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Hidden Mickey of the Week

Yak & Yeti Restaurant

Description

Residing in a two-story Nepalese inn, Yak & Yeti is Animal Kingdom's flagship table service offering. Operated by Landry's Restaurants, Inc., the folks who brought you the Rainforest Cafe and T-REX, Yak & Yeti offers dishes inspired by many different Asian cuisines in a beautifully decorated setting.

Being operated by an outside entity, Yak & Yeti changes its menu a bit more frequently than WDW-operated restaurants. It also has little to gain by dropping to the lowest common denominator to save money through scale, so you are much more likely to find something different here. The menu at AllEars.Net is currently from July 2009, although we know that a Bourbon Chicken (delicious!) and Kobe Beef Burger were added in late December. However, the kid's menu has not changed recently.

Mention needs to be made of the Royal Anandapur Tea Company. While not connected to or even all that close to Yak & Yeti, this kiosk in Asia is one of the few remaining eclectic food stands in WDW. In a sea of Dasani water and Coke fountain drinks, here you can get actual loose-leaf teas, hot or cold, for a quick refreshing break. This brings us back to the days when almost all of the shops, restaurants, and food stands in Walt Disney World were themed to the land they were in.

History

This restaurant opened shortly after Expedition Everest, clearly in an attempt to handle the crowds expected to be swarming Asia after the headliner became operational.

Review

Fair warning - this is our absolute favorite restaurant in all of the Walt Disney World theme parks, although we haven't tried all the high-end ones in World Showcase. Still, we're going to gush a little bit. We never would have expected that the company that brought us Rainforest Cafe, with its ordinary-but-overpriced menu, was capable of such variety, but they are. This is by no means haute cuisine, and hardly innovative to a seasoned foodie, but this is a restaurant we would go to on an anniversary. The Seared Miso Salmon, Shaoxing Steak and Shrimp, and Bourbon Chicken all have complex flavors, while the Lo Mein, Pho, and Baby Back Ribs offer good quality for the slightly less adventurous. The duck is, well, about what you would expect from duck in a theme park, but it was better than what Les Chefs de France put on the table. All of the desserts are delightful. Just watch out for the Yak Attack specialty drink - it's a lot like drinking candy.

Touring Tips

  • If it's not too crowded, ask for a seat upstairs by the windows. You'll have a nice view of the traffic heading into Asia from Flights of Wonder.

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