Gluten Free Dining Reviews 10/26 – 11/1

[valree]

Hi everyone!

I returned from WDW on 11/1, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the food that I ate around WDW.

Here’s the list of places where I ate:

Chick-Fil-A (The Mall at Millenia, Florida Mall, somewhere on 192)
Kona Café (Polynesian)
The Mara
California Grill
Olive Garden on 192 - attempted
EPCOT Food and Wine festival – Mexico
EPCOT Food and Wine festival – The Mouse Catch
Riverside Mill
Pecos Bill’s
Whispering Canyon Cafe

I ate at a few of the above places twice (or in the case of Chick-Fil-A three times!) because I was either extremely hungry and didn’t have time to go anywhere else or because I wasn’t in the mood for the other choices.

I will include a few pictures as well, but I will warn you ahead of time that some of the pictures didn’t turn out well. I had been experimenting with my camera a lot before the trip trying to find the best settings for food pictures, and some of my experiments didn’t turn out so well!

Special Diets was very quick to respond to my messages about GF dining at WDW. I e-mailed Special Diets on 10/13 and they replied the next day with the documents to look at and the Dietary Request Form to complete. I sent back the form on 10/18 and got a reply on 10/19 that they had received my form and sent my info to the chefs. Despite having talked to Special Diets before the trip, not all of the TS restaurants had it noted in the reservation that I was a GF diner. I guess as long as the chef knows, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about. It didn’t cause any problems though so I had no complaints!

The Dis Unplugged podcast episode for 10/21/09 featured a segment on GF counter service eating that was interesting. Leah Zanolla, Kathy Werling, and a few other people went to different counter service restaurants at MK to see what GF options are available and how knowledgeable the CMs were. It’s a good listen and you compare your experiences with the experiences of the podcast crew.

 

[valree]

Chick-Fil-A

After landing at the airport, we headed over to the Mall at Millenia to run a few errands. The food court has a few of the usual suspects (a sub shop, a smoothie place, a Mrs. Field’s, and one of those “Cajun” places). I headed straight for Chick-Fil-A and ordered my usual – chargrilled chicken breast, waffle fries, BBQ sauce, and a drink). As we were leaving the food court, we noticed a few people walking by with what appeared to be footballs on their trays. They were actually baked potatoes! I’ve never seen baked potatoes that gigantic before! I think the people got them from whatever shop is next to Chick-Fil-A, but I didn’t catch the name of it. I wish had tried one, but it was too late. I don’t know what the topping selection is, or if the baked potatoes actually taste good, but maybe I’ll give it a shot next time.

 

[valree]

Kona Café

We arrived early at the Polynesian for our 6:55 ADR. Turns out this didn’t help us get seated an earlier. It was worth a shot, but it didn’t help. The waiting area from in front of Kona down to the entrance of Ohana was a complete zoo. I don’t know if it’s like this every day or if there was something extra going on that night. The chef, Noah, came out to speak with me once I told our server that I needed to eat GF. He said that GF was his specialty and walked me through the menu. I think he can make basically anything GF, like the teriyaki-style New York strip and the pomegranate barbecued pork chop, but I stopped him when he got to the pan Asian noodles. This is the dish that I had in mind when I made the ADR for Kona, so this is what I was going to get! My sister ordered the pan Asian noodles with chicken. He was going to change up the sauce a bit and use rice noodles in order to accommodate me. He had the server bring out a basket of rolls.

I could tell at first bite that these were Ener-G rolls because of that weird taste, but they taste pretty good if slathered in gobs of the macadamia nut honey butter. The entrée size is gigantic, and I was happy that we had a fridge in our room at Animal Kingdom Lodge villas.

I ate half of the noodles and took the rest back to the room. The entrée was only OK because it was very sweet. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I wanted it to have more of a savory kick to it to balance out the sweet, but it just seemed overly sweet to me. I had my sister try it, and it was sweet to her as well. Hers looked really good with the “normal” sauce, so I will definitely try this recipe at home (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1575103&page=68 post 1009) with my San-J soy sauce. Next time I’ll either try the steak or the pork chop.

