Mikka + Redwitch's F&W craziness: food, drink, and as always, pictures! Updated 4/12: teppen edo!

[Mikka]

So, guess who went to Disney? (Again.) And ate a lot? (Again.) And is going to do a rambling and probably silly food report about it with snarky comments by her mother injected? (Again.)

If you guessed me, you are correct! If you didn't, well, stick around anyway: I'd love to have you!

As usual, hello and greetings! I am Mikka and my mother is Redwitch, we travel to Disney together, and we like eating, drinking and talking about what we eat and drink. We did a Food and Wine trip from September 30th till October 11th and had a great time, food-wise. (Feet wise, on the other hand, was sort of tragic.)

In a rare case for us, we were using the dining plan. If you want the truth, I am not very fond of the dining plan: while I am not the type to run around the forums screaming about how it's ruined Disney Dining Foreverrrrr, I certainly don't think it's helped places get better (hah?), and I prefer the choice of 'eat whatever you want whenever you want' of Tables in Wonderland (which we had as well) more then it's 'eat this now USE CREDITS ARGH' of the dining plan. However, despite all the snack credits and counter services we had left (and desperately used on nonsense snacks), I do think we saved money with it. Unless you have kids and are doing buffets, I think we basically hit the only way you can save money with it (be staying at the cheapest value so that even if a room discount exists (which are rare at the All-Stars), it's less of a discount then the cost to upgrade from QSDP to 'regular' DP is, and then be intending to do a package on top of that), but we did indeed save money. So, yay?

There were some minor hiccups, though, and this is a major one we ran in to that I'm going to note in the opening post: Disney really wants you to use room charge. If you're using the Dining Plan, they really, really, really want you to use room charge. If we bought things off the plan- alcohol, appetizers- things generally were okay, and we were allowed to pay for them AND the tip of the dining plan however we wanted. If we just stuck to the dining plan, though, several places would just set things up for room charge without even asking what we wanted, and we had to flag the waiter back. Even then, we ran in to a few places that wouldn't allow us to just put the tip on a Disney Gift card: they claimed it wasn't possible (however, as it was at different places, I am suspicious of that). A credit card had to be used instead (and at Bongos in particular, the waiter seemed to imply he was going out of his way to allow us to pay with a credit card- seriously!).

This is obviously not a problem if you do use room charge (mom doesn't simply as we buy those Disney Gift cards to use on dining, and then it shows up just on her statement as 'Disney' rather then the specific location and annoys her when checking her statements), but if you don't, I want to give this warning. It was fairly frustrating.

Payment is a boring subject, though. So let's instead talk about where we ate (and drank).

September 30th: Two Booths, Restaurant Marrakesh
October 1st: Captain's Grill, One Booth, Culinary Demonstration, Beverage Demonstration, Tokyo Dining Food and Wine Pairing Special Event, and, uh, a cronnut
October 2nd: Prime Time, Brown Derby, Brown Derby Lounge
October 3rd: Parisian Afternoon Special Event, Raglan Road
October 4th: Be Our Guest, the Wave
October 5th: Seven (I think?) booths, La Cava, Jock Lyndsy's Hanger Bar, Morimotos
October 6th: Sunshine Seasons, Teppen Edo Habachi Meal Special Event, and I think a thing of popcorn that no pictures were taken of
October 7th: Starbucks, two booths, Via Napoli, three more booths, and All Star Sports foodcourt
October 8th: Harambae Market, Olivia's, Raglan Road's Hole in the Wall, California Grill
October 9th: Tutto Gusto Wine Pairing Special Event, Block and Hans, Morimotos, Bongos
October 10th: Parisian Breakfast Special Event, one booth, All Star Sports foodcourt, Citricos
October 11th: Two Booths, All Star Foodcourt AGAIN...

And fifty million snacks. Seriously. Okay, maybe only half a million. But there's a lot.

(Also, there were drinks at Trader Sam's somewhere in there. I'll have to update when I figure out where they were...)

I will attempt to come back and link the post to the location, but I admit to being somewhat lazy and may not do it right away. Feel free to poke me about it! This time, though, I'm going to put updates in the title, so at least people can check on that.

In case I don't get later posts done in 'time' for the Food and Wine, though, I just want to note: don't miss the Chew Lab booth. Everything we tried there was fantastic! Both Japan events were amazing, and we also really enjoyed the Parisian Lunch, though I sadly doubt you can get in to them. The breakfast and the Italian lunch were 'okay'- I'm glad we went, but they weren't as good as the other three events.

