Festival!! A Food and Wine at DLR trip report (Complete! - 5/31)

[BriarRosie]

I love how you summed things up and put it all in perspective for me. We definitely want to get out to the DL F&W Festival next year. I know not to expect what we get at WDW, but apparently there are plusses and minuses to both. Your report was wonderful to read and I'm so glad you posted it so we could all get a feel for things on the other side!

Oh thanks! I do encourage everyone to try to DL festival! I thought overall it was pretty fantastic. And I didn't even get to try the daily stuff at the Wine Country area.

Thank you so much for all the details and pics!
Wonderful!
I go to DL/DCA all the time and have gone to many of the F&W events and must say, you put me to shame with all that you (and Catherine and unnamed friend) did in a few short days.

We went in with a plan of attack ahead of time, at least as far as the dining events were concerned. We booked them online (a nice feature, by the way) ahead of time. If this was WDW's festival, the servers would have crashed if people would try to book their events this way! Our trip was planned specifically around the festival. I wouldn't imagine the "locals" would have done as much as we had in the same amount of time.

We love Yamabuki, too, but all the waitresses seem to be ditzy middle aged oriental women who don't know much about waitressing but are pleasant and "too cute", KWIM?

LOL! The servers at Yamabuki are pretty much as you described. "Too cute". Heh.

It didn't seem like you did too many rides at DCA, did you?

I didn't do a lot of rides at DCA, this is true. Most of the time I was soaking up atmosphere. I would have done California Screamin', Maliboomer and Tower of Terror, but I just never made it over there this time. Maybe because I knew I was coming back in December for part of my Adventures by Disney tour. I don't really like the Sun Wheel too much. I keep having flashbacks of cheesy TV movies where the carnival/theme park rides have something break and people crash to their doom. I'll ride it, though, crazy as I am. But hey, I did get to ride Golden Zephyr for the first time.

We loved the Wine Reception two years ago, much more hot & cold items (felt like we had a meal after eating all the samples) and not as crowded and we went again this year and agree, it wasn't as good. Plus last year it was $45 and this year $55. Anyway, so glad you enjoyed DL Hotel and the festival events - thanks again for sharing!

They must have cut the good stuff and raised prices then. I know I wouldn't want to attend the wine reception if they keep it status quo. Thanks for all the feedback.

(re: Guy Fieri) well I would have too but I had to leave on sunday and the dinner was that sunday evening..my dd bf grandmother had just passed that weekend and I had to get her from school in Riverside and bring her back with me for the funeral so it just wasnt supposed to be...so thats why I waited 4 hours for him...I love him

great report btw...when are you coming in Oct.? we will be there the 22nd-26th....

Sorry to hear about the boyfriend's grandmother. I like Guy Fieri, but I wish he'd stop wearing his sunglasses behind his head, you know?

Ooh, we'll be tag-teaming in October. I'm October 15-21.

 

[oybolshoi]

Yes, thanks to Lori, Jay and I are seriously considereing a trip to DL in 2010 as part of his 40th birthday celebration as far away from his immediate family as possible.

Seriously, great reviews and information - fabu job!

Looking forward to mocking Todd English with you in October!

 

[kabuki]

Hey Lori,

Thanks for the great reviews of Food Fest.
If you come back thsi way maybe we can meet up for a glass of wine or 10!

 

[BriarRosie]

Yes, thanks to Lori, Jay and I are seriously considereing a trip to DL in 2010 as part of his 40th birthday celebration as far away from his immediate family as possible.

Seriously, great reviews and information - fabu job!

Oh, those are great reasons for going to DLR!

Looking forward to mocking Todd English with you in October!

[snark]
Oh, you mean mocking Todd English's™ (snort!) fascination about putting his name on every restaurant he owns, lest we forget he's a celebrity chef? [/snark]

Hey Lori,

Thanks for the great reviews of Food Fest.
If you come back thsi way maybe we can meet up for a glass of wine or 10!

10 glasses of wine! ROFL! Oh, I definitely shouldn't ride Space Mountain after that. I enjoyed reading your report last time about Taste. Glad I could reciprocate.

 

[Tatania]

Chef Jason had a surprise for us. We thought our dinner was over after the cheese course, but he actually pushed for a cheese course to squeeze in before a sweet dessert!

Get out the drool bibs again!

Trio of cakes: Caramel, Chocolate, Berry

On the count of three.... Faint!

Each cake had its own tasty puddle of sauce. Because I'm not drawn to fruity desserts, I polished off the berry cake first. I tend to try to save the best for last. You'd think the chocolate cake would be the last cake I'd finish, right?

Wrong! The caramel cake was the clear winner. It tasted like a Heath bar. Heaven on a plate.

In case you want to relive the memory - here's the recipe for the Caramel Cake

Caramel Cake
Disney's California Food and Wine Festival, Winemaker Dinner

Cake Batter
4 lb butter
2 lb sour cream
4 lb sugar
1.5 lb brown sugar
36 fresh eggs
4lb pastry flour
2 oz baking powder
2 oz vanilla extract
40 eggs white .
2.5 lb caramel sauce [ thick]

CARAMEL GANACHE for icing
3 lb Caramel chocolate
1 quartz heavy cream

ALMOND BRITTLE
3 lb sugar
10 oz water
1.5 lb almond slice

CARAMEL THICK SAUCE to fold into the batter .
2 lb sugar
8 oz water
1 lb heavy cream


This is the bulk recipe and it had no instructions for the method.

 

[LMO429]

thx u 4 the disneyland tips! subscribing to you tr!!!!

 

[TDC Nala]

 

[oybolshoi]

You are brilliant!

 

[BriarRosie]

thx u 4 the disneyland tips! subscribing to you tr!!!!

Well, my trip report is complete, but thanks for wanting to sub!

You are SO lucky I wasn't taking a swig of Diet Coke right now. My monitor thanks you.

You are brilliant!

Yeah, she is. She makes a lot of fun logos and pictures. I will have to snag the Todd English one later, or you're welcome to it for any review you might do.