Mahi Mahi and Mini Golf

USA Trip 2013: Blog Post #4

If you're ever a shrimp boat captain, that's the day I'm an astronaut.

- Lt. Dan, Forrest Gump

A Coronarita:  A beer and margarita combo.

It was late afternoon when we arrived in Orlando, meaning we only had enough time left in our day for a meal and short activity.  With Universal Citiwalk a short boat ride away, it seemed the perfect choice for an evening’s entertainment. 

Dinner that night was at Bubba Gump, a chain seafood restaurant inspired by the movie Forrest Gump.  Excited to have finally begun our much-anticipated holiday, it didn’t take much persuading on the waitress’ part to get us to buy some outlandish drinks and a token souvenir glass.

Fans of the movie will remember the part where Bubba describes to Forrest all the different ways you can cook shrimp.  The restaurant does a pretty good interpretation of this scene with a menu loaded with different shrimp options.  Scott got shrimp prepared 3 different ways, while I got a Mahi Mahi and Shrimp dish that was flavoured with a rich bourbon sauce.

While the meal certainly wouldn’t feature in my top 10 restaurant experiences of all time, the food was tasty, the service was very friendly, and the atmosphere was fun.

Bourbon Street Mahi Mahi

The final hole is inside the house.

Keen to walk off our meals, we then headed across the pavement to The Hollywood Drive-In Golf Course.  Two separate courses, this place is about as good as mini golf gets.  One course has a Sci-fi theme, while the other is themed around ghosts and monsters.  We opted for the latter and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  So much so, that Oskar kept asking throughout the whole trip when we were going to return to “that mini golf place”.  I think he enjoyed his time here more than at some of the parks. 

Because of the theming and the fact that we were playing at nighttime, Oskar tended to stay close and approach each hole with caution.  If he had been a year or two younger, I have to wonder whether the whole experience would have been frightening as opposed to fun.

Throughout our 3 night stay, we visited Citiwalk every day.  Sometimes for meals, other times just to browse through the souvenir shops. 

We also had dinner one night at the Nascar Sport’s Grille and the meal was palatable, yet unmemorable.  We were seated in a booth with our own small television on the wall alongside us.  The waitress handed us the remote and we discovered we had a choice of about a dozen different sport’s channels.  For the right occasion and the right group of people, the restaurant would be standout hit.  For us, it filled our hungry bellies after a long day in the parks.  

Shrimper's Heaven - Bubba Gump