Universal Orlando: A Food Adventure

There are so many reasons to love a trip to Universal Orlando — the rides, the characters, the luxury. But there are some reasons you might not be anticipating…like the food. Yes, the food at Universal is just as much a part of the experience as the adrenaline and the exploration. In some cases, the food is adrenaline — and in many cases, it is definitely exploration. Here’s what we mean:

The Lollipop King
Ever wanted to eat a bug, but were too afraid to try? Do you think you might be able to succeed if the bug was encased in banana-flavored sugar? What if it were a scorpion?  Yep — the Revenge of the Mummy Gift Shop offers up actual scorpions embedded in ‘amber’ that just happens to be made of candy. And because the arachnoid’s chitinous carapace has been encased in candy, it tastes just like (fake) bananas…or so we’ve been told.

The King Donut
In the bottom level of the Hard Rock Hotel, there’s a shop called Emack and Bolio’s, and it features a donut so large a six-year-old could wear it as a bracelet. Six dollars of dough and honey glaze (or chocolate frosting) is enough to put a diabetic in a coma at thirty paces — or feed a family of four enough to send them sugar buzzing around the Universal Studios until halfway to lunchtime.

The Rocky Road Candy Apple
At the Port of Entry in the Island of Adventure, the Crescent Moon Bakery, there’s a treasure to be unburied — a massive granny smith apple! Buried under a layer of caramel, a layer of chocolate, a layer of pecans, a layer of marshmallows, and then another layer of drizzled chocolate and caramel, it waits for a suitably adventurous explorer to dig deep enough to reach the tart, lovely fruit.

Epic Gummy Bears
The San Francisco Candy Factory, ironically found at Universal Orlando rather than in California, produces gummy bears that are more than four inches tall and clock in at 350 grams (12 1/3 ounces). If you’ve ever wanted to eat 70% of your RDA of carbs in a single item, this is the one you want — 280 of those 350 grams are pure sugar. Noms!

The Kitchen Sink Challenge
Speaking of the Hard Rock Hotel, if you’ve ever wanted to be famous for 15 minutes, try training for a few weeks in competitive eating before your trip to Universal Orlando. That way, when you sit down and hand over $40, you, too can take on The Kitchen Sink: a huge hamburger laden with bacon, cheese, and chipotle horseradish aioli; a side of fries big enough to feed most grade schoolers all by itself; and a three pound piece of cake including seven layers of different kinds of cake, each with its own complementary frosting and sprinkles. One person has defeated the Kitchen Sink thus far…will you be next?

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