We always try and make at least one reservation at a new-to-us restaurant on every trip – we had multiple on this trip, but one of them was Storyteller’s Cafe located in the Grand Californian Hotel.

This restaurant offers a character breakfast Monday-Friday, a character brunch on Saturday, Sunday and Holidays, an a-la-carte lunch and an a-la-carts/buffet hybrid at dinner (no characters). We booked the Sunday character brunch for the day of the Avengers Half-Marathon, I figured Luke would have worked up quite an appetite after running for 21km.

I also made a reservation late enough that Luke had time to go back to our hotel, have a shower and change into clean clothes before going to eat. Also, since he was feeling a bit sore (rightfully so!), we took an Uber to the Grand.

We checked in, and that place was slammed! It was a long weekend with a runDisney event happening, so it wasn’t all that surprising when we were told they were running behind a bit. We found a bench outside and sat down to wait. There were two little boys with remote control cars, their parents were sitting on the bench directly across from us. The younger boy, I’d guess him to be about 4 years old, thought it was hilarious when he drove his little car under the gate by the pool we were close to, but then of course had a huge meltdown when he couldn’t figure out how to drive it back under the gate to where he was. You can’t just open the gate either, you must be staying in the hotel and use your room card to open it, so I couldn’t offer any assistance . The older brother, maybe 6 or 7 years old, grabbed the controller from his younger brother and was trying to drive the car back under the gate, but it kept getting stuck. Eventually, someone who was in the pool area came over and opened the gate so the boys could go grab the car. Watching this made the time pass by quickly, and about 20 minutes after sitting down on the bench,  our names were called.

This restaurant is really gorgeous – high ceilings in the centre by the buffet, and lots of wood.

Even the floor leading to the main check-in counter is beautiful:

The carpet also ties in to the theming of the restaurant:

The buffet area was quite large here:

I took buffet pictures as we were leaving, since the crowd was gone by that point and I wasn’t interfering with anyone or holding anyone up just so I could get good pics for my blog haha. The food wasn’t as well signed as it is at other buffets, so I’ll do my best at remembering what everything was…

Bread pudding with vanilla sauce

Uhh…Cereal.

Mini cupcakes – I believe they were red velvet?

Various salads of death.

Charred corn chowder with various toppings – bacon, green onions, etc

Bacon, tater tots (or “potato barrels” at some Disney restaurants haha), and hash brown casserole

Salmon, rice pilaf

Butter, yogurt, etc.

Smoked salmon, onions, lemons, etc

Very picked over fruit platter. Just imagine it being full…

Mickey waffles, pancakes, French toast

Chilaquiles And eggs Benedict

Cinnamon buns, assorted pastries

Mini muffins

Make your own omelet station

Chicken and… something? 

My first plate, from the top and going clockwise: bacon, rice pilaf, chicken, casear salad, watermelon, grapes, tater tots, hash brown casserole(?).

For some reason, I really wasn’t very hungry and filled half my plate with salad and fruit – that’s just not typical for me haha. Everything was good that I tried though.

Luke’s first plate, starting at the top and going clockwise: chicken, mini cupcake, key lime tart (they must have been all gone by the time I took pictures of the buffet at the end of our meal), breakfast sausage, smoked salmon, pineapple slices, hash brown casserole, tater tots, bacon and scrambled eggs.

He also grabbed a bowl of their Nebraska charred corn chowder

My second plate was a little bit of bread pudding and half a plate full of caesar salad – not a great idea.

I really liked their caesar dressing, it tasted homemade – which meant it was very rich. Apparently my stomach couldn’t handle that much salad/rich dressing, and I ended up throwing all of this up about an hour later…

Luke’s second plate: scrambled eggs, eggs benedict and that red mess was a Mickey waffle with raspberry or strawberry sauce.

This was also a character brunch, so of course we met some characters – Pluto, Chip, Dale and Kenai from Brother Bear.

