Café Osceola at Rosen Shingle Creek: This my best pick for a holiday buffet. Over 44 dishes will be offered, including holiday favorites, carving stations, desserts galore, and unlimited champagne mimosas. It's served all day long on December 25, from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.  Cost is $65.95 per person or $29.95 kids (4-12 yrs. Old); kids under 3 years old eat free. Plus complimentary valet parking and a 25% discount for Florida residents.

The Ciao Italia family, photo courtesy www.ciaoitaliaonline.com

Disney is full of numbers. There are 101 Dalmations, Club 33, D23 and now at Downtown Disney, Paradiso 37. Since the closing of the Pleasure Island clubs last year, many wonder what will be the fate of the Downtown Disney area. The Marketplace has a great draw thanks to the incredible shopping options it offers Disney fanatics, but on the other side of the center is the void created by the closing of the Pleasure Island dance clubs.

Raglan Road, a delicious Irish restaurant, is the one of the quieter area’s saving graces, but now with Paradiso 37, it’s obvious the west side of Downtown Disney is slowly coming back to life. Located opposite the Harley Davidson store, Paradiso 37 offers the best street food inspired cuisine from all of the American continents; North, South and Central. In keeping with the numbers theme, they feature an incredible tequila bar with 37 varieties of tequila from across the globe. For the margarita lovers, the restaurant boasts ten different varieties, with the mango margarita as their signature drink.

The food selections are inspired by 37 different countries in the Americas. The menu has a wide range of options from American macaroni and cheese to El Salvadorian pupusas, so you’re sure to enjoy your own culinary journey in the restaurant’s airy atmosphere. We love to start off our meal with the Queso Fundido, a delicious pot of the chef’s special melted cheeses flavored with cilantro and chiles. Have your cheese with either warm flour tortillas or crispy tortilla chips. For your main course, a great choice for a big appetite is the Paradiso 37 Surf and Turf. Enjoy grilled BBQ shrimp and Argentinean skirt steak served with corn on the cob and street style potato pancakes. Last but not least, a great dessert to try is the Paradiso 37 sundae. Beautifully presented in a fresh coconut shell, this sundae brings vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice creams with chocolate dipped bananas. This sinful sundae is topped with chocolate sauce, sprinkles, whipped cream and the quintessential cherry. Lunch and Dinner menus are available from the restaurant as well as a large alcohol menu.

The interior is fun and colorful with a great patio seating option that lets you look out at the rest of Downtown Disney and its shimmering lake. Everything is presented with its own flair, from the bubble glasses you get with your water to the colorful furniture and tequila bottle chandeliers overhead. It’s a great place to settle down after a long day of shopping at the Downtown Disney Marketplace and enjoy the various live entertainment Paradiso 37 plans to have every night. This is a great start to reviving the wonderful entertainment, dining and shopping complex that is Downtown Disney.

Even though Spoodles within Disney’s BoardWalk Inn a beloved favorite among Disney guests, it’s time to bid the restaurant goodbye – and then wave hello to a new, even better restaurant that will be taking its place. Disney has announced that celebrity chef Cat Cora will be partnering with Walt Disney World to open a new family dining restaurant at the BoardWalk resort. Kouzzina by Cat Cora will feature a menu of Mediterranean-style cuisine and is the most highly anticipated restaurant to come to Disney for quite some time.

“I am pleased to welcome Cat Cora and her engaging new concept for Kouzzina to the Walt Disney World Resort,” said Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. “This collaboration between Cat and Disney represents a significant step in our ongoing commitment to offer unique culinary experiences and choices for our guests."

Paying homage to the chef’s Greek roots, Kouzzina will showcase Mediterranean cuisine while staying true to Chef Cora’s philosophy of simple yet sensational meals. A Mississippi native born to a family of Greek restaurateurs, Cora grew up immersed in two different and flavorful cultures and has taken from that unique background her know-how around the kitchen. Appropriately, Kouzzina (pronounced “koo-zee-nah”) is Greek for “kitchen.”

Cora said that the new restaurant will feature “time-honored recipes passed down from my ancestors, as well as my favorite Greek and Mediterranean dishes that my family loves.”

The first and only female Iron Chef on Food Network’s hit show Iron Chef America, Cora is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York and the Executive Chef for Bon Appétit magazine. This won’t be Cora’s first venture with Disney, either; she’s been a featured chef at the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival and at Disney’s California Food & Wine Festival at Disneyland Resort. Cora also began working with Disney in 2008 by creating a Disney Video on Demand series to showcase ways to help families develop more healthy eating habits.

