Two trips means twice the food

[kizzy]

After a brief hiatus to visit Universal Studios (I know, I know--but the kids won out and Royal Pacific Resort is actually pretty awesome and relaxing) last year, we are once again heading to WDW for spring break. The added bonus is that we are going back in July with family members who are making their first trip ever to Disney. Yay--count us in. Two trips to plan and twice the food.

I have a confusing mess of ADR's for both trips.

Me (40-ish) and vegetarian; DH (40-ish) and eats anything and DS15 (picky beyond words) are going with friends for the first week of April. DS19 is in college and is missing out on this trip. He is not entirely happy about that, but is appeased somewhat by the July trip. First time in 12 years that we have not traveled together as a family for spring break. Kind of sad, but it will be a lot cheaper not to have to feed him on this trip.

Anyway, here's where we are planning to eat next week:

Raglan Road
Via Napoli
BlueZoo
Il Mulino
La Hacienda (count me in for the margaritas)
Tusker House breakfast
Crystal Palace breakfast
Saana
Kouzzina
50s Prime Time
Columbia Harbor House
Flame Tree BBQ
Garden View Tea (I swear, this is finally going to be the year that I make it to the tea at the GF. I have tried about 10 times to get there, to no avail.)
Biergarten

Even though it seems like we have eaten at every restaurant Disney has to offer over the past 12 years, many of them on the list above are new to us, so I am excited to try new things. Any thoughts or suggestions? I am thinking about adding Narcosees. Maybe. And, I am addicted to Pinkberry frozen yogurt, so I am going to make DH take me to find the new one in Orlando.


In July, we will be traveling with DBIL and DSIL and their eight-year old twin girls. Our list so far includes:

Ohana
50s Prime Time
Sci Fi Theatre
Rose and Crown
San Angel Inn
Rainforest Cafe at AK
The Plaza

That's it so far on the July list. I'm not sure if we will have park hoppers yet, so that may change the planning. Since I have two sons, I have never planned a Disney trip for girls. Fun, but different!

 

[CreightonsMomma]

I'm in!

 

[lovemickeyshouse]

Looking forward to reading your report

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

Looks great! No princess meals for the girls? Not that I was a girly princesss girl, just curious!

 

[kizzy]

Looks great! No princess meals for the girls? Not that I was a girly princesss girl, just curious!

I know, right? I thought they would want princess/character meals. But they are 8 going on 16, and they think the character stuff is 'baby-ish' for them. Go figure.

Thanks for joining in. I spend waay too much time reading reviews when I am planning a trip--makes it much more fun! And to get to do it again when we get back is the icing on the cake.

 

[TigerKat]

The Royal Pacific Resort is awesome!! Count me in, you're going to two of my favorite places BlueZoo & Il Mulino.

 

[podsnel]

I'll be there next week, too- but just a quick trip for us... I'll look forward to your reviews when we get back!

 

[MickeyNicki]

What a delish line up!

 

[kizzy]

The Royal Pacific Resort is awesome!! Count me in, you're going to two of my favorite places BlueZoo & Il Mulino.

I am going to miss lunches by the pool at Royal Pacific! I am excited for BlueZoo and Il Mulino. We've never eaten there, but have heard great things about both. I have the $25 gift certificates ($2 sale) for both places.

I'll be there next week, too- but just a quick trip for us... I'll look forward to your reviews when we get back!

Looks like the weather is going to be great--I'm excited! Have a great trip!

What a delish line up!

Can't wait for all the food! Hope we made good choices--many of them are new to us.

 

[kizzy]

Just back today and I am still full from all the food! Here is the final line-up:

Tusker House
Everything Pop Food Court
Via Napoli--twice
La Hacienda
50's Prime Time
Il Mulino
Whispering Canyon Cafe
Kona Cafe
Kouzzina
Captain Cook's
Numerous (too numerous) snacks/drinks

Most were hits--there were a few misses in the bunch. We were with friends who had different tastes/ideas on where to eat, so had to change around some of the original ADR's. For the most part, it worked. But once again, I failed to make it to the Garden View Tea. Also am disappointed that we didn't eat at BlueZoo, but DS15 wanted pizza and my wrinkled, sweaty pile of laundry at the end of the week didn't add up to a very chic outfit for any of us for BlueZoo and I was afraid we'd be underdressed. Next time, I will take something specific to wear. Sorry, I did not take pictures--sadly, I didn't take very many pictures during the entire 8-day trip, which is uncharacteristic of me. But DS15 (and DH) for the most part are not overly excited about having to stop to have their pictures taken, so it was actually kind of liberating not to carry around a camera. But I will share our thoughts on each of the restaurants above.