As with all character meals at Disneyland, we received pins specific to that location. I love that they do this here, it’s such a great little keepsake.

This brunch cost $39 each, but I saved 15% with my annual pass so our total bill came to $71.44 with tax. I wasn’t very hungry, and the  food I did eat I ended up throwing up, but I still want to return here again one day. I don’t blame the restaurant or Disney for me being sick, my stomach just couldn’t handle that much of the rich salad dressing. Luke really enjoyed his meal here, and he felt perfectly fine afterwards.

We had a reservation to eat supper here on our first trip to WDW, back in 2016, but unfortunately I ended up getting sick that day and we had to cancel. We tried finding a spot to squeeze it in on our 2017 trip, but it just didn’t work out, so we were determined to get there on this trip.

Our Walmart trip earlier that day ran a little longer than we expected it to, so we were a few minutes late checking in for our 6:35pm reservation – but they were backed up so it wouldn’t have mattered. We didn’t have a terrible wait, they called our names around 6:50 and led us to our two-top table. The hostess showing us to our table pointed out the buffet, and let us know that we would have more than enough time to go grab a plate of food before any of the characters made their way to us, as they were all on break at that point. We were hungry, so she didn’t have to tell us twice!

My first plate, starting at the top and going clockwise: mashed potatoes, turkey and gravy,  cheese, green beans, Mongolian beef, rice, baked ziti, cheese ravioli, pork and butter chicken.

They clearly don’t know what butter chicken is – this was more of a mild curry chicken – it was very good, but don’t call it what it’s not. The baked ziti pasta was surprisingly really good! Lots of cheese baked in throughout, and the pasta had a texture I liked. The beef and rice was a real standout on the plate, which shocked me a bit – usually beef like that (especially from a buffet) is tough and chewy. It was definitely cooked well done (big thumbs up from me for that!) but it was still tender and the sauce had great flavour! Honestly, I liked every single thing I tried.

I also had a bowl of their famous strawberry soup. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, but I enjoyed it. It’s served cold (which isn’t soup in my opinion). When I was young, we had lots of local strawberries in the summer, and one of my favourite things to eat was mashed berries mixed with some heavy cream (usually unwhipped whipping cream), and then I would dip buttered toast into it. Basically, 1900 Park Fare’s Strawberry soup tastes exactly like that – which leads me to believe it’s just heavy cream and strawberries. Simple, but delicious!

We were both feeling fancy and ordered alcoholic drinks. Luke went for the Moscow Mule – Russian standard vodka, fresh lime juice and agave nectar topped with ginger beer, $11.

The drink that caught my eye was the Antioxidant Lemonade – Van Gogh Açai-Blueberry vodka, Odwalla lemonade and pomegranate juice, topped with Sprite, $9.75. We were both pleased with our selections, and I loved the little stir sticks with the hotel logo on it.

Luke’s first plate from the buffet contained, from the top and going clockwise, fried catfish, potato salad, sausage, pork and mushroom gravy, “butter chicken”, cornbread, roast beef, mashed potatoes, a single chicken nugget from the kids section (he informed me he had more, but he snacked on them as he made his way around the rest of the buffet…).

Luke’s favourites from this plate were the catfish and the pork roast, but there was nothing he didn’t like. That roast beef is way too rare for me, and Luke’s only complaint was that the juice from it made the catfish batter a little bit soggy. He also made a similar comment as I did about the “butter chicken” – terrible butter chicken, but excellent curry chicken.

Luke’s second plate: casear salad, butternut squash ravioli, Mongolian beef and rice, turkey and gravy and honey sriracha salmon.

Luke raved about that salmon, he tends to like most things sriracha-flavoured, but he also said the salmon was very well cooked. I don’t eat seafood, so I can’t tell you my opinion on it. He was also a huge fan of the butternut squash ravioli – but again, there was nothing on his plate he didn’t enjoy.

