A Night at the Lodge: Boma!
Our adventures pick up in the Swan's gym, which is one of the nicest hotel gyms either of us have seen. Everything is new and kept in excellent condition, there's plenty of variety of weights and machines, and if you want to avoid crowds while at Disney, this is the hot spot
After the gym we went swimming over in the wonderful grotto/waterfall pool. Then we got ready and hopped in a Lyft to our destination...
Animal Kingdom Lodge, Jambo House!
We stayed at AKL for a week last November and instantly fell in love with the resort.
On that trip we ate at Boma twice: once for dinner right after checkin, which was the perfect introduction to AKL; and then again for breakfast, booking it for our resort downtime day after loving dinner so much.
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T really wanted to do dinner again on this trip, so I made a plan to eat at Boma, spend some time basking in the wonders of the lodge, then head over to Animal Kingdom for the evening. We managed to do this despite wedding complications (i.e., a lot of last minute surprise events because the planning and coordination of our friends' wedding was far from ideal).
We arrived around 4:55pm. I had a moderate appetite. T, on the other hand, went super hardcore in the gym *just* to be a hungry hippo for Boma, so he was ready to tub-tub his way through the buffet.
One thing that was noticeably different was seeing Boma pretty empty. Last time we also had a 5pm ADR. We checked in 5 minutes early to find the restaurant was already nearly half full before official opening, and we had to wait despite having the earliest reservation! But this time we were seated immediately and were one of the only parties there.
Our awesome server, Maureen, led us to the exact same table we sat at for dinner on our first visit, which was a funny coincidence! It was like ~recreating~ our first time at AKL
After chatting with her for a while, we headed up to the strangely uncrowded buffet and returned with first plates:
I don't have pictures of T's plates, but they were pretty similar to mine.
Up above was one of the soups on rotation that night - a seafood gumbo. This was savory and delicious. It had tons of bay scallops and shrimp, in addition to sausage. It was warmly spiced - it tasted new and different, yet familiar, all at once. It was some good gumbo! I ate all of this except for 1.5 pieces of sausage, which I liked but passed off on T because I'm not a sausage lover.
For the plate, clockwise starting with 6'o'clock, we have: nut-crusted salmon, chakalaka, turkey w/ cranberry-ish chutney, fried plantain chip, mystery orange chutney that I can't recall, turkey/lamb bobotie, green coriander chutney that you can just barely make out, "kokonut rice", green beans, watermelon rind salad.
The salmon was killer. I don't normally eat salmon out in restaurants because it's easy to find and cook, and who among us hasn't had enough home-cooked salmon for a lifetime?, but this was very well-spiced and crusted. The nut crust (really more of a topping or rub than "crust") was slightly sweet, and it contrasted nicely with the salmon.
The chakalaka needs no explanation - just a nice, savory tomato relish that I pair with whatever meats or vegetables from the buffet need a little flavor.
The turkey I recall being a bit dry, but otherwise good, and obviously it was a great vessel for sauces. I don't really remember that chutney on top of the turkey, but I remember it had some cranberry, possibly another fruit, and spices.
The plantain chips were huge and thickly cut. They were crisp and crunchy and really satisfying to bite.
The turkey/lamb bobotie was good, like usual, but kind of boring, like usual. It's not ~authentic~ bobotie - they'd have to adjust the egg/meat ratio for that - but it's otherwise a fine choice to get once per meal.
The coriander chutney really stood out. I barely remember the other sauces because this one was so delicious. I'm not sure why it was so irresistible, but both of us loved it.
Now for the "kokonut rice"... this was good, but sweet. It wasn't cloyingly sweet, like a sugary dessert. It tasted more naturally sweet as if it had been flavored with fruits (coconut) instead of straight up sugar. It was subtle enough and still tasty, but it almost feels wrong to have sweet rice
not on the dessert side of the buffet!
The green beans I remember having a great snap to them and were cooked perfectly. I mostly got these to counterbalance all of the dessert I'd eaten and desserts yet to come. 3 green beans = at least 10 desserts
but seriously, they were good, and they make it easier to envision a "healthy" meal at a buffet.
The watermelon rind salad is an old favorite of mine - loved it at our first dinner, loved it at breakfast, still loved it at this dinner. I thought this time it was noticeably sweeter than normal, but still good.
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Something new I learned from chatting with Maureen before our first pass at the buffet: they have a scheduled rotation. I thought their rotation was randomly chosen depending on what they had on hand. Seems obvious now, but it's a fixed schedule!
Ours on this night was the Monday-Thursday rotation, which was pretty different from whatever rotation we experienced last time (that was a Tuesday night). The biggest difference to me was that the dominant spices leaned sweeter: e.g., the nut crust on the salmon, the kokonut rice. Last time, the buffet was more savory overall, and I don't remember a single sweet dinner item from then.
The other differences are minor menu change-outs, like the soups were obviously different -- T was looking forward to the coconut seafood curry soup, aka one of the best soups in the world, but it wasn't there this time (and we knew it was just a shot in the dark). They also had green beans instead of asparagus, different salads, meats and sides.
Anyway, none of that is a big deal, but I can see how that might skew a diner's perception depending on what you like. We met some folks at the pool in November and chatted about the resort's dining; one couple said they didn't like Boma because everything was too sweet, and another group thought it was all too spicy.
