One Veggie and One Not Eat The Whole World....Showcase, That Is! *UPDATE 6/4*

[laur roo]

Hi There!!!

Welcome to my first ever Dining Review! Thanks for choosing to relive our experience with us, I promise pictures of pretty much everything we ate, and then some!

I'm calling this review "One Veggie and One Not Eat the Whole World...Showcase, That Is!". It was one of my goals to eat or drink something from every World Showcase Country on this trip! Did we do it? I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out. But trust me, we ate a lot of other great places too!

So who was eating on this trip? Well it was me, Lauren, and my vegetarian mom. Here we are on our trip meeting the mouses themselves:

Our trip was from January 21st-February 1st 2012. We were not on a dining plan this time around. Usually we ate breakfast in our room, so if nothing is listed for breakfast we had fruit that we bought or granola bars or protein drinks. We had at least one table service meal each day (except the first day which was our travel day) and we ate some interesting meals! Here's the rundown of where we ate, and I'll use these as links once I have the reviews for each one posted!

January 21st:
Subway at CAK Airport
Riverside Mill for Dinner

January 22nd
Sanaa for Lunch
Columbia Harbour House for Dinner
Sleepy Hollow and Auntie Gravity for Snacks

January 23rd
Liberty Tree Tavern for Lunch
La Cantina de San Angel for Dinner

January 24th
Riverside Mill for Breakfast
Cafe Rix and Sunshine Seasons for Lunch
Nine Dragons for Dinner

January 25th
Le Cellier for Lunch
T-Rex for Dinner
Pollo Campero and BabyCakes for Dinner

January 26th
Boulangerie Patisserie and Tangierine Cafe for Lunch
Fife and Drum Tavern for Snacks
50's Primetime Cafe for Dinner

January 27th
Beaches and Cream for Lunch
The Wave for Dinner
Sunshine Seasons for Snacks

January 28th
Tony's Town Square for Lunch
Liberty Inn for Dinner
Fife and Drum Tavern and Kringla Bakeri Og Cafe for Snacks

January 29th
Garden View Tea Room for Tea/Lunch
Sommerfest and Rose & Crown Pub for Snacks
Columbia Harbour House and Cosmic Rays Cafe for Dinner
Aloha Isle for Snacks

January 30th
Pizzafari and Flame Tree Barbecue for Lunch
Espresso, Coffee and Pastry for Snacks
Teppan Edo for Dinner

January 31st
Starring Rolls for Breakfast
Pizza Planet for Lunch
Oasis Canteen for Snacks
Via Napoli for Dinner

February 1st
Cape May Cafe for Breakfast, Part One
Cape May Cafe for Breakfast, Part Two


Hopefully I'll have the first few posts up soon, once I sort through all our photos from the trip and get all the yummy food pics uploaded. Feel free to say hi in the meantime and ask any questions you might have! I know reading veggie dining reviews on here in the past helped me plan for trips with my mom, so I hope these reviews help others out too!

But until I get the photos ready, go pop yourself some popcorn and check back later!

 

[iloveeeyore]

I'm here and looking forward to reading your report.

That is a lot of Disney days!

 

[rznhal]

Hello!
We are flying out of CAK on Tuesday
Looking forward to reading some fellow buckeye reviews!!!!
Glad you had a good trip!!

 

[TigerKat]

Signing on!

 

[kelleigh1]

I'm in!

 

[laur roo]

I'm here and looking forward to reading your report.

That is a lot of Disney days!

Welcome! And yes, we did a lot of Disney days, but we weren't sure when we could get back to the World together!

Hello!
We are flying out of CAK on Tuesday
Looking forward to reading some fellow buckeye reviews!!!!
Glad you had a good trip!!

Don't you just love how small and easy flying out of CAK is? Hope all goes well for your trip! Even though I was just there, I'm jealous you're going now, lol! I always want to go back to the World!

Signing on!

Hooray! Welcome!

I'm in!

Awesome, I hope you enjoy the upcoming reviews!!



I should have the first day's posts up tomorrow night, I just started back up to work today, so it was a bit of a shock after being off since mid November! Gotta get back in work mode, but I still want to start reporting on all my fun!!! Thanks for joining in everyone!