Hopefully, though, I won't be too long on these reviews... as always, poke and prod me and I'll work faster! My goal is to get this done before November starts, but I'm pretty bad at goals.

The first post will come... as soon as I can get Flickr or another uploading site to work. So, er, probably tomorrow. Sigh. Please wait patiently! And comment! And, of course, enjoy!

Thanks, as always, for reading!


UPDATED 1/2/16!!

 

[luvpooh]

*poke* *prod*

Can't wait to read all about it!

 

[tigerlilly]

Can't wait to read all about it!!!

 

[Mikka]

*poke* *prod*

Can't wait to read all about it!

Can't wait to read all about it!!!

Continue the pokes and prods, I'm sure I'll need them! I'm so glad you'll both be reading along with this one, too!


I'm sure you don't want to hear the whole story of our travels, but to summarize, we got to Orlando a bit before noon after being up since three with little food in our bellies. Mom packed cheese sticks, and red beet eggs, but I didn't want to eat the eggs on the plane because well, the smell can be unappetizing to others surrounding us (she made me eat one in the lobby of the All Stars; it was very dry). This meant that by the time we got to Epcot, we had wrapped around from the 'DYING OF HUNGER' that hit somewhere around ten to 'So hungry we're not even hungry even more'. Thus, while the plan was to hit a lot of booths, we really only ended up hitting two. And, honestly, it was hot and we were tired (from that being up at three) and knew we needed to use a table service that night because of That Darn Dining Plan, so perhaps that was for the best. In any case...

NEW ZEALAND AND MEXICO​

Our first use of a snack credit: the Venison in New Zealand ('Seared Venison Loin with Wild Mushroom Marsala Sauce and Kumara Dumpling') and the Nobilo Icon Pinot Noir.

As is common with reds at the food and wine, this for some ungodly reason was served chilled (and kept on ice). This makes it very hard to give much of a hint as to what it tasted like: it was still bold enough, but mostly it just tasted like it needed to warm up. Sadly, holding it my hands for a while didn't really seem to do anything. Looking on the internet, if it had been proper temperature, I would have apparently found 'spicy notes', blah blah blackberries and cherries blah blah, something about loam and cigars, blah blah... (seriously, who gets paid to write wine tasting descriptions and why don't I have that job?). As it was, the wine tasted nice enough, but it's hard to recommend drinking very cold red wine when you could step in to any of the restaurants around the World Showcase and get similar quality wines that weren't so cold that the flavor was muted.

As for the venison? It itself was ridiculously overcooked. The mushroom marsala was, however, very good. And the kumara (sweet potato, basically) dumpling? So, so, so good. I'm not sure if the dumpling and the sauce/mushrooms alone make it worth buying the pretty expensive venison, but for a snack credit, I'd use it.

Having said that, though we didn't get them this year (and thus maybe they changed and became all rubbery), the green lip mussels I've had here in previous years were definitely my favorite.

Now, down a booth (or two?)...



Let me just say I don't think I've ever had a positive experience with the Mexico booth (including it's F&G version) before. I'm sorry to say that, but it's pretty much true. The best I can hope for is a really watered down margarita with no tequila in it that tastes hopefully more fruity then syrupy.

This, however, was the day to change all days! Apparently.

We have the Chilaquiles de Pollo: Corn Chips layered with Seasoned Chicken, Queso Fresco, Sour Cream and Cilantro and then the Pastel de Elate con Queso: Sweet Corn Cheesecake. Both were basically exactly how it sounds. The chilaquiles were very flavorful: the corn chips were of course soft and mushy from the cheese, but they were meant to be, obviously. The only problem was that the cheese had basically solidified: it would have been so much better if it was still runny. I would definitely recommend making a stop to get these as soon as the booth opens in the morning, or staring at the booth till you see them cooking more then running desperately in line. If you can't, I'm not sure I would give this a 'must get' reputation. Around here, we don't really have very good Mexican food (a very good Peruvian restaurant, though!)... actually, I don't even know much about Mexican food. Is this authentic? Hm. I admit I don't know. I should do more research on Central and South American cooking!

