We finally arrived at our beautiful room after very little sleep, no food, and eight hours of driving, waiting in airports, flying, waiting in airports, riding on the magic express and checking into our resort. Needless to say, we were tired and hungry. I was determined to wait for our lunch reservation (after all, what's another two hours at that point) but, Javi was hungry. I pulled out the trusty snack list and headed to the food court at Port Orleans Riverside.
For one snack credit, I was able to get this order of breadsticks.
They were actually quite large, with a 4oz cup of bubbly, hot marinara sauce. The bread itself was crisp and crunchy without being overly hard and was lightly brushed with garlic butter and some parsley and oregano.I forgot to write on the receipt but, I think the price, after tax would have been 4.31. I also grabbed our refillable mugs at this time and filled them with light lemonade.
Afterour snack and a very quick doze, it was time to really start our vacation! We headed off to the Magic Kingdom and The Plaza for lunch.
I had never been here (actually, with the exception of the Biergarten, I've never been to any restaurant that we visited on this trip) and was looking forward to a good meal. From the descriptions, Ithought that this restaurant was right on Main Street; it's actually set off to the side by Tomorrowland, and overlooks a little lake. Very pretty setting. We were about two minutes late for our ADR, and waited about five minutes to be seated in the glassed in back room. The tables are kind of close together but, not uncomfortable. It looked like all the tables in the back room were half bench tables.
Our server was Nancy from Orlando, and she was wonderful. We never once asked for a refill but, our glasses were never empty. I love that about a waitress because I am usually really thirsty. There are no real appetizers at The Plaza, but you do have your choice of soup (today's choices were Tomato Bisque or Vegetarian Chili) or salad (dressing choices were Ranch, 1000 Island or Vinaigrette).
Javi had the Vegetarian Chili
However, he quickly discovered that it contained black olives and would not eat another bite. I had a few spoonfuls (for research purposes - couldn't leave our readers hanging). It contained red beans, carrots, corn, tomatoes, and black olives. There was a thick tomato taste but, no real chili taste. Not even a little bit of a kick so, if you're afraid of spice, no worries here.
I had the salad with Vinaigrette.
I was very good. The salad was very basic, lettuce, shredded carrots, croutons and two little grape tomatoes. Everything was fresh and crisp. Although the waitress didn't mention it, I'm pretty sure the dressing was a Strawberry Vinaigrette. Good flavor and it didn't overpower the salad at all.
For the meal Javi picked the cheesesteak (no peppers) with fries
That was a big sandwich. There was alot of meat on it, grilled onions, mushrooms and lots of gooey cheese. The fries were a thick cut. He gave me the very descriptive word of "good" when I asked how it was. (This was the description I was given for most of the food that he had)
I had the turkey sandwich with homemade chips instead of the German potato salad and no mayo.
This sandwich was great. The bread was multi-grain with whole seeds and oatmeal on the crust. It was very lightly toasted and then filled with smoked turkey (I would say about 3 oz), crisp leaf lettuce, thick slices of tomato and crisp bacon. I added some yellow mustard from the condiment plate and was set. The homemade chips were very crispy and I was surprised to find that they were not greasy at all, I did add just a little salt to them though.
For the grand finale, we each had a dessert. After all, we're in Disney, it's included and I personally LOVE dessert (Javi not so much)
I had the brownie sundae and was allowed to sub chocolate ice cream for the vanilla
When Nancy brought it out, there was a birthday candle in it but, thankfully no one sang. This thing was HUGE. It was a whole brownie cit into two triangles with three scoops of ice cream, whipped cream and a cherry. The brownies were warm and soft and so chocolately. I gave it may best but, left about half of it uneatten.
Javi choose the vanilla milkshake (and he'll be

if he finds out I posted his picture - oh well, told you I needed a pic before you ate anything!)
Again, it was huge. They bring out the steel tumbler that it's mixed in and it filled the glass twice.
Total cost for this meal (with tax and a 3% service charge)would have been $50.73. I had my first mild panic when I looked at the receipt and saw that we were down to 36 deluxe credits (we had 42 to start). However, this was because I had picked up the tickets for the luau. It was a great start to the vacation. The Plaza earns




.5 (out of a possible five)