My Disney “must eat” list

When it comes to Disney, one of my favorite things is food.  Whether it’s a quick snack or a fancy sit down meal, I love all that the parks have to offer.  I religiously read the Disney Food Blog, and pin items I want to try on future visits.  But I thought it might be easiest to have a place where I can compile all of the things I want to try!  On these lists I’ve included items I have tried that I feel are “must try” for others, as well as ones that I haven’t tasted yet that I’m drooling just thinking about it!  So without further ado, here are the items on my Disney “must eat” list:

Magic Kingdom

 Epcot

Signature resort restaurants – Final round

We’re down to the last two in this restaurant tournament!  It was insanely close between the last two match ups – both of them were decided by just one or two votes.  While Victoria and Albert’s is probably technically the best restaurant on the list, I’m not surprised it didn’t quite make the cut just because many people haven’t been able to try it due to the price.  So that leaves us with Jiko and Ohana!  Which one do you prefer?

Signature Resorts Restaurant Tournament – Round 2

The votes from the first week are in – did your favorites make the cut to the next round?  There were some pretty close match ups, especially between Narcoossee’s and Yachtsman!  But here we have our top 8.

This week we have some even more difficult match ups, so make sure you vote for your favorites to stay in the running!  We’ve got 4 match ups to vote on, so comment here or on our facebook page with your favorites in each match-up!

Spice Road Table review

I will first up admit that this review will be a little difficult to write – the food we had was all very good, but the portion sizes were super small and just didn’t seem worth the price to us. But it was new and we wanted to try it out, so we headed here for lunch last February.

The seating area, out on the patio, is very nice. I love the look of it – it’s well decorated and you do of course have a great view out over the lagoon. We got lunch around 11:30 and it was almost completely empty at that point.  I imagine a table right on the water would be really nice, as you get an awesome view of the Lagoon.

I decided to try the white wine flight, which has three different types of wine that you can see below. These glasses were pretty tiny.  I enjoyed them and found them all to be pretty light and pleasant. I don’t think one really stood out to me as a big favorite, but they were nice.  My husband had a red wine that was described as very sweet, called the “King of Hearts”.  He liked it, it was very smooth, but not as sweet as he was hoping. He enjoys a really good sweet red wine. JamJar sweet shiraz that we had at Jiko is his favorite wine of all time.

Epcot Food and Wine Festival 2014

This year was my very first time attending the Food and Wine festival, and I was so excited!  I didn’t get to try as much as I would have liked, but hopefully there will be future trips.  Due to being sick for half a day that I was planning for F&W, I also lost a little time.  But I still wanted to share with you all the things that I did try and what I thought of them.

Australia

Grilled Lamb Chop with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies – $6.25

Yum!  Everything about this dish was delicious.  The lamb was cooked well, and I loved the mint pesto (that might have been the best part).  The potato crunchies also added the perfect level of crunch and texture.  Definitely one of my top dishes from the festival!

Belgium

Belgian Waffle with Berry Compote with Berry Compote and Whipped Cream – $3.50

This was the perfect dessert treat.  The waffle was very warm and right out of the waffle maker.  I loved the berries and whipped cream too.  Relatively simple, but very good!

Kill, Refurb, Marry: Food and Wine Booths

I’m excited about this Kill, Refurb, Marry because I just came back from visiting Food and Wine for the first time!  I didn’t get to try as much as I was hoping due to a couple of things, including getting sick during my trip and being mostly on my own for Food and Wine, so I didn’t have someone to share things with for a lot of it.  My stomach can only hold so much!  I’m sure that my Kill, Marry, Refurbs might be different if I had tried everything, but from what I experienced here were my choices:

Kill – Africa

When I made my master list of everything I would want to try and Food and Wine if I had an unlimited budget and stomach, there were only three booths that held no appeal to me whatsoever.  Those were New Zealand, Africa, and the Refreshment Port (hardly even a “booth” since it’s there all the time).  When I went back and looked at the menus again, Africa is the one that I really don’t think I would enjoy.  There are two food items, which contain mushrooms and/or onions, both of which I hate.  Even walking past the booth it did not smell appealing.  And there were a few drinks, none of which seemed special.  Africa could have some great flavors, but maybe it needs to be more focused.  Kill Africa and give us a Madagascar booth, or a South Africa booth, instead of lumping a whole bunch of countries into one booth.

Planning for the Food and Wine Festival

When you experience a great blog, it’s worth mentioning.  So I have to give a shout out to one of the absolute best Disney resources I’ve ever found (if you’re into dining) – the Disney Food Blog!  I’ll be experiencing the Food and Wine Festival for the first time soon, and this has been an invaluable resource.

Their information on the 2014 Food and Wine Festival includes complete menus with prices, as well as pictures of almost every time available.  There’s also a copy of the map so you know where all of the booths are located.  I had a blast going through all of these, and I came up with a list of everything I want to try.  Goodness knows I won’t get to all of it, but at least I’ll be prepared!

When I made my list, I literally just put down anything that seemed appealing to me.  This would be in the ideal world, where I have an unlimited stomach and budget 😉  Then I went through it and highlighted the items that were my “must try” items.  That way I’ll know what I want to try, and if I’m still hungry and have money left over I’ll also know my backup items.

Recipe: Anna and Elsa inspired drinks

Have you heard of Cocktails by Cody?  If not, you should probably go check out his facebook now.  He’s invented a ton of Disney inspired cocktails, and has a lot of them up on his facebook page.  He’s also working on a book with all of his recipes, including the exact measurements (which are missing from his facebook page, so you have to do a little bit of a experimenting and guessing).  I can’t wait until that e-book comes out as I’ll definitely be getting it, but until then the drinks that are available are a lot of fun to try and make!

For my Frozen themed birthday party I decided to try serving the two Frozen inspired drinks.  The first one is called Coldfront, and it is themed after Elsa.

Coldfront consists of white chocolate liqueur, peppermint schnapps, Malibu rum, and milk.  It’s a pretty unique combination – I wouldn’t think I’d enjoy milk in a cocktail, and Malibu rum really makes me think of summer and tropical drinks.  But everything worked together really well.  I think this was the favorite out of the two drinks.  It was surprisingly sweet as well as sharp thanks to the peppermint.  Very refreshing!