 

[02AggieGirl]

I'm in!! We are going to try Via Napoli in October and I can't wait to read your review....I'm assuming you liked it since you went twice!!

We loved Tusker House...so I'm anxious to see how you liked it!!

 

[irishsharon]

Looking forward to your reviews

 

[dumbotink'smom]

Can't wait to read it!

 

[kizzy]

I'm in!! We are going to try Via Napoli in October and I can't wait to read your review....I'm assuming you liked it since you went twice!!

We loved Tusker House...so I'm anxious to see how you liked it!!

We LOVED Via Napoli--changed our last night reservations from BlueZoo to eat there. But like I said earlier, that was partly due to the fact that my clothes were all a sweaty, wrinkly mess after eight days at Disney and not chic enough for BlueZoo. They freaked me out with all the dress code instructions. Worse than our country club back in the day! We did not regret that choice.

I am still full from Tusker House--seriously.

Looking forward to your reviews

Thanks! I have to get in the groove of writing them. I am suffering from vacation withdrawal today and I had a ton of voicemails and emails waiting for me at work. Reality is not nearly as much fun as Disney. Just call me Eeyore.

Can't wait to read it!

I will start writing tonight. Thanks for reading!

 

[Chaitali]

I'm excited to hear about your meals I'm a vegetarian who'll be making two trips to Disney Worlds this year too.

 

[kizzy]

And so it begins... (fair warning--this first post does not have a lot to do with Disney food, but since it is part of the trip, and the journey begins with the first meal, I am including it, along with a little background.)

Most of my trips are planned around food. Heck, I guess you could say I plan my life around food. We eat out a lot. We spend every Christmas in Southern California with my brother and his family, and I arrive armed with a list of places I want to eat. In fact, we start the trip with an In 'N' Out animal style burger (vegetarian for me) as soon as we get off the plane and top that off with fro yo from Pinkberry. This year, we hit four places off of the 'Best thing I ever ate' series from Food Network and several other favorites. So it will come as no surprise that I researched places from that show along with Drive-Ins, Diners and Dives on our route from MI to Florida via I-77 and I-95, a break from our usual drive on I-75 (which is always a nightmare of crazy Michiganders like us heading south for spring break).

I came up with two choices for lunch in Charlotte, NC on Friday during our trip south. This is after I frantically searched that morning on my Blackberry for a Starbucks (another straight-up addiction). The first was Cabo Fish Taco; the second was Jake's Good Eats. DH usually goes along with my planning as long as it does not involve a lot of extra driving. This particular choice did add time, but he was not complaining because his mouth was too full and he didn't want to put down his fork.

We ended up at Jake's Good Eats, thanks to the GPS. I think went quite a bit out of way, but I am really bad at directions, so can't say for sure. However, it lived up to its name.

DH and I started with fried green tomatoes on a bed of braised leeks with basalmic reduction. OMG. So good. Sorry, Paula Deen, these top the previous best fried green tomatoes I had at Lady and Sons in Savannah. In fact, they were so good that DH then decided he needed a second app, fried oysters. Gross--I don't even like to think about oysters. But he loved them. When he really likes something, he will do this half eye-roll, half eyes-closed thing. It's kind of like patented food shorthand on his part. Well, his eyes were rolling over the fried oysters.

I had an egg salad sandwich on toast with homemade chips (all very good) and DH had a pulled pork plate with coleslaw and homemade chips, which he also liked, but not as much as the oysters. DS15 had a cheeseburger with a plain white bun. He freaks if the buns are anything but good old white, squishy hamburger buns. DH had sweet tea and DS15 and I had coke. All in all, a great meal and a great diversion on long day of driving.