On the other hand, the sweet corn cheesecake... so, so, so very good. My local ice cream place made a sweet corn ice cream this summer. It's funny; everyone at mom's work was like 'Ew, why would you eat that?'. To me, it was some of the best flavored ice cream I've ever had in my life. This was not quite at that level of that lovely ice cream, but it was still lovely... and I'm not a cheesecake fan! I suggested we order it for mom, and told her, 'I'll just have one bite, it's more to your tastes'- then, nope, I was eating half of it and IT WAS MINEEE. This was simple and refreshing, and I don't know how it rates on 'cheesecake level' (I don't usually eat cheesecake), but on delicious 'sweet but light and tasty and refreshing and sweet' levels, five stars. Ten thumbs up. Two smiles. Whatever rating system you want, I give it top marks. For a little thing you get at a booth, this was really impressive, and one of my favorite items.


Next will be Marrakesh! Hopefully tomorrow. Thanks for sticking with me. <3

 

[Redwitch]

snarky comments by her mother injected?

Hmm, I'll take that as a compliment.

I do think we saved money with it.

I did the Disney math multiple times and it was a good deal for us. Even though I knew we'd end up throwing QS credits away on snacks.

Nobilo Icon Pinot Noir.

$18 - $23 a bottle depending on the year. I am sure it was one of the less expensive years. Interesting - this winery was started by a Croatian couple that fled the war in 1936 and were more or less pioneers of the New Zealand wine industry. Like Mikka, I am confused as to why they served this icy cold. Obviously the 90+ degrees of Florida is too hot of a room temperature for a red, but kept in an ice bucket is too cold.

the sweet corn cheesecake... so, so, so very good.

Yes, wonderful. Someone make me this. Please!

 

[luvpooh]

Hooray!

I'm so looking forward to that corn cheesecake and I have a feeling we may wind up having to get more than one, as my DS loves cheesecake. Did you try the margarita from the food booth at all? Wondering if it's a suitable substitution if the line at Cava is too long.

I do have the venison on my list, but not the wine. I've had the sauv blanc from Nobilo, but never the pinot. Not a big fan of the white, and if the red is ice cold (and not a sweet red), then IDK if I'll waste my money/calories/BAC on it!

 

[Dis_Yoda]

I'm in! It was nice meeting you at the Hibachi Experience! (my husband was mad at me for the discussion I was having about dress at Signature Food & Wine Events - hopefully you realized I was talking about the ones outside of the park at the restaurants)

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

I am in! We had hoped to get to F&W this year but alas, we will have to wait until next year. I can't wait for the rest of your reviews. Consider this a poke!

(And Redwitch, I love your snarky comments!)

 

[Hibiscus]

The Chilaquiles de Pollo are on my list for F&W this year - thank you for the tip about getting there early!

(Not that cheese isn't good in all forms, even solidified.)

 

[Vernie822]

Oooh Mexico will be a must-do for sure. I thought the chilaquiles de pollo sounded interesting. And I have heard the shrimp taco is good also.

 

[Redwitch]

Did you try the margarita from the food booth at all? Wondering if it's a suitable substitution if the line at Cava is too long.
...and if the red is ice cold (and not a sweet red), then IDK if I'll waste my money/calories/BAC on it!

We did not try the booth's margarita. We've never been impressed with them in the past. La Cava is a better bet, even with their pre-mixed drinks. (We never should have told anyone about the place and kept it just for DISers! Maybe they would have continued with made to order cocktails.)
The red wine was not sweet - so skip it if your preference is not dryer reds.

I'm in! It was nice meeting you at the Hibachi Experience! (my husband was mad at me for the discussion I was having about dress at Signature Food & Wine Events - hopefully you realized I was talking about the ones outside of the park at the restaurants)

Second meeting - remember? We just didn't know it as we waited for Trader Sam's to open in May.
I will admit, I don't always dress to the nines when attending a signature restaurant, but I do leave my Mickey T-shirt at home. This trip I was regulated to my old sneakers to accommodate an ankle brace. Glad we didn't have anything overly fancy scheduled!

(And Redwitch, I love your snarky comments!)

Ahh, thank you! Sarcasm is another service I provide free of charge.

(Not that cheese isn't good in all forms, even solidified.)

True that! Love cheese!

I thought the chilaquiles de pollo sounded interesting. And I have heard the shrimp taco is good also.

I would have liked to try the tacos as I also heard it was their best try yet. Unfortunately, we never got back to Mexico; the Florida heat and humidity kicked our you know whats this trip.

