Live at The Boathouse in Disney Springs

I'm Chef Dennis and we're here live at The Boathouse and I'm excited to be here today. And I have the general manager, correct? Correct.

Jacob.

Jacob. And, uh, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do here, Jacob?

Uh, I am the general manager. I've been, uh, with The Boathouse since day one that we've opened up. Um, you know, very proud and honored to be part of this team. Uh, I oversee the, uh, everyday operations for everything in the building alongside my partner Chef Bob, who you're going to meet here in a little bit. Um, you know, together we, we do everything that we can in this building to make it survive and, and handle the tough crowds. But it's, it's a fascinating building. It's got an awesome dynamic, um, and we're just honored to be part of this team.

It is such a beautiful restaurant, and it goes on forever. You've got private rooms here in the back, or extra dining rooms. You've got the dock, you've got the Dockside Bar, you've got sofas out there to sit on by the boats. I just, it just blows me away that how beautiful and how much thought was put into the design of this place.

It was, it was, it was a very interesting concept, and it's very deceiving when you come up to the front door. When you come up to the front, all you see is a retail store and one of our bars. But the second you step through, you look down to the right and you just see dining rooms for miles. We have, uh, 6 dining rooms, uh, that's including our 2 private dining rooms that we have. So if we have private dining event, we will, uh, make our adjustments to our floor that way. And then as soon as you come out to the back area, you see all of our beautiful antique boats from the '30s, '40s, and '50s on display. Our outside dock bar, which is floating out above the water over there, it is deceptively small from the outside, but it's probably one of the biggest buildings here at Disney Springs.

I believe it. And you couldn't have had a better location, right on the lake I mean, you've got great views from so many spots along the back of the restaurant. We've got tables on the, on the decks going all the way around, or just if you want to relax and like I said, go sit. And we did that the other night, got our drinks and sat on the sofa and just watched, watch life go by.

Yeah, there's a lot of different dynamics to the restaurant. You know, you know, we have, you know, like you said, we have formal dining rooms, private dining rooms, we have lounge seating, we have casual seating out on the dock bar. Uh, it's— you can do whatever you want here in the building. And with being part of Gibson's Restaurant Group, who is the managing partner, uh, that operates the building, you know, our service philosophy is we're going to take care of you any way we possibly can. If you want to sit on those couches and enjoy yourself and have a casual, uh, date night together, great. If you want to have a full-course meal served to you, you want steaks, you know what, we're going to serve it to you down there as well. We're here to take care of customers and make sure that they're their, uh, their number one priority for us.

Yeah, and that's a good philosophy to have, and especially here in Orlando, because people come here on vacations from all over the world and they expect an experience, and you certainly give it to them.

Correct. Yeah, you know, we have all over the world— I mean, nailed on the head— all over the world. And not only all over the world, but our locals as well. Um, that's the beauty of what Disney has been doing with Disney Spring, is they're, they're driving local business down here. So in the Boathouse, you know, we're big enough, we can take— we want to take on all the locals, and we also want to take on everybody who's traveling from all over the world to, uh, experience our restaurant and experience Disney Springs as a whole.

I know it's become our favorite local watering hole or restaurant, so we're happy to be here. And, you know, it's such a nice trip coming over here now, and Disney's made it easier with the parking garages. So things are getting— they're still under construction, there's still a lot of construction going on, but it is a masterpiece in the makings here.

A lot of construction. And, you know, by the end of the year, uh, it's going to be eye-opening how much this area has changed and the evolution of Disney Springs. You know, from, you know, being Downtown Disney before and being Pleasure Island after that and now being Disney Springs. The overall evolution and growth is just tremendous, and we are very blessed to be down here right on the 50-yard line. You could say we're right in the middle. We do have an outstanding location, and you can come out our back door and you have the best view of Disney Springs. And the sunsets down here are breathtaking. Um, they're absolutely amazing. Every single night you got a beautiful sunset. So it's, it's a very enjoyable place to work at.

And I've seen some of your other dining rooms and they are pretty awesome. There's, there's, is there a Trophy Room or—

Trophy Room and the Regatta Room are two of our dining rooms. Those are considered our private dining rooms. However, we open them up for dinner business when we, when we're using them for private dining events. A lot of attention to detail was taken into designing the building and decorating the building. The Lake House is, is one of our main dining rooms and it's a beautiful beautiful room. I mean, it reflects being inside of a lake house. We have what we call the Admiral's Bar located inside. That's kind of a sophisticated, uh, Scotch and whiskey bar, um, on display, but you can get whatever you want wherever you want. And then the other rooms, the Twin Transom, the Runabout, and the Captain's Raw Bar of our other dining rooms, those are going to be more of your casual, um, casual dining rooms, but at the same time, it, it can be made at any moment that you want. Live entertainment starting at 9 o'clock every night. And then, you know, the Dock Bar is just an outstanding place to hang out.

Yes, it is.

And the main thing with us is our Amphicars. You know, we had the Amphicars. Um, there's actually one in the water right now, but the Amphicars are just the neatest things in the world. Uh, you know, in the 1960s they developed these, and these are the original cars. These aren't really— these aren't mock-ups at all. These are the original cars from the 1960s.

