SEPTEMBER: Food Tour through Dollywood

Y'all. I'm gonna officially call myself a travel blogger now because I've been on ONE blogger trip! :P LOL. Just kidding. But seriously though, it was a really cool experience and I could not have gone to a better place for my first trip. Dollywood, baby! That's right, Dolly Parton's Dollywood resort and theme park, and of course, it's a FOOD blogger trip! Get ready for a massive amount of food photos. (If you missed all my Instagram stories while on the trip, you can catch them in my highlights!)

A little bit about Dollywood and its achievements.
"Dollywood is a theme park jointly owned by entertainer Dolly Parton and Herschend Family Entertainment. It is located in the Knoxville-Smoky Mountains metroplex in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Hosting nearly 3 million guests in a typical season – mid-March to the Christmas holidays – Dollywood is the biggest ticketed tourist attraction in Tennessee." - Wikipedia

It has won many awards including most recently in 2019... 3 Golden Ticket Awards, which is the most sought-after awards in the business of amusements and attractions.
- Best Guest Experience, inaugural winner of this prestigious new category.
- Best Kids’ Area, for Wildwood Grove, Dollywood’s first win in this category. Wildwood Grove is the newest section in Dollywood. Opened in May 2019.
- Best Christmas Event, the only park to ever earn this award, Dollywood celebrates its 12th consecutive win.

This year, it has also won The Themed Entertainment Association’s Thea Classic Award, which is given only to the most outstanding theme parks and attractions. Dollywood joins past Thea Classic recipients like Disney’s Epcot and the San Diego Zoo.

Dollywood Theme Park
2700 Dollywood Parks Blvd.
Pigeon Forge, TN 37863
1-800-365-5996
www.dollywood.com

So the purpose of our visit was mainly a food tour of the theme park. In addition to that, we also did the Pirates Voyage Dinner & Show (which was SO much fun, I highly recommend) and a Dessert & Cocktail pairing at the Song & Hearth restaurant inside the DreamMore Resort (which was also fabulous and an amazing place to stay). I was one of 5 food bloggers on this trip (some of whom are also chefs, farmers, and/or vloggers). It was a great group, we had SO much fun. Check the others out sometime! Katie-Rose Watson at therosetable.com, JC Phelps at jcpeats.com, Charles Hunter III at thesaltedtable.com, and Constance Smith at cosmopolitancornbread.com. Also shoutout to the amazing and lovely publicist, Amber, who was our guide through the whole experience!

Ok. There's a lot of content, so I'm going to feature my Top 5 Favorite Bites from the park tour then list ALL THE THINGS we tried that day. Just so you know... we did not go to every single food vendor at the park so this is only a peek at what they offer. I think we'd need a week to try all the foods they have! Ha! Also, the limited time Harvest Festival seasonal items are highlighted in orange!

Spotlight Bakery & Sandwich Shop
Cinnamon Roll. The Cream Cheese Apple Danish was a close second, but if I only get one choice, it's the cinnamon roll. It kinda seems unassuming, since a lot of the other baked goods have frosting and sprinkles and other colorful decorations, but it's a legit cinnamon roll. It's just the perfect texture and flavor. Not overly slathered with frosting or super sweet. Just simply good.

Market Square - Festival Booths
Pierogi. Pierogi are filled dumplings made popular in Europe centuries ago. Dollywood's potato pierogi are topped with sautéed with caramelized onions and drizzled with sour cream. This was part of our lunch tasting. It was everyone's favorite. The outside dough texture was great, with pillowy potato filling. It was a wonderful combination of flavors. I think most of us had seconds (which says something because we were trying to limit ourselves so we don't fill up too quickly). This is one of their seasonal food items which means it's only available during the time of the Harvest Festival/Great Pumpkin LumiNights which ends Nov 2nd.

