Food Goal Report

On our last Disney vacation I vowed that I would take my eating seriously. Not as in, attempt to eat well while at Walt Disney World. As in, eat all those delicious things I’ve always wanted to eat but don’t because I forget or don’t make the conscious effort to do so. I spent the months leading up to our vacation looking at pictures on Instagram, looking at menus online and dreaming of delicious food. I posted a list of my food goals a few weeks before we left. I planned which days I would enjoy these food items, giving this aspect of our trip the energy it deserved. Some things from the original list weren’t available but here’s the report on the things that were.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Mousse. Satu’li Canteen. Animal Kingdom.

I enjoyed this dessert on our first park day at Animal Kingdom. This mousse is on the dessert menu of Satu’li Canteen in Pandora. It was soft and sweet. The flavours were subtle. The topping was like a lemon jelly. This mousse was like nothing I’d ever eaten before. It was everything I was hoping it would be. You can find the Satu’li Canteen in the heart of Pandora, past the Flights of Passage and beside the store Windtraders. If you’re on the dining plan this can count as a snack. The quick service meal no longer comes with a dessert. So this will be used as one of your snack credits. If you’re a fan of cheesecake then this will be right up your alley. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich. Sleepy Hollow. Magic Kingdom

I was very excited to give this Sandwich a try. It is two chocolate chip cookies sandwiching three scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream. I love ice cream and I love cookies so this had my name written all over it. I picked mine up at Sleepy Hollow on our first Magic Kingdom day before watching the Festival of Fantasy Parade. Everything about this sandwich was perfection. The vanilla ice cream was just the right flavour. It wasn’t to overpowering to take over the taste of the cookie. The cookie was the right density and texture. It wasn’t soft and it wasn’t really hard. I normally love a nice soft cookie but realized that would have made it harder to eat with one or two hands. If the cookie had been any harder it would have broken in half as I was eating it. The cookie wasn’t right out of the oven, so the chocolate chips weren’t melting all over me. I can’t say enough about this snack. Two things surprised me about this Ice Cream Sandwich. One, it was easy to eat. The cast member who put it together smooshed it a bit before packaging it up, allowing it to be easier to hold. Two, it wasn’t too filling. Disclaimer, I hadn’t eaten lunch in anticipation of consuming this massive “snack” but I had enjoyed a Vanilla shake a few hours before, so it’s not like I had an empty stomach. I didn’t even share it with my family. I gave them each maybe a bite but the rest was for me! I would highly recommend having this on your next Disney vacation. Luckily you can find it at various locations across Walt Disney World. Sleepy Hollow in Liberty Square Magic Kingdom, Plaza Ice Cream Parlour on Main Street U.S.A. Magic Kingdom, and Hollywood Scoops in Hollywood Studios.

Apple Crisp a la Mode. Hollywood Scoops. Hollywood Studios.

Hollywood Scoops is a stand found on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood Studios. It’s at the end of a strip of food stands, just underneath the looming Hollywood Tower Hotel.  Their offerings are limited to ice cream. I made my way here to enjoy the Apple Crisp a la Mode. Cinnamon Apple, topped with Vanilla Ice Cream, Caramel Sauce and Streusel. I had high expectations for this ice cream treat. I love my ice cream and I’m always a sucker for a good apple crisp. This really didn’t do the trick for me though. It wasn’t anything different then something I would find at a restaurant at home. The streusel is what I thought would give it a different taste but found it to be tasteless. It definitely looked appealing. It was easy to eat but not very flavourful. I wouldn’t recommend it. The shop is very cute and they have a wide selection of ice cream flavours. Next trip I think I’ll give their Brownie Sundae a try. In the meantime I would say to skip this Apple Crisp a la Mode, grab the Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich instead.

Candy Apple. Big Top Souvenirs. Magic Kingdom.

