Sassy Faves: Three Square Meals at EPCOT

I've seen this challenge some other places and thought I would adapt it for our blog. The challenge is to choose one place in the theme park for each meal of the day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For some parks, this seems an impossible task for me (looking at YOU, Disney Hollywood Studios), and for others, it's impossible to narrow down. I decided to take the tactic of choosing the three places I would recommend to a first time guest. I'm also allowing myself one back-up choice.

To summarize:

• One different place each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

• All in the same park

• One back up choice for each meal

• Based on what I would recommend to a first time guest

This week... EPCOT.

Breakfast

First choice: Boulangerie Patisserie Les Halles, France Pavilion.

Here's why:

I prefer breakfast to be a lighter meal. I often skip it, in fact. But a pastry and coffee is just about right and this place has the best of both. Walk through the Canada, UK, and France pavilions before the rest of World Showcase is even open and relish the low crowds. Get some beautiful photographs without crowds and with perfect morning light. Then, enter the most enticing pastry counter you've ever seen tucked at the back of the France pavilion. They have savory and sweet and it's hard to choose just one. We're not talking donuts here, but real French pastries in a vast variety. Also, while I think Disney still has a real problem with offering quality coffee drinks, this place has wonderful coffee, espresso, and cappuccino.

Runner up: Garden Grill

Here's why:

Say you are really hungry, or breakfast is going to be your main meal of the day. Or say you are traveling with kids. The food here is decent quality, but plentiful and satisfying and served family style. But the atmosphere is really the reason to go here because you get a character breakfast with farmer Chip and farmer Dale, and you are seated in a rotating restaurant that sedately rotates to provide you with a 360 view of the track of the Living With the Land ride below. Between watching the guests float by on that ride, the character interactions, and deciding whether you want another skillet of hash browns, this restaurant will keep you occupied and happily fed.

Pastries from Boulangerie Patisserie Les Halles. 3 pastries, 2 adults, 0 regrets.

Lunch

First choice: Via Napoli in the Italy Pavilion

Here's why:

This has quickly become a must-visit place for me for a million reasons. The atmosphere is welcoming to kids, but still authentic. Your servers will likely be from Italy and will show you the three pizza ovens named after the three famous volcanos of Italy, and they can help you navigate the menu. And the menu itself includes favorites for kids (pepperoni pizza - check, and kids might love the aqua fresca) and unique flavors for adults. My favorite meal is the prosciutto e melone pizza (prosciuttio, arugula, and cantaloupe) with a limoncello to sip. And don't walk away thinking this is "just a pizza place". While pizza is the feature, this is not that heavy doughy stuff you get at quick service windows around the other parks. This is airy, crispy, Naples-style pizza. Rumor has it the dough is even made with water imported from Naples. I recommend getting a few pies for your table to share. At the prices here, you certainly can.

Runner up: Tangierine Cafe in the Morocco Pavilion

Here's why:

I love Middle Eastern and Northern African food, but realize that many haven't had the chance to try it. The Tangierine Cafe is the perfect place to dip your toes in with either the shawarma or the vegetarian platter. If you are lucky, they might be serving baklava or a nice Moroccan mint tea or Moroccan coffee with cinnamon and nutmeg. It's a good amount of food, it's not usually busy at all, and it's an adventure for your taste buds, which is, in my opinion, part of what World Showcase is all about.

Dinner

First choice: Coral Reef

Here's why:

My first choices for the first two meals were both in the World Showcase, so I think if you want to experience all of EPCOT, my first recommendation has to be something in Future World, and Coral Reef is truly a unique dining experience in that it is underwater. The restaurant has terraced seating overlooking huge windows that look out into the main tank at the Living Seas pavilion where you will sea fish of all types, giant sea turtles, and probably even divers swim by. For the first time visitor, this is likely a novel experience and deserves to be had. The food itself is pretty good - lots of seafood. I'm a fan of the lobster bisque.

Runner up: Rose & Crown, UK pavilion

Here's why:

There are so many good places to eat at EPCOT. I passed up two other major contenders before landing here. My two other contenders were both pretty pricey and pretty specialized (Le Cellier is a signature dining meal and is a lot of steak, though the poutine is intriguing, and Takumi Tei in Japan which offers an Omakase tasting menu for a hefty price which I think is a once-in-a-lifetime experience). But back to our goal of the first time visitor, I'm recommending Rose and Crown because it has a welcoming and authentic atmosphere, excellent food, and a lovely view of the evening fireworks if you time your dining right.

So, let me sing the virtues of Rose & Crown for a moment: the English pub scene is done perfectly here. There are all the pub fare items you would expect from fish and chips to bangers and mash, to shepherd's and cottage pies, to the curry (which if you visit the UK you will learn there is almost always a curry dish on a pub menu). Complete your meal with a Bass ale or a Strongbow cider. Finish it off with Sticky Toffee Pudding. Everything on this menu was so well thought out to represent the UK. And if you show up early for your ADR and ask for a seat on the patio, you will get the finest most hassle-free view of the fireworks available.

Rose & Crown and Coral Reef are two very different dining experiences and can hardly be compared, so while I recommended Coral Reef over Rose & Crown for the first time visitor in the name of a balanced experience between World Showcase and Futureworld, I think it's truly up to the person and what the person thinks they will like best.

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Wow, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be! I'm sure there will be disagreement with our recommendations too, so we'd love to hear YOUR breakfast, lunch, and dinner picks for EPCOT. You can share those with us over on our Facebook page - we'd love to hear from you. Until next time...