Healthy Eating on the Disney Dream

We had a wonderful time on our Disney Dream vacation. However eating healthy was a constant challenge. Here are the ins and outs of the trip and my tips to keep healthy on the Disney Dream.

Every night you are assigned to a different restaurant with limited options. Your wait staff is rotated with you as you go through the different restaurants each night. The good news here is that if you have any particular tastes, your waiter knows. However I didn’t seem to have made much of an impression on our waiter. Each night he seemed blown away that I didn’t want dessert and sort of made a big deal about it.

Palo

One of two adults-only restaurants on the Disney Cruise Line’s brand new ship, the Dream, Palo can also be found on the Disney Wonder and Disney Magic cruise ships, but in a slightly different form. It will also be found on the Disney Fantasy, sailing in 2012; this version will be similar to the restaurant on the Dream.

We ate at Palo on the last night. The additional cost was $20. I really didn’t find anything suitable for someone trying to control their weight at this restaurant. The anti-pasta was drenched in oil (12 grams of fat in a tablespoon!) and a personal pizza was an appetizer option. I ended up ordering some dish which was mostly palenta I believe with beans on top. I skipped dessert as usual.

Cabanas

This is your best bet for staying on a healthy eating plan. Cabanas is open for 3 meals a day, and you don’t have to eat at your assigned restaurant. Cabanas is a open buffet style restaurant. You can eat all the fruit and vegetables you want here.

Here is an issue I encountered repeatedly on the cruise. Vegetables are routinely sautéed in oil. It was rare to encounter a vegetable not drenched in butter or oil. I ended up eating a lot of fruit on the trip.

I also had a lot of soup on the trip. Soup, as long as it’s not cream based or has a lot of cheese is usually safe. Another interesting thing is that Sprite Zero was available on the boat everywhere. Generally at Disney restaurants Diet Coke is all that is available as far as a zero calorie soft drink. I actually drank so much Sprite Zero that I have started purchasing it at home.

Hollywood Brown Derby

I’m reporting today on the Hollywood Brown Derby. This full service restaurant is located within the Disney Hollywood Studio theme park. As Disney restaurants go, it is definitely upper scale, but when all the diners are wearing shorts, tee shirts and baseball caps, it loses some of its ambiance. There are sketches on the wall of famous celebs in the golden age of Hollywood just like the original Brown Derby in Los Angeles.

As far as atmosphere and overall fun, you are probably better off going with the Sci-Fi Drive Inn or the 50’s Prime Time Café. I really should post on these restaurants and I’m sure I will in due time. I just happen to have had lunch at the Brown Derby yesterday so I’ll post on this one first. I took the family for the Star Wars Weekend and the re-opening of the newly imagined Star Tours ride- incredibly awesome experience by the way.

Okay, so on to the challenge of finding low calorie food.

You can access the full menu here: http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/media/wdw_nextgen/CoreCatalog/WaltDisneyWorld/en_us/Media/InternetMediaType/Dining/HollywoodBrownDerby/hollywood-brown-derby-menu-allday.pdf

I ended up ordering for appetizers: Spicy Sashimi-grade Tuna Tartare - with Cucumber, Daikon and Pepper Salad, Avocado Wasabi Sauce, and crisp Lotus Root Chips $14.00

Wow this was great and obviously very low calorie and practically fat free I’m sure. The only problem was that there just wasn’t that much there! Probably 4-5 bites of tuna with cucumbers and spices. It was presented just beautifully though in a bowl over blue ice. It was a real treat.

For my main course I had: Noodle Bowl - with Wok-fried Coconut Tofu, Soy Beans, Sugar Snap Peas, Bok Choy, and Shiitake Mushrooms in a Red Curry Broth $23.00

Okay, yes the tofu is fried. Probably a hundred extra calories there but nothing that walking across the park on a 95 degree Florida day can’t fix, right? Otherwise it was great- sort of a noodle soup kind of dish. Well maybe I should back up here. My dish came out HOT and I was starving. So I put some ice, not the blue ice from my appetizer, but from my Diet Coke (what else, right?) in the noodles. So I’m not really sure how much of a soup dish this was but when I was done with it, it was absolutely soup. But, it was really good and very filling.

They do bring you all you can eat bread at this restaurant. Much better than the all you can eat chips of the La Hacienda de San Angel I last reviewed! My wife had: Duck Two Ways - Poached Duck Magret wrapped in Swiss Chard, Mushroom Vegetable Couscous, and a crispy Leg Confit Spring Roll with spicy Onion Jam $30.00. This dish looked loaded in calories with ½ of the main portion being fried spring rolls.

I think I could have made what I ordered much better by just setting the fried tofu aside, or just asking for it not to be fried. I don’t know if they would do that, but I’ll ask the next time I am there. I felt so bad about eating the tofu I made this my lunch and dinner combined, although I probably ate at least 5 small apples during the course of the day.

A side note on this restaurant. Usually the service I have received at Disney has been top notch. My waiter, which I am sure is just luck of the draw, left a bit to be desired. We had to ask repeatedly for things such as silverware, refills, etc and the restaurant was only ½ full at the time. At one point I asked for something and the waiter proceeded to set a table right in front of me before fulfilling my request. This is highly unusual for Disney staff.

All in all I’ll say that this experience left a little to be desired, but was still worth it. We probably won’t repeat for a year but I’m glad I did it all the same. All in all I give this restaurant an 8 for taste, a 6 for ambiance, a 2 for service, and a 4 for ease of keeping to a diet. To wrap up on a positive note, I did notice that Hollywood Scoops on Sunset Blvd now has both fat free ice cream and sorbet!

