REVIEW: Pecos Bill’s Has a New Build-A-Bowl Menu

Pecos Bill’s Tall Tale Inn & Cafe in the Magic Kingdom has a new menu, and our parks team stopped by to check it out. There were a few misses, but overall, they were impressed! Most of the entrees use the “Build a Bowl” concept that has worked so well for Satu’li Canteen and has become generally popular even outside of Disney World. But the options at Pecos Bill’s have a Tex-Mex spin on the concept, in keeping with the restaurant’s generally Southwest cuisine.

Pecos Bill’s Build A Bowl Reviews

There are four options for your bowl base, including a salad, and three options for protein toppers. The bowl bases are $12.99 each:

• Steamed Tamale: Steamed green chili-cheese tamale with stewed pinto beans, queso fresco, and pico de gallo
• Nacho Bowl: House-fried corn tortilla chips smothered with stewed pinto beans, chipotle queso, and pico de gallo
• Rice Bowl: Stewed pinto beans, cilantro-lime rice, cowboy caviar, pico de gallo, and queso fresco
• Southwest Caesar Salad: Romaine tossed in creamy salsa verde dressing, pepitas, queso fresco, pico de gallo, and tortilla strips

You can top your bowl with Citrus-Chipotle Chicken, Green Chili Pork, or Coca-Cola Cherry Braised Beef. One protein is included, although the beef is 50¢ extra.  You can get an extra protein for an extra charge, and you’ll also have the option to add on a side. We tried each of the bases with a variety of the toppers.

Rice Bowl with Coca-Cola Cherry Braised Beef

We were shocked at how much we loved the Coke Cherry Braised Beef. It tasted slow-cooked and sweet, tender and juicy. The rice was rice (what more can you say?), but we got a side of the same pinto beans that are on the bowl and they were perfect. If you’re just looking for a snack, these are great on their own.

Southwest Caesar Salad with Citrus-Chipotle Chicken

The salad was fantastic, but you need to be a fan of the wilted lettuce trend. It isn’t that ours didn’t have any crunch – it did – but it was definitely feeling a bit of the heat from the chicken. Speaking of which, let’s talk about that chicken. It was SO GOOD. The meat was tender, in decent-sized chunks, and we tend to always be fans of citrus and chicken.

Steamed Tamale with Chicken and Beef

This was our favorite dish of the day. We paid a bit extra to get both the chicken and beef – there’s no guarantee that they’d go well together just because they were individually great, but we thought the combo was excellent. And the tamale was our favorite base; we’ll definitely get this again.

Nacho Bowl with Green Chili Pork

We tried the Green Chili Pork on the nachos, and this was our least favorite option for both protein and base. The pork just seemed to have a bit less seasoning, but it was still tender and perfectly fine. And the nachos also were fine, but there wasn’t anything special about them. If this is what you’re in the mood for, we think you’ll still enjoy it – it was still very good, and only paled in comparison to the rest of the combos we tried.

Other Entrees

There are a couple of non-bowl entrees on the new menu as well.

• Double Chili con Queso Burger: Two flame-broiled all-beef patties topped with Chili con Carne, chipotle queso, and corn chips served with barbecue-cheddar seasoned fries
• Grilled Masa Flatbread: Grilled corn flatbread topped with sweet potatoes, stewed pinto beans, plant-based pepper jack “cheese,” shredded lettuce, pico de gallo, and plant-based lime crema (Plant-based) (Chicken, beef, or pork add-on available)

We ordered the Double Chili con Queso Burger to try it out, since burgers were a staple of the old Pecos Bill’s menu. Unfortunately, we discovered that they seem to be using the same hockey puck burgers that our readers didn’t rate so well on the old menu. It’s really a shame, because the toppings were wonderful – but the tough, shoe-leather burger patties made this a hard no for us.

Desserts

Of course, you need to finish a meal with sugar to be sure you have enough energy for the rest of your day running around the Magic Kingdom. There are a few new desserts as well:

• Mexican Chocolate and Horchata Verrine
• Sweet Corn Mousse with white chocolate and raspberry powder
• Mini Churros with Chocolate Sauce

We skipped the churros, but we tried the other two. The corn mousse is more of a pudding consistency; even though they did a great job on the mold and it looks firm, it’s not. But it IS very delicious! It’s got a mild white chocolate flavor and is sweet, but not too sweet. Bonus: it’s totally adorable. Did we mention that they did a great job on the mold?

We weren’t as fond of the verrine. It isn’t bad, but we would have preferred a stronger horchata flavor. It felt very middle of the road. Compared to the rest of the new menu, it was boring.

Closing Thoughts

Pecos Bill’s routinely ranks in the middle of the Magic Kingdom Quick Service pack in our Magic Kingdom surveys. But we predict that will be changing pretty soon. We can’t deny that most of what we tried looks a bit like a hot mess in the pictures, but the dishes were a definite improvement over the previous offerings. Not only was almost everything we tried something we’d be happy to eat again, but the mix-and-match options mean that everyone can find something they’ll be happy with.

Have you tried the new menu at Pecos Bill’s? Will you miss the old one? Let us know in the comments!