Disney World Part IV

Just tuning in? Here are links to the earlier portions of my four-part series about eating vegan in Disney World: Part I, Part II, and Part III. It's totally possible, and if you're lucky, you may ending up having some of the best meals of your life.

We had lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater at Disney's Hollywood Studios on day six of our Disney World trip. This restaurant is one I visited numerous times in my childhood and of which I have very fond memories. The hosts lead you to your table on rollerskates and sit you in an actual car. Each car has a tabletop that you eat on, and all the cars face a giant old-fashioned projector movie screen playing 50's-style commercials and little video clips. It's so fun!!



They actually had a tofu item on the menu - Seared Marinated Tofu with Mango Glaze and Steamed White Rice. This is actually the first meal I research and planned out for our trip, so I was a little disappointed when I did my vegan "double-check" with the waitress and found out the mango glaze had honey in it. So I just got the seared marinated tofu without the glaze, and the tofu wasn't bad at all - these chefs knew how to work with tofu! I was pleased with the taste and texture of the tofu, but I wasn't blown away. And that was good enough for me, at this point. I am surprised, though, that they included honey in the only vegetarian entree on the menu. It was cheeseless, so what's the point of adding honey? To discriminate against the crazy vegans? Also, I prefer brown rice over white rice... But I've learned on this trip that I need plenty of grains and carbohydrates at each meal because I have no idea what I'll be served at the next one. After all, carbs are the human body's preferred source of fuel. :) My body certain lets me know how angry it is with me when I don't get those grains!

We had a duplicate dinner today and went back to Wolfgang Puck Express. All four family members had a very positive experience here on our first day of the vacation, unlike at Wolfgang Puck Cafe (see part III for the ugly details). The chef who had made the astounding, knock-my-socks-off wrap a few days ago wasn't working tonight, so I attempted to recreate my lunch by descibing what I'd had before to the cashier. What I got was really good but not as good as what Tom, the first chef, had made. He had just done something really special with the roasted vegetables. Again, I had a wrap in a flour tortilla with roasted vegetables: eggplant, mushrooms, yellow bell peppers, and zucchini. Though they forgot the sun-dried tomatoes I asked for, I didn't have much to complain about. At least I didn't starve tonight! I even got a big juicy orange for dessert.



Day Seven

Just for the info, I hate waterparks. But I didn't want to be a party pooper on my family, so I sucked it up and didn't even mention my hatred for walking around a crowded, wet theme park packed with screaming little kids and half-naked people and icky sand (which I also hate) when the family decided to spend the day at Blizzard Beach, a Disney-affiliated waterpark. We had lunch at Lottawatta Lodge. For a few minutes, I was scared I would have to go starving, but they ended up having vegan Boca Burgers in the back even though they weren't listed on the menu. Yum! I love the Boca. The only problem is that one patty doesn't fill me up - I would have lasted better through the day with two! :) I got a side of apple slices instead of French fries and a fruit cup for dessert. Fruuuuuity. Later I got a package of baby carrots for a snack.



Dinner reservations had been made at Boma - Flavors of Africa, a restaurant inside Animal Kingdom Lodge, one of the newer Disney resorts. My vegan dining guide described it as a family buffet with the "ambience of an African marketplace." Kitty, the woman who made the guide I followed, is a vegan and recommended this place as the best place to eat for vegans on Disney property. She also wrote that it is her favorite restaurant, period.

First, the waitress sent the chef over to talk to me about vegan options. He walked me through the buffet line and told me what was in each dish that I could have, and I let him know that I also do not eat honey. After the "tour," the chef said he'd prepare me my own plate of goodies and deliver it to our table. Talk about special treatment! Kitty mentioned in the guide that the chefs may hook you up with extra goodies if you let your server know you're vegan or if you have dietary restrictions/allergies. My first plate from the buffet line had a spoonful of roasted vegetables (including one of my favorites, sweet potatoes), a heap of spring mix greens, three falafel balls, a pineapple chunk, a splotch of Black Olive Hummus, a pita wedge, and some lavosh flatbread crackers.



The lavosh, hummus, and falafel were my favorites, and I went back to try more from the hummus bar (yes, Boma has a hummus bar!). This time I tried White Bean Hummus, more Black Olive Hummus, and more of the addicting lavosh, in my opinion a far superior complement to hummus than pitas.





