OCTOBER: Disney Dinners - Haunted Mansion by The Rose Table

As we head towards one of the biggest holidays of the year (Thanksgiving, duh), I thought what better time to write about the last holiday we just had! How fitting is it to make my October post about Halloween?! I've chosen to feature the amazingly spooky and fabulous Haunted Mansion Disney Dinner hosted by The Rose Table. It just so happens to be the 50th Anniversary of The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, so she did a THM themed dinner party just in time for Halloween.

Home of The Rose Table
* These are private dinner parties for her friends/family.
* No, she doesn't take reservations. 

If you follow my Instagram, you've probably seen me attend several of The Rose Table's Disney Dinners. These are always SO fun and SO creative. I absolutely loved the menu, decor, and presentation of the Haunted Mansion dinner. It was one of my favorite tablescapes. How easy and cheap is it to get a bag of spiderweb from the craft store? But it made one of the coolest table runners I've seen to date. The color scheme is on point and she even projected skeletons dancing on her wall.

The food fit the theme so well... as usual. Starting with the Foolish Mortal Cocktail (Midori, elderflower liquor, pineapple juice, dry ice). 

Dry ice cocktails are always super cool. The smoke and bubbling lasted all the way through the appetizer course! This is my favorite cocktail I've ever had at any of her Disney Dinners. I mean... I don't really drink... mostly because I'm probably allergic to alcohol as it makes my face red plus all the other horrible side effects, but I also don't really like the taste of alcohol. This, however, was delicious, and just so much fun. The green was so vibrant and the dry ice kept it super cold for a really long time. What a fantastic drink for a party and I would have one again in a heartbeat!

For the appetizer, we had Ghost & Coffin Hand Pies (filled with brie and cherry jam) on top of Spinach & Blackberry Salad (with pumpkin seeds and balsamic vinaigrette). 

This salad is great. It's so light but full of textures... tartness of the berries, crunch from the pumpkin seeds and paired beautifully with the buttery hand pies. And can we just go "D'awwwww" at the cute little ghost? It's adorable.

Graveyard Pasta (bucatini pasta, alfredo sauce colored black, topped with toasted panko bread crumbs) Toasted slices of bread as the tombstones. 

Her alfredo sauce is so versatile. I'm not sure if I've had it 2 or 3 times now but every time it's so easily infused into the dinner theme and gave a different vibe. For her Captain Marvel dinner she had dyed it a brilliant blue, but for the Haunted Mansion it's gotta be spookier! What's more ghoulish than black? You can do this with squid ink pasta too, if you're fancy. But black food coloring is more accessible. This might look scary to you, but trust me, it's delicious. Just be careful slurping it, as the black will literally go everywhere. Haha.

Minnie Mouse Ear Cakes (chocolate cake, vanilla frosting, topped with a black fondant bow, edible flowers, and purple sprinkles). 

The dessert was super iconic. Everyone in Disneyland wears Mickey or Minnie ears. She use the Haunted Mansion colors to make it on theme. I loved the shade of the purple. And look closely... how cool is the rose pattern on the bow?

Such a fun dinner. I've never done anything like this and it definitely put me in the mood for Halloween. Usually this is a holiday I kind of skip over... I was very impressed with how she transformed her dining room. I think she said this was the cheapest dinner she's ever decorated for! If you want the recipes and watch the full episode of the Disney Dinner, check out therosetable.com!

I'm so honored to be friends with such a talented individual and have gotten to be a part of all these wildly creative experiences. Here's to many more! Also... check out the attendees at the dinner. We definitely had some fun with the theme and lighting. And thanks to Jacob for the amazing photo editing! (He's wearing the Mickey ears.)

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

Kessler Pie Co.

I'm so behind on my posts... I almost don't want to do them anymore. Too many other things that take priority lately... mostly wedding planning. It's coming up in 3.5 months! Eeeeks!! So much to do still.

I thought I'd post about the really important places that happened in the last few months. :)

We start with the wonderful pies from Kessler Pie Co. They make all their pies and desserts from scratch. It's never frozen. They're currently offering pick up and delivery only. But they've recently announced that they are opening a store front soon!! Congrats to them. :) It'll be in Oak Cliff. Follow their Facebook page to get updates. And check their website for pricing and delivery options.

Kessler Pie Co.
Oak Cliff
(469) 877-6800
www.kesslerpieco.com

I got my lovely delivery in December. They were so sweet to drive all the way out to Rockwall and hand deliver these. I felt so special! I got an assortment of mini pies in jars and one in a standard sized jar. They were super cute!

 

 

All the pies were great. I especially loved that flaky salty sweet pie crust on some of the flavors. Some I did close ups...

The Mellow Yellow (hand spun vanilla custard, banana, vanilla whipped topping, salty-sweet crust). Loved the crust, wished there was more banana. But this was a sample size jar so I assume the normal size will have much more fruit.

 

Apple Cranberry (granny smith apples, cranberries, house herb mix, salty-sweet nutmeg and cinnamon infused crust). Warmed it up in the microwave for a few seconds and it was oozing over!! Yaasss! Sweet and tangy. If you like tart, this is for you.

 

Banana Nut Bread. Nice and moist. Pretty standard banana bread. But that little jar was loaded with nuts!

BP214 (cubes of bread and raisins soaked in coquito cream). I always love bread pudding, but I think I also like the crispy edges when you bake them in a pan better. This was good, and the raisins were super plump, but no crispy texture.

Cherry Cream Cheese (graham cracker crust, sweet cream cheese filling, country red cherries). My fiance loves cherries and absolutely loved this one. I let him have most of it cuz I'm nice. haha. :P

The Coco Loco (hand spun vanilla custard, coconut shavings). I'm not a fan of shredded coconut so this wasn't one of my favorites. But again... awesome crust.

