The Megalosaurus, Giganto, Paleozoic T-Rex Review

What is T-Rex? Part Dinosaur, Part Cotton-tini, Part Ice Cave.

Let me explain: if you’re a fan of Rainforest Cafe and other themed restaurants, you’ll love T-Rex. It takes themeing to the max — meteor showers, ice-bound wooly mammoths, a moving octopus bar — it’s all there. And it is what you make it. If you’re expecting gourmet food and bend-over-backwards service, you’re in the wrong place. If you’re expecting a fun, entertaining meal with decent grub and lots to look at — Welcome to T-Rex!

Atmosphere
Located in Disney World’s Downtown Disney, T-Rex is a prehistoric carnival of themeing. Each room has a different focus: an ice cave, complete with shifting colors and an embedded T-Rex skeleton; and undersea room with giant jellyfish lampshades and a moving octopus presiding over the bar; a meteor shower room, where you’d better watch out every 10 minutes or so; a fern forest with giant wasps and a triceratops so big you can seat three parties in his…midsection…? And it goes on from there!

Ice Cave with T-Rex Skeleton

Triceratops Seating Area

Moving Octopus Bar

Octopus Hidden Mickey

[Read more…]

Hacienda de San Angel Menu Alert

By AJ 16 Comments

New info and items from the Hacienda de San Angel menu and the Cantina de San Angel menu have just been announced. Both restaurants are scheduled to open in September 2010.

La Hacienda de San Angel

The Hacienda will seat 250 and will serve as a table service eatery for dinner only, opening at 4pm. (And I’ve heard that all the chairs will face the windows, so that everyone has a great view of Illuminations!)

The Hacienda de San Angel Menu will include:

queso fundido (warm cheese with poblano pepper and chorizo)
taco trio with rib eye
roasted chicken and pork
traditional black bean soup
mixed grill for two with flank steak, chicken, chorizo and vegetables (a seafood version features grouper, shrimp and scallops)
roasted shrimp in pepper garlic broth
flank steak with spring onions, refried beans and cactus leaves
grilled red snapper with roasted corn and cactus leaves
Chocolate churros
sweet tamales
fruit empanadas

La Cantina de San Angel

The Cantina will operate as it always has, opening at 11am and serving quick-service dishes throughout the day. It will seat 150.

The La Cantina de San Angel menu will include:

chicken and beef tacos on fresh handmade corn tortillas
nachos
cheese empanada
guacamole and chips
churros

Click to see all of our coverage, including construction photos, of the creation of La Hacienda de San Angel.

Source: Hooray for the Disney Parks Blog

World of Color Picnic Booking Now Available Online

By AJ 8 Comments

Veggie Wrap World of Color Picnic

The online orders for World of Color picnics in Disneyland Resort’s Disney California Adventure theme park are up and running.

Picnics are $14.99 per meal, and offer some delicious variety (click on the link above for a great video about them!). Right now, you can order your picnic online for June 12th onward.

To get to the online ordering section, follow this link.

DIY Disney: Disney Recipes for Your Summer Picnic

By AJ 18 Comments

I’m thrilled to announce the first, official Disney Food Blog column — Chef BigFatPanda’s DIY Disney Recipes! Every month, our resident Chef BigFatPanda will put together his amazing step-by-step, photo-filled posts where he and Chef Mickey show you their adventures in the kitchen cooking up Disney goodies! Today, we launch the column with three great recipes that you can pack up and take on a Disney-inspired picnic (perfect for 4th of July!). Enjoy…

Hello! Chef BigFatPanda here! How are you? Don’t answer cause I can’t hear you, but I’ll assume you’re reading this with peachy vigor. I like that. Peachy Vigor! I’m going to use that from now on.

So, did you hear? I am so excited to get my own column here on the Disney Food Blog. No longer am I a guest, but a cast member (or whatever AJ wishes to call it). Thanks so much to everyone!

I wanted to do something a bit different for this post, so I chose some fairly simple yet overlooked Disney recipes that can truly be incorporated into a delicious summer meal. I am going to make the Barbecue Sauce from the Flame Tree Barbecue in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, grilled Asparagus just as they make it in Disney’s Grand Californian Resort’s Storyteller Café, and Coquina cookies, originally from the Cinnamon Bay Bakery at Disney World’s Caribbean Beach Resort. Add these Disney recipes to a rice, pasta, or potato side and you have a complete and colorful summer meal just in time for Summer Nightastic!

Flame Tree Barbecue Sauce

As usual, the recipe’s instructions will be bolded for easy reference should you wish to print this out and skip my banter.

