Vegan Satori

Sad News from Kouzzina

2011-11-30T17:53:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately, it appears that Chef Miguel will be leaving Disney in the beginning of January. It would be amazing if things changed by then, but it doesn't look like that will be the case.

He will certainly be missed, and I'm not sure that we'll be returning to Kouzzina in his absence.

Hopefully he'll continue to have a distinguished cooking career elsewhere.

Plan your trips for next year accordingly!

November 2011 - Can we get a redo?

2011-11-11T16:07:00.065-05:00

Yet another Disney World trip is in the books... and that’s pretty much where this one should stay. No matter how many times you go, and no matter how well-planned you believe you are, sometimes debacles just happen.

Now, I suppose in retrospect that it really wasn't all that bad. Things could have gone much worse, though my mom still refers to it as the "vacation from hell". Trying to accentuate the positives, we did have a number of new experiences (I got brought up to dance at Tam Tam Congo, and was pulled into the Ziti Sisters' show in Italy, for example), and we all had really good food...

Still, the trip had an anxious muted tone that led to a less enthusiastic documentation on my part. I’ll try to give a rundown of the highs and lows, with a little food porn thrown in for good measure.

Day 1

We opened the trip at Gasparilla Grille, as always. Before we went down, we spoke with Chef Tyler (who deserves a plug along with my sincere thanks, but more on him later). He told me over the phone that he makes a vegan tempeh Reuben, yes, a vegan tempeh Reuben! Obviously I jumped at the opportunity, and though he wasn’t actually there to make it for me that morning, he left all of the ingredients and instructions for the chef on duty. I ended up having two of these sandwiches, one on the first day, one on the last, and though both hit the Reuben spot, I think you can tell from the pictures that the one Chef Tyler made for me on the last day outshined the first. With marinated tempeh, a vegan Russian dressing, sauerkraut and “American cheese” on rye, it brought me right back to the hot Reubens of old. An excellent throwback sandwich and an inspiring opener to the vacation.

I’m hoping if enough vegans go down and request it that they may stick this sucker on the menu. (Hint, hint…)

There was some confusion about my mom’s food which led to a long wait and unfortunately, to her being fed bread which we think she shouldn’t have had. (We learned later that they changed the recipe of their ciabatta loaves to one that uses sourdough, something she’s allergic to. Cue the ominous foreshadowing music…) Thus, for anyone with allergies, even if you’ve spoken with a chef before you get to Disney, always double check before you actually order in the restaurant. Brands and recipes change frequently down there. Better safe than hospitalized.

While waiting for her food I browsed the snack selection, and though potato chips are generally vegan, I was impressed to find that the Disney brand kettle chips that they sell in the park (both original and BBQ flavored) actually have a Vegan logo on the back of the bags! That’s what I call validation that we’re making headway!

From Gasparilla we hopped a bus downtown to make my bi-annual Babycakes pilgrimage. It’s always exciting because every time I go in there I find something new. I know Babycakes donuts get mixed reviews from some. I suppose if you go in expecting a greasy fried Dunkin’ kind of donut, you may be disappointed. Rather, they remind me of really good coffee cake with a hole in the center. In fact, the chocolate crunch donut reminds my taste buds of the Louisiana Ring cake I used to scarf down by the giant wedge growing up.

This time I tried the apple cranberry toastee slice, (my favorite of the slices), a spicy pumpkin chip slice, a decadent banana chip slice, the mandatory donuts (coconut and chocolate crunch), a crunchy thin chocolate chip cookie and a mini red velvet cupcake. (None of the pics came out very well, so you’ll have to use your imagination.)

With a fridge full of tasty treats, that night we ate as always at the Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show, and as always, the salad, tofu and couscous were excellent. I’ve written about it before, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

That night is where the trip took a turn for the worse. Due most likely to the sourdough bread, (though we don’t know for certain) my mom ended up going by ambulance to Celebration Hospital at 3:00 am. We were there the entire day and didn’t get released until around 5:00 pm the following evening.

(By way of setting the stage for what was soon to be an obvious pattern of mishaps plaguing this vacation, going to the hospital wasn’t bad enough, but the stretcher getting into the ambulance malfunctioned and almost tossed my mom out of it!)

Day 2 – Celebration Hospital

On a positive note, if you ever need to go to a hospital, Celebration is basically a resort with doctors. Not only is the hospital state-of-the-art, the staff is fantastic and the building and grounds are, themselves, gorgeous.

Truth be told, since we’d spent a night there five or so years ago, I remembered that they had a mostly vegetarian restaurant on premises and I was kind of selfishly looking forward to checking out their vegan selection. Sad to say, it turned out to be quite a disappointment. They do sell “vegetarian chicken soup”, vegetarian hot dogs, and a few other hot vegetarian meals, as well as fresh fruit juices and dairy smoothies. Vegans, however, are basically out of luck.

I considered ordering a cheeseless pizza but held off because I wasn’t sure what might be hidden in the dough and sauce, and I had a difficult time getting straight answers out of anyone in the kitchen.

Case in point, they had vegetarian minestrone soup on the menu, so I asked a line cook about the ingredients. (I’ve been spoiled by Disney because every restaurant there, including all of the Quick Services, have a handy binder with every ingredient list for everything on the menu.) Not having such a book, he brought out a chef to help me. I explained that I was vegan and asked if there were any animal products in the soup. The chef told me “no, it’s completely vegetarian.” He said it was just vegetables, a little tomato and pasta. I asked if there were eggs in the pasta to which he replied “There’s always eggs in pasta. It’s just flour and eggs.” I thanked him and decided not to inquire about anything else that night.

The next day I asked someone different about the lentil stew which looked hearty and nutritious. The woman said there definitely wasn’t any cream in it, but couldn’t say for sure whether it included butter or not. Consequently, while in the hospital I lived off of an assortment of chips, popcorn and granola. Thankfully, like most Disney Resorts, they carry vanilla Silk. They also sold a series of vegan protein bars I’d never heard of and didn’t have the nerve to try.

Oh, and I should mention that they do, at night, have a rather nice salad bar. Due to bad timing on my part I got down there after the dinner rush so the pickings were slim. I did make myself a small salad with lettuce, cukes and vinegar the first night to assuage the guilt of eating a whole bag of bagel chips earlier in the day.

Since I’m sort of travelogue-ing the mishaps along the way this time as well as the food, I should mention one hilarious (in retrospect) situation from our hospital stay. I stayed with my mother the whole time she was in there, but we sent my aunt back to the Polynesian since there was no reason for all of us to sit in that little room. While my aunt was at the Magic Kingdom that first day, I got a rather frantic call on my cell from my cousin who was checking our houses, saying that he’d accidentally tripped my aunt’s security alarm and that the security company was unable to shut it off. Never, in all the years that he’s been checking our houses has that ever happened. And with perfectly inopportune timing! When he tried to call my aunt to see what to do, she was riding the train around the Kingdom and, unable to hear him, assumed it was me on the phone and hung up on him saying she’d call back later, leaving him in the screaming house with the cops on their way!

Long story short, it all worked out with no jail time and nerves relatively intact. At least we got a good laugh out of it afterward.

Day 3 – Hospital/Crystal Palace

The night of our release we ate at Crystal Palace for the first time in years. If you’d ever had a bad experience there in the past, I highly recommend trying it again. Chef Alfonso has really turned the place around as far as I’m concerned. We had an excellent meal (and not just because it was the first hot food I’d eaten in two days).

There are a number of vegan items on the buffet, including the corn, cucumber salad with ginger, soy bean salad, Moroccan couscous and parsley salad, regular salad, broccoli with puri puri and key lime ponzu (loved this!), vegetable medley with arugula oil (green beans with carrots and mushrooms), ratatouille, cinnamon and lemon infused basmati rice, and fresh herb pesto vegetarian pasta. Along with all of these offerings, the chef made me a delicious batch of special smashed potatoes that were super buttery and piping hot. Just the comfort food I was looking for that night. He also sautéed me a large bowl of mushrooms to augment the buffet’s pasta at my request.

For dessert he served me a special vegan brownie with berries and tofutti. The brownie was soft and fudgy and though, in all honesty, I didn’t love it by itself, it was great with the ice cream and berries. A perfect cap for the night, leaving me somewhat more optimistic about the days to come.

That night we scoped out a good spot to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade, and next in the line of mishaps for the trip, watched as the lightning bug got stuck in a track right in front of us! The parade ground to a halt for probably a good 5-7 minutes while they brought in a special vehicle to pull him free. Never saw that happen before!

Day 4 – Animal Kingdom

Our next lunch was at Tusker House, for which I have a couple of updates. I have reconfirmed with another chef (Chef Andrew) that indeed the samosas are egg-free and completely vegan. Like always he fried some separately for me. Likewise, the chutneys and sambals are all honey-free and vegan-friendly. I suspect there’s been some confusion because the recipes they supply if you want to make the dishes at home differ from the way they actually make them in-house. For instance, my aunt asked for the recipe for the Tangeirine couscous salad on their buffet which, according the recipe, uses honey. It was explained to us that due to the quantity they make for the restaurant they can’t afford to use honey, so it’s basically a suggestion for making it taste right at home.

I did find this time, however, that no breads are really vegan-friendly as, as I recall, even the pita contains L-Cystein.

For dessert they serve Rice Dream and Toffutti and also carry the ever-present Divvies chocolate chip cookies.

I took pics of my plates but since none of the food has changed since my last trip, I’ll forgo another similar posting.

Having had such an amazing experience at Kouzzina back in May, we booked two dinners there this trip. Thankfully Chef Miguel was there for us both times. It might be fair to say that he’s something of a young, up-and-coming Chef TJ, and if you can, I’d highly recommend asking for him personally and following him wherever he may end up.

On a bit of a bummer note, Kouzzina no longer offers two drinks with the Disney Dining Plan (it’s questionable whether it was ever really “legal” even though they gave them to us back in May. Our server told us someone was fired after nine years of employment for offering this to guests… whoops…). Regardless, I started with my mango smoothie. It was icier this year and less ice creamy than last trip’s, but was still like drinking a frozen mango, so all’s good.

And I can't forget to mention their amazing sesame seed and black salt-crusted bread, dipping olive oils and kalamata olives...

Chef Miguel offered to make me an appetizer since my mom and aunt were both having salads. Never one to pass up a course, I agreed. Out came this beautiful, crunchy little quinoa “crabcake” with an onion, tomato, olive relish surrounded by a drizzle of dill oil. What a light, beautiful way to start off a meal.

For my entrée, I got the same basic sampler platter as last time; the one difference being the substitution of fingerling potatoes with rosemary in place of the chick pea “crab cake” which would’ve been slightly redundant after my fantastic appetizer.

I think my favorite part of the plate was the Briami (roasted vegetables in tomato over orzo) that was absolutely bursting with flavor. (It's the small square plate in the lower left corner of the pic.) I could’ve made an entire meal on it alone.

For dessert, I got treated to his amazing berry crumble a second time, the only difference being the substitution of chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. The balsamic adds such a depth of tart savoriness to balance out the sweetness of the berries and ice cream. Truly amazing. I was so full, however, that I had to take a little home to finish later that evening.

Day 5 – Hollywood Studios

For lunch at Hollywood Studios, we usually fall back on the vegetable sandwich and baked fries at Backlot Express. Next time, maybe we’ll try something different, but they tend to be very accommodating there. One point of frustration, however, is that they keep changing the breads, so this time I could only have a tapioca roll for my sandwich. It was fine, but a bit small. The pesto is still vegan. Oh, and that day they’d run out of mushrooms. And in my opinion, mushrooms are the star of the sandwich so it was a bit lackluster; but a meal’s a meal and the fries were awesome.

Dinner was once again at Hollywood and Vine. I do have to make a major amendment to my earlier posts regarding this buffet. There is now NOTHING vegan on the buffet! (Except the cucumbers with ginger and the plain salad and vinegar.) All the nice salads, the bean cassoulet, everything, now use a consommé seasoning mix that contains whey protein. This is a totally unnecessary addition, and I’m thankful that Chef Eddie pointed it out to me.

Also thankfully, he made for me a delicious pasta dish with peas, onion, broccoli, garlic, tomatoes and a load of mushrooms that had been cooked down in a red wine reduction. (Fully making up for the loss of ‘shrooms at lunch!) It was totally satisfying and I was thankful to have something I could eat there in the end.

For dessert, I had the customary Rice Dream shake and Divvies cookies. (It appears I may not have taken a pic of the shake. But you get the idea...)

For whatever reason, maybe the stars had fallen into a bizarre misalignment or what have you, I recorded a record of no less than five mishaps at the Studios in that one day.

On the way there, the bus we were riding had a malfunction with the automated announcements that kept repeating half of its spiel over and over, cutting off midway through a sentence during the bulk of our trip.

That afternoon, during Lights, Motors, Action!, at the point where the driver of the hero’s red car is supposed to get out to greet the audience, his door got stuck and they were unable to get him out. He ended up having to wave at the crowd and drive off.

Next up was the American Idol Experience. Mostly it went fine, with a little “live” moment when they went to show the replays of all three contestants only to have the reel fail entirely, forcing them to skip it and go straight to the voting.

Later that night at Fantasmic, during the Pocahontas section where someone yells, “Look, it’s John Smith” and the spotlight dramatically shines on the top of the mountain where John Smith is supposed stand triumphantly before swinging across to the other side to save the day, the light turned on to reveal… a bare section of empty mountain. After a few seconds the spotlight awkwardly clicked off and the show went on. I’m sure most who’d never seen the show wouldn’t have even picked up on it. We may have seen it a few too many times…

Lastly, Hollywood Studios had magic hours that night until 12:00 am, so one of the last things we wanted to do was to try to get into the Toy Story Mania ride since the wait is redonkulous during the day. We got in line around 10:30 pm or so, and there was still a thirty minute wait to get in. After chatting with a nice Swedish couple in Halloween costumes and admiring the impressive animatronic Mr. Potato Head, we were literally the next group to enter the ride when they announced that it had just gone down and that everyone needed to turn around and walk out the way they’d come in because they needed to vacate the building before they could start repairing it. Of course!

Day 6 – EPCOT

For my lunch I opted for the basic veganized vegetarian plate at the Tangierine Café like always. Again, steer clear of the normal bread, falafel and lentil salad. All else is fine.

While at the Café I also purchased a mint tea from the coffee bar. I guess the girl must have liked me (or my shirt (http://www.nonviolenceunited.org/veganshirt.html) which she said with a smile that she agreed with), because she gave me a huge takeout cup of the hot tea. The second time I was there, a different girl gave me a tiny plastic mug about a third of the size. (Perhaps I need to invest in a few more of those shirts…)

As far as the Food and Wine Festival goes, they are now marking all of the vegetarian options on the various signs with a big white V in a green circle. Sadly, however, not one item from any country is wholly vegan. Only one, South Africa, had a veganizable dish. Their Bunny Chow is a vegetable curry served in a bread bowl. The bread bowl is made with egg and dairy, but they gave me the curry by itself on a plate. The curry had the standard Indian flavor palate with a moderate amount of heat. If I could eat only one thing there, I’m glad it was a curry.

I meant to get back there a second or third time but it never happened. Our last day at EPCOT (a Saturday), the World Showcase was teeming with people. I’ve never seen it that busy before. As good as the Chow was, it didn’t warrant spending a half hour in line to get a little paper plateful.

Here's what it's supposed to look like:

1900 Park Fare – First Time

At last we come to my one and only Chef TJ meal of the trip. It was, as always, stupendous, maybe even a little more delicious, or geared to my tastes, than normal. It was, as always, a shining highlight of the trip.

Course 1

Never shy about fried foods, Chef TJ started me out with a line of fantastic spring rolls bathed in a sweet BBQ sauce and horseradish mustard. Crunchy, awesome sweet and sour perfection! Next to it was a sizeable mound of hummus adorned with a plumage of fresh potato and plantain chips.

Course 2

Like little pakoras, these vegetable fritters were Indian spiced and floating in red pepper soup with a balsamic drizzle and a dollop of Tofutti cream cheese to mellow out the not-insignificant spiciness. This may have been one of my favorites of Chef TJ’s to date. Loved them!

Course 3

The salad: lettuce, pickled ginger, crispy tempeh with grapes and a sweet sesame dressing in a soy paper wrap. All the sweet, spicy, Asian flavors you would expect with fun textural elements and a slight bitterness from the crispy tempeh.

