We returned to Tusker House Restaurant at Disney’s Animal Kingdom for the lunch buffet. Let’s see how it compares to our experience at breakfast.
Tusker House is located in Africa.
Interior
Characters
Each guest receives an autograph card. The card is the same for breakfast and lunch/dinner, with Daisey, Mickey, Goofy, and Donald preparing fresh food in their safari outfits.
Each of the four characters have signed the back of the card, but we also spotted them signing autograph books when they visited tables.
Donald Duck is the star of the show here. His safari outfit includes a green jacket, which is belted at the waist. His jacket is adorned with patches from his explorations, and he wears a pith helmet.
Daisy’s jacket is the tan color of Donald’s trim and vice versa. She pairs a floral ascot and bracelet with the outfit. Unlike her barefoot boyfriend, she dons brown shoes for a day in the wilderness.
Goofy, in his usual fashion, is wearing patchwork layers. His shirts are both pinstriped with lots of utility pockets. He also sports an ascot in bright colors.
Mickey is well-prepared for a day out on safari with his handy canteen and pith helmet. He has a utility vest and cargo shorts for plenty of storage, and practical brown shoes.
Buffet – $59 for Adults, $38 for Children
The same menu is served for lunch and dinner.
Bread Service
Bread service was brought to the table. The basket had an actual mini loaf of zebra bread, as opposed to the slice we got at breakfast. The zebra loaf is good, but a little dry.
The real star here is the rosemary bread with honey butter. It’s not your standard dinner roll; they did something different here and we appreciate it. It paid off, too, because these are to die for.
Starters
Breads and Dips
Mini Cornbread Muffins
Mini Zebra Loaves
These slices are the same as the loaf brought to the table.
Naan Bread
Honey-Rosemary Rolls
These are the same great rolls, but you can’t get the honey butter on the buffet line.
House-made Hummus
Mango Chutney
Whipped Butter
Turkey Cubes, Ham Cubes, Cheese Cubes, Kool Slai, & Grapes
Salads
Sambal Vinigairette, Coconut Curry Vinigairette
Kachumbari
Quinoa and Chickpea Salad, Black-eyed Pea Salad
Quinoa and chickpea salad has a very strong vinaigrette. It’s so vinegary that it’s almost spicy. Quinoa isn’t the most flavorful, so it works pretty well. It’s good.
The black-eyed pea salad is the same from the breakfast buffet. It’s a bit dry, but that was offset by the freshness of the tomato and cucumber.
Roasted Cauliflower Salad
This was great. The golden raisins offset the cauliflower nicely. Everything tastes fresh. We appreciate that all three are nice, refreshing salads, and quite different from a lot of other offerings on property. We would have more of these.
Salad Greens & Toppings
The toppings available during our visit included cucumber, sliced onion, shredded carrots, diced tomatoes, chickpeas, feta cheese, and croutons.
Curry Station
Jasmine Rice
Doro Wat Chicken Curry
It’s got a roasted flavor on the backend, real smoky. It’s interesting and pretty spicy. The chicken itself is great and very tender. If you’re averse to spice, it might be too much for you. We’d make a nice big plate of rice and chicken curry if we were here for a regular meal.
Green Curry Shrimp
Very fishy. The aftertaste is really off-putting. Avoid this.
Plant-based Station
Cauliflower Bunny Chow & Fiesty Green Beans
We weren’t sure what to expect from Cauliflower Bunny Chow and no description was given. It’s comprised of onions, potatoes, cauliflower, and chickpeas. The seasoning is nice. It’s a decent option.
As for the green beans, “fiesty” apparently means “sautéed with onions.” It was very oily, but not bad.
Plant-based Jollof Rice with Beyond Sausage
There’s something funky going on here. The seasoning in the rice is weird. It’s not good. The Beyond sausage tastes artificial too. It’s a plate of mush. Skip this.
Harira Soup
The Harira Soup is filled with chickpeas, lentils, vegetables. It’s exactly what you think it would taste like. The broth is well seasoned, but it’s grainy and dry.
