Disney's CA F&W Fest - Final wrap up for 2010 see you next year!

[onelilspark]

I was thinking to myself, "that's a lot of red meat." Then I realized it was held at a Steakhouse duh.

 

[kaoden39]

I was thinking to myself, "that's a lot of red meat." Then I realized it was held at a Steakhouse duh.

 

[franandaj]

I was thinking to myself, "that's a lot of red meat." Then I realized it was held at a Steakhouse duh.

Actually it wasn't all that much red meat, the Lamb Porterhouse was about the size of your palm (or at least mine) and there were lots of bones so there wasn't a lot of meat. The Wagyu was 4 oz or less, in fact I ate all my meat which was quite amazing! I normally take home half of every entree that comes from a restaurant. Granted I didn't polish off the root vegetables, or the zucchini blossom, but I did eat all the meat!

Chef Jason does an excellent job on portions so that even eaters like myself who can't put away very much can eat most all their plates. Perhaps the bigger eaters leave hungry, but not me!

This Friday is the Brewmaster Dinner, I'm looking forward to what he does with that, he said, "lots of pork!"

 

[kaoden39]

Zucchini blossoms sounds pretty wonderful to me. I love zucchini.

 

[franandaj]

So I had plans for the next installment of my F&W trip, but as they say, the best laid plans….

The idea was to go early Saturday to the park and get in line for Sunny Anderson’s demo. But due to the untimely death of a friend I was attending his funeral that morning. So instead I decided to go out to the park on my own Friday and see her demo. I got out there two hours early rode up to the demonstration area to find this:

Whoa! Major Bummer!

This was my whole reason for coming today! Well since I was already out there I decided to make the best of it. I went to Award Weiners and got myself a meatball sandwich. This was their special offering for the F&W Festival. It wasn’t bad, but nothing to write home about. The sauce was good, but the meatballs tasted like the kind you get from the frozen section. Or what I imagine they would taste like as I have actually never purchased those meatballs from the frozen section.

I toodled around the park trying to figure out what I wanted to do. TSMM was down and after debating about going on Mickey’s Fun Wheel of Death I chose CA Screamin. After that I decided to see if I could get into the 3:30 demo which was the guy from Wahoo’s Fish Tacos. It was an interesting demo, more to hear about his stories than the actual demo.

For those who haven’t been to a demo, this is the set up that you get at each one.

They showed all the ingredients on the TV Screen so you could follow along while they made the rub for the fish

The tent is quite large and holds a fair number of people for each demo.

Once the demo was underway we learned all sorts of things about how Wahoo’s tacos got it’s start. The guy was very interesting and had some funny stories. He was born into the restaurant industry and though he's Asian was born in Brazil (I think), he went to College in So Cal and was a surfer. The whole reason he started this type of restaurant was that he wanted to be able to wear Hawaiian shirts to work and not a tuxedo or a suit. He also mentioned that they don't batter and fry the fish because they use a better quality fish and as we are all getting older, we need to watch our waistlines!

Here is a picture of the taco that we got as our complimentary bite to eat at the demo. It was much tastier than the one other time that I ate at their restaurant, but the blackening spice was pretty spicy and my mouth was on fire for a little while after eating it! No offense, but I like my cheap fish battered and fried tacos!

 

[kaoden39]

Here, here for the cheap battered fish!! I once went to a cooking demo at an Oprah conference and it was her favorite chef. He was so funny I enjoyed his talking that he did more than his cooking demo. I think the chemistry of the person demoing is so important.

 

[onelilspark]

Is Sunny Anderson the one who does the "Cooking for Real" show?

 

[franandaj]

Is Sunny Anderson the one who does the "Cooking for Real" show?

Yes, that's the show. I like that one...

 

[onelilspark]

Yes, that's the show. I like that one...

We do too, but we find the name hilarious. She's cooking for realz yo. Not fake.

 

[franandaj]

OK, so these next updates are not “technically” Food & Wine Festival events, but I’m there during Food & Wine, so I’ll tell you about them anyways. Saturday May 1 was my birthday, and after debating where to have dinner I ended up settling on the Napa Rose Restaurant. I made the reservation for the Chef’s Counter 60 days out at 5:30PM. Luckily I was able to change that to an 8:30PM Reservation when I found out that I had to go to the funeral. We would be up in LA until who knows when, and then have to drive down to Anaheim before checking into the Villas.