Splinter's
Pumpkin Spice Funnel Cake (pumpkin pie filling funnel cake batter, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, fried to perfection then topped with a rich maple pecan glaze and whipped cream). Also a seasonal item, so you gotta get this QUICK! I love funnel cakes. I think it's one of the most iconic park or fair food. Theirs was epically good. Fried to perfection... not burnt or too greasy, and topped with complimentary flavors. I'd recommend getting this earlier in the day so you can EAT IT ALL.

Grist Mill
Cinnamon Bread. Dollywood's most popular food item and literally is known worldwide. You can choose to add frosting or apple butter to dip in. Let me tell you... the smell of this place as you walk in will make you swoon. Freshly baked bread, cinnamon, sugar, warmth, ahhhhh. It's like a hug. You can see them prepping the dough for baking which was cool. They said the bread takes around 30-32 minutes to bake, and they can bake 200 loaves at a time, and they can barely keep up with demand. Dang! I highly recommend this be eaten as soon as you get it. It's fantastic. We all did a taste test between plain, with frosting, or with apple butter. I think it was unanimous that plain is best. It's so good, it really doesn't need anything else. But if I had to choose one... the apple butter.

Front Porch Café
Meatloaf (with mushroom gravy). This normally comes as a plated meal called the Meatloaf Stacker (see photo below), but for us they did family style. Definitely one of my favorite bites of the day. The whole meal was fantastic. The Front Porch Café was a cute restaurant. Walking in, you wouldn't think it was inside a theme park. I filled my plate with a little bit of everything and scraped it clean! But the meatloaf was my fav. I'm very impressed with the caliber of food at a park.

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Now we start from the beginning so you can get a sense of our day. We started around 10:30AM and ate until 2PM. Then we had a break to explore the park and do some rides. (Def try the Wild Eagle and Dragonflier!) And reconvened at 6PM for dinner at Front Porch Cafe.

Spotlight Bakery & Sandwich Shop

Tombstone Brownie

Monster Rice Crispies

Caramel Apple Danish

Cream Cheese Apple Danish
Cranberry Orange Muffins

25+ Pound Apple Pie (each slice is 3-4 lbs; takes 3.5 hours to bake). This was definitely a showstopper. We got to hold the whole pie... which I'm guessing to be more around 45-50 lbs with the cast iron skillet. My arms shook when I held it up. Guess I need to do more bicep curls. Lol. So many people stopped and looked at our spread in the shop. Some even helped us eat! It was really a lot of food at 10 in the morning. You can order this pie by the way... they ship. It's $189.99 for a whole pie. Just call the park and ask for Spotlight Bakery. 

My face. Lol. I was trying not to drop it. 

Custom Sugar Cookies

Showstreet Ice Cream Shop
Giant Pumpkin Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich. I mean... we're in a theme park so go big or go home, right? All of their cookies are this large btw. Across the park, I did not see a single normal sized cookie. The pumpkin ice cream was awesome.

Specialty Cone & Ice Cream (special dipped waffle cones). I'm gonna say the ice cream was chocolate fudge... cuz honestly, I have no idea what the flavor is called, just that it was delicious. We're featuring the cone though, which is dipped in seasonal colors. 

Pumpkin Spice Milk Shake. Pumpkin Spice ALL THE THING for reals. 

Potato Candy. Apparently this is a old style candy that parents used to make for kids when there's not really other kinds of sweets around. The potato is powdered potato that they roll the candy mixture in to use things that are available around the house. The filling is peanut butter.

Market Square - Festival Booths
Fried Green Tomato BLT (fried green tomatoes, bacon, special sauce, lettuce; served with skillet potatoes). I love a good BLT... and this had fried green tomatoes. Yum!

Low Country Boil (andouille sausage, fresh shrimp, corn on the cob, whole red potatoes and special seasonings). I really loved this along with the Pierogi I mentioned earlier. It's not too spicy or salty. The flavors are still bold though. My favorite was the sausage and the corn. I think I took 3 people's corns for myself. :P

Photo by @therosetable

Kettle Corn. Lots of flavors including caramel, strawberry chocolate, candy corn, and grape. We got to see them make the kettle corn. Make sure you stand back! Because once they start going, it pops everywhere. It was really cool to watch.

Splinter's
Fruity Pebbles Funnel Cake. Wow. Can we say another showstopper? I think this is also one of their most popular items? I can see why, it's so freaking festive and fun!

Fried Apple Pies. I was too full to try at this point. But it was freshly fried. I'm sure it was amazing. 

Harvest Cider (Fanta orange, pineapples, whipped cream, sprinkles). Not my favorite, but I also don't really drink soda. I can see it being super fun for the kids!

Pumpkin Spice Pork Rinds. Now I can say I've had a sweet pork rind. It was a little strange since the pumpkin spice overpowered the pork taste. I kinda dug it, kinda didn't. Haha. Would you try it? We also got to see them fry this in person. I loved all the live demos.

Lumberjack's Pizza
Cookie Pizza (giant chocolate chip cookie topped with frosting and fun fall decorations). This was our last stop so I have to admit I was done... defeated by food, so I couldn't try everything. This is a fun thing for kids. And again... giant cookies.

Chicken Applewood Pasta (rich cream sauce, chicken, applewood bacon, spinach and tomatoes). I did try this and it wasn't great tbh. I'm quite picky about pasta and texture... it has to be al dente and this was overcooked.

Meatlovers Pizza. One of the guys said the crust was good. I'm all about the crust!

Front Porch Café
Meatloaf Stacker (Dollywood's signature meatloaf stacked high on buttercrust bread served with buttery mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy and green beans) $15~

Cabbage Roll Dinner (stuffed with a hearty filling of beef, rice and seasonings and topped with a rich tomato sauce; served with green beans and buttery corn)

Reuben Wontons (corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, wrapped in a wonton wrapper then fried; drizzled with thousand island dressing; served with a side of homemade pickles)

Butter Fried Corn. I love me some corn.
Southern Style Green Beans. Yay for veggies! It was great to get some greens after all the sugar we've had all day. 

Pumpkin Fluff (whipped up combination of pumpkin pie filling, vanilla pudding, whipped topping and pumpkin spice). Imagine a fluffy pumpkin whip/mousse consistency. Several people said it was their fav. 

The Dessert Flight (key lime pie, crème brulee, chocolate mousse, banana pudding). Individually $4~ If you have a group of people, the flight is fun to try different flavors. My personal favorite out of the lineup was the crème brulee then the chocolate mousse.

Dollywood’s Harvest Festival - Now thru Nov 2nd
Dollywood’s Harvest Festival presented by Humana features the return of an even larger Great Pumpkin LumiNights, which includes new experiences in Wildwood Grove! Additionally, more than 600 Southern gospel concerts take place throughout the festival.

Dollywood was also crowned winner of another notable award by USA TODAY on Sep 27th, 2019. Dollywood’s Great Pumpkin LumiNights won the 2019 USA TODAY 10 Best Readers’ Choice Travel Award for Best Theme Park Halloween Event! It's a very cool pumpkin display. I recommend seeing everything during the day, then stay when the sun goes down and all the pumpkins light up. It's a different experience!

We had a BLAST! What a great day. I feel like we got to experience a lot of the park. I highly recommend visiting Dollywood with family, people who like theme parks, and people who like food. They've got it all and it's SO clean and the people are so nice. That was the most impressive thing I noticed during out time there. The park is crazy clean... I mean, have you ever imagined a clean theme park? I guess I mainly only have Six Flags to compare with but still... Impressed! The food was fantastic and they have a lot of variety. I'd say if you are a foodie, maybe go during their Festival of Nations which features a lot of International cuisines. I think that happens in the spring. I would like to go back myself! Definitely want to see more shows and go to more of their restaurants inside the park.

Haha. I'm so awkward in candid photos. Thanks for the fun shot, Amber!

Thank you, Dollywood, for inviting me and giving me such a wonderful experience. I'm so grateful for the opportunity, memories, and new friends! 