Next to it: a fantastic mushroom soup with fresh basil and cashews. Never would it have occurred to me to add either of those toppings to a mushroom soup, but the brightness of the basil and the fatty cashews added such richness and depth, you can bet I’ll be doing the same thing the next time I make mushroom soup at home.

Course 4

This one smelled so good and I guess I was so intent on eating it that I goofed and forgot to take the picture first. Luckily by this point I was so hopelessly full that I had the second half wrapped up and snapped a picture of it in its container.

Though it doesn’t look quite as pretty in this picture, it was phenomenally flavorful. The base is grilled romaine with all the delicious smoky grilled taste I sometimes miss not owning a grill at home, topped with the surprisingly cohesive combination of tomatoes, horseradish, onion marmalade, pistachios, mangos, and avocado. On paper, the combination sounds straight up odd, but in the mouth… incredible! The closest analogy I could come up with would be a grilled piece of steak covered by a delicious rich tomato sauce with the almost parmesan overtones from the pistachio and a hint of sweetness from the mango. My mouth is watering talking about it…

Course 5

You know with Chef TJ that just when you're at the point of utter gastric collapse, it'll be time to usher in the obligatory enormous, sweet, spicy, plate of fried abundance. God, how I love this! Around the base were arranged whole carrots, broccoli raab, perfectly dense and crisp tofu, asparagus, potatoes, and spinach. Hidden underneath the heap of noodles were oyster and enoki mushrooms and red peppers. I took most of this plate back to the room and ate it on the beach around midnight the next night, listening as the Magic Kingdom rehearsed for their Christmas Party and flashed arrhythmic lighting patterns on the castle.

Course 6

A typically “light” dessert for Chef TJ. Upon a base of a virtual quarter of a pineapple were alternating scoops of vanilla Tofutti, raspberry, mango and lemon sorbets, and hunks of banana, all topped by two Enjoy Life cookies (which truth be told, I’m not a big fan of). The tower of sweet epicness was surrounded on the bottom by Divvies caramel corn and vegan chocolate chips (which I could eat by the double fistful).

Yet another fantastic meal! So much thanks and warm wishes to Chef TJ! It’s always a pleasure seeing him.

After dinner, since we literally closed the restaurant, we got to sit and chat with TJ for a while. In the course of the conversation we talked about the other dining options at the Grand Floridian. It turns out that they will do a vegan version of the Tea Room service if you ask ahead. You may get sandwiches, or you may get special miniature versions of Chef TJ creations, depending on who’s working at the time. He recommended we try it and so next time we very well may.

We also discussed Victoria and Albert’s which I’ve heard good things about. I knew they have an alternate vegetarian menu but he said they’re more than happy to cook vegan. The only downside is that it takes two Table Services for the meal, so I think next time we’ll likely forego the luau and do Victoria and Albert’s instead. Chef TJ said it’s a “must do once” experience.

Lastly, he gave great reviews to the California Grill at the Contemporary (a restaurant he helped open long before his Boma days), and said that they are also very accommodating to vegans. I’d be interested to hear of other vegans’ experiences in any of these restaurants.

Day 7 - EPCOT

For lunch this morning we went to Sunshine Seasons. Passing on the tofu noodle bowl this time, I tried the roasted vegetable sandwich. The chef made three special ones for my whole family, each very similar. It appears that I could have gotten the hummus on it, but I didn’t want to confuse the issue. It was tasty as is, and the thick ciabatta bread made for a hearty sandwich. The vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, and red pepper) had the nicely smoked grilled flavor that I feel brings the veggies to life and adds so much character to a sandwich. It reminded me of the roasted vegetable sandwiches that Tusker House used to serve back in their old incarnation when they were a Quick Service location. I ended up with a similar iceberg and tomato salad like the rest of my family’s, simply because something got a little mixed up in communication. It was fine, though I would’ve rathered the couscous salad or one of their other takeouts.

Speaking of which, they now have a vegetarian meal in their coolers with hummus, tabouli and a few other salads and slices of pita. I don’t know for sure whether it’s a 100% vegan, but, as I recall, I didn’t spot any obvious dairy or egg ingredients.

After a moderately light lunch, I was ready for our early dinner at Chefs de France. Like always, I ended up with a beautiful, light vegetable plate. Though they’re not generally super filling, I always look forward to Chefs de France meals because the vegetables are so fresh and pure. It’s a closer meal to how I would eat at home, just ratcheted up a few notches. This plate was loaded with asparagus, spinach, tomatoes, lightly grilled yellow and green squash, green beans, a wedge of potato and a skinned red pepper inside of which was hidden a beautiful tomato sauce to bring all the flavors together.

For dessert they served three amazing sorbets: raspberry, peach, and my favorite, coconut. Chef Laurent said they just got a new sorbet machine imported from Italy. Their sorbet was always my favorite in the past, and this batch was so smooth and creamy… And I thought it couldn’t get any better.

Day 8 – Magic Kingdom/EPCOT

The next morning I returned to Tartuga Tavern, who by the way are only open from 11:00 am-3:00 pm, so plan accordingly.

Like last time, I got a special batch of delicious vegan nachos with black beans and their black bean salsa.

Due to our trying to rearrange the schedule to get in with Chef TJ once, we ended up with two counter services that day, both in different parks. So we hopped over to Epcot for a second round of Sunshine Seasons.

I opted for the tofu noodle bowl this time, to which the chef added some extra tofu and broccoli.

It’s tasty, but just not filling enough for a whole dinner for me. Close, but not quite. While scouting around for any new vegan dishes, I found that they had a vegetable barley soup at the soup station. The chef assured me that it’s completely vegan. I totally recommend grabbing a bowl if they have it when you’re there. It has a hearty homemade taste, with chick peas, beans, corn, etc. Very satisfying. I believe the flatbread cracker it comes with has egg wash on it so I declined without asking for confirmation.

Day 9 – Animal Kingdom

Lunch was a repeat of Tusker House. Nothing new to report here. Still filling and still yummy.

Now, we’ve seen some pretty hilarious mishaps at Flights of Wonder in the past, birds are birds with minds of their own, after all, but the two that we were treated to this time were really entertaining.

At the beginning of the show, one of the first birds to fly out is supposed to circle the audience and land back up on stage. Instead, he took a few extra swoops around before landing and staying perched for a good minute or more, on some poor woman’s head! One of the handlers had to come out to retrieve the wayward bird amidst the sea of laughter and camera flashes.

Then, as anyone who’s seen the show knows, (and I supposed I should issue a bit of a Spoiler Alert here) there’s a poignant moment at the end when the raven is supposed to return the tour flag to Guano Joe. Only, Poe, this particular raven, completely ignored the storyline and instead strutted around the stage eating all the leftover treats, leaving the two human actors to try to save the storyline. Absolute unscripted brilliance thanks to a hungry bird.

That night we headed over to Wolfgang Pucks for dinner. But first, since I’d expertly rationed my Babycakes stash to run out that morning, it was time for a refill. This time I tried the lemon cupcake that almost reminded me flavor-wise of a lemon meringue pie, and a rich homemade “Mounds” candy of chocolate covered coconut. Do try at least one!

But most exciting of all was that they were baking fresh waffles to order! Big, square, soft of the inside, crunchy on the outside hot vegan waffles! The man asked if I wanted chocolate chips in it… um, yes? It was then smothered in maple syrup and joined by a side cup of vanilla sauce. (I don’t even want to think about the caloric content.) That was the first I’d seen the waffles there; hopefully they’ll be an all-the-time inclusion to the menu.

Already full of waffle, I waddled down to Wolfgang Puck Express West Side. I have a sort of sad update regarding this restaurant too. A few years ago they made me a great vegan (I believe) pizza, but I learned that they now use honey in the dough, so pizza is off limits for strict vegans.

Chef Danny was nice enough to offer to make me pasta from the Café side. I got a big platter of spaghetti with mushrooms, tomatoes, peas, and broccoli. It was spicy, garlicky, and a totally satisfying pasta dish. Definitely worth the trip downtown, though their pizzas still looked awfully tempting.

Our trip up until this point had been fairly tense and not entirely celebratory since my mom had spent the entire vacation sick and in pain for various reasons not related to the sourdough bread.

That night she felt so terrible that we ended up returning to Celebration Hospital by ambulance at 11:00. We were released around 5:00 am the next morning, and though we missed a lunch, headed out to the park around noon to make the most of the day.

Day 10 – EPCOT

Already late in the day, I grabbed another veg platter from Tangierine Café, along with the smaller mint tea.

I think Turtle Talk with Crush, though ostensibly made for kids, is one of the funniest and most ingenious attractions in all the parks, so we always try to catch it a few times because every show is vastly different. The very last show we went to on our last night at Epcot was the strangest by far.

Everything was proceeding normally, the crowd was receptive, but Crush seemed a tad, stagnant. He was “swimming” pretty much in the center of the tank regardless of who he was speaking with, and at the point in the show when Dory is set to appear, Crush made the announcement that he was going to cut it short and watch everyone leave. And like that, we all stood up, the doors opened, and Crush just sort of hung there saying goodbye as everybody was ushered out mid-show.

I’m sure technical problems happen all the time, but out of all of our 20+ trips, we’ve never been there to experience such an inordinately high percentage of them. Which is rather funny because during the Main Street Electrical Parade, I happened to be sitting next to a man who designs software for Disney, who explained that they just opened up a whole computer room in January that monitors all of the shows and rides in real time and logs any malfunctions so they can improve the performance of the attractions. They must have been working overtime!

On another interesting Disney Insider note, in speaking to a manager who I met on a bus one night, I got some pretty cool insight into the workings of the emergency end of Disney World. Below the parks, I learned, there are medical crews stationed every hundred yards or so. They drive fast golf carts through the tunnels giving them an average response time to an emergency in the park of about 28 seconds!

Also, if you ever need to call 911 while you’re down there, (and for some reason, a cast member isn’t around to do it for you) make sure to ask for the Reedy Creek Fire Department/Ambulance. They have a contract with Disney to take guests to Celebration Hospital for free. (Disney always pays for a return cab back to your hotel too.)

The other reason to ask for Reedy Creek is response time. Their ambulances are all pre-screened and approved for Disney. If you call the general 911 and get the Orlando Ambulance, not only will they want to drive you to the Orlando Hospital which is further away, but before they can bring the ambulance onto property, two security guards need to search the ambulance inside and out to make sure they aren’t bringing in any prohibited items. That could be life or death time depending on the severity of the emergency.

One last fun fact that I learned from him speaks highly of Disney’s already legendary guest services: should you get admitted to the hospital while visiting the Disney parks, they’ll provide your family with a complimentary hotel room for the length of your hospital stay. If you’re already in a hotel and you’re due to check out, they’ll try to keep you in the same hotel, or if necessary, move to you a comparable one. And even if you’re not staying on Disney property, they’ll put your family in a free room in one of their hotels for the time that you’re admitted to the hospital.

Anyway, I suppose we should get back to the food now.

That night was our last at Kouzzina, and of course, with Chef Miguel.

Again, he offered an appetizer, but I was so off that day (having had too few hours of sleep and being so stressed and run down that bed sounded more appetizing than food), I asked for something very light. He accommodated with this perfect little “chickpea ceviche” as he called it. Mixed with the chicks were baby zucchini, fresh oregano, cilantro and lemon. A delicate little beginning to a hearty comforting meal.

At the end of our first meal there Miguel told me he was going to make me something special, “comfort food”, for our second night. I didn’t know what to expect, but he said it was big. And it was. Here are three pics documenting its eventual demise:

The pictures don’t do it justice, but this was honestly the best vegetable pot pie I’ve ever had. The crust alone was revelatory. It was buttery (he used Earth Balance), savory, and also a little sweet with a hint of cinnamon. Inside was a thick creamy sauce filled with every imaginable vegetable. The list goes from the customary: carrots, peas, fingerling potatoes and broccoli, to the intriguing: brussel sprouts, purple cauliflower, red pepper, eggplant, and zucchini. I’ve never had one like it. It was, as was promised, complete comfort food, and I swear, when I was eating it, I felt worlds improved.

Then came the dessert which was a full-on roller coaster for the taste buds. I like to think of them as “extreme sorbets”.

The one on the left was a made-in-house meyer lemon with chamomile. This was super tart, like puckery, with a prevalent undertone of the herbal, flowery chamomile. Next to it was a beautifully rich, sweeter, but still slightly tart berry sorbet made of cassis, or black currant, also made in-house. And on the right, a scoop of vanilla Tofutti covered with the rose jam that they import from Greece. This one was sweet and creamy with a strong floral taste akin to rosewater. Going back and forth and down the row was an enormously enjoyable experience as my tongue got ratcheted from the super sweet and floral to the astringent and the fruity and back again. I do enjoy exciting food.

And so ended another spectacular meal with Chef Miguel. He’s a young chef, and a major asset to not only Kouzzina but to Disney in general with his kind smile, outgoing personality and significant culinary skill. I sincerely hope he’s there for many years to come.

When we returned to the room that night a very thoughtful surprise was waiting for my mother. They'd been sent by the manager at the Polynesian who I can't thank enough for all that she did for us during our stay.

Day 11 – Magic Kingdom

As I said in the beginning of the post, we returned to Gasparilla for a second lunch where I was treated to one of Chef Tyler’s must-have Reubens and my once-a-trip indulgence: a root beer float with a big scoop of vanilla Tofutti.

Just because I don't think the first pic does it justice, here's a second mid-consumption:

And the float:

Due to our hospital stay, we had a couple of extra quick services to use, so though I didn’t really need it, I opted for one more of those fabulous nacho plates at the Tortuga Tavern a little later in the afternoon.

I also saw that they now sell a non-alcoholic sangria. After checking their mix (artificial yes, but also vegan), I was given one by the very kind manager as a special treat. The drink came with floating raspberries, blueberries, maraschino cherries, mandarin slices and lime. They add Sprite to give it some fizz, and though maybe not exactly what I was expecting, (and maybe a tad artificial-tasting,) it was a rather refreshing and welcome treat. I'd certainly get one again.

That night we returned to 1900 Park Fare for a Chef TJ-less meal, and I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew he’d been talking with Chef Tyler to make sure my mom’s food would all be correct, but I didn’t know exactly what I’d be getting. That morning at Gasparilla, Chef Tyler had said that he’d been up since 5:00 am and consequently didn’t plan on staying for dinner service at 1900 PF.

Lo and behold, though, when we arrived, Chef Tyler had stayed on to make my meal for me at 8:00 at night. I have to extend a massive thanks to him for another delicious meal, and for making the last meal of the trip such a special one.

For the first course I had a heaping bowl of red pepper hummus and crispy seasoned potato chips. Yum!

For my entrée, he made me three small, though hugely filling, dishes. On the left was a bulgur salad with raisins and zucchini with lemon, dill, and agave. It was sweet and very tasty.

In the middle was, for a mushroom lover like myself, total heaven: mushroom risotto with enoki and oyster mushrooms. Soooo good!

And on the right, a mound of soba noodles with tofu that had been marinated in a rich, flavorful chimichuri sauce with cilantro, oil and saracha. Perfectly spicy and with the noodles, unexpectedly creamy. I felt at times that it had an almost cheese-like consistency. It was, however, so filling that I had to take some home.

In fact, I was so full that for dessert I could only ask for a little Tofutti to cap it off.

The meal was delicious, unique, and completely unexpected. What more could I ask for?

And so wraps up our strangest trip to date. Not that we’re at all dissuaded. In fact, we’re hoping to return next spring for a healthier, and hopefully hospital-free, vacation. Until then, I plan to spend the winter trying to get caught up on my sleep, while hopefully shedding those extra Disney pounds…

As always, thanks for reading!

A Specific Chef TJ Post

2011-10-24T21:49:00.002-04:00

I get a lot of questions regarding Chef TJ's schedule, and generally speaking, these days, your guesses are as good as mine since the chefs themselves don't generally know their schedule until just a week or so before.

Generally, he's done the whole Sunday-Thursday thing, however, I just received a call today informing me that due to the Food and Wine Fest, his schedule right now is more inconsistent than normal. He's been doing cooking demos which I hear are very good. (Though I don't know as getting to one will be in the cards for our upcoming trip...)

For anyone who's going in the next couple of weeks, he's working on 10/27, then 10/30-11/2. Then apparently he's off for another week or so.

