Yak & Yeti Quick Service (Anandupar Local Food Cafes)

9/14/15 Update: Menu updated.

Location: To the left of Kali River Rapids in the Asia section.

Food Type: Asian

Dining Plan: One Quick Service or One Snack

Discounts: None.

Menu:

Unique Items: Most everything.

Advantages:

• Large portions.
• Freshly prepared food.
• Tasty, unique entrées.
• Convenient location near Kali River Rapids, Maharajah Jungle Trek, Expedition Everest, and Flights of Wonder
• An entrée and side of egg rolls should be plenty for two to share. Chicken Fried Rice is a huge portion and a snack credit.
• “Anandupar Local Food Cafes” is almost as fun to say as Restaurantosaurus.

Disadvantages:

• Seating is limited, outside, and mostly in the sun.
• You could argue the Honey or Sweet & Sour Chicken is “just chicken nuggets with sauce thrown on them,” but that’s basically what Americanized Chinese food is – fried chicken nuggets with sauce.
• Yak & Yeti is not operated by Disney and service can be hit or miss.
• During peak meal times, it can take 15 to 25 minutes to order and pickup your food, all in the sun.
• Usually closes an hour before the rest of the Park. Check your Times Guide if you’re planning dinner.

Value: Above average. The entrées are reasonably priced and one entrée and a side should be plenty of food for two to share. It’s an average value on the Dining Plan.

Reputation: The quick service arm of Yak & Yeti serves Panda-Express quality food at similar portions. Portions are reasonable and prices are in line with what you’d pay at any other quick service and food tends to be freshly prepared. Unfortunately, the menu changes fairly often with the exception of the Honey Chicken, and whatever your favorite item is may no longer be available. The Honey Chicken and Teriyaki Beef Bowl tend to be best.

Food Choices:

Honey Chicken:

The Honey Chicken is lightly battered in a subtly sweet honey sauce over rice and a few vegetables. The chicken is plentiful and served up hot and crispy. Very good.

Korean Stir-Fry Barbecue Chicken:

Chicken, Peppers, Onions, Pineapple, Sweet and Tangy Korean Barbecue Sauce with White Rice, which recently replaced the Sweet and Sour Chicken at the same price point. This one isn’t deep fried, but you never know how much oil it’s bathing in.

The stir-fry was prepared well – there’s a ton of green and red peppers, in addition to sliced onion and a couple bites of pineapple to sweeten it up a bit. It’s not an overwhelmingly spicy dish, but there is a mild kick. My one complaint is that there wasn’t a ton of chicken in it and it wasn’t a particularly filling dish. One potentially nice thing about your typical Asian takeout is that the chicken is deep fried, which adds a lot of heft to the dish. You don’t get that here. What is served tastes good though. The side of rice is pretty boring and there isn’t a lot of excess sauce to help liven it up, but it was prepared well. All in all a fine meal, but not something I’ll be raving about in every post or sad when it inevitably gets pulled for something else.

Asian Chicken Sandwich:

I had no idea what to expect from this one, but was happy to see it had more than just two pieces of chicken in between the bread. There isn’t much Asian to it other than a sesame-flavored relish of some sort. It was good, but not great. It’s a nice alternative to your standard salad if you’re in the mood for something cold, as I was. I don’t think I would go out of my way to order it again though. Not bad. But I don’t think it’s going to top anybody’s favorites list with so many alternatives. One consideration is that it’s extremely portable coming inside of a pre-packaged container with a side of Sun Chips. On the other hand, it’s pre-packaged with a boring bag of chips.

Ginger Chicken Salad:

Mixed Greens, grilled marinated Chicken, and Ginger Dressing. It’s served compartmentalized in a plastic container with a lid. There isn’t a whole lot to it – fresh greens, dry chicken, crunchy chow mein noodles, and the small cup of atomically-orange-colored salad dressing that had a sweet, very pronounced ginger flavor. Like the Southwest Chicken Salad at Pecos Bill at Magic Kingdom, there isn’t nearly enough salad dressing to adequately cover the lettuce. You’ll want to ask for a second cup should you order it. It’s otherwise fairly basic – not unlike any generic Asian salad mix at the grocery store. If your group opts to dine here and you’re looking for a salad, this would do. But it’s not worth seeking out in our opinion.

Roasted Vegetable Couscous Wrap:

Roasted Vegetables and Couscous wrapped in Lavash Bread with Lemon Herb Yogurt Sauce with an unadvertised side of grapes. I think you’ll see more and more items arriving with unadvertised sides as Disney is tired of people ordering entrees without the sides to save $2. You’d have a hard time convincing me a dozen old grapes are worth two bucks. You can always ask if sides are involved.

It’s a sizable roll-up. The fresh lavash bread is not unlike a thick flour tortilla and doesn’t have much flavor on its own.

My wrap was short on anything other than sizable couscous pearls, consisting of only a couple thin slices of onion and the occasional small bite of red pepper, in addition to a couple beans.

What basically amounted to a tzatziki sauce on the side didn’t do a whole lot of good. Try to dip and the couscous spills out. Try to open the wrap and you’ll likely tear it. The yogurt sauce did add another dimension of flavor to the wrap, which otherwise tasted of yellow curry. Overall, this is a decent vegetarian option and unlike just about anything else you’ll run into at Disney World, but I’m not sure it’s compelling.

Pork Egg Rolls:

These are actually pretty good, if not a lot greasy.  Being deep fried and full of pork, they have considerabe “weight” to them and you should find them to be quite filling. I like them better than the egg rolls at Lotus Blossom.

Banana Pudding:

The banana pudding was a large portion – fairly standard for this sort of thing. It has a simple wafer sticking out of the top, some sort of crumbs on the bottom, and a chunk or two of banana somewhere in the middle of it all. It was a little different. A nice choice if you really like bananas, but it’s very banana-y if you don’t. The bana flavor was almost too much for me. But I persevered for the good of the website. It’s a nice choice if you’re looking for something cold. Personally, I would shy toward the Frozen Lemonade.

Frozen Lemonade:

Despite having 56 grams of sugar, the Frozen Lemonade is quite tart. It was a bit of a hassle to eat it because there was so much of it and it was so cold. The Lemonades are available at various carts and kiosks around Disney World, so it isn’t anything particularly special. But it’s probably a better choice for dessert than the pudding or cake, especially when it’s hot.

Seating:

Unfortunately, seating is Yak & Yeti’s biggest problem. All tables are outside and most are not well shaded. It can get incredibly hot here in the afternoon when it’s crowded and the sun is out (as it usually is in Florida). There are tables across from the cashier area, but those aren’t well shaded either. The closest air-conditioned seating is at Restaurantosaurus or Pizzafari, neither of which is within a five minute walk. Try to get here around 11am if possible to find lower crowds and a lower temperature. Otherwise, it is a pretty location, though not as nice as Flame Tree Barbecue.

Condiments:

Yak & Yeti offers a few relatively unique packets of sauce. You’ll find soy sauce, low-sodium soy sauce, Duck Sauce, Panda Mustard, and hot sauce, along with mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise.