Greetings from Main Street USA! Recently we popped into The Plaza Restaurant to see if the comfort food eats were as good as we remember. The Plaza has been a long-standing underrated favorite here at DFB. Most Magic Kingdom diners aim to eat at Be Our Guest or Cinderella’s Royal Table, but for us, the Plaza remains high on our must-dine list.

On our last visit, we were pleasantly surprised by all of the new lunch options. Let’s take a tour.

Atmosphere

Located at the end of Main Street USA, The Plaza sits to your right just as you round the corner towards Tomorrowland and the infamous Purple Wall.

While she’s nothing over-the-top, the Plaza has a delicate charm to it. You absolutely feel like you are in the turn-of-the-century  1900’s surrounded by the ornate light fixtures and details. And especially when the Citizens of Main Street join you!

On our visit they were crowing a young Guest as Junior Mayor, but we’ve also seen them select a Junior Fire Chief! This is a fun surprise that engages the whole restaurant, and really makes a meal at the Plaza extra special. It’s so in-keeping with the turn-of-the-20th-century theme, and brings the town of Main Street to life. You never know who will pop in – we’ve also seen the Fire Chief and the Mayor, himself!

Eats

The Plaza keeps it pretty simple, with a menu that features great sandwiches, comfort food, and of course, amazing desserts. They get their ice cream from their next-door neighbor, The Plaza Ice Cream Parlor, so you just know the sweet treats will be excellent!

We decided to skip the bottomless milkshakes this time and save the sweets for after lunch. By the way, the Plaza also has a nice selection of wine and beer if you’re looking for an adult beverage with your meal.

 

But we couldn’t wait to get our hands on one of our favorites — The Plaza Loaded Fries. These are the Magic Kingdom replacement to our dearly-departed Figaro Fries.

These are crispy fries topped with melted (PLASTIC!!) cheese, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, and ranch dressing.  As always, these are a hit. I mean, it’s fries with plastic cheese, bacon, and ranch — can you really go wrong?! They come in a pretty large portion so these are definitely shareable, or would make an awesome lunch for one. Just saying…

Next up, entrees! We decided to grab a classic comfort dish, and one of the Plaza’s most popular items, the Home-Style Meatloaf.

The Home-style Meatloaf is served with red-skinned mashed potatoes, crispy onion rings, and a seasonal veggie, which was green beans for us!

This was once again delicious. The meatloaf is nice and moist, with great flavor. The red-skinned mashed potatoes are always a delight here as well– very buttery and the skin-on potatoes make for great textures. The green beans were nice and crunchy, however they could’ve used a little more butter and seasoning. Definitely lookin’ pretty dry! And the onion rings are always top-drawer — so crunchy and light. We could’ve eaten a whole plate of these!

Next up, the Fried Green Tomato Sandwich. LOOK at the height on this one!

This is a toasted Brioche Bun, piled high with a Deep-fried Green Tomato, bacon, arugula, tomato, and pepper-jack cheese and topped with Alabama White Barbecue Sauce.

This was a good-looking sandwich, but I must admit, I was a little let-down. The fried-green tomato, which is supposed to be the star of the show, gets lost with all the other toppings. It ends up tasting like a bacon and “something-fried” sandwich, which to be fair, isn’t terrible. The arugula was offered a nice kick and was very fresh, as was the rest of the produce. I just wish the fried-green tomato stood out a little more.

Last, but certainly not least, we got the Baked Honey-Barbecued Brisket Mac & Cheese. Again.

This dish is Baked Mac & Cheese, topped with Beef Brisket in a Honey BBQ Sauce and finished with Crispy-fried Onions and Scallions.

I mean, wow, just look at this beauty. The mac & cheese is soooo cheesy, in the best way. I really liked the use of the big noodles as well — it made it easy to grab one along with a bite of the brisket. Speaking of the brisket, it’s also delicious. The honey barbecue sauce has the perfect touch of sweet, and the meat itself is smokey and tender. And the crispy onions added a surprising yet welcome crunch. (Whatever, fried onions make everything better.) Overall, this dish was once again a winner and my favorite of the day. It’s huge and heavy, so sharing is certainly an option, especially if you’re gong to get dessert.

Did someone say dessert? We couldn’t go to the Plaza without treating ourselves.

As we mentioned, all of the ice cream is from the Ice Cream Parlor next door, so you can’t go wrong with any of the sundaes! But we wanted to try something a little different, so we selected the Butterscotch Bread Pudding and the Seasonal Specialty Cake, which for us was Carrot Cake!

The Butterscotch Bread Pudding is served in a cast-iron skillet, and comes topped with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

We’ve had it before (when it was first introduced), and it was just as good this time. The Plaza Butterscotch Bread Pudding consistently ranks as one of our top bread puddings in Walt Disney World, with the other favorites being the Ohana Bread Pudding at the Polynesian Village Resort and the Toffee Bread Pudding at House of Blues.

This Bread pudding was nice and warm, and of course the ice cream was delicious. The caramel sauce was a good addition as well, as it bumped up the vanilla flavor. If you’re not big into sundaes, this is a great option for dessert. But…it’s KIND of a sundae, so… .

Now, for the Seasonal Specialty Cake.

As mentioned, the seasonal selection is currently Carrot Cake, which is also topped with the gooey caramel sauce.

As far as Carrot Cake goes, this was pretty darn good! The cream cheese frosting was the ideal consistency, and the cake itself was moist and flavorful. Carrot Cake in Walt Disney World isn’t always a success, but this was a decent version if you love carrot cake. (If you don’t love carrot cake, it’s not going to covert you. So skip it.)

Overall

Once again, the Plaza was a delight. I probably wouldn’t order the Fried Green Tomato sandwich again, however both the Meatloaf and Brisket Mac were delicious and highly recommended. And even though the Plaza is famous for their ice cream desserts, both of the non-ice cream focused ones we tried were a hit. Just goes to show you that they are reliable as ever with their sweets!

The Plaza Restaurant is an awesome spot for lunch in Magic Kingdom, especially considering its value. It’s relatively easy to snag an Advance Dining Reservation as well. It may not have the flash of Be Our Guest, but we are happy to be Guests at the Plaza any day!

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Is The Plaza Restaurant a favorite of yours too? Let us know in the comments!