Two Adults Dining Reviews 7/19-7/25 (no dining plan) (with some pics!)

[Sam345]

Background:
My boyfriend (we’ll call him DB) and I (both mid-20s) were in Disney from July 19-25. First two nights were at Pop, next four nights were at the Swan, which we LOVED! I had stayed at BCV by renting points in the past and it is my favorite, but since this was a relatively last-minute trip, we were lucky enough to find a great rate at the Swan and started off at Pop Century to save even more money and take advantage of Magical Express upon arrival.
It was his first trip to any Disney park, and my 5th trip. However, my last visit was over 4 years ago so I was really looking forward to it and was happy to try some new restaurants! FYI, we were NOT on any dining plan. Here we go:

Day 1 (dinner) – Pop Century Food Court
Everything Pop is adorable. I couldn’t decide what I wanted, and BF knew he wanted pepperoni pizza. I saw a cheese pizza sitting there that looked great so I went with that. We both had breadsticks as well.
Cheese pizza: Pretty good! Looked exactly how it tasted.
Pepperoni pizza: “It was okay. It’s what I expected.”
Breadsticks: I liked them because of the abundance of marinara dipping sauce. DB said they were just breadsticks, nothing special.
Dessert/snack: I had a brownie, DB had a cupcake. Brownie was fine, cupcake “tasted like a supermarket cupcake, wasn’t bad.”

Forgot to take pics of the food except the brownie

Day 2 (breakfast) – Pop Century Food Court
I had French toast and it was fine. I gave DB my sausage and bacon because we had a lunch ADR and I’m not much of a breakfast person.
DB had the Pop waffle, so cute!!! He liked that it said POP in the middle, and it was “a healthy size.” He says the sausage was good, but the bacon was lacking.

Day 2 (lunch) – Sci-Fi Dine In
We both had the burgers. Mine was with ketchup and grilled onions only. DB’s was with cheese. I'll just post the pic of his. I thought the burger was pretty good and the feeling was mutual.

DB also had a shake, which he says was just average. The consistency wasn’t right for a shake, you couldn’t really drink it with a straw and they didn’t give you a spoon because the straw was a slurpy-type spoon with the straw at the end. (To which I ask him: then why didn’t you just ask for a spoon? But whatever! He’s the type that won’t ask for a fork as he struggles with his chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant.)

I ordered the chocolate peanut butter cake because I can’t resist ordering a chocolate peanut butter dessert anywhere. I usually will like anything which has this combo. NOT THIS! It was terrible. I was once on Jenny Craig to lose a few lbs and there was this microwaveable double chocolate cake they offered as a dessert. I used to spread a small amount peanut butter on it to enhance the flavor. This Sci-Fi cake tasted just like that… which was fine while on Jenny Craig but not for over $8.00 while at a restaurant on vacation. It was so dry and just not good at all. Glad the ice cream was there to moisten it up!

Day 2 (dinner) – Lotus Blossom Café
Since we both like orange chicken I took us to China counter service. We both had the orange chicken with steamed rice, and I also had potstickers.
I thought the orange chicken was good – the sauce was a little red and oozy looking to me, but the more I ate it, the more I enjoyed it. The potstickers were good too. DB thought the orange chicken was pretty good, especially for a counter service, and “the sauce on the chicken doesn’t look appetizing but it tastes good.” He noted that there are hardly any vegetables (which was good for us!) if that’s what you’re looking for. As for the rice, he said it was okay and what you’d expect – you can tell that it’s been sitting in the steamer for a while but it was still good.

Day 2 (snacks) – Pop Century Food Court
DB had a tie-dye cheesecake because I don’t like cheesecake but I think those are really cute, so I pushed him into it. He said it was mediocre, just a cheap cheesecake, but it made him mad that the red part in the picture was actually cake and not cheesecake. (His opinions are not mine, fyi, I want to defend the cheesecake but I didn’t try it!)

 

[Sam345]

Day 3 (lunch) – Pecos Bill’s
Skipped breakfast to make the rope drop at MK early entry. Ended up at Pecos Bill’s around 11am. Already so crowded and chaotic! I had the double burger plain and added TONS of grilled onions from the toppings bar! I always eat my burgers with grilled onions and ketchup only and it was great to just pile them on. DB had the bacon double cheeseburger. We both agreed that the meat itself was average and kind of dry, but we did enjoy the toppings bar! DB added a ton of cheese sauce to his (ewww).

