1HAPPYGHOSTHOST
Well-Known Member
Mother of God.
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Disney California Adventure to launch food experience in March
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
All dramatics aside, do we know what types of food will be offered yet?
1HAPPYGHOSTHOST
Well-Known Member
Rumors are there is going to be food from every land of the resort including Disneyland like Bengal BBQ and Plaza Inn but its all rumors at this point. Nothing officially said by Disney last I heard
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
How disappointing, if true.
TheDisneyDaysOfOurLives
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
Okay gang, let's talk showmanship!
You know showmanship, that thing that Walt instinctively had and that helped make Disneyland so instantly famous? Showmanship.
The DCA Food & Wine Festival, or DCA Food & Wine Experience as it will be called this year because Festivals are still forbidden by Sacramento, has long lacked showmanship. I am specifically talking about the endless line of food booths all along the DCA parade route used to sell and dispense the food to festival goers.
That is the core of the DCA Festival experience, and while it is clean and aesthetically consistent, it lacks showmanship.
Each booth is identical, except for the name on the sign. Each booth has industrial-grade kitchen storage equipment inside an industrial-grade white plastic box. Staffed by entry-level CM's who are very kind and well groomed young kids, but who are just there to scoop up the thing into the thing to sell it to the people outside the booth. There is no wow, no zing, no showmanship there. It meets or exceeds all California safety regulations for public food service, and that's about the nicest thing you can say about the long line of identical food cubes that make up the bulk of the DCA Festival experience.
Step 1. Nice CM at left takes your money and tells you to pick up your food thing to the right.
Step 2. Give receipt to Nice CM in booth, who then scoops food thing out of industrial tray into paper cup and hands it to you.
Step 3. Stand to the right and eat food thing out of paper cup and comment about it to friend/date/loved one. Yum! Food!
What's missing there? Showmanship! How was the food thing prepared before it was loaded into industrial trays to be scooped into paper cups by Nice CM's? What seasoning and herbs were used? How was the protein component prepared? What kind of cooking process was used? Was there flame or charring involved? How did the allegedly high end food get into that industrial steel warming tray from a Junior High Cafeteria? No one knows, it's a mystery! Because there is no showmanship to explain the process of how this food was prepared for you, how it was researched, or what it all means.
This may all be triggered by the fact I have spent this evening on Etsy shopping for a cool vintage chafing dish to use for flaming desserts for the spring entertaining season coming up at my house. Because I firmly believe that showmanship is an important part of being a good host for my guests.
But there's no such element of showmanship at most of DCA's food festivals, or experiences, or whatever Sacramento mandates they be called now.
How do they fix that at DCA? How do they make a DCA Festival more than just a long line of generic plastic boxes with industrial serving trays full of food things waiting to be scooped into food cups by Nice CM's? Would it kill them to try and get a real Chef or two into at least some of these Festival Food Cubes? Flaming and charring and folding and whipping up some exciting delight right before your eyes?!? That type of showmanship would truly be a festival for the senses!
I mean honestly, I can't be the only host or hostess in America who knows you need to display some showmanship for your guests...
I can't wait for the Zenia and Troy booth
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
I'll be at Knotts. DCA is just not my thing with the exception of Grizzly Peak.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
Doesnt surprise me. Even their super immersive GE Land had its merchandise in a mall in DTD and in Targets everywhere in 2020.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
If true, it’s not the worst idea. I’ve had some of the food from the food and wine festival booths and they ranged from bad to good. I can’t recall anything exceptional... or terrible. Many times the food item was not being served in its ideal state or temperature. Basically no Michelin star food is going to be coming out if these booths. So why not serve up some favorites from around the resort that people have been missing for a year?
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
I think this would have been the perfect time to come up with something new and fresh for the patient Disneyland fans that are still currently waiting for the parks to re-open. If I were in charge, I'd come up with food items and meals that have never been offered to make it more exciting and possibly entice more people to show up. If we're being honest, fans will show up for the classic Disneyland popcorn, but I would have taken the liberties to have teams create new recipes. There's nothing wrong with offering foods we're all familiar with. I could eat some of the Plaza Inn chicken and mashed potatoes right now, but I would prefer new things, as they would make the event more interesting to me personally. The parks have been closed for nearly a year. There's no excuse for the same food.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
To me its just a continual lack of care for theming and show. The same reason Walt didn't want a spaceman walking around in Fantasyland.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
I agree with this. Having the Disneyland food in DCA doesn't sound right or like anything substantial to me.
They should make it fun. And by fun I don't mean the same food truck menu items they've been serving since 2016.
I don't even like Knotts as a themepark but I heard such amazing reviews of their festival this holiday that I'm going in a few weeks.
Disneys DCA holiday thing is fun and all but not a draw for me to go over to that park.
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
It doesn't sound right to me either, especially since the parks have been closed for so long. In addition, Disney has proven that they can and will create new food offerings for the parks, specifically special holiday foods. They can and should do the same for this event.
