Our Quest for American Food - and Pictures of it

[Flossbolna]

I have been meaning to start writing my dining review since we got back from WDW in February, but finally got round to start it.

I was travelling with a friend from law-school, Carola. We are both in our mid-thirties and this was our second trip to WDW together.

Both of us are from Germany, so some of our views with regard to the food might be due to the fact that American food is foreign food to us and we made a point of trying to eat things we would not get at home, eating as "American" as possible.

We were on the Dining Plan and yes, we saved money and yes, it is very much food! I had acutally sat down and made a plan of where we would want to eat, what we would likely order there if we were not on the plan and it turned out that without any snacks taken into account we would save about 2 $ per day. So we decided to go ahead and get the plan because it was so easy to have everything prepaid. In the end we "saved" much more, because we ordered much more food than we would have otherwise because it was already paid for.

But now let's start the review.

Wednesday, February 7

This was our travel day. Our plane to Washington, DC left Munich at 11:30 am and with all the extra security for flights to the USA we got to the airport very early and had breakfast at a very stylish counter service place called "aran" which was very good. This is a picture of Carola's hot choclate (these are real rose petals on the tray):

I know, it is not strictly Disney food, but I thought it looked so nice! So if you ever happen to be at Terminal 2 of Munich Airport, this is the best place for a nice snack or a light meal!!

The flight and the food served during it were uneventful. The only culinary comment here might be that I was a bit afraid I would not be able to get enough water during the flight as we could not take any liquid more than the small 100 ml containers with us. In Munich there is a second security check for the US flights and after that there is no shop to stock up on water bootles. But United provided us with so much water, they regularly came through offering water refills. Same on the way back with Lufthansa.

I practised taking food pictures with the airline food, but these had to go to make space for more important pictures later on during our trip. I tried to get into the habit of always taking a picture before I would eat anything. Well, I was quite good at taking pictures, however, twice I forgot to take the camera with me to dinner. But it is quite a job to always remember the pictures!!

We changed planes at Dulles International Airport and then Magical Express got us to AKL arond 8:30 pm Orlando time, which was 2:30 am for us. We decided that we had to get something to eat so that we would not wake up in the middle of the night. We got our refillabel mugs from Mara (and we used them a lot during our trip!) and I got a fruit salad and Carola had the yoghurt parfait. The fruit cup was very nice fresh fruit (melon and grapes) and Carola really loved her yoghurt parfait. Both were snack credits on DDP. I was too tired at this moment to think about getting pictures, sorry!

 

[Flossbolna]

Thursday, February 8

Breakfast from Mara

This was an early morning for us as we went to Epcot for rope drop. We had a light breakfast on our balcony with drinks in our mugs, Earl Grey tea for me and hot choclate for Carola. I had a cinnamon roll and Carola had the carrot cake. We were both very pleased with our choices and had the same breakfast again on a later day. The roll and the cake were both very fresh. We used another two snack credits on DDP for these. I asked at the Mara whether I could take the tray to the room with me and she said no problem, just leave it in the room, housekeeping will take it away when they clean the room.

After a good night's rest I at least remembered to take a picture of the carrot cake, the cinnamon roll is from two days later, but looked the same on Thursday. This is my cinnamon roll:

And this is Carola's carrot cake:

Lunch at Sunshine Seasons (Epcot)

At Epcot we had a very early lunch at Sunshine Seasons:

We got there when they just started to serve lunch at 11:00 am. Since our bodies were still on German time we felt like 5 pm, so the first big meal of the day was very welcome!! We had a very hard time choosing because everything looked so good!

