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Media Welcome and Ramen Mac & Cheese Demo | 2026 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival
Mar 7, 2026
Chef Jeremiah Balogh, Culinary Director, Disney California Adventure Park, welcomes to the media event for the 2026 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival. This is followed by a demonstration by Chef John State, Culinary Director, on making the Ramen Mac and Cheese. This is one of the offerings at this year's festival.
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0:00
Before
0:04
I do that, you know what? Drop a beat
0:06
for me because I wrote something a
0:07
little special. You know what? Drop the
0:10
beat back there cuz I wrote a little
0:11
something special for this next person
0:13
that's coming to the stage and I need to
0:16
make sure that I do it right. So, I
0:18
said, you know what? I I could I don't
0:20
want to just introduce him and say, hi,
0:22
please welcome to stage. I didn't want
0:23
to sing. I said, you know what? Let me
0:25
just That works for me. You could just
0:27
start it right there. That works for me.
0:28
And I said, "You know what? Let me rap a
0:30
little something something." Are y'all
0:32
Do y'all mind if I rap?
0:34
>> Now, when y'all could do better than
0:36
that, I said, "Are y'all excited if I
0:37
rap to introduce this next guest?"
0:40
>> Yay! Put those hands together. Put those
0:42
hands together. Hey, hey, hey. Now
0:45
listen, listen to this. Listen to this.
0:47
It's time to start the next portion of
0:49
the show to bring to the stage someone
0:51
you ought to know. His dedication and
0:53
talent is something unreal. If you
0:55
haven't tried his food, then tell me how
0:56
you feel. Now, his work has been
0:58
featured on all the Disney blogs. Now,
1:00
put your hands together and help me
1:02
welcome Chef Jeremiah.
1:07
Give it up for
1:10
everybody. Hey, give it up for
1:14
>> Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome to
1:16
Disney California Adventure Food and
1:17
Wine Festival here at the Disneyland
1:19
Resort. You guys excited to get started?
1:22
>> All right, that's what I like to hear.
1:25
Think about this. Imagine if you if if
1:27
you will a place where worldclass
1:29
entertainment meets worldclass food
1:31
right here in in California. Where else
1:34
can you discover some of the the unique
1:36
cultures, the agricultural roots that
1:39
really make what California is unique in
1:42
it in itself. We are super excited to
1:46
have each and every one of you here
1:47
today. We got some amazing opportunities
1:50
to try some food and beverage and even
1:53
get a chance to uh visit with some of
1:55
our our amazing chefs here at the
1:58
Disneyland Resort. Doing a couple demos
2:00
with you today. We have some food. I saw
2:03
you all making your way through taking
2:05
photos.
2:07
Breaks my heart that that that you guys
2:09
love it so so much. This is amazing.
2:12
>> Here we are. We got we got about 80
2:14
different unique food and beverage
2:16
offerings this year.
2:18
here in here in the park. We have eight
2:20
marketplaces. We have over 20 different
2:22
participating locations throughout the
2:24
entire park. So, you can find some of
2:26
those experiences at our table service
2:28
locations, at our quick service
2:30
locations, and of course, some of those
2:31
those marketplaces. One of my favorites
2:34
this year is the totada.
2:36
Um, super amazing grilled or sorry,
2:39
braced pork carnitas smothered with
2:42
foles chos.
2:46
Super amazing. you're you're not gonna
2:48
you're not going to uh be disappointed.
2:51
We also have a bourbon uh peach tea
2:54
lemonade which is super exciting. Thank
2:55
you right there. You already got some. I
2:57
noticed that we have it in the back.
2:59
Super flavorful. What better way to
3:01
celebrate a festival than by getting
3:03
some of these amazing dishes. So,
3:06
without further ado, we got some really
3:08
good uh uh demonstrations happening
3:10
right behind you all here in just a
3:13
moment. So, I'm going to introduce Chef
3:15
John State, one of our culinary
3:16
directors here at the resort, and he's
3:18
going to go ahead and take it away for
3:19
us.
3:22
>> All right, Chef. Thank you, ladies and
3:25
gentlemen. Jeremiah Blog. I like the
3:28
enthusiasm, Chef.
3:30
Well, first of all, thank you everybody
3:31
for being here today. I Oh, lots of
3:33
cameras. This is great. I am honored to
3:37
present to you a very unique dish.
3:40
Sometimes we talk about easy or simple.
3:42
I just want to keep it as a flavorful,
3:45
memorable, unique to me. This is ramen
3:48
mac and cheese. Um I I think it's
3:50
important I kind of give you a little
3:51
story about how did we get here today
3:53
with ramen? I I like that face. I guess
3:55
what is this ramen mac and cheese? Well,
3:57
first of all, this is a this is new to
3:58
me, but it's not new to one of our
4:01
seasoned talented chefs who's here
4:03
today, Jimmy Wita, the executive chef of
4:05
festivals and special events, hiding out
4:07
over here in the corner. excellent
4:09
storyteller and he's one of those that
4:11
is very capable of asking why can't
4:14
these two go together. Now I grew up in
4:16
a very classical French cuisine cooking
4:19
and it was always by the book. There was
4:21
no veering from the recipe. But I
4:23
appreciate individuals like Chef Jimmy
4:25
who can show us like it's okay to try
4:28
something and then see if it works. And
4:30
of course, this is a dish that Jimmy can
4:32
speak to as a young adult, as he
4:34
referred to me as a starving college
4:37
student eating his fair share of ramen
4:40
and then, of course, his fair share of
4:42
mac and cheese. Now, think about those
4:44
two together. Two very iconic comfort
4:47
foods mashed together in one bowl by the
4:50
end of this uh tasting, which of course
4:52
I think some of you have already had a
4:53
chance to try this. Uh, but for Jenny,
4:56
what I think was great was he was
4:59
serious. This is what he created as a
5:01
young adult, cooking his little batch of
5:04
instant ramen, but thinking to himself,
5:06
why can't I just leave out some of the
5:08
broth, add some cheese to this? Now, for
5:11
me, I was like, that's the last thing I
5:12
would do, knowing that I had a one-time
5:15
experience with my kids making ramen,
5:17
and I thought I'd chef it up for them.
5:19
Quickly sent back to the kitchen. That's
5:21
the truth. No sesame oil, Dad. No green
5:24
onions, just broth and noodles. And keep
5:26
the mac and cheese simple, too. Don't
5:28
don't veer from the box. But today,
5:30
you're going to see this is going to
5:32
have a level where it's worthy of going
5:34
out to the marketplace, which you'll
5:36
find this at Peppers Caliente.
5:38
So, rum, mac and cheese, four different
5:41
garnishes, and then let's get started
5:43
with cooking the pasta. This is uh
5:45
macaroni. This is salted water.
5:49
This is maybe about a pound, we'll say.
5:52
Let that come to a boil. We'll give it
5:54
some stirs while we go into what I'm
5:57
going to show you today. A couple other
5:59
items that regarding uh some knife work.
6:02
I'm sure most of you are seasoned
6:03
veterans with cooking in the kitchen
6:05
with knives. And by the way, when I hear
6:08
somebody gently tell me they don't cook,
6:11
I'm I've never thought of asking them
6:13
like not even like a box of mac and
6:15
cheese or ramen. Like to me, that's
6:17
still some form of cooking. So don't
6:19
don't think you have to go beyond that.
6:21
If that's your comfort zone and you like
6:23
getting in the kitchen and you don't
6:24
mind doing the dishes, then I think
6:26
you're still cooking. So, give yourself
6:27
a little credit. All right, so here we
6:31
are. I'm going to give you the version
6:34
of our knife safety here at Disneyland
6:37
Resort.
6:39
I've placed a latex glove over my hand.
6:42
I'm going to add a cut glove to it for
6:45
protection, for safety, and then another
6:47
latex glove over that.
6:50
Pasta's
6:51
Yep, it's cooking. All right.
6:57
Okay,
7:03
I'm slowly. Yeah, there you go. There
7:05
you go. Okay,
7:08
wait till you see the cheese sauce. I
7:10
give this guy's credit. This is a pretty
7:12
ingenious dish. All right,
7:15
a little bit of work here, but it's
7:17
worth it. just to show you our best
7:19
practices here that we share with our
7:22
culinarians to ensure they're
7:25
successful. All right.
7:28
Cutting board, sharp chef knife,
7:31
standard operating procedure. Green
7:33
onions is one of the garnishes. By the
7:35
way, green onions, scallions, very
7:36
similar. I'm sure there's a class I
7:39
could take on the true differences, but
7:41
I feel confident that you could call
7:42
these green onions. I'm going to then
7:46
slice through them, not pushing down too
7:49
hard. And the reason why is
7:52
I want to ensure they stay green.
7:56
And I want to ensure that they have a
7:57
nice even edge.
8:00
All right,
8:02
there it is. Just thin sliced.
8:05
Have my hand tucked in.
8:08
All right.
8:12
Okay. Well, we'll try to make it to the
8:14
bowl.
8:17
And then this
8:20
I'm going to switch out the cutting
8:21
boards because the next garnish I'm
8:24
preparing for you this dish,
8:28
ramen mac and cheese.
