Food and Wine (and indigestion) Mini TR

[JustCor]

Aloha and Bonjour my friends. I just got home from a surprise trip to Disney for some Food and Wine festivities and drinking. Lots of that stuff, actually. But first, the standard introductions:

Who:

Me, Corey, 36/M/FL for those from the A/S/L days of AOL. I went with two good friends who will remain nameless and faceless for their privacy.

What: Food and Wine eating and drinking, with a stop at MK for fun

Where: All-Star Sports, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom

When: Yesterday, October 17th, 2015

Why: Because... reasons.

Coming up, pictures, food, pictures of food, and some not so magical things.

 

[JustCor]

"Wanna go to food and wine with us?"

The nice thing about living in Florida is that Disney is relatively close. I'm about two hours away, so a quick get away is always possible. Sure, life gets in the way every now and then, but sometimes things just work. My friends invited me to tag along for a trip up to Epcot for some Food and Wine eating and drinking. Luckily, I wasn't on call this weekend for work (yay!) and had some spare cash burning a hole in my pocket. The planets had aligned for some Food and Wine!

We hopped on the Turnpike and headed north to the House of Mouse. Just past "world famous" Yeehaw Junction, we hit a snag. A big snag, as it turns out. There had been a big accident on the Northbound lanes and things were ground to a halt. A little internet action told us what we needed to know: bad accident. Darn. We were stuck. After an hour of snails paced driving, we had managed to move a whole 2.5 miles. Our entertainment came from the semi truck two cars behind us. Some cars were starting to jump on the shoulder to pass up the traffic until the semi driver decided to swing on out into the shoulder and block things off. I don't know why we found it so funny, but it was unusually entertaining.

We finally reached the site of the accident as they were almost done cleaning things up. After being pinched down to one lane, we managed to squeeze past and emerge on to wide open roads. The rest of the drive up to Disney was incredibly smooth, probably because the bulk of the traffic was bottlenecked at that accidnet site. We rolled on to Disney property and got to All-Star Sports with no delays and popped into the lobby to check in. It was 1:30pm now and we were hoping that we would be able to get in to the room, but unfortunately, it wasn't ready. Unfortunate, sure, but we didn't come up to sleep and hang out in the room, but to eat and drink and be merry idiots.

With that in mind, we got our parking pass and dumped it into the car window and went to the bus stop, just missing the Epcot bus by about a minute. Fifteen minutes later, and we were on a fairly empty bus to Epcot. Maybe this would be a sign of things to come. Could it be possible that we were getting there with a low volume day? That sure would be nice. Unfortunately, it was not the case. There were so many people at Epcot. I may or may not mention the crowds later in the report, but for now I'll just say that it was packed, and some foods we skipped flat out because of the lines. But we'll get to all that in a bit. The massive traffic jam earlier in the trip only added to the hunger. It was time to eat!

 

[JustCor]

And to your right, Scotland

We started our food journey at Scotland because, well, it was right there. At Scotland, I started with the Fresh Potato Pancake with Smoked Salmon and Herb Sour Cream with a glass of Brew Dog Punk Ale. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture. I was starving and wolfed down the potato pancake in one big bite. In terms of taste, it was only ok, missing out some on good flavors and being a surprisingly bland dish. The smoked salmon came through, as I expected it would. Unfortunately, the rest of the ingredients left all of their flavors at home, or elsewhere. It was more a texture thing with a smoked salmon flavor. Not anything I'd really need again, but at the moment, while I was super hungry, it was good enough. The Brew Dog Punk Ale, on the other hand, was delicious. I'm not a beer person, really. I can drink it, but I rarely do. Most beer tastes pretty bad to my taste buds, so I only have it rarely. I'm not a beer person, so I don't know what the things are that would make it stand out to a beer person. To me, it had a nice, sweet and slightly fruity taste that went down very smoothly. I was quite surprised, as I expected it to be only mediocre. So, one booth down and we're sitting on a mediocre platter. Thankfully, there's many more booths remaining. Onwards, to the next one!

 

[JustCor]

Aloha, from Hawaii!

The potato pancake may have gotten me to a point where it didn't feel like my insides were being dissolved by my stomach, it wasn't very filling. At the Hawaii booth, I decided I wanted the Kālua pork slider with sweet and sour Dole® Pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise as well as the Tuna poke with seaweed salad and lotus root chips. Just looking at it was making me hungry. I love a good pork slider, and I can't turn down some poke. The pulled pork slider hit the spot, with a really nice, robust flavor. It was delicious. The tuna poke was also good, but holy crap was it super salty. The salt was made worse by the lack of a drink. If they could cut back on the salt, the tuna poke would be amazingly refreshing. Still, the fish was fresh and delicious, and the seafood salad was awesome too. It did a great job of filling up space in my stomach. On a normal day, that may have been about it for the food stuff until a later dinner, but this was no normal day. On to our next booth!

 

[JustCor]

Time for a change of pace

The salt from the Poke was still lingering, so at the Dominican Republic booth I decided to get something sweet to cut through the salt. The Caramel flan with rum-roasted pineapple seemed to be a good choice, and it turned out to be just what I needed. I love flan. I love the texture and the caramel-y flavor. The rum roasted pineapple that was served on top was a bit of a dud, but it was easily scraped off. It was so good that I managed to finish it in the fifteen feet from the booth to the garbage can. I would have stood in line for more, but the lines were starting to really stretch out. I do kind of wish I had gone back and gotten another serving, but by the time we made the loop, I was more than full. As we walked out of the DR area, we kept hearing about how great the food at the Canada booth was, so we made our way to the booth of maple and bag milk.

 

[JustCor]

Insert Canadian accent joke here

The word about Canada must have gotten out (or the crowds were hitting their peak), because there was a line on both sides of the booth and both lines were long. We stood in line and waited our turn. I knew what I wanted right away and ordered the “Le Cellier” wild mushroom beef filet mignon with truffle butter sauce along with a side of Canadian cheddar cheese soup. The steak was delicious, cooked to a medium/medium rare that I prefer on my steaks. The truffle butter sauce gave a nice earthy flavor to the meat. The real star, surprisingly, was the mushrooms. They were so good! I would have went back and ordered a massive mound of them if I could have. Maybe it was the heat outside, but I didn't care much for the soup. It was ok, with nice cheese flavor, but the chunks of onion and whatever else that was floating around in the soup didn't do anything for me. I kind of wish I passed on that one. So, steak: yes, mushrooms: big yes, soup: pass. This food pit still has room to eat. To the next area!

 

[JustCor]

I'm a fancy type

I decided to skip the Ireland booth and head to France and go to L'Artisan Des Glaces for an Ice Cream Martini. Ice cream and alcohol, what else could I need. I chose a scoop of Vanilla and a scoop of Lemon Meringue topped off with some whipped cream vodka. The vanilla was a safety pick, in case the lemon meringue happened to be a dud. As it turns out, the lemon meringue ice cream was AMAZING! So much flavor! The vanilla was just unable to compare. In hindsight, I probably should have gone with Grand Marnier instead of the Vodka, as it had a rubbing alcohol flavor to it, but thankfully the lemon flavor made it amazing by sheer force of will. Regardless of the alcohol part, I am now looking forward to going back and just getting two scoops of lemon meringue ice cream in a waffle cone, minus the alcohol. For this trip, though, the added social lubricant was perfect for the occasion.

 

[JustCor]

It was the best of lines, it was the worst of lines

As we approached Hops and Barley, we passed by growing madness. The lines had gotten absurd. The line for Belgium, a stop we were half interested in, extended into oblivion, so we proceeded towards America. I had heard good things about the New England Lobster Roll, and enjoy a good lobster roll when I can get it. The line for Hops and Barley wasn't much better than Belgium, but we were intent on getting a lobster roll. In the end, it wasn't worth the wait. The lobster pieces are mixed in with an assorted pepper type of filler that seemed to not only overpower any lobster flavor, but also be about 70 percent of the dish. I ate about half of it before binning the rest. It was disappointing. I was starting to get full at this point, but there were still places to go and things to eat.

 

[JustCor]

Who needs a booth?

A look at the Italian booth offered nothing of real interest, so we walked back towards VN. The little window in the corner attached to VN was open and selling pizza slices and drinks. You don't have to go far on these boards to see the absolute love and adoration for the pizza at VN, so I figured it was time to give it a try, and I assume that the little window was serving the same pizza as is offered in the full restaurant. I would hope so, at least, as it was attached to the same kitchen. It was good pizza, and probably some of the best at Disney, but not quite up to the local pizza here. That's a tough one to beat though, so it's not anywhere close to a knock against VN pizza. It's quite tasty, and had a good amount of pepperoni on it. The drink is some kind of strawberry thing with limoncello. It was pretty good, though I didn't taste a shred of alcohol in it. The pizza hit the spot and filled up the last remaining spot in my stomach. I needed a good moment to sit down. After a bit of conversation and digestion, it was time to move on.

 

[JustCor]

A bumpy flight

No beer picture this time. I had forgotten to take the picture until it was too late. All I had left from this Beer Flight from the Brewers Collection booth was the card. Again, keep in mind that I'm not a beer person, so my reviews of this are going to be a little unpolished.

