Gluten Envy

The Garden Grill is a lazy susan restaurant. A lazy susan is a tray that rotates when you spin it. Likewise the restaurant spins. It makes a full rotation approximately every hour. Timed right, you can sit down at the entrance, eat your meal, and be back at the entrance when you are done.

The Garden Grill is a family style restaurant that keeps bringing as much food as you want. Pictured you see strip steak, vegetables, and Au Gratin* potatoes. All of it was very good. Everybody’s but my food was brought in family style. My food and gluten free energy brand tapioca rolls were brought to me separately.

* Au Gratin can sound like old rotten. I have successfully got our 16 year old daughter saying old rotten when she means Au Gratin. These potatoes were great, they definitely were not old rotten.

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Located at Mouse Gear, Epcot

There are actually three hidden mickeys in this picture. The third one is partially covered its right side.

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Hidden Mickey at Mouse Gear, Epcot

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Each of these signs have a hidden mickey near the bottom. This is very similar to the hidden mickey at Disney’s Pop Century children’s TV room in the lobby. There is a mural, a fish, and a bubble.

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Gluten free does not mean dead but it certainly means no choices at Epcot’s Marrakesh where all allergies must choose from one severely limited menu.  We specifically choose Disney World to vacation at so we could eat well. Here we had a few problems. And because of these problems I recommend all but the most severe allergy cases to skip this restaurant. You see, that is how the menu is designed. All allergies get one menu. So in another words, no selection and no choices to explore. I have had excellent luck with wonderful food at a Portland, OR restaurant also called Marrakesh. That is, in part, one of the reasons I know that this restaurant could do so much better than it does. Disney staffers, if you are listening, that is Marrakesh in Portland, Oregon. The Portland restaurant did not have GF bread but they allowed us to bring in our own.

Disney’s Marrakesh restaurant does not follow the Disney guidelines for allergy sufferers. All of the other Disney World restaurants chefs at quick service and sit down restaurants greet me and let me know exactly what can be done for my intolerance. Epoct’s Marrakesh does not and unfortunately I found out why. In the course of requesting food at the quick service restaurant next door to the Marrakesh which is also serviced by the same staff I spoke with the available chef upon the restaurants opening. He recommended food that was binded with gluten because he didn’t know what was in it. There are meats at this restaurant that have gluten added to them and the chef didn’t know it. Thank goodness for the quick minded counter staff that said I couldn’t have it. If I was taking names the counter person would have gotten a bonus and I’m not sure what I’d end up doing with the chef.

It is incidents like this that cause me to be emotional and take a bit to calm down. Eating is an expeience meant for groups and is an emotional bonding experience. Often you expect bad service at fast food. You do not expect bad service at Disney.

Epcots park manager at guest relations did help me out and assured me that this wouldn’t be happening again. We were contacted by the manager at the Marrakesh and were compensated a meal to try again. So in a cantankerous mood I decided not to order off of the chefs allergy ‘cheater menu’ presented on a photocopied single sheet of white paper. Instead I ordered the Lemon Chicken. Due to the ingredients I got just the Chicken. That was fine. I just wanted to see if the chef understood what was going on. The manager and the wait staff certainly took it seriously.

Last year we got the same menu with everything but the fish scribbled off of it. We walked out last year.

So after finally eating here I’d have to say that the belly dancer and music was great. The desert was nowhere near authentic and the food was just so-so. However due to the problems we had earlier we had awesome service. Here make your reservations and just have a drink.

Until this restaurant gets a severe makeover I’d suggest skipping it for all but the more severe allergy cases where the sufferer has multiple allergies and the menu selection actually makes sense to present. Your food credits can be spent at better restaurants like the Coral Reef, Garden Grill, Whispering Canyon Cafe, Le Cellier, Sci-Fi Cafe, etc. I’d suggest quick service restaurants like Flame Tree and even Pop Century’s Food Court with Gluten Free pancakes over Epcot’s Marrakesh.

Yes this is harsh but accurate. With the amount of money we’re shoveling out I just won’t say thank you to poor quality when I know it can be better with minimal effort.

