For Christmas this year we decided to try eating at a Disney resort with my parents. We opted for Boma over at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge after seeing some pretty good reviews from people about their dinner, we had previously only eaten breakfast here.
When we checked in we were given the allergy pamphlet for the buffet because of our sons peanut allergy. We looked it over and noticed we probably weren’t going to have many options for our meal, which was surprising to us.
Once seated our server offered to get a chef for us to go through the buffet. When the chef came out he walked me through the buffet. I was surprised to see that only some of the vegan options actually had the plant based logo on the buffet. (Side note to this, my friends ate at Chef Mickey’s the same evening and said that the buffet label cards were the same as Boma meaning that only some of the vegan options were labeled).
I apologize now for the mediocre photos, but this buffet was slammed.
After seeing what was offered on the buffet the chef asked if there was anything else he could do, to which I said please. I asked about a tofu stir fry or curry style dish. He asked if we liked spicy foods, yes, and then said he would bring us a platter.
The buffet options were pretty lacking. I enjoyed the bean salad and the lentil soup the most. Corey’s favorite was the plantain chips. As Corey said to me, you know the buffet is sad when our favorite things are bean salad and plantains.
Otherwise the buffet was just salads and fruit. There is also a peanut rice that is vegan, everyone raves about it, but with Finn’s allergy I didn’t have it. Corey had a small bite of it and said it basically fried rice with peanut butter.
The platter that we received was pretty good. The veggies were well cooked and had a great flavor with a nice heat to them. The tofu wasn’t pressed, if it had been it would have been better. The platter was very oily.
Our server told us to let him know when we were ready for dessert because they would bring us a platter. There was a vegan dessert on the buffet, which they put on the platter. The dessert plate had the coconut-mango chocolate tart, sorbet, Flamingo Cake from the Mara, and two Erin McKenna’s brownie bites. We got three of these plates, one for each of us.
The buffet dessert was pretty good. It has a small drizzle of mango and was mostly coconut-y. The chocolate mickey shape held it all in, we were expecting it to be thicker like a pudding but it was very thin.
As a whole we weren’t impressed and were mildly disappointed in our options. We’re unsure if the menu was different because of Christmas or if dinner just isn’t as accommodating as breakfast. I think in the future we’ll stick to Boma for breakfast.
Price $$$$
Review from December 2019.
I was there on Christmas and could have sworn the plantains had milk and egg on the allergen menu. I would have eaten 10 if I had known they were vegan!! I also noticed I had more options earlier in the year than Christmas Day.
They said it on the allergy sheet but the chef told me it’s because of CC with the fryer.
We’ve eaten dinner at Boma many times, and it does seem like this ‘Christmas version’ of the buffet is lighter in vegan options than usual. They usually have at least 2 or 3 other interesting, delicious salad type options that they didn’t seem to have during your visit. They could definitely use a second vegan soup, though, as the lentil is the only one they seem to ever have. And it would be good if they had something like that tofu dish on the regular buffet as well.