Each and every trip to Disney, we like to try out at least one new-to-us restaurant. During this trip, that happened to be Carnation Cafe (which is definitely not a new restaurant to the park!)

Located on Main Street USA, Carnation Cafe features some of Walt’s favourite recipes. It is not a huge place, and reservations are definitely recommended.

We checked in, and only had to wait a few minutes before our names were called and we were led to a two-top table in the outside section. The menu is not huge here, just a single page.

We ordered our drinks – a root beer for me and a cherry coke for Luke. They quickly arrived (and apparently I was so thirsty I drank a quarter of mine before taking a picture haha).

I loved the carnations in the design of the tabletop, I thought it was a cute way to tie in the name of the restaurant. It also gave it a vintage feel – I wonder how old these tables actually are?

There were also real carnations on every table. I’m not a huge flower person, but I’ve always likes the simplicity of carnations 🙂

While we were sitting there, waiting for our food, a server came over and asked if we would mind moving to a different table. They had a large group checking in, and they needed our two-top table to push up against a large 6-top. They ended up moving us to a 4-top table – so no complaints from us! It’s always nice to have a little more space for our food!

Luke decided to start with the Fried Pickles with Dipping Sauce – Dill pickle spears dipped in Parmesan and Panko, fried golden brown and served with a house sauce, $7.

I don’t like pickles, so I didn’t try these, but Luke seemed to really enjoy them! He described them as having a nice crispy/dense panko-style breading The sauce was like a cajun aioli, and tasted great with the pickles. He did recommend sharing it between two people, he found it to be a lot to eat all on his own.

I had scoped out the menu before we even made this dining reservation, so I knew exactly what I was going to order before I even sat down – the Chicken-Fried Chicken – buttermilk-fried chicken breast served with mashed potatoes, country gravy and seasonal vegetables, $18.

This was a huge piece of chicken! It was much larger than I expected it to be, and it was tasty! The batter on it was really good – flaky and crispy at the same time, and the chicken was nice and moist. The mashed potatoes were good, although I did ask for more of the country gravy so I could pour it on top of those as well. The seasonal vegetables were a little underwhelming, just a few pieces of cauliflower and broccoli, but I still ate them. The sourdough roll was nice, and I appreciated the huge dish of butter they provided to smear over everything (obviously, I didn’t put butter on my chicken haha).

I came close, but I wasn’t quite able to finish everything on my plate. I would definitely order this meal again!

Luke ordered the Homemade Meatloaf – our special blend of beef and pork served with ketchup glaze, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy and seasonal vegetables, $15.  Since my meal was also served with mashed potatoes, we asked about switching his out for french fries, and that was no issue at all – we just wanted to try both 🙂

The outside of the meatloaf had a nice crunch to it, while the inside was juicy and flavourful. The ketchup glaze had a smokey taste and the mushroom gravy was just the right amount of savoury. The perfect umami complement to its tangy tomato counterpart. The shoestring fries were as you’d want them to be. Light, crisp and not too greasy. The ketchup was sublime. Or Heinz. Either way – 9/10. Would dip fries into again. The vegetables were pretty good to, if not necessary to get a little fibre involved with this whole thing. We’re not getting any younger – amiright?

After using my annual pass to save 15%, our total bill came to $43.94 after tax – not bad for such a good meal!

In the spirit of trying out new-to-us restaurants on this trip, we had made a reservation at Goofy’s Kitchen – a buffet meal with characters located at the Disneyland Hotel.

We walked over to the hotel and checked in for our 11am reservation. By ten after eleven, we had already paid for our meal – which you do before even being seated – and were in line to meet Goofy. The cost per person is $36, but they automatically add 18% gratuity to your bill. I did get 15% off with my Annual Pass so our total bill came to $79.91. I’m used to the characters coming to your table during character meals, and for the most part they still do that here. But, you typically meet Chef Goofy before entering the restaurant, and then during your meal cast members come around and try to make you pay more money to get the picture they took of you with him. I’m not a fan of this at all – in my opinion I’ve already paid more than enough just to eat here, plus I had Photopass covered by my annual pass. Needless to say, we did not purchase the photo.

Anyways,  we were led to our table – a two-top close to the main entrance, and immediately went to hit up the buffet. I took a crazy amount of pictures of this buffet, so enjoy:

                                                          The main buffet area

         Cold options – mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, baby corn, black olives and beets

          Beets (again), cucumbers, rolls

   The sign just says Garbanzo – which would be the lighter coloured ones (I call them chickpeas). The red ones look like kidney beans. Also, balsalmic and ranch.