This information was a considerable bummer because we had booked two night at 1900 PF, only to find out he wasn't going to be there either night. We are changing one of them, so hopefully I'll get one Chef TJ meal during the trip, and due to the lack of availability at this late stage, it looks like we'll be keeping the second ressie and hoping for the best.

From an Anonymous Poster (AJ)

2011-10-16T13:34:00.003-04:00

This was kindly posted in the comment section of my last entry, but since I feel it has some good relevant information, I'm giving it a spot of its own.

(Incidentally, our next trip is quickly approaching, so I hope to be posting my own finds shorty!)

Thanks for reading.

And AJ, thanks for sharing!

We have just returned from a week at Disney World. I am not really vegan. I will eat things prepared with butter or milk if there are no other options, no eggs or meat of any kind though and I am real weird about the hidden animal derived ingredients that I have trouble pronouncing. It is just all real gross to me. I traveled with my husband, my six year old twins, and my parents – all meat eaters.Here is what I ate and my experiences dining at Disney.

Day 1 – Vegan chili, fries, and apple pie at Columbia Harbour House – always very good
Day 2- Lunch -Tusker House – Marakesh couscous, roasted potatoes, pita bread, and fresh fruit – best pineapple ever, not crazy about much else
Supper- vegan pizza at Wolfgang puck express- tomatos, zucinni, onion, and peppers,NO cheese- Special ordered – very good but it could have used a little sauce
Day 3 – Lunch – Via Napoli -their vegetable pizza minus the cheese added olives- OK but no where near as good as Wolfgang Puck
Supper – Garden Grill – special ordered- vegetarian pot pie no topping to make it vegan, side of corn and other mixed veggies (heavy on butter if that bothers you), bread, fruit crumble ( again has butter in the topping, comes with cream but they put that on the side – I talked with the chef here – not a great meal, however I think my special order was better than my families preplated meal – good only if your kids really want to eat with Chip and Dale, mine did
Day 4- Pop Century food court – Lunch – Black bean burrito (not on the menu) pick your own toppings, comes with tortilla chips – this was good, but I tried to order it later in the trip at supper and the black beans have meat in them at night
Supper – food court again- Asian salad no chicken -I did not ask about the dressing – just hoping for the best – I really wanted the salad so I really just did not want to know – it was a good salad
Day 5 – Lunch – Hollywood and Vine – Bean cassarole and rice, roll, tofutti ice cream (you have to ask) with strawberry syrup – I really like the mixed beans here
Supper – vegetable soup (food court again)
Day 6- Liberty Tree Tavern (had not planned to eat here, but it turned out Ok) Liberty salad – no meat, cheese or pecans (candied with egg glaze, I was sad because I really wanted pecans in the salad)- talked to the chef- he thought I was crazy because they have a vegetarian burger that he can make vegan – I just don’t like fake burgers it is too much like the real thing plus I can’t help but think there are gross animal by products in the bun – he really recommended the burger but reluctantly made the salad – it was pretty good with just greens, dressing, cranberries, and apples. I also got a very good strawberry sorbet.
Day 7 – 50’s Prime Time – spaghetti and “meat”balls- on the menu, minus cheese to make it vegan, decent if you like spaghetti. I did not try the “meat”balls, I just pushed them to the side, I had another tofutti sundae, and a vanilla coke – the coke was great!

Snacks – Divvies cookies (first time to try them – I am definately a new Divvies fan), donut and cupcake top from Babycakes ( I am not a fan. The donut was the size of a half dollar and very dried out. The icing on the cupcake top was foamy and gross). Pretzel and popcorn (Disney has the best popcorn ever!)

I hope this is helpful to somebody headed to Disney and don’t forget get fastpasses to Toy Story Mania early – it’s the best ride there! Also if you have a little boy between 4-10 sign him up for Jedi training.

AJ

Disney Trip - May 2011

2011-06-02T14:38:00.004-04:00

We’ve just returned from the “Most Magical Place On Earth” back to the “Most Overcast and Drizzly Place On Earth”, at least outside of the UK…

Day 1

Gasparilla Grill

We had quite a few repeat locales from earlier posts, (I apologize for the repetition) but things change quickly in the parks (often for no apparent reason). So as familiar as you may be, you never quite know what to expect.

Gasparilla has switched up their veg option a bit. They still have a tabouli pita wrap, but be sure to order it sans the new (yogurt-based) rhaita . According to the menu it’s supposed to come with whole chick peas, but mine sported a thick slathering of hummus, which I’m cool with. It also came with a side of their sweet cucumber salad. The best part, as you can see in the pic, was that the wrap was augmented with a few slabs of tempeh Fakin’ Bacon. This isn’t the norm (I think Chef TJ brought in the bacon special for me) but you should definitely ask for yourself because the smokiness boosted the wrap to a whole other level.

For dessert they gave a few good-sized scoops of Tofutti. I also picked up a package of Divvies Caramel Corn for the road since this is one of the only places that allow you to purchase it as a snack with the dining plan.

Babycakes Bakery

Within the first three hours of stepping foot in WDW I made the obligatory pilgrimage to Babycakes vegan bakery in the Marketplace. If you’re having a hard time locating it on a map, it’s listed under Pollo Campero. Unfortunately, this wonderful cruelty-free bakery shares real estate with a profoundly un-vegan-friendly chicken restaurant. That said, I guess it’s still better than the McDonalds that used to reside there.

I went to Babycakes twice during the trip to stock up on goodies. On the first visit I tried the Red Velvet Cupcake, loved it, (beware that the frosting is temperature sensitive and will turn pretty runny out in the hot Florida sun. However, if re-refrigerated it sets up nicely once again), a Brownie Bite, a Double Fudge Cookie which reminded me exactly of the chocolate “snowball” cookies we used to make at Christmas time growing up; they were super fudgy and soft. I also snagged a Coconut Doughnut, a Chocolate Crunch Doughnut, and a Wonder Bun. I loved the doughnuts. They reminded me not so much of the standard greasy Dunkin Donuts style confection (probably because they’re baked as well as being gluten-free), but more like a decadent coffee cake. The coconut was my favorite, and my only regret is that I didn’t bring a dozen home for my freezer. The Wonder Bun is akin to a miniature cinnamon bun. Full of cinnamon and studded with raisins, this is a very satisfying little treat. I photographed and then sampled a few bites of each.

Wrapping each in waxed paper and stuffing them into a ziplock baggie, they kept well for days in our room’s refrigerator.

Also at the Marketplace, I spied these great vegan mints at Mickey’s Pantry. I get all giddy every time I see the word “vegan” on a label, and bought a pack of the Green Tea flavor, pretty much out of principle.

Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show

Like always, our first dinner of the trip was at the Luau. It’s a nice way to begin a vacation. Nothing new to report here on the food front. Still a delicious salad with mango dressing and a heaping plate of grilled tofu with couscous and grilled veggies. Chef Eugene is a sweet man, and has been there for years. He’s always happy to do whatever he can, and this meal is pretty much perfect as is.

As full as I was from all my afternoon treats, I passed on dessert, but the server told me “we’re proud of our fruit” and brought me a small plate of cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, grapes and pineapple. I also got a couple packs of Divvies chocolate chip cookies to take back to the room.

Day 2

Sunshine Seasons

Though their menus have changed recently, this counter service still stands as a pretty good vegan option. For lunch I opted for the Tofu Noodle Bowl with little cubes of fried tofu, veggies, and well, noodles. As you may be able to make out by the picture, the portion size here is fairly small. And I do wish they would marinate the tofu ahead. It falls a tad on the bland side, though I liked it well enough to get it twice during the trip.

I asked the chef about their grilled veggie wrap (they replaced their grilled veggie sandwich of earlier years), but was told it wouldn’t be very good veganized. Apparently they use hummus on it which has parmesan cheese added to it, and as I recall, it also has a non-vegan pesto. The chef said that that’s where all the flavor comes from, so I’d be better off not getting it. That said, my mother, who has many allergies and sensitivities, got a version of the sandwich on ciabatta bread (not the norm, but perhaps they will use it for special requests) with just veggies and provolone (she’s not vegan) and kept raving about how good it was. Further confusing the issue is that in their case of packaged sides they sell hummus, which according to the ingredient label, is just standard vegan hummus. Why they couldn’t use this on the sandwich I don’t know and never bothered to ask.

While we’re on the topic though, in that premade side section they sell (all vegan): a veggie wrap, tabouli pinwheels, Silk soymilk (vanilla and chocolate), Silk yogurt, (one of the only places in all the parks and resorts that I’ve seen it, though it seems they only carry peach flavor) tabouli salad, a couscous salad, black bean salad, a tomato and cuke salad, veg sushi, and possibly their pasta salad (it doesn’t list the ingredients for the pasta itself, so it may contain egg). And happily, they now carry Divvies caramel corn, and unlike Main Street Bakery, Sunshine Seasons will let you use a snack option to purchase it. It can also count as a dessert for a counter service option on the dining plan.

Le Chefs De France

For starters, the baguettes served here are, according to Chef Lauren, vegan. They’re served warm, crusty and addicting.

Having eaten here before and having had good luck leaving my menu up to the chef (the only vegetarian options on the menu are very un-vegan), I again asked him to make whatever he’d like. In my experience this works out so much better than trying to suggest a dish that likely won’t turn out as well as you’d envisioned.

What I got was beautiful:

There’s spinach, tomatoes, grilled eggplant, asparagus, a pepper stuffed with ratatouille (appropriate since Remy still makes the rounds table to table), a mushroom, slices of grilled pear, zucchini, and what I can only think to describe as a mild pesto or gremolata. It was all light and fantastic.

For dessert was a trio of their amazing freshly made sorbets. The flavors are always changing, but that day they'd made strawberry, kiwi and pineapple. Smooth, creamy, completely refreshing and a perfect way to end the meal.

Day 3

Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe

For lunch we hit Cosmic Ray’s in the Magic Kingdom. I had heard that their new Angus Bun was vegan, however, in looking over their ingredients it contains Sodium Stearoyl Lactalate, L-Cystein and Lactic acid. So though there are no conspicuous dairy or egg ingredients, it does indeed contain animal derivatives. Consequently, I went with the standard Tapioca roll.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, though they’re using the same Gardenburger they used the last time I was there, and though I loaded it up with toppings, I just didn’t like this burger. In fact, even though in the past I’d actually grown to enjoy the tapioca rolls, there was only one meal when I could actually eat them and not toss them in the trash. I don’t know whether they aren’t being sufficiently heated or what, but they had an almost chemical taste and tended to become soggy and dissolve far too easily.

On the positive, they made me a big basket of baked fries which were as yummy as ever. I never eat french fries in “real life” so it’s a nice treat to come down and get the slightly healthier yet no less tasty baked version. Be aware that baking the fries does take longer, so expect to wait a bit while they’re prepared.

A good tip we stumbled upon this time is to, if you have an allergy or dietary concern, approach the counter service restaurants a half hour before they open. Their doors will be unlocked, and the staff will be there. Ask to speak to a manager, and they'll happily take care of you before they get inundated with other customers. In fact, they often started our fries early so they'd be done by the time they officially opened.

1900 Park Fare

As anyone who’s read my, or virtually any other vegan or allergy Disney blog on the internet knows, Chef TJ has now moved to the Grand Floridian where he works in the joint kitchen of both the Grand Floridian Café and 1900 Park Fare. He’s also apparently over Gasparilla Grill, hence the appearance of the Fakin’ Bacon.

Knowing it was a Chef TJ night, I ate light during day. You never know quite what to expect from him, but you can be guaranteed it’ll be filling and amazing. In this case, what I didn’t expect was his absence. When we arrived we were informed that he’d had an emergency and had to leave early. Can you say BUMMED? That said, even in absentia, he still did his best to make the meal special.

Before he left he made a special soup for us, laid out the ingredients for my mom’s meal and instructed for Chef Kent to get me the BBQ Tofu from next door (by which I believe they meant the Grand Floridian Café).

Chef Kent began by walking me around the buffet, showing me the vegan items. These are the Edamame Salad, Lo Mein Salad, Steamed Broccoli, Plain Rice, the Tomato Florentine soup, Panzanella Salad, Roasted Vegetable Salad, the regular tossed salad and the vinaigrettes.

I loaded up a plate with salad and dug in.

Soon, though, Chef Mike appeared, bearing a rich and unusual salad that Chef TJ had apparently instructed him to make.

Those are leaves of red endive with a salad of avocado, apple, pear, red peppers and cucumbers in a vinaigrette with pita slabs. This was a decadent salad, and the presentation was wonderful. It was much appreciated.

Next came the portabella soup that Chef TJ made, laced with ginger and spicy on the tongue. Very nice. (It tasted better than it looks in the picture.)

The barbecued tofu was served with grilled corn, tomatoes, leeks and mushrooms. I have to say, I did find myself wishing it had more flavor. It was only vaguely in the realm of barbecue. I like bold flavors and this just seemed a bit drab. Of course I still completely appreciate their going out of their way to procure it for me, and if I found a meal like this on a menu in a restaurant around here I'd be ecstatic. It's all a matter of expectation and perspective.

For dessert was a lovely mix of fruit and berry sorbet. A good meal to be sure, but the best was yet to come.

Day 4

Tusker House

This is still, in my opinion, by far the best buffet for a vegan in WDW. Working from one end to the other, the vegan options are: Marrakesh Couscous, Roasted Potatoes, Samosas (though they’re fried with meat, if you ask the chef he or she will happily fry you up a special uncontaminated plate), the Mango Chutney for dipping the samosas, Root Vegetable Stew, Plantains, Tandoori Tofu, Israeli Couscous, Basmati Rice with Toasted Almond Slivers, Tunisian Couscous Salad, Green Beans and Onion, Curried Rice Salad (my favorite!), plus the Tabouli, Hummus, Chutneys and Blatjangs, as well as their dinner rolls and pitas.

Do be aware that the Jollof Rice contains chicken stock.

The orzo on the buffet would be vegan if not for the feta, so Chef Marilyn whipped me up a fresh batch that was incredible. Loaded with kalamata olives and fresh basil, it would’ve made a filling meal in itself.

We ate here early, 11:00 in the morning, and it filled me so sufficiently that I skipped dinner that night, indulging instead in a pretzel and my one root beer float of the year, this time bought from Main Street Ice Cream, and made with chocolate Tofutti. Sorry for the terrible picture.

Day 5

I stopped by La Cantina De San Angel, Mexico’s new counter service, to see if they had anything veganizable. Unfortunately, it turns out that their beans all contain chicken stock. The chef was very accommodating and offered to make me a guacamole taco, but I was looking for a protein boost, and so respectfully declined.

Tangierine Café

I resorted three times to a veganized version of the vegetarian platter here for a quick service. I asked the chef, who greeted me each time with a handshake and hug, whether the falafel are fried in the same oil as other meat, to which he replied that the falafel for the veg platter are indeed fried separately. With them I got the tabouli, hummus, olive salad, couscous, pickled turnips and onions and a little lettuce salad. For bread, the pitas are apparently no longer vegan, (likewise the standard Moroccan bread that they serve contains butter), so he gave me two tapioca rolls. I still wasn’t able to eat them, so made a mixed salad out of the contents of my plate, and augmented it with another large pretzel.

At Sunshine Seasons that night I opted again for another Tofu Noodle Bowl, this time also getting a side order of steamed broccoli and a peach Silk yogurt.

Day 6

What used to be El Pirate y El Perico in the Magic Kingdom has recently become Tartuga Tavern, and along with the name, also went their vegetarian tacos. The menu itself doesn’t appear particularly veg-friendly, however, ask to speak to a manager because they can make you what has become one of my favorite quick service meals. The chef who presides over all of the MK quick services had suggested that they could make me vegan nachos. Once there, I explained to the manager what I’d been told, and they were quick to make it for me.

First off, their nacho chips are fried fresh every day, and thankfully they are not fried with any meat. Yay! I got a plate of these super delicious little buggers, along with a side of their refried beans and a side of their black bean salsa which contains beans, zucchini, red onions, tomato, corn, and peppers. (Their normal rice is mixed with a cilantro pesto that contains cheese, but I was informed by a super cool manager on my second trip there that she holds plain rice aside for those who have allergies or are vegan.)

They still have a topping bar where you can load your chips up with lettuce, tomatoes and regular salsa. If you’re looking for a shot of protein, this meal is filling, satisfying, and seriously substantial.

There is no vegan dessert option here (like most counter services) but they were nice enough to substitute another bottle of water instead.

This is all I ate until dinner because it was set to be another Chef TJ night and I was conserving stomach real estate.

