Brunch - California Grill (Contemporary Hotel)

We were looking forward to this brunch and had originally planned to also try the Narcoossee’s version before that was cancelled earlier in the year. It starts with a blueberry mimosa, mainly champagne with a blueberry hint and boba balls that seem to slowly release more blueberry flavour into the drinks as it stands.


These were good and there was always a tray up near the buffet so you could have had several without the usual unlimited drinks trick of making it slow and time consuming to get a refill. First time I’ve tried the now ubiquitous Boba Ball. Looks like Disney finally ran out of the job lot of craisins Walt purchased in 1982 because they’ve disappeared from the salads and they’ve now got Boba balls in every drink instead (poor Boba ).

Sorry wandered off there. We had a nice window seat with a view over the castle, lovely. Also spectacular to see a pair of eagles swooping through the thermals off the Contemporary car park, they flew near the window several times looking for prey (presumably MK eagles hunt corn dogs). The buffet part of the breakfast acts as the first course:


It’s a good spread, the charcuterie was particularly good. Sushi fairly standard but came with all the trimmings and there were a few exotic items like soba noodles and also a pastry section. Here’s our plates (from the top mine then DW then DD and a shared pastry plate):




Very nice buffet, the only item I didn’t enjoy were large green olives which turned out to be stuffed with blue cheese and were just too strong in flavour. Loved cheese with almonds and honeycomb, bacon and egg salad (lardons very fatty and odd but the rest good) and a gorgeous cranberry scone with cream from the pastries. DD and DW had more of the charcuterie lots of prosciutto and smoked salmon in the case of DD who also tried and liked the salmon sashimi and soba noodles with Amazu-Ginger Vinaigrette. DW also liked the very large shrimp.

So the buffet selection was good, not as big a spread as you might imagine (I didn't photo all the areas). However being completely honest the buffet was not outstanding. The selection overall was inferior in quality and quantity to the salad bar at Texas de Brazil (albeit the CG buffet has more high value meat and fish items included). Also if you’re expecting a luxury buffet of the sort that you would find in for example a 5* or 6* Dubai hotel brunch then this frankly is not in that league in our opinion so don’t go in with that expectation because the selection is not as broad and the quality of the items was very inconsistent at CG in our experience.

BTW while we had the first course I drank a pot of the Custom Roast California Grill Blend French Press Coffee which was just about the best pot of coffee I’ve ever had so don’t think this is all bad by any means!


On to the next course/mains which is from a set list. DD went for Eggs Benedict with the smoked salmon option (rather than the default ham), DW chose the same dish but the lobster version and with the sause on the side and I after much indecision I ordered a Spanish omelette (3 egg omelette with manchego cheese, chorizo, grilled onions and peppers etc. served with breakfast potatoes)




With a close inspection you might see the issue here. DW’s dish arrived featuring lobster that cameo'd in the original Alien movie.


Now I know lobster isn’t always pretty and the sauce should have covered this up but could the chef have made the tiniest bit of effort to present this nicely by cutting away the unsightly bits

It also came with the muffin sodden from water from, I would guess the eggs not being properly drained before putting on the plate The dish came with the ham that DW specifically asked not to have on there, I actually ate the ham and it was very tasty (so get the regular style benedict with the honey ham if you must! ). Finally, the eggs were odd, at once a semi translucent whites suggesting undercooking and a harder yolk with the appearance of overdone. Very odd indeed and unappetising, it put DW off to the extent she wouldn’t eat anything until dessert

The DD dish was ok (her english muffin was fine - inconsistency!) and she ate most of it albeit the translucent egg white was a little off-putting. My omelette turned out to be a poor choice, only tasting of the manchego. The chorizo was cold in the middle so wasn’t releasing most of its flavour and the breakfast potatoes were about half okay and half not fully cooked. TBH you’d typically get a better omelette at the omelette station of any hotel buffet which had one. Not good enough

So the mains were basically a write-off vs the standard a signature should be held to. I reckon we got unlucky with our orders/plates but that shouldn’t be an issue at this price. Mains served to the next table including the blueberry pancakes looked better.

Our server (who was fine BTW and we’re not fussed about the very minor ham error) then brought over a dessert plate and I also went up to get the special they were making - Bourbon Baba with Cornflake and Walnut topping.



The desserts were good. The big round things were fig centred, not really our thing but ok. Raspberry/blueberry scones were excellent as were the macaroons and the (very sweet) chocolate creations white chocolate, praline, blueberry cream etc. The chocolate was a trail mix bark, interesting and high quality, obviously hand made but a little odd and we left some on the stand. The bourbon baba thing was nice, looked weird with the cornflakes but tasted good, they needed more special items like this.

The bill came to $256


In summary we would have given it positive marks overall but for a poor round of main courses that let the meal down. If we did it again, DW and I would probably have sent both our main courses back and/or we could all have eaten a second buffet plate at the start (we held back to pace ourselves). We won’t be returning but as an overall experience it was still pretty good because of the location and elements of the meal (coffee, charcuterie, mimosas, macaroons etc.). So don't let us put you off!

Monsieur Paul dinner to follow before Pez01 gets there!

