EPCOT is a park of two unconnected halves, the future and the world. The thread that ties them together is food. Year round there are delicious offerings in unique settings. Plus Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival, which this year marks it’s 15th anniversary brings crowds… Read More »EPCOT adds dining capacity for expected crowds
Last week (and in the previous hour) on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution: Jamie came to Huntington, West Virgina and met with challenges and failures at every turn. A radio DJ full of attitude, uncooperative lunch ladies, delicious-looking chicken battling against pizza (and losing), and a newspaper article blasting Jamie’s project and taking his quotes out of context. He certainly has his work cut out for him.
Episode 2 opens with a visit back to the local radio station, where he’s explaining the newspaper article and defending himself. DJ Rod is civil, but admits that he still doesn’t like Jamie at all. If Jamie wins over DJ Rod, I’ll be delighted, because the guy is just a sourpuss.
The rest of the recap, after the cut:Read More »Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, Episode 2
Huntington, West Virginia, a city of 50,000 is officially the ‘unhealthiest city in America.’ That makes it the perfect target for Jamie Oliver, a young chef from England who succeeded in revolutionizing the school food system in that country. But will the city embrace Oliver’s attempt?
Tonight was a special preview episode of the show that debuts Friday this week on ABC. Here’s my recap, but if you found yourself watching this show and would like to write recaps of the show for The Disney Blog, drop me a line.
Jamie’s starts his conquest with an interview with local DJ Rod Willis. It didn’t quite go the way Jamie wanted it to as the DJ was being an obstinate jerk about Jamie’s effort to make a change.
Next up Jamie takes on a challenge to makeover the school’s food menu in a week. What he discovers is ‘Breakfast Pizza’ – not eggs on toast, but real pizza with cheese, pepperoni, and everything. I’m in disbelief as was Jamie.
Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day! And just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate. The following Downtown Disney restaurants have put an Irish twist on a few of their signature dishes: Fulton’s Crab House is offering a hearty and delicious meal… Read More »Downtown Disney St. Patricks Day Dining Specials
True Disney foodies know you haven’t arrived until you’ve dined at the crème de la crème of restaurants – Victoria & Albert’s at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. But now the top-rated dining room has a new “must do”: the gorgeous Queen Victoria’s Room.… Read More »New Dining Experience at Victoria and Albert’s
It was a huge day at EPCOT today. A world record setting canned-food sculpture, a new duet with Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato (more on that late tonight), and Chef Robert Irvine’s Dinner Impossible filming (again more on that later tonight). But the day was really about Disney’s amazing new promotion for its Give a Day, Get a Disney Day promotion for 2010.
Against the backdrop of a world-record sculpture of canned goods destined for food banks, Disney Parks officials on Thursday announced a major milestone with the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” program, a first-of-its-kind effort to help inspire 1 million people to perform volunteer service.
Since the program’s launch only six weeks ago, more than 600,000 people in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada have volunteered or signed up for volunteer projects in their communities, announced Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
“With the launch of our ‘Give a Day, Get a Disney Day’ program, we hoped to spark something truly special,” Staggs said. “But even we have been overwhelmed with the response.”
Disney originally announced that they would try to give away around 1 million tickets to volunteers. I don’t know if that means you need to sign up for a shift soon, or if they’ll extend the promotion throughout the year.
Canned-Food Structure Unveiled, Verified Largest-Ever by Guinness World Records®
As part of the event celebrating family volunteers and to dramatize the spirit of giving, Walt Disney World Resort on Thursday unveiled a mammoth structure of canned goods – food that will be donated to food banks in Orlando, Miami and Atlanta.
The canned food sculpture – titled “Celebrate Volunteers” – was revealed for media and guests at Epcot. Disney VoluntEARS shaped the sculpture with a larger-than-life Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Pluto – all sculpted out of cans. Goofy’s trademark hat consisted of cans of bread crumbs, for instance. Mickey’s famous head was shaped from cans of black olives, and cans of sliced pineapple made up Pluto’s eyes.
The cans represent approximately 70,000 meals, according to Dave Krepcho, president/CEO of Second Harvest of Central Florida. “Each can makes a difference in someone’s life who cannot afford this food,” he said. “Much of this food goes to children in need, working moms trying to provide, senior citizens coping on fixed incomes and people whose disabilities keep them from working.”
The spectacular, character-themed structure – consisting officially of 115,527 cans – was also a world record, according to Guinness World Records, the internationally recognized authority on record-breaking achievement. Guinness World Records Thursday authenticated the achievement as the Largest Canned Food Structure ever created, easily eclipsing the previous record of 54,527 cans set in June 2009 in New Zealand. More fun facts at the bottom of this post
Read More »‘Give a Day, Get a Disney Day’ Program Reaches 600,000 Volunteer Sign-Ups – and Counting!
Like those burgers and fries for sale under the Golden Arches in Downtown Disney? Well, you’re going to have to travel to the other end of Disney property, down by the All Star resorts, to get them after April 30th (there’s a closer location at… Read More »McDonalds Leaving Orlando’s Downtown Disney
Tables in Wonderland, formerly the Disney Dining Experience, is a program available to Florida residents and annual passholders that gives a 20% discount on dining locations around the resort. We used to belong, but quit because our favorite location was no longer included. Looks like they’ve just added that location back along with a number of others.
New as of January 2010!
Epcot®: Tokyo Dining Location Only (Not Teppan Edo)
Disney’s BoardWalk Resort: Kouzzina by Cat Cora (formerly Spoodles)
Disney’s Wide World of Sports: ESPN® Sports Cafe
DOWNTOWN DISNEY® Marketplace: Fulton’s Crab House
DOWNTOWN DISNEY® Pleasure Island: Portobello
DOWNTOWN DISNEY® West Side: House of Blues®, Wolfgang Puck® Cafe
Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort: Il Mulino New York Trattoria, Kimonos, Shula’s Steak House, Todd English’s bluezoo
If you plan on dining out at WDW sit down restaurants (keep in mind that DAK has three counter service locations on the plan, plus a buffet) and spending more than $550 over the course of the year on food and drinks at those locations, then the Tables in Wonderland card makes sense for you. For some locations (Jiko, California Grill) that’s just a couple of meals if you include a wine flight.
Tables in Wonderland List of ALL participating locations below the jump: