Brown’s Social House is a franchise in Western Canada, and there’s a location less than a five minute drive from our house. For some reason, we only end up going there 2-3 times a year at most, which is kind of ridiculous because we’ve always had great meals there!
We ended up there on May 13th, 2018 after watching Stars on Ice at Rogers Arena since we just weren’t feeling like rink food while we were there.
Luke chose the Potato Crusted Cod Bowl – Icelandic cod, tartar sauce, almond rice, house salad, $18.45
He loved this! He said the fish was nice and flaky, the almond rice was great and the salad was fresh. I don’t eat fish, so I didn’t even try it.
I order the same thing every single time I’m there – the #28 Dragon Bowl – teriyaki chicken or tofu, coconut rice, bell pepper, red cabbage, crispy onion, spicy yogurt, $17.95
I don’t typically enjoy cabbage, but I actually eat it here since it compliments the rice and chicken so well. I also order the spicy yogurt on the side – it’s not that spicy, but I like to be in control of my sauces (I’m so weird…). This is honestly so good; I really want to try other items on the menu but I just can’t bring myself to order anything else!
Luke and I had ate here on our first trip to Walt Disney World, back in 2016, and I didn’t love it. The atmosphere and theming were great, but my food wasn’t. Luke loved his meal though, and I really wanted to like this restaurant, so I decided I was willing to give it another chance. Originally it was supposed to be just Luke and I at Hollywood Studios this morning, so we made a reservation for two at 12:50. However, once we realized my dad would be flying in on January 5th instead of the 6th, we were able to drop our reservation and get one for three people instead at 1:05pm.
We didn’t tell my Dad anything about this place, and he hadn’t researched it (he didn’t research anything about Disney haha – he just showed up and knew I’d take care of it). He had such a confused, puzzled look on his face while we were standing in the waiting room to be called in – the servers just yell out the last name of the group they are looking for (and some of them really yell loud). While we were waiting I enjoyed looking at the little details in the waiting room – like the hidden Mickey on the end tables.
Eventually my name was called, and we were led inside- to the exact same table Luke and I had sat at when we ate there in 2016! Frederick the AT-AT got a prime spot right by the TV –
Our server, Chris, was immediately in character and started giving us sass. My Dad caught on quickly and started playfully giving him attitude back. When Chris came back over, he dropped a stack of napkins and a dish of cutlery on the table, and informed my Dad he would be the one setting the table for this meal. Dad was loving this place, he was laughing and smiling the entire time he was setting the table.
Now for the drinks: Luke knew before we even got there that he would be ordering one of their Peanut Butter and Jelly milkshakes, $7 – he loved the one he’d had from there in 2016, and he loved this one.
I didn’t take a picture, but Dad ordered a Strawberry milkshake, $7. I hadn’t trained him yet to not try his food until I got a picture of it for my food reviews hahaha. He was happy with it, and drank it all. I try to limit the amount of dairy I eat (it doesn’t always agree with my stomach), so I skipped a milkshake and ordered a Vanilla Coke, $4.
After we ordered our food, I took some pictures of our surroundings while we waited.
Oh right, you might actually want to see a picture of the menu…
On to the food: Dad decided to order A Sampling of Mom’s Favourite Recipes – Golden Fried Chicken, fork tender pot roast and traditional meatloaf with all the fixings, $24.
He enjoyed everything, and cleared his plate. I guess I picked a good restaurant to be Dad’s first in-park food experience!
Luke went for the Cousin Megan’s Traditional Meatloaf – blend of beef and pork topped with tomato glaze served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and green beans, $18
I had been really disappointed in my meal here back in 2016, I had the Chicken Pot Pie and was not a fan at all. I was determined to have a better experience this time, and decided to order the Mom’s Old Fashioned Pot Roast – slow cooked til fork tender served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes, brown gravy and garnished with julienned carrots and celery, $21.
This was a much better choice than I had made in 2016! I really enjoyed this, and would order it again.
