has announced a November 2011 event!
The Wave . . . of American Flavors Discovery Dinner
Featuring the The Wonders of Sustainable Seafood
Location: Disney’s Contemporary Resort
Date and Time: [Read more…]
food IS a theme park
has announced a November 2011 event!
Featuring the The Wonders of Sustainable Seafood
Location: Disney’s Contemporary Resort
Date and Time: [Read more…]
The 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival has reached its midpoint and we’re celebrating with a sale for this week only!
The DFB Mini-Guide to the 2011 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival e-Book is our helpful guide that gives you the tools you’ll need to navigate the flavors, feasts and fun offered at this year’s Epcot Food and Wine Festival! See an Orlando Sentinel review of the e-Book here!
And this week you’ll be able to purchase the book at 20% off — our deepest discount yet! Just use code MIDPOINT at the check-out screen. 🙂
The first step in planning is to know what’s happening at the Festival during YOUR visit.
We’ve organized the full schedule of events — for every single day of the Epcot Food & Wine Festival — in this new Disney Food Blog Mini-Guide.
Use our full event schedule to review only the information you need to make your Food & Wine Festival visit as magical as possible.
Here’s a screen shot of the daily event schedule!
With photos of World Showcase Booths and food, and menus for each booth, you’ll get to map out your touring strategy before you arrive!
We have touring strategies to make the most out of your visit – whether you’ll be there for a day or a week! These include: [Read more…]
Dining in Disneyland columnist Heather Sievers reviews a brand new candy store in Disney California Adventure!
I guess I’m a little late to the fiesta, but I finally made it over to Dulce Aventura at Disney California Adventure. Located in the Pacific Wharf area directly next to Cocina Cucamonga, Dulce Aventura opened this past July.
A cute little counter service treat stop, Dulce Aventura offers a limited but tasty menu. When we stopped to browse the menu, my boys and I were immediately offered samples. Samples? I questioned; Disney rarely gives samples. Of course we wanted samples!
We had the option of tasting the Snickerdoodle, a Chocolate Dipped Pretzel, or a piece of the Large Mickey Chocolate Chip cookie. I tried the Snickerdoodle, which was pretty tasty but a bit dry. I definitely prefer the [Read more…]
By AJ 6 Comments
A few months ago, we sadly reported that La Cava del Tequila in Epcot’s Mexico pavilion had nixed many of the food items form its menu.
On our recent visit, we were happy to see a few new additions, including Queso Con Jalapeno (QUESO!!!!) and Crab Tostadas.
Also on the menu is the [Read more…]
By AJ 22 Comments
So this is pretty exciting — I finally got to attend a Party for the Senses at this year’s Epcot Food and Wine Festival!
For those who aren’t sure what I’m talking about (I know — “Party for the Senses” can sound a bit odd!), the Party for the Senses is held most Saturdays during the Epcot Food & Wine Festival each year. This exclusive event impresses the taste buds, of course, but it also aims to awaken all of your senses. During this 2 1/2 hour extravaganza, food and beverages flow freely as awe-inspiring entertainment is performed by Cirque du Soleil, La Nouba.
There are two more parties being offered this year — November 5, and November 12 — for $145 per ticket (plus you’ll need Epcot park admission). Note that the Wine View Lounge upgrade, which includes private tables ($260) is sold out. Reservations can be made at 407-WDW-FEST or at Disneyworld.com/foodandwine.
Interestingly, the artfully prepared menus (including chefs and vinters) change, so your party may not have the same offerings as the one that we attended.
Now that we have the specs out of the way, let’s get into the meat of the night!
We attended the Party for the Senses during the “Deluge of 2011,” as I like to call it. That’s right; we got all gussied up and sloshed over to Epcot on October 8th. When we arrived at the World Showplace [Read more…]
By AJ 12 Comments
The theme of the 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival is “Passport to a World of Flavors,” so of course you’ve got to pick up your passport if you’re visiting the World Showcase Marketplace Booths!
That’s right, the passport that Disney introduced last year is back again! And it’s FREE! The passport contains the menus for each World Showcase Booth and is a great companion as you make your way around the World. As you stop at each booth and sample the different foods, you can get your passport stamped and check off the foods and drinks you have tried!
Here are just a few of the fun, unique stamps you can get in your passport… [Read more…]
By AJ 24 Comments
Finally! One of my Disney dining bucket list items has been crossed off of the list! Along with some wonderful friends, I got the chance to attend a “Dine With an Imagineer” lunch at Disney Hollywood Studios’ Hollywood Brown Derby earlier this month.
In case you haven’t heard of it, Dine With an Imagineer is a spectacular opportunity offered for lunch at the Hollywood Brown Derby, and for dinner (on select nights) at the Flying Fish Cafe.
Up to 10 guests get the chance to dine with a real live Walt Disney Imagineer. Your Imagineer will tell you about the work that he or she does, then answer any questions you might have about that work…or anything else that has to do with Disney Imagineering!
