda?

Nick:
Caleb's Kola: Like Pepsi 1893 But Not As Good. I had the opposite problem from Katie; this just tastes like kola and nothing else. It's not bad, but I think I like my soda with a more subtle taste. Man, this blog has made me a real soda snob. I'll drink the rest of these, but I don't think I'd buy more unless they discontinue Pepsi 1893 (please do not discontinue Pepsi 1893) and I need something to fill the hole in my tummy. I mean, not literally, that sounds like it would be really painful.

Fritos...but from Mexico

Product: Fritos--Sabor: Sal y Limon
Origin: Mexico

First looks

Nick:
Salt and lemon Fritos. Yup. Uh, they smell like slightly stale Fritos. I'm not really a big salty Frito fan (I like that BBQ Ranch like all right thinking people), and I'm not sure lime really goes with a salty snack, um, shape. On the plus side, I learned a new word from the package: Nixtamalized. This corn has been nixtamalized! It's so new even Chrome's spellcheck doesn't recognize it! (Then again, Chrome's spellcheck is so dumb it sometimes doesn't know common words like "doctor" so I guess that's not saying much). Nixtamalize my taste buds, Mexican salt and lemon Fritos!

Katie:
At the time of this writing, I am plagued by various germs. My nose is stopped up so I can't comment on the smell. The chip looks like a normal Frito but maybe bigger? It's been a long time since I've had these. This is one of those childhood staple foods that you just stop having one day then you see it in the store years later and wonder why you stopped eating it. Then you have one and you're like "I had horrible taste as a child". Like right now, they added The Real Ghostbusters to Netflix and I watched one today. I remember really liking the show and having a weird kid crush on Egon (those pink lapels, vortex hair, and tiny red glasses really did it for me, I guess) but now it's like all the voices are strange and overly cartoony and it's not as good. So hopefully these Fritos will not be that.
PS who else watched the ghostbusters with the gorilla???

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
My weird kid crushes were the Baroness from GI Joe and She-Ra (He-Man's sister! For the honor of Greyskull!). I have the opposite of a crush on this particular snack, which I'm afraid is rather ruined by the lemon; it's just unpleasently bitter and tastes like someone lemon farted on some perfectly good Fritos. Not for me, dude. Maybe if you were eating some kind of meal and you wanted to accompany it with gross bitter salty Fritos, but I can't imagine what that would be. Yuck.

Katie:
It tasted like bad salt. Maybe I just don't like Fritos anymore or this sickness is messing with my sense of taste (smell is an important component of taste, I think) but this was a big nope from me. I'm sure there's someone out there who likes lemon Fritos but it's not us. 

Felonious Beef

Product: Righteous Felon craft jerky--O.G. Hickory
Origin: Like jail? (Pennsylvania)

First looks

Nick:
Mffff. I'm not fooled by this; the ingredients are basically meat and spices, and it certainly smells nice, but all the jerky we've tried so far has had absolutely no taste, so I'm not getting my hopes up. I was sure that aloha teriyaki jerky was going to be great, and bam, no flavor. Prove me wrong, righteous felons. This better taste so good it's illegal or something, and not just be illegal because it has NO TASTE. My hopes are not up for this.

Katie:
I'm skeptical. Like Nick, I've been burned before by tasteless jerky or, even worse, the kind I have to chew so long I have time to regret my life choices. This better not be that. Oh boy. I have to try it now, don't I?
Maybe the nice peppery smell is a good omen?

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Hmmm... this is good! Like Katie, I'm always worried about getting a tough piece you have to chew and chew and chew and chew and chew and chew, but this has a really nice texture; you have to chew it just enough to get the flavor and then it's ready to swallow. The flavor is a little subtle for me, but there's definitely a hickory smoke taste. I'm not sure I'd get more, but I'll happily eat the rest of the bag. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

Katie:
No.

189-fun

Product: Boylan Bottling Company--Creme Soda
Origin: New York, NY

First looks

Nick:
The bottle says SINCE 1891 like 50,000 times, so I hope they've managed to get the recipe right since then. I'm cautiously optimistic on this; the ingredients are water, sugar and vanilla flavoring, which seems fairly safe. It smells pretty strongly of vanilla, and this time there's no agave or stevia or whatever to mess things up. Eeeeeeeee!

Katie:
Maybe my nose is stuffed because I can't smell anything. The soda has a nice golden color so maybe that will translate into a nice taste too. I hope this won't be medicinal or too sweet. There's a very fine line between good cream soda and bad cream soda.

Post-sip thoughts

Nick:
Whoops, I forgot "caramel color" is also an ingredient, so don't trust the shade. As for the taste... it's good, but it's not my favorite. I find that cream soda (excuse me, CREME) tends to fall into two camps, either very vanilla-y or more sweet, and this one is firmly in the vanilla camp. There's nothing wrong with that camp; it's a fine camp with sturdy walls and a lot of vanilla flavor, but it's not the one I prefer. I'm more of a Jones Soda fan where it tastes like someone set off a sugar explosion in your mouth. By the way, we still have one bottle of that if you want to split it later.

Katie:
I'm beginning to think I don't actually like cream soda and that worries me. Am I dreaming of the El Dorado of cream soda? The flavor I like doesn't actually exist? Root better is far harder to mess up, it seems. I thought cream soda was a simple, slightly sweet, slightly vanilla beverage that I could happily enjoy no matter what the brand.  I'm finding over the course of these reviews that much of the cream soda out there is not the droid I'm looking for. Am I being picky? You can be honest.
Also, I may take you up on that offer to split the last Jones.

PS from Nick: I don't think there's anything wrong with being picky. Find what you like and get you some. Katie sipped some more of this and yelled "EUGH," then "Why did I drink more of that," so I think she was being a little nice in her review.

German Hazelnut Waffle Sandwich

Product: Hanuta Haselnuss-Schnitte
Origin: Germany

First looks

Katie:
First, I'd like to thank the German designers of this cookie sandwich for thoughtfully giving each waffle cookie thing its own little tray. It's a wonderful change from other cookies and whatnot that you have to awkwardly stack on the wrapper to avoid cross-contamination between the cookie and the spot where your cat's butt was a few moments ago (we call it "the Greg butt zone" and it is every surface in the house. And if you all think your dog or cat isn't all butt-touching your stuff when you're not home, you're seriously deluding yourself).

Nick:
Katie's a little obsessed with the Greg butt zone. She'll run in the room shrieking DID YOU PUT YOUR FOOD WHERE HIS BUTT WENT???? but then when I put my food on the other side of the couch where he couldn't get his butt unless he was dangling from the ceiling like Tom Cruise in the only part of that Mission Impossible movie anybody remembers, she's like "THAT'S A WEIRD PLACE TO PUT YOUR FOOD," so I don't know where she wants it, perhaps in some kind of hovering basket protected by a force field. Only then can she sleep safely.
Anyway, I don't have much to say about these because I've actually already had some - they sell them at the candy store in Crossgates, the one where they used to have that creepy kid whose arm waved up and down and he had a backwards baseball cap on who I think they finally got rid of. I'll just say these smell really nice.

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:
It's the arm of the couch, not the top of the fridge. He can get his butt there! Also, he can get on top the fridge so that was a bad example. I guess the only true safe zone would be the water dish they refuse to use but then it would be on the floor and encrusted in cat hair.
I'm going to stop talking about gross stuff now.
Wait, back up. You've had these before?? I didn't have these before. Why didn't you share? I give you some of all my stuff!  Even my stinky cheese. Especially my stinky cheese!!!
Oh gosh, I'm not even talking about the cookie which I hadn't taken of a bite of yet. It's yummy. Go buy some!

Nick:
Well, I'm just saying, the arm of the couch is one of those ones you can flip open and store things in, and this is the same goofus who will run in front of your feet yelling and then lead you to the sink he likes drinking out of and meow like he's being murdered and when you turn the sink on he'll just turn around and stare at you like "DAD?!" instead of drinking out of it and then leave to eat a plastic bag out of the garbage instead of his $60 a bag prescription cat food. I don't think he's smart enough to get up there. As for this cookie, though, I don't think you wanted to try it; I think you thought it had too many NUTZ or something. You did try those hippos with the chocolate and cream inside, remember? Oh, man, I hope that ends up in a munchpak. I think it's like British, so maybe it'll be in a future one. As for these, they're delicious; nice German chocolate and hazelnut. I ate the whole thing in a few bites.

Oh no, more peach

Product: Tinny Taffy--Peach
Origin: The EU

First looks

Nick:
(Open on the irradiated desert wasteland. Though the shattered, dust-blown buildings, a single figure in a tattered black coat walks silently. Then, he steps on a broken window, the old glass crunching under his foot. A howl goes up, and from the broken open, irradiated Munchpak boxes laying thick in each empty alleyway: Giant peaches.)
Nick: It just had to be peaches.
(Our handsome hero is quickly surrounded by giant peaches with arms and legs that look like giant walking butts. Some of them hold old pipes, lengths of wood, or other weapons; some just slam their palms into their fists. Nick unsheathes his sword and begins chopping the peaches into disgusting little slimy oozing chunks that wouldn't be out of place in a chunky peach juice can. A spray of peach juice hits his ruggedly handsome face.)
Nick: Ugh! Peach juice!
(Nick can't think of an ending to this scene. Fuck peaches. Stop sending us peach candy. Peach taffy, go fuck yourself.)

Katie:
It doesn't even smell like a peach. I think, except for the peach juice, I skipped most of the other peach stuff since it was gummy. I feel trepidation right now. help.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Ew. These taste like crappy, vaguely peach Starburst. If these were like melon flavored, I think I'd like these; the texture isn't bad, it's just the taste. Very, very cheap and nasty. No sir, I did not care for these in the slightest.

Katie:
As Nick said, the texture is not bad. The taste, though. When I first put the piece in my mouth, it was an awful sour taste, no peach at all.  After a bit, this sour peachy taste started happening but I did not enjoy it. Now, I like peach cobbler so it's not a matter of me not liking peaches in general buttttttt this was not good at all. Another flavor likely would have been much better. 

Braided cookies

Product: Koulouraki orange flavor
Origin: Greece

First looks

Nick:
Koulouraki!!!! These smell pretty good, so I'm mildly hopeful; seems like a nice butter cookie with some orange flavor. According to the back of the box, they just threw orange peel in there, so I'm not really 100% confident. Hopefully the flavor is big enough for my American palette. I want my mouth to be exploding with orange flavor. Koulouraki!

Pic of jeanette cookies from
the interwebs

Katie:
The smell reminds me of the jeanette cookies my aunts used to make.
I hope these will be good but I'm worried they will be dry or bitter underneath the orange taste. The smell is really trying to change my skepticism into optimism though.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
Pretty good! The orange taste is nice, front and center. The cookie taste underneath isn't the best I've ever had, but it's good enough, I think. I guess I don't really have much interesting to say about these; I'm gonna eat 'em and then I'm gonna forget 'em. Koulouraki.

Katie:
As Nick said, the cookie taste isn't the best but the orange taste is spot on. If these were more like jeanettes with the frosting and sprinkles, they'd be perfect. I guess I'll help Nick finish off the box but they are a little dry without much taste beyond the orange zest.

After all, miss, this is Belgium!

Product: Jacquet Petite Waffles
Origin: Belgium

First looks

Katie:
This is the same company that made the crepes from the last post.  The packaging this time, however, states the waffles were made in Belgium.  More authentic? I don't really think of France when I think of waffles (everyone knows they have ennui, cigarettes, contempt for everyone else, and baguettes for breakfast! Hahaha, just kidding, France. You saved our butts before we were even America). The waffles look like regular waffles. They smell very eggy, not too fond of that smell to be honest. The packaging says we can microwave it but I don't feel like getting up. The package also says it's "ready to savor" right after we unwrap it so I'm going with that.

Nick:
Oh, I don't trust these chumps after that disgusting crepe. Oh man, if only this was a donut, I could be like "I donut trust these guys"!!!! Man! No, wait, I got it - I'm WAFFLING on if I think this is going to be good! Ha ha! Oof.

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:
Not bad, a little dry but that could easily be fixed with some syrup. I'd eat this again with some bananas, Aunt Jemima's, and warmed up a skosh. Definitely an improvement over the dry white bread crepe filled with goo.

Nick:
It's all right; I donut really have strong feelings one way or the other. The texture isn't great, and honestly I think I'd rather just buy some frozen waffles and heat them up in the toaster oven, then cover them with syrup. This doesn't really feel like a waffle to me; I'm used to them being firm. This seems more like cheap sweet cake in the form of a waffle. At least there's no goo in this; mediocre is better than terrible, although I guess it doesn't always make for the most amusing blog entries.

After all, miss, this is France!