  Smoked salmon, sliced deli-meat turkey

  Sliced cheese, pasta salad, Tarragon Chicken Salad

  Pork Stew, Oatmeal

  Bacon, scrambled eggs, pork sausage

  Pork sausage, eggs benedict, roasted potatoes

 Sliced Ham, Pasta Pasguali

  Seasonal vegetables, chicken teriyaki, rice pilaf

 Made-to-order omelets – choose from red onion, tomato, green pepper, black olive, spinach, mushrooms, ham, bacon, chicken sausage, pork chorizo, jalapenos, cheddar cheese

  Mickey pancakes, chicken nuggets   Hot dogs and buns

   Margherita Pizza (tomato, mozzarella, basil), Macaroni & cheese pizza, Cheese pizza

  Pepperoni pizza, Peanut Butter & Jelly pizza

  Orange jello, cake pops

  Worms and dirt (chocolate pudding, crumbled Oreos and gummy worms)

 Root Beer Bundt cake

  Croissants, assorted mini muffins

   Banana Bread, cookies

 Assorted cookies, squares

   Ice cream machine – vanilla, chocolate or swirl

  Ice cream toppings – blue sugar, chocolate covered peanuts, Mickey sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, mini M&M’s, Reese’s pieces, white chocolate pearls

Not pictured (since the pans were mostly empty when I was up taking pictures): Bread Pudding, Monkey Bread and a Seasonal Cobbler.

Now for our plates of food:

I didn’t pile my first plate too high, and went for a slice of pepperoni pizza, some cucumbers with ranch dressing, a slice of ham, green beans/carrots, chicken nuggets, rice and chicken teriyaki.

I also grabbed some orange jello – it’s something that is so simple, yet I never make at home, but I’m always a fan!

Luke’s first plate – eggs Benedict, pepperoni pizza, PB&J pizza, chicken nuggets, bacon, cucumbers, sliced deli turkey, a slice of cheese and chicken salad.

My second plate:

I actually went fairly healthy (not very common for me, really), and grabbed more cucumbers and  green beans/carrots, some pasta, and then half a plate of fruit – grapes, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon and raspberries.

Luke’s second plate:

A made-to-order omelet (he can’t remember for sure what he had, but it looks like ham, green peppers and onions), chicken teriyaki, green bean/carrot mix, a sausage and another eggs benedict.

Finally, we had the ridiculousness that was our desert plates… first up, Luke’s:

A mini creme brulee, a square (looks like a puffed wheat square) and some of the seasonal cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream.

Since my second plate of food was healthy,  I guess that qualified me to go crazy on my dessert plate – this looks like the plate of a five year old…

More orange jello, a cake pop covered in sprinkles, a piece of the root beer bundt cake, a dish of ice cream covered in sprinkles and some of the worms and dirt. Yup, I’m definitely an adult…

Oh, we also can’t forget that they brought over a cupcake for Luke’s birthday:

This was a rainbow chip cupcake with orange icing piled high, decorated with Mickey sprinkles and a little chocolate Goofy hat. Yes, we ate this too…

Also, not pictured is the bowl of mini M&M’s I had… can we say sugar high?!

Overall, the food was good – it was nothing spectacular, but it was exactly the consistency and quality I’ve come to expect from Disney buffets. I never leave hungry or unsatisfied, and usually enjoy my meals.

Of course, Goofy’s is most known for being a character meal! The characters were making their rounds, we saw some of them more than once.

Overall, we enjoyed our experience at Goofy’s Kitchen. I really do not agree with them trying to force you into buying your picture with Goofy, I think they need to re-evaluate that and have that included for anyone with an annual pass or who has paid for Photopass – I refused to pay them an extra $30 just for a picture when I had just paid $1500 for an annual pass a few days earlier (and $80 just to eat here). Why not just run things like they do at WDW?

One thing I really like about the character meals at Disneyland are the custom pins they have. You get one just by eating there – we have a good collection of these now!

We don’t feel the need to eat at Goofy’s Kitchen on every trip, but we will definitely be back at some point!

 

Breakfast – February 27, 2016

After cancelling our Plaza Inn breakfast reservation in lieu of meeting some Oilers (including Mr. McDavid!), we arrived to Disneyland hungry. After securing our coveted fastpass for Hyperspace Mountain, we decided to just grab something from the Tomorrowland Terrace since we were already in Tomorrowland.

At this point, the Tomorrowland Terrace had been re-themed as the Galactic Grill and was serving up Star Wars-inspired food options.

We had a lunch reservation for Blue Bayou a little later that day, so we decided to just split a kid’s meal (and grab a churro immediately afterwards as well…) – so we ordered the Blue Milk French Toast, served with bacon and a fruit cup.

The french toast was actually blue! It was also coated with a generous layer of powdered sugar – in case you needed even more sweetness with your breakfast. Since this was a kid’s meal, there was only two pieces of french toast (or one full slice of bread) and two slices of bacon.

The french toast was just ok – not terrible, but not overly great either. We were both hungry though, and it hit the spot and held us over until lunch. The bacon was standard Disney bacon, and the fruit cup was not bad – fairly fresh!

I can’t remember the exact cost of this meal, but it was cheap – I want to say $5.99?

I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat breakfast here again, but it was fine for what it was.