Disney Dining: Epcot

Welcome to a special travel edition of Newbie Foodies! This week I was in Walt Disney World in sunny Orlando Florida. We elected to try the Disney Dining plan which consists of a daily Snack, Quick Service Meal, and Sit Down Meal. Here is what I ate on the second day of our trip in Epcot.

This morning I wizened up and used my Dining Plan Snack credit on oatmeal for breakfast at Pop Century Resort. I found that the portions were so huge at lunch and dinner on the first day that I really didn't need an extra snack in the park so this strategy worked well.

We wanted to eat lunch in one of the countries, but by the time lunch rolled around we hadn't made our way over there yet. The Sunshine Seasons Cafe had a lot of good reviews online so we made our way over to the Land Pavilion. They had a wide variety of options, which was perfect for our party of six. I got a goat cheese, beet, and candied walnut salad (which my fellow travelers found to be a bizarre selection) and as you can see in the background my companions got some Chinese food. My salad was incredibly fresh and even featured two different colored beet varieties! I was very impressed with the quality of this salad. For dessert I found a guava cream cheese cupcake. Again, my companions thought this was weird, but I thought it was divine! Even if you are moving on to one of the countries for lunch, you should stop in here to get this as a snack.

Sunshine Seasons: Beet & Goat Cheese Salad
with Guava Cream Cheese Cupcake

For dinner we had reservations at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway. We were greeted by Belle, my favorite Disney Princess and took a few pictures with her. The rest of the evening we got to meet all the major Princesses: Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, and Cinderella.

The appetizers were buffet style, but then there was a menu to order your main dish. The appetizers were mostly your standard selections of meats, cheeses, and mayo-based salads, but there were a few Norwegian dishes thrown in. Most notably from my plate the interesting brown cheese (11 o'clock) and the smoked herring (6 o'clock).

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall: Appetizers

For my main dish I selecte the Traditional Kjøttkake aka Norweigen Meatballs with Mashed Potatoes and Lingonberry Sauce. These were just OK and were definitely my least favorite dish of the whole trip. Honestly, I think the Swedish Meatballs from Ikea are a little better (and definitely cheaper!). To be fair, one of my companions got the Pasta with Mushrooms and said it was fantastic, so I think this particular dish just fell a bit flat.

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall: Traditional Kjottkake

And then there was dessert. This was a trio of desserts served to the whole table which included: 

Sweet and Savory Chocolate Mousse

Traditional Rice Cream topped with Strawberry Sauce

Flaky Puff Pastry filled with Mascarpone Mousse and topped with fresh Berries

Yum! Don't ask me to pick a favorite, because I simply couldn't. Chocolately, Creamy, and Flaky- these desserts definitely made up for the lackluster meatballs.

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall: Dessert Plate

At the end of the meal, a woman came around with the pictures taken with Princess Belle at the entrance. At first we thought the woman was being pushy. Then we said something to the effect of "But we haven't even decided if we want to buy them yet!" when she looked at us and was like "But...they're free". No wonder she looked so confused when we said we needed to look at them before putting them in the bag. We were so impressed, at the character meal at 1900 Park Fare they were charging $30 for the photo package. We were even more delighted when we got back to the hotel in the evening and found that there were several copies of each picture, so we could divvy them up and everyone had a souvenir to take home!