Taste of Africa Street Party

Disney Food Blog newsletter subscribers heard this rumor last week, and the Taste of Africa is even more official now. According to wdwmagic.com, the event will take place in Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World.

This grand experience of the tastes and cultures of Africa will be officially called ‘The Taste of Africa Street Party.’ It will run from July 9 through July 24, 2010, and will take place nightly in Harambe Village in the Animal Kingdom. Beginning right after the daily Jammin’ Jungle Parade, the event will run through park close each night. On Extra Magic Hour evenings, the event will run through Extra Magic Hours.

Offerings at the Taste of Africa Street Party will include:

Food and Beverage offerings from outdoor vendors
Beer and Wine tastings at Tamu Tamu
A music/dance party with Harambe’s DJ Khalifa and performances from musical group, Wasslou
Unique merchandise
Animal Education experiences

Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe Review

By AJ 24 Comments

Today, we’re heading to one of my favorite quick-service spots in Disney World — Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. Tucked in between Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, and Cinderella Castle, Cosmic Ray’s has one of the biggest, most diverse menus of all Disney World quick-service locations.

Atmosphere
Cosmic Ray’s is a giant, bright, semi-circular room situated around three food ordering “bays.” With each bay selling different types of food, be sure to check out the menus for all three before choosing your bay!

Bays at Cosmic Ray's

The theme is vintage space-age Tomorrowland, with lots of aquas and purples, trapezoids, and triangular furniture. There’s brushed chrome everywhere and signage in the same types of fonts you’d expect to find in early Space Mountain queue lines. Overall, if you loved the Jetsons and find the metal palm trees in Tomorrowland to be just about the coolest foliage ever — Cosmic Ray’s general decor will be ideal for you (and me).

Outdoor Seating

Pragmatically, what you need to know is [Read more…]

Gourmet Food Trucks Show Up in Disneyland

By AJ 4 Comments

Loukaniko Plate at Louks Gourmet Food Truck

Disney California Adventure guests are getting another option for quick-service dining in the park this summer: gourmet food trucks!

According to the OC Register’s Fast Food Maven, two trucks are currently serving guests each evening at the Glow Fest, an add-on Summer Nightastic dance event that debuted with World of Color.

For the first half of the event, Orange County’s own Louks Greek Gourmet truck and The Green Truck of Los Angeles are the featured food vans. Disney said park visitors can expect “more popular gourmet food trucks in Southern California” to join Glow Fest.

Trucker Sauce Served with Mother Trucker Vegan Burgers: The Green Truck

To date, the Greek (menu) and Green (menu) Trucks are the only gourmet trucks serving at Glow Fest, which runs from 6pm until park closing each night through August 22nd, 2010. A Spanish Tapas truck has confirmed to the OC Register that it will begin serving at Glow Fest on July 15th, 2010.

For more info and commentary: Source

Global Gummies

By AJ 22 Comments

Whether you like them or not, by now everyone’s at least sampled some gummi candy. In addition to the ubiquitous Gummi Bears, you’ve also got gummi worms, sour gummi staws, gummi vitamins, and even giant gummies.

Because the candy is taking the world by storm, Disney has jumped on the gummi bandwagon. They now sell a variety of gummi candy in their parks and resorts, and are even marketing their own Goofy’s Candy Company gummi brand.

So, while I’m sure that many of you are familiar with the standard gummi bear, how many of you have sampled gummi Salty Licorice Fish? How about Fruity Pasta gummi candy? Well, guess what — you can sample all of these, and more, in your favorite vacation destinations. Imagine that: rides, attractions, and a global selection of gummies in all in one place! One of the many reasons [Read more…]

“The Best Thing I Ever Ate at Disney!”: Breakfast

By AJ 86 Comments

We’re headed back to our “Best Thing I Ever Ate at Disney!” series today

I did a post a couple of weeks back titled The Five Best Things I Ate In Disneyland, which sparked a fun series based on the Food Network’s (very cool) show, The Best Thing I Ever Ate. Based on some keen suggestions from readers, we’ll be splitting our series up into different sections: breakfast, appetizers & side dishes, snacks, entrees (lunch and dinner), and desserts & drinks.

Today, let’s talk breakfast! I’ve done my favorite brand of informal polling (i.e. posted questions on twitter and facebook 😉 ) to find out others’ experiences of the Best Thing They Ever Ate for breakfast at Disney. I must say, the conclusions aren’t all that shocking, but they are delicious! Here’s what we’ve all come up with:

Mickey Waffles

Ah, the glorious little Mickey Waffle! I have no idea why these little guys taste as wonderful as they do, but it’s like melt-in-your-mouth happiness as soon as you bite into one (you think I’m being overly dramatic, but I promise, they’re delicious).

Multi Grain Mickey Waffles from The Wave!

Luckily, you can get them all over Disney World (I have a partial list here) — book a breakfast buffet and you’re almost sure to see them. If you’d rather not deal with locking off time for a full meal, head to [Read more…]

Disney Food Post Round-Up: June 20th, 2010

By AJ 3 Comments

Happy Sunday, all! Did you catch the big Disney food news this week? Disney World has announced that Epcot Food & Wine Festival event reservations will open on July 20th, 2010, at 7am! They’ve also mentioned another new event for this year! As always keep up with the latest information on our Epcot Food and Wine Festival page! It’s updated every time a new bit of info is released.