1900 Park Fare

This time, thankfully Chef TJ was actually there, and like always, super warmhearted and generous. Not to mention busy. In fact, he was dealing with six allergies at the same time as I was there.

Course 1 –

Crunchy delicious spring rolls filled with cabbage and carrots, with a sweet and spicy mustard sauce, and fried toast points surrounding a creamy homemade hummus topped with red peppers and capers. How filling and, well, appetizing! I savored every fattening mouthful.

Course 2 –

This was perhaps my favorite salad that Chef TJ has ever made me. The glass was filled with watercress, mixed greens, pistachios, cashews, grilled corn and a sesame dressing. Around the bottom is a grapefruit/orange relish, tomatoes and avocado. It was, as you would probably expect, gingery, spicy, tasting perfectly of sesame oil. Fantastic!

Course 3 –

Perfectly grilled asparagus with dill, a sweet mustard sauce, a balsamic reduction and a little of the special tomato sauce that he had made for my mother. As diverse as the different sauces were, they all played exceptionally well together along with the smokiness of the asparagus. Awesome!

Course 4 –

The sort of entrée one has come to expect from Chef TJ. Fried onions, broccoli raab, whole carrots, red cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes, and perfectly fried tofu “ribs”. The robust sauce also had that sweet, spicy mustardy thing going on and was so delicious I would’ve devoured the entire plate, if I wasn’t so completely full at that point.

I took the rest back to the room where it because a much-appreciate midnight snack a few days later.

Course 5 –

Another innovative and unexpected dessert, and the first one I’ve ever successfully photographed! Pineapple sorbet over vanilla ice cream (I forget whether it was Tofutti or Rice Dream), vegan mini chocolate chips, raspberries, black berries, and hidden beneath, a layer of banana slices and crushed Divvies chocolate chip cookies. Seriously decadent and refreshing!

Another big thanks to Chef TJ for yet another fantastic and exciting meal!

Day 7

Backlot Express

There aren’t a lot of vegan counter service options in Hollywood Studios. Two restaurants serve a veggie sandwich, and since I’d had good luck there in the past, we went to Backlot Express again. They still have the veggie sandwich, however, they’ve swapped out the vegan olive ciabatta roll for a non-vegan asiago basil roll. They also carry the ubiquitous tapioca rolls, but they don’t work well for this. Instead, they have a multigrain ciabatta that they use for their turkey sandwich, which ironically happens to be vegan (the roll, not the turkey!). Their Grain Burger buns are NOT vegan, so make sure you ask for the right one. Like all of the quick services, they always have a black binder with the ingredients for all of the products they use, so when in doubt, ask them to whip it out. The pesto that comes on the sandwich is still (labeled!) vegan. Just be sure to order it without the cheese.

They too will bake a round of fries for you, and they still have a tasty black bean salad you can get as a side.

Here too, there are no vegan dessert options, but they substituted the black bean salad for a dessert.

Also, though I didn’t order it, I had time to peruse the little black binder and found that their Southwest Salad, including the cilantro vinaigrette, is vegan if you order it without the chicken.

Hollywood and Vine

Another buffet with a few vegan options preloaded. The breads on the left of the bread counter are vegan-friendly. Their Fruit and Potato Salad are fine. As are their Tossed Greens, Ginger Cucumbers, Roasted Corn Salad, Bok Choy and Daikon Salad with Asian dressing. Green Beans with Tomatoes and Garlic, Vegetable Rice, Bean Cassoulet, Steamed Broccoli and vinaigrette dressings.

My first plateful:

Second sampler plate:

This is another good place for loading up on protein. The corn salad is full of black beans and edamame, and the bean cassoulet contains a large variety of legumes.

For a special meal, the chef made me ziti with zucchini, squash, onions, red and green peppers, and mushrooms with shredded fresh basil. It was such a nice change of pace at this point to get pasta. And it was good too!

To cap it off, I got a vegan vanilla Toffuti milk shake! Along with their conjoined twin Prime Time Cafe, this is the only place I know of in the parks where they make vegan shakes.

For “dessert” I helped myself to one more small bowl from the buffet:

Day 8

This was the second lunch at the Tangierine Café.

I must say, we had something of a blessed trip. The new manager at the Poly took amazingly good care of us all the way through. One day in the Animal Kingdom I won a free pretzel by correctly answering a Disney trivia question posed by the young man running the cart (What are the names of Cinderella’s step sisters?), and while we were eating at Tusker House for the first time, a waiter approached us to let us know that a family in the same room had offered to pay for our meal with their dining plan. They had too many meals left over and were generous enough to take care of our bill.

The beauty of this is that we could then schedule another table service, however, we had no idea where we wanted to book another meal.

As it happened, Chef Marilyn had only minutes before been telling me how she'd recently been moved from Cat Cora’s restaurant on the Boardwalk, Kouzzina, and how vegan-friendly and delicious their food was. It seemed like a fated situation, and with her help, I got reservations for that Friday.

Kouzzina

Luck was truly on our side because this last minute entry turned out to be one of my favorite meals that I’ve had at Disney World.

To begin with, their bread is vegan, light, soft and majorly addictive. It’s studded with sesame seeds and black salt and comes fresh from the oven. Along with the bread, we’re served plates of kalamata olives (the best kalamatas I can remember eating) and two kinds of olive oil in which to dip the bread: kalamata oil and my favorite, kritsa oil from Crete. I never realized olive oils could have such unique flavors on their own.

Kouzzina is a rarity in that with the standard dining plan they allow you two drinks instead of one, so you can have a soda and an after-meal coffee, or a shake and tea, etc. For me, hot tea is the standard at every meal, but they just so happened to have a veganizable mango shake. That’s what I call an appetizer! Thick, sweet and creamy. Essentially what a mango lassi would be if made with vanilla ice cream rather than yogurt.

Chef Miguel did a terrific job taking care of all of our dietary issues. For my entrée, he made me a sampler plate of all their vegan fare:

Going down the right side we have a smoky eggplant dip like babaganoush, skordalia made with potatoes and vinegar, and hummus. To the left of this are sweet and tangy Brussels sprouts with balsamic glaze and capers, a small cup of gigantes beans cooked in tomatoes which reminded me of a familiar soup that I still can’t place. Next over was something of a light and sweet ratatouille with eggplant, potatoes, and peppers. On the far left were three dolmas (rolled grapeleaves), and a fried chickpea patty on a bed of tomato, red onion and olives that was sort of like eating a vegan crabcake: crunchy on the outside and soft inside, all with a stack of pitas to sop everything up.

It’s so nice when you encounter a chef who not only is accepting of veganism, but researches to make the experience better for his ahimsa-prone guests. Chef Miguel told me that he regularly reads vegan Disney blogs. He then told me that he was going to try out a new vegan dessert on me. I will be anyone’s food research subject, and man, did he hit this one on the head!

It was so good it deserves two pictures:

The hot cast iron bowl was filled with a berry crumble. The berries (raspberries, strawberries and black berries) were cooked with sugar and balsamic. The topping was made up of pecans, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and Earth Balance with a big scoop of vanilla Rice Dream on top. I can’t begin to describe how perfect this was. Sweet, tangy, creamy from the melting ice cream, crunchy, caramelized around the edges…

I only hope that Chef Miguel keeps this on the menu for many other vegans to enjoy!

That night I decided to return to the Marketplace to get another round of Babycakes goods to last the remainder of the trip. The new additions were a wonderful, moist banana bread, a chocolate glazed doughnut and a super crispy chocolate chip cookie (hiding in the paper).

Day 9

Tusker House – Round 2

As it’s one of the best buffets, it always warrants a second feasting. This time I decided to eat strictly off the buffet (with the exception of some specially fried samosas) and did very well indeed.

Chef Mickey

We had excellent luck with all of the chefs we dealt with this year, and Chef Matt was no exception. He took me around the buffet which is certainly one of the least veg-friendly buffets on property. They had some nice green beans with tomatoes and onions in olive oil. Their steamed broccoli, peas and white rice are all clean. The lettuce on the buffet is fine, and they have balsamic and oil and a light Italian dressing which is supposedly vegan.

Though the buffet held little, Chef Matt made sure I had plenty of food. There’s a pasta on the buffet which contains goat cheese, so he made me a special bowl. The pasta includes peas, red peppers, carrots, tomatoes, celery, basil and oil.

As if this wasn’t enough, he made me a special veggie burrito using a corn tortilla wrap. He filled it with carrots, beans, peas, and rice, and included a side bowl of salsa. Satisfying and extremely filling.

For dessert I had more of the (thankfully) ever-present Toffutti and a pretty good orange from the buffet. They also had cantaloupe, honeydew and grapes, but to me, when they all get mixed together they start tasting a bit funny.

Day 10

Tangierine Café

Again, I got the old standby. I did, however, receive some very positive news that day. The chef told me that they’re building a Moroccan tapas bar on the lake. Construction begins in June, and he’s going to be moving there. The best part of the news is that he assured me that there will be various vegan options!

As a little caveat emptor here, I stopped by the popcorn stand in Canada and on a whim asked what their popcorn is cooked in. The girl running the stand seemed a bit perplexed and answered that it was cooked in butter. I didn’t push the question further, and likely she just didn’t know, since it’s been widely stated that all Disney’s popcorn is vegan. (I forewent the popcorn just in case, though my aunt tried it and proclaimed that it was the best popcorn she’d had down there, so perhaps they do in fact cook it in something different.)

Restaurant Marrakesh

I love the atmosphere in the Moroccan pavilion. Likewise, the musicians and belly dancer alone make it worth eating here at least once.

In the past, I’d gotten a small salad for an appetizer since I can’t eat any of their desserts. Some table services will allow this, others won’t. Sometimes the wait staff say they can’t, but the chefs will put it through for them. They did it for us, but don’t expect it as the norm. I think it’s just because we had so many dietary issues that none of us could eat the desserts that they let it slide.

When the chef came to our table I asked what they had for a vegan salad option, hoping for something more interesting than just lettuce, tomato and cukes. He certainly came through. I ended up with a sampler plate of various salads.

There were carrots with garlic, a potato salad, mixed olives, peppers and onions cooked with tomato sauce, and a salad of finely diced tomatoes and cukes. It was all very nice, my favorite being the peppers.

You can’t pass up the hot mint tea while in Morocco:

For my entrée I got the vegetable couscous cooked without butter. It came with potatoes, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, chick peas, squash (either acorn or butternut, I couldn’t quite tell) and cabbage. I also asked for a side of harissa because I love stirring it into the couscous to spice it up.

That night I checked in with the Sushi Bar at the Polynesian just to ask a few questions. I never order sushi out because I feel like it all must be cross-contaminated with raw fish which icks me out for multiple reasons. The girl was extremely nice and said that if I was interested, they would change their gloves, mats, get clean rice from a container on the other side of the counter and even make it away from their normal station. Full as I was, I didn’t take her up on the offer, but I’m happy that the option is there.

Day 11 –

I’d seen that the Golden Oak Outpost had a vegetable flatbread on the menu, and so stopped by to see whether it was vegan. All of the components are, except, sadly, the bread itself contains L-Cystein. Now it’s of course possible that it’s a synthetic version, but every time I see the name it conjures images of duck feathers and long strings of dark hair protruding from the loaf, so I just can’t bring myself to knowingly consume anything that contains it. If it doesn’t bother you, then it appears that the rest of the flatbread is safe.

Instead I went back to Tortuga Tavern to get another amazing plate of nachos. (Terrible picture, delicious meal!)

Being our last day, and having an extra counter service to use due to my bailing on dinner one night, I stopped in to check Columbia Harbor House to see if they still had their veg chili. I was sad to see it missing from the menu, but upon asking learned that it’s now listed as the Soup of the Day. Apparently during the holiday season they’ll sometimes substitute it out for a butternut squash soup or something along those lines. The chili is still vegan, and the crackers are still not.

The Wave

For our last meal I was eager to try someplace different. Like always, we’d spoken to the chef long before we’d left home, and he’d laid out what he would make for me. When we got there, however, the chef who was on only had vague notes regarding our meal.

I gave him the printout of what the other chef had suggested and he went to it.

Their bread that I can describe best as a cross between multigrain and rye was fantastic, and what’s better is that the chef brought me out a dish of Earth Balance! The first place in all my Disney experience to do this!

Consequently, I ate a LOT of bread, somewhat compensating for their not exactly huge portions.

My entree was good, a portabella stack with squash, zucchini, tomato sauce, and grilled eggplant. I was a bit disappointed in that the first chef had promised polenta, but instead I got fried tofu. Texturally it was nice, but could’ve done with a marinade or more seasoning. On the side was a light orzo and arugula salad with white beans.

For dessert, the pastry chef made me these wonderfully presented little cakes:

They’re baked from the gluten-free, vegan mix they use for cupcakes elsewhere in the hotel. Sadly, I don’t really care for that mix, but the chocolate icing was good enough to make me eat all three stacks. Dig the little chocolate Mickeys!

Thus ended another all-too-short trip of virtually 24-hour-a-day binging.

Like always, thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Now, time to hit the treadmill…

Change in Plans

2011-06-02T14:33:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the labyrinthine posts, but after some consideration, I’ve decided to stay at this original blog address: http://vegansatori.blogspot.com/ and for the moment, let the other one lie dormant.

Please expect all new posts back on this original page. Sorry for the confusion!

My Blog is Moving - Please Come With Me!

2011-05-21T21:47:00.003-04:00

Hey all!

I just got back from another 11 Day excursion to WDW, and just posted a new travel blog about all the (mostly) great eats I encountered while I was there.

I have started a new blog at a different address, so please come check it out and join me there! I will eventually be abandoning this one, and possibly switching the older posts over to the new one as well.

http://vegandisneyworld.blogspot.com/2011/05/disney-trip-may-2011.html

Thanks!

Vegan Bakery Replaces McDonald's at WDW!

2010-11-20T17:54:00.004-05:00

One McDonald's down, a few thousand to go!

As many are probably already aware, the McDonald's at the Marketplace in Downtown Disney is out, (whoo-hoo!) and in its place are a few new restaurants featuring supposedly healthier fare. (If you want to consider antibiotic-free burgers and grilled chicken as "healthy"...)

The real news, though, is that in this husk of the now-defunct fast food behemoth is a BabyCakes vegan and gluten-free bakery! If that isn't a symbolic victory, I don't know what is.

I haven't been there yet, nor have I been able to sample any of BabyCakes delicious looking desserts from their other locations, but you can learn a bit more on their website:

http://www.babycakesnyc.com/2010/11/its-truebabycakes-nyc-now-in-downtown-disney.html

If anyone has the opportunity to try it out, please let us know!

Chef TJ Update

2010-07-22T22:36:00.003-04:00

I spoke with Chef TJ yesterday and he confirmed that he's now at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian Resort.

This is actually fairly good news, since the character buffet itself is always a hysterical experience, and since Chef Harry has dropped the ball on the veg end of things too many times for my taste.

Chef TJ is sure to be an invaluable addition to their restaurant, and I hope everyone who knows of his reputation will follow him there.

Just in case anyone is making reservations for the near future, his current work schedule is Saturday-Wednesday. We're already booked twice.

A Second Blog

2010-07-21T18:14:00.007-04:00

Just letting people know, though it's in no way Disney-related, that I will be contributing to an animal rights blog for the Times Union Newspaper along with three other activists.

I have just posted my introductory blog, but more will hopefully be coming soon.

Myself aside, it's well worth the read because Pat Battuello will be resuming his rightful place of blogitude. His posts are always incredibly erudite and well-written.

Even if you're not a local (as most of your aren't) please consider checking it out anyway; it will discuss primarily national issues of animal interest, so all are welcome.

You can find it at: http://blog.timesunion.com/animalrights/

Thanks!

Chef TJ - No longer at 'Ohana!

2010-07-20T10:57:00.003-04:00

In making reservations for this year's trip, I learned that as of two weeks ago Chef TJ is no longer at 'Ohana. That means the restaurant has reverted back to a carno-centric haven for the habitually un-veg.

This is of course sad news, but on the positive, he has not left WDW, he has just been transferred to the Grand Floridian Resort next door. I've begun calling around the GF and I believe I've tracked him to the Grand Floridian Cafe. I'll be sure to post an update as soon as I know for sure.

If he had to be at the GF, I was hoping he would at least be taking over at 1900 Park Fare (preferably replacing a certain "vegetarian" chef there...) where he would have a larger number of ingredients on hand, and a buffet-style atmosphere to cover for his plentiful courses. Unfortunately (on both counts) this does not seem to be the case.