Entrées and Sides
Tusker Market Mashed Potatoes
This was another dish with no description, so you don’t know what’s going on in these, but they aren’t plain mashed potatoes. They have what seems to be onion straws added. We found them to be buttery and delicious.
Za’atar Braised Beef with Crostini
This is not something you often see at a Walt Disney World buffet. The crostini has soaked up a lot of the flavors. The beef is tender and lean. You’ll enjoy it, especially if you like roast.
Macaroni and Cheese
The macaroni and cheese is so good and thick. It’s rich, creamy, and filling. If you want a lot on the buffet, go light on this (even though you’ll want more).
Red Skinned Potatoes
Those are great. Perfect seasoning, tender, and thick. Pick these over the roasted root vegetables.
Chermoula Salmon & Roasted Root Vegetables
The roasted root vegetables are very hard. They were clearly sitting there a while and undercooked.
This is a nice, thick piece of salmon. There’s nothing wrong with it, but we’ve had better buffet salmon.
Tandoori Spice-rubbed Rotisserie Chicken & Tandoori Sauce
The Tandoori sauce is a little sweeter than we prefer, but the chicken itself is good.
However, it was less seasoned than the chicken legs from the kids’ station.
Shawarma Station
Rotisserie Pork
Beef and Lamb Shawarma
Pretty decent. We’d eat this again. It’s beef and lamb, tastes like beef and lamb with the peppery flavor you’d expect.
Naan and Toppings
This section had another basket of naan and toppings to make your own sandwich.
There were diced tomatoes, sliced onion, and cucumber.
Condiments
Sweet and Spicy Mustard
Tazatziki Sauce & Coriander-Mint Chutney
Salsa & Ketchup
Kids’ Buffet
Corn & Green Beans
It’s corn. The green beans were cold. They’re fine. Picky eaters will find comfort in these familiar foods served standard.
Chicken Legs
The chicken legs were nice, tender, and very juicy. The seasoning was good without turning anyone away.
Mashed Potatoes
They were really cold but enjoyable.
Corn Dog Nuggets & Macaroni and Cheese
The corn dog nuggets are the same as Casey’s Corner, and they’re great. As delicious as ever.
The macaroni and cheese is the same as on the regular buffet line, which is to say that it’s great.
Dessert
Baby Flamingo & Baby Bee Cupcakes
These cupcakes are cute and have been featured in full size at Disney’s Animal Kingdom before. The “baby” versions are both standard cupcakes with no filling or special flavors. They’re fresh, soft, and moist.
The flamingo is vanilla while the bee is chocolate.
Plant-based Chocolate Mousse
The chocolate was rich and decadent. It has a hard milk chocolate bottom and fruit jelly, maybe raspberry, in the middle. We recommend these; they’re very good.
Pineapple Tarts
The chocolate leaf is large compared to the tart. We thought it tasted like lemon or orange at first. It’s definitely citrusy but not outwardly pineapple. It’s also the only fruity dessert other than the fruit salad.
African-layered Cookie Bar
The sunflower is just a big piece of sugar on top. It’s way too sweet to have on a cookie bar. The bar itself is very nutty.
S’mores Pop
This is the worst thing we had all day. It tastes like chemicals. The consistency is awful, it’s too chewy. Avoid this.
Fab Five Safari Brownie
Very, very chewy. We’ll be chewing this brownie for the next week. The flavors are decent, but it’s a glob of chocolate.
50th Anniversary EARidescent Sugar Cookies
We always like the sugar cookies. They’re good.
Double Chocolate Zebra Cookies
Pretty good. It’s a double chocolate cookie. The Disney World buffet cookies always taste like they’re from Costco.
Fresh Fruit Salad
Overall
The lunch/dinner buffet was far better than breakfast. There are plenty of options, and most people should be able to come up with a good meal. The choices were well-conceived and executed. We enjoyed how much variety there is to choose from and the prevalence of dishes you won’t find on the average buffet line.
The characters are great at making rounds and interacting with all guests. It’s expensive because it’s a character experience. All the characters were excellent, with some of the best interactions we’ve had at character dining.
We’d come back. Skip breakfast from Tusker House and schedule your day to end here; it’s a good cap to the park experience.
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