food IS a theme park
Woo! We’re back with another “You Won’t Believe This!” snack from Starring Rolls Cafe in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Of course you remember the Butterfinger Cupcake, which had more frosting than most birthday cakes. Well this Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake rivals, and might even top [Read more…]
Dinner:Impossible Production Sign
After walking out of the Disney “Give A Day, Get A Disney Day” announcement event on Thursday, I saw none other than Chef Robert Irvine running through World Showcase with a team of volunteers behind him! I quickly realized that he was taping Dinner:Impossible! for the Food Network…and that I was going to be attending that dinner!
Scroll to the bottom of the page to read more about the “Give A Day” program and how you can be a part of it; in the meantime, let’s get on to the food…
Chef Irvine Plots With His Volunteers
Dinner Prep
Chef Irvine and his volunteers were preceded around the the World Showcase by an advance team who were tasked with finding the next individual the Chef would be speaking with, and setting up the shot. For instance, in Epcot’s Germany pavilion, the advance team set up a shot where Chef Irvine learned from Snow White what one of his main ingredients would be!
From there, the Chef and his volunteers took off running again — after all, he only had a few hours to cook dinner for hundreds.
Dinner:Impossible Advance Team
Chef Irvine and Team Run to the Next Shot
For the hours of cooking Chef Irvine and his trusted sous chefs were about to endure, Disney had set up a show kitchen in front of World Showcase. Guests to the Epcot theme park were welcomed to watch as the show taping started heating up! I hung around for a good chunk of the day, snapping photos and trying to figure out what my meal was going to include. All I could figure out was that we were going to be eating a lot of apples…
One interesting thing I noticed is that the proceedings in the kitchen were pretty quiet. Lots of chopping, and seasoning, and sauteing in a giant wok being heated over a…garbage can, but no yelling. No angry Chef Irvine shouting in frustration that there are only 3 dishes done with only 20 minutes left. Maybe there was another kitchen somewhere where those things were happening. It’s not a Dinner:Impossible! show without them! My fingers are crossed that somebody got angry somewhere, or it might not be worth watching. 😉
Dinner Impossible Waiver
Chef Irvine Instructs a Sous Chef in the Show Kitchen
The Dinner
After much running around by Chef Irvine and his sous chefs, it was finally time for those at the event to start digging in! Now, here’s the saddest part of my story — I’m pretty sure I didn’t get to eat Chef Irvine’s cooking. Word is that his handiwork was served only to the Give a Day Get a Day volunteers, who’d won trips to Disney World to celebrate their donations.
Alas, I’m still going to tell you all about the dinner WE, as members of the media, were served, because it was still delicious — thanks, Disney!
The event was held outside — on the bridge between the Fountain of Nations in Future World and the World Showcase Lagoon, and there were several stations set up where guests could collect appetizer-sized portions of the dishes.
Servers were also circulating with many of the dishes — primarily desserts — in case you couldn’t break away from a conversation to get over to the main serving areas. There were quite a few tables set up within the event space, along with cocktail tables bearing [Read more…]
Happy Valentine's Day!
Wow! What a week! Two days at Disney World can be exhausting! Here are a few links to some news and info reports from the World this week:
Stay tuned for more stories this week from my trip to Disney World! Now, on to the round-up!
Disney Geek reports that corn dogs are on the menu at Disneyland’s Stage Door Cafe while the Corn Dog Castle is closed for refurb through 2011.
@Marcomboy, via twitter, shared some Valentine’s Day Desserts at Disneyland’s Storytellers Cafe. In the photo: Red Velvet Mini cupcake, Snickers cheesecake, and flourless chocolate cake. Also available are a heart-shaped chocolate raspberry tart and a heart shaped strawberry mousse.
Disney Family.com has some great Alice in Wonderland ideas! Check out these edible teacups, this smiling Cheshire Cat cupcake, and this cool make-it-yourself Alice cupcake topper!
The Red Carpet takes us along with her as she dines at Disneyland’s Club 33!
Main Street Gazette shares a memory of an extinct restaurant, the Polynesian’s Papeete Bay Verandah, along with one of its lost recipes: Chicken Toa Nue.
DisneyShawn shows us the detail of Pinocchio’s Village Haus.
A World View shares a review of Cat Cora’s Kouzzina.
Disney Parks Blog shares their top WDW Romantic Restaurants. (You can also check out the DisneyFoodBlog top three romantic restaurants in Disney World, based on our reader survey!)
Chip and Co shows us how to do a DIY breakfast from the Kona Cafe!
Cinderella Poses at a Character Breakfast
The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Cinderella’s Royal Table will add princesses to their character line-up for dinner!
Now, guests usually can expect to see Snow White, Jasmine, Aurora and Belle during breakfast, lunch and dinner. The royal beauties stop by each table to chat, pose for photos and sign autographs.
For years, Cinderella only visited the restaurant for breakfast. Now, your little princes and princesses will be able to see her — and her royal friends — at dinner as well! Get your dialing fingers ready, though; you’ll need to call or book online 180 days in advance to get an Advanced Dining Reservation for this hot ticket character meal!
Usually don’t post on Saturdays, but I had to share this (as I’m sitting in the Orlando airport, delayed for 3 hours…). I was at my favorite cupcake place, Starring Rolls Cafe in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, this morning for a snack. Guess what I found while doing my “research” for the Disney Food Blog…?
Cupcake Hidden Mickey
Have a GREAT weekend!
So, being the person I am and writing the blog I write, it’s natural that I hung around after the canned goods sculpture reveal at the Disney “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” press event and took a few photos… 🙂 The world record-setting sculpture (yep — Guinness World Records authenticated it) was made up of 115,527 canned goods. The canned goods were donated to food banks in Orlando, Fla., Miami, and Atlanta.