“I’m extremely excited about this latest extension of my relationship with Disney,” Cora added. “Together, we’re going to develop a truly amazing contemporary Mediterranean restaurant.”
Kouzzina will be one of a just a few celebrity chef-helmed restaurants at Walt Disney World, joining Todd English’s bluezoo at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort, and the Wolfgang Puck Café in Downtown Disney. And though the opening is still a long way off (Fall 2009), Disney diners are already eagerly awaiting this new addition to Disney’s BoardWalk. In the meantime, be sure to check out Spoodles while it’s still open, and while you’re at it, take a walk over to Epcot, which is conveniently close by. As always, you can save extra on Walt Disney World tickets by getting them here at DWTickets.com.

If you’re planning on celebrating Thanksgiving in Orlando this year, whether you’re a vacationer or a resident, you’ve made a great choice. There are plenty of excellent dining options for Turkey Day, so slaving over a hot stove isn’t necessary. But with so many restaurants to choose from, trying to pick where to have your holiday feast can be a daunting task. Never fear though – we’ve selected some of the Orlando’s tastiest Thanksgiving specials, so that this holiday, your most stressful decision will be choosing which pair of loose pants to wear.

Close to Walt Disney World in Celebration, Florida, the Columbia Restaurant continues to serve their holiday feast as they’ve done for more than 100 years. Columbia will offer all the traditional treats that your grandmother used to make: roast Vermont turkey, Columbia’s signature stuffing, veggies, whipped potatoes, candied yams, cranberry sauce, and giblet gravy. And downtown, amid views of the fantastic Orlando skyline, Doc’s Restaurant is offering a delicious four-course Thanksgiving Day menu with hot cider, pumpkin bisque or Plymouth Bay chowder, and choices of oven-roasted Vermont turkey, roasted prime rib, New England baked cod, and brown sugar and honey mustard glazed ham. You’ll definitely feel stuffed and satisfied after dining at either of these two appetizing options.

If you’re staying at the Walt Disney Parks or Resorts, dining there is certainly a convenient and delicious alternative. At Disney’s Contemporary Resort, the California Grill is offering turkey with chestnut stuffing, whipped potatoes, beef filets with sweet potatoes, and pecan pie. Be sure to request a table by the windows, so that you can see the Magic Kingdom fireworks show for a spectacular view during your dinner. At Artist Point at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort, you’ll also enjoy nice views of the neighboring streams while you eat a Turkey Day feast of soup, salad, fresh greens, wine, and of course, turkey.

Inside the Disney parks, all the restaurants will be open, many offering Thanksgiving-themed buffets, special Thanksgiving Day menus, or prix-fixe meals. And at select locations, such as the Liberty Tree Tavern in Magic Kingdom, fun Disney characters can join in on your family feast.

At Universal Studios Orlando, there are also plenty of tasty dining choices. At the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel, Mama Della’s Ristorante will be cooking up a maple-roasted turkey dinner with all the trimmings, including oyster cornbread, oven-roasted mushrooms, and garlic and herb mashed potatoes. It’s a romantic and classy setting for your Thanksgiving meal, and you’ll love dining to the sound of the strolling musicians.

And for those who like to enjoy their Thanksgiving meal extra-early (or for those who simply don’t want to wait until nighttime to enjoy the yummy goodness), Villa de Flora restaurant at the Gaylord Palms Resort is offering an all-day Thanksgiving brunch. Their menu, which will vary throughout the day, will offer delicious breakfast dishes such as Belgian waffles and apple crepes, as well as dinnertime delights such as turkey with sage gravy, sweet potato casserole, and fall harvest vegetable lasagna. The Thanksgiving brunch buffet at the Celebration Hotel’s Plantation Room Restaurant is another excellent option for the early diner. They’ll offer delicious entrees like hand-carved Virgina Ham and Granny Smith Apple-Vegetable Turkey, and savory sides like honey cornbread stuffing and spiced butternut squash. The brunch is offered at 10:30 am, 1:30 pm, and 3:30 pm.

And we haven’t forgotten our vegan readers – you can enjoy vegan versions of a traditional Thanksgiving feast at the Drunken Monkey Coffee Bar. There’ll be tofurkey, vegan stuffing, and veggie sides like gingered carrots and curried squash.

Ultimately, no matter which location you choose, you can’t go wrong having your Thanksgiving dinner in an Orlando restaurant. Our stomachs are already growling at the thought of dining at these flavorful eateries.