Brad's 2010 Food and Wine Trip

Thanks for your well-wishes. I thought I'd hit some highlights of the trip so far:

First off -- Holy cow the lovebugs. They're unbelievable and we've seen some bad scenes before.

Secondly -- Crowds. Pretty bad for September. Some places have been downright packed. I think it's the usual Free Dining crowd, who make it seem like it's more crowded than it is. I'll be interested to see what Mr Hub and Scrappy say.

Go to the Animation Academy thread to check out my Buzz Lightyear Drawing. I'm still waiting for everyone else's!

Via Napoli was really good. Here's a pic of one of our pizzas:

Pretty much everything we tried was really good except for one desert. My expectations had been lowered a bit when I realized how much it diverged from the similar spot in Disneyland but it was really good. The quatro formaggi pizza was wonderful. But this brings me to another observation: Prices. I don't know if I'm just being frugal because I haven't been in a while, but everything seems really expensive. All the new restaurants seem really pricey.

We tried out Hacienda as well, I'll put up some pictures later. It was okay, not as bad as I was expecting given the reviews, but probably not worth the price.

We just had Jiko this evening and this dish was AWESOME:

I was a little grumpy about how much the menu had changed, but that Flank Steak Flatbread there made up for it all. It was fantastic. Way better than the Barbeque chicken one that everyone loves.

Will be back with more soon!

The pizza is great. The one pictured above is pepperoni. I would recommend it if you're not adventurous. If you're feeling like trying something else the quatro formaggi was AMAZING. You can't go wrong either way.

Since Mr. Hub's trip report is putting me to shame, I thought I'd try to catch up a little bit by including some details of our trip.

I'm getting confused on days, but I'm pretty sure we did 1900 Park Fair of those days. I can't seem to find any pictures of it, which is good because it was a very forgettable experience. There was really nothing redeeming about it, except for the fact that you have some rarer characters there. I think I'll do an article about it one day.

After Jiko, which I mentioned earlier, we hit the storytelling pit:

I have to say the storyteller was really into it, but the whole story was a bit...odd. Didn't really seem to have a point. Maybe cultural differences?

The next morning we went to MK in the morning for Cinderella's Royal Table, which I'll do a review of later, but wasn't much to write home about. For lunch we had Kona Cafe and you can read my Kona Cafe review. To quickly summarize: Yummy burger!

Today we went to Epcot F&W. I put a review of the Canada Booth up. Summary: It's like Le Cellier, but you can actually get in!

After that we met up with Mr. Hub and Scrappy who are just as awesome in person as they are on the forum. We were really glad we got the chance to see them before we left. We're also a little sorry we backed out on the party on Tuesday because it looks like it was a really cool experience.

Anyway I skipped some stuff because I'm all confused on timing, but that brings us up to the present, more or less. I'll probably go back and cover stuff I forgot as I remember it.

Look at me go!

So last night we had Boma, so you can read my review.

This morning we hit a ton of food and wine booths. I'll do reviews shortly, but I have to say Puerto Rico was a standout. I'd never tried it before and everything there was great. Be sure to try the "Medianoche Sandwich" if you go. I have no idea what was in it, but it was delicious.

We also hit Mexico, China, Poland, Singapore and probably some others I've forgotten.

Then we had lunch at Le Cellier which was great. Tonight we're going to bluezoo at the Dolphin. Very exciting.