Aloha, cousin!
Aloooooha, 'Ohana! One of my favorite restaurants on property. I love the grilled foods and the ambiance. I love hanging out with my "family." The last time we went to 'Ohana, I had the most amazing experience with Chef TJ. I have to say, besides Chef Williere at 50's Prime Time, he has to be one of my most favorite chefs on property. The man is a food genius! He has such dedication to folks with special diets, and he makes feasts for those people. Unfortunately, he is no longer at 'Ohana and has moved on to 1900 Park Faire (where I will hopefully get to visit sometime in the near future!). I was curious to see how this experience, minus Chef TJ would be. Upon arrival, the same procedure as the last time occurred, in which a plastic flower was placed at our table, by my seat to notify the chef that there was an allergy.
I was then greeted by the chef was nice enough, but seemed rather busy. He said that the salad was fine (which I love), he'd bring me wings with no sauce, the shrimp on the grill was safe (interesting, since last time they brought me shrimp on my main plate) and that all the other meats would be prepared with white rice in a bowl and that he had a premade sweet and sour sauce and a GF teriyaki sauce too. For dessert, he said I could have the French Meadow brownie and vanilla rice-dream. This was all fine by me.
First up was the chicken wings. The wings were the same used by everyone else, minus the sauce. They were pretty good (yeah I ate a LOT of them) as they had a rub on them. Very messy! I do wish they had been sauced, like the ones Chef TJ made me, but still they were extremely tasty.
Somehow I managed to eat most of these wings!
Next up was the salad. My most favorite salad on WDW property. It is soooo good. I love that honey lime dressing.
Yum, honey lime dressing!
And then came the shrimp. OMG I love these shrimp. This was the only thing I liked better on this trip to Ohana simply b/c you can't replace that grilled flavor when you saute shrimp. The sauce on it is to die for. I ate all of the shrimp on this plate--yep, I was a pig at this meal!
That's a lot of shrimp!
And then came my big bowl of rice, chicken, pork, and beef. It also had broccoli on it too. I have to say, I did actually like the sauces a lot, and enjoyed having a variety to dip my meats in. The main course certainly wasn't as elaborate as Chef TJ's creation, but I can tell they are trying to recreate the standard he set.
Main course--very tasty!
I ate so much on this meal, it was ridiculous. I really love this place and even without Chef TJ, the food was still excellent. I really didn't have much room for dessert. This was actually the disappointing part of the meal. Chef TJ made this amazing creation with chocolate soy ice cream, french meadow brownies, bananas, pineapple, cotton candy, and chocolate syrup! It was soooo good. This was just an opened and plopped on the plate brownie and a scoop of vanilla rice dream. Kind of boring, if ya ask me. Well, considering how good the rest of the meal was, I probably should complain, just wish they would have made a little more effort that's all. (and chocolate syrup--people need chocolate syrup!!).
Kind of boring, but good.
Overall, I'd say the chefs at Ohana are trying to maintain the high standard that Chef TJ set while he was there. They are certainly making more or less the same dishes the same way and the food was excellent as always. I miss Chef TJ, yes, but I still will eat here over and over again. The food is so good, it's hard to have a terrible experience there. My only hope is they just work on improving the desserts a bit. 8 out of 10 for yummy food and another great experience.
That's a lot of shrimp!
Main course--very tasty!
Kind of boring, but good.