My second plate: cheese ravioli, green beans, casear salad, macaroni and marinara sauce from the kids section, baked ziti and Mongolian beef and rice.

I basically went for more of my favourites from my first plate. Of course, my eyes were much larger than my stomach (what else is new? Haha), and I was not able to finish this plate. It was all so good though!

While we ate, the characters made their way around the room. I’m always super awkward with face characters, I never know what to say to them, but these ones made it easy! The step-sisters were hilarious, and so was the Evil Step-Mother. Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan of Cinderella, she’s a little too prim and proper for me – I prefer the spunky princesses like Rapunzel or Tiana. The Cinderella we met here was exactly what I’d expect, a very polished, proper princess.

This was the first time we’ve met a male face character. The interaction was good, but nothing really memorable.

Drizella was hilarious. We had one of our “Happily Ever After” buttons sitting on the table, so she asked if we were on our Honeymoon. When we explained that we were actually on our wedding trip, and getting married the following week she got all excited and asked to see my ring, so of course I showed her. She squealed, and asked if it was vintage (which it is, it belonged to my Grandmother). Drizella then went on to tell me all about the jewels she’s going to get that currently belong to her mother.

She had the best facial expressions hahaha.

As her sister, Anastacia, approached, Drizella excitedly told her we were getting married soon, so she asked me if she could see a picture of my dress. Luke snapped these pictures while I showed her the pictures of me wearing my dress…

I know she’s supposed to be an evil step-sister, but she was actually really sweet! I liked her 🙂 The table next to us had an older lady sitting there, the grandmother of the group, and it was apparently her first trip to WDW. Anastasia came back a few times just to give grandma a hug and tell her how adorable she was – the Grandma clearly thought this was just the greatest thing, I loved watching her smile every time Anastasia came over.

The final character was the evil step-mother, Lady Tremaine. Again, she found out we were getting married soon, so she asked me why I was marrying him – was he rich? I embarassed Luke and told Lady Tremaine I was marrying him because he liked cats and had a pair of them haha. She was pretending she didn’t want to get too close to him in case he had cat hair on him.

There was a decent dessert selection as part of the buffet, but we had ate so much of the other food that we didn’t want any. Our server did bring us each a cupcake though as a congratulations, so we did each have a bite of that. We left over half of each one though, we were so full!

I’m so happy we finally made it here for a meal! I think it might be my favourite character meal at Walt Disney World – the characters were great, and the food was fantastic. It’s not a cheap option, and my Tables in Wonderland card was blacked out due to it being January 1st, but I could still use my AP discount (10% on food only). I would not hesitate to return here, and won’t even complain that much about paying full price.

Tables in Wonderland Original Cost: $150                                              Break Even Point Before this Meal: $130.60                                                     Savings this Meal: $0 (blackout date)                                                                     Total until Breaking Even: $130.60

Predicted food budget: $2631.67                                                                             Estimated Cost of this meal: $27.46(Pop Food Court – Breakfast) + $112.89 (1900 Park Fare) = $140.35                                                                       Actual Cost: $15.95(Pop) + 112.20 (1900 Park Fare) = $128.15           Over/Under: Under by $12.20                                                           Remaining: $2218.58

Next meal: California Grill

We hadn’t made any plans for this night, we weren’t sure if we would be really tired and want to go to sleep after the Race Expo, but we were so excited to be back in California that we decided to enter the park.

We were starving, but hadn’t made any dining reservations- luckily we remembered reading rave reviews about the fried chicken at Plaza Inn, and it was technically a quick service meal! We had ate breakfast there on our previous trip, so we knew exactly where it was and set off in that direction.

