We're still on Sunday, as Catherine and I left
Disneyland via its cute Monorail Jr.to go back to the hotel and change. We were going to meet our third friend back at the Vineyard Room for that $85 wine pairing dinner sponsored by the Gallo vineyards.
The weather was chilly at night, so I had my hooded sweatshirt jacket with me again. I felt a bit underdressed, but what can you do when you make the reservation two days prior while already at Disneyland?
It was no matter, as my canceled reservation blues was reversed by some good karma after all. A few trip report segments earlier, I mentioned that I had made reservations two months in advance for dinner at the Vineyard Room at Disney's California Adventure. A week or so later, I received the phone call from Disney Dining in CA telling me a private event booked the space.
Now that we've come full circle, I was looking forward to this dinner!
After we checked in, the three of us headed upstairs to get our table number and uh, "mingle" (which we really didn't do) at the Vineyard Room's outdoor patio for wine and some "hoover doovers".
That just doesn't get old.
Our first Hoover Doover was some sort of green pea bruschetta, artfully decorated with slices of peppers and some cheesy goodness:
And now I must make a confession. I'm totally going to contradict myself from a previous statement I made in one of the first segments of this trip report. I promised I wouldn't have any more blurry food pictures.
Well, I
lied! I don't know exactly what this was, but I do know it had a puff pastry with figs in it, and an edible flower. Yes, I ate the flower. I felt like I was channelling Thumper for a moment.
So now, without further ado, I give you...
Blurry Figgy Tartlet with Edible Flower!
These hors d'oeuvres (Hoover Doovers!) were the only items brought out, but I must admit they brought out quite a bit! I didn't want to fill up on these before dinner, so I had stopped at two pea bruschettas and one of the fig tarts.
Soon, we were ushered into the main dining room, where we were seated by table numbers. We were seated quite close to the entrance, first table in, actually. I called us the Redheaded Stepchild Table because we seemed to be somewhat isolated to the rest of the action, although we could hear the Gallo presenter just fine.
What did we see when we got to the table?
Lots of wine glasses and an
amuse bouche! Lesson refresher on amuse bouche:
It literally means "mouth amuser", and it's pretty much just that. Not part of the traditional menu, the amuse bouche is something the chef prepares on a whim to whet the appetite with a bite-sized offering before the appetizer course.
I once defined it as "my mouth had a party and all the tasty food was invited". Lesson over.
So our amuse bouche was asparagus! Let's take a closer look:
Yes, I know this isn't "bite-sized", but that's alright by me! This was simple and fantastic. The vinagrette served with it seasoned the vegetable well. But I love asparagus plain or dolled up, so I am kind of biased in favor of it.
We had a table set for four. But the fourth guest either didn't show up, or the restaurant set up the table incorrectly. Catherine made an executive decision to do a hostile takeover of the Mystery Guest's amuse bouche and wine and split it among the three of us. I got the lion's share of the wine somehow. But I wasn't the one pouring it, so no finger wagging, please!
Menu time!
I was practically drooling when I saw all the goodies in store for us!
Shrimp and Lobster Bruschetta
How good does that look? Tasted even better. The bread wasn't crispy like a crostini, but it didn't matter. I used it to sop up the sauce, baby! And I used more bread served to us to get the rest of the sauce!
I am so glad I held off pigging out on the reception snackables. And like the other Winemaker Dinner, the wine for each course would be discussed, then the food pairing that went with it.
The Gallo rep was trying to be personable, wondering who might be from out of town. He asked people to raise hands if they lived out of state. Some woman at another table shouted "Oregon!", and it didn't faze him. I think he was expecting most people to be from California, and anyone else coming in from the west coast wouldn't seem out of the ordinary.
And when he inquired where we were from, I shouted, "Chicago!" and Catherine shouted out her eastern state, and our third friend shouted out yet a third location also far away from California.
The Gallo wine rep seemed a bit nonplussed over that. I got a kick out of throwing his complacency out of whack a bit.
Most people aren't visiting the California Food and Wine Festival as much as the WDW one. But if things stay consistently good, and they tweak a few other things, I think they have a winner on their hands.
And for the main course...
Pan Roasted Ribeye Medallion, Sweet Corn Gratin, Gorgonzola Spinach, Shiitake Marsala Sauce
What's not to love about this? The other night, I felt the steak was less pink than I liked, but I thought the ribeye at the Vineyard Room was done more the way I like it. The corn gratin on the left was like a stuffing consistency and very tasty. And I had lots of mushrooms, yum! You can see the spinach peeking out under the steak, and I can assure you that it was a lot of food!
Cheese course!
Cypress Grove Midnight Moon and Saint Nectaire with Cranberry Currant Compote
Mmmmm.......cheeeeeeeeeeeeez.
I turned off the flash because the items were getting washed out. The crostini was originally laying horizontally across the two cheese, but I took it off to show the cheese. I kept thinking about how jealous Brenda (oybolshoi) would be when she found out I had so much cheesy goodness during my trip. Here, we hit the Trifecta of Cypress Grove cheeses. Midnight Moon is made by Cypress Grove, along with the Purple Haze and Humboldt Fog I had during other events during the trip. Of the three, I think I like Humboldt Fog the most. I don't remember much about Saint Nectaire, but it must have been good because I cleaned the plate.