I had the Seared Tuna on Mixed Greens. I was served with a Sesame Rice Wine Dressing which was a bit exotic, but very good. I loved the tuna. This was the first time I had seared tuna in my life and was very glad I tried it. The greens were baby greens and very fresh. I was a bot afraid because there was no bread to go with it, only a few fried potatoe strips to go with it, and I often find a salad a bit too overpowering in taste if I have nothing to neutralise the taste buds inbetween. But the salad was great as it was, It was a very refreshing lunch! For dessert I had the Creme Brulee. This was very rich and but good. This is a picture of my lunch:

Carola had the grilled salmon with mashed potatoes:

She is a great fan of mashed potatoes, something that very rarely is served in German restaurants. So she was always happy to have her potatoes this way. She was extremely happy with her meal, actually she ordered it again a few days later. I tasted a bit of her food and really liked it, too. Her dessert was the strawbery shortcake. It is sponge cake layers filled with wipped cream and strawberries and was delightful (we actually shared both desserts). It tasted very light (but with all the cream I am sure it was not light at all!). The only thing I did not like aboout it was the strawberry sauce on top, it tasted very sweet and artificial and was not necessary at all.

Each of us used one CS credit. As stated before, we liked the place so much that we returned again at a later day.

Dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe (Wilderness Lodge)

After a nice and relaxing afternoon break (we were still battling the jet lag) we had an ADR at Whispering Canyon Cafe for 6:20 pm. We left AKL around 5:00 pm to take the bus to the MK and then the boat to WL. Everything went very smoothly, so we got to WL with over 30 min to spare and took our time checking out the hotel a bit. We checked in 10 minutes before our ADR. We were told that it would be a 20 min wait and were given our pager. The lady checking us in was a bit unfriendly, very short. She would not even tell us how long the wait would be, just mentioned the 20 min after I asked her. She also said that she did not know whether the pager worked in the shop. Our experience was that most people checking us into the restaurants were not friendly, the only notable exceptions were Jiko and California Grill.

Well, fortunately it was less than 10 min until ou pager ent off and we were seated i a small room just off the main room. I was a bit dissappointed at first because we had the exact same table in 2004 on our first visit and I had felt a bit left out from the antics of the restaurant then. But this time we really liked the table. It was not so noisy there, but we got quite a lot of action from our server, I think her name was Prarie Gras Girl (at least this is what I can come up with from the receipt). She was a lot of fun, but not over the top and we saw many "ketchup events".

Carola and I both opted for the skillet and the bottomless milkshake as a drink.
Those are our first milkshakes:

I had orange and Carola had strawberry. I liked mine, it was a special taste. I am not used to orange taste mixed with cream, but liked it a lot. Our second milkshakes were chocolate ones and these were delicious, too!

For the skillet the starter on DDP is set as the Mixed Greens tossed in apple vinaigrette dressing with tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. The salad is served with corn bread. The salad was fresh and we both agreed that the corn bread was fantastic. But then, corn bread is a foreign speciality to us, so I have no idea, whether for someone who eats a lot of corn bread this was a good or a not so good corn bread.

I was still having troubles remebering to take pictures, so these were taken when we more or less had finished with the salad and the corn bread:

Then the skillet arrived:

Once again, this is very "ethnic" food to us. We loved it as much as in 2004. WCC was our favourite restaurant on our last trip and we were certain to return here for a meal this time. The skillet had corn on the cob, mashed potaoes (Carola's favourite item), baked beans, pulled pork, sausages, pork ribs and roasted chicken. I especially liked the pulled pork and the ribs. The sausage did not convince me, but then the place I come from, Nuremberg is the German capital of the Bratwurst, so I am a bit bpicky with regard to sausages. I really liked the beans, too, they had a barbecue taste. We got seconds of a few items.

After all this food we decided not to have desserts and our server did not at all push us towards dessert when we told her that we would not have some. She was actually a very good server, very friendly and always making sure that we had everything we needed. However, this was the first time that we noticed that our server dissappeared for some time now and then. We suspected that the servers are responsible for actually preparing the drinks. Especially when someone ordered a milkshake she was gone for quite some time (not more than 5 min or so, but noticeable). In Germany service is done differently, so this seemed interesting to us.

It was a great meal, we had a lot of fun, and the service was good. I am sure that on my next trip to WDW I will eat there again and would definitely reccomend it to all foreign visitors for a very American experience!

