We’re checking out all the eats and sips at this year’s Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival, and that means we made a stop at Paradise Garden Grill!

This California Adventure restaurant serves up a special festival menu each year, and this year is no different! We’re checking out several new dishes, so come along with us!

Menu

This year’s menu at Paradise Garden Grill features a variety of dishes, including a Chicken Taquito Ahogado, Al Pastor Tacos, Esquites Loaded Chips, and more! There’s also Lime Parfait for dessert.

Two beverages round out the menu for 2025.

Eats

We’re starting out our food tour at Paradise Garden Grill with the Chicken Taquito Ahogado. This dish is served in salsa verde with Spanish rice, avocado crema, sour cream, pickled onion, cotija, and cilantro. You can try it for $14.99.

There’s a good crunchy texture here! Some bites can be boring but when you get a bite with everything, it all works well together so well. There’s no spice here, so it’s a better pick for pickier eaters, and we also feel this was a decent deal; for $14.99 could be a good item to split.

The chicken wasn’t the star, but everything else makes up for it. There’s a lot going on, but it’s refreshing and creamy with the cheese, avocado, and tangy cilantro!

Next, we checked out the Pescado Zarandeado. This dish is a whole grilled fish with corn tortillas, refried beans, Spanish rice, zesty slaw, pickled vegetables, and a side of chips and salsa. It’s $29.99.

We’d like to preface by saying that the dish looks nothing like the media display. The fish was also overly salted and charred, visually off-putting, and was extra fishy compared to other seafood items our reporters have reviewed here.

They freshened it up with tomatoes, pickled onions, and cilantro, but if you don’t like fish, those toppings won’t save the fish for you. The beans, rice, and slaw were all pretty average — they were still good, but they didn’t stand out. The carrots actually had a little kick from sitting right next to the jalapeños, so keep an eye out for that!

The corn tortillas and chips tasted very fresh — the chips in particular were pretty salty, but in this case that wasn’t a bad thing, and the salsa verde added a cool spice. Overall, this dish was not our favorite, but if you really love fish, it may be right up your alley!

The Esquites Loaded Chips is Chile-lime chips smothered in corn kernels, cotija cheese, chile-lime seasoning, and crema. It’s $9.99 for this dish.

This was our reporters’ personal favorite! These crunchy chips have a nice mix of flavors. There’s a decent spice to them, but the refreshing lime flavor helps offset it. The cotija adds a light, cheesy layer that can be overpowered by the spice in some bites, and the cilantro adds a fresh element that works well with everything!

It’s surprising that the chips remained crunchy, given all the toppings. There are lots of complimentary flavors, and we feel it’s one of the best $9.99 purchases you can make at the festival!

And for dessert, we wrapped it up with the Lime Parfait, available for $7.29. It’s described as layers of graham cracker crust, lime cream cheese mousse, and lime-orange gelée topped with chantilly.

This was like key lime pie in a cup! It was a tart yet sweet treat, more like a mousse than a parfait. The lime flavor is a little artificial-tasting, but it’s still tart. When you get a bite with the graham cracker, it offsets some of the sweetness and artificial flavor, which we enjoyed. This was good but nothing special — plus, maybe it’s a little overpriced, but it’s still a solid 4/5 dessert!

Drinks

Next, we tried the Hard Peach Tea Seltzer for $14.50.

To us, this was pretty average. Given the tea aspect, it was flatter than a normal seltzer. Considering this is almost $15, we’d spend the extra few bucks and get a cocktail or save your money with a soda/water. This drink doesn’t really fit in with the California vibes of the Food and Wine Festival, and while it doesn’t taste artificial, it’s kind of bland. There’s a fresh peach taste, but it’s pretty flat and muted by the tea. Honestly, we think it could benefit from a sweeter and more sugary flavor.

Overall

While this booth wasn’t overall a hit for us, we definitely think the Esquites Loaded Chips was a winner, and if you love key lime pie, you won’t be disappointed by the Lime Parfait! We think this booth has potential, but the prices are relatively high, and we feel you may be let down by most of the offerings.

That’s it for this booth, but wait, there’s MORE!

Click here to see FULL reviews of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Food & Wine Festival at Disneyland Resort!

Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the Festival? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know:

• See our full page on the Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival here
• Check out ALL of the Festival menus here
• Learn about the Festival seminars

And stay tuned for more Disney news!

Will you be visiting the Food & Wine Festival? Tell us in the comments!