The whole vibe and menu is so different at the GFC, from both Boma and 'Ohana, that it'll be interesting to see what he will have the freedom and supplies to create for his veg guests.

Again, I'll keep you posted as soon as I know anything further!

A Vegan in Walt Disney World 2

2009-11-11T13:23:00.049-05:00

Here it is, my second vegan travel blog of Walt Disney World (in one year no less)!

Both in the different restaurants we tried this time around, and even in the repeats, I experienced new and exciting (and in a rare case or two, somewhat disappointing) meals over the course of the last ten days.

Let’s skip the formalities and jump right in:

(Like always, click on the pics to enlarge them.)

Day 1 – Lunch
Gasparilla Grill and Games at the Grand Floridian Resort.

We stay at the Polynesian Resort for reasons dealing with my mother’s health needs and the fact that they are incredibly accommodating and know us so well there. It’s Disney, so you’re going to get pretty good service everywhere, but the Polynesian feels like a second home.

The Poly is one stop away from the Grand Floridian on the monorail and truthfully, Gasparilla has a much more diverse menu than the comparable counter service Captain Cook’s at the Polynesian. Having been up since 3:30 am and having, myself, eaten nothing all day but a Trio bar while waiting to board the Magical Express, as soon as we were checked in and had dropped our carry-ons in our room, we hopped over to G.G.&G. for lunch.

I’d spoken to Chef Jeffery on the phone a week or so before we came down (again, I HIGHLY recommend starting to call your chefs, even at the counter service restaurants, at least two weeks ahead of your trip) and he was all set for us when we arrived. He had my mother’s non-veg dietary meal all taken care of and she said everything he made was delicious.

I opted for a new wrap of Chef Jeffrey’s design which is not yet on the menu, but may be by the time you go. They already have a tabouli wrap (see my May blog) but this version was a big step up from the original. For starters, the bread isn’t the thin tortilla style wrap that they typically use (the kind that has a tendency to get soggy and gross half way through its consumption) but instead is a thick, hot and soft fresh pita that was by itself, wholly worthy of mention and must have been freshly baked. This sandwich was then coated with a layer of their sweet cucumber salad, then a layer of tabouli (theirs is a bit unorthodox, using in addition to the staple ingredients, kalamata olives and oregano), and on top, a layer of crunchy freshly fried chick peas spiced with what tasted to be cumin and coriander, in order to impersonate humus, as the Chef told me. This was a wonderful upgrade from the original.

Chef Jeffery is an extremely kind and friendly man. He obviously loves what he does and went out of his way for us. I highly recommend asking for him personally. He was truly a joy to deal with.

For dessert they do have Tofutti and Tofutti Cuties, but I opted to buy a bag of their Divvies caramel popcorn instead. This caramel corn, if you haven’t had it, is incredible. It’s sweet and crunchy with a hint of vanilla and is very clearly marked with the word VEGAN on the back. All pluses in my book.

A little aside for those on one of the Disney Dining Plans: You can find this caramel corn in a few places throughout the park, however, some will allow you to use a snack on your dining plan to pay for it while others will not. For instance, the Main Street Bakery in the Magic Kingdom will NOT allow you to use your snack option, yet the Gasparilla Grill sells the exact same bag and will. This is an almost $5.00 item, so if you have extra snacks you haven’t used at the end of your stay, it’s a great place to go and stock up for the coming year.

Disney keeps changing the rules for what does and does not constitute as a snack. It has to do with a combination of criteria involving weight, price and amount of servings per container. But to make it all the more confusing, it’s apparently up to the individual managers to either enter the item into the system or not, more or less at their discretion. I spoke to a cashier in EPCOT who has worked in all of the parks who said he’s seen all sorts of items that are accepted in one store but not in another.

Moving on, and though it’s totally out of chronological order, I’ll mention now that we returned to G.G.&G. late one night after leaving the parks because I was struck with the idea that I could maybe make my own root beer float there, something I hadn’t had in years.

They don’t actually have floats on the menu, but they do have Tofutti in the back, and of course, root beer on tap. So I explained what I hoped to do and after having overcome a slight language barrier, the woman behind the sandwich counter gave me a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of chocolate in a big cup. I then filled it up with soda and was happily on my way. (They charged around $4 for this, but a worthy treat.)

Day 1 –Dinner
Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show at the Polynesian

I’ll start off with another commendation for another great chef. Chef Eugene, another wonderful man who goes out of his way to please, not only remembered us, but pointed out where we sat last May when he cooked for us.

The regular salad with the mandarin oranges and mango poppyseed dressing is already vegan, so dig in, and feel free to ask for more if you want, it is an “all you care to eat” dinner. I did.

Notice the tapioca roll in the corner. Their standard bread is not vegan.

I again opted for the tofu and couscous stir-fry because it’s their stock vegan option, and I liked it last time. As you can see, the presentation was different, and to a certain extent, it tasted a bit different from what I remembered too. The tofu had a nice soy sauce-based seasoning. The grill gave it a somewhat meaty flavor. I don’t think anything enhances the flavor of tofu like a grill. For veggies, there were snap peas, green and yellow peppers, cabbage, carrots, and broccoli, standard stir-fry fare. The meal was light and fresh, but still hearty and filling.

For dessert I had Divvies chocolate chip cookies and a fruit plate with cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, pineapple and strawberries.

A great way to start the trip. It wasn’t to be my last stir-fry or tofu, far from it in fact, but every restaurant does things their own way, so as similar as some of the dishes were, they rarely tasted alike.

Day 2 – Lunch
The Tangierine Café in Morroco (EPCOT)

Here I’ll start with a list of strong caveats:

1. The falafel here, (in my mind, one of the best possible uses of a chick pea) is neither vegan nor vegetarian friendly because they fry them in the same oil as the chicken! HUGELY disappointed to find this out. Stay away. I was glad I asked before I ordered.

2. Their regular bread contains dairy, however they do have vegan-friendly pita bread if you ask for it.

3. The lentil salad on the vegetarian plate does contain mayonnaise.

This was one of the rare cases where I didn’t call ahead, but the chef was able to make me a nice veganized version of the vegetarian meal.

As I said, I got a large loaf of pita bread, (it’s folded in four in the picture, so it’s much bigger than it looks) a good deal of hummus, tabouli, yellow rice and beans, a garlicky salad, the olive salad (only later did it occur to me that I never asked if the olives they use contain lactic acid, though I do know that the olives they sell in their gift shops do not) and a delicious couscous salad which was unexpectedly sweet with cinnamon and raisins. (You may want to double check and make sure they don’t use honey in this. It didn’t taste like it, but whenever something is sweetened I usually ask.)

Together this made a great wrap and kept me full for hours.

Day 2 – Dinner
Restaurant Marrakesh (EPCOT)

Just like in the café, here you cannot eat the bread. Instead, the chef sent me a few of the ubiquitous tapioca rolls which he'd toasted in the oven. Some restaurants microwave these to heat them, and consequently, they wind up tough and spongy and not all that appetizing. So if you can, ask the chefs to heat them in an oven for you. It makes a world of difference.

Another note about eating on the dining plan: If you ask, often they will allow you to order an appetizer instead of a dessert. (The standard Magic Your Way Plus Dining now only allows one entree, one drink and one dessert per table service.)

There’s nothing vegan on Marrakesh’s dessert menu, so I ordered a special salad, though I think it was a version of their regular Jasmina salad. It had red cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, red pepper, red onions, parsley, lemon, and oil.

For my entrée, I ordered the one veg item on the menu, Seven Vegetable Couscous. Make sure you order it with NO BUTTER. For veggies (admittedly, I only counted five) there were sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cabbage, and carrots. The presentation was wholly different from what I remembered years ago when we used to eat there.

You may also want to ask the waiter for a dish of harissa, both for your bread and to add a little spice to your couscous. The harissa is nothing but tomatoes, chilies and salt. Packs a strong punch and helps to sass everything up.

Day 3 – Lunch
Pizzafari (Animal Kingdom)

Here I received some seriously exciting news.

I went into Pizzafari cold with no expectations of finding anything vegan, (I wasn’t planning on eating here, but was instead just getting something for my aunt and mother) but was seriously surprised when I spoke to the manager. It turns out, their regular pizza dough contains L-Cysteine plus a dairy derivative, so stay away from that. However, they do have an Ener-G rice crust which is perfect for us.

Their regular sauce is fine, but do ask on the particular day that you’re there because the manager told me if they run out of the regular sauce, their backup contains dairy. The real baffling moment here was when the manager told me “We do carry vegan cheese”. Total shock. Not only do they carry vegan cheese, they currently have two brands! They have Galaxy Vegan Mozz and Follow Your Heart vegan Mozz.

I tried the Galaxy because I’d never had it before and they just recently got the Follow Your Heart brand in stock and hadn’t actually cooked with it yet. He told me if I didn’t like the Galaxy that I could just bring it back and they’d do one with the FYH. The Galaxy was surprisingly tasty. I’ve heard people give the vegan Galaxy a bad rap, but, though it clearly doesn’t melt as well as some of the others, I found nothing off-putting about the taste at all. In fact, I sort of preferred over the FYH which is what I’ve used at home for years.

So here it is, my first vegan pizza on WDW property:

(It was a bit smaller than their regular pizza, so you probably won't be stuffed when you're done, but it's still a nice treat)

For dessert, they carry Enjoy Life brand vegan chocolate chip cookies. Given my druthers, I’d take Divvies any day. These taste, let’s face it, a little healthy. That said, I’m not one to look a gift cookie in the mouth. I’m thrilled anytime a restaurant carries anything with the little vegan seal of approval on it.

While we’re in Animal Kingdom, I just wanted to add two more caveats:

1. The vegetarian egg rolls in one of the kiosks in Asia do actually contain egg. (Sounds like a no-brainer, except in some of our local Chinese restaurants, the egg rolls are surprisingly animal free.)

2. The Picnic in the Park option now includes a portabella wrap; however, they took a perfectly vegan-friendly wrap and ruined it with cream cheese. If you’re l.o. vegetarian, go for it. (Another tip for those l.o. vegetarians: if you want the wrap by itself without having to buy a minimum of two, plus the amenities, they sell them individually in a cooler in the Beastly Bazaar store in Discovery Island. They cost around $5.00 and look fairly decent… still wrapped in one of those pre-sogged tortilla-style breads, I’m afraid.)

Again, the wrap’s a no-go for the vegan population. As for whether they can modify them, I doubt it because they’re all pre-wrapped with the ingredients listed on the label. But it never hurts to ask.

Day 3 – Dinner
Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Resort

This was our first time eating at Chef Mickey’s for dinner. Of course, if you’re vegan, don’t plan on “buffeting”, if you know what I mean. But if you happen to be dragged here by a herd of omnivores, have no fear, they have a very tasty item just for you that they always keep on hand.

Of course, you can get salad from the salad bar, but Chef Mickey's has the most carnivorous selections of toppings I’ve seen on any buffet. There are the mixed greens and that’s it. Alongside it are three or four types of cheese, bacon, ham and pepperoni. No cukes or tomatoes, peppers or peas. As I recall, there were onions, but a copious amount of shredded cheese had infiltrated the bowl, so I steered clear. They do have balsamic and oil upon request. None of the dressings looked particularly safe. If you ask the chef, he will bring you both tomatoes and cukes from the back.

This is the salad with nothing but salt and pepper:

The entrée certainly made up for the sparse offerings on the salad bar. They have an orange vegan “chicken” (and indeed, though tofu-based, it had that great dense meaty texture more akin to the Gardein products) with, of course, stir fried veggies and rice. The veggies, bok choy, red peppers, snap peas, onions, cabbage, celery and carrots, had a great grilled flavor, as if some of them had been cooked on a grill before having hit the wok. And the “chicken” was a really nice change of pace. It was sticky and fried, and very citrusy and most satisfying.

For dessert, I was thrilled to hear that they have vegan cupcakes on hand, both chocolate and vanilla. I wish I could say these were amazing. But in all honesty, they didn’t quite live up to my (admittedly, probably too high) expectations. I really didn’t care for the frosting at all. The chocolate cupcake was okay, but I really didn't like the vanilla. But don’t let me sway you. Try them, because it’s the only place where I heard them offered. (Incidentally, they’re also gluten free, so it’s plus for all those Celiac-suffering vegans out there.)

Day 4 – Lunch
Columbia Harbor House (Magic Kingdom)

Their vegetarian chili is vegan. It’s counter service eligible, but it only costs around four bucks, so I bought it outright. It’s not the best vegan chili you’ll eat, but it probably won’t be the worst either. There are lots of beans and veggies, so it’s fairly hearty. Not a huge portion, but enough. It makes a great snack or pick-me-up when you’re on the go. (UPDATE: I just learned {see comments} that these crackers do contain milk. I hadn't thought to ask at the time. Thanks, Michelle for the heads-up!)

Day 4 – Dinner
1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian Resort

Truth be told, I love it at 1900 Park Fare for the entertainment more so than the food. Cinderella’s wicked step sisters and step mother are absolutely hysterical. They’re loud and rude and obnoxious, and especially for the non-child-bearing adults, easily the best part of the experience.

But I’m here to talk about the food. So let’s.

Chef Jeffery works at both Gasparilla Grill as well as 1900. On the phone, Chef Jeffery promised a whole array of vegan treats from falafel to a bean ragout to hummus and on and on. Sadly, this turned out to be Chef Jeffery’s night off, and something seems to have gotten lost in translation.

Instead we were served again by Chef Harry (see the last dinner in May). He had a plate already set up for me by the time I got there. No falafel. No bean ragout. He did have tabouli (the same as they serve in Gasparilla Grill), hummus (also the same as they serve in Gasparilla Grill) a cucumber salad (also the same as the Gasparilla Grill; are we sensing a pattern here?) some cukes cut up with radishes, a little steamed edamame, and a soba noodle salad like the one on the buffet. Now, all of this was fine, (the hummus had, as far as I could taste, cumin, oregano and garlic, and was probably my favorite thing on the plate) and to his credit, he offered me as much of everything as I wanted.

To his detriment, however, he also served me these lavash:

Don’t get me wrong, they were crunchy, very satisfying, and worked as an excellent vessel for the salads. In fact, I liked them so much I took the extras home and ate them the next day. (It’s pertinent to note here that he actually said that he did not make these himself.)

It wasn’t until a few days later while eating at Tusker House, where they serve the exact same lavash, that I was told by Chef Joe (more on him later) that there is an egg wash on them and that they are NOT vegan!

I was quite angry, retrospectively, about Chef Harry having served them to me in the first place. I would have been more understanding, because let’s face it, not everyone in the world knows exactly what being vegan entails, but Chef Harry by his own admission has been vegetarian for 40 years! He studied in a vegetarian culinary school in Ireland. So surely, a vegetarian should know what a vegan will or will not eat. Right? Apparently, that’s not always the case.

Suffice it to say, if we do return to 1900 Park Fare, I will be sure to go on a day when Chef Jeffery is definitely going to be there. And I highly suggest you do the same.

Oh, and I should mention that other than two scoops of Tofutti for dessert, that was my entire meal. I was full, that’s true, (mainly thanks to the non-vegan lavash) but it was an entirely cold, refrigerated meal. Not one warm element present. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t much impressed.

Day 5 – Lunch
Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café.

I’ve probably said enough about this place in May’s blog, but to reiterate:
- Do try their Gardenburger (it's vegan).
- Don’t forget to ask for it on a tapioca roll as their standard roll contains dairy.
- Do ask the chef to bake your fries. This way they won’t be cooked with any meats and they taste every bit as good.

(In retrospect, I may have gone a bit heavy on the toppings, but I needed my greens after all…)

It’s a good time to note that we ate here twice this trip. The first time the fries were perfectly crispy and virtually unidentifiable as having been baked instead of fried. The second time, however, we were informed by the chef that they were switching over to a new brand of fries that take longer to bake and seem not to crisp up as well. They were indeed a bit soggier, but still had a perfect french fry flavor. By the time you go, they’ll probably have it sorted out.

This was all I ate that day up until around 8:00 that night because we were returning to ‘Ohana with the legendary Chef T.J. and I knew I would need every bit of stomach capacity I could muster.

Day 5 – Dinner
‘Ohana – Night One

For my lavish praise and brief history of interactions with Chef T.J., check my May blog. Suffice it to say, I consider this man like family and am thrilled at any chance I have to talk with him, and of course, have him cook for me.

