REVIEW: We Tried 30 (!!) NEW Menu Items at Disney’s Food and Wine Festival!

It’s time to talk food! But not just any food — we’re discussing the eats and drinks from this year’s Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival!

The festival runs from March 1st to April 22nd, 2024, and there are so many new and returning things to try! We made our way around the festival to try a bunch of the booths, and we’re sharing our reviews with YOU! Use this as a guide so you can make the most of your time and money at the festival. Off we go!

California Craft Brews — 3/5

We headed over to California Craft Brews where you can find three different flights of beer, a Frozen Mangonada Beer Slush, and two tasty snacks. If you enjoy taste-testing new and unique beers, this is the booth you need to stop at during the festival. Let’s dive in and find out just what you can expect when you visit California Craft Brews!

First We tried the Cheeseburger Bao for $8.50. This is a bun stuffed with ground beef, cheese, Thousand Island dressing, grilled onions, and pickle and tomato relish. When we took our first bite, we instantly thought of a juicy, delicious Big Mac cheeseburger from McDonald’s. It’s a fancier version of the fast food favorite, and that made it a favorite for us! 

Next, we gave the S’mores Caramel Tart a try for $7. This was very good! We loved this take on a traditional s’mores treat, however, we thought the caramel in it was a bit unnecessary – it didn’t seem to belong here. Otherwise, the chocolate mousse was rich and heavy with flavor, but light in texture. It’s not the best of the fest, but it is pretty good, especially if you love s’mores.

Then we gave THREE beer flights a try! The first one is the Spring Favorite Beer Flight. It has four beers in it – Bottle Logic Brewing Watermelon Lemonade Seltzer, Full Circle Brewing Co. Peachy Vibes Wheat Ale, Mission Brewing Foggy Shores Hefeweizen, and the Eagle Rock Brewery Golden Ale. The flight costs $18.50. 

This was our favorite flight at the booth! It’s a good mix of seltzers and ales, which keeps the flavors light and refreshing. We love the diversity of flavors between the options. If you want to try some beer that doesn’t have the hoppiness or bitterness of typical beer, give this flight a try.

The Cal- IPA Beer Flight was next for us, also for $18.50. This flight is made up of the Crowns and Hops Brewing Co. Inglewood Sun, West Coast IPA, Unsung Brewing Co. Intracore IPA, Russian River Brewing Co. Blind Pig IPA, and the Stone Brewery Ruination Double IPA. 

We loved the Inglewood Sun IPA! This was very floral and similar to a typical California beer. It had a slight fruit aftertaste with hints of pine. It was a very well-done beer. However, we were turned off by the other three beers in this flight. They didn’t smell great, and they were hard to get down. Unless you regularly drink IPAs, we would suggest skipping this flight.

The last flight we tried was the West Coast Beer Flight for $18.50. You get Brewery X  Baja Boi Mexican Lager with Salt and Lime Left Coast Brewing, Del Mar St. Dortmunder Style Export Lager, Delahunt Brewing Co, Salvatore Italian Pilsner, and the ⁠⁠La Bodega Brewing Co. Pay the Piper Double IPA. 

This was a mixed bag of beers. You get two lighter beers and two very hoppy and bitter beers. Brewery X and Del Mar St. both offer light beers that are refreshing, and Delahunt Brewing Co. and La Bodega Brewing Co. offer the hoppy options with strong aromas. 

Last, we had to try the Frozen Mangonana Beer Slush! This is Brewery X Baja Boi, Mango Purée, Rock Melon Syrup, Grapefruit juice, and mango champs glaze for $18. This was probably our favorite item at this stand. It’s certainly worth the price because it is LARGE. It’s refreshing and great for a hot day. The mango and chamoy hides the taste of the beer, so we think that even if you’re not a big beer drinker, you might enjoy this slush.

