Dining For Less at Walt Disney World

 Dining for Less Cha-Ching at WDW

For breakfast I suggest eating a granola bar or pastry in your hotel room, bring them from home or stop off at a local Target- 3200 Rolling Oaks Blvd
Kissimmee, FL 34747, (321) 677-3971) or Wal-Mart Supercenter- Kissimmee 3250 Vineland Road, Kissimmee, FL 34746,407-397-1125 for breakfast items, drinks, snacks and Disney souvenirs at a huge discount.

Magic Kingdom- I would grab some yummies at Main Street Bakery, for starters a Starbucks, Venti White Chocolate Mocha & a breakfast sandwich or a delicious house-made Disney sweet, you’re spending somewhere between $10 to 15 bucks. At DHS- Starring Rolls Café is my choice; my family might grab a croissant or apple turnover for under $7.00, any grab & go type of food. Over at EPCOT- Fountain View in Future World has Starbucks espresso and specialty beverages or just fill up on warm and tasty treats like Artisan breakfast sandwiches and house-made Disney sweets. While at the Animal Kingdom- try Kusafiri Coffee Shop & Bakery.

*I would definitely save my largest meal for lunch, it’s usually less expensive during lunch hours and you could experience upscale dining without spending all your cha-ching, maybe try “Be our Guest” a quick service dining facility at Magic Kingdom with fine dining appeal, based off the popular tale Beauty & the Beast. Here you have a choice of three enchanted rooms & meals under 15.00 pp. Try the Speedy Salads and Sandwiches, Quick Quiche or the Chefs fave 8-hour-braised pork & for the little beasts, they’ll love Mickey meatloaf or whole-grain macaroni. Lunch time at DHS- 50’s Prime Time Café, it’s a stick to your ribs kind of lunch with a 50’s theme & fun lovin’ family humor. EPCOT-is a great place for Sushi, Sunshine Seasons- has an inexpensive selection, gourmet sandwiches, soups and salads, and wood-fired entrées. Animal Kingdom-Tusker House hosts “Donald’s Dining Safari Character Buffet” 11am-2:45pm, with the price being a bit steep at $30 to 59.99 pp, but it’s a character buffet with African influences and it will definitely fill up the hungry hubby’s out there.

*Dinner at Magic Kingdom, I would grab a combo-style meal at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn in Frontierland, they have a terrific “toppings bar” so you can make the simplest item on the menu go a lot further. I like the 1/3 Angus Cheeseburger-$10.79 served with fries or apple slices or the Taco Salad-$8.79 & add some hot cheese, caramelized onions or Pico de Gallo, yummy to my tummy. I particularly like to dip my fries in the hot cheese, always a late night family fave! At DHS- the Hollywood Brown Derby $15 to $29.99 per adult from 3:30-9:30pm. Enjoy a nice signature dinner with herb-roasted rack of lamb over buttermilk blue cheese-corn pudding, desserts & more. EPCOT- Rose & Crown Pub, fish & chips with a beer, simple & tasty! Animal Kingdom-Flame Tree Barbecue for none other than yummy barbeque.

 These are just a few suggestions for daily meals at WDW. By no means are they the cheapest for dining, but they offer a nice value for your money. Happy Eating*O*

Previously published on http://theadultsideofdisney.com/.

What Bite Takes You Home- #TheHundredFootJourney Philly Cheesesteak

What Bite Takes You Home - The Hundred Foot Journey

I was born and raised in Philadelphia but moved to northern California when I was 20 so I’ve lived here much longer than I did in Philadelphia and call California my home. But my tastes were shaped in Philly and whenever I go back there I can’t help but search out my favorites and my most favorite is the Philly cheesesteak. 

In Philadelphia there is a pizzeria or steak shop on every neighborhood corner. Like small family restaurants everywhere they vary in quality. Some years ago on one of my visits to my parents in Philly I decided to indulge in some serious cheesesteak research. I’d eaten my fair share of cheesesteaks when growing up but found that this was one impossible to obtain sandwich in California. Since this was the early days of personal computers the internet was barely up and running so I was confined to print media. Thankfully my mom and dad were voracious readers and there were plenty of years worth of Philadelphia Magazine and their annual Best Of Philly articles stacked up in the basement. I went through years worth of articles and also used the local newspapers to compile a list of restaurants. Armed with my list off to culinary over indulgence I went. I quickly found that the most famous cheesteak places, Pat’s and Geno’s in South Philadelphia where I had eaten as a child were also among the worst today. They may have invented the cheesesteak but these places are now tourist traps serving greasy, tasteless sandwiches. A good cheesteak is never greasy but rather juicy from fine quality, well seasoned meat and cheese.

