Mama Melrose Disaster (Rant)

[Rob&Jan]

Let me start by saying we are pretty laid back people and very rarely complain about much when we are on vacation but this meal was sooo bad I want all to hear about it and be warned.

We were at Mama Melrose on October 4th at about 4:30 pm seated quickly and the server was excellent.The salad was Ok not great but OK, wood fired pizza again OK not great.I ordered the Penne ala vodka and when it arrived the sauce was sealed to the pasta from the heat lamp and it was rather tasteless, my wife ordered the Veal Ossa Buco and she took one bite and pushed the plate away, I offered to switch and I could not eat it either. The server noticing the problem came by and offered to exchange the veal for another entree we were sceptical but he insisted so we tried the chicken parmigiana, ...big mistake.The server brought the Gelato, which turned out to be vanilla ice cream. We noticed that two other tables also returned the veal and another table complained about their meal as well (not sure what they had ordered ).

We go to WDW at least 3 times per year and have eaten at many, many restaurants, this is honestly the first really bad meal we have ever had.

We had it booked in January 07 as well but I have changed the ADR to another spot , Fantasmic PKG or not. I would sit in a thunderstorm for an hour to see Fantasmic before I would eat there again.

I have E-mailed WDW about the meal as well I have posted this review on other boards and web sites.

I rely heavily on the comments from this forum so I thought I would give everyone a heads up from our experience.

Thanks for listening

 

[MarieA]

We ate at Mama Melroses a few years ago and thought it was pretty bad too. We haven't been back since.

 

[CathrynRose]

I had the best Eggplant in my life at Mama's on 9.28.

Different tastes....

 

[deany]

We had a good meal there on Oct. 8. We all ordered the chicken parmagia and it was fine, not fabulous but pretty good. We would not hesitate to eat there again.

 

[kldmom2000]

So sorry to hear you had a horrible experience.... we ate there 10/1 and I got the dish that consisted of grilled chicken and pasta w/ alfredo sauce which was excellent while DH got the italian sausage puttanesca type dish. He loved his as well....

Our girls' cheese pizza was rather ick-but that was our only complaint....

 

[NewJersey]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience! I ate there once about 4 years ago and it was very good. Haven't gone back since because it has been fully booked. I'm making my ADRs Saturday and hopefully I can get one for there too!

 

[canwegosoon]

Wow that sounds pretty bad...I know many of us have had an experience that means we will not be going back to a certain restaurant. I have never eated at MM, but have ADR's for later in the year. Hoping that this is some kind of fluke(sorry for you though).

 

[CamColt]

I'm sorry to hear of your bad experience...especially with 2 of my favorite dishes, the penne alla vodka and chicken parm. We have dined here many times over the past 11 years and have always had wonderful meals. I certainly hope they were just having an off night.

 

[Disneyfriend]

Hmmmm . . . we ate there on October 1st and had a fair dinner overall. But my daughter who got the veal osso buco thought it was literally inedible. And she is not an overly picky eater. In fact, she's quite an adventurous eater and typically loves veal and Italian food. When we rated our dinners for that night, she literally gave her meal a big "F". That was the only meal all week that she reacted like that to.

Disneyfriend

Edited to add: In fairness, the rest of us had a very passable meal (spicy Italian sausage with pasta; tender steak over polenta; cheese flatbread). Not great, but just fine. Perhaps the best part of the meal was the good bread served with a basil pesto dipping sauce.

 

[Rhongepooh]

Well we did a grand gathering at Mama Melrose's last year the week of Thanksgiving and it has been one of the family's most talked about resturants. Most of us HATED it!!! HORRIBLE FOOD!!!! However, we just figured that it was because of our taste buds all being southern grown and not use to the fancy food of REAL Italian. The staff was very nice just had bad, bad food to most of us.

 

[swankybeth]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy your meal at MM. We have a lunch ADR for our January trip. I figured it's the "best of the worst" because I'm not really thrilled with any of the dining options at MGM. DH and I were planning to split the seafood pasta and a salad.

 

[purpliequeen]

Thank you for the update. I have been reading the reviews and have had a hard time finding info on Mama Melrose. However, the info I have found all seem to state that either the service, food, or both, is below par. I think I'll change this TS.

Raina

 

[The Sweetness]

Sounds like Mama M's must have been having a really *off* night. Why would WDW intentionally serve substandard food at one of its prime TS locations on a regular basis? Sucks that it happened on your night though

 

[all4fun]

This was one of the places we were really looking forward to eating at.

Unfortunately, I ordered the inedible veal as well. It was a big mushy slab of meat with no discernable flavor at all. I took one bite and pushed it aside as well.

My DH had the chicken parm. It was OK at best. We've had much better at Olive Garden.

To the server's credit, he did offer to get me a replacement entree. However, by the time he did I had written the place off and wanted to move on.

The desserts were nice, but not enough to warrant going out of your way. We will not dine there again unless we hear that big changes have occured.

 

[dreamergirl78]

Wow, that is a bummer. Sorry you had a bad experience.
We ate there on the 1st of October and found the service to be fair and the food to be pretty good! I would eat there again, but I think I would try H&V next time for the Fantasmic! Dining Package!

 

[Disneyfriend]

Unfortunately, I ordered the inedible veal as well. It was a big mushy slab of meat with no discernable flavor at all. I took one bite and pushed it aside as well.

Well, not to beat dead horse, but this is exactly what my dd said: that the veal was fall-apart tender, but had absolutely no flavor - none. She too took a bite and physically pushed her plate away.

Sounds like they need to rework this entree.

Disneyfriend

 

[castleri]

I wonder if they changed chefs in the last year. My DH and I ate there last; year during the full day behind the scenes tour and the food was fantastic. This year we ate there in April and the meal was again very good. We had 2 ADRs for this Sept and cancelled the 2nd one after eating there our first night. The meal was okay but just barely and definitely not even close to what we had had before and the service was also not what it was previously. Certainly hope they get it back to what it was.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Just for the record, gelato IS ice cream, just richer. Without 'regular' ice cream of the same flavor nearby for comparison, it's probably hard to tell that what's being eaten is richer.

 

[LilyWDW]

Gelato has a much different feel to it then regular ice cream due to the higher milk fat content. It would be pretty easy to tell the difference between the two.

Mmmmmm Gelato in Rome....

 

[NewEnglandDisney]

Disney just doesn't do Italian well.

NED