Plaza Restaurant -- Table Service -- Lunch/Dinner -- Magic Kingdom

*This dining experience took place in November 2012.

 Nestled between the Main Street Bakery and Tomorrowland is the Plaza Restaurant. It's connected to the ice cream parlor, and I must admit, that I often have overlooked this restaurant. It didn't seem like anything very special. And on top of that, it's primarily sandwiches. In the past, there weren't great options for gluten free/dairy free bread so I tended to avoid sandwich type places. Now that some different options for bread are available, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Plus, I'd heard some good reviews from some of the blog readers that involved great luck with dairy free ice cream...can you say banana split?! 

We arrived at the Plaza a little early for our ADR, and I admit, we waited a bit. When we were seated inside, I understood why. It's pretty small. In fact, it almost reminds me of a slightly larger Beaches n' Cream. The first thing that struck me was that they brought me a binder along with my menu. Weird. That doesn't usually happen at a table service--I found the Plaza to be an interesting hybrid of QS and TS. Quick Service locations always bring the allergy binder to go over ingredients, so in one way it was a good thing. I also took some pics of some of the sheets.

Ingredient binder

I was hoping (based on some recommendations) that I'd get to see Chef (aka Cousin) Ken because I'd heard that he was really good. But, I was greeted by Chef Constance, who was very nice. Unfortunately, her niceness didn't necessarily translate into good allergy service. I went over the sheet with her and she said she had gluten free/dairy free bread which I thought she said was Udi's (since that was what was listed in the sheets of the binder). I was back and forth between the turkey club and the tuna salad sandwich. Because I sometimes have issues with crunchy vegetables because of my Crohn's disease, I was very torn with the tuna salad. Chef Constance let me sample it, and I decided against it because of the onions. So, we went with the turkey club. I also asked about the fries. I knew from others that they probably did not have a dedicated fryer, but Chef Constance kept insisting they did. Um, didn't feel very comfortable about that one...more on that later.I was pretty excited about this, until it came out. It looked like a multi-grain toast--not at all like Udi's. Then I looked at the other sandwiches at the table, and I knew immediately it was so not gluten free. I asked the server about it and said that I needed to talk to the chef and she insisted that it was safe. I was adamant that it was not. She finally went and got the chef and I told her this did not appear to be gluten free bread and she said immediately it was not. "Whoops sorry about that" she said. Um, whoops?! Good thing I'm pretty diligent about food because if I weren't a regular diner at Disney I might have thought it was ok at first. She said she would go fix it right away. Unfortunately, I was not very confident in this whole experience at this point. She did bring back another sandwich, and it was on a hot dog type bun. It did not look at all like Udi's and it was very thin. On top of that, it appeared to have been placed on the flat-top and griddled (which worried me for 2 reasons 1) cross contamination and 2) dairy). Chef Constance said she uses the flat-top (still wasn't clear on cross contamination), but that she uses canola oil. She said she has to do that because otherwise the buns are very dry and don't heat up well (and become gummy). She also insisted the type of bun was Umi, which I couldn't seriously find any information on. I asked her if she meant Udi's but she said no. She said they were sent this bun instead of the Udi's because it has no egg in it. It sort of reminded me of the old Ener-G rolls, but with a different texture. On top of that, I thought based on the taste that they were the GNI brand bread which have been floating about at Disney (still don't know the actual locations). They tasted very similar to the rolls that I had at Liberty Tree Tavern and looked similar too. I looked at GNI's website and they looked very similar to the hot dog buns on their site (which is NOT egg free; it has egg whites in it). Hmm... If anyone knows anything more about these buns, I'd love to hear about it! I saw that in the binder they listed GNI brand hamburger buns as being egg free. Hmmm...I think this definitely needs some further investigation!

Turkey club on a gluten free/dairy free bread with fries.

Taste wise, the sandwich was ok. Nothing great. It was a basic turkey club sandwich (although it was missing the ham that the menu described)--I did like the griddled bread, but still felt a little uncomfortable about the cross contamination. I also felt very uncomfortable about the fries. I tried a few, but they were really greasy. My family tried them, and they said they tasted different than their fries, but I didn't want to take a chance. Plus, the sandwich was large enough that I was pretty full. I also got dessert too.After lunch, I ordered the ice cream sundae (I was too full for a banana split--which is huge!!). I asked for vanilla and chocolate Tofutti with chocolate syrup, nuts, and cherries. Unfortunately, Chef Constance seemed to be really forgetful in my ordering. She brought me chocolate only and no nuts. I wasn't about to quibble over it, and enjoyed the sundae minus my requests. It was really quite a large portion, and delicious! Gotta love a sundae!

Chocolate Tofutti with chocolate syrup, sprinkles, and cherry on to

Overall, I didn't dislike the food at the Plaza, but I wasn't wowed with the service or the allergy accommodation. Next time, I'd try to contact them ahead of time to make sure that Chef Ken is there because it sounds like he is awesome! Chef Constance didn't really set my mind at ease, and while she tried, she didn't do a very good job at accommodating in a safe manner (in my opinion).I'd give it a 6 out of 10 for this particular visit, but might give it another chance in the future.Here are some pics from the binder: