Living the DLuxe Life-Sep 2019 (Universal & WDW DTR)-Completed 12/27

Oooooh lady you know I am here for this! Life’s been a mess this year so if I end up lurking more than commenting just know I love your reports and am sending you all my thanks and good vibes!
 
We always enjoy the food at Universal, but after following your blog I am adding so many places to our list! How did we miss all this? 😝 keep it coming.
 
I love stained glass doughnut windows so much. :lovestruc
:rotfl2: Not necessarily a sentence you see often :p But I have to agree :laughing:

Although there were no knives there so I had to use little wooden stirrer/stick to cut it in half.

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What can I say? I had to improvise. :rotfl:
:thumbsup2

PS - I'm still laughing over your title. It's so my kind of humor :rotfl:
 
:wave2: It was nice running in to you at HHN after so long!

I'm glad you enjoy the Uni food so much. I know you know in the past I haven't lol and unfortunately the couple times we ate there last month didn't change that. I go down for work again in Dec. and while the food they give us typically sucks I'm hoping to find at least one place I like besides Antojitos
(and my Toothsome macarons of course) 😄
 


We always enjoy the food at Universal, but after following your blog I am adding so many places to our list! How did we miss all this? 😝 keep it coming.

Thanks for reading! There really are a lot if awesome places to eat ther:thumbsup2

:rotfl2: Not necessarily a sentence you see often :p But I have to agree :laughing:


PS - I'm still laughing over your title. It's so my kind of humor :rotfl:

It is an odd sentence, but one I’d be happy to see more :rotfl:

I’m always so happy that you get my jokes :laughing:

:wave2: It was nice running in to you at HHN after so long!

I'm glad you enjoy the Uni food so much. I know you know in the past I haven't lol and unfortunately the couple times we ate there last month didn't change that. I go down for work again in Dec. and while the food they give us typically sucks I'm hoping to find at least one place I like besides Antojitos
(and my Toothsome macarons of course) 😄

Yes, nice to see you!

Aside from Amatista, have you tried any of the resort dining? I think some of Universal’s best dining is in resorts. Like Bice at Portofino, The Kitchen and The Palm at the Hard Rock, and Jake’s at Royal Pacific.
 
The Jalapeño Popper Show-Stopper
Beef burger, jalapeño-infused cream cheese, jalapeño bacon, fried jalapeños, jalapeño citrus aioli, lettuce, tomato, fresh sliced jalapeños, brioche bun
Black Truffle Cheese Burger
Beef burger, black truffle cheese, roasted shallots, sautéed mushrooms, roasted garlic aioli, lettuce, brioche bun
These both sound AMAZING!!! And I want them both now!
 


Vivo Italian Kitchen

This entry for Vivo probably won't be too long because we went pretty simple for our meals, but for the sake of continuity it's going in here. After we headed back to our room from a day in the parks, we got ready for dinner at Vivo. As I tend to be on occasion, we were late a little late for our reservation.

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But when we got there it looked like there was only about 3 groups inside the whole place so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't, however that didn't stop the lady at the stand from giving us a lecture on how we should be more timely!

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They told us we could sit at the kitchen or outside, so I think all the tables must be for parties of 4+, because I've never been seated at a table. We choose the kitchen, and got the opposite side from last time, but there wasn't much to see on that side.

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Food came out pretty fast and we weren't super hungry so we just went with entrees. We got the bread while we were eating the entrees which is a little unusual, so we didn't end up having much of it.

For dinner I got:

Chicken Parmigiano
marinara, mozzarella, linguine


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Just like last time I thought this was very good, and the perfect amount of food to be filling but not be too much.

Samantha got the:

Chicken Marsala
sautéed mushrooms, marsala wine sauce, linguine


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She enjoyed this as well, and also agreed the portion sizes were good.

All in all it was another good meal at Vivo. We were excited to get to HHN, and not too hungry though so we did only get entrees. I don't remember the service being particularly good or bad aside from the lady who lectured us when we checked in, but overall Vivo is alway a good dinner choice. It's not too pricey, and the food is good. Sometimes it's pretty crowded so a reservation is needed, but we got lucky that night and it seems we were early enough that there weren't too many people there yet.
 
