Friday, January 15, 2010

the missing review

Yes, finally, as promised, the review for my absolute greatest meal ever is online. A Vegan Adventure at 'Ohana has been posted as a guest blog on AllEars.net. I know... it left a real gap in my trip report here, but the meal was so amazing that I just had to share it with as many people as I could!

Chef TJ is amazing - he's more of a "food artist" than a chef, in my mind. He creates works of art that look as good as they taste, and they taste AMAZING! I have written to Disney, more than once, about what a gem they have in him. I am not kidding you - my meal at 'Ohana was seriously the highlight of my wonderful vacation. You can bet I'll be back on my next trip!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

veggie burger update...

Wow - so cool to have helpful readers! Thanks to the comments on my last post, I did a little more searching, and found a thread on Disboards that lists the ingredients and discusses the pros and cons of these burgers: New Gardenburger in Restaurants (As always, if you have an allergy, *please* confirm with the restaurant before eating anything. Nothing here is confirmed, guaranteed or set in stone, and things change all the time.)

It appears that these are not available at your local store. This is still just my opinion, but the Veggie Medley burgers are "close", if you just want to know what they taste like. (However, it does require buying a box of four, which I did... and managed to work my way through, with lots of "embellishing".) If it's particular ingredients, or calorie count that you're curious about, then the above-mentioned article has lots of helpful details.

In a perfect world, we'd be able to choose from a variety of veggie burgers, but at least Walt Disney World has them. (Has anyone seen a veggie burger of any type in any other theme or amusement park? I pretty much went hungry on my last trip to Cedar Point.)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

regarding the veggie burgers...

A reader of my blog (gosh, there's more than two of you!) asked if I knew the ingredients in the current veggie burgers at Walt Disney World...

Sadly, I just never thought to photograph the ingredients page, though I did look at it when they first made the switch, to be sure it was vegan. I cannot tell you exactly for certain what's in it, but I will tell you that they look and taste almost exactly like Gardenburger's Veggie Medley. I cannot be certain that they are exactly the same (it's possible that Disney has them create something especially for them), but they are really darn close, in my humble opinion. These are very "veggie-like", and not at all "hamburger-like", which is either a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.

To be honest, I have wondered if Disney made the change because the old Boca burgers looked so much like hamburgers that maybe they had trouble telling them apart once they were cooked, but that's just me wondering. More likely, Gardenburger simply made Disney a better offer than Boca.

And just a reminder, you need to order these on a "gluten-free, tapioca roll", in order for it to be vegan. In my opinion, the new veggie burger, on the tapioca roll, is just barely edible. I politely told Disney that frankly, I'd prefer to wait and eat PB&J in my hotel room. But your experience may be different. And fortunately, there are still a few non-burger vegan options in the parks.

That's it for today! Happy Disney Dining!