Overall, Craft Brews seems to be all about preferences. There is a wide variety of beer and drink options to meet anyone’s liking. The treats here are also great options! We didn’t spot any best-of-the-fests here, but it’s worth the stop for the adventurous type.

Cluck-A-Doodle-Moo — 3/5

Let’s talk wings. Disney debuted some NEW Cheese Pizza-flavored Wings, available for $8.50. These come with a side of ranch for dipping, and while we usually love a pizza X ranch duo, these wings just didn’t live up to our expectations! We really just tasted cheese powder, chicken, and a little spice. These aren’t anything special. Also, keep in mind that the spices give these wings a dry rub coating, so make sure to dip each bite in a little ranch.

Good news! The BBQ Beef Brisket Slider is back this year, and you can try it for $9. This slider is topped with smoked white cheddar and dill pickles and served on salt and pepper brioche. We were instantly reminded of the BBQ pulled pork sandwiches we used to eat at home on a warm summer evening. The pork was moist and well-seasoned, and the BBQ flavor was great! Overall, this was a WIN!

Time for some drinks! This year, both beverages at Cluck-A-Doodle-Moo are new. First up was the non-alcoholic Kiwi-Apple Lemonade, for $7. The drink features Minute Maid Lemonade and apple juice with kiwi and Granny Smith apple syrups. It’s also garnished with a purple orchid! This was SPECTACULAR! It was super refreshing, and the flavors worked so well together.

We also sipped the Tangerine Tiki Cocktail for $17. It’s dark rum, vanilla-citrus liqueur, tangerine and lime juices, and honey syrup – all garnished with a dried red pineapple wheel.

Unfortunately, the flavors did not come together as we had hoped! The vanilla liqueur was nice, but the tangerine and honey did not go together, in our opinion.

D-Lish — 5/5

What can we say? This booth has it ALL. We started with the Carbonara Garlic Mac & Cheese featuring Nueske’s Peppered Bacon for $9, and it was perfectly cheesy and garlicky and full of bacon flavor, making it pretty much the perfect Mac & Cheese dish. We also loved the crunch the topping gave it.

Speaking of near-perfect, the Olive Oil Cake glazed with lemon curd, topped with vanilla bean Chantilly, and finished with fresh candied lemons, strawberry crunch, and lemon-lime gelée also wowed us. For $7, you get a slice of dense but moist cake that has a nice balance of sweet and tart flavors, as well as a nice light Chantilly cream on top.

Even the drink here is a stand-out. The Huckleberry-Citrus Cooler is made with Gold Peak Black Tea, huckleberry and agave syrups, grapefruit soda, and lemon and orange juices garnished with an orange wedge.

It has just the right amount of tartness, but it’s also sweet at the same time. We found it extremely refreshing. You can grab this non-alcoholic drink for $7.

Earth Eats — 5/5

We didn’t expect to give this booth a 5 out of 5, but here we are. The booth has two NEW eats this year, including the Impossible Chicken Parm Bites with tomato and cheese sauces and grated Parmesan for $8.50. The texture of these bites reminded us of mozzarella sticks, which did throw us off when we got parmesan flavors, but we have no complaints. The marinara sauce is also delicious, with a lovely tomato flavor.

However, the Impossible Beef Stroganoff for $9 really surprised us. It’s like Beef Stroganoff but elevated (and as a reminder, there is no actual beef in it). It’s made with Egg noodles tossed in a mushroom cream sauce with Impossible beef and sour cream. The creamy mushroom sauce was so good we wished we had more of it. The egg noodles are soft, plus all the flavors just worked great together.

Now, onto drinks! We got the Watermelon Cucumber Mojito made with White rum, watermelon liqueur, mojito and cucumber syrups, watermelon purée, and lime juice topped with Topo Chico and garnished with a watermelon spear with Tajín twist for $17.

Again, this is ANOTHER winner with us. It’s light and refreshing with a great watermelon taste. You do get a hint of the cucumber in each sip, but it’s just enough to balance out the sweetness of the watermelon. However, the tajin does add a bit of a kick, and if you’re spice-averse, you might want to stay away. We loved it because it had a very Baja feel to it.

