Room for 1 More/WDW 40th Anniversary/F&W Festival Trip

Continuing with my trip report, we've come to the last day of our 4-day trip. We spent the entire day at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival.

Near the entrance to World Showcase was an Ocean Spray display of how they harvest cranberries. A couple of guys were up to their knees in water covered with floating cranberries.

Now, on with the food.

A little bit of a background. I'm a bit of a foodie. I love ethnic food of all kinds, and tend to seek out food from all over the world. Secretly, I some time wish I'm Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. It also means that I've tasted many different ethnic food, and quite familiar with a lot of them. Being in the Chicago area, I'm lucky enough to have access to many of these ethnic cuisines.

So when I approach something like this, my initial view has always been skeptical of the quality of the food, and the authenticity of the food, since they have to cater to as wide of a crowd as possible. And it is also highly likely that the preparer of these ethnic cuisines are Disney chefs, not cooks from these various regions of the world. My skepticism was shown to be true when I was last at F&W about 3 years ago. I had disgusting empanadas from Ecuador, and a limp, doughy samosa from India. So let's just say that I had rather low expectations for this F&W Festival.

Well, lo and behold, we started off with a bang. Went straight to #1 on the F&W program list and got to Brazil and Argentina. Had extremely good food at both booths.

The winner of the day, and it was not good for the rest of the countries to have the best of the day being the first thing we tasted, was Argentina's beef skewer with chimichurri sauce and the empanadas, which just came out of the oven!

I've had Argentinian food before, and have had chimichurri sauce in many places (including at one of those Brazillian steakhouse restaurants). This chimichurri sauce was quite outstanding for my taste. And the empanadas, if you get it right out of the oven, was piping hot and crunchy on the outside, just the way it is supposed to. I think, by the end of the day, we ordered 3 of each of these.

The Food from Brazil was good, but they had the unfortunate act of following Argentina in our sequence. The seared Mahi Mahi was delicious. The Feijoada, which is their National food, is good. Unfortunately, and this is understandable, I don't think it is authentic. Feijoada is a peasant food. It is normally made of beans, and cheap pork cuts. And when I say cheap, I mean cuts that no one would use, such as hocks, tail, ears, belly, etc.. etc.. even the head. One might also find innards being used in this dish. It also tends to be runnier, more like a runny stew rather than the thick paste that we got. So what we got was a pleasant pork and black beans stew, but not really Feijoada.

The Caribbean also offered a couple of winning combination. The braised beef was delicious, but there was a rather interesting reaction to this dish from the group that I was with. A couple of them mentioned that this dish tasted almost like the Filipino dish "Calderata" that I've made before. And it did have the same "tones" as one tasted more and more of it. The Jerk chicken was pleasant, but it wasn't hot enough. I'm sure they had to tone down the heat for the masses.

I wanted to skip South Korea. I did! Not because I don't like the food, but because I like it a lot, and am very familiar with it. We have a couple of Korean restaurants in the neighborhood that we go to very often, and these are almost hole-in-the-wall that serve very authentic Korean food and serve mainly Korean clientele. So I didn't want to try something and get disappointed by it. Unfortunately, I didn't listen to my inner voice. I had the Boolgogi.

The beef was dry, and it lacked the flavor that I'm familiar with. I shouldn't have stopped to try it.

cont...

.... cont.

Let's see, we tried escargot at France (didn't taste the escargot) , Lamb slider and the scallops at New Zealand (OK, but nothing to shout about). Then we tried Singapore. Now, as someone who is from that region of the world, I'm intimately familiar with the two offerings that they presented, the shrimp cake, and the beef rendang.

Once again, rather disappointed with both dishes. The shrimp cake was a nice dish, but this is not what it is supposed to be. The rendang has a dark brown color, almost like regular beef stew, when it is supposed to be a bit yellowish from the tumeric and a tint of redness from the pepper/chillis. The taste is also odd, because in the concoction of spice blend, they've emphasized the wrong spices, which probably is a result of proportions being wrong. If you are in the US and want to try something close to the real rendang, look for a chain of Malaysian restaurant called "Penang". They have respectable beef and chicken rendang.

In between stuffing our faces, we managed to do Soarin' (how could you not?).

My last major goal of this trip was to meet up with Brad. And I did! We had a lovely, nice discussion, mainly about you guys on here! Here's the proof. However, I've blocked off our faces to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the one on a witness protection program!

It was a very good day. Unfortunately, we had to make our way to the airport later than afternoon.

Zz.

I'm on the left in the picture.

Zz.

During the Room for 1 More event, participants were given one free photo shoot and a complimentary print of that shoot. However, for $39.95, you get 5 additional photo shoot and 5 additional photos that are downloaded to your credential's memory stick. I paid for that, and these are my photos.

This is the complimentary photo, and a print of this was also included.

The rest are part of the additional photo shoot, and I thought this was rather clever and fun. If you are fan of the MK's Haunted Mansion, you'll find these scenes to be very familiar.

I know have to print these out and frame them to hang somewhere in the house.

Zz.

We stayed at SSR during this trip. I've always read that the jockey and horse statue right by the Carriage House is loaded with Hidden Mickey. I never had the chance, or remember, to look closely before.... this this trip. And yes, the report is correct, it is LOADED with Hidden Mickey. Here are the ones that I managed to capture. Some obviously, some not so obvious.

Look at the pattern on his arm.

This one is difficult to see. It is a big Hidden Mickey right on his chest.

And this one is on his back.

This one should be easy to spot.

I hope I got all of them on this one place.

Zz.

Also to protect anyone on the witness protection program!

