Just back from 8 nights at POP

[MrsJackSparrow]

We ate at:

Everything Pop, breakfast and dinner
Cinderella's Royal Table, breakfast
Pizzafari, lunch
Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, late lunch
San Angel Inn, lunch
Tony's Town Square, dinner
Earl of Sandwich, dinner
Chef Mickey's, breakfast
Chili's, offsite


Tony's was the most disappointing. Just not what we had remembered from previous trips. Lousy way to celebrate 10th anniversary, except for serenade from the Dapper Dans.

Any questions, I'll be happy to answer!

 

[tammy]

Welcome home. Did you enjoy the Earl of Sandwich? What did you get?

 

[MrsJackSparrow]

DH and I split the Hawaiian BBQ sandwich and Hawaiian yogurt smoothie. Sandwich was very flavorful and exactly what I'd expect for the price. (We split in anticipation of dessert at Ghirardelli's but never made it over there.) Smoothy was tasty, kind of pineapple-mango-coconut, I believe. If you're looking for an inexpensive quick sandwich, this is the spot.

 

[Gorechick]

Just curious, what was so bad about Tony's? I haven't been there in 8 years and we are going to do dinner there this trip. Any specifics appreciated.

 

[TwingleMum]

Thanks for the reviews. My DH was also disappointed in Tony's, especially the bread. He felt an Italian restaurant needs good Italian bread or don't bother.

 

[swankybeth]

How did you enjoy the food court? Anything in particular to recommend or advise against?

 

[Kaycee]

Thanks for the reviews! I'm sorry you were disappointed with your meal at Tony's. Being serenaded by the Dapper Dan's sounds very cool though!

 

[MrsJackSparrow]

Let me start by saying that WDW's portions are very, very large, much more than DH and I are used to at home. As a result, we shared virtually every large meal, and we were NOT hungry after splitting our plates.

We have dined at Tony's Town Square on every trip to WDW and just loved the atmosphere and the food so we chose this as our 10th anniversary dinner spot. In retrospect, we would have been better suited having a late lunch here instead. It was really terrific being serenaded by the Dapper Dans. They sang, "Bella Note" to us and heartily congratulated us on our anniversary and wished us well. Such a sweet bunch of guys. (We ran into them several times during our trip and they always said hi, recognizing us!)

Gorechick, we started our dinner with the Insalata alla Caprese. Basically, this was a stack of tomatoes interspersed with homade mozzarella and served with a balsamic glaze. Very tasty but DH said, "I just paid nine bucks for that???" I enjoyed it. The presentation was lovely. Our main course was the Pollo alla Cacciatore, which consisted of a huge bowl of a half chicken, juicy and flavorful, tons of sauce with peppers and onions, and a huge hunk of polenta. It was tasty but just not what we had hoped for as a meal. DS had Trusty's "Old Reliable" cheese pizza which tasted more "OLD" than "Reliable". The cheese just tasted "off", as though it were not quite fresh. DD had Tony's Spaghetti just butter and cheese, no sauce, as that is her preference. Can't really say what made us unhappy, just not the exciting dinner we were looking for. Although the Dapper Dans were fabulous.

 

[disney queen]

how was breakfast at chef mickey? we are going mid-morning. not sure about this time.

 

[MrsJackSparrow]

SwankyBeth, Everything Pop included a terrific food selection.

Breadsticks and marinara from the pizza section were probably the best deal at $1.89 for two 8" sticks and sauce.

The pizza was the same as everywhere, nothing to rave about and certainly not comparing to typical Chicago pizza that we have at home.

The bakery cookies were tasty, although the oatmeal cookie was some greasy. The sugar cookie was outstanding and I really had to make an effort to buy only one at a time!

Grapes were a good bet for the kids, I think $1.99, and they lasted through dinner snack and breakfast the next day.

I had a deli sub from the refrigerator which was tasty but much more meat on a sandwich than I'm used to. It was a turkey/ham combo and the lunchmeat was pretty salty (but I usually eat Healthy Choice lunchmeats . . .)

Kids split the cheeseburger and fries one night quite happily, plenty of food for them (4 and 6).

DH and I split a fresh baguette sandwich which was plenty of food for us and it was fresh and flavorful.

The shrimp lo mein was awesome, served in a Chinese take-out box with optional chop sticks. Plenty of tasty shrimp and the noodles were in a tasty broth. I'm sure this would have portioned out to serve 2 but DH is allergic to shrimp. I got through about half the container but ate all the shrimp. (They were not deep fried or breaded, so very light.)

Fat free blueberry muffin tasted perfectly guilty. Moist and tender with fat juicy blueberries.

The pancake platter was a good bet for breakfast, came with sausage and bacon plus 3 pancakes. My only recommendation is to skip the syrup they give you and use the sugar free at the drink/condiment bar. The syrup really ruined the pancakes for me, too sugary and not maple-y enough. Just really yucky syrup.

Kids picked cereal that day, so we wound up going grocery shopping and picking up more pop tarts and cereal, as they are not big hot breakfast eaters and $1.99 was a little steep for single serve cereal.

