REVIEW: Two NEW Snacks Just Replaced a Beloved Baked Mac & Cheese Dish at Disney World – and We Have THOUGHTS

Disney World is cranking out some big menu changes lately, and one of the most recent switchups just affected one of our favorite snack spots!

Disney World snacks are a class of their own, made even better when you find something truly unique and flavorful. We’ve been HUGE fans of the baked mac & cheese with pulled pork that we could only get at one restaurant at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and we’re popping by to check out the new replacements!

One of our favorite reasons to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom is for the food. There’s such a wide variety of meals and snacks you’ll find within this park, and sometimes the hardest decision you’ll have to make is which to choose to eat first.

Although we’ve seen menu items come and go from restaurants around this park, we have to take a moment to mourn the loss of a beloved snack. One of our favorite spots to stop by for a quick savory snack, Eight Spoon Cafe, just reported HUGE changes to its menu, but honestly, we can’t say we’re mad about it!

We ventured over to Eight Spoon Cafe when we learned the menu received a makeover to see if the new menu items still captured our hearts and our taste buds the same way they did before.

First up were the Pulled Pork Sliders. These little guys are made of pulled pork with tangy barbecue sauce on Hawaiian Rolls with house-made chips and pickles, which will set you back $7.99.

These were fantastic! While we admit they are on the small side portion-wise, you get more than one slider, and the flavor makes up for the size. The Hawaiian Rolls were sweet and pillowy, and after a while, they served as a good way to soak up the rest of the barbecue sauce from the pulled pork sandwiched in between the slices.

The pulled pork had great flavor to it, and when the menu reads “tangy” barbecue sauce, that’s exactly what you’re gonna get. It tastes like a vinegar-based sauce, which tends to be thinner, so if you’re expecting some of the thicker Texas-style barbecue sauce, you might be disappointed with this one. The pork was juicy and well seasoned, and not overly fatty, which we appreciated. Our only complaint with these is that we would have loved more, but for the price, we think the portion size was fair.

We also grabbed the new Smoked Chicken Wings here! These come as three smoked chicken wings coated in tangy barbecue sauce and served with house-made chips and pickles for $7.99.

Wow — we really had to think about our feelings on these for a minute after we tried them. Taste-wise, they’re on the drier side, AND you’re only getting three of them for the price. But the spice rub that covers the skin of each wing was delicious! We applaud how beautifully fried the skin is on these wings, but that’s also where most of your flavor comes from. The inside chicken meat doesn’t have much flavor to it, so if you’re really after that flavor, you’ll need to include a bit of skin in each bite. They’re also a small portion for a snack, and a bit tougher to get through the outside skin.

If you really just have a craving for chicken wings while you’re visiting Disney World, these will serve you well as a snack, but we’re not recommending it as a shareable option. You’ll likely be able to gobble these all up by yourself without help (and probably want more if you’re so inclined to wings at Disney).

It’s worth mentioning that both of these snacks also come with house-made chips and pickles, which felt pretty standard by Disney World’s standards. You can tell they’re the house-made kind that have a little bit of resistance to break when you bite into them, but with a nice, low-barbecue-spiced flavor, too. They’re not served very warm and might be a little off-putting if you don’t like thicker cuts of chips and prefer the kind that can crumble in your mouth with each bite.

Were these new snacks worth taking away our beloved baked mac and cheese with pulled pork snack? Eh, it’s a personal call. While we love our baked mac and cheese, if it had to go away, these new snacks weren’t bad replacements and still give park visitors something different to enjoy beyond the standard Disney World snack. Of course, we’ll be missing our beloved mac and cheese, but the good news is that two NEW versions of mac and cheese (Baked Macaroni & Cheese with Buffalo Chicken and Baked Macaroni & Cheese with Garlic-Smoked Sausage) are debuting at The Smiling Crocodile.

Disney World is changing up its menus all the time! Check out a few of our most recent reviews below and stay tuned with us here at AllEars for more.

REVIEW: This Is NOT Where We Expected to Find Our NEW Favorite Magic Kingdom Treat

What’s your favorite snack to pick up when you’re visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom? Tell us in the comments below!

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