Chris 0:00 Everybody, welcome to another bonus episode. Today we're talking about Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' Florida Kitchen. Listen, we have had a couple of meals at Art Smith's, but we've never had brunch. And so this review is specifically about brunch. And this is a hard ticket to get. It's only offered on Saturdays and Sundays from like, nine to 230 or something. And I literally woke up at 6am. What was it? 30 days, 60 days was 30 days, 30 days, 6am 30 days before our day to eat there that we wanted to eat there during our trip. And was just a way to get reservations. Yeah, we've tried to do this time and time again. Third time's the charm. We got brunch, and we're going to tell you about it. Oh, it was it was absolutely worth the early wake up call. So real quick about Art Smith, who created this awesomeness. He's a two time James Beard Foundation award winner. He's got restaurants in Naples and Chicago and Atlanta and in DC. He was Oprah Winfrey's personal chef for 10 years and cook for two Florida governors in Tallahassee. He's always called Florida home, Jasper, Florida. In particular, Homecomin' at Disney Springs is located in the landing area of Disney Springs. So it's right beside Morimoto, Asia and STK and all these other places there. It pays homage to Florida's rich agro history by highlighting local ingredients and farm to table fare. Also, it's a nod to the fact that Art Smith was a cast member in 1981 as part of the Magic Kingdom college program, which was the predecessor to the Walt Disney World college program. So this was a homecoming of sorts for him. Yeah, that's right. So they specialize in comfort food and moonshine centered cocktails. We are going to be talking about the environment is what I'm calling back porch adjacent. Love that. Yeah, it's all hardwood all ceiling fans views right into the kitchen, outdoor seating and a fully stocked bar inside and outside the outside bar. Anybody can walk up to it, and you don't have to have be eating at Art Smith's or anything, right. And it's called Shine Bar. Kelli 2:17 Yeah, it's fantastic. enjoy that. Yeah, so we've eaten lunch and dinner at Arts on previous trips, but we've always wanted to try their ridiculous brunch menu. And so like you said, only available on Saturdays and Sundays. And we were thrilled. We went hungry. We were happy. And we were man, we were so happy to be there. So first of all, we started with the sweet tea shine in the 22 ounce koozie bottles, refillable, refillable koozie. So these are phenomenal. I've seen them all over social media and I knew I wanted one but I didn't know sort of how they worked. So you pay for 22 ounces of the beverage that you want. And again, we went with a sweet tea shine. And if you get it refilled then you pay the price of a regular cup of sweet tea shine which is probably like 12 ounces inside the restaurant but they refill the whole koozies so you're getting like bonus sweet tea shot. I'll be honest, I had the 22 ounces and then a nap Chris 3:15 930 in the morning and we were we were punching back some sweet tea. It was fantastic. Kelli 3:20 They also have other cocktails but these are not available in the 22 ounce bottle right? Which is why we didn't get those Chris 3:29 well and I wanted to try something else but I just couldn't get off Kelli 3:32 because they have other flavors of shine. Yeah, yeah, but you can't you got to get the sweet tea shine. Chris 3:36 It's just the best it really is so good. Kelli 3:38 But some other cocktails. They have the Florida crush which is Tito's vodka muddled with orange and strawberries a splash of fresh squeezed orange juice and agave syrup. Now we've talked about this before on the pod about how people need to muddle more they do need to muddle muddling is very underrated. The blueberry Mimosa a classic brunch staple with blueberry puree and fresh blueberries. That sounds delightful. And the white peach sangria which is a Moscato with muddled orange and mango fresh peach puree and a peach moonshine and a moonshine soaked peach wedge. I mean art can put together a cocktail for sure. Chris 4:15 We still stuck on the sweet tea. Kelli 4:16 We needed the sweet tea. So anyway, so as we were sipping on our sweet tea shine, we decided to order an appetizer now there are several that look amazing fried green tomatoes, church lady deviled eggs, but we went with housemade donuts because they're donuts. And these are mini iced donuts, piled with pecans bacon and drizzled with housemade caramel and when I say piled, I mean pile tiled, and they're served with spice cane syrup and seasonal fruit. And I had the seasonal fruit. What did you think of the doughnut? Chris 4:49 Yeah, unfortunately for me, wink wink, because she's vegetarian. And these are piled with bacon. I had to suffer and choke these things down. So Have you I know I do what I can for you took one for the these are dough-y soft, perfectly fried little morsels of heaven. They are. These are yeast and it's not cake donuts. Kelli 5:15 They are not full size. They're Chris 5:16 small, smaller. They're smaller, as you would expect for an app right. Kelli 5:20 And the hidden Mickey on your plate when you got Chris 5:24 did I did that was a nice touch. Yeah. And they're just soft, perfect light, salty. Sweet. is just is perfection. Right? It's right. And you can actually as one of the entrees you can actually get these with with fried chicken is one of the entree, Kelli 5:40 right? And we could have gotten those just dusted with the sugar and serve with the syrup. Sure, but I couldn't do that to you. I was totally fine with the seasonal fruit just as for any other vegetarians out there, please know you can get them without the bacon and the pecans. So yeah, so that was phenomenal. But let's jump into the main course. So I ordered the fried egg and avocado toast and I will say that's really the only vegetarian item he's got on the menu. I assume you could do a couple of sides