Illumination’s Minion Café at Universal Studios Florida opened for guests on June 17. This soft-opening process looks to be going okay. During a recent trip to Illumination’s Minion Café, we ordered the El Macho Salsa y Salsa Ropa Vieja entrée.
Many of Illumination’s Minion Café entrées receive names directly connected to the characters in the “Despicable Me” and “Minion” movies. Since the entire quick service location screams “Bello!” then that should not be a surprise. El Macho earns his own entrée at Illumination’s Minion Café.
El Macho Salsa y Salsa Ropa Vieja at Minion Cafe
In “Despicable Me 2”, the primary antagonist, El Macho, operates the Salsa y Salsa restaurant. As a result, Illumination’s Minion Café at Universal Studios Florida serves El Macho Salsa y Salsa Ropa Vieja. This entrée costs $17.99. It includes braised beef with tomato cucumber salad, cilantro rice, salsa roja, and El Macho tostones.
“Ropa Vieja” is a Cuban braised beef dish. Universal Orlando Resort decided to give it a Minion version. However, do not worry. This does not include bananas. Well, not bananas like Minions famously eat. In fact, far fewer menu items here include bananas than you would expect.
An overall criticism of Minion Café revolves around the higher-than-expected price point for Universal Orlando quick service and portion size. Yet, the portion size for this entrée provides a reasonable amount. Nonetheless, the price of this entrée exceeds the quality received.
Opening Day
On opening day at Minion Café, we tasted every main entrée, dessert, and kid’s meal item on the menu. I thought this version of ropa vieja tasted fine. However, I did not think it was good enough to be a top suggestion for guests visiting Minion Café.
Despite that, I heard from several diners that they really enjoyed the ropa vieja at Minion Café.
As a result, we went back on June 19 to try this entrée again. Our experience remained the same. This entrée is good but nothing great. It is not the best but clearly not the worst at Illumination’s Minion Café.
For example, the tostones appear too small for the entrée. They also taste too bland. On both occasions, they quickly became soggy. These tostones, made from plantains, provide the banana-like aspect of this entrée.
However, the salsa roja provided good flavor and decent theme park-level spice. It might be more spice than the average theme park guest will like. Still, we loved some spicy flavor with a dish based on El Macho and Salsa y Salsa.
In contrast, both times we ordered this, we only experienced any consistent flavor from the salsa roja. The braised beef tasted plainer than we expected for a dish with this name. The rice and cucumber salad were better than average. Yet, they lacked powerful flavor.
El Macho Power?
This menu item depends on the sauce for any robust flavor. We feel the chefs wanted to create a dish where guests could control the spice level. If so, they succeeded.
Overall, this entrée works for this type of quick service. Illumination’s Minion Cafe provides a great experience in addition to the food. However, if you want a rice bowl, visit Thunder Falls Terrace at Universal Islands of Adventure. We would always select that one over the Minion Café version for food.
Words of Advice About Minion Cafe
Since we tried every menu item at Illumination’s Café, we will write more about this restaurant in future blogs. Until then, we have two words of advice about visiting here. One, try to avoid using the mobile order system. Universal Orlando Resort’s mobile order and table delivery system continues to be flawed. After being taken to your table by a team member, get up and go to the counter near the entrance. Make an order there with an actual person. You will need to know your table number. We suspect you will get your food faster and taste better this way based on our experience.
Two, expect a queue to get into Illumination’s Minion Café. The queue moves at a reasonable speed in any case. The team members are working hard and seem to enjoy their assignments at this quick service location.
If you visit here, let us know your thoughts below. As always, eat like you mean it!
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