No, I was just being overly critical. And I'm also quite familiar with many of these dishes, having tasted them either in their native land, or in various ethic restaurants.

Zz.

More from Room for 1 More event. They had a viewing of the silent auction items. There were mainly one-of-a-kind items, either a painting or sculpture, etc. Many of these had starting bids no less than $1000. Needless to say, I didn't bid on any. But still, I couldn't help admiring many of the stuff they had.

Of all the stuff they had, this was my most favorite. Really, if it was anything "reasonable", I would have put a bid on it.

Zz.

Before embarking on this trip, I did go look online at some of the merchandise that were being released in conjunction with the anniversary. Most of them I didn't care for, except for a couple of them - a commemorative cup, and a vase inspired by the Mary Blair mural at the Contemporary. Early in the trip, I saw these items at the Art of Disney store in Downtown Disney, and I had second thoughts in getting them when I saw the prices. Yikes.

Still, I told myself that if, by the end of the trip, that I still want them, then I will get them. I was very, very glad that I waited. During the Room for 1 More event, in late morning, we decided to go to the lobby of the Contemporary and look at the stuff in the stores. Lo and behold, I see these Disney artists signing stuff, and they were signing the merchandise the very same merchandise that I had my eyes on!

They are Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily, and they were the ones who designed these lovely merchandise. So while not believing my luck, I decided right on the spot to buy not only the mugs and the vase, but also the metal posters that they too were responsible in designing. And yes, I had them autographed not only all the items, but also the boxes.

This is the box for the commemorative cup.

This is the content of the box, which is the ceramic cup, and I had them autographed the inside cover of the box.

They also autographed the bottom of the cup.

Next, come the vase. To me, this is the gem in the whole collection. Even the box is amazing.

The vase has the same art, and one can certainly see the inspiration from the Mary Blair mural.

And just like the cup, they also signed the bottom of the vase.

cont...

... cont.

The last item that we bought was not planned. Although we had seen it when we were at the Art of Disney store, we didn't plan on getting them. But since these guys were also the ones who designed it, we decided to get these wonderful metal posters. They are printed on this thick metal (aluminum?) plates, and I think we got it mainly for the Haunted Mansion poster.

So this is the box containing the poster. The cover is one of the poster itself for the monorail.

And voila! That's the first poster, and of course, they signed the inside cover of the box. They also signed the back of each of the posters.

And the remaining two posters in the box, both signed. Again, it's the Haunted Mansion poster that I really wanted.

I think I like these quite a bit more than the merchandise I got from the Room for 1 More event! I just have to figure out how to display them.

Zz.

Yes, the picture of the vase is in the same photo as the signed inside over of the box. You might have thought that what I showed side by side is the box again. It looks like the box cover.

Zz.

This is a prime example where I'm not cut out to be in the world of business. I just can't recognize a money-making opportunity even when it is right in my face.

On Oct. 1st, I got in with the rest of the crowd early in the morning. They were giving out commemorative Guidemap and buttons. At that time, you could also just grab the guidemap yourself, because they had them stacked in the regular guidemap bins. I had the foresight to think about my friends who were planning on coming in later and thinking that they might not have enough guidemap and buttons by the time they get in. So I went back, and asked for more of the buttons for the rest of my party. The cast member asked "How many do you need?"

How do you reply to such an open question?

I said "I need 6".

So I got 6 buttons!

Drat! I should have lied and said 10!

Here is a snapshot of the guidemap and the button.

In any case, I grabbed a handful of the guidemap as well, and I see a few other people doing the same thing. I said to myself "Self, by around Noon time, they're not going to have anymore of any of these!"

I was wrong. They ran out of buttons around 1 or 2 pm. But I heard that by mid to late morning, they were handing out only one per guest as you come in, both the buttons and the guidemap, the latter of which you can no longer find in the guidemap bins. So little ole me had 8 guidemaps, and 6 buttons. Turned out my friends who got in late in the morning, got their own guidemap and buttons each, but can't get more.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with my lack of skill in making money. But this is.

I got extra buttons and guidemaps because I have friends who could not come to the celebration. So I wanted to bring back extras for these folks. Turned out that later that day, if you go on e-bay, people were selling the guidemap and the buttons for, get this, $20 a pop! In fact, even a week later, they were selling close to that price! Holy Cow!

By the time I was informed of this and took a look, I think they had gone down to ~$10 for both the map and the button. But like I said, the thought of selling them didn't even cross my mind because I got extra stuff to give away to other people who I know will truly cherish it, not to make a quick buck. At this point, I have given most of them away, and I have one spare left.

Hum... maybe it's time to go back on e-bay and see how much they go for!

Zz.

I didn't take a lot of photos of our food during the banquet, mainly because I thought we only had a short amount of time to eat before we had to leave for MNSSHP. Turned out I was wrong, and the banquet ran quite long (you may read my other rant about the Room for 1 More event at my blog). Still, I did take a couple of pictures at our table.

This was the centerpiece. I thought it was highly appropriate. Now, if they had put dead flowers, it would have been perfect! Just think. They had the opportunity to recycle decaying flowers used at other resorts.

This was our dessert.

Yes, I ate the skull. It was white chocolate, I think.

Zz.

Hey, remember the tin posters that we bought during this trip that I posted here? I didn't want them to end up in the box and just sitting there. That's a surefire way for it to gather dust and occupy space.

So I finally have them up on the wall. It turns out that the small frames that I use to put up my pins work perfectly well in displaying the posters. The glass cover will prevent it from fading and from gathering dust. So I have these up in my family room, with a picture light over them. I just need to tidy up the cord from the picture light, and this will be done.

Zz.