Best children's meals?

[mcvixen]

Well, as a complete newbie to DW, I love love LOVE this board! Everyone here helped me so much with my ADRs, thank you all.

I have another question.

Where are the best places to feed a 5 year old girl who does NOT usually eat french fries, nuggets, hamburgers or mac'n'cheese? We are all foodies who love to eat local (well, THAT concept is just going out the window!) and we usually eat a really wide range of asian foods every week (indian, korean, vietnamese/thai, chinese....).

I'm not so worried about us adults but I think my daughter will likely riot if I try to give her mc-meals too often.

Any advice would be much welcome.

 

[Suellen]

Eating at the buffets should help as the kids can eat off the adult portion of the buffet as well.

I run into this same issue with my now 3.5 year old. I am a bit concerned that our trip in March is going to have her rioting over ordering from the kiddie menu.

 

[mcvixen]

We are booked for a few buffets - 1900 Park Fare (Cinderella's dinner, of course), Boma's and Ohana's. Also Akershus, but I don't think she'll care WHAT she eats if Aurora and Belle are there.... they could serve dry toast and she would be *fine*!

What I'm most worried about are the CS meals. All the children's meals at CS restaurants seem to be..... well.... a bit repetitive, to say the least.

I know she'll wind up sharing my CS meals quite a few times, but if there are more adventuresome children's meal options at CS restaurants, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Hootch]

It's not pan Asian but you'll find plenty of interesting food and your daughter ca eat off the "adult" parts. Biergarten is so much different than what you are used to eating but I realy like the food and, again, your daughter can eat waht the adults eat.

 

[abh218]

I can't address specific counter service at the following locations, but I can say that "not all nuggets are created equal". We at TS at the Yak & Yeti at Ak and one option on the children's meal was an egg roll. Also the chicken nuggets option was prepared a bit different - panko breading and probably cooked in a rice oil. So they had an Asian twist.
We also ate at Tokyo Dining in Epcot. Again, this was TS and not CS. But the children's meals - tempura chicken and tempura shrimp were not the typical kids' meals bill of fare.
The kids' meal chicken at Mama Melrose (yes, I know that TS gets a bad rep around here - I tried it anyway and have mixed reviews) was too spicy. I cook a lot of Italian based dishes at home and even the MM chicken was too spicy for picky eater's tastes!
I don't know how much this helps since you were looking for CS opinions. I do recall that Yak & Yeti has a CS and I would imagine the food is the same.

 

[scrapbookworm]

What I plan to do at the CS restaurants is order an adult meal to split with my DD. That way she gets more 'grownup' food, and the portions are usually large enough for 2 anyway. If not, then maybe I'll add a dessert. She hates ordering off the kids menu anywhere, but yet at places like Applebees or Red Lobster she will fill up on the appetizers and then hardly touch her meal.

 

[tinkandpan]

We are the same way- in fact we all hate to eat like that. Some of our favorite counter service places are:
Magic Kingdom- kind of hard to do as they are a lot of burger and fries, cosmic rays does a roasted chicken columbia harvest house does a hummous

Epcot- this is the easiest place to eat cs with a bit of variety- The Land Sunshine Seasons, yakitori house, morocco (tangienne cafe), the sandwich place in France

MGM- all the food there is pretty stinky and mundane

AKL- the only place we ate is Tusker House buffet for lunch which was a fantastic respite from same old same old.

All in all (without moving to signature restuarants which will of course help you with this) my 6 yr old enjoys, Kona, Tokyo Dining, Tusker, Boma, The Wave and most of the places in Epcot

 

[ms*mountaineer]

My girls (7 and 5) don't eat much chicken nuggets and pizza on a regular basis - so they get tired of it real quick at WDW. They eat more "regular people food" - nothing fancy, just regular food.

They ate more at Biergarten than any other place we ate! I told them there would be different kinds of "sausages", they thought that was OK and picked a couple to try. There was also roast chicken, roast pork, little roast beef bites - they loved all that. Their favorite was the potato soup and pretzel bread! The mac & cheese went over well too.

Another place that was good for us was 50's Prime Time Cafe. One, ordered chicken noodle soup and mac & cheese. The 5 yr old completely shocked me - ordered the grilled fish. I thought it would be a mild white fish - but it was salmon. She ate it all. I knew she wouldn't eat the rice pilaf, and they swapped it for mashed potatoes. I think a veggie mix came with it. She ate a lot at this meal.

At Tutto Italia, the kids bow-tie pasta with creamy parmesan sauce (I forget what they called it) was a big hit.

