Ariel's Grotto

Time to round out the restaurants we tried inside either of the parks! Ariel's Grotto is not anyone's favorite restaurant. The food had the reputation for being just alright. However, it is a wonderful restaurant to visit if you need princesses at a meal (I think it's the only princess character meal at DLR.) It is also a good choice for a slightly lower budget World of Color (WoC)) meal if Carthay Circle just isn't for you. Please note- there are NO characters at the WoC meal. When we visited in October 2011 there was no Carthay Circle and since it was a crowded Columbus Day weekend, we wanted those VIP WoC Fast Passes (FPs)! So our flight landed in the morning and we spent an evening in Disney's California Adventure (DCA) Park, including a dinner here.

Every now and then, they change up the WoC menus, so no guarantees that what I ate is what you get now. Here is a link to the World of Color dinner menu.

Ariel's Grotto is located in the Paradise Pier area of DCA, right off the bridge.

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There is both indoor and outdoor seating, the outdoor being right on the water!

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We chose outside since the view is so pretty of Paradise Pier. It was dark when we were there so the view looked something like this:

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For our first night there, the view alone got us pretty excited for the trip to come!

The WoC menu at Ariel's Grotto has very limited choices and included bread, a choice of 2 different antipasto towers (I think there was 1 additional choice for kids), an entree selection out of maybe 6 choices, and a dessert platter. We started off with this flower looking bread:

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It was pretty good. Nothing super exciting there, although I did enjoy having the different butters and toppings! Rating: 3/5.

I'm pretty sure this was the antipasto tower we had, since I know we had meats and most likely seafood. I think there was some cheese too and we pretty much skipped over the rest:

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It was OK. The meats were pretty good. It's what you would expect, again, nothing exciting here. Rating: 2/5.

For the entree, we both went with the tri-tip. The choices were pretty lackluster and this was really the only one that looked good to us.

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You know, I wasn't expecting much, but it was pretty darn good! I mean, yeah, it's meat and potatoes with veggies. Whoop-de-doo, right? But the meat was cooked nicely. It was medium and I can't remember if we got to request that or not, but that's how I like it! It was moist and pretty flavorful for essentially plain beef that is not a "steak" per se. The potatoes had cheese and were good! The veggies- meh. But I'm not a veggie person already. Rating: 3/5.

On to the desserts- the part I was the most excited about! No choices here, just a mixture of items!

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Ooh, Aaah. So pretty! I loved the touch of the white chocolate film strip that reminds you of the show you will see with your VIP FPs later! Disclaimer: neither I nor my boyfriend enjoy dark chocolate. That level of richness is just gross to both of us. The lava cakes and brownie things were that bitter chocolate flavor that we just can't stand. The macaroons tasted very fake fruity and had that meringue texture-the bad kind. If that texture bothers you, which it does for us. The fluffy mousse-type things also had that gross fake flavor to me and almost no texture. I think the little cup was tiramisu.. and we both hate all kinds of coffee. The berries.. meh. Fine fruit, but I wanted dessert! So all in all, all the desserts on this platter were just plain gross for us. But I know other people enjoy it! When it comes to desserts, we enjoy more of the basics. I cannot imagine this platter going over well with kids, either! Rating: 1/5.

So all said and done, the dinner was OK, just like I expected. We were there for the FPs, and we got them, and they worked out great! It is not a priority at all to return. The entree was good, but very basic and plain, and the other stuff ranged from OK to the gross desserts, in our opinion. I would rate the restaurant a 3/5. Love the view, but the food is just not very good and you do pay a lot to eat there. If we were interested in princess character meals I'm sure we would rate it higher, because it does have decent food for a character meal restaurant!