Summer is here folks and it’s time to get serious about your diet. Little things, like a small bit of fried tofu all adds up.

Oh, I'm excited to report that the Wellspring Florida summer camp will be going to Disney World this summer. If you've seen the Too Fat for 15 series this is the summer camp version of the academy on TV. I'll be passing my Disney tips on to the camp director shortly, and maybe I'll even get a chance to post how the group fared. If you would like to enroll your child on this incredible, once in a lifetime opportunnity to learn how to negotiate the hazards of high calorie foods at Disney from the real pros, give me a call at 828-450-4367.

P.S. Sorry for the bad photos- I forgot my camera battery and took this with my Blackberry.

La Hacienda de San Angel

I recently took my family to La Hacienda de San Angel in Epcot. This restaurant is new, as the grand opening was just a few months ago. It's remarkable how quickly Disney is able to build new attractions.

The La Hacienda de San Angel is of course a Mexican restaurant which is found across from the Mexican pavilion at Epcot. It features a total of 12,000 square feet of space that includes a 250-seat table service area along the World Showcase Lagoon. The attached La Cantina de San Angel features a 150-seat quick-service restaurant serving traditional Mexican flavors.

The restaurant was literally build on a pier overlooking the lagoon. If you are familiar with Epcot, you will remember that there was not enough space to build a restaurant across from the Mexican pavilion, so they built it on stilts well over the water. The location is a perfect viewing spot for Epcot’s nightly Illuminations: Reflections of Earth fireworks show.

Which brings me to a good point about dining at most Disney locations. You really go for the ambiance and for the taste, and not so much to satisfy your hunger. Before I ate I filled up on my trusty apples which I carry every time I go to the parks. This makes dealing with a giant plate of yummy high calorie food much easier to deal with.

La Hacienda de San Angel is a bit more up scale than the San Angel Inn which is inside the pyramid. The is a variety of mini tacos (one flavor: chiles toreados y chorizitos), as well as skillets with cuts of meat, veggies, seafood, to make your own taco.

You can access a full menu here: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/diningdetail.cfm?Restaurant.ID=161

After careful consideration I had the following dish (which I shared with my wife):

Parrillada (serves 2 people) - Del Mar. Mixed grill offering mahi mahi, shrimp, scallops and vegetables, served with beans and fresh salsa - $49.95

You can see a photo I snapped of the dish when it was served. I figured mahi mahi is always good, as this is a low fat fish. Ditto shrimp. I am allergic to scallops so I gave those to my wife, and of course I filled up on the vegetables. The best part of this dish was that you made your own tacos out of the offerings. So you could make a fish and vegetable taco with no sour cream or guacamole and really cut down on the fat.

A word of warning about this restaurant. They serve all you can eat chips while you wait for your food and they keep you waiting for a while. Your best bet is to ask the waiter to not bring out the chips so that you won't be tempted to snack on them.

All in all I give this restaurant a 10 for taste, an 8 for ambiance, a 10 for service, but just a 3 for ease of keeping to a diet. The constant flow of chips really brings the overall score down. For serious dieters you may want to skip La Hacienda de San Angel all together. There are just too many temptations once you step foot inside.

T-Rex at Downtown Disney

Yesterday was my son's 8th birthday and at his request we ate at the T-Rex restaurant at Downtown Disney. Wow. I can't say enough about the atmosphere at this restaurant. It's just awesome; animatronic dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, ice caves, and simulated meteor showers. It’s enough that you really can’t even concentrate on your food. It’s kind of like eating at a dinner theatre.

So here’s the report on the cuisine. It’s about what you would expect at a Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock Café. Eight dollar kid’s hamburgers, and pre-frozen chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs for $8 as well. There are certainly no bargains here and the food selection is 100% about taste and not food quality or health.

Most of the food items are pizza, burgers, ribs, or fried foods like chicken nuggets or popcorn shrimp. Many items were heavy on the cheese including the Layers of Earth Lasagna and Mammoth Mushroom Ravioli. Usually I would recommend a sandwich as long as the meat is lean. However I can’t say that about T-Rex. For example the Paleonzoic Chicken Sandwich is served on Fried Pizza dough! I found only two healthy food items on the menu:

• Several Salads - Most of the salads came with crumbled blue cheese, bacon, and dressing mixed in. For a healthier salad ask to hold the cheese and bacon, and get the dressing on the side.
• Fire roasted Rotisserie Chicken - Half a chicken, slow roasted and served with your choice of two of the following sides: Garlic mashed potatoes, waffle fries, Raptor rice, baked beans, cinnamon apples, cole slaw, or roasted vegetables - $19.99 Of course you would have to nix the fries and I am assuming the mashed potatoes are made with butter and the cole slaw has full fat mayonnaise. If you hold these items and take the skin off the chicken you could probably have a healthy meal here.

I ordered this dish:

Pteradactyl Salad - Roasted Chicken, mixed greens, celery, tomatoes, Bleu cheese crumbles, chopped egg and bacon. Tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette dressing - $16.99

I was able to successfully get the salad with no cheese or bacon and they did give me the dressing on the side. The salad arrived perfect the first time and I didn’t have to send anything back to the kitchen. I got a fairly large portion as well and I was overall very satisfied with my meal.

Sometimes when I get a stripped down salad for $15-$20 I feel that I’m not really getting my money’s worth, but I certainly don’t have that complaint at T-Rex. The atmosphere more than made up for it. Granted it was a bit over the top and I wouldn’t want to eat here every day, but for a special occasion it’s great. And if you have an eight year old having a birthday, you really can’t do much better than T-Rex.

Chocolate Extinction - Can anyone else see the irony here?!