At Ohana, the kids' food is burger, nuggets, mac-n-cheese - but they are welcome to eat from the adult selections. So if you think she will like the grilled beef, turkey and pork and the noodles and wings - that might be an option for you. Check out their menu and see what you think.

 

[septbaby]

Take a look at the CS options at your resort, I think you'll be surprised at the range of items:

Pasta Marinara (several places)
Rotisserie Chicken with Apple Sauce $3.99 (AKL CS)
Kid's Turkey (Dinner Only) - $5.99 (AS Sports)
Kid's Baked Chicken (Dinner Only) - $5.99 (AS Sports)

POP Century:
- Broccoli Stir Fry - $4.49
- Chicken Noodle Soup - $4.49
- Vegetable Lo Mein - $4.49

There is great range at the TS places (steak, baked chicken or fish, pasta, pizza, etc.)

 

[Suellen]

When we ate at Ohana's I don't remember a kids meal... pretty sure my LO ate the same as us. As far as I remember... but it was 7 months ago now!!

I would say to the OP that you should try the CS in Epcot. They seem to be much better ~ if you are going to have Pizza at all I would save that for Pizza Planet at DHS.

You can do it just check out the menus before hand and have a plan!

 

[Mom2Nick]

When we ate at Ohana's I don't remember a kids meal... pretty sure my LO ate the same as us. As far as I remember... but it was 7 months ago now!!

At 'Ohana children are free to order off of the Kona children's menu.

 

[Suellen]

that would be interesting since she would probably eat what they were bringing too ~ she loved all the food at Ohana... and I loved that they staff kept her entertained.

Ohana's is a good choice!

 

[mcvixen]

Thank you for the suggestions!

We're looking forward to the buffets for dinner - DD will most definitely eat from the adult selections (that's what she does at buffets here at home).

Thanks for the tips about Yak & Yeti CS, we'll try them for sure on our AK day. We'll probably snack our way around the World on Epcot day, so that should be fine.

Our biggest problem is MK now... because DD is only 5, of course we have planned on 2, perhaps 3 days at MK. Why, oh why, are the children's meals so boring! I think DD will be sick of grapes and applesauce by the end of the week...

If I had realized how limited the children's menus were, we might have left her off the DP.....

 

[ilandrazdsw]

Saying you like Asian food...9 Dragons was GREAT! The portions were rather large that you could share if you DD doesn't care for options on the kids menu. The had chicken "nuggets" as one child option (they looked/were good and my kids downed them) and the other was noodles and meatballs (or something like that).
Buffets may be a good option. Eventhough they have a kids area you can choose fromthe entire buffet.

 

[ROEDISNEY]

We love Teppen Edo They serve the kids there meal in a monrail type dish it's cool.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I'm also having this issue. Last time we went I felt bad feeding the kids the same thing over and over at CS places.

Personally I get sick of the CS options. I've been stalking allears.net looking at the CS menus for variety for the kids.

 

[storybookmum]

If I had realized how limited the children's menus were, we might have left her off the DP.....

You can't. Everyone on the reservation has to be on the same plan. I have the same worries.

 

[mcvixen]

I didn't realize that... but it does make me feel better about it, because DH & I were going on the DP plan no matter what.

I'm considering a strategy where we use our daughter's daily CS credit for a child's breakfast (b/c really, eggs 'n bacon is eggs 'n bacon, eh?); because I'm a light eater, she will just share my CS meals for lunches (we have TS ADR's set up for dinner).

Can anyone else recommend some strategies on how to use up (so to speak) our DD's CS credits without going the chicken/grapes/applesauce route?

 

[septbaby]

It would be easier to tell us what she does eat or what you'd allow her to eat.

 

[ms*mountaineer]

Technically - you really only have a pool of CS credits on your account. They aren't tagged as "child" or "adult". So if there are 2 adults and 1 child on your account you have 3 CS credits per day. If you go to a CS place and ask for 3 adult meals, they won't let you - because they don't have 3 adults on your account. BUT if you order 2 adult meals at a time, you should have no problem.

I'm sure someone on here will correct me if I'm wrong about this (and if I am, please don't flame me). But this is how it worked for us.

Most of the time - we would just order 2 CS meals for all 4 of us to share (2 adults 2 kids) and it was plenty of food. Heck, we were going to want a treat or another snack later anyway!

Your idea of using the kids credits for breakfast is a good idea. Also - some CS places don't even have a kids meal (fish & chips in the UK is one of them) so they have to give you an adult meal for the kids credit.