About the Menus

[BarbaraMB]

After reading many menus from many restaurants in Disney, I would like to know if these accurate. I have noticed other than the fact that many of the restaurants are expensive (which I can deal with for a good meal), that the menus seem limited. Eventhough the steakhouse restaurants offer a variety of steaks you only get a potato of their choice. That's it, no salad, unless you pay extra. Much of the seafood offered seems to be tuna, halibut and salmon (and again no salads). Those of you that dined at some of the finer restaurants did you find that you were satisfied with what you got and did you have to order sides and appetizers to get full? I have gotten recommendations to eat at Fultons Crab House for seafood and Yachtman's Steakhouse for steak.

 

[CoolDisneyCat]

The menus you'll find online are accurate to a certain extent. The "finer" restaurants at Disney change their menus fairly often to get the freshest ingredients for their dishes. For example, several things that my family had at Jiko's in January are no longer on the menu you'll find on Deb's site. The menus are kept small for the same reason; they want to have the freshest possible ingredients, so they don't want to have to make huge orders that stay in the fridge forever.

At the Yachtsman, I know, you get a side w/ your meal. You pick between mashed, baked or au gratin potatoes. I can't remember if you could pick some other veggie, but it being Disney, you probably could. On the side dish menu, those sides are family sized, meant for sharing.

When we went in January, there were four of us. Two of us got crab cake appetizer, we all got a steak w/ one form of potato or another, and my DH got the spinach from the side dish menu. We were SO FULL we could barely walk. We ate hardly any of the spinach. My DD wanted au gratin potatoes, but it was late and they were out. However, the mashed potatoes were some of the best we've ever had. The crab cake appetizer is quite small, and unless you have a small appetite, get your own, don't share.

As for salads, I really don't know. Neither my DD nor I eat salad, and I can't remember if my DH got one at Yachtsman or not.

It is fairly limited, true. But fine restaurants all over the world have small, limited menus b/c they get what's freshest. They don't want to have a bunch of ingredients laying around that aren't going to be at their peak when they cook with them. It's worth having limited choices, because the food you get is SOOO good.

And, hey, you could always get desert. Or, at the Yachtsman, walk down to Beaches and Cream and get a sundae or something. Yummy!

 

[MikeWazowski]

Many will disagree with me when I say that no matter what you get in WDW to eat it is overpriced.

I don't have a problem with the price's, it's just a fact that WDW price's are higher then the real world. Why you may ask, because the service quality compared to any other outside restaurant is 100% better.

The menu's are more limited because you are trapped in the parks or at the resort. So they will make you eat, what they want you to eat. No matter what I have to eat I am always satisfied, no matter how much I pay for a hot dog.

 

[crisi]

We've found the menus to be accurate in a general sense - but not necessarily a specific sense. The menus at some of the restaurants change, but the types of food and prices are similar. i.e. Yachtsman will have a New York Strip on the menu and that steak will run around $30 - but the sauce may change. As to needing more than an entree - depends on how hungry I am. At those kind of restaurants I generally order a salad and dessert, but end up stuffed. But maybe I have a smaller or larger appitite than you do. You are looking at the "top tier" restaurants at Disney. The "middle tier" restaurants are, in my mind, the best bargain (I find counter service at Disney to be expensive, unless I'm comparing it to eating at a sporting event, I'd WAY rather pay $30 for a steak than $7 for a burger from the counter). Try Le Cellier or Concourse for steak instead of Yachtsman - the steak will run a couple $$ a plate cheaper and there will be more food on your plate (it is debatable if the food will be as good - many people think its just as good or better).

I personally find restaurants in Disney to be comparable with their local counterparts (I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota). If I walk into a restaurant similar in menu and ambiance of Artist's Point, I'll pay $22 for chicken and that won't include the salad. The menu will be similarly limited - a chicken dish, a beef dish or two, maybe a vegetarian option, a fish choice or two, maybe a pasta, maybe a pork dish. There are two exceptions. Counter service in Disney is expensive (unless you are comparing it to buying counter service at a sporting event), and sushi and Disney is cheap.

 

[Fantasia Sam]

I'm from the UK and for the standard of food and service that I get in the WDW restaurants I find the prices to be excellent. We have some great restaurants in the UK but to get the standard of say the Flying Fish or California Grill you'd be paying a lot more in London, which is where I tend to eat out.

So far out of all the restuarants I've eaten in WDW I could not say I've had one really bad meal that has made me think I'd never go back again. I've also never come out and thought "well that wasn't worth the money".

I do find also that some of the menus are limited there's nothing worse than looking at a menu and thinking "mmmm there's only one dish that I know I would like" - these places I tend to do for lunch so that I can try the food out at a more reasonable price - I've not been disappointed.

Admittedly there are some great restaurants off-site that you can get just as good meals at and some even better prices. But if I stay on-site then I eat on-site - if we had hired a car then that would be a different matter. And when I have been to restaurants on International Drive I do come out of them saying "Wow that was incredible for the money!"

I guess we just don't have as good a choice of good restaurants as you guys do and therefore I find myself easily pleased in the States and to me it's "all about the food" - all my plans are based around my PS's

 

[Michelemouse]

I also do not find the prices at WDW to be terribly high, compared to restaurants here at home. We often go into NYC and the restaurant prices there are equal to, if not higher than, WDW. Even our local Japanese steakhouse is more expensive than Teppanyaki (and you can't walk out the door into World Showcase either...what's up with that! ).

 

[ga9497]

I agree with Michelle, I live in Central NJ and the price at the finer restaurants in the area are the same or higher then WDW. We also go into NYC alot for dinner and the prices there are definitely higher.