What is dining like where you live?

[JohnNYC]

NYC here too. We enjoy fine dining, and take advantage of some of the city's top restaurants often. Having said that, I'm always impressed with Disney dining!

We love the signatures and many of the WS restaurants. I find that the key is to ask your server what you should be ordering (we do that here in NY as well). They know what the chef is proud of, what the house specialty is, and they eat at the restaurant. Also, be open-minded and stay away from the generic food on every single Disney menu (the obligatory mahi-mahi, the obligatory steak, the obligatory vegetarian pasta dish....we have a running joke about these things at Disney restaurants - they are always bland and uninspired).

Some of our favorites:
Flying Fish - ask for the daily specials, we always come back here every year!
Brown Derby - had a wonderful duck dish
California Grill - very good sushi
Via Napoli -they import everything from Italy, even the water for the dough - a tremendous, authentic Neopolitan pizza
Tutto Italia - I'm Italian, from Brooklyn, and I was very impressed by the quality of the ingredients on the antipasto platter!

We also like things like Sci-Fi for a decent burger and fun atmosphere - kids love it.

 

[ickeynickey]

Here in Turin, it is different than most regions of Italy. The food is catered to the locals and not the tourists. You get a real feel of true Italian fare. You have some of the best wines and cheeses plus white truffles! Not alot of chains as you do in the states. That being said, Disney food is like a treat to my family. You go for the experience of being in Disney and remember that it is a theme park and they must cater to many palates. I think Disney is the best at trying to make food that everyone will enjoy. You can't please everyone but they do please a great majority. You would get kicked out of most restaurants here with some of the requests that I have read on here.
Disney chefs do their best to adapt their recipes for all to enjoy

 

[Mamu]

I live in Mass, 40 minutes from Boston, 35 minutes from Providence, 35 minutes from Worcester, 35 minutes from The Cape. Lots of Restaurants in the area, especially Fast Food.

We do go into the city quite a bit to the theater and dinner.

I love French, Asian and Italian cooking lot of these restaurants in our area.

I rare eat red meat, mostly chicken and fish. Love vegetables, salads, risotto and pasta dishes. I do not eat sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, fried or fast food. I do love pizza though.

Love Desserts.

 

[wdw_monster]

Down in the heart of texas! san antoino baby! we got alot fancy pancy restuarants down here especially on the northside of town where the big mansions are and alot of touristy spots on the riverwalk like the rainforest cafe, hard rock. my husband is a chef at a mexican restuarant rigiht above the riverwalk, Guadalajara Grill. its way better then any mexican you'll find on the riverwalk all fresh(mostly)! if your ever there ask for monster and order a mocahate(not sure how its spelled) its a big very hot lava rock bowl with beef fajita, chicken fajita, shimp fajita, napolitos(sliced catus)in a salsa soup stuff with cheese on top, served with rice and beans and tortillas, serves 2 people, alot of people think its soup but its not. yum! tacos are what we do!! its was hard being at disney with no good tacos anywhere in florida!
panchitos is another yummy taco place, its real small like alot of them around here( you can't drive 2 blocks without finding a taco place) most places are olny open for breakfast and lunch and on sundays its barbacoa!!!mmmm....cows head so greasy so good! and don't forget around carne guisada with cheese uuuuuuhhhhhhhh.........im so hungry
but most of the time we'd rather just stay home and have good old texas BBQ with brisket and ribs, homemade rice and beans

 

[carrie1626]

I live smack in-between Milwaukee and Chicago. We have all the chains and we have LOTS of great family-owned restaurants, too.

My husband and I have debates amongst ourselves of where we should go out. Texas RoadHouse wins alot. But we have our hometown favorites for Italian and Mexican and Chinese.

Some of my best meals at WDW have been the places that get slammed the most: Tony's and Le Cellier. Goes to show you- everybody is different

 

[sharona]

We are about 2 miles north of Boston (so 60 minutes in rush hour!) I ate dinner in Boston much more frequently when I worked downtown but now just occasionally.

Just about every popular restaurant chain and fast food is within 10 miles (Fridays, 99, Carrabas, Outback, Longhorn etc.). We like several of the chains and go when we're in the mood - was actually at Carrabas tonight and their wood grilled chicken marsala can't be beat.

Also there are a lot of smallish ethnic and trendy neighborhood restaurants in our town. They're good and we try to support them as much as we can.

I've only been to WDW once before as an adult w/ my own family. We had the DDP so didn't really pay much attention to the prices. As to the food, I didn't think any of the restaurants we ate at were so great that I would get up at 5am, 180 days before our trip, to make sure I could eat there again. This time we're skipping the DDP - it's too much food for us and it takes up too much time when we'd rather be doing something else. We're limiting the TS dining to a couple of "experience" type meals like HDDR and character meals that we can't get at home. The rest will be offsite or CS.

