My family and I ate at Sanaa at AKL for the first time this weekend. For the record, we are HUGE Indian food fans outside of WDW with a lot of experience, and same goes for Ethiopian food, and we are mostly vegetarian.
The restaurant is smaller than I expected, and really gorgeous. Our res was for 5:10 on Labor Day weekend, and I was surprised to see that the lighting outside our window table was already kind of low due to the shadow of the building. But the view of the animals was great as predicted, and before and after the meal we spent a lot of time outside watching the giraffes in particular. There were also two bunnies in there with the other animals, ha ha. The campfire and rocking chairs outside were particularly nice.
But on to the FOOD!
Appetizers:
– The full bread service was without a doubt totally worth it and AMAZING. The naan was fresh, and the dips were awesome. My favorite was the coconut chutney. It comes with three pieces of naan, which my kids inhaled in about one minute, so we ordered two additional pieces ($1.99 per piece.)
– I do NOT recommend the samosas. For the inflated price, I thought they would be huge or at least more interesting than a regular samosa – but they were actually tiny, dry, and seemed to have been frozen. They were not as good as those at our local restaurant, and more than twice the price.
Meals:
– DH and I both got the vegetarian plate (kind of like a mini thali), with rice and two “curries.” The Paneer Tikka was good. Chana masala was awesome. The Wat was not very flavorful at all (especially compared to what we’re used to at local Ethiopian places.) And the greens – while not the typical pureed type of Palak Paneer – were really good, and had yellow cherry tomatoes in them, yum. The portion wasn’t huge, and it wasn’t the most exciting Indian / Ethiopian food we’ve had, but it was good enough to make us happy, and the price was right ($16.99 each, I think.)
Drinks:
My kids are Mango Lassi junkies, but the waitress told us that the lassis wouldn’t be good because the smoothie machine was broken, but we insisted on trying them anyway because the kids would’ve been so disappointed if we hadn’t. DS drank his, but DD traded hers in for a strawberry smoothie that they could make at the bar. (Don’t really understand that, but whatever.)
Overall:
Altogether, it was a great experience and I’d love to do it again, maybe for lunch next time. I would definitely order the full bread service again, but maybe skip most of the other things if I was concerned about the price tag. But all in all, so glad we tried something new!