My sister and I both ordered dessert. She ordered the Kona Kone, and I ordered the Banana-Chocolate Crème Brulee.

No complaints there! Obviously.

 

[valree]

The Mara
I went to Mara twice during this trip. Both times when I placed my order at the counter, the order taker called the chef for me. The first chef, Andrew, told me that I could have the chicken, salad, chicken fingers, or burger and fries. He said that the only ingredients in the chicken were yogurt and Durban spices. I decided to go for the cheeseburger and fries. The cheeseburger is a typical Disney cheeseburger. You can choose your toppings at the fixings bar (ketchup, mustard, mayo), but the Heinz BBQ sauce packets contain gluten. I love BBQ sauce on my cheeseburgers, but I had to make do with ketchup and dipped some of my fries in the sweet and sour sauce. If I had had the forethought I would have taken a BBQ sauce from Chick-Fil-A the day before.

I didn’t want to eat inside so I took my meal outside and upstairs to the Arusha Rock savannah viewing area. There was no one out there - shocking because it was 12:30 in the afternoon. It was very peaceful except for the sound of me chewing my bun. The bun was like a rock by the time I sat down. Good ol’ Ener-G! I ended up taking the bottom part of the bun off and just eating the top part that was next to the cheese.

The fries were really good. When I went back to The Mara to return my tray, I bought a French Meadow brownie for later on. These are the best GF brownies I have tasted so far. On my last day of last year’s trip, I bought 6 of them at the Main Street Bakery to take home with me. I also ordered them online once (expensive shipping), but now I don’t need to because my local store (MOM’s – My Organic Market) carries the frozen mini brownies. I found my receipts from last year, and realized that Disney raised the price. They used to cost $2.25, and now they’re $3.39. I will probably bring a box of the frozen mini ones with me on the next trip.

The second time I ate at The Mara, I told the chef that I wanted a cheeseburger and told me the same thing as Andrew did – that he would have to get the GF bun for me. It took a long time – I thought he went to a computer, ordered the buns from a GF online store, and then heated them up. It was OK though because the bun tasted much better this time. It looked like he microwaved it and grilled it because there were little char marks on it. This was a major improvement. Shame on me for eating a burger again though. I couldn’t help it though – the fries were really good. Is it because they’re baked? Or are they even baked here? Are they fried in a dedicated fryer?

 

[valree]

Narcoosee’s

Our server at At Narcoosee’s, Diane, helpful and efficient. She brought out the chef, Joe, so that I could talk to him about what I wanted to eat. We decided to split the comice pear and endive salad with Maytag blue cheese, candied walnuts, and sherry-walnut vinaigrette as a starter. I can never remember which blue cheeses are safe or not safe. Chef Joe assured me that the Maytag was fine, and I took his word for it.

For the entrée, I ordered the free range chicken breast with mashed potatoes, spinach, and applewood smoked bacon vinaigrette. My sister had the same thing.

This chicken was delicious! The glaze has the perfect balance of sweet and tangy. The chicken was moist and the mashed potatoes helped soak up some of the juices from the chicken. The spinach was perfectly cooked and not soggy. I will definitely try it again. My sister had the Almond-crusted Cheesecake with Lambert cherry sauce for dessert. It looked really good, and I wish Disney could provide more GF dessert options besides ice cream and crème brulee. What about a flourless chocolate cake with a molten center? I love those things. If you know of a place on property that makes that, please let me know!

 

[valree]

California Grill was my favorite meal when I went to WDW last year so I decided to give it another shot. Our server, Abdel, brought out some Ener-G rolls which I tore into even though they aren’t good. There’s no honey macadamia nut butter at California Grill to make the rolls taste better. My family ordered the BLT flatbread with with Heirloom Tomatoes, Applewood Bacon, Provolone, Crisp Romaine, and Lemon Mayonnaise as an appetizer.

It looked really good but not as good as the Triple Cheese flatbread with Pecorino, Asiago, and Provolone with Sun-dried Tomato and Arugula Pesto. I ordered the grilled pork tenderloin with goat cheese polenta, button mushrooms and zinfandel glaze, which requires no alterations to make it GF.

