The Carthay Circle Story

On my most recent trip to the Park I did something I should have done ages ago: finally take the tour of the Carthay Circle Restaurant given each morning at 10:30am. Or at least that is the case as of this writing - in due time the tours will inevitably cease. Hopefully that's a while from now.

The tour is brilliant. Next time you're there, just take it. 

I won't spoil most of it for you, I'll just tease you with a few items of interest I recall off the top of my head.

First of all, the original Carthay Circle Theater in Hollywood was named such because its original proprietor was named McCarthy, and he basically anglicized his name into Carthay because he thought it sounded fancy.

This is why the street that lead to the theater is still today named McCarthy.

One relic of the original theater is still in place: the statue of the Prospector. You'll see numerous photos of this statue in the restaurant's foyer.

One delightfully morbid detail of the restaurant is the replica of the original fire curtain painting from the original theater. This painting has been replicated just over the stairway that leads to the main dining room. This painting depicts the Donner Party. 

If you're not familiar with the reference, the joke here is that guests are lead upstairs to eat under a painting depicting one of history's most notable incidents of cannibalism.

If you take the tour you'll be able to visit the Hollywood Room, the only room in the restaurant that can be reserved outright, and for a deposit of $1,000. The room seats 10 to 12 comfortably, and if that many people are dining in one party then a thousand bucks is a very easy target to hit.

Somewhere in the upper level of the restaurant is a hidden replica of the wishing well from Snow White. Take the tour and you'll get to see it.

Back downstairs in the Lounge area, on the wall opposite the reservation desk, is the first unaltered photo that Disney has allowed the public to see in which Walt Disney is holding a cigarette. The image is of him walking through the doors of the Carthay Circle Theater, possibly during the premiere of Fantasia.

Walt Disney died of lung cancer in 1966 at the age of 65. If he had lived another decade millions of people would now be living in entire cities that he had designed. That is what "The Florida Project" was really about: Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow was meant to be a functioning town in which people would live and commute, its infrastructure made with efficient mass transit at its core - it was never meant to be just another theme park. But of course with Walt gone there was no one with the vision to see the project to its intended fruition, which is why EPCOT Center is just another ticket-taking venue built on a swamp.

Anyway, I strongly recommend taking the tour while it is still offered. Sooner or later someone in the musical chairs world of management will look at a schedule and say: "Now what's this - why are our hosts being scheduled for a 'tour' when the restaurant isn't even open?... History behind the building?... Context of Los Angeles as it thematically links with Buena Vista Street?! Does the tour at least deposit these suckers in a gift shop when it's over?... What do you MEAN there's no gift shop in the Carthay!? Get some goddamn Elsa dolls and Jack Skellington sweatshirts in there NOW before I toss you idiots in the street where you belong! And don't you start giving me that Malt Disney shit again! I went to business school! Did Malt Disney go to business school?! No, he didn't, so I don't want to hear that goddamn name again!"

Cognac Flight, Shirley Temple, Indecipherable Scribbling

The further we drift, temporally, from my notes, the less chance there is of making heads or tails of them.

The photographic evidence, combined with notes whose typing-up is long overdue, suggest that I sampled the Cognac Flight while Silvia had a Shirley Temple and J-Bomb the California Cider Seasonal: Ace Hard Cider.

There are no intelligible notes regarding the cider, merely the word SEBASTOPOL with a parenthetical note that reads: 'we don't know what that is.'

"This one's pretty. It's got bubbles." This quotation can only be indicative that Silvia was responding appropriately to my soliciting tasting notes or impressions regarding a Shirley Temple.

This is an approximate translation of my notes regarding the Cognac Flight, depicted above from left to right...

Frapin Chateau Fontpinot XO
Smokey & smooth. Very nice

Pierre Ferrand Ambre
Not smokey, more whiskey-like

Delamain Pale & Dry XO
Best. Not sour like the 2nd. Smooth

And here, thanks to Google Deep Dream code, is a good representation of what the Carthay experience is like if you enjoy the lounge for too many consecutive hours.

Side Car (Revisited)

The last time Autumn and I were here we attempted to put the Side Car and the Bourbon Crusta on the done list. We didn't do well.

Here I am again, giving it another go for posterity's sake and not my own.

The lounge is quiet today. 1:57pm, Tuesday March 10th. Next week the two-month barrage of Spring Break begins, and the crowds will grow intolerable. Best to get some time in while the getting's good. 

So, the Side Car:

Hennesy V.S Cogna, Cointreau, fresh Lemon Juice, and Agave Nectar with a Lemon Peel and a Sugar Rim.