 

[Lady de Winter]

Looking forward to reading all about your trip! I love reviews from F&W since I have only been once (last year) and loved it. I have been to the Flower and Garden festival which is also awesome, but obviously, the booths are more plentiful at F&W.

I enjoyed the review of the Mexican booth. It looks good in the pictures! I definitely would have wanted the cheese to be gooey though, not solid. I live in envy of anyone within reach of really great Mexican, TexMex, Southwestern kinds of foods. Sadly, there is not much to choose from where I live. Okay, none.

 

[tigerlilly]

Great review so far!!! I am sitting here drinking a nice Riesling as I read your report.... ..... I have decided that I will live vicariously through your reports drinking wine as I read them We have only been once during the W&F festival and that was in 1999!! The sweet corn cheesecake sounds completely amazing! We live in an area where Mexican food restaurants outnumber any other restaurant 5 to 1 so we are blessed with great Mexican food and corn puddings/breads...and when done well are very tasty indeed! Can't wait to read more....

 

[twinkybel81]

This is obviously not a problem if you do use room charge (mom doesn't simply as we buy those Disney Gift cards to use on dining, and then it shows up just on her statement as 'Disney' rather then the specific location and annoys her when checking her statements)

Not sure if you are aware of this option (and forgive me if you already are), but while on the dining plan, you can use the room charge function of the Magic Bands (with whatever CC you have on file) and then go to the front desk of the hotel to settle your room charges and just use the gift cards there, rather than having the charges put through to your CC. We did this on our trip last Sept/Oct while staying at WL.

I'll be following along with your report as well.

 

[Mikka]

I'm so sorry for the delay! My internet has been horrible recently: every time I started to think it was cooperating, I then went down for a few hours. So far, it seems to be running today, but I suppose we'll see if it continues to do so.

Anyway, I'm going to do the Marrakesh review, and then reply to all you lovely people. Mom mostly answered the questions, but I can't not comment, too! I really appreciate all of you saying stuff; it really is a kick to make me keep writing.

RESTAURANT MARRAKESH ​

So let me just say: I really enjoy this restaurant.

There are no Moroccan restaurants near where I live (there is an Ethopian one, though!); there may be one in Philly (we find driving over there so crazy that, uh, I don't think I've been there in almost fifteen years), but the only one I know is down across the border in Delaware... and we've never actually been (one of these days). I also don't have a friend in Morocco that I can hit up for 'is this authentic' or 'do you really eat this, how, when' type questions. So... to be blunt, I have no idea how authentic this place is, how true to form the food is, how unusual it is, so on so forth. All I can say is that it's food I can't get anywhere else, and I personally think it's delicious.

The entertainment started very soon after we sat down, and then again as we were paying on the way out. I always really like it (and, er, purposely took the seat so I could see it and mom couldn't).




Basically, these two good sir's play (and sing a bit), while this lovely lady belly dances, and teaches the kids a bit, too. One thing that's always entertained me is each time she comes out, she's in a different outfit (always with a beautiful scarf, too- she's taken it off by this picture, but it's always pretty). One of my random 'what I would like to see backstage at Disney' things would be to see her full collection of outfits.

Er, anyway, on to the food.

With the regular dining plan, we would get the entree/dessert/drink deal. We were told, however, that we could upgrade to the Moroccan Feast for 7.99$ on that dining plan and try it. Mom and I did the math back and forth and figured this isn't a very good deal. Having said that, we're not on the dining plan to 'order most expensive item possible (probably a very chewy strip steak) and laugh manically at how we got a good deal as quality dies a sad death', so... we went with ordering the two different feasts.

(We agreed in return to not order alcohol in our 'let's behave as we're already spending money' idea (we toyed with the idea of heading in to the bar at Spice Road, as they have some wines we hadn't tried, after dinner- but crowds had picked up when we left Marrakesh and we figured it was best to escape before the crowds got worse). You'll notice we did a bit less drinking on this trip then the last... as we bought a 'pouch' wine down with us, that held around four bottles in it. We, er, drank that in the room every night. And sometimes in the morning. And more sanely, during afternoon breaks. There was also a pint of bourbon bought somewhere in this mess, but I know nothing about it, I say. Nothing!)



