Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurant/Dining Help Thread

[Eastern]

It seems like they changed the tofu at Skipper Canteen. I visited second week in May. It used to have a light or non-existent coating. Now it seems like it's dipped in batter and fried. KFC-like breading, very dry. Disappointing.

 

[Simba's Mom]

It seems like they changed the tofu at Skipper Canteen. I visited second week in May. It used to have a light or non-existent coating. Now it seems like it's dipped in batter and fried. KFC-like breading, very dry. Disappointing.

Yech! I just realized that I've never had tofu. Won't try it at Skipper Canteen. Where might you recommend for the first-time tofu eater? I recently switched to eating more vegetarian for health reasons.

 

[Eastern]

Yech! I just realized that I've never had tofu. Won't try it at Skipper Canteen. Where might you recommend for the first-time tofu eater? I recently switched to eating more vegetarian for health reasons.

I don't usually eat tofu but I liked it at Skipper. Two veg entrees I can recommend are the vegetable skewer at Primo Piatto at Riviera and the cauliflower steak at Boathouse. Both were excellent.

 

[bluecastle]

Yech! I just realized that I've never had tofu. Won't try it at Skipper Canteen. Where might you recommend for the first-time tofu eater? I recently switched to eating more vegetarian for health reasons.

I still haven’t been to Satu’li Canteen in AK, but I heard that you can add tofu as your protein in their bowls.

 

[elvispursley]

I like the tofu at Satuli and Hollywood Backlot Express. But for the very first time eating it, try a good local Thai place and have a curry.

 

[1lilspark]

Adding to the tofu discussion I could of just made a meal on the rice & tofu alone at Sebastian’s Bistro

 

[Simba's Mom]

I'm wondering about the plant based entree at Coral Reef-the Roasted Cauliflower. Has anyone had it, and if so, how was it?

 

[elvispursley]

Adding to the tofu discussion I could of just made a meal on the rice & tofu alone at Sebastian’s Bistro

This was my favorite meal last year! The tofu was the best part of the entrees but it was all delicious!

 

[saraheliz]

I can't find the answer in this thread so asking- does Steakhouse 71 still have a meat substitute (beyond or impossible) burger? It's not on the menu but Google says yes, just want to make sure this info is current prior to dragging my vegetarian daughter there....

 

[only hope]

Ate Biergartin recently. I felt there was a good number of dishes on the buffet except for dessert. Only vegan option was fruit compote- which was good. It’s a shame they haven’t converted at least the apple strudel to be vegan, it can’t be that hard to switch to vegan butter. The waiter did bring out two packages of cookies and two candy bars when I asked her if there were any other options. The vegan sausage is brought to the table along with vegan butter and is quite good. The lettuce was confusing, it was just lettuce and dressing unless you put the tomato salad on it which is meant to be enjoyed separately.

Also have had Woody’s twice recently. The kids vegan grilled cheese is excellent, exactly like the grilled cheese I had growing up. The vegan totchos are ok. They didn’t even try to melt the cheese and there were little bits of somewhat hot peppers, which I wasn’t expecting and don’t like. I can barely tolerate any heat, probably most would not think its spicy.

 

[J&J]

Hello! This is really an offshoot of a Dining Review My Girlfriend Emily and I wrote almost a year ago now:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2270539

what started off as a review thread, with Emily and I trying to help out people who have the same dietary restrictions as us (we are vegans who try our best to stay away from High Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated Oils) traveling approximately the same time we were, grew and grew into a forum where we continued to share our resources and answer questions consistently for nearly a full year (wow!). The thread has now sadly been closed (the moderators got savvy - I imagine since the thread kept being bumped up from people talking on it - review threads are only supposed to be active for 3 months and ours has far exceeded that) but we wanted to create a new thread where we could continue to share our resources and firsthand experience with others looking to try and eat vegan at disney.

The above thread should answer MANY questions on its own, but here are a few more helpful links

First, check out Andrea's dining review threads here on Disboards-
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2180199
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2414111

then check out these great resources-
http://veganindisney.wordpress.com/
http://vegansatori.blogspot.com/
http://bashfulvegan.blogspot.com/
(We contacted both Todd and Kitty from the last two blogs personally, who were both extremely helpful in answering our questions)

Finally, if you've got more questions about something specific we wrote about, feel free to ask it right here and we'll get back to you asap! If you'd prefer to write us a private email, we are good about getting back with those as well.

I know one of the most frustrating things for Emily and I while trying to plan our dining was not getting answers from a lot of people who started threads and abandoned them (and disboards, or whatever website we were looking on). We wanted answers from people who had actually done what we were attempting and they were hard to come by, but we are always here for you

-Michael

 

[J&J]

This is great to be able to find vegan or vegetarian food. We have been lucky every restaurant we been in they always found something for us. Made us feel so special and so Disney.

 

[Gbdana4]

My son is newly on a dairy-free diet. We are having a hard time eating out. Can anyone share their experience being dairy-free at Disney World? I see a lot of plant-based meals on menus, should I stick to those restaurants or will every restaurant cater to a dairy-free diet?

 

[hsmamato2]

My son is newly on a dairy-free diet. We are having a hard time eating out. Can anyone share their experience being dairy-free at Disney World? I see a lot of plant-based meals on menus, should I stick to those restaurants or will every restaurant cater to a dairy-free diet?

shouldn't be a worry at all. just about any onsite place will be able to serve you- it's a "simple" allergen with a preprinted menu

 

[disneyholic family]

shouldn't be a worry at all. just about any onsite place will be able to serve you- it's a "simple" allergen with a preprinted menu

any of the disney owned restaurants.
I would avoid the privately owned restaurants (like raglan road, rainforest cafe, yak & yeti, etc.)
menus for all the park restaurants appear online, along with the allergy menus.
Dairy is very easy to avoid at most disney restaurants.

 

[mistysue]

My son is newly on a dairy-free diet. We are having a hard time eating out. Can anyone share their experience being dairy-free at Disney World? I see a lot of plant-based meals on menus, should I stick to those restaurants or will every restaurant cater to a dairy-free diet?

I will say they make it easy - but among common allergens we've found dairy cuts out the most options by far. It's not weird to have one or two options on the pre-made menus, where others might have one or two items removed. What you need to remember is that they can do more than what is initially offered- things like ordering "no cheese" on a sandwich can triple the number of choices he has.

If he is used to dessert, that might be frustrating for him. You can get milk free shakes at 50's prime time or the sci fi drive in. Most other places may offer him a scoop of tofutti (soy ice cream, we actually really like it), sometimes a fruit sorbet, or maybe just mixed fruit. When my son was little we actually carried around a little dessert kit with baggies of sprinkles, marshmallows, gummies, a little squeeze bottle of chocolate sauce - things to put on his ice cream to make it exciting.

 

[Miffy]

My son is newly on a dairy-free diet. We are having a hard time eating out. Can anyone share their experience being dairy-free at Disney World? I see a lot of plant-based meals on menus, should I stick to those restaurants or will every restaurant cater to a dairy-free diet?

I'm vegan, so I'm very used to the dairy-free choices at WDW, and there are many. It's one of the things that makes vacationing there so appealing to me.

Even though I realize your son isn't vegan but is just on a dairy-free diet, I recommend checking out Vegan Disney World, which has loads of good info about vegan food choices at WDW.

The Mickey pretzels and the standard popcorn they serve in all the parks are both dairy-free. That's a good thing to know if you're pressed for a snack at some point.

Sunshine Seasons at Epcot often has Enjoy Life chocolate bars (you kind of have to look for them) as well as a vegan chocolate mousse, which might be appealing to your son.

Pretty much any TS restaurant at WDW will be happy to accommodate your son's dairy-free needs. You just tell your server and they'll get the allergy chef (or, in some cases, the restaurant's executive chef) to come talk to you about possibilities, many of which aren't even included on the menu. So don't depend on TS menus to tell you the whole story. They don't.

You can get cheese-free pizzas at many of the Italian restaurants around WDW and certainly at Blaze in DS. Blaze has vegan cheese, but your son may or may not like that. Anyway, a pizza can be great even without cheese.

Anything specifically listed on a menu as "plant-based" is dairy-free. Other items can be made without dairy, but you have to ask, and sometimes this entails no mobile ordering, since most mobile orders don't allow for modifications of this sort.

You can get "allergy" Mickey waffles at pretty much every resort QS for breakfast, but you have to speak to the allergy chef. You can't just order them. Depending on the restaurant, they can be really good. They're also gluten-free, which is sometimes the kiss of death for a pastry, but in this case, it works out okay.

Hope this helps. And I'd like to reiterate that it really isn't all that hard to accommodate a dairy-free diet at WDW. There are loads of choices, and, in your son's case, many more choices than the ones I have, since I'm also vegan. What I'm trying to say is that your son won't starve! You just have to be prepared.

And have a great trip!

 

[lochness]

Hello, I'm looking to find out about vegetarian (not vegan) items at WDW. There are lots of items marked as vegan/plant based but they don't seem to indicate if an item is vegetarian, if it is not vegan. I'm looking at Food and Wine festival booths, things like the griddled cheese at Greece or the Egg moelleux in France. Are the cast members likely to know/tell me if it is vegetarian? ie if the cheese has rennet. Thanks!

 

[iona]

Hello, I'm looking to find out about vegetarian (not vegan) items at WDW. There are lots of items marked as vegan/plant based but they don't seem to indicate if an item is vegetarian, if it is not vegan. I'm looking at Food and Wine festival booths, things like the griddled cheese at Greece or the Egg moelleux in France. Are the cast members likely to know/tell me if it is vegetarian? ie if the cheese has rennt. Thanks!

Hopefully others will have had a better experience but I’ve found that asking about rennet at WDW/Universal just gets me confused looks - there seems to be a common belief that all cheese is vegetarian.

 

[Mariearistocat]

Hello, I'm looking to find out about vegetarian (not vegan) items at WDW. There are lots of items marked as vegan/plant based but they don't seem to indicate if an item is vegetarian, if it is not vegan. I'm looking at Food and Wine festival booths, things like the griddled cheese at Greece or the Egg moelleux in France. Are the cast members likely to know/tell me if it is vegetarian? ie if the cheese has rennet. Thanks!

*** Please see my update below as Le Cellier menu has changed! Plus bad experience. No longer recommend Le Cellier!
Canada s amazing for vegans! Le Cellier. Vegan rolls and butter, also a vegan poutine. Ask fir the vegan menu. Le Cellier is our favorite meal. Second is 'Ohana, which also has an amazing vegan option. I've been a vegetarian for 24 years and it's amazing how far WDW has come.