Ingredients for Flame Tree Barbecue Sauce

You will need:
1 cup Ketchup
¼ cup Rice Wine Vinegar
¼ cup Water
¼ cup Packed Light Brown Sugar [Read more…]

Epcot Via Napoli Menu Items and Storyline

By AJ 21 Comments

Disneyland's Naples Pepperoni Pizza -- Sister Restaurant to Via Napoli

Update: Via Napoli reservations available August 6th. The restaurant will soft open on August 5th and grand open on September 10th.

According to a press release from the Patina Group, here’s a bit more information trickling out about Epcot’s new Italian Pizzeria, Via Napoli, set to open in September 2010:

Menu Items

Featured on the Via Napoli Menu will be several authentic Neapolitan pizzas. Here are just a few that were mentioned in the press release:

pizza bianca (the restaurant will likely offer several different types of white pizza)
quattro stagioni (featuring artichokes, ham, eggplant, mushrooms, tomatoes)
piccante (with chicken sausage, tomatoes, hot pepper, provolone, mozzarella)
traditional margherita pizza

Famed Pizzaiolo Charlie Restivo will serve as executive chef, and ingredients will include Marzano tomatoes, Caputo flour, handmade fresh mozzarella, Parma Cotto, crumbled sausage, and water calibrated specifically to the pH found in Naples.

Storyline and Restaurant Features

The three wood-burning ovens of Via Napoli will be named after the three active volcanoes in Italy –- Mount Etna, Mount Vesuvius and Stromboli (ah ha — a Pinocchio reference! Or is that the other way around…).

Each oven will be sculpted with the “face of the volcano” — reflecting the gods whose mythology surrounds each volcano’s history.

That’s what we know so far! Check out our other coverage of Epcot’s Via Napoli here.

Sharing is Caring: Three Great Appetizers That’ll Feed A Crowd

By AJ 10 Comments

I loooooooove appetizer platters. Give me a way to sample everything on the menu at once and I’m there. (I know. You’re so surprised to discover that about me, right?) Seriously, though, appetizer platters are a good way to give food-loving families a little taste of everything, and to give picky eaters a better shot of finding something they’ll enjoy as well. They bring peace and harmony wherever they go, and this is why we always have to order them when available.

So, going through my photos the other day, I realized that I’ve had three such delights in the past few months! This sampling covers three distinct food themes — Irish at Raglan Road, California Cuisine at Napa Rose, and Italian at Portobello — so I thought it’d be especially interesting…

Appetiser D’Lirrah for Two: Raglan Road Pub, Downtown Disney, Disney World

Raglan Road

At Raglan Road, amidst the stained glass, live Irish music and dancing, and imported bars (yep — they imported the actual wooden bars themselves from Ireland), you’ve got some incredible, authentic Irish food with a modern twist designed by Celebrity Master Chef Kevin Dundon).

Located in the Downtown Disney district of Walt Disney World, Raglan Road offers a great spot to while away an evening on some imported beer, keen cocktails, or incredible food — including this piece of foodie decadence called [Read more…]

The Five Best Uses for Disney Dining Plan Snack Credits

By AJ 33 Comments

News Alert!
The Disney Food Blog Newsletter has officially been established! We’ll be sharing our favorite Disney Dining tips, tricks, and resources as well as the latest news and discounts with you every month. There will also be exclusive content just for DFB Newsletter readers!

So head over to that little subscribe button to the right and join us! 🙂

Now returning to your regularly scheduled Disney Food Blog post…
____________________ ______ ____ ___ __ _

UPDATE:

Check out our Top 6 Uses for a Disney Dining Plan Snack Credit for 2012 here!

We had a reader question about the best way to use Disney Dining Plan snack credits, and my mind jumped back to the first year I used a Disney Dining Plan. We had no idea what to do with our snack credits, so we ended up buying a whole bunch of bottled water the last two days of the trip just to use them up!

So, believe me, I know the need for good snack credit advice. I opened it up to the Disney Food Blog twitter and facebook crowds last week. Here’s the word from the experts on the best way to use up your Disney Dining Plan snack credits!

1. Epcot Food and Wine Festival Booths

I have to list these first, because they’re just such an incredible deal for a snack credit. For those visiting during Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival (October 1-November 16, 2010), most of the international booths around the World Showcase promenade accept snack credits as payment for their menu items!

Food and Wine Festival Booth Menu

My suggestion? Save all of your snack credits, then “eat around the World” for at least one meal! How far do you think you can get before those credits run out…or you’re stuffed to the gills? 🙂

Main Street Bakery Cinnamon Roll

2. Bakeries

You know we love our bakeries and cafes here on the Disney Food Blog, and bakeries came up as the most suggested venues for snack credit use in our twitter and facebook polling.

