Kill, Refurb or Marry - World Showcase Counter Service - FOOD! YES!

FOOD ! YES! FINALLY!

Mouse on the Mind and This Happy Place Blogs have delightfully been the inspiration for half of my posts over the past 6 months. And here they are with a FOOD CHALLENGE!

 

This time we are eating around the world - World Showcase in Epcot.

Creme brulee on the lagoon - does it get any better

I am going to set my own rules - only permanent counter service locations - not the moveable ones that appear during Food and Wine Festival and the Flower Festival. And I am also going to put aside all the drinks vendors - I know you love getting smashed on the margaritas and the grey goose slushies - but I am all about the food.

KILL KILL

Disney counter service just has so much not going for it! At least in World Showcase the bad food is themed for your entertainment.

I tend to avoid counter service cause it can kill YOU!

and guess who I think is in need of a good fire?

Tangierine Cafe!

Maybe some people think this is exotic. Let's not embarrass them here. But felafel wraps, hummus and tabbouleh are - let's say it out loud - late night drunkards food.  The donor kebab shop in Sydney is famous for the late night munchies, wacky tobaccy and brawls with cab drivers. But you do get the next day off work recovering from the food poisoning. Even the freakin' parsley can kill you in these places. I go to Disney to get away from the real world for a while - not to have it follow me in all its bacterial glory.

REFURB

This is sooo difficult. So many places come with the promise of the great street food of their homeland. With just a little tweaking and being more authentic, they could become wonderful. Just when you think - "Wow! Disney's discovered okonomiyaki!" you bite into it and discover it is greasy and stodgy. And yes - I lay the same complaint at the Yorkshire Fish and Chip stall (sacrebleu!).

The place I think holds the most promise for a menu refurb is ........

Liberty Inn

This place does the olde worlde "publick" dining thing - with roasted meats? corn cobs? pumpkin pie? NO - none of that olde worlde crape here! Liberty Inn serves USA ALL THE WAY burgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets!  Really? Really? Rise up to meet your theming and take pride in your slow food heritage.

MARRY

you know what - I'm gonna stay single 

STREWTH - did I just ... break the rules!!

C'mon - maybe the custard inside the school bread at Norway? but the cafe is cramped and mostly boring. Tacos and Nachos? Am I Beavis or Butthead?

There just isn't anything left that justifies standing in the queue at Town Hall to see the mayor (even Mayor McCheese).

Oh well - please excuse me whilst I go back to my Chateaubriand - oh - and don't get saucy with me Bernaise. (that joke doesn't work when written)

OK - now GO GO  and check out the other blogs and the other recommendations  - that will slowly populate below over the next few days! learn more about World Showcase than I could ever have taught you!

Environmentality - the sweet, refreshing smell of...

.... garbage.

In a follow up to my original Environmentality post, The Orlando Sentinel this weekend published a 'story' - about a local firm with a composting breakthrough and their work with Walt Disney World.

Apparently, they take all the food scraps and turn it into electricity and garden fertilizer! How cool is that?

There is an awful amount of broccoli in there - Did 'ohana have a slow week? (source: orlando sentinel)

Can you imagine the amount of food scraps WDW generates - the parks, the resorts and the restaurants - and all the unsold produce in the shops?

Check out this neat video from the Orlando Sentinel which demonstrates the process being used at WDW. Give it a second to load and it should play automagically.

Built and run by Harvest Power - this is fabulous. Check out their webpage for Florida which has the greatest title - I can't write it here - you have to do read it to make it work!

The Orlando Sentinel first told the story .

I will never worry about not finishing my vegetables at 50's Prime Time Cafe again.

So gentle reader - what do you do with your food scraps? 

Gingy Bells, Gingy Bells, Ginger bells rock ...

For Christmas The Ken Man and I travelled to Sydney to visit family and we stayed in a fairly reasonable hotel. When we checked in on Christmas day all the tinsel was still hanging, the tree was trimmed and in the centre of the foyer was a little gingerbread house.

Let me re-iterate: a LITTLE gingerbread house. Probably the size of a small doll house, displayed on a table.

"Borrowed" from the hotel's facebook page.

It is very pretty and expertly decorated with precision.

But it's not this:

16ft, lifesize gingerbread house in the Grand Floridian Resort foyer

Gingerbread appears to be the No.1 preferred construction material in Orlando. Excellent for luring entertaining small children.

You can go in the backdoor where all kinds of goodies are available at reasonable prices.

Disney released this little video showing construction in 30 seconds!

I bet my Sydney based hotel did not need a cherry picker to construct their house.

Have a look at the window and porch detail:

hmmm ...chocolate.....

Such beautiful work on those poinsettias

Kandy Sparkles from Mouse Chat captured a few things I missed. Go and look at her post - I'll wait here.

Hidden Mickey couch upholstery!

Real smoke coming out the chimney! On purpose - the house hadn't spontaneously combusted in a chemical reaction of bicarb, cleaning fluids and over-sugared children.

So whilst this is the only gingerbread construction large enough for an ensuite off the main, most resorts will construct a similar gingerbready offering to the tourism gods.