Next day will be Flame Tree Barbecue and Wolfgang Puck Cafe. I promise it will not be three months until the next installment!

 

[whogirl'smom]

I love reading your take on American food! I can't believe they don't have mashed potatoes in Germany....I just read on another thread the other day that the Brits don't eat peanut butter and jelly together on a sandwich! (another American staple!) I just love the Dis teaching us so much about each other! I'm so glad I found your report today--great start and I look forward to the next installment .

 

[Belle5]

I am really enjoying your reviews! I know a Carola from Germany, myself.

 

[Flossbolna]

I love reading your take on American food! I can't believe they don't have mashed potatoes in Germany....I just read on another thread the other day that the Brits don't eat peanut butter and jelly together on a sandwich! (another American staple!) I just love the Dis teaching us so much about each other! I'm so glad I found your report today--great start and I look forward to the next installment .

Thanks for the nice comment. Actually, we have mashed potatoes in Germany, but it is not very often served in restaurants. And I never heard of mashed potatoes with anything in it it, so all the garlic mashed potatoes and other ways to prepare it, always rather intrigued me!

I am really enjoying your reviews! I know a Carola from Germany, myself.

Glad you liked it! Carola is quite a common name in Germany, much more than mine: Magdalene

 

[BCV23]

I'm enjoying your reviews very much. It will be fun to read your take on American food.

If I'm ever in Munich's airport, I'm going to try to get a hot chocolate from aran...it looks great!

 

[Swimnoid]

Great review! MORE MORE!

 

[BriarRosie]

I'm really enjoying reading that American food is "exotic", and it some ways, I guess it is. There are many regional American foods, and in some ways, I'd find certain items to be exotic to me, too. Great report so far!

 

[Cass]

Great report and photos, thanks for posting them.

That non-disney hot chocolate was very pretty!

 

[luvhockey]

A great start. I love reading the dining and trip reviews of people from other countries. It's nice to have the different points of view.
Anxiously waiting for more.

 

[Maggi May]

Great report! Can't wait to hear your reviews of more restaurants, especially Jiko and California Grill.

It's funny to hear a barbecue platter at Whispering Canyon Cafe being called ethnic food. It's wonderful to hear perspectives on American food from other parts of the world. Disney does a pretty good job of presenting some of the best of American-style food, especially cuisine found and some of the more upscale restaurants. It's a shame, though, that the American pavillion in Epcot just has burgers and fries. Why not feature American food from around the country -- soul food, Maryland crab cakes, Cajun, lobster rolls and clam chowder, bratwurst, Indian frybread . . . .

OK, I digress, back to your report!

 

[Flossbolna]

thanks for all the nice comments! I enjoyed reading dining reviews before my trip so much that I was absolutely determined to write one when I got back, too!

One thing I noticed about American food was that I thought that it was much more common to combine sweet and savoury tastes than we would do, e.g. bacon with waffles for breakfast, the slight sweet taste of barbecue sauce etc.

But on with the next day:

Friday, February 9

Another breakfast from Mara

We started the morning again with a cinnamon roll for me on the balcony. I think Carola had another yoghurt parfait. This were another 2 snack credits.

We enjoyed early morning on the balcony a lot, even though it was a bit chilly a few mornings. In my opinion this is one of the advantages of AKL, all rooms have balconies!

Lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue (Animal Kingdom)

We did rope drop at Animal Kingdom this morning (managed to get on second train of Expedition Everest!!) and had another early lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue around 11 am. We had eaten there in 2004 and liked it. I was not sure whether we should have another barbecue meal after our meal the day before at WCC. However, we really liked the outdoor seating area:

So we decided that as we do not get barbecued food at home, we could definitely eat it two days in a row. Both of us got the ribs meal which came with corn on the cob and baked beans.