Blue Magic (graham cracker crust, fluffy cream cheese, blueberries) #1 Seller. This was in the regular jar size. I can see why this is their number one. It was my favorite as well. The mixture of the blueberries and cream cheese was fantastic. The cream cheese was super fluffy... like a really light cheese cake. Yum!! Not to mention the gorgeous color.

 

What a nice treat to kick us off into the holiday season. Thanks to Kessler Pie Co. for sharing some of their creations with me. And I'm loving this new dessert in jars trend. Much easier (and cleaner) to eat than a cupcake. hehe.

*Note: I received the pies for free. But these are my honest opinions.

Overall Experience:

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

Fritzl's Euro Grill & Dessert Shop

It's been a crazy month... work was insane, and then I've been sick. Stupid virus, I've been out of commission for almost a week now. Definitely not digging the indecisive weather of Texas. Hot, cold, hot, cold...no wonder I've been sick twice this year already. But enough weather griping... I've still had some good food outings!

Earlier this month, we discovered another new (to us) hidden gem in Rowlett. Seems like we gotta explore Rowlett more thoroughly!

Trying to figure out where to go for dinner on a Friday night, I pulled out my trusty Yelp app. And found a Austrian hole in the wall.

Fritzl's Euro Grill & Dessert Shop
3390 Lakeview Pkwy.
Rowlett, TX 75088
(972) 412-3555
http://fritzls.com
Price: $$

We didn't call ahead or anything. Neither of us really thought there would be an issue getting a seat. Man we were wrong. It's a pretty small place and there were already 2 parties waiting in front of us. Business is booming! And looked like they were pretty short staffed. Just a waitress at the front, and a guy, I'm assuming Fritzl, manning the kitchen. He also came out to take some orders.

One group got seated, and they vacated the small bar countertop. So we plopped ourselves down to wait. Then I asked my fiance if he's ok with just eating at the bar since it doesn't seem like anything is going to open up any time soon. The place was a madhouse! The waitress is trying to get to every table as fast as she can. They ran out of menus so we had to wait for some. But wasn't a big deal for us. This is definitely a hole in the wall, and very eclectic in its decor. Random signage, pictures and lots and lots of signed dollar bills covered the walls. It was quite entertaining trying to read everything.

While waiting for the waitress, we got Fritzl's attention and asked if we could eat at the bar. No problem, he said and found some menus for us. He was running around like a crazy person. Got us some waters and zoom, he was off to the kitchen again. He seems like he's a fun person to talk to when it's not too busy in the restaurant, but they were just hauling ass that night.

I haven't had much Austrian/German food in my life. I think this may be the first real Austrian restaurant I've ever been to...and so far it seems pretty legit, since the owner is Austrian (or German...I wonder if they get offended if you called them the other??).

I ordered the House specialty: Wiener Jaeger (Wiener Schnitzel stacked and covered with Jaeger sauce - cognac, mushroom cream sauce with garlic) Half $13.99~ All Schnitzel dinners are served with Austrian roasted potatoes and sauerkraut. Red Cabbage or Spaetzle can be subbed for $0.50 extra. A Schnitzel is a tenderized and seasoned piece of porkloin, breaded and fried. And I subbed for both the cabbage and spaetzle. 

I've never had real spaetzle, but always wanted to try ever since I saw some people make it on Chopped (a cooking competition show on Food Network, for those who didn't know). hehe. And he said I lucked out because that was the last serving of spaetzle for the night! Wow...it wasn't even 8pm yet, and he was already starting to run out of things. It was delicious. The pork was thin and fried well. I totally loved the sauce... boozy, creamy and with mushrooms? What's not to like?! Spaetzle is basically fried dough... reminded me of unsweetened funnel cake maybe? Was a little salty for me but paired well with the pork. I liked the cabbage too. Everything went together very well.

Bratwurst Dinner (two grilled bratwurst) $12.99~ Served with Austrian roasted potatoes and sauerkraut. 

My fiance loved his dish. I found the bratwurst to be a tad salty for my preference but it was still tasty. I loved the potatoes. I've never been a big fan of sauerkraut, but I was ok with this one. He totally cleaned his plate... actually we both cleaned our plates. Hit the spot, he says.

When you walk in, you see a dessert display case lit up in the middle of the room. Naturally I gravitated towards that while we were waiting. All the cakes and pastries (they have homemade strudels!) looked amazing, but I noticed one cake that was unfamiliar to me. One of the customers said it was an Austrian cheesecake, and it's light and fluffy. Sounds yummy.

We decided to get an Austrian Cheesecake $7?~ 

 

Fritzl told us all the pastries were made by him from scratch (as well as all the food). Impressive. So far we've loved everything. The cake was FREAKING AMAZING!! It had flavors of lemon and poppy seeds and was so light and fluffy...the cake layers AND the cheesecake center. We fought each other for bites of the cake. And then we decided to get another slice to take home. hehe. 

When we were finishing up our cake, we noticed that they were doing the dessert service part of the evening. Plates and plates of cakes were lined up and they were doing an assembly line type process for efficiency. Plates and plates of desserts were served as we saw all the cakes were quickly disappearing before us. I'm glad we got a second piece before they were all gone!

While we were waiting for the check. A group walked in and Fritzl had to tell them they were sold out of food for the entire night. Wow... This was before 9PM. Crazy! I think we may need to go on a week night in the future, or just go super early!

Needless to say, it was a great find. And I think I can safely say it's authentic. We will definitely be back. And save room for more desserts!

Quality of Food:

Service:

Ambiance:

Value:

Overall Experience:

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~