Our family has never eaten at Pizzafari in Animal Kingdom, so I added it to my list of places for Joseph to try while he’s slaving away living it up in the Disney College Program.  I’d read that there was a Shrimp Flatbread and a Cannoli Cake dessert on the menu.  Both of those sounded promising.  Very recently, Raymond, Megan, Joseph and I had shared a couple of the Buffalo Chicken flatbread at the Contempo Café in the Contemporary and we were really happy with the quality and flavor.

Joseph, as one would expect from my child, offered this very honest, fair and balanced review…

Disney Dining – Animal Kingdom’s Pizzafari

-By Joseph Green

It was what you should expect from quick service pizza.  It looks appetizing with the drizzled pesto, arugula and spinach, and the seasoned shrimp, but the cheese and bread ruined it for me.

On first impression, the veggie mix tasted fresh and crisp in contrast to the chewy, flavorless bread and “cheese”.  The pesto added a nice flavor along with the shrimp which surprisingly wasn’t rubbery.  But after a second of thinking, “hm.. this isn’t bad at all, I kind of like this.”, I found myself having to chew longer and longer and longer.  All of those individual flavors mixed together until they were no longer discernible, which I fully blame on the bread and cheese.  The shrimp flatbread just became unappetizing after that.  I got tired of having to chew for long periods of time and holding those flavors in my mouth until they were one greasy blob.  (The flatbread came with a side salad, but I’m not a fan, so I can’t tell you how it tasted.  I did take a picture of it for you.)

The Cannoli Cake I rather liked.  The cake itself was moist and dense and maintained a rich, chocolatey flavor that I didn’t find overpowering.  The mini chocolate chips inside the cake were a surprising texture that I didn’t expect, but enjoyed very much.  Now, maybe I’ve been watching too much of The Great British Baking Show lately, but I didn’t particularly enjoy the cannoli.  It looked wonderful and the taste was nice, but the texture of the cannoli was all wrong to me.  I suppose I should’ve expected that though.  I mean, they are sitting in a refrigerator for possibly quite some time, which renders the cannoli soft, flexible, and slightly stale.  I recommend the cake, but the cannoli was nothing special.The Verdict:  With so many other truly great choices for a quick meal in Animal Kingdom, pass on Pizzafari…unless you go for dessert.