The upstairs Catal Restaurant is my favorite restaurant at the resort, but we had not had the chance to dine in the downstairs uva bar and cafe in several months.  Since the menu had changed in mid-October, and there were a few new items that we were wanting to try, we decided to have dinner there on a Sunday night.  Since it was the Sunday before Christmas, it turned out to be very crowded, with a 30 minute wait for indoor seating.  We didn't want to wait quite that long and made our way to another restaurant at which we figured we might be able to get faster seating.  However, when the wait there also turned out to be 30 minutes, we went back to the uva bar and put our name on the waiting list.  The wait time turned out to only be about 15 or 20 minutes before our group of 6 was seated.

 One of the people had the Caesar salad with grilled shrimp and enjoyed his dinner.  Another of our group had the cheeseburger, and she expressed how much she enjoyed that.  Two others of our group had the pizza caprese and seemed to enjoy their dinners.  We decided to split an entree and two appetizers between us.  The entree was the grilled beef and vegetable skewers over horseradish-mashed potatoes and green peppercorn sauce.  There were two skewers on the plate, and they had even asked us how we wanted the beef cooked, so that was rather nice, and the dish was quite tasty.  One of the new items we'd heard about was the halibut ceviche with lime, avocado, cucumber and tomato on a crispy tortilla, so we ordered that.  It was quite good and not quite as big as some of the other appetizer dishes.  The second item we'd heard about that we'd wanted to try was the chicken wings with a garlic-citrus sauce and chopped tomato salad.  Unfortunately, while the item is still listed on the menu, it's no longer being served, but it is rather just regular hot wings.  We were disappointed and so didn't order them, especially since we'd been told that the hot wings are really, really, really, really (no, I'm not kidding), really hot, so if you order them there, be forewarned.  Instead, we tried the pizza milano, which is grilled chicken, roasted peppers, goat cheese and roasted garlic with pesto sauce.  It's made similar to the pizza caprese except it has chicken and is less greasy.  It was very tasty as well.

One thing to note:  the uva bar and cafe offers the same special to Disney annual passport holders that is offered by the upstairs restaurant: Sunday through Thursday (excluding holidays or during special events), the restaurant offers one complimentary appetizer for each two passholders with the purchase of two entrees for lunch or dinner.

Another good meal at Catal.