Wow.

Um, a lot of care, a lot of love is put into those to make sure they're operational, make sure they're safe, um, and, and running every single day. Uh, it's just amazing when you sit outside and just see how many people pull up their iPhones to watch them splash down into the water. It's such a crowd pleaser. And then to get the view of Disney Springs from out there on the water, it's a great opportunity for us, and we embellish it and we love it. And our captains are one of a kind. They will entertain you for the for the whole half-hour trip that you have out there. You, you'll love every minute of it, from splashdown to, uh, driving back up.

And you can guarantee it won't end up like Gilligan's Island, right?

Absolutely not. None of that's going to be happening. But the weirdest feeling in the world, um, is being in that car, and it's, it's like being in a movie and you see you're in the car and you're going into water and you kind of have that fright going on. But it's nothing to be scared about, trust me.. But when you hit that water, it's just the neatest feeling. And the smiles that it puts on people's faces, from the, from the customers who are watching it to the customers who are in the car, you hear screams, you hear cheers, you hear just joy coming out of people when they hit those cars, uh, hit the water and you start cruising along. So it's a beautiful, beautiful dynamic.

Yeah. And we are outside, folks, so there's planes, there's helicopters, there's boats, there's all kinds, because Disney Springs is alive. And I also know you have a yacht too that goes out occasionally.

We do. We have a 40-foot, uh, Italian water taxi that we take, uh, guests out. We're working on a lot of different programs to support that vessel, but it is a, a beautiful boat. Beautiful, beautiful boat. And we take those out for sunset cruises and, and private events, and couples can take that, take it out. But we're all, uh, all about making sure they're taken care of, and the boats are beautiful. Um, all guided by our captains. So our captains take you on the cruise, so there's no thinking involved, just enjoyment. Yeah.

So, and what could be better than that? Just enjoyment on a beautiful lake in a beautiful downtown area of Disney. It's just, it's great. I mean, and you feed them on the boats too if they want.

We can, yes, absolutely. We do, uh, some of the cruises that we do, we have the, uh, uh, get a bottle of prosecco and some strawberries. We're also working on a wine and dine cruise Coming up here, we'll be doing a sunset hour-long cruise up the river, um, doing a wine and cheese and wine and cheese tasting. It's gonna be, it's gonna be special.

So you'll actually go up the river away then too, all the way up the river, all the way up to Port Orleans and back down.

Hour-long trip, uh, get bottles of wine, uh, do some wine tastings. Chef's put together a gorgeous spread of meat and cheese to talk about and feed while you're there. And it just becomes one of the best occasions for people. Complete strangers become best friends by the end of it. It's, it's absolutely magical.

Well, food and Prosecco will do that.

That will, that will do it to you.

Yeah, that makes people that are barely tolerable happy by the end of the, end of the ride.

Yeah, and award-winning, uh, Italian wines to fit the theme of the, uh, Time Water Taxi. So it's, it's well themed, it's, it's well put together, um, and it is worth every second that you're on it.

I'm sure it is. Well, we've talked a lot about the Boathouse and all the things you offer, and it is just, uh, again, it's a masterpiece. I love it here. And I— we have some drinks in front of us. You want to tell us what we have?

Yes, we— right here we have our, uh, blueberry lemonade. Um, it is a delicious, refreshing summertime drink that we put on the menu, um, that definitely is for you. Um, it's great. Fresh blueberries are inside of it. Uh, it's a vodka-based drink, very refreshing. Uh, does come with the souvenir glass as well, so that's a takeaway, um, as well. Yeah, so it's, it's nice. It's— and we use the crushed ice and. It just stays cool, stays crisp. You can sit out on that dock bar for hours and sip on our blueberry lemonades.

Those are very good, and they would go down pretty easy.

So they would go down very easy. And our other one is our Old Fashioned. And I personally, I love Old Fashioneds. I feel that ours is probably, or is the best Old Fashioned I have ever tasted.

Very nice.

It's got a nice smooth orange flavor on the back end. That's the bitters we put in there. Um, it's not overpowering with whiskey. It's blended perfectly. Um, the mixologist that we had from our corporate office, Gibson's, Gibson's corporate office, came down and taught us the proper way to make it. And we got the right ingredients for it. We got the Luxardo cherries in there, um, you know, the orange peel, ice balls. The ice spheres is pretty much what makes it because it doesn't water it down. It slowly melts, so you— it maintains that flavor throughout the drink.

So it's, it's, it's one of my favorites, so I wanted to share it Well, thank you. That is, it is wonderful. And I could smell the orange just coming up at me when I picked it up too. Many have a nice—

people drink with their nose as much as they eat with their nose. So it's important that when you bring it up, you get that nice smell, that nice orange aroma. And it's not that you don't get that bitter whiskey face afterwards. It's just smooth all the way through.

Very smooth. Very smooth. It was felt almost a little smoky, uh, but very— I'm not a whiskey connoisseur, but that was a very nice smooth flavor to it. It rounded out as you drank it.

So yeah, we're using Jack Daniel's Single Barrel on that drink, so you're getting a good quality in there.

