out and about: disney california adventure food and wine festival '23

In case you’ve been under a log, disneyland hosts a food and wine festival every year at californiaadventure. While I haven’t been under a log, and I’ve tried a random treat here or there over the years when hitting up disney during this time period with my kiddos, I’ve never gone with the specific agenda of eating and drinking my way through the festival… until now.

If you know me, then you know that not only was I excited for the food and drinks; but how much I enjoyed the planning lead-up. Reading about other’s experiences and a planning sesh that may or may not have included a highlighter and pro-con discussion of what were the absolute “must try’s.” All which culminated with a very specific and well thought-out plan to execute.

There’s a couple weeks left, so if you are planning on going, here’s what we sampled and my honest thoughts, if you too are interested in a pre-game plan.

hollywood lounge:

margarita flight: watermelon, cucumber, and mango margaritas with chile-lime seasoning

If you know me, you know I love a good, not-too-sweet, margarita. Also a big fan of tajin. Big fan. Love it on my margaritas to balance out any sweet. Plus a kick. However whomever made these margaritas was a little heavy-handed on the tajin. We may or may not have wiped some of it off in order to better appreciate the individual flavors. In fact the people drinking next to us asked for theirs without any tajin what so ever (which I personally think would be a detriment to the drink as a whole).

All that being said, the cucumber margarita was my favorite drink of the day, followed closely by the watermelon and then the mango. All excellent choices which I would order again and again.

la style:

glazed bbq pork belly with furikake-togarashi mac salad

So the first thing I remarked was that the mac salad was more “mayonnaisey” than I expected. Quickly followed by, “and it’s just perfect.” The mayo was perfectly balanced with the macaroni and carrots. And while “mayonnaisey” it wasn’t an overpoweringly mayo flavor. The kind you get when you dump a whole cup of mayo over pasta without any thought to additional seasoning. This was not that. Not to mention the addition of furikake and togarashi seasonings over top created a really well balanced side. Probably one of my favorite bites the entire evening.

The pork belly was super flavorful, not spicy, not sweet, just well balanced. My only complaint was it was a little cold.

We ran into the colder than normal scenario at a few booths along our journey. Mostly because, the carts prepare dishes ahead of time, which is great because they are ready and waiting whenever you show up, but if there wasn’t a steady influx of visitors, you ran the risk of lower temperature food. Good news was, even cold, the flavors spoke for themselves.

i love artichokes:

artichoke pizzetta: artichoke and roasted garlic cream cheese with sun-dried tomatoes, pickled onions, and lemon olive oil-drizzled micro greens

This was a perfect pizzetta. The crust was thin, so as not to over power the toppings. It was fully cooked, yet soft and fresh. The artichokes were cooked perfectly, tender and flavorful. The pickled onions brought a much needed tang to the bites. The cream cheese wasn’t too garlic forward, and the sun-dried tomatoes provided a “you’d miss it if it wasn’t there” pop of flavor. Another really good bite.

This is one where I loved the different flavor combinations so much, that I will be re-working them into some sort of future recipe.

passion fruit rum cocktail: white rum, italian amaro, passion fruit nectar, orange and lime juices and guava purée, garnished with an orange wedge

First things first. My orange wedge was knocked off of my glass by an overzealous worker determined to give me straws to drink out of. No big deal, but the picture would have been much prettier with it.

This drink was very purée forward, to say the least. In fact, as my very observant partner in crime, Liz, noted, “this tastes like baby food in a glass.” And guys? She wasn’t wrong. It tasted exactly like baby food in a glass. And I should know, as I made my own baby food for years. You couldn’t taste the rum, you couldn’t taste the citrus juices, you just tasted puréed fruit. Which, if you like your drinks sweet and extremely fruit forward, might not be a bad thing. It’s just not my cup of tea.

Shout-out to disney magic. Because we only tried the smallest sips imaginable, they let us return the drink for a full refund, since we weren’t going to be drinking it. Only bummer was that we were dealing with pineapple, raspberry and banana allergies, so there were a limited amount of drinks we could sample at the festival over all. So. Much. Pineapple. I mean, it was everywhere. Just so much. But I digress.

d.lish:

beef and barley poutine: potato bites with braised beef short rib, cheese curds, stout gravy and lager micro sponge

Let’s be real. I’m really not sure what the lager micro sponge was doing here. It seemed superfluous and not part of the dish at all. That is all.

Now, lets talk about the obvious. Poutine with tater tots?!? I will only be having my poutine like this in the future, please and thank you. The tots were so crispy, and perfectly tender in the center. Crispy enough that they stood up to the gravy, which didn’t leave them soggy and gross. As it should be. I seriously could go on and on about those tots.

The meat and gravy were colder than I would have liked, however, unlike the sea world poutine fiasco, at least they started out warm, and were on top of both cheese curds and tots.

