Ohana Restaurant Review Located at Walt Disney World

Ohana is a Hawaiian themed restaurant at the Polynesian Resort, located on the Walt Disney World Resort property in Orlando, Florida. Ohana's theme is "a place of family, laughter and sharing." Ohana serves breakfast and dinner. This review is for their dinner service.

Ohana's dinner service is what Disney terms as "family style." "Family style" means the food is served in big bowls and platters for the guests to serve themselves at their table. The food is also unlimited meaning that the guest can request more of any dish. Walt Disney World has this service at several of their restaurants. I thought this type of service was a Disney exclusive but I have encountered "family style" type of service at a few other restaurants since my last Disney vacation.

Like any restaurant, Ohana does occasionally change their menu. My review is for their menu as of September 2008. The starter was Ohana Welcome Bread and a mixed green salad with honey-lime dressing. The bread was great with an interesting coconut and pineapple flavor. The dressing on the mixed green salad was excellent.

The appetizers were pork dumplings in sweet in sour sauce, honey-coriander chicken wings, Asian noodles, and steam-fried broccoli. All of the appetizers were very good but my favorite was the pork dumplings. The dumpling were nice and crispy with a very full of flavor pork center. I wasn't a big fan of the broccoli only because I personally don't like broccoli but I did give it a try and found it cooked perfectly.

The main course is meat cooked on skewers. The skewers are cooked on a big open fire pit that can be viewed by most tables in the restaurant. The wait staff brings the skewers around and gives the guest three pieces of each meat. They come back several times throughout the meal incase the guest wants more. The four meats served were Asian barbecue pork loin, grilled shrimp, sirloin steak, and grilled turkey. We were also given three bowls of sauces to accompany the meat: peanut sauce, chimichurri sauce, and sweet and sour sauce. All of the grilled meats were great but my favorite was the sirloin steak with the peanut sauce. The peanut sauce was meant for the turkey but I thought it was great for the steak too.

The dessert was bread pudding a la mode with Bananas Foster Sauce. My waitress noticed it was my birthday so she also brought me a cupcake. I liked the cupcake better then the bread pudding but my dinner companion was a huge fan of the sauce for the bread budding.

The cost of dinner is $26.99 for each adult and $12.99 for children nine and under. The price includes coffee, tea, and soda. The price does seem a bit high but I found it very fair for the amount of food and selection that is offered.

Overall, the dinner was excellent, the service was excellent, and the atmosphere was great. The atmosphere is very family oriented with a Hawaiian host getting kids involved with games throughout the dinner. It can be loud, very loud at times but it didn't take away from the great food. I give the restaurant 5 out of 5 stars and I look forward to eating at Ohana again on my next Disney vacation.