Loosen your belt, 'cause off we go:

Course 1 – Bread Course

A familiar looking plate, and one still very welcome; long crispy toast points with baba ganoush and hummus. A deviously filling little starter, I assure you.

Course 2 – Salad Course

Here I was presented four salad cups in small half pitas. The two on the north and south are seaweed salads while the other two are almond salads. The almonds salads were crunchy and, well, almondy and amazing. And the seaweed salads had just the right hint of ocean flavor. I was never a fan of fish, even in my omnivorous days, so I prefer mild sea veggies. It also helped that these were perfectly dressed.

I should also mention that I’d tried to hint earlier, not too subtly, about my meager stomach capacity and how little it seems to take to surpass it. It seemed by this point that Chef T.J. was taking my plea to heart.

Course 3 – Mushroom Course

Bok choy with oyster mushrooms and a citrusy pomegranate garlic sauce. Around the edges were drops of very hot chili oil and the whole dish was sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds. The mushrooms were out of this world, and the bok choy was perfectly crisp and wilted at the same time. Really nice.

Course 4 – Soup Course

The soup on the left is a peanut, lemon, ginger, soy, watercress soup with skewered grilled cherry tomatoes that make the soup taste slightly meaty and slightly sweet when eaten in tandem. The other is a red pepper soup with fried papaya. This soup was spicy and addicting!

Course 5 – Fruit Course

This was one of the most daring and imaginative flavor combinations he’d sprung on me yet. An Asian pear wrapped in vegan bacon, yep, perfectly cooked, bacony-tasting, vegan bacon, with a black pepper spiced strawberry sauce, and a side of edible flowers for cooling the pallet. The diverse flavors joined together beautifully.

I was absolutely stuffed at this point, so took about half of this dish home.

(I microwaved it the next morning and the pears were still crisp and tasted almost just as good. Remember, even at a buffet, if a chef has made something for you special, ask for a doggy bag and they’ll always let you take the rest home with you!)

Two pictures for the sake of prettiness:

Course 6 – Entrée

Finally, I’d made it to the entrée. I’d already asked the waiter for a take home container to pack up the bulk of it. Chef T.J. did go easier on me with this one: stir fried noodles on the base, tempura broccoli raab, tempura pickles and tempura green tomatoes, all with his irresistible sweet sauce.

(I would like to mention here, too, that all of his amazing fry work is done in a special wok in the back. This way he can use a clean pan and clean oil for all of the various allergies. This is a testament, not only to his thoroughness in keeping people’s dietary issues safe and clean, but also to his skill as a chef, because his food is always perfectly fried, and to do it in a wok is no small feat.)

Like last May, I ate the rest of this the following night on the beach as a late night second supper. I swear his noodles are even better cold!

Course 7 – Evil Course

Now, just as I was scooping half of the entrée into the plastic take home container, Chef T.J. came up to the table with yet another dish and actually said to me “I know you’re full, so I added one more.” What a delightfully wicked man he is. And I’m thankful he is, because that additional plate contained the best tempeh I’ve ever had the good fortune to devour.

There were six grilled asparagus stalks (have I mentioned how much I adore asparagus?), six slices of pan-fried tempeh, and a red pepper sauce, a chili sauce, a pomegranate sauce and a teriyaki sauce, all for dipping. The tempeh had such perfect smokiness, like ham, honestly, with not a hint of bitterness.

I asked him his secret because I’ve pre-steamed tempeh and cooked it all different ways, but never got it to taste like this. He told me he soaks it for two hours ahead of time. And then pan fries it. The next time I buy a block of tempeh, I know how it’s getting cooked.

(Incidentally, stuffed as I was, I cleaned this plate.)

Course 8 – Dessert

Eight courses. Count them. Eight! The last was thankfully light and refreshing, and helped to reverse the all too familiar gastric discomfort that comes from such marathon eating.

For dessert, Chef T.J. made me pudding out of chocolate Silk, which was then studded with lychees and raspberries. It was thick and light and totally refreshing.

For some reason, I have never successfully photographed one of Chef T.J.’s desserts. I don’t know what it is about them, but they always blur on me. Perhaps it has more to do with my inability to function physically on any practical level, including barely being able to lift the camera to my eye, by the time I’ve come to the close of one of these gargantuan meals. I don’t know. Either way, this dessert was no exception to the rule:

Thank you again, Chef T.J.!

(Another piece of Chef T.J. trivia: he keeps a vegan section in his kitchen stocked full of vegan specialty products so he always has them on hand. I believe he does the same for vegetarians, gluten free, etc.)

Before we leave 'Ohana, this was a landmark meal for a second reason; it was my mom’s first vegetarian meal in Disney World. In the real world I have her only eating meat once every week or two, but with her various food allergies, sensitivities, and general finickiness when it comes to food, she trusted no one but Chef T.J. to make her a veggie meal that she might actually like. And she was not disappointed.

Here is her plain salad:

And her stir-fry with tempura crimini mushrooms and onions (all per her request).

Moving on.

Day 6 – Dinner (EPCOT)

As stuffed as I was after the previous night’s gorging, I opted not to eat a formal lunch, but snacked on a hot pretzel and some popcorn. Again, all of the popcorn and salted pretzels in the parks are vegan. The cinnamon-sugar and jalapeno cheddar pretzels are not.

While we’re in EPCOT, I will mention that sadly, the ice cream shop in Future World that used to always carry Tofutti, discontinued it about a month ago. You may want to write or call guest services and ask them to reinstate it. Because, though there have been some great vegan strides, there have also been a couple setbacks.

Another is that one of the coffee stands around World Showcase (not actually owned by Disney, but by an outside coffee shop) used to always carry Silk which made for an awesome masala chai. However, I was told that due to lack of demand, they no longer carry it there either. Demand, people, demand!

Anyway…

Sunshine Seasons

There are two meals here at their Asian Station which are already vegan. We ate here twice so I tried them both. This day I had the Tofu Noodle Bowl. The broth was very nice, full of garlic and ginger. The noodles are good and for veggies it contained carrots, bok choy, peppers, mushrooms and snap peas. The tofu cubes are okay, a bit bland in comparison. Not spectacular, but believe me, I’ve had much worse tofu, so it still earns a recommendation. And it’s one of the few meals in a quick service that you can order without having to speak to a chef and have anything modified.

They have various side salads to choose from, all prepackaged with ingredients conveniently printed on the labels. I opted for a couscous salad which was really nice. It had orange juice, curry, dried apricots, cherries, ginger and almonds. It was quite sweet but still had that savory curry element. It made a good dessert because I couldn’t eat any of their other standard offerings.

(They do carry Divvies cookies. And they have them right out in the open, so you don’t even have to ask special!)

Day 6 – Post-Dinner Snack

I was able to try only one thing at the Food and Wine Festival this year. India (not surprisingly) was the only kiosk to have a vegetarian option. Not only was it vegetarian, I scoured the ingredients to find it was actually vegan. Their offering was a Rava Masala Dosa (Potato and Onion filled Pastry that they called a crepe {no eggs, don’t worry. Texturally, it was more akin to a pancake}) This was filled with yellow lentils and potatoes, with a sambal sauce on the side. A nice treat, and pretty heavy for a snack. Hopefully they’ll expand their veggie selection next year…

Day 7 – Lunch
Backlot Express (Hollywood Studios)

I had the same veggie sandwich here as last time. It’s filling and totally worth the extra time it takes them to make it. They have a book of ingredients, like most Disney restaurants, so you can see what’s in everything from the bread to the pesto. With the exception of the cheese that comes standard, the whole sandwich is vegan. Even the label for their red pepper pesto has VEGAN in big bold print on it. How do you like that? I like it very much.

Again, I really could happily eat multiple portions of the black bean salad that comes with it.

One more sad bit of news about Hollywood Studios: Min and Bill’s Dockside Diner always carried an apple stuffed pretzel which also happened to be vegan, but I found this time that the whole menu has been changed and that the pretzels have been completely done away with. They said the apple pretzels are no longer being carried anywhere in the park. Bummer. They’re weren’t spectacular, but they were a fun once a year treat to look forward to (even if one pretzel weighed in at around 500 calories...).

Day 7 – Dinner
Hollywood and Vine (Hollywood Studios)

There are a few things here you can eat right off the buffet:

The greenbeans with garlic was indeed good and garlicky. The bean cassoulet was somewhat satisfying, but with too little seasoning for my taste; still a good way to get a variety of beans in one sitting. The gingered cucumber salad and the whole grain rice medley were both tasty.

To supplement these, the chef made me pasta with marinara and red peppers, onions and mushrooms, which was a welcome change of pace from the abundant stir-fries and rice.

The real special treat at this meal, however, was the drink. I had read somewhere that the Prime Time Café made vegan milkshakes upon request, and knowing that the two restaurants are connected, I asked the chef if it was possible to get one with my meal. Sure enough, he agreed and I had a thick and amazing (and huge) chocolate shake with Toffutti and Silk.

For dessert (as if I needed one after the shake) I got a few packs of Divvies cookies. I am so glad that more restaurants are carrying these wonderful little cookies that are more chocolate than dough!

Day 8 – Lunch
Tusker House Restaurant

I now have a new restaurant on property to gush about. And gush I will. We hadn’t eaten at Tusker since it was converted from a counter service to a buffet. Essentially it sounded like, and sort of is, a sister restaurant to Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. In light of recent changes at Boma, and after having now sampled Tusker’s buffet, especially from a vegan standpoint, I think Tusker has easily become the best in WDW. It’s simply a must-eat-at for all veggies.

I didn’t bother to order ahead here because I was informed by Chef Joe that they have 25 vegan items on the buffet all the time. Yes, 25! And he’s a man who knows the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan.

I will warn you however, there are a couple seemingly innocuous veggie dishes that are not safe as they’re presented on the buffet. The beautiful thing here, though, is that the chef will modify anything for you upon request, so feel free to ask when you’re there if you’d like to try something.

Where to start? Okay, let’s start with the caveats:

1. The Tandoori Tofu is NOT safe. Paradoxically, it’s cooked in a pan that is used for meats. I had him make me a clean version of this, and it’s worth asking for.

2. The Couscous with Basil Essence contains butter.

3. The Jollof Rice has a chicken stock base.

Again, he’ll cook any of these special if you ask.

Some of the salad dressings are vegan, but due to the close proximity to a bucket of cheese that seems to make its way into all of them, Chef Joe offered to get me clean dressing from the back. I wasn’t about to fill up on salad with all of these options, so I never took him up on that offer.

Everything I had here was truly delicious. It was like going to a great African/Indian buffet and being able to eat with complete abandon. Here’s what I had to choose from:

In this pic, the pita and multigrain rolls are safe. The lavash on the right are not!

Their pecan rolls are also safe, as is their Mealie Cornbread. Not their regular cornbread. You want the one that actually has whole corn kernels in it.

Their chutneys, tabouli, hummus and blatjangs are all vegan:

Everything in this pic is vegan:

I highly recommend the Tunisian Couscous Salad and the Curried Rice Salad with raisins.

Their Basmati Rice is safe:

As is their Saffron-Infused Root Vegetables and Cabbage:

Very happily their Samosas are not only labeled Vegan (they’re brought in, not made in house) but they’re also baked instead of fried. Eat ‘em up!

Their Roasted Potatoes and Marrakesh Couscous are both delicious and vegan:

Some pics of my plates:

Notice if you will, the lavash that led to the encounter with Chef Joe that tipped me off to Chef Harry’s “oversight” a few nights before.

This was the special Tandoori Tofu Chef Joe cooked for me:

Note the Mealie Cornbread in the lower right hand of the plate:

A better pic of the cornbread and the blatjangs. Also, since there are no vegan desserts on the buffet, Candy/Michelle, our server, checked with Chef Joe to find out what I could have, and so he sent me a couple packs of the Enjoy Life cookies and an awesome strawberry frozen fruit bar.

At this point, I forgot I hadn’t tried the root veggies and basmati, so had a small dish to sample:

I would also like to put in a good word for our server, Candy, aka Michelle. She was awesome and knowledgeable (she even has vegan friends who apparently frequent Tuskers) and extremely friendly. She made our great meal that much better. Thanks, Candy/Michelle!

On a nice environmental/animal-friendly note, you may know that they don’t typically give out lids or straws in the Animal Kingdom for the sake of the animals. They do now have environmentally-friendly, biodegradable straws here that they apparently did years of research on to approve.

Day 8 – Dinner
Wolfgang Puck’s Express, West Side

Having been stuffed from our early lunch, we went late to Downtown Disney West Side to the Wolfgang Puck’s Express. Now, a word of warning here; there are actually two Wolfgang Puck’s Express’ downtown.

One is in the Marketplace, and after having spoken to one of their chefs on the phone, I had entirely given up hope of eating there because he said all he could safely offer me was a plain salad.

At the time, I had no idea there was more than one, but a few days later, Chef Sinclair called me from the Wolfgang Puck’s Express in the West Side. This Express is connected to the Wolfgang Café and is a world away from the other one. We ended up ordering special pizzas for all three of us, my mom being highly allergic to both basil and mozzarella, and my aunt just being a picky eater.

Chef Sinclair said he would make us special dough and special sauce we could all eat, and we could top them as we chose. I mentioned to Chef Sinclair that I had read that Follow Your Heart vegan mozzarella was available in the parks, and asked if they had it on hand. He was totally unaware of this, but said he’d try to get it for me.

This is where Chef Sinclair gets major points and a HUGE thanks from me. He tried to order the cheese through the restaurant, but found it was too expensive, so he personally drove to a Whole Foods and picked out a vegan rice cheese for me special! (They didn’t have FYH.) How incredible is that? How many chefs would do that for a counter service customer they’ve never met? He said he wanted to make sure we enjoyed our stay. Chefs like this are a major asset to the Disney Company and will keep us coming back again and again. Nowhere else would a chef go to such lengths, and even within Disney World, I’m sure they’re few and far between.

Thanks again, Chef Sinclair!

I’d also like to put in a good word and thanks to Chef Alex who I believe was the actual chef who made the pizzas. Let me tell you, it was the BEST vegan pizza I’ve ever had. And we have a local pizzeria that makes a formidable vegan Sicilian, so that’s saying something. It was light on the sauce, built on a thin but flavorful crust, loaded with mushrooms and an amazingly meltable cheese. I never got to ask Chef Sinclair which brand he chose, but it was very believable.

How beautiful does this look?

For dessert I got a cup of melon and grapes, when really I would have much preferred a second pizza.

Day 9 – Lunch
Sunshine Seasons (EPCOT)

Being our second time here this trip, I chose their other stock vegan option, a platter of their four veggie side dishes. These consist of some really tasty noodles, stir-fried veggies, steamed broccoli and white rice. Admittedly, I'd had a lot of stir-fry already, and it wouldn’t be my last, but it was a good light lunch. And of course, there were Divvies for dessert.

Day 9 – Dinner
Le Cellier Steakhouse

First, a thanks to Chef Brett, who I’d met at the Polynesian back in May. He’s since moved to Le Cellier and will be moving again to the Grand Floridian Café in a couple weeks.

He made me a wonderful meal here in a restaurant whose menu is frighteningly carno-centric.

I started with the tomato stack, made without the cheese. Basically, this is a stack of sliced and diced tomatoes with caramelized onions, adorned with a yuzo dressing and balsamic glaze. A nice light beginning.

The bread sticks brought to the table, incidentally, (sourdough, multi-grain, and pretzel) are all dairy and egg free. As for the enzymes or other possible additives, I don’t know, at least for the multi-grain and sourdough. The pretzel sticks are definitely vegan because they’re made by the same company who makes Germany’s pretzels, which are as previously stated, vegan. And I know they use the same recipe for all of their pretzel products.

For an entrée, I got a very flavorful stir fry (I know, not very Canadian, but it was well executed) with asparagus, eggplant, peppers, mushrooms, carrots and tofu. His stir-fry was spicier than most of the others I’d had, and so was refreshing in that way. It also helped that the veggies were different from the standard stir-fry veggies served elsewhere.

Thanks again, Chef Brett and good luck at the G.F.!

That night I walked back by China because there’s a tea kiosk outside that had a nonalcoholic mango green tea “bao bing” (slush) that I'd wanted to try. Basically it’s just mango juice and tea, no dairy. Very refreshing, mostly tastes like mango with just a hint of green tea flavor.