We eat out on average once a week. I agree w/ the PP that those who live in more remote areas w/out the choices we have here and those who don't eat out as often, will enjoy WDW dining much more.

 

[lilwhiterabbit]

I live in Atlanta and there are thousands of restaurants of all varieties to choose from here. I've eaten everywhere from $5 taquerias to $150 per person 5-star formal restaurants, and I still love Disney dining.

Granted, I'm not crazy picky about counter-service because I don't expect it to be any better than mall food court or stadium quality--I mean, it's all about the volume there and the number of people they're trying to serve. I'm a little pickier about table service but I also know which places I really enjoy, so those are the ones I go back to. I've only had a couple of bad TS meals in the parks and one of them was because of the Fantasmic Dinner Package forced me to book a table somewhere I normally wouldn't have eaten.

I've often wondered if many of the complaints come from people who aren't used to paying more per entree because they're used to chain restaurant pricing, so they expect the quality to be super high because they're paying double what they'd normally spend. Whereas, it's pretty common here (and likely in other large cities) to pay Disney TS prices at reasonably priced non-chain restaurants. That's just a theory, though.

 

[disneywatcher]

Currently we live in Watertown Ny (1 hour North of Syracuse). We have a few chain places here (Texas Road House, Bob Evans, Denny's, Friendly's, TGIFridays and were JUST NOW getting an Olive Garden) for the most part though it's a LOT of fast food and several chineese resturants that serve all their food buffet style. I grew up between Hawaii, California and Texas. I like my chineese food served family style, my mexican food to come with fresh pico and I love my BBQ. I get alot of that when I go to Disney.

 

[Swan4Me]

I live in a prosperous community with lots of restaurants-our city eats out more than most places and there are restaurants with one hour waits on Thurs-Sun.

Every ethnic food type-good lunches for $10-really fine dinners in the $15-20 range plus wine.

The food at WDW is very bland, boring and expensive-we tend to stick to salads , sandwhiches and just a few fave table services places at lunch only

I'd rather save $$ on the room than do free dining-which 'makes" you eat too much

 

[AndreaDM]

We have all the typical chains here which we don't really care for. If we do go out to dinner it's one of several locally owned more upscale type places. I try not to go out for food I could easily make at home, but more for ethnic or more elaborate food. So, I don't look at Disney dining as fine cuisine, but more as entertainment. For example, I can't remember what any of us ate at Coral Reef, must not have been bad, I'd remember that, but what we all remember is that "Crush" hung out right next to our table and that the scuba divers came by and waved. The kids love the themed places like Prime Time and Sci Fi. It's a lot of fun, and most of the time we get a decent filling meal.

 

[LuvLuvLuv]

I live in Florence, KY and work in Crestview Hills, KY and Cincinnati, OH.... Within that 11 mile radius of the 3 there is every chain restaurant imaginable and some pretty upscale ones closer to the city. We eat out often and we're very used to chain restaurants. Our go-to's are normally O'Charleys, Chili's, Red Lobster, Benihana, Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, Big Boy, and Miyako--another hibatchi grill. Olive Garden knows me well for Take Out, lol. When we go to Disney we like that they are unique restaurants that offer items we don't normally order in our "everyday life".

We both work 2 jobs and if we happen to have a night off together we choose to go out, as well as every Sunday. We don't really think of the above restaurants as special because they are kind of like the equivalent of most peoples groceries We are regulars at Miyako hibatchi and they don't even do the show for us anymore because they know we like to talk to each other--and they know us and always put us by ourselves... so nice!!

At Disney we prefer the signature restaurants because they feel "special" to us. They don't feel like just another evening grabbing food because we're too exhausted to cook or go to the grocery. Yachtsman, Citricos and California Grill are our favorites

 

[Cherinva]

Around here, we have most major chains....and some nice mom and pop places. I don't go out to eat very often...and when I do, it's for lunch.

When I go to Disney, I do not eat off site, as I have the same places here. I enjoy the restaurants at Disney... I love the atmosphere and because it's Disney. My favorites are very often slammed by others, but to each his own....I love O'Hannas for breakfast, I like Chef Mickeys..both breakfast and dinner, 1900 Park Fare was fun, loved CRT, like Crystal Palace, 50s Prime Time is good........going to try Coral Reef next trip

My favorite CS places are Caseys, Cosmic Rays, Columbia Harbour House, Electric Umbrella