Product: French crepes--strawberry
Origin: Actually France

First looks

Nick:
Oh, wow. Just stuck a crepe in a wrapper and shipped it over here, huh? I'm really worried about this, so much so that I barely even noticed it's strawberry flavored (smells like strawberry beef jerky). I mean, how long does a crepe stay good for? The package even yells "NO PRESERVATIVES"!!! I hope this crepe isn't crap!

Katie:
Uh-oh, Nick's arch-nemesis--the strawberry! I think he maybe liked one of the strawberry things we tried (link?) so maybe he'll like this. Not too optimistic though. Some enmities run deep and strawberry knows what it did. I'm hoping this will be good but when something says no preservatives then is packaged like a food you can enjoy a year later...I'm not terribly hopeful. If there are no preservatives (which are, you know, the things that preserve the food) how is it going to still even been good when I open it? Am I missing some #foodfacts here? Also, I'm too busy to #mybreakfast, fellow kids! Ug. I hope that commercial is still airing by the time this posts so you can all hate on it with me. She's not even reacting to real traffic! Look out the window, the traffic she's all mad at is in the opposite lane.

Post-bite thoughts

Nick:
THIS CREPE IS CRAP DUDE. I didn't realize it had GOOP in it. There's some kind of evil, primordial ooze lurking deep in the dough folds of this crepe. It's real bad. I don't know what we did to France, but nobody deserves this crepe, except the annoying lady in that ad. She can eat this. Maybe they'll destroy each other. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Both of them expiring in a huge explosion, and after the dust clears, all of the now-free people of Earth holding hands as the sun shines. Fuck this crepe.

Katie:
The crepe tastes like white bread. Dry ass white bread. That can't be what crepes are. Isn't France the epitome of cuisine? So much so that saying a chef was trained in France is short-hand on cooking shows for how amazing at cooking they are? Anyway, the crepe was dry and bland. The goop was a little off putting but mostly just tasted like cheap jelly. Thanks but no thanks. I'm sticking with the grey stuff, it's delicious. Don't believe me? Ask the dishes!

Disney Day 11

Restaurant: Beast's Castle (Breakfast quick service)
Location: Magic Kingdom

Katie's Entree: Croissant Doughnut
(Fried Doughnut topped with Banana-Caramel Sauce, Pastry Crème, and Chocolate Ganache served with fresh Fruit and a selection of pastries)

Katie:
Very good! I devoured this pretty quickly, though I did try to save Nick a bite or two. I also liked the random pastries they brought to our table.

Nick:
The bite I got to have of this was very good, but Katie couldn't save more for me because I was gone for so long. For some reason, the Beast's castle, which is huge and holds a ton of people, has a single men's room with a whopping two stalls and two urinals in it. I mean, the main dining room alone of this place is bigger than half the restaurants I've been to in my entire life, but if you gotta take a whiz, you're going to be waiting longer than I waited to get on some rides. If there's any Disney bathroom planners out there reading this, how about adding another restroom or two? Yikes!

See???? There's tomatoes on it,
I knew it!

Nick's Entree: Open-Faced Bacon and Egg Sandwich
(Poached Eggs, Applewood Bacon, Brie Cheese, and Arugula on a Croissant served with Fresh Fruit and a selection of pastries)

Nick:

The name on this is wrong; it's not actually open-faced, it's a huge croissant with a bunch of delicious bacon, eggs, cheese, and I think mine had tomatoes? maybe that was the arugula? on it. It tasted great, but halfway through eating it everything fell off into a huge mess that I couldn't reassemble, so that wasn't too great. What I did manage to eat before the catastrophe was amazing, though, one of the best breakfast sandwiches I've had, which was a nice treat after having to wait 20 minutes to tinkle.

Katie:

I can't believe Nick ate brie. 

Bonus
Restaurant: Liberty Tree Tavern
Location: Magic Kingdom

We got the pasta again for the meal.

Dessert: Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake

Nick:
Well, this sure looks great in the picture, doesn't it? I'm afraid I only tasted vanilla ice cream and sadness; I don't think this is the Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake's fault, it's just hard to really get excited when it's the LAST DAY YOU GUYS before you have to come back to lame ass Albany, and it's overcast and you don't want to leave but you have to come back to Albany and I'm sad now.

Katie:
Even knowing we're going back in like a year couldn't make me less sad on the last day. The portrait of Ben Franklin by our table commiserated with me. "I wouldn't want to go back to Albany either" his eyes seemed to say.

Well that was depressing. To cheer us all up, let's sing the Carousel of Progress song together and look at some of our favorite pictures.

