‘Ohana means family, family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. A famous line from Disney’s Lilo and Stitch, which is one of my family’s favorite movies. The movie is based in Hawaii which is also the theme of the Polynesian resort and ‘Ohana the restaurant that is housed there. ‘Ohana, the restaurant, is my family’s favorite restaurant on Disney World property. The food is amazing!
‘Ohana serves american style breakfast and you get to meet Lilo, Stitch, and a few other Disney characters. It is all you care to eat Scrambled eggs, Fried Potatoes, Port, Mickey waffles, Pineapple-coconut breakfast bread, and fruit. We have not experienced the breakfast here but the reviews are fantastic. The food is your typical breakfast stuff and served family style. This is great because you don’t have to get up from the table and go through a buffet. Breakfast is the only time you can meet characters at ‘Ohana, they do not have characters at dinner.
What I am REALLY passionate about is the dinner at ‘Ohana! Yes, I am passionate about THIS FOOD! There have been some complaints and mixed reviews about this dining experience for a very long time, however, we have NOT ONCE had a bad experience there.
The dinner is served family style and is all you care to eat. They start by the hostess grabbing some pineapple-cocunut bread and taking you to your table. Be sure to not get filled up on this bread because you wont want to miss what comes next. For starters, you get a mixed greens salad with Likikoi dressing, Pork Dumplings, honey-coriander chicken wings, Teriyaki noodles, and stir-fried vegetables. Then the waiter comes around with 3 foot skewers of chicken, steak and shrimp which are slid off onto your plate as many times as you would like. The dessert is the famous ‘Ohana bread pudding ‘a la mode. They will also bring out something different for the kids which could be a bowl of ice cream or some Mickey shaped sprinkled rice krispy treats. If you have a picky eater or a vegetarian in your group, just let your server know and he/she will grab them something special from the kitchen. (My youngest daughter is very picky and always asks for mac and cheese. This is actually really good. My dad and I always have a little serving of it, too!) If you want more of anything, they will bring it to you!
My personal favorite things from this dinner menu is the mixed green salad, teriyaki noodles, pork dumplings, chicken skewers, and the bread pudding. I am not a big vegetable eating person but this salad dressing is just so good, it is making my mouth water right now just thinking about it! It is almost like a vinaigrette but is a little sweet too. I really don’t know what it is made of, but, I just could eat buckets of it! The teriyaki noodles are a big hit across the board. I have heard through the grapevine that they tried to take these away and so many people complained that they brought them back. THANK GOODNESS, because I don’t think ‘Ohana would be the same without them. Some people in my family would up and walk out if they didn’t bring those noodles out. They are so simple, but so dang delicious… a bite of chicken with those noodles is the bees knees!! Speaking of the chicken, it is a sweet and sour chicken that has just the right amount of flavor and goodness. The steak (Szechuan) is good too, don’t get me wrong, but dang that chicken is just so good.
I have never had a better dessert (anywhere) than this bread pudding a la mode. Seriously, if my stomach, at the end of such a huge meal, could handle it, I would eat ten thousand pounds of this stuff! It is a warm coconut/pineapple bread pudding, drizzled with caramel and banana sauce, topped with vanilla ice cream. Need I say more?
So now that you know how I really feel, let me tell you about the things I don’t like and things you will hear other people complain about. First, I don’t like the shrimp because you have to peel it. It tastes good, but it is just so messy. The steak can be a little gristly at times, but usually you just set the gristle ones aside and ask for more, then you will get some good pieces. The chicken is a lot of dark meat. This doesn’t bother me, but some people don’t like dark meat, so you will hear a lot of complaining about that. If you know it’s dark meat before you go, then you know what to expect and won’t be disappointed. (I hope)
One big complaint that I hear from other people is that they feel rushed. This can seem true if you let the fact that they practically throw all the food at you at once bother you. My family doesn’t care if it happens this way because we would rather just dig right in and gobble it all up! We don’t have much conversation until we are all done eating because we are too busy eating! I know it can feel rushed to people though, I understand that not everyone wants all that food at once. You would think they would bring the salad and let you eat that before they bring the appetizers (noodles, dumplings, chicken wings, vegetables) and in turn let you eat some of the appetizers before bringing you the meats. However, this usually isn’t the case. Sometimes you get your salad and appetizers at the same time before the waiter even has time to bring you your drink order! Other times you may get your drinks then the salad. Then only after you had two bites of your salad, they bring you everything else… meat too! Most of the time they will wait to bring the bread pudding after they have cleared your dinner plates and we have never had it brought out before that. It is sometimes hard to get a drink refill but that usually just depends on your server.
Servers are not consistant. Some servers and wait staff are fantastic and keep up on things, asking if you need or want anything more. Others you have to hunt down. This, unfortunately, could cause for a not so stellar experience. Usually when you get a ghost of a server, you don’t feel rushed, but you also don’t get refills of anything because he/she is never around for you to ask. Honestly, this has only happened to us one time out of the twelve times we have eaten here.
I think that if you keep in mind that this is a very busy restaurant and the staff are very busy people and try not to get upset when everything comes out at once, then you will always feel like you are having a good experience. Another thing that goes a long way is to always be super nice and friendly to the cast member who is serving you. They see a lot of self centered ‘all about me’ and the ‘right now’ kind of people ALL DAY LONG. If you are the sunshine in their day, they usually will make your day a ray of sunshine too 🙂
Leave a comment about your experiences at ‘Ohana, I would love to hear about it! If you have any questions, leave those in the comments as well! Thank you for reading 🙂
The Mouse Traveler 