Now, on to the round-up!

Family.com has some adorable Toy Story 3 recipes: Jessie’s Cowgirl Hat Cookies, Woody’s Sheriff Badge Cookies, Mr. Pricklepants Cupcakes, Hamm Cake Pops, and more!! (Special thanks to Between the Pages for the tip on these recipes!)

The Unofficial Wilderness Lodge Tribute Website reviews the controversial Whispering Canyon Cafe.

About.com Theme Parks does a mini-review of Cafe Orleans in Disneyland. (Yum…frites!!)

Main Street Gazette wins best blog post title ever with “Sack of Sugar, Pinch of Mystery.” You’re going to have to click to see what it’s about… 😉

A World View gives some great tips and resources for how to save some cash when it comes to your Disney World dining. This is part of a multi-part series on saving for and on your WDW vacation.

Disney Every Day checks out the Diamond Horseshoe in the Magic Kingdom.

The Disney Blog talks Perry the Platypus and cake!

Shredheads stages a healthy food smackdown between Disney World and Disneyland.

Chip and Co discusses eating gluten-free in Disney World.

Disney Parks Blog covers their favorite quick-service dining in the parks.

And, again, not Disney, but still cool:

Orlando Sentinel has a Butterbeer Report!

Also, Scott Joseph has an awesome Three Broomsticks video!!

5th Disney Blog Carnival is Up!

By AJ Leave a Comment

DisMarks.com Logo

Congratulations to DisMarks for posting the Fifth Edition of the Disney Blog Carnival!

For those of you who enjoyed the first , second, third, and fourth Disney Blog Carnivals, the fifth has now been published!

This time around, over 30 (!!!) Disney-related blogs and websites contributed some incredible articles covering a range of topics. There are posts about Disney food (yay!), the most popular Pop Century icons, why Stephanie Tanner didn’t know which way Splash Mountain was when Full House visited Disney World (for you 80’s kids), favorite Disney villains, Toy Story 3, and more! 🙂

Just head over to DisMarks to see dozens of articles about Disney from your favorite new and veteran Disney bloggers 🙂

I think it’s [Read more…]

Epcot Food and Wine Festival News: Taste, Shake, and Indulge — and more!

By AJ 1 Comment

Disney’s tempting us with new bits of information about the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival.

It seems there will be another new event series called Taste, Shake, and Indulge, which will include a Grand Marnier Tasting seminar and possibly other events.

They’ve also let us know that July 20th at 7AM EST is when the phones will open for us to book our chosen events!

You can find everything you need to know about the Festival on our 2010 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival page — NEW events for this year are highlighted in red.

Hopefully the full list of events will be released before the July 20th deadline. Guests can call 407/WDW-FEST (939-3378) for information and to make reservations for special events and programs. Festival details should be available at www.disneyworld.com/foodandwine by mid-July and, don’t forget, booking begins at 7:00AM July 20th.

Sunshine Seasons: Fresh Food Fast

By AJ 27 Comments

Sunshine Seasons in Epcot’s The Land continually tops reader favorites lists for best quick-service eatery. Everyone seems to love this place, and I’m not arguing with them. It offers a wide variety of high-quality dishes and includes some healthier items as well. It feels more like a resort food court than anything else, and those extra options make it desirable as a quick-service spot.

Atmosphere
Sunshine Seasons is housed on the ground floor of The Land pavilion, which is essentially a massive room with attractions shooting off in all directions, spoke-and-wheel style. The food-court style ordering area is situated in a free-form semi-circle across from the Soarin’ and Living With The Land attractions. [Read more…]

Update on Cars Land Dining

By AJ 4 Comments

So, I have clearly developed a little obsession about Cars Land. I think it’s going to be one of the coolest things to ever come to Disneyland, and it’s natural for the obsession to extend to where I’ll be eating in Cars Land. Hopefully you’ll indulge me. 😉

We recently posted a piece speculating about what would happen with the table-service restaurant slated for Cars Land in Disney California Adventure. We’d heard some rumors about a “drive-in” themed restaurant similar to Disney World’s Sci-Fi Dine-in, which might replace — or accompany — the originally proposed “Flo’s Cafe.”

These rumors were clarified with a comment on our previous post from Michael Crawford of Progress City USA, “There was a drive-in proposed, but it’s not going be a part of the first phase of this area. Its budget was diverted to other things. Instead, it’s likely that it will be added later. I asked an Imagineer if it had been cut completely or might resurface later, and he said that it’s definitely something that they still want to do.”

Driving home the point, the Disney Parks Blog recently showcased this image of Cars Land’s Route 66, featuring a very cool rendering of Flo’s Cafe, the original restaurant proposed for the new land.

Artist Rendering of Cars Land, copyright Disney

So, in addition to what might be two very cool restaurants in Cars Land, we also learned that the Sally’s Motel cones will sell “cone-themed” quick service items, like “Cone on the Cob!”

Just wanted to keep you updated!

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