You enter the main doors, and then order your food from the centre section of the restaurant. We both went for the same thing, the Plaza Inn Specialty Chicken – three pieces of chicken, fried to a golden brown, seasoned with distinctive herbs and spices. Served with mashed potatoes, buttermilk biscuit and a mixture of vegetables, $17.49

This is a massive portion! I could easily share this meal with someone (I’d just need to order an extra scoop of potatoes because I don’t share those haha). The chicken was juicy, the crispy batter had great flavour and I can see why this place has the reputation it does. I don’t know what they do, I assume use lots of butter, but Disney green beans are always so good! Mashed potatoes and gravy is one of my favourite foods (I have such fancy tastes in food haha), and I enjoyed this serving. The biscuit was good, not great. I couldn’t finish everything, this was a lot of food! Luke did well, but he couldn’t clear his plate either.

Luke had a Coke to go with his meal, I grabbed a root beer. However, after my first sip of my pop I realized the fountain must be almost out of syrup, it tasted terrible. So, I also grabbed a coke.

There was a couple sitting at the table next to ours wearing the Bride and Groom Mickey ear hats, so I pointed at their ears and asked if they were on their Honeymoon. They told us they were actually on a pre-honeymoon, they were getting married the following week in Vegas, but were spending a few days in California first. They told us it was their first time at Disneyland, and asked us what attractions they should try and do. We chatted for a few minutes, and told them our favourites in the park before wishing them well in their upcoming nuptials. We didn’t even get their names, but I hope they enjoyed their day at Disneyland!

For some reason, it seems like I didn’t take a picture of our receipt here. I would have used my annual pass for a discount, but I can’t remember if it was 10%, 15% or 20% – I’d assume 15% since that’s standard with a top tier pass in California.

This place is on the list of places I would definitely eat at again. The price was right, the servings were large and the food was really tasty. Two thumbs way up for you, Plaza Inn!

After finishing our 5k, we were both hungry. One of the only places open at that hour was Earl of Sandwich, which is one of Luke’s favourite places. Since it was so early, they were only serving breakfast sandwiches, which sucked since I rarely eat eggs (they bother my stomach), and all of their breakfast options involved eggs. I’m sure I could have asked for a sandwich made without, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I did find some things to eat though 🙂

Bowl of Broccoli Cheddar soup, $3.99.

This is one of my favourite types of soup, and the version Earl’s makes is pretty good. It hit the spot, and made for a perfect breakfast selection.

Of course, no breakfast is complete without a little chocolate, so I also grabbed a Chocolate Pudding, $2.99

This had almost as much whipped cream as it did pudding. This was good, and I convinced myself I deserved it after walking a 5k that morning haha.

Luke actually ordered a breakfast sandwich, and went for the Ham, Egg N’ Cheddar – ham, eggs, cheddar and breakfast sauce served on our artisan bread, $5.29

Luke didn’t love this the way he loves their regular sandwiches. He ate it all, but wasn’t raving about it. There was nothing special about it, and we won’t be going out of our way to eat breakfast here again, we’ll stick to the lunch/supper menu.

Total cost was $13.22 – we had received free bottles of water at the finish line of the 5k, so we didn’t buy drinks at Earl of Sandwich. There was no option for a discount with my annual pass.

I was so excited that our trip coincided with the start of Festival of the Holidays at Disney’s California Adventure – I finally got to try some Disney food booths!

We headed to DCA on the very first day of the festival. We had scoped out the menus for the various booths, and were very excited to sample some food! I was also an annual pass holder at the time, so I was eligible to purchase a Sip and Savor Pass – I was pretty excited about it. This pass cost $45, and contained 8 tear-off tabs to be used on any non-alcoholic item at the booths, on any day for the duration of the festival (November 10, 2017 – January 7, 2018). I had already pulled off one tab from the bottom before I remembered to take a picture of it… 

To break even on this pass, we had to purchase 8 items worth at least $5.63 – most items cost more than that so I wasn’t concerned with that and I knew it would be a good deal in the end to have purchased this pass.

We decided to start at the “A Twist on Tradition” booth, and ordered the Reuben Potato Smash – with Russian dressing and rye toast crumble ($6.75 if paying out of pocket)

This sounded very strange, and I wasn’t completely sure what to expect from it, but I was very pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it! The potatoes were like tater tots (but better than most tots I’ve had), and the toppings were all really tasty.