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adding this to my list for next month, DH loves Italian and I haven't tried it yet. I will try to be on time though : )

I was surprised the first time we went, it’s really good food for a more casual Italian place. Oh yes be on time unless you want a lecture :laughing:

I'm late for my ADR but hopefully you can still seat me :D

Haha, Of course! Although I must give you a lecture first :rotfl:
 
The Kitchen Acoustic Brunch at the Hard Rock

About a week before going I had read a good review of the Acoustic Brunch, and we decided to book it in the place of breakfast at Islands in our hotel. Josh and I have done the regular breakfast buffet before about 2 years ago, and were a little disappointed in the food aside from the omelet and griddle stations. But I had higher hopes for this brunch because it looked like the selection was bigger. Here's our review from our previous breakfast:

The Kitchen Breakfast Review

Looking around I could tell right away there was a much bigger selection. The food was basically all throughout the restaurant. Starting with an entire corner dedicated to pastries and cereal near our seats.

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Aside from the pastries they had the full breakfast buffet (with a few more items than I remember), carving stations, a salad bar, a dessert bar, a pizza station, the omelet and griddle stations, and the ability to get unlimited Bloody Marys or mimosas.

There was also this guy singing and playing guitar:


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He was good, but it was a tad loud since we were seated pretty close.

I think it was so everyone could hear (there's seating outside too), but near the end of the meal he took a break so we had a little quiet time.

For my first plate I went in every direction:

I got tex mex eggs in a burrito, bacon, mac and cheese, pasta salad, mozzarella balls, a chocolate covered strawberry, a chocolate dipped cheesecake piece, and pineapple juice:


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I really enjoyed the tex mex eggs, and the bacon was crispy. The mac and cheese was better than I expected. It was nowhere near as good as the one they have on the lunch menu, but was better than your typical generic buffet mac and cheese. I think it would be hard to screw up pasta salad, mozzarella, or a chocolate covered strawberry so those tasted as expected. But the chocolate dipped cheesecake was actually terrible! It didn't taste like any cheesecake I've ever had. It mostly tasted like plastic?

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I gave it to Samantha to try some so she could tell me if I was going crazy or not, and she also thought it tasted horrible, but couldn't pinpoint what part of it. At first she thought the chocolate, but after a minute she also thought it was the cheesecake too.

Samantha stuck with some fruit, eggs, and mac and cheese, for her first plate. She said she felt like she had to have some fruit so she wouldn't die. :rotfl:

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Round 2!

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Spinach and artichoke dip to share:


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This tasted like broccoli cheddar soup which isn't quite what I expected, but it was delicious.


Samantha got the Banana Walnut Pancakes:


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Which she enjoyed.

I got "The Elvis" French Toast:


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This has peanut butter, bananas, and caramel on it. I had this before when we went for breakfast, and it was my favorite thing I ate there. This time it was even better! I'm not sure if it's the higher price of this brunch, but the food seemed all around fresher, the peanut butter was super creamy, the caramel was more plentiful than I remember it being on my other one, and the french toast dish even looked a little bigger.

Samantha also got a Mimosa and a dessert plate to share. At the end we were stuffed! :rotfl:

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This brunch was $39 a person which is higher than their typical morning breakfast buffets, but not by much, and not too high when compared to Disney buffets. It's definitely the best one I've been to at Universal though. I've always enjoyed the atmosphere in The Kitchen, and even though the music was a bit loud, it fits in well with the hotel's theming. This brunch is only on Sundays, so the rest of the week will be the regular buffet; but I'd recommend checking it out if you had time. While the regular breakfast isn't worth going out of your way for in my opinion, I do think this one was. There were so many food choices (more than I took pictures of and more than the online menu indicates), all the food was super fresh, and almost everything we had was really good. The omelet and griddle stations alone may be enough to get your money's worth, but you also have a lot of other choices too.
 
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Wow that brunch looks amazing! The price is really not that bad for bottomless brunch too, as you mentioned. I will definitely have to put this on my list!

It was really good! The best brunch/breakfast I’ve had over at Universal.
 
I’m always so happy that you get my jokes :laughing:
I sure do! :thumbsup2

Aside from the pastries they had the full breakfast buffet (with a few more items than I remember), carving stations, a salad bar, a dessert bar, a pizza station, the omelet and griddle stations, and the ability to get unlimited Bloody Marys or mimosas.
Yes, please ::yes::

I'm so amused by the "display only" sign :laughing:

Yum! This meal looked so delicious! I would have absolutely ordered the Elvis option, too! :thumbsup2
 

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