I bought a mango slush elsewhere in EPCOT and read the ingredients on their mix and found it to be totally vegan as well. I still recommend checking for yourself because they switch companies and vendors so often that you can’t take much for granted.

Day 10 – Lunch
Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café (Magic Kingdom)

As I said, we ate here one more time, this time with the different, and slightly soggier french fries, and of course another veggie burger.

This is what an unadorned burger looks like:

And this is what it looks like when I've dragged myself away from the topping bar:

Again, this is basically all I ate for the day because I knew I had one last meal with Chef T.J. at ‘Ohana that night.

With one exception, that is.

I had awakened a craving for root beer floats thanks to my one late night excursion to G.G.&G. a few nights prior. It turns out that they actually sell floats (and of course Tofutti and Rice Dream) at the Main Street Ice Cream Parlor, and so getting a vegan float is as easy as asking for it.

Speaking of which, when you order it, they’ll ask if you have an allergy.
You’ll tell them you’re vegan.
They’ll say “but do you have any allergy?” to which you’ll reply that you’re vegan and don’t do dairy.
They’ll look at you blankly for a few seconds and then say that they’ll put it through as an allergy.

It’s sort of like a pre-written dialogue. I swear, this has happened every time.

Day 10 – Dinner
‘Ohana, Round 2

Course 1 – Salad Course

Half of this dish was something I’d requested ahead of time. If you look back on my blog in May, you’ll see these little soy-wrapped delicacies that were completely refreshing and tropical and addicting, and so I not-so-subtly hinted that I wouldn’t mind if they happened to appear on my plate again.

That’s the only warning I'll give when eating with Chef T.J., he is constantly worried that he’s going to “bore you” by giving you the same thing twice. As if I wouldn’t kill to eat this stuff every night for a year! So if you have something once, unless you specifically request it, there’s a good chance you won’t get it again.

And even this time, he had to change them up a bit, so as not to repeat himself. The top two wraps contained a salad with dressing already dotted inside. While the bottom two (per my request) were filled with mango, avocado, julienned cucumber, pineapple and pickled ginger. Wow! And around and over them, a hot chili sauce and a roasted red pepper sauce. On the side of this was another little bit of that seaweed salad beneath a garnishing of a few more of those edible flowers.

Course 2 – “Bacon and Greens”

Thin strips of crunchy fried tofu and swiss chard with a spicy soy-based sauce. Somehow this came together to create, what he correctly said, was a wonderfully bacony-tasting dish. Texturally very satisfying. I could eat a few more plates of that right now...

Course 3 – Soup Course

Both of these soups were unnaturally pleasing. On the left was a mushroom soup with fried mushrooms floating on top like a cross between a dumpling and a crouton. This soup was the equivalent of drinking an incredibly scrumptious crimini mushroom. Absolutely rich and simple and full of flavor.

On the more complex and no less delectable right side, a coconut carrot ginger soup which succeeded on all fronts. It was thick and creamy with every element discernible but not overwhelming the others.

Nestled between the soups were two little bundles of goodness: stir fried noodles wrapped in steamed bok choy. Awesome!

Here’s a close-up on the wrapped noodles:

Course 4 – Potato Course

This was a plate of quartered yellow potatoes, roasted and covered with watercress and truffle oil. I can’t describe how earthy and savory and rich this was. And sadly, I can’t show you either, because it was the one thing in my entire trip that I forgot to take a picture of before I’d devoured it. I kicked myself thoroughly afterward, have no fear. It looked, pretty much as described, and was as beautifully plated as all of his dishes are.

Course 5 – Entrée

The serving platter this was presented on was so gargantuan that it makes the food in the middle look small, which of course it was not.

Chef did, however, go easy on me. I kept apologizing that at home I eat pretty small meals these days and that I just don’t have the stomach capacity to cope with such crazed overeating. And being that this was the first time I’d eaten a meal of his from which I took no leftovers, he obviously hit the perfect sizes right on the button.

This entrée was quite different from anything he’d ever made me. First off, there was more of the tempeh I’d raved so much about the time before, fried asparagus, broccoli raab, delicious spicy and sweet chili and pomegranate sauces, and under it all red pepper-infused couscous.

Course 6 – Dessert

Chef T.J. asked me what I wanted for dessert, in other words, how much room did I have left. I just told him to make whatever he wanted. I am so happy I didn’t wuss out and ask for a little bowl of Tofutti.

Keeping once again with my tradition of badly photographed desserts, you can see the color here but not the texture. On the bottom are sliced avocados. Banana slices ring the edge. On the top and scattered inside were more of those soothing lychees. The white stuff is actually a pina colada mix, (non-dairy, obviously) and hidden inside is a large scoop of chocolate Tofutti. Crowning the top were two maraschino cherries and a drizzle of chocolate sauce. The coconut, chocolate ice cream, banana and avocado all worked so well together it was incredible. As full as I was, I drank the last drops out of the glass.

And so ended yet another exceedingly well-fed vegan Disney World vacation.

I hope this gives you some ideas, and please let me know how you fare down there.
Like always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know.

Thanks for reading!

More WDW Vegan Info

2009-10-25T15:28:00.004-04:00

I've already found some new and exciting facts as I've been making our reservations and speaking to chefs for our upcoming trip.

For instance, this is (the vegan) part of a list sent to me by Disney after I contacted their allergy/dietary email, listing a number of vegan-friendly products that they have available throughout the parks.

Brand	Product
Bob’s Red Mill – Gluten-Free Mixes	Pancake, Brownie, All-purpose baking mix
Divvies – made with NO milk, eggs, peanut, or tree nuts	Chocolate Chip Cookies, Caramel Popcorn, Jellybeans (Jellybeans contain beeswax, not vegan)
Earth Balance	Margarine
Ener-G Foods – product does not contain wheat/gluten, milk, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts	Egg Replacer; Tapioca Hotdog, Hamburger, & Dinner Roll, Brown Rice Sliced Bread, Rice Pizza Shell
Enjoy Life – no dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, gluten, soy, eggs, fish and shellfish – also made without casein, potato, sesame and sulfites	Chocolate Bar/Dark, Boom Chocolate, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Rice Crispy Chocolate Bar
Follow Your Heart – cheese	Mozzarella – VEGAN Cheese
Gluten-Free Kneads 2-WEEK ADVANCE NOTICE IS REQUIRED TO ORDER THESE PRODUCTS	Frozen Chocolate, Cinnamon, Lemon Cookies (Baked in Specific Locations) Vegan
Namaste Foods	Pancake & Waffle Mix and Cake Mix
Pacific Natural Foods	Rice Milk
Rice Dream	Classic Vanilla Rice Milk, Rice Dream Frozen Dessert
Silk Soy Milk	Plain, Vanilla, and Chocolate
Silk Soy Yogurts	Banana/strawberry, Peach, Plain
Tofutti	American Soy Cheese, Sour Cream, Cream Cheese, Tofutti Cuties, Vanilla and Chocolate Frozen Dessert
Tinyaka	Brown Rice Pasta, Elbow Pasta, Brown Rice Spaghetti

You will need to ask the chefs ahead of time for some of these, because they aren't all available in every location*, but they will do their best to get what they can for you. Again, start your phone calls to the chefs at least two weeks before your arrival date.

*In fact, a chef at Wolfgang Puck Express in Disney's West Side is trying to get me the Follow Your Heart cheese for my pizza! He had no idea they carried such a thing, but he's looking into it.

I'll be sure to let everyone know how it turns out!

Returning to WDW

2009-10-16T21:10:00.003-04:00

I know I've been completely inactive post-wise lately, but thankfully I should have a bunch of new material to write about soon.

We're set to go back to Disney World in a couple weeks. If anyone has any vegan-related questions or anything they would like me to check into while I'm down there, please let me know. I'll do my best to find the answers for you.

Until then!

Update on Boma's Tofu

2009-06-09T21:14:00.002-04:00

For anyone who may be interested, I just heard from Chef Trish at Boma regarding that great tofu she used (the one with the surprisingly chickeny texture). It turned out to be Veggie Chick'n Strips made by Gardein-Garden Grown Protein, put out under the name It's All Good.

Their site is: www.gardenprotein.com

The strangest thing is that the local Hannaford just started carrying the It's All Good brand (though not these particular strips). I'll definitely be trying their other products because these strips (aided, I'm sure, by Chef Trish's awesome sauces) were really tasty and very texturally satisfying.

Apparently they are made by the same company (gardein) that makes Morning Star Meal Starters Chik'n strips. The ingredients look very much the same, though I swear these were better than the Morning Star. Maybe it was all the chef.

Either way, if you check them out let me know what you think!

Topiaries

2009-06-04T16:47:00.064-04:00

I know it's not really vegan-related (though the topiaries certainly are plant-based...) but since we were in Disney World during the Flower and Garden Festival, I thought I would post some of the better pics of the amazing topiaries stationed all around EPCOT.

(Click pics for bigger versions.)

I hope you enjoy!

Princes and Princesses

The Lion King

Aladdin

Stitch

Mickey and Friends

Pixie Hollow

Beauty and the Beast

Bambi

Fantasia

Norwegian Troll

Lady and Tramp

Captain Hook

Butterflies

Miscellaneous

2009-05-27T10:16:00.000-04:00

A Vegan in Walt Disney World

2009-05-27T09:53:00.006-04:00

I recently returned from my first trip to Walt Disney World as an uncompromising vegan. I suppose I should qualify this statement. This is maybe my 20th trip to WDW, however, during most of my life I was a turkey leg-gnawing, ice cream float-sucking, lamb couscous inhaling omnivore.

2006 was my first Disney trip as a lacto-ovo vegetarian. It went, of course, very smoothly, finding tons of options, either custom created by eager chefs, or culled from various buffets.

In 2007 my family returned to WDW just as I was transitioning to full-on vegan, so I made a few concessions here and there (most of them dessert related).

Having been hardcore vegan for about a year and a half now, I found both new obstacles and new opportunities that arise with the mention of that peculiar five-letter word.

Day 1
Gasparilla Grill and Games

We arrived (myself, my mother and my aunt, both of whom have food allergies and sensitivities, but who are still sadly, omnivores) in the late morning; so after checking into our rooms, we set out to get lunch. To use our first counter service (we ate on the Dining Plan) we hopped the monorail from the Polynesian Resort to the Grand Floridian.

Gasparilla Grill and Games is a great noisy little counter service location. The noise comes courtesy of the mini-arcade situated in the midst of the dining area. They have a nice selection of sandwiches for veggies and omnivores alike and the atmosphere isn’t distracting enough to be a deterrent.

I ordered the Tabouli Wrap with Cucumber Salad on the side. The wrap had tabouli (obviously), red pepper hummus, kalamata olives, tomatoes and lettuce. It was tasty and filling and they make them to order, so they aren’t waterlogged or stale by the time they reach your plate. The cuke salad was excellent, sweet and slightly vinegary, reminding me subtly of bread and butter pickles. (Though the chef said it was vegan-friendly, I did find out later that it contains sugar, which I doubt is the unrefined sort. That’s the one concession which a vegan may need to make in WDW. You likely will be consuming white sugar in some form or another down there, even if you stay away from all sweets. I’m sure it’s hidden where you least expect.)

Major bonus points for G.G.&G. comes in their ample supply of Divvies treats! Much of the park now stocks these tasty vegan chocolate chip cookies and caramel corn. I bought some for the road, opting for a cup of Tofutti (they keep chocolate and vanilla as well as Tofutti Cuties ice cream sandwiches on hand). Many restaurants around WDW and even the Main Street Ice Cream Parlor serve Tofutti and/or Rice Dream.

One other little aside about the Gasparilla Grill, prepare to dine with the birds. Inside. On the positive, they do make for some unique photo-ops!

Spirit of Aloha Polynesian Luau

Our first night there we ate at the Spirit of Aloha dinner show at the Polynesian Resort. The show is always fun, though they did restructure it a few years ago, not necessarily for the better. It rained (during most of our trip, and that night was no exception) so they confined the dancing to the smaller covered stage, but all in all, the show was the same.

I’ll begin with a caveat to any veggies traveling to WDW: call ahead and specify what restrictions you have! Not everyone knows what veganism entails, and this includes some chefs. Also, some pastas in the parks contain egg while some do not. The pluses for calling ahead are that they will 1. read you all of the ingredients in their food in the unrushed atmosphere of your own living room, and 2. sometimes they will bring in food from other nearby restaurants or make special arrangements for you. I suggest starting your calls no less than two weeks before your arrival date. Some chefs will respond right away but some will inevitably take more legwork on your part to track down. (When you make your reservations you can get diet numbers for many of the major restaurants, but not for the counter service locations. You may need to get creative to contact them!) The chefs are, however, all quite personable and eager to accommodate. Often this is a chance for the chef to flex their culinary muscles and create their own signature dish for you. (More on this later!)

Back to the Luau. I started with the normal salad which is a tropical-inspired salad with mandarin oranges and a delicious mango-poppy seed dressing. I could’ve made a meal on it alone. Vegetarians, you must try the pineapple coconut bread that comes with the meal. Vegans, stay away, it contains eggs. They will, however, like most restaurants in WDW give you Ener-G Tapioca rolls upon your request. These rolls taste WAY better than they sound.

For my meal, I opted for their Stir Fried Vegetables with Tofu and Couscous. The veggies included escarole, red and yellow peppers, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, endive and snap peas. Really nice flavors. The tofu is grilled and well-seasoned.

For dessert, I got a fruit plate made up of watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple and strawberries. All veggies should stay away from the regular desert. It contains gelatin.

Even though the Luau takes two Table Service vouchers, it always seems well worth it. The regular fare is “all you care to eat” but when you order special, you get what the chef brings you. That said, I was stuffed and couldn’t have eaten more even if they’d offered it.

Day 2

For breakfast, I brought my own cereal and oats, and bought a container of Silk each morning (it’s quite ubiquitous in the resorts and the parks. However, if you are looking for soymilk in the Orlando airport, you’ll likely have to buy a cup of it from Starbucks).

Sunshine Seasons

For dinner the next night we used another counter service and ate at the Sunshine Seasons restaurant in The Land Pavilion at EPCOT. I bought their Cuban Vegetable Sandwich, ordering it without the cheese. The bread was crunchy, light and flavorful. As you can see from the pic, it was a bit sparse on veggies and would really make a better lunch than a dinner entrée. It contains the unlikely combination of roasted red pepper, portabella mushrooms, yellow squash, zucchini, pickles and yellow mustard. It tastes better than it sounds. As a side, I got their Black Bean Salad, which I could have eaten multiple servings of.

Their salads are also veganizable and they have a vegetarian stir fry meal which I was told is entirely vegan. (They also sell vegan sushi, but I prefer to make my own.)

Day 3
Chefs De France

The next evening we celebrated my aunt’s birthday at Chef’s De France in EPCOT. They have two vegetarian options on the menu, though both include cheese. And vegans beware: their pasta contains eggs. So you will need to speak to a chef again and see what they’ll do for you.

I lucked out with a really nice chef who’d accommodated us in the past. He made me this lightly-spiced vegetable plate with ratatouille on the bottom and a delicious, slightly garlicky tomato sauce on the side. For dessert, vegans absolutely have to get their sorbet selection. You can choose three flavors, I opted for mango, blueberry and kiwi. They’re nothing but fruit, sugar and water. Remarkably refreshing and soothing.

Day 4
Boma

The next night we ate at what used to be my favorite veg-friendly restaurant on property: Boma, in the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The Lodge itself is dark and beautiful. Boma is a buffet with many vegetarian options. Beware, however, that though some of the salads and hot offerings are still vegan, you need to ask a chef before chowing down. Hummus, the great vegan staple, is at Boma, infused with cheese. This is a huge shame since I remember how delicious their hummuses (especially their olive hummus) used to be.

I have warm memories of Boma dating back to 2006. It’s where I met the amazing Chef T.J. Sudiswa, seemingly known to everyone as the legendary Chef T.J. Speak his name and people’s faces light up. Though not a vegetarian himself, he treats us veggies with something closely resembling an honorary status. I’ll be writing more about Chef T.J. later, but to show you what wooed me so, back in 2006 at Boma, after showing me all the vegetarian offerings on the buffet and allowing me to first gorge myself on them, he then, with great reverence, strode to my table with this gorgeous tofu-laden monstrosity in his hands:

Most of it was fried and every bite of it was unspeakably delicious. (Yes, I ate better than half of it. I know… I know…) And then, as if he hadn’t already given me ample reason for a serious stomach-based man-crush, he brought to our table these little devils (which I’ve heard Disney has since banned him from making due to the high level of deadly trans-fats appearing therein):

What are they? If you weren’t able to guess by the telltale black and white stripes peeking out through the lightly tanned hide, those are none other than a batch of deep fried Oreo cookies, drenched in melted chocolate. Yep. I know. And it was truly a rapturously decadent dessert. Each little melting ball of chocolaty fluff slid down my throat and found a cozy little nest inside each of my major arteries. I’m fairly certain they’re still there.