Excellent. And I did go to some whiskey classes, so I did learn a little bit about whiskey. And when you mentioned the ice cube, one of the things they said was when you make a drink, you have to be careful that it doesn't— it dilutes, but it not dilutes too much.

Yeah, there's a method to it, especially when you're using any type of brown liquor, because you want to get that full flavor. So you don't want to water it down and turn that brown liquor into a yellowish color. No., and using an ice sphere is definitely the way to do it because that's going to slowly melt and it's going to add. And it's great, you know, just using ice spheres over a nice single malt scotch. It definitely helps out because a lot of people put water in their scotches, but, you know, just use that and it'll slowly melt and it'll take care of you.

Now, I don't think I've been at a bar that I have seen an ice sphere before. I mean, that's kind of novel.

Yeah, they— a lot of bars are turning into it now. It definitely gives you that classic cocktail feel, um, you know, back in the day when they used to not have of, you know, the molds for it, you would see, um, bars use gigantic ice blocks and they would just chip a, chip a big chunk of ice and put it inside there. And so that's kind of where the overall ice sphere— obviously it fits better if it's a cylinder, but, you know, old ways how they do is, you know, they would get those big blocks of ice, they would bring them into the bars and they would store them. That's where they get all their ice from. So the barkeep would just go smack a hammer with a little chisel and a big chunk of ice would come. They put that in there and pour it on there. So that's That's kind of the development of the ice sphere on there. So it's a great concept.

Very good. We've gone from a Fred Flintstone style ice to a sophisticated ice sphere. So I'm glad. Well, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure so far, just learning more about the Boathouse and about the operations and everything that goes into it in this beautiful facility and getting to try two wonderful drinks.

Two wonderful drinks. And you are in for a treat once Chef Bob comes over here. He's gonna— you are gonna see what the Boathouse, is all about, and it's our great food. And Chef Bob has done a wonderful job of developing this menu and staying consistent, and, and you're in for a treat. So I'm, I'm excited for you. Thank you.

I, I have been here before, so I, I am anticipating great things here. I know what's— he told me what was coming, and I'm going, I shouldn't have eaten for 3 days.

You know, you will walk out of here— I'll see you on the couches at about 8 o'clock tonight, just relaxing, probably. And we'll make sure the Old Fashioneds keep coming for Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Absolutely.

Thank you. Great. So we're going to bring Chef Bob over and we'll start bringing some food. So let me take these drinks over to my assistant. Hey, Chef Bob, come on, sit down.

Hi, Chef Dennis. Nice to see you again.

Good to see you again, sir.

You're getting to be a regular around here.

I know. I, like I said, I come here whenever there's someone new in town. This is where we bring them.

Well, keep on coming. Yeah.

You know, it's, it's, it's dependable.

It's American fare.

Where, you know, people sometimes have a different palate, and not that there's anything wrong with any other kind of food, but we know we can depend on this to be delicious and to please just about anybody that's coming.

And, you know, the menu is really designed to do that. The menu, we're making everything from scratch. The ingredients that we use are expensive. The food is definitely not a cheap restaurant. And but there is something on the menu for anybody. We have sliders. You could get 2 filet mignon sliders for $12. You could get a hamburger. And today we ordered— we actually started a new thing, which is competition-style baby back ribs. Wow. And those are made exactly as we did in competition barbecue championships that I was a part of. And we have a certified pitmaster here that makes those for us.

Oh my God.

And then that's just— that doesn't even begin to talk about the seafood and the steaks. Yes. And, uh, the first thing that we're going to sample today is a selection from our raw bar. We have something that's called on the menu a Shucker's, um, tasting, uh, flight, which is—

oh my God—

which is 6 oysters. Right here is the raw bar platter.

That is just fantastic.

And then right here we're gonna have a, a Shucker's Oyster Flight.

I'm gonna take some pictures before we get too involved. I can always edit this part out.

So right here we have 6 different oysters. Those are the chef's choice of the day. Today we have, um, everything from East Coast oysters starting off from Canada, Massachusetts, uh, Virginia, and then we have a couple of West Coast oysters from, um Puget Sound, Washington and British Columbia. And then over here we end up with a cucumber mignonette, then we have a citrus chili vinaigrette, and finally traditional cocktail sauce. But really the mignonette sauce is what elevates the oyster to a higher level, and that's what we really recommend for the guests to try.

Now, what is the real difference in where the oysters come from?

Really, there's two distinct types of oysters that are common, and one is an East Coast oyster. They're called Virginicas, and then the West Coast oyster are called Pacific oysters, and they're different species. And the East Coast oyster, you— when you're tasting it, you're mostly comparing different salt or salinity levels. Okay. And the texture of the oyster, and some of them have a little bit of a sweetness to them. But they're all more or less the same, whether you get a Gulf oyster from Florida or like this oyster right here from Canada, Nova Scotia. They're all exactly the same species. So the— in oyster harvesting, they call merroir, like they call terroir in wine drinking. The oyster is the product of its environment. So if it's in a place where there's a high salinity, a lot of seawater, it'll have that flavor.. And if it's from a more of a brackish water inland, up a river, or in a place that has a lot of seaweed and algae, it'll take on those kind of flavors too. So the West Coast oyster, uh, almost all oysters, probably 90% plus, are farm-raised to some extent. Okay. That means that they're— the seeds are cultured and that they're put in some sort of a rack and bag system so that they're elevated off the bottom of the water and that they get to grow in a clean environment. That's most of the East Coast oysters and a lot of the West Coast oysters are called beach culture where they grow right on the beach. And I read this, it's so interesting. At low tide, the oyster farmers just go down and they pick the oysters they want off the beach and put them in bags that has a rope with a buoy attached. And at high tide, they just go grab the buoy boys and pull all the bags of oysters up on the boat.

