Walt Disney World Restaurant Review – Landscape of Flavors

BY MIKE WARING – FEBRUARY 2013

Landscape of Flavors is located in the Art of Animation resort, which, by the way, is much cooler than the other Value resorts like the All Stars.

Since we were there to check out the resort — and by the way, again, it’s way more awesome than it has any right to be — we also decided to have lunch. We’ve been through the All Stars before, but never thought to try the food courts since the food looked similar to what you can get in a food court at the mall, but less interesting. Definitely not enough steak sandwiches with French fries in a cup for my taste. Of course, I think pretty much every location would be improved with a Great Steak Escape franchise.

Landscape of Flavors is set up like pretty much any other food court in the Disney system. There are large flatscreens displaying the menus, which is convenient since they serve both breakfast and lunch/dinner, so the menus can be easily switched. Different counters serve different specialties, usually heavily concentrating on the burger/hotdog/pizza triumvirate.

The offerings at Landscape were…. not what we expected. Based on the food courts at the All Stars, Pop Century and the like, we thought there would be burgers and hot dogs, pizza and fries galore. And those things are available at Landscape, which by the way, is a silly name for a food court, but then I have come to the conclusion that I’m not a good judge of these things. If pressed I’d have probably named it the Art of Eating or Ani-meat-athon! Let’s move on, shall we…

Besides the usual burgers and the like, the offerings also included various tandoori dishes, milded down for American sensibilities, but cooked in an actual tandoori oven. Color us surprised, which for future reference is a nice pale shade of mauve. There was also a Mongolian grill for Mongolian grill specialties, though as to whether or not it was authentic I cannot say, as I’ve never been to either Inner or Outer Mongolia. It does however, look pretty much like the flat topped grills I’ve seen in restaurants purporting to sell the exotic tastes of Mongolia.

The tandoori chicken and the Indian-influenced sides that come with it were pretty decent. There’s also real, honest-to-Kali naan (flatbread) to accompany the tandoori and Mongolian grill items. The Mongolian grill meal was also a nice change from the same old, same old.

For dessert, and strictly in the service of information acquisition, I sampled a cupcake. It was standard grocery store fare, slightly dry, cakey bottom, very Crisco-y super-sweet frosting, in colors not found in nature. Kids will love it.

There’s the usual assortment of take-and-go cold case items, such as salads, sandwiches, and so on, and so on. Smoothies, check, got those. Drink fountains are located over in the main dining area so the people who like their unlimited carbonated sugary beverages won’t be clogging up the food lines.

Décor, well, there really isn’t any. It’s generic as generic can be. There is lots of seating, with good separation between the tables. The dining area is a big space, not terribly noisy, though we were there at lunch during a slow period. I imagine dinner would probably create a din that would make one think about running away to become a lighthouse keeper in northernmost Maine, which I do often.

Conclusion: a big hand for Disney in trying something different. We were convinced that few people would actually be interested in sampling the exotic tastes of Americanized Indian food, but a sizable proportion were chowing down on naan and turmeric-infused cauliflower. If we were staying at the Art of Animation we’d actually be looking forward to coming back to dinner in the resort after a long day in the parks.