Waive Your Napkin High for Chef Mickey's
Written: Mar 21 '07
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Pros: Happy and Joyful - Food's Not Bad, Either
Cons: Sausage gravy was disappointing, nothing else to complain about. Honestly....
The Bottom Line: A load of fun.
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| nollequeen's Full Review: Chef Mickey's |
Chef Mickey’s, a character buffet restaurant located in Disney’s Contemporary Hotel’s Grand Canyon concourse, just looks like fun. With the monorail passing overhead as well as a big colorful statute of Mickey in a Chef’s hat and a roomful of folks waiving their napkins and singing a silly song about partying, you just want to join in.
Having heard from other friends that have gone to Disney with their kids that you just have to attend a character breakfast, I tried several weeks in advance to get a reservation. The best I could do was 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, which stuck me as ungodly hour at the time. That was of course, before I had been in Disney World with a kid. In retrospect it was just the perfect time.
With less than 20 people there when we arrived, we were lead to our table past a double buffet and a row of intriguingly tall (6 or 7 feet in height) dispensers of colorful candy and cereal. Chef Mickey’s exterior wall is a huge (Grand Canyon Concourse-size window) so the area is big, open and bright, which combined with the all the color and modern Jetsonesque décor creates a happy and welcoming feel to the dining room.
Best of all, on each table sits a thermal carafe of the best coffee I had anywhere in WDW.
As long as you don’t have to wait for coffee, who cares if its 7:00 am? Our friendly waiter came and immediately poured us a glass of fresh orange juice while explaining the buffet to us. Before we could even get up to explore, he was back with a glass of chocolate milk for my son.
The buffet is set up in a semi circular fashion with each half of the semi circle being a repeat of the first part, so lots of folks can be served at once. In our case, we were lucky enough (or perhaps early enough) to be in line with only one other family. In addition to the adult buffet, there was a separate section with special breakfast items for kids including: peanut butter and jelly pizza, Mickey waffles, scrambled eggs and some sticky buns that I believe were called “Sticky Mickey’s.”
The adult buffet included: Pluto's Corned Beef Hash (a really yummy casserole of Corned Beef Hash inside a cornbread crust, Scrambled Eggs, several different types of omelets, Mickey Waffles, Pancakes made to order, Veggie Lasagna, Hash Browns with Bacon and Cheese, Breakfast Pizza, Challah French Toast, Biscuits and Gravy (disappointing bland and gluey), Sausage and Bacon and separate little bars with Fruit, Cold Salads and every carbohydrate known to man, with a variety of spreads to go with them.
The food was hot and delicious (with the only exception being the gluey and blah sausage gravy – although this could be attributed to my being a Yankee). Being there at opening I am sure contributed to the heat and quality of the items.
Returning to our table, we ate for a few minutes before the characters showed up. Their arrival was heralded by the wait staff the instructed us in the waiving of napkins and the singing of the Chef Mickey song, which involves constant repetition of the word “Party”. Silly as this sounds, it was surprisingly fun and managed to get us psyched up for the arrival of Chef Mickey and his friends. When they skipped into our dining room to the music, you could hear an audible gasp of excitement in the room. I’m sure I was gasping too, because at this point, it seemed like we were about to meet royalty. Dressed in chef’s attire, were Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Minnie and Donald. All but Goofy were pleasantly short and thus didn’t seem overwhelming. Goofy was really tall, and I was kind of worried as he approached our table that my brave 6 year old was going to turn shy, but Goofy saw this coming and grabbed my sons hat and pulled it down over his eyes and snapped his napkin at him. Which seemed to be exactly the right approach (who would have guessed) but I guess the characters have experience with this kind of thing. We took many pictures of ourselves and had fun taking pictures of families at the other tables as well (using their cameras).
All in all, it was such a joyful event that we decided we really needed to come back for breakfast the following morning and made reservations for 7:00 am once again. My husband and I had as much fun as the kid. The following morning we came back again this time with my-in-laws who had come along on the trip but bowed out of the early breakfast on the first day. It was fun watching them transformed into character groupies as well. The food was just as good the second day, the menu hadn’t changed and the crowd was just as tiny as it had been the following day.
When it was time to leave, we ended up walking past well over a 100 or so people waiting to be seated. Chef Mickey’s is a great way to start your Disney day in a joyful mood. If you are making reservations, I highly recommend the 7:00 am time slot.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: Yes
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations Make an early morning reservation
Best Suited For: Kids and Families
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Epinions.com ID:
nollequeen
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Location: Deepest Darkest New England
Reviews written: 93
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