Oh my God, yeah.

So if you look, if you try the two different kinds here, let me set you up one.

I just want to show everybody again too.

You like spice, right? Oh yeah, who doesn't like spice? Well, this one's got a little bit of Serrano chili in it. Ooh.

Now, what goes into the different mignonettes? I mean, when you're deciding flavors of them.

Mignonette, so here, go ahead and try this one right here. I'll pass that over to you. That's a Pleasant Bay oyster, and that's from Massachusetts with a cucumber mignonette.

Wow.

Nice, right? Yeah. Yeah, so when you taste that, you'll know the difference. The West Coast oyster, A lot of time is characterized not so much as just the salinity by different flavors like cucumbers and melons and more creaminess. The meat's usually typical, uh, thicker and more of a creamy texture.

Nice, that was very pretty.

And here, so this one right here, you can try. That's a perfect example of a golden mantle. That's a British Columbia Pacific oyster right there.

It was excellent weather.

And we have typically any day— this is a— this is our, our oyster menu today, and we typically have anywhere from 8 to 15 different kind of oysters from all over the country. We've even had oysters from Alaska and New Zealand here before.

You know, I know there's a lot of different kind of oysters, and for people that are into them, this has got to be like heaven to them.

It is great because there's a lot of oyster bars in Florida.

Yes.

And but, but most, for the most part, they're all serving the same thing, either, uh, Gulf oysters from Texas or Apalachicola. And, um, there is some kind of, uh, small concern about vibrio bacteria when you're talking about warm water oysters, so we don't serve any warm water oysters here. We serve only cold water oysters here at the Boathouse.

Okay.

And it's really fun as the chef getting to, to taste all these different kinds that are Oyster— the oyster business is kind of like the microbrewery business. It's, it's exploding, and you have all these little, uh, operations setting up trying to make their oysters different than the next guys up the road. And the, the way that they, they cultivate them determines what the shell looks like and the color and the salinity and the flavor of the meat. It's really, really fun. Well, and, and the, uh, just to answer your question, a mignonette is basically, uh The standard mignonette, you know, if you go all the way back in French cooking, is red wine vinegar with shallots and black pepper. It's an astringent sauce to complement the oyster. Ours, we jazz it up a little bit. So we use, in our cucumber mignonette, we use cucumbers, we have rice wine vinegar in there, a little bit of sugar, and the black pepper too. And then on the citrus vinaigrette, that's a white vinegar with some citrus juice, and then we have this, the chilies in there too. So that's, that's what makes it fun.

They, they really complemented them. And the first oyster I had, the Pacific one, I could taste the salinity, but it wasn't, it wasn't bad. But the cucumber was perfect with it. Yeah, honestly, I'd never thought of that.

And a lot, you know, a lot of places people eat around here, especially oyster bars, uh, Florida style, they're, they're just putting horseradish and cocktail sauce, and you really can't even taste the oyster. It's kind of like what you do if you don't want to taste the oyster, you put all that stuff on it instead.

I know they used to give it to us in a little shooter glass with that in it. Yeah, because you didn't really want to taste the oyster.

And then so on this platter right here, we have the shrimp. Those are U-12 wild-caught Sea of Cortez Baja shrimps. And then we have a lobster cocktail. The lobster cocktail is just It's very simple. It's a perfectly cooked Maine lobster that's chilled and served cold. We have the stone— fresh stone claw. Those are in season for about another month now, and we always have them when they're in season. Interesting thing about the stone crab claws, it's a, it's a Florida product. It's, it's very local. They catch a lot of them on the West Coast and all the way down to the Keys.

Yeah.

And when the fisherman catches the claw, they break off the crusher claw and then they throw the crab alive back into the water, and then they bring them in, they cook the claws right at the processing facility, and then they send them out. So we're getting them straight off the dock basically, and, uh, you know, we're, we're buying enough sea fresh seafood to, to try to sell out every night. So we, we know we don't have any of our fresh seafood, um, hanging around here for more than, uh, 24 or 48 hours maximum in our building. Oh, lobster is an interesting fact here. When we opened, we, you know, we weren't sure how much of that we were going to sell, but my standing order on Saturday for live Maine lobsters for Saturday and Sunday is 600 live Maine lobsters.

So wow, that's just the live lobsters.

