Everyone has heard the term, “foodie.” It usually refers to someone who goes around to upscale restaurants, sampling the finest dishes on the menu, and then offers a review of their experience. Sometimes, their reviews get published in a magazine or newspaper, but more often than not, they get posted to a blog or message board. This being the case, what is to stop you from being a foodie yourself? Do you fear being labeled pretentious? Ah, but when you think about it, foodies are only as pretentious as they want to be. Wouldn’t it be fun to sample and review delicacies, and share your thoughts on everything and people took your word as gospel? So, go for it. Take a foodie tour of Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, including restaurants like the Animal Kingdom Tusker House, Cinderella’s Royal Table in the Magic Kingdom theme park, or the Chef’s Tasting Wine Dinner at the Flying Fish Café.
Walt Disney World restaurants offer unique and special dining experiences, featuring flavors from all around the world. A foodie tour of Disney’s restaurants would not be disappointing or boring. And if it’s a concern, with all of the walking you would be doing in between meals, would not even be too destructive to your waistline!
If you have a special dietary need, you can still take a foodie tour of Walt Disney World Resort. They pride themselves on being able to offer a variety of scrumptious options to all of their guests. To have your special dietary needs met, just mention them while making your dining reservation, which can be made up to 6 months in advance, and should be made no later than 2 days in advance. Whether it is gluten free, vegetarian, or reduced calorie, the master chefs at Disney can help you out.
Walt Disney World dining
Now that you know that a foodie tour is an option, you should learn a little thing or two about Disney Dining. It can be broken down into several categories: casual dining, character dining, dinner shows, dining events, fine/signature dining, and quick service dining. Each category of restaurant represents a certain price range, and time commitment. For example, quick service dining is going to be cheaper, and usually offers counter service so you can grab a bite to eat on the go, but fine/signature dining is going to cost more, and may be an hour or two of your time spent sitting and eating – not that this should deter you, the Disney restaurants are all beautifully decorated.
Tusker House
One such restaurant has its home in Walt Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, in Harambe Village in the Africa Safari Area. This restaurant is a combination of character dining, unique and special dining, and a buffet. One of the fabulous things about Walt Disney Restaurants, in fact, is that so many of the unique and special dining experiences offer buffet-style service, so that you don’t have to feel like you’re missing out on one dish by ordering another.
Donald’s Safari Breakfast at Tusker House
This scrumptious and unusual buffet is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but offers character dining only for breakfast, meaning that Donald, Daisy, Mickey, and Goofy are only around during “Donald’s Safari Breakfast at Tusker House.” They brighten up the morning by greeting everyone, taking pictures, writing autographs, and all around having a good time with guests. This character dining is a nice way to get a little extra help waking up – besides the coffee of course. And, it is the perfect way to make 100% sure that you will get some quality time with your favorite characters, without waiting in a long line. During lunch and dinner, there are no Disney characters present, but then again, who needs extra help waking up later in the day?
What Does the Buffet Serve?
So, this African inspired buffet has you intrigued. You’ve got it written down as a “maybe” on your list of “foodie places to visit.” You want to know what exactly they serve there before you will be swayed.
Breakfast Buffet
If you’re a foodie, then how you start your day out is very important to you – given that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and you couldn’t agree more. How perfect then, that Tusker House offers you so many choices. For meats, they serve ham and cheese frittata, corned beef hash, beef Bobotie – quiche, and of course, the breakfast staples of bacon and sausage. In addition to your meats, you have such other breakfast classics as cereal and milk, potato wedges, waffles, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, cinnamon rolls, yogurt, turnovers, croissants, fresh fruit, assorted pastries, biscuits and gravy, flavored cream cheeses, jams, and assorted muffins and breads, not to mention African inspired dishes like vegetable frittata, yam casserole, carved rotisserie honey ham, jellies, and fruit chutneys – Oh and of course, there’s coffee, tea, juice, and other assorted breakfast beverages.
Now how is that for selection? You’re probably feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of your choices, but when it comes to food on a buffet having too many choices is truly better than not having enough. You’re probably feeling glad that it is a buffet so that you could feasibly try and review everything. After all, that is your sworn duty as a foodie, but keep in mind, that list of dishes is just for the breakfast buffet! There are also the lunch and dinner buffets to consider.
Lunch and Dinner Buffet
You get the idea that there are many scrumptious and unusual choices dishes available to you, but you’re wondering if the Tusker House buffet isn’t a jack-of-all-trades but instead a master of none. Quantity isn’t quality. Rather than a full list of all of the dishes that are available in the lunch and dinner buffet – THAT would have you completely overwhelmed – here are a few stand out dishes to keep an eye out for when you are there: banana-cinnamon bread pudding topped with delicious vanilla sauce, the green bean and onion salad, and carved top sirloin and pork loin.
Whether you’re savoring African flavors at Tusker House in the Animal Kingdom, or tasting the sweet treats offered at the Tomorrowland Terrace Fireworks Dessert Party, think of yourself as a foodie. You deserve to eat well on vacation. If you’re worried about the cost of all this luxurious food, check out the Magic Your Way Vacation package that allows you to bundle you Disney Dining Plan in with the rest of your vacation expenses and save 30% – 50%. Enjoy your Disney vacation, and don’t be ashamed to plan your theme park visits around your meals, rather than the other way around.