Magic Kingdom Food (Casey's Corner and Sunshine Tree Terrace)

It's been a while since I've had food at the Magic Kingdom. Since the last post on this blog was about Disneyland, why not write about the similar castle park in Florida.

Casey's Corner:

I've lived in Orlando most of my life and have been to the Magic Kingdom countless times, but somehow I had never been to Casey's Corner on Main Street. I've heard the restaurant hyped up quite often, so on my last visit to Magic Kingdom I finally had lunch there. I ordered the Chipotle Barbecue All-Beef Foot-long Hot Dog. It was a hot dog topped with pulled pork, coleslaw, and barbeque sauce. Good for Disney serving more than plain hot dogs. Toppings always make them more interesting.  This was fine. Not anything great that I'd go back for again though. As I write this, I'm realizing that this had very similar ingredients to the Ronto Wrap at Galaxy's Edge. Slightly different forms of the ingredients, but it was essentially the same thing.

Sunshine Tree Terrace:

I had the I Lava You Float. Orange Dole Whip topped with strawberry Fanta, passionfruit syrup, and Pop Rocks. This was a good dessert.

Disneyland Food (Rancho del Zocalo & Ronto Roasters)

I ate at Califonia Adventure the day before. Today was all about the food during my first visit to Disneyland:

Rancho del Zocalo Restaurante:

Had lunch at a restaurant called Rancho del Zocalo. This Mexican themed quick service was located next to Big Thunder Mountain and had an outdoor seating courtyard that overlooked the ride.

 
I had the Trio of Street Tacos. Each taco was filled with either beef, chicken, or cauliflower served in Corn Tortillas with Tomatillo Sauce, garnished with Onions and Cilantro served with Mexican Rice and Refried Beans. The cauliflower taco was the best. All of them were surprisingly good when thinking of the equivalent restaurants at Magic Kingdom which are notoriously bad (I said it. Disney adults, leave your angry comments).

Ronto Roasters:

This was my first experience in Galaxy's Edge. I guess I was eating simulated ronto meat, cooked by a droid by a repurposed pod racer engine. I had the Ronto Wrap, which was roasted pork, pork sausage, peppercorn sauce, and coleslaw wrapped in pita bread. Theming of this place was awesome, but I don't think I'd go out of my way again to get a hot dog wrapped in a slice of pork with some messy coleslaw dripping everywhere. It was food...

Blue Milk from the Milk Stand exceeded all expectations. This was delicious. 

Disney California Adventure Food (Pym Test Kitchen and Cozy Cone Motel)

I visited Disney California Adventure for the first time. This is what I ate:

Pym Test Kitchen:

Ate lunch at Pym Test Kitchen in the Avenger's Campus section of the park. The theme here was that foods were either shrunken or enlarged using Pym Particles seen in the Ant Man movies. Lots of fun sight gags around the restaurant, including growing pretzels, giant cans of soda, etc.

Had the Quantum Pretzel and the Pym-ini Sandwich. The pretzel seemed necessary since it was the centerpiece food seen being enlarged over the cash-registers. It was a good pretzel. The Pym-ini was salami, rosemary ham, provolone, and sun-dried tomato spread on focaccia. Served with marinara dipping sauce and arugula salad. The sandwich was tasty, but the gimmick of shrunken and enlarged food wasn't readily apparent on this one. Arugula was supposed to be larger lettuce leaves that were reduced in size?

Ordered the Proton Punch to drink. Because you have to get the specialty beverages at theme parks now. This was lemonade, berry purée, cherry boba and a grenadine-filled pipette. It was fine. Fancy pink lemonade.

 

Cozy Cone Motel:

Had dinner in Cars Land in the Cozy Cone Motel. This highly themed snack bar featured several giant traffic cones modeled after the real life Wigwam Motels.

I had the Chili Cone Queso. This was a bread cone filled with beef chili, cheddar cheese, and corn chips. I very much enjoyed this meal.

SeaWorld Christmas Celebration Food

Ended up at SeaWorld a few times this past season during their Christmas Celebration. They had booths selling specialty holiday food items all over the park. Here's the foods I tried.

Bacon & Blue Cheese Mac & Cheese: Bacon bits and blue cheese crumbles over macaroni and cheese.

Lobster Mac & Cheese: Lobster, shredded cheese, breadcrumbs, and parsley over macaroni and cheese. The better of the two mac & cheeses that I tried.

 Tachos: Nacho equivalent with tater tots instead of tortilla chips. Topped with pork, cheese, jalapenos, salsa, and sour cream.

Beef Slider:

Hard Rock Cafe World Burger Tour (Orlando, FL)

I was invited to the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando to sample some new burgers from their World Burger Tour menu. As they described it, World Burger Tour is a limited-time offering of Hard Rock Local Legendary Burgers, inspired by the taste and flavors from cafe locations around the world. The World Burger Tour is available at participating Hard Rock Cafe locations around the world now through June 25, 2017.

