The Wave -- Breakfast -- Table Service -- Contemporary Resort
*This dining experience took place in September 2013.
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| Entrance to the Wave |
The Wave is located in Disney's Contemporary Resort and it's culinary viewpoint is sustainable and seasonal items. This is one of the locations that I often visit for breakfast when I'm staying at Bay Lake Tower, my home DVC resort. Their breakfast offerings include a variety of gluten free & dairy free products from companies like Udi's and Kinnikinnick.On this particular occasion, we stopped by for breakfast after attending Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party the evening before. We were all tired and looking forward to a relaxing breakfast close to our hotel room. I've been to the Wave several times previously, and I've usually been moderately satisfied with my choices and service. Unfortunately, this particular experience wasn't as magical as it could have been.One thing to note is that this location serves both a buffet option & an a la carte menu. We chose to go for the menu option rather than the buffet. To me, it hasn't been one of the best breakfast buffets, so I'd rather go for the menu. After our server greeted us, she seemed mildly disappointed we weren't ordering buffet. The chef came in the meantime and also seemed pretty put out that he had to come over. In fact, he barely spoke to me. I'm sure that it's very busy in the kitchen and that it can be stressful. Maybe he was having a bad day. Regardless, he was very curt with me and didn't seem willing to offer much. He really wanted me to get Mickey waffles and I didn't want them because I have had really good pancakes here before. I asked if he could make the banana walnut pancakes I got before and he said he could. I also asked if there was ANY chance he could do the sweet potato pancakes. His response was, "Well if we have sweet potato that hasn't been mixed yet..." and then proceeded to walk away. I got banana walnut pancakes so I assume that meant they didn't have any available or he just didn't want to make them. Yikes!
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| As you can see it was REALLY busy in here... |
Our server was also basically non-existent for our meal. And this rarely happens unless a restaurant is slammed. Now this restaurant is never slammed and quite frankly most of the people were getting the buffet, so I'm not sure what the issue was.
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| Banana walnut pancakes and bacon |
After getting my breakfast, I investigated the pancakes. They were basically Bob's Red Mill pancakes with sliced bananas and walnuts. I liked the version I got the time before because the chef had basically pureed the banana into the batter, so it was like banana bread flavor all throughout the pancake. This was banana flavor here and there. But overall, they were good. The bacon, on the other hand, was another story. I have no clue what they did to this bacon but it was terrible! Even the worst quick service bacon was better than this. It was very stringy, greasy, and just had a weird flavor, like it was slightly off. Honestly, for a place that touts local, sustainable and seasonal, they can't have good bacon!?My family also didn't really love their meal. They thought it was adequate but not really worth the price or effort. We all agreed that we would rather take the monorail next time to another resort to get breakfast. I'd happily head over to Kona for breakfast over this any day! It's just a bummer because honestly, I see a lot of potential in this restaurant, but it's just not at the level it should be. Really disappointing.Overall, I'd give this a 5 out of 10. This experience just wasn't good from start to finish. While the pancakes weren't terrible, just about everything else wasn't very good. I wish I could say better things about the Wave, but it's definitely off my skip list for now.Have you been to the Wave? What was your experience there?
Top of the World Lounge -- Bay Lake Tower -- Snacks
Prior to our trip, I was in contact with chefs from the Contemporary about the Top of the World Lounge. I knew they had appetizers that could be made gluten free/dairy free, so this was exciting. Upon arrival, I ordered a lovely cocktail--a pina colada with raspberry puree in it (yum!)
A very rich, fruity drink!
Then we decided on crab nachos (minus the cheese and sour cream) and Chicken and vegetable summer rolls (with the dipping sauce on the side). When the brought the food, they had essentially deconstructed the nachos by placing the crab on a separate plate and the black bean salsa on another plate.
Crab nachos, minus the 9 measly tortilla chips
The summer rolls were plated as normal. Both were very good. We ended up all agreeing that the summer rolls were more substantial and very tasty--while the crab nachos were quite small and they only gave us 9--that's right "9" tortilla chips for 3 of us and a ridiculous amount of salsa. Um, who uses only 9 tortilla chips?! Kind of stingy if you ask me. We were just basically eating the salsa straight. I'd actually heard other people complain about this prior to our trip, so I was prepared--but for $12.99, the sting of still only getting 9 tortilla chips was pretty harsh. Overall, I can say we enjoyed our snacks--though we'd probably only order the summer rolls next time.
Delicious summer rolls--the slaw on the side was amazing! Also, the dipping sauce shown here is NOT gluten free--my family members ate it, while I had the rolls plain (still excellent)
I'd give this a 6 out of 10 for very strange portion sizes and pricing.