Back from our 9 night, 8 day
free dining trip. We have Wheat and Peanut/Tree nut issues (non-celiac, non-anaphalactic). This is for my ds10 (adult on plan) and dd5.
We had 9 sit down meals.
1)
Crystal Palace - had an 8:30 am ADR, park opened at 9 am. We arrived to the park shortly after 8 am and were seated very quickly. We were out the door 9:06 am.
I did not think to discuss the allergies when we arrived, and was not offered a chef, though I have been at this location before. We felt comfortable with the food available and being able to discern what had nuts and what didn't.
Kids were very happy with eggs, meat, potatoes, and fruit.
Food here is great, and I have had good luck with chefs before, but make sure you speak up. This is the only place that did not notice our allergy note this trip.
2)
Liberty Tree Tavern, dinner. Family style Thanksgiving type dinner, no longer a character meal.
LTT goes above and beyone. The chef was fantastic, as were our servers. They did not bring food to the table until the chef had arrived and discussed.
They were able to eat the salad, were served GF rolls, I think they were able to eat the green beans out of the bowl, but might have had them on their plate (can't rememeber), not the dressing or mac and cheese (wheat), and were served meat and potatoes on their own plates (and were given enough for 2 or 3 people EACH!!!) They also were served their own GF gravy.
For dessert they had ice cream while we had cobbler. They also allowed other people in the party to have just plain ice cream if desired.
This is the 2nd. good experience we have had here, and I will be back!
3)
Tusker House in AK for lunch. Another excellent experience. I got kind of worried at the last minute that they would be limited here, due to the ethnic foods with wheat and nuts, but Chef Mary came out and showed me all the available foods. She also offered Flat Bread, which was the GF pizza crusts sauted in some safe oil. Kids loved it. They were able to eat some veggies, fruits, meats, and mashed potatoes.
For dessert, Mary offered GF brownie, GF choc. Chip cookie, and GF fresh made cinnamon sugar donuts that they offer at breakfast. I thought we had to choose, and the kids chose donuts, but they were also brought the individually packaged brownies and cookies. The LOVED LOVED LOVED the donuts, a very rare treat for them. We took the cookies & brownies with us.
Cookies were Enjoy Life Foods, which we love. Brownies were those GF ones available everwhere.
Side note: I noticed a basket of the GF brownies at the food court at All Star Sports, so that was cool.
We were not a huge fan of the foods at Tusker, though it was ok. We're not very adventurous eaters. But we might try breakfast some time.
4)
Ohana, dinner - This was the HUGE success of the trip. One of the CMs was chatting with us in the lobby, and said the Chef, TJ, was excellent with Food allergies. I recognized the name from these boards, as he used to work at Boma and was well thought of.
I was worried about cross-contam here with the peanut dipping sauce, but we were the first at that table for the day, AND they kept that sauce off our table at my request.
The only thing they were allowed to have with the rest of us was the salad and veggies. BUT...Chef TJ brought them an appetizer of GF sticky chicken wings served on a bed of mashed potatoes to make it look like a Polynesian long house. [Forgot a pic!]
Their main course was skewers of all the meats, cooked safely, over a mountain of rice, topped with fried rice noodles.
And for dessert...A skewer of GF brownies, ice cream, and bananas, stuck in a piece of pineapple, topped with hershey's syrup.
They were in HEAVEN!
I'll post pics later when I get them loaded. They couldn't even eat most of it. We were all picking at it.
My only complaint is it takes so much longer for their food, that we were all done with each course and onto the next before they got theirs. I think if we had had a better waiter, we might have suggested he delay ours to match theirs, but in the end it was ok. I HIGHLY recommend this restaurant, especially if TJ sticks around there for a while!
More in the next post.
(I have gone to the HDD last Dec, sat in Tier 3 and had no reaction.) Anyway - something to keep in mind if you're going there this trip.