Tables in Wonderland original cost: $150 Break Even Point Before this meal: $50.31 Savings this Meal: $16.20 (this includes all three meals) Total Until Breaking Even: $34.11
Predicted food budget: $2631.67 (does not include tip) Estimated Cost of this meal: $77.75 Actual Cost: $42.60 (mine and Luke’s only – Dad gave me cash for his meal afterwards) Over/Under: Under by $35.15 Remaining: $1302.97
After our Dinoland photoshoot, we decided we wanted to sit down for a bit, so we headed over to check out Nomad Lounge, which we loved!
While we were sitting down, eating and resting, we checked the app and decided to check out a show we’d never watched before – The Finding Nemo show. We took our time at Nomad Lounge, and made our way over and made it into the show. We arrived about fifteen minutes before the show started, so obviously our seats weren’t the greatest – but we were inside and that’s all we cared about!
The show was really cute! Festival of the Lion King is still my favourite show at Animal Kingdom, but I can’t believe it took us until our third trip to actually go see Nemo – we’ll definitely go see this again (although that didn’t happen on trip #4 or trip #5….)
After the show let out, we still had quite a bit of time before the first showing of Rivers of Light (which we had managed to grab as a fourth fastpass after using up our initial three) – so we decided to put on even more steps and walk all the way back over to the other side of the park so we could hit up Starbucks. As I mentioned earlier, it was a really cold day, and apparently everyone wanted something hot to drink – it was a really long line. But, since we had nothing but time, we got into line and waited over 20 minutes before ordering a coffee for Luke, and a hot chocolate for me. We collected our drinks, and found a table in a quiet spot in Africa to just sit down and enjoy the warmth of our beverages. I love that Starbucks has special cups just for the Disney Parks <3
After warming up a bit, we once again headed back across the park to get into the amphitheater for Rivers of Light. It was our first time seeing the show, it didn’t even exist on our previous trip.
The show was…ok. It wasn’t terrible, but it was a bit boring – I was also tired from the crowds and being cold all day so my opinion isn’t always the best to go by. The show was visually beautiful though!
Since it was now dark outside, we decided we had to go see Pandora at night! It was just so cool! I love what they’ve done with that area so much.
At this point, it was time for us to leave the park. But of course we didn’t head to our hotel – instead we jumped on the Animal Kingdom Lodge bus and got off at Kidani House. We had a late dinner reservation at Saana <3.
We called an Uber after our meal, and headed to our third and final hotel of the trip, our home for the next 11 nights – Old Key West! We were tired, it was late and I did not take any pictures before we crashed for the night, but we were actually in the exact same building we’d been in the year before – Building 35 in the Turtle Pond section of the resort.
During our trip to WDW in January 2017, we ate at Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ on our arrival night, and we both declared it as one of the best meals we’d ever ate. After Luke proposed and we started discussing the very real possibility of holding our wedding at Walt Disney World (and we had agreed that a Wishes Wedding – which includes a reception catered by Disney – was too far out of our budget), we decided we needed a reception venue. I almost immediately suggested Homecomin’, I remembered reading about another couple who had great things to say about hosting private functions there – and it didn’t take much convincing to get Luke on board!
The first thing we did to get the ball rolling was to go onto their website, http://www.homecominkitchen.com. At the bottom it mentioned Group Events, with an email to contact them for groups of 25 or more. At the time, we had no idea how many people we would have, but we used that anyways. We were also still a few months out from being able to lock in our date with Disney, but we wanted to see pricing so we could begin setting a budget.
I received an email back from Homecomin’ the next day – communication was excellent throughout the entire planning process for this! They sent us two options for menus – a $55/person one and $70/person one (this has since changed, and I’ve heard the cost is now dependent on the time of day you are holding your event). This is what the $55/person menu looked like:
The only difference between this one and the $70/person menu we were sent was the addition of one appetizer (three appetizers instead of two – which seemed like a lot of money for such a small difference).
We knew there would be more than enough food without the addition of another appetizer, so the $55 menu it was! I let my contact at Homecomin’ know our choices for dates for our wedding (first choice January 10th, second choice January 9th), and told her I would let her know as soon as I was able to confirm the date with Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings. Luckily, both of those dates were available at Homecomin’ – not a huge surprise since they were a Tuesday and Wednesday.
