Follow me as I snack around F&W! Complete 12/3: Wrap-up, thoughts on QSDP and F&W

[shebaxric]

On the left we have Escargot en Brioche and on the right, Cabernet Short Ribs with Mashed Potatoes.

I'll start with the Escargot. I love these little buggers (no pun intended ) My boyfriend had never tried escargot before and let's face it, the F&W version of escargot is probably the safest introduction on the planet. So he popped one and promptly stated, "it tastes like garlic bread." ...not so scary huh? The best part of ordering escargot at a restaurant is always sopping up the garlic sauce with your bread after you eat them, and at F&W, they've found a way to do it for you! I personally find it to be my own little slice of heaven. They'd probably get a top rating, but were overshadowed by their partner...so they'll get this one instead:

I am so very glad that you reviewed an escargot dish! We have a reservation at Chefs de France and I wanted to get the escargot, but was a little nervous to. This helps, thank you!
Those cabernet short ribs look absolutely fantastic. Too bad that won't be on the menu!

 

[BriarRosie]

Woohoo for snail poppers!

I gave the short rib my highest rating because they had a childhood comfort food reminder.

I didn't find anything I ate at the kiosks to be terrible, which is a good thing!

 

[onelilspark]

I am so very glad that you reviewed an escargot dish! We have a reservation at Chefs de France and I wanted to get the escargot, but was a little nervous to. This helps, thank you!
Those cabernet short ribs look absolutely fantastic. Too bad that won't be on the menu!

These escargot are very different in looks from what you get at Chefs, but honestly, give them a try! The texture is similar to mushrooms, but the flavor is totally different. The flavor is really whatever it's cooked in!

Woohoo for snail poppers!

I gave the short rib my highest rating because they had a childhood comfort food reminder.

I didn't find anything I ate at the kiosks to be terrible, which is a good thing!

Yeah, I mean, I didn't like some things, but it was because I didn't care for them personally. Not that I needed to spit it out because it was so terrible! Like the shrimp & papaya dish. Entirely too spicy for me. Where as others I'm sure didn't even notice the spice. Usually I just stay away from anything that even looks at a pepper because I know my taste buds, but I was fooled

And I loved the short ribs. It must have been your comment that I read about the comfort food!

 

[that's nice]

Is it a coincidence that your plate of escargot looks like a Mickey Head? I think I have too much Disney on the brain. I saw a hidden Mickey at our local zoo yesterday... I have to upload it. My wife thought the same thing at the same time too.... scary!!!!

The short ribs w/ mashed looks really good! I wish I was able to try that!

 

[Sandy321]

ooo em gee

this made me

Love your pictures - and descriptions, I've never had any desire to eat snails - then the last time we were at the F&W we met up with a dis'er who's 10 year old was enjoying them - they smelled delicious - but SNAILS? not so much!

I was curious how the brioche bread interacted - I've read the snail poppers - but I like how you informed the "non snail eating community" too!!

(We really must do another F&W trip... )

 

[norybell]

I totally agree with you about the short ribs...they were the best! Great reviews so far!

 

[brookelizabeth]

When we were at F&W last year escargot was on my list of "must try" - but that day we weren't feeling the best and only hit a small handful of the booths and stayed with food we were at least sorta familar with. I so want to try them! I like the little bread bowl dealy they are in too-yum! How do you eat it? Suck out the snail, then eat the bread? Or just all at once?!

 

[onelilspark]

Is it a coincidence that your plate of escargot looks like a Mickey Head? I think I have too much Disney on the brain. I saw a hidden Mickey at our local zoo yesterday... I have to upload it. My wife thought the same thing at the same time too.... scary!!!!

The short ribs w/ mashed looks really good! I wish I was able to try that!

I think it's just a coincidence

this made me

Love your pictures - and descriptions, I've never had any desire to eat snails - then the last time we were at the F&W we met up with a dis'er who's 10 year old was enjoying them - they smelled delicious - but SNAILS? not so much!

I was curious how the brioche bread interacted - I've read the snail poppers - but I like how you informed the "non snail eating community" too!!

(We really must do another F&W trip... )

Haha, when I read, "OMG" I think of what it stands for, and if I wanted to say that, I'd just type that out. When I get really excited about something, I actually say, "O.M.G." So I needed to make that clarification

And yes, start booking F&W for next year! Do it....

I totally agree with you about the short ribs...they were the best! Great reviews so far!

I wish I was having them today...it's so gross and rainy!

