Three Kings Day Celebration

Starting today and going through January 8th, Disneyland is celebrating Three Kings Day or Día de Reyes at its Zocalo Park in Frontierland. According to Disney, "This weekend, we'll be celebrating Three Kings Day at Disneyland park, and in addition to special décor, entertainment and children's activities, guests will also experience the Latin American holiday tradition with special treats served just for this celebration."

More info at the Disney Parks blog here and here.

Click here if you are unable to see the slideshow above.

Day of the Dead at Rancho del Zocalo

Not a food post per se but if you are going to be at Disneyland sometime between now and early November be sure to check out the Day of the Dead-themed Zocalo Park adjacent to Disneyland's Mexican restaurant, Rancho del Zocalo.

According to the park's official press release: "The traditional Mexican 'Dia de los Muertos' is being observed [at] Zocalo Park in Frontierland Sept. 29 through Nov. 2 with banners, lanterns, floral displays, mariachi music, face painting and the 'calaca' skeleton figures that characterize the celebration." Sounds like a good place to eat your Mexican meal at.

flickr Slideshow

We now return you to our regularly scheduled food programming.

UPDATE: The Day of the Dead decorations will be up in 2010 as well through roughly the same date range as they were in 2007.

Rancho del Zocalo - Review #1

Date of Visits: October 9 and December 21, 2006

Rancho del Zocalo @ Disneyland Park Official Site Full Menu

Working on a full-fledged review of Rancho del Zocalo inside Disneyland with plenty of pictures. For now I wanted to point out that they have the same holiday-themed pastel de tres leches cake that Cocina Cucamonga at Disney's California Adventure has except that here it looks more genuinely holiday-themed but is not promoted as much.

Here's the rest of the pictures:

Usually I'm pretty good at not putting up a review until it's really done. This review, however, is coming together piecemeal due to holidays, weddings in the family, etc. The first visit to Rancho del Zocalo for this review was on October 9 when I was at Disneyland with a couple of my brothers (Dave & Scottie, Lee & Lara and Emma & Eva & Ben and Ella, and Gary & Wendy) and their families and with Marissa, Avalon, Kobe, and Cashel who joined with us a little later in the day. It wasn't even me who suggested we eat Mexican food when it came time for dinner. It was Dave. Rancho del Zocalo is in Frontierland right next to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It's hosted by Ortega (the people that make the canned salsa) and does the Mexican theme fairly well with a little imagery from the old American South-West thrown in.

The next visit was about two months later by which time I was a Disneyland Annual Passholder so I could do stuff like just go to Disneyland for lunch and take some pictures in the daytime (but I also rode Big Thunder Mountain just before leaving).

I tried some of Marissa's citrus fire-grilled chicken which was surprisingly moist and tantalizingly flavorful:

For myself I ordered their Carne Asada/Red Enchilada Platter. The entrees are dished out for you when you order them.

You can get kids' meals that are served on a dish shaped like the iconic Mickey Mouse ears:

The most colorful tortilla soup I've ever seen:

I love this painting here:

When I went back the second time I got very creative and ordered the exact same entree I had ordered before, the Carne Asada/Red Enchilada Platter:

Just like Cocina Cucamonga in Disney's California Adventure and Tortilla Jo's in Downtown Disney, Rancho del Zocalo is not fantabulous but still a little better than you expect it'll be going in and therefore earns a four "Panchito" rating:



Check out the complete photo album (30 photos so far) at flickr.