My first (amateur) dining review ; our disneymoon! 6/1-6/8. UPDATED tusker house, fairfax fare & sci

[alyssa18o6]

Hello all! Welcome to my very first ever dining review! I read alot of these prior to taking our trip so I knew I wanted to contribute once we got back. However, I failed miserably. I forgot to take pictures of food half the time, especially my husband as he literally would dig in the second the plate touched the table. But I tried, and thats all that matters for my first time

I'm Alyssa, and i'm 27 and an undergrad student studying social work. My husband is Nick, he's 31 and a driver manager at a transportation company. We just got married on 5/23/2015, and this was actually our very first vacation together! It was not either of our first trip to the world, but our first trips solo. We were new to most things Disney, but we had a fabulous trip with the knowledge I gained from this forum!

Hope you guys enjoy reading along!​

 

[alyssa18o6]

Our first stop was lunch on Monday the 1st. We we literally starving as we had ate breakfast at 4am (at the airport) and had some pretzels from good old Southwest on the place. By the time we finally got our room at POR, we were starving and headed over to Epcot for lunch in Mexico!

La Cantina de San Angel

I had the Tacos de Barbacoa one thing I feel the need to mention (which is gonna seem very ironic) is i'm normally not a red meat eater at all. I stay far far away from it most times. I typically order chicken, salad or pasta when we go out to eat. But this caught my eye right away and I had to try it. Another fun fact, I hate corn tortialls. I think they're absolutely disgusting. So when I chose this, i'm pretty sure my brain was still foggy from the lack of sleep I had the prior days. However, this was fabulous! The tortilla was soft, and I could barely even tell it was corn. The meat wasn't dry, and had decent flavor. The red sauce really made the dish for me if anything. I'm a huge rice fan so I loved that, and the black beans, well I don't care for black beans either... But these were fabulous! Honestly if I had enough time I probably would of went back and had this dish again. Nick had the Pollo Cascabel, and he said his was delicious too. We both had a diet coke to drink, and the churros as we were on the dining plan. This was definitely one of my top quick service meals of the trip. The churros we're delicious as well. Ironically that same day there was a churro debate on one of the Disney FB groups I follow, talking about how horrible Disney churros were. However I loved these, and would eat them again in a second. My only complaint if any is that the carmel is very thin, I made a huge mess every time I took a dip.

Via Napoli

By our dinner reservaiton at 7pm, we were hungry again. We are very early eaters, so having late dinners was different for us. Of course around 6pm a horrible storm started rolling through, and we were trapped under a store front in Italy. When it seemed safe enough for us to head over to Via Napoli, we were a tad early for our reservation but they let us in early. We had to pay for two meals OOP on our trip, and this was one of them.

We started off with the Salame e Provolone appetizer. We joked around that this was just missing it's cookie (because it was the size, if not smaller than a lunchable haha) It was good, but for $9, never again! But the cheese and the salami were both delicious and I could definitely of ate more of both. We each had one piece of salmi, and one piece of cheese and than split the veggies.

For dinner we both split the individual Carciofi pizza. Again this was fabulous, hands down one of the best pizzas I have ever had. We really regretted not getting a larger pizza. But we feared we wouldn't finish it and neither one of us I wanted to carry the left overs back in the rain. I will say again I wish we had more time, because I constantly craved this pizza! We can't get anything similar where we live, which is mainly an italian american populated area.

We both had waters to drink, and had no desert. We were extremely tired, and with the rain decided to end the night early.
​

 

[PrincessKimmy]

I totally thought you meant the food was horrible! lol

Your dining report is off to a great start! Via Napoli and La Cantina de San Angel are both on my plan for our September trip!

Cant wait to read more!

 

[archdandy]

Following along. What is on the carciofi pizza? Is that the one with artichokes?

 

[alisaurus]

I totally thought you meant the food was horrible! lol

That's what I thought too, and I wondered what you ate! (The only absolutely horrible thing I've ever eaten at WDW was the mango gelato. Ick!) anyway... Reading along!

 

[Momofhtk]

Great first review. I can't wait to read more about your dining experience.

 

[alyssa18o6]

Following along. What is on the carciofi pizza? Is that the one with artichokes?

Yes! Fontina (my favorite cheese), artichokes and truffle oil.

 

[alyssa18o6]

That's what I thought too, and I wondered what you ate! (The only absolutely horrible thing I've ever eaten at WDW was the mango gelato. Ick!) anyway... Reading along!

Perhaps I should change the name, haha. While I had some mediocre food it wasn't "horrible"!

 

[vettegirl]

Following along

 

[Pfau]

We, too, got that appetizer and felt it was ... lacking. My 6 year old is a HUGE fan of cured meats and ate the two little pieces and then was all "what tha heck??"

 

[naylor90]

Following along! Congratulations on your wedding and your Disneymoon. My fiance and I are heading to the World on 08/31/2015 for our Disneymoon, so I'm excited to read your reviews!

Glad you enjoyed Via Napoli, ate there in 2012 and loved the pizza as well.

 

[TigerKat]

Enjoying your reviews! My hubby is not a pizza eater but even he loves that Carciofi pizza at VN!!

