Rose & Crown Dining Room — Restaurant in Bay Lake

In general, English food has a reputation as not being great food - beer, yes, food, not so much. However, the Rose and Crown does an excellent job with English classics. Went there as part of a Disney On Broadway package that got me dinner and preferred seating later at the American Theater. For dinner, my wife started with the Scotch Egg and I went with the United Kingdom Cheese Platter. Both were quite good, though I wasn't a huge fan of the jellies and accompaniments with the cheeses, the cheeses themselves were quite tasty. My wife enjoyed the Scotch Egg quite a bit as well. For dinner, my wife had the Fish and Chips (obviously, a specialty here) and I had the Guinness-braised Beef Short Ribs. The fish in the Fish and Chips were huge, battered with a good and crispy batter and deep fried pretty much to perfection. The chips were quite good as well, but, well, they're essentially just big fries, so nothing special there. The short ribs were very good as well - fork-tender with a very good gravy. If you're afraid of the Guinness taste, don't be as it's extremely mild. I don't particularly like Guinness and it didn't bother me at all. The mashed potatoes that come with it were also tasty. It does appear that the carrots they're using here are of the purple variety and I discovered I don't at all like cooked purple carrots. But, they were easily avoided. So, the entrees were a hit. For desert, my wife had the Lemon Scone and I had the Chocolate Nougat Bar (as I really can't resist something with the word "nougat" in it!). On the Scone, if you're picturing the kind of scone you might get a Panara, think again - this thing is huge and covered in a thick berry compote topped with cream. Delicious. The Chocolate Nougat Bar was interesting - a large-ish candy bar sized item with what appeared to be chocolate cookie crust on the bottom with a thick chocolate nougat layered on top and then the whole thing is coated in a milk chocolate. If you like chocolate, this is your desert. It's not huge, but that's a good thing, since if it were you might very well die of chocolate overdose, but it sure is fun while it lasts. Service was also excellent - fast when it needed to be, paced out when it should and always attentive and friendly.

So, after all that glowing review, why 4 stars instead of 5? It's the pub. The dinning room and the pub are essentially in the same room, which wouldn't be bad except the pub is EXTREMELY popular and EXTREMELY loud. So loud that my wife and couldn't even hold a conversation - even when we were semi-yelling. Half way through the meal, I'd finally had enough and asked to be moved to the outside, which I'd resisted since it was a somewhat cool (for Orlando) February afternoon, but I just had to get away from the yelling and screaming of the way over packed pub. Additionally, to get to the restroom, you have to brave your way through the rock concert level noise and human sardine packed pub. It's actually easier to walk across the street to the rest rooms over attached to the shops. So, 1 star down for the absolutely awful atmosphere. But, if it's a warm day and outdoor dining spots are available - take it and you'll have an...

If you're thinking about visiting this restaurant, you will want to fully read this review. I'm on vacation as I write this review and I went to this restaurant tonight.

The good things:

1.) It's right by the IllumNations show 2.) That's about it

The bad:

1.) Cheap tables that wobble from side to side as you are eating. 2.) Napkins instead of cloth 3.) Mediocre food at high prices. Applebees makes a better steak!!! 4.) Most importantly:

When I went there tonight, I paid with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card since I get double points for dining. The waiter (Mike) charged my card and brought back the jacket without my card. When I asked him where my card was, he told me he thought he gave it to me.

He lost my card and wouldn't own up to it. I asked to speak with a manager. His manager told me that the card had been found. Thank goodness, I thought!!! Then they changed their story and said our waiter found my card in an empty jacket and didn't know who it belonged to so he sent it to the lost and found at the front of the park. Then the manager changed the story once again and said my card had been turned in by a customer, but it was sent to the lost & found all the way at the front of the park since they do this every day at 9:00p.

That was a great story, but our bill wasn't printed until 9:24p, which means that my credit card wasn't taken back to be charged until about maybe 9:34p. When I told them that, they still wouldn't own up to losing the card and refused to take responsibility.

They also did not offer to fix the situation. The female manager on duty tonight refused to take responsibly for losing my card. AT NO POINT did she offer to reimburse our meal, AT NO POINT did she offer to give us a discount on our meal or give us a discount toward a future meal. AT NO POINT did she offer to do ANYTHING AT ALL to try to fix what was ultimately the restaurant's responsibility. There's a name for that... it's called BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!

With all the revenue that comes into that place in one day, they seriously couldn't restore one customer's bill? After all, THEY screwed up. If they did it to me, they will certainly do it to you.. Hopefully this review will help you decide whether you really want to be a patron of a place like this. There are so many other places to eat at Disney, you may be better off choosing one...

It's always a struggle to visit Disney parks without a dining reservation, so when I made a last minute decision to visit Epcot with my mom to see the Festival of the Arts, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to snag a table for lunch at the Rose & Crown Dining Room about half an hour before we wanted to eat. When we arrived we waited about 15 minutes to be seated, and we sat at a table outside overlooking the lake (would have been a great view of the fireworks show if we had gone at night). Our server was friendly and prompt, bringing us menus and drinks right away, and he stopped by to see if we needed anything several times throughout the meal.

The food here didn't really seem to be anything to write home about, but it didn't take them too long to bring it out, so we were able to eat and get back to the park without a long wait. The prices seemed on par for Disney dining (aka a little too expensive for what you get) on both the food and the drinks. Since it was the middle of a hot day and we wanted to continue to walk around the park, we opted to share an appetizer and an entree so that we didn't get too full.

For the appetizer we opted for the House-made English Pasty, which was a chicken and leek filled puff pastry; $13 seemed a high price tag for this dish, but the flavors were definitely there. The chicken and leek filling was creamy, the puff pastry was toasted and gave a nice crunch and the pickled onion and tomato salad that accompanied the dish was tart and crisp. The entree that we ordered was the Bangers and Mash: a traditional English sausage with Colcannon potatoes, roasted mushrooms, caramelized onion jam, and red wine demi. The sausage itself was pretty standard, and the mashed potatoes were too liquidy for my taste, but the real star of the dish was surprisingly the combination of the roasted mushrooms, red wine demi and onion jam.

Overall I thought the food at the Rose & Crown Dining Room was good enough to bring me back to try some of their other menu items, especially if I am at the park in time to catch the fireworks from their dining patio. I wish they had more of a "small plates" style menu for lunch, but I'll probably stick to the food kiosks for that when at Epcot...