I regularly hear quite mixed reviews of Cali Grill, I think the temptation of the amazing views is what also reels people in. It's very disappointing that the mains weren't up to scratch especially considering the prices. Hopefully the rest of the day's meals were more palatable xx

We were just discussing the Cali Grill brunch and wondering if we should add it to our list. I don’t eat eggs which puts me off as the main course choices are more limited but maybe that’s a good thing after reading your report of the eggs.

Oh it's a shame your brunch at CG wasn't amazing - it was our favourite meal last year! We had regular mimosas though and my lobster eggs benedict didn't suffer with the same faults as your DW's, thankfully. It really shouldn't be possible to order badly at such a high price meal!

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LOVING this report. Your reviews are fantastic!

That lobster looks god awful.

With the Cali Grill brunch - Do you still get given a plate of pastries to start or are those now on the buffet to help yourself?

One of these;



Can't wait to hear about Monsieur Paul. I've always fancied it but OH thinks it's too stuffy.

It's not stuffy. It's in a theme park!

Just caught up with your report. Looking forward to reading the rest. :-)

Dinner - Monsieur Paul (EPCOT France)

Late change of plans dropped Biergarten at the last minute in favour or Monsieur Paul. MP is a signature restaurant above Chefs de France. We got there for our 8pm reservation and it was very quiet, maybe peaking at one third capacity from then till close. Menu choices options here are more complex but were well explained by our server:

- A la carte, order off the menu 3 courses for DxDDP
- Prix fixe, an amuse bouche then 3 courses off a slightly different menu $29 extra normally but no DxDDP surcharge
- Tasting menu, @6 smaller courses $29 p/head extra on DxDDP (++ for regular DDP I guess)

DW went for the prix fixe and DD and I the a la carte menu. Drinks we ordered champagne (DW), a glass of red/Cotes de Rhone (me) and apple juice for DD. We also got a choice of mini baguettes or herb bread (also shown below). BTW I switched to an iphone 8 tonight to see if the photos improve!


They obviously didn’t have the apple juice up here and got it from downstairs. Probably they should have put it into a proper glass but we’re not bothered.

Here’s my red wine which I’ll use to mention the only thing about this restaurant that I didn’t enjoy. It doesn’t have atmosphere. It’s a long fairly empty room and unless it’s full it’s going to lack a buzz, they really need ideally a pianist but at least a CD of something mellow and French in the background to round it out.


That’s the only less than positive thoughts out the way, onto the food First it was the amuse bouche extra for DW, an asparagus veloute/small portion of cold asparagus soup in a coffee cup. This was good and it came with cream and pieces of asparagus on the side that I think you’re supposed to stir into the soup.


After that it was starters. DD was initially a little scared of the menu but I convinced her to avoid the kids meals and (which sounded great btw) and go for the special of a pine kernel and ricotta ravioli with parmesan and a spinach sauce. She loved this and I struggled to even get a taste!


As a fallback in case she didn’t like the ravioli I;d gone for something I wouldn’t have otherwise chosen, canteloupe melon with Southern French cured ham. The melon was huge and very good, not much ham but it was tasty while it lasted. The accompaniments of lime sorbet and a parmesan tuile were a little odd and not sure it all belonged on the same dish (mainly the lime sorbet was an odd one )? Overall it was good though.


DW’s starter was an oxtail broth with truffles and covered in a pastry lid. Picture of the outside, inside it was 1cm square cubes of beef that melted in the mouth and a flavoursome broth like a thin stew. She loved this dish but didn’t ultimately finish as it was rich..

Cupcake for the middle aged foodie

Onto the mains:

DD, Grilled Beef Tenderloin Potato 'Macaire' with Tomme de Savoie cheese, oyster mushroom fricassee, beef jus reduction, creamy sauce

Me, Black Sea Bass in potato 'scales', fresh spinach, rosemary sauce

DW, Dover Sole with tagliatelles, mushrooms, and creamy sabayon

DD with my help switched the mushroom fricasee for another vegetable which ended up with the server recommending that we trust the chef on a replacement, we did and it came with all sorts of nice vegetable elements. She lined everything except the potato. The beef was incredible, she was stuffed after half so I finished it Best meat of the holiday so far, really great.

My dish was divine, crispy potato scales over light fish, then spinach and the most amazing creamy sauce. What a stunning looking dish as well! Also it was all nice and light, saving crucial space to eat a chunk of beef tenderloin

DW loves dover sole and she really enjoyed this dish. She likened this to an amazing carbonara sauce with fish () Anyway she loved it.

DD and I managed desserts, she could not resist the theatre of the chocolate bombe (Sphere) which melts as the hot sauce is poured over it:



On the menu it has a cognac sauce but they can leave it off for a child I ordered the Warm Chocolate Almond Cake, a baked dessert with a gooey raspberry filling and hazelnut ice cream. Perfect, in fact all the food was pretty much flawless.

DW then ordered a cheese board to go, we picked out 3 but the chef threw in tasters of the other 3 as well (don’t ask me to name and identify them all ). These will work fine as a future breakfast or snack.

The bill was $293.


Expensive but great food, well worth a foodie visit but it may be quiet so can use to your advantage with late bookings etc. Someone ship the chef over to work on the California Grill brunch


Gotta run now, off to AK for fastpasses etc, replies to earlier comments to follow later tonight

A couple of super expensive meals there, which I'm guessing were worth it with the DXDDP. Out of interest, would you pay OOP for either of these if you didn't have dining plan?