Today's the big day! Happy birthday to my babe. In lieu of a birthday cake (last time I brought a cake on an airplane, it got smushed), I registered the two of us for the Sweet Sundays dessert demonstration 10:30am to 12:30pm at the Festival Showplace in California Adventure. Disney had published the list of dessert chefs for most of the Sweet Sundays, but not for April 18, and I couldn't book until they finalized the chef. I was worried that I wouldn't get a seat because historically the sessions are fully booked way beforehand. Finally one month before, the chef was determined and I could book: it was Jean-Marc Viallet, executive pastry chef of the Disneyland resort. I googled him and found that he specialized in creative, exotic pastries and also chocolate, so that was a plus! I had read some reviews of past Sweet Sundays, and people were complaining about not having chocolate desserts, especially for an event that was sponsored by Ghiradelli, and I had hoped that the April 18 chef worked with chocolate! Yay!
We had a late start to the day, ended up taking the 10am shuttle. We made it to the Festival Showplace 10 minutes before the event started. It was sold out. There were about 12 round tables set up, and chairs were only set up for 6 people at each table, and all of the seats were facing the stage kitchen, which was a nice touch. I was glad that all seats had a view of the stage kitchen, so you could eat and watch the demonstration at the same time. I checked in and found we were assigned to Table 2, which was front and center! I was surprised to get a table assignment, as I was under the impression that seating was first come first served, but maybe that was for the free events in the park like Guy Fieri. So it does pay off to book as early as you can, if the seating was indeed assigned based on when the tickets were purchased.
A bit after 10:30am, they started letting us into the venue. The servers were standing at the entrance; each server would take turns leading parties to their table. We shared Table 2 with four other ladies. It was obvious that our tablemates were no strangers to these Food and Wine Festival events, as I believe the Festival director himself came by. He asked them if they were making new friends and gestured to us, hehe. We chatted and found that the ladies have been to Sweet Sundays in the past, and was planning to attend every one of them during the Festival! If they were local, that would make sense, but I think I heard from one of the ladies that she was from Fresno. That's not exactly local. Must be a true dessert fan. If I lived near Disneyland and had an annual pass, I might have considered attending all of them, but at the cost of $70/person, I'd be broke. The $70 includes gratuity, but not tax.
A light breakfast buffet was served in the back of the room. This consisted of a fruit tray, pastries, vegetarian quiche, sausages, and roasted potatoes. Coffee, orange juice and cranberry juice was self-serve nearby. (I had asked a server what the "red juice" was, and after what seemed to be an eternity, he finally responded with "pomegranate". It turned out to be cranberry after I tasted it.) Water was already on the tables and a server came by to pour two kinds of bubbly: a dry white sparkling wine called "Fairy Tale Cuvee", and a slightly sweet sparkling red wine which I believe is called Magicale Brachetto. The Magicale was soooo tasty. I'd like to have a bottle. The Fairy Tale Cuvee was good, but I have a preference for sweeter wines. Also, every place setting had a copy of the recipes, a pencil for note-taking, and decorated with three squares of Ghiradelli 72% Twilight.
Chef Viallet is from France and was very entertaining throughout the demonstrations with stories about his past experiences working in posh hotels (one example was making a cake for an Indian wedding, entirely covered in gold foil), his current wife who's Mexican, his ex-wife who threw a cast iron pan at him. There were a bunch of Disney big-wigs hanging out at the back of the room: the chef's boss; Carlos, who plans the latest and greatest food projects; a lady whom I think was Carlos' boss. I can't remember all their names or positions, but at the time, it sounded very big-wiggy.
The stage kitchen had an induction stove. This was the first time I saw one in operation. You have to have special induction cookware, as heat is created by magnets. The stove is a flat surface, easy to clean. The cookware gets very hot, very fast, as evidenced by the couple of spillovers that happened throughout the live show. Someone asked Chef what kind of stove he preferred, and he said he liked gas stoves. That is also my preference too.
Three desserts were presented: French Toast Creme Brulee, Apple Charlotte, and Chocolate Trio. Really it was 5 desserts, so I felt I got a good value. I knew that I was going to eat my daily calorie limit during the event, haha. The format of the show was that the chef would prepare the dessert with help from the sous chef, and the servers would serve the already-made dessert at around halfway through the demo so we can eat and watch/take notes at the same time. I noticed that the recipes didn't have every detail, so when Chef mentioned a technique that I had not heard of, I had to take notes. For example, I have never "bloomed" gelatin sheets before.
