Califoodication: 10 of the best bites to try this summer at Disney California Adventure
The food scene at the Disneyland Resort today is not the one of 30 years ago. Gone are the days when eating inside the park was an afterthought of hot dogs, burgers and fries. In fact, it has been widely reported (my previous articles on the subject included) that the food at the resort is now just as much a reason to come as the rides.
And in this writer’s opinion, there’s no better place to see this in practice than Disney California Adventure. From the wildly popular quesabirria taco to a spicy hot link corn dog, the offerings found inside the younger park are a dizzying kaleidoscope of cuisine that spans continents, honors cultures and challenges customs.
Proof of Disney California Adventure’s foodie focus happens every year at its annual Food & Wine Festival, when the lines at stalls featuring steak with chimichurri and cheeseburger baos rival the one for Radiator Springs Racers. And with the introduction of San Fransokyo Square, arguably the first food-centered themed land at a Disney park if you don’t count EPCOT’s World Showcase, you can spend all day eating and never taste the same thing twice.
Here are 10 of the best bites to enjoy this summer at Disney California Adventure — the Foodiest Place at the Happiest Place on Earth.
Beef Bulgogi Burrito - Lucky Fortune Eatery
In 2008, a then-unknown chef named Roy Choi put Korean BBQ meat inside a tortilla and sold it out of a food truck he called “Kogi.” He didn’t know it at the time, but it would go on to make history and his fortune. The Korean Mexican hybrid dish he invented was kismet. Korean BBQ meat, as it turns out, never met a better partner than a tortilla.
Since then, Choi has inspired countless chefs to fuse Mexican and Korean flavors together, including those at Lucky Fortune Cookery. They’ve created a bulgogi burrito that tastes as though it could have conceivably come from the Kogi food truck itself.
The flour tortilla has a nice elasticity. The seasoned rice is fluffy. The beef is sweet and sesame-scented. But the most inspired add-on is an Asian slaw that is so spicy, it’s disorienting. At $13.99, which includes a side of garlic chips, it’s a filling meal that feels like you just ate at a taqueria and KBBQ in one sitting.
Chili Cone Queso - Cozy Cone Motel Snacks
Like all things in Cars Land, Cozy Cone Motel looks exactly like the movie. But that’s not what makes it special. Its five traffic-cone-shaped structures hide five distinct food stalls, each featuring a unique item that’s served inside, wait for it, cones. The best cone of all is the Chili Cone Queso for $9.99, which can be procured at the middle cone. And it’s a dish that’s as fun-filled as it is pun-filled.
A thick beef chili is poured into a sturdy, leak-proof, hand-holdable cone engineered out of bread with a texture somewhere between a pretzel and a bread stick. The top is showered with grated cheese and Fritos.
At first, you eat it like a stew with a spoon; then you eat the rest like an ice cream cone, wasting nothing. It could be said it’s the next evolutionary step after those ubiquitous clam chowder bread bowls. But it’s better than that. Besides, have you tried standing in line for Radiator Springs Racers eating a clam chowder bread bowl?
Cosmic Cream Orb - Terran Treats
You can have churros anywhere on Earth, but when you’re underneath the shadow of the Collector’s fortress, trying the so-called Cosmic Cream Orb at Terran Treats seems more appropriate. It looks like a craggly rock formed by volcanic eruption. Or maybe one of those alien eggs ready to hatch a facehugger.
Bite into it, and you discover an alarming purple substance inside that suspiciously tastes like tangy raspberry cheesecake. Is this weird cream puff a decadent splurge for $6.75 a specimen? Perhaps, but how much would you expect to pay for a space souvenir you can eat?
Gyoza Sausage Bun - Port of San Fransokyo Cerveceria
At Tokyo DisneySea, fans reportedly wait in line for hours to sink their teeth into the gyoza sausage bun, an oblong bao steamed to fluffiness and stuffed with a pork and veggie filling you’d normally find in gyoza dumplings. And now you can have it at the Port of San Fransokyo Cerveceria here at Disney California Adventure.
Best of all, there’s no waiting. So far, the gyoza sausage bun enjoys some anonymity as it remains undiscovered. And though it is the size of a hot dog, at $8.99 a pop, it’s intended as a snack. It’s warm and comforting and gets increasingly addicting the more you dunk it into the side of chili-soy dipping sauce that electrifies every subsequent bite. Before you know it, you’re ordering another. Thank goodness you don’t have to wait hours in line when you do.
Hot Link Corn Dog - Corn Dog Castle
No trip to the Disneyland Resort is complete without consuming at least one corn dog. Deep fried to a dark mahogany brown, it’s as greasy as they come. A napkin wrapped around its base will turn clear on contact, but you won’t want it any other way.
And if you’re going to have a corn dog, there’s no better place to get it than Disney California Adventure’s Corn Dog Castle, which has been one-upping Disneyland’s Little Red Wagon as the Resort’s corn dog Mecca since it opened in 2001.