Thus, we started with the Mint Iced Tea. Mom was worried I'd find it too strong (I think I've mentioned that I'm not really the biggest fan of mint)- but as this uses 'real' mint rather then a syrup of sorts, I happily drank it. I joked I'd start using all my snack credits on it, but then we realized how cheap it would be as a snack credit. Boo!

Also given to us was bread. What sort of bread? 'Traditionally Moroccan bread', our server Mustapha informed us (he was very nice- and cute- but he didn't seem to know how to explain it rather then it was 'traditional'). It had a bit of flavor to it I'm not used to (maybe a bit sweet?), but again, the waiter seemed to struggle to explain how it was different from the bread anywhere else. It was very tasty, though, and was excellent at mopping up the soup. It was a soft bread, I'll note: very squishable.

As you can notice, we were given little prepackaged butter to use, which amused me- I got the feeling that they didn't usually put butter on their bread. The bread didn't need it, anyway, although the butter was nice and warm (as in, not hard as a rock) for those that prefer it.




I got the Royal Feast. This is the appetizer portion: a salad and a seafood bastilla.

The salad (Jasmina) would likely remind you of most Mediterranean salads: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives and a big focus on the feta cheese. The dressing was a mustard vinaigrette, which was tangy: it managed to be creamy for a vinaigrette, but still light tasting. As for seafood bastilla- wonderful. For explanation, a bastilla (or pastilla, as it is often written) is considred a pie of sort. It involves a soft crepe pastry like shell, with the inside being slow cooked meat of some sort (usually chicken these days, though all sorts of things are used- originally, it was made with pigeon!), and then an outside layer of crunch (usually involving nuts). This one was more flaky then the one mom had while also being more crunchy. There seemed to be shredded fish inside, but most notable were the mini-shrimp that were about the side of my fingernail and positively adorable (yet still very nice tasting).




Mom's appetizer for the Marrakesh Feast was Harira Soup and a beef bewat roll. The Harirsa Soup was very similar to a beef stew, with the addition of chickpeas and lemon, which basically made all the difference and upgraded this from 'good' to 'awesome' (mom noted it as 'out of this world'). Too much lemon makes it a bit too lemony, but around a one fourth chunk of a 'normal' sized lemon squeezed in was perfect. The beef brewat roll was very similar to the bastilla (in fact, I can't really find any references to it that aren't to the Marrakesh restaurant). It was softer then mine. Standard Moroccon spices were the strongest flavor here: cinnamon, corriandor, saffron and ginger, I would suspect. The outside was dusted with cinnamon (remember, cinnamon itself isn't sweet- it's actually sort of bitter by itself), and then powered sugar (which, admittedly, is quite sweet). It was very savory, and could be rather filling if you had more of it.



Staying on mom's meal, the Marrakesh Feast (as the photos are easier to understand), this is what they called the Mix Grill: beef tenderloin shish kebab, marinated chicken kebab, lamb sausage, herb roasted potatos, and a strange little side of diced tomatoes that seemed basically to be salsa. This was interesting; I have to point out the potatoes, which were basically french fries, but delicious french fries. Whatever herbs put on them helped a lot. I found the sausage a bit spicy (and I was full from my own meal, so I didn't poke at it much), but mom enjoyed it. The grillers were just alright: her chicken was certainly better then mine. In general, though, I find kebab's in general cook meat more then I like it cooked, so they're not really to my tastes.





My meal, in three parts (I'm not sure why mom did it this way): braised lemon chicken, couscous and roasted (for a long time) lamb shank. To start, the lemon chicken was basically meh: the dark meat was much better then the white, as it was moist. The couscous was great, done with vegetables. I asked the waiter what they were: he said rutabaga, pumpkin, and sweet potato, though all we found was chickpeas, carrots, cabbage, and that odd yellow vegetable that could have been any of those three. I very much enjoyed the couscous (though I always love it).

But then there was the lamb. The lamb. Laaaammmbbbbb. <3

So let's just say we ate lamb at other places on this trip, and often at restaurants often rated a lot higher and known for being a lot fancier (and more expensive) then Marrakesh. But this was by far the best lamb we had all week. The meat was very tender (and not cooked overly well at all, as a note- there was a lot of pink and red there, so be warned if you don't like rare/medium rareish lamb), fell right off the bone (I didn't need a knife, and I could have eaten it with my hands easily), and it was incredibly juicy. If you want a lamb shank, this is probably the best lamb shank I've ever had in my life. It is on the menu as 'Roast Lamb Meshoui' if you don't want the feast, although it doesn't come with couscous... but I assume that the sides are good all the same (there is a couscous with lamb shank dish, but I'm unsure if that's the same, for that matter).