When we were at F&W last year escargot was on my list of "must try" - but that day we weren't feeling the best and only hit a small handful of the booths and stayed with food we were at least sorta familar with. I so want to try them! I like the little bread bowl dealy they are in too-yum! How do you eat it? Suck out the snail, then eat the bread? Or just all at once?!

Eat all at once! Well, I take two bites, but as Sandy321 said, they're snail poppers! So just pop them on in!


I have some exciting news: I'm going to DisneyLAND!!! ...either March or April of 2010. Avoiding Easter. Not sure exactly when yet, but we're going!!

 

[onelilspark]

After my sensitive taste buds composed themselves, we were off to Cape Town, South Africa. Here we found the Seared Beef Tenderloin with Sweet Potato Purée and Mango Barbecue Sauce:

I must admit a few things first...1) I like my meat medium rare (as seen above with the lamb chop) which is hard to do in mass quantity 2) I don't like sweet potatoes and 3) I don't like mangoes. (The plural of mango looks funny.) All signs pointed to me not liking this dish. But the boyfriend was all about it. So I tried it. The meat was overcooked, but it was still tender enough to cut with a plastic knife, so it gets a pass. The sweet potatoes by themselves didn't do anything for me, same with the mango bbq...but shocker of all shockers, I didn't hate them. But then when you took a bite with all three things together... it was like a party going on in your mouth! The bbq added a nice tartness, while the sweetness of the potatoes helped to smooth the flavor out. All which paired really well with the meat. So much to my surprise going in, this dish also gets the top Meeko!

From here we were kind of full and decided it was time for a walk...to the Festival Center...we were being adventurous...

I promptly found air conditioning, seating, and a wine bar...

They were serving Taittinger Champagne Before my boyfriend knew what was happening, I was buying myself a glass and asking if he wanted anything. He said no

My brother studied in France and brought a bottle home for us, ever since, I've had a mini-love affair with the brand. They have a winery in California that they own called Domaine Carneros. I get a bottle shipped every other month! It's quite lovely. Obviously, this glass gets the top Meeko. I could have sat all day:

As I was sipping, my boyfriend started pondering what Port was like (they had it on the wine bar menu.) Since I can't have red wines, I was no help. So I encouraged him to go try a glass....don't ever take me shopping with you!

He discovered that he likes Port very much. So we sat and merrily drank and people watched. There was an author talking behind us, so we caught some of that (don't worry, it was a free event, we weren't being sneaky on the other side of Palm henge!!) He'd also give the Port a top Meeko:

Really, we probably would have gotten up to join that talk, but that would have required movement. We weren't going anywhere

When we were finished the last drops of our beverages, we shed a tear and explored the rest of the Festival Center. I picked up the Cookbook for this year's F&W festival (and I laugh when they tell you how to make things that I know they buy!) and bought a Sweedish Chef plush for my Dad for his birthday...he loved it.
Eventually we wound up in the wine area, we didn't buy any, but we took pictures!
I liked the baby Processco bottle:

This was the Port that my boyfriend tried:

Fairport, NY in the house! (I get a small kick when I see Casa Larga at Epcot...it's 10 minutes from me! Tasty wines!!!)

And the rest of the room:

We made our way out...

And towards the front of the park, through Innoventions:

This is the new "ride." We didn't do it, not because of lines, but because my boyfriend works for a competitor. It's the principle of the thing!

And our final destination:

Personally, I like my hair-do!

 

[KatMark]

Great update, and I think your hairdo is terrific too!

 

[norybell]

Great update! You're making me sorry I never made it to the Festival Center...I kept meaning to, but it always seemed so far from wherever I was standing when I thought of it...

 

[that's nice]

I'm sitting here watching the game and I am getting restless. You Phillies are winning 2-0.

I guess that is where the wine comes in on the Food & Wine Festival. That is a lot of wine! I'm not a wine drinker expert but like to have a glass of wine every once in a while. Great pictures BTW!

OK I gotta watch the rest of this game. Hope something good happens!

Oh yea.... nice pictures on Spaceship Earth!!!!

 

[shebaxric]

After my sensitive taste buds composed themselves, we were off to Cape Town, South Africa. Here we found the Seared Beef Tenderloin with Sweet Potato Purée and Mango Barbecue Sauce:

Okay, looks very very yummy!!! I'm glad you ended up liking it!