@thesaltedtable, @therosetable, @chompdallas, @cosmopolitancornbread, @jcpeats

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

Blog and Brunch at Fearing's

I look forward to Blog and Brunch with my food blogger friends every month. The months where I'm busy or out of town, I'm always so bummed. I'm glad I was available this month though! Because we're having brunch at Fearing's inside the Ritz Carlton, y'all! I have never accepted an invitation so fast in my life! haha. This is definitely going to be a special treat. :D

Fearings - The Ritz Carlton
2121 McKinney Ave.
Dallas, TX 75201
(214) 922-4848
http://fearingsrestaurant.com
Price (for brunch): $$$$

If you haven't heard of Chef Dean Fearing, you probably don't go out to eat much or you just moved to Dallas. haha. He's a huge name in the Dallas food scene. You can read up about him here. We were all super psyched to be here!

We were seated at a large square table in the back dining room, right by the kitchen and the action! The place was packed and everyone was slightly dressed up. It IS the Ritz... gotta fancy it up a little, ya? hehe.

Get Rattled - Food/Drink Specials & Live Music

Some people started with some sangria. White Peach Sangria $12~ It's so pretty and full of fresh fruits. Waiters came by with either still or sparkling water.

Then we got to meet the Executive Chef. Chef Eric Dreyer was super nice and greeted our table. He's quite young! It was such a treat to be personally welcomed by the chef, especially of such an establishment. He actually came by and checked on us a few times througout the meal. And we got a group photo with him at the end. :)

As we looked over the menu... everything looked amazing. It was really hard making a decision, but we all knew we wanted the Breaking Bread (Pecan Brioche Cinnamon Rolls, Bacon/Cheese/Chive Scones, Banana Bread, Buttermilk Biscuits; mixed berry jam, honey, Vermont butter) $5~ You get 2 of each kind of bread. 

They served us 3 samplers. THREE. That's a lot of carbs. Wonderful, delicious carbs. It was my cheat day obviously so I'm going all out!! My favorite was the buttermilk biscuit. It was perfect with the butter and berry jam. But everything else was good too. I liked that the scone was savory since everything else was sweet. It was a nice variety. We had a ton left over. And guess who got to take it all home?! ME!!!! Yaaassssss!

To give you an idea on how brunch at Fearing's works. You can either do 'The Whole Enchilada' - Choice of Starter, Main Course, Dessert for $42~ Or order everything 'a la Carte' - Starters $12~, Main Course $26~, Dessert $10~ If you are hungry, go for the Whole Enchilada for sure.

STARTERS:
Dean's Tortilla Soup (with South of the Border Flavors). This is Fearing's famous tortilla soup. We got a taster of it. It was poured table side, which I love... always a great presentation. The flavors of this soup is really bold. I liked the thin strips of tortilla and radishes in the soup. The little chunks of avocado was nice too. I'm not really a soup person so my opinion is not the best to judge by... but EVERYONE at the table were Mmmm and Ahhh-ing all over it. It was a HUGE hit. So the hype is real.

Chilled Shrimp Campeche Cocktail (with avocado/jicama salad, and chile lime plantain chips). I really enjoyed this though. The shrimp were plump and tender. The dish was very refreshing. All the elements complimented each other... the creaminess of the avocado and the crispness of the jicama. Yum! And eat it with the plantain chips for that added crunch!

House Smoked Salmon Flatbread (with whipped goat cheese, hand picked dill, crispy capers, pickled onions, heirloom tomatoes). I did not try this as I don't like smoked salmon OR goat cheese. So I let the others enjoy it.

Warm Buttermilk Doughnut Holes (with honeycrisp apple butter, and house made sage sausage). 

It was unanimous at the table that we order this. I really liked the presentation but somehow it just doesn't turn out in photos. This dish is not as expected. I'd have to say I was a little disappointed. Although I liked the sage flavor in the sausage, it was lacking salt. Since there was not much salt, the sausage was almost more sweet than savory. The donuts themselves had good texture but without dipping a lot of the apple butter, it wasn't sweet enough. Overall it was just a little lacking.