The burgers being sampled from the World Burger Tour included the:

Seminole Cattlemen Burger (Florida, United States) – pay tribute to the tribe! This Legendary burger is a combination of zippy swamp cabbage, also known as hearts of palm, fresh tomato and tupelo breaded gator tail atop a seasoned Seminole beef patty and smothered in Seminole wing sauce

English Breakfast Burger (London, England) – a Certified Angus Beef patty topped with sliced ham, a sausage patty, a fried egg, a Portobello mushroom, arugula and garlic aioli and served with a side of baked beans

Kimchi Burger (Seoul, South Korea) – a tradition years in the making, Certified Angus Beef patty topped with Sriracha-seasoned kimchi, bulgogi sauce, fresh tomato and lettuce and Sriracha mayo

Jambalaya Burger (Louisiana, United States) – this big easy burger features spiced up Certified Angus Beef fixed with Cajun mayo, pickles, andouille sausage, pepper jack cheese and a jammin’ jambalaya rice cake.

The Jambalaya Burger was my personal favorite of the burgers sampled. The jambalaya rice cake was an interesting touch which I've never seen before. It looked like an onion ring from the outside, but was filled with jambalaya deliciousness inside.

Nassau Bahamas Food #1: Atlantis Restaurants (Marina Pizza, Murray's Delicatessen, Chopstix, Olives, Starbucks, and Platos)

My previous bit of traveling was to the UK. A couple weeks later I had the opportunity to head to Nassau in The Bahamas. That's two countries in a row which have Queen Elizabeth II on their money. Most of my time in Nassau was spent on Paradise Island in the vicinity of the Atlantis Resort. In fact, this particular blog post is all restaurants I ate at in Atlantis.

Marina Pizza: 

My first meal in Nassau consisted of some of the most authentic Bahamian-Italian pizza one could possibly find in a resort themed to a mythical lost continent.

We split an 18" Meat Delight pie. It was topped with smoked bacon, ham, pepperoni, sausage, and oregano. Since it was in Atlantis, this was a very expensive pizza. It ended up being almost $40 for the pie once tax and the automatically included gratuity was added. US dollars and Bahamian dollars have a one to one exchange rate too, so there wasn't some fancy money conversion that made the pizza less expensive than it seemed. Besides price, it was a pretty okay pizza coming out of a hotel. Not the best pizza ever, but perfectly adequate. It was cooked on a conveyor belt oven. There was good proportion of cheese/sauce/toppings. Everything held together nicely, even with the pie being topping heavy.

I later found out that restaurants on Paradise Island close early. For an island that is pretty much nothing but tourists, it was a bit surprising that most restaurants either closed at 9 or 10 during the week. Because of this, I returned to Marina Pizza a second time in their last ten minutes of being open because we couldn't find anything else open, on or off property without going downtown. This time I tried a slice of the Bahamian Spice and The Bianco. The Bahamian Spice was topped with sweet peppers, onions, hot banana peppers, and jerk chicken. It was much spicier than I was expecting, which was good! Unfortantely, it did feel like the slice was sitting out way too long with hard, slightly burnt crust. Turned out this slice of pizza was the closest I got to eating actual Bahamian food on my trip. The Bianco was topped with ricotta, mozzarella, and romano cheeses, spinach, and broccoli. This slice tasted fresher, but I preferred the flavors in the Bahamian Spice pizza better. Again, these were expensive at around $7/slice.

Murray's Delicatessen:

My second meal in the Bahamas was at one of the most authentic Bahamian-NY Style Kosher delis one could possibly find in a resort themed to a mythical lost continent.

I started out with a bowl of matzo ball soup. Mostly because I found the idea of a deli serving matzo balls in the Bahamas kind of funny. Definitely not the regional food you'd expect to eat in Nassau.

After the soup, I ordered a sandwich called The Daily Double. This consisted of corned beef, turkey, coleslaw, and Russian dressing on rye bread. Fries were served on the side. Very meaty, but at least the coleslaw added some sort of vegetable to mix it up a bit.

Murray's didn't quite get the NY style deli thing just right though. There were many sandwiches that mixed meat with dairy or had bacon on them. Just like the pizza, Murray's Delicatessen was pricey, but I think I've been to some actual delis in New York which were in the same price range, if not more expensive.

Chopstix:

My third meal in Nassau was some of the most authentic Bahamian-Chinese food one could possibly find in a resort themed to a mythical lost continent.

The meal started by splitting an order of Chicken Spring Rolls.