Day 3 (dinner) – Wolfgang Puck Express
I remembered while planning this trip that I HAD to come back here. And it’s still great! I had the spaghetti with tomato, basil and garlic which came with a Caesar salad and bread. All VERY good.

DB had the four-cheese macaroni and Caesar salad. He said it was good – “different because it wasn’t actually macaroni pasta, it was penne type pasta, and it was good!” This is high praise from him. He said the salad was good too.

We shared the garlic mashed potatoes – actually, I had most of them. AMAZING. I remembered them from my last trip over 4 years ago and they were just as good.

Day 4 (lunch) – Yak and Yeti table service
I was excited about this, but it ended up being a mess and totally not worth the $70 price tag. I went there knowing I wanted the honey chicken after seeing pictures, and also because I’m slightly picky and nothing else on the menu made me want to order it.

So I asked our server if I could get the honey chicken without broccoli. He went into a huge speech about how they recently changed the sauce and it’s TERRIBLE and BLAND and no one should ever eat it. I was stunned and basically like “it’s okay, I can totally pick out the broccoli if that’s the issue.” He said that oh no, they would take it out if I really wanted this dish. I said “Yes, I’m still going to order it.” He just made things awkward. I understand if he wanted to help, but he made me feel like I was insulting him for ordering the honey chicken and it should not have been that way. He was just a bitter old biddy and it really riled me up.

We had potstickers first and those were fine (forgot to take a picture). The honey chicken ended up being fine and I finished it with no complaints – NOT worth 17.99 but I knew nothing was going to be worth that price. (My local P.F. Chang’s in the middle of downtown Chicago offers a superior, bigger portion of honey chicken for about $4 less, but whatever, it was vacation.)
DB’s sweet and sour chicken was okay, BUT the portion size for the price was ridiculous because the pineapple/onions/etc outnumbered the chicken by a LOT. There were about 5 little pieces of chicken in there. He chose fried rice with it, and said was pretty good.

I was all set to get the brownie sundae for two, but at that point we just wanted to get out of there and not deal with the server, so we didn’t do dessert. Also, I had an inkling that we’d end up at BEACHES AND CREAM later so I wanted to save room!!!!

Day 4 (dinner) – Beaches and Cream
At my last trip 4 years ago, this was my favorite place to eat. And nothing has changed!!!

We arrived a little after 6pm and were seated right away. Our server was the complete opposite of our server at Yak and Yeti – sweet, kind, and amazing! He asked to take a picture of us with our camera with our sundaes. I gave him a huge tip just because he made my day.

I had the double burger with grilled onions and ketchup (my usual burger!) It was like a religious experience. It was literally the best burger of my life and I eat burgers on a fairly regular basis. They do something with the bun to make it greasy and amazing. LOVED IT. I subbed onion rings and they were great too.

DB had the double bacon cheeseburger. “Really greasy, good, meat was a LITTLE dry, fries were good.” He liked it.

Then we had dessert even though we were about to keel over after the burgers. I had a brownie sundae without whipped cream but WITH peanut butter. AMAZING as I remembered.

DB had the the No Way Jose! Thoughts: “Too much! It was good, recommend sharing.” He is full of it – he finished the whole thing.

 

[Sam345]

Day 5 (lunch) – The Fountain
Ate at the Fountain at the Dolphin (I reaaally loved the S/D, period, but this is a dining review post so I’ll talk about that elsewhere). (We’d had ice cream here at the Fountain two nights prior and it was really really good. I didn’t do a review because I had pictures, but the portion size of my brownie sundae was HUGE and I had this peanut butter ice cream on it and it was the best ice cream I’ve had in recent memory.)

For lunch that day, I ordered a hot dog with chili, and subbed fries in place of the chips. The food prices here are kind of nuts. It costs $2.25 to sub fries for chips – seriously? Fries should be the default in my opinion. But again, it’s vacation.

The hot dog was VERY BIG which made me less annoyed with the price. The fries were good. Hot dog wasn’t the most flavorful, but was very adequate.
DB had the chicken Caesar salad. “Dressing and chicken both very good, big, fills you up.”