HOT PLATES:
Gaby's Migas (chorizo and scrambled eggs in a flour tortilla with salsa verde, queso fundido and charred tomato/avocado salad). 

This was certainly not my idea of migas. I thought usually it's tortilla chips or strips mixed in with eggs and meat and stuff. This was more like a burrito? But no matter... it was so good. I'd say it was my favorite entree of the day. That tortilla texture was fantastic and all the flavors were great. Especially that salsa verde. I even asked for extra salsa verde so I can dip my fried chicken into it. haha.

Granny Fearing's 'Paper Bag Shook' Fried Chicken (with whipped potatoes, all day green beans and tomato gravy). 

This was my choice. It's not very photogenic but that fried chicken was amazing. It's just barely breaded and fried so it's got the crispness without the heavy breading. The chicken was super moist and tender. The whipped potatoes were nice and creamy. The green beans and tomato gravy were kind of a let down. The green beans were pretty basic, kinda soft. The gravy... wasn't sure if they forgot to season it, but it didn't have much flavor. I just got the salsa verde from the migas and slathered my chicken with it though. Delicious! haha.

Red Chile Glazed Crispy Fish Tacos (wrapped in white corn tortillas with firecracker slaw, cilantro/tomatillo rice, and house made escabeche). A pretty dish. Lots of colorful veggies. It looked pretty light. I tried a small bite of the fish, but couldn't really tell anything from that. haha.

Buffalo Chili 'Benedict' (on jalapeno cheddar cheese biscuits with poached farm fresh egg and poblano hollandaise). Those soft poached eggs were unreal! I've never seen soft poached like that before. It's pretty impressive. They almost look like mochi to me. haha. Loved the biscuits on the bottom.

Dr. Pepper Braised Short Ribs (with 'Loaded' whipped potatoes and crispy tobacco onions). This was definitely the crowd pleaser of the day. Not only was it a beautiful dish, but that short rib was fork tender and full of flavor. The crispy onions on top was a great pairing. Everyone who got this cleaned their plates.

Grilled BBQ Glazed Filet (on Brazos Valley jalapeno grits with a tangle of greens, smoked bacon, poached egg, and traditional hollandaise). Also a fantastically soft poached egg. I only tried a bite of the grits which was good. But it looked like a well rounded dish.

We were all really full but we can't have a meal without trying the desserts! They had 3 on the menu so we got all 3 for the table. :P

DESSERT:
Banana Pudding (with homemade vanilla wafers, toasted meringue, bananas foster sauce and warm beignets). A cute presentation, but again, the photos don't do it justice. It was yummy. The best part was the banana ice cream imo.

Double Dark Chocolate Cake (with hazelnut mousse, blood orange sauce, and coffee toffee ice cream). 

This was the show stopper for me. Absolutely gorgeous presentation. That tuile/crisp though... So delicate and intricate and beautiful. Not to mention yummy! The cake was super moist. I love the coffee flavors in there. Helped to accent the chocolate. That hazelnut mousse was oh so luscious. I do have one little nitpick though.. they should've removed the strings from the mandarin slices. haha. I think it took away from the presentation a little.

Fried Blueberry Pies and Blueberry Crisp (with lemon cheesecake ice cream, and graham cracker crunch). 

Such a fun dessert. Cute presentation and ALL THE BLUEBERRIES! My favorite part was the fried pie. I loved the crust. I wish all the ice cream scoops were much larger though. We always run out of ice cream before everything else. :P

It was a great brunch overall. I loved spending time with my fellow bloggers, we always have so much fun. The ambiance was bright and energetic in the dining room by the kitchen. Chef Eric Dreyer took great care of us as well as the wait staff. There were a few misses here and there but there were so much other delicious foods that I was beyond full. I'm still dreaming of that Breaking Bread sampler. I love my carbs! :) And gimme that chocolate cake all day every day!

*The meal was comped but all opinions are my own.*

Quality of Food: 

Service: 

Ambiance: 

Value: (comped)

Overall Experience: 

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~