Once everything was confirmed, and we had our dates set, we set our menu and paid a 50% deposit. At the time, we still didn’t have final numbers, so we based it on 20 people total.
As our wedding day got closer and we had a better number, I contacted Homecomin’ again and updated our guest list to 21 adults, 1 child and 1 infant. We also added on one moonshine cocktail (or drink of choice) for everyone. Looking back now, I wish I had left off the drink for everyone, and just picked up the tab at the end of our reception- we had to pay $12/drink up front, but some people ordered $7 beer, some people didn’t drink at all, etc. Those who had more than one drink were brought a bill to pay the difference, and I really didn’t like that. The cost to add an open bar was insane, but I should have just had it all added to the bill Luke and I paid at the end of the night. They weren’t very clear on offering a bill on consumption bill – but that’s honestly my biggest complaint about the entire experience dealing with them.
Our guest list included 3 vegans and 1 vegan/gluten free – not the greatest food restriction when eating at Homecomin’. However, I contacted them and they sent me options. The day of the wedding I didn’t sit with any of the vegans so I didn’t see their food, but they told me it was delicious and they were all full. I believe they had a large salad specially made for them, and topped with a chopped up vegan patty – sorry I have no photos of it. They were also brought french fries I think? And possibly a few other things?
On the day of the wedding, we arrived a little bit early. They weren’t finished setting up, but they let me go out to the porch area since I had the centerpieces (I just never had time to drop them off in the days leading up to the wedding). Everyone was staring at me as I made my way through the restaurant in my wedding dress haha.
I handed over my little box that had the centerpieces, and they set them out for me. I kept it simple, and we used the bridesmaids paper bouquets to fill out the centerpieces. The rest of the sparkly things I had purchased from the Christmas section at Michael’s Craft Store, and the vases were plain ones that I wrapped a single strand of rhinestone ribbon around (you can kind of see the shimmer from the rhinestones towards the bottom). They fit our colourful, Up-theme perfectly, and they didn’t cost an arm and a leg. I can guarantee I’m the only one who even remembers what the centerpieces looked like that day – so save your money brides!
They also had an extra table for us to set up our guest book and Polaroid camera, and we set our Mickey balloons from our ceremony beside that. And yes – we had even bought Disney-themed Polaroid film!
We had the entire back part of the patio, with three tables to accommodate our guests. We also had two dedicated servers – they had no other tables in the restaurant and they were only there to assist the 20 of us – it was unbelievable service!
We all made our way to the tables, and shortly afterwards the food began to arrive! It was served family style, with a serving dish placed on each table.
First up was the Jasper Board – Assortment of pimento cheese, buttermilk crackers, smoked sausage, shaved ham, bread & butter pickles and candied pecans (and here’s a picture from my professional photographer of it – )
And here’s the picture I snapped of it quickly with my phone after it was already half-eaten –
This was slightly different than the description, as that stuff in the center was a fish dip, and I don’t remember any smoked sausage on there. I also didn’t eat much from here, I knew how many other delicious things were heading our way and I had to save room in my belly! I did try a small piece of ham and a candied pecan – and both were very tasty! I did find out afterwards that they would keep refilling this board as requested – the table that Luke’s family was sitting at went through three servings of pimento cheese haha – so it was clearly a big hit!
Our second choice for an appetizer was the Church Lady Deviled Eggs – Homecomin’ Kitchen style whole deviled eggs
These are always a hard pass for me, I don’t really like eggs at all. But Luke loves these, so this was a choice for him. Most people seemed to enjoy them though, and I don’t think there were any left by the end of the meal.
Next was the salad: Harvest Salad – mixed greens tossed with fire-roasted red peppers and corn, shredded white cheddar cheese, heirloom cherry tomatoes and house-made balsamic dressing. Topped with avocado and hushpuppy croutons.
