It's finally here! Our official blog post about the largest and most epic food and wine festival in the industry! The mother of all theme park food events! The biggest reason we decided to start a theme park food blog! And one of our favorite times of the year! The EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival! After a year of patiently waiting, we finally made it to Orlando a few weeks ago for our annual Food and Wine trip! This year's event features the largest number of booths that the festival has ever seen! To help EPCOT celebrate it's 35th year, the park is featuring 35 booths which include everyone's favorites, plus some great new additions as well! As always, the festival includes celebrity chefs, food and beverage seminars, and exclusive merchandise. But, in this post we'll be focusing solely on the marketplace booths and all the delicious food and drink options within them. Let's get started! EPCOT Legacy Showplace and Craft Beer Plenty of selection on the craft beer side! Parker really enjoyed the Cheeseburger Mac and Cheese Handwich and the Chilled Scotch Eggs. We were really excited for the food at this booth since it featured some of our favorite things. It wasn't really as great as we were hoping, but we liked it overall. Flavors from Fire This stand featured two of Brittany's favorite picks from the whole festival! The Orlando Brewery Smokin' Blackwater Porter and the Piggy Wings! The Porter was really good, especially if you're a fan of darker beers! Light Lab The Light Lab was SUCH a cool pop-up bar added to the festival this year! Not only was it all blacklight with glowing cocktails and treats, but it was INDOORS! A/C for the win! Glownut (glorified Joffrey's donut) and Bleu Spectrum (Champagne with rainbow boba pearls!) This place was so cute, we just wish it photographed better! Active Eats Loaded Mac and Cheese- another dish that screams "PARKER!" Needless to say, he loved it. We also tried the M.I.A Beer Company Hard Cucumber and Lime water. It was hands down one of the strangest things we've ever tasted. It was essentially alcoholic cucumber water. It didn't have a very defined taste, but the smell let you know there was alcohol in it. Messed with the senses for sure! Coastal Eats A seafood lover's dream! This was one of our most anticipated booths as well (especially Brittany) because we love seafood! All three food options were great, but the standout was definitely the baked shrimp scampi dip! Refreshment Port Dole Whip all day every day. You can get regular pineapple dole whip or the adult version AKA dole whip with Bacardi coconut rum (highly recommended!!) Yum! The Almond Orchard The Almond Orchard features our favorite desserts of the festival! The Banana Almond Soft-serve Sundae. It was so light and refreshing, yet still sweet enough to calm that craving for sugar. We loved it! Farm Fresh Farm Fresh was another booth we were pretty excited for. Parker is the Cider King (refer to previous food and wine post from BGW) so naturally we got the cider flight here. We also tried the crispy chicken with griddled cornbread and red eye gravy. It was good, but very heavy and not ideal for the extreme heat that we were facing that day. Greece We tried the Spanakopita and the Loaded Greek Nachos. This is a popular booth amongst the festival goers, but we've got to be honest: we aren't the biggest fans. Bring back the gyro!! Thailand In Thailand we tried the Chicken in Peanut Sauce. Parker liked it a lot! Mexico Mexico is always a favorite booth Ribeye Taco with Roasted Chipotle Sauce & Tequila Chipotle Shrimp on a Black Bean Huarache For Margaritas we always prefer to go inside the pyramid to La Cava del Tequila. They have a better selection and it's just a neat hidden place. We can't wait for Choza de Margarita to open in the Mexico pavilion soon! Plenty of new and exciting Margaritas will be joining the EPCOT lineup! China We, unfortunately, didn't get any pictures in China because it started monsooning on us for about 20 minutes while we were finishing up in line. However, we got the failsafe chicken pot stickers and we tried the black pepper shrimp. Both were very good! We also tried both the Kung Fu Punch and BaiJoe Punch. At first sip, the BaiJoe was INTENSE, but after stirring it around for a while it was actually pretty good. The Kung Fu punch was also a thumbs up! Italy Italy's also another favorite! Crispy Calamari with Spicy Pomodoro Sauce Block and Hans / Hops and Barley We put these together because they're both in the American pavilion. Block and Hans just features beer while Hops and Barley features both drinks and food. We have quite the list of things tried in America because there was just so much that sounded good! - Hanson Brother Mmmhops Pale Ale (Because come on with that clever title how could we not??) - McKenzie's Seasonal Reserve Hard Cider (To reiterate, Parker=Cider King) - JDubs Bell Cow Porter (Because Brittany can never pass up a new Porter) - Killer Whale Cream Ale (For you, Shamu!) - New England Lobster Roll (A Festival classic!) - Smoked Beef Brisket with Pimento Cheese (yuuuuuummm) France La Passion Martini Slush , Bouchard Aine & Fils Chardonnay, and Croissant aux Escargots The escargot was not as good as it was a few years ago in 2012. They were baked into individual brioche buns and were far less chewy. But either way, we're glad we tried it! Ireland Ireland ended up being a pretty good booth as well. We had a Guinness Blonde Lager to drink. Warm Irish Cheddar Cheese and Stout Dip and Roasted Irish Sausage with Colcannon Potatoes and Onion Gravy. The sausage and potatoes were the clear winner this round! Scotland The Fresh Potato Pancake with Smoked Salmon and Herbed Sour Cream. Hands down one of the best food options in the entire festival. It was top 3 for Parker and he doesn't even like salmon, so that's saying something. Canada It's so appropriate that we end on Canada. We definitely saved the best for last! Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup (a long-time favorite) and "Le Cellier" Wild Mushroom Filet Mignon. Drink- Neige Premiere "Apple Ice Wine" The filet was so good, it was the only item in the entire festival that we ordered more than once. It's a 2-3 oz piece of filet for only $8, so not only is it delicious it's a great deal, too! It is a returning champ from last year's festival, and we hope it stays for a very long time! In Conclusion The food and Wine festival was everything we hoped for and more. 35 booths was ridiculously overwhelming, but, we tried everything we wanted to and we left content. Until next year, Food and Wine! EPCOT's Food and Wine Festival runs through November 13th, 2017.
Please share with us some of your favorite festival items in the comments!
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AuthorsParker and Brittany Ruhmel- Lovers of all things food and theme park related! Categories
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