Sanaa at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge - Restaurant Review ~ MyWDW: A Fan's Walt Disney World Blog

Sanaa at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge is one of the best kept Disney dining secrets that I am aware of. Tucked away in the relatively remote Kidani Village area of the Lodge, Sanaa offers a fusion of African and Indian cuisine for an experience unlike what you'll find in many restaurants. I recently made a trip to this lovely restaurant with my girlfriend Tabby and our friends Mara and Theresa. Theresa has a very severe gluten allergy, so those who are seeking to remain gluten free will definitely want to pay close attention to this post!

The gateway to culinary adventure!

We arrived a bit early for our reservations, and were seated within ten to fifteen minutes (we were busy watching the Ankole cattle outside and looking for a tortoise in an enclosure near the restaurant, so the time flew by fairly quickly.) There is also a small lounge connected to Sanaa, and although I have a Disney bucket list for hitting up each lounge in Walt Disney World, I was on quite an empty stomach and didn't want to get things started off on the wrong foot.

Dining in the shade.

Once we were seated, our server took our drink orders and headed off to the kitchen as we took in the surroundings. Mara and I had both dined at Sanaa, but Tabby and Theresa were both new and were enjoying the decor - colorful beaded lamps, and fixtures above the tables that emulated an acacia tree, making you feel like you were one with nature in this place. Of course, that particular feeling was aided by the fact that you could watch wildlife through the large windows overlooking the savannah.

This crowned crane decided to take a look to see if there was anything good on the menu.

We had made the server aware of Theresa's gluten allergy, and as such she was presented with a different menu than the rest of us, though I should note that her menu was remarkably similar to ours, omitting only a few items and changing up some others. A chef was brought to our table to discuss the allergy-free options, and he proceeded to give great detail about every single item on the menu - a wonderful experience, to be certain, but most definitely not helping the whole "everything looks good and I'm quite hungry" thought process that I was going through at the time. Mara and Tabby both ordered drinks as we perused the menu.

Mara ordered a coconut-based drink, the name of which unfortunately presently escapes me (I know, I am a terrible reviewer - I'm still new at remembering all of this!), which, just as the server described "tastes the way sunscreen smells." Very coconutty, which is not my particular favorite flavor, but definitely not bad.

The unnamed coconut concoction

Tabby ordered the Painted Lemur, which was definitely more my style. The exact menu description of the drink was "Amarula fruit cream liqueur and Van der Hum tangerine liqueur from South Africa combined in a chocolate-striped glass inspired by the distinctive striped tail of the Madagascar lemur." Again, I don't quite recall the description of the coconut concoction, but it was not nearly as colorful as the Painted Lemur's. The drink itself was delicious - something akin to a fruit-tinged Bailey's, bearing the consistency of slightly thick chocolate milk.

A few of these and you may express your liking of moving it, moving it.

For our appetizer, we ordered the bread service, which gives you the option of three different kinds of bread and three different accompaniments. Alternately, you can order three kinds of bread (you can also add on additional bread for an additional cost) with all of the different accompaniments that they provide. Naturally, being the adventurous eaters that we are, we selected the option that gave us the greatest number of choices. Theresa was not left out of this party, either, as they had gluten free naan available, and all of the accompaniments were gluten free. All of the accompaniments were good, though the stand out favorites were the red chile sambal, mango chutney, and coriander chutney. The tamarind chutney was also quite good, but I felt that it would be better suited for a barbecue sauce than a companion for bread.

It's so beautiful!

By this point, we had ordered our next course: all of us ordering from the same "build your own meal"-style entry called "Slow Cook in Gravy, Simple and Well-Seasoned." Between the four of us, we ordered all five different choices, as well as both rice side options. Let's go ahead and look at that line up...

Tabby - beef short ribs, basmati rice, and goan seafood curry

Theresa - chicken vindaloo, basmati rice, and butter chicken

Mara - butter chicken, basmati rice, and chicken vindaloo

Me - Durban shrimp, basmati rice, and chicken vindaloo

As you can see, the chicken vindaloo was an extremely popular choice - and for good reason. The chicken was tender and delicious, and the sauce had just enough of a curry kick to it to please my adventurous palate. Tabby's beef short ribs were quite good, although not very complex in flavor (but, hey, sometimes you just want a simple gravy - definitely delicious). Her goan seafood curry, however, did make up for that with a variety of seafood and a nice complex spice profile, with a little bit of tang (which to me tasted like tamarind). The butter chicken is another one of my favorite menu items at Sanaa, but I had already tried it, so decided to pass this time - definitely an item for the fans of milder curries. My Durban shrimp was also really delicious - though it required a bit of stirring to coat the shrimp completely in the sauce. This item is my highest recommendation to the heat nuts out there - it doesn't hit you right away, but the spice definitely starts to build, but is complex enough that it doesn't simply feel like burning.

After the bread service and dinner, most of us were quite content with the level of full we are, but some people in the party just had to go and get dessert. Spoiler alert: that "some people" was, in fact, me. I'd recently been told by my mother, who had visited Sanaa several months before, that their bread pudding was better than my venerated 'Ohana bread pudding. Unfortunately, that item had been rotated off the menu, along with the chai cream that I had been quite interested in trying, So, I decided to order the dessert sampler to share with Tabby and Mara (the items, unfortunately, were not gluten free, but Theresa said she was pretty full anyway).

Tanzanian chocolate mousse, banana cheesecake, and strawberry kulfi

The desserts definitely would have fallen into the category of "too beautiful to eat," if we were not savages who had no appreciation for beauty, who immediately began tearing into the works of art. The Tanzanian chocolate mousse was rich and delicious, topped with a drizzle of salted caramel sauce and a white chocolate butterfly who was pretty quickly divided up and consumed. The banana cheesecake was one item I was a bit skeptical of, as my taste for banana is only just starting to develop, but I found myself quite pleasantly surprised. It was quite rich, and the crushed pistachios that served as a crust added a very nice element to the piece. The kulfi was, essentially, a slightly different variation on ice cream. It was a little tangy, though I'm not sure if that was from the dairy used or the strawberries, but for the most part was a cube of good ice cream.

All in all, I highly recommend heading over to Sanaa, especially if you have any particular dietary needs, from allergies to vegetarianism, as they have items that can please your palate without taking away from the beautiful, complex flavors that you can experience.