Food Fight: Beignets

With it being Fat Tuesday, we cannot go without talking about a classic. The French settlers brought beignets with them as they migrated to the eastern coast of Canada to an area called Acadia in the 17th century. Unfortunately, many Acadians were forced to migrate as the British came to control their area. As a result, many Arcadians settled in Louisiana. Their descendants became known as Cajuns. With their migration to the southern USA, they brought their culture, language,and cuisine.  The mighty beignet continues to display that cuisine. During this time of year, you can find beignets in many places. Today, we are going to decide which beignets are better between the 2022 Universal Studios Florida Mardi Gras version in comparison to Disney’s Port Orleans Resort version.

First, we will start at Universal Studios Florida version. Guests may find these sweet treats at the New Orleans themed area food tents. As festival style food, these delectable items come in a paper bag. For $5.99, guests get four reasonable sized beignets. These beignets are covered in powdered sugar. If ordering these, you need a plan of attack to avoid getting powdered sugar all over yourself. These treats are light and fluffy as you would expect. The texture provides a positive experience. These beignets make a good value. Also, guests rarely voice any negativity about these beignets themselves. Guests might voice a desire for a sauce or a larger portion size but the quality of taste exceeds standard expectations.

Now, over at Disney’s Port Orleans Resort, you will find the Scat Cat Café. This cafe serves Mickey-shaped beignets. The quality of these beignets rates high. The beignets are offered with either powdered sugar, chocolate sauce, or raspberry sauce. You can also pay a small fee for an additional side of sauce. The price point for these beignets is higher than the Universal Orlando version. You may purchase a 3 pack for $6.99 or a 6 pack for $10.99. Now, for the adults out there, you can buy yourself a boozy beignet version. These boozy beignets ($10.99 for 2) are presented with a shot of Baileys Irish cream, Kahula, or Rumchata. Today, we will only be comparing the powdered sugar beignets. These beignets can be purchased for dine-in or to go. There is commonly a queue for these beignets because they are made hot and fresh. They are fluffy and warm. A fun surprise for any newbie to Port Orleans Resort will be seeing their beignets shaped in the form of Mickey Mouse.

So which beignet reigns supreme? For us, this was the easy answer. You probably wouldn’t believe this coming from a Universal Orlando-centered blog, but Port Orleans wins this battle of a Food Fight. Those beignets are nice, big, fluffy, warm, always fresh, and delicious. Who do you think the true winner is? Is it at a park not on this list? Let us know in the comments. ​

Xavier.H.

​​I'm Xavier- a food enthusiast and full-time blogger, theme park lover(especially Universal), and Halloween Horror Nights fan. I do happen to also lead the Universal Food Blog team on our trek to find the best dishes around Universal Orlando Resort to report to you!

Jon Self

​​Jon Self is an avid theme park fan who has the high privilege to serve as a pastor at an American Baptist Church (fbcmacomb.com) while also trying to find the proper life path with his loving spouse, a bigger theme park fan than Jon. You can follow him at @pastorjonself on Twitter. Jon writes for various theme park sources such as piratesandprincesses.net and universalfamilyvacations.com. He also writes for faithelement.net.