Disneyland has tried multiple barbecue restaurants over its nearly 70 years. Its latest effort is Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree. How does this one rate?
Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree replaces the former Hungry Bear Restaurant in the new Bayou Country, the new name for the former Critter Country with this week's opening of Tiana's Bayou Adventure next door. The Hungry Bear Restaurant started as the Golden Bear Lodge back when the land was called Bear Country, before the opening of Splash Mountain - the ride Tiana's replaced - prompted the rebrand into Critter Country.
So there's a lot of history here, and that's before we get into Disneyland's long record with barbecue. Setting aside Adventureland's Bengal Barbecue skewers and talking about just western-style barbecue, Disneyland offered Don DeFore's Silver Banjo Barbecue in its early years. After that, Big Thunder Ranch Barbecue enjoyed two long runs in the park before closing in 2016 for the construction of Star Wars Galaxy Edge.
And now let's get to that "Jamboree" shout-out in the new restaurant. That's a callback to the Country Bear Jamboree show that used to play in the space now occupied by The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The bears' debut in 1972 anchored the new Bear Country land in the park, replacing the former Indian Village.
Does plowing through all this Disneyland history make you hungry? Good, because we've got a lot of food to eat today.
On the left we have the Smoked Barbecue Combo Platter [$21.49] with spareribs and brisket. The platter comes with beans, coleslaw, pickles, and a slice of white bread. (It's a thing at BBQ joints; don't come for me here.) Other options for the two meat choices are pulled pork and sausage, but the sausage option was not available today through mobile order.
I opted to try the pulled pork via the Loaded Fries [$14.99], which also come dressed with queso, pickled red onions and jalapeños, and finished with cilantro and scallions.
Up top we have a Banana Pudding [$7.29] and Strawberry Shortcake Lemonade [$7.49].
Great brisket is the absolute best thing on a good barbecue restaurant's menu and I will die on that hill. But not-great brisket is typically the worst thing served at any BBQ place that fails to get it just right. Alas, such is the case at Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree.
This brisket manages to be both very fatty and almost tasteless at the same time, and that's... an accomplishment. I am not a fan of adding sauces to barbecue after it's served. Let the pitmaster season and sauce as she or he sees fit, and I will take that. But I did mix the lean bits of this brisket with the beans here to give the meat some flavor and the beans some heft.
The winner on this platter was the ribs. Tender and falling off the bone with just minimal pull, the pork stole all the flavor that the beef lacked. If I could get the sausage, I would try that as my second to the ribs. If not, get the pulled pork. (More on that in a minute.) As for the sides, the slaw had citrus tang while the pickles delighted with bright flavor that yielded to a sharp finish. Disneyland remains undefeated in its pickle game.
The loaded fries hit for me, too. I did not find a large amount of pulled pork here, but what was there was almost as tasty as the ribs, and helped along with the queso and pickled veggies. The fries also held their texture and flavor, making this a substantial meal on its own, or a great side to share.
As for the sweets, the banana pudding came topped with toffee, which just glided the lily. A better choice would have been crushed walnuts to provide textural contrast without boosting the sweetness to cloying. I just picked off the toffee and enjoyed the pudding, which was layered with whipped cream, crushed wafer cookies, and a whisper of dulce de leche. It's a southern classic, and Disneyland's take was tasty and fine, though not so amazing to be worth a visit on its own.
The Strawberry Shortcake Lemonade offered a nostalgic taste of a strawberry soda. The promised sweet cream topping came closer to marshmallow fluff, and the "Shortbread Crumbles & Strawberry Dust?" added nothing to the flavor here, as the first three words there were MIA, leaving just the colored "dust." If you want a strawberry drink with your BBQ, go for it.
As I mentioned, I used Disneyland's mobile order for my meal. It's worth noting that I waited about 15 minutes after clicking "I'm here, prepare my order" before I was called, which gave me a good amount of time to see what other diners were ordering. The majority of trays passing me were the $13.49 Chicken Tenders Plate and the $13.99 Classic Cheeseburger, leaving me to suspect that whatever the quality of the barbecue here, its days might be numbered.
So come visit the bears and grab some ribs and loaded fries before they're gone.
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You can add several sauces at a condiment station, which I should have mentioned. Like I said, I prefer not to add sauce if the meat does not need the added flavor.
By theme park standards $22 ain't bad for that combo platter.
By BBQ standards that looks like roadkill. I would never get bbq at a themepark. Especially that for $22? Give me real Texas bbq any day of the week.
That brisket is a joke. It looks gray with a vane of fat the size of a 4-lane highway through the middle. Yikes...
@Robert - You noted there were a number of sauces at the condiment station, but didn't really detail them. Are they standard food-service condiments (French's, Sweet Baby Ray's, and/or Heinz) or are they custom in-house blends representative of traditional BBQ sauce types (KC, NC, Texas, etc...)? I do find that even mediocre BBQ can be saved with great sauce, but based on what that brisket looks like, even the best sauce couldn't save that (looks grey with no smoke ring, and tough).
I feel that Busch Gardens/Sea World has some of the best consistently good theme park BBQ, primarily because they have invested in the equipment to churn out consistently solid meats at scale. What I find is that far too many parks try to cook meats in standard commercial ovens with smoke boxes (not smokers), which typically need to be set @300+ degrees F (great BBQ is usually smoked @275) and then either try to finish on open grills or drown the meat in sauce to hide the shortcuts. From a management perspective, the much slower cook times and rub/marinade times makes it tough to manage stock and flow, but once a location has good data, BBQ locations can be rather easy to manage because they're a very low labor cost restaurant with quick service times.
I hope Disney can make this work, because BBQ represents an excellent option in a theme park (particularly sampler platters that are great to share at a reasonable cost), but the culinary team needs to be committed to the product not only in the prep, but also the quality of the meats being used (the brisket pictured above is appears to be a pretty substandard cut for a sliced preparation - should probably be chopped with a light glaze of sauce).
$22 is downright cheap for this compared to my local town prices.
To BBQ fans, the sauce is not a "condiment." It is an essential part of the meal. A good sauce adds a lot to the meal and, as Russell pointed out, a good sauce can save an otherwise mediocre BBQ meal. Professional BBQ chefs always consider how their sauces will affect the flavors of their food.
Russell asked a very good question: are Disney's sauces standard off-the-shelf or custom blends? It can make a very big difference.
"The majority of trays passing me were the $13.49 Chicken Tenders Plate and the $13.99 Classic Cheeseburger"....
I suspect for MANY theme park visitors, when it doubt, stick to the tried & true (also known as the safe & boring)
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Traditionally, white bread is used for sopping up the BBQ sauce. However, it looks like Robert's BBQ meal didn't come with any BBQ sauce.