But back to 2009. Chef T.J. is no longer at Boma. He was moved about eight months ago to the notoriously meat-centric ‘Ohana back at the Polynesian Resort.

At Boma this time, I dealt with Chef Trish who was truly great. I don’t mean to take any shine away from her by my elaborate praise of Chef T.J. (but the man made me fried Oreo’s for crying out loud!). At Boma this year, I ate a few of the salads (you must try the watermelon rind salad. It’s gingery, sweet and a little bitter) and their mango dressing is like pouring a fresh mango over your mixed greens.

Chef Trish gave me the option of either her Coconut Curry Tofu or a tropical tofu made with Guava and Papaya juice. When my face showed an obvious inability to choose, she offered to make me both. I happily agreed.

Both were delicious, but the Guava/Papaya one made me dance a little in my seat with every bite, so I’d say it was the winner. One note on her tofu: I’m in the process of emailing her for the brand because she didn’t have it handy, but it was textured much more like chicken than tofu. It was dense and slightly stringy and was a welcome break from the regular extra firm. She seems to be the only person on property to use it because it was my only experience with it in all of my meals. I’ll post the info for it as soon as I receive it.

For dessert, Chef Trish made me a wonderful vegan banana split with Tofutti. (I was so full I asked her to make me something very small. It was perfect!)

Day 5
Chef Mickey’s

The following morning we ate breakfast at Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary Resort. Of course, as we all know, breakfast is the hardest meal for a vegan to assert their equality to the omnivores. Though Chef Mickey’s is a buffet, forget about eating anything but the fruit and cereal. They will bring you Silk if you ask for it. This is a prime example of where calling ahead pays off. They carry Bob’s Red Mill gluten- and egg-free pancake/waffle mix and are more than happy to whip up a delicious batch of vegan Mickeys for you. (They’re virtually indistinguishable by flavor from what I remember the old ones having tasted like.)

Those little black jars are real maple syrup, in case you were wondering. If you ask for it they’ll bring it out. I don’t know what’s in the "pump your own" buckets on the buffet.

Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe

That night we ate dinner using a counter service at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe in the Magic Kingdom. The fun and somewhat nostalgic draw here for the vegan is being able to get a burger and load it up with toppings from the topping bar like, for me anyway, it was in the old days. They used to carry oversized Boca Burgers, but recently the entirety of WDW switched to Gardenburger California Burgers. They are still vegan and quite good, though I’ve been eating Boca Burgers for decades and still have a strong affinity for them…

One item for vegans to beware of: their regular buns contain dairy (this stands true for all the quick service restaurants that sell veggie burgers). You’ll have to ask for the burger on the gluten-free tapioca roll (again, they're delicious, so don’t fret!). The chef I spoke to was really nice and even gave me a side of baked french fries (presumably so they weren’t cooked in the same fryers as the other animal bits). They were so perfectly crunchy and evenly cooked that I had to question whether they were really baked. I don’t usually eat fries, but I didn't leave any on the plate.

Day 6
Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review

The following night we ate dinner at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Review dinner show at Pioneer Hall in the Fort Wilderness Resort. We’ve been going to this show since I was 8 years old, so I’ve eaten there through all stages of dietary development.

Like all of the other restaurants, I called ahead. Apparently they now can make vegan pasta primavera (their pasta used to contain eggs, but no longer does. However, you definitely want to call and double check before you eat there). They offered as a substitute, vegan baked beans with grilled veggies and a baked potato. I thought it fit slightly better with the theme (they serve baked beans with bacon alongside their ribs, fried chicken and cornbread, which is of course, also not vegan).

The best thing there, as far as I’m concerned, is the big bucket of salad on your table when you arrive. Be aware that even though the dressing is vegan, they grate asiago cheese over the top, so be sure to ask for it without cheese.

My actual meal didn’t quite stack up next to the others. I had eaten a little of this before I took the picture, but you get the idea. The veggies were steamed without seasoning. The potato was good, as were the baked beans, but it seemed rather bland and lackluster, especially in light of what was soon to come.

If you’re going to go, go for the entertainment, not for the food. They’d offered me a fruit plate for dessert, since I couldn’t eat the strawberry shortcake, but actually ended up just giving me a bowl of fresh strawberries. They were fine and I’m not fussy. But if you don’t get the pasta, you’ll probably be hungry a few hours later.

Day 7
‘Ohana

And now we once again return to Chef T.J. Pardon me if I gush about this man, but it must be said that he is one of the nicest, most considerate, warm and truly happiest people I’ve ever met (and considering he works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, that's saying tons!).

Now to reiterate, we met in 2006 at Boma. The food he made was so good (including the special dietary meals he made for my carnivorous family) that we’d canceled one of our other reservations and returned to Boma a few nights later.

Fast forward to 2007. We ate at Boma twice, but sadly, Chef T.J. was on a much deserved vacation both days. The food was great, but it was disappointing because we’d really hoped to see him.

Fast forward to 2009. Now just to impress upon you, I had only met this man twice ever. Both times in the same week back in 2006. Approximately two and a half years later, this May 2009, I walked into Captain Cook’s (the counter service restaurant in the Polynesian Resort) to buy a banana for my mother around midnight, and who happened to be passing through at the exact same time? Chef T.J. What's so amazing is that instantly his face lit up with recognition and he greeted me like old family, remembering that I was vegetarian, and inquiring about my mother. Quite remarkable. (I regularly forget the names and faces of my own relatives.)

To sum up, I told him that I had gone strictly vegan to which he replied “Oh, that’s great!” He then proceeded to tell me that at ‘Ohana, he now makes special for vegans, a six course vegan feast. Oh yes, my friends, ‘Ohana, the “all you care to eat” restaurant where the servers walk table-to-table lugging long sharp skewers dripping with the hot blood of cows, pigs, turkeys and shrimp, was hiding a multi-course vegan bonanza! (Keep in mind that at present he works at 'Ohana Sunday-Thursday so you should definitely call ahead to make sure he's going to be there.)

After altering our schedule, Chef T.J. got us reservations a few nights later. I must go into detail on this menu because it was one of the greatest (and most filling) meals of my life, vegan or otherwise.

Chef T.J. hand-delivers each successive course with great care and stunning presentation. You never actually order or request anything. You just wait eagerly to see what's going to emerge from the kitchen. I find something wonderfully liberating about putting your entire meal in the hands of a capable chef and letting him custom create something for you. Not only liberating, but a downright honor.

To start:
Course 1 - Salad Course.

A delicious (and rather large) salad containing greens, cabbage, sesame, pineapple, almonds, (smoked, I think) and a host of other delectable bits in a wonderful Asian dressing. (Chef T.J., if you would like, please feel free to correct any of my descriptions!) And accompanying it, a ring of wonderful crouton-esque toast spears surrounding a circle of red pepper hummus and baba ganoush. Fantastic!

Course 2 – The Soup Course

In this, he brings out a dish containing two soups. (And two spoons, so the tastes won't commingle.) One was a thick and creamy, slightly sweet and gingery carrot soup (it just so happens that I love ginger). The other was a shitake mushroom soup with soy sauce and green snap peas. Chef T.J.’s food is not overly spicy, but there is a little pleasant heat involved in both of these.

Course 3 – The next course was so tantalizingly delicious that I still get little shivers remembering it. Simple presentation, but the flavors were so complex and wonderfully balanced that I’m starting to salivate writing this description. I don’t honestly know what he called them, but these two wraps, rolled in a thin flexible paper made from soybeans, and filled with avocado, pineapple and cucumbers really don’t need to be called anything but “never enough”. The outside of the wraps were studded with white and black sesame seeds. The real key to the flavor here, though, was that orange sauce drizzled across the plate. This was a guava, papaya and orange reduction. Those darker red dots are a hot chili sauce, and not so much visible in the pictures, though very prevalent on the taste buds, is a small puddle of toasted sesame oil and salt. Combined together the whole far transcends the sum of its parts. All I can say is I could really go for a few dozen more of these.

Okay, so by now, I was getting full. And frankly, starting to worry whether I could hold up through three more courses.

Course 4 – Mushrooms Three Ways.

I am a huge lover of mushrooms, so when I saw this pretty plate with three heaps of mushrooms (shitake, oyster and enochi) descending in front of me, I was a very happy man and had regained my urge to persevere. One group of mushrooms was cooked with a pomegranate glaze. Another with a chili sauce, and the other, well, to be honest, I had sort of bailed on my note taking at this point and was thoroughly engrossed in the act of enjoying every morsel of food, rather than cataloging its ingredients for my future blog. At least I took pictures before I tore each plate to shreds.

Seriously, by now, I’d had it. I was stuffed. But as the courses seemed to be staying light, I was optimistic. A little apprehensive that he might pull out a Chef T.J. showstopper like the old Boma days… But no, not after all those successive courses.

And then he showed up with this:

One more pic to give perspective on its size:

An ode to all things delicious and fried. There was tempura asparagus and broccoli raab, stir fried broccoli, swiss chard and a host of other veggies in rice as the base of this towering volcano of sweet and sour heaven. And then forming the structure, those crisp swirly arabesques were fried rice noodles, all bathed in a perfectly complimentary sauce.

Doing the only thing I could, knowing I still had a dessert course yet to go, I dug in. And then a few minutes later, Chef T.J. came running out: “Forgot the tofu!” he laughed. And dropped off these impressive impostors of Asian style bbq ribs.

Though I fought valiantly, I regret to say I had to take about half of this last course home with me. I am, however, happy to report that everything tastes almost as good reheated.

Lastly, Course 6 – Dessert.

For me, he made a (thankfully) light and smooth blend of lychee berries and ice, with halved lychees on top, and a few raspberries around the rim. Delicious!

My close-up shots of this came out quite blurry, but thankfully I have a few shots of Chef T.J. and me posing behind it.

And so concludes my first multi-course vegan feast. But wait! Being slightly gluttonous, and being driven to seek sustenance close to our room since Florida happened to be getting more rain in a few days than it had in the combined three preceding years (no joke), we asked Chef T.J. if he could possibly squeeze us in the next night for a repeat performance. He came through for us once more. Though again, I must give a caveat here. Unless you are an experienced overeater, I highly suggest spacing out such an undertaking by at least two or three days. I did not, and I paid for it.

I could just go ahead and say the next night was a perfect repeat of the preceding night, only, it wasn’t. Chef T.J., never one to repeat himself lest we get “bored”, prepared an entirely different feast for the following night.

Buckle up. I’m getting full just thinking about it.

Day 8
Back Lot Express

I skipped breakfast the next day, and opted only to have the Grilled Vegetable Sandwich at the Back Lot Express in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This is a great vegan sandwich if you order it without the cheese. It takes about ten minutes or so, but it’s worth the wait. It includes marinated mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini, tomato and watercress with a sundried tomato pesto (thankfully there’s no cheese or dairy in this) all on a black olive ciabatta roll. On the side is a cilantro-laden black bean salad.

‘Ohana (Round 2)

Still a bit full from the previous night's gastronomic marathon, I settled in to do it all over again.

Course 1 – Salad Course

In a wonderful synthesis of two of the previous night’s dishes, Chef T.J. brought out four of these “ice cream cones” made of the same soybean wrap as those little bites of heaven from the day before. But this time they were filled with salad and accompanied by a chimichurri dressing, a sweet and sour dressing and more of that outstanding baba ganoush. Tucked in alongside the cups were a few more of those crunchy toast points. What a fun light first course! (I love interactive food.)

Course 2 – Soup Course

Now the night before, I’d mistakenly guessed that the mushroom soup contained miso. So this following night, Chef T.J. made me a shitake miso soup with fried papaya, and a roasted red pepper soup with pomegranate drizzle, the combination of which sounds a little odd, but works so well. The pomegranate adds an unexpected tropical tartness to the soup that really brings it alive.

Course 3 – Tofu Four Ways

This course was bold to say the least. And thankfully I have an appreciation for tofu. Each was marinated in a different sauce. Left to right they are: Curry, Mustard, Ponzu, and Skyy Vodka. Eating four slabs of tofu like this is as filling as one might expect. Again, I must impress on you never to attempt this sort of meal two days in a row. It hurt. I’m a fairly small eater normally, and the sheer quantity of food involved here, to say nothing of the rich decadence of it, is a lot to handle all at one time. That said, you really must do it at least once!

Course 4 – Entrée

Now even though I was ready to throw in the towel by this point, Chef T.J. was not about to let me off the hook with a few steamed veggies and a baked potato. Tonight’s entrée consisted of skewers of tempura whole baby portabella mushrooms, (like the best fried mushrooms you've never had!) skewers of tempura snap peas, tempura pickle slices (I know, I know, but they are so wickedly tasty!) with a delicious noodle mix of bok choy, cabbage, etc.

Like all of the Chef T.J.’s food, it was covered with a luscious sauce that’s slightly sweet, slightly spicy, and thoroughly addictive.

So I just start to attempt to dent this wonderful madness, when he shuffles back to the table: “Forgot your asparagus.” And he sets down a plate of nicely charred asparagus stalks. Just the way I like them: charred on the outside but somewhat al dente on the inside. It’s like he’s been cooking for me for years he know my tastes so well.

(Not a very good picture of the asparagus, I know, but I was so full I could barely lift the camera by this point.)

Of course, I took home almost of all of the previous course. I couldn’t possibly cram it all in, nor would I want to waste it by not truly enjoying it. Chef T.J. said it wouldn't offend him at all because he knows he “cooks big”. Understatement? Oh yeah. But well appreciated.

(On a little side note, I actually took the remainder of that course out the following night around 11:00 pm. I heated the skewers and left the noodles cold. Carried them both by tray down by the little white sand beach of the Polynesian and truly enjoyed the meal, looking out over the water, relaxed, hungry and quite blissful.)

Course 5 – Dessert

Before he was about to leave to retrieve the dessert, I supplicated to him to please, just give me something small. Small. “Small. Yes, okay,” he promised. And then he returned with this:

On the bottom, a thick wedge of pineapple. Above, alternating scoops of vanilla and chocolate Tofutti. And squished on either sides of two of the scoops were two halved Divvies chocolate chip cookies. A banana slice on the top, and then a thick drizzle of chocolate sauce. Need I say more?

And thus ended the second of two incredible vegan feasts courtesy of the amazing, and rightfully famous, Chef T.J.

Two very hard acts to follow. And thankfully, my next meals were significantly lighter.

Day 9
El Pirata y el Perico

For lunch the next day I had an absolute must-try by all veggies at the Magic Kingdom. At the counter service restaurant El Pirata y el Perico, they serve vegetarian tacos. These are basically two taco shells with some really rich and tasty vegan refried black beans. You can load them up with your own toppings (lettuce, tomato, onions and salsa are all safe). And on the side is a bowl of white rice with more of the beans slathered on top. You certainly get a good protein bang for your buck here.

Here’s a pic of mine, all tricked out. Not pretty, but so good!

1900 Park Fare

And lastly, that night we ate at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian Resort. This is a character buffet with a few vegan options on the bar. The Edamame Salad and Soba Noodle Salad both deserve a mention.

Again, having ordered ahead, I’d opted for the tofu with stirfried veggies and ginger rice. The rice was a little gingery and tasty. The tofu was breaded and pan fried. It was crunchy and texturally satisfying, but would have been better had it been marinated or joined with a sauce. I ate it along with the veggies which were also cooked well, but had no sauce to spare. The chef who came out to talk to us has actually been vegetarian for 40 years. But it appeared he wasn’t the chef who prepared my meal.

For dessert I had a nice scoop of swirled Tofutti.

And so ended my trip, and the steady parade of vegan cuisine with its mix of high and low points.

I hope it helps you make some choices and get some ideas for your own trips to Disney World. There’s no reason to think you’ll have to sacrifice your morals or your health while eating down there. Again, though, I do suggest calling at least two weeks before your actual arrival date to make sure you are all set before you get down there.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me!

Happy Eating!