Garlic Kissed — 2/5

Returning to this booth for the third year in a row (not that we’re complaining!), is the Grilled Top Sirloin for $9. When we had this last year, the beef was super tender, but the potatoes got a bit oily after a while. This year, it fell flat. The beef was dry and overcooked, and we felt the chimichurri was too overpowering. The potatoes were solid, though!

The other item available at this booth is the Guava Lychee Mule for $17. It’s made with Vodka, Guava Nectar, Ginger and Lychee Syrups, and Lemon Juice, topped with Guava and Grapefruit Hard Cider, and garnished with a Lemon Wheel. When we tried this one last year, we loved it. It wasn’t too sweet, but we did taste more grapefruit than guava or lychee.

Golden Dreams — 3/5

This booth has a BUNCH of drinks to check out, so let’s start with the new Fig Matcha Latte for $7. This one is made with matcha, soy milk, and coconut and simple syrups topped with a fig oat sweet cream and garnished with matcha powder. It’s a non-alcoholic option, too! After a few sips, we determined that this was not our favorite drink on the menu. The matcha flavor is (predictably) strong, and if you’ve never tried matcha, prepare yourself for a unique, earthy flavor. It’s not for everyone! On the other hand, if you like matcha, this might be right up your alley! The texture is pretty thick, and we didn’t love the coconut with the matcha. 

This year, a returning drink has moved from the Berry Patch food booth to Golden Dreams! It’s the Blueberry Pancake Cold Brew for $7.25. This drink is a Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Co. Mexico Origin Coffee, with maple, brown butter & demerara syrup, oat milk, and a blueberry sweet cream (made with cream, oat milk, vanilla syrup, blueberry syrup, and purée). Our coffee was garnished with cinnamon-flavored cereal crumble – yum! To be fair, this one basically just tasted like coffee. The blueberry is super subtle – we mostly tasted coffee. This one is fine if you like coffee, but for the price, we did feel a little let down by the flavor. 

Finally, we tried the new Peach Cobbler Cocktail for $17. This cocktail is made with moonshine, peach and amaretto liqueur, peach nectar, condensed milk, vanilla, and cinnamon syrups, and lemon juice garnished with frozen peaches. WOW – this one reminded us of a boozy peach cobbler.

It was amazing! The peach flavor is nice and strong, and we picked up on a hint of cinnamon, too. Beware – this is a strong (but tasty) drink!

LA Style — 3/5

At LA Style, you’ll find a small variety of dishes inspired by (you guessed it) the City of Angels! We were super excited to try this one out. 

First up, you can get the Carnitas-style Pork Belly for $9. This dish comes with a side of esquites corn mac salad featuring Tajín Habanero. We REALLY enjoyed this one! The pork is perfectly tender and juicy, but what we liked most about it is the fact that it has a sweet barbecue flavor. It forms a really nice glaze on the meat that we enjoy. The mac salad is interesting and has a great creamy cheese flavor and texture. We think it would be better warm, though! 

Next up is a plant-based dish. The Baja-style Fish Tacos for $7.25 are new this year, and come with cabbage slaw, cilantro-lime crema and pico de gallo. We found it revolting. And we can almost ALWAYS get down with Disney’s plant-based dishes. However, this dish almost tried too hard to be exactly like fish. Here’s the thing: good fish doesn’t TASTE like fish. This imitation nonsense tastes way too fishy and is disgusting. Plus, the cream and cabbage slaw add nothing. Zilch. Zero. Yuck. Save your time, tastebuds, and money. NEXT.