Yeah, live lobsters. So we're selling a bunch of them. And so we have a couple of different sauces. Uh, we serve the cocktail sauce, uh, that's a Gibson's classic, it's called a Bombay cocktail sauce. It has Bombay gin in there. Then we have what's called a Lady Rose sauce, is a pink kind of a cross between a cocktail and a tartar sauce for the lobster. And then we have the classic mustard sauce for the stone claw. Why don't you try a fresh stone claw, Dennis?

Absolutely.

Can we get a couple side plates, please?

I just love how this pulls right out so easily. And my first introduction to stone crab and mustard, you think?

Absolutely. That's the only way to do it. Yes, that's it.

I had never had one before and it was like, wow. Oh my God.

That is a rare delicacy and it's only in Florida and it's only for about 6 months out of the year.

Yeah. That is wonderful. If you've never had stone crab, you don't know what you're missing. And I know for the longest time I didn't. This is amazing. Oh my God. Now, how long— you said 6 months these run for?

About, about 6 months. They're, they're out all year, but there's a— Florida is doing a really good job with, um, managing fisheries nowadays, so there's a closed season for about half a year for stone crabs. Because it takes time for those claws to regenerate.

Yeah, and they really need to throw them back. I mean, I know some people might keep both of them, but you know, if you take both claws, you're not giving the stone crab a fighting chance to survive.

Absolutely. So as long as the rules are followed, it's an absolutely sustainable seafood, local and fresh, and it doesn't get any better than that.

Oh my God, this is wonderful.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

I gotta stop myself.

Chris, how about the next course? So the next thing we're going to bring out is a, it's a signature dish of ours. It's really turned into a signature. It's a, it's a lobster roll sandwich.

Thank you.

And lobster roll is, is pretty common all over New England.

Yes.

You know, even McDonald's was trying to serve a lot of them a couple of months ago.

I saw that.

And what's different about ours is we're buying in fresh Maine lobsters every day. A lot of places will typically buy, uh, frozen lobster meat, um, and you know, that's, that's probably not what you want to buy if you go to a fish market, because when the lobsters die in the tank—

yes—

and then they cook the lobsters, that's where the frozen meat comes from. So really, if you're going to eat a lobster, you want something that was fresh, you know, killed and then served right away. So we're, um, we sell about 100 lobster rolls a day. So that means my prep team is back there having to cook and clean 100 lobsters a day just for one sandwich on the menu. And so we take all the meat out of the lobster, we dress it very, very lightly with a little bit of mayonnaise, with some fresh celery and some lemon zest, and it's very lightly dressed. And we actually take one whole 1¼-pound Maine lobster, and we keep all the meat together and we mix it and we put that on a toasted New England-style bun.

So one lobster per sandwich.

One lobster per sandwich.

You hear that, folks? One lobster per sandwich.

So that's the lobster roll at the Boathouse. And now coming along with that is the pitmaster David Ramos's famous— soon to be famous— baby back ribs.

Baby back ribs. God almighty.

When we were presenting this to our staff today, a lot of them didn't understand what competition style means. And what that is, is a lot of barbecue places will typically take the rib out of the package, throw it in the smoker, maybe they'll put some seasoning and maybe they won't, and then they'll smoke it till it's cooked and probably overcooked so it's falling off the bone. And then, you know, brush some sauce on it and it's, it's pretty good. We all grew up and we like— we all love ribs and those are good ribs, but the competition style is different. And the reason why it's different is because in a barbecue competition, the judge is going to make a judgment based on one bite. So it has to be really flavorful and it has to be a wow in one bite because they're not going to eat that whole rack of ribs. So things we do different is we marinate the ribs overnight in apple juice, hot sauce, sugar and salt mixture. And then once they're marinated, we dry them off, we season them with our fresh barbecue spice that David made just for the Boathouse, and then we smoke that for about 1 hour. We have a Southern Pride smoker back there that we use cherry wood in. We take it out, and then there's the next step is that you put it in a pan with butter honey and brown sugar and apple juice, and we wrap that so that at that point it's, it's cooking in a moist environment, and that those ingredients makes a glaze on the ribs. So that after that, then we brush it with a little bit of sauce, run it through the oven just to, to crisp it up a little bit, and then we take and we dust it with a little bit of the dry rub on top. So it's kind of like a Memphis-style rib. It doesn't have a lot of sauce on it, but we serve a little bit of the side of the sauce if you like to dip the rib inside there. And that comes with an ear of corn, fresh corn on the cob, and some coleslaw. So, you know, that's a good lunch.

That's definitely a meal in itself. And I saw one of your managers was having the ribs and he looked like he was really into them.

Yeah, and most people haven't ever tasted a rib like that before. You know, the only people who've tasted them are probably the ones that have the guts to sneak behind the scenes at the barbecue contest and ask the cook teams for a sample because they're really not supposed to serve those to people at those contests.

Oh, wow. That's okay.

Another thing we're proud of here is that we do fresh-cut fries for our French fries.

They certainly are.

We do not have a freezer in our kitchen on the line where we cook the French fries, so nobody's pulling out a bag of frozen potatoes and frying them. They're fresh every day. It's a ton of work, but it's definitely worth the effort.

That is beautiful. Never mind, take some pictures while we're doing this. Those ribs look amazing. I like how you have them cut down too, so it's easier to deal with.

