It's still Thursday? Yep.
I arrived, checked in, had lunch and dessert in DCA....now what? I decided to kill some time before the next scheduled culinary demo at the Pacific Wharf area.
There was a cart near the culinary demo area that seemed to be the only place to buy the festival related items.
See the pins? In a couple of days, those pins will be MIA from that cart. I didn't think they'd sell out that quickly, but I didn't see them again. Luckily, I bought one.
Been there, done that. Bought the tshirt:
They had a lot of interesting items, from cookbooks, to the pins, shirts and aprons, to ornaments. I did not see a recipe booklet like the WDW festival has, though.
Do my eyes deceive me? No! There's the margarita stand I remember from three years ago!
Hmm, what should I order?
Strawberry Margarita!
Just to the right of the Lucky Fortune Cookery and next to the waterfront, there is a culinary demo stage setup. There's a similar setup at the Bountiful Valley Farm area and across the Pacific Wharf area for the booze demos next to the beer cart. Mostly, they look like this.
Did you happen to notice a lot of seats are in the sun? Me too. During the earliest demos of the weekend, the sun isn't out in force. But the demo I went to was in mid-afternoon, and I didn't like the blazing sun seats. More on that in a minute.
There were tables alongside the entrance to the demo area, with nice views of Paradise Pier:
So I sat there sipping my 'Rita, waiting until I had to get into line for the demo. I messaged my friend who arrived, and she was off doing her own thing, so I would see her later at dinner. Catherine was still in transit, supposed to land at 2:30pm.
Out of nowhere, these cute little birds came flying straight towards me. I thought I was under attack, but they flew right by me. Still, it freaked me out a minute. Sheesh, I thought only seagulls did that!
The food demo was Magnificent Mushrooms, and I have no idea who the chef was. I didn't catch names of any chef at any demo, but they all worked as chefs around the
Disneyland resort. So as I am about to get into line, the cast member standing there passes out laminated cards with numbers on them.
Yes, I was third in line. I sat and waited with a bunch of nice people until the venue opened seating. From what I heard, the demo areas hold about 70 people, and I think the numbered card system is great. At WDW, you get into line about 30 minutes early (a little longer on weekends), and you have no idea if you're going to be seated. I definitely like this number system! At least you know if they run out of numbers, you're not getting in.
Soon it was time to be seated, and I was sitting in the sun. While I was wearing sunscreen, I wasn't covered in some areas, so I did burn a little bit. Each seat had this waiting for each person.
I thought it was nice that we had water to drink and note paper. Here's the work station and mirror.
The chef was making a salad that would feature some morel mushrooms. Here he is making the vinagrette for the salad.
I learned something new at this demo. He used a bottle of
verjus (vair-ZHOO), which is unfermented juice from from the first press of wine grapes. It's meant to be a replacement for vinegar in the dressing.
The chef brought around a little sample of it to try if we wanted to taste it, as we were served our salads.
This salad is mainly comprised of yellow tomato, Tuscan melon, mixed greens and crispy prosciutto, with slices of morel, which actually seemed to be an afterthought. I think the salad would have been good with or without them.
This elegant little salad was served at some event at DL recently. And the verjus was very tart, which made sense in terms of the way it's used in the salad dressing. But I think I expected something else that would feature mushrooms front and center.
Now that I got my fill of food, I wanted to do some park stuff! I headed to Golden Dreams right across the bridge, and it looked like it was ready to start in a few minutes. So I went in and enjoyed that movie. The golden theme continued as I rode the Golden Zephyr, a ride I hadn't been on before. They look like silver rockets, and it was a good thing the ride was a walk-on. I wouldn't stand in line for it.
I decided to get into the single rider line at Soarin', and I noticed I had some text messages from Catherine. She was stuck in traffic because there was a bomb scare on the 5 and 605, so they had to take the 405 instead. I marveled at this while in line, and this guy who was also in the single rider line behind me struck up a conversation with me.
I mentioned how my friend is going through her travel drama, and that she, another friend and I were all coming to meet up at Disneyland for the food and wine festival from different cities. I think I mentioned that I was looking forward to our dinner at Yamabuki. Soon, Kronk...Puddy...The Tick...ok, Patrick Warburton interrupted to tell us to board the ride.