like I could have gotten some biscuits or whatever but the fried egg and avocado toast was really my only vegetarian option which I was totally fine with. I love some avocado toast. So this was grilled Cuban bread topped with fresh avocado, fried egg arugula, radish, pickled red onion, drizzled with olive oil and lemon served with a choice of a side item now the side item or any of their side items. And so Chris went with cheese grits on his right cheese grits right and so we didn't want to both get the same thing so that we could test each other's and so I went with basically mashed potatoes which is not your typical breakfast side item, but it was delightful. It's good. It was delightful. And how was yours hun Chris 6:50 that so? Yeah, I did get the grits with cheese touch on that again later put a pin in that best grits maybe I've ever had that you didn't have you know you go to a restaurant your grits you're gonna have to do something to those grits. You got to put some salt and pepper some extra butter some absolutely no, not Art Smith man. He wants you to eat it the way it comes to your table and you are going to be happy with it. Oh good. But the meal I got was the Hallelujah biscuit and he ain't lying. It was it is this is an open was one of his biscuits open faced with fried chicken over two over easy eggs. Listen to this pimento cheese. His homemade pimento cheese. Yes. Smoked pecan bacon, and smothered in sawmill gravy. Now I like to consider myself a connoisseur of sawmill gravy. This Joker knows what he's doing when he's putting gravy breakfast gravy on a plate. He doesn't mess around. It was it was over the top. I that was an easy choice for me the Hallelujah biscuit with the side of grits. But the hush puppy Benedict looks ridiculous. It's a hush puppy cakes topped with fried chicken tenders poached eggs grilled country ham pimento Hollandaise Come on. And then of course like I said you can there's some other things but also the fried chicken and donuts you cannot go wrong with the fried chicken the man knows how to do fried chicken. I'll just put it out there Kelli 8:23 I considered getting the Hamilton and just telling him to hold the meat. The Hamilton is grits. So it's pimento cheese grits topped with braised kale and collards to over easy eggs, honey ham and two strips of pecan smoked bacon with a spicy Hollandaise and crispy fried shallots. So I almost considered getting that and just saying hold the meat. But no, it sounded phenomenal. After we finished eating our lovely waitress came over and I asked her I was like there's no desserts on the menu. Do you have desserts at brunch? Because Hello. Why wouldn't you have dessert? She said, She's like, Sure you can order any of the desserts we offer and we said okay, well we want the chocolate pecan pie. And we've had this before. Alan gave it to us manager for my PhD. So yeah, so we know we loved it. We get the Hamilton County chocolate pecan pie, which is 100 year old traditional Smith Family Farm recipe served with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Yeah, and we also consider ourselves experts in pecan pie. Oh yeah, Chris 9:27 this is the best I've ever had. Kelli 9:28 It was it really is phenomenal. And I will say art also sells a moonshine soaked pound cake that is supposed to be Yeah, out of this world. Chris 9:36 I'm gonna get pecan pie I've had the shine cake. Yeah, but the pecan pie is better. Yeah, it's just better. It's it's ridiculous chocolate pecan pie. It's good. It's so luscious. Yep. So yeah, no trip. The Art Smith is complete without talking about the service because that is absolutely what part of the experience here. Kelly mentioned Alan at our last time we were there how he just made it super special This was absolutely no exception. Everything almost everything we've mentioned was also record that we ordered was also recommended by our amazing waitress Christie from Apopka, Florida, which is apparently the indoor foliage capital of the world. She was fantastic. She just made our trip so much better having her as our waiter waitress. She She said, Well, are you which we think we want the sweet tea moonshine? Which one? That's our favorite. You should get the Twinkie. Oh, and you should get them in the 22 ounce bottle. Yes. Okay. We'll have it we'll have it. What do you recommend for appetizer? The doughnuts? Well, okay, we'll have that. So the reason I got the grits with the cheese is because that's not what people normally get. She said, I like I like the grits with cheese with mine. And so I said, I'll have that. Then at the end of the meal. She says, you know, we said we said by the way, do you have any hot sauce because the last time we were here it was taking them two hours to make hot sauce. But Kelli 11:05 I had heard they were selling they Chris 11:06 had heard it says we sell it in the bottle. We've got some in here. And so we said we'll have to now since then we've just blasted through one of those bottles. I wish I had bought 10 of them. Well, Kelli 11:17 she offered one 510 Yeah. Chris 11:21 Listen, I was buying everything else he was suggesting. So I should have I should have done it. It is it is legitimately the best hot sauce I've ever had in my life. Right It's over the top. It's amazing. And not to be outdone, manager Olivia came by the table and made us feel like absolutely royalty. She gave us a little insider information. And we're just so grateful to her to the service that homecoming is just always over the top. The service Kelli 11:47 is amazing. The food is amazing. It's a lovely atmosphere. I mean no trip to Disney is complete for us Chris 11:54 without a visit to homecoming absolutely right. So, so go check it out if you get a chance and go check out all of our social medias, instagram twitter at SCFADP. Go subscribe to us on YouTube supercalifragilistic awesome Disney podcast and we hope you enjoy all that. With that we hope to see you real soon. Transcribed by https://otter.ai