We arrived at the hotel about 5:30PM and I had picked up my “Happy Birthday” Button the day before so I was wearing it when we got out of the car. Immediately the Valets started to wish me a Happy Birthday and upon check in the CM was nice enough to give me some balloons!

We got settled in the studio, I unpacked while DP took a nap as we waited for our 8:30 dinner reservation. We made our way down to the Napa Rose and they were waiting for two spots to open up so I had a glass of wine in the lounge.

We were eventually seated at the same spot where sat when we dined her e for Christmastime. Chef Sutton said, “Hello”

He told us that the Rabbit Meatloaf was “off the charts”. For the first time in like, ever, I wasn’t totally blown away by the Chef’s Tasting Menu so finally we were able to order off the regular menu and try a few things we’ve never had before. We could customize our meal and order anything we wanted, so we took his suggestion and started off with the Rabbit Meatloaf, with the suggested wine pairing.

Grilled Wine Country Rabbit Meatloaf with a Poached Quail Egg, Sonoma Mushrooms, English Pea Salad and Red Bell Pepper Ketchup

Next up the Signature Pizetta of “La Quercia” Smoked American Prosciutto, Red Flame Grapes, Caramelized Onions and Cambizola Cheese. This was soooo good, we only ate half of it to save room for the rest of the food, but I ate it for breakfast and a midnight snack while we were in the hotel room.

Then we shared a pair of soups. We got the Portabello Mushroom “Cappucino” with Brandied Thyme “Froth” and the Tomato Soup with Rosemary Chicken which was the Market Inspired Seasonal Soup.

We moved on to the main course which was Roasted Colorado Rack of Lamb with Fingerling Potatoes, Fiddlehead Fern and Poached Green Garlic Coulis

Our Dessert was a molten Chocolate Cake with some kind of yummy ice cream. This was essentially the same dessert that I had two weeks before when I did the cooking school

Yay! Happy Birthday!

 

[franandaj]

Our dinner ran pretty late Saturday night, we didn’t get back to our room until around midnight, so we slept in for a bit before getting up and dressed. We headed over to Disneyland, New Orleans Square and Club 33. Our friends were waiting outside and we were about 15 minutes early so we caught up since it had been a while since we had seen each other. At the time of our reservation we rang the bell they let us in and I let them know that DP was in a scooter and wouldn’t be able to transfer. Since they don’t have an ADA accessible entrance, they had to take her around to the freight elevator. It took a long time because someone had parked the elevator on the basement floor so her “handler” had to walk downstairs release the elevator and come back up to get her. She met us at the table and since it was a Sunday everyone got a complimentary glass of champagne or sparkling cider. We all chose champagne!

Because I didn’t get a lot of Disney Birthday time the day before I wore my birthday button that day too. When the server wished me a Happy Birthday I told him it was my friend Mike’s B’day earlier in the week and that it was DP’s B’day next week, Mike’s wife Sharon mentioned that her birthday was in early April and he wished us all a Happy Birthday and called us the Birthday table.

Also since it was Sunday Mickey and Pluto were visiting the tables.

Lunch at Club 33 is served buffet style for the appetizers and desserts and your main course is ordered from the menu. Then we went to the buffet tables for our appetizers. They had cold salads, Caesar, some mixed greens and something else that didn’t appeal to me, plus there were prawns, crab claws and lobster tails, fruit, cheese, caprese salad, lox & cream cheese, grilled veggies and cold rare beef.

Here is my plate

And DP’s

They also had Cream of Mushroom Soup

DP had a Margarita after the Champagne

I switched to an Alsacian Reisling

Our entrees were served. I had the Monkfish with a Rockshrimp Bisque, and everyone else had the Chateaubriand.

One of the other entrees came with truffled macaroni & cheese, and I asked the server if there was any chance I could get a small side of it and he brought it for me! OMG! It was so freaking creamy and good! WOW

After lunch I moved on to a Chocolate Martini and dessert…

Then they brought everyone at the table one of these

We were all so stuffed after lunch. Around 3:00 we said our goodbyes. DP and I went to CA Adventure to check out some rides or the Aladdin show, but the place was mobbed! We gave up and went back to our room to relax and update TRs.

 

[franandaj]

So the night after our Club 33 dinner, we were so full it was like 10:00 before we even had any desire to eat anything more. I had suspected this might be the case which is why I didn’t plan on going out anywhere to eat or anything like that. We were pretty tired and were content to just stay in the room and see if they did any WoC testing.