1. Gross. The one beer I couldn't drink beyond a small taste. It was rough and just nasty.
2. Have you ever wanted to drink a beer that had soaked in a full ashtray? Then this is the stuff for you.
3. The flavor that came immediately to mind was "Pachouli Incense". Make whatever you will of that. I call it gross.
4. Really tasty. Citrusy and sweet. I guess that's what I like in my beer.

We ended up bypassing the rest of the booths that were mobbed and headed instead to the Craft Beer area for another flight.

Again, to go by number here:

1. Not bad. Nothing really great or awful, just a run of the mill beer.
2. Interesting flavor. The vanilla hits at the end and the blueberry is very subtle. I could drink another, though I wouldn't do more than two.
3. I hate pumpkin anything. A quick sip told me everything I need to know. Think pumpkin spice toilet water candle and you've got an idea of what this tastes like.
4. The glass is covering up the flavor. It reads Swamp Head Wild Night® Honey Cream Ale, and it's just ok. Again, the flavors are subtle. There's a strange smokey flavor that doesn't really mix well. It's not pumpkin toilet water bad, but it wasn't anything I'd like to drink again.

With that said and forced down my gullet, we were done with food. Since we were stuffed to capacity, it was time to make plans.

 

[JustCor]

On our way to MK

At this point it was just after 8pm. We had had more than our fill of food and drink, so we made the decision to get out of Epcot and take the mono to MK for some rides and fireworks. Epcot would be open until 10pm, so we had hoped to avoid some of the mess of people leaving at closing. The joke was on us, though. The line for the monorail was horrendously packed all the way down the ramps and extending towards the bus stops. ***? No problem, right? We'll just take the bus to one of the mono resorts and transfer over to MK. Piece of cake? Wrong again. They had closed down the buses to the mono resorts. The only way to those or MK would be to take the Mono. No thank you. Instead, we did a detour and hopped on the bus to Port Orleans, where we would then catch a bus to MK. This idea worked out great. While it took 40 minutes to complete, I still think it would have been much quicker than trying to cram into a mono. At best, we would have been on the third monorail, assuming they could pack the first two monorail trains sufficiently. Then we'd have to deal with the problem of getting from TTC to MK in the same crowds. I'm not sure I've ever seen lines like that before, so it was something of a shock. Our little detour probably saved us some time and definitely saved us some frustration.

Once we hit MK, I had another plan that needed to happen. I needed to go to Emporium for an important shop. Unfortunately, we were held up by a little parade.

We were at the beginning of the parade, so we waited it out at a surprisingly decent spot right by the firehouse. Once the parade ended, we waded through the throngs of people and made it into Emporium where I made a very necessary purcahse:

Purple Haunted Mansion band! Sweeeeet! It immediately replaced the grey Haunted Mansion band I had on at the time. The band is a little thinner than the regular bands. At first I was a little worry that it might feel too flimsy, but it's perfect and sits on my wrist a lot better. It looks great too. My camera doesnt' do the color any justice, as it's a nice deep purple with bright yellow eyes. It's excellent! With the shopping out of the way, it was time to hit up some rides.

 

[JustCor]

Who needs FP?

Since this trip was pretty last minute, we had no fast passes and we decided not to go crazy trying to throw together any last minute selections. Instead, we'd go on whatever ride happened to be easy to get on.

Our first stop was the updated Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, I've never actually been on POTC, so I had no comparison. It's a fun enough ride, but some things just stand out as somewhat jarring. The majority of the animatronics are kind of goofy caricatures of a normal pirate have a goofy but endearing look to them. It's got a style to it. Then, all of a sudden, there's a very lifelike version of Jack Sparrow kind of wedge into the ride at various points. The stark contrast between his animatronic representation and the rest of the pirates really clashes. It's like two different things being mushed together to try and make something. It really is odd how different the two styles look.

Following Pirates, we made our way to Haunted Mansion, sporting a very manageable 10 minute wait. That's my kind of wait! I love HM, and am always happy when it's quick and easy to get on. Perhaps the fireworks had kept the lines small, but whatever it was, it was very welcome. After a trip through HM we wound up hopping on Little Mermaid. I don't have much of a love for this ride, which is odd because it's pretty much like anything else I've ridden, but I find the Ariel models to be really creepy. The eyes are bulging out and the smile looks forced. It looks like someone on a drug binge looking to score their next hit. The hands are strangely shaped and ever so slightly too big for the rest of the body. It's just disturbing. People mover soon followed, and we were all starting to feel the brunt of a long day with lots of food and drink. We piled off of People Mover and hit up Buzz Lightyear. Our scores sucked, but it was as fun as it always seems to be. Afterwards, we decided to call it a night. It was a little after 11 and the park would be closing soon. The sooner we could get out, the better. Unfortunately, the crowds wouldn't cooperate.

