Help me choose restaurants please!

[jewell]

I'm one of those people that has to plan EVERYTHING! I'm obsessed with planning and I love it (so don't even bother telling me to chill out! ). When we went to Disney in 2003 with my family, (me, hubby, son, sister, two nieces, and my 72 year old mother)I planned it right down to every restaruant and of course with ressies to them all. That vacation was wonderful---it actually exceeded our expectations.

Okay with that being said, I've read so many posts about the restaurants in the parks and in City Walk, but here is my question. We will be eating within the parks and city walks the whole time we are there, we all love to eat out and we consider it a large part of our vacation. First let me tell you who we are, me, hubby and 12 year old son (who appreciates good food, no chicken fingers and burgers for him!), my sister and her two girls ages 11 and 8, the girls do like chicken fingers and burgers so they will definitely be eating from the children's menu. All of the kids are well behaved and we love all diffferent kinds of food, American, Italian, seafood, Greek, Caribbean, etc.

We will be arriving around 2:00 in the afternoon on Sunday, so we'd like to eat an early dinner and then head out to the parks (we are staying for four nights)
We will have lunch and dinner on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I am thinking maybe on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday our largest meals will be for lunch (when we take an afternoon break from the parks). I don't mind some fast food if it is very good (but not a lot of it).

Tell me your favorite restaurants in City Walk and in the parks--keeping in mind we will have the kids with us.

Thanks so much!

 

[spencem]

Are you staying on-site? If you are then your room key gives you the equivalent of an ADR at the restaurants, i.e. you walk up show your key and get given the next available table .

As for where, I have eaten at Latin Quarter, Pastamore, Hard Rock Cafe and Emerils all of which were excellent.

 

[gschmerl]

Mythos is my favorite restaurant. Not what you'd expect in a theme park. I wish I had a restaurant like it close to home. Great theming, wonderful food and service. The atmosphere is wonderful.
Try this link..http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=357244&page=7
It will give you other links to menus.

 

[jewell]

Yes, I'm staying on site and I've also looked at the menus, but I love personal reviews! I'm definitely thinking Tchoup Chop, Mythos, and maybe Bubba Gump shrimp co., Margaritaville and Lombard's seafood Grille??? What do you think about those places?

 

[Planogirl]

Margaritaville is good and has a fun atmosphere. I know that Tchoup Chop gets some crazy good reviews on a regular basis but I've never made it there.

I'm curious about Bubba Gump myself. That one is newer and I'm thinking of trying it too.

 

[cbdmhgp]

Margaritaville is a must...the atmosphere is great for kids and adults of all ages. As for my family, we always eat at each of the following (although its mostly American because DS 16 is very picky):
1. Mels Diner (great 50s atmosphere and even better food)
2. NASCAR Cafe (great food, my personal favorite restaurant)
3. NBA City (the food is pretty good but the basketball atmosphere is the reason we always eat here)
4. Hard Rock Cafe (it speaks for itself, all-around great place)
5. MARGARITAVILLE!! (we usually dont even eat a meal here, just order some appetizers and surround ourselves with jimmy buffett)

 

[bapvoeller]

IMO most of the food we have eaten at IOA, US, and City walk is good, but here is a list of the our favorite restaurants. We try to eat at these when we go back.

1. Mythos (IOA)
2. Finnegan’s (US)
3. Bubba Gump Shrimp (City walk)
4. Confisco Grill (IOA Character Breakfast)

 

[macraven]

in the parks for table service, i always eat at:
mythos
finnegans
lombards on some occassions

at city walk:
hard rock cafe
margaritaville
nba city

bubba gump is on my list for this fall, haven't been there yet.

for counter service n the parks:
studios:
international film and food festival....fried chicken dinners good (they also have chinese and other choices)

captain quint for chicken
richters for burgers
la bamba for rotissiere chicken and bbq ribs dinners

IOA:
fire eaters grill for gyros
enchanted oak grill for chicken/ribs
blondies for fresh sub sandwiches
confisco grill



i think one more but have to dash off for awhile...

 

[gschmerl]

Yes, I'm staying on site and I've also looked at the menus, but I love personal reviews! I'm definitely thinking Tchoup Chop, Mythos, and maybe Bubba Gump shrimp co., Margaritaville and Lombard's seafood Grille??? What do you think about those places?

I have eaten at all of those except Bubba Gumps. As I said before, we ALWAYS eat at Mythos a ouple times. When visiting Universal Studios, we always have lunch at Lombards.It's a relaxing break in the day. Tchoup Chop is wonderful. You can make reservations in advance at opentable.com
We also liked Margartivaville, but not as muxh as most other poeple on these boards.

 

[jewell]

Thanks guys you were very helpful! I'm glad someone mentions Finnegan’s, because while reading the book, the author also said she liked the food there, that might be another place I'll try, awwww so many restaurants so little time!

 

[PlutoLuvr]

Our non-negotiable must-dos in the parks are Finnegan's at US and Mythos at IOA. The fish & chips are to die for at Finnegan's. Our trip coming up is four days, two days at each park, and we all want to eat twice at Finnegan's for our US days. The risotto of the day is phenomenal at Mythos. It's always delicious.

