Confisco Dining at Islands of Adventure

Confisco Dining Review

It has been a few months since I last dined at Universal Orlando. I have just given up on the food there. Even my favorite restaurants at Universal property have gotten worse. My favorite was Mama Dellas at Portofino hotel. This had delicious food and even if it was a bit pricey, I didn’t care, I felt like the value was there. Singers on the balcony while dining outside, excellent service, delicious food, AND it was on Universal property. Adding onto the fact of how amazing Portofino is, and that you get included express pass when you stay there, I just love everything about it. AND it was the only restaurant on Universal property with DELCIOUS food. NBC Grill was another restaurant with good food, but unfortunately that has taken a large step back as of late. Mythos has been waving its best theme park restaurant around for years, but I can say that’s not true. There just aren’t many places where you can get decent food there.

I am already going off script to talk trash about the food at Universal… I just find it unfortunate that they don’t put the investment in their food. Epic Universe made some steps in this area, but it is grossly overpriced.

Two small paragraphs in and I haven’t discussed the main event. Confisco in Islands of Adventure. This is located in the Port of Entry and one I have walked right by it hundreds of times. Currently, my love for theme parks is more focused on dining instead of the rides so I finally got to eat there. The only time I actually walked in was to hide from the rain and lightning one day.

It was a very easy reservation to get, and we walked into a very empty restaurant even at prime dinner time. This should have been a good clue. It took a few minutes after checking in with the host to be seated and it was EMPTY. We got a table right by the window and sat there for several minutes before someone came over. We got our waters and got a quesadilla as an appetizer.

We figured they would bring it out with the rest of the food because we were sitting there for 30 minutes without anyone bringing anything to our table. Our waters were empty due to the heat of the day, and no one showed up for half an hour.

The quesadilla came out alone and was bland. Nothing fantastic about it at all, I could have made it at the house for much cheaper. $14.95 for this appetizer and it was mediocre.

It took another 15-20 minutes to get our main courses. I got the pork belly handheld sandwich and what came out was interesting. I had pork belly before at Steakhouse 71 at Disney and it was incredible. It almost melted in my mouth and was flavorful. This pork belly was chewy. And there wasn’t much pork belly on the sandwich roll. It was one of the worst proportioned sandwiches I have ever had.; it was 85% bread,10% arugula with 5% pork belly. It was $20.95 for that dish and it was just not close to what was appropriate for that price point.

We also tried the grilled angus beef churrasco steak for $29.95 and it was DRY. Not much flavor to it, even the chimichurri couldn’t save it.

The last entrée we got was the pad thai for $25.95 and this was once again, incredibly average for a steep price.  

This was the Universal dining experience. The server was very nice, but the food took a long time, and the food just was not good. Another knock on this place is the water refill time. We were sitting there for an hour before we got our entrees and only got one glass of water that we finished in the first 10-15 minutes. It is 95 degrees. That has to get a couple points off for that.

I think what frustrates me the most is how much potential Universal has. They have made incredible investments inside of their parks to deliver world-class attractions. Created themed merchandise locations, made great parades, they have incredible events like Mardi Gras, Christmas, and Halloween Horror Nights. Everything is so strong, they have a great lineup of offerings. But food…. They really drop the ball. Disney destroys them with food and beverage. A big step taken at Epic but more needs to be taken.