We’re already pretty darned impressed with how much Marvel action you’ll get at the Avengers Campus area of Disney California Adventure ( click here for our overview!) at the Disneyland Resort. One of the most intriguing parts of the land will be the Pym Test Kitchen, a walk-up restaurant offering some truly inventive food and drink options. Nerdist got to sample some of the new delicacies on offer once Avengers Campus opens this summer. They are, to put it mildly, good.
Let’s walk you through what we tried and how they each fit into the overall theme and story of Avengers Campus and Pym Test Kitchen specifically.
Appetizers
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
To start with, we got to sample the Quantum Pretzel. There was one sitting on each of the tables when we sat down; I thought they were props. They’re massive, quite enjoyable pretzels. Within the story of the Pym Test Kitchen, scientists are using Hank Pym’s particles to innovate food. So some of them are really huge, while others are super tiny. This big ol’ pretzel comes with a delicious beer cheese sauce. You can also grab mustard.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
Next is the Snack Molecules. This tasty little treat is a mix of mini pretzels, honey roasted peanuts, and popped sorghum, which is a healthier alternative to the usual popped corn. This mix is suited for walking around the park or saving for later. It comes in a tiny Pym Kitchen paper bag.
Mains
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
With Hank Pym canonically behind the food on offer, you can get some really fascinating mixtures of shrinking and enlargement. Case in point, this Not So Little Chicken Sandwich. It’s a wide piece of Korean-inspired fried chicken, with teriyaki citrus sauce and red chili sauce, in between the pieces of a tiny slider bun. Pickled cabbage slaw included as well. This was delectable and also really fun. The chefs giving the presentation kept encouraging us to eat with our hands. I, however, did not.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
Another appetizing and fun dish is the Impossible Spoonful. It’s a pasta dish featuring plant-based Impossible™ large and micro meat-balls, served in a super-sized spoon with a tiny fork. The pasta is also very tiny, especially surrounding the giant meatless meatball.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
The last main course we got to sample was the Pym Test Kitchen version of a family-style pizza. The PYM-ini is “a panini on toasted focaccia with salami, rosemary ham, provolone, sun-dried tomato mayonnaise, and arugula with marinara dipping sauce.” This will be served by the slice or as a long, multi-portion sandwich. This was maybe my favorite of the dishes on sample at the event. Just tasty with a great mix of flavors. I could easily see a family splitting a full-size one.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
We sadly did not get to sample this one, but the most interesting sounding item on the menu is easily the PB³ Superb Sandwich. It’s like a grilled cheese sandwich, but very much not. It’s peanut butter, banana, smoked bacon, and strawberry jam. I mean, how could I not want to try that? The blue swirls in the bread represent the blue Pym Particles which indicate enlargement. A banana smoothie shot and crispy potato tots will accompany this dish.
Drinks
It’s not just the food at Pym Test Kitchen that has us psyched. There are also the beverages, both alcoholic and non, at the outdoor Pym Tasting Lab.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
First we have the two non-alcoholic drinks. On the left, we have the PB&J Punch. This drink mixes lemonade with peanut butter and strawberry flavors. Add some whipped cream and some peanut butter malt balls and you have a dessert drink for the ages. The one on the right is a very fun MCU treat. That’s a glass of Pingo Doce, the Mountain Dew-looking soda we see Bruce Banner bottle in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. You can see the beverage on posters in Ant-Man as well. While Disney’s team wouldn’t tell us what was actually in Pingo Doce, it did have a distinctly vanilla flavor.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
For alcoholic beverages, there will be plenty of options. We got to try two of the above cocktails, the two on the left. The first, X-Periment, was a flavorful tequila drink mixed with habanero and mango syrup and lemon popping pearls. Very refreshing. The next one is we tried was the Molecular Meltdown, a beer float of sorts. It mixes vanilla ice cream with marshmallow milk stout, topped with mini marshmallows. Get a spoon for this one.
We didn’t get to try the other two offerings, but they are the Honey Buzz, a gin drink with honey, lemon juice, and a functional, edible honey straw. The last one is the Particle Fizz, a hard seltzer drink with cherry popping pearls.
There will also be eight different beers on draught, and a signature beer cocktail called The Regulator. This will feature Patron Silver tequila, lime juice, habanero and mango syrup, and Golden Road Mango Cart wheat ale. All garnished with mango flavored popping pearls.
Dessert
And finally, no meal would be complete (at least not at a theme park) without some dessert. While not pictured, we did sample a dessert from Pym Test Kitchen called “The Candy Bar.” It was a truly massive confection, with layers of dark chocolate, nougat, and marshmallow atop a brownie base. It’s sugar overload. The full item is as long as a ruler; I was only able to eat maybe two inches worth.
But Pym Test Kitchen isn’t the only place for noms. Over by the Guardians of the Galaxy ride you’ll find Terran Treats, a stand designed to entice Earthlings to the Collector’s museum of oddities.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
The first of these is the hilariously named Cosmic Cream Orb. This is a crispy cream puff with whipped raspberry cheesecake mousse. It looks a bit like an Infinity Stone in presentation, but it’s a very enticing treat, with cookie rocks on top.
David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
The second dessert, not available to taste, is the multicolored Sweet Spiral Ration. See, the Collector doesn’t really know what humans like; he only guesses. So these twisted churro-like delicacies come in several different colors. But, here’s the catch: the colors do not correspond in the least to the different flavors you’ll find. The chefs wouldn’t tell us what the flavors would be, but if it’s red, it probably doesn’t taste like a red thing.
And though we didn’t get to sample anything, there will be a second cart on Avengers Campus; the Shawarma Palace will give you a little taste of the Avengers’ favorite New York spot in California. They’ll serve the “New York’s Tastiest,” a chicken wrap with lemon and tahini dipping sauce, as well as “Impossible Victory Falafel,” a wrap of Impossible falafel and crusted cauliflower.
So if you’re hungry when you go to Avengers Campus, and why wouldn’t you be, you’ll have plenty of bites, both large and small.
Avengers Campus will open on July 18, 2020..
Featured Image: David Nguyen/Disneyland Resort
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!