The Candy Apples at Walt Disney World are a piece of art. Many of them are done up like different characters, using marshmallows to create mickey ears, coloured sprinkles to create the costumes, and their dipped in chocolate. They’ve continued to become more impressive year after year and this was going to be the year I finally had one. We realized a coupe day into our trip that the specialty candy apples were not Dining Plan snacks, so I decided when I did have one I was going to choose one that had the purple dining plan snack symbol on its sign. This helped me narrow it down. I opted for a Caramel Apple with Nuts. And my word, it was so good. Now to give you a bit of context, I love peanut butter. I’m one who will grab a spoonful right out of the jar. So an apple covered in caramel and then covered with nuts was right in my wheelhouse. The apple was juicy, it was easy to eat, the nuts weren’t falling everywhere. I would eat one again right now if I could. The caramel apple didn’t have the stickiness you get from a candy apple, which made me happy. It also didn’t make me feel sick. Maybe that was because we were 9 days in and my body had already adjusted to eating terribly. Regardless, I would recommend this snack to anyone. It was the right amount of caramel and the right amount of nuts. I would be wary when giving this to a child. The end of the stick inside the apple is very sharp. As they begin to finish the apple be sure to take the stick out to make sure no one gets hurt. You can find these apples at a variety of shops throughout Walt Disney World. Main Street Confectionary Magic Kingdom, Big Top Souvenirs Magic Kingdom, Karamel-Kuche Germany Pavilion Epcot, Beverly Sunset Hollywood Studios, Candy Cauldron Disney Springs and Goofy’s Candy Shop Disney Springs to name a few. Giving you no excuse to not get one of these on your vacation.

Dark Side Waffles. Backlot Express. Hollywood Studios.

I’m going to admit something. I did not order these for myself. If we hadn’t already had an incredible breakfast at Trattoria al Forno I would have indulged in these lunchtime waffles. But I knew I still had a whoopie pie on the list for my afternoon snack plus a table service meal for dinner. So I ordered them for the kids and tried some of theirs. They are very good but at this point in our vacation I realized that the character imprint on the waffles was not original. We had had Nemo waffles at the Art of Animation’s Landscape of Flavours and just that morning the kids had had Flounder waffles with their breakfast. I mean Nemo and Flounder still do not compare to Darth Vader’s face on your food but the novelty was no longer there. I would definitely recommend them. They are very tasty and they come with chicken tenders. Giving you a very different lunch or dinner option. The Backlot Express is found directly beside Star Tours give you a nice structure to a Star Wars day at Hollywood Studios.

Whoopie Pies. Beverly Sunset. Hollywood Studios.

This was the last special food item I enjoyed on our vacation. It was the one that had built up the most for me because I’d never had a whoopie pie before. I also tried to pick one up on our first Hollywood Studios day to no avail because the line was huge. Again, creating more anticipation. I had a very hard time deciding which whoopie pie to buy. They offer a large variety. A few of the options are what you’d expect: Cookies and Cream, Orange Cream. They also offer a Maple Bacon one. I struggled with getting one that was totally crazy sounding or going the safe route and getting one I was confident I’d enjoy. Red Velvet is what I landed on. For such a small sized pastry I found it incredibly hard to eat. It was so beautiful to look at, I didn’t want to take it a part but in hindsight I should have eaten it in two parts instead of taking full bites. I tried to enjoy all the layers at once. It was very rich and there was a lot of frosting. It’s basically like a very small cupcake with a lot of frosting. It wasn’t worth the build up I had created. It was good but it wasn’t the best thing I ate on the trip. If you love cupcakes and macaroons then I would make sure to pick up one of these. If you’re not, I’d skip it. But I will say this. I was unlike anything I’d had before. From the construction of it, to the taste. You can buy one of these pies in Beverly Sunset shop on the corner of Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd. Street performers quite often stop in front of this shop to do their bits.

A couple things didn’t end up making the cut for this vacation. Like the Mickey Mouse S’mores at the Ganachery in Disney Springs. The cast member at the Ganachery informed me that this is only offered seasonally and they are constantly coming up with new items. She said they would be serving something unique for Valentine’s Day. The take away being, they only offer drinks and chocolates unless it’s around a holiday. So if you’re looking for something delicious and unique and you happen to be visiting during a holiday check in to see what they are currently offering. The other thing not to make the cut was the pumpkin spice ice cream sundae. This is supposed to be offered at the Plaza Ice Cream Parlour on Main Street U.S.A. according to the menu on Walt Disney World’s website. Their menu on the street didn’t show they were offering it so we didn’t take the time to wait in the long line to see if we could request it inside. Our bellies were already very full from the other delicious dishes we’d enjoyed at the Magic Kingdom.

I really loved having this list on our vacation. It made the snacking part of our vacation feel more adventurous. Every other vacation I would be eating Mickey Ice Cream Premium Bars daily with a dose of popcorn and Dole Whip to round out my diet. But, there is so much more to enjoy! I had so much fun researching the different foods I wanted to try. I found having a list also made it less overwhelming to make the choice on the spot. I already knew what I wanted to try and wasn’t wandering aimlessly around the park looking in little knock and cranny spots for something unique and special. This is going to be the new norm on our vacations. Can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next time. Happy Planning, Friends.