The mighty Tonga Toast – long the stuff of breakfast legend amongst Walt Disney World guests – may have been knocked from its lofty perch by an unassuming and yet irresistible alternative.

Will there be those who scoff at this subjective proclamation? Surely. But there were those who said man could not reach the moon; that the Red Sox would never win the World Series; that I should probably wear pants in public more often.

And yet I must make this claim: Tonga Toast is dead. Long live the Samoan.

Anyone who has ever eaten breakfast at the Kona Café at Disney’s Polynesian Resort has no doubt crossed paths with its signature breakfast dish, Tonga Toast. It’s a deep-fried banana-stuffed French toast reportedly brought to the resort by cultural advisor Auntie Kaui. It’s bigger than your head and probably has more calories than a footlocker full of Big Macs. But it tastes amazingly good and probably precludes any need for lunch ADRs.

And yet it now sits firmly in second place. On the Mount Rushmore of Awesome Disney Breakfast Options, Tonga Toast would be Teddy Roosevelt. Sure, it’s up there, but it’s kind of looking the other way and you can’t really see that he’s wearing glasses unless you pay the 75-cents to look through the binoculars and you left all your change back in the car.

Tonga Toast will always remain near and dear to my heart, primarily because that’s where my stomach is and it’s probably still digesting from the last time I had it in December of 2006. Now, however, I have eyes for another.

It happened rather innocently. I perused the dumbed-down one-page menu (thank you, free dining and DDP), and my eyes accidentally tripped down the page past Tonga Toast. It was inadvertent, but the repercussions have become very real. A single word jumped out at me and seared itself into my eyes. Hollandaise. This egg-yolk and butter-based sauce has magical properties that turn even the most mundane meal fantastic. So imagine my shock when I saw that “Hollandaise” was paired with two other words that render me weak and defenseless: “pulled pork.”

The Samoan, in its entirety, is poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce served over smoked pulled pork hash.

The Samoan is made up of three elements that are good individually, but collectively reach perfection. Topped with a pile of greens that look like clover but serve to only temporarily obscure the golden glow of the Hollandaise, it captured my imagination the minute I saw it.

I tore through the greens, tossing them to the side of my plate as I drilled down to the gooey, aromatic treasure below. I pierced one of the poached eggs and it seeped down onto the pulled pork hash below. It was like adding together the vital elements of a potion. Once intermingled, the magic could not be undone. I was enraptured by the visual presentation. But this was nothing compared to when I actually tasted it. It was salty with a hint of sweetness. The pulled pork gave it a tangy bite that tied it all together in a way that I heretofore had not experienced. I temporarily lost the power of speech. My vision grew dim. I swam in a lake of Hollandaise buoyed by a raft of pulled pork while egg whites sang a siren song drawing me closer to an island of toast. After a few moments of this inward trip, I heard – distantly – someone calling my name.

I snapped to.

“Daddy, I have to pee,” my daughter said.

“Take the kid to the bathroom,” I droned to my wife.

I was focused on continuing my journey. I took another bite and jumped back into my eggy entheogen. I saw an order of Tonga Toast delivered to the table next to me, and for the slightest moment felt a tinge of sadness. Because I knew that the Samoan had forever chased it from my palate. I would not attack that mountain of deep fried goodness only to feel full to the point of puking ever again.

But it was OK, because the Samoan had stolen my heart.

There may have been Kona coffee served in a French press pot, but I’m not sure. I marched through the Samoan until it was gone, and then I emerged – sated in every possible way and ready for another.

But this was Kona, not ‘Ohana. That over-indulgence would have to wait for another day.