Both of us got the same dessert from the Feast, a little thing of baklava. The long 'roll' (back left) is almond, but the other two are walnut and pistachio and I can't tell you from the picture which was which. Mom and I agreed that the walnut was the best, if that helps, although all was tasty. There were also some scattered nuts, and more interestingly, 'date sauce'. Yes, that's what the waiter called it. We dipped the baklava in the sauce, which is what I assume one does; it was tasty and brought out even more flavor to the pastries, though it made things very sticky.


In summary: all in all, a very enjoyable experience. I'm glad we went: we haven't been there in years, and I'm glad it was still good. Sort of sad the belly dancer had been replaced: she had been there for years, and it was someone new this time, though she did great as well. Of course, maybe the old dancer was just off tonight. Anyone doing that much work deserves good time off.

Only issue I can make (besides my chicken being dry) is that the place was freezing. I was tempted to ask for a tablecloth (an old joke between mom and me: on our first trip to California Grill probably ten or so years ago after Wishes, the place was deserted and thus freezing- and one of the waiters went and got a table cloth to give to a lady dining a table down because she was so cold so she could use it as a blanket/shawl). All restaurants are chilly in Disney, to us PA'ers, but Marrakesh was probably the coldest. Brr.


Okay, now for the replies!

Hooray!

I'm so looking forward to that corn cheesecake and I have a feeling we may wind up having to get more than one, as my DS loves cheesecake. Did you try the margarita from the food booth at all? Wondering if it's a suitable substitution if the line at Cava is too long.

I do have the venison on my list, but not the wine. I've had the sauv blanc from Nobilo, but never the pinot. Not a big fan of the white, and if the red is ice cold (and not a sweet red), then IDK if I'll waste my money/calories/BAC on it!

It was great! Get two, I'd recommend. And yeah, as mom says, we didn't try the stand's margarita (we did try La Cava one day). Hm... as a drink to recommend, though (as it'll be a while till I get around to it), Poland's Apple Pie drink was surprisingly good. Small, but good. We had it two years or so ago and were very disappointed, but ended up trying it again this year: it was not-quite frozen (although that was probably the mistake of the machine), had a respectable amount of vodka, a strong apple taste (but neither overly sweet nor overly tart), and little cinnamony crumbles on top.

I'm in! It was nice meeting you at the Hibachi Experience! (my husband was mad at me for the discussion I was having about dress at Signature Food & Wine Events - hopefully you realized I was talking about the ones outside of the park at the restaurants)

It was nice to meet you, too! And, yeah, no worries! I figured I was okay: khaki shorts and a shirt with Asian stylized masks on it seemed appropriate. The problem as mom noted was the footwear: she was in the brace and only sneakers would work with it, and my feet did not agree with the amount of salt in Disney food and swelled up so much that they wouldn't fit in my nice shoes ;; (forcing me to buy bright pink mickey crocs, as I have children-size feet). I am so glad we didn't have V&A or a fancy resort meal scheduled: although we dressed up the best we could for California Grill and Citricos, our shoes were still sort of, well, disastrous. Thankfully, a lot of people were way worse dressed then us.

I am in! We had hoped to get to F&W this year but alas, we will have to wait until next year. I can't wait for the rest of your reviews. Consider this a poke!

(And Redwitch, I love your snarky comments!)

Mom's snarky comments do sort of make the post, don't they? This was an awesome year for F&W, with the anniversary, but in my opinion F&W gets better ever year. (Well, unless you're Vegan. Poor Terra booth.) So I'm sure next year will be great, too!

The Chilaquiles de Pollo are on my list for F&W this year - thank you for the tip about getting there early!

(Not that cheese isn't good in all forms, even solidified.)

I wish we could have gone back and gotten them when the queso was all melty... mostly because I think mom got more then her fair share of cheese this way! Solidified cheese is hard to cut, so we ended up ripping it a bit, and I think she got the majority. Hm...

Oooh Mexico will be a must-do for sure. I thought the chilaquiles de pollo sounded interesting. And I have heard the shrimp taco is good also.