After the ride, I did something else I hadn't done before. I explored the Challenge Trail. I discovered that rope bridges and I have issues. I didn't have anything to drink, yet I felt like I crossed the bridge as if I was three sheets to the wind! Egad.
Soon I had another text message that Catherine arrived, and we wanted to get a drink at the Wine Cellar at Hook's Pointe. So I made my way back to the Disneyland Hotel, reached the wine cellar around 4:30pm....and the door was locked. Hmm, I have no idea when they open, and I walked around the building and found Catherine.
I suggest that I could buy her a drink at the Hearthstone Lounge at the Grand Californian, and that's what we did. The drink menu didn't thrill us, and I noticed that many of the same drinks at WDW (Blue Glowtini anyone?) was on this menu, too. The drink menu used to have a chocolate cake martini, and lucky for us, the bartender here knew how to make one.
Chocolate Cake Martini with a lemon twist.
I started eating the bar snacks until I realized I needed a photo:
Catherine and I relaxed, and as we were talking, our attention was diverted to a guy nearby who was doing some strange gyrations. Chippendale's he ain't, but I think he was trying to be funny for the woman he was with. I don't know about her, but I found him amusing.
After our drink, we decided to go to Disneyland and ride the Haunted Mansion, hoping to also find some Haunted Mansion Mickey ears. As we got into the DoomBuggy, the cast member poked his head around the vehicle and greeted Catherine loudly, which completely startled her and sent me into a giggle fit.
Of course the store didn't have Haunted Mansion ears. But it had a lot of Jack Skellington crap. This was reminding me of 2005. Why isn't there any real Haunted Mansion merchandise? Sigh. So Catherine and I decided to take the train back to the Main Street Station. I was looking foward to this, as the train is completely different at DL than WDW. When the narrator started to talk, I thought, "Hey, isn't that the grandpa narrator from Horizons??" I totally think the narrators are the same. I was having a great Horizons flashback moment.
The Mad Hatter shop didn't have any Haunted Mansion Mickey ears, either. So Catherine and I left Disneyland to get ready to meet our other friend for dinner at Yamabuki at Paradise Pier Hotel.
When we arrived, we saw our friend sitting at the bar waiting for us, and who was behind the bar? None other than the random guy I was chatting with in the line of Soarin'! How wacky is that? He didn't tell me he worked at Yamabuki, and he realized somehow that my friend was one of the people I was meeting with. Ok now, sing with me: "It's a small world, after all..."
After the chance encounter, we were soon seated. And I took pics of all the food, too! Here's a pic of the ceviche my friend ordered:
It was very beautifully presented, and she let me try it. It tasted just as good as it looked.
Catherine ordered the sashimi:
And I ordered the Yamabuki Combo. You get miso soup and salad to start, followed by tempura and teriyaki chicken or salmon, I think. I had ordered the chicken. Catherine and I also ordered some maki rolls. She ordered spicy tuna, and I had the soft shell crab hand roll.
Salad and Miso Soup
Spicy tuna roll and Soft Shell Crab (aka Spider) hand roll
Lucky for me, this was the only blurry pic. I had serious food blur with my Larded and Loaded pics, so one blurry pic here is just fine with me.
Veggie Tempura and Chicken Teriyaki
Everything was delicious, and the teriyaki sauce was just wonderful. But we were amused by what the couple celebrating their anniversary got at their table.
Introducing Citrus Mickey!
How cute is that? We didn't get any stinkin' Mickey made out of oranges.
Catherine and I parted ways with our friend after dinner, but as she had a jones for some of Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen's bread pudding, and I had a jones for some beignets, we walked through Downtown Disney again to get some at their Jazz Kitchen Express location.
The bad news...I forgot to take photos of these treats! We brought the treats back to the room to enjoy. Catherine had one big honkin' piece of bread pudding, and it looked great. She saved half to store for her breakfast the next day. So I also gave her one of my beignets. There must have been half a pound of confectioner's sugar in that paper bag after I finished, sheesh.
Our bellies were happy, so we called it a night. It was a long travel day for all of us, and we needed to crash.
Next: Friday begins!