Dolphin Hotel Restaurant

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Dolphin Hotel Restaurant

Todd English's bluezoo

The adults in our party recently visited one of the newest entries in the Walt Disney World restaurant arena at the WDW Dolphin Hotel, Todd English’s bluezoo. Owner Todd English is well known for his Boston flagship eatery, Olives, and he has outlets in Las Vegas and on the Queen Mary 2, in addition to this Orlando location. This restaurant boasts “the freshest seafood with coastal cuisines."

The décor is fantastic and it captures your attention the moment you pass through the entrance, it is dominated by an aquatic theme. You can see aqua-coloured chandeliers with water bubble-like crystals and a shimmering metallic wall hanging over the raw bar that conjures the image of a school of fish riding a wave. At the far end of the bar, chef’s work busily around an open fire, which features English's unique "dancing fish" rotisserie -- whole fish are skewered upright and placed at a slight angle so they can "dance" around the flames.

When we visited the restaurant it was busy yet our server soon appeared and made his recommendations, he then left us to make our choices without any pressure. He returned with a basket of three different types of warm bread, a chewy multi-grain peppered with sunflower seeds, a crispy thin lavosh, and a light, fluffy onion bread, all served with a fennel-seed butter.

We enjoyed reasonably priced cocktails whilst we made our choices. We had three appetisers. The roasted beet salad with greens, goat cheese, and candied walnuts which came with two types of beets -- one a deep dark red with an almost flowery flavour, the other a golden cylindrical shape. Drizzled with a vinaigrette you could taste the crunchiness of the sweetened nuts and herbed croutons made from focaccia, along with creamy dots of chevre. Grandad chose six Kumomoto oysters ($2 each) from the Pacific Northwest. The other starter was "Olive's" classico flatbread a recipe imported from English's Boston-based restaurant. The over-sized portion was enough for three to taste, and was prepared with good fresh tomato sauce, globs of fresh mozzarella, and leaves of torn basil. All our appetisers were excellent.

Two of our party had roasted whole sea bass "This Evening's Dancing Fish," we all sampled this and it was excellent. The fish was presented with a wand of grilled romaine around the top of the plate. Accompanied by a white bean puree, and lightly coated with a lemon caper emulsion, the flaky light white fish was moist with a hint of garlic.

I had the mahi mahi, under the heading of "simply fish," as it was simply prepared -- plain, and grilled to my specification. The "simply fish" entrees are accompanied with your choice of one of three sauces. I opted for the selection of the baby shrimp, parsley, and a buttery lemon sauce, which would have made a savoury meal by itself, loaded as it was with juicy little shrimp. I added a side of the lobster broccoli stuffed cheddar potato which although delicious really was too much!

We all had cocktails, starters and main course and it was a slightly pricey $50 per head, however this was a dining experience worth repeating.

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