Hope + Mike's Meal Tasting at the Disneyland Hotel

I thought I'd share part of Hope's planning journal with you all, so you can see what happens at a meal tasting before your wedding. Kyle and I didn't realize that we had to request a meal tasting (we thought it was part of the planning session) and so we didn't get to do this. Luckily, reading Hope's recount is like actually being there...

We arrived at the Grand Californian and our planner escorted us toward the Lily Room. Nicholas, the lead banquet manager (I’m not certain what his official title was) was already waiting for us outside of the room. He quickly introduced himself and shook hands with all of us and led us into the Lily Room, where our names were already on the door:

 


Mike and I were very impressed with that. I know it’s just a piece of paper with our names, but it shows that they were ready for us and that they wanted to make us feel welcome and we appreciated that.

The room was dark and candle-lit and featured a round of 10 table fully dressed in the Grand Californian’s standard linens. I loved the low light and candles because it made it seem very cozy and romantic. We’re bringing in our own snow globe centerpieces and are having purple satin floor length linens, but even if we weren’t, I thought that the basic look of the table (lamp centerpiece, white linens and 3 votives) looked very nice, so we could’ve gotten away with going basic if we really wanted to.

Napkin-folds Galore

The table was even peppered with a varying array of napkin folds. Mike thought the different napkin fold options were cool. We weren’t sure what we liked and when Nicholas noticed that we couldn’t make up our minds, he quickly unfolded one napkin and started folding it in different ways to give us even more options!

Since we’re going to have fuchsia satin napkins, the only appropriate fold for them was the one Mike was sort of gravitating toward. It was this square fold with a middle pocket (just in case we opt to print menu’s last minute):

We’re going to tilt them so that they appear “diamond” shaped on the plate.

These are the other available napkin folds:

Boat-shaped fold:

Banana fold:

Fan Fold:

Long Tube Fold:

3 middle pocket fold:

V-shaped fold (one of the ones that Nicholas folded for us at the tasting):

Drinks

After deciding on the napkin fold, we were asked what we wanted to drink and were introduced to our server Jose. My sister and I stuck with the water already on the table, our planner had iced tea and Mike asked for coffee. We asked what was available and we were told, “Whatever you want. This is your day!” Nice! I’m not sure if that will be the case for our guests. We have sprung for a full open bar throughout our event, so I’m guessing that if they want something like that, they’ll have to go get those themselves, but I assume if it’s Iced Tea or Soda then the servers will provide that. We were also told that typically they serve coffee and tea for the dessert component of our meal, but would bring it out to anyone before that if they asked.

The Artisan Bread Basket

When our drinks arrived, they also presented us with the bread basket. There will be 2 baskets per table and we were told that the baskets will be replenished as long as guests want. All of the bread comes freshly baked from the La Brea Bakery. If you’ve ever had a meal there, you know it’s good!

Each basket will have the following bread types: Sourdough, Ciabatta, 2 breadsticks (with and without peppers), Dark raisin bread and a pretzel breadstick (which wasn’t out of the oven yet so is not pictured). I tried half of two of the breadsticks. My little sister ate the other halves, but we didn’t get to try the rest because our salad was plated and the bread basket was moved farther away to make room for the new plates.

The Salad

Mike and I requested to taste the salad from another plated menu, rather than the one that came with the menu we chose.

This is the Caesar salad from the “A Love Affair” Menu: baby romaine lettuce, focaccia croutons, parmesan crisp and tangy lemon dressing:

Mike originally thought that the portion was really small, but then we realized that the portion was small because that was the “tasting size”.

The actual size of the salad will be more like this:

We all liked the cheese thing on top. My sister even loved it and she HATES cheese. (She didn’t realize it was cheese until we had already finished it all and heard our planner explaining to me how she makes it at home)

I noticed that the ladies were served first and that if our napkins weren’t already on our laps, they will place them there for us. We were so busy talking that I didn’t realize I had missed that part, so I was sort of startled when Jose laid the napkin on my lap for me.

The servers will go around pouring the dressing on the salads for our guests like this:

They will also pepper it for us if needed. We were concerned about the description of the dressing since it is described as “tangy” and “lemon” but we all thought the dressing was the right amount of tanginess and not overpowering at all. It had enough for flavor but not enough to make you make a face. I would actually describe it as a ranch dressing with a kick of lemon.

I really loved the parmesan crisp so I went ahead and ate the one off of the sample plate too and Mike had himself a second helping of the lettuce from the sample plate as well. Once he saw the real size of the plate for the reception, he was much happier about it and felt that it was plentiful.

