I visited the Food and Wine Festival on Friday with my friend Kristin – yes, that is my third visit in as many weekends to the Festival. 🙂 We had a wonderful day – the weather was just about as perfect as it gets in southern California, and the crowds were a lot more manageable than on my recent weekend visits.

On this trip I was finally able to attend some of the cooking demonstrations since we didn’t have to arrive so early to get a spot! In fact the Cake Monkey Bakery demo, which was at 10:30 on Friday, was only about 2/3 full. Which was a shame, since it was an excellent demo! Pastry chef Elizabeth Belkind made a rocky road type of cookie – a chocolate cookie with chocolate chunks, homemade marshmallow, pecans, and caramel. It was really good, and it was a very good demonstration. I’m sure her Sweet Sundays session that weekend was awesome.

After the demo Kristin and I did a couple of rides – Toy Story Mania had only a 25-minute wait posted (and it was shorter than that) and California Screamin’ was about 20 minutes – we waited a little extra so that we could ride in the first row. That was a lot of fun, it’s a much different ride especially when going over the tops of the hills because you hang there for a second before you start down, and you can really see the steepness of the track in front of you.

Mickey’s Fun Wheel opened earlier in the week but we didn’t ride that.

I was really missing the appetizer-sized food items of previous Festivals at that point – we both wanted a little something to eat before we went to a wine tasting session, but weren’t ready (and didn’t have time) for lunch. So we went to the Mission Tortilla Factory and got free flour tortillas instead. 🙂 I know this “attraction” is usually maligned, but I find the video of the kids doing their report on the history of the tortilla to be very entertaining and it always makes me smile.

We arrived about 25 minutes early for the wine tasting session because it was on Iron Horse sparkling wines, and we wanted to make sure we got in. And sometimes you gotta take time to smell the roses. 🙂

As it turned out we didn’t need to be there that early (though it was a full session by the time it started), but by arriving early we had front row seats. Winemaker David Munksgard was the speaker, and he was really interesting, and told us a lot about how sparkling wine is made. Oh, and did you know that Dom Perignon, whose name is practically synonymous with champagne (though he did not invent the process), actually spent most of his career trying to figure out how to eliminate bubbles from wine?

We had the 2003 Blanc de Blanc, the Fairy Tale Cuvee (made by Iron Horse exclusively for Disney) and the Wedding Cuvee. Unfortunately they had been poured long enough before we sat down that they had lost a lot of their effervescence. I liked the Fairy Tale Cuvee the best, and Kristin preferred the Wedding Cuvee. I wouldn’t turn any of them down, though!

After wine it was time for lunch! We both had the Chicken Panzarotti, which is the Festival food offering at Pizza Oom Mow Mow. It was chicken ravioli Ravioli in Taleggio-Parmigiano sauce topped with sun dried tomatoes and basil. The breadstick was dry and seemed stale and the dish could have been served hotter, but otherwise it was very tasty and we both enjoyed it.

So what to do after lunch…how about more eating!!! There was a Celebrate India cooking demo at 2:30. We arrived about 2:15 which was plenty early – we had seats about halfway back. The chef, Paul Okamura, works at Club 33, and he prepared Coconut Chicken Curry with Basmati Rice. This dish had an amazing number of ingredients (as you can see in the photo) – there are: coriander seed, serrano chiles, coconut milk, cloves, cinnamon sticks, onions, curry powder, garlic, ginger, chicken stock, potatoes, brown sugar, lime juice, cilantro, yogurt, and chicken legs.

It really didn’t take too long to make – though of course it helps if all of the prep work is already done! Even with the serrano chiles it wasn’t spicy at all. The samples served to us were very nicely presented.

After the demo it was time for more wine, so we tried one of the Wine Walks. These are new this year – there is a California Wine Walk and an International Wine Walk. For $10 ($10.88 with tax) you get a wine glass and a “passport” allowing you to taste four different wines of your choice from the available selections (or the same wine four times if you like!). The Cast Member stamps your passport after each pour.

We did the International Wine Walk, which featured wines from South America, New Zealand, Italy, and the “Old World” (France and Spain). There were three wines at each station – generally two reds and a white – for a total of 12 in all. I think we both tried different wines. My favorite was the Trumpeter Torrontes from Argentina, and I also had the Vin Rusco Rosato from Italy, the Matua Valley Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, and the Chateau de Jau Grenache from France. There’s not a lot of room at each station – enough for one party at a time, really. And there’s no place to sit down or even much of a place to stand, so it’s not really something you linger over, which I think is a little unfortunate. One of the servers told us that they have been busy on weekends (and that’s been my observation when I’ve passed by) but not busy during the week. Though there were three other parties in there when we were.

I had noticed last weekend that the California Wine Walk had been relocated – the first weekend of the Festival it was next to the Bountiful Valley Farm stage, where it was very out-of-the-way, and now it’s been moved to the Pacific Wharf area, in the walkway between the Tortilla Factory and the Boudin Bakery. They have wines from Napa Valley, Monterey and Sonoma.

We arrived only 10 minutes early for the Celebrate Greece cooking demo, but still got in easily. Chef Julio Castillo prepared dolmas – grape leaves stuffed with chicken, veggies, and couscous. These were really good, but it’s obviously a very labor-intensive process, so I don’t think I’d ever do it myself.

We had Fastpasses for Soarin’ so we used those – even with Fastpasses there’s sometimes a pretty long wait for Soarin’, but it wasn’t at all bad – we were at the boarding gate in not much over 5 minutes. We were in the top row, which is always the best place to be, though we were on the left. This is always a great ride – and it was especially fun to go “soaring” over Napa Valley, since the Food and Wine Festival was going on.

Last thing on our agenda for the day was to try another of the Festival menu items – the Driscoll Strawberry Parfait with Ghirardelli Chocolate that is available at the Wine Shop Bistro and The Lounge (though it’s $4 cheaper at the Bistro!). It’s layers of dark chocolate, chocolate mousse, red velvet cake, strawberries and cream cheese. Oh. My. It was SO good!!! Definitely the best counter service dessert I’ve ever had in a theme park (and it’s better than most table service desserts I’ve had, too!). It was lick the bowl clean good – but we didn’t do that.

We ate it at the Bistro, which is next to the area where the wine tasting sessions were held, and the Sapphire Hills Winery tasting was in progress at the time. We arrived after it started (and the session was full anyways), but we were very entertained by listening to the speaker. I can’t remember at all what he said, but he was very funny. Though I do remember one thing he said: “Late Harvest Zinfandel” – which was for sale at the Wine Bistro. I love late harvest wines, so I went and bought a bottle. We’ll open it at my annual chocolate party this weekend and I’ll let you know what we think.

As we were leaving the parade was about to start – but before that we saw the Up Pre-Parade – in fact we saw that float’s maiden voyage down the parade route. But I wrote more about that in this blog entry.

It was another great day at the park with Kristin! Even though it was my third trip to the Festival I was still able to try several new things – the Wine Walk and two different Festival food items – and I finally got to not just one but three cooking demonstrations! Moral of that story of course is: Go during the week!

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