We’re just going to say it straight: There’s not a ton of awesome options for dining in the Magic Kingdom.

Compared to other parks (and EPCOT especially), the options for delicious food in this park are a little more limited. But there are definitely still a couple of fan-favorite spots around, and we’re heading to one of them today to try out a few dishes. Yee-haw! We’ll meet you over in Frontierland!

Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe is a good quick-service (fast food-style) restaurant with an even better backstory. Pecos Bill was first introduced as a character in the 1948 Disney film Melody Time, where he became known as “the meanest, toughest, roughest cowboy of them all.” According to the legend, Pecos Bill was raised by Coyotes in Texas, where he invented “all things western, from rodeos to cowboy dancing, to spurs, hats, and lassos. He can draw faster, shoot straighter, and ride a horse harder than any man alive.”

After lots of epic adventures (including riding a tornado like a bucking bronco — how’s that for a tall tale?), Pecos Bill finally settled down and opened a cafe in — you guessed it — Frontierland. Where else?

Atmosphere

Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe is decorated like an Old West Saloon, with Western-style architecture and decorations from all of Pecos Bill’s adventures.

Make sure to look for the Code of the West and Pecos Bill’s backstory, which are written on rawhide inside the restaurant.

Inside, since this is a quick-service spot, there are counters where you can go to order your food…

…or you can use Mobile Order on your phone to order instead. The Mobile Order pick-up stations are marked with signs overhead.

Nearby, there are stations to grab napkins and plastic cutlery.

There used to be an infamous “Miles Long Toppings Bar” at this spot (which was one of our favorite things ever), but unfortunately it’s not being offered right now. Don’t worry though — you can still get lots of those toppings. More on that in a sec.

Once you’ve got your food, you can head into the dining rooms to find a place to sit. Yes, we said dining roomS. This place has no shortage of seating, which makes it a great option if you have a big group and want to find a place to sit down in the air conditioning for a while. The main dining room is very large, and it imitates eating outside in a marketplace-style setting.

Other, smaller dining rooms have even more seating options. In these spots, you’ll find more Pecos Bill decor, including treasures from some of his famous friends.

Make sure to look around at the decor once you’ve found your table!

Now that we’ve seen the restaurant itself, let’s check out some of the FOOD here.

Eats

Above the counter at the ordering stations, you’ll find the menus for this spot. There are some Southwest-style dishes and Mexican-inspired foods as well. You can get a Fajita Platter, Southwest Salad, Beef Nachos, or a Veggie Rice Bowl (which you can add Chicken or Pork Carnitas to).

You can also try a Taco Trio if you can’t decide on just one flavor, or there’s a Bacon Cheeseburger if you’re not in the Southwest food kind of mood.

There are several options for kids’ meals, as well as some sides, desserts, and drinks. You can get a standard Coke product soda here or try out the Lemonade Strawberry Slushy.

In the short time between us eating here and getting this review up, Pecos Bill added a few more options to their menu. Here’s what it’s looking like now. There’s a 1971 meal (beef nachos, rice, a drink, and a cake pop) here in honor of Disney World’s 50th Anniversary. You can also get “The Big Al,” which is a Double Bacon Cheeseburger with Maple Whiskey Barbecue Sauce.

And don’t forget about dessert! This spot got a couple of 50th Anniversary treats, including the Bear Tracks Slushy and EARidescent Nugget Churros. Or you can try the Powdered Cinnamon-Sugar Doughnut Holes or Greek Yogurt for a lighter option.

We decided to try out a few different meals here.

First, we grabbed the Pork Carnitas Rice Bowl for $11.99.

This bowl comes with yellow saffron rice, which is topped with seasoned shredded pork, grilled peppers and onions, black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, and salsa. In our case, the lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, and salsa were served on the side so we could add them ourselves if we wanted to.

We thought the saffron rice had a great texture to it, and there was a lot of it in this bowl. It was really filling, and there were plenty of black beans, peppers, and onions as well.

Unfortunately, we thought the veggies were a little under-cooked. They weren’t really cooked like fajita veggies.

The black beans were fine — just your normal black beans. And the pork had a pretty unique flavor to it. We thought it tasted more like ham and not really like a Mexican-style pulled pork. If you’re hoping for something that’s more lightly seasoned, this is a surprisingly safe bet.

The seasoned tortilla strips on top would have been a great texture addition with a little crunch…but they were actually getting soggy towards the end of our meal, which was disappointing. So we recommend eating those pretty quickly if you get this meal.

We also bought the Beef Nachos for $10.99.

Can’t get much more simple and straightforward than this — tortilla chips covered in seasoned ground beef and queso, plus lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, shredded cheese, and salsa on the side. Basically the big goodies from the ol’ toppings bar guests used to help themselves to. You can still get all this with your meal, just be sure to order the sides (for free) as well.

