I think you have made some good choices. We are WDW vets too, but have now made several DL trips as well. We love Café Orleans. I know Wine Country gets mixed reviews, but we have always really enjoyed it. We have never had a bad meal there. Blue Bayou for us is more about the atmosphere than the food. I have not been that impressed with my food there. It is still something you should do once though- you might love it. If you are remotely interested in character meals, Minnie's Breakfast at the Plaza Inn is great. We have seen anywhere from 7 to 12 characters there and you never know who you might run into. It is not like the WDW standardized 4 or 5 character meals. I will say though that they did just standardize Goofy's Kitchen at DLH into a standardized 5 like WDW, so hopefully Minnie's will not be next.
I'm a fan of the potato soup at Carnation café. We are from Oklahoma where there are a lot of fried chicken places, and we were not at all impressed with the Plaza's fried chicken. Maybe we were there on a bad day, but DD and I both threw out most of ours. It was not even close to as good as what we can get at home. We were disappointed, because I had always heard how good it was.
On the whole, DL counter-service in our opinion is much better than WDW's counter service. There are lots of good options. allears.net has all the
Disneyland menus, just like they have the WDW menus. Also, a lot of the TS at DL you can book day of, or even get walk ups, which is nice.
If anyone in your family is a beer drinker, my DH would tell you not to miss the Karl Strauss beer cart on the wharf at California Adventure. Also, be sure you enter Carsland from that side some time during your trip- the view is impressive from that angle. It is just beautiful!! Also don't miss seeing Carsland at night! If you can take a ride on RSR at night, it is a different experience and also beautiful. RSR has a single rider line if everyone in your party is old enough to take advantage of it.