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After cleaning our plates followed by an obligatory rest period, we went up for second plates, which oddly didn't vary much from the first round:
New to this round is tabbouleh (??? I don't remember getting this, but I do love tabbouleh so I may have been on autopilot) and strip loin from the carving station. Also, more of the orange chutney, which maybe was an apricot-mustard sauce? I don't quite remember, only that it was right in front of the strip loin and was supposed to pair with that. (It definitely wasn't a flavored hummus, even though it looks like one.) The strip loin was surprisingly tender and also quite lean. It was beef. Beefy. Meaty and iron-containing. Beef.
What a photo, deserving of several awards.
This was a mushroom soup, one of the other soups on rotation that night. I remember this being delicious but also describing it as basically pureed mushrooms. It really had that earthy, rich, mushroom flavor going on and it was not holding back! I remember thinking if it *was* just pureed mushrooms then it was done well, because there was no grittiness to the texture at all. Very smooth, nicely seasoned, and good for anyone who loves mushrooms.
After this, we were pushing our stomach limits, but found room for a throwback tour of the greatest hits:
a terrible photo of a delicious plate! just plantain chips and coriander chutney. soooooo good. I should ask for their coriander chutney recipe and make this at home; it'd be the perfect snack.
And then, it was time for dessert. The first trip was an exploratory mission:
Clockwise from 11'o'clock: "Dutch Malva pudding," special dessert of the night - spiced cherry cobbler, rooibos-red velvet cake, some chocolatey dessert I've seen each time but always forget the name of, and the world-renowned zebra dome.
Neither of us really care much for zebra domes
but we tried it again this trip to make sure. They're all right, we just don't love 'em.
The chocolatey kiss-looking thing was just a bunch of different chocolates together, and I'm not really one for chocolate either. Standard chocolate dessert. The "wrapper" is actually a chocolate shell, which I've always thought very cute.
The rooibos-red velvet cake was a bit of a letdown. Tea-flavored cakes, or any dessert for that matter, are usually so good! But this just tasted like a normal red velvet cake.
The spiced cherry cobbler was really nice, though it looks like a lump of mush in this photo. It was very warmly spiced -- as if somebody had included a chai inside the cobbler almost -- and it was delicious! Not too sweet. T got a separate plate of this for himself next, like half a dessert plate's worth.
I saved the best for last... the "Malva pudding"
we shared one, which turned into a plate of three, then a plate of four, and then we took four back to our room because Maureen loves us and we love her. We really tried to stop after that plate of three but she encouraged us to eat more! We of course weren't even hungry by the time of the first dessert plate -- we were really just nibbling at dessert -- but these are sooooooooooo good. I want them even now.
They're a very, very lightly spiced cake soaked in what I ~think~ is amarula, which is also what they use to make the cream filling in zebra domes. Now, I don't think they taste at all similar, but Maureen said they both use amarula liqueur, so I'll take her word for it. They're perfectly springy and spongy, light, not too sweet, and ridiculously good. T doesn't even normally like any kind of cake and he couldn't stop himself, either. They're simple, but delicious, and so hard to resist!
little heavenly delights
I mentioned up above that it wasn't busy at all when we went up for our first plates. That was true for each return visit of the buffet. It never got busy, there was never a line, and the restaurant was more than half empty when we left around 6:30pm. We talked about this with Maureen and she said it was an unusually slow night for a Thursday, and also for the weather. It began to thunderstorm shortly after we were seated, and it continued to rain through dinner and much of the evening. We only took four of the puddings home because it had been so slow -- I want to emphasize that Maureen suggested this, we did not ask!!!, and she insisted it was no big deal after we pushed back. At first we were worried she'd be fired for giving us a to-go box
With Tables in Wonderland we saved $18 (the buffet was $45/per adult). On top of the auto 18% gratuity we added on $10 because it really was slow that night, and because Maureen was such a gem. We had a very lovely time meeting her and enjoyed chatting and laughing with her throughout the night.
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Our best trip ever to Boma now behind us, we wandered around the lodge admiring the animals, decor, and art. (It was too rainy to go outside, but we saw lots of animals through the windows in the hallways.) We also pressed a penny or two down near the arcade/Mara, and then we took a Lyft back to the Swan so we could change bags and grab ponchos.
After grabbing our ponchos, we got on the AK bus and I picked up a rolling Safaris FP on the bus ride over. It was a ghost town over at Animal Kingdom due to the weather. I was happy as a clam in my poncho, while T struggled to get his on over his park bag.
Animal Kingdom is our favorite park, and also my favorite in the rain.
I didn't take any photos on this safari because of the rain, but it was one of the best ones we've ever been on. Two adolescent giraffes were headbutting and knocking each other around ("typical teenagers!" according to our safari guide
), there were so many animals out and about and very close to the safari road!, and we got to hear the lion and lionesses roar for the first time. That was particularly incredible to behold. I've seen the lions more active at night, but this was our first time hearing them roar.
After we got into the Safaris FP line, I picked up a rolling FP for Flight of Passage. The sky was now completely dark and we enjoyed an empty Africa and empty bridge between Africa and Pandora. We also saw frogs hopping on the bridge just before we got to Pandora! We enjoyed some of the nighttime Pandora lights and atmosphere, tapped in for FOP, rode it, then did one photopass photo together before T had to catch a Lyft to the groom's bachelor party.
From there, NRJ had a 10 minute standby (!) but I went back on Safaris, which had a literal 5 minute standby -- there were less than 15 people in the boarding zone, and we all got on the next vehicle together. I was hoping to catch lion roars again, but no such luck
We had a crash of rhinos block the road, though! After that, I zoomed over to Everest (it was like 9:20pm) and rode, watching part of Rivers of Light from the top. I got one photopass shot in front of the Tree of Life, then hopped a bus back to the Swan.
Coming up next, we cancel our plans in favor of winging it...