Disneyland’s Lunar New Year: 12 new things to eat and drink ranked from best to worst

The annual Lunar New Year festival at the Disneyland resort is perfect for foodies who love to sample and share while grazing from one food booth to the next on an Asian-inspired epicurean adventure.

I set out to taste all the new food items available this year using the Sip and Savor pass during the grand opening of the food festival on Friday, Jan. 23 at Disney California Adventure.

The 2026 Lunar New Year festival celebrating Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese cultures and traditions runs through Feb. 22 at Anaheim theme park.

ALSO SEE: Disneyland’s Lunar New Year — All the new things you can eat and drink at the food festival

Sip and Savor passes ($49 for the general public, $46 for Magic Key annual passholders) allow visitors to purchase a prepaid card with six digital coupons good for individual items at marketplace booths and select restaurants throughout the festival.

The 2026 festival celebrating the Year of the Horse also features a parade-like procession starring Mulan, the “Hurry Home” introduction to the “World of Color” water show, live music and Disney character photo ops.

Let’s take a closer look at the 12 new things to eat and drink at the Lunar New Year festival using the Sip and Savor pass ranked from best to worst.

1) Grilled Lemongrass Pork Belly Skewers

Paradise Garden Grill

Served with fried garlic rice, pickled carrots and daikon radish with a side salad

The skewers and rice were insanely greasy in a delicious way — as you might expect with pork belly.

The tender and fatty pork belly may have been the best meat I’ve ever tasted at a Disneyland food festival.

The near-perfect dish was simple and not overly complicated.

Foodies voted the skewers one of the top two new items of the year at the festival — based on early sales and long lines.

2) Bulgogi Fries

Smokejumpers Grill

Served with marinated beef, kimchi, cucumber, mozzarella cheese and gochujang aioli topped with sesame seeds and green onions

It’s rare that you want to eat absolutely everything in the menu description, but that was the case with these loaded fries.

The gochujang hot sauce drizzled on the fries looked hotter than it turned out to be — and turned out to be more tangy than spicy.

The fries were easily the most shareable of everything I tried and certainly among the most plentiful dishes available with the Sip and Savor pass.

3) Five-Spice Popcorn Chicken

Bamboo Blessings

Served with sweet chile-garlic sauce

In its simplest form, this was a bag of Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets with a sweet sauce on the side to add a little zing.

But fried chicken is one of those great vehicles for introducing a food festival audience to some new Asian flavors they might not be familiar with.

The seasoning and spices on the fried chicken added just enough of a twist to turn a simple food that everybody understands into a new culinary experience that’s more than your run-of-the-mill Chicken McNuggets.

The popcorn chicken was the other top new item of the festival, with cashiers limiting sales at one point on opening day to manage demand.

4) Guava Dragon Fruit Sparkler

Bamboo Blessings

Made with lemonade, sparkling mineral water, guava and dragon fruit syrups and a frozen dragon fruit garnish

Lemonade is one of my four basic food groups, so I’m hard to please and always thrilled to find something that far exceeds my expectations.

This may be the best lemonade I’ve ever had at a Disney food festival.

It was fun, refreshing and delicious. It didn’t hurt that the beautiful pinkish-purple drink was also Instagram-ready.

5) Strawberry Green Tea Bread Pudding

Aunt Cass Cafe

Served with green tea creme anglaise and whipped topping

I always eat with my eyes before my mouth — and this bread pudding looked like something from an alien planet.

It certainly didn’t look like a dessert, which made the dense sweetness a revelation to bite into.

This was exactly what I love about a food festival — trying something outside my comfort zone that I would normally never order. It was a great way to get introduced to new tastes and different flavors that were outside my lane.

6) Crispy Fried Chicken Bao

Cozy Cone Motel

Coated in sweet chile sauce with cucumbers, carrots and sesame seeds served in a soft bao bun

Disney chefs have given us this type of “bao taco” before — and this one combined sweetness with a stronger than expected spice level. The cucumbers added a little tang to the flavor profile.

The skimpy amount of chicken was more chewy than crispy thanks to the dousing of sweet chile sauce.

This was the perfect bite for a food festival, but it was really too small to share. Tell your friend or loved one to order their own.

7) Mango Milk Tea

Lucky Fortune Cookery

Served with brown sugar tapioca spheres topped with pineapple cold foam

I don’t drink tea, but I love milkshakes, so the Mango Milk Tea was a pleasant surprise for me.

For me, it was more of a melted milkshake than the creamy iced tea I expected — with very little of a tea taste at all.

The tasty shake was more creamy than thick with the pineapple topping and mango base blending together into a broader fruity flavor.

The popping pearls added a bit of fun to this delightful dessert in a cup.

8) Japchae Noodles

Longevity Noodle Co.

Served with kalbi short rib

These glass noodles were wonderfully greasy and pretty much exactly what you’d expect.

Don’t expect any culinary twists or surprises here. Just a reliable and dependable bowl of straightforward short rib noodles.

Don’t be fooled by the small bowl either. This was one of the few sampler-size dishes that could serve as a full meal if you were just looking for a light, quick bite.

The noodle bowl was served with chop sticks, but you could grab a fork if you preferred. It wasn’t easy to share without spilling half the noodles on the ground. Get your own bowl and enjoy all the greasy goodness for yourself.

9) Tteokbokki Rice Cakes

Studio Catering Co.

Topped with gochujang sauce topped with cheese, sesame seeds and green onions

These tiny inch-square rice cakes looked like little gnocchi pasta in a ragu sauce until I took a bite.

The texture was unexpected — chewy, almost gummy, like mochi.

There was definitely heat on the back end, especially in the aftertaste.

The rice cakes got points for being the most interesting and ambitious thing I tried at the food fest.

10) Pandan Cheesecake

Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta

Made with brown butter graham crust, coconut whipped topping and strawberry jam

Pandan has a nutty, vanilla flavor that’s a bit more earthy than sweet.

Which meant this was a twist on vanilla cheesecake — if that’s what you’re looking for.

There was a dab of strawberry jam on top that I desperately tried to use to add a little flavor to an otherwise unremarkable and unexceptional cheesecake.

The good news: The cheesecake had the shortest wait of any food item at the festival. Dozens of the cute, little cheesecakes were sitting in a cooler near the cashier in Boardwalk Pizza. All you have to do is grab-and-go after you scan your Sip and Savor pass at the cashier.

11) Feng Li Su Churro

Hollywood Land Churro Cart

Rolled in shortbread sugar and topped with pineapple jelly and cherry-flavored popping pearls

I’m not a churro fan, but I’ve learned to appreciate them as an excellent base for dessert experimentation.

The sugar dusting was a little different than usual and the pineapple drizzle added a little bit of flavor, but not enough to change my opinion about the basic theme park churro.

The boba pearls were fun, but they fell off before I could take a bite of the churro.

12) Almond Cold Brew

Aunt Cass Cafe

Served with orange cold foam

This was pretty much the standard issue cold brew Disneyland serves all over the park.

The almond and orange flavors didn’t stand out or add anything to this humdrum iced coffee.

Which made this “new” festival offering nothing more than just another old cup of Joe.