Disney! Food! Flower and Garden! Pics! Yumminess! (Also, random Tampa reviews.)

[GMS]

Thanks for excellent reviews so far, you eat and drink like I do! What was the price on the tequila flight you had? May have to sample this one!

 

[frozengurl]

I want those shrimp n grits! Joining in.... I'm from Tampa originally so I'm actually quite interested in your Tampa reviews as well!

 

[poohangel]

Keep it coming. Nothing gets you in the MOOD for Disney better than good dining reviews.

 

[ChrissyBeth29]

You and your mom are my type of ladies! Love all the drinks! Was there cilantro all through the shrimp and grits, or was it just on top? I'm allergic, and that would be a bummer if it was throughout the grits!
Great report so far!

 

[Redwitch]

Mikka has been a bit "under the weather" with a nasty stomach bug. But she will post the rest of the food review soon! Sorry for the delay!

 

[auntfrannie]

Thanks for the update! I hope she feels better soon!

 

[vettegirl]

Love "the cave", I really like their avocado margarita even though the price tag hurts! Thank goodness for my Disney reward dollars lol. I agree the 98 for a flight is way too much, I would need to sip it all day long!! Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[Lord Fantasius]

Hey Mikka, good to hear from you. I think we both started on Dis about the same time and, looking at my post-count, have been about as active.

Love your trip report! Can't wait to read more.

I'm heading down in about a week for a conference so am just going to have to eat/drink my way around the world during one of my days off. But was kind of hoping to find a Disboards-sanctioned 'round the world event that I could join in.

Hope you're feeling better, and will hear from you soon.

 

[nfggirl5454]

Sorry to hear you're not feeling well, and I hope it passes soon!

I had the chicken and green apple spring pancake thing from china last year and thought it was delicious. Going to wdw next week and hoping to do F&G Thursday. If so, will definitely need to try one!

 

[Mikka]

I can't seem to find the price of the Tequila flight anywhere, sadly. I'm guessing it was somewhere in the 20's? Mom might be able to find the check.

As for the shrimp and grits, there was a fair bit of cilantro, but I believe they will serve you any item without any part of it you're allergic to/don't want. I believe cilantro was in with the sausage 'sauce', but you could still get the shrimp and grits without it if you so wanted.

Thank you everyone for responding and all the well-wishes. I'm sort of shocked: I don't usually get so many comments! Thank you all, especially those of you coming out of lurker-dome.


Anyway, the next day was a long day at Epcot trying various different items, and it was long enough that I'm going to split it in a few parts so I don't go crazy. Last time I tried posting this, Firefox crashed on me and I lost all my writing, so let's see if it goes smoother this time.

Oh, and as a note: it was a very rainy Thursday. It rained constantly till around seven in the evening. It was not particularly pleasant, and we spent a lot of times running around trying to hide under cover to eat.

Also, we decided we were going to drink one item at every booth like we did at F&W last year. That's nowhere near as much as we drank at F&W: you can do the F&G booths drinking around the world fairly easily, and add some extras, too.




Starting us off is the random pineapple booth, where we ordered the Sweet Potato Waffle with Dole whip on top. We joked that this was breakfast, and, well, it sort of is. Waffles, right? The waffle was piping hot, melting the dole whip (or as they're calling it, pineapple soft serve), but that's what it's supposed to do. Just be sure you grab a spoon, not a fork. This really isn't the most interesting dish in the world, but it's yummy.

Also pictured is the Tropical Mango Pale Ale, which was my second favorite beer that we tried, which means I didn't gag it up, basically. If you want serious beer reviews, don't look at me: I basically hate everything that makes beer beer and only like Shandy's and the like. Go to the snarky guy's site: he has real beer reviews. I'll note this doesn't taste all that mangoy: a bit sweeter then other beers, perhaps, but mango? Nah.