Cost per person is $60 (taxes and gratuity are added at the table), and the experience has been designed for guests aged 10 and older. You can book this event 180 days in advance, and it’s suggested that you do. It sells out quickly.
We had a gaggle of about 9 Disney fans who attended the lunch, including one VERY smart 11-year-old who had some great questions for the Imagineer. Don’t worry if your group can’t fill the room; Disney will keep taking reservations until the event is at capacity. That means you might have the chance to meet a few new Disney fans!
Now, the first question everyone asks about Dine With an Imagineer is… [Read more…]
By AJ 10 Comments
Thanks to Laura for the fun tip that guests booking from Latin America now have the option to choose a Disney World Free Dining package through September 2012!
USA residents are still only allowed to book Free Dining through March 2012. But Disney long ago released Free Dining through November 2012 for UK guests and now offers Free Dining from August 19-September 29, 2012, in addition to the dates listed here, for guests from Canada and Latin America.
Is this a harbinger for Free Dining in the Fall of 2012 for USA residents? What do you think?
A new cupcake and lots of foodie photos (and reviews) from the Epcot Food and Wine Festival are highlighted this week! Let’s get right to the yummy news.
Read on for this week’s Disney Food news highlights!
Don’t forget to stay up-to-date with our Epcot Food & Wine Festival coverage — we’re still buzzing with news, reviews, and updates over on our Epcot Food & Wine Festival Pages!
Thanks to Gabe Travers with WESH.com, Orlando’s NBC affiliate news source, for this recent review of our Disney Food Blog Mini-Guide to the 2011 Epcot Food & Wine Festival! Here’s an excerpt…
If you want some tried and true picks, it’s worth it to check out the Disney Food Blog Mini-Guide to the 2011 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival, which features five themed “crawls” you can use to tackle the World Showcase marketplaces. Read the full review here!
You can get YOUR copy of our new e-Book right here! Be sure to use code CHEF at check-out for a $2 discount!
Walt Disney World for Grownups
says Aloha! Escape to the Tambu Lounge for a Lapu Lapu and some yummy new bar food! The bread service looks delicious!
DisMarks continues to highlight Disney news in the blogosphere with their 32nd Disney Blog Carnival! Tons of great Disney articles here — head over and check ’em out! 🙂
Main Street Gazette provides a catalog of Epcot’s restaurant signs! Love this!
DisneyTouristBlog.com names some top snacks at the Food and Wine Festival, along with gorgeous taste-testing photos!
Stitch Kingdom offers the latest news on new Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, which will open in stages beginning May 31, 2012. We can’t wait to taste-test the fresh smoothies, hand-scooped gelato and Mongolian barbecue in the food court!
AllEars.Net has updated Blizzard Beach menus, including the eats at Lottawatta Lodge.
The Portland Daily Sun showcases Linda Bean’s success with her lobster offerings at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. (Thanks to Erin Foster and Epcyclopedia for the tip!)
Welcome back Carrie Hayward as she returns to show us specialty menu items from Disneyland’s Soundsational Annual Passholder event! And don’t forget to read Carrie’s bio at the end of this post — she’s pretty amazing!
Over the last week, Disneyland has hosted two after-hours parties to give annual passholders an up-close look at the new Soundsational parade and how it was created. Four special menu items were introduced for the events, each available at a different location and only between the hours of 4pm and midnight that day. However, word on the street is that one or more of them may have been a test for future inclusion on park menus.
Let’s see how the four potentially new menu items stack up!
Mac & Cheese Hot Dog – Main Street Refreshment Corner
Definitely the most talked-about special menu item, this diet-busting snack featured one of Disneyland’s new larger — and reportedly more flavorful hot dogs — smothered in neon macaroni & cheese and topped with bacon bits.
The last Disney hot dog I ate was at Walt Disney World (at Disneyland, I go straight for the corn dogs) and it didn’t seem particularly puny or bland, so I can’t comment on whether the new dog is an improvement.
Disneyland’s has a snappy casing and a salty, beefy taste. The macaroni and cheese was not quite up to par with my beloved Walt Disney World Mickeyroni — more plasticky and less cheesy — but it still had that satisfyingly creamy quality that tells you you’re eating a hot dog covered with mac ‘n’ cheese!
The bacon crumbles were the packaged kind you can buy at the market and didn’t taste like much of anything… think of them as savory sprinkles.
Soundsational “Cupcake” – Blue Ribbon Bakery
As it turned out, there was no Soundsational cupcake at Blue Ribbon Bakery on either party night, and at the first party, bakery cast members acted as if the sign announcing the cupcake was the first they’d heard of it. By the time the second party rolled around, the chef had pulled something together on the fly — a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin topped with cream cheese frosting and a white chocolate Mickey pumpkin.
This sounded like it might be weird, but the muffin was so [Read more…]