Absolutely. And like I say, today's the first day for the ribs. We've been in research and development for about a month trying to get the recipes, uh, exactly right the way we want them.

Well, they look pretty darn good from here.

Here's a couple of wet naps for you because I know you're going to need them. It's a shell bowl, you can put the bones in there.

Look at that lobster piled up on that.

Wow, that's a head-turner in the dining room.

God, he doesn't like lobster. Look at that rack. Wow. Which end? Does it matter?

No, take what whichever, you know, just rip one off. The other thing too is in a barbecue contest, the judges don't have any utensils. It's only eating with your fingers. So in the spirit of that, maybe we'll just both try one that way.

Oh my God.

Oh.

These are without a doubt the best ribs I've ever had.

That's an endorsement, I'll take it. It's an endorsement. I'll let you take the rest home with you in a doggy bag tonight.

Thank you.

Oh, you haven't seen Lisa eat. She's small, but she can pack some food away. That's why I fell in love with her. Wow, got a little kick to it. Yes, but the difference that you said about the meat, I can see. Okay, it's not just overcooked, dried out with sauce on it.

Correct.

It's got some character, it's got some different levels built in. I can taste, you know, the complexity of the meat. It's not just like you slathered a bunch of sauce on it and here, enjoy. Which, like I said, It's pretty good because we enjoyed those, right?

Right.

But there's a lot more to these ribs.

Thank you. Wow. Here, maybe we can move those over there. Yeah, it's time to try a lobster roll.

Oh my God. Yes, please.

No, you know what, just bring it out, uh, natural. We'll let Chef Dennis, uh, dive into it.

Oh my God, this is—

that's a labor of love, I'm telling you that. I can't—

running out of words to describe some of this food, it's so good. Oh my God, that, that, my friend, is money.

Thank you, thank you. So yep, it's a labor of love. We have one person that comes in here every day and all they do is clean lobsters for lobster rolls.

Well, thank him very much for all of his hard work cleaning lobsters. Wow, that is so good. And you know, I love French fries, and especially when I know that they're made fresh in-house and they're hand-cut.

And they're tossed with the Gibson's, uh, Roasting Salt, which is our signature seasoning. And when you come to the Boathouse, we actually have this Gibson's Roasting Salt on the table, on every table. And if you want, you can buy some to take home with you in the retail shop.

That is wonderful.

Um, a little bit about our seafood while we're waiting for the steaks to come out.

Sure.

We have a tremendous, uh, variety of seafood here. We run a fish taco that's really popular, and we try to buy local fresh fish. Right now we're running, um, local Ponce Inlet amberjack, and it's, it's just about the first of the season because they open up about a week ago, fresh amberjack. So we're buying those. We, we run, uh, anywhere from 1 to 3, um, day boat specials. And today we have, um, fresh whole, uh, Florida Keys yellowtail snapper. We roll that in, uh, soy sauce, and then we roll it in cornstarch and fry it. And our— actually, our, uh, a couple of our junior sous chefs came up with a dish for that. It's a Chef Dee, she's from Barbados, and she has a very traditional Barbadian coconut rice with beans and a curry sauce that we serve with that whole fried yellowtail snapper. It's fantastic. And if you're, uh, if you want to be around the boathouse in about a week, we're hoping to have some fresh black sea bass coming out of Virginia, and that's a really good fish, and we're looking forward to it. So here we go. So this is a tomahawk rib chop, and if you like prime rib, that's exactly where that comes from. It's the same cut except it has the whole rib bone attached. That's dry-aged and wet-aged, so it starts as a wet-aged for 14 days and then it's dry-aged. Are you aging this? We are not. One of the things about our beef program we're real proud of is that Gibson's, which is our parent company, Gibson's Restaurant Group has a government designation called Gibson's USDA Blue Star Angus Beef, and that meets the criteria for the Blue Star Angus Beef. A local company over in, in Central Florida does all of our meat butchering for us. They're butchered, they're cut to our spec, they're aged to our specifications, and so we, we use We don't have a grill in the kitchen. We use a broiler, which is high heat, 1,500 degrees, which gives you that nice seared crust on the outside, which you cannot get on a regular grill. And then so we take that tomahawk rib chop and dry age it and broil it up. And now you get a chance to try it.

Oh my God. Now I have seen these in pictures. I have not seen one close up. And this is truly— Magnificent. Oh my goodness.

If you like— if you have a dog at home, make sure you take the bone.

I used to. I don't anymore. We had them when we moved down.

The, uh, the steak— the steak sauce that we serve with this is, uh, is our own, uh, steak sauce. It's a custom, uh, blend that we do, and it actually came— I'm proud to say, uh, two of my sous chefs, uh, actually came up with the recipe and put it together, and we make it from scratch, and we sell an awful lot of steak sauce. And that the steak sauce is, um, is— we get a lot of recipe requests for it. Oh my God. But you can tell by that meat, you don't really need anything with it. It's really good as is.

Not, not at all. And these are all done on a broiler?

Yes. Wow.

Yep. It takes some skill to cook this meat this well.

