On another fantastic trip to Disneyland, this one filled with wheelchairs and electric scooters from scooter sleuth rather than roller coasters, we ended up at Cafe Orleans for lunch. More upscale than your average Disneyland restaurant, Cafe Orleans is located in the heart of New Orleans Square, not far from Pirates of the Caribbean. Serving up French-influenced food, they had a good-looking menu with a couple unvegan options.

Since I had been and would continue to push a wheelchair all day, I figured I needed to load up on some heavy foods, beginning with an appetizer. I started with their Pommes Frites, which is just a fancy French word for French fries. But these weren’t your ordinary fries. They were covered in cheese and garlic, which you could smell all the way to The Haunted Mansion. Fortunately, the garlic and parmesan weren’t overkill. There was just enough flavor and the fries had been fried to a perfect crisp. They came with a bit of a Cajun sauce that provided a nice balance to the cheese and garlic flavor.

On top of that cheese, my main course got even cheesier. I ordered the Three-Cheese Monte Cristo (presumably named after the Count). This was mozzarella, swiss and brie, fried in some batter. It came with a berry sauce for dipping and was sprinkled with powdered sugar. When I first read the ingredients, I was under the impression I was getting the French version of grilled cheese. Instead, I found myself faced with one intense meal. The sugariness of the sauce and powdered sugar coupled with the salty cheesiness was one delicious meal. The batter ad been fried crispy enough that you could eat it with your hands, but it was really a dish best eaten with fork and knife. When things got too heavy, it was served with some grapes and strawberries to make me feel better about myself.

The only real downside of this meal was how truly heavy it was. After only eating half, I was a full unvegan. I boxed up the rest to tackle another day, then departed Cafe Orleans for an afternoon of wheelchair pushing to work off one tasty and destructive meal.

Just off of Main Street in Disneyland, there is a little cart that sells corn dogs. But these are not just any corn dogs, these are dogs of corn that personify the Disney difference. Where another theme park might be content to boil up some prepackaged corn dogs, the corn dogs of this stand are battered and boiled in-cart. Although a typical corn dog isn’t nearly enough to fill up this unvegan, I was told these were some heavy dogs and took my chances on just one.

Coming in at $5.99, the dogs come with a choice of chips or apple slices. Having tackled a half-pound burger for lunch and just about do down a similarly-sized corn dog, I opted for the apple slices. Within moments, my corned dog was ready for eating. We headed into the restaurant nearby to escape from the freezing (50 degree) weather and sat down to chow on some dogs.

This was one hell of a huge hot dog. It was hard just to get my mouth around it, but when I did, I bit into something delicious. This was a corn dog done just perfectly. It was nice and crispy on the outside, warm and gooey on the inside and had that delicious tube steak in the middle to provide balance. To steal a line from There’s Something About Mary, “I don’t think there are enough meat on sticks” and a corn dog like this proves the point. Not only that, but you know how a hot dog or even a corn dog is seldom enough food for a whole meal? This corn dog was some heavy stuff, so full of fried Disney magic that I was pretty sure it would settle in my stomach for happily ever after. When I was done even the apple slices seemed like too much to eat.

For the size, price, taste and heaviness, the corn dog cart off of Main Street is a great place to grab a meal at Disneyland. It doesn’t seem like much, but the supposed snack is a true meal that packs a punch of meat and won’t keep you away from the rides for too long.

In my most recent trip to the land of Disney, I encountered many new experiences. In one, I found myself on a train traveling through the Grand Canyon and the land of dinosaurs. In another, I found myself in a cart shooting darts at 3D plates. But despite the plates, these did not involve actual food until I ended up at the Storytellers Cafe in the Grand Californian hotel of California Adventure.

First off, I didn’t even know the Grand Californian existed, let alone a restaurant within it, but we took our seats and I checked out the menu. In it, I didn’t find the most inspiring dishes, but I did find a great-looking burger. Differing from the burgers typically served in the park, this was a half-pounder with a harvest bun as opposed to the more normal buns. It was offered as turkey, veggie or beef and was cooked in the char-broiled style. I went with beef, of course, ordered it cooked medium and with some fries on the side instead of the fresh fruit that was my other option. I asked if anything else came on it and the waiter told me lettuce and tomato, but he could also throw some onion on it if I wanted. Clearly he had no idea who he was dealing with. I told him I wanted none of it, and hoped he got the message. Then I got a glass of Malbec to join it, because who doesn’t like to drink at Disney?

When my burger came out, it looked like a definite improvement from the typical Disney burgers. Plus, at $11.99 it was hardly more expensive than their regular burgers. Fortunately, I saw that the waiter had recognized my distaste for vegetables, as the burger was left with just cheese and bun. I took a bite and found the bun to be quite delicious, and the burger itself wasn’t too shabby either. As it was char-broiled, it wasn’t exactly cooked medium. Instead, it was brown all the way through, but still pretty good. The cheddar cheese was good, but not too inspired. It was a great burger for California Adventure, but probably something I would have been disappointed in if it had been a fancy burger place. Yet, for the price and the place, I couldn’t complain. And that 40% off cast member business meeting discount certainly helped.

