PDA

View Full Version : Avalon Cove



JeffG
12-03-2001, 10:44 AM
We had lunch at the main restaurant portion of Avalon Cove yesterday.

I'll start off my comments with one very highly positive note about it, which is that the character interaction was >outstanding<. During the time we were there, we had frequent visits from Goofy, Pluto, Chip & Dale, and Minnie Mouse. Arial was periodically present in the entry area to the lower level dining room (she sits on a decorated cart that they can wheel in and out), but was kind of isolated there.

We were dining with some out-of-town friends who have a 2-year-old daughter that is rather fearless around the characters. The characters were completely lavishing her with attention, playing with her, hugging her, and overall just doing everything they possibly could to amuse her. I don't think her parents cared one bit about the food items. The character interaction was completely worth the price of the lunch for them.

Unfortunately, the food and menu were overall very disappointing. They start off the meal by bringing out some soft pretzel sticks and cheese sauce. While the pretzel sticks were tasty, they would have been >much< better had they been served warm instead of cold. The cheese sauce was warm when it was brought out, although it cools pretty quickly out in room temperature. They really need to warm the pretzels as well.

For my first course, I had the salad. This actually did get the meal off to a pretty good start. The vegetables were fresh and crisp and the salad was pretty much the right size for this meal. Although the menu specifically states that the salad is served with their "house" dressing, they actually offered all the usual choices of dressings. My only minor complaint was that the salad probably could have used a few croutons to add a bit more seasoning. Others in our group did try the soups and seemed pleased with them as well.

It was with the entrees that the meal really started to go wrong. My first complaint was really that the selection offered just isn't that great. The available choices were cheeseburgers, a couple different fish dishes, a couple salads, meatloaf, chicken pot pie and a couple dinner salads. It really seemed like they should offer more variety here. How about some traditional beef dishes such as pot roast or even a small steak? Some form of fried or roasted chicken is the other obvious omission here. I really would like to see them rework this a bit more.

I ordered the cheeseburger and, quite frankly, it was bad enough that I ended up leaving almost half of it on the plate. The burger is grilled and was so completely charred on the outside that it basically had a burnt taste. Three other people in our group had also ordered burgers and found them to be the same way. I had requested the burger to be cooked "medium" and actually found that it was pretty much the right level of pinkness on the inside. It was just on the outside that it was charred. The meat appeared to be of a decent quality as well, but they really need some lessons on how to cook it.

Others in our group that had ordered different entrees did not seem too pleased with them either. One person had ordered the chicken pot pie and reported that it was so bland that it was basically flavorless. Another ordered the meatloaf and found it to be way too dry. The only one that really seemed to be pleased with the entree was the 2-year-old, who did seem to very much enjoy her Octadog (which was quite cute...) and macaroni.

For the dessert course, the choices and quality returned to the plus side. The one I selected was a chocolate brownie topped with hot fudge on top and a scoop of Rocky Road ice cream on the side. The ice cream was topped with mini-marshmellows, almond slices, and mini-chocolate chips. It was very rich and quite good. My wife had the same thing, but with vanilla ice cream and no almonds.

Others in the group tried some of the other desserts and enjoyed them as well. In fact, the selection and quality of the desserts was high enough that I wish they offered the option to go to the restaurant just for dessert. One person in our group was even joking that perhaps they should let us order 3 dessert courses...

With the new staffing, they seem to have replaced Wolfgang Puck's excessively slow but accurate service with quick and attentive service that is also kind of confused and not always correct. Drinks were frequently refilled, but we had a couple occasions where diet and regular Coke were mixed up. We also had a couple occasions where refills were brought when they weren't needed or where more than one person brought them at the same time. With the food orders, a couple of us ordered our cheeseburgers plain and they ended up bringing all of them that way. Others had to request that the rest of the toppings be brought later.

We also noticed some major confusion when it came to priority seating. Our out-of-town guests were staying at the Grand Californian and had tried calling the central reservation line on Friday to find out about reservations. They transferred the call to the restaurant, explaining that they were handling the reservations themselves. The person at the restaurant then told them that there were no reservations.

Yesterday, another couple that were dining with us arrived at DCA early and found that they were able to make priority seating reservations at the restaurant. When we arrived, though, they seemed very confused about how they were supposed to work or what to do about it. It still took 20-30 minutes to get seated even with the reservations, despite the fact that the restaurant wasn't overly crowded.

I do tend to chalk the service issues up to the restaurant being new and the staff being fairly inexperienced. I would imagine the service will improve in time. In fact, the problems were all correctable and we never considered shorting the tip or anything.

The food quality problems definitely need to be dealt with, though. This is a good location and the characters were outstanding, but I'm pretty doubtful that we will be back unless I hear that the quality of the entrees have improved dramatically. For $20/person, they must do better than this.

-Jeff

3894
12-03-2001, 11:24 AM
Thanks for the review, JeffG.

No amount of ambience or character visits can fix kitchen and service problems. For your $20, you ought to have had the World's Best Burger.

Glad the sundae worked out.