Skipping over England for a moment, we head to France. According to the Garden Passport, this is made with Sparkling Wine (not even champagne, huh?), Chambord, and Black Raspberry Liquor. In actuality, it's just the wine and the chambord (which is raspberry liquor, so whatever). Not really anything to note about, but seems to be a mistake in the booklet.

This is not really a notable drink. Average wine with a decent splash of good liquor makes it nice enough, but it's not anything unique. We weren't paying the extra three dollars for yet another slush that has no alcohol taste to it what-so-ever, though, so there you go.



Duck Confit with potatoes- almost as ugly as the Belgian meat waffle they serve at food and wine. And, surprisingly, almost as good. I don't know if it was luck (we were there basically at five minutes after booth opening) or if it's always like that, but the duck was cooked perfectly. Not rubbery, not dry, just delicious. The potatoes (with garlic and parsley) were flavorful and nice, and in general, this was one of the stand outs. As usually meat dishes are unfortunately just sort of average at the booths, this surprised me, so... I don't know. Try it, and see if you get good duck like we did or bad duck, I guess.



Rounding out France, the gnocchi. It's worth noting that I've had gnocchi at many Italian resturaunts in my life (and, er, from the frozen foods department from many grocery stores). This was definitely not your average Italian gnocchi. Mom and I did some research, and we think that rather then made with the standard 'pasta' dough balls you usually find in Italian gnocchi, this was made with pastry dough. It has a very different texture then the gnocchi I'm used to, though the flavor wasn't that different. It was still good.

It came with scattered vegetables (particularly mushrooms as it says), and some sort of polenta type thing that I'm unsure if it was actual polenta. They weren't outstanding; the star here is really the gnocchi.



Morocco's lamb brewat roll with prunes and sesame. Sadly, we forgot to cut it open to get a look at the inside. There's a lot more sauce then there seems to be: it's soaking in it. I... don't remember much about this dish, one way or another. Which probably means I neither loved it nor hated it.



Morocco, as always, shows the other booths how to pour their wine: they don't need any silly wine caps, they go right to the brim. Woo!

This is, as you can see, an actual product of 'Maroc'. So, it's an African Red. If you've read my food and wine report, you know then my mother and I are very fond of African reds. This one was no expectation: it was nice, full bodied, flavorful...

...And served chilled, which really isn't the best for a red wine of this type.

If you want to fully enjoy it, be prepared to spend a lot of time holding this wine in your hands trying to warm it up. It's not bad chilled, but it's much better closer to 'room'/outdoor temperature.



Intermission number one of the day, and where I'll stop for the moment.

As we finished our food in Morocco under the covered area of the Japanese pavillion, it started pouring. Left with little else to do, we headed in the Japanese department store and started looking at the thousand pretty things we could never afford. It was pretty empty, and we started up a conversation with the young woman running the sake tasting, and she convinced us to try this one.

This is a sparkling sake with added peach flavor, and it's the one always on the menu (Hana Fu Ga as opposed to Hana Awaka). It's very good for someone new to sake or who doesn't really like sake too much: it'll probably remind you more of a sparkling wine then a sake, as it's quite sweet (if not sickeningly so). There is still a bit of the sake taste, but it's brief: first it's "woah, bubbles sweet", then it's "sake!", then it's "huh, there's the peach". If you don't like peach, I wouldn't recommend this, but if you do, it's very easily drinkable.


Coming next: drinking beer for an hour under shelter in the American pavilion. Probably tomorrow.

 

[Redwitch]

Oh, and as a note: it was a very rainy Thursday. It rained constantly till around seven in the evening. It was not particularly pleasant, and we spent a lot of times running around trying to hide under cover to eat.

And I am sure it had no impact on the quality of the photographs!

Sweet Potato Waffle with Dole whip on top

I liked this! Sweet potato ranks up there with pumpkin as a favorite flavor and I love the pineapple Dole whip - glad they didn't do orange again!