Disney Day 10

Restaurant: Yak & Yeti
Location: Animal Kingdom Asian section

Katie's Entree: Vegetable Lo Mein with Tofu

I played it safe and was rewarded. This is a go-to for anyone unsure of what to get at Yak & Yeti--or maybe just a picky eater--or even for fans of veggie lo mein. The tofu was good, not too stiff and not gooey at all.
After the meal, I didn't feel too full to walk around the park (as sometimes happens). If you're the type who doesn't want to play it safe on vacation, then I'd at least like to recommend this restaurant to you for the atmosphere and decorations.

Nick's Entree: Sweet and Sour Chicken

This was great! It's a bit simple - tempura-style chicken, green and red bell peppers, onion and pineapple fried in sweet and sour sauce, with rice to mop up the remaining sauce or cool your mouth down (although I cheated and ate some of my mom's naan bread, which was also very good). I liked this so much I even enjoyed the pineapple, and there's a sentence I don't expect to type again any time soon. This may have been a bit of a safe option, but it was very well prepared. Next time I might get the Korean pork. We'll see.

Desert: Sorbet

Katie:
All three of the sorbets were delicious. I appreciated the cool, light, and refreshing taste of this dessert.  I think you can tell I'm a big sorbet fan now as we've gotten sorbets a few times on this trip. Now, I'm going to put all the pressure on Nick to more eloquently describe the sorbets being good. Take it away, dear!

Nick:
I think I'm also a sorbet fan; they're really great at Disney where it's hot and you want something cool, but eating a bunch of ice cream is just a bit heavy. All the sorbets we had here hit the spot. The three flavors here were mango, lemon and raspberry. My only complaint is that the raspberry had coconut shavings on it (the far left bowl) which I could live without. Personally this was my least favorite sorbets of the ones we had at Disney - and that's not to say I didn't really enjoy these! It's just that the bar was set super high by the delicious sauce-covered sorbet at Rainforest Cafe and the massive, sweet, refreshing sorbet at Liberty Tree. These three were quite good, and I was left wanting more of all three after finishing them. Highly recommended.

Disney Day 9

Restaurant: Tutto Italia Ristorante
Location: Italy

Entree: Spaghetti with Beef and veal meatballs, pomodoro sauce

Nick:
Katie talked me out of the ziti with cream sauce to pick this safer option, and gosh, I'm hard pressed to think of anything safer than this; it's spaghetti with a nice red sauce and meatballs. I liked it. I'm not sure I have much to say about this; it's a dependable favorite. Here's to another twenty years of reliable service.

Katie:
I ate not only all my meatballs but some of Nick's! This is a good choice for pasta fans or the one picky eater you may have in your party. It's spaghetti and pomodoro sauce cooked very well. As a said, this is a good choice whether you're a picky eater or you want a delicious, safe choice. 
They had a risotto but it had like 5 seafoods in it so it was a big NOPE.

Desserts

Katie's dessert: Mocha Tiramisu

Katie:
Yummy, a wonderful exemplar of tiramisu. Perfect balance of dryness and moistness. My slice came with a little decorative fin, which was fun. A good dessert choice when you want something fancier than gelato but not so heavy you'll feel like you need to be rolled out of the world showcase like the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka.

Nick:
It's good tiramisu. I ate the chocolate fin, which was pretty good too, actually. No complaints!

Nick's Desert: Bacio al Cioccolato: Warm hazelnut chocolate cake, vanilla gelato, chocolate sauce

Nick:
Apparently this is supposed to be a kiss of chocolate, but my gosh, this was just a bit rich for me; it tastes like taking a bite of solid Nutella. Adding some of the ice cream or fruit helped a little bit, but this was just too rich for my little baby taste buds. Aieeee!

Disney Day 8

Restaurant: The Beast's Castle again
Location: Magic Kingdom
Nick's Entree: French Dip Sandwich Served on a Baguette with Au Jus and Pomme Frites

Nick:
Not sure I got a lot of the au jus here; this just tasted like nice tender roast beef (btw, really missing a marketing opportunity to sell this as roast beast!!!!!!!!). At first I was worried because of the huge meatness between the bread slices, but the texture was actually very nice; it was the flavor, or lack of, that kind of caught me off guard. Not as good as the turkey sandwich, dog. Beast, what are you doing with the cuisine in your castle, bro? This was not spectacular. On the upside my dad gave me his ketchup for my french fries (excuse me, pommes frites).
Also, as you can see in the picture I got the cupcake with the grey stuff again, but I already used up my reference, so I'll just reveal the secret here: The grey stuff is actually really tasty cookie-flavored frosting. Don't believe me? Ask the di--ah, you know the rest.

Katie's Entree: Vegetable Quiche - Mushroom, Zucchini, Bell Pepper, Onion and Chive Quiche served with Baby Lettuce and Champagne Vinaigrette

Katie:
The quiche was okay. I'm not sure if I'm just not a quiche person or what. It wasn't bad, just not for me. The flaky bread thing was good but a bit too much. The salad was yummy, though. I'm starting to wonder if I should just stick with dinner at this place. We're going there for breakfast on our last day so stay tuned.

Disney Day 7

Restaurant: Das German Biergarten
Location: Germany. Obvi

Entree: Schnitzel, roasted potatoes, pretzel rolls with butter, beer cheese soup, warm German potato salad, cold German potato salad, cucumber salad and macaroni salad


Nick:

Oh, gosh. This is a buffet-style place, which meant I was a little outside of my comfort zone, and that was before the live oompah band started up. Let's see, what did I get? The soup was OK, but a little too beer-y for me; I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wanted more cheese flavor. Not bad, but I did not want seconds. The pretzel roll was really good, I cut it down the middle, buttered up the canyon, sealed it back up and ate it, and the butter and salt really went together well. The schnitzel I was a little surprised to see as I've been eating it my whole life as "favorite chicken" (although half the time it's pork in there) - basically you take meat, pound it flat, coat it with an egg wash, then breadcrumbs and fry it. This was really nice; it didn't even need the "hunter sauce" (aka, gravy) I put on top. Last was the roasted potatoes, which was, uh, roasted potatoes; hard to mess up, and they were not messed up here. This isn't my favorite place to eat at the World Showcase, but I think it's a solid choice, and as a carb maniac I was quite pleased.

Katie:
I thought the soup was good but, like Nick said, a little too beer-y for me. The warm German potato salad was good as well as the roasted potatoes. The macaroni salad was fine...pretty much like a macaroni salad you could get anywhere except maybe slightly nicer. I quite liked the schnitzel, which surprised me. We did not wind up going back for seconds as the line got mega long after our first dish...probably due to a bunch of tables getting seated at once.

There's even a moon!

Before I forget, this is not only a buffet but communal seating so, unless your party is large, you will find yourself at a table with other parties. We were at first surprised and a little wary but the family across from us was nice and we chatted about the different hotels. The restaurant is similar to Mexico's in that you are "outside" while inside.

Dessert: Cheesecake, German Chocolate Cake, Ginger Coffee Cake, Chocolate Roll

Nick:
The German chocolate cake was not my favorite; the cream on top and the cake itself was nice, but the half a cherry embedded in the bottom was a very unwelcome surprise. Everything else was pretty good - the chocolate roll was basically a little pastry twist filled with chocolate, and the cheesecake was, um, good cheesecake. Katie got the ginger coffee cake and I liked this too, although continuing the theme, it was a little heavy. Pretty good, not great.

Katie:
I appreciated the desserts being relatively bite-sized. It gave us the chance to try different things without committing to something too large. I liked the ginger coffee cake, it was just slightly drier than I'm used to. There was also some pineapple but I didn't grab any. I think I agree with Nick's assessment. Please note that our assessments of Disney food is in comparison to other Disney food...Disney is a standard on its own for food, service, and rides.










Meal #2
Restaurant: Boatwright's Dining Hall
Location: Port Orleans--Riverside

Katie's Entree--Boatwright's Jambalaya (sans the shrimp)

Katie:
I thought this was delicious! The chicken and sausage pieces were very good, not distracting from or overtaking the rice and veggies. I would strongly recommend getting this if you eat at Boatwright's.
Also, I left my bag there and the waiter had it in the hotel front desk with our dining ticket on top within 15 minutes (I'd walked back to our hotel before I noticed I didn't have it...it was a scary time until I got my bag back).

Nick:
Gosh, I should have gotten this. The Mexican rice is delicious; tasty sauce, onions, green bell peppers and tomatoes mixed in. I skipped the sausage, but the rest was really good.

