20 Mouthwatering Photos from Disney California Adventure Food and Wine Festival
The Disney California Adventure Food and Wine Festival, an amazing culinary feast that includes specialty items served at Disney California Adventure restaurants, cooking demonstrations, and wine tastings, is currently upon us, and running until the end of the month. Recently, I took a trip to the park and tasted foods from each of the 7 marketplaces (you can read more about them in our extensive rundown). I also had a photographer on hand, who snapped some truly delicious photos. Please enjoy these photos, but please try not to lick or bite your computer screen/cell phone.
This is the apple bacon whoopie pie, located at the Gold Rush marketplace. With maple cream cheese icing and bacon brittle, it’s basically like eating a tiny, fluffy breakfast. And I mean that in the best possible way.
These are artichoke chips, also from the Gold Rush marketplace. It’s golden crispy goodness and the spicy aioli dip adds just the right amount of kick!
Over in Wine Country, you can get a blackberry tart. It comes with rosemary vanilla bean crème fraîche and a cabernet wine glaze, which is a really fancy way of saying that it’s super refreshing and delicious. Just look at the way those blackberries glisten.
Not going to lie: I had never had or heard of chilled ahi poke, but now that I have (from the LA Style marketplace), I can imagine having it again and again and again. Especially prepared like this, with avocado crème and wakame salad, topped with a sesame tuile. Again, part of its charm comes from the fact that it’s really, really cool, which was especially nice on such a hot day.
Another favorite from the festival: a chilled shrimp and snow crab cocktail from the By the Bay marketplace. Look at that crab claw! The “chilled” aspect of this dish was wonderful, and the cocktail had big chunks of crab meat and shrimp, so you definitely get everything its name promises.
This is also from By the Bay marketplace, and was one of the best deserts at this year’s Food and Wine: coconut tapioca layered with fresh mango and lychee boba, topped with a green tea micro sponge, mango couli, and a sesame tuile. The way the flavors go together is practically profound; it’s sweet but never too sweet. And look at those boba bubbles!
At the ¡Viva Fresca! marketplace you can get A fried shrimp soft taco with pickled red onion-jalapeno, queso fresco, and avocado-lime crèma. Look at the way the crumbly cheese sits atop the taco, like the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro, with the shrimp the color of a golden sunset.
For the vegetarians out there, there’s the golden Thai vegetable curry with jasmine rice, from The Farm marketplace. It tastes as great as it looks, and is a welcome alternative to the meat-based dishes. Very strong stuff!
But if you are in the mood for meat, there’s the grilled beef tenderloin slider from The Farm. Look at that slab of meat, perched majestically between two pieces of bread, proving that sliders aren’t just for upscale cocktail parties and hip food trucks anymore.
Another sweet treat from The Farm: a Meyer lemon macaron with blackberry marmalade, Meyer lemon cream, and dried blueberry dust. It tastes as sweet as it sounds.
From LA Style, here’s a milk chocolate caramel tart with almond brittle and sea salt. This looks like a piece of art that you’d hang in a museum or a very rich person’s living room, which sort of amplifies the simple, chocolate-y pleasure of this dish. Anyway you slice it, it’s great.
No joke, the steam bun that surrounds this delicious pork belly bao taco (from LA Style) is the closest you’ll ever come to biting into a cloud—a delicious, delicious cloud.
This dish from Wine Country, which consists of roasted yellow beets and purple haze goat cheese with baby greens, green ver jus, sultanas, and cashews, might sound unconventional, but it’s an absolute delight. Strong, unexpected flavor combinations will make your heart go pitter-patter.
This was a standout from By the Bay: white cheddar ale and bacon Soup, served in a Boudin sourdough mini-boule. The sourdough bowl is an added bonus because you can walk around and still be eating it long after your meal is through.
Yes, that’s a photo of the whoopie pie again, but I wanted to point out the other deliciousness in this shot: the warm and gooey triple cheese mac with smoked chicken, featuring fontina, cheddar, and gouda cheese. It’s as decadent as it is delicious. I’ve already tried to make this at home, with decidedly mixed results.
Zinfandel-braised wagyu beef with creamy polenta and spring pea puree. ‘Nuff said.
BONUS: GROUP SHOTS (everybody get close)!
The stars of By the Bay!
The trio of LA Style standouts!
The Farm favorites!
The Wine Country trifecta!