Duck Confit with potatoes- almost as ugly as the Belgian meat waffle they serve at food and wine. And, surprisingly, almost as good.

I agree, we lucked out with our tasty piece of meat!

Mom and I did some research

I love to research!

Morocco, as always, shows the other booths how to pour their wine: they don't need any silly wine caps, they go right to the brim. Woo!

Woo! Woo! (Double Woo!)
But why cold?

Intermission number one of the day......a conversation with the young woman running the sake tasting, and she convinced us to try this one.

Because surly we needed more to drink then offered at the booths. And for once, we were using the WDW bus system instead of me driving!

Coming next: drinking beer for an hour under shelter in the American pavilion. Probably tomorrow.

Someone besides me better respond or she will disappear, disappear - back, back, over the falls!

 

[butiflfeet]

Good to know about the sake tasting in Japan. We always forget that its there when we are in Epcot but I really want to try some of those!

 

[Mikka]

The sake tasting in Japan is great! For winter, they actually had a hot sake out for tasting, too, though sadly we never made it back to try that one. They have around six or eight different kinds of sake to sample (plus one beer and plum wine, usually), and honestly in our opinion, almost every one of them is great. Too bad they're so expensive to take home, though.

My favorite is the yuzu sake they have. Yuzu is basically a Japanese lemon, and the sake tastes like limoncello with no amount of burn. A very dangerous little drink, actually.


More F&G booths!



In Florida, they build sandman. (This cutie is from the Land, and I just thought he was adorable enough to post.) I still feel like this thing is mocking me after all the snow we had this winter...



Next booth of interest to us was the Smokehouse, where they had thousands of adorable little Tabasco sauce bottles for you to steal. Er. Not that I'd ever do that. Really.

This is the Smoked Beef Brisket with collared greens and jalapeno corn bread. It's made, from what I could understand, in that huge smoker those poor guys were operating in the middle of the pouring rain. (And indeed, it was downpouring while we were eating our Smokehouse foods/drinking our drinks: there was some crazy kid around nine or so jumping in the puddles and getting absolutely soaked to the skin. Crazy!)

This meal was actually very good. The meat was tender, the greens were delicious, and the cornbread was nice and lightly spicy (if not too much)- and the bread wasn't dry at all. I enjoyed this. I think they have something good going, with this smoker. As a note, this was so flavorful it didn't even need the Tabasco or anything, though it certainly wouldn't hurt.



This is the Smoked Turkey rib, and it did need a bit of sauce. It was good, but there wasn't much of it: most of it was just bone, with very little turkey on it. Because of that, I don't really recommend it: you could get one with a lot of meat, or you could get one that's mostly bone like we did, and that's not very fun.

Still, it's not like it was bad tasting or anything.



Then the beer flight. Ah, the beer flight.

This is Magic Hat #9 from Magic Hat brewing, Maduro from Cigar City Brewing, Fat Tire from New Belgium Brewing Company, and Billy's Chillies from Twisted Pine Brewing Company. Maduro was somewhat interesting, as we had actually went to Cigar City Brewing while we were in Tampa and tried that beer there (mom liked it, though it wasn't a favorite). I found Magic Hat #9 standable, but Maduro and Fat Tire were too beer-y for me. Mom managed to down all three, though, so good for her.

So let's talk about Billy's Chillies, which may be the best thing ever.

It does not taste like beer. At all. It tastes less like beer then the seasonal shandy and the grapefruit beer from F&W. It tastes like jalapeno soda water. It was hilariously awesome to watch beer people take a sip of this and make the most disgusted 'omg what did I just sip' faces as they tried this so not-beery beer.

Personally, I kind of liked it, but- there is nothing beery about this beer. I remain suspicious that it's actually beer. Heh.

Anyway, we sat nursing these beers for like an hour as rain poured down around us. Eventually, it switched to a light drizzle, and we continued on our way.



