Dragon Court Super Buffet in Lake Buena Vista, FL

Dragon Court Super Buffet is a Chinese buffet located right off Disney property. I've assumed it catered towards tourists, meaning overpriced bad food. Dragon Court has been around for as long as I can remember, but I recently ended up eating there at lunch for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised.

They had some items not typically found on other Chinese buffets in the area and the majority of the food was pretty tasty. On my first trip to the buffet, I tried the curry chicken, fried rice, Chinese eggplant, beans, lo mein, tempura vegetables, pork dumplings, and a crab rangoon. The stand out dishes were the eggplant and curry chicken.

Second plate had a few more items. There was some baby bok choy, chow mei fun, boneless spareribs, chicken and broccoli, and some sort of spicy pork. 

I did enjoy the food that I ate on my first visit to Dragon Court Super Buffet. Hopefully their quality stays consistent.

NY China Buffet in Lake Buena Vista, FL

I ate lunch at NY China Buffet in Lake Buena Vista on 535. Buffets in this area could be scary tourist rip offs, so I was surprised to see lunch was just under $8.

Plate #1: Chicken with broccoli, mixed vegetables in a white sauce, egg roll, steamed dumplings, red bean filled sesame balls, and lo mein. The mixed vegetables were the tastiest food on this plate.

Plate #2: Stir fried bean curd, fried dumplings, fried rice, mei fun, and crab rangoon. The standout here was the bean curd. This stuff was delicious. 

Plate #3: Dessert. Pineapple, glazed fried wonton chip, cheesecake, and butterfly cookies. Apparently they like the cheesecake here. I saw an employee eating a plate of six slices of the cake. 

NY China Buffet had a good selection of food. Some of it was not the typical Chinese buffet foods, which was a good thing. There were enough people eating here for a decent turnover and everything was edible. Not bad for a buffet across from Disney...

Wolfgang Puck Express in Downtown Disney, Lake Buena Vista, FL

I recently braved the massive construction at Downtown Disney as it is transformed into Disney Springs and ate dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express. This is one of two Wolfgang Puck restaurants in Downtown Disney. This particular restaurant is located in the Marketplace section of Downtown Disney and is the lower priced of the two. Wolfgang Puck Express is a quick service restaurant and they seem to specialize in pizzas, pastas, and sandwiches. According to their menu, the ingredients used are organic and locally sourced.

There were three of us who ate here on this particular visit. We each ordered a different pizza and traded slices to compare. I ordered the Fennel Sausage Pizza. This consisted of crumbled sausage, pesto, roasted sweet peppers, and mozzarella. The pie was tasty, although the crust seemed to get very soggy underneath wherever the sausage was. The slices seemed to loose some of their structural integrity because of this.

Barbecued Chicken Pizza was another pie that was tried at our table. This was topped with chicken, grilled red onions, cilantro, roasted tomatoes, and barbeque sauce. I can't exactly pinpoint what it is, but variations of barbecue pizzas don't do much for me. This wasn't necessarily a bad pie, but I wouldn't order it on my own. Perhaps it the unexpected (even when it is expected) barbecue sauce rather than a more standard tomato sauce that catches me off guard.

Finally, I also tried the Four Cheese Pesto Pizza. This one was my personal favorite of the three pies. The four cheeses were mozzarella, goat cheese, parmesan, and fontina. It was topped with pesto, fresh tomatoes, and sun-dried tomatoes. Goat cheese should be put on pizza more often because it is delicious!

Overall, I enjoyed the pizza at Wolfgang Puck Express. I know there's a celebrity chef name attached to the restaurant, but this is still essentially food in a theme park's outdoor shopping mall. With that in mind, Wolfgang Puck Express sets a pretty high bar when it comes to pizza catering to the theme park demographic. The prices are relatively affordable as well. I'd return.

Orlando's Cheesesteak & Gyro in Lake Buena Vista, FL

I had lunch at a restaurant called Orlando's Cheesesteak & Gyro in a strip mall on Apopka-Vineland Road, not far from Disney property. There is apparently a large Islamic community in the area because the majority of the restaurants in this shopping center advertized halal food. There was a halal Chinese restaurant. There were hookah bars, and then there was this restaurant, which also was halal.

I ordered their Gyro and Greek Salad combo. The gyro consisted of a pita filled with thinly sliced gyro meat (I'm assuming lamb?), lettuce, tomato, onions, and tzatziki.  The meat was very flavorful and seemed slightly spicier than gyro meat that I've had elsewhere. They were a bit skimpy on the vegetables in the pita, but I did have a big plate of salad to go with the sandwich.

The Greek salad was nothing to write home about. It consisted of iceburg lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, and feta cheese. It was topped with what tasted like store bought Italian dressing, which I didn't like very much.

My gyro here was pretty good. I didn't like the salad dressing, but otherwise it was a good lunch. Definitely much better than the Papa John's next door (I don't think pepperoni pizza is halal).

Run & Run Chinese Restaurant in Lake Buena Vista, FL

I had lunch at a Chinese take out restaurant called Run & Run in a shopping center off Palm Parkway in Lake Buena Vista. Run & Run was located in a strip mall that definitely catered to tourists filled with gift shops and overpriced restaurants. Because of this, I was a little apprehensive to see the prices here, but the really weren't bad. Run & Run was equivalent to most other Chinese take outs not located on the edge of Walt Disney World.

I ordered the Kung Pao Shrimp lunch special. This consisted of the main dish, fried rice, and a canned soda. The shrimp were good sized in a sauce that was spicier than what many other Chinese restaurants serve in an equivalent dish. This was mixed with mushrooms, green peppers, carrots, baby corn, and peanuts. The shrimp was a little mushroom heavy for my liking, but was otherwise tasty. The fried rice was a bit plain, being basically rice mixed with scrambled egg. Not much else was going on in there. Overall, Run & Run was a pretty standard Chinese take out. Not the best I've had, but not the worst either. I might stop back here at some point if I'm looking for Chinese food near Disney in the future...

Food Quest in Downtown Disney

DisneyQuest is a virtual theme park in Downtown Disney. Back when they opened, Disney had big plans to expand this concept to cities all around the world. After one more failed attempt in Chicago, this is the one and only DisneyQuest.

The last time I was at DisneyQuest, they had a fast food version of the Cheesecake Factory that took up multiple counters, each serving a different foods. On this visit, the Cheesecake Factory was gone and was replaced with a Disney run snack bar. They only had one counter and the menu was pretty limited with stereotypical theme park food.

I wasn't feeling burgers or personal pizzas, so I went with the Chicken Caesar Wrap with fries. I've had similar wraps before elsewhere at Disney (Blizzard Beach). The wrap here was okay, but it definitely wasn't Epcot food. The chicken didn't have much flavor, but I suppose that's what the caesar dressing was for. Overall the food was pretty average. Disney can do better than the food served at Food Quest...

Some of the desserts, which I unfortunately didn't try, did look good though...

 

This doesn't have to do with the food, but I got a weird vibe from almost everyone working at DisneyQuest. Rather than the overly happy, stereotypical Disney Cast Member, most of the employees here were giving off the vibe that they hated their jobs. They seemed way more like Wal-Mart employees than Disney employees. Here's a food related example: It was taking a while to get the food. When ours was finally ready, there was someone else asking what happened to his order. The employee behind the counter looked at his receipt and responded with 'We must have lost your food.' He then walked away and went to take someone else's order instead of helping the complaining park guest. Very atypical of what I've seen at Disney in the past...