2017 Food Reviews - 14 Nights of Free Dining

disneyfav4ever

No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep
Joined
Mar 19, 2005
Hi everyone! I had so much going on the past couple months that I never got around to writing reviews from my Food and Wine trip last fall. I was at All Star Sports with my fiance for two weeks with the free dining plan, which we upgraded to include table service meals.

Our first night we had dinner at our resort's food court End Zone. He had a cheeseburger and I had salmon with green beans and mashed potatoes. The food was fine, but I've never been overly impressed by the basic menu here. We shared a Mickey bar for dessert.

Our first full day we spent at Epcot, cause Food and Wine. The first booth we stopped at was Coastal Eats, where we had the shrimp scampi dip, crab cake, and seared scallops. All were good, and we were especially obsessed with the scampi dip, though I wish there had been a bit more bread. My fiancee had a chicken Caesar salad from Sunshine Seasons for lunch, which had lots of chicken in it, and I guess he enjoyed it cause he ate all of it, then we shared a Mickey pretzel before going back into World Showcase. I got a frozen wine cocktail from the New Zealand booth, which was refreshing, and my fiance tried the sausage from the Ireland booth, which he liked.

Dinner that night was at Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club resort. The food was a little less impressive than it had been our previous trips here, but was still enjoyable. We had; cheese, broccoli slaw, potato salad, tomato-mozzarella salad, a green salad with berries, nuts, and cheese, New England clam chowder, prime rib, mashed potatoes, sun dried tomato-crusted salmon, cornbread, pizza, baked chicken, green beans, boiled potatoes, fried clams, macaroni and cheese, shrimp cocktail, and of course plenty of crab legs. Aside from the crab legs the only thing that really stood out that night were the soups, salads, and cheese display. Desserts were lacking too, and there had been several changes to them, as the smores dessert that was our favorite last trip was gone. The service also seemed lacking that night, nothing was remarkably bad about the meal, but if I hadn't been there several times before I probably wouldn't bother returning. I do chalk our experience up to an off night, though we don't have it on our list for next trip.

The next day we had breakfast at End Zone, where I had Mickey waffles, and my fiance had a bounty platter with eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, and a waffle. We had the same thing basically every morning, so I won't bother writing a review of the same meal ten times, but my fiance likes his breakfast just like that, with all the basic American breakfast items, and I dream of Mickey waffles compared to the Eggo frozen ones we always eat at home.

We spent the day at Animal Kingdom and had lunch at Satuli Canteen. This was our first time there and has become one of, if not my favorite quick service restaurant. My fiance was less enthusiastic about it, but he prefers the more standard American theme park fare of burgers and pizza. We both had bowls, I had the potatoes with tofu and onion sauce, and my fiance had a rice bowl with beef and herb dressing. I really can't describe how amazing my bowl was, and am so happy that tofu is a protein option, as there's not a ton of places to find tofu in the World. We also shared the blueberry cheesecake for dessert, and that was very good as well.

Dinner that night was at Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge. If Cape May Cafe had been underwhelming the night before Boma more than made up for it tonight. The service was friendly and efficient, and the food was incredible. We had; eggplant salad, pasta salad, corn dog nuggets, macaroni and cheese, meatballs with penne, corn, peas, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, salmon, and prime rib, as well as three different kinds of soup; butternut squash, lentil, and curried seafood. The soups here are always amazing, though everything was great. For dessert we tried a little of everything, though our favorites were the Oreo cheesecake and of course, the zebra domes.

We also got the giraffe and zebra cupcakes at the Mara after dinner. They were good, but they changed the flavor of the giraffe one, and I preferred the old version.

Coming up next is Minnie's Halloween dinner at Hollywood and Vine, ABC Commissary, and more of the End Zone food court.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DLo
I know it gets horrible reviews sometimes, but I really like Hollywood and Vine. Both times I've had the Halloween dinner there have been great, and we'll be eating there again next trip. It's not gourmet by any means, but the food is always fresh, flavorful, and the atmosphere is a lot of fun. We had salads, lobster macaroni and cheese, which is incredible and probably the best thing on the buffet, and I always eat too much of it even though dairy makes me sick, it's worth it, broccoli slaw, pumpkin soup, eggplant Parmesan, salmon, mushroom risotto, and root vegetable casserole, which was also awesome. For dessert we had banana whoopee pies, (the same ones that are sold at Sweet Spells, RIP, since I know it's closing for good this weekend,) caramel cookies, pumpkin cheesecake, and lemon tarts. The characters here are Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy, and they were all dressed up for Halloween. Service was also very good. We were there the day before Irma hit, and the restaurant was practically empty, and we had a nice long chat with our server.

