La Brea Bakery - Express and Cafe Review

The Diva Family had two opportunities to have breakfast while we were at the resort. We had considered having breakfast at a couple of different places, but due to the nature of our stay, we ended up having breakfast at La Brea Bakery both days.

There are two sides to La Brea, the Express, which is a quick counter service and then you sit out under  umbrella covered tables, and enjoy what you choose from the counter.

Here is Sister Diva enjoying her panini toasted bagel and cream cheese.  

Daddy Diva doesn't look all that happy, but he liked his Cinnamon Roll (pictured below) 

and he ate the other half of Sister Diva's bagel.

These are the cinnamon rolls.  You can get them with or without frosting. 

Daddy Diva got the frosting, of course!

Aunt Diva and I shared tastes of several pastries with Momma Diva.  

We tried the cream cheese danish which was good.  Slightly sweet but not too sweet.

We also tried both of these.  The raspberry streusel bars were terrific!  

Really tasty!  The coffee cake pictured in front was a little dense and a little dry.

These orange danishes were the very BEST pastries of the bunch!  

Slightly orangey and sweet and the crunchy almonds added a nice touch.  This was the winner!

These were some of the other offerings available like breakfast sandwiches and salads.

The other side of the bakery is the La Brea Cafe.  On this side you are seated and served by wait staff.  On this particular morning, we met with Sister Diva's friends Kevin and Kate.  Kevin works at Disneyland in a myriad of roles, from emcee of many Disneyland Resort events, to the Laughingstock Company and DCA's Miner 49ers (a group we miss terribly!) Just for the fun of it, I'll post a picture at the end of this blog post of him in his current role. You won't recognize him. But enough about that, back to the review!

Sister Diva ordered the Veggie Omelet served with country-style potatoes, organic mixed greens
and choice of toasted La Brea Bread for $12.95.  She said it was very good, especially the potatoes. The omelet was good too, but there were too many onions for her taste.  It was fine after she set them aside.

I got the Croissant Sandwich - La Brea Bakery Butter Croissant with eggs any style, melted Gruyere cheese served with applewood smoked bacon. $13.50

Seeing as my beloved Carnation Cafe no longer serves their Croissant Breakfast Sandwich, I decided to try the one at the La Brea. This is how it came.  Seriously.  I ask you, is that appetizing? I had to totally assemble the sandwich just so I could eat it. Then somehow I missed the fact that on the menu, someone thought it was a good idea to serve organic greens with breakfast.  Sister Diva didn't mind it, but I thought it was a horrible idea. Fruit.  Fruit goes with breakfast and especially a croissant sandwich, not greens.  I only ate half of the sandwich and I found it a disappointment.  Please, oh please Carnation Cafe, bring back the Croissant Sandwich breakfast and show La Brea how to do it right!

Mr. Diva, Daddy Diva and Aunt Diva all got the Classic Breakfast - Two eggs any style with your 

choice of applewood smoked bacon or apple cinnamon sausage. $12.95

Mr. Diva liked his breakfast with bacon, but also would have preferred fruit.   Daddy Diva and Aunt Diva got the sausage and they liked it a lot.  Daddy Diva doesn't eat greens or the fruit, so it didn't matter what they put on his plate.

Everyone else in our party got the fruit plate for $5.95.  It was light and refreshing and they all enjoyed it.

As for the ambiance, we liked sitting outside, even in late July.  There were ceiling fans to keep the air circulating on the covered patio.  The faux woven chairs and vine covered half wall that you see behind us gave it a bit of a tropical feel.  Even though we were right on the Downtown Disney walkway between World of Disney, the tram drop off, and the security entrances, it wasn't noisy at all. And our server was terrific.

The Diva Family gives the La Brea Bakery a good rating.  Not great, but good.  If you need a quick bite before you head into the park, the Express side is perfect.  If you want to meet some friends for breakfast who can't go into the parks, this is a nice place to dine without being interrupted by characters.

And now, back to our friend Kevin.  Remember how nice and respectable he looked?  Here he is in his role as Tweedle Dum for the Mad Tea Party in DCA.

The hair is one thing, but seriously, look at those shoes.

And here he is with Sister Diva - She is cracking up laughing on the outside, but on the inside, I think I sense a bit of, I don't know, characterphobia setting in from our childhood! 

Storytellers Cafe for Lunch

 As many of you know, Storytellers Cafe in the Grand Californian is one of our favorite character breakfasts at the Disneyland Resort.  On a recent trip with my family, we decided to try lunch at Storytellers and see what it was like.

