Return of Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival: A Fusion of Delectable Dishes, Live Music, and Playful Cat Puns

The introduction of the new Carnitas-style Pork Belly with Esquites Corn Mac Salad at the Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival represents the diversity that the culinary team aims to introduce into this year’s menu.

This newest addition is can be found at LA Style, one of the ten festival marketplaces that are spread throughout California Adventure. Apart from Carnitas-style Pork Belly, the Esquites Corn Salad also includes a variety of flavours like Habanero and Chili-Lime seasoning.

Luis Madrigal, Disneyland Resort Chef, added this dish to the menu as an effort to blend the popular Pork Belly in a new and unique format while maintaining its traditional flare. The goal of the culinary team was to create a unique Los Angeles cultural experience for all guests.

“We wanted to include the distinct characteristyics of carnitias, and see if we can merge it with the equally distinct taste of pork belly. The esquites corn salad, which is popular street food in LA, was also added to the menu, as it reflects the cultural experience of the chefs when they are not at work. It’s also their way of reminding themselves of a traditional Mexican street food experience, growing up near vendors selling elote, and the idea of merging this memory with Carnitas-style pork belly is an exciting venture,” he further added.

The festival, which commenced on March 1 and spans until April 22, brims with over 80 novel dishes across the festival stands, participating eateries, and some carts. In this edition, visitors can choose between two Sip and Savor Pass variants — a fresh four-coupon pass and the recurrent eight-coupon pass. These can be redeemed for selected food delicacies or non-alcoholic drinks.

In addition to the bountiful array of food and beverages, there is also an instructive angle to the event. Renowned local and celebrity chefs, along with Disney chefs, hold cooking demos during the weekends on the Hollywood Backlot Stage.

Entertainment forms an essential portion of the Food & Wine Festival, featuring a new interactive kids’ show in Hollywood Land, titled “Confection Purrfection with the SuperKitties.” This engaging act takes inspiration from Disney Junior’s animation series “SuperKitties.” One unique characteristic of this presentation is the liberal use of cat puns — ranging from “cat-astrophe” and “paw-some” to “cat-ch ya later” and several more.

Linda Love Simmons, the show director for Disney Live Entertainment, expressed that the series is laden with cat puns and they had a good time incorporating them. She shared, “We kept adding more and more cat puns, leading to fits of laughter during the process.”

The “SuperKitties” feature in the show, and there’s also cupcake decorating for kids.

“We aimed to provide an activity for our youngest food enthusiasts to engage in,” she expressed.

If you’re on the hunt for live music, Simmons revealed that this year’s festival offers more variety with 14 different live bands playing each day at the Palisades Stage and Paradise Gardens Bandstand. You can enjoy a range of styles, from reggae and ’80s pop to R&B, jazz, and big band.

Making a return for its third year, “Cookin’ with the Jammin’ Chefs” brings cooking-themed music to life, complete with character dancing and performers in chef attire banging on pots and pans. With characters like Chip ‘n’ Dale, Clarabelle Cow, and Daisy Duck, you’re in for some piquantly entertaining dance moves.

“I love the idea of celebrating everyone. I love the idea of having everyone see themselves in the stories that we tell,” Simmons said. “With ‘Confection Purrfection,’ the idea that when people feel included, it makes them happier. It makes everyone happier. We should all take that to heart, to make sure that everyone feels part of the story. And that laughter and fun is amazing. And that for the littlest chefs, that everybody has a superpower.

“And then for ‘Cookin’ with the Jammin’ Chefs,’ the last line in the show, I love so much: ‘Go taste everything or try everything, because food, like life, is a celebration.’ For me, that’s what Food & Wine is, it’s a celebration. It’s a celebration of the bounty of California. It’s the celebration of art. In the gazebo, down by the beer garden, there’s all the artwork that’s been created for the festival. … The mural is painted. So for the first four days of the festival, you could watch this mural come to life with an actual artist [Marcella Swett].”

About the Author: Chris Lehoux

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