The new menu items at The Friar’s Nook in Magic Kingdom were on my wish list for Joseph’s dining reviews.  Lucky guy, he possesses both the metabolism and intestinal fortitude to try food items I would not.  The other day he had a chance to pop over to Magic Kingdom and grab a snack before checking out the newest version of Pirates of the Caribbean.  Here’s what he had to say about all of it. (Good job on the pics this time, Joseph!)

Magic Kingdom – Tater Tots, Fried Twinkies & Pirates – According to Joe

By Joseph Green

I knew The Friar’s Nook was in Fantasyland, but having never eaten there, it took me a minute to locate the restaurant.  Like many of Disney’s quick service snack shacks, the menu is small.  My choices were limited to tots, tots, tots, hotdog and tots, and the fried Twinkie.  I zeroed in on the Loaded Fiesta Tots (currently $9.49) and the Twinkie with chocolate sauce (currently $4.99).  There’s an assortment of sauces offered which also includes vanilla, strawberry, and caramel.

The Fiesta Tots were surprisingly good.  They’re topped with chili, cheese sauce, pico de gallo, and jalapenos.  Like those fries in the Refreshment Port’s poutine, the tots were hot, fresh and crispy.  The chili wasn’t greasy, but with the cheese sauce, might have been too heavy without the pico de gallo and peppers, which added just the right amount of freshness to this snack.  It didn’t hurt that the appearance of this tot concoction was really appetizing.  For what it’s worth – this tasted like something I could get at Taco Bell (I like Taco Bell).

Now, let’s talk about that Twinkie.  It looked harmless enough covered with powdered sugar and the chosen chocolate topping.  Unfortunately, frying a Twinkie causes it to lose much of its Twinkie-ness.  I’m not sure how to describe the texture, but it was denser than the non-fried version and less spongy.  The cream filling was gone completely.  It was a sweet, battered, fried dessert…if that’s your thing, you might like it.  Think funnel cake in log form.

A few words about Pirates.  I went to see the new Redhead and was blindsided by the changes that came before that part of the ride.  The mermaid skeleton is gone and the beach looks barren and unadorned, not to mention less menacing.  I liked it the other way better – menacing set the right tone and added just the right creepy feeling at this point in the ride.  The Auction scene looks great!  I was expecting the dialogue to be at least as funny as the old version and for me, it fell a bit short.  This was a missed opportunity to make the change more acceptable to those who didn’t want it.  I think it could have been a lot better or at least more clever.

Watch for my Blaze Pizza review coming soon and thanks for reading…Joe