Mexico! This is the Taco al Pastor (corn tortilla with marinated pork, pineapple, onions and cilantro) and the raspberry margarita.

The margarita was nice and refreshing: not as good as the ones you'll get in the cave, but a nice enough drink with definite raspberry flavor (and it wasn't frozen- we're not too big on frozen margaritas (especially mom, who just hates frozen drinks in general)). The taco? The pork was sort of dry, but the accompaniments gave it a pretty decent amount of flavor. I'm not sure it would go on my recommended list, but I wouldn't say don't try it: it wasn't bad.



Another stop at Urban Farm EATS (why is EATS capitalized?). To explain: mom loves beets. Just loves them. I'm mostly 'bleh' about them, but she really wanted to try the pickled beat salad (with goat cheese cream, mizuna ('water greens') and pistachios), so it was sort of like, hey why not. And we needed to get a drink from the booth anyway.

(The drink was the Vegan Vine Cab Sav, which we've had quite a few times at the F&W festival- but we were not buying an Anheuser Busch beer, seriously. It's not a bad wine, though obviously it wasn't the best pairing for the beet salad- it might go okay with the eggplant. If you like Chardonnay (we don't), the chard would match good with either the beets or the tilapia.)

But you know what?

These pickled beets were good. Really good. So much that I was actually eating them, too. This was overall a nice little salad.


That was when we took a break from the eating to go run to the front of the park for our Soaring FP+, so I'll take a break here as well, even though that was only a few items. >.>

 

[wdwpirates]

I read your last report. Excited to read this one!

 

[Redwitch]

I still feel like this thing is mocking me after all the snow we had this winter...

Yes in deed - mocking us..... I'll freeze your pipes, wreck your car and make you use up all your time off <evil laugh> before I'm done.

I think they have something good going, with this smoker.

So, how about they get rid of the crappy counter service and serve smoke house food at the American Pavilion. They could add corn on the cob and loaded baked potatoes to the existing items. I'd give it a try.

Then the beer flight. Ah, the beer flight.

I can't remember which one I liked best.

pickled beat salad

I wish she hadn't like it so I could keep it all to myself!

....but we were not buying an Anheuser Busch beer, seriously.

No we're not. Ever.

 

[Quin]

I'd like to try that gnocchi. And I'd REALLY like to try that wine pour from Morocco. Does anybody know if they're similarly generous inside Restaurant Marrakesh?

 

[Mikka]

So, how about they get rid of the crappy counter service and serve smoke house food at the American Pavilion. They could add corn on the cob and loaded baked potatoes to the existing items. I'd give it a try.

This is actually one of the more brilliant ideas you've ever had. I'd eat at the smokehouse over the uninspiring American counter service any day.


Someone read my old reports, yay! Glad that you're here.


As for Marakesh, I don't know if they pour similar amounts. The slushy stand in Morocco, while just serving random slushies that have nothing to do with Morocco at all, will however give you a good pour of alcohol. They pour the alcohol right on top of the slushy, though, so be prepared to stir it in.


Anyway, sorry for taking another break. :3 Here's some more F&G and the like.



This is from the Intermissions Cafe in the F&G/F&W pavillion building (or, the place they used to have Body Wars, which I still sort of miss). It's a tomato caprise, I believe- tomato, mozzarella, and balsamic vinager. As you can see from my napkin, it's a bit messy. This was an impossible to share item- what you did was just push the food in to your mouth all at once and try not to choke on it, basically.

It was only, what, a dollar? So we each got one. It wasn't bad by any means: tasty little healthy thing, though I'm not sure paying a dollar for one bite is really worth it.



Back around to beautiful England. This was the Freshly Baked Potato and Chedder Cheese Bisket with Smoked Salmon Tartare, and i was delicious. One of my favorites. The bread was served hot for us (luck, I suppose), and if you put salmon in front of me, I will eat and usually love it. This was definitely a nice little treat.

