My trip dining report....

[mom2morgan]

Thursday - We ate at Goofy's Kitchen. The food was good, the character interaction was excellent, but I did have significant sticker shock paying $180 for buffet dinners for a family of four!
Friday - lunch in Disneyland Park at Cafe Orleans. Really enjoyed it! We arrived half and hour early and they got us in right away - the we really enjoyed the deserts, the pommes frites were the BEST, the seafood crepe and the Jambalaya. My 17 year old daughter found the blackened chicken sandwich way too spicy. Service was excellent, so maybe management has heard recent negative reviews! This one cost us $100.
Saturday - WOC picnic lunches. They were fine - not very big and not real exciting, but food was fairly tasty.
Sunday - breakfast with friends at the Storyteller Cafe. Again, really impressed by the EXCELLENT character interaction! This was a good buffet, but probably wouldn't spend $120 for breakfast again.
Monday - "birthday" dinner for my youngest (actually doesn't turn 12 until the 31st, but she always wanted to celebrate a birthday in Disney and we couldn't make next week work). Went to the Blue Bayou - first 'dinner' seating. Asked to wait to sit by the water but they said it was a 45 minute wait so we said no. Probably still waited nearly half an hour to be seated. It is a gorgeous restaurant and we really enjoyed the food. This one came out just a little higher than Goofy's kichen but felt more justified. My older daughter had her first Filet Mignon, and the little one her first ever lobster tail. She tells me her tummy is still smiling, LOL. No one but me interested in the desert choices, though - I like creme brule but the only other two were pecan pie and chocolate cake.
Surprise meal of the week - my Hubby suddenly wanted table service the day we had the character breakfast. Of course, we didn't have reservations anywhere - walked DTD an all had big line ups - EXCEPT La Brea Bakery. This turned out to be a favourite! We had excellent panini sandwiches, and the salads had an absolutely delicious vinaigrette dressing. I can't remember price, but I think it was about $80 before tip.

Other meals were fast food wherever - all still seemed really expensive. I don't know if it really is more pricey than WDW or if it just feels worse without the DIning Plan. I can definitely say, though, that we spent more money than we would in WDW. For us the dining plan there works really great - $40 per person for the whole day; here we spent that or close to it just on supper and then still needed pastries and fruit for breakfasts, etc.

[NotaGeek]

Thanks for the report ... yeah, its hard to compare DLR to WDW without the dining plan ... the cost of the Character Buffets are always a shock when you don't have to fork out he $$ like you do with a dining plan -- but let me tell you, I spent WAY more on food at WDW last time I went and decided to forego the plan.

Glad you had some good feasts!

[Disney4us2]

Disneyland dining is more pricey than WDW. Storytellers is my favorite breakfast. I never tried La Brea Bakery for TS. Thanks for the reviews.

[faline]

Your brought back some nice memories from our last Disneyland trip! We greatly enjoyed Goofy's Kitchen and Blue Bayou! Thanks for sharing!

[mom2morgan]

Your brought back some nice memories from our last Disneyland trip! We greatly enjoyed Goofy's Kitchen and Blue Bayou! Thanks for sharing!

I think Goofy's Kitchen gets compared to Chef Mickey's at WDW because they are very similar. Although I'm trying not to "compare" I have to say that all four of us thought the food was WAY better at "goofy's" - and the character interaction throughout all of Disneyland was mroe enthusiastic and playful than any we've experienced in WDW.

[mouseketeer mom]

This was great fun to read as we will be in DL trying 3 of the places you mentioned in 3 wks!