Foodie Favorites from Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival

If you haven’t been to the Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival at the Disneyland Resort yet, you must come out and experience it! This year’s festival has been the tastiest yet – celebrating the best food, wine and craft beers that California has to offer. With 15 Festival Marketplaces that have plenty of options, there’s something for everyone. The festival runs through April 12, 2018, so there’s still plenty of time to come on out and experience it for yourself.

I just had to share some of my favorite eats, so read on to find out about the best of the best of this year’s festival!

I’ll start the list with my personal favorite dish straight from the Cluck-a-Doodle-Moo Marketplace: Salt & Beer Vinegar Parmesan Chicken Wings! These savory wings are tossed in a special mix of salt and parmesan cheese and spritzed with a mist of beer vinegar to give it the extra fresh flavor. Also at this booth is one of my top drinks – a non-alcoholic Orange-Vanilla Cream Float, which is topped with whipped cream and pieces of vanilla cake.

Right across from Cluck-a-Doodle-Moo on Paradise Pier are the Garlic Kissed and Off The Cob Marketplaces. Now if you’re a mac and cheese fan, you’ll definitely want to try the Creamy Mac & Cheese at Garlic Kissed. It comes topped with a garlic bread crumble… and it’s also vegetarian!

At Off The Cob, you’ll find several yummy options that are perfect on-the-go snacks. The first is the Sweet Corn Nuggets. These savory little nuggets are topped with beef chili and chives with sour cream drizzled on top. And on the sweet side, you should definitely try the Caramel Popcorn Crispy Treat. This little treat comes in the form of a pop on a stick and is dipped in chocolate, and it has my mouth watering just writing about it! Now, after you’ve taken in all the sweet and salty goodness, you might be in need of a refreshing drink to enjoy while you stroll on to the next marketplace. For this, you can sip on the non-alcoholic Popcorn Lemonade Cocktail, which comes topped with whipped cream and is decorated with candy corn.

Moving on to greener pastures, you can find the Eat Your Greens Marketplace right across from Wine Country Trattoria. Here, you have to try the crisp and cool dish of Compressed Asian Cucumbers. Fun fact about this dish – it’s vegan! This dish also comes topped with green sauce, toasted almonds, and sea beans. And if you’re looking for another vegetarian option, you can look to the Grilled Asparagus Caesar Salad, drizzled with Caesar dressing and topped with crunchy croutons. But there’s also an amazing beverage here that all of you adults won’t want to miss out on – the Beet Kombucha Sangria. This bright and tasty drink is the perfect complement to any of these dishes, it even has a couple blackberries mixed in to add that extra “oomph!”

Speaking of “oomph”…on the menu at the Avocado Time Marketplace, the Spiced Oumph! has been the talk of the festival this year! Served on pita bread with avocado hummus and garlic sauce, this delicious dish is another one of our vegan bites this year. Also on the menu at Avocado Time is the Avocado & Pepper Jack Petite Guacamole Burger. This juicy slider-sized burger is sure to make your mouth water. No matter what you get here, though, the Avocado Ice Cream Bar is the perfect dessert to follow your tasting spree, especially on a warm day.

Another dessert that you won’t want to miss can be found at the Strawberry Patch Marketplace – it’s the Strawberry & Coconut Rice “Frushi” with Sweet Oikos Greek Nonfat Yogurt Wasabi Sauce. This fruit dessert goes perfectly with a glass of Strawberry Frosé, too, or even a non-alcoholic Strawberry Pineapple Float with Strawberry Popping Pearls.

Now if you’re looking for something a bit more spicy than sweet, then the Peppers Cali-Ente Marketplace is the place to go! Here you can try the Jalapeño Popper Mac & Cheese with Bacon or the Verlasso Sustainable Salmon Peruvian Poke with a cucumber-lime salad and aju verde salsa. Both of these dishes can be paired with a refreshing Lime Margarita garnished with jalapeño or a non-alcoholic Watermelon Lemonade, served with an optional habanero sugar and chili-lime half-rim.

So after you’ve spent the day tasting and sipping all of those delicious eats, you might be in the mood for a bit of relaxation with a snack and a cold, refreshing beer. The best spot for this is certainly Paradise Garden Grill and the Festival Beer Garden. Here you can either enjoy a tall glass of beer or try a few different brews with a special Beer Garden Flight. And what better snack to enjoy with that beverage than a Large Soft Pretzel served with a Beer-Mustard Dipping Sauce? This location is also the perfect place to sit back and relax while you listen to the sounds of live music underneath a canopy of trees.