8:31
Wow. Okay. This one again,
8:34
this next item is
8:37
Naruto Maki
8:39
or also known as fish cake. Now, I
8:43
didn't like I didn't grow up on fish
8:45
cakes either, but I had to kind of dive
8:48
into this one and I do a little research
8:50
just because I was like, I've probably
8:52
had these, but I don't really know
8:53
exactly what's going on with these.
8:56
Well, what's great about fish cakes is
8:58
you know what? They taste like fish.
9:00
100%. No hidden agenda there. But why
9:04
fish cakes? Fish cakes. And this is a
9:06
classic ramen garnish. Adds that super
9:09
savory flavor and it once you see it in
9:12
the bowl, you'll kind of see like the
9:14
hidden Mickey there. But I also want to
9:16
point out that the fishcake itself is
9:18
something that you can just take a bite.
9:20
If you haven't never had a fishcake bite
9:22
before, just do me a favor and try it.
9:25
That's all I ask. Just try it. Here you
9:28
can see what's even I love this because
9:30
ultimately you could just make the fish
9:33
cake which is steamed white fish or
9:34
steamed pollock steamed halibit. The
9:38
classic is pollic but you don't need to
9:40
add the garnish and think to yourself
9:41
why why the decoration but why not? I
9:44
think the culture where this is from is
9:46
shows that you can always add the look
9:48
of something right
9:51
pasta's going. Perfect.
9:54
This will probably take about maybe
9:56
total of 10 minutes.
9:58
And then you'll see that I'm going to
10:00
slice these into coins.
10:06
All right. What's great is you can
10:08
adjust the thickness.
10:10
And anybody here had fish cakes before?
10:14
A few. Yes. You're okay with it? Yeah.
10:17
Okay. Yeah. Big smile. Right. There you
10:19
go.
10:21
Yeah. It it it compliments the dish.
10:24
It's the garnish. It's not the dish, but
10:25
it's the garnish.
10:27
All right. So,
10:30
couple of coins here. Just ready to go.
10:34
All right. Now,
10:38
now we're going to move on to the sauce.
10:41
The sauce ratio here, let's look at it
10:43
about two parts or maybe
10:48
four cups of sauce to one pound of
10:50
pasta.
10:52
I think it's discretionary to the
10:53
individual. Oh, this is looking great.
10:58
In the sauce, five ingredients. Anybody
11:01
can make this. No rue needed. So, you
11:05
don't have to attend culinary school to
11:07
understand what r is. And you don't need
11:08
to know the ratio or the thickening
11:11
capabilities of a rue.
11:13
In this pan will be heavy cream.
11:16
There will be a base cheese sauce to
11:18
enhance the flavor, but also allow the
11:20
chef to dictate the total flavor.
11:24
Magic cheese.
11:26
I think you might re I like what you're
11:29
saying. I can't say that out loud, but
11:30
yes, it's a it's a great ingredient. It
11:33
just works. It's um you know, this
11:35
cheese has been around for over a
11:37
hundred years. I would have thought this
11:39
was something that maybe was maybe just
11:40
when I grew up as a kid, it came out,
11:42
but 100 years. So here we have
11:45
heavy cream.
11:47
This is about a total of just over a
11:50
cup. The goal is to bring this cream to
11:53
a boil
11:55
so that when I add the
11:58
gold liquid gold, you'll see that it
11:59
will come together nicely. I have this
12:02
base cheese sauce. The two ingredients
12:04
that you're asking yourself are what's
12:05
left and what makes this of that that
12:08
reminds me of ramen
12:11
is there's a
12:13
a seasoning here that the chefs have
12:14
settled on that just like that little
12:16
packet you got with the instant ramen. I
12:19
don't think we all knew it was in there,
12:20
but we all knew it worked and we all
12:22
thought I like this brand or I want this
12:24
brand. So, this is what the chefs have
12:25
decided on on this seasoning packet
12:27
here. Again, really savory. You can you
12:31
can imagine what that's going to taste
12:32
like or you've already had it. So, let's
12:34
see if we can get this to come to a
12:36
boil. I have here heavy cream. The
12:39
sauce.
12:42
The goal is is that it emulsifies or in
12:46
home speak just uh comes together.
12:52
While that's working over here,
12:56
I'm going to talk about another one more
12:58
garnish. Well, two more garnishes.
13:03
There we go.
13:11
All right.
13:19
So, basically I I'm just trying to find
13:22
the right consistency of this of the
13:24
cream and the base cheese sauce. I'm now
13:28
going to be adding in this
13:30
precious ingredient.
13:33
And then if I If you want, you can add
13:38
some of the pasta water to thin this
13:39
down,
13:42
which I probably will add a little bit
13:45
because it's hot.
