Thanks so much, people.
I am sorry about how behind I am with this. The 3D Dessert Discovery was on Friday night, and it's now Tuesday morning. Definitely not as live as it could be. But, well, I'll keep on going all the same.
...So.
I'm just going to call this thing the 3D for now so I don't have to write out the full name. I find this very hard to review, and a bit hard to explain as well. If you've done the Party for the Senses before, this is very similar- less food, less time, but less expensive. If you've never done the 3D or the Party for the Senses (...I usually call it the Party for the Senseless, but I've done it a ton of times, so I'm insulting myself there, too), then, well, I'll try to explain it.
There's this huge building that you enter between England and Canada. They let you in and herd you in to an entryway after checking you in and putting a wristband on you if you're of drinking age. Over to the left, the people with 'Sweet Seats' (aka, they paid (a lot) extra for a drink, access to a bar, an extra dessert, fifteen extra minutes in the party area, and an assigned seat) hang out and are eventually let in. Then, finally, the curtain opens in front of all the people who don't have a gazillion dollars. Then everyone pretends it's opening at DHS on an extra-magic hour day and a few hundred people go running screaming for their Toy Story Mania fastpa... I mean, er, for a table.
There are not as many tables as there are parties let in to the 3D, at least at start (as the evening goes on, some people leave and tables are added in to the entry room). This generally means that one person in each party sits around at the table 'holding it' while the rest of their party goes and gets the yummies, as trying to hold your table with glasses/menus/purses generally leads to your stuff getting dumped on the floor by someone else who wants a table.
To be blunt, if you want a table and you're not willing to pay Sweet Seats prices (in which I absolutely don't blame you, because we certainly weren't willing), this is pure chaos.
Which leads to my recommendation: only do this event if you can eat standing up and on the go. The five dollar plates they're selling all around Epcot would probably be extremely helpful for this event. Just don't worry about the table at the beginning, go around and eat and drink, and when you're desperate ask a table with a couple if they'd be willing to share (or try to find the lean tables in the very back of the room). Out of all Disney events, this is not one I'd go to in a wheelchair sadly- you could do it in a
scooter pretty easily, but I don't think it's very wheelchair accessable because you often need to be moving and eating to get your moneys worth.
The second recommendation: there are only three and a half tables with unique food, then everything is repeated. Each table, however, has two unique beverage stations. I know that the idea of a dessert party would appeal to kids, but you are not going to get anywhere near your moneys worth just eating the desserts. If you care about that kind of thing, you'll want to be drinking the alcoholic beverages. I really don't think this is an event for people who don't like alcoholic drinks or aren't old enough to drink yet. Save it as a celebration for when the kids turn 21.
(If you do want to bring kids, I strongly recommend taking the 10+ crowd or so- ones that you wouldn't mind wandering around the room on their own picking up stuff, or at least ones who can pick up and plate their own items. Trying to juggle a small child or a stroller at this event looks very hard.)
So, to summarize: I recommend this for adults who enjoy drinking alcohol who don't mind just standing somewhere and eating. People who don't drink or who need a table to eat probably won't enjoy this event as much as the first crew.
But, what you really want to see is pictures, I assume, so I give you pictures.
(Some of these pictures are tilted. I don't really have the time to fight with reuploading them and fighting imageshack's rotate button right now, but I'll try to fix them during the break today.)
Whiskey! This was the strong stuff- they had some flavored stuff further down. I sadly couldn't drink all of mine, not that I remember which one I got (it was very smoky). Mom got the Maker's Mark, which went down a lot easier.
This was a cute novelty dessert. It's angel food cake bun, a mixed berry ice cream 'hot dog', then raspberry ketchup, mango mustard, cherry relish, and almond onions. It didn't taste bad.
Every flavor of Pinnacle Vodka known to man (this is only half of them). We got quite a few shots for these, as we tend to buy flavored vodka to make sweet mixed drinks with. Weirdly, the cherry lemonaid flavor had this surprising burn that none of the other flavors had. Somewhat bizarre. I liked the salted caramel the most.
Also the lady who ran this booth is awesome, because she told me I'd end up getting carded till I'm fifty. Nice enough compliment.
The best dessert of the night, and one they've had everytime we go to the 3D. Red Stag Flambeed Cinnamon Doughnuts, which are great by themselves. Then they'll put some coffee gelato or vanilla ice cream on them for you. They also then had whipped cream and cherries to put on top of that and make yourself a doughnut sunday. Very nice. Pretty filling, though.
Why won't my pictures face the right way grrrr...
Mixed drink section. She had a margarita and a rum punch, and then my personal favorite, 'Velvet Cin Rum Cream' which is basically the sort of stuff you could make alcoholic Horchata with. I got three of those, I think.
There were a ton of little cakey pastries at the 'Bites of Cake' section. Unfortunately, we didn't like any of them. Honestly, the stuff at the booths is generally better- these weren't even as good as that dense chocolate cake every CS and it's mother will sell you for dessert. But... we also aren't huge cake people. So maybe you'll find one you love.
I have no idea which one this is. Apple crumb cake, maybe?
Butter pecan cupcakes. I love pecans, but these were meh.
Watermelon cupcakes. In this case, the icing was pretty good- I licked it all off and turned my tongue green. ^^
PB&J whoopie pies.
There were a few more cake items, but I don't want to run against the picture per post limit, so I'll skip them. If you like cakes, this is probably the place to go. If you're not much of a cake eater, then I'd just skip this booth. Time is tight at the 3D- you only get an hour and a half- so best not to waste it.
Jim Beam's flavored whiskey. I loved the maple flavored one. They also had a warm cider cocktail that was delicious: I would have liked to have grabbed another one of those. If you care, they make a lemonade using I believe the Red Stag Black Cherry at the Fife and Drum over by the American adventure that I've always liked... and that has a pretty good amount of alcohol for it's size.
Hidden in the corner and not anywhere in the menu book was a Babycakes stand. These cinnamon-apple doughnuts weren't bad: they'd be nice warm with maybe a hint of ice cream on them. On the other hand, the chocolate cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies were so horrible that I'm refusing to put up pictures of them. They deserve to lie forgotten. (/overdramatic)
This? This was awesome. Flavored popcorn!
In order: strawberry, sour cream, Parmesan cheese, orange, and sea salt (with three unflavored bins for the unadventurous). I liked all of them but the orange one. The sour cream was especially good. I seriously could have spent a lot more time then we had eating at this little stand, especially because right next to the popcorn was...
Pretzel bread. Not quite as good as if you got it just out of the oven in Canada, but certainly as good if not better then the stuff on the buffet in Germany. Not pictured, but there, were dipping sauces. If you wanted to go total dessert, there was Ghiradelli chocolate fondue. If you wanted to be traditional, there were mustards and nacho cheese dip. Mom loved the Spinach Artichoke Dip. But for me? Lovely memories of Canada with the four cheese and beer fondue dip. Delicious.
Here we're near the end of the night, where mom was running around trying to get pictures of the cheese, fruit and berries booth along with the charcutiere booth while I ran around trying to grab every drink we hadn't yet drank. This is, well, cheese and berries.
Watermelon, pita bread... I don't know. They also had watermelon salsa somewhere, and then they had (ugh) lukewarm Watermelon Aqua Fresca. Where was the ice? ;_;
I think this is a pate? As I said, I was mostly running around getting drinks at this part. We personally do sweets then savories, because after you get full on sweets you want something else in you so you're not sick the next morning in our opinion. This also leads to less lines.
But I'm sure you can do it the opposite way, too.
I did like the meat. Not too much to say about it, but it tasted nice.
And here's the watermelon salsa. There were a bunch more cheese and meats and breads lying around, but I think I've just about reached my picture limit.
We didn't get pictures of it, but we got some more drinks: a Skinnygirl Prosseco, a bubbly Muscato, a Martini Asti, an Adobe Red... we missed the sparkling apple wine people and the DeKuyper Cordials people though, which disappointed us. Still, we got mostly everything done. This event would be perfect if it was just 30 minutes longer. I can't justify paying the five gazillion dollars for a Sweet Seat and the extra fifteen minutes, but I envy them.
After they start clearing you out, they give you a piece of chocolate and some Werthers (is there an A in there?) for the road. They also give you a version of 3D glasses that basically turn every light that you see in to Mickeys. They're for illuminations, where they make the fireworks turn in to a gazillion Mickey Mouse's dancing across the sky.
3D Dessert Discovery gives you a reserved area for Illuminations- behind the Duffy store near the front of the lagoon, on that area that curves up that means that basically everyone can see. It makes for a nice ending to the day, and we're sort of playing around with the idea of taking our glasses to Wishes to see how that looks with Mickey's everywhere.
So, yeah. Again, I can't recommend this as easily as I can recommend the Food pairings at Japan and Mexico. But it is a fun event, as long as you know what to expect. Just be prepared to do a lot of zooming around and to eat and drink quickly.
Next: I... honestly don't remember, but it should be later today. Was it lunch at the Wave? Huh. I think it was. Well, I guess we'll see.
I got two more Anejo(s?- not sure how plural works with the Spanish language, I'm afraid), while mom got one Blanco and one Reposado. No one commented on this, so apparently the staff didn't mind. They couldn't re-serve it or anything, right? >.>