When last we tried this it was on an insert - now it's printed in the regular lounge menu. 

This drink has a sugar rim for a reason: it is quite tart. And the agave stands out to me because it tastes similar to tequila, which causes my taste buds to trigger a Pavlovian concern in my head. Whenever my brain detects something that resembles tequila bells go off: Whoah! What's going on?! Do you know what you're doing right now?

Answer: I'm waiting for my Fastpass to Star Tours to become valid and then checking to see if my favorite Jedi is working today. 

I will concede that, like the Tequila Daisy, this drink becomes more and more friendly the closer to the bottom of the glass you get. 

P.S. No one working the floor or behind the bar is someone I recognize. Life has its turnovers.

P.P.S. As of this writing the Lounge has changed their artifact window display to a fantastic collection of articles from the film "The Reluctant Dragon," an all but forgotten feature that starred Robert Benchley as he takes a meandering tour of the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank circa 1941. When last I checked you could watch this video on Netflix streaming. It's worth it just to see the collar of Walt's shirt overlapping his coat. I was delighted to see the film because of my affection for the legendary Algonquin Round Table of which Benchley was a paramount member and icon.

Catal

Today may be the day I say goodbye to Catal. One more gin martini with flecks of ice floating at the top seems called for.

This bar and I go way back. Back to when Downtown Disney opened.

I recall lost afternoons on Bats Days when I would meet friends here for immature drinking choices like tequila shots.

I will always ruefully remember their fra mani italian sausage with potatoes, peppers, blistered tomatoes and salsa verde. When I lived in Anaheim I would come here twice a week for dinner so I could eat this while reading; I probably read a third of Jonathan Strange by Susanna Clarke while eating this dish. It went off the menu probably a year after it appeared and never returned. As I've said before, my favorite dish is always the first to disappear from any menu. I've made my own attempts and challenged chefs and cooks I know to replicate it based on description - nothing has come close. I still mourn that plate's passing. 

I remember the part this bar played in shaping my life... have I never told you how I met my better half?

This isn't a short story but it's a good one.

I once hosted a college radio show called The Necrobotic Dance Party. We played industrial and experimental music Saturday nights on 88.9fm. My co-host was my friend Kim, her DJ handle being Pandora Killjoy.

One night she couldn't make it and I was hosting alone. Being non-commcercial radio, I was a bonafide Disc Jockey who played whatever I liked and said anything I liked. I could ever say that I was alone in the studio and solicitous of company. Someone called and took me up on the offer: a guy named Dan.

He called the request line and said "hey, could me and a couple people come hang out?" "Sure," I said. Two guys and one girl showed up. After a couple minutes sitting in Studio A I realized that Dan, the guy who called me, was someone I used to spend Friday nights at Disneyland with back when we were both gothic teenagers. (Annual Passes were dirt cheap back then.) I hadn't recognized Dan at first sight because in our misspent youth he had long hair. He looked like a polite version of Marilyn Manson.

Fast forward to 2005. Bats Day. Dan's friend and roommate, Silvia, had decided that she was "too good to be single." Dan therefore elected to be her walking personal ad. There was a sign pinned to his back which read:

S.W.F.

Looking For:

Single
Intelligent
Spooky Guys

If interested speak/inquire

(Must have knowledge or appreciation of molecular biology)

She elected Bats Day as the day Dan would wear this sign as she preferred to date someone who was both spooky and amiable towards Disneyland (if not an outright Disneyphile).

I was walking through Downtown Disney with the intention of reaching The Lost Bar - it no longer exists, but it was a bar at the hotel where Cast Members went for a drink after their shift. Eyes naturally scanning for spooky people, Dan and I happened to notice each other as I was passing Catal. 

Recognizing me, he waved me over: "Oh, Zoe! You'll do."

Once I acquiesced to being beckoned he confided to the chicanery. I was resistant to the idea of meeting whoever he wanted to set me up with. Why would I want to try to parlay with someone audacious enough to have a friend of theirs walk around as a living advertisement for them? Surely I would fall short of their lofty expectations.

Dan shrugged this off. "Don't worry about it."

Dan happened to introduce me to his friend at the traditional 8pm Haunted Mansion meetup. I was drunk.

I got a second chance with her weeks later at El Chambre, or "El Taco Industriale," as we called the local Mexican goth club in Anaheim which was a restaurant by day. The second floor was regional music - bandas y accordiones - that kind of stuff. I was drunk again this time. It was a club, after all.

The third time I met Silvia was at her house in Anaheim. At that point, on this occasion, I ended up staying for a few days. The rest is history.

A decade later, here we are.