The headline for this post is not a typo.  This report is going to cover two different stays at the Disneyland Resort over just a few short weeks of time.  We first spent 4 nights at the resort on June 22-25 and then stayed overnight again on July 4th.

We have a membership in the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) timeshare and had originally planned to make a trip to Walt Disney World in late June right after our son completed his first year of pre-school.  After our October trip last year, we found that our son had become pretty skittish on rides and attractions and we decided it probably would be wise to delay our trip until December to increase the chance that he would grow out of that a bit.  Canceling that trip meant that we ended up with a number of DVC points that we had to use by August or end up forfeiting them.

My parents live in the Orlando area and they decided to come up to visit us during the same period that we had originally planned our Florida trip.  They were interested in staying down at the Disneyland Resort for a few days, so it then made sense to use up those points with a stay down there.  After researching, we discovered that we had the points available to cover the cost of a concierge-level room at Disney’s Grand Californian hotel for those 4 nights in June with enough left over for the 4th of July as well.  We had used points to stay there on July 4th for the last few years (avoiding the need to drive home after the fireworks) and it was very appealing to do that again this year while also having the chance to enjoy a longer, multi-day stay at the Grand Californian as well.

Instead of trying to test my memory with a day-to-day report on our visit, I’m going to categorize my report.  In this first part, I am going to concentrate on our dining experiences during the trip.  I’ll likely add additional parts to this over the next few days reporting on other aspects of the trip.

Character Dining

My parents arrived mid-afternoon on June 22 and we decided that a character dinner would be a good way to start the trip.  Around the 60 day mark before our trip, we made reservations at Goofy’s Kitchen (at the Disneyland Hotel) for that first-night dinner.  Our reservations were at 6pm and we were happy that they were able to seat us within about 5-10 minutes of our arrival at the restaurant.  Walk-up guests were being told that there was a 90 minute wait, so reservations are definitely a very good idea here.

Before seating, they gathered our family together for a photo with Pluto.  About halfway through the meal someone came to our table to try and sell us a pretty overpriced (around $40, if I recall) package of the photos.  They did the same thing when we did the character breakfast at PCH Grill later in the week (this time with Daisy Duck), so this must now be standard at the character meals.  In both cases, we declined as the packages were pretty costly and the photos weren’t that great.  I don’t remember encountering this there before (although it has been a while since we last did a character meal at DLR) and I don’t really care for this system.  I don’t mind the pre-meal photos, but I’d much rather they use Photopass to sell the photos.  At least at PCH, a CM did offer to also take a couple photos with our own camera, something that wasn’t offered at Goofy’s Kitchen.

The food at Goofy’s was ok, but nothing special.  This was consistent with our past experiences there.  We have always found that you definitely go there much more for the character-experience than for the food.  The food is definitely better than a low-end buffet like a Hometown Buffet, but I would also say it is closer to that than it to what you typically find at a high-end hotel buffet such as at the better Vegas hotels or at somewhere like a Hilton or a Hyatt.  Those used to the Walt Disney World character meals are also apt to be disappointed by Goofy’s based on our typical experiences.

The buffet does feature carved prime rib as a main entree and it was pretty decent.  On my first trip up there, I did get a piece that turned out to be quite a bit more rare than I generally like (and I prefer beef to be medium to medium-rare), but I can’t fault them too much for that since I didn’t specify a preference.  On a subsequent trip up there, I was easily able to get another slice that was more to my taste.  I do think they should probably ask before serving the meat that rare, but it still wasn’t that big a deal.  I did think the rest of the selection at the buffet was somewhat more limited than it should have been, which was not unexpected based on past visits.  For example, I was really surprised that they only offered one variety of roasted potatoes (which I couldn’t eat because they had onions) and didn’t even have the mashed potatoes and gravy that are usually commonplace at this kind of buffet.

I actually thought that the children’s section of the buffet was a better selection.  They had a couple different kinds of pizza, chicken strips, popcorn shrimp (I actually had quite a bit of this), macaroni and cheese, and spaghetti.  Our son actually completed finished off two pretty full plates of food, which was a larger meal than we are used to him finishing.  He especially liked the spaghetti and ate two pretty big helpings of that.

