When you wake up after a refreshing stay in your version of Andy’s room at the Toy Story Hotel, you have the choice to visit Lotso’s garden once again for breakfast before a busy day at Tokyo Disneyland or Tokyo DisneySea. So naturally, we headed down to the second floor for another meal at the Lotso Garden Cafe.
Interior
The Lotso Garden Cafe is located just off the lobby to the right, cleverly themed as a storybook. We presume the portrayal of Lotso is more in line with how his fictional designers would imagine him than as the scheming villain of “Toy Story 3”.
Right at the entrance, guests are greeted with a Lotso statue and photo op, which nearby Cast Members will gladly assist diners with.
Throughout the restaurant are faux trees in a flat art style cleverly hidden within support columns.
Murals throughout the restaurant depict Lotso in his garden with the animals, harvesting fruits for all to enjoy.
A giant lit rainbow also bisects most of the restaurant.
The table design is pretty basic, with plain white tables flanked by green or orange chairs. Booths feature green upholstery.
It’s fairly spacious inside, certainly enough to hold more than 100 guests at a time.
The buffet features two identical areas, with both offering the same food. It’s useful to bounce back and forth if you’re looking for the cuter items to be replenished.
As Japan is still taking precautions against COVID-19, guests are required to sanitize their hands and wear gloves at all times when using the buffet.
There’s certainly plenty to try for breakfast, and you sure won’t be hungry by the time you leave. So let’s try everything on the menu.
Breakfast Buffet
Steamed Vegetables
While still better than the grilled vegetables we had at dinner, the assortment of carrots, cauliflower, and worst of all, broccoli, was just horribly unappealing. The carrots were fine; the rest were not in the least.
Pancakes
These delightful pancakes are made in the kitchen and heated on a griddle in front of guests. The strawberry imprint is also done in front of guests on the buffet, which makes for a fun display if you catch the chef doing it.
These err more towards traditional American pancakes than the Japanese souffle-style we would’ve expected, but they are still a bit dry. Nonetheless, we absolutely enjoyed this and recommend asking the chef for a few.
Your choice of maple syrup, mixed berry sauce, and chocolate sauce is also available to top your pancake.
Pizza-Style Sausage Tortillas
Sadly we found these to be rather lackluster, and rather confusing at that. Where the “pizza-style” came from is beyond us, since they bear zero resemblance to pizza except for the cheese on top, which was closer to Velveeta than real cheese. The sausage is dry, the cheese is stale, and they were always cold, even after trying a seemingly fresh batch. Pass.
Assorted Sausages
Fairly standard sausage links and potatoes, with a pleasant and juicy flavor. One of the western options that hit more close to home for sure. Ketchup and mustard are also on offer.
Bacon & Vegetables
Right next to those is, unfortunately, the bacon and vegetables. If you’ve never had bacon in Japan, it’s nothing like bacon in the US. They serve it more like a cross between the US version and Canadian bacon, with a larger and thicker slab of pork that’s chewy rather than crunchy. It’s unpleasant normally, but combined with Tokyo Disney Resort’s signature flavorless grilled vegetables makes it even more of an unfortunate addition.
Minestrone
Thank god minestrone is hard to mess up, because the version sold at our parks is always a welcome addition. A slightly watery take on the tomato soup with onions and beans makes this a fine if slightly unconventional addition to the breakfast menu.
Simmered Pork
And now we come to the Japanese section of the buffet. Fortunately, this pork was actually quite excellent! Served warm in a delicious soy sauce mixture, the meat had a juicy, chewy profile that made it a pleasant addition to our plate.
Thick Fried Tofu and Mizuna Salad
This is where we started to lose interest in the more Japanese offerings. Tofu, by its very nature, is rather tasteless, so there wasn’t a whole lot here to enjoy in either direction than just mush. Combine that with plain greens, and we just felt like this was rather pointless on the face of it.
Baby Sardines with Grated Daikon
Sardines? No. Daikon radish? Doubly no. Hard pass from us, but it could be natto, so that’s a net positive.
Salt-Grilled Horse Mackerel
Like the salmon from dinner, this was served cold, which made the fish dry, particularly a problem since it was salt-grilled. If this had been more fresh, we would’ve enjoyed it immensely.
Nozawana
Nozawana is a pickled and leafy vegetable, which probably puts into mind exactly how it tastes. It’s milder than something like kale or chard but still not great if you’re expecting something more along the lines of spinach or asparagus.
