Yak & Yeti Local Foods Café Review
Yak & Yeti Local Foods Café in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Anandapur Asia is a quick service restaurant at Walt Disney World serving Asian cuisine (menu) that combines flavors from China, India and Nepal. The restaurant is open for both lunch and dinner, and offers outdoor seating in a detailed outdoor courtyard. This restaurant goes by no less than three names; the one titling this review is its “official” Walt Disney World name, but it’s also known as Yak & Yeti Counter Service and the Anandapur Local Food Cafe. Popular menu items include the Mandarin chicken salad, kung pao beef and pork egg rolls. This restaurant participates in the Disney Dining Plan as a counter service credit. It does not accept the Tables in Wonderland card for a 20% discount. As far as value goes, Yak & Yeti Counter Service is neither a good nor bad value on the Disney Dining Plan (see our ranking of the best value quick service restaurants here).
Starting first with theming, Yak & Yeti Counter Service is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, unlike other counter service restaurants, it doesn’t have an indoor seating area. You order from little cashier islands, then pick up your food from a window. That’s the extent of the “restaurant,” which is really just a part of the larger Yak & Yeti Restaurant (hence the name). We typically overlook restaurants like this, as we feel we don’t get as much out of the experience.
However, Yak & Yeti Counter Service is a different story. It actually has a rather sizable outdoor seating area, with a lot of detail and a nice water feature prominent. We’ve heard that this seating area is packed during peak times, but it was relatively dead when we visited. I don’t doubt that it does get busy, but when we visited few other guests were around. It was very tranquil.
As for food, Yak & Yeti Counter Service is another mixed bag. We went in with fairly high expectations thanks to easyWDW’s review and DisneyFoodBlog’s review; however, our experience wasn’t quite as great as theirs. Sarah ordered the Beef Lo Mein and I ordered the Asian Chicken Sandwich. I was disappointed to find my sandwich wrapped up deli style with a bag of Sun Chips as a side. I harp on presentation at Counter Service restaurants, and maybe others don’t see why, but this is a big deal to me.
At Sunshine Seasons, my sandwich would have been served on a plate with real sides, instead of “real world” chips. It also wouldn’t have been more expensive than the $9.99 price here (if memory serves me correctly, it would’ve been cheaper). The sandwich itself was actually pretty good, the dressing was really good and the Ciabatta bread, which can easily be dry and tough, was perfect. Still, it was just a typical deli sandwich. Although, in fairness to the restaurant, I probably should have expected a typical deli sandwich given that I ordered a typical deli sandwich.
Sarah’s Beef Lo Mein was slightly over-salted, but the portion was fairly large. Actually, it was huge. She could only eat about half of it and I finished the rest. For $10.99 and no side, it should be pretty large, though. Besides the salt, taste was actually pretty decent. It was comparable to what you might order at a Panda Express or other American “Asian” food chain. It wasn’t overly inspired, but it was pretty good. It was hot despite us visiting when there were no crowds, so I suppose it should get some points for that.
Overall, Yak & Yeti Counter Service wasn’t too bad, but it was far from memorable. It offers menu items that are a departure from the standard, which earns it some praise, but the menu items are nothing exceptional. In some cases, portions are larger than Disney norms, but prices are high and the food isn’t really that great. I won’t give this restaurant an “avoid” rating, because it really isn’t that bad, but if you’re only eating at one counter service restaurant in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, you most certainly should be avoiding Yak & Yeti Counter Service. Actually, you should be avoiding all counter service restaurants that aren’t named “Flame Tree BBQ.” If you do more than one meal at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, I suppose you could give it a try (I’d take two meals at Flame Tree BBQ!), but I’d really only recommend it for people who have tried everything else and want to check-off every Disney restaurant on their “list.”
To read other Walt Disney World restaurant reviews, organized by location, check out our Disney Dining Reviews Index.
Overall Score on the Disney Dining Brick-o-meter: 6/10
3 Responses to “Yak & Yeti Local Foods Café Review”
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We don’t spend a lot of time in Animal Kingdom. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a counter service meal there, in fact. We have had lunch at the bar inside the Yak & Yeti restaurant a couple times, though. We enjoy their appetizers quite a lot. It’s something I would recommend if you want some of the pan-Asian offerings but don’t want to visit the counter service again.
I got the Fried Rice there as a snack in Nov 2011. While it wasn’t the best Fried Rice I’ve ever had, I thought it was a great “meal use” of a snack credit!
Next time, I must try Flame Tree. I’ve yet to eat there! (We usually eat TS and then snack.)
I agree that this place is basically of mall chinese food quality. For counter service there is really only one choice for me at AK, and that would be Flame Tree BBQ.