Poutine is a hard dish to knock out. You’re dealing with keeping your potatoes crispy and not soggy, cold cheese curds you need to keep texture but melt, and beef and gravy that needs to be piping hot. I can’t even imagine trying to execute hundreds of plates of poutine at a time.

All that being said, I would totally order this again, even if only for the excellent tasting short ribs and perfectly executed tots… but I’d also totally eat the rest of it without complaint.

uncork california:

1923 mimosa: prosecco, white cranberry juice, white peach syrup and lemon juice

You know I love a drink with bubbles. The festival offers an entire mimosa flight. But… pineapple. Which in hindsight is probably a good thing, because that mimosa also featured passion fruit and guava nectar, which were prevalent in the not-to-be named liquid baby food.

We settled on a solo version of the 1923. It wasn’t bad. Slightly sweeter than I prefer a drink to be. Would I drink it again? Yes. Would I go out of my way to order it? No.

garlic kissed:

carbonara garlic mac & cheese featuring nueskes peppered bacon

When they tell you the bacon is peppered. Believe them. What they didn’t tell you hear was that the pepper, wasn’t the traditional ground black pepper, but some sort of chili pepper. And man was that pepper hot. And by hot i mean spicy hot, burn the back of your throat so much you cough hot. Didn’t stop us from eating it though. So clearly not a bad thing, although this would not be on my repeat list.

What I liked less than the spicy was the smokey. Another flavor they didn’t tell you was going to be heavily featured in this dish. However we couldn’t tell if the smoke was coming from the bacon, the pasta sauce, or liquid smoke. Whatever it was, there was a lot of it. And smoke is not my favorite flavor profile, but that’s just a personal preference. If you like smoke, you will love this dish.

nuts about cheese:

crackers and cheese: house-made herb crackers with white cheddar-infused fromage blanc, spicy salami spread and cherry jam

Unfortunately this is one of those combinations that sounded better than it was in actuality. The biggest deterrent was the crackers. They just didn’t add anything to the bite, and infact over powered the delicious combo that was the white cheddar infused fromage blanc and cherry jam. All you needed was the combo of those two, over a small cracker or toasted bread. The spicy salami spread was also unnecessary.

That being said, don’t be surprised if you see a cherry cheese combo of some sort on the blog in the recent future.

flowers and bees: gin, elderflower liqueur, lemon juice, honey syrup, hibiscus and lavender syrups, garnished with a purple pansy

Love a good gin drink. And this was a good gin drink. It was slightly more floral than I would prefer, but not so much that it would make me not want to drink it. It is definitely less floral than than the description would have you believe. Which is also what the disney attendant told us when we ask - and I’m so glad we listened.

cluck-a-doodle-moo:

smoked honey-habanero chicken wings: chicken wings tossed in honey-habanero seasoning

These little babies were delish. Perfectly cooked, the chicken was tender, the skin crispy. The rub a perfect mix of sweet and spicy. It reminded Liz of eating a bag of mesquite bbq chips, and I immediately started taking notes for a make-at-home version of wings incrusted with crushed chips - so stay tuned.

Also, they didn’t taste smokey. And there was no stickiness from the honey, which was a delightful change from most honey wings, where you can’t take a bite without the need for a wet wipe.

bbq beef brisket slider: featuring fiscalini farmstead smoked cheddar with dill pickles on salt and pepper brioche

Loved this bite. So much, my own version is already in the works. I’m not sure why they didn’t include crispy onions in the description, but they were there. And they were an excellent addition. As was the pickle.

To be honest, the bun was too much bread for the meat. Some of the juices and sauces were lost in the bread, instead of staying with the meat where they belonged. Once I removed the top bun, the flavors were better balanced, and I honestly think this sandwich would work better as an open-faced bite… so stay tuned.

berry patch:

kenny’s family cheesecake topped with mixed berry compote

So we were originally excited to try this dessert because it apparently came from disney resort president’s ken potrock’s actual family recipe. Love the little nod to disney family. Of course, it was only after we ordered that we realized the berry compote contained raspberries, so after confirming with the festival chefs, only I was able to taste it.

Once again, disney magic to the rescue and we were offered the other booth dessert as well. No sip and savor tab required. And while the cheesecake was good, especially if you have a sweet tooth, our little mishap turned into a blessing in disguise as the pie was phenomenal.

So this, in my opinion, would be the “not to be missed” dessert of the festival. And I don’t even like blueberries. The pie was creamy, fresh, and a perfect combo of sweet and tangy.

Before you even ask, yes, I’m trying to figure it out to share with all of you.

There are a few dishes and drinks I wish we had the time (and stomach capacity) to try, so I’m hoping a) that I can sneak back up for a few more bites before the festival ends or b) that disney will stick with their tradition of including a few bites from the prior year in the line up for next year’s festival.

Either way, I’ll be back for more!