NBC Grill Dining Review

NBC Grill Review

Good dining is few and far between at Universal Orlando Resort. Mainly, for the food being extremely overpriced and downright bad. If you got a chance to look at my other blogs, I wrote about how Mama Della’s was one of my favorite restaurants to go to on the property. Unfortunately, it has hit a rough time period where they aren’t cooking amazing food and charging for previously free items. It was my go-to at any hotel at Universal. My go-to at City Walk was NBC Grill. I have also been very hard on City Walk food as well. I have tried all of them except Vivo which is the Italian place. I have also been multiple times to a majority of them. The food quality stretches from bad to mediocre.

NBC became my favorite very quickly. Mostly because it was the best option, easier to get a table, and I have watched many sporting events there and well, the food was pretty good. I went a few months ago and the food was good again. Probably my best trip, but I went back a few weeks ago, and it was a very different experience. We even got two of the same items before and half of those items were good. I would like to add that the service was great. They got us in and out.

For appetizers we got the grilled garlic parmesan chicken wings ($16.95) which were sitting in a puddle of its own secretions by the time it landed on our table. There was so much oil that it made it very noticeable, and it ended up being bland. We also got calamari ($14.95) and this one was great. So, it is much better than the Cowfish calamari and we have gone to many restaurants in central Florida and calamari is usually a staple pick for appetizers. We have had good calamari, bad calamari, and pretty mediocre calamari. This calamari was good. The meal went slightly downhill from there.

For main, I got the smokehouse stack burger ($20.95) and I had gotten this burger not even a month prior to this trip. It had no flavor. Meat had no flavor, cheese wasn’t melted, I don’t even remember the caramelized onions that were on it. It was just really bland. Every item, the bun, the cheese, the brisket, the pork, and the burger had no flavor. The BBQ sauce, that was placed on the side was the only source of flavor.

My girlfriend got the French Dip Birria ($18.99) and that was pretty unremarkable as well. All I tasted was bread. Which was the theme of the night.

We also took a third entrée home with us, and it was shrimp and grits for $21.95 off of the limited Mardi Gras menu. It was flavorful. It was also four shrimp with a small fried circle of grits. For an appetizer this would be perfect but for almost $22 and as an entrée they really shouldn’t be serving that.

This trip wasn’t exactly a positive one. Another Universal restaurant that has fallen victim to cost cutting measures as they slash all costs to the bone to pay for their new theme park. It is a constant reminder all over property that they have cut labor everywhere they can, and cut ingredient cost everywhere they can. Also they cut the caliber of entertainment at Mardi Gras for their concert series.