This was part of a massive media event promoting what I believe to be one of the most game-changing Corporate/Non-Profit partnerships in the history of philanthropy. Disney’s “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” volunteer program aims to encourage 1 million people to volunteer one day of service at a local nonprofit in exchange for one free day in a Disney park. Why is this game-changing? Because that 1 million people includes thousands of children, who will learn why it’s important to volunteer and help out in the community — and I don’t mean just getting a ticket to Disney World. This program will introduce thousands of people to the outstanding benefits volunteering can bring — both personally and to the community.
To date, Disney’s already hit the 600,000 person mark…and that’s in just six weeks. I’m guessing they’ll hit their 1 million person goal in no time flat.
But on to the Sculpture…
One thing I really wanted to capture was how many different types of items were used to create the sculpture, as well as the innovation of the “artists!” According to a Disney press release,
The sculpture contains approximately 44 tons of food – everything from albacore tuna and apricot halves to spaghetti, stewed tomatoes and mixed vegetables – destined to become more than 70,000 meals for the needy.
Let’s begin with a photo of the full sculpture. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to see a cool time-lapse video of the sculpture being built!!:
Here are a few breakdown photos that I thought were pretty interesting uses of canned, bagged, and boxed foods:
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse was made up primarily of flesh-toned Kirkland Salmon cans. Black olive cans were used for his ears and nose, and pineapple chunk cans made up his eyes. All of the characters had popcorn plates for pupils!
Mickey’s paintbrush was made out of boxes of lasagna noodles, bags of spaghetti, and [Read more…]
I’ve had a busy and rewarding day at the Walt Disney World “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” media event; and while you’ll be seeing in-depth blogs over the next few days about my adventures, I wanted to share with you as soon as possible a few of my favorite Disney photos from today.
So, come along with me on this mini-photo-trip-report!
My Disney Day in Photos
First, we got up early-early-early to head over to Epcot for our Akershus breakfast with the Princesses. I think this is just about the most true-to-“life” Snow White I’ve ever seen:
Snow White at Akershus Restaurant
Then it was off to the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” Media Event, but what do I see as I’m walking around World Showcase? Giant tin cans!! These were used throughout Epcot today as themeing for the Volunteer Events! This one indicated that a VERY cool Detroit radio station would be broadcasting live from Epcot today! (Shout out to Jake Edwards!)
Detroit 96.3 Radio Station Broadcast Location Marker
Finally made it around the Showcase in time for the big World Record reveal and Media Event. This is the World’s Largest Sculpture Made of Canned Goods! Be sure to check out our breakdown of the foods used for each character!
Canned Goods Sculpture Reveal at Disney World
And of course I needed to get Pluto’s picture in front of his canned-good likeness!
Disney's Pluto with Canned Goods Pluto
I was thrilled to see that Mickey’s fingers were made out of huge-mongo bags of [Read more…]
Chef Robert Irvine from Food Network’s Dinner:Impossible is running around the World Showcase today with a team of Disney volunteers. What are they doing? Looking for food! Chef Irvine, it’s been reported, will be cooking our Give a Day, Get a Disney Day media event dinner tonight! (Update: to see the full meal and photos from the event, check out our Dinner:Impossible post here!)
Stay tuned for photos of the food. For now, here’s a few pics of Chef Irvine headed around Epcot and getting to work in his kitchen.
Chef Irvine and Team Run to Find Food
The Chef and His Team Pause to Deliberate
Chef Irvine's Advance Team Prepped Each Upcoming Location for Filming
Chef Irvine's Kitchen in World Showcase
UPDATE: Read about the Opening Date for Be Our Guest Restaurant and Reservations Info!
I’m reporting this week from the Walt Disney World Media Event showcasing the new Give a Day, Get a Disney Day volunteer program! Last night was the kick-off event, and we heard some fun dining news and got to taste some great eats over at the ESPN Wide World of Sports! (Psst — if you just want to see pics from the kick-off party, scroll down.)
Disney Food News
Unfortunately, I didn’t hear any BRAND new Disney food news, but recently opened restaurants Kouzzina and Sanaa were mentioned, along with the upcoming Be Our Guest restaurant and Gaston’s Tavern, to be found in the new-and-improved Fantasyland in 2012.
Other fun mentions that some of you might not have heard about are the two new, “interactive” restaurants on board the brand new Disney Cruise Line cruise ship, The Disney Dream. These include the Enchanted Garden, which magically transforms your surroundings from early morning to a night sky while you dine, and the Skyline Lounge, which has walls that change to reflect a new city scape each day!
Skyline Lounge
Enchanted Garden
Media Event Treats and Eats
The event kick-off was held in the ESPN Wide World of Sports on Walt Disney World property. The first part of the evening was a [Read more…]
There are some quintessential theme park foods that come to mind when you think of Disney World — funnel cakes, Dole Whips, Mickey bars, and, for me, lollipops. Maybe it’s because I don’t eat them very often, maybe it’s because they’re so shiny and colorful, maybe it’s because I associate them with vacations from my childhood, but I always want to buy a big, ol’ swirly lollipop.
They’re an eye-catching hallmark of a Disney vacation. Their colorful sugar swirls captivate the eye in any shop, and I think they’re actually pretty artistic. So, for today’s mid-week pick-me-up, I wanted to share a few of my favorite sucker shots with you guys. Sit back, relax, remember when you were a kid, and let the colors take you away to YOUR happy place. 🙂
More after the break! [Read more…]
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