Favorite Foods at the California Adventure Food and Wine Festival

A couple of weeks ago I flew down Disneyland for the weekend. It was the first weekend of the California Adventure Food and Wine Festival so of course I took full advantage of it.  There were 13 food and beverage booths to choose from. Some of them were the same as last year but there will also a lot of new booths with new things to try.  

As an Annual Passholder I was able to buy a Sip and Savor pass for $45. It came with 8 tabs that are good for food at the booths but can't be used for alcohol. Any food item that cost more than about $5.75 was worth using a tab for. There were a couple of food items (and most of the non-alcoholic drinks) that were less than that but most of the food was $6-$7 a plate.

I started out my first day (I arrived around noon) with a Jalepeno Margarita and some Jalepeno Popper Mac & Cheese from the Peppers Cali-Ente booth.  The margarita was not bad but also nothing special so let's ignore the margarita for now because this is about my favorite foods at the festival not the ones that are just okay.

The mac and cheese was the star of this meal.  It was nice and creamy, had bacon on top of it and the jalepeno pieced gave it a nice kick too it. Pretty much all things that make it hard to go wrong. It wasn't super spicy but if you are sensitive to spice it might be too much for you. 

The first day I was there it was rainy and actually quite cold so I was quite happy to eat this White Cheddar Lager Soup from the California Craft Brews booth in the middle of the afternoon to warm me up a little bit. I came in a mini bread bowl so while there wasn't a ton of soup because of the bread it was really quite filling. They had some sort of cheese and beer soup last year that was also really good so I was glad to see this type of item back this year.

Last year hidden away at the LA Style booth in Hollywood Land there was this delicious Strawberry Pineapple float drink with popping pearls that I discovered on my last day and it was amazing. When I saw that LA Style was one of the booths returning to the festival I had my fingers crossed that this drink would also be returning.

Crossing my fingers must have worked because the Strawberry Pineapple Float is back! It is not at the LA Style booth this year but at the even more appropriate Strawberry Patch booth. It is just as good as I remembered it and it is joined by "Frushi" which sounds a bit odd but is actually quite delicious.  Between these two dishes I had my quota of sugar for the day but it was worth it!

Later on to counteract my sugar high I stopped by the Garlic Kissed booth to try my second type of macaroni and cheese of the festival.  The Creamy Mac & Cheese with garlic bread crumble was super creamy and delicious.  I would recommend getting both kinds of mac and cheese but if you absolutely have to only get one kind (though I have no idea why) I would get the Jalapeno Popper Mac and Cheese only because it is more unique than this one.  But really just get both!

Last of my favorite foods from the Food and Wine Festival that I want to share today is another return winner from last years festival. I enjoyed it last year so I didn't want to skip it this year so on my last day I stopped by the Off the Cob booth to get some Sweet Corn Nuggets with beef chili.  The combination of the sweet nuggets and the salty savory chili is a winning combination.

I used my Sip and Savor Pass for all the foods in this post except for the Frushi which only cost $4. The California Adventure Food and Wine Festival is still going through the 12th of April so if you are in the area make sure to stop by and get some of the delicious food. Come back next week for the rest of the food and drinks I tried at the festival and which one are worth a try and which ones to skip completely.