We ate at ABC Commissary before heading back to Sports for the night. I'm not a big fan of the quick service options at the Studios, but the resorts were requesting us to eat at the parks if possible. My fiance had a burger and I had a Greek salad with salmon. The CM who delivered our food also gave us Mickey straws just because. The salmon on my salad was cooked well, and the hummus it was served with was good, but the salad itself was just drenched in dressing, and borderline inedible. My fiance had no complaints about his burger.

The next two days the parks were closed because of Irma, so the only place we ate was End Zone. Understandably, they were offering a limited menu, but I still felt that we had plenty of options. The only breakfast option was the bounty platter, as well as the stuff that's normally offered in the self serve cases. This worked well for my fiance and I as I ate the waffles and potatoes, and he ate the eggs, sausage, and bacon. For lunch we got a large cheese pizza since we weren't sure if we'd be able to return to the food court again that day. We had a lot of food in the room, but we wanted a hot meal just in case. It was fine, typical food court pizza. It didn't end up getting bad out until much later that night, so the food court was still open at dinnertime, so my fiance had another burger, and I had fries and a cupcake. The strawberry cupcake I got was so good, and possibly my favorite cupcake of the trip. It was a yellow cake, with a strawberry jelly filling and strawberry cupcake.

Irma hit overnight, and when we woke you could barely tell a hurricane had hit the resort. It's incredible how quickly Disney cleaned and got everything open. The food court didn't open until the afternoon, so we just ate leftover pizza for lunch, and then ate at End Zone for dinner. We both had salmon with broccoli, and I had mashed potatoes with mine, while he had rice. It tasted really good that night, but I'm wondering if it was actually that much better than it had our first night, or if it was just that much better after eating cold pizza and peanut butter and jelly for the last day. I'm not complaining, Disney did a great job, and we never did not feel safe, but it was just so nice to have a hot meal that night. I also had the black forest cupcake, which was good, but didn't compare to the strawberry one.My fiance had some M&M tart that he liked.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DLo


The next day when the parks reopened we went to Magic Kingdom, which was beautiful as ever. My first stop that morning was Gaston's Tavern to try one of their cinnamon rolls, and was unimpressed. Considering it was early in the morning it didn't taste very fresh, so I wonder if they serve day old ones, as it was pretty dry, even with extra frosting.

We toured the park for a couple hours then before walking over to the Contemporary for brunch at Chef Mickey's, I had only had breakfast here once before and wasn't overly impressed, but this time was better. We had scrambled tofu, (which was not a true scramble as the tofu was cut into chunks,) asparagus, cheesy potatoes, tater tots, macaroni and cheese, salmon, tomato soup, funfetti pancakes, Mickey waffles, scrambled eggs, kielbasa, and roasted potatoes. The food was decent, but for the price I'd rather save $10 or so and eat at Tusker House or Crystal Palace, both of which we ate at later in the trip, though my fiance preferred Chef Mickey's to Tusker House.

I got a citrus swirl from Sunshine Tree Terrace that afternoon, and while they're good, I'm a Dole whip girl.

My fiance and I shared an order of tacos from Pecos Bill before MNSSHP that night, and when I say shared, I mean he ate the tacos, and I loaded up the rice it came with at the toppings bar to make my own mini meal. It was good, but I've read that since our trip they removed guacamole from the toppings bar and a big part of the reason I liked Pecos Bill so much was that it included guacamole.

The next few treats were all exclusive to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. We had a Jack Skellington push pop, with layers of cake, panna cotta, and frosting. It was very cute to look at and tasted pretty good as well. Then we had the pumpkin Mickey waffle sundae during the parade, it was pumpkin waffles, topped with vanilla ice cream, and caramel sauce. It was good, but didn't have a very strong pumpkin flavor. We had one of the Haunted Mansion chocolate tarts filled with Oreo panna cotta, and while it was really cute, was probably the least tasty of all the treats we tried. Lastly we got the Mickey pumpkin cheesecake from Main Street Bakery, which was amazing. It was one of my favorite desserts the whole trip, and a perfect end to the evening. We also got a ton of candy. We went through the lines at Storybook Circus several times, as well as a few other lines throughout the park, and ended up filling a whole carry on bag to take home.