That drink next to it- the Berry Tea Cocktail- was unfortunately not anywhere as good, and I'd advise you to skip it. You can't see it in this picture, but it comes in a very small cup, first of all- much smaller then the drinks you'll get over in China, for example. Then, to top it off, it has no alcoholic taste what-so-ever. Third, even with tea and strawberry and raspberry and acai in it, it just tastes sort of syrupy: you'd think it would be sweet, but there's a hint of bitter there.

Drink one of the wines instead. Avoid this drink. >.>

Or, better yet, do what we do and have yourselves an intermission.



English pubs. Gotta love them. And gotta love scotch flights.

This is obviously the Johnnie Walker flight, as we'd already had all the other flights the Rose & Crown offers. This fight is sort of interesting: the bartender explained to us that they're not making the Green Label and Gold Label (that's the 15 year and the 18 year) anymore. So this pub might be one of your last chances to try it, if you're in the mood for scotch.

I find scotch very yummy, personally. Yes, there's a definite burn- this is a sipping drink, not a 'WEE SCOTCH SHOT!' drink (though, hey, if that appeals to you, go for it- I might laugh at the expressions you make when you do it, though). But scotch generally has this light sweetness to it that I enjoy, as well as being very flavorful.



And then, of course, you can't have Scotch without a Scotch Egg, am I right? This is good as always: everytime we walk in to the Rose and Crown Pub, we end up ordering it. Much better then the one served at our local Ren Faire, I must say. It's greasy, unhealthy goodness, being an egg with sausage wrapped around it and then fried. If you've never had one, give it a try.



With more alcohol in our bellies, we headed over to Japan. The drink is the Pineapple Paradise- sweet sake, pineapple juice, creme, and a bit of yuzu juice. It's once again very refreshing and nicely sweet, but there's no real taste or hint of alcohol in it.

The other item is, of course, frushi! Everyone knows what that is now, right? Made with sweet coconut rice and some sort of wrapping I can't figure out (but it's still not seaweed), inside the coconut rice is various pieces of fruit. I don't think this is all that authentic, either, but it sure makes for a yummy dessert. Kids will probably adore it, and quite a few adults will, too.


I know this isn't a very long post, but I have to go out now. I'll try to post again later today, or admittedly more likely, tomorrow.

 

[Redwitch]

This is actually one of the more brilliant ideas you've ever had.

My delusions of grandeur once again shattered.

It's a tomato caprise,... It was only, what, a dollar? So we each got one. It wasn't bad by any means: tasty little healthy thing, though I'm not sure paying a dollar for one bite is really worth it.

I think it was $2.00?

This was the Freshly Baked Potato and Chedder Cheese Bisket with Smoked Salmon Tartare,... That drink next to it- the Berry Tea Cocktail- was unfortunately not anywhere as good, and I'd advise you to skip it.

The biscuit was yummy! I'd take her advise on the cocktail - skip it. It wet your whistle, but was not really even a thirst quencher due to the syrupy bitterness.

English pubs. Gotta love them.

English pubs, Irish pubs, Tequila caves, Wine bars... Love them all!

Frushi - Made with sweet coconut rice and some sort of wrapping I can't figure out (but it's still not seaweed), inside the coconut rice is various pieces of fruit.

It wasn't fruit roll ups, which is sometimes used to make kiddie dessert sushi, either.

I'll try to post again later today, or admittedly more likely, tomorrow.

Post! Post! Post!

 

[smile4stamps]

You guys are so funny!! I think the Frushi used soy paper. My husband has his sushi made with that because he can't have the seaweed.

Thanks for the input on the drink. I probably won't remember it when I am there but I will try!

I would love to try just the biscuit without the salmon. DH is allergic

 

[twinboyz98]

This is awesome!! Thanks for posting all the pics! Getting excited to experience this is a few weeks! We love F&GF!! Yummy stuff--almost as good as Food & Wine.. ok, maybe not.