The Entrée

Jose cleared our plates and another group of staff rolled in the entrees. We will be having Roasted Meyer Lemon Chicken Breast with Garlic Jus with a side of roasted garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus spears, carrots and squash.

This is the tasting size entrée portion:

This is the actual wedding day entrée portion:

Mike was concerned with the portion, but relaxed and was extremely happy once the sample reception plate was presented. He thought the asparagus and carrots were superb and that the chicken was moist, tender and flavorful with and without the skin. He ADORED the mashed potatoes so much that he beat me to eating the portion from the sample plate. He practically scraped every last bit off of it from his tasting plate and the sample plate and said he would eat just that if he could.

I thought all the veggies were fresh, crispy and delicious. The chicken was so juicy and tender that I even polished off the sample version as well as my own tasting portion. The mashed potatoes were creamy and had the right amount of butter and garlic. I even loved the carrots (which I usually hate) and also the squash, and asparagus.

My very picky-eater sister loved it too, but passed on all the veggies, which I ended up eating for her.

Dessert

At this point, we were starting to slow down, but we still had dessert and wedding cake to taste! Jose cleared our tables and then presented us with the dessert that comes with our menu: Tahitian Vanilla Bean Crème Brulee with Fresh Raspberries on top.

The tasting size is the same size as the wedding day dessert portion:

It was so good and even came with 2 heart shaped macaroons. This is how big the plate is (minus the dessert):

I was so full by now, as was Mike and my sister. My sister only ate half of hers and Mike ate most of his but none of us could even think of trying the sample size portion in the middle of the table.

I really like crème brulee and thought that this one had the right amount of sweetness and that the crust was extra crispy and it was delicious all around. I especially loved the raspberries on top because they were fresh and not overly glazed. I also loved the 2 heart shaped macaroons, but by that point we were collecting all of them in napkins so we could enjoy later.

Mike thought that the crème brulee was tasty and just as good as the one at Steakhouse 55, but since he’s allergic to raspberries, he couldn’t fully devour it. Our planner made sure to make a note of that and even mentioned it to the Chef who stopped by to see how we liked everything.

Chef Amy was very pleased to know that we loved everything and didn’t need to change a thing, other than to make sure Mike’s dessert is berry-free. They said they would sub his with strawberries, but we’ll see if they remember. I ate his raspberries at the tasting and I won’t mind doing the same at the wedding reception.

Chef Amy seemed pleasantly surprised that we were thrilled with everything. We especially complimented the chicken, and she said that it’s yummy partly because of the way it’s cooked and partly because of the way it’s presented. Keeping the bone in allows it to stay juicy and tender and they also try to time the introduction of it so that it comes as straight out of the oven to your plate as possible and hopefully avoids the hot plate which could usually dry out the meat. She also said that the veggies were picked fresh and were in season. I don’t remember if she said if they were organic, but they were certainly a delight nonetheless. I made sure to let her know that I even ate the carrots which are usually the first to get tossed over to Mike’s plate at home

Wedding Cake

By this point I was really happy that I wore a dress that day because I needed all the tummy room I could get. I was so full. I looked over at my sister and she was starting to get that sleepy-food-induced-comatose look on her face. That all changed as soon as we each got presented with slices of cake to try!

The red one on the lower left corner is Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Filling and White Chocolate Chips. It’s not on the Disney cake list so they custom made it for us. The top one on the upper right hand corner is Marble Cake with Dark Chocolate Mousse. The one on the bottom right hand corner is Carrot Cake with Butter cream. We had also wanted to try a Chocolate cake with White Chocolate Mousse, but it wasn’t part of the tasting.

Even though we were full, there’s always room for cake so we all bit into our slices and were in heaven. They were all delicious and not overly sweet. The fillings were so creamy and tasty. I love cake, but have issues with getting tooth aches if they’re too sweet, but luckily that was not the case with the Disney cakes. My little sister’s favorite was the Marble cake with Dark Chocolate Mousse. Mike’s favorite and mine was the Red Velvet. We all liked the Carrot cake but didn’t think it was as strong as the Marble or Red Velvet. So we’re definitely having the Red Velvet and the Marble cake as two of the three layers.

I never made time to mention the cake in detail before because we weren’t sure if the Disneyland Bakery could do it. Since we’re getting married on Mike’s birthday , I thought it would be cool to give him free reign on how the cake would look. He took inspiration from Sleeping Beauty and from Vanessa’s cake set up:

His vision for the middle cake was a “Make it Blue! Make it Pink!” pixie-dust battle. We took pictures of that scene from the movie and made a short but detailed Power Point Presentation and emailed that to our planner, who then forwarded it to the bakers. She also put a request for all 3 bakers to attend our meal tasting so that we could discuss the cake. We came prepared with copies of the power point presentation for them, but were surprised to find that they didn’t need copies.