 I love the detail and decor in Storytellers.  It is a restaurant that celebrates as the name suggests, great story telling; something Disney has tried to do for decades. This is the buffet area where the breakfast buffet and dinner/dessert buffets are served.

This is one side of the restaurant.  As you can see it is warm, cozy feeling.

There are many of these large paintings of either storytellers or stories on the walls.

 Aren't these backlit shadow lighting fixtures that are around the room great?

 They add a nice, warm glow.

There are many quotes around the room like this one above the wood carving.

 Love the detail on the lights in the waiting area.

I really liked this quote!  

Marty Dorf designed many rooms and restaurants for Disney, including some work on Storytellers.

 This is the one page lunch menu.  If you click on it you can see a larger version.

Aunt Diva got the Cobb salad for $14.99.  

She said not only was pretty, but it was very tasty and exactly what she wanted.  It was big though!

Sister Diva got the Four Cheese Ravioli for $16.99. 

She said it was nice and light and had a really good flavor.  The whole roasted garlic cloves were a little strong for her so she just picked them out.  Other than that she really liked it!

I got two appetizers for my meal. First I ordered the Charred Nebraska Corn Chowder for $7.49. This was a really nice soup.  It did not taste like canned cream corn which I was worried about.  I did ask for no cilantro (I hate cilantro - big surprise, right?) The addition of roasted chicken and bacon were perfect in this dish.

Daddy Diva and I got the Chicken Quesadilla for $8.59.  We asked for no salsa and no guacamole (see where I get it?) but they brought it anyway.  Aunt Diva liked it!  The quesadilla was good.  Daddy Diva ate all of his, but I had to take the Anaheim Peppers out of mine because my face was burning off. Once I did that it was still a little hot for me, but they were crisp and really tasty.

Momma Diva got the Fire Roasted Vegetable Soup for $6.99.  She said it had amazing flavor.  It had a bit of a spicy southwest flavor to it and you could taste that the veggies were roasted.

Overall, we really liked Storytellers for lunch.  We appreciated that they had big meals available and also some lighter things as well.  Storytellers is highly recommended by the Diva family.

There is an entrance back into California Adventure just a few paces from Storytellers that enters the park right by Grizzy River Run.  This is an entrance for hotel guests only, but if you pay for a meal at one of the restaurants and you show them your receipt and park ticket, you can enter there.  It's so much faster than going out and around to get in the main entrance.

World of Color

First, let me preface this review with the fact that I am a very picky eater (if you are new to this blog) and secondly, I call it like it is.  If I like it, I will tell you and if I don't, I'll tell you. With that being said, I will begin my review of Disney's California Adventure World of Color Show.

If you havent' already heard, there are three ways that you can view this show - stand in line and get a fast pass, pay $16 for a picnic meal and good viewing, or pay $40 for dinner and the best viewing.  Back when it first opened you had two dinner choices, Ariel's Grotto and Wine Country Trattoria.

We did not want to wait in line for a fast pass, I didn't like any of the picnic food choices (they all sounded disgusting to me and still do. *yucky shiver*) and since I had eaten at Ariel's for lunch a couple of years before, I thought that would be the best choice for us.

I thought this would be good, but I was sorely disappointed.  In order to get a large number of people in and out in a hurry, the menu is set and you have a choice between one or two things in the appetizer category and the entree.  We chose the antipasto appetizer.  It is on the tall thing between us.  I ate maybe one slice of cheese.  Everything else was olives, salami, salad, and tons of other things in vinegar and other unmentionable food condiments. I had to push it over by Mr. Diva because the smell was turning my stomach.  He didn't even eat the stuff.

For my entree I chose a steak with mashed potatoes and veggies.  Sounded safe, but it came slathered in some kind of horrible salsa/relish thing. Disgusting!  Ruined the entire meal. I had to scrape if off onto Mr. Diva's salad plate and tried to salvage what I could of my meal but it was pretty hopeless by that time.  Mr. Diva got something similar and he didn't like it either and he isn't picky.  He can eat just about anything.  I had someone take a picture of us so I could document the nightmare.  I couldn't believe we paid so much for a bad meal!  You know I hate the food when I don't even take a picture of the plate.

Dessert came and it was better to look at than it was to eat.  The three chocolate things were the only things really worth eating on the plate, so we split them.  We hardly ever saw our waiter and had no time to have anything sent back because they scheduled our meal so close to our show time.  We literally had to flag someone down to pay the ticket and hurry over to our spot to get in line.