Last but not least, we had the Spicy Strawberry Cocktail for $17. This drink consists of gin, strawberry and tamarind purées, strawberry syrup, pineapple juice, chile spices, and Tajín chamoy garnished with a Tamarindo straw. If you love sweet cocktails, you should totally try it. You can’t even taste the booze because of how incredibly SWEET the strawberry flavor is. The tamarind and tajin give a nice lil’ kick that we appreciate, but what this drink could really use is some citrus to cut all that sweetness. If you love sweet cocktails, though, this might not be an issue for you! 

Overall, we give this booth a ⅗. Two of the options here almost got solid 5/5s, but there were a few things we’d like to change, like adding warm mac salad to the pork belly or adding citrus to the cocktail. As for that fish taco… there’s no saving that one. We wouldn’t go out of our way for this one, but it wasn’t absolutely horrible.

Nuts About Cheese — 3/5

Cheese, cheese, and more cheese. One of our favorite things! We were especially excited to try out this booth, so let’s hope it doesn’t let us down. 

First up, we tried the Big Bad BBQ Pulled Pork Mac and Cheese for $9. This is BBQ pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, and is topped with crispy dill pickle onions. Y’all. This was DELISH. The macaroni and cheese in itself was creamy, delicious, and everything you’d want out of a typical mac and cheese dish. BUT. When you combine that with the tender, delicious pork? Game. Changer. It’s so good! Our reporter doesn’t even like pork, but they said that this was absolutely delicious. 5/5, and worth EVERY dollar. 

Next, we grabbed the Mickey-shaped Macaron for $7.75. This is a macaron made with SNICKERS bar pieces. Holy chocolate. The ganache here totally overwhelms the dessert. It was too dense and rich for us to actually enjoy it. While we did like the crunch that the nuts on top provided, it just wasn’t light and airy like a macaron is supposed to be. It’ll be a skip from us going forward.

Last but not least, we got the PB&J Whiskey Shake for $16. This is Peanut butter whiskey, raspberry liqueur, vanilla ice cream, Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Co. Mexico Origin Coffee, and peanut butter & raspberry syrups, garnished with a raspberry. Oi. This isn’t our favorite, that’s for sure. The coffee overwhelms everything else in this drink. That’s about all there is to it. Plus, it’s so small and costs nearly $20. That is ROBBERY. 

Overall, we’d totally recommend this booth to anyone who loves macaroni and cheese, but other than that, it’s a skip from us.

Peppers Cali-Ente — 4/5

With a name like “Peppers Cali-Ente” will this booth live up to the spice? We’re on a mission to find out, starting with the Shrimp Papas Locas, a new item on this year’s menu. Made with cheddar-bacon potatoes with jalapeño cheese sauce and chipotle shrimp, this dish packs a ton of flavor for the $8.75 price tag! The shrimp was perfectly cooked and we loved the balance of the freshness of the salsa with the richness of the cheesy potatoes. We would order this one again in a heartbeat!

Next, we tried the returning Chile Relleno Empanada with Arbol pepper salsa and Oaxaca and Cotija cheeses for $8.50. This has been a popular item at previous festivals and it’s easy to see why. The spice is definitely present, but it’s balanced out nicely by the blend of cheeses. It’s another snack that we’d absolutely come back for more of!

Finally, we grabbed the Cantarito-Style Paloma, a returning drink at this year’s festival. It’s made with reposado tequila, habanero-infused pineapple juice, lime juice, rock melon syrup, and Fresca, and garnished with a pineapple wheel and Tajín Clásico for $17.

And WOW, does it pack a punch! The spice is front and center with this drink. We liked the pineapple flavor when we got it, but it was mostly just overpowered by the spicy flavor. Plus, the alcohol flavor was also pretty strong. We would have probably enjoyed this drink more if the spice level was turned down a few notches so we could taste more of the other flavors. You’ll definitely want to skip this one if you’re not a fan of heat!

Uncork California — 4/5

The Raspberry Almond Cake ($7.50) was a candidate for best of the fest this year! The cake itself was pretty dense, but it was super moist, too. It reminded us of a muffin top, which we all know is the best part of a muffin! The raspberries were mixed in well, so every bite was a little bit sweet and a little bit tart. We loved it!