Stir-Fried Burdock and Carrots
Plain roots mixed in with bland carrots, it’s truly nothing special and certainly not worth moving everything over for.
Egg Salad
It’s hard to go wrong with egg salad, and making it themed to a Pixar ball is a doubly nice touch! It’s a pleasant egg salad, with a nice whipped texture to it that doesn’t overwhelm.
Soy Milk and Pumpkin Soup
The smooth, savory taste of pumpkin is watered down ever so slightly, but not unrecognizably, by the soy milk. We took two of these and downed them like shots; it was quite nice!
Potato Salad
Bo Peep potato salad: both cute and delicious! The ribbon pasta on top is a nice touch and purely decorative, but the potato salad had a nice balance of mush and chunks along with a couple of vegetables to give some extra flavor.
Smoked Salmon and Vegetable Salad
When you pick out the broccoli, this was quite pleasant! The vegetables we got were cucumber, bell pepper, tomato, and onion, which all went well with the juicy and tender salmon meat.
Strawberry Carrot Salad
Still just as confusing as at dinner. Where the “strawberry” was supposed to be, we weren’t entirely sure. These tasted like shredded carrots soaked in vinegar, not at all a pleasant flavor that just ruins these entirely.
Ratatouille
A nice nod to a fellow Pixar film, this one takes more the appearance of a chunky salsa rather than anything you might recognize from the film or a quick Google search. Any other flavors that might’ve been present were almost entirely lost behind the very strong tomato base, which is not necessarily how it’s supposed to be.
Fruit Salad
Imagine a giant punch bowl filled with canned Dole fruit salad. That’s what this is.
Blue Yogurt
Plain yogurt, but blue. It’s not special, really. But it does remind us of the blue sky background in the hotel room.
Panna Cotta with Blueberry Sauce
This subtly sweet panna cotta was surprisingly faithful to our idea of the Italian dessert, with a lightly sweet cream cheese flavor combined with just the right amount of blueberry. Grab a couple of these; it’s well worth it.
Yogurt
Once again, just plain yogurt. If you like that sort of thing, this is perfect for you.
You can add these fruit sauces to your yogurt to give it a bit more flavor. And yes, we know the signs were backward.
Salads
Just like at dinner, an assortment of greens was available to add to your plate, along with three types of dressing.
Bread Au Gratin with Mixed Berry Sauce
This was essentially bread pudding, and a pretty good execution of it at that! It cut quite easily, and had a pleasantly sweet taste that made us wish they sold this in other locations around Tokyo Disney Resort. Grab half of this if you can; it was among our favorites at the buffet.
Eggs and Potatoes
Hard to go wrong here, although for a $22 buffet, we would expect a bit better than powdered eggs alongside rather plain potatoes. One thing’s for sure — seasoning was definitely missed here, and something they should’ve incorporated.
Berry Jelly and Mango Pudding
These were delightful, with delicious blackberry, strawberry, and cranberry in the berry jelly, and a milky mango taste for the pudding, which creates a pleasant experience.
Fruits
The melon, pineapple, and orange slices were all fine enough, although the former two most likely had been frozen before.
Cereals
It’s hard to say anything special (positive or negative) about standard breakfast cereal. There were chocolate Cheerios, Corn Flakes, and granola.
Beverages
Guests also have a choice of coffees and teas available with their meal. Three Coke Freestyle stations were also ready, two at each buffet and one at the back of the restaurant.
All in all, Lotso Garden Cafe’s breakfast buffet is still better than dinner, but that’s not a difficult bar to clear. We found more that we loved here, but it still left something to be desired. Buffets are a field we would love to see them improve upon at Tokyo Disney Resort, but it seems the reforms and updates we’ve started to see across some menus around the resort just haven’t made it yet.
Even if the resort was open to those without reservations, we wouldn’t recommend a dedicated trip. But if you’re already at the resort, you might as well give it a go.
Lotso Garden Cafe is open 6:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. for breakfast every day, and reservations for both the restaurant and a stay at the Toy Story Hotel are required to dine.
What would you want to try from the Lotso Garden Cafe? Let us know in the comments below!
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The post REVIEW: Lotso Garden Buffet Breakfast at Toy Story Hotel Leaves Us Full But Not Satisfied at Tokyo Disney Resort appeared first on WDW News Today.