We were led into the "best" viewing area.  Because I'm short, and we were at the back of the line due to the whole dinner thing, I chose to stand near the back of the viewing area on the steps so that I could actually see something.  The areas along the front were already full.  I thought this would be the best place to see the show, but the guy in front of us decided to film the entire show on his phone.  Right, like you're going to go back and watch the whole thing on your phone again and again.  So this was my view all night.  Yay.

His arm got tired, so he had to keep switching arms.  Brilliant.

The best view I got was after the show was over and everyone started to leave.

As you can tell from my review thus far, I was less than impressed with the food and the show, and so was Mr. Diva.  I added his review because he is much easier to please than I am, but he too felt that we had wasted almost $100 to see this show.

Before I close my review, I feel compelled to let you know that we had some friends who got the same meal and did the show and they enjoyed both.  But that being said, it appears that the Ariel's Grotto dinner option is no longer open, only the Wine Country Trattoria.

Our friends did the Trattoria dinner because they have eaten there many times for lunch and dinner and figured it would be good.  They we less than impressed and will not be doing the dinner again. Here is the current menu if you are interested.

My recommendations for WOC would be that if you have time to waste, stand in line for the Fast Pass.  If you are short on time, get the picnic meal.  If you have money to burn and no time, do the meal.

As for me and Mr. Diva, we won't be seeing WOC again any time soon.  We're way over it.

Bengal Barbeque

 The Bengal Barbeque is a counter service restaurant in Adventureland right across from Indy.

 It is almost always busy, but the wait is never very long.  I usually don't eat near the restaurant because it is so very, very crowded in Adventureland.  I get my food and go elsewhere to eat it -- like the Golden Horseshoe to watch the Billies.  It just doesn't get better than that!

 Here I am ordering my food to take to the GH.  It was the performance there on this particular day that is seared into my memory.  Those guys are so funny! I need to do a scrapbook page about that particular performance!  But I digress, back to the food.

 So the prices aren't bad and the food is generally pretty good.  Anyone who knows me knows I hate sauces, but I usually get a knife and get most of the sauces off of the skewers so that I get a little of the flavor and almost no sauce.

 The chieftan chicken skewer is good!  $3.79

 As is the banyan beef skewer. $3.99

 But my favorite are the Safari Skewers - bacon wrapped asparagus!!! $3.79

One of the things they are known for here are the Mickey-shaped pretzels served with cheese sauce.  I however decided to try the jalapeno cheese stuff pretzel $3.49.  Yuck.  It was terrible.   don't waste your money.

Over all the food at the Bengal Barbeque is very good.  I like it and I don't know why we don't eat there more often.  We just don't spend much time in Adventureland and so I forget that it is one of our dining options.  But if you are in need of a quick and tasty meal in Disneyland, check out the Bengal Barbeque.  It won't disappoint!

Mickey and Friends Surf's Up! Breakfast

It has been awhile since I reviewed a character breakfast.  Last summer I took one of my former high school English students from RVA in Kenya to breakfast at the Mickey and Friends Surf's Up! Breakfast in the PCH Grill at the Paradise Pier Hotel. 

Mr. Diva and I had gone to this breakfast back when it was the Lilo and Stitch Breakfast and we liked how laid-back it was and how much time you got with the characters.

It may have changed names, but it is still a nice, laid-back character breakfast and you still get a lot of time with the characters.

 One of my favorite parts of this breakfast is that you get to see DAISY!!  She is a really tough character to find at Disneyland.  Trust me.

 Minnie is looking good in her lifeguard outfit!

And so is Mickey!

 Stitch showed up to breakfast, but Lilo was nowhere to be found.

 Look at Pluto's cute star fish tag!

I probably should stop here and let you know about the food.  It is a Disney Breakfast Buffet - one price, all you can eat.  Fruit, granola, cereal, muffins, yogurt, eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, omelette bar, etc.  If you have been to a Disney character breakfast, you know what I'm talking about.  

 Periodically, the characters all come out and start dancing with the kids to some surfer music.  It's fun, upbeat and cute.

 The decor is fun, beachy, surfer, Hawaiianish.  Take some time to look around and get pictures with some of the fun spots around the room.

Kowabunga!!

And here we are, student and teacher re-united 20 years later.  

Even with the characters coming through and us going back for refills, we had a great time chatting and getting caught up with each other after 20 years.  And one other nice thing is that you don't need park passes to have the breakfast, so if you are meeting friends or people who will not be going into the park, you can enjoy some Disney magic with them for a fraction of the price!

As far as character meals go, I highly recommend the Mickey and Friends Surf's Up! Breakfast.