The Rosé Margarita ($17) was just OK. The most prominent flavor was tequila, so if you’re not a fan of tequila, you’ll definitely want to steer clear. The only other flavor we could find was melon, which was very subtle and almost more of an aftertaste. We couldn’t really taste the rose or peach, and we found ourselves looking for something to complement the rest of the flavors in the drink. Still, it was pretty refreshing and went down smooth.

The Springtime Bouquet Mimosa Flight ($18) was interesting! The Chrysanthemum Mimosa pretty much just tasted like prosecco and really nothing else. The Hibiscus Rose Mimosa was much more interesting! It had a great rose-flavored aftertaste. The Apricot Lavender Mimosa was the sweetest of them all. This is definitely a “love it or hate it” flavor, as it’s very floral. We really liked that it had a lot of unique flavor, though.

Paradise Garden Grill — 2/5

 Let’s kick things off with the Sisig Burrito. This burrito contains Seasoned pork, onions, serrano peppers, garlic fried rice, scrambled egg, and marinated tomatoes with a side of chicharrones and vinegar dipping sauce. It’s available for $13.99.

Unfortunately, our serving did not come with any dipping sauce, and we wish it had. We did get a lime wedge to help boost the flavor, though. At first, we tasted the heat from the serrano peppers, then we got a hint of vinegar from the sauce of the pork. This burrito is pretty filling, and the flavors come together nicely. The pork is nice and moist, and the vegetables add a little dimension. The chicharrones on the side are very salty and rather flavorless. Be prepared – this dish is spicy, but we enjoyed it!

Next up, it’s time for the Chicken Musakhan. This is a roasted spiced half chicken and sumac stewed onions on flatbread with a Mediterranean salad and a garlic yogurt dipping sauce. It’s a BIG serving, and it’s $18.49.

We were a little let down by this chicken. While the chicken seasoning was nice and flavorful, the chicken itself was very dry. Our dish did not come with the dipping sauce noted on the menu, and we have a feeling that would help combat the dryness of the chicken. For the price, we didn’t think this one was worth it – especially with the scant meat-to-bone ratio. The side salad was basically a simple little Mediterranean-type salad, but overall, this is not a winning meal. We think this is a safe item to pass on, given the price.

The Loaded Baked Potato is plant-based and is filled with seasoned steak tips and BBQ baked beans topped with cheese sauce, tangy slaw, and green onions. You can try it for $13.99. It’s pretty hard to mess up a baked potato, so we’re going to focus on the toppings for a moment. The seasoned steak tips reminded us of fake beef jerky (it’s not real meat since this is a plant-based dish). The texture was a little wonky, and we didn’t love the flavor. The potato could work without the steak. That said, we really liked the beans and the sweet BBQ flavor. The cheese provides a nice balance to the sweet BBQ flavor, too. All in all, we enjoyed this dish but could have done without the steak.

For dessert, we tried the Pistachio Cheesecake, available for $6.75. It’s described as a New York-style pistachio cheesecake, and we were pretty intrigued by the photos.

Hooray – this was a great little dessert. The crust was pretty soft, so there wasn’t much of a crunch here, but we didn’t mind! The cheesecake was creamy and rich, but the texture was a little lighter than a typical cheesecake treat. 

Finally, we finished up our time at this booth with the Pineapple-Melon Cocktail made with Melon Liqueur, pineapple juice, and a splash of citrus. This one is $18. 

You can’t really taste the alcohol here, and man was this one good. It resembled the taste of a Dole Whip float (minus the Dole Whip, of course). This drink is basically sweet pineapple juice with alcohol! It’s nice and refreshing, but the price is pretty high, admittedly.

Phew! That’s a wrap! In the meantime, we’re always on the lookout for the latest Disney news, so stay tuned for more.

FULL MENUS for the 2024 Food and Wine Festival at Disney California Adventure 

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