Yak & Yeti Local Foods Café Review
Yak & Yeti Local Foods Café in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Anandapur Asia is a quick service restaurant at Walt Disney World serving Asian cuisine (menu) that combines flavors from China, India and Nepal. This review features food photos from Yak & Yeti’s counter service arm, plus our thoughts on the restaurant.
For starters, some background. This Walt Disney World dining option is open for both lunch and dinner, and offers outdoor seating in a detailed outdoor courtyard. This restaurant goes by no less than three names; the one titling this review is its “official” Walt Disney World name, but it’s also known as Yak & Yeti Counter Service and the Anandapur Local Food Cafe.
Popular menu items include the Mandarin chicken salad, kung pao beef and pork egg rolls. This restaurant participates in the Disney Dining Plan as a counter service credit. It does not accept the Tables in Wonderland card for a 20% discount. As far as value goes, Yak & Yeti Counter Service is neither a good nor bad value on the Disney Dining Plan (see our ranking of the best value quick service restaurants here).
Starting first with theming, Yak & Yeti Counter Service is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, unlike other counter service restaurants, it doesn’t have an indoor seating area. You order from little cashier islands, then pick up your food from a window.
That’s the extent of the “restaurant,” which is really just a part of the larger Yak & Yeti Restaurant (hence the name). We typically overlook restaurants like this that are simple order windows, as we feel we don’t get as much out of the experience. However, Animal Kingdom seems to execute this concept pretty well…
As with Flame Tree BBQ and Harambe Market, Yak & Yeti nails the outdoor seating concept. It actually has a rather sizable outdoor seating area, with a lot of detail and a nice water feature prominent.
We’ve heard that this seating area is packed during peak times, but it was relatively dead when we visited. I don’t doubt that it does get busy, but when we visited few other guests were around. It was very tranquil.
As for food, Yak & Yeti Counter Service has changed quite a bit over the last few years. On our first visit, Sarah ordered the Beef Lo Mein and I ordered the Asian Chicken Sandwich. (
I was disappointed to find my sandwich wrapped up deli style with a bag of Sun Chips as a side. I harp on presentation at Counter Service restaurants, and maybe others don’t see why, but this is a big deal to me. This felt like the kind of sandwich I could pick up from a Wal-Mart deli in Anytown, U.S.A., not a Disney meal.
At Sunshine Seasons, my sandwich would have been served on a plate with real sides, instead of “real world” chips. It also wouldn’t have been more expensive than the $9.99 price here (if memory serves me correctly, it would’ve been cheaper). Again, perhaps this is an entirely personal thing. I just appreciate the “Disney touches” even in dining.
The sandwich itself was actually pretty good. The dressing was really good and the Ciabatta bread, which can easily be dry and tough, was perfect. Still, it was just a typical deli sandwich. Although, in fairness to the restaurant, I probably should have expected a typical deli sandwich given that I ordered a typical deli sandwich.
Sarah’s Beef Lo Mein was slightly over-salted, but the portion was fairly large. Actually, it was huge. She could only eat about half of it and I finished the rest. For $10.99 and no side, it should be pretty large, though. Besides the salt, taste was actually pretty decent.
It was comparable to what you might order at a Panda Express or other American “Asian” food chain. It wasn’t overly inspired, but what do you expect for counter service? All things considered, it was pretty good. It was also hot despite us visiting when there were no crowds, so I suppose it should get some points for that.
(Note: this menu item has been replaced by the Teriyaki Beef Bowl.)
We’ve been back to Yak & Yeti Local Foods Cafe a few times since first reviewing it, and have tried other items. Above is the Ginger Chicken Salad. It looks like a garden variety salad (ha!), but we found it to be high quality and having a unique flair.
On subsequent visits to Yak & Yeti, we’ve found ourselves far more impressed by the food than on that first visit. It’s probably our own fault for ordering an ordinary sandwich at this otherwise reasonably unique restaurant.
Other items have been added…and removed…from the Yak & Yeti counter service menu since then, so we won’t offer an overview of what you can’t order.
As of January 7, 2017 (the date this review was last updated), Yak & Yeti Local Foods Cafe has also expanded its menu to include a couple of “safe” options to complement its otherwise exotic tastes. These items are the American Kobe Beef Cheeseburger and American Kobe Beef Hot Dog. Ignore the “Kobe Beef” in the description here, it’s a meaningless (unregulated) distinction that is not indicative of quality here. These are an average Walt Disney World burger and hot dog, not anything special. Still, if you have people in your party who are picky eaters, this can help make Yak & Yeti an attractive, crowd-pleasing option.
