A friend comes over for a visit. "I think I want to go to DisneySea", she says. "Could you show me some of that fancy Disney magic you're always on about?".
Well, I can certainly try.
So I might have gone a little overboard with this one (hah! See what I did there?), but it was a spectacularly memorable lunch. It was worth a rainy day visit to the park, and it seemed my guest was having a good time as well!
I had never been to the S.S. Columbia Dining Room before, so I was extremely excited. I booked us a table a couple of weeks in advance, as it's one of the park's more popular restaurants. Hence rainy day visit. But it was good! Crowds were non-existent, and the rain stopped during the day, so we had plenty of time to explore and enjoy everything.
This food, though. And the dining room itself! They have truly perfected the illusion of being on board a luxury liner. Bring all those repressed Titanic feels, and lose yourself in the atmosphere. The ship is landlocked, but we had a window table with ocean view. It felt like we would leave port any moment!
How far do they take the luxury liner theming? Well, apart from the immaculate look of the dining room itself, the menu also provides trivia and fluff to make the illusion complete.
There's really no need to add this page to the menu, but I'm so glad it's there!
And let's move on to the food porn, shall we?
S.S. Columbia are currently doing a slightly different menu for the Tanabata Days event, the menu presented below was what was offered during Easter.
I had the Chef's Special Lunch Course, which gives you a choice of starter, entrée, and a selection of two desserts (out of four total). The course also comes with a soft drink of your choice (free refills, you're allowed to change to different soft drinks during the course of the meal, and they specifically ask if you want tea or coffee with your dessert), and unlimited bread.
Appetizer:
Sea bram and quinoa with balsamic sauce.
This dish came out like a work of art. Am I the only one seeing the Baymax reference in the sauce?
The top right hand side of the plate had a thin layer of wasabi dust that I could dip the sea bram in according to taste.
Entrée:
Roast beef with whole grain mustard sauce.
It might look a little plain, but the taste was deceptively complex. The huge chunk of roast beef felt extremely extravagant, it made me very happy. Remember to pace yourself for this!
Dessert:
The waitress came over to the table with a plate featuring all four desserts. I felt it really added to the whole first class experience to be able to get a proper look at the desserts before selecting the two you wanted. I ended up with: acerola jellied dessert & lychee sherbet, and pistachio financier & vanilla-flavored mascarpone cream.
These were heavenly. The light fruitiness of the acerola jelly was the perfect combo for the heavier mascarpone cream.
The pistachio one was presented as the seasonal dessert at the time, though it seems all four options have been replaced for the current Tanabata menu.
The course was ¥3,760. It's pricy, but that's to be expected at one of DisneySea's fine dining restaurants. The food and presentation is impeccable, I don't mind paying a little extra for the fine dining experience. It's a perfectly reasonable lunch option for a special occasion or when you want to treat yourself.
It seems it's possible to order just dessert, if that's more to your liking, but I wonder if it's worth the trouble of going through the PrioritySeating booking just for dessert. I mean, I would do it, but....
I also noticed that they offer a "Light Cuisine" menu. It was a little pricier than the standard lunch course, but perhaps also a little healthier. The menu listed calories for each dish, and came in at a total of 533 kcal. for the whole course. It's definitely something I'm considering going back for at some point!