Our next stop was “Classic Crocks and Casseroles” for the Chana Masala with grilled garlic naan ($6.50 if paying out of pocket).

Of all the things we tried at the food booths, this was the most average. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t special in any way, and not super flavourful like the Indian food I’m used to. The naan was standard, and worked great for scooping up the chickpeas.

Our third and final stop of the day was at “Blissfully Braised” for the Braised Pork Belly Adobo – with garlic fried rice ($7.50 if paying out of pocket).

Of the three items we tried on this day, this was the clear winner. That garlic rice was fantastic (and we might have ate some with the chana masala – a great combo), and the pork belly was tender and fatty and delicious. I really wish this was on a permanent menu somewhere at Disneyland, I would order this all the time.

We were starting to get full, and we had a dining reservation coming up soon, so we decided to call it quits for the day at the food booths. We were doing really well with getting our value out of the Sip and Savor pass so far – the three items we tried had a total cost of $20.75, leaving us with 5 tabs and $24.25 to break even.

 

For our first meal on our trip, we decided to try something new and made a reservation at Tony’s Town Square. It was December 30th, and we figured the park would be really busy, so we really wanted to make sure we had an ADR. We made it for quite late, just to give ourselves wiggle room in case our flight was delayed (which turned out to be a good call – we were never in danger of missing our reservation, but our flight was over an hour late).

We checked in, and had a bit of a wait before being called. We were eventually led to a 4-top table in the back corner, and handed our menus.

We were brought a plate of bread with some oil while we read over the menu. We were both really hungry after a day of traveling, and we crushed the bread fairly quickly and then said yes to a second plate haha. I really enjoyed the spices/seasoning that was mixed in with the oil (although I’m fairly certain it was just basic Italian seasoning).

We decided that since it was the first night of our wedding trip, we would do something we’ve never done at a restaurant before – order a bottle of wine! #treatyoself Keep in mind, I’m fussy with wine, and the only way I’d agree to drinking any of this was if it was a really sweet wine – so Luke, being the great husband he is (although he was still technically just my fiancé at this point), agreed to split a bottle of Moscato with me.

Coppo Moncalvina Moscato d’Asti, Piedmont – refreshing aromas and flavours of tropical fruit and sugar cane with a touch of acidity on the finish – $39/bottle

This was really good Moscato! It was nice and sweet, just the way I like my wine, without being sickly sweet over the course of a bottle. I don’t understand the language they use to describe wine, I can never taste the difference between different kinds of fruits used – obviously I’m not a wine connoisseur seeing as I only drink Moscato haha. We had no issues finishing this bottle off (Luke drank way more than I did, I’m such a lightweight haha), and it wasn’t too expensive at all for restaurant prices!

For food, we skipped appetizers (as we almost always do), and went straight for entrees. Luke went for the Chicken Parmigana – lightly breaded chicken breast with melted mozzarella and Tony’s Marinara Sauce over spaghetti $26.

The spaghetti was nothing special, the sauce was basic but the chicken was cooked well.

My eyes were larger than my belly, and I ordered the Italian Trio – three classic favourites on one dish. Chciken Parmigiana, baked rigatoni and fettucine alfredo $32.

I’m not a huge fan of alfredo sauce typically, but this was really good! The chicken parm was standard, but tasty and the baked rigatoni was surpisingly one of the stars of this entire plate. I expected the bowl of baked rigatoni to be fairly basic, but it was so good!

There’s really nothing special about the food at this restaurant, but overall it was tasty and hit the spot. We had been led to believe that this restaurant wasn’t very good, so we went in with very low expectations – and we ended up being pleased with it! There’s no mistaking this place for fine dining, and there’s definitely better options on property, but I’m glad we went there and tried it – and we wouldn’t mind going back again..

