REVIEW: You’ve Never Seen Food Like THIS at a Theme Park!

Get ready to see a NEW restaurant and theme park food unlike whatever you may have seen before!

Toadstool Cafe

Super Nintendo World has officially opened in Universal Studios Hollywood! We have been experiencing it ALL and sharing the latest details with you about the merchandise, the land’s ride, and all of the other fun things you can do here. But what about the FOOD?! Well, that’s where the adorable Toadstool Cafe comes in!

Atmosphere

Toadstool Cafe is the central restaurant within Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios Hollywood. It is open for lunch and dinner and offers quick-service dining. When we visited, though, we couldn’t just walk on in. We had to get in line at the restaurant and get a return time to come back later. You’ll get a reservation card with your return time. This would be much more streamlined if the Universal app allowed you to do something like Disney’s Mobile Dine Walk-up Waitlist.

Reservation Card

When we returned, we had to wait in line again just to get inside the restaurant. This WAS opening day, though, so we expected things to be busy. The restaurant itself is shaped like a mushroom. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the counter to order.

Waiting to get in

It’s definitely giving us all kinds of Super Mario vibes — like is someone about to hand us a big or little present? Well, they just might! You’ll find a big and small present above your head in the main room, and you’ll want to look closely for the screens with a little and big present near one of the windows!

Presents!

Also, take a look down at the floor for a GIANT mushroom design — Toad is making it WELL known that this is HIS spot. In this first room, you’ll also find a small digital screen with menu details.

The menu

Then you’ll step into another room with themed stanchions and a large screen in the middle featuring Chef Toad hard at work — someone’s gotta make those meals, right?!

Chef Toad is back there working!

On a side wall, you’ll also see screens with images of the various food items you can order here (we’ll get to that full menu in a second!). As you spend time in this room, take time to listen to the sweet little music playing in the background and listen for Toad’s statements to the group! You’ll also want to look for hidden details. 

One thing we love about this space is how every corner is themed. Things are oversized or uniquely shaped to make you feel like you’ve left the “standard” world and entered a video game land.

More photos of menu items

In the next room, you’ll find more queues. You’ll be directed to a numbered queue that you’ll need to stand in to order. After that, it’s time to head into the main dining space, which is also pretty epic. The dining room is full of warp pipes, mushroom details, and rounded architectural elements to put you into the video game world.

THE VIBES!

Once you order and pay, you’ll be given silverware and your drinks. Then you have to get in line to be seated — it took us about 10 minutes from paying to being seated. Servers bring the food out to you (that took about 10-15 minutes).

Be sure to look UP at the central space where you’ll see more of those power-ups displayed, along with the lovely little Toad in the center.

Don’t forget to look up

If you can get a seat close to a window, you’ll also be quite happy! These windows don’t look out onto the “ordinary” world, but instead showcase scenes from the Mario world with characters rushing around, Bowser’s airship, and SO much more.

“Windows”

In terms of seating, there are booths and regular tables throughout. There are even some tucked-away spaces with large circular booths.

Seating

There are stations throughout with sugar, condiments, and other essentials you may need.

Condiments Station

Alright, enough about the atmosphere — let’s get to the menu!

Menu

The menu here offers a variety of options for omnivorous eaters, as well as some gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian dishes.

You can start your meal off with a starter or salad, including a Tomato Soup in a Mushroom Boul or a Super Mushroom Soup. Considering the fact that Toad IS a mushroom, we are eating INSIDE a mushroom, and some of these dishes CONTAIN mushrooms, we have a LOT of questions. But we might not even want to know the answers… .

©Universal

Moving on from the starters, you’ll find a “main menu” with things like burgers, spaghetti, and short rib.

©Universal

Want to finish your meal with something sweet? You’ll find 3 dessert options including a Princess Peach Cupcake!

©Universal

For the kiddos, there are two specific options. What’s nice about these is that they are more meal-style, coming with sides and even a dessert of their own.

©Universal

And finally, there are a variety of drinks to choose from here, and you’ll be able to get a few collectible drink bottles here, too (those are $20 each).

©Universal

Now, let’s get to the food we ate!

