The lounge doesn't officially open until late afternoon so we had the whole place to ourselves to just sit back and relax.
After time at the River Roost, we decided to grab some lunch at the Riverside Mill food court. Today we shared a Muffaletta sandwich. I've always shied away from this sandwich, but my husband has always wanted to try it so I finally gave in.
Let me list the reasons I'm not attracted to this sandwich. First, the name. Muffaletta. Really? What is that? It sounds completely unappetizing to me. There's no description on the menu board so I guess I'm just supposed to know what this is. I've since looked it up and this is what I found...
New Orleans is home to the Muffaletta. So, I guess that makes sense since we're at Disney's Port Orleans resort. It is filled with Italian meats and cheeses plus (and this is the unique part) a special olive salad. The sandwich is also made with Muffaletta bread - a dense round loaf. Sandwiches are traditionally served as one-quarter or one-half of the loaf.
If you've ready my other blog entries, including my Disney pizza reviews, you know that I don't like a lot of bread. And, every time I have looked at this sandwich, I see a meat to bread ratio that just doesn't appeal to me. My husband, on the other hand, loves bread. Which is why he also ordered the breadsticks and marinara.
The breadsticks look awesome, but they are hard as a rock. I didn't even try one. My husband much prefers the soft breadsticks and sauce available from Pop Century. OK... getting back to why I don't like the Muffaletta sandwich. I'm also a very picky eater and I don't like stuff I can't identify in my food. I actually like olives quite a bit, but there is much more than olives in the special "olive salad". It is an Italian marinated blend of olives, celery and cauliflower along with some spices and other things I couldn't identify. If it were only marinated olives, I'd be in business. Instead, I cut a small piece off the back-end of the sandwich which had just a little meat and no "stuff".
Since we shared a sandwich, there was room for dessert. I went for the chocolate cupcake and my husband went for the chocolate cake.
Both were yummy, but the icing on my cupcake looked like someone had already taken a bite out of it. My husband picked up the desserts while I sat at the table, so I did my best to ignore the missing icing and assume nothing icky happened to it.
Finally, after an afternoon of eating and drinking we dropped by the Riverside Mill restrooms before heading out. To our surprise, they were completely renovated:
While I'll never complain about a brand new bathroom at Disney (this one had a lot of beautiful and quality tile work), I'm a little disappointed that they didn't maintain the rustic "old South" theming this restroom once had.