Can you really go wrong with beef and queso nachos? In general, the answer is no. These tasted great, but the beef actually made the nachos really greasy, and the grease plus the queso meant the chips were getting real soggy by the end of our meal.

There was absolutely nothin’ wrong with the queso, though! It had just a little bit of a kick to it, but not so much that you need to worry about it if you’re spice-averse. This stuff is like leveled up plastic cheese. It’s white queso, and it’s fabulous. It was seasoned, creamy, and delicious, just like queso should be.

The chips were the thing letting this dish down. They tasted almost stale at the beginning of our meal and then they were soggy by the end. Womp womp.

Our last entree was the Taco Trio, which has three tacos (as you might have guessed from the name) all with different fillings. We chose one pork, one beef, and one chicken. Altogether, this dish cost $10.99.

The tacos also come with toppings on the side, including lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, salsa, and sour cream.

These come in a special tray, which has spots for each of the tacos! (Try saying “Taco Trio Tray” 5 times fast.) We thought this was super clever, because then they don’t all mix with the toppings falling out — you know the taco struggle. The presentation gets 2 thumbs up here. What a solid way to package tacos, right?

The pork taco had the same meat as the Pork Carnitas Bowl, and it still tasted more like ham to us.

The beef in the next taco was just as greasy as it was on our Beef Nachos, but also still very tasty. And we appreciated that Pecos Bill didn’t skimp on the fillings for these — there was plenty of meat to balance out the toppings.

The chicken was a little too bland for our taste, but there was a little bit of seasoning on it. Maybe a touch of garlic? In general, we could’ve done with more seasoning on most of the meat in our meal, to be honest.

There are hot sauce packets available inside if you wanted to add a kick to your food! We also got some plain Tortilla Chips with Queso for $5.99…

…and we added a side of guacamole for $2 to really make it a party.

The queso was — as we mentioned before with the Beef Nachos — everything that queso should be. It had a great flavor and was plenty cheesy for us (and you know how much we love our cheese).

The guacamole wasn’t quite as exciting. In fact, it tasted like straight-up avocado, without much seasoning and no visible onions or tomatoes in it. So if you’re looking for a very simple guac, this might be a good option for you. But if you wanted something more exciting, we’d recommend looking elsewhere.

For dessert, we grabbed the Churros, which come with a side of Chocolate Sauce for dipping for $5.89. (Side note: these aren’t available right now under the same name, but the EARidescent Churro Nuggets are pretty much exactly the same thing.)

You get eight mini churros in this dish. We thought the churros were pretty tasty, and they had plenty of cinnamon and sugar on them. We weren’t crazy impressed with them (they’re no Disneyland churro), but they were still good.

And the chocolate sauce was soft and rich, which definitely raised our opinion of this dessert in general.

We left feeling very full after our meal, and we can 100% recommend dipping everything you eat in either queso or chocolate. (Obviously!)

Nosh or Not

Pay a visit to Pecos Bill if:

• You like Mexican-style food but don’t want anything too spicy (and would like it covered in queso, please).
• You’re hoping to get a break from the heat and crowds of the Magic Kingdom and wouldn’t mind grabbing a snack while you do it.
• You’re traveling with younger kids or picky eaters who don’t want to venture too far off the beaten path when it comes to flavors — nothing we ate here was too spicy or unique-tasting.

Mosey on down to a different restaurant if:

• You’re looking for real, authentic Mexican food (try the Mexico pavilion at EPCOT or the 4 Rivers Cantina Barbacoa Food Truck in Disney Springs).
• You want to try something unique and different in the Magic Kingdom (Columbia Harbour House has some tasty seafood dishes, and there are a lot of 50th Anniversary snacks around the park right now a bit more unique).
• You want a fancier option with a waiter and non-plastic cutlery (there are a couple of good sit-down restaurants in the Magic Kingdom, like Be Our Guest or the Crystal Palace).

Overall

In general, we had some pretty good food here, and the prices were reasonable. The queso was the real star of everything, but some parts (like the stale/soggy chips, greasy meat, and the unseasoned chicken) really let the meal down. We could’ve used more seasoning on just about everything we ate. If you’re looking for real, authentic Mexican food, this ain’t it. But if you want a quick, tasty meal in the Magic Kingdom with lots of seating and air conditioning, you can’t go wrong here. You also get a good amount of food for your money, and we’re pretty sure you’ll leave feeling full and satisfied if you choose this place for a full meal. Or you can just snag some nachos or churros as a snack while you take a break from the heat.

And that was our experience at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe! Keep following DFB for more updates and reviews from Disney World.

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Is Pecos Bill a must-visit for you? Let us know in the comments!

The post REVIEW: How’d We Fix Bland Mexican Food in Disney World? Drown It in Queso and Chocolate, OBV. first appeared on the disney food blog.