Not only did they already see the presentation, but they also made photo copies of it on real photo paper AND took the time to make us a fully decorated mock-up which they surprised us with at the tasting!!

Bakers Nubia and Christina carried it in and all of our eyes popped out of our heads. We didn’t know what to expect because seriously, how would you translate what we asked into a real cake? Well, they came up with a wonderful interpretation and we were floored with it!

They asked us a few questions and we made a few adjustments (including, changing the overlay of the linen on the cake table to Silver rather than Purple so that it could match the writing on the cake) and they seemed very pleased to know that we were happy with the way it looked. Their boss even came in to see it because he said he had heard the bakery staff talking about it and saw the pictures we sent. (ha! Our cake is famous!)

I seriously could’ve started crying because I was just so happy with how they were going the extra limit to please us. Both Mike and I were pretty speechless with gratitude and awe but we managed to compose ourselves enough to let them know that we appreciated their hard work and their attention to detail. They seemed a little nervous about the cake, but once they knew that they got our thumbs up, they seemed relieved and then excused themselves to go back to the kitchen.

Mike thought they did a great job of interpreting what we sent them and was impressed that they took a random idea that he threw at them and put it together in a creative way. He was especially impressed that they saved us money by suggesting that the cake would look better if it was round ($1/pp less), rather than octagon which was the shape of Vanessa’s inspirational cake.

I thought that the bakers did an awesome job on everything. I really didn’t know what to expect but I thought that the end product was really cool looking.

We didn’t have the heart to even touch it at the tasting because it was so pretty, but we did cut into it on Sunday July 4th and shared it with my family:

It ended up being the flavor of the 4th cake that we hoped to try: Chocolate with White Chocolate Mousse.

Despite the fact that it had been in the fridge for 4 days, it was scrumptious! Even the fondant was delicious. We were warned that they normally peel it off because guests don’t like it, but we thought it was a delicious compliment to the rest of the cake. It had a good taste to it, sort of like semi-hardened cotton candy. I know that sometimes it can taste weird, but this one was delicious! My little sister even saved an entire slab of it and has been nibbling on it all week! The mousse was creamy and the cake was so moist. I loved it and it was a huge hit with my family too.

All of the cakes were awesome. They were sweet and creamy without being over the top or too sweet. My favorites are the Red Velvet, followed with a tie between the Marble and the Chocolate Cake. I think Mike is favoring the Carrot cake over the Chocolate cake but only by a small fraction, and my parents loved the Marble cake the best, which they tried when we got home since we had so much left over:

Nicholas and Jose brought us boxes for our left over’s and helped us put them into “to-go” bags. We were so stuffed and definitely convinced that despite the fact that we demoted our food, it’s still plenty and our guests should be pleased.

The entire staff was super helpful and bent over backwards to make sure we were happy and were willing to accommodate us and make sure our vision was put on display for everybody. They took it one step further by suggesting other things that we hadn’t considered and gave us a better idea of how the time will flow and generally made us feel like we just need to show up and have a good time, which is such a relief after such a long planning period. Our planner also assured us that she and the staff would make sure that our guests would eat on time so that the food can taste good and that they would do everything they could to make sure that guests leave us alone while we eat.

The meal tasting was a wonderful experience. It totally re-affirmed our decision to have our most important day at the “happiest place on earth”. I’m really glad that my little sister got to come and I wish I had thought to invite my parents because they would’ve loved it too.

Chef Amy did such a terrific job on the meal. It was better than I expected and I can honestly tell you that it was the best event meal I've ever tasted. Nicholas was so sweet and so attentive. He really made us feel at ease and even though we know he may or may not be the lead at our lunch reception, we are certain that if everyone else is as accommodating and personable as he is, we're definitely in for a wonderful reception! Jose kept our cups filled with our drinks and quickly removed our used plates. He worked so seamlessly, that it was almost as if he did everything by magic. He was so polite and helped to make our experience at the tasting really pleasant, and overall they all made us feel like King and Queen for an hour.

We were so impressed by the work that Christina and Nubia did on the cake. We seriously did not have any idea what to expect, but we're so glad that they were able to interpret the still-shot from the movie and translate that into a beautiful cake. We didn't expect to come home with a cake, let alone such a beautiful work of art and we appreciated that gesture tremendously. It's so hard to get a cake that looks good AND that tastes good and they definitely nailed it. It's going to be tough to narrow down the choices because they were all so wonderful.

We waddled back to the car (heads up, future Disneyland Brides – park in front of the DRC building because they will validate) and made our way home, all about 5 pounds heavier and all even more excited for our wedding in August!