Since we live so close, and I had made lots of dinners during the week before we checked in, I brought some of the leftovers just in case we wanted to have them for dinner. WDW vets will know this one, last year at Epcot’s F&W Festival I bought the cookbook and since then I have been making Le Cellier’s Beer Cheese Soup on a regular basis.

DP ate some leftover Mexican Lasagne, (for those who are interested, you make the “sauce” with salsa, corn, onions and ground meat (I used turkey), use corn tortillas for the noodles and cottage cheese for the ricotta, just layer it and top with Cheddar Cheese), a dollop of sour cream and you have a yummy dinner.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and headed home…we would be back in 4 days for the Brewmaster Dinner at Steakhouse 55!

 

[onelilspark]

That Mac & Cheese looks so decadent *stupid diet* *stupid diet* *stupid diet*

And I just love all the food from Napa Rose, their plating is out of this world. So beautiful!

 

[franandaj]

Since I’ve got my last Winemaker Dinner tomorrow night I thought I better get caught up, so the last dinner that we went to was the Karl Strauss Brewmaster dinner. This is the first time that Disney has done a Beer pairing dinner at F&W and it was the VERY first thing to sell out for the Signature events. It was great! Chef Jason really excelled here and everything worked perfectly.

We attended with a friend of ours, we had all booked separately but on our visit to Steakhouse 55 three weeks ago we asked if the three of us could be seated together, and they were able to accommodate us. We arrived early so David and I decided to start off in the bar with Martinis while we waited to be seated.

The Menu looks fabulous!

The Amuse Bouche was not listed on the menu and I can’t remember what the beer was that they served with it, but the whole thing worked perfectly together! The Amuse Bouche was a “Reuben” in a puff pastry, I mean beer, corned beef what a combination!

The next course was a series of appetizers. Woodie Gold Tempura Lobster, Orange Ginger Soy Wingette, Sesame Crusted Ahi with Pintail Salt and this was served with a Pintail Ale. Now the Pintail salt was interesting. My memory is foggy, but evidently he dehydrated the ale with salt mixed with it (I will try to ask him about this tomorrow night to clarify) and used that salt that was flavored with the ale.

The Brewmaster spoke about the various techniques that they used to brew the beers. He passed around Hops and Barley for us to taste.

The next course was an Applewood Smoked Kurobota Pork Tenderloin, Fingerling Potatoes, Baby Savoy Spinach, Black Forest Bacon, Thyme Reduction and Red Trollley BBQ Sauce, served with a Red Trolley Ale.

The Brewmaster visited all of the tables.

The Chef made a granita of the various beers that we had enjoyed throughout the evening for a palate cleanser. He wasn’t sure how it would work out so he didn’t put it on the menu, but it came out just great.

The Third Course was a NY Steak au Poivre with Mac N Cheese, and Brocollini. This was served with the 21st Anniversary Ale. To let you know, I almost always take something home from every dinner that I eat out, but this one, I ate every bit! I did not leave anything on any of the plates! This might have had to do with the fact that my doctor put me on a 1300-1500 calorie per day diet, but I can choose when to eat my grains, (well sort of) and proteins, so I “saved” all my grains and two of my proteins, plus my dairy and several of my fats for this meal.

1
Dessert was Banana Cheesecake, Scharfenberger Chocolate Ice Cream with Bananas Foster Sauce. This was paired with the Windansea Wheat Hefeweiszen.

Next up the last Winemaker dinner, and hopefully my visit with Chef Robert Irvine. If not we'll do a wine tasting with one of my favorite wineries.

 

[onelilspark]

I love the idea of a beer dinner. I can't drink beer though Makes me sick to my stomach. Oh well.

 

[Kitchensink]

Alison, I've enjoyed this report. We were at many of the 2009 events that you were at. I'm especially interested in a report of Taste 2010. We debated staying 2 1/2 weeks in Ca. to go to the Reidel glass seminar and to Taste, but reality struck and we only stayed for 12 days this year.
Karen

 

[franandaj]

OK, I know it's been a while since you've heard from me, but I am determined to finish this up! With so much going on in the last 2 weeks of F&W, I had to get back on track with life before I could finish updating the report!

