Gracias, Disneyland? Over the weekend, I gave my short history of Mexican food in Orange County at the Segerstrom Center's Samueli Stage as part of its hosting of the awesome, ribald Chautauqua! show. Since I doubt I'll ever grace any stage at the Segerstrom again, I decided to focus my 10-minute lecture on OC's two greatest contributions to Mexican food in the United States: Kogi tacos and Doritos. ...

Upright piano on the stage of the Golden Horseshoe. I spent 75 minutes on the phone last night with Disneyland's annual passport services purchasing a ticket for the park's Golden Horseshoe salute. That amounted to 70 minutes listening to Christmas music and longer than the loop of tunes. I was fortunate when the customer service rep came on the line because I could tell that Goofy singing the ...

Whatever you wish - quick snack and refreshments or a delicious dinner - you'll find "good eating" at Disneyland. Located throughout the Magic Kingdom's five "lands" are 20 distinctive restaurants and refreshment centers. And directly across the street from the Park is the beautiful Gourmet Restaurant, composed of Coffee Shop, Cocktail Lounge and Dinning Room, in the Disneyland Hotel. An ...

Don DeFore's Silver Banjo Barbecue Restaurant in Frontierland Disneyland fans who have enjoyed the park numerous times might say they too "grew up in Disneyland." But my family's story is a bit different. Our Mom loved to quote us kids saying, "gee, do we have to go to Disneyland again? Such was the case in the early years of the Park when Dad owned a restaurant in Frontierland. A few stories below ...

The world is in an uproar right now over Donald Trump's Cinco de Mayo gesture toward "Hispanics": posing with what he called a "taco bowl" but what most people call a "taco salad." It's a notorious Mexican dish: a giant fried tortilla shell shaped into a bowl upon which ingredients such as ground beef (or shredded beef or chicken), lettuce, sour cream, olives, tomatoes and other ingredients found in tacos ...

Our need for nourishment is never far distant and Disneyland visitors have been known to work up a handy man's appetite touring the Park. The mouth watering aromas drift from the 20 restaurants and refreshment centers located throughout Disneyland's sixty acres of entertainment make a combination that is almost irresistible. "Let's eat," is a good two word description of the reaction. The ...

It's no secret that Disneyland is my happy place. It is, therefore, a pretty good bet that you can find me at the Happiest Place on Earth each July 17 celebrating Disneyland's anniversary. This year, my daughter and I took a detour on our way to Disneyland's 55th anniversary celebration, stopping by a Garden Grove hotel to view a slide presentation by an entertainer named Charles Phoenix. I ...

Doritos are a ridiculous product just taken at face value. But when you learn that they were born in a Disneyland dumpster, they become an absurdist allegory of the American consumer condition. Shortly after Disneyland opened in 1955, the founder of Frito-Lay got permission from Walt Disney to open a restaurant in Frontierland with a Mexican-ish theme. "Casa de Fritos" was, unsurprisingly, all about ...

It's been 45 years since Disney Parks first took intrepid thrill seekers into the darkest corners of outer space. We're talking, of course, about Space Mountain. And while it's true that the iconic indoor roller coaster opened first at Walt Disney World in Florida on January 15, 1975, did you know that it was first dreamed up, at the request of Walt Disney himself, by ...

Of all the beautiful things Disney has given the world - anthropomorphic mice, immersive-environment theme parks, monorails - there 's only one that 's part of countless Super Bowl spreads in homes across America today. (And no, I 'm not talking about the “I 'm going to Disneyland!” thing. That 's another story.) You 've probably got it in your kitchen right now, actually. Doritos, you might ...

Even if you didn 't know what was ahead of you, you knew what you were walking toward. The smell was unmistakable. Turn the corner from Disneyland 's New Orleans Square, pass the Mark Twain Riverboat, and there it was - four spoked wheels, wooden-slat walls and thick canvas stretched across the top, emblazoned with one iconic phrase: “Westward ho!” The quick-service cart in Frontierland was ...

Restaurants and refreshment stands capable of serving nearly 8000 people per hour offer high quality food at moderate prices in all the realms of Disneyland. A wide and varied choice of restaurant facilities is provided on the Park's 60 acres, including different dining places in every area, each in keeping with the theme of the particular part of Disneyland in which it is situated. ...

Practically synonymous with the Super Bowl and ubiquitous in delis and grocery stores the world over, Doritos are beloved for their 100-plus flavors, all of which leave that signature dust all over your fingers. But what many people don 't know is that early versions of the tortilla chips were actually unflavored - and the idea for them was born from Disneyland 's trash. In 1955, just a few ...

The official version of the Club 33 origin story has a new twist involving 33 corporate sponsors that helped build Disneyland thanks to a 300-page history of the Anaheim theme park that delves into the legend and lore of the exclusive private club in New Orleans Square. A new history of Disneyland written by the Historic Resources Group for the 17,000-page DisneylandForward Environmental ...