This year for Mardi Gras at Universal Orlando, a booth found in the KidZone area, at Universal Studios Florida, offered some Southeast Asian food. The menu boards for this booth went up very late for this year’s event. As someone trying to report on Mardi Gras food, a lack of menu information creates stress in my tiny world. Then, I saw Laska on the menu. I knew that was a type of noodle soup. Then I saw the words “Rou Jia Mo.” Honestly, I lacked any knowledge of what those words mean. Rou Jia Mo can be described as a type of Chinese sandwich. Some compare them to hamburgers to give you some perspective.

For $8.99 before discounts, you get two of these sandwiches. For Universal Orlando veterans, these resemble the bao buns served at Bend the Bao in CityWalk. However, the bread possesses a far different consistency to a bao bun. Guests should expect a more traditional bread taste. The menu description for these reads braised pork, Thai chili peppers, mustard greens, (and) cilantro in a soft griddled bun.

The grilling creates an interesting texture for a theme park food festival style item. In large bold print in my notes about this item, the word “INCONSISTENT” appears often after talking with guests who ate these. You get two small sandwiches for your money. However, the portion size rates as reasonable based on the amount of pork within each sandwich.

What do I mean by inconsistent? Well, let me start with opening day by sharing some of these with the Universal Food Blog gang. At this point on opening day of Mardi Gras, I had exceeded a reasonable amount of food consumption. The day before, I ate 6 cookies from Gideon’s Bakehouse and 4 doughnuts from Everglazed at Disney Springs followed by a deluxe meal at the American Kitchen Bar and Grill at the B Resort (BTW, reviews of many of these coming in future weeks). After having already eaten about 15 other Mardi Gras food items that day alone, I initially passed on taste testing the Rou Jia Mo.

The rest of the group split one of the sandwiches. Their review involved words like very hard bun and no taste to the pork. After taking an excessive amount of food photos, the second sandwich sat there. I guilted myself into trying it since a very part-time theme park food blogger should never back down in the eternal battle of man vs. food.

I ate the second sandwich. In complete and totally honesty, that sandwich featured some of the best pork taste I have ever had at a theme park resort restaurant including table service and even Polite Pig at Disney Springs. The bread tasted great and offered softness.

How could this be? Several reliable food bloggers had the other sandwich in the same container. They hated it. This caused me to do more investigation over next few days about this menu item. I heard some guests claim the pork tasted more like duck. They complained about unseasoned pork. In fact, when hanging out with some of the UK international friends visiting Universal Orlando, they ordered this. This presented a golden food blogger opportunity. They ate their sandwiches. Their sandwiches were drenched with juice in a tremendous way. Their reaction involved confused looks. They stated they would not get this again.

Then, I chatted with a trusted theme park source about these sandwiches. She stated these sandwiches tasted great. I then heard back from her a few days later, she said she ordered them again. This time, she detested them.

So how can it be that these were defined as inconsistent by me? Hopefully, you can see my perspective. So, what would be my recommendation? Do you feel lucky? Then, you should order this. Otherwise, you have been warned. I would love to have these again just to find out which version I might get. As always, eat like you mean it!