If you’ve ever ridden the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, you may have noticed the restaurant next to the beginning of the ride, where diners ignore the people in pirate boats heading towards certain pirate doom. On my last trip to the happiest place on earth, I found myself not in one of those boats, but instead as one of those bystanders in the restaurant called Blue Bayou. In a land of ceaseless twilight, Blue Bayou can be found in the French District of Disneyland and serves up New Orleans-style food.

Although we had made reservations two months in advance, we realized we had to eat earlier in order to make it to World of Color. We only had to wait about 20 minutes to be seated, and then were brought into the world of Blue Bayou. Our waiter was friendly and told us the story of the southern mansion we were dining at, which was quite thrilling.

I was overdosing a bit on beef from having a steak the night before and a burger for lunch, so I skipped over the beefy items and set my eyes on the chicken. Their chicken was called Tesoro Island Chicken. It was cooked in pan au jus and came with Blue Bayou potatoes and seasonal vegetables. Despite my hatred for vegetables of any season, there were no other options on the menu to switch them out for, so when I ordered I made no move to change things up. On top of these, the chicken came with my choice of chicken gumbo or salad. I went for the gumbo, of course, and then waited for mah suthun meal tah be brought out tah me.

First came the gumbo, which tasted like the offspring of awesome and soup. I mean I guess you can call it soup, but it’s really much thicker than your average soup and packed with rice, chicken and good flavor.

Post-gumbo came my chicken, which looked just great. I was especially glad to see that my seasonal vegetable gamble had paid off and my plate was only tainted by three random vegetables that had no impact upon my real food. I cut into the chicken and found it to be juicy and great-tasting. It was surrounded in a light sauce that made everything it touched taste even better. The potatoes were sliced like au gratin and were creamy, but not really in a cheesy way, just in a “these potatoes are creamy” way. The only downside of the main course was that a couple times I bit into my chicken and met with an overwhelming amount of salt. And I love salt…like a lot…so if I think something is killing me with salt, you can believe it’s true. I’m not sure what happened to these random bites, but it didn’t ruin the overall pleasure of the meal.

After all, while the meal was pretty good, it can hardly compare to the atmosphere of the Blue Bayou. I mean where else in Southern California can you eat a southern meal at a southern mansion where it is always dusk and there are pirates raiding the Caribbean just down the river from you.

Tuckered out after a day of rides, standing in line and more rides, the girlfriend and I headed to Downtown Disney for some fine dining. We ended up at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen, a New Orleans-style restaurant. The menu was pretty pricey, even for Downtown Disney, but with my 20% discount, we figured the meal wasn’t outside our price range. We took a seat in their upper level and decided what to order. When the waiter came, I was struggling a bit.

There were some delicious-looking entrees, but each one had a vegetable with it that was not welcome on my plate. The Grilled Medallions of Beef came with bacon and pecan-crusted green beans, while the Black and Blue Filet Mignon had butter-poached asparagus. Leaning more towards the medallions because at least their veggies had bacon, I decided to ask the waiter about substituting. Flashing a Disney smile, he told me I could substitute any of the sides. This pushed me over to the filet ($33), and I substituted the nasty greens for some andouille grits. The filet also came with blue cheese dauphinoise potatoes and was topped with a blueberry-Merlot demi glace. This all seemed to add up to tastiness.

Although I was content with just the filet, the waiter made a quick pitch for their Southern Garlic Cheese Bread ($8) and made it sound so good we had to order it. The bread came out relatively quick and looked beautiful. Cheese was oozing from the inside and I snagged a piece as quickly as I could. It tasted good, but something was missing. The waiter obviously noticed and pointed out the lemon on the plate. He told us it was strange, but effective, so I gave it a shot. And he was right. The lemon added a delicious new dimension to the bread that really made the order worthwhile.

Then came my filet and it looked beautiful. Sitting in a pool of blueberry whatever glaze, I sliced off a piece and found it was cooked perfect. The beef melted in my mouth and the blueberry stuff enhanced the flavor rather than masked it. After a few delicious bites, I took a break from the steak and tried out the sides. The grits turned out to be a delicious companion and also tasted great in the blueberry sauce. I just love that mix of sweet and salty. The potatoes were also an awesome part of the meal. Stacked neatly and sliced into perfect layers, the blue cheese made these potatoes very interesting. I’m more partial to regular old au gratin potatoes, but mixing in some blue cheese wasn’t such a bad thing.

