Disney’s California Food & Wine Festival – Part Two

At the Disney’s California Food & Wine Festival, in addition to the special food demonstrations and numerous opportunities to meet Disney chefs and celebrity chefs (such as Guy Fieri – or even Tommy Lasorda), they have special food offerings that are only available during the Festival for you to feast and snack on.

If you’re not able to get a food demo for some samples, you can still partake in the Festival by trying out their other speciality food items around the park. Allears.net offers up a list of the special menu offerings during the Festival, but here are some highlights: Wine Country Tiramisu (Layers of espresso-and-liqueur-soaked ladyfingers sweetened Italian cream cheese and shaved chocolate. $4.99), Chilled Seafood Martini (Scallops, Shrimp, and Dungeness Crab tossed with fresh Mangoes, Red and Green Onions, Serrano Chiles, fresh Cilantro, Avocado, Yuzu juice with house-made Tortilla Chips. $10.99) and the item we tried, White Cheddar Cheese Soup (featuring Karl Strauss Pale Ale in a Sourdough Bread Bowl. $9.49).

Before deciding on getting some proper dinner, we swung by the Golden Vine Winery to see if we could scope out a little more information about the Festival Wine Reception: i.e., will there be enough food to eat there so we’re not drunk after one glass of wine? The man we talked to seemed reluctant to talk to us about the reception. He told us we needed tickets and even after we told him we had tickets, he still didn’t really seem to want to answer the question. He said, “I wouldn’t really call it food.” We determined after this sketchy conversation that we needed to eat before it started.

Alyssa insisted we head over to the Pacific Wharf to go get some freshly made sourdough bread from the Boudin Bakery and I am not one to argue when sourdough bread is being offered. We made it over there and saw that the line was a bit long – we weren’t able to avoid standing in a slow moving line at Disney after all, even if was just to get food. Alyssa spotted a magical sign that said “White Cheddar Cheese Soup with Karl Strauss Pale Ale” and we were hooked and committed to the line.

We waited a good 20 minutes or so (at least) to snake our way up to the front for our freshly baked bread bowls filled with warm cheesy soup.

The wait was definitely worth it to savor this hearty soup. It filled us with warmth on a cool evening and tasted divine. The cheese flavor wasn’t overpowering – it didn’t taste like you were eating a bowl of melted cheese, but rather a filling soup with a cheesy accented background flavor. Dipping the bread into the soup was also delicious and a good way to fill on some carbs before drinking down a bunch of wine. If I can, I would love to duplicate this recipe!

We started munching on our bowls until we were full and ready to hit the Festival Wine Reception. I also got a Mickey Mouse Sugar Cookie to quell my sweet side, but I actually didn’t eat it until the next day. It tasted the way a sugar cookie should taste – but it was also dipped in semi-sweet and white chocolate – and was a tasty reminder of my day trip to Anaheim.