Overall, Yak & Yeti Counter Service is yet another good counter service option in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It offers menu items that are a departure from the standard, which earns it some praise. In some cases, portions are larger than Walt Disney World norms, too. Since our first visit here, we’ve gradually become fans of the place, which typically offers hearty portions for reasonable (by Disney standards) prices. The exception to this is the “Kobe Beef” stuff, but we wouldn’t recommend these, anyway. If you’re only eating at one counter service restaurant in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, you probably shouldn’t spend it at Yak & Yeti Counter Service. (In that case, you should be avoiding all counter service restaurants that aren’t named “Flame Tree BBQ.”) Still, it’s not a bad choice for Walt Disney World veterans or those looking for Asian cuisine. What are your thoughts on Yak & Yeti?
We have eaten there a couple of times when Yak and Yeti (the table service restaurant) was too busy and enjoyed it. The seating area is really nice.
We ate here yesterday. Indeed, kind of disappointing. My son, who is normally an adventuress eater decided he wanted a Hot Dog. It’s only after he went off to get a table did I realize that it was a “kobe” hot dog, for 14 bucks.. so basically $20 in Canadian funds lol.. He did eat the whole thing but said it tasted no different than a regular (non-kobe) hot dog. My daughter had the beef bowl and I had the two egg rolls and fried rice. Egg rolls were quite good, but the bowl and rice were quite blah.
We are currently at WDW this week. I ate lunch at Yak & Yeti this week for lunch. They have changed their menu quite a bit. I went to order the beef noodles with veggies, but they no longer have them. All options now come in a black rectangular tray with white rice, some sauced veggies, and a meat. (Honey chicken, sesame chicken, or beef with mushrooms. They also had a vegetarian option) I tried the beef. The veggies were crunchy, and the meat tender. The workers informed me that the menu changed 3 weeks ago due to customer request.
As a full meal, this is not great. But the fries are very thin cut and nice, and the egg roll is fantastic. On a hot day we get a side of two rolls and fries, and this gets us our salt for the day, in a tasty & inexpensive manner. My SO actually craves their egg rolls!
By the way, this isn’t the Yak & Yeti restaurant that people enjoy and talk about. Yak & Yeti Local Foods is a totally different thing from the indoor restaurant, with a totally different menu.
Correct, this is the counter service location, not the table service Yak & Yeti Restaurant.
Have you had a chance to try the indoor restaurant yet? We are planning our first trip to Disney World and using your recommendations as a checklist for places we should go (thanks!). We didn’t consider Yak & Yeti because we didn’t realize there was a whole other place that supposedly has really awesome duck.
Hey Tom, I agree with 99% of your posts and reviews. But I have to disagree with the semi-low rating on Yak & Yeti. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it when we ate there for lunch last fall, 2013. She had the Sweet and Sour Chicken (kind of hard to screw up I suppose), but I had the Malaysian Seafood Curry which was out of this world. I want to go back to Yak & Yeti just for that meal! I know you have to review off of what you eat and whether it’s for sit down or counter service dining, so maybe next time try out the Malaysian Seafood Curry, you won’t be disappointed!
Awesome blog!
I’ve never eaten at the counter service, but my boyfriend and I ate at the table service Yak & Yeti in 2012 and I was disappointed. Granted, we live in Vancouver, which has awesome Chinese and other Asian food. This stuff just seemed overcooked (limp vegetables will always put me off)and over salted.
However, I had the mango pie for dessert and it was pretty amazing. I would recommend that and the ambiance of the inside, but it fell pretty flat to me!
We ate here on our last visit a couple of years ago and was actually one of our favorite counter service meals, even if we did have to sit outside on a blistering hot day.
I worked at Disney and I used to just run over to Animal Kingdom to eat there! Their orange chicken is amazing. You get a lot for a decent price!
Meh.
I agree that this place is basically of mall chinese food quality. For counter service there is really only one choice for me at AK, and that would be Flame Tree BBQ.
I feel the same way! One of the downsides of having a blog is that you often “can’t” eat at your favorite places because you have to try new things (I haven’t done Flame Tree since 2010). The upside is the same–forcing yourself outside your comfort zone and trying new things that you end up loving!
Unfortunately, at Animal Kingdom, the latter has yet to happen…
I got the Fried Rice there as a snack in Nov 2011. While it wasn’t the best Fried Rice I’ve ever had, I thought it was a great “meal use” of a snack credit!
Next time, I must try Flame Tree. I’ve yet to eat there! (We usually eat TS and then snack.)
We don’t spend a lot of time in Animal Kingdom. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a counter service meal there, in fact. We have had lunch at the bar inside the Yak & Yeti restaurant a couple times, though. We enjoy their appetizers quite a lot. It’s something I would recommend if you want some of the pan-Asian offerings but don’t want to visit the counter service again.