The only other restaurant we visited at Epcot that presented a ‘all allergy inclusive cheater menu’, was at the Mexico sit down restaurant. They still presented a chef to talk with even though the restaurant was packed. I also didn’t order off of the cheater menu there either. I do not go to be singled out but I am forced to be demanding to get the same food treatment as everybody else gets.

Will that be fish or kabob?

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Disney’s California Grill at the top of Disney’s Contemporary Resort was a nice classy restaurant.  I probably would not recommend taking the kids to this place because the menu doesn’t have a lot of words they will be familiar with. 

In the picture is what my menu looked like. The marks you see on the menu are from the chef who marked it off at our table. The food at this restaurant was wonderful. The chef’s were wonderful. The service was great…

However, the desert needed some options to complete the experience. The lack of gluten free options here of all the Disney restaurants was a real let down. Here is why. I’m told that Joel Schaefer’s wife is the pastry chef at the Contemporary Resort. Joe Schaefer is the lead special dietary needs manager at Disney World.

I know of a great gluten free pound-cake recipe that would do wonders in this department. After finding out this relationship I can understand why he wasn’t interested in the suggestion. It was strange because the staff at the California Grill thought it would be good for us to talk with him. It must have been a busy day. We’ll try again later.

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The Everest ride is one of the best roller coaster rides in Disney’s history. You will experience a lot of Gs both forwards and backwards on this ride. Ride it more than once and get a different experience in the front, back, or middle if the train. 

In the front you may have the opportunity to take a few pictures of Disney property from the top of this ride. You’ll have to be quick and have a good grip on your camera.  In the front it feels like you are waiting for the train to catch up. I didn’t notice that so much in the rear. However in the rear of the train, part of the show is covered up by an overhang. Most people should be happy in the center of the train, which is where you’ll likely sit.

No matter which line you go through, with the possible exception of the single rider line, you’ll get to see a lot of fun theming. From yeti to crampons, it is all there.

The single rider line for this ride is possibly the shortest roller coaster line of all the Disney parks. It is possibly the shortest line of all the Disney parks. Immediately to the right after stepping off the ride and the walk through the obligatory photo booth and gift shop, is the single rider line. 

If you ride with a group grab your fast passes first and ride it again after you’re done.

The most overlooked, and possibly best place to photograph this ride is at the Flame Tree Barbecue.

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Viewed from the rear stairwell on the right in the lobby of Disney’s Polynesian Resort. Look on the bottom center for the hidden mickey.

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Try #2. I sent the first plate of food with absolutely no seasoning back. Ribs need seasoning. Rice benefits from seasoning. Apparently this restaurant thinks that gluten intolerant people need to be punished. What they don’t understand is that the gluten intolerant group has a has a higher than normal average of diabetics and hyper-glycemics. I have known a few diabetics that I would not want to get on the wrong side of.

So this restaurant also sufferers from the ‘group all allergies into one bland paste group’ that a number of Disney restaurants have done, namely Marrakesh. Gluten Intolerance does not mean my taste buds have died, just that the nutrient absorbing hair in my intestines falls out when I ingest gluten.

We called in advance to get a good meal set up. We also called for a birthday cake for my wife, gluten free, so we could all enjoy it.

Beware as there is absolutely no communication at this restaurant between staffers and booking / reservations. There also isn’t any communication between the Polynesian’s front desk and the managers that work the Luau show. The birthday cake that was ordered and acknowledged over the phone well in advance of our vacation never showed up. The manager that was promised to talk with us after the event never contacted us as promised.

Unless you want to send your food back and request something like I have shown below, this is a definite skip for the gluten intolerant as well as families who have a gluten intolerant person in the party. I missed most of the show because my food came after everybody else’s, even with the prior arrangement.

The on-site chef was exemplary and worked with my every need. However the organization before the chef was involved was horrendous. The managerial followup after the experience was just as bad. We go to Disney for one thing only, so that I can be part of the group when we eat out. With the money invoved visiting these restaurants they should not fall apart as bad as they do.

Gluten intolerant sufferers can either eat or see the show but not both. 

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