We had our menu tasting yesterday!! I quite literally ate myself sick it was so good I could not stop. Both Diana and I are vegetarian, so we were quite curious to see what Disney could offer us. I cannot eat citrus, and Diana needs to avoid dairy and gluten. Disney has been absolutely phenomenal working with us and all our dietary restrictions (including our guests) so that everyone will have something delicious to eat.
We were very fortunate and able to have our menu tasting in the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion, where our reception will be. It was very nice to get to spend some time in that room.
(Sorry that the picture is crooked :/)
Pre-reception
For our pre-reception hour, we are doing 3 passed trays and a cheese display. The cheese display includes brie, which I am very excited about. Typically, you do not get to sample any of your pre-reception dishes at the menu tasting, but we were able to try one since they had not done it before. The other two passed options are a 5 spice chicken drumette and a poached artichoke with tomato relish and micro basil.
Disneyland does these out of this world cheese monte cristo sandwiches that I LOVE. Early on I inquired whether or not it would be possible to do mini monte cristo sandwiches as a passed option. Unfortunately, we were informed that they did not have the capacity to make those for us, however, the chef was willing to try and do potato fritters with a gruyere cheese sauce. Since they had not done these before, we were given the option to sample them at our tasting session. These quickly became the first thing I was extremely excited to get to eat.
None of us knew quite what to expect for these potato fritters, so we were surprised when they came out looking like crispy, breaded little balls. We were each given two fritters. One contained chorizo and the other was vegetarian friendly. While I cannot speak to the deliciousness of the chorizo filled fritters, the vegetarian ones were simply amazing. Nice and crispy on the outside and potato-y goodness on the inside slathered in cheesy deliciousness.
I forgot to take the picture before I devoured my little potato fritter. The remaining one is the chorizo one. These fritters are definitely being served and we already discussed arranging for a plate with them on it to be set aside for us haha!
The entrée
We are doing a plated service for our reception. Somewhere between 10% to 20% of our guest list has some kind of dietary issue (including us), so we decided that losing potential options was worth reducing the chances for a cross-contamination issue. The last thing we want is to send one of our guests to the hospital.
We elected to sub in a caesar salad for the starter rather than soup that was included with the meal option we selected. We were also served a field of greens style salad with this amazing roasted garlic balsamic dressing of some sort (I say it was tomato and Diana says it was just garlic
). The caesar salad comes with a crouton cracker that has a pesto and a parmesan crisp. Unfortunately, those items will not work for a lot of our guests, so we're not sure if we're going to have two salads or just the greens salad. Disney did offer to make the caesar dressing vegetarian friendly though, which was extremely kind of them and I'm debating doing just because it is so hard to find a fantastic vegetarian caesar dressing.
All our main entrées are GF. Our meat option is a duet meal with filet mignon and salmon that has a sauvignon blanc cream sauce with mashed potatoes, haricots vert, and carrots on the side. My mom tried that and said it was excellent. We took her word for it.
Initially, Diana and I had asked if it was possible at all for the chefs at Disneyland to make something like the mango tofu that used to be served at the SciFi drive in theatre at Disney World (it's been three years and we still talk about that dish), but unfortunately they couldn't. Instead, they suggested a grilled portobello mushroom entrée, which sounded enticing so we went for it.
It. Is. So. Good. They created this grilled portobello mushroom stack with squash, zucchini, and red pepper topped with pesto and onion over roasted potatoes and a pomodoro sauce. We are quite pleased with this option. It is very hearty.
Dessert
We initially declined the dessert option as part of our menu since we feel people will be too full for cake if they eat dessert first. However, the desserts they made are simply incredible, particularly the milk chocolate cube with the passion fruit sauce and salted caramel macaroon. I mean, not only is that dessert one of the best desserts I have ever had, they even put a hidden mickey on it. The chocolate cube is so light, yet incredibly rich and does not leave that milk chocolate after taste in your mouth like some milk chocolates. The macaroon that accompanies it is a little slice of heaven. I do not like caramel and I like salted desserts even less. I would eat a box of these. I will find some way to get this dessert on our menu for the evening. Options we have discussed thus far:
a) Dessert buffet at the end of the evening so people can get some more sugar before they leave. Unfortunately, it is not possible to do that with this particular dessert since it is too delicate.
b) Serving it as a plated option sometime around 9:30 after people have had a chance to get up and do some dancing. I'm not convinced that everyone would be ready for such a rich dessert at that point.
We also tried the flourless chocolate dome. It was definitely good, but it was hard to evaluate how good because the other dessert was just so outstanding.
The cube and macaroon are on the front left while the dome is the back right.
The cake
Cake is very important to Diana and me. Since we have so many people coming with dietary restrictions, we're trying to accommodate all of them in one tier of the cake. For their dietary restrictions, they typically offer either a vanilla or chocolate cake. Diana likes marble cake, so they offered to try to make a marble for us to try. The only option for filling that met the requirement of GF, dairy free, nut free, and coconut free is the non-dairy whip. Thankfully, their vegan buttercream meets that requirement too. Diana was able to try all three types of cakes, and she tried the vanilla cake with fresh strawberries in the filling.
For the other two tiers, I tried a mozart cake with a bavarian cream filling (IT'S VEGETARIAN!!!!!) and a chocolate (I think fudge) cake with a mint and chip filling. I loved both of them, so we're doing mozart cake as the bottom and the chocolate as the top tier. Diana liked the vanilla cake with the non-dairy whip and fresh strawberries, so we're doing that as the middle tier.
GF, vegan, nut free, coconut free cake.
Mozart cake and chocolate cake.
After the dessert tasting, Diana and I went to Mickey's Halloween party out here. Shortly after we got into Disneyland for the event, Diana realized she lost her phone
The last time she knows she had it was when we were at the tasting in the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion, so she lost it somewhere between the Disneyland Hotel and Tomorrowland in Disneyland. It is currently off (goes straight to voicemail when we call) and we know it had plenty of battery, so we're crossing our fingers a cast member found it. We were told it can take a few days for things to trickle in to the lost and found. Hopefully it turns up....
Us as Mickey and Minnie for the party