Other breakfast options that looked great but I just didn't get to were the yogurt parfait with granola, similar to the one McDonald's sells, probably larger, and the oatmeal which came in a huge cup and they had brown sugar and another topping you could add for only $2.49.

Hated paying $1.99 for milk for the kids every day but indulged them and let them have strawberry and chocolate instead of plain white. It was usually the only milk they had for the day, getting water or diet pop at other times.

Big thumbs up for Everything Pop!

 

[MrsJackSparrow]

Disney Queen, we had a lot of fun at Chef Mickey's. We had a group of 10, so our seating was kind of up from the main room but along the windows with an unobstructed (although the windows were pretty dirty) view of Cinderella Castle. There were many hot selections for breakfast, your standard pancakes, omlette casserole, Mickey waffles, french toast puffs (which were pretty greasy), cold sweet rolls (I had one that looked like a mini bear claw but it was oddly devoid of any filling - quite a disappointment. I didn't want to take another to see if it was a mistake for fear of wasting it by biting into another empty pastry.), a sausage and egg casserole, a veggie lasagna which was very, very tasty, nice kids selections including a PBJ pizza. Also, there were cold cereal selections as well as Krispy Creme donuts, rice krispy squares - YUM - a warm peach cobbler - looked better than it tasted, and a fabulous bread pudding. The bread pudding was really the highlight for me. It was very, very flavorful, just the taste I would expect from a good bread pudding. Fresh fruit, yogurt, bagels, toast, pretty much every breakfast food you could expect.

Character interaction was good, characters were patient with the kids and took lots of photos and were quite playful. We saw Chip, Dale, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, and Goofy was up front taking pictures as you left the restaurant.

Having dined here also last fall for dinner, I have to say that I prefer the dinner, as did DH. Our breakfast PS was at 9:30 and it took our group nearly 2 hours to eat. DH and I felt like we were wasting park time and were anxious to get outside and get a move on with the day. We overate and were pretty full and sluggish, which was not so good in the 93+ heat. When we did the dinner, our PS was for about 8:30 p.m., once the parks were closed (last September) and it was a terrific wind-down for the day. DS 4 was enthralled with the passage of the monorail as well as having Mickey and Minnie both SIT DOWN with him, tremendous patience on the characters' part, very, very playful. It was a better close to a day than a start to a day. Just didn't give us an energetic start as other days did. Just our opinion, though, and I don't know what the rest of our group felt, as we had a day trip planned and split from them for the afternoon.

 

[fruitcake]

Curious about 2 of your stops...Sci-Fi (DH and I are going there for lunch) and Pizzafari (also for lunch). Good eats at both?

 

[francie]

hi, just one question, please. how did you arrange for the dapper dans to sing bella note to you? i would have absolutely died and gone straight to heaven!

 

[Gorechick]

Thanks for your reply, hopefully it will be better when I go in a few weeks.

 

[MrsJackSparrow]

Francie, we had our PS for the first dinner seating (5pm, I believe). The Dapper Dans performed in Tony's wait area to kick off the opening of the dinner hours. They were still wandering the restaurant when we were seated and our server, Catherine, called them over and said "10th Anniversary here!" and they sang. They joked about what anniversary the tenth was, one commenting, "I believe it's clay." They were very sweet and it was a very special moment.

 

[MrsJackSparrow]

Fruitcake, we really enjoyed the campy atmosphere at Sci-Fi and the food was really tasty. We had a late lunch seating of 3:50 p.m. Beware that the parade is going on at this time and, if you are not already in the park (as we weren't) it is a major fight up the street and over to Sci-Fi. DH and I split our meal and salad and they plated it separately, which was very nice. We had the Sci-Fi house salad and, plated separately, we thought that we had mistakenly received two salads as the portion was so generous. We also had the BBQ chicken breast sandwich and fries which was very, very tasty. Probably about an 8-oz chicken breast, so easily portioned, good amount of fries and onion crisps. DS enjoyed the Space Mush - mac & cheese; DD had the Mini-Rocket - corn dog and fries. Our server, Kory, was very good with the kids. He had a great personality and was very attentive, although he was serving many cars.

We strolled into Pizzafari at about 11:20 to a nearly empty restaurant. It was originally a bathroom stop but we decided to tackle an early lunch as the situation was just too good with no wait and nearly empty rooms. DH and I split the hot Italian deli sandwich and skipped the chips. Sandwich was very flavorful and satisfying. We also split an order of breadsticks. The marinara served here was tastier than at Everything Pop with their breadsticks. Kids had PBJs (can't go wront there!). The only thing I dislike about eating at AK is the lack of straws and covers on the cups unless you buy one of those huge AK animal topper cups. The restaurant did begin to fill up as we finished up our meal but it was a nice low-stress quiet meal getting in there early. Everyone was refreshed and ready for more AK when we were done.

 

[francie]

wow, that must have been some night for you. i know it would have been for me. thanks for sharing.