French Fry Diary 670: Landscape of Flavors, Breakfast 2015

As we headed to Landscape of Flavors that first breakfast at the Art of Animation resort on our most recent WDW stay, I was not looking forward to it. Honestly I was thinking of sneaking across the bridge to Pop Century for the better breakfast. Landscape of Flavors hasn’t been kind to me in the past, especially with breakfast, and I am sooo staying away from those tandoori potatoes.

As I was looking for some sort of potato-ey thing for breakfast I spied these big baked red potatoes. Despite the accompanying image, they looked so good, but wow, what a disappointment. They also looked (and look) seasoned but they were quite bland, seriously needing butter, salt, or even cheese… and if I'm asking for cheese on my potatoes, you know I'm desperate.

The great bacon boycott of WDW continues, as I was provided with two whole slices of bacon. Two whole slices of bacon!!! There is apparently some terrible bacon shortage that Villa Italian Kitchen at the Philadelphia Airport is blissfully unaware of. Two slices per customers is ridiculous!

For breakfast, I also had two pieces of semi-warm challah French toast from under a heat lamp and just enough syrup for one regular slice. Let me be clear, if you're not an egg guy, either in omelet or sandwich form, you are going to be screwed by breakfast at Landscape of Flavors.

French Fry Diary 538: Landscape of Flavors, Breakfast

This place was a bit of a shock, made more so because we were at Disney. I really hope this is an anomaly. From the moment the day before, when I had FourSquared from Landscape of Flavors, I had a few folks email me and Tweet me that I had to try breakfast there, especially the breakfast potatoes and/or the tandoori potatoes.

Indeed, I have only heard good things about this food court since it, and its hotel, Art of Animation, opened. The more remarkable tales tell of folks coming all the way across the bridge behind it from Pop Century for the food. I admit my curiosity was piqued, because I like Pop Century.

The customer service was abysmal. Skipped lines, forced to buy items not wanted, and just a total crap attitude. No one was going to get a 'What Would Walt Do? pin here, that was for sure. So it must be the food, right? Once breakfast was gotten back to the table, I'm really not so sure.

I was planning to get the tandoori potatoes but quite frankly, that did not look all that appetizing. Maybe I missed out on a serious potato delight, but really I just didn't want to even try them. I opted for the regular breakfast potatoes instead, along with some barely warm, dry, overseasoned Challah French toast. What a waste of Challah bread.

The potatoes were of the shredded variety, not the usual tasty diced throughout most of Disney, and over at Pop Century. These shredded potatoes are then baked a la kugel, sliced up and served in squares.

Sounds good, right? Not really. For the most part it's a soggy mess, with occasional a pepper speck or two for flavor. The only good part is the top skin which took most of the heat baking. What good is a breakfast potato dish without a little crisp to it? These needed crisp, they needed seasoning, and after a few moments it was like eating cold mush. Suddenly the tandoori potatoes didn't seem like a bad choice.

This was by far one of the worst breakfasts I've had at Disney. Maybe they deserve a second chance, but it will take quite a bit to get me to come back. Just say no to Landscape of Flavors.

French Fry Diary 216: Pop Century Breakfast 2011

The Bride is a very sweet and a very sneaky lady. This installment of Somebody Else's Fries is one that I have featured before on at least two occasions, here and here. These are the breakfast potatoes from Pop Century in Walt Disney World, but this entry is not so much about the fries this time, as it is about how she got to the fries.

My mother-in-law, one of the coolest and sweetest ladies I know outside of The Bride, has her seventieth birthday this year, today in fact, and my wife wanted to make it something special. She spent months planning an elaborate surprise birthday party with family and friends, the theme of which was the dreams my mother-in-law has always had - one of those dreams was to travel the world.

The Bride thought up the scheme of sneaking down to Disney World, going to the World Showcase in EPCOT and getting a special passport stamped and signed in every country for her mom - so that she could say she had 'seen the world.' Mom loved it, and as an added bonus, The Bride also got some breakfast potatoes from Everything Pop.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

P.S. It should be added that the surprise party itself was held at French Fry Diary favorite the Pop Shop, and included those amazing Pop Fries. Special thanks to the folks at the Pop Shop for making the day extra special.

French Fry Diary 159: Everything Pop 2010

For this most recent trip to Walt Disney World, The Bride, her parents and I stayed at Pop Century, the same place The Bride and I stayed on our last trip. This is one of the discount resorts, no frills, but everything you need. And everything you need can be found at the shopping/eating complex in the lobby, called, appropriately enough, Everything Pop. I've reviewed the place on my last trip but figured I would do a quick check up as long as I'm here again.

The French fries are the natural cuts that are the standard fare for WDW and can be found universally (pun unintended) throughout the parks. These are adequate, but of course at Disney World, it's the atmosphere and the whole OMG-we're-in-Disney vibe that helps the experience. Sometimes it makes even the mediocre fries taste better. I mean, the fries at Casey's Corner are the very same as these, but guess which ones are more fun, ya know?

These aren't great but they're not bad either. Especially after a long day filled with three to four hours of Southwest Airlines delays, these were just fine. And seeing as Southwest's delays made a trip to Cookes of Dublin (the best fries period) impossible, it was nice to get any kind of fries today at all.

On day two of our trip, the 'rents and I hit Everything Pop for breakfast, always a yummy time at WDW. The bacon is perfect but they never give you enough, something that can be easily remedied on the Disney Cruise in a few days, wink-wink, and the breakfast potatoes, which unlike the WDW fries, take on a few different forms, are always terrific.

This morning I got natural cut diced potatoes, sometimes red, sometimes not. These were very hot, very good and well worth the wait. Mmmm... I could easily eat these every morning.

French Fry Diary 49: Pop Everything, WDW

Everything Pop is the food court for the Pop Century resort at Walt Disney World. Since on our most recent stay we were only going to be there for a long weekend, we went low rent and decided to crash there. Pop Century’s theme and focus, despite the misleading name, is trivia and nostalgia from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. What happened to the first half of the century I’m not sure of, but it really wasn’t that bad, quite good actually.

Everything Pop is the central meeting place in the main building and contains, among other things, a gift shop, an arcade, and the food court. The food court is divided up into four different stations, each designated to a different style of food – American, Greek, Italian and finally a mix of Asian and Mexican. This is a nice change of pace, especially compared to Disney’s other economy resorts.

Only the American station had French fries, and there were the Disney standard natural regular cuts. The Italian station had no fries, the Mexican one offered nachos and the Greek tasty looking bagel chips – but no other fries.

In the morning though, every Disney food provider turns to breakfast, and as you might have guessed, everyone has home fries, hash browns, or some form of breakfast potatoes. Everything Pop is no exception. I found breakfast potatoes at the Italian station, along with bacon and some milk, cereal and toast. I won’t quibble much on the price or portion size of the hot food due to the Disney Dining Plan (highly recommended for any trip to WDW) but let’s just say if I was paying real cash I’d be more than pissed.

The breakfast potatoes were of the diced type, surprisingly of both red and gold potato varieties. They were only warm (which may be because of the long lines at breakfast, Disney’s really gotta find an easier way to do this), served cafeteria-style, and just begging for some –any kind of- seasoning. Once seasoned, other than there being far too little of them, they were pretty good, especially after I popped them in the microwave there for half a minute.