My sister had to listen to me rave about the pork for the entire year since our last visit and decided to try it for herself to see if warranted my rave reviews. She liked it but said she would order it medium-well next time. Last time I ordered the pork medium-well, but this time I had it served medium. I think medium works better so that when (if!) you have leftovers for the next day (I had the pork for breakfast the next morning), the meat doesn’t get overcooked and tough. The pork was delicious, but I think the highlight for me was the polenta. The combination of the polenta, mushrooms, and juices from the pork was perfect.

My mom and cousin had the Crispy Chicken with Heirloom Tomato-Herb Chevre Tart, Corn and Chorizo Succotash, Fava Puree.

None of the dessert options that I wanted could be made GF so I ordered the kids meal ice cream sundae ($4). Even though it was a kid’s portion, it was plenty to eat for dessert.

 

[valree]

Olive Garden
For part of our visit, we stayed off property at the Orange Lake Resort off 192. Because there were so many of us in the group that night, we decided to all do carry out at different restaurants and bring the food back to the hotel. My group decided on the Olive Garden. I haven’t eaten at an Olive Garden in years, but I read on the celiac disease website while I was at WDW that Olive Garden now has a small GF menu.

The restaurant was packed. There were tons of people waiting outside to get seated, and the hostess booth at the front was crowded. The hostess gave me a GF menu to review. It’s a very limited menu: Garden Fresh Salad, Caesar salad, Pennine Rigate with Marinara, Steak Toscano, Herb-Grilled Salmon, or Mixed Grill. I decided to have the Pennine Rigate with Marinara. After placing the order, and the hostess told me that the food would be ready in 20 minutes so we went to sit outside and wait. After almost 20 minutes, the hostess came outside and told me that they ran out of GF pasta. Uh, thanks for telling me when it’s almost time to pick up my food! I didn’t feel like having anything else on the menu so I decided to just cancel my portion of the order and wait for my cousin’s Chicken Alfredo pizza. It was around 9:00, and I don’t like to eat a lot of food late at night. There is a Longhorn Steakhouse in the same shopping plaza and a Carrabba’s down the street, but both of those options seemed like they would be too much food to eat so late at night. When I went back inside to pick up my cousin’s meal, I mentioned to the hostess that bag felt kinda heavy just for an alfredo pizza. Uh-oh. She said “Did you say alfredo pizza? I thought you meant fettuccine alfredo!” No wonder the bag was heavy, there were breadsticks and salad inside. So we went back outside to wait for the pizza. I went back inside again to pick up the pizza. We went back outside to wait for the rest of our group. I realized then that I should have gotten some money back when I got “downgraded” from the fettuccine to the pizza so I had to go back inside. The manager apologized for the mixup and asked me if I wanted the difference (around $2) on a gift card or in cash. I opted for the cash. A $2 gift card isn’t going to do me much good, and the likelihood that I’ll ever go back to an Olive Garden is pretty slim. I should have known better than to try and get a GF meal during a busy time like that, but it was silly that I had to wait so long for them to tell me that they didn’t have any pasta. Ugh.

 

[valree]

Food & Wine Festival
When I asked the Special Diets team about eating at the festival, they replied “At the Epcot Food and Wine Festival, the food items are prepared in a very small kitchen and there is a high chance for cross-contamination of the food products at the kiosks. Please speak to a chef or manager at the kiosks and they will be happy to help you. However, there are gluten-free items at Australia, USA, India, Poland, Spain, Argentina, Desserts/Champagne, Chile, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand” Actually knowing what items were gluten free at those particular kiosks would have been helpful Not really helpful. I decided to take a chance and eat what I thought would be OK. My first stop was the Mouse Catch for Prosecco and a 3-cheese sampler. This year’s cheeses were Piave, Mahon, and Dorothea. The cheeses were delicious and the Prosecco went well with them. My second stop was at the Mexico City cart for a Taco de Conchinita Pibil. This is a taco filled with shredded pork. The pork was a little bland and needed some salt, but I loved the taco shell. As hungry as I was before we made it to World Showcase, I wasn’t hungry anymore after eating the taco. I think it was just too hot to eat. I drank water, water and more water. The only other thing that I ate was a fruit salad at the Liberty Inn accompanied by more water. Others in our group had the shrimp stew with Coconut and Lime (Rio), empanadas (Buenos Aires), Boston Crab Cake with Cabbage Slaw and Remoulade (Hops & Barley),and the Spicy Tuna Roll (Japan). I vaguely recall seeing some desserts, but a few of us went inside the Liberty Inn to cool off while the rest sat outside to eat.

