Tusker House Breakfast Continued
Entree Selection: Traditional breakfast fare buffet with unique and Flavorful African influence. Spit-Roasted Bone-in Ham; Spiced Corn Beef Hash with Cornbread Topping; Scrambled Eggs; Simba and Nala Waffles; Potato and Leek Frittata; Ham and Cheese Frittata; Beef Bobotie; Seasonal Vegetable Quiche; Oven-roasted Red Skin Potatoes; Coconut-Sweet Potato Casserole; Basmati Rice with Lemon, Cinnamon, and Cardamon; Sweet Plantains; Sweet and Spicy Honey Mustard; Cheese Blintz with Cheery or Apple Topping; Tater Tot Potatoes; Bacon; Sausage Patties; Warm Maple Syrup; Whipped Butter; Froot Loops; Rice Crispies; Mealie Pap; Oatmeal; Raisins; Biscuits; Sausage Gravy; Raisin Bran; Frosted Flakes; Granola; Lemon- Poppyseed Bread; Assorted Yogurts; Cantaloupe, Pineapple, Honeydew, Watermelon, Bananas, and Grapes; Cottage Cheese, Vegetable Cream Cheese; Plain Cream Cheese; Jams, Jellies, and Fruit Chutneys; Whole Grain Breads; Orange Bread; Cornbread; Banana Bread; Coffee Cake; Glazed Donut Holes; Mealie Cornbread; Apple Turnovers; Strawberry Turnover; Mini Plain Crossaints; Mini Chocolate Crossaints; Warm Cinnamon Rolls; Fruit Cobbler; Banana-Cinnamon Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce. Beverages include orange juice, coffee, tea, milk, chocolate milk and soda. Children's menu available upon request (Ages 3-9 - $15.99)
OUR THOUGHTS: I have to start with the fact that we were literally the first people up to the Buffet so all of the food was hot and fresh. This did however lead us to be the ones to catch a mistake that could have been not so fun had we caught it early. I had selected the Bacon and Cheese Omelette off the buffet while she had selected the plain Cheese Omelette. Well Imagine our surprise when we got back to the table to find that her omelette was filled with little bits of bacon and mine was plain cheese. We quickly alerted our server and this was immediately corrected, but we wondered how many people had gone up before we were able to catch this mistake. Once we switched with one another we agreed that our omelettes were indeed tasty. I had both the sausage and the bacon and both were well cooked and had great flavor to them. I prefer my bacon on the crispier side so it was perfect for my taste, but I don’t recall seeing any pieces that were not crispy. I had to grab some tater tots off the kids station because they are just something I can’t resist. They were absolutely perfect with the way they were crunchy on the outside, but then light and fluffy on the inside. The waffles were your typical Disney waffles, but the Simba and Nala waffles were a nice touch in addition to the usual Mickey variety and they were tasty. The Rice had a nice flavor to it which tasted like a hint of Jasmine to me and was something nice and different from the usual breakfast fare. The Blueberry bread you see on top was fine, but a bit dry for my taste. It was thick and had the consistency of a blueberry muffin but the ratio of blueberries was too low to inject the flavor that I felt it needed. I also had the regular potatoes which were very good and had a nice balance of crisp and salt although on my second plate I sided with a second round of the Tots for my continued potato experience. She had the Vegetable Quiche and really enjoyed the medley of flavors and felt they worked together in a nice balance. I went out of my comfort zone and tried the Beef Bobotie which was very enjoyable, but I have to say that I did not finish up the whole portion of it, as it was good, but would prefer to fill myself with something else. I also tried the chocolate pastry which was mighty tasty and she had the zebra coffee cake which was to die for. When all was said and done it was a nice assortment of food with good flavor and we felt full enough to carry on with our day.
Service: Our server was excellent and attentive and was constantly making sure our glasses were full and that our plates were cleared away. She also was very good about making sure that the food was all good and fresh on our trips up and paced the meal in an efficient manner where service happened quickly but did not feel rushed. Being in such an early seating also meant that other servers were not as busy and it gave us time to chat and interact with several cast members besides our server who came to talk with us. As one of us is a former CM, these experiences of just having real talks with people who work at the parks are such a special part of our experience and are honestly more memorable than some of the attractions we do. Having this early seating allowed us the opportunity to connect in a way that you sometimes can’t when it is more crowded.
Character Interaction: Again, another place where we all know the draw of coming to eat is the friends who come and visit during the meal. This is where we began to notice a pattern with booking one of the first meals of a time block for that particular offering. Although we were sat promptly at 8:02 AM, The Characters did not arrive to start their rounds until 8:21AM. I don’t mean that it took 18 minutes for our table to see them, more that it took that long fr anyone to see them. And I’m sure this is where you think I’m going to complain about this, but in reality this is perfect and will encourage me to book the earliest possible seating for this reason. First of all when you walk in and characters are already meeting you have to take the time to stop and try and figure out the pattern they see tables in and try and see if you can run up and get food and not risk having the character walk by your table while are up and getting food. This first block of no characters allowed us time to settle in our seats, order our drinks and then go get food and start eating without any of those worries. We met Goofy, Daisy, Donald, and Mickey in that order. Because there were fewer tables the space between when each character visited was greatly reduced from prior character dining experiences. They also had the freedom to spend more time interacting and sharing different poses with us. We saw these characters each later on in the trip again and while these weren’t our favorite interactions with each of these pals, they would have been more than enough if this was our only time with them.
All things considered we would do this again as it was quick and tasted good and provided us with a nice chance to meet the Pals in their safari outfits. We also got out at such a time that we could have had a head start on rope dropping safari if we wanted to, but decided to go see Russel and Doug instead. Seeing an empty Animal Kingdom alone was worth it, but the quality of the meal made this top notch.