Slowly over several years I ate my way through my list, adding and subtracting restaurants and coming up with some great results. You can’t go wrong at places such as Cosmi’s Deli, Delassandros, Tony Luke’s, Jim’s Steaks and Steve’s Prince of Steaks but the best of the best for me turned out to be just about the ugliest little shop imaginable in an industrial part of South Philadelphia called John’s Roast Pork. 

Now John’s Roast Pork specializes in, of all things, an incredible roast pork sandwich but their cheesesteak is what I went there for and it’s the best or among the best according to Philadelphia Magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Food Channel and the Travel Channel just to name a few. John’s also won the James Beard Award for Culinary Excellence and is routinely on top ten lists of Philly cheesesteaks everywhere but this national attention all happened years after I discovered the place. When I would visit Philadelphia I would take a red eye flight so I could get to John’s just after they opened at 6:45 in the morning and have a cheesteak for breakfast on my way from the airport to my parents’ home in northeast Philly. On my way home I would also arrange my flight so I could have another cheesesteak on my way to the airport to fly back to California. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I like my cheesesteak simple and traditional, just meat, cheese and onions although most of the chains in California think you need mayo, ketchup, peppers, mushrooms, pizza sauce, etc., on your sandwich. You can certainly get that in Philadelphia but that isn’t really the way a cheesesteak should be.

So just what makes John’s so good? John Bucci Jr. the son of the founder of John’s Roast Pork still man’s the grill. He does a few things differently than the normal cheesesteak shop. First off rather than use the traditional Amoroso bakery roll that most shops use John uses Italian rolls from the Carangi Bakery, a local Philly bakery, that are a little crustier than the normal roll and are seeded. He then removes a bit of the interior bread so as to better hold the 12 ounces of top quality, paper thin, sliced beef loin plus fried onions and cheese that he piles onto the sandwich. Most cheesesteak places will have a pile of lovely, browned chopped onions waiting on the side of the grill to grace the sandwich but John starts off with the raw sweet onions on the grill and then tops them with the beef so that the caramelizing onion flavor permeates the steak. He then seasons the meat and leaves it alone for a couple of minutes to brown up. Then he chops up the steak and onions on the grill and again does something different by toping the steak with chunks of extra sharp provolone cheese, waiting a moment for it to melt a bit and then chopping the cheese into the steak so that with every bite you get cheese, perfectly seasoned beef and onions in a mouth watering combination. A regular shop would put slices of cheese on top of the browning steak, let it melt for a moment, scoop it on to a roll and add onions. These simple differences in ingredients and technique are what I think makes John’s cheesesteaks the best. 

I’ve heard tell you can get a good cheesesteak in Los Angeles but here in northern California it just doesn’t exist. You can forget the chain cheesesteak places. They simply don’t use quality ingredients. There are a couple of places in the south bay area where you can get what I would consider a decent neighborhood cheesesteak but nothing approaches the rarified heights of John’s Roast Pork or any of the other places I mentioned above. This is the one food I miss from my childhood and this is the one that takes me back to the place I was born.

What Bite Takes You Home? #TheHundredFootJourney Our Family Favorites

Next week, audiences across the country will be treated to a culinary delight when“The Hundred-Foot Journey” comes to life on the silver screen and touches our hearts, souls and stirs our appetites in more ways than one. In DreamWorks Pictures’ “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” the opening of a new Indian restaurant in the south of France next to a famous Michelin-starred eatery is nearly cause for a heated battle between the two establishments, until Le Saule Pleureur’s icy proprietress, Madame Mallory, recognizes her rival’s undeniable brilliance for preparing masterful meals. 

“The Hundred-Foot Journey” abounds with flavors that burst across the tongue. A stimulating triumph over exile, blossoming with passion and heart, it is a portrayal of two worlds colliding and one young man’s drive to find the comfort of home, in every pot, wherever he may be.   And like any great meal that leaves you thinking about your next perfect bite, what is that perfect bite, that perfect meal that says home to you?

Yesterday I shared that growing up, my favorite part of school was lunch. It wasn’t because it meant that we were free to play and the rigors of class were left behind, at least for 45 minutes, but because lunchtime meant going to grandma’s house where I would find a heaping bowl of macaroni (it wasn’t called pasta back then) smothered in butter with of course all of the gumdrops I could smuggle out of the candy jar on my way back to school.  I’m not sure if it was the meal or the fact that I was spending time with her, but to this day macaroni and butter is my go to meal when I’m in need of comfort. When I posed this question to my own family, the answer I unanimously received from all of them was my homemade lasagna and so today’s challenge will be to try to recreate that family favorite here for you.  To check out how to make our family lasagna dish, just Click Here.  Today  our Disney Gal Team will be bringing you some of their favorite foods that say home to them with just one bite.  Be sure to be checking throughout the day to see if any of ours are the bite that brings you home too. 

In the meantime, don’t forget DreamWorks Pictures’ “The Hundred-Foot Journey,”opens in theaters everywhere August 8.

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