We've enjoyed Bubba Gumps, O'Brien's, NBA City so much that we always want to return. None of us are basketball fans, but the bleu cheese chicken pasta and ribs at NBA City are out of this world. The redfish dinner or crawfish po'boy are our favs at O'Brien's -- as well as a few hurricanes! We REALLY loved our dinner at Gumps. Nice prices on good draft beer, too. Plenty of fried as well as non-fried choices. Cute gift shop.

Hard Rock Cafe, Pastamore, NASCAR Cafe and Latin Quarter were good, but we won't be rushing to go back.

The Bob Marley place and Margaritaville we were not impressed with at all. Just loud, poor service, bland food or "typical."

We've eaten at Tchoup Chop once (very good) and the Kitchen at HRH many times (love it -- although we don't do the breakfast buffet here...just dinner).

 

[jewell]

Plutoluvr, thanks for mentioning NBA City, we aren't basketball fans either so I didn't even look at the menu, just went and took a look and I'm impressed with the menu! I might replace Margaritaville with NBA City, I don't like loud places either, the last time we were there in 2000, we went to NASCAR Cafe (not that we are race fans either, but it was the only place we could get in) the food was okay, but it was WAY too loud!!!

 

[PlutoLuvr]

Jewell, my only complaint with NBA City were the cocktails. We had a slight wait -- which was okay, because we really enjoyed sitting outside looking at Citywalk (great view from NBA & HRC) -- so we ordered two bloody Marys. $24 with a reasonable tip ... each drink had a nanosecond splash of vodka

So I don't know how much of a drinker you are, but we don't get alcoholic drinks there. There are much better values and stronger drinks to be had elsewhere IMO.

But the ribs and pastas -- particularly that bleu cheese one -- are really, really good. There's even a write-up in the local paper about them that NBA has outside as you walk up. And DH wasn't even a rib eater when he got them. He'd seen a plate of them go by, smelled them as they were wisked by, got a wild hair and tried them. He's always ordered them since that visit. And even now back home, he's tried baby-back ribs at our places here, and he said they're not even close to what he had at NBA.

The nice thing about Margaritaville is even if you dine elsewhere, you can always return to Margaritaville and grab an outdoor beach chair or a table at the sandy bar and enjoy the tunes and atmosphere

If you do decide to try Finnegan's, make sure you-all share a Scotch egg appetizer. It won't fill you up, but they're yummy!

 

[jewell]

No, problems about the drinks, we rarely drink. Unless, of course, I can find a good margarita!!!!

I've heard of scotch eggs, thanks for the heads up, I might give that a try. This is exactly why I ask these questions, places and things I would never try I find out through you guys that maybe I should give them a try after all.

 

[TinkHappy]

Are you staying on-site? If you are then your room key gives you the equivalent of an ADR at the restaurants, i.e. you walk up show your key and get given the next available table .

As for where, I have eaten at Latin Quarter, Pastamore, Hard Rock Cafe and Emerils all of which were excellent.

Is this only at the restaurants at the hotel you are staying at? (sorry for the newbee question)

 

[macraven]

Is this only at the restaurants at the hotel you are staying at? (sorry for the newbee question)

ask any question you want. we love newbies.

if you stay on site at universal, your room key gives you priority for the resturants at city walk. there are quite a few of them.
many locals dine there during the weekends.

only tchoup tchoup and emils do not honor the room key for priority seating.
they take ressies.

your room key will give you priority for the Palms if you are staying on site at hrh

 

[tarheelmjfan]

The only TS restaurant we've eaten at in the parks is Mythos. I definitely recommend it for lunch. I really want to try Confiscos sometime, but we always seem to have too many places we want to try.

At CityWalk, Emeril's is our must do. After that, we like Latin Qtr., then Pat O'Briens (patio seating). Both have good food, & a calmer atmosphere. Pastamore is great for breakfast or lunch. We haven't tried Bubba Gumps or Nascar Grille (now that it's been redone). The food when it was Nascar Cafe used to be a bit better than most of the other "Cafes", in our opinion. We also think NBA City is better than the other 2 "Cafes". We're not fans of Margaritaville, but would go there before HRC. IMO, it's awful! The one place I would never return to is Bob Marley's. It wasn't so much the food, but the heat. The seating is covered, but still outdoors. Does that make sense? The table we were seated at had a ceiling fan near it, which was pretty much useless. It was so hot, I literally got sick. There's no way I could enjoy the food, when all I wanted was to get out of there & get some air. If you're there at a cooler time, it would probably be nice.

Our 2nd favorite UO restaurant is now Mama Della's @ PBH. The meal we had there last visit was fabulous. I'm pleased to say we thought The Kitchen at HRH was much improved over previous visits. The breakfast used to be "not so good", but was great last time. We haven't tried Bice, The Palm, or Islands. I hope to try Bice or The Palm this summer, so I'll let you know what I think about them then. We're in the minority that thinks Tchoup Chop is overrated to put it mildly. Many love it though.

As I noted earlier, there's so many great restaurants it's impossible to eat at all of them. You won't go hungry, & you'll need to return to UO many times, so you can share own opinion of the restaurants there.