Chapter 44
Thank God She Was Jewish

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(Originally posted September 22, 2012)

Our two restaurants of choice this evening were Tangierine Café and the newly rechristened Katsura Grill in Japan. Rather than eating at one and then the other like we had been doing, however, we wanted to split both at once so we wouldn’t get too full on the first dinner. We made our way to Japan first.

We hadn’t been into Katsura Grill since it had changed over from being the Yakitori House. Not much had noticeably changed, though it was obvious that the location had gotten a fresh coat of paint. Obviously the menu had changed as well.

Luckily for us, Lou and his gang had done a full review of the Katsura Grill on a podcast just a couple weeks before our trip, so we decided to get what they most highly recommended: Beef Udon. Our only tough decision was what to get for dessert. We decided on the Matcha Roll (a green tea swirl cake) because it looked interesting… While Tracy got in line to order here, I bolted back to Morocco to order at the Tangierine Café.

We also had an easy time deciding what to get there because we’d gotten it before on our last trip. We ordered the Lamb Shawarma Platter with Baklava for dessert.

Luckily I was the only one in line in Morocco, so I was quickly able to bring our food back to Katsura where we were going to enjoy the air conditioning while we ate. Tracy had our food all ready when I got back. She had a funny story to tell me about the cast member at the counter. Apparently as soon as she had placed our order, it was ready practically immediately. Like faster than ever happens at Disney. But when the cast member handed it to her, she still said “I’m so sorry for the wait.” The wait was probably 30 seconds, but I guess that was unacceptable by her standards!

Here’s our food. First from Katsura Grill:

Next from Tangierine Café:

This was honestly the best combination of quick service food I think I’ve ever had at Disney—and that’s saying something! For those who complain that Disney only had burgers and fries, I would like to introduce them to this meal and tell them to shut up. Everything was delicious. Since we had already had the shawarma platter once before, we basically knew what to expect, but it was as good as we remembered. The udon was perhaps the sleeper surprise food of the day. It was so yummy! The beef was plentiful and well-cooked; the noodles were thick and tasty. There was nothing to complain about. The desserts were also both really good. We always love a good baklava, and this one did not disappoint. The matcha roll, however, was also quite good. It was very light and surprising. On the whole, this was my two favorite quick service restaurants in Disney being combined into one meal. YUM!

After eating our wonderful meal, we made our way back outside and hung out by the koi pond for a few minutes.

Japan has such nice nooks and crannies to wander around. It’s probably the most peaceful of all the pavilions.

This arch was fun being flanked by these Cars topiaries.

I like this picture that Tracy took.

Epcot REALLY stepped up its game in our hearts on this trip. Between just being a great place to explore and relax AND having the best food on property, Epcot gained MAJOR points in our eyes.

We made a quick stop to take pictures with the Toy Story topiaries.

Finally, we started to move toward the International Gateway exit.

We were beginning to be in a bit of a hurry. It was already 7:30 when we caught a Friendship Boat heading back toward the Epcot resorts.

This meant the Newscast was already going. We knew it wasn’t a big deal if we missed the “news” portion of the Newscast as Lou always hangs out and broadcasts for a couple hours after the recording segment is done. While on the boat, I tweeted:

@loumongello On our way via friendship boat/bus. Hope we make it while you’re still there!

Nevertheless, we wanted to make it to Downtown Disney as quickly as possible! We hopped off at the Boardwalk Resort.

Wishing we could take adequate time to check out this resort that we’d never visited before, we hurried through in search of the bus stop.

Finally finding the bus stop, we sat and waited. And waited. And waited. As I’ve said before, Downtown Disney buses show up approximately once every year.

About a half-hour later, the Downtown bus finally pulled up!! We climbed aboard, and while we rode, we occasionally pulled up the Ustream app on my phone to make sure Lou was still broadcasting. He was showing no signs of stopping as the bus pulled up to its stop outside the Marketplace.