Nick's Entree: Chicken and Biscuits

Nick:
This was a bit odd. The chicken was basically a nicely cooked piece of chicken, on top of the weirdest "biscuit" I've ever had, and some kind of weird cream sauce with peas in it. The chicken was good, but nothing special, and the biscuits quickly became soggy and fell apart; they were more like wimpy little slices of white bread, and they were quite unpleasant after soaking up the sauce. I had one bite, then ate all the chicken and helped Katie finish off her jambalaya.

Katie:
I just had some of the biscuits. It was...odd. Maybe this is like grits and you really need to be from the south to get it. I'd stick with the jambalaya unless chicken and biscuits is like your favorite thing in the world.

Katie's Dessert - Sorbet with bubble sugar

Katie:
Tasty sorbet with two pieces of bubble sugar stick in. A refreshing dessert for anyone too hot or not in the mood for a heavy pastry or baked good. I'm not sure what flavors I had though, should have asked. One was definitely more citrus, I think, and the other was in the berry zone. Maybe Nick's excellent palate discerned the flavors.

Nick:
Uh. One flavor was mango I think, and the other was definitely either strawberry or raspberry. Katie and I ended up switching deserts, and this was good, but not as good as the other sorbets we've had at Rainforest Cafe or Liberty Tree; it was just a little tart for me, but still not bad. The red strawberry or raspberry was actually better than the yellow mango, to my surprise. Also, I don't recommend eating the bubble sugar unless you want to be chewing it for twenty minutes.

Nick's Desert - Bourbon Street Pecan Tart with Butterscotch Sauce and Cinnamon Gelato

Nick:
Well, forget the butterscotch sauce right off the bat; it's just a decorative swirl on the plate, and unless you start licking the plate you're not gonna taste that sauce. I guess it does look nice. The real attraction here is the cinnamon gelato, which was absolutely delicious; the tart, unfortunately, is that kind of pecan where the top layer is a thin skin of pecan and then there's like glowing green goop underneath. I think I would have just been happier with the ice cream by itself, which really was very tasty.

Katie:
I didn't care for it. I actually wasn't a fan of the cinnamon gelato, it was a little odd for my tastes. The tart was just okay but I prefer pecan pie that has pecans all the way down.

Disney Day 6

Restaurant: The Beast's Castle
Location: Magic Kingdom

Entree: Carved Turkey Sandwich served warm on a Baguette with Dijon Mayonnaise and Pommes Frites.

Nick:
This was good! I was a little worried because the sandwich has two fairly thick turkey slices, and I find that turkey can quickly be too meaty for me, but that never really bothered me with this; "dijon mayonnaise" sounds like it could be nasty, but it was very tasty. I even ate the spinach, so it must be good. My only complaint is that they give you way more french fries (excuse me, "Pommes Frites") then you get ketchup for, so I only ate half of mine. Then again I got so stuffed I didn't want to move, so I guess there's not much for me to complain about. 

Katie:
I swear I liked this last trip. It was simply too turkey-y for me. The slices were too thick for Ms. Meatwuss. The fries were good but I ran out of ketchup before I made it even halfway through, despite being much more conservative in my condiment use than I usually am. I think I'll try the quiche next time or the quinoa thing. I swear there was a ratatouille on the menu before but I might be thinking of the dinner selection.

Desert: The Master's Cupcake

Katie:
A perfect cupcake. The recent mile-thick frosting, super rich cake trend in the cupcake world hasn't been my favorite--it's hard to eat a cupcake when I can't even open my mouth big enough to take a bite! This cupcake was perfect. The grey stuff is light and creamy, the cake is fluffy and exactly correct on the moist-to-dry ratio. Definitely get anything that mentions having the 'grey stuff' off the dessert menu.

Nick: 
I had the grey stuff; it's delicious. Don't believe me? Ask the dishes!

Bonus item: Family Size Pepperoni Pizza

Nick: 
Hey, two people is a family. Plus I have two kids in Fire Emblem Awakening. This is a kind of dish where the bottom is like a disc of dough, then the middle layer is tomato sauce and the top layer is cheese, and if you want you can get extra toppings. We got pepperoni, although I also like green peppers. Anyway, this was pretty good, although the crust itself is a little tasteless, so neither one of us ate the outside part of the disc where it's just crust without cheese or sauce. 

Katie:
I enjoyed the disc as well. It was tasty and prepared quickly so it would be a good choice after a long day. The sauce was especially good. I appreciated there was a good amount and the staff listened when I requested light cheese.