food snobs needed

[beatnik]

Am a food snob but not a restaurant snob. We dine out for entertainment at home but at WDW, we dine to eat (we're well-entertained otherwise!).

So here's the food snob's guide to counter/quick service:

Pecos Bill: Kit Carson Salad is excellent.

Lottawatta Lodge: Southwestern Chicken Salad is excellent (except for the unfortunate choice of using fried chicken instead of grilled-- the fried does not hold up well to prepackaging and refrigeration).

Blizzard Beach miniature donuts-- Excellent the first time we had them, undercooked the second time we had them.

Tusker House: Rotissere chicken is excellent as are mashed potatoes. Green beans were good- green and crispy, but too greasy to be called excellent.

Yakitori House: Salad has excellent ginger dressing. Chestnut cake is excellent.

Kringala og Bakeri: An excellent cinnamon roll. Most are way too yeasty. But Kringala got it right.

Beaches and Cream: Excellent onion rings.

Sand Trap Bar and Grill: Excellent sandwiches. Excellent onion straws.

Liberty Tree Tavern: Excellent apple crisp for dessert.

Beatnik

 

[disney_ac]

Originally posted by timC
I think we're looking for a similar deal as you. We normally go for the high-end restaurants, but this Thanksgiving trip we wanted to keep the food budget under control. Here's what I've got booked for Thanksgiving week, staying at GF. The only one I'm not familiar with is Concourse Steakhouse.

Kona Café
Concourse Steakhouse
Akershus
Wolfgang Puck Café
Liberty Tree Tavern - TG dinner

SKIP CONCOURSE STEAKHOUSE!!!!!

This will be the biggest waste of time and money during your entire trip. The service is horrible, and the food is about the quality of a $7.99 steak at ponderosa. Our food came out only slightly warm, and very dry. Our waitress forgot a cold side dish (yogurt), and did not bring it out for almost 10 minutes. By the time it arrived, it was just like all of the other food, room temperature. Its not like it was busy either, the restaurant was less than 1/3 full. Our server was only covering two tables, and spent most of her time standing in the corner chatting with another hostess. Take your precious time and money and go try something better, such as Citrico's or Flying Fish Cafe.

 

[Laura]

Epcot: Restaurant Akershus for lunch in Norway -- all you can eat so you will only want a light dinner. The fast food spots in World Showcase are generally very good, except I think the Mexico and China pavilions.
MK: Columbia Harbour House is really good fast food and more peaceful than Fantasyland. I have not eaten many sit-down dinners there.
AK: Flame Tree Barbecue and Tusker House in AK are both good and not too pricey.
Can't help you with MGM -- I've never had a good meal there (Sci-Fi? Yuck), but I haven't tried Brown Derby yet and I really want to.

Any sit-down restaurant is cheaper at lunch than dinner, of course, so I would have the big meal then if you want to save $$$.

 

[Peggy Sue]

we've found wdw doesn't really offer excellent food for reasonable prices. They do offer some excellent dining experiences, but not at budget prices. We love a lot of the places listed on this thread, with flying fish, fultons and artist pointe being our favorites. we ate at V&A chef's table in 1997, but haven't been fortunate enough to snag another reseration since. We find outselves spending between $80-120. for dinner. I agree, we would like some other lower priced alternatives where the food quality is still good. We have had very good luck with wolf gang pucks cafe at the west side of down town disney. However, we tried the section you walk through to get your food and the meal of horrid..we walked away from it..dry, over cooked..chicken that tasted like saw dust!

We don't find the Epcot offerings too good either. France and Canada are decent, but IMHO over priced for the quality.

We started to split meals these days. we might both order a salad, split an app, meal and dessert..we're stuffed and the bill is much more reasonable.

we're thrilled wdw offers better food offerings these days..one grows tired of burgers, fries and chicken fingers very quickly!

good luck with your search..we're off to the food and wine festival timorrow..can't wait to attend the dinners!

 

[timC]

SKIP CONCOURSE STEAKHOUSE!!!!!

This will be the biggest waste of time and money during your entire trip. The service is horrible, and the food is about the quality of a $7.99 steak at ponderosa.

Yikes! Okay, I was a little nervous about this pick. Now that you've called it out, maybe I'll bite the bullet...er... no pun intended and go for Citricos or Narcoosees.

 

[MelissathePooh]

ok, the way I understand this thread is better quality meals at prices less than ca. grill, flying fish, artist point, etc. I would say kona cafe, spoodles, tapanyaki in japanese pavillian, especially at lunch, rose and crown especially at lunch. Maybe brown derby at mgm for lunch. Maybe grand floridian cafe. Chefs de France at lunch. These are all a price point below flying fish/ca. grill kind of prices, but are sort of "food snob" food. So I'm not including things that can be "good deals" like trails end or 'ohana or flametree bbq, because they aren't really "food snob" food, or places with "fast food" that is good. Well, 'ohana may be a class on its own I guess. Wolfgang puck's isn't my favorite but it is OK.


To me, and this is just my opinion, but narcooses isn't the best, to me it isn't worth the price - for me, of the "more expensive" restaurants narcooses isn't my favorite.

 

[Nadine and Fred]

...as I was drooling reading about all of my favorite restaurants (ditto for Boma, Jiko, Flying Fish, California Grill) one of our "don't miss" places for wonderful, albeit not designer food is House of Blues. I have always thought that the food was excellent and well priced. The ambience is casual but not fast food-ish. Looking forward to trying V&A and Citrico's this trip in March.

 

[Lisa F]

We're food snobs also and I'd like to second (or third, or fourth) a few things I saw on this thread.

First of all, Kona is a must. Definately a little more gourmet but the prices are not really that bad.

I would also skip Concourse Steakhouse. The food is really so-so and you get the same atmosphere as chef mickey's for a higher prices. We didn't think it was terrible but we did think it was overpriced for what it was (even by disney standards).

About buffets and Boma, we really like Boma. Even though we are food snobs, we have come to the conclusion that it is possible to have a buffet and still have wonderful food if the buffet does a few things (all of which Boma does). First the selections have to be the type of things that are ok with sitting out for a little while. Some things taste better when made and served fresh out of the oven/grill etc, but others taste better when they are sitting for a while. Boma has tons of specialty soups and these are not the type of things that need to be served immediately the second it is finished cooking. Also, carved to order meats tend to be pretty good at buffets. Roasts always taste better when they rest and if you order any kind of roasted meat at a table service restaurant, you will likely get something similar. We also prefer buffets where they don't put out huge VATS of food but rather smaller sizes that are replenished frequently. Boma also does that for many of their dishes. There are just some things that really taste better when freshly prepared but I am willing to bet for the majority of sides, casseroles, quiches, and the other kinds of things that show up at better buffets, if the buffet were table service you'd just end up with someone serving it up out of a similar dish back in the kitchen. As long as the restaurant knows how much to put out at once so that it turns over in a reasonable amount of time, I think you can enjoy a buffet and still be a food snob.

Lisa