January 23rd kicked-off Lunar New Year at Disney California Adventure. This annual celebration features entertainment, cultural activities, special characters and, of course, food. I had the opportunity to try quite a few of this year’s offerings, and here are my reviews.
Sampling 2024 Lunar New Year Menu Items
My first stop was Bamboo Blessings at the base of Grizzly Peak for the highly recommended Taro Vietnamese-style Iced Coffee and the event’s signature Mickey Macaron. In recent years, the Mickey Macaron featured a brilliant purple taro buttercream filling with a creme fraiche center. But this year, the familiar dessert filling is a bright pink strawberry buttercream with milk tea center.
Seeing all that buttercream, I was concerned that perhaps this two-item combination would be too much. After all, the coffee is a blend of condensed milk, cocoa powder and topped with a taro chocolate sweet cream. However, the buttercream leans into the tangy side of the strawberry with a little bit more sweetness coming forward when you reach its milk tea center. I’m not sure if it’s the cocoa powder or the Joffrey's coffee, but there’s enough of its bold flavor to keep it from becoming too much like a milkshake with a hint of coffee. And clearly both items are quite photogenic — so, if you’re so inclined, have your picture spot in mind to capture them at their best.
Around lunchtime, near Little Mermaid at Lucky 8 Lantern, I collected the Quesabirria Eggroll with guajillo pepper consomé. With this item – returning this year – the Disney foods team revisits a fan favorite, the popular birria tacos that debuted at Cocina Cucamonga following the extended park closure. Now they have taken the flavor profile – beef stewed with flavorful spices, tomatoes, onions and chiles shrouded in cheese – and stuffed into a crispy eggroll. It adds a familiar texture substituting the taco shell crunch for a more delicate crunch.
Following its eggroll adaptation, it was successfully realized as a ramen dish with the grand opening of San Fransokyo. Since I’m not a cheese lover, that would be my preferred of the three ways to currently enjoy birria at DCA.
Oh! The consomme served alongside was delightful. Visually I was anticipating the saltiness of au jus but it wasn’t. I happily dipped away a few times as I enjoyed it in view of the Pixar Pal-A-Round.
The Mandarin Orange Mousse Cake is described as layers of mandarin mousse with vanilla cake and clementine compote finished with white chocolate crunch balls and a tangerine glaze. Refreshingly light, which was welcomed alongside the hearty fried cheesy beef eggroll. What surprised me most about this relatively simple dessert was how it prompted oodles of memories from DCA 1.0. Perhaps it’s just that Soarin’ was such a highlight of those early days so its combination of orange aromas and flavors triggered them. Or maybe it was the creamy mousse taking me back to the days of the Wine Country Market — but so many memories of the early 2000s came flooding back.
Later in the day, near twilight, I stopped by Wrapped by Love to pick up the Fried Lemongrass Chicken Potsticker with plum sauce. It was the first truly disappointing item I tasted. I frequently air fry Trader Joe’s potstickers at home and this one reminded me of my early attempts at it.
The exterior edges were beyond crisp. Instead, I’d call them hard. The lemongrass dominated and I found the plum sauce far too sweet and didn’t enjoy it coupled with the lemongrass. It also brought to light a challenge at theme park food festivals – crafting foods that can be easily consumed in unusual conditions. I would have simply picked up the potstickers and eaten them like finger food under these circumstances but the plum sauce is super sticky. However, a fork and plate without a table can be a challenge so given that I wasn’t particularly fond of the dish I ended up simply disposing of the remaining 2 after trying one.
But that turned out to be just fine, because the final dish I’d ordered for my Sip & Savor pass selections was the Spicy Fried Rice at Red Dragon Spice Traders — and it was a sizable portion. The winner here is the spicy tofu topping on the rice. My tofu was well-prepared, it had a wonderful texture and a great amount of heat. It lingered but didn’t dominate from mouthful to mouthful.
I was wishing I had a Sapporo or Kirin to wash it down. I’d definitely recommend getting through all the layers of this dish with each bite because I found the rice base on its own was a bit too soy sauce-salty. It benefited from that spicy tofu topping. This is a vegetarian dish that is surprisingly hearty and filling. And the crispy peas – perhaps fried – add a nice little bit of crunch.