So where were we? Oh yeah my last Wine Maker Dinner with Groth Winery. We decided that since we were already going to be at DLR for dinner, why not go early and try to get in the queue for Robert Irvine's 3:30 demo? Boy did we have a big surprise waiting for us. It was Friday, and last year the Saturday line for Cat Cora started at 11:00AM and you could still get in at 1:00 or 1:30. So we come waltzing into the park around noon to find that Robert Irvine is completely filled and the standby line looks pretty bleak as well. I was pissed off, disappointed, and who knows what else I was feeling, but not a happy camper!

After throwing a bit of a tantrum (not one that anyone else but DP could see) she convinced me that we could at least watch the show if I could "deal" with not getting a sample of the food. So I decided that was probably the way to go. We "parked" in a good spot for watching and got out our books and began "the wait". Kerry Simon went on at 2:00, later a lot of people told me they thought he was deadpan and lackluster, but actually seeing him live improved my opinion of him and the way he talked about his restaurant in LA, with all comfort food, might be a fun place to go sometime, if we actually get that kind of go out and eat leisure time!

Anyways, we watched his demo and thought he was somewhat interesting, a lot more than as a commentator on Iron Chef and we didn’t catch his competition on the show but enjoyed his explanation of how the show worked, it explained a lot! Basically what he said is “if they give you ‘this’ as your featured ingredient what will you want in your pantry? It was funny because for each of the possible theme ingredients he said he had a pantry ingredient that he hoped would “clue him in” on what they had chosen as the theme ingredient, but he said they had the chefs so busy from the moment they arrived on set until the competition began there was no way to know which of the various ingredients they had chosen.

After Kerry Simon finished his demo which we didn’t get to sample the food, which was a tuna tartare of some sort, I forget the details…

Inbetween the demos we had a churro, which was nummy.

And I got my picture taken with Kerry Simon since no one was really lining up for him

Shortly thereafter Robert Irvine came out and he seemed to know that us folks that were not getting into the demo would not get picture and autograph options with him like we did last year, so he really worked the crowd.

He was so much fun on the stage!

He also told us that he would be starring with Anne Burrell on the next season of Worst Cooks in America which became quite humorous with Anne the next weekend!

We found out from a friend of ours that was in the first five that she arrived at 8:30AM to get in line, and if that’s what had to be done then that is what I would do because I had not yet had a taste from a celebrity chef’s plate, so next Friday was Anne Burrell and I was motivated to get to at least one celebrity chef demo this F&W Festival!

 

[franandaj]

So after we finished watching Robert Irvine, we decided to head over to our final Wine Maker Dinner. This time it was with Groth Vineyards, all throughout the Festival people had been telling me that this was a GREAT winery and we would be impressed with the wine. The Menu looked great.

The amuse bouche was a piece of toast/bread with smoked salmon and a caviar goat cheese.

Our first course was chicken two ways. The breast was roasted and the wing was southern fried. Both were served over a Machego White Polenta and an English Pea Nage. I know Chef Jason had a very specific reason for choosing both these preparation methods, but now I don’t remember! They were both awesome! It was served with a 2007 Napa Valley Chardonnay.

The second course was called Stroganoff, but it was more of a deconstructed stroganoff. Served with a Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville Napa Valley 2007.

The meat was cooked perfectly!

We were enjoying our dinner!

The Third Course was a Marin Sun Farms Flat Iron Steak with Roasted Garlic and Old Amsterdam Potato Puree, Sauteed Summer Vegetables, Grilled Vidalia Onions. This was served with a Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville Napa Valley 2006

Again cooked perfectly

The dessert was a Wine Country White Peach Croustade and Golden Raspberry Sorbet served with a Sweet Genevieve, Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley 2005

We were given some lovely finishing truffles for the evening

I was really sad that the last Wine Maker dinner of the season was over, these are so tasty and so much fun, but next weekend is Taste! That is one heck of an event!

 

[onelilspark]

The meat was cooked perfectly!

Drool...

I must say, Robert Irvine really seems like a nice guy. Out of all the pictures at either F&W, he's the only one I've seen that really comes into the crowd and stops for pictures. Plus, he's done a number of shows with Disney that satisfy my obsession. Gotta give him props for that

 

[podsnel]

Sooo...Robert Irvine....he does seem like a nice guy- I'm going to Disney's HHI Resort next month, and it looks like he occasionally teaches a cooking class at DHHIR! Every week, either he does it or another chef (he lives on the island). Hope I have the pleasure of his class in a month!

Thanks for the great updates- I want to go to Disneyland F&W sooooo badly!!!