Coming up, our second day at Food and Wine and dinner at Coral Reef.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DLo
The next day we went to Epcot again and spent the afternoon going to the Food and Wine Festival booths. We started on the Mexico side of World Showcase, and our first stop was Greece. We had the Greek nachos, "a taste of Greece," with stuffed grape leaves, grilled octopus, and feta cheese dip, and a phyllo cheese strudel. Greece is consistently one of my favorite booths, and this time was no different. The nachos are vegetarian, (I think vegan,) with plant-based sausage and pita chips, everything on the sampler was good, especially the feta dip, and the dessert was tasty too.

At the China booth I tried the Bai Joe punch which a mix of a Chinese spirit with lychee, coconut, and pineapple juices, it was good but not remarkable.

At the Italy booth we tried the calamari which was cooked well, but overly salty.

At the Hops and Barley booth we got the lobster roll which was very good this year, a lot of lobster and not a lot of filler.

At the Japan booth we tried the pom-pineapple sake cocktail, which was tasty, but the shot glass portion is so small that I don't think it's worth the cost.

I also had a Kahlua-tini from the Joffrey's stand between the United Kingdom and Canada, which was just a blend of iced coffee with Kahlua and vodka. It was tasty, but the cast members were kind of rude there.

We had Fast Passes for Soarin and Living with the Land, but with time to kill between them we shared a meal at Sunshine Seasons. We split the fish tacos, which were very good. Sunshine Seasons was my favorite in park quick service restaurant for the longest time before Satuli Canteen opened, and is still near the top of my list. I've tried several different meals here and nothing has ever been bad.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Living Seas pavilion before having dinner at Coral Reef. I know this is another restaurant that gets a lot of meh reviews, but we really enjoyed our meal here. We shared the seafood salad for an appetizer, the seafood was prepared well, and the mango sorbet added an interesting component to it. For our entrees I had the mahi mahi and my fiance had the salmon. Both were prepared well and the sauces and accompaniments, paired well and were very flavorful. For desserts we had the chocolate wave, which is always excellent, and the lime tart, which was also good.

After dinner we went back into World Showcase for Illuminations and made one more Food and Wine snack stop at the Hawaii booth. My fiance had the pork slider, which he said was good, and we shared the cheesecake, which was nice and light.

The next day we went to Magic Kingdom where we had breakfast at Crystal Palace. This is my favorite breakfast on property, and my fiance really likes it too, we eat here every trip. We had; breakfast lasagna, puffed French toast, roasted potatoes, cheesy potatoes, Mickey waffles, breakfast pizza, eggs, sausage, and bacon. This is the only place on property that serves breakfast lasagna or puffed French toast, and those two items alone are almost worth having breakfast here for. Service and character interaction were also very good, and we had a lovely table with a view of Cinderella Castle as we ate.

Our breakfast had been late, so we skipped lunch that day, but dinner that night was at Be Our Guest. This was our third time having dinner here, and though it was still good, it wasn't nearly as good as our first two times here. My fiance had the braised beef, which he liked, but my shrimp and scallop pasta had been much better the year before. Desserts were also not as good, my fiance liked his cream puff, but I did not care for the new take of the grey stuff. It was now served on a cheesecake-type tart instead of the brownie tart it used to be on, and was just not as good. We were also seated in the rose gallery this time instead of the ballroom, and while I know that the food would've been the same in either room, a lot of the atmosphere is lost. So not the greatest meal of our stay.

Coming up, water park food, Raglan Road, and Kona Cafe
 
The next day we went to Blizzard Beach and had lunch at Lottowatta Lodge. I had the sweet potato burger and my fiance had the chicken strips meal. The burger tasted like Thanksgiving dinner since it had some kind of cranberry sauce on it, and my fiance enjoyed his chicken strips.