Throughout the day, I was surprised by the portion sizes — not in comparison to the cost value but as someone visiting alone for a single day, it ended up being quite a bit of food. Ideally, I’d come with a friend with each of us getting a Sip & Savor pass so we could sample far more items at even smaller portions of each, more like grazing. Once again, I’m not talking about the value for the portion, but the portion size in relation to the goal of sampling many items. I suspect many Magic Key holders spread out the samples over the length of the event which makes the sip & savor pass a very different valuation consideration.
My final stop was Terran Treats. As a fan of green tea ice cream, I was eager to try the Strawberry Green Tea Churro. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a churro. I’ve never been one to finish a churro and would typically share one with my family or friends. So I was quite surprised when the order was two churros.
The texture was great and reminded me that Disneyland Resort has traditionally had the superior churros. And while a green tea earthiness did make an appearance, I didn’t find the matcha flavor as pervasive as I’d anticipated. The drizzled sauce was quite sticky. I think I would have preferred it to be a dip or presented with one end specifically uncoated to be a handle. And the strawberry didn’t pop much in the tastes I had. So it was much more of a sweet churro than a fruity dessert. However, the green of the matcha did pop nicely for a photo by Mission Breakout.
Handy booklet lists where you can find all the Festival’s food items and notes which are available for Sip & Savor
By far, my favorite tastes were early in the day – the Taro topped coffee and the Mickey Macaron – and sadly I suspect this will be my only day at the Festival. There were so many other items I’d have liked to taste like the Bulgogi Pizza at Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta (that I still want to call Pizza Ooh Mow Mow) and drinks like the Tsingtao with Frozen Mango Beer Foam at Prosperity Bao & Buns or the Hibiscus Apple Soju-rita at Lucky 8 Lantern.
How the Sip & Savor Pass Works
Now that you’ve read a bit some of the tasty items I sampled through Sip & Savor Pass, let’s take a look at how it works. With the Sip & Savor pass ($46, Magic Key discounted price is $43) you have six coupons to redeem for 1 food or non-alcoholic beverage item from any of the participating locations throughout Disney California Adventure. There are a variety of locations available – some quick service kiosks, some quick service restaurants and even churro carts. The pass is valid throughout the Festival’s run from January 23 – February 18, 2024.
You do not have to redeem all items the same day. When you place your order, the pass will be scanned and you input the four digit code found on your pass to confirm the order. Unlike previous years, there are no physical coupons to present (at least not on the ones currently being distributed). Your Sip & Savor pass redemptions remaining are noted on your receipt but a cast member can scan it at any location to let you know your remaining redemptions available.
Bamboo Blessings & Red Dragon Spice Traders at park close
During the Lunar New Year Festival a collection of temporary food locations pop up along the park’s main path. Labeled the Festival Marketplace, all food and non-alcoholic beverages posted to their menus are eligible for redemption.
The 6 Festival Marketplace locations are:
- Wrapped with Love
- Bamboo Blessings
- Red Dragon Spice Traders
- Prosperity Bao & Buns
- Lucky 8 Lantern
- Longevity Noodles Co.
The food items I selected with my Sip & Savor Pass were all found at Festival Marketplace locations. One of the special things to note about the Festival Marketplace locations is that they are all connected within the order system so that the food items I listed above while prepared in many different locations could all be purchased as one order and then slowly collected throughout the day. I found the cast members input the items based on location so it was most helpful to give all the items I wanted from a location before giving the items I wanted from another location. During my visit Wrapped with Love featured much shorter waits to order than any other Festival Marketplace location I spotted throughout the day.
I appreciated the ease of going once through the “Order Here” line at a Festival Marketplace kiosk of my choice and then collecting the various items at various locations “Pick Up Here” area throughout the remainder of the day. Keep in mind your receipt is a valuable item as it is your ticket to receive your food items. They simply highlighted the items on the receipt when I went to pick up and returned that same receipt to me to hold until I was ready to pick up my additional orders.
In addition to the Festival Marketplace locations, Sip & Savor pass menu options also appear in six other participating locations spread throughout Disney California Adventure. In some cases, it is a smaller tasting portion size of a menu item that has been added for the Festival while other locations have a special beverage or dessert item.
- Paradise Garden Grill
- Festival Cart
- Cappuccino Cart
- Sonoma Terrace
- Pym Test Kitchen
- Studio Catering Co.
Enjoyed the pop fusion songs of New Traditions in Paradise Gardens while sipping my coffee
And 3 of the churro carts featuring Festival flavors are eligible as well.
- Churros at Hollywood Land
- Churros near Redwood Creek Challenge Trail
- Terran Treats (near Mission Breakout)
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