 

[valree]

After EPCOT, we headed over to Port Orleans Riverside for dinner so that everyone could eat what they wanted. I went directly to the pasta station because I had been craving pasta since the Olive Garden fiasco. I told the CM that I wanted GF pasta and she went to get the chef for me. 10 minutes later, the chef still hadn’t come out, so I asked her if he forgot. She went to go check on him for me. The chef finally came out and helped me place my order for pasta. The pasta station at Riverside Mill is the type of place where you choose your base sauce (alfredo, pesto or marinara) and the mix-ins for your sauce. The chef told the CM that I was having GF pasta and waited there while I placed my order. I chose chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, and spinach. He told me that they didn’t have any GF pasta ready so he would have to cook it. He told to go sit down with the rest of my party while he made the food and that he would bring my order when it was complete. It seemed like forever for him to bring my food. Everyone else in my party was almost done. If I had known that we were going to eat at Riverside Mill, I would have e-mailed them ahead of time so that they could have food ready to go, but eating there was a last minute decision. The chef brought me a free French Meadow brownie as a thanks for being so patient, which I thought was very nice. He also came to check on me while I was eating my pasta to see if everything was OK. Everything tasted fine here. The pasta is a good sized portion, and I couldn't finish it all.

 

[valree]

Pecos Bill's

On Magic Kingdom day, we ate at Pecos Bill’s during the middle of the lunch rush. The cashier sighed when I said that I wanted a GF burger. (Yes, another burger). Uh, sorry that I am making your day so hard. He said that he’d have to get a manager. He said it in a way that was sort of a question. Like, once he told me that I would change my mind. Heh. I placed my order and went to the counter to wait. The person who brought out the meal was very careful to give me the right burger and I was very thankful of that. We found a table and sat down to eat. The bun was not good this time. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t eat it, but it seemed like they took it out of the bag and didn’t heat it at all. It I was a little envious of my cousins’ chicken wraps – until they opened the wraps. It looked like the Sahara inside. They had to go to the fixins bar, which might as well have been in Wyoming it was so far, to get some stuff to put inside to make the wraps not so dry. My dad had the taco salad which looked pretty good.

 

[valree]

Our final TS meal was at Whispering Canyon Café. We had the best chef/server team here. Chris, our server, was so nice and handled our group of 18 with no problem. The chef, Eddie, was awesome too. I will be writing to Disney to tell them about all of the great servers and chefs I had during this visit, but Chris and Eddie really stick out in my mind. Eddie posed for a few pictures with our group and had a good time with us. Eddie talked to me about all of the entrees on the list and offered me some GF cornbread.

The cornbread was very good, and I didn’t even get a chance to finish it before my entrée came. I had the smoked pork loin with mango chutney, chorizo-Tillamook grits, and seasonal vegetables.

The consistency of the pork is a little weird. I thought it would be more like the pork tenderloin I had at CG, but this had a strange Canadian bacon-ish consistency. The grits were yummy though, and the vegetables were good. The entrée is pretty large. I ate all of the grits, a lot of the veggies, and 1 of the pork hunks. I took the other hunk back to the room.

My dad had the pot roast, my cousin’s wife had the meatloaf, my cousin’s stepson had the Chicken Vegetable Penne Pasta (smelled really good) and the rest of the family at the other end of the table had the skillet.

 

[valree]

We are heading back to Disney in May, and we are definitely going to go to Narcoosee's again. I want to try the Yachtsman Steakhouse, but I don’t think I can handle watching everyone eat the bread that is supposed to be so good. Same thing with Le Cellier. I can’t even look at pictures of the pretzel bread without feeling envious. I'll get over my gluten envy eventually!

 

[snorris49]

Great review!