That night we had dinner at Raglan Road. The brown bread served was tasty, and for our entrees we had the potato-crusted cod and the it's not chowder. Both dishes were prepared well, and we'd order either again. For dessert we had the sampler and the apple crumble. The sampler had four different desserts, but the best of the four was easily the bread pudding. We were seated pretty far from the stage, but what we did see we liked.

The next day we decided to spend at Blizzard Beach again, but went to Boma for breakfast first. I've had breakfast there a couple times before, but they must've been having an off day cause it just wasn't up to the usual standards. The goat cheese scrambled eggs that I usually love were a particular letdown as they just weren't very good that morning. We also had; asparagus, plantains, tater tots, pancakes, sausage, biscuits and gravy, bacon, an egg white omelette, yogurt, Simba waffles, and the bread pudding. The yogurt and tater tots were good, and had unique toppings and spices respectively, and the bread pudding was as good as always, but the rest of the meal was just kind of meh.

For lunch we ate at Lottowatta Lodge again, my fiance had the chicken strips again and I had the vegetable wrap, both were decent but nothing special. We ordered fun drinks today though, the frozen blue lemonade and the frozen hot chocolate, which reminded me of a frosty. We also shared an order of doughnuts and they were good.

We went to the Poly that night for dinner at Kona Cafe. My fiance had the pot stickers for an appetizer and I had the vegetable sushi, which was fine, but I wish it had more to it than just veggies and rice, like an interesting sauce or something. For my entree I had the pistachio-crusted fish of the day, and my fiance had the pork. And for dessert I had the tapioca pudding with fresh fruit and boba balls and my fiance had the chocolate lava cake. All the food was good, but seemed a little lacking compared to previous trips here.

Coming up - Tusker House, more Satuli Canteen, and more of the All Stars food court
 


The next day was our last day at Animal Kingdom. We had a late breakfast at Tusker House, which went into lunch. We tried; eggs, sausage, tater tots, Mickey waffles, roasted potatoes, sweet potato casserole, frittata, bread pudding, tandoori tofu, shrimp in green curry sauce, and a couple salads. The breakfast foods didn't seem as fresh as they usually do. I realize it was the end of breakfast, but with the prices Disney charges, the food should be fresh all the time. The lunch food was as good as always, and we could've made a meal off the shrimp in green curry sauce alone.

We got a Rivers of Light cupcake at Creature Comforts a.k.a. Starbucks before going back to Sports for a break, (it was insanely hot this day.) It was a yellow cake with berry filling and buttercream frosting that looked like a lotus blossom. Overall, one of the better cupcakes we've had in Disney.

We didn't have any plans for dinner this night, so we got some snacks from the Mr. Kamal's cart before Rivers of Light. We had the falafel and the fries with siracha and taztiki. The falafel was good and the fries were interesting and a tasty snack without being too spicy.

We went back to Satuli Canteen after the show because I wanted to eat there again. I tried the vegetable curry pods this time, which I enjoyed, and the chocolate mousse cake thing for dessert, which was also good. We also tried the Pandora punch or whatever it's called, and while it was fine I definitely wouldn't waste the money or a snack credit on it, we'd only get it as a drink included with the meal on the dining plan, though if they keep including alcohol in future years, probably won't even get it as our drink.

My fiance decided he felt like a burger for dinner, so he ate at End Zone after getting back to Sports, which also included us getting the chocolate-peanut butter cupcake instead of a drink since we had our mugs. The cupcake was fine, but the chocolate-peanut butter one from the Studios, (with Darth Vader or Kylo Ren on it,) is much better for the same flavors.

The next day we went to the Studios, where we had lunch at Mama Melrose's. We had the Fantasmic package, so appetizers were included with our meal. (Appetizers are no longer included as of this year.) We both got flatbreads for our appetizers, I had the mushroom one, and my fiance had the pepperoni one, both were good, though too large to finish. For our entrees I had the fish of the day with gnocchi and my fiance had the chicken Parmesan. My fish was well prepared, but the best part of that dish was the gnocchi. My fiance inhaled his chicken, so I have to assume it was good. Dessert on the Fantasmic package was a preselected trio of tiramisu, cheesecake, and blood orange cake. The desserts here are always fine, but nothing memorable. Our server also gave us a plate of mini cannolis that were good too, and probably better than the dessert trio.