13:49
All right,
13:52
let's see how this pasta is looking.
13:58
Keep in mind this pasta water is always
14:00
salted.
14:02
Yeah. Great.
14:06
Perfect.
14:08
It's okay to have a little of that
14:09
water, residual water with the pasta
14:12
since the sauce might be a little thick.
14:15
Again, two parts sauce, one part pasta.
14:20
We'll set this aside. It'll stay hot.
14:24
Ah, here we go. There we go. Now we're
14:27
cooking.
14:30
How we do it on time?
14:33
Okay. Nobody good.
14:37
All right.
14:50
>> All right. So,
14:53
just about there.
14:56
Adding the
14:59
house ramen seasoning.
15:02
This is maybe
15:05
half a teaspoon. Half a teaspoon before
15:07
we try it. And this last ingredient
15:09
that's going into the pan
15:12
to amp up the flavor. Maji
15:17
smell not like it sounds. Maji
15:22
dark liquid, super savory. Has that
15:26
I would say reminds me of more of an
15:29
intense soy sauce. Uh,
15:32
think of this as like a a bullion that's
15:34
liquid form.
15:38
Turn this down. Now that we got good
15:39
heat going,
15:42
I'm going to give it a quick taste.
15:53
A little bit more of this seasoning.
15:59
Uh, I think we're there.
16:02
Turn this down.
16:07
Another chef tip. When you're cooking, I
16:10
highly recommend tasting spoons at your
16:11
station. It's not required, but if
16:13
you're going if you want the food to
16:14
taste good, you got to make sure you try
16:16
it before you serve it to your guests or
16:18
especially your kids. Dad, what is this?
16:21
Yeah.
16:24
Promise me this year on your bucket
16:26
list,
16:27
you're going to make chili crunch at
16:29
least once. Once in your life. Follow a
16:32
recipe, any recipe. Also, you can buy
16:34
it. Chili crunch has taken the world by
16:35
storm. And then this last garnish is
16:38
this is a furkakei breadcrumb or
16:41
crumble. This has butter,
16:45
shallots, and garlic sauteed together,
16:48
melted butter, flavorful, seasoned.
16:51
Strain that. Mix it with breadrumbs,
16:54
toast the breadcrumbs in the oven. They
16:56
come out of the oven. You're going to
16:57
add furki, which is toasted sesame and
17:00
seaweed or nori, salt, sugar, and then
17:03
to amp it up, the chefs have added the
17:05
uh everything spice. This is what this
17:07
garnish is here. This is your furkakei
17:10
crumble. And if anything, I hope that
17:12
you all have a chance to try this
17:14
because one, you can decide how much of
17:17
the uh chili crunch do you want to add
17:19
to your your finished product.
17:22
Let's see if we can do this like this.
17:24
Here we go.
17:29
>> All right.
17:35
>> I'm going to add this
17:40
>> together here.
17:43
Easily thinking about creamy is better.
17:47
Oh, look at that. It looks pretty good.
17:51
Not too bad.
17:55
>> All right, here we go. Fish it up.
18:02
Creamy mac and cheese
18:05
ramen style or ramen influenced.
18:10
Oh,
18:17
let's do
18:20
quick garnish.
18:25
The crumble. By the way, uh I probably
18:28
said that too many times. You want
18:31
another chef tip? Get into the crumble
18:34
business. Crunch something in your It's
18:36
a game changer. Take an ordinary simple
18:38
salad and it's going to be like what is
18:40
that crunch texture? Green onions
18:45
and then
18:47
this makes it all worthy of the
18:49
marketplace chili crunch on top. I don't
18:53
know how much you like.
18:55
Look at this.
18:58
This is awesome. Uh you want to impress
19:01
your kids and your neighbors and your
19:02
friends to come over for dinner and buy
19:03
one of these. Here we are. Next level.
19:08
Let's see if we can get Mickey to Yeah.
19:11
Look at that.
19:16
>> Okay. All right. All right. All right,
19:18
ladies and gentlemen, let's talk about
19:21
ramen mac and cheese, porteraki crumble,
19:23
chili crunch, scallions,
19:25
and the fish cakes.
19:28
Look at that. Sorry. Here we go.
19:32
Thank you for being here today, buddy.
19:33
Appreciate your time. Glad stuck around
19:35
to this. Please enjoy the food.
19:44
>> Yeah. Sorry. Let me get that in there
19:45
better. Let me Let me
19:49
>> How about that? I can put lavi
19:53
nod that you gave because sometimes when
19:55
you say an ingredient, you're like,
19:56
"Wait, what?"
20:01
>> There you go. There we go.
20:08
Thank you. Anybody here not love Chili
20:10
Crunch?
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