The best of all was a piece of chocolate pie. Seriously, I so wish I had a piece of that pie right now. All would be well with the world. The only downside was that DH was like 'let's split something' and when I said I didn't want to 'split' a dessert, he said he didn't want anything. Duh. He just ate two appetizers and an entree. But I should have known. Because when he says "I don't want anything then' what he really means is "I am going to make you feel guilty and then give me half of what you are eating." For the record, I don't want to give him half of it--let alone ANY of it. I should just learn and order him his own piece of pie. But as it was, I had to very grudgingly share my pie, which was like a cross between molten lava cake, cake batter and thick chocolate pudding. Not the best description, but don't miss the pie if you are in the area. What's that 80s song that goes "I don't know why I like it, I just do?" That was how I felt about the pie.

Dinner that night, while good, was destined to be anti-climactic after that meal. We ate at the Pop Food Court after checking in. DH and I split vegetable lo mein (really shrimp lo mein with the shrimp on the side for DH); and an Asian chicken salad minus the chicken. I am a pretty cheap date. Unless you count the dessert. Both were quite good; the lo mein was rather heavily sauced and the salad had too much dressing. But the flavors were good, there were a lot of vegetables in both, and there was more than enough food for us to share. I loved the variety of the food court at Pop and the quality seemed a step up from the food court at CBR two years ago.

DS15 had chicken tenders and fries and an order of cheese fries. His kind of meal, for sure. You can never have enough fries in his world. We also bought two mugs that night--somehow, we ended up with two blue ones.

Next up: Tusker House and another go-round at the Pop Food Court

 

[phabric]

Looking forward to more of your reviews.

 

[vinotinto]

Signing in! We also have 2 trips scheduled about 3 months apart - just for the fun of it!

 

[kizzy]

On with the show with Tusker House and Everything Pop

On our first day, we went to Animal Kingdom and we planned to have lunch at Flame Tree Barbeque. We've never managed to eat there. Not sure why, since we always intend to stop for lunch and it gets such great reviews. It also smells pretty good when you walk by. I was sure this would be the year that we would break from tradition and finally experience the exalted Flame Tree. Not.

We had a pretty good morning at AK and when we walked past Tusker House, it called to me. Seriously. I love samosas, and at that moment, that's exactly what I wanted. Well that, and I didn't feel like walking from Africa back towards Flame Tree. My.feet.were.killing.me. So up to the podium we went, and we waited outside around ten minutes to be seated. We had eaten at Tusker House a few years ago when it was a counter service restaurant.

The hostess gave us a quick once-over of the buffet and then led us to the table. DS15 was all about the buffet when he saw the kid-friendly items, including the make-your-own sandwich fixings with white bread and turkey. DH and I filled up several (ok, more than several) plates. It was all pretty good and very vegetarian-friendly for me. I had many samosas and a lot of cous cous.

DS15, after being excited about the buffet, became strangely un-hungry after just one bowl of macaroni and cheese. Don't know what scared him off--he said he didn't feel sick. He just said he wasn't hungry anymore. That was ok, because DH and I more than made up for what he ate. In fact, we were both stuffed. That's what I don't like about buffets. It's hard to stop eating!

So the verdict on Tusker House was that there was a good variety of food and the qualty was good. Nothing amazing, but a solidly good place to eat--except for one un-hungry teenager. Not sure if was better than Flame Tree would have been. Maybe we will make it there this summer.


We waddled back to the car and drove back to Pop and the pool where my cousin and his family who live in Tampa were coming to join us for the afternoon. Because we were still so full from Tusker House and the fact that no one felt like dealing with a. moving or b. trying to park at Downtown Disney, we opted to stay and eat dinner at Everything Pop. The kids all had pizza, which they inhaled (DS15 somehow found his appetite again); and three of the adults had the beef ad bleu sandwich, which they pronounced great. It was stacked high with roast beef, greens, carmelized onions and bleu cheese sauce. My uncle had nachos, which he said were fine, and my cousin had the cheesesteak wrap, which he liked. I had water, having eaten my weight in samosas earlier in the day at Tusker House.

 

[TanzUnited99]

Am subbing and looking forward to hearing all about the food you ate!

Edit: Posted before reading page 2! Am glad you enjoyed TH as we are eating there in September. As we are staying at Pop I imagine we will be eating there as well!