Theme Park News!: Diagon Alley Continues to be Awesome

Image courtesy of Universal (please don't sue)

Well, in case none of you have heard this, Universal has let out a lot of new news recently, and I'm here to give you the breakdown, and then give a bit of speculation, so let's get started after the break!
So, in various releases, we have learned about two major features of note: food and live entertainment. As with most things, we'll start with food first, and move on to our live attractions after.

So for food we have a triple hitter, with actual dishes, desserts and drinks, and to start us off we have the Leaky Cauldron, a place that I'm sure most Potter fans will want to eat at, with menu items such as
Bangers and Mash-Sausage and Mashed Potatoes
Fisherman's Pie-Salmon, shrimp and cod baked in a potato crust
Toad in the Hole-sausage baked into Yorkshire Pudding and served with Onion gravy
Fish and Chips
Ploughman's Lunch-English cheese, crusty bread, cornichon pickles, apple beet salad, Branston pickle and a Scotch egg (hard boiled egg wrapped in breaded sausage meat)

With that, we also have a variety of ice creams from the beloved Florean Fortescue, and have a chocolate chili as well as clotted cream and... BUTTERBEER. There are others like Earl Grey and lavender, or Orange marmalade, but none as... peculiar as the clotted cream or chocolate chili. 

Finally we have the drinks, where two signature beers have been added on tap for the Leaky Cauldron, Wizard's Brew and Dragon Scale, as well as two other nonalcoholic drinks such as the fishy green ale or the tongue-tying lemon squash. To be honest, I have no idea what flavors these will have, though I can only imagine that Wizard's Brew will be something mild, while the Dragon Scale may be close to something like fireball whiskey, and may have hints of cinnamon. Green Ale and Lemon Squash I expect to be citrusy drinks as well, though I think Green Ale may be closer to a fizzy V8 type drink than the lemon squash, which I am near certain will be defined by how sour it is. However, it isn't just these two, but the features of Elixirs to be added to "Gillywater" that will change the flavor/react with the water. Now to this I have two questions: What is gillywater, and what are the elixirs sold in? Now, if I was hopeful I'd say "flavored sparkling water and glass bottles" respectively. However, I'm pretty sure the elixirs will be sold as packets or in small Mio like bottles, where they can drip little drops into the Gillywater, which may or may not be plain bottled water with a different label (I'd be a bit disappointed, but nonetheless a bit happy that they put that touch on it). 

To wrap everything up, we have a variety of live entertainment options, we have a puppet show of the Tale of the Three Brothers and Fountain of Fair Fortune by Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour (if one knows about Florean Fortescue and his alleged planned role in the seventh book, this becomes a rather clever reference by the Universal team, and I tip my hat to them). In addition, we have Molly Weasley's favorite singer, Celestina Warbeck, and it is said to include information about her that would be published on Pottermore in the near/far future depending on when you are all reading this. Finally, we have Olivander's (the show will occur in both places), conversations between the talking head and the knight bus conductor, and the Gringotts exchange where you can trade muggle money for wizard bank notes spendable in the entire resort (so, probably a paper note, though I think a reloadable galleon would have been far, far better, but I digress).

Overall, I think we have an interesting addition to the Orlando Resort. It will be a while till I get to make my personal review, but till then, I will post a review in the near future of my first visit to the resort, and I will focus on what I got, did, and how I will probably attempt this for the next time I go, whenever that may be.

 (Universal press release food). 
(Universal press release shows).