It does. And my— believe me, my broiler cooks are better than me. They're real good at it.

Oh wow, that's good.

I think I'm gonna have to try and see, uh, I don't think I need a steak knife.

No, it's pretty tender. Now Lisa, grab your phone and take a picture of me over here with this. That is a tomahawk. Oh cool, we just made that.

A regular.

Okay, I'm sorry guys, I had to do Fred Flintstone with that. Yeah, you sure did. That is magnificent. That is freaking Magnificent. Now, how many of those do you go through a night?

Uh, you know, it's not the biggest seller because it's quite expensive.

That's a lot of meat too.

And it's a— two people could probably share that. Yeah, we go about, uh, probably through about two or three dozen of those a day.

Wow. You know, it's, it's impressive, and you don't see those in a lot of places.

You don't.

And there's a reason for that. It's just because it's hard to make. It's hard to do right, and it's not something that you can just keep hanging around in your walk-in. You got to have the clientele to move them. You got to have people coming here that know they're going to get this and they're going to get something really delicious. So most restaurants don't want to take the chance.

And so we serve it by itself like this, or you can get this as a, as half of a surf and turf with a whole Maine lobster split, and it's shared. It's, it's, it's meant for 2 people. So if you come in, you get the surf and turf, you get the whole, uh rib chop, and then you get a whole lobster, and then you can split that with 2 people. And then you just go ahead and get a side of roasted potatoes or steamed asparagus with some hollandaise sauce, and you're all set.

Oh my goodness, that, that is magnificent. Now, you know, I went almost 20 years without eating beef.

Oh, you poor guy.

It was a choice. It was, it was— I had studied the martial arts. My instructor said stop eating red meat. I did. And I added pork back in. And then last year I said, you know, I'm gonna start eating beef again. I don't eat a lot of it, but for special occasions— and this is definitely a special occasion.

Wonderful.

Oh my God, that was, that was just amazing.

I think I see the folks at the next table looking at it.

I know, I know. Those are our friends from up north.

Well, welcome, welcome to the Boathouse. Well, that's great. Fantastic. Here, we're going to move that over there.

This has been— you know, you have just rocked me here today. This is truly an experience that I won't soon forget.

Well, I saved the best for last.

I know you did.

We have the world-famous, um, actually world-famous, uh, Baked Alaska coming out here. And, uh, once we opened— I'll tell you the story behind the Baked Alaska is that Gibson's Restaurant Group in Chicago is famous for giant desserts. And when you finish a meal, you get a giant dessert. It just puts an exclamation point on the meal. So we had to have a giant dessert here. So long before this place was even built, I was at home in my house with one of my sous chefs, and we were trying to figure out what our giant dessert was going to be. So we went out to Walmart and bought all this pastry and baking stuff, and we brought it home. And we started to come up with a giant dessert. And what we ended up with was an ice cream version of a Baked Alaska, which we call S'mores Baked Alaska. So the idea is a s'mores.

Yes.

So it's a graham cracker crust, Rocky Road ice cream on top. One of the whole— one whole pie, which makes 4 portions, has a gallon and a half of Rocky Road ice cream. Oh my God. And then on the outside of that, we have a meringue, and then we take mini marshmallows and pack them all over the outside. And then we take chocolate bars and break them up and stick them all up inside there. And then we freeze that. We were actually featured on The Chew on ABC TV making this, and it's out there on the internet. You can see it. It's really fun. But after— it's a 5-day process to make the dessert. Wow. Because you have to do one step at a time, and you have to freeze it in between each step. So the last thing that we do is cut it into quarters, and then just before we serve it, we burn the outside with a torch so that the marshmallow is burning and the chocolate's melting. It smells just like having s'mores at a campfire when it comes out to the table.

Oh my God.

And when it goes through the table, everybody's head turns in unison and they all watching it go.

I know when I was— the first time I was here, I was looking on Instagram and some of the post people had done, and I kept seeing that over and over again. I'm going, oh my God, what is that?

If you go on— if you go on Google and just Google Baked Alaska, the first 100 pictures that come up are our Baked Alaska from the Boathouse.

And again, that is a classic dessert that most people have forgotten about over the years, and you're reinventing it and bringing it back into the spotlight. So, you know, that's wonderful.

And it's, it's really fun. We also have another giant dessert. It's called, um, Florida Sunshine Cake. And it's a, it's a fresh-made orange layer cake that has orange-flavored cake. Everything is from scratch here. So my guys are back there squeezing oranges and zesting oranges, and we make an orange-flavored cream cheese frosting. And then we stack this thing up, and one whole cake weighs 30 pounds. So one portion is about 6 pounds because we get 5 portions out of the cake. And when that comes to the table with a knife stuck in the top, it's a showstopper. It's a statement. And you know, the menu says that it serves 4, but I'm at the end of a meal here. I'm positive you could get 20 portions out of one of those orange cakes.

Yeah.

And you know, it's probably the best deal going for if you wanted to get a dessert to feed a whole bunch of people.

So if you're looking for a great wedding cake, just buy one orange cake. Holy moly!

So there is the S'mores Baked Alaska. And you know what, you can get a picture and then Chris will lay it down and cut it and get a couple of portions going here.