I ordered the Singapore Noodles, consisting of rice noodles, shrimp, and chicken in a curry spice mix. I've had similar dishes to this numerous times before, but I think this was the most I have ever paid for a  bowl of noodles like this. After the meals I had so far at Atlantis, this was no surprise. The portion size was plenty to eat. Several large shrimp were mixed into the noodles, as well as a generous serving of chicken. I liked the dish. Shrimp Fried Rice was also ordered at the table. The rice was in a similar price range, but the portion size was much smaller than the noodles. Shrimp were also much smaller as well. The person who ordered this ended up stopping at Marina Pizza afterwards since they were still hungry after their expensive fried rice.

Olives:

According to Atlantis' website, Olives is a restaurant developed by Celebrity Chef Todd English. If I didn't just read that there, I would have never known. There was no mention of Todd English on the restaurant's signage or menu which seemed odd. Todd English has a restaurant called Bluezoo in the Dolphin Hotel at Disney and his name seems to always be attached to that restaurant. To us, Olives was the restaurant inside the casino which we were warned about their $200 menu items. When we got in the predicament that Olives was the only thing still open when we wanted dinner, we decided to give it a try. We were given their late-night menu when we arrived, which was surprisingly reasonable. I ordered the fig and prosciutto flatbread for under $20.

This was my favorite thing I ate on Atlantis property. The flatbread was topped with lots of thinly sliced prosciutto, blue cheese, scallions, and a fig sauce drizzled over the top. Hurry for not costing $200 like we were warned and being my favorite food at Atlantis!


Starbucks:

Starbucks had the cheapest food that we were able to find in the Atlantis resort. Here's a Chicken Caesar Wrap. Exactly what you would expect from a pre-made wrap at Starbucks.

Platos:

Platos was a fast food restaurant in the hotel serving coffee and sandwiches.

Here's a Ruben Sandwich. Unfortunately, the corned beef was super fatty with big streaks of unchewable fat. The bread was good though.

I also got a strawberry cheesecake here. Much better than the Ruben. For a fast food sandwich, dessert, and a drink, Platos ended up costing about $30/person.

The Daily Poutine at Disney Springs in Orlando, FL

The Daily Poutine is one of the newish restaurants which opened in the new section of Disney Springs. They are fast food with some nearby outdoor seating. I was a big fan of trying the different versions of poutine when I was in Quebec last year, so I was excited to try some Floridian theme park poutine.

I am not a poutine expert, but I wonder how many of the menu items here would be considered true poutine by connoisseurs of the food? When does a variation of the dish become something else? Looking at something like the restaurant's Latin Poutine where potato fries are replaced with yucca and there isn't gravy or cheese curds, would this still be considered poutine?

I have visited The Daily Poutine twice. The first time I was with someone who had never tried poutine, so we split the Classic. This consisted of french fries, beef gravy, and cheddar cheese curds. It didn't live up to some of the poutines I sampled while in Quebec, but I suppose was good enough for a theme park version of the dish. I've heard that the way to tell if you're having high quality poutine is if the cheese curds make a squeaky noise as you bite into them. The cheese curds here did not squeak...

The second time I dined at The Daily Poutine was when I was intrigued by their All-Day Breakfast Poutine. I'm not sure if this is a daily special or a temporary menu item, but it was advertised on signs sitting on the counter. It was described as fried potato puffs, sausage gravy, and cheddar curds topped with a fried egg. Again, this was veering away from what I think of poutine with tater tots instead of fries and white sausage gravy instead of brown gravy. Regardless, this breakfast poutine was actually really tasty. The gravy had a lot more flavor compared to what I normally think of when it comes to white gravy. I've been liking foods topped with fried eggs lately, so that topping made me like the poutine more.

The Disney version of poutine didn't quite make me feel like I was eating true French-Canadian junk food, but the food was decent enough. Definitely better than normal french fries topped with ketchup...

D-Luxe Burger in Disney Springs

D-Luxe Burger is one of the restaurants which recently opened in the new Town Center section of Disney Springs. The restaurant's theming was seemed to be modeled off a Florida cattle ranch, located alongside the new spring that has suddenly started to bubble up in what used to be a Downtown Disney parking lot.

The menu reminded me of a Shake Shack or a BurgerFi in both format and choices. I ordered the El Diablo Burger. The menu described this as a chorizo-and-signature blend patty, fried banana peppers, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, and chipotle mayonnaise. A small box of fries was also ordered.

The chorizo did add a bit more flavor that isn't generally found in a plain beef burger. The meat itself didn't provide much spice, nor did the fried peppers, but the chipotle mayonnaise did have a nice kick. The main issue I had was with the burgers being served vertically. Gravity pulled all of the sauce down. This resulted in a sandwich where the top end was dry and bland. The bottom end had plenty of the tasty sauce, but was also really soggy with all the sauce pooling downwards.

Overall, the burger at D-Luxe was good enough. I wouldn't call myself a burger expert (I don't understand the gourmet burger trend that seems to be going on right now), but the burger here had more taste than just plain, bland ground beef and ketchup, so that's a good thing. They would have been better if the burgers were served flat though...