First dessert was the French Toast Creme Brulee. Chef called it a breakfast dessert. Though I enjoy my creme brulee a bit more dense, it was still a very good dessert. Next dessert, Apple Charlotte, was a bit more complicated to make, as it required a special silicone mold that you buy from a professional cooking supplier (JB Prince), as well as "airbrushing" a mixture of half chocolate and half cocoa butter to create a "velvet" texture. I think this was my favorite one of the three. I took one bite of it and it was yum! The texture was so smooth and the flavor quite light, yet still sweet. The third dessert, Chocolate Trio, was good too. I really enjoyed the Chipotle Pot: a thick chocolate pudding mixed with chipotle. Spice and chocolate work very well. It was inside a gold-colored egg shell, which was a cool presentation. You can buy these shells pre-cut and sanitized. The chocolate mousse was delectable, very airy. Completely opposite from the chocolate mousse I had a month ago for a retirement party dinner where it was thick as mud and I could feel individual sugar granules on my tongue, yuck. Then the chocolate ganache in a triangular pastry shell; rich, but good. The fun part was the 24K gold dusted chocolate-covered rice puffs on top. I was so full. After the demonstrations, people stormed the stage to get pictures and autographs. I was able to get a picture with the chef. :)
We went over to Disneyland. As we passed by City Hall, I asked the birthday boy if he would wear a Happy Birthday button...of course he said no. You can go to City Hall and get buttons for your "celebration", as that is this year's theme. I saw buttons for birthdays, anniversaries, "1st visit", honeymoon, etc. I even saw a generic "I'm celebrating!" button. Too many people were wearing buttons. I remembered the last time I visited DL, only a few people were wearing a button, and everywhere you went, cast members would exclaim "Happy Birthday!" and who knows what free stuff the birthday people got? But with everyone wearing the buttons, I think the magic got diluted.
Went over to Adventureland and yay, Indiana Jones was working! We grabbed a Fastpass, ate a beef skewer at the Bengal Barbecue (since when did they stop serving it with green onions?), rode the Jungle Cruise for a dose of cheesy jokes ("the back side of water!") and animatronic hippos wiggling their ears. Tiki Room afterwards. Then we went over to Space Mountain, but the wait was 55 minutes and the Fastpass return time wasn't until 9:30pm, a bit too late for our last day. Headed to Innoventions to look at the "home of tomorrow". The gadgets in there were pretty cool, considering you can buy them right now. Like the Microsoft "Surface". There was a demonstration with the robot that Honda built, called "Asimo". I had never heard of it before. We got to watch it move around, dance, walk up and down stairs, and even run! This YouTube video shows a bunch of its moves:
We went over to It's a Small World. I heard it was redone. I saw they put Disney characters into the different sections of the world. Cute. The song sounds the same though. The last room on the ride with all the children of the world harmoniously in one place, wearing white? That's "heaven".
It was getting close to dinner, so we took a cue from Ed and Angela and had fried chicken at the Plaza Inn. Yum! One plate was enough to feed the both of us. Three huge pieces of chicken (breast, drumstick, thigh), buttermilk biscuit, and double veggies instead of mashed potatoes and gravy.
Shuttled back to the hotel, packed up and relaxed...the end of a nice birthday weekend. Had to wake up early the next day to catch our flights (drive straight to work, ugh), plus get gas and drop off the rental car. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I paid for a Alamo economy car and ended up getting a midsize Dodge Caliber! They always run out of the lowest category car, especially when arriving at night, so they have to upgrade you for free. I used the Alamo self-service kiosk to avoid the agents at the counter trying to sell me insurance, GPS and car upgrades. Though it was a midsize, it didn't have enough "oomph". Driving a Lexus with a V8 engine really spoils you.This weekend, I'm heading to Ann Arbor, MI. U of M, here I come. (Go Blue?) My cousin Ada has been so kind to plan a great itinerary, including eating yummy food, even though she should probably be studying. I got all my flights upgraded to first class too. The "Unlimited Domestic Upgrade" program (UDU) is off to a good start!
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