At both venues, thanks to the pull of gravity, almost all of the corn dogs produced are lopsided. The more asymmetric the porous cornbread shell gets, the better the experience. Best of all is when the batter tears halfway through cooking, creating gnarled knobs of goodness reminiscent of crackly hush puppies.
But why settle for the regular one when you can have the hot link corn dog? It’s just as juicy but packed with more flavor and heat. And for a mere $10.79, which is just 20 cents more than the original corn dog, it’s all that and a bag of chips, literally.
New York’s Tastiest (Chicken Shawarma Wrap) - Shawarma Palace
You know the scene. After a bruising battle over New York, an exhausted Tony Stark points to his fellow Avengers in their seminal film and says, “Have you ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I wanna try it.”
It’s arguably the movie’s most memorable line and sets up one of the best post-credit segments in history. It also reportedly caused a big boost on the sale of shawarma throughout the country. So it was inevitable that Avengers Campus was going to get a shawarma vendor.
Shawarma Palace — the place where the Avengers assembled to eat it — has two carts here, placed strategically near the entrance at the Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout!, the land’s two most popular rides.
And that’s no accident. At $13.99, the shawarma is designed to be eaten in queue. They’re pre-prepared, prewrapped and ready to go so that you can enjoy the fluffy pita stuffed with aggressively seasoned chicken slathered in garlic sauce standing up and as you recall that memorable scene after the credits.
Not so Little Chicken Sandwich - Pym Test Kitchen
Pym Test Kitchen isn’t just a place to eat; the restaurant itself is an attraction. Outside, the Wasp’s giant-sized cellphone is repurposed as a menu board. You can stand there all day reading the funny text notifications that pop up from just about every Avenger.
Inside the restaurant, normal-sized pretzels dangling on a conveyor enter a glass chamber, get zapped and then exit as a snack-sized mini or a Bavarian-style behemoth. Everything you see here tells a story.
And then there’s the “Not so Little Chicken Sandwich,” a breaded chicken breast cutlet blown up as big as your face, topped with a comically shrunken brioche bun. Obviously made for Instagram, this meal isn’t just a gimmick; it’s also great value at $15.49. You need a knife and fork to eat this very legit Japanese-style katsu, which is embellished with slaw, teriyaki sauce and chili mayo. On the side, a not-insignificant helping of crispy tater tots is included with the price — it’s definitely what Giant-Man would order.
Quesabirria Tacos - Cocina Cucamonga
It would be hard to find a more coveted food item at Disney California Adventure than Cocina Cucamonga’s quesabirria tacos. When it debuted a few years ago, it was such a hit that Disney imposed a rule limiting guests to two orders at a time. Today, at $12.49, it is still the star attraction at San Fransokyo Square. Walk around the vast eating district, and you see nearly every table with an order.
The taco — with its tortilla shell stained red from being fried in the spicy grease skimmed off the top of the birria stew — is decadently crispy, beefy and cheesy. Dunked into the intense soup called consommé in which the meat was cooked, Cocina Cucamonga’s quesabirria taco could go head-to-head against the best quesabirrias in O.C., perhaps even rivaling those made in Jalisco, Mexico.
Salmon PLT - Lamplight Lounge
Lamplight Lounge remains the hardest restaurant reservation to snag at Disney California Adventure. The obvious reason is the view, which is spectacular. But if you’re lucky enough to get a table, its Salmon PLT sandwich may be even better still.
This riff on the BLT transcends the definition of the word “sandwich.” The filet of salmon is so precisely grilled, it belongs on a plate surrounded with gourmet sauces and artful garnishes. And everything that joins it is as “gourmet” as the salmon, including the bun, which is an airy toasted focaccia. The roasted tomato is seasoned with balsamic and thyme. The house-made aioli is flavored with a hint of bacon, lemon and dill. And, of course, there’s the pancetta, the thing that makes up the “P” in “PLT,” which is patiently rendered to be shatteringly crispy.
If all of that doesn’t already justify its $26 price tag, an order of this sandwich also entitles you to possibly the best French fries at the Disneyland Resort — fries that you can only get here, at Lamplight Lounge. That is, if you can get a table.
Shrimp Katsu Sandwich - Aunt Cass Cafe
There may not be a more controversial food item on this list as the shrimp katsu sandwich. Online Disney food reviewers either love it or hate it. There’s very little middle ground. And what camp you’ll fall into will depend on your familiarity with the fried shrimp lollipops served at dim sum restaurants.
For all intents and purposes, the breaded shrimp patty featured at Aunt Cass Cafe is made from the same material. Shrimp is coarsely ground, mixed with a starchy binder, then molded into the desired shape. And the result is a bouncy, resilient texture prized in Asian cuisine.
Paired with a crunchy slaw, slathered with a surprisingly spicy mayo and drizzled with a katsu sauce, it’s a blend of Eastern and Western cultures that will fill you up for its $14.99 sticker price. It also includes garlic chips, which is so ubiquitous at San Fransokyo, it must be what people eat in the fictional city of “Big Hero 6” instead of Lay’s.
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