The Polite Pig Review - Disney Springs - Walt Disney World - July 23, 2019

Posted by F S on Jul 23, 2019

Today's review is about The Polite Pig, located at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World.

We visited this restaurant right after it opened in 2017 and at that time weren't really all that impressed by the food. We love barbecue and have often wished for a barbecue restaurant outside Disney grounds in the area of Crossroads. But we have yet to see any BBQ pop up there. In 2017 we found The Polite Pig to be different BBQ for different's sake. The flavors of everyday items, like potato salad, baked beans and cole slaw, were strange to us incorporating odd spices and herbs into items that would be wonderful if left alone. we couldn't see how you would ever get a child to eat some of the items we had as the flavors were so different. So we weren't happy with it back in 2017. This weekend though we decided to give them another try.

I must say today's visit was a nice surprise. We figured we'd try it again to see how it had evolved from it's original opening and we must say that we were happy to see that the flavors had calmed down and everything we had was great.

There are two lines as you enter the door, one to the left is to be seated at the bar where you can order your meals there. The one to the right you order your items from the cashier, find a table, and a food runner/waitress brings your food and takes care of your needs. We did the order yourself line this time.

The menus hang over the cashiers, or they will hand you a paper one at the door.

To the left of these boards is the drinks menu.

From the menu we decided to go with the Butcher Board for 2.

This includes, pork shoulder, smoked chicken, brisket, and bbq cheddar sausage with slaw, house pickles, 2 cornbread and a choice of two market sides. Of which we chose, mac and cheese and Southern Potato Salad.

This is a large sheet tray of food to say the least with a little bit of everything.

My photo of the pork shoulder ended up blurry, but in the large picture above it's next to the pickles. The pork shoulder was tender and moist and tasted great.

The smoked chicken at first looked really small, but when you get a 1/2 chicken with a meal this size it really doesn't need to be any bigger than it was. It was four pieces, a wing, a breast, a leg and a thigh and cooked to perfection. The rub on the skin was flavorful and not too salty.

The brisket was next and it was four slices of what might be the best brisket I've had in a long time. This was my favorite meat on the board. The burnt edges added just the right flavor and we were lucky enough to get one that was an end cut with the burn edge all along the back. Yum, Yum. In this photo is the cornbread as well, this was sweet and cakelike and great even without butter.

The bbq cheddar sausage was a great mix of sausage flavor and cheddar cheese nuggets cooked throughout. I'm not a big sausage fan but this was absolutely wonderful.

We each got our own little boat of cole slaw, and this time the flavors were what you'd expect from cole slaw, tangy and sweet at the same time adding that bit of crunch to the meal that's so needed.

Our first side option was the mac and cheese. This was a large ramekin perfect size for sharing for two people. I'd loved to have seen the cheese sauce be a little more creamy, as it seemed a little dry to me but this was a great mac and cheese.

Our second side we chose the Southern Potato Salad. This was a very creamy sauced red skin potato salad, the potatoes as you can see are in large quarters. I liked the flavor of this a lot, but for me the potatoes could have been cooked an additional few minutes as I did get a couple of crunchy ones. We were glad to see this BBQ staple was back to having standard flavors.

We didn't get any BBQ beans this time, but at the end of our meal asked the server if she'd get us just a taste of them so we could see if they'd changed at all. They had to our delight. If I could describe them I'd say they tasted like a cross between barbecue beans and chili without meat. The barbecue flavor came through but so did cumin which made them taste a little like chili. We did enjoy the taste of them and would get them the next time we go back.

All in all we were very pleased to see that this BBQ restaurant had done some changing since the first opening. We'd definitely suggest it to any of our family and friends.

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