I am eating dinner at California Grill in Feb. and can't wait now! It's also nice to see Kona had good options. We're eating at Whispering Canyon for breakfast, so i'll be interested to see the options, but it looks like the service was good.

I have been pretty disappointed with many of the counter services options. It seems either the chef or the manager or the cashiers seemed annoyed when you ask about dietary restrictions. Sometimes it makes you want to have them live a day in your life and see how they feel after that. I always have to tell people that I'm not being picky, I will get violently sick if I eat wheat or dairy. sheesh. OK, off my soap box...

That being said, I agree with you on the dessert choices, they are somewhat lacking. It's worse with dairy too b/c you get rice dream ice cream or fruit (sometimes a sorbet) or a premade brownie. There are some exceptions to this, but the standard isn't exactly enticing. But really, you can't complain that much b/c Disney does the best for dietary restrictions, really and truly!

Thanks again for the review with the pictures....I love hearing about others experiences.

 

[chell]

About dessert - Outback can give us an awesome dessert. Is WDW going to let Outback beat them on that one?

Thanks for the great reviews!!! I hope I don't get any attitude when I place an order at a CS. I can just see it now when I'm tired & hungry. You'll hear about me giving them an earful probably.

 

[itradehilton]

Great picks, cant wait to go.

 

[Alexander]

DS (11) has Celiac and also eats GF. The counter service restaurants were okay at best. It took a really long time for his food to come out. I know they cook it special, but when you're 11..... Whenever I asked for GF foods, the cashiers looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. I had to say the word "allergy" before they would even respond.

We ate at a variety of TS places:
Chef Mickey's (the chef walked us around the buffet and pointed out what he could and couldn't eat).
California Grill (the chef came out and adjusted what ever he wanted to eat).
Hoop-Dee-Do (the chef came out and grilled some chicken for him--it took until we were all finished with dinner to get out, but when it did, there was enough chicken for 4 people!)
The absolute best GF service we received was a the Polynesian Luau. They made an entire plate of food that was prepared especially for my son. It had rice, veggies, meat, etc. on it. They had it ready when they brought out all of the regular food. I was so pleased that they had everything ready to go for him when we got there, I didn't even have to mention that he was GF! The GF rolls were already on his plate. He had a frozen fruit bar for dessert, and they even brought out an extra because they were worried that DS (3) would be jealous!

 

[valree]

DS (11) has Celiac and also eats GF. The counter service restaurants were okay at best. It took a really long time for his food to come out.

But I don’t understand why it takes so long at CS places! For example, a hamburger. Isn’t it just the bread that’s different? Why does it take so long to heat up a GF bun? Or is it the fries that take so long? Or are they starting from scratch - new burger, clean area of the grill? Guess I never thought about how they are cooking them.

I've never been to the luau before, I might have to try that on my next trip!

For GF desserts outside of WDW, I think Wildfire is my favorite. They have a delicious flourless chocolate cake that they serve with ice cream. PF Chang’s also has a flourless chocolate cake, but it is very dense and almost like fudge - a little too thick for me.

 

[Alexander]

But I don’t understand why it takes so long at CS places! For example, a hamburger. Isn’t it just the bread that’s different? Why does it take so long to heat up a GF bun? Or is it the fries that take so long? Or are they starting from scratch - new burger, clean area of the grill? Guess I never thought about how they are cooking them.

I've never been to the luau before, I might have to try that on my next trip!

For GF desserts outside of WDW, I think Wildfire is my favorite. They have a delicious flourless chocolate cake that they serve with ice cream. PF Chang’s also has a flourless chocolate cake, but it is very dense and almost like fudge - a little too thick for me.

They told us that they chef has to cook the GF foods at a special area in the kitchen (in the back) that is reserved especially for food allergies. They don't just grab a burger from the grill up front and put it on a GF bun. They start from scratch. The pasta places take the longest because they have to get the water boiling, and then pasta has to cook (all of the GF pastas we've had always take longer than traditional pasta). At most of the CS places, the chef himself prepared the food and delivered it to us. The chef at Typhoon Lagoon even said, "Don't accept food from anyone except me." They really are awesome at handling the GF guests. DS always looks forward to going to WDW because it is so easy for him to eat!