Day 166: Watermelon Revelation

If there ever was a salad it would not have occurred to me to create, it would be this: watermelon, tomato, and blue cheese. And yet, when I tasted it at Boma restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in Disney World, I was blown away. It was sweet, it was tangy, it had bite. It was lightly dressed--my palate detected red wine vinegar, a bland oil, and salt--and yet in its simplicity it was absolute genius.


As you can see, it isn't particularly pretty, but I assure you, it's delicious.

Of course, given that Boma is an African food buffet, I enjoyed and discovered quite a few taste sensations. Several preparations of cous cous and lentils. Pickled watermelon rind (an awesome palate cleanser). I actually ate ribs, they were so good (for years I've been too prissy to get all covered in barbecue sauce and gnaw on bones, but these were worth it--they had chipotle and something else--here's Boma's menu if you'd like to peruse it--though I don't see the ribs on there).

But this watermelon salad, man. It's unlike anything I've ever had or seen. I perused the web to find a few similar recipes, but I couldn't find this one exactly, though I imagine it goes something like this:

two cups watermelon, cubed
one cup cherry tomatoes
1/4-1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
dressing: 1 tsp canola oil, 2tsp red wine vinegar, salt

But since this has not been tested (though it will be in the very near future), here are some other watermelon recipes I found:

Tomato-and-Watermelon Salad: MyRecipes.com
Tomato and Watermelon Salad: Epicurious.com
Watermelon and Tomato Salad with Feta: Oprah.com
Tomato and Watermelon Salad: Food Network (Alex Guarnaschelli)
Watermelon and Tomato Salad (closest to what I had at Boma): NY Times