We started making our way toward Ghirardelli, knowing Lou was planted somewhere outside that restaurant. My adrenaline started rushing a little, knowing I was about to meet someone whom I both idolize for what he does in the Disney community and whose voice I’ve had in my ears for literally hundreds of hours over the years I’ve listened to his podcasts!

It was a little anticlimactic finding Lou and his little posse set up around the computer at one of the café tables across from Ghirardelli. Lou was just chatting away about something or other and everyone else was gathered around the table, hanging out. Being mostly locals, there wasn’t too much for them that was special about this night over any other. They did this all the time!

We walked up and said hi to Lou. Quick to respond when being recognized he said hi and asked our names, where we were from and everything. Next I asked him, “Do you know how we got here?”

“From New York?” he replied, “I assume by a plane!”

Laughing, we responded, “No, I mean how we got this trip. You gave it to us!” He looked a little dumbfounded at first, but once we explained, “We won our trip from you and Mouse Fan Travel for your five-year anniversary show” he was pretty excited.

“That’s so cool!” he exclaimed, “Sit down. Hang out for a while.” We grabbed seats behind Lou and just joined in the typical Wednesday night post-Newscast conversation. Among the things we talked about, Lou asked us what the highlight of our trip had been so far. When we told him about being chosen as Grand Marshals, he said “I’ve been coming here since 1971 and I’ve NEVER been chosen for anything like that. I’m going to have you guys buy my lottery tickets while you’re here.” Really, the whole hour we were there felt so surreal.

As Lou prepared to sign off at the end of the show, he began the two-minute “lightning round,” in which Box People watching can ask him anything they want. It ALWAYS goes for longer than two minutes, and usually for more like a half-hour. He actually started recording again when he started this portion of the show, so here’s a link in which you can see us participating.

After Lou officially signed off and shut down “The Box,” all of us who had been gathered around got up and started heading toward Baby Cakes NYC together as someone had wanted to get dessert there after the show. We got a chance to talk to the ten or so other people who had “escaped The Box.” Among them was Scott Otis, who had been the one to draw my name ensuring that we won our trip. When we told him this, he got very excited to know how much he had made our year by picking us.

While we were telling Scott about his role in our win, Lou overheard and asked what exactly had happened since he didn’t remember. Scott explained that he had pulled our name during the fifth anniversary show and I reminded him that it was after he had called the second person and hung up after getting their voicemail.

“Well you know what happened with her, right??” he asked. We said that no we didn’t. “Well she called back the next morning. It turns out that she was Jewish and she couldn’t answer her phone because it was the Sabbath!” We were a little horror stricken. “Yeah, when she called back she said she could see her phone ringing in front of her but couldn’t answer it. We felt terrible! So we ended up giving her a trip too!”

We were a little dumbstruck for a minute, and then I said, “Well thank God she was Jewish or else we wouldn’t be here!!”

Lou laughed and said “If you ever write a blog about your trip, you need to call it ‘Thank God She Was Jewish!’”

After spending a few minutes in the food court that contains Baby Cakes NYC, it was time for our little group to separate. We thanked Lou (and Scott) again, and started to go our separate ways. Suddenly I remembered that we hadn’t even gotten a picture with Lou, so we hurried back and found him again and got this photo.

This time we said our goodbyes for real, assuring Lou that we would come to his meet in NYC in a couple weeks, and we actually departed to make our way back to Port Orleans. In hindsight, it was actually quite important that we got to meet Lou on this trip. A few days before his NYC meet was when I first started having my bad flare-up of symptoms and was generally feeling terrible. I forced myself to make it down to Bryant Park where the meet-up was happening, but couldn’t muster the energy to stand around in the group or even say hi to Lou. So in retrospect our journey out of the way to Downtown Disney was quite worth it! We got to meet someone who is one of our Disney heroes, and we got to say “thanks for our trip. We’re really enjoying it!”

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