It's been a long time since I've visited Knott's. I do like the park and do enjoy some of their food though. I hope you have a good time!
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Eh. I dunno. We re in unprecedented times. I’m pretty sure most people will be ecstatic if they can get some Bengal bbq while walking around Grizzly Peak or eat some Plaza Inn fried chicken overlooking Paradise Bay. At worst even if it is deemed as laziness it doesn’t bother me in this case as the food wouldn’t be great even if they decided to do something special or different. Btw is this even a thing? I haven’t really heard much about what the food will be.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I see where you re coming from but let’s be honest, nothing coming out of those booths was THAT good. Perhaps that will be the case with “Plaza Inn Fried Chicken” or any other DL food because it’s not coming straight from the kitchen to the buffetteria Line or being cooked by the usual cooks.
I’d argue the majority of people, after being away from the parks for a year, would would prefer some of their DL favorites over some new “fancy” stuff that really just tastes mediocre. Not to mention the lack of value in those 50$ ticket books for 8 bites food. I think people want comfort food right now. With that said, I’d imagine the profit margin is better for Disney with food festival set up where you get a few bites of food for $50.
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TP2000
Well-Known Member
I can't wait for the Zenia and Troy booth
They can just hold court there under a banner that says "World's First Internet Influencers - Ask Us How!"
But honestly, I'd really like to see more Chef-based showmanship brought to the DCA Festival food booths.
Instead of just Nice CM's who are all of 19 years old plopping pre-portioned scoops from industrial trays into little cups, they need a Chef or two actively preparing/searing/charring/zesting/frothing/etc. whatever fabulous food item you are buying. There's no showmanship.
I think the 1970's Orange Julius at the mall food court has more showmanship that those two dozen plastic food booths at DCA.
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
They can just hold court there under a banner that says "World's First Internet Influencers - Ask Us How!"
But honestly, I'd really like to see more Chef-based showmanship brought to the DCA Festival food booths.
Instead of just Nice CM's who are all of 19 years old plopping pre-portioned scoops from industrial trays into little cups, they need a Chef or two actively preparing/searing/charring/zesting/frothing/etc. whatever fabulous food item you are buying. There's no showmanship.
I think the 1970's Orange Julius at the mall food court has more showmanship that those two dozen plastic food booths at DCA.
Disneyland Resort's backstage kitchen culture is really quite something. Each location has a 'chef', but they aren't chefs like how a chef would function outside the park where they develop menus and run the kitchen on their own volition. They're given limited menu control and are more just there as quality control for the line cooks, and as a 'face' if a guest wants to talk to a chef about a menu item or dietary concern. A DCA chef I knew expressed frustration in how difficult it is to get menu items changed/approved- in some ways he felt it hindered his location's growth.
Central Bakery develops a lot of the seasonal dessert offerings, and there was sometimes a disconnect in what they would create and the process the actual kitchen would have to go through to prepare the item. A dessert item I saw was cool, and tasted great- but required delicate and time consuming preparation to prepare the hundreds that needed to be made each day, and they took up a ton of space in the fridges. Lots of frustration, and something that could have been alleviated with better communication.
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
It might be naive and impractical- but I like that so far, Disneyland has remained closed instead of a partial reopen.
DCA doesn't have a berm or the mystique that Disneyland has. I'd rather the general public doesn't witness a Disneyland without rides operating, area entertainment, etc for the sake of the brand and preserving the 'magic' as they say. Especially since they already were funneling people in via a backstage entrance for that Stage 17 warehouse shop a few months ago for DCA.
But obviously, the demand is there and I'm sure Main Street would be a far bigger draw then Buena Vista Street.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Fascinating.
And yet also Example #246 of how TDA is drowning in red tape and bureaucracy. Covid has made that crystal clear.
It's a minor miracle they got Buena Vista Street reopened for minor shopping and light dining eight months after Covid closed the parks.
And it's suddenly not surprising that it will have taken TDA a FULL YEAR to reopen a park for a simple Food Festival That's Not A Festival But An Experience Because Sacramento Says Festivals Are Still Forbidden.
A Chef who is called a Chef but can't actually be a Chef because there's a department in TDA that does that for them. Only in TDA could that make sense, but it's Absolute Bureaucratic Perfection.
Meanwhile, at Knott's Berry Farm, John Storbeck is busy rolling out his fifth version of a successful park festival in the last year.
And where's Michael Colglazier, the former Disneyland President who fired John Storbeck? Colglazier is now at Virgin Galactic trying to pretend he knows how to not turn high-paying space tourists into charcoal briquets during planet re-entry, after their check clears.
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To be 100% honest Disney has dropped the ball on this.
I do think they get screwed by the shutdowns in Nov though. The current DCA food festival is going by "Project [NAME] 2.0" moniker internally. So I'm assuming (as an outsider) that they had plans previously for the park(s) to host a food festival.
(BTW: there's a hint in my previous posts here if anyone wants to know the actual project codename.
)