And I give you a nice choco-ending to a lovely dinner!
Gianduja Chocolate Mousse Cake, Hazelnut Tuile and Cabernet Caramel Sauce
My first order of business was removing that big honkin' piece of hazelnut brittle and devouring it. The chocolate mousse top and the cake bottom were not fighting for fork space. The mousse was firm enough that I could cut it with my fork without worry about it turning into a goopy, drippy mess, and the cake was soft enough that I didn't have to smoosh the mousse to get some cake. And the cake part was probably there as a vehicle for the sauce. I don't care how they put the logistics of this together, but it all just
worked!
And even though I had wine with every course, I wasn't sloshed like the I was at the other dinner. Heh.
As the dinner was winding down, I mentioned to our server that I had the best service ever from any restaurant I've been to. I remembered my server's name, too. He said to me that she still worked there, and he walked off to bring her over. I didn't realize she was working the event! Because my meal was in 2003, I totally didn't expect her to remember me. However, since I dined solo, when the restaurant first opened for dinner, and
I had a plush Figment beanie mascot with me, I think she
might have remembered that.
And she did. I'm sure Catherine and our friend were bored to tears while I gushed to her over how memorable my dining experience was, and why I thought she was the best server in any restaurant I've been to. She seemed genuinely touched, and I was thrilled I got a chance to tell her that in person.
Chef Gloria came over to chat, too. And the three of us complimented her dinner for us. And the Gallo wine rep came over, and I monopolized the conversation with him. It didn't hurt that he was eye candy. Sometimes I need a good swift kick to get me to shut up!
As the Vineyard Room is an open air dining high above ground level, you can still hear any loud noises coming from below. I think the Electrical Parade counts as loud noises, and we heard the parade go by at the tail end of the dinner.
Disneyland was open late again, so our friend called it a night and went back to her hotel as Catherine and I decided to close the park. What a difference a day makes! Sunday night as a "school night" meant that the park wouldn't be a crush like it was Saturday.
There was no Sea of Humanity clogging Main Street USA. It was a breeze to go to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. There was no line to speak of, even though we had FastPasses. I must say that I think Big Thunder at Disneyland is much more fun at night!
Where were all the people? When we were walking through the park to get from attraction to attraction, it seemed to me that the park was about as empty as I remember it being during E Ride Nights offered years ago at WDW. Before evening Extra Magic Hours became standard at WDW, Disney resort guests could pay around $12 extra to be in the park three hours after official closing, very similar to WDW's current evening EMH at the Magic Kingdom.
But back then, circa 2000, the parks were almost empty, and it was kind of spooky walking around at night with hardly anyone there. Evening EMH are way more crowded than E Ride Nights ever were, and Disneyland on a late Sunday night in April gave me a reminder of a fond memory at the other Magic Kingdom.
Ok, where was I? Oh, Catherine and I rode the wildest ride in the wilderness, and we decided the Matterhorn was next. I love this ride, especially at night, but you need to get your chiropractor on speed dial when the ride is over. Ow. Ow. Ow. My backside has plenty of natural padding, yet I was still banged up a bit.
And I never can resist shouting "Riiiiiiiiiicolaaaaaaaa" while I'm in the queue. That must be something due to the Alpine decor.
After the Matterhorn, we made our way to the Submarine Voyage, since Catherine hadn't done that yet. Some cover band was playing 80's tunes at the Tomorrowland Terrace stage, and we were rocking out in line. That caught the attention of our new friend, a mom in line with her teenage daughter. The blast from our past music was a bonding moment, for sure, and it made the wait a bit more bearable for me.
I'm sort of glad I got to experience it at night, because I think it's got a different vibe than when I rode it during the daytime. At any rate, I feel too cramped into my seat, and I'm pretty much due to skip the subs for several trips in the future. I like the effects, but I am not comfortable being hunched in the seat.
We ended our night in New Orleans Square, intending to finish with Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. When we entered the Mansion foyer, we were the only people in the room. Then I noticed something very unusual about the floor. It was in the shape of a spider web. And that detail would have escaped my notice had the queue been full of people. Shiver.
Soon a few more people arrived, and we were led to the Doom Buggies.
If having a nearly empty Mansion experience was strangely cool, our ride on Pirates was even cooler. There was nobody entering the queue, and as we got to the loading area, we saw the cast member send off a boat with only two people in it. There were other empty boats dispatched after them.
Catherine and I were dispatched in our own boat, as well! I've never been on Pirates where not another group of people could be seen. Let me tell you, it's eerie! At least this time we didn't have Flash Photo Girl ruining the ride experience.
My experiences at Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean were what really reminded me of the old E Ride Nights. I remember times you'd have your own boat at Splash Mountain. Catherine and I managed to get five headliner attractions done in short order, and I was pleased that it worked out so well for us.
And soon we took the long trek back to the Disneyland Hotel through Downtown Disney, where the scents of the kettle caramel popcorn lingered to taunt us, yet again.
Next: Final day.
were actually pretty crisp. The items in the photo may be crisper than they appear. 
I had no idea she was behind me, or I wouldn't have chosen that moment to adjust the hood of the jacket. 
I almost feel like apologizing for having better food. Heheh.