I read the shrimp taco was good, too! As mom said, we sort of meant to go back, but we just didn't make it. In truth, we didn't hit nearly as many booths as I wanted, which made me sad. I wanted to get all the stamps!

(I know you can get them without buying anything, but it feels like cheating to me.)

Looking forward to reading all about your trip! I love reviews from F&W since I have only been once (last year) and loved it. I have been to the Flower and Garden festival which is also awesome, but obviously, the booths are more plentiful at F&W.

I enjoyed the review of the Mexican booth. It looks good in the pictures! I definitely would have wanted the cheese to be gooey though, not solid. I live in envy of anyone within reach of really great Mexican, TexMex, Southwestern kinds of foods. Sadly, there is not much to choose from where I live. Okay, none.

Mom's birthday falls under the F&G, so we usually go during that time, too. I really do love the booths for it, but I agree, it doesn't come close to the F&W variety.

We have an okay TexMex place actually down the street (but a fair bit down the street, and it's a busy street, so I wouldn't want to walk it). If you stick to the basics, it's not bad, but they have the most watered down drinks of any bar I've ever been too. I complain about that place's drink to anyone who listens, so I figured I should do it on the internet, too! ^_^ We also have Quedoba, and we may have a Chipolte somewhere? We used to have, amusingly, a health food Mexican place, that proudly told you the calories of every item you could put in your burrito/taco/whatever, but I think that place was too depressing, and it went out of business. Sort of sad, as (oddly for a health food place), they had great gelato.

Great review so far!!! I am sitting here drinking a nice Riesling as I read your report.... ..... I have decided that I will live vicariously through your reports drinking wine as I read them We have only been once during the W&F festival and that was in 1999!! The sweet corn cheesecake sounds completely amazing! We live in an area where Mexican food restaurants outnumber any other restaurant 5 to 1 so we are blessed with great Mexican food and corn puddings/breads...and when done well are very tasty indeed! Can't wait to read more....

Riesling! I very much approve! I'm jealous of your Mexican food... I'd love to try more of it. I'm not good with spicy foods, though, and I'm afraid even 'basic' spicy Mexican can be a bit much for me.

Not sure if you are aware of this option (and forgive me if you already are), but while on the dining plan, you can use the room charge function of the Magic Bands (with whatever CC you have on file) and then go to the front desk of the hotel to settle your room charges and just use the gift cards there, rather than having the charges put through to your CC. We did this on our trip last Sept/Oct while staying at WL.

I'll be following along with your report as well.

Heh! Actually, I saw someone report that right before we went on vacation- the day before- and then... totally forgot about it. That's a really smart idea, though. We may have to try it next time we go down, after all the trouble with people wanting us to pay with our magic bands.


Thanks so much, everyone! Please keep commenting!

Hopefully not taking as long to post, there's a breakfast coming up next.

 

[Redwitch]

The soup and the lamb were the winners in this meal for me. I love lamb. And this was a wonderful shank, fall off the bone, moist and not too fatty. I'd love the recipe for the soup if anyone is aware of it floating around the web.

Breakfast, totally unplanned and unexpected.

 

[SnowWhiteOz]

I'll admit to being on those who lurked on your last DR but didn't comment (sorry ) - but this trip looks fantastic and you're a great writer so I'm joining in even if I'm a little late!

Those baklava look delicious - do you know if they're available at the CS place as well or only the TS locations?

 

[Redwitch]

Those baklava look delicious - do you know if they're available at the CS place as well or only the TS locations?

Welcome to the craziness! (And thanks for lurking last time!) They have a pastry and coffee "bar" at the back of the QS/CS restaurant in Morocco. We often duck in there for cups of ice water and to drool over the goodies.
BTW - I loved the red carpet award show ending of your last food report!

 

[SnowWhiteOz]

Welcome to the craziness! (And thanks for lurking last time!) They have a pastry and coffee "bar" at the back of the QS/CS restaurant in Morocco. We often duck in there for cups of ice water and to drool over the goodies.
BTW - I loved the red carpet award show ending of your last food report!

Thanks for the tip and the compliment! Looking forward to all your food and wine adventures as that's when I'm planning on going next year

 

[momof3princes]

Glad to follow along on your adventures again and to help prod you to keep updating! Marrakesh looks good but I think I will stick to the Tangerine Cafe, we "shared" there last time and with 4 boys including my DH that means one bite for me That one was a hit!