 

[laur roo]

So the 21st was our travel day. We got to the CAK airport with plenty of time to spare. It's such a small airport with only like 12 gates so I knew the line for security would be non existant. So we hung out in the area outside of security to have some lunch before our flight. There's not much to choose from, but a pizza from Subway sounded good! I didn't know they even made pizzas, but they do. It's nothing fancy, they have a premade personal pizza and you can add toppings and more cheese and they bake it for you. I got mine with pepperoni and green peppers. Mom also got a pizza, hers had tomatoes, spinach, and green peppers. We also shared a sprite. Each of us ate half our pizza when we got it and the other half on the plane since it was pretty filling. I know I'm like, writing a novel about Subway pizza, but it's my only non-Disney food entry, and it actually was good!


Here's what the pizza itself looked like:

And a picture of CAK:

I don't remember that nice colored glass being up when I flew out of there last February, so I'm guessing that was added in the last year. It was nice too look at and hid the security area a little bit.

That's all for this update, and now onto some DISNEY FOOD!!!!

 

[laur roo]

When we got to Port Orleans Riverside, we went straight to check in. We had to wait in a small line despite it being after 9:00pm. We got our room assignment, 2nd floor in Magnolia Terrace. Since we had all our luggage with us, we went ahead to the room first and checked out the room (a refurbished room, hooray!) and dropped off our bags.

Then we headed right back to Riverside Mill to get some dinner. By this time it was after 10, so the one station was closed for the night. The grill was open, as was the pizza and pasta stations. I wasn't super hungry, so I opted for the kid's mac and cheese meal. Well, I decided on that after I picked up a Mickey rice crispy treat, because I had to have that!!! Got to have me my Mickey crispy! So I ended up with that and mac and cheese with carrots, grapes, and an apple juice. I also went ahead and bought a refillable mug since I knew I would use it a lot. Mom and I both picked out the blue mug, but we never had trouble remembering which mug belonged to who.

Mom did a create your own pasta. You can pick between three kinds of pasta and three sauces: marinara, alfredo, or pesto. Then you add what kinds of meat and/or veggies you want. I don't remember everything she got on it, but she had penne with marinara and peas and a lot of other veggies. You can watch them make it which is cool too! It was served with bread also.

One weird thing that happened was when we checked out, the cashier told mom that she got a drink with her meal. So mom asked what kind of drink and the lady was listing off what we could see over in the cooler. Mom went and got a soymilk and we paid and sat down. When we looked at the receipt, the cashier had charged us for the soymilk. I didn't get why she would say it came with a drink when it didn't. Mom decided to keep the soymilk for breakfast, but I just thought it was strange.

My spread:

Mom's food:

Another close up of Mom's:

And me enjoying my mac and cheese!

The pastas were hot and fresh, and there was plenty of mac and cheese for it being a kid's meal. I liked that I got carrots and grapes too. Mom's portion was huge, it would have been enough to share for sure! I devoured my Mickey crispy before we left, mom said she thought I was gonna save it for later, like I could wait for a yummy treat like that! Overall, we both enjoyed our food at Riverside Mill, and it was a good first night dinner!

 

[MelMel11]

Count me in!!!

 

[KristinAnne]

I'm in! Looks like great places!

 

[Momto2PrncChrmgs]

Subbing!

 

[laur roo]

Count me in!!!

Glad you're along for the ride!

I'm in! Looks like great places!

Welcome! I feel like we had some really great dining this time around, can't wait to get around to talking about some of the yummy meals!

Subbing!

Hooray! Glad you're here to read my reviews!

 

[kelleigh1]

That pizza looks really good! I don't think I've ever seen pizza at my local subway. What airport is that in?

 

[Linda67]

Looks like you ate at some great places

Count me in!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

some great places to write about. Can't wait for the rest as I really enjoyed the first two.

 

[vicki's mom]

Looking forward to your review.

 

[laur roo]

That pizza looks really good! I don't think I've ever seen pizza at my local subway. What airport is that in?

I think it's fairly new, it was at the Akron-Canton Airport. I also saw it at a mall food court a week or so before we left in the Cleveland area too. Maybe it's a trial thing? I haven't been in a Subway since so I don't know if my local ones offer it. Tasty though!!

Looks like you ate at some great places

Count me in!

Yay! I look forward to sharing some great reviews with you!

some great places to write about. Can't wait for the rest as I really enjoyed the first two.