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My family spent the afternoon at the Disneyland Resort on Sunday, April 14.  The primary purpose for this trip was to meet up with a couple friends to experience the special food offerings available at Disney’s California Adventure for the Taste of California Marketplace, which is part of the annual California Food and Wine Festival currently being offered in the park.  This is the west coast version of a popular, long-running event that Disney holds every Fall in Epcot at Walt Disney World.

The Taste of California Marketplace offers a selection of fairly small, sampler-style portions of a number of different food items, all designed by California-based chefs and intended to represent the state’s culinary culture.  Small cups of California-made wines and beers are also offered to accompany these.  All of these items are available at the now-defunct Lucky Fortune Cookery counter-service restaurant, which is located in the Pacific Wharf section of the park.  This location provides a good infrastructure for the food service as well a large dining area (shared with two permanent restaurants with a great deal of available tables and chairs.  It makes for a much more convenient location than the multiple locations that were used during the first year of the event and which are still in use at the Epcot event.

The sampler-sized portions served at the Marketplace mean that the typical guest is likely to try a variety of choices, particularly if the items are being ordered as a meal rather than as a quick snack.  I ended up ordering 5 of the different food selections as well as one cup of wine.  Another couple that was dining with us eventually ordered and shared at least one of every item offered.

I initially ordered one each of the chicken and beef California skewers, the Festival Cheese Plate and a cup of Mirassou Chardonnay on a first trip to the counter.  The Marketplace also has the usual selection of soft drinks available and, since it was a hot day and the wine doesn’t really work as a thirst-quencher, I did order a Coke as well.  After finishing those, I was still hungry enough to try a couple more items, so I went back up and ordered the Pepper Crusted Beef Tenderloin Slider sandwich and, for dessert, the Seasonal Berry Trifle.

I particularly liked the skewers, which included the meat and a few various vegetables with a sweet chipotle glaze.  The sauce was fairly strong, but I found it to be extremely tasty and to really complement the flavor of the meat.  I generally don’t like cooked vegetables, and I have a strong sensitivity to onions, so I didn’t really eat too much other than the meat.  That did make the portions especially small for these (a common problem for me with skewers), but I did really enjoy the portions I did eat.

The cheese plate was ok, although I tend to like somewhat softer textured cheeses than most of the ones chosen for this platter.  For one thing, I tend to find softer cheeses to be a bit more flavorful while these were a waxy.  The one big exception was what they described as a huntsman cheddar bleu, which I thought was absolutely delicious.  I love bleu cheese and it mixed with the cheddar to form a flavor that I found tremendously appealing.  The cheese plate also came with some seedless purple grapes which were very fresh and at just the right level of ripeness.  The platter also featured a good sized pita crisp.  I’m not really much of a wine expert, so I asked the clerk to recommend a wine that would go well with my order.  She suggested the Chardonnay as a good compliment for the cheese plate and I found that it did go well with it.

My least favorite of the items that I tried was the Pepper Crusted Beef Tenderloin Slider.  This miniature sandwich was served on a small brioche roll and also included onion crisps and what Disney described as a citrus mojo criollo sauce.  Due to my sensitivity to onions, I had to remove most of them from my sandwich, although I was able to leave a few on as I’ve found that fried onions generally don’t affect me quite as much as ones that are raw or cooked in other ways.  That meant that I was able to get at least a bit of the flavor that they added to the sandwich.  The sauce was very heavy on garlic, though, and I strongly expect that one’s taste for this sandwich will be very much measured by one’s tolerance for garlic.  I generally do like garlic and initially found that I really liked the flavor.  About half-way through the sandwich, though, I found that I had pretty much had my fill of it.  The friends we were with pretty much picked this as their favorite item, though, so certainly your mileage my vary.