While I was working on this, the chef brought out my specialty plate, which turned out to be tofu cutlets atop a bed of sauteed vegetables. I was very excited to see the tofu! It ended up having a good flavor but it hadn't been pressed/drained much -- the dish had been prepared pretty quickly, after all - but the outer texture of cutlet was really yummy because it was "crusty" and lightly browned. (Brown Derby tofu is still my favorite tofu from this trip.) The chef chose some really delicious vegetables for my plate, too: baby broccoli, snap peas, some yellow yummy things I couldn't identify in the dark lighting, plus some edamame.



I wanted more from the buffet after that, so I got more falafel balls and White Bean Hummus, plus Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus and more lavosh. I had so much fruit today that I skipped the usual fruit bowl dessert I got at almost every other restaurant on the trip. I was quite full from this super-charged-with-protein (and fat) meal! There was a bar with some very elaborate-looking non-vegan desserts, though. I loved this restaurant so much, and I would jet back over to Florida in a heartbeat to eat there again. Each family member had gotten to pick one sit-down restaurant for the trip, and this was mine. I'll let you know that my family thoroughly enjoyed their meals as well and told me I had made a great choice in suggesting this restaurant! I could eat veggies, hummus, lavosh, and falafel all day, dude.

Day Eight

We had lunch at The ESPN Zone along the pier at Disney's Boardwalk Resort. My meal consisted of a Grilled Vegetable Sandwich and a cucumber salad. The sammie was multi-grain bread packed with tomatoes, greens, red pepper hummus, and chilled grilled vegetables (a huge marinated mushroom, red onions, and zucchini).



The bread was thin and cold and gross. It could have been toasted at least! But the vegetables made up quite a thick layer and they had a really great flavor because they'd been marinated, plus the giant mushroom took on a "meaty" taste. So overall I really liked the sandwich. What sucked was the waiter - he was slow and extremely inattentive. It made me the most angry when he did not offer me any type of dessert - not even a measly fruit bowl. The problem with this was that, as a part of the Disney Dining Plan, my parents had already paid for all of our meals - and a beverage, entree, and dessert were supposed to be included for each family member. So I didn't like the fact that my parents were being ripped off when they had already paid for something, and it was getting kind of old watching my family members have cheesecake and apple pie after every one of our meals, while I only got fruit. I love fruit, but vegans like to indulge too! We definitely tipped the waiter according to the service he gave us and then since I hadn't gotten dessert and everyone else had, we found me some more Chocolate Tofutti "ice cream" at Beaches & Cream Soda Shop just down the pier at the Beach Club Resort. I admit I was being a pain in the butt about the dessert thing, but I felt left out! I also like to think that we used part of the tip money our waiter would have gotten on my Tofutti. Haha, take that, jerk.



Dinner was a quickie - my parents and I left my sister at the hotel room (she just really wanted to watch TV) and we ate at Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney. We got to talk to the manager, and we found out her daughter is vegan. So immediately the commonality made the manager warm up to us and she made up a special sandwich just for me - nothing on the menu was vegan. She made a Lettuce/Tomato/Cucumber/Spinach/Bell Pepper/Pineapple Sandwich with cranberry spread and some of Ken's Balsamic Vinaigrette on the side. It was a pretty darn good sandwich - I never would've thought about lining a sandwich with a thick slice of pineapple but I liked it. The bread is made fresh in house with only three ingredients - flour, yeast, and water - and it was soooo good! They also toast the bread for you, yum. I had fruit for dessert.



Day Nine

My last day at Disney. We had a sit-down restaurant at our resort at Olivia's Cafe before my sister and I had to catch our planes. We'd had dinner there before and my parents and I had loved it. This time around, though, it didn't turn out so hot - the only yummy part of my meal was a giant marinated mushroom.



Yes, that brown thing is a mushroom. I freaked out when the waitress set it down, because it looked like meat. There were some mushy, warm tomatoes on the side and some stir-fried vegetables that were just okay. White rice was supposed to come with my plate, but it never got delivered and I didn't bother asking about it. I did get incredibly hungry later though - veggies and olive oil only tide you over for so long.

Overall, I had some fabulous food at Disney! Though the trip also had its down, I was really, really sad to leave. I didn't want to go back to my school routine. It's hard being so many states away from your parents... And Florida is warm and perfect, and I didn't want to go back to the cold and to tormenting myself over chemistry and all the other blah blah academic stuff. But after vacation, we always have to go back to the real world. Mostly what I didn't want to go back to was responsibility. Going back to Disney World definitely reminds me of when I was little - when life was carefree and I had no obligations. Sigh... I can't believe almost a month has gone by since my vacation ended! I hope you enjoyed my four Disney posts, and pretty soon I'll be letting you in on what I've been up to since then!