Recently I found myself dining at Disney Springs. I let me theme park friends decide where to dine that evening. As I was preparing to order an appetizer and entrée in typical food blogger fashion, I saw a notification on twitter from MouseDining. My review of “That Salad With Chicken” from Raglan Road was posted online. Ironically, I saw that post while sitting at that same Raglan Road restaurant. The group I had just picked up at the airport that afternoon planned to go to Raglan Road for at least two months in advance for this evening. Of course, I booked a reservation with the help of MouseDining back then. In typical fashion, plans changed so I think I adjusted this reservation about six times. On every occasion MouseDining helped take the stress away.
Okay, I have waxed poetic about MouseDining enough. I ordered food that night. I selected a new appetizer there, the “Beef in Bed.” As you can tell, Raglan Road likes to create unique names for their food. The “Beef in Bed” costs $18. With a price point like that for an appetizer, I expected something really good or sizeable. The menu description explains the higher price point though. This appetizer includes smoked pulled beef shortrib on buttermilk cheddar bread, roasted corn, smoked onion puree and crispy fried shallots. Raglan Road appears to be basing the price point on beef shortrib meat.
Our server took our orders this night in a timely fashion. In fact, my appetizer arrived very quickly after ordering. In fact, it arrived so soon that many in my group wondered how that could have been done. I guess after visiting Homecomin so often, I expect things to take a longer time before I get my food. So, I felt concerned that this appetizer lacked freshness. Those concerns failed to be valid with the exception of the bread being a bit tough in places. Still, that might not be a valid criticism with this type of appetizer.
However, I did think this appetizer looked small in terms of portion size for $18. This appetizer fails to be truly sharable in my opinion. On a positive note, the pulled beef meat provided a great smoky style flavor. The flavor of the beef stars in this appetizer. If you dislike smoky flavored meat, then this appetizer should be avoided by you. If you enjoy that style of flavor, this deserves consideration.
The overall concept of this dining creation makes total sense. The creativity and design of it should get high marks. The buttermilk cheddar bread brings a nice level of sweetness to balance the rest of this “Beef in Bed.” When you get a taste of the beef with some bread combined with a few of the other components, the experience for your taste buds might earn the high price point. However, in my experience, that only happens in a few bites. I doubt this concept can be configured to avoid some inferior bites of food. All individual components of this work apart from fried shallots. They seemed to not match the rest of ingredients very well.
On the positive side, this appetizer brings good flavor. Yet, I preferred the “Chicken Donut” and appetizers like at Raglan Road over this one. People with texture issues eating food will not enjoy this one either. My biggest criticisms revolve around portion size and price point. If this distinctive appetizer costs a few dollars less, then it would be easier to encourage people to get this. However, that $18 price point sends a message of either higher quality of larger portion size.
In my opinion, this new item may not last long at Raglan Road. I doubt many people will buy it more than once. Once again, my criticism falls on price point not quality of preparation or actual flavors. If you crave smoky style meat in a unique appetizer, go order this. If not, I would suggest another appetizer at Raglan Road. As always, eat like you mean it!