It definitely was an "exotic" meal for us. I love corn and being able to get it as a vegetable in a restaurant was great! Barbecue sauce is available here in Germany, but again not commonly used. I really liked the barbecue sauce they had there. And the beans were good, too. I know there have been mixed reviews on the quality of the ribs. Ours were a bit cooler than I would have liked them, but not cold, just more warm than hot. The meat however was very good and tender. We were very pleased with our meal, we were just shocked at the size of the portion. I just managed to finish the ribs because I liked them so much, but was so full afterwards. We also got a side order of onion rings (only place you can get them in Germany is at Burger King), but I found them to be very greasy and was too busy trying to finish my ribs to really care for them.

For desert Carola had the key lime pie and I had the frozen lemonade. The key lime pie was okay, but I am not a great fan of key lime pie, Carola liked it better. The frozen lemonade on the other hand was a strange thing. On the top was a lot of rather tasteless ice and in the bottom was a very strong tasting sirup. After having eaten quite a lot of the tasteless ice, I finally started to try to mix the two with each other and that was much better. But in my opinion the cup was just way to big. I found it interesting that the nutrition information on the package stated that the cup contained two servings...

On that day I started to realize that the desert that comes with the CS credits sounds great, but with the serving sizes at WDW it is absolutely unnecessary for me.

We used two CS for both of us and this is another restaurant that I will happily return to on another trip, unless the new restaurant in Asia or the Tusker house buffet will be so interesting that I have to try them.

Dinner at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe (Downtown Disney)

When making the ADRs we were intrigued by an Austrian becoming a famous chef in California, but then it seems the Californians have a certain partiality for Austrians. They even elected one as governour... We wanted to eat one TS meal in DTD anyway so the options on the DDP were not too many to start with and Austrian-Californian-cross-over-couisine sounded intriguing enough to ignore the mixed reviews WPC and decided that it was special enough to be considered a "foreign" experience.

We had ADRs for 7 pm. Originally we had planned to get to Downtown Disney in the afternoon, do a bit of shopping, then have dinner and end the evening at the Adventurer's Club. Carola left AK early afternoon to relax in the hotel while I kept running around AK because I had just fallen in love with this park. In 2004 I could not really see the point of AK, but this time had given it much more time and enjoyed it very much. So I was running late coming back to the hotel to start with. Then it turned out that Carola very much suffered from the jet lag and would like to rest a bit longer and somehow our plan (or to be more precise: my plan) did not work out anymore. We were debating cancelling our ADR and have a CS dinner some other place in Downtown Disney. But then we decided to just get to DTD and ask at WPC whether we could be seated earlier. This was the only time that I was feeling a bit annoyed about the fact that we were so unflexible with the ADRs made months before our trip.

We finally arrived at WCP around 6 pm. They said it was no problem at all to seat us right away. So I guess we could have come without ADR at that time, too. We asked for an outdoor table and were immediately seated just at the beginning of the long outdoor seating area. This was the view from our table:

We really liked the table as we could also watch the people walking by. Sitting outside was great as it was much less noisy than inside the restaurant. When I went to the bathroom I realized that all the reviews that stated that this was a noisy restaurant did not exaggerate!

Our server (whose name I forgot, sorry!) was nice and quite good. In order to be able to eat all our planned meals (including two signature restaurants) we had to save credits somewhere. As we had had the big lunch we decided that we would share a meal at WPC. When we told our server, she was not too pleased about this and tried to convice us that we should share at a different place. I knew that at WPC they only get a fixed tip anyway and had planned on tipping extra. But of course she could not know this. After this I was a bit afraid that we would get really bad service from her, especially since foreign tourists often are not aware of how important tipping is. But I am happy to report that this was not the case! She was great and did not even charge us for the second soft drink! Of course we left a generous tip (and I have researched tipping ettiquette here on the DIS boards a lot, so I knew what to do!)

For a starter we had the Barbeque Chicken Quesadilla:

It was very tasty, but I could not detect very much barbeque in it. Still, I would happily eat it again, I liked it a lot! Also, sharing this between the two of us, it was just the right size for a starter.