 

[alyssa18o6]

Tusker House

Tuesday morning we got up pretty early because we had a reservation at Tusker House at Animal Kingdom. We are BIG breakfast fans and were ridiculously excited for this meal. We got to the park pretty early, a little after 8am. We thought we'd be able to get in early for our 9:10 reservation, but the lady at the gate said no. Luckily enough they ended up letting us in early because some people didn't show up, and we got in even earlier than our reservation.

Yes, this is alot of food. But I didn't wanna get up again because I didn't want to miss the characters! I didn't eat all of this, but most of it, and the hubs finished what I didn't. Just to name a few things there was veggie quiche, bobatie (don't think i'm spelling that right..), potatoes, sausage, hard broiled egg, chocolate croissant, biscuits & gravy, cheese blintz, mickey waffle and a donut hole. I had a cup of coffee and jungle juice as well. We paid out of pocket for this I don't remember the exact price but I think it was $29.99. We loved the food, and would definitely come here again. The characters were okay... Goofy left alot to be desired. I don't know if it was because we were two adults, but there were quite a few tables with adults.. But he just had no personality at all, and was not "Goofy".

We finished AK pretty early and hopped over to HS for lunch.

Fairfax Fare

This is one of the few times I did get a shot of the hubs food! Before going I ad made a bucket list of food I wanted to try on our trip. This hot dog was on there. I love mac and cheese, it's hands down one of my guilty pleasures and something I eat all the time. We have a local place that you can build your own hot dogs and I loved theirs with mac & cheese so I had to try this. It was ehh, and I wouldn't get it again. I'm gonna start by breaking it apart. The mac and cheese was good, it wasn't very warm, but it was tasty enough that i'd eat it on its own. The bacon was a nice addition, and I didn't taste the truffle oil. The bun was stale and tough, I didn't even up eating half of it. The hot dog wasn't my favorite, i'll be honest cheap hot dogs are my favorite. And this was definitely an all beef hot dog it wasn't bad, but i'd prefer a cheaper dog in it's place. I didn't eat the chips I saved them and the last night of our trip we ate them! Nick had the ribs and said they were pretty decent, he barely made a dent in the sides because he was holding out for the cupcake!

One of the main things we wanted to do on this trip was indulgence in all things Star Wars, not for me. Definitely for Nick, i'm not a huge fan. Ive honestly not even seen half the movies. This was my first of the Star Wars cupcakes. Darth Vader was chocolate and peanut butter. This thing was the size of a baseball! These are $5.19, which isn't bad considering the size. I split mine into fourths, and only ate half. This really did beat my expectations because it was very moist and not dry like I was expecting. The peanut butter was overly sweet, but just sweet enough. I'd definitely share one of these if you're paying out of pocket.

Sci-Fi Drive In

Nick really wanted to try this place as he is huge into sci-fi movies. I knew going in I wasn't going to be super impressed. Of course an hour before our reservation it started pouring rain for the second night in a row. Sci-Fi was packed and we did have to wait about 15minutes. We were seating with a family of four in the last row. I did not get a picture of either of our dinners because I felt awkward :/ We both got a shake as our drink I got cookies n' cream, and Nick got the chocolate covered cherry, I preferred mine. Nick chose the strip steak and I had a bite, I did not care for the butter at all. Nick said it was alright, not his favorite. I had the Sci-Fi specialty burger which had pulled pork and coleslaw with some type of srirarcha bbq sauce. I'm not a buger eater, I don't know why I chose this. I had something else picked out and couldn't find it on the menu, but of course right after ordering I did. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't anything to write home about. I will say I hated the fries. I am a huge potato lover and usually love any kind (minus sweet potatoes) but I barely ate these. I didn't finish my burger either. For dessert we both got the Sci-Fi candy bar, we both liked it but I didn't finish mine. I'd get this again if I ever found myself here again. I did get a picture of this for some reason...

 

[auntfrannie]

Great reviews! The appetizer from Via Napoli does look really small. I went back through my pictures and when I had it back in 2011 there were 3 slices of meat and 3 pieces of cheese...along with one little pepper and a green olive.

 

[Nohal]

Congrats and looking forward to the rest of your reviews.

 

[archdandy]

It's understandable that you might have felt awkward taking pics at Sci-Fi. It's so dark so you would have had to use flash. DH and I enjoy going there for lunch when we are at HS but we usually just stick with the regular burgers and fries. They used to have this awesome peanut butter chocolate lava cake that was sooo good. I'm sad they took it off the menu

 

[isabellea]

Disappointed to read that Fairfax Fare hot dog wasn't good (stale bun ... yuck!). It's the only CS menu at DHS that looked somewhat interesting for our July trip. I think we will eat at SciFi for lunch and Mama Melrose for dinner instead of Fairfax for lunch and SciFi for dinner. Thanks for the review!

 

[alyssa18o6]

Disappointed to read that Fairfax Fare hot dog wasn't good (stale bun ... yuck!). It's the only CS menu at DHS that looked somewhat interesting for our July trip. I think we will eat at SciFi for lunch and Mama Melrose for dinner instead of Fairfax for lunch and SciFi for dinner. Thanks for the review!

We ate at Backlot express during Star Wars weekend and I felt like it was loads better. I would definitely eat there again in a heart beat.