Lunch and Dinner in parks. Either side recommendations

[Jerseybrew]

Hi and thanks in advance. There does not appear to be as much up to date info and reviews on dining at universal vs Disney
We are heading there for a few days in March and are hoping to get some recommendations
We pretty much are open to most foods.
Price not a concern (life is too short). What are some must trys?
Thanks!

 

[bchbetha]

Lunch- Mythos (make a reservation), Thunder Falls Terrace or one of the Harry Potters.
Dinner- one of the CityWalk restaurants. Go with the big lunch, good snacks around the parks and a late dinner vs wasting park time eating. The parks usually close pretty early so you would be missing a good chunk to do dinner there. Cowfish is good.

 

[Jerseybrew]

Lunch- Mythos (make a reservation), Thunder Falls Terrace or one of the Harry Potters.
Dinner- one of the CityWalk restaurants. Go with the big lunch, good snacks around the parks and a late dinner vs wasting park time eating. The parks usually close pretty early so you would be missing a good chunk to do dinner there. Cowfish is good.

Thanks a lot!!

 

[bchbetha]

Geez, I used the word "good" an awful lot. Have fun!

 

[Bethany10]

Citywalk has some nice options as well. We loved Vivo and hope to eat there again this summer. Many people like Toothsome, though I knew from the menu it would not be a good fit for us, and Cowfish was great.

 

[ksanftleben]

I recommend that you try to have lunch or dinner at the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen. It's a steampunk character restaurant with not only a huge menu but incredible sundaes and milkshake concoctions. Our family loved it; especially our granddaughters. Make a reservation; it can be packed and have lonnnng waits. Here are some reviews from Orlando Informer, Disney Food Blog, and Touring Plans.

 

[damo]

We like Cowfish a lot. Haven't had good luck with Toothsome.

 

[schumigirl]

We like Cowfish a lot. Haven't had good luck with Toothsome.

Us neither, Toothsome has been a big disappointment food wise. Cowfish we love and never had a bad experience there.




Confisco Grille in IOA is excellent. It often gets overlooked in favour of Mythos, we find it much better than Mythos.

In Studios Lombards is of a very good standard. Both are table service but very casual.

For counter service Thunder Falls Terrace in IOA and Simpsons food court in the Studios are both worth a visit, especially Thunder Falls.

We are not fans of either Potter restaurant for food, but worth a visit to wander round, many enjoy them though.

Don`t discount the hotel restaurants either. For something nice The Palm is probably our favourite onsite hotel restauarant, but Jake`s in RP is always excellent.

Cowfish, NBC and Vivo are our favourite restaurants in Citywalk and Margaritaville is a hit or miss, latterly it has always been good for us.

 

[ruthies12]

We really enjoyed Hard Rock Cafe in city walk on our last trip. I had the steak salad and would have to rate it as an all time best meal.

 

[Dawn Peterson]

we love CityWalk for dining. Our favorite is BigFire, the food is excellent, based on meat and veggies and they have table side s’mores which are such fun. We also enjoy Margaritavile for the volcano nachos, and Anotjitos for overall good food though we sit outside because the band can get loud.

 

[nkereina]

IMO, the best dining options are at City Walk. We love Antojitos and NBC Sports Grill & Brew. We like Toothsome for the atmosphere and desserts. Cowfish has always been just ok for us. Red Oven is a good quick service stop for pizza.

In the parks, I second the recommendations of Mythos for TS. Quick service, we typically always eat at one of the Potter restaurants, or the QS in the Simpsons area of US.

 

[WendiDarling]

When we were there in September, we didn't enjoy trying to do the counter service places with the mobile ordering and social distancing/other restrictions in place. So we're planning mostly table service this time (next month). Our general plan:

Toothsome early dinner on arrival day (parks open until 10pm) followed by park time.
Mythos for lunch the next day, then a late dinner at Antojitos. (parks open until 8) Snack when hungry.
Confiscos for lunch the next day, 6:30pm-ish dinner at Vivo or NBC- trying to decide. (parks open until 5/6)
Our last day is departure, hoping to do EA, then grab breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron before we head out. The lunch/dinner menu didn't appeal to us but breakfast looked good. We tried to do this last trip but missed breakfast (until 10:30) by like 5 minutes.

It might be too much but like I said we didn't like the CS at Universal. We tried Thunder Falls, Simpsons Blvd, then back to Thunder Falls the 3rd day. Neither were great for us - Thunder Falls was ok but don't feel like I need to do it again. Disclaimer - we've only been once and it was during Covid! So things might be vastly different during non-pandemic times.

For sit down last time, we ate: Margaritaville, Toothsome, and Hard Rock Cafe. We liked all 3, but Toothsome is the only ones my kids requested to repeat.

 

[yellowfish78]

My last trip in Nov. 2020, our favorite was lunch at Lombards. Good food and great service! We also enjoyed Cowfish. Mythos was a disappointment...again. So I think we will be trying Confiscos next trip. I've heard great things about Antojitos too. We've only eaten once at Toothsome and thought it wasn't as good as it was made out to be.

 

[cfoxga]

We've been to Mythos twice and liked it both times; not fantastic but good for a park restaurant. We went to Lombards and liked it more. We had lunch at Confiscos and it was ok; the view from the upper Terrace was nice, but it felt a little off indoors.

Kids love Toothsomes, but no surprise there. A giant Milkshake topped with cream is an easy sell for them They also love Three Broomsticks and Leaky Cauldron, but they are big HP fans. Food is good for counter service, but I try to not expect too much there.

The deck at Cowfish is very nice and the food is good enough that we end up there on most trips.

Still haven't tried BigFire or Antijos yet. Hopefully we'll hit both on our trip in 3 weeks.

 

[Jerseybrew]

Us neither, Toothsome has been a big disappointment food wise. Cowfish we love and never had a bad experience there.




Confisco Grille in IOA is excellent. It often gets overlooked in favour of Mythos, we find it much better than Mythos.

In Studios Lombards is of a very good standard. Both are table service but very casual.

For counter service Thunder Falls Terrace in IOA and Simpsons food court in the Studios are both worth a visit, especially Thunder Falls.

We are not fans of either Potter restaurant for food, but worth a visit to wander round, many enjoy them though.

Don`t discount the hotel restaurants either. For something nice The Palm is probably our favourite onsite hotel restauarant, but Jake`s in RP is always excellent.

Cowfish, NBC and Vivo are our favourite restaurants in Citywalk and Margaritaville is a hit or miss, latterly it has always been good for us.

Thanks!! Great info

 

[RamblingMad]

We stick to the two Harry Potter restaurants for lunch. We also like gyros over by Poseidon. I forgot the restaurant name.

For dinner we usually hit a Disney resort since we’re not WDW people. We get our Disney fix in CA. And we can hit most of the rides we want to do in the first half of the day.

 

[Erica Ladd]

We were surprised by the basket o’bait at the Simpsons fast food blvd. It did take a while but the fried fish was especially crispy and hot! In fact I might just get the basket o’fish next time and skip the shrimp and calamari!

** I grabbed a beverage from Duff brewery before ordering our food and it made the wait more bearable!