For dessert, I had actually asked for the Ghirardelli Chocolate Marquise, but was surprised when they gave me the trifle instead.  When I checked the receipt, I found that it did show the trifle as well, so I guess that the cashier must have hit the wrong button.  Since the trifle was generally to my taste as well, I decided not to bother trying to get it corrected.  The berries were strawberries and were very fresh and nicely sweetened by both the vanilla custard and light whipped cream.  The pound cake was a tad more dry, but still tasted very good.  Overall, it was a good dessert, although I would probably be interested in still trying the other one if I make it back there before the end of the festival.

One thing that should be noted is that the marketplace does not make for an inexpensive meal.  The items are priced fairly high for the portion sizes and getting enough food for a filling lunch can quickly run up in costs.  They do honor the customary discounts for annual passholders and Disney cast members (employees), which can lower the cost a tad if you qualify.  Without discounts or tax, the food items that I ordered came to a total of $24.50.  The glass of wine was another $3 and the Coke was the usual $2.50 or so (I don’t recall the exact amount).  Those prices for just one person are in the same ballpark as lunch at a fairly high-end table-service restaurant, although with service and presentation that are more in line with fast food. 

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I visited with my family, but I haven’t mentioned anything about my wife and son’s food choices.  The reason for that is that neither of them ended up ordering from the Marketplace.  The food choices just didn’t really appeal to my wife’s tastes and we also decided that the combination of the high prices and fairly exotic selections were questionable for a 4-year-old, even though our son does tend to be a fairly adventurous eater.  This was where the Food and Wine Festival’s setting inside of a Disney theme park was very much an advantage.  It was only a very short distance for them to go over to the Farmer’s Market counter service restaurant where both were able to get chicken strips for lunch. 

The close proximity between the somewhat upscale offerings of the festival and the more traditional theme park offerings served us well after lunch as well.  Our son did get restless with the somewhat longer, more formal lunch (and he was in a bit of a cranky mood anyway), but afterward  we were able to easily take him to do things that were more enjoyable to him.  Had we not been visiting with a small child, we might have been more interested in exploring more of the seminars and other events associated with the festival.  Instead, we park-hopped over to Disneyland where he got to visit with Mickey and Pluto, ride the tea cups and the carrousel, and then finally see the "Enchanted Tiki Room" show before we headed home for the day.  It was an extremely hot day, so we were fortunate that lines were pretty short allowing us to do quite a few things in just a couple hours.

California Adventure had been pretty crowded that day, so we were expecting much larger crowds at Disneyland than we actually found when we got there.  I suspect the Food and Wine Festival is turning out to be a pretty good attractor for the park, although I’m also sure that the "2 for 1" deal for that gives 1-day at each park for one price is also bringing a lot of people in.  I would guess that most weekend visitors taking advantage of the deal likely go to Disneyland on Saturday and California Adventure on Sunday, which would account for at least some of what we saw.  I did notice that the lines for the regular restaurants in the Pacific Wharf area of the park were substantially longer than the lines at the Marketplace, which probably isn’t too surprising at the prices they were charging.

I would overall consider our experience with the Food and Wine Festival to be a positive one.  The food choices at the Marketplace made for a very enjoyable and interesting lunch, even if the prices were definitely somewhat inflated for what was being offered.  Still, it was an overall positive once-a-year experience and I could easily see going again next year.

Last week marked the 9th anniversary of my wife’s and my first date.  While that is a milestone that probably declines a bit in significant after our 7+ years of marriage, it still provided a good excuse to get a babysitter and enjoy a dinner out together.  Last Thursday, we had that dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills.

My first experience at a Lawry’s restaurant was actually at their location in downtown Chicago to celebrate my 16th birthday.  It was almost 2 decades later before my next chance to eat at one of their restaurants, but it always stuck in my memory as one of my all-time favorite dining experiences.  Since that first trip to the Beverly Hills location (which is the original one in this format) a few years ago, it has become pretty much my wife’s and my first choice for "date night" special occasion dinners.

As you can probably guess from the name of the restaurant, Lawry’s specializes in prime rib.  In fact, when I made that first visit to the one in Chicago back in the mid-1980s, that was the only entree that they offered.  Back then, the only menu that they gave you (other then a wine list) was a small flyer listing the prices of the different sized cuts of prime rib.  If you wanted something other prime rib for dinner, then you needed to go somewhere else.

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