FoodNuts!

I grew up visiting Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I lived in Virginia for over twenty years and every couple of years my parents would treat my younger sister and I to a trip to the “mouse house,” as my dad called it. You can imagine my excitement when I moved to California ten months ago and realized that I lived within a two hour drive of Disneyland! I don’t even have kids and I was dying to go!

My husband and I just got home from our first ever trip to Disneyland in Anaheim. We took our dogs to the farm, packed up all our gear, and drove down the I-5 to Anaheim. Now, I know what you are thinking… what are a grown man and woman doing going to Disneyland? Well first, we love all things related to Disney and second, they have some amazing restaurants there. Parents take your kids to Disneyland when they beg: alcohol and delicious dining await you!

So my husband and I have what we call the Disney diet which we developed over the course of our honeymoon in Disney World (I know, we are so sad.) It consists of one big meal plus turkey legs, ice cream, gummy bears, cotton candy, and pickles for snacks throughout the course of the day. On a side note, my husband managed to unintentionally lose five pounds eating the prescribed diet while on our honeymoon in December. Anyways, we decided to dine at the Wine Country Trattoria at Disney’s California Adventure while in Anaheim. I try to be the classy one in my marriage and this seemed like an “adults only” kind of place away from crying babies and tired kids. If you live in Southern California, if you are going to Disneyland, or if you are one of those Disney nerds with season passes, PLEASE make reservations to eat at this place. The food was delicious, they have beautiful al fresco dining, and they have a side patio with a wine bar!

The trattoria features twenty or thirty wines available by the glass and they have wine flights so that you can taste multiple wines over several courses. We each ordered a different glass of wine and the waiter was knowledgeable enough about the wine and menu to help us each pair a glass with our entrée. Now, we ate off of a prix fixe menu to get special tickets to the World of Color show that night. It should be noted that all of the dishes we ordered were also available on the main menu. It should also be noted that I was too lazy and too happy with my food to take pictures of all of my courses, I apologize in advance!

We ordered a salad as an appetizer. The salad had goat cheese (my favorite) with reconstituted figs, nuts, and herbs over a spring mix with some kind of fig-balsamic dressing. If you put goat cheese on a salad, it’s going to make me happy so I was very pleased. Also, I loved the dressing which was sweet and tangy all at the same time thanks to the fig flavor. I ordered the sustainable fish for my entrée. The fish of the day was halibut and I got a giant juicy piece with just the right amount of pesto on top. The chef served the halibut with a tomato ragu with cherry tomatoes, potatoes, and herbs. It was so good. The tomatoes were soft and tangy and just the perfect consistency, soft but still with texture, not mushy. The fish was cooked perfectly and the pesto provided a clean flavor to the dish without over powering the dish with herb and garlic flavors. The hubs ordered the New York Strip Steak with gorgonzola potatoes and green beans. The steak arrived medium rare, as ordered, and dripping with a delicious sauce. The green beans were crisp and the gorgonzola potatoes were amazing! The blue cheese did not over power the potatoes and provided that perfect salty, creamy, blue cheesy flavor.

As if we had not stuffed our faces enough, we got a dessert sampler to share. It came complete with tiramisu, vanilla panna cotta, some chocolate hazelnut creamy thing, and a strawberry crostata. The tiramisu was delicious and was my favorite of all of the desserts on the sampler. It was your standard tiramisu, well executed, and with a cute pistachio garnish. I ate the panna cotta but I wouldn’t order it if I went back there. The flavors were very boring in comparison to the other treats on the platter. The texture was silky and creamy but the vanilla flavor was overpowered by the berries on top. Not the worst thing I ever ate but definitely just average. I wish that I could describe the chocolate hazelnut lemon nugget that we had but I don’t even know what to call it. Kind of like a mix between a pudding and a chocolate with my favorite flavor combination, chocolate and hazelnut. In the middle there was a dab of something yummy and lemon flavored. Now, I know that you are thinking that chocolate, hazelnut, and lemon sound disgusting together but the lemon really makes the dessert more refreshing and less sugary sweet. Very pleasant combination. Finally, I tried the fruit crostata. It was miniature, it was strawberry, it was delicious but it wasn’t anything super creative or out of the box, just very well executed and rather tasty! The whole platter was whimsical and fun and you got to sample all of the desserts in the menu. It was a great final touch to the meal.

We ate outside on the terrace underneath the vines and amongst the flowers. I almost forgot we were at Disneyland because the restaurant was so quiet and charming. Our meal was very reasonably priced with generous portions, great service, and just downright delicious food. So the moral of my dining story is that next time your kids/spouse/whoever beg you to go to Disneyland, say yes because a wine country experience awaits you at California Adventure. I enjoyed my meal and I will definitely go back for seconds the next time I visit the “mouse house.”

Wine Country flowers

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