Dining Reviews-bit of a long post About This Page:

[Skatetigger]

Hi Everyone,

Got back a bit over a week ago from our trip to DL, and am finally getting around putting my dining report together. It was DH and I celebrating my birthday and our anniversary. I'll also include that we've been to WDW a lot so I do make some comparisons but not many.

We stayed at the Anaheim Hilton where we were upgraded(to my surprise actually) to executive floor. Then at the Disneyland hotel for a couple days

Overall we had some good experiences and one very disappointing one.

Café Oasis at Anaheim Hilton-DH had a chicken satay type meal and I had a turkey burger, both very good. Reasonably priced for a hotel

Plaza Inn-This was going to be my birthday breakfast with Tigger. Well it turned out to be a bit of a disappointing experience. You pay before you eat and you get everything yourself including drinks which I am not use to from my days at WDW. That was actually not so bad, no waiting on servers. Food here is just okay, my waffles were cold but the ham I had was very good. DH had a made to order omelet which he liked. I would not give this restaurant a good rating for character interaction as there are no CM”s to keep characters moving along, it’s basically a free for all and anyone can run up to a character as they are going from table to table. My bad rating also stems from the fact that I got “blown off” on my birthday by Minnie. DH was getting his omelet and I was sitting at table by myself. Well Minnie had finished at the table near me and I fully expected her to come over and at least shake my hand or something. Well she waived and went out the door. No picture no nothing. That started my disappointment. Then it took a while for anyone to get to us but we did get Captain Hook and Pooh but still no sign of my beloved Tigger. I asked a cast member and they said probably another 15 minutes but we were well done eating and were going to need to leave sometime soon to get to our fastpass. I did mention the Minnie experience and said that had never happened to me at WDW. They apologized and said they would see what they could do. Well finally Tigger came around and I got a quick pic and that was about it and he was on his way. Kind of a bummer on my birthday. I didn’t even get a cupcake or anything, which I was surprised as I had gotten one at Crystal Palace at WDW. Definitely wouldn’t go back there.

Knotts Chicken Dinner-This is at Knotts Berry Farm and I highly recommend this for anyone at DL with a car. The food is excellent. It’s a very basic selection of food and the place isn’t very fancy but again well worth the trip. We did have to wait about 15-20 minutes to get seated but we were okay with that. Our server was excellent and I think I heard her say she’s been there for 20 years. The main attraction is of course the Fried Chicken dinner, which DH and I both ordered(we paid an extra $2.00 for all white meat, which is well worth it). The chicken was the best I had ever had. I think the meal price is $13.99(so our meals were $15.99) For that price, we got biscuits, a salad, choice of soup or Cherry rhubarb compote type thing(go for the soup, we made that mistake), the chicken, Mashed potatoes and gravy(nice and hot), choice of Corn or cabbage and choice of either Apple/boysenberry pie or peach cobbler. We took chicken home as well as the pie. Highly recommend it if you have a car

Cinnabon at Universal Hollywood-Always a must for me

Popcornopolis inside Universal and at CityWalk-We had a lunch/snack of kettle corn and cheese popcorn. DH is the kettle corn fan, while I love cheese popcorn and this did not disappoint. They also have a chocolate caramel corn which we tried later and was really good

Daily Grill at Citywalk, these are a chain. If you have one near you try it. It was great. I had a skirt steak and DH had a great piece of Salmon. Highly recommend it if you are ever up there or near one. Very good food

Ruby’s-This is another chain restaurant. This was at Huntington Beach. We had milkshakes and these were great, they had all sorts of different flavors, not just Choc, Vanilla and Strawberry. Mine had choco syrup and peanut butter and was soo good. I would definitely try eating here as there were a lot of healthy items on the menu.

Tortilla Jo's in Downtown Disney. Highly recommend this place. Had the guacamole YUMMY [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/yuma.gif[/img], we also order the queso dip and it was very good. I had the chicken Fajita's and they were the best I have ever had. They were more sweet than I have had and really really liked it. DH had the ribs which he liked.
Beignets at Ralph Brennan's: They weren't quite what I thought. Maybe I have to get them hot out of the oven but they didn't do much for me. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Redd Rocket Pizza port. This was soo good and WAY better than Pizza Planet at MGM. I had a salad and a slice of pepperoni. DH got a meat lovers slice and a pepperoni. He shared the meat one with me as the slices are really big. They also had nice looking pasta dishes and other great salads. Wish they had this place at WDW. My cousin who goes to DL all the time recommended this.

Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street: We had an Ice cream cookie sundae at the Ice Cream Parlor which was good, but we still like our Ice cream cookie sandwich at WDW a bit better.

Goofy's Kitchen: We were now at the Disneyland hotel so thought this would be good. Again you prepay everything including 10% gratuity, which I do like. Characters here included Goofy, Baloo, Pluto, Snow White, Jasmine, Terk and Rafiki. The food here was very good, DH and I both got some of the pork loin and I had some of the carved prime rib which was YUMMY. Desserts here are bountiful and everyone can try a bit of something. I enjoyed the Choc chip cookie pizza. Character interaction here was good but it does take a while for everyone to get around to your table, we were there quite a long time to get to see characters and we didn't even get to see them all.

Granville's(Breakfast). Excellent food. I ordered the pancakes and when they came out there was such a big stack. They were very yummy. They came with a berry sauce and of course maple syrup. DH ordered the french toast and that was huge. We both ordered bacon which was very good as well. Nice and thick cut bacon. It's a bit pricey for a breakfast but well worth it. Service was quick, although it took a bit to get our juices. But hey that's okay.

Corn Dog Castle over in Paradise Pier at DCA-Very yummy and the biggest corn dogs I have ever seen. Corncoating was nice and crunchy and dog was good too. I am not sure if they have them at WDW but definitely need to.

Taste Pilot Grill at DCA: We did the Mickey’s Halloween treat and this was open so we thought we would try it as DH wanted a burger. This is your typical counter service options but a bit different as they had different type topics for the burger. What was really cool about this place was you could do the order yourself at a kiosk. I wish more Disney places would go to that. I could even get my grilled chicken breast without the bbq sauce.

Blue Bayou-We requested a table by the water when I made the reservation and we got there for what I thought was fairly early but to no avail we were going to have to wait 30-45 minutes probably for the table. I would have waited if we could have gone and poked around the shops but you had to wait there. So we took one somewhat close to the water which was actually very nice. Our server was good, but I was kind of bummed at first about the table so I may not have been the best customer, although I wasn’t mean, just not very happy. Food was good, although I think I will try the Prime Rib next time we go back. I loved the potatoes that they serve with your meal. I had the pork chop which was good and DH had the King Crab legs. One of the crab legs wasn’t fully cracked open so the CM took it back and the chef gave him a whole new one that was bigger than the ones he previously had, I mean it was HUGE. We tried the Cookie boat and it was so YUM-O. Definitely recommend getting that. I did get a birthday card and birthday dessert since I still had my button on(hey the CM’s told me to wear all the time I was there). So that made up for the just okay table. I would go back here again and probably try for a table by the water. I did feel bad though as the people at the restaurant tried cramming in this large party at a table meant for 6 at the most. They ended up leaving.

Like I said previously, overall we had a good experience, I just would definitely not do the Plaza Inn again as that was a totally bummer of an experience. I even tried to go later(around 10 am) to avoid the crowds and that didn’t work.

Hope you enjoyed the reviews.

[loobyoxlip]

Thanks for your reviews. We did the Plaza Inn 3 times (back when it was Pooh and Friends for breakfast) and it was a great experience. I hope it hasn't gone that downhill.

[crystalloubear]

Thanks for the reviews! Dh and I were just talking about Mrs Knott's chicken dinner and thinking about it for our upcoming trip. After I read what you said about it to him - he said it is now a "must do".

[lauren-roxy]

Thanks for the reviews!!

[Colexis Mom]

Thanks for the reviews [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[crazydisney]

[img]/ubb/images/graemlins/thanx.gif[/img]

[Meggera]

Thanks for the reviews. We, too, just got back and ate at Goofy's Kitchen and Blue Bayou. I will write all about them both in my upcoming TR which I hope to be starting tomorrow. Until then, thanks for your thoughts!

[chezp]

Sounds like you mainly had some great reviews - what a shame about your birthday meal though. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[DrDolphin]

Thanks for all the reviews!

[Tink and co.]

I had almost the same experience at the Plaza Inn on my birthday. Only I wanted to see Minnie. Glad everything else turned out well though! Thanks for the review!

[larissamorn]

corn dog castle also has a gooey, yummy cheese-on-a-stick for the non-hot-dog-eaters. mmmmm.

--L