For dessert I ordered a scoop of the peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter cups. About ¼ way through, I noticed that this wasn’t the peanut butter ice cream I remembered, but I wasn’t sure if I was just mistaken. I looked at the flavors list and realized that it was probably cappuccino ice cream and a mixup (they are similar in color). Our server was so awkward and delicate that I just ate the ice cream that I was given – I didn’t want to upset him in any way! Plus, I had already eaten half of it at this point trying to determine if there was any peanut butter flavor or not. For one scoop, this was a HUGE portion and their ice cream and sundaes are actually a good value.

DB had a scoop of cookies and cream ice cream on a sugar cone. He said the ice cream was good, the cone was average.

Day 5 (dinner) – Tutto Italia
We don’t have pictures of this because I was a little embarrassed to take them. This place wasn’t really my cup of tea. The food was fine (albeit overpriced, which I knew going into it) but the whole atmosphere rubbed me the wrong way. The server was nice but the employees act like it’s this posh dining experience, which it would be if it wasn’t in the middle of Epcot with a sweaty, shorts-clad clientele (including myself). It would be different if it were in a resort, but it isn’t. Everything here just seemed out of place. Also, this was the only ADR where I mentioned on the phone (after being asked) that we were celebrating an anniversary. There was no mention of it, which was fine because I just wanted to leave. I’m going to avoid these table service World Showcase restaurants in the future, and if I want fine Italian dining I’ll go to Il Mulino.

For what it’s worth, I had the penne caprese (decent, but bland) and DB had the lasagna (very good!). I also had the Caesar salad which was good.

Day 6 (lunch) – Beaches and Cream
Amazing again. This time we had single burgers (no pictures because we already took some above). In retrospect we both wish we had ordered doubles =) it was still a lot of food though. I had the same brownie sundae with peanut butter again, and DB had a two-scoop sundae with caramel. All very good.

Day 6 (snack) Funnel Cake from Magic Kingdom
DB really wanted to review his funnel cake. He wishes he could have enjoyed it more but I was dragging him to the Carousel of Progress (my favorite ) so he had to eat it on the run. The stand did not have forks, only knives, so he had a hard time eating it. But it was very good.

Day 6 (last night dinner) – ‘Ohana
What a nice experience. I originally had a Chef Mickey’s ADR for our last night but am so glad I changed it after reading reviews of the food at both restaurants. We had a 9:20 ADR but were able to get in at 8:50 because I wanted to get done in time to enjoy the late EMH’s back at MK. What I didn’t realize is that we’d get to see Wishes at 10:00pm! They piped in the sound from the show and everything and we were right by the windows to see it. Loved it.

The food was good at the time but I felt kind of sick afterwards. Sorry I don’t have pictures of everything but here is what I do have. I’m not a huge salad person but it was probably my favorite part!!! DB said it was all good - a LOT of food.

Day 7 (lunch) – Fountain

No pics but we both had hot dogs with fries and then some onion rings to share. DB’s hot dog had cheese on it and mine was plain. Both were fine and onion rings were fine and a huge portion for the price.
That was it! We were so sad to leave and are already plotting a return in the next year or so (finances permitting…)

 

[donaldtutter]

Awesome reviews!!!

 

[mossyflossy]

fab reviews...beaches & cream looks amazing!

 

[Leslieann1024]

Loved your reviews, thanks so much for sharing ! Btw, I really liked your review style - informative, to the point, yet descriptive !

 

[Targsmom]

Day 2 (snacks) – Pop Century Food Court
DB had a tie-dye cheesecake because I don’t like cheesecake but I think those are really cute, so I pushed him into it. He said it was mediocre, just a cheap cheesecake, but it made him mad that the red part in the picture was actually cake and not cheesecake. (His opinions are not mine, fyi, I want to defend the cheesecake but I didn’t try it!)

The cheesecake is nasty. We had it when we were there two years ago. We threw it out. And I also was made that most of it was "cake" and not cheesecake.

 

[Flossbolna]

Thanks for the reviews! I can understand your sentiment about Tutto Italia very well. However, the one TS restaurant in a theme park where I did find the atmosphere very fitting was Japan. Both Teppan Edo as well as Tokyo Dining have a very modern feel to them. I think this goes very well to create an elegant atmosphere where T-shirts still aren't out of place. And Teppan Edo was a lot of fun to watch!

 

[natalielongstaff]

oooh fab piccies, im hungry just looking at them

 

[wilma-bride]

Great reviews, thanks for posting.