For our entree we decided on a pizza. And now I am sorry to say that I am not sure what kind of pizza we had. I think it was a pepperoni pizza, but on the menues I can find on the internet, the pepperoni pizza does not come with mushrooms, but ours had garlic sauteed mushrooms on top as you can see:

It was a very good pizza, I liked the mushrooms a lot as well as the fact there were fresh tomatoes on top. This was definitely not very exotic for us, but pizza is something that is easy to share and we were in the mood for comfort food and not experiments.

I had a glass of wine (I think it was a Zinfandel so at least the wine was Californian) which was nice and refreshing.

Even though we had shared the meal we were so full that we again passed on dessert, also we wanted to get started with our shopping, which in the end did take us so long that we never made it to the Adventurer's Club - another reason to return to WDW!

We really liked WPC, the food was very tasty and felt very fresh. With the number of meals these restaurants turn out every evening I think a lot of the food must be prepared, but at WPC it did not at all taste like mass produced food, but like very high quality fresh food. I still think our plan of shopping in the afternoon followed by a dinner at DTD and then a bit of nightlife is a good plan and hopefully I will get to realize this plan the next time and will be considering to return to WPC for a nice sit down dinner. Especially if the wheather is warm enough but not too hot for sitting outside to avoid the very busy dining room! But I think it sounds like DTD offers interesting CS meals, too, so especially if I were not on the DDP, I think I might rather eat a CS meal at Wolfgang Puck Espress or Earl of Sandwich.

Next day will be Pecos Bill's and Kona Cafe.

 

[Kim321]

Great reviews and pictures! I'm enjoying it a lot!

 

[kathyg]

Thanks so much for the great reviews and pictures...Can't wait to read more

 

[J.C.&ALI'SMOM]

This is great! I love hearing a different perspective so thanks for sharing them with us. I have to say your photos are very good. I really like the one of the seating area at Flame Tree

As a side note, my mother lived in Germany as a young child and my dad absolutely loved the time he spent there in the Army in the '60's. They often speak of returning for a vacation. I actually bought him a baseball cap from the Germany pavilion in Epcot as a gift when we were on our trip in February. What are your impressions of the German pavilion in Epcot?

 

[natalielongstaff]

your reviews are very good

 

[swankybeth]

Great reviews, I'm really enjoying your perspective on American food and looking forward to the next installment.

 

[Flossbolna]

This is great! I love hearing a different perspective so thanks for sharing them with us. I have to say your photos are very good. I really like the one of the seating area at Flame Tree

As a side note, my mother lived in Germany as a young child and my dad absolutely loved the time he spent there in the Army in the '60's. They often speak of returning for a vacation. I actually bought him a baseball cap from the Germany pavilion in Epcot as a gift when we were on our trip in February. What are your impressions of the German pavilion in Epcot?

I loved getting an impression of the atmosphere of the restaurants when reading dining reviews therefore I tried to take a few pictures of the restaurants as well as of the food. Thanks for the compliment on my photos!

I am sure your parents would love a vacation in Germany. There is a lot to see (castles, medieval and modern cities, beautiful landscapes and so on) and over the last 20 years it has become much more accessible for foreign tourists, most people in the tourist industry speak English and for example on the long distance trains announcements are made in English as well as in German.

I actually like the German pavillion a lot. I think it is very beautiful, some of the buildings that are copied there I have seen in real life and the pavillion does them justice. It is a bit strange because all these famous buildings are put together, so actually no place in Germany would look so pictoresque as the German pavillion, but that's true with all the pavillions. The shops offer a lot of really typical high quality German products (especially the sweets!). I think they did a great job there, I just wish they would have added the planned ride along German rivers... Oh, and I have not tried Biergarten yet, there always seemed to be other more interesting options, but I have started to think it would be fun to try on a future trip!

 

[coconutsunshine]

love your review so far!! Keep the pictures coming

 

[tndisneyfan]

I love your reivews and photos. Like others have said it's interesting read the reviews of someone from another country, but it's funny to hear someone refer to barbecue as ethnic .