I'm glad you liked the first couple of reviews! It's my first time writing reviews on the DIS, and I'm hoping to do a TR soon once I have time to upload a massive amount of photos! But for now, more food reviews!

Looking forward to your review.

Thanks! I hope you enjoy them

 

[laur roo]

Can I just start by saying how cool the Animal Kingdom Lodge is? I don't know that I would ever actually stay there, but gosh darn, I do love that theming! And you can't beat watching giraffes walk by when you eat lunch!

Anywho, on to the review of Sanaa. I have eaten here once before, for dinner, and mom had never been. This time we decided to try lunch since I wanted to have one of those open faced naan sandwiches that they do not offer at dinner. We took a little time to watch the animals since we arrived way before our ADR. These were taken from the observation area outside of the Kidani lobby.

It was awesome, because I like both zebras and giraffes! Then we went to check in for our ADR and were seated by the windows. The restaurant was very empty and they were only using the tables by the windows and maybe one or two others. The restaurant itself is really cool too, it looks like you're under a big tree!

It's full of really cool African touches too, art hanging all over the walls. I particularly liked this guy hanging near where we sat:

When we ordered, we both got waters and my mom had a few of the vegetarian options described to her. I knew what I wanted before we even got there, lol! I ordered the grilled lamb kefta naan open faced sandwich. After thinking it over, mom ordered the salad sampler, 3 different salads. Let me just say, I was not expecting such a huge lunch!

Mine:

Holy smokes, it was good! The naan I could have eaten like 5 of, it was so light and delicious. The lamb and the sauces on it had a little spicy kick which I was not expecting! And there was a lot of salad on there too. I did end up kind of deconstructing it to eat it, like I took off the lamb and cut it all up and then ate it with the salad and pulled apart the bread to eat with it.

Also, the little bubbles in the bread along with the sauce formed what was, in my opinion, a hidden mickey. So silly me took a picture of that too!

It's a little skewed, but it was funny to me and mom. Also, while we were eating, this bird was just chilling out by the window. I liked him!

Then he must have gotten tired of watching us eat:

And here is mom's salad sampler:

Starting on the left is the chickpeas with cucumber and tomato, then the kachumbar (pretty much a cucumber, tomato, and onion salad with some kind of dressing), and then the bhel puri, which was a big mix of different things with little crunchy noodles mixed it. She seemed to enjoy them all!

We contemplated dessert, but I couldn't even finish my meal and mom decided she might want something later, so we passed on that.

All in all, I was again impressed with Sanaa! The chef came out to the table next to us and gave the woman there a recipe since she loved her meal so much! I thought that was very cool of him to do. Our service and food there was excellent, so I would very much choose to eat there again someday!

 

[kelleigh1]

Sanaa looks good! We have Jiko on our list for the next trip, but I'm going to have to remember to put Sanaa on hold for the next time. I love AKL, although I've only seen it when we ate at Boma last time. Maybe for the future trip I'll also have to think about staying there.

As for the hidden Mickey...I took a picture of my bruise today which someone said looked like Mickey. I don't think I should post it here though since this is a thread about food. LOL

 

[laur roo]

Alright, this update is not big on the pictures now that I looked. I took one of the food but that's it.

We park hopped this day from AK to MK, and when we got to MK, we were hungry! We quickly decided on CHH. We've both eaten here before and were looking forward to it again!

Mom ordered the vegetarian chili and a side of steamed fresh broccoli. I got the fried fish basket with broccoli, and we shared a bottled water.

Mine is on the plate in the front, and mom's in the back. Mom liked hers very much. She's a pretty happy lady when she gets her veggies, lol. We would joke throughout the trip, "Having some veggies with your veggies?" I know, we're so funny, right?

I really, really liked mine! The fish was super hot and extra crispy. There were 3 pieces, it's hard to tell in the picture. I'm not normally a fish eater at home, but I really wanted to try this and I'm glad I did. I used just one pack of tartar sauce because the fish was great on it's own. And I ate every last bit of my food! The broccoli was also served hot, and stayed hot. You know how broccoli usually gets cold/soggy quickly, well this didn't! I was pleasantly surprised. A note though, it seemed like the broccoli was already salted when we got it. Neither of us minded, but if you want it plain, you might want to mention that when ordering.

All in all, another delicious meal!