The Contemporary Resort had a 17ft tree with a "it's a small world" theme

Oh the irony - it was the smallest gingerbread construction after all.

The Boardwalk Inn has this sort of mixture of a pergola with a loungeroom - showing a fireplace with Santa Donald's feet slowly roasting ( ....hmmmm.... roast duck.....)

The Ritz Carlton had this little shop where they were holding kids house building classes. See the names of the families written in icing on the "bricks".

"Arrgghhh ... I be the classic Scottish Pirate bear of Christmas legend"

 and the World Centre Marriott had a little house tucked in a corner:

So why do I show you these? After all you will be visiting in June - not December.

I hope to demonstrate that the Orlando hotels can take those extra steps to create little magic moments for their guests. The competition leads the hotels to work hard for their money and they go WAY beyond what is typical for Australian hotels. No matter where you stay it will have a special something for a jolly holiday.

So what's your story about a fantastic hotel that sought to delight its guests?

Merry Christmas and Happy New 2013! (eek! only 18mths until convention!)

 

It's beginning to look a lot like gingymas, gingerbread everywhere

One thing associated with Christmas is gingerbread - the spices of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg - along with sugary treats all adds up to Christmassy goodness.

Remember Gingy from Shrek? the movie that poked fun at Disney ....

I know one Zonta Club in Sydney which runs an annual gingerbread house building day  - a fun, interactive activity that keeps them in touch with their local community and celebrates the season.

However, those ladies have never gone as big as anything in Orlando - and all the resorts do it - each aiming to be the one who has more sugar, more icing and more electronics than the next. Over this holiday season let's take a look at some of these constructions - oppan gingnam style!

Disney's Beach Club Resort

This was my first gingerbread experience - so I have a lot of photos, as I stood there in awe, amazed that the whole thing was technically edible. I use the word 'technically' because apparently the Disney gingerbread is about as edible as the roofing tiles they seek to emulate.

So the Beach Club does this delightful little lifesize carousel:

I like horsies but I couldn't eat a whole one

These horses are quite immaculate - with not a drop of icing out of place

Beware the zombie gingerbread men who want gingerbread BWAINNNSSSS

 And yes - Engineering made the whole go around and around and play plinky christmas musak

Not content with just a carousel, a few extras were also built

A gingerbread Sleeping Beauty's Castle!

Pirates! A mini, edible Jack Sparrow - just for my friend Penny!

Hidden Mickey was a misnomer

There was a lifesize gingerbread shop where one could buy gingerbread rocks roofing tiles to chock open doors enjoy as a snack.

The carousel set up was very neat - beautiful quality and very tidy - no drips or slips. And it fits beautifully in the centre of the lobby. When walking in, one was immediately with the gingerbread, spicy, chocolately scents filling the space.

enjoy this little video from WDW from several years ago - where they build the carousel in only 30 seconds!

There are more gingery constructions to show you. However as I saw more and more of them I was getting gingered out! So there are less photos. Wait till I show you the grandaddy at the Grand Floridian resort.

Oh and remember Gingy at the opening of this post?? Well - this year Mickey got revenge. Here is one of the souvenirs I bought:

Run, run as fast as you can ....

 
So what about you? Will you be baking gingerbread this Christmas season?

Winter Park - Posh preprandial delectations

I am known to say that I have never met a Zontian who doesn't have a healthy appetite. Maybe I've met one who doesn't drink alcohol - but really - most events are accompanied with cake and champagne.

So if you are going to 2014 Orlando International Convention you could drink Lapu Lapus at the Polynesian  Resort .....

It has a little umbrella - snerk!

....or you could get serious and head out to Winter Park: Home of the Wine Tasting Room!

It was closed dammit! Just because it was 10am?!

Now there are several of these babies in Winter Park - and whilst they are very common in the USA, not so common in Australia. So for Australians - if you want to taste test wines you hop in your car and drive around a wine growing region stopping at the cellar doors. You taste the wines which that particular winery makes. One becomes very good at spitting.

The beautiful Yarra Valley - drink in the vines

In the USA, you go to your local shopping centre, you enter the Wine Tasting Store and sit there all afternoon until completely plastered.

Winter Park is the location is to transform oneself into a Patsy type character - it's all beluga and little nibbly things. I saw plenty of wine tasting, bottle shop type places mixed in gourmet olives, artisanal cheese and specialist chocolate shops. Not a single supermarket to be found. Until recently there used to be a store called Bullfish - a mixture of dog boutique and wine store.

Coffee, tea, spices, chocolate, tea - all the major food groups covered

When you have finished shopping for your little nibbly bits you may desire to release your tensions with a cheese platter and New Zealand SVB. Finally it is 3pm and you may enter the holy grail: The Wine Room. Using the unique Enomatic wine dispenser machines and the widest range of tasting bottles, supposedly in the world, at 150 on tap, this is the theme park of wine tasting!

The delightful Samantha Brown explains how it works - and become less lucid as the video progresses:

hmmm ... it's jammy and plummy and clangy and tinny and Eddie at 5:12

Zontians! It is time for a call to arms! Am I organising a function at The Wine Room ?..... with beluga and little nibbly things of course!