Breakfast is a great time to use your credits at a bakery, because you can often get cereal with milk, or a portion of oatmeal for one credit. Of course, you can also get cinnamon rolls, butterfinger cupcakes, paw print brownies, crepes, school bread… [Read more…]

Two Le Cellier Meals. One Day. It Can Be Done.

By AJ 36 Comments

And we did it. That’s right, folks, I actually booked two Le Cellier reservations in one day. I know you think I’m crazy, so just know that our two visits to the steakhouse on the same day were due to a crazy turn of events…we’ll leave it at that. 😉 Luckily, our two visits translate into a whole lot of food pics and info for the blog, so yay!

Atmosphere

Located in Epcot‘s Canada pavilion, Le Cellier means “The Cellar” in Canadian (ha ha. just kidding. it’s French), so walking into the restaurant means you’re gloriously shoved from the (often) hot, humid, sticky Florida sun into a cool, dark, stone room. While I realize this is probably not ideal for the Canadian Cast Members who work there and probably came to Florida to get a little sun, it’s great for us tourists who are baking all day in the parks!

Le Cellier Entryway

The rooms of Le Cellier Steakhouse are made up of stone-textured archways lit by dripping “candle” sconces — it really does feel like you’re dining in someone’s wine cellar. And the tiny size of the dining room means that reservations here are some of the hardest to get in Disney World (thus my two in one day debacle — if I wanted to eat at Le Cellier twice during our trip, I had to do it twice in one day as all other reservations were taken for the entire trip).

Le Cellier Dining Room

FYI: My mom’s favorite part of Le Cellier is that the tiny dining room is invisibly broken up into the Canadian provinces. Her favorite thing to do as soon as we’re seated is ask the server “where we’re sitting.” It’s always fun if we’re in Ontario, because then we can talk about how we’re from Buffalo. Anywho — on with the review!

Eats

It isn’t 100% clear to me what constitutes “Canadian cuisine.” I’m extremely [Read more…]

Disney Online Dining Reservations 190 days out?

By AJ 7 Comments

Due to what appears to be a glitch in Disney’s Online Reservations System, guests have been able to make reservations 190 days out — even without a valid resort reservation number.

The site’s booking calendar extends 190 days from today, and when a date is chosen that exists outside of the 180 day window, guests are prompted to enter their resort reservation number as usual. Interestingly, when I entered “12345678” for a reservation number, I was easily able to book a reservation for dinner at Le Cellier, breakfast at Chef Mickey’s, and dinner at Boma 190 days out (December 13th).

Interestingly, Cinderella’s Royal Table is considered in “invalid” restaurant when searching this way.

Maybe this is beta testing for a new system, or maybe it’s a glitch with the new online reservation system. Remains to be seen.

Thanks to Chris for the heads up!

Disney Food Post Round-Up: June 6th, 2010

By AJ Leave a Comment

Marble Cupcake at Starring rolls Cafe

Some interesting Disney food news “bites” to start the round-up this week:

World of Color Dining mania! Disneyland announced the new World of Color picnic options, we updated our World of Color dining package info, and we showcased some light-up and colorful World of Color snacks!
Disney released new details about the 2010 Epcot Food and Wine Festival, as well as pricing for two of the newest events: 3D Disney’s Dessert Discoveries and Delicious Discoveries First Bites.
Disney World has greatly improved its Online Advanced Dining Reservations system!
Updates have been made to Animal Kingdom’s Picnic in the Park.

Now, here we go to the Disney Food Round-up for this week! Thanks for all the great posts!

Thanks to About.com Theme Parks who let me contribute my suggestions to the favorite Disneyland Restaurants list! Much appreciated!

Thanks to Cupcakes Take the Cake who featured and linked to my post about Animal Kingdom’s Zebra Cupcakes! You guys are the best (psst…even the New York Times says so!)

Spirited Remix blogs about drinking around the world, specifically at San Angel Inn, Coral Reef, and Citricos!

Main Street Gazette chimes in this week with a tribute to funnel cake!

ChipandCo spotlights some Tinkerbell Cupcakes!

Disney Every Day has a sneak peek into California Grill’s Napa Room. Mommy Musings coupled her Napa Room food pics with some great shots of the Main Street Electrical Parade float preview! Thanks for the insights, ladies!

Sweet P Cupcakes has some adorable “Mickey Parts” treats showcased on their blog.

Illuminating Epcot has the Le Cellier mushroom risotto recipe highlighted this week. Yummo!

Zannaland shares her review of the Raglan Road Tables in Wonderland dinner.

OC Register’s Fast Food Maven has news of a new Sports-themed restaurant opening near Disneyland.

A Taste of Disney has put together a recipe video for Liberty Tree Tavern’s Pot Roast!

Looking for something?

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The Megalosaurus, Giganto, Paleozoic T-Rex Review