With superheroes not having much time to stop for lunch between evacuating Sokovia and traveling back in time to steal Infinity Stones, there wasn’t much for Disney to do when it came to the culinary program in its new Marvel-themed land, which opened on June 4th at the Disney California Adventure theme park in Anaheim, California.
Even with the rare food reference on the screen – yes, both Incredible hulk‘s Pingo Doce Soda (the deadly gulp of the late Stan Lee) and that avenger Shawarma Post Credits Scene Are Honored Here – Disney has put together a menu spread across three food stalls, a restaurant, and a bar, all of which channel the diversity and disrespect of the franchise itself.
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Marvel / Disney
The Avengers Campus menu dispenses with the simple Incredible Hulk pesto noodles and character-themed cupcakes and instead honors the technologies of the films in its main restaurants with Pym particles, such as the one in the Ant man Movies and Avengers: Endgame, for a game of food and drink sizes in the most important fast food restaurant and bar in the country. (Think quail eggs on large blue French toast platters and a strong Bavarian pretzel.) Elsewhere, bright neon-colored candies inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy are shocking, and Shawarma Palace is handing out tin-foil wrapped chicken and falafel Pita sandwiches.
If you are like Loki laden with glorious goals to try every space churro, shawarma and themed soda – Not. Like the Avengers, but with indigestion, I’ve teamed up with my own diverse team of coworkers to eat and drink our way through this hodgepodge of superhero food so you don’t have to. Here’s what must-eat must-eats on Avengers campus and what better way to take your time.
MUST EAT
Candied Bacon
Snacking on bacon isn’t really my thing, but these crispy, caramelized pieces were an unexpected treat. Order them as a side dish or in the PB3 Superb Sandwich, a warm PB&J served on cartoon-like swirled blue bread. Just try it for lunch or dinner – traditional non-candied bacon is served for breakfast. Somewhere, Peter Porker, the Spectacular spider ham, is sad.
Not that little chicken sandwich
See, the perfect Pym test kitchen Dish: too large a chicken schnitzel with a pancake crust in a too small brioche roll. It’s fun to eat without sacrificing taste, which shines through a spicy Sriracha mayonnaise and citrus teriyaki sauce. (There’s even a kids version with no heat that allows young Avengers to partake in it.) This is a dish not to be missed.
This PYM.
It’s a classic Italian panini sandwich with layers of salami, rosemary ham, and provolone on ciabatta with a sun-dried tomato spread, paired with an optional marinara dip. If you’ve heard the viral nonsense about „Disney’s $ 100 Sandwich,” it’s just a Fantastic Four Family Eight Serving Serving, and it’s well worth it – it will take you another half a minute to finish your first one.
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Carlye Wisel
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Carlye Wisel
Chocolate Smash CANDY bars
Put the dole whip aside because this is now the cute to get at Disneyland Resort. Like a homemade Snickers bar on a brownie base, the layers of nougat, peanuts, and caramel are transcendent, even beyond the edge of a theme park. It’s also served chilled, a thoughtful touch to prevent melting in the Anaheim sun before you eat it. Expect a sect to form around this one AS.
Constantly growing cinna-pym toast
The best choice for breakfast is blue bread, which is made into custard-style French toast and served with a shot glass of syrup and a tiny quail egg. A kid’s version that’s topped with cinnamon is great too, but I found the turkey bacon served with it inedible.
Honey Buzz and X-Periment
Pym tasting laboratoryThe drinks are downright sweet – all of the cocktails here are pre-cooked – but these two were crowd-pleasers. The Honey Buzz, a lemon-honey-gin brew, and X-Periment, an eerie mango-habanero Patron Silver cocktail, are just as refreshing and even more fun thanks to their cup-shaped chemistry set glasses.
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Carlye Wisel
IF YOU’RE STILL HUNGRY
Impossible spoon
Served in an oversized silver spoon, this meatless meatball is a divine, herbaceous piece of Impossible meat that is consistently moist. However, the pasta it lies on was marinara for kids. If the sauce quality were only slightly increased this would be a home run.
Quantum pretzel
The eye-catching Bavarian pretzel is essentially Pym Tasting Kitchen’s signature dish, but for what it boasts of size, it sacrifices flavor. Yellowjacket was Ant-Man’s archenemy, and here the yellow mustard (instead of grain) makes the pretzel with an overwhelming beer cheese.
Caesar salad and colossal crouton
Don’t get us wrong, the crouton is an absolute Hulk smash – with the PB3 bread as a base, it’s probably one of the best bites on the Avengers campus – but the overpriced, deconstructed wedge-style salad just isn’t enough food for theme park days .
Shawarma and falafel
Avengers Campus has not one but two food trucks dedicated to the unique meal that Marvel’s superheroes actually share on screen, but the kebab at the Kebab Palace is not a kebab at all. In contrast to the second credits scene in The Avengers (2012), This one is more of a chicken pita with a dash of heavy garlic sauce. The coconut yogurt tahini it comes with is actually just the thing, but does that really matter? If you are here and are a fan of Avengers, ordering it will be easy. Just know in advance that the decades of waiting are not entirely worth it.
And then … there is the falafel. As the branding on the doorstep of the Pym Test Kitchen explains, we’re on Impossible’s lawn, so of course it’s not made from chickpeas, but unfortunately from Impossible Meat. The sandwich is perfectly fine in taste and texture, but replacing a globally popular vegetarian sandwich with a meatless branded product just to meet sponsorship requirements feels shortsighted and oozes corporate oversight. Yes, these parks cost money to build, but falafel just didn’t have to be reinvented for this application, especially if it was inspired by New York many shawarma spots in the middle east. This authenticity could have helped but not hindered the design of the Shawarma Palace.
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Marvel / Disney
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Carlye Wisel
Atomic Fusion pretzel
Treating the soft pretzel as a flatbread-like platform for toppings isn’t a bad idea, but this one is just a little messy to perform. Chunks of chicken, blue cheese, and celery with a spicy sauce and ranch make a dish that is tasty but, as intended, difficult to divide, especially with plastic cutlery.
sweet drop
Instead of guarana soda, the vanilla citrus drink is most likely a version of vanilla sprite. Fun to try to pay homage to the soda that can be seen in The incredible Hulkthat comes out in Ecto cooler-Green, but it’s a one-and-done. (Note: Disneyland Resort does not currently offer refills for Coke Freestyle drinks.)
Cosmic cream ball
A Raspberry cheesecake Pate-a-choux in a black pastry bowl with neon innards is a snack outside of this galaxy, but it pales in comparison to the decadence of the foot-length candy bar from Pym Test Kitchen.
ABSOLUTELY SKIP
Snack molecules
This $ 7 brown bag of peanuts, flavored popped sorghum, mini pretzels, and sesame sticks just won’t satisfy your hunger. Instead, grab a box of perfect theme park popcorn just steps out of the country.
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Carlye way.
Spiral ration
Unpleasantly green with a rubbery texture, this candy is served at a stand near Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! It lacks both the crispness of a well-fried churro and the taste of something other than a pine-scented candle. Something so bright green might be perfect for slipping down the neck of a space creature, but it’s not recommended for human consumption.
Proton PB&J Punch
The sickly-sweet mix of strawberry-flavored peanut butter and lemonade and peanut butter whipped cream may be fun as a group, but it’s something you take a sip and move on. It’s just not worth wasting stomach space.
Pingo Doce sugar free
Not. Simply not.
Carlye Wisel is an amusement park journalist and expert who reports on things like the invention of butterbeer and Disney’s secret food laboratory in her podcast, Very amusing with Carlye Wisel.
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