Hi all! After another hiatus, I am going to try my best to get back into blogging casually on my website, and I figured what better way of doing so than the now since Matt and I had our first Magical Dining last night!
Magical Dining
To start off, Central Florida has had Magical Dining for 20 years now, which is an opportunity to try restaurants that one normally wouldn’t try. From August 15th through September 30th, there are over 100 options of high end places for either $40 or $60, which includes an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. From this list, there are also options that are Michelin rated, which I can say for myself I have never experienced.
BACÁN
Our first restaurant that was reserved for Monday night was at BACÁN, which is located out of The Wave Hotel in Lake Nona. I have never heard of either one of these places, but it caught Matt’s eye because it was a Latin, South American, Caribbean and Peruvian Cuisine. For appetizers there is a choice of Farm Harvest, which is pepita butter, sherry vinaigrette, local greens, and vegetables, Hamachi, which is tamarind papaya, caviar, and passion fruit nuoc cham, or Charred Octopus, which includes smoked feta, Argentinian chimichurri, and aji Amarillo. The main course has the options of Truffle Chicken, which is crispy chicken quarter with salsa brava, Florida Snapper, which came with Guyanese curry, mofongo, mojo, and fennel, or Carne Asada, a 6oz filet, with mole Verde and sherry reduction. The dessert options were either Churros with idiazabal cheese, truffle honey, citrus namelaka, and stone fruit, Citrus Tres Leches made with annatto chiffon, orange blossom ganache, and grain crumble, or Cafe En La Niebla, which is a Dominican chocolate brownie, galletas de la abuela, with mole caviar. Each three course meal was $60 per person, which this being our first Michelin rated restaurant we were going to give it a chance!
The drive was super simple up until getting to the Lake Nona area, which there was congestion and traffic. Thankfully the hotel had signs, so we ended up bypassing a lot of what Apple Maps was directing us. We did catch a bit of rain, so once parking in the parking garage we waited a moment due to there being no coverings from the parking garage to the hotel. Once inside, I can say it could be grouped in with some of the most beautiful hotels, because it has very modern vibes. There is a lot of bright colors and eye catching decor, which I would say is super picturesque!
We ended up checking in to the restaurant early, which was nice because there was very minimal guests there at 7:00 PM. They sat us and immediately brought us our Magical Dining menu, along with the regular menu due to it having cocktails, and a wine menu. All of their cocktails were pretty decent priced from $18 to $20, so we each got one to go with our meals. The waitress, who was also super nice, took our order immediately as well, answering all of our questions about the meals.
To start us out, one of the waiters had brought out two little bowls of hummus with what I thought had octopus, corn, and some sort of crunchy nut in it. It was different, but I enjoyed it because I love hummus.
For appetizers, Matt was set on the Hamachi due to never having caviar before, and I had gotten the Charred Octopus. I have had octopus in a salad before when we went to Vegas back in February for our honeymoon, but it was nothing like how it was served and cooked here. The texture was definately different, but the feta and chimichurri with it was really good. The Hamachi was really interesting as well, with it being a cold option. We weren’t expecting caviar to be salty, but it was an interesting mixture with the passion fruit.
I had picked the Carne Asada for my main course with Matt choosing the Florida Snapper, and honestly if I could go back I would have also gotten the Snapper as well. The Carne Asada was great with how it was cooked and the tastes, but the curry on the Florida Snapper was absolutely to die for. It was perfectly made, and went so well with the fish!
For desserts we had picked the Citrus Tres Leches and the Cafe En La Niebla. The waitress had explained to us that the mole caviar on the Cafe En La Niebla wasn’t actually caviar, but more like chocolate boba. I loved both of them, with my Tres Leches being perfectly made, with a citrus flavor on the inside and cherry dollops, and Matt’s Cafe En La Niebla was the perfect brownie. There was a crumble on both of them, and I would say it was interesting on the Tres Leches due to being more coffee flavored, but went really well with Matt’s dessert.
It was a really nice dinner, and a great way of kicking off Magical Dining. We already have another one planned for Friday, so fingers crossed it is another wonderful experience!