Overall, I was a very impressed unvegan. This was definitely a restaurant that could stand alone outside of Disney. Then it came time to pay and I handed over my badge to get my discount. The bill with the discount applied came back and left us confused. I asked the waiter if the tip had been included and he adamantly stated it wasn’t, then he realized why I was asking. Only 10% had been discounted and apparently that was the policy of the Jazz Kitchen. Somehow they set themselves up a on a pedestal above the rest of Disneyland and didn’t offer the full 20% discount. This left a bad taste in my mouth, but fortunately the meal was good enough that the taste didn’t linger. I probably won’t be back to Jazz Kitchen out of principle, but it is certainly worth trying if you aren’t expecting to get 20% off. And even without any discount, the food is pretty worth it.

Picture a huge grizzly bear wandering the forest and willing to take down anything that stands in the way of its food. Imagine that it stumbles upon a sleeping family out camping for the night. Each of them has bits of food in their tents and the bear can smell it. It tears apart the tents in search of the food and the family barely makes it out alive, carrying battle scars with them. That’s what I think of when I picture a hungry bear, but the folks at Disney probably weren’t thinking about that when they named the Hungry Bear Restaurant. Located in the heart of Critter Country in Disneyland, there was nothing but happiness and little chance of being mauled by a grizzly. We walked the long ramp up to the restaurant to see what the friendly Hungry Bear could offer us.

Although Disneyland has specialty restaurants that serve Italian, French, Mexican and more, Hungry Bear was good old fashioned American food. The type I imagine Walt would have loved. Feeling like a hungry bear myself, I spotted the bacon cheeseburger and never looked back. It came with tomato and lettuce on it, but if I wanted it without, I would have had to wait 10 minutes. My hunger was more powerful than my hatred for vegetables, so I took mine straight up. It cost $9.50, which is a bit overpriced for a burger, but with a little 20% discount, the burger fell into a very reasonable range.

I grabbed the burger at the counter and brought it to my table to undress. After removing the unwanted vegetables, I discovered a bountiful layer of bacon just itching to be devoured by yours truly. I splashed some BBQ sauce on and dug in. Surprisingly, the burger wasn’t bad at all. They had found a pretty good bun, the bacon was tasty and the patty itself wasn’t bad either. It wasn’t cooked to order, so I couldn’t get it cooked medium, but it also wasn’t dry.

Now for the bad part. If I wasn’t at Disneyland and in a sort of captive setting, I might have been a bit disappointed. But considering Disneyland does have a captive audience that is going to need food no matter what they serve, they could have created a burger far worse than this.

After a long day of lines, rides and shows at Disneyland, it’s a great idea to relax before making the long drive back up to Los Angeles. Enter Downtown Disney. While this area spans a huge tract of land, there’s really a surprisingly limited number of restaurant options.

Last time I went, we walked up and down the downtown for what seemed like hours before we decided on the House of Blues. They had a nice outdoor area and the weather was perfect for some outside dining. My friend’s Disney discount also applied here, and even though the prices were pretty reasonable, it made ordering all the more sweet.

The menu had some pretty good-looking foods, except most of them had some sort of vegetable included. Hoping to make up in spiciness for my relatively bland lunch, I ordered the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tenders, which came with fries, blue cheese and celery. In my heat-induced fatigue, I completely forgot to order without the celery and was a bit surprised when I discovered them on my plate.

Lucky for me, the celery was nowhere near my real food and I was able to avoid contact as I passed it off to my friends. The buffalo chicken ended up being quite good. I wouldn’t have minded if they made it a bit spicier, but it definitely hit the spot. The fries were a good addition as well. All in all, it was a good way to wrap up a long day at Disneyland.

Eating at Disneyland is never an easy matter. There are quite a few options, but they all seem to be painfully overpriced. Luckily, when I go to Disneyland, I do so with an employee of Disney and get to piggy pack on his discount.

Out of the convenience of its proximity to Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, we decided to eat at Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port, Disney’s version of Italian. Despite the name of the place, the pizza looked like the worst they had to offer. The cheese looked like plastic and the pepperonis weren’t shaped like Mickey ears (serious disappointment). Also, it was about $7 a slice. Luckily, since Disneyland is made for children (and I have taste buds similar to an eight-year old) there were almost no vegetables to be found. I got the “Count Down” Chicken Fusilli, which was the spiral fusilli noodles, a cream sauce, parmesan and chicken. I also got the “Far-Out” Focaccia Bread to split with a friend.

The pasta actually turned out to be decent for something that’s cranked out at the counter with vats of ingredients. I wouldn’t compare it to any real Italian restaurant, but for something inside Disneyland, I couldn’t complain too much. It was really lacking in spices and as I kept on eating, it tasted more and more bland. The focaccia was a nice touch, as I certainly wouldn’t have been full enough just from the pasta. As long as I still have my friend’s discount, Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port is a place worth returning to.