On Wednesday, November 21, 2007, Jim, Sheila, Donna, Michele, Tony, Lane (10), Julia (7), Blake (4) and I dined at the Turf Club Bar & Grill at Saratoga Springs Resort by Downtown Disney.  The earliest ADR I could get when I made the reservation six months ago for a party of 9 was at 6:55 pm.  So we took advantage of the later dinner and shopped at Downtown Disney from 4:00 pm until we took the ferry across the lake to Saratoga Springs at 5:50 pm.  Even though we checked in at the podium at 6:30 pm (25 minutes before our scheduled ADR), we were not seated until almost 7:20 pm.

Claude, our server, started us out right away with our beverages, but the service after that lacked the normal Disney efficiency although I personally felt that most of the delay was the fault of the kitchen and not Claude.

The three kids all ordered from the kids’ menu — Lane ordered the pizza, which came with French fries and apples with brown sugar; Julia ordered the beef macaroni and cheese with a salad and another order of the apples with brown sugar; Blake ordered the mac & cheese with no side dishes.  Unfortunately, as with most kids, the mac & cheese was “too cheesy” which Michele, his mom, feels is almost impossible (it was obviously not mac & cheese from the Kraft blue box)!  And … even though their meals came with a dessert, the kids were too tired and full to even order it when dinner was finally over (this was in part due to the fact that the service was horrendous and dinner lasted almost two hours!).  The girls also ordered the Pirate’s Punch which consisted of Minute Maid light raspberry lemonade served in a souvenir pirate cup with a glowing Tinker Bell or Captain Hook clip-on light (both girls had Tinker Bell, of course) ($6.49).

Jim, Sheila, Donna and I ordered the apple-cinnamon barbecued spare ribs with vegetable slaw ($17.99).  All of us felt there was too much barbecue sauce, at least for our taste, and for me the vegetable slaw was way too spicy and “hot.”  I also ordered a side of the Turf Club Potatoes ($3.49) when Claude described them for Tony (the description sounded like a variation of scalloped potatoes) and they were excellent.

Michele ordered the Free-Range chicken breast stuffed with sun-dried tomato pesto and goat cheese served with roasted garlic risotto and balsamic glaze ($16.49).  She shared quite a bit of the chicken with Blake (who had the too cheesy mac & cheese) and said the risotto was too garlicy for her taste (and she is a garlic lover).

Finally, Tony had the grilled top sirloin steak with Turf Club potatoes ($20.99).  You could also add a topping of crab meat and grain mustard sauce for (total of $23.99) or a topping of blue cheese, portobello mushrooms and balsamic port glaze (total of $21.99).  Tony was pleased with his entire meal and Tony also thought the Turf Club potatoes were phenomenal!  In fact, I wanted to take a to go order of about 10 servings!!!

Donna, Blake and I ordered the chocolate milk shake (which we had seen while waiting for our table in the lobby — $4.29) which was superb; Sheila had the blackberry lemonade ($1.99) and Jim ordered decaf coffee which was not refilled until the very end of our meal, even though he has requested a refill quite a bit earlier.

Since our meal was not brought out until about 8:20 pm and we had tired kids on our hands, no one ordered dessert.  All in all, I would probably not go out of my way to visit this restaurant again; I might possibly try it again if I was staying at Saratoga Springs.

Nanci Wright, Trips The Wright Way, LLC