Foodie Friday: The Smokehouse

Foodie Friday this week presents a review of

The Smokehouse

outside of House of Blues at Disney Springs.

The Smokehouse is a Quick Service barbecue stand in the West Side of Disney Springs, at the far end near Cirque du Soleil. Serving options like ribs, brisket, and smoked turkey legs, this is definitely worth the walk down. It's a walk-up counter with several tables in a nice courtyard-like area to the left of the building.

They open for lunch and stay open long enough for those who may eat a little on the later side. Oh, and Happy Hour is every day from 3-5pm. Can't beat that!

Craig got the smoked beef brisket sandwich which had a bbq sauce served on the side. He's of the mind that you don't have to have sauce on good meat, but he said the sauce did have good flavor. (Me? I just love a good bbq sauce!) Our little dude went with the all beef hot dog, though I think he wished he'd gotten the kids' pork slider instead.

Tessa and I shared the smoked pulled chicken nachos. They come covered in a delicious house-made cheese sauce and an avocado lime crema. Jalapenos and cilantro jazz it up a bit, but that chicken... smoked to perfection. I'd have to say, I'm typically into traditional Mexican nachos- taco meat, beans, yum. But man! I seriously think about these nachos. Like, I'm counting down the days til our next trip for these nachos. Like, it's a pretty sure bet I will not be sharing the next order. Seriously. I definitely recommend!

So, obviously we were pretty pleased with our selection for lunch that day. I think you will be, too!

All Disney Dining Plans are accepted here for a Quick Service meal credit. While the candies were sufficient when a QS meal included dessert, I would certainly opt for dessert elsewhere in Disney Springs rather than use a snack credit for it.

If you've eaten here, please let me know what you thought in the comments!

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Foodie Friday: La Cantina de San Angel

La Cantina de San Angel

in the Mexico Pavilion of Epcot

I don't know about you, but I love Mexican food. Tacos, burritos, nachos, chalupas... you name it. So, on our trip in September I had to stop in Mexico and grab a bite to eat. Seeing how we could eat "anywhere in the World (Showcase)" my husband opted for fish'n'chips from the UK.

This is a popular Quick Service restaurant located on the lagoon side as you walk around World Showcase. Tables can be hard to come by because of its popularity. It's a good idea to have someone grab a table while someone else does the ordering.

Here are some shots of the menu (click on them to enlarge)

Oh, and we can't forget about the margaritas!

I wish I'd been able to snap some pics of the food coming out of the window before mine. They not only looked delicious, but the portions were huge. This is definitely a QS meal to share!

I went for the nachos (minus the tomato) and a sangria. You get plenty of chips, a heaping helping of nacho cheese with seasoned beef and beans, and they add some sour cream and jalapenos... I'm in heaven. Handling my tray I wasn't able to get a picture of the salsa bar, but they have an area where you can help yourself to various salsas to spice up your dishes.

These were pretty good for what they were, but after having seen some of the other items come through the window, I wished I'd have tried one of the taco meals or the Pollo Cascabel. The sangria wasn't the best I've ever had, but it was certainly refreshing on a hot September afternoon.

These nachos could definitely have been shared, as could all of the dishes I saw. Actually, I would quite recommend sharing all QS meals you might have walking around the World Showcase. This little tip not only saves you money or a QS meal credit, but this way you can also sample fare from multiple countries as you make your way around.

Being a QS restaurant, these items (minus the alcoholic beverages) are covered by all of the Disney Dining Plans. Those churros would make nice use of a snack credit, too!

Enjoy!!

Let me know if you've been in the comments. What did you get?

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Foodie Friday: Be Our Guest Breakfast Review

 Welcome back, Mouse Fans.

Please join me for a quick review of our breakfast experience at

Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom.

Unfortunately, my family is a picky bunch (me included), so we've kind of put off Be Our Guest in the past. Reading the menu online makes everything sound so frou-frou and a bit out of our realm. However, without a reservation we couldn't go in to see the Beast's castle. For the sake of my readers and clients, it was high time I got some first-hand experience with this highly sought after ADR restaurant.

BOG (Be Our Guest) is located in Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom. It's situated at the foot of the Beast's Castle. The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This restaurant is unique in that breakfast and lunch are quick service meals here, and dinner is a table service meal. Most QS (quick service) meals do not require a reservation. At BOG all meals require ADRs (Advanced Dining Reservations).

Another unique thing about BOG is that for breakfast and lunch guests can go into their MDE (MyDisneyExperience account) 30 days in advance and place their order online.

We decided breakfast was likely our best bet as far as the menu went. I was able to secure an early 9:05 am reservation. We were all still pretty nervous about the menu, so we didn't do our online ordering until that morning around 7am. In our hesitance we also decided to order only one adult menu and one child's meal. I'd read that since the entrees come with a platter of pastries they could easily be shared, so we figured we'd try that for our first time.

Bag Check took especially long, as crowds were pretty high, so we weren't able to get in the park early. Once the Magic Kingdom's Welcome Show begins, they won't let anyone in the gates, early morning reservations or not. We high-tailed it straight back to the Beast's Castle with no problems.

The outside is accurately themed to the castle, down to the gargoyles.

You check in outside before entering the restaurant. Once you go in you enter a queue to your right. There are some fun armor suits to check out while you wait. Then you'll enter a room with several touch-screen terminals where you can scan your magic band and place your order if you haven't done so before. You can also confirm or change your existing order at this time. (We decided to remove the banana caramel sauce from our croissant doughnut.) I highly recommend ordering ahead of time to minimize your time in line!!

 

From there you're released to go find a table in one of the three dining rooms- the West Wing, the Grand Ballroom, and the Castle Gallery. Each room is themed to its name. The Grand Ballroom is the largest and on the morning we went, the most crowded. The West Wing is dark, a little loud, and the smallest of the three. (My 7 year old is wary of loud noises. He was okay to check the WW out, but he didn't want to stay) We chose the Castle Gallery.

Here are some photos of each of the dining rooms:

 

Utensils and soft drinks are self-serve in each of the rooms. You can find a cart with the silverware tucked up against the wall near the drink station. We were highly impressed with the ornate attention to detail, all the way down to keeping the theme true even to the Coke machine.

No need to worry about where you sit. They'll use their magic to find you an wheel a little trolley right to your table with your food.

As I said, we ordered one adult entrée- the croissant doughnut and a child's entrée- the French toast. The meals also came with a plate of pastries. Everything looked fabulous! So fabulous in fact, that my son scarfed down a piece of the French toast before I could even snap the photo! We left the banana-caramel sauce off (because my hubby doesn't like bananas), but we saw it with the sauce and sliced bananas and I think I want that all to myself next time. We had the pleasure of seeing several other entrees wheeled by us and realized we'd have eaten everything. It seems the menu made everything sound so fancy we thought it would be stuff we wouldn't like. Having seen it in person definitely changed our perspective. They just fluffed up the descriptions. All the food was still normal, delicious breakfast foods.

We all shared everything and loved it all. The croissant donut was definitely the favorite. Though I did really enjoy one of the muffins quite a bit, too. I asked a cast member what kind they were because I liked it so much. She graciously went to find out for me. When she returned she had 2 more for me! I highly recommend you snag the flax seed muffin from your pastry plate!

Having shared everything we all left feeling good. No one ate too much, but no one left hungry either. It was perfect! It definitely got the thumbs-up from my crew! We're looking forward to going back in November.

Click Here to check out the menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

That sums up this review. If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments below. I'd also love to hear your opinions if you've had the pleasure of dining here.




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