WDW Food

Well, I think I've covered just about everything else, but you all knew there would be a food post coming, right? Just saving the best for last! :-) Obviously, with a trip as long as ours, we ate a lot. So I'll spare you a play-by-play and focus on highlighting our favorite meals and treats (in chronological order).

On our trip in 2010, we bought the Deluxe Dining Plan, and we had originally planned to do it again for this trip. But after thinking about what it provides and how we eat now, we decided to cancel the dining plan, budget the same amount of money for food, and see what happened. We ended up saving several hundred dollars! And, we got to eat exactly what we wanted when we wanted, so it worked out really well for us.

Our first dinner, and I think my favorite meal of the whole trip, was at California Grill, one of Disney's signature restaurants (their nicest and most expensive category). We had never eaten here before, but it has a great reputation, and I'm sure we'll go back on any future trips we take. Because we had our anniversary buttons on, they added some confetti to our table and gave us a free dessert! But the best part of the meal was the sushi--I think it converted us into sushi fans (now we just have to find a good place for sushi near where we live!).

spicy kazan roll (our server's recommendation)

sonoma goat cheese ravioli

pork two ways with goat cheese polenta and applesauce

creme brule

the restaurant is on the top floor of the Contemporary Resort,
so there are some great views of the Magic Kingdom

For snacks, we often found tasty choices at the bakeries, including the ones below from Hollywood Studios. The first pic is from Starring Rolls Cafe, where we split the peanut butter cupcake; the others are from Writer's Stop, where we enjoyed the carrot cake cookie.

Another noteworthy restaurant is the Coral Reef in Epcot. This restaurant offers a view of the giant aquarium, and this time, we got a prime table right up against the window. Unfortunately, the food is seriously overpriced, so we've decided that we probably won't go back.

Here's a cool snack from Epcot--a brioche ice cream sandwich. This seems like a great idea to me, but the mint chocolate chip ice cream wasn't the best flavor with the bread (and Mark didn't really like it at all). I would have it again, but with another flavor, maybe pistachio.

Here's our meal from Tokyo Dining. We had tempura there on our last trip, and I've been dreaming about it ever since! This was one of the rare times at a sit-down restaurant where we both ordered our own entree (by chance, the same one!). This is the Ginza meal, which includes tempura, sushi, and some of the best rice I've ever eaten, along with garnishes. It was excellent!

another free dessert, with cute little paper rings!

For breakfast, we often ate something quick at our hotel's food court, but there were a few days we ate in the parks or at other restaurants. This is a waffle sandwich with eggs, prosciutto, and tomato from Sleepy Hollow in the Magic Kingdom. I liked it, but Mark wasn't too impressed. They also offer a waffle sandwich filled with fruit and Nutella, which is what I would like to try next time.

Another Magic Kingdom restaurant we tried was Casey's Corner, famous for the hot dogs. On our first day, we stopped there for a snack of corn dog bites (which I didn't get a picture of), and we had lunch here another day. Mark got the chili dog, mine is a coleslaw/bbq dog.

Here's another restaurant we tried for the first time: Artist's Point at the Wilderness Lodge (another signature dining restaurant).

cheese plate

smokey portobello soup

Pacific Northwest Trio (buffalo strip, venison loin, and game sausage
with gouda mashed potatoes)

a free berry cobbler for our anniversary,
with Tinker Bell and Buzz Lightyear for fun!

One of our favorite spots for breakfast is the Kona Cafe at the Polynesian Resort. They're famous for the Tonga Toast--sourdough filled with bananas, fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar--yum!

This is Narcoossee's, another signature dining restaurant. We'd been here in 2010 and fallen in love with the almond-crusted cheesecake. It's got a scenic location, too. I think Mark enjoyed this meal as much as California Grill; for me it was a close second.

sourdough and shrimp cocktail

grilled Alaskan wild-caught halibut

the cheesecake is so good, we each ate our own!

At Animal Kingdom, my favorite place to eat is Yak and Yeti. The decor is really cool, and I love their fried green beans.

pot stickers

sweet and sour chicken and fried green beans

I wrote about the new Beauty and the Beast themed restaurant, Be Our Guest, at the Magic Kingdom in my last post, but I didn't mention the food, which was pretty good. I expect that we'll go back again, though this is currently one of the hardest reservations to get at WDW!

I had the shrimp and scallops in puff pastry.

Mark's herb-crusted lamb rack.

the dessert cart--we split one order of the "grey stuff"
(4th from the left)

At the Animal Kingdom, we split this impressive cupcake from the Kusafiri Bakery in the Africa area.

Another day, we returned to the Contemporary hotel for dinner at The Wave of American Flavors. Here, we decided to split a few appetizers instead of ordering an entree.

crab cakes and fish tacos

mixed greens with strawberries, goat cheese, candied pecans

And back at Hollywood Studios, we had another round of specialty hot dogs. These are the mac & cheese hot dogs from Fairfax Fare. Mark decided he liked these better than the ones at Casey's corner.

Our last big breakfast was back at The Wave, and it was excellent. Sweet potato pancakes with pecan butter, an omelet, and Tillamook cheddar cheese grits. We split this, but we were so stuffed!

Once again, it proved true that the food was one of the highlights of our vacation! And, with that, I think I've covered more than you wanted to know about our WDW trip. All the saving and planning really paid off, and now we've just got to decide when we'd like to go back, and start the process over again! :-)