After meandering around Epcot for a bit, Adam and I arrived at La Hacienda for our dinner reservation. I'd been sneaking peeks at the place from around the lagoon, and it looked like it would be a great dinner spot.
Inside, the restaurant is even prettier. I had known about the floor-to-ceiling windows along the dining room, but I just loved the little touches and details that themed the room, but didn't make it cheesy or overwhelming. It was just nice.
Some ambiance:
(Sorry about the used glasses in the top photo, I thought it sorta showed the window view. And that our former neighbors drank pink lemonade.)
And some hungry diners:
Having read all about the DDXP, and the sheer amount of food that accompanies it, I thought it would be wise to start off the evening on a lighter note, and had the Ensalada de La Hacienda.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened with this dish, as I had advised the server about my food allergies, and had asked for the salad without pine nuts. Apparently this led to the pomegranates (the draw of the salad in the first place for me) and dressing to be left off as well. So it was a pretty boring salad, just some cheese, tomatoes, and a bunch of spinach. Not bad, but not interesting.
Adam was a bit of a better orderer than I, he decided on the Taquiza.
According to him, "the tacos were very good, all had corn tortillas, but I'd have to say the rib eye taco was by far the best. It had a chipotle salsa on it that was really good, but the pork wasn't too shabby either. They were perfect little 2 bite morsels for an appetizer."
Partway through the course, tired of eating dry spinach leaves, I squeezed the lime from his plate over my salad. It was a citrusy improvement.
For our main course, Adam and I shared the La Hacienda, a mixed grill for two.
This included:
Steak, chicken, chorizo, vegetables, corn, corn tortillas, rice, and black beans.
I wasn't a big fan of the steak (I may have just grabbed a slightly fatty piece, Adam thought that it had a nice cilantro topping). The chicken was great, it had a sweet honey sauce on it that Adam went nuts over (he called it "delectable"). The little chorizos were good, they were little bite-sized ones, which I hadn't expected. The vegetables were just plain grilled vegetables, nothing bad. Adam liked the corn tortillas more than I did, but they weren't bad. The rice was good, as were the black beans.
The corn was where we were a bit divided. It had a vinegary pickled flavor, which I did not enjoy at all (and I did try a few little bites throughout the evening, just to be fair). Adam called the corn "amazing, a vinegary bite to a sweet corn that was very crisp and tasty." He's the one with the much more adventurous palate in our relationship, so I'm sure those of you with braver tastes than I will definitely enjoy it. Me, however, I will stick to those plain old grilled veggies.
For dessert, we both had the Tamal de Dulce, which (I know this sounds bad), I really hadn't expected to like.
Happily, I was wrong! I was afraid that it would be too sweet, but it really had a nice fruity flavor. Adam agrees, "The tamal was very tasty, not a whole lot of filling and was a little dry, but the strawberry coulis more than made up for it as there was plenty to saturate it."
Overall, we both really enjoyed our dinner here. The ambiance was very nice and the food was tasty. In my opinion, La Hacienda is a great addition to Epcot!
No comments:
Post a Comment