 

[JustCor]

This place sucks ASSp

We reached the bus stop for ASSp just as they were cramming the last of the people that they could onto the bus. It was beyond packed, so we decided to wait. They would eventually have people stuffed in there like sardines before heading off. Even after the bus left, there was a good number of us waiting for the next ride to pull up. After 25 minutes, no followup bus happened to come. Had they forgotten about us? I doubt it. Still, we were just stranded at the bus stop and not moving. One of the Magic Kingdom buses lined up to cycle through and take the horrendous mob of people from MK to TTC broke off from the MK bus waiting line and loaded up the lot of us to get us moving. It was good to finally get moving. All of our energy levels had just about reached zero. The bus ride from MK to ASSp took just over 40 minutes. It felt like a century. We finally reached the resort and headed to the car to move to our building and finally get into the room. The crappy part was finally over, right?

 

[JustCor]

Is this real life?

After moving the car to our building and spending 15 minutes looking for a spot, we finally made it to our room. We had yet to have a moment to check out the room or lay down, but after a long day, we were all ready to crash. Apparently, housekeeping left us a present.

I'm not sure what this thing is, but it was left in our room and had cautions about the UV lights and whatever. If this was my room, I would have raised a stink. My friend was in charge, though, and since I didn't pay anything for the room, it was in their hands. We ended up doing nothing about it. Instead, we just crashed. I had a hard time sleeping. Aside from the hard beds, there was an intense musty smell in the room that burned my nose. I just tucked my head under the sheets to try and filter the smell out, but it was really strong. Was this thing the problem or something that should have fixed the problem? I have no idea. Eventually I did get to sleep, and a few hours later we were awake and getting ready to leave. I think if we would have stayed more than a night, we would have said something, but since it was just a few hours, my friend decided to just let it go. For me, though, it slammed the door shut on staying at any of the All-Star Resorts if I'm paying. This is my second stay at ASR in the past month and I'm just not impressed. The rooms are beat up, the grounds aren't anything special, and the buses have been a joke. I'm a patient and forgiving type of person, but this kind of thing annoys me. I could easily write out a novella about my annoyance and disgust for this place, but I'll just leave it at whatever's been written. If you like the All-Star Resorts, more power to you. For me, I'd rather spend a few more bucks and get a better resort, or stay off property, which is something I didn't think I'd say.

 

[JustCor]

Welcome to the wrap-up party

Until yesterday, I didn't think I would make it to Food and Wine, as some Disney plans had fallen through. Things just happened to have worked out this time to get some Food and Wine time in. I ate WAY too much food, but that's not quite a bad thing, so I'll take it. I had plenty of good food, perhaps a touch too much alcohol, and managed to find a few things that I can look forward to for my next trip (whenever that happens to be).

ASSp was a dud, but in the overall scope of things, it was only a minor inconvenience. I think we spent a total of 7 hours in the room. It was annoying that the room sucked, and it was obnoxious that housekeeping was trying to clean us out at 8am, but again, it was a small blemish on an otherwise fun trip.

This also completes my first year of going to Disney. Officially, my AP expires next week, but I won't be making it back before expiration. Luckily, I've renewed my pass for another year of Disney fun. I've managed to get more than my money's worth out of the pass, so renewing was a no brainer.

So, that'll do it for this trip. Thank you for reading along for this short diversion from the norm!

 

[nrexxma44]

Great Report!!! thanks for sharing, it gave me a preview of what to expect when we arrive this weekend

 

[JustCor]

Great Report!!! thanks for sharing, it gave me a preview of what to expect when we arrive this weekend

Thank you, and thank you for reading! There's so much good food there, and there were so many more booths we wanted to stop at but missed out on because of lines or full bellies. Hope you enjoy your trip!

 

[luvpooh]

Thanks for your report, I always enjoy them. I especially liked your beer descriptions, and the one was helpful, as I was debating between the flight and the one beer from it (the Shofferhofer one). Guess I know which route to take!

That 'present' looks like the thing that held the plutonium in Back to the Future.

 

[JustCor]

Thanks for your report, I always enjoy them. I especially liked your beer descriptions, and the one was helpful, as I was debating between the flight and the one beer from it (the Shofferhofer one). Guess I know which route to take!

That 'present' looks like the thing that held the plutonium in Back to the Future.

I really liked the Shofferhofer. It was smooth and had a great flavor. I ended up drinking mine plus my friend's since they don't like sweet beer.

There were warnings on the housekeepers stuff that warned against looking at the UV light. If it's UV, were they looking for any blood or bodily fluids they missed? Was there a dead body in our room the previous night? Or a sexy orgy? Or both? These are things we may never know.