Eats

With our meal, we tried the Super Star Lemon Squash drink. This is $8 and is made with honey lemon soda with mango stars and assorted tropical bobas. This reminded us of Sprite with boba. We didn’t get much of the honey flavor, but the lemon overpowered everything else. The boba had a mango and tropical punch flavor. Overall, it made for a nice sweet and tart drink combination.

Super Star Lemon Squash

For our meal, we started with 2 appetizers. First, we grabbed the Piranha Plant Caprese. This is $12.99 and is made with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, asparagus, and basil pesto served with mixed greens, shaved radish, and apple vinaigrette. This is a great option if you want to have a light and healthy meal. All the produce is fresh and of good quality. The apple vinaigrette is DELICIOUS — it’s tangy with a sweet apple taste.

Piranha Plant Caprese

Also, just LOOK at how cute this salad is. The theming here is ON POINT.

LOOK at this cute plating!

Next, we tried the Toadstool Cheesy Garlic Knots for $5.99. These are mini mushroom-shaped knots brushed with garlic butter, parmesan cheese, parsley, and a side of marinara sauce. These are a great start to the meal. They’re served warm and you get hints of garlic AND cheese with each bite. It’s even more perfect when you dip it in the marinara.

Toadstool Cheesy Garlic Knots

Then it was time to dive into those main menu items! We opted for the Mario Burger (how could you NOT?!). This is $16.99 and features an all-beef patty, bacon, mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, and American cheese served on a brioche bun with a side of truffle French fries.

Mario Burger

Yes, we got excited seeing that ‘lil bitty Mario hat on the burger. Like we said — it’s ALL about the details here.

That hat, though

This is NOT one of those usual dry theme park burgers we’ve had elsewhere. Instead, it’s juicy and flavorful. The lettuce and tomatoes also offer a satisfying crunch. We loved how the mushrooms and bacon added more savory flavors to the whole. This is a great burger!

Juicy burger!

Of course, we couldn’t leave without trying a dessert. We got the Princess Peach Cupcake for $9.99. It’s made with raspberry-filled funfetti cupcake, buttercream frosting, and a Princess Peach chocolate crown. It is ADORABLE.

This cupcake!

Okay, so this is just a classic funfetti cupcake with raspberry filling. But the cake was sweet and moist with just a hint of vanilla flavor. The frosting was SOOOO sweet, though, and the two together made it too sugary for us. The raspberry filling tasted like it was made with fresh raspberries, but it was sweet, too, so this cupcake is A LOT.

Raspberry filling

And that concludes our Nintendo-themed meal! So let’s get to some overall thoughts.

Nosh or Not

Do NOT miss Toadstool Cafe if:

• You love all things Nintendo — there are so many great details in here that Nintendo fans will love.
• You don’t mind a bit of a wait. This is the ONLY restaurant in Super Nintendo World, meaning that it’s probably going to be busy.
• You want some fun, themed food that goes beyond standard theme park fare.

SKIP Toadstool Cafe if:

• You’re in a hurry. You’re going to wait to get your return time and you’re going to have to wait more to get inside to order.
• You don’t care about Nintendo details or you’re not familiar with Nintendo games.
• You want more variety. The menu here isn’t that large and you’re bound to find something with more variety outside of Super Nintendo World.

Overall

Overall, this space is wonderfully themed and really takes advantage of some of the most iconic characters and parts of the Mario universe (like those power-ups). Details like Chef Toad doing his thing in the background just add to the atmosphere.

In terms of the food, it’s a solid option. If you don’t mind paying $17 for a burger, the one here is done well (and who can resist that little Mario hat on top of it?). We might tell you to skip the cupcake, but everything else we tried was fun and tasty. The food’s theming is spot on and if you want to post some fun food photos on Instagram, this is where you’d want to do it.

What do you think? Would Toadstool Cafe be a must-do for you during a trip to Super Nintendo World? Tell us in the comments. And stay tuned for more Super Nintendo World news!

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The post REVIEW: You’ve Never Seen Food Like THIS at a Theme Park! first appeared on the disney food blog.

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