We walked around the Boardwalk area later that afternoon and stopped to try Ample Hills. We tried the ooey gooey butter cake and pb wins the cup flavors. The cast member here was really sweet and only charged us one snack credit instead of two for a bit of pixie dust. The ice cream was really good, but I don't see us going out of our way to get ice cream here every trip.

For dinner that night we ate at Intermission food court at All Star Music just for a slight change of scenery, but I'm glad we did, because although my fiance's burger was the same he would've had at End Zone, they had an over the top peanut butter and jelly milkshake here that was topped with an Uncrustable. So that was my dinner, an Uncrustable and a milkshake.

Coming up - Food and Wine and Spice Road Table
 
I’m enjoying your reviews. It sounds like you are a cupcake connoisseur. :)

Our trips must have overlapped; I arrived on Friday, 9/15/17 and stayed through Saturday, 9/23/17. It was crazy hot and very crowded. I’m in no hurry to go back in the fall even though I love F&W.
 
The next day was our last day at Epcot. The one thing we hadn't done yet that I had been really wanting to do was to spend the better part of a day hitting Food and Wine. We'd tried a few samples the other two days we'd spent at Epcot, but there was still so much we wanted to try.

We made it to Epcot for rope drop and rode Soarin before having a bite to eat at Sunshine Seasons. We shared the breakfast power wrap, with tofu, wild rice, sweet potatoes, avocado, and blueberries. I think the blueberries were unnecessary and would've preferred some kind of dressing instead, because the whole thing was actually kind of bland.

When World Showcase opened we started in France, since we had already been through the booths that were around the Canada and UK pavilions. Our first booth was France, where we had the goat cheese pudding, escargot croissant, and creme brulee. The pudding was good, and reminded me a little of quiche, the escargot was the same as last year, and the creme brulee had a raspberry jam on the bottom this year that was very good.

At the Belgium booth we had the beer flight and the waffles with berry compote and the one with chocolate. The waffles were very good, though we preferred the one with the berries. The beers were fine, though pretty standard.

We got another lobster roll at the Hops and Barley booth, because they were just that good last year.

At the Spain booth we tried the seafood salad and the wine flight. The salad was refreshing, though seemed to have a bit to much filler to seafood. The wines were nice, with my favorite being the rose.

In Germany we tried the wine flight which were all rieslings. I enjoy a sweet wine, but I wish we'd had something to balance the sweetness between the three.

We tried the pomegranate beer from the Brewer's Collection, and it was very good. I do hope it becomes available nationally.

At the Africa booth we tried the red lentil stew, as well as their wine flight. The stew was very good, and one of our favorite items of the day. The wines we liked too, especially the two reds.

At the India booth we tried the curried vegetables, the naan bread with dips, and the pistachio bundt cake. The vegetables weren't too spicy, the naan bread was very similar to the bread service at Sanaa, and the cake was nice and light, and better than either of us thought it was going to be.

At Mexico we had the the tequila-chipotle shrimp, and while the shrimp were tasty, the black bean cake it was served on reminded us of styrofoam.

We got the shrimp and scallop cake from the Thailand booth, which was so much better than the one from several years ago.

At the Farm Fresh booth we got the cider flight, and we enjoyed them all, though we agreed that the best one was the raspberry.

We got the seared tuna from the Hawaii booth, and I wish we hadn't been getting as full as were at this point, otherwise I could've eaten several of them.

We got the blue spectrum drink from the Light Lab, which was a total novelty, but it was a cool photo op, and the champagne was fine, just very standard.

Our last stops before dinner were at the Wine and Dine and Cheese studios. We got the cheese plate from each, as well as the caramelized onion tart and wine flight. We preferred the cheese trio from the Wine and Dine studio, as we felt it had a better selection of cheese, though both were good. The tart was good too, and a very large portion, that could of almost made a light meal itself. The wines were good and paired well with the cheese.

Dinner that night was at Spice Road Table. We shared the garlic shrimp appetizer, then I had the seared tuna steak over ratatouille veggies for my entree while my fiance had the steak. For dessert we shared the chocolate pyramid and the assorted baklava. Everything was very good, and we will be returning to Spice Road Table next trip.

Before leaving Epcot we stopped at the Chocolate Studio for the liquid nitrogen frozen chocolate truffle. It was the perfect end to the evening.

Coming up our last day at MK, the Happily Ever After dessert party, and dinner at Ohana.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top