I seem to remember this having more of a ranch-style dressing (like a house-made ice-box dressing) instead of balsamic – which would be much more up my alley. I ate a bit of this – I skipped the red peppers and tomatoes, but everything else was nice and fresh – and I always appreciate vegetables while at Disney since I never seem to eat enough of them!
On to the entrees! Three of the five offered involved seafood – which I don’t eat. So that made my decision easy – chicken (which was non-negotiable, it was always going to be part of our menu), and pork.
Art’s Fabulous Fried Chicken – buttermilk brined for 24 hours then perfectly fried and garnished with fresh herbs
Right after the main entrees were brought out, the chef in charge of our meal came out to introduce himself and to personally ask if everything tasted fine – again, the service we received here was spectacular! I mentioned that I wouldn’t mind a few more pieces of white meat chicken, and he went into the kitchen and came back with a full platter of it! Obviously, we couldn’t eat it all so they packed it up for me to take with me at the end of the night 🙂
Chopped Barbecue Pork – dressed with HFK sweet and spicy barbecue sauce
This doesn’t come close to the fried chicken, but it’s very tasty pork! It’s tender and the sauce is clearly house-made. I’m pretty sure the platter that was placed on our table was polished off by the time everyone finished eating. The pickles and coleslaw were nice little touches too!
We also selected three side dishes. The first one was a no-brainer: Cheddar Drop Biscuits
I LOVE these things – they are so amazing here. Every single time we come to this restaurant, I must have these biscuits! I don’t know what it is about them, but they are the best ones I’ve ever had.
Our other two picks were: Creamy Mashed Potatoes and Southern Style Green Beans
Pretty straight forward, but I do love my mashed potatoes! We chose the green beans because we felt we needed a vegetable – and collard greens are gross.
Since we only had two underage guests – one was my gluten free/vegan cousin and the other was our five month old niece, we decided to go for the Shine Cake – an adult only buttercake soaked with moonshine syrup. We figured they would just bring out a slice for each person – and they did. But, the head chef working that day didn’t realize we were a wedding reception until we arrived (he just knew he had to prepare for a private function) – so he took it upon himself to bake an entire Shine cake just for Luke and I so we had something to cut! We were not expecting this, and it was such a nice gesture! Plus, look at how gorgeous this thing is!
After having a small slice each, they brought out a box and packed up the rest of the cake for us to take with us – and yes it made it all the way back to Canada! We froze it, and ate it over a year later and it still tasted awesome!
Obviously, this wasn’t going to work for the gluten free and vegans in our group, so I had called ahead and ordered a cake from Erin Mckenna’s Bakery in Disney Springs. It was the smallest size they offered – 6″ I think? But it was so thick and huge! I prepaid the $55 (I think?), and my cousin picked it up and brought it with her to Homecomin’ – the servers there took it and cut it and plated it nicely, which I thought was a really nice touch. I didn’t even get a picture of it, and I can’t remember what kind I even ordered for them… but just know I didn’t forgot about them!
After everyone was completely stuffed, we took a bit of time for speeches from my Maid of Honour, my best friend Ashley, and Luke’s Best Woman, his sister Jill (with an adorable little poem by his youngest sister, Callie)
By this point, we had long overstayed our welcome, and we still had one more wedding day event to get to! So we settled up the remaining balance we owed, we told the servers to keep the centerpieces (minus the bouquets – they were actually so excited and one of the ladies immediately shoved one of the glittery fake flower-looking things into her hair), we grabbed our boxed up food leftovers and off we went!
It was seriously an amazing experience – one that took me an entire novel to write about haha. The level of service we received was top notch, and we felt that it was worth every penny we paid. Plus, it was a slightly unique wedding reception menu with incredible food – and no one left hungry!
I don’t have the exact total cost for this, but it was built into our wedding budget (not our food budget for the trip) and we felt the price was comparable to a wedding reception menu anywhere at about $100/person (and that’s after adding a drink, tax, service charge, gratuity, etc). We also left a huge tip, since we were so impressed and our dedicated servers were fantastic! If you ever find yourself needing to book a Disney Springs restaurant for a private function, I can’t recommend this enough!
