Narcoossee’s Signature Lunch
We woke up at 6:30AM as we were going to head to Animal Kingdom for the 8AM EMH. We had planned originally to head to Flights of Passage but they announced that the ride was down so we decided to head to the other parts of the park. We got through Dinosaur, Everest, It’s Tough To Be A Bug and Starbucks (for tea - no photos - it wasn't exciting) when it was time for our Navi River FP+. Navi River was also still down so we headed to Safari. As the ride was still down so we decided to not wait around and drove over to Grand Floridian. Yes, we were early so we looked through the shops before heading to Narcoossee’s around 11:40am. Upon check in, I let them know Betsy was part of our party and that we would like to ensure we sat together. Luckily, they were able to make those arrangements with little issue!
Something they did different this year is that each party had their own table. No one ended up sharing with others. Some ways this is good and some ways this is bad. There was a lady there going to a F&W Festival event by herself for the first time since her mother’s passing and thus was sat alone.
We were sat at the end of the group of tables which did end up making certain things hard to hear, especially once you had multiple glasses of wine. The feature winery this year was Talley. They specialize in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The price point of the wine varies from $36 to $85 a bottle. I’ll just state here that I loved all my wine. I even got some refills on some of the glasses. The theme for the meal this year was to highlight coastal seafood and this meal highlighted that well.
Menu
When we were sat at the table - they already had the bread basket, butter, jam and pickled vegetables there waiting on us to enjoy. I totally dove right into those Buttermilk-Chive Biscuits! I think I ate 2 or 3 of them. I also had a single piece of the cornbread but the biscuits were definitely the winner here. My mother and Betsy enjoyed some of the pickled vegetables but I was saving my stomach room for the bread! (Priorities!)
House-made Corn Bread, Buttermilk-Chive Biscuits
Platter of Pickled Seasonal Vegetables
The first course was the course I was the most iffy about. A couple years ago, my husband and I were served fried oysters at the Flying Fish’s wine dinner and they were the most amazing things ever. I’ve had fried oysters else where and they were gross. These were between those two extremes. The smaller oysters were definitely better than the monster sized ones. That's probably because there was enough southern breading to oyster ratio. I also ate some of my corn and gave Betsy all my sausage since she seemed to love that the best.
Deep Fried Oysters - Succotash of Sweet Corn, Butter Beans, and Marquez Sausage w/ Lemon Butter Sauce
The second course, I knew I was going to be really happy with. I love shrimp! The sauce was just spicy enough to give you a kick without it being overpowering. I really liked the wine pairing here since the wine cooled off the spice.
Wild Caught Florida Shrimp - Hoppin-John made with Traditional Red Beans and Carolina Gold Heritage Rice, Creamy Collard Greens, and Red Pepper Coulis
The third course was a perfectly executed red snapper. The skin was the right amount of crispy without being burnt. The relish was just the right amount of sweet. The sauce worked well with the fish. I was getting close to the full feeling at this time.
Pan-Seared Florida Red Snapper - Heirloom Tomatoes, Roasted Marble Potatoes, Vidalia Onion Relish and Basil Aioli
I wish I had something nice to say about this course. I was feeling pretty happy from the many glasses of wine (like 8 at this point) I also was really full and didn't want to get to that sick feeling of full. I had to decide which course was going to be more important to me - this stew or dessert. I picked dessert. My mother was really happy with the stew and finished a good amount of hers.
Narcoossee’s Seafood Stew - A selection of the ocean’s best Fish and shellfish served in a spicy smoked tomato broth with summer sausage and grilled sourdough
This dessert was amazing. I’m glad I skipped course 4! The key lime pie was so worth it. It was the perfect amount of tartness with sweet. The meringue on top of the orange sorbet was also lovely. I struggled to finish it because I was so full but I made it somehow!
Key Lime Pie w/ Traditional Graham Cracker Crust and Orange Sorbet
I didn’t struggle to finish my cocktail though. In fact, I had 2 cocktails! I probably didn’t need two but hey, I was getting my money’s worth!
Key Lime Cruiser
We were given Apple Butter at the end. I wish I could tell you it was awesome but it was tossed in my Irma clean out since the whole over a week without power when it's 90+ degrees out kinda made that happen. Poor apple butter!
Apple Butter
So by the end of this lunch, I wasn’t feeling much pain. Betsy luckily had only had about 3 drinks over the course of the three hours (you can see her leftover wine above) so she was the only sober one with us. I got distracted by the seminar that was occurring at Grand Floridian but they wouldn’t let me go crash it
I mean, I am the living example of ankle sprain issues and what happens after so many years of recurrence!
Ankle Seminar!
Betsy drove us back to the Beach Club as she is awesome like that. It was also cheaper for her to take the lyft back to her hotel from the Beach Club since it was closer to Pop Century! Win for both of us!
I crawled back into bed and slept drunk hard for a couple of hours.