Dig in to some of the Foods from Disney California Adventure’s Festival of Holidays
The holiday season is in full swing at the Disneyland Resort and we recently got to try a LOT of the foods from Disney California Adventure’s Festival of Holidays. The festival runs through January 8, 2023, and features food and drinks from diverse cultures at 9 different Festival Marketplaces. Take a look at all of the food and beverages we enjoyed and what we thought about each one!
Related – Food & Drink Options Available for Festival of Holidays 2022 at the Disneyland Resort
Favorite Things
Chicken Tikka Masala with cardamom basmati rice, lemon raita, cilantro, and garlic naan crumble – $7.50. The flavors were good but this dish was a little too spicy for us. Even the one who loves spicy dishes in our group thought this was a bit too much. We gave it a 6/10.
Grandma’s Recipes
Blood Orange-Pom Limeade: Pomegranate and lime juices with cookie butter and blood orange syrups garnished with a lime wheel – $6.50. We didn’t get any cookie butter flavor in this drink but it was pretty good. A little too tart for me personally, but we give it a 7/10.
Pumpkin Layered Cheesecake: Layers of New York-style cheesecake, pumpkin gooey cake, and graham cracker topped with spiced Chantilly and a chocolate decoration – $7.00. This was like cheesecake and pumpkin pie in one! Delicious flavors and we would’ve gone back for more. 8/10 for this one.
Holiday Duets
Southern Mac ‘n Cheese: Cajun-style mac & cheese with andouille sausage and spiced panko crunch – $8.50. Delicious! It had a great spice but wasn’t overwhelming and the panko crunch was great! We gave it an 8/10.
Making Spirits Bright
Mickey Shaped Gingerbread Cookie – $6.50. Soft, tasty, big gingerbread cookie! Seriously, how do they get the gingerbread cookies so soft? We loved this cookie and gave it an 8.5/10.
Santa’s Milk & Cookies Hot Cocoa: Inspired by the Disney+ series The Santa Clauses, whole milk with flavors of cookies & cream and white chocolate topped with flavored whipped cream – $6.50. This reminded us of white chocolate hot chocolate. We didn’t get the cookies & cream flavor and didn’t notice a flavored whipped cream. Not our favorite hot chocolate but was still good. 6.5/10.
Merry Mashups
Esquites Carnitas Mac & Cheese: Esquites-inspired mac & cheese with carnitas, salsa macha, spiced puffed rice, freeze-dried corn, and chopped cilantro – $8.00. I’d go back just for this mac & cheese if I could! Everything combined made it my favorite mac & cheese of the trip. It had great spice, fantastic flavors, and was just delicious! 8.5/10
Turkey Poutine: Layers of roasted turkey, sweet potato bites, cheese curds, and gravy topped with frosted cranberries – $8.00. Make sure you get a little bit of everything in each bite. The sweet potato bites are yummy, then add the cheese, turkey, a frosted cranberry, and a little bit of gravy…YUM! The only critique we had was to thicken the gravy a bit. 7.5/10
A Twist on Tradition
Curry Mac ‘n Cheese with cilantro oil and crispy garbanzos – $8.25. Not our favorite mac and cheese. The spice was a little overwhelming for the dish, and don’t eat the garbanzos on their own! We had someone almost choke from the spice. 6.5/10
Lox & Everything Bagel Nachos: Bagel chips, cream cheese, diced smoked salmon, everything spice, and mixture of onions, tomatoes, and capers – $8.50. We absolutely loved this dish but wished there was more mixture! We ended up with a couple of bagel chips left over with nothing to put on them. 9/10 for us.
Guava-Melon Lassi: Guava nectar, rock melon syrup, nonfat yogurt, and honey garnished with cinnamon whipped cream and honey-flavored cereal – $7.00. This was a light, very tasty drink. We especially liked the cinnamon whipped cream and honey cereal. We gave it an 8/10.
Visions of Sugarplums
Sweet Potato-stuffed Corn Muffin with red beans, rice, and green onions. This was a surprisingly delicious dish. The Cast Member gave us a great tip-crumble up the corn muffin and mix it in with the beans and rice. Everything is tasty on its own but mixing it all together really made the dish! We give it an 8/10.
Chocolate Bourbon-flavored Tart made with TWIX Cookie Bar Pieces: Layers of caramel and chocolate bourbon-flavored mousse made with TWIX Cookie Bar pieces. I was slightly disappointed with this tart. I was expecting more Twix pieces. The mouse was thick and pretty yummy but overall it just didn’t do it for me. My group didn’t agree so we compromised on a 7.5/10 for this one.
Winter Sliderland
Holiday Ham Slider with cranberry-bacon jam and Gruyère on a salt and pepper brioche bun – $9.00. Probably our favorite thing from the Festival Marketplaces! It was like a Thanksgiving dinner on a bun. We LOVED it! Definitely a 9.5/10.
Brisket Slider with smoked onions and horseradish ketchup on a pretzel roll – $9.00. This slider was very good but we didn’t have much ketchup on it. We decided it needed more ketchup or some kind of other sauce. We gave it a 7/10.
Cherry-Mango Punch: Cherry syrup, mango, and peach nectars with lemon juice garnished with a frozen peach – $6.50. A delicious and refreshing drink! Probably our favorite beverage at the Festival. 9/10 for this one.
We tried 16 of the items being offered during the Festival of Holidays. That’s only a small portion! If you want to try a lot of different things, purchase a Sip & Savor Pass. Each pass is $59 and gets you 8 food and/or beverage options (excluding alcoholic drinks) at the Festival Marketplaces and select restaurants at Disney California Adventure.
What food items are you looking forward to trying?
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