Each year during September is Visit Orlando’s Magical Dining month. Beginning August 24 during a special preview week, and continuing throughout September, select Orlando restaurants offer prix fixe dinners for just $33. Indulge in imaginative appetizers, entrees and desserts sure to leave you spellbound. One dollar from each meal is donated to ELEVATE Orlando.
This year September has been an insanely busy month but I was still able to try two of the restaurants on the list – The Kitchen at Hard Rock hotel and K Restaurant. Both restaurants were totally different but equally amazing!
We tried The Kitchen during the special preview week at the end of August. We were actually the very first people to order off the Magical Dining menu. The Kitchen was a very family friend restaurant, but they had a lot of great options. Each meal starts out with a guitar pick shaped serving platter topped with jalapeno corn bread and the most amazing pretzel breadsticks. Oh yum!
I started out my meal with the BLUE CHEESE POTATO CHIP with Bacon, Parmesan cream, balsamic glaze & scallions and my friend had the FLORIDA GATOR TAIL which was Flashed fried, and served with potato chips & horseradish aioli. Oh. Em. Gee. Not only was it a great combination of flavors, it was a TON of chips. I probably could have eaten them as my meal and been fine.
For my entree I picked the BACON WRAPPED MEATLOAF with Mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots & mushroom gravy. I have this slight obsession with meatloaf and soon as I saw that it was wrapped in bacon I couldn’t pass it up. When they brought out my dish I was in shock at how much food was on the plate. There were two HUGE slices of meatloaf along with the mashed potatoes and veggies. I set aside one of the slices of meatloaf right away because I knew that I still had dessert coming. The meal was amazing. I couldn’t get over how flavorful the whole dish was AND I had more than enough left over to bring home for another meal.
I wasn’t sure where I was going to put it but I was determined to try the dessert I had coming. I ordered the PUMPKIN SPICE CRUNCH CAKE which was layers of pumpkin spice cake, chocolate mousse & praline crunch. As we were waiting for our dessert to come out we saw one of the waiters walk by with the normal dessert spread – which is displayed on a huge guitar shaped platter. If my dessert looked anything like what was on that platter I was going to be a very happy camper. I was not disappointed! I’m glad it wasn’t huge though because it was definitely a rich dessert. But I powered through and finished all but one bite. It was so worth it.
In addition to an amazing meal we also got to meet the one and only Bart Simpson! And I thought that I was tall. He wasn’t a very talkative guy, but he was definitely a fun part of the dining experience. On Wednesday and Saturday nights, from 6 – 9 pm, they have characters for Universal Orlando available for pictures and meet-and-greet during your meal. Homer was around the=at evening too but we were too busy enjoying our food to get a picture with him.
I’m so glad we decided to travel a little bit further out and try a hotel restaurant. I tend to shy away from restaurants in hotels, but that ends up cutting out a lot of great options. Also, during magical dining month most of the hotel restaurants are validating parking so you don’t have to worry about that addition cost. So don’t let a restaurant’s location deter you from checking them you. You still have a couple more days to check out magical dining!