Wow, that is— that's a cake! Wow, that is just impressive. That is a cake. That is a mountain.

Besides that, we have a couple of other fun desserts. We have something called a whiskey cornbread cake, okay, which is also, uh, you know, one of my creations. Is we wanted to come up with something unique for the South and the Boathouse, and we actually took the idea of cornbread and lightened it up and made it into a cake. And we make— we have a— we take whiskey and we make a homemade whiskey caramel syrup, and we put that into a cake mold, and then we pour the cake batter in there and we bake it inside the syrup.

Wow.

And then we take that out, we drizzle fresh macerated fruit that has a whiskey syrup on it, and then we drizzle some of that whiskey caramel sauce over the top of it with some, uh, actually, uh, buttermilk whipped cream. And that's really good. And then we have a, another one is, is fun, little take on a traditional Florida dessert, is a key lime pie in a mason jar. So we have a very traditional key key lime pie, you know, uh, you know, really, really, uh, made the right way, except the only difference, we put a little lime zest into the custard, and then we bake that right inside of a, um, a mason jar with a little bit of a crust on the bottom, and it's really nice.

Bake it right in the mason jar?

We do, we bake it right in the jar.

Yeah, that's amazing.

Here, we got to get Chris on camera. Yeah, cutting this thing up. Chris is one of our top servers. He's been here since day one here with us at the Boathouse.

There's actually a blog out there where they had me taking a picture with the Big Alaska. I bet. Wow, that looks— oh, that is heavenly.

Mm, here, pass that one over there.

Oh my goodness, wow. Try this crust.

I think your friends are the luckiest people in the state of Florida right now.

You know, it's good to have Chef Dennis as a friend because I got some good friends.

Absolutely. My neighbors, my friends and neighbors say the same thing to me because I like to cook at home a lot. And they know that whenever they get the phone call and it's my name on their phone, they're putting away their dinner plans and they're coming to my house. They'll have the meatloaf tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah. My neighbors have started to notice. I hadn't done it as much here, but I had a neighbor right next door to me when I lived in New Jersey. I bring the lights out because I was doing it live. And she'd be grabbing Lisa, "What's he making? What's he making? I want some!" You know, she didn't even know what it was. But this is really a treat, and what a great way to finish off a meal.

And, uh, you know, while we're here, I want to give a little plug to the culinary team. We have a, uh, I have a tremendous chef's team, almost 100% original team since we opened about a year ago. And then we have, uh, I think we have the best culinary team in in Florida. We have really a bunch of true professionals back there because it's a hard— a lot of hard work to do all this stuff from scratch and have it come out consistency every day. And it's, uh, it's, it's hard work and it takes a lot of, uh, a lot of care. And they do a fantastic job every day, and I'm super proud of them.

You should be. They really do. And, you know, the whole staff, not just the culinary staff, but even the servers that I've met, the bartenders, super friendly, super courteous. I mean, they remembered me from the first time I was in here.

Yep, absolutely. And I, you know, we now with, with the social media, which you're a part of, there's always the next, uh, review on Yelp or TripAdvisor. And I, I love it when I go in there and I read that somebody had a great time and they talked about the, the server was friendly and the front desk people were accommodating and the manager stopped by and everybody was was friendly and had a smile. That's what really makes a great experience. And that's what we were striving for.

Yeah, we are in a service-oriented industry. And as a chef, lots of times we do our darndest. But if the front of the house isn't doing their part, the experience is ruined. So here you got everybody working together and you don't have to worry about it. Like I said, everyone I've seen has been so friendly, so accommodating, just there to make your experience better.

And you know what? We have a— even though our restaurant's only a year old, we have a 25-year legacy with Gibson's Gibson's Restaurant Group and Gibson's Steakhouse. And their leadership team is really helping us. Our culture is— we want to have the Gibson's Restaurant Group culture here. So the Boathouse culture is a little different version of the Gibson's culture. And the Gibson's culture is based all around customer service. So we've done everything in here from chicken nachos to pancakes for breakfast. For, for lunch. And if somebody comes in here— and it actually happened about a week ago— somebody wanted crème brûlée and we didn't have it, we're going down the road to get a crème brûlée from one of the other restaurants in Disney Springs and serving it to the customer. Because when they come in here, we literally won't say no to anything if it's physically possible to do. And that gives us a lot of pride and satisfaction ourselves.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you've done a masterful job here with the Kitchen. I'm so happy that we got to meet. And again, it was because one of your servers— we were talking and said, I have to bring the chef out here. I'm going, oh yeah, the chef's gonna stop working and come see me. And you did. And then from there, you know, we just became friends. And, um, I've had a great time coming out here. And you've gone so over the top today with serving us these delicious dishes and talking to us and spending time. I, I can't thank you enough.

It's my pleasure. And I hope you have fun on your Amphicar ride.

Oh, we are. And believe me, I'll take some pictures of that too.

All right, I better get back to the kitchen now.

Get back to work. And thank you all for watching. And I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and I'm on the road at the Boathouse in Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida. I'm gonna go eat, and I'll see you soon.