The restaurant itself is really cute, with lots of Lady & the Tramp references (as seen on the menu above). The walls were decorated in artwork from the movie, and there was a giant fountain in the restaurant which was adorable.

The total cost of our meal was $100.11 – this included an 18% tip and a 20% discount thanks to Tables in Wonderland.

I purchased a Tables in Wonderland card for the first time ever (seeing as this was my first trip to WDW as an annual pass holder, it was the first time I was ever eligible for the card). The cost to purchase a TIW card is $150 (no tax), but it will allow you to save 20% on food and alcohol at many restaurants on property.  It does add an auto-gratuity to your check of 18%, but Luke and I tend to tip that much anyways. Also, parties of 6 or more have the 18% auto-gratuity added on even without a TIW card, and we knew almost every meal during the entire second week of our vacation would be with at least 6 people at a time.

I wanted to track the numbers and see how much we ended up saving by purchasing the card, so the numbers will be shared at the bottom of each review 🙂 Keep in mind I didn’t calculate the 18% gratuity in the cost to break even, since we would have been paying that anyways.

Tables in Wonderland Original Cost: $150                                              Break Even Point Before this Meal: $150                                                        Savings this Meal: $19.40                                                                                            Total until Breaking Even: $130.60

We also had done up a spreadsheet with estimated food costs per meal, and came on this trip planning to spend a little over $2600 on food (which is so much money, we were hoping to keep that lower, but at the same time not deny ourselves whatever we wanted since it was our wedding/honeymoon). I’ll be including those numbers at the bottom of each post as well so you can see how well we did with our estimations. Also – our estimated costs did NOT include tips, that was a separate calculation, and I will not be including tips in the actual cost listed here either.

Predicted food budget: $2631.67                                                                             Estimated Cost of this meal: $15(WestJet) + $37.87 (Pop Food Court) + $101.18 (Tony’s) = $154.05                                                                       Actual Cost: $19.48(WestJet) +$0 (Pop Food Court) + $82.65 (Tony’s) = $102.13                                                                                       Over/Under: Under by $51.92                                                                     Remaining: $2579.75

Next meal: Narcoossee’s Brunch

 

 

One of the places I wanted to go back to was Naples, so we made a reservation for supper there on our last night.

We checked in and were led to a table outside. We were handed the menu – which is a giant one-page thing with the food on one side and drinks on the other.

One thing on the drink menu caught Luke’s attention: Mule Flight – a flight of three unique, Italian-inspired mules, all topped with ginger liqueur and lime juice $18

From left to right, that’s the Venetian – Absolut vodka, prosecco, Sicilian – Skyy vodka, averna and Naples – Stoll vodka, blood orange juice. Mules have become one of Luke’s favourite drinks to order at restaurants, so he was excited to try some different kinds (and I might have sampled each of them as well…).

We both liked the Venetian and Naples, but the Sicilian just tasted like straight vodka.

I was boring and just wanted water, but I didn’t take a picture of that – just imagine a tall glass filled with a clear liquid.

They brought us some bread with olive oil/balsamic to start. I hate balsamic, so I very carefully dip my bread so I only soak up the oil – it’s a process I’ve pretty much mastered by now haha. Luke likes it all, so he just eats it like a normal person. This is a good crusty Italian bread – and I like just about every type of bread out there!

A big reason for wanting this reservation was because of the appetizer we’d had the last time we were here: Panzerotti – fried pizza dough filled with fresh mozzarella, artisan ricotta, parmesan, marinara, three for $10, five for $14.

These are delicious little puffy pockets of cheesey goodness, with a big bowl of marinara to dip them in. I could make an entire meal just out of these <3

We also ordered a regular sized pepperoni pizza $35 (they have individual, regular and large- which is massive!). I love the tiny little pepperonis they use, and the fresh mozzarella. Overall, a very tasty pizza 🙂

 

Our total bill came to $63.03 after saving $4.50 with my annual pass.