They were serving Taittinger Champagne Before my boyfriend knew what was happening, I was buying myself a glass and asking if he wanted anything. He said no

Ooh, champagne!! Is there anything better to drink? Really, I don't think so....
And towards the front of the park, through Innoventions:

This is the new "ride." We didn't do it, not because of lines, but because my boyfriend works for a competitor. It's the principle of the thing!
I really need to go through Innoventions this trip, make it a priority. I honestly have never been in there before.

Personally, I like my hair-do!

The hair is fabulous dahling!
BTW, CONGRATS ON THE PHILLIES FIRST WIN! Hopefully, they start a trend and sweep the Yanks!

 

[onelilspark]

Great update, and I think your hairdo is terrific too!

It's all the latest rage!

Great update! You're making me sorry I never made it to the Festival Center...I kept meaning to, but it always seemed so far from wherever I was standing when I thought of it...

This was the first of the three years I actually made it over. It was on my short "to do" list!

I'm sitting here watching the game and I am getting restless. You Phillies are winning 2-0.

I guess that is where the wine comes in on the Food & Wine Festival. That is a lot of wine! I'm not a wine drinker expert but like to have a glass of wine every once in a while. Great pictures BTW!

OK I gotta watch the rest of this game. Hope something good happens!

Oh yea.... nice pictures on Spaceship Earth!!!!

Yeah, there was a lot of wine over at the Center.

Something good happened that game...we let you score a run

The hair is fabulous dahling!
BTW, CONGRATS ON THE PHILLIES FIRST WIN! Hopefully, they start a trend and sweep the Yanks!

We had to be nice and give them one game, but don't worry, it's all Phils from here on out!

 

[onelilspark]

Once we saw our future, we decided that our immediate future included more F&W fun, so it was back to the World Showcase for more tasty treats!

I knew I wanted to hit up the Mousecatch. It was one of my favorite booths last year, so I had it on my "must hit" for this year.

This year?? Eh...it was ok. It was cheese, so I liked it. But last year they were a little more adventurous and they told you which cheese was which. This year I was left to guess.

Now that we had our cheese course, it was time for dessert! My favorite We couldn't decide which dessert to try, so we got 2! The Grand Mariner Parfait and the Strawberry Shortcake.

I'll start with the Strawberry Shortcake:

First, I have to admit, part of this wound up all over my shorts Which made it item #2 to do so. It joined some of the mango bbq sauce from the tenderloin! I wasn't even drinking that much!
But moving past that, do you see how many strawberries were in this? And they were all nice and fresh, not the frozen kind in that thick syrup. The whipped cream was definitely fresh too, which was nice. The biscuit? Eh, they needed a better biscuit. It was a little dry (and actually trying to cut it with the fork is how everything wound up on my shorts!)

From the same booth we got the Grand Mariner Parfait:

My boyfriend really liked this a lot. I thought it was really good, but I don't like oranges and orange flavored things nearly as much as he does. It was chilled and almost like a creamy sherbet with the coulis on top. Since it was so hot and humid that day, it was really refreshing.

My boyfriend kept eying the frozen bananas at all the stands, so even though we had all these delectable goodies around the World Showcase, he still had to have one! No rating here, just the photo.

At this point, I was dying for a margarita. And oh look! How convenient, we were right outside Mexico It was time to visit the Ditch (aka the new Tequila bar inside the Mexico pavilion.)
I settled on the blood orange margarita:

And while waiting, took pictures of their current menu:

Since he was wearing a birthday button, my boyfriend was given a free tequila shot! I thought it was awfully nice of them, especially since I was the only one getting a drink. Definitely something we weren't expecting. But....back to my drink! This was one of my favorite drinks. It's really tart, and I just loved the salt around the rim (I know most places do this with margaritas, but since they match up the kind of salt with the margarita, I liked it.) I wish that it wasn't so crowded on Saturday so I could have gotten it again...though it solved my dilemma! I couldn't decide if I wanted to try something new or stick with the same one Obviously this gets a top Meeko:

We then took a stroll around the World Showcase, just soaking it all in...not overly concerned with getting anywhere at a certain time:

At this point I had completely lost track of time. But at some point we started getting to the point where we wanted an actual meal instead of snacking, so we headed over to the Tangierene Cafe and got ourselves the Shwarma combo platter to share. The portion is huge and since we weren't that hungry, just in the mood for more than a bite or two of something, we decided to split it:

...and it came with baklava (which is why we didn't get it from the Greece or Morocco, it looks the same to me!)

We love this meal. It's just a ton of food though, I could never finish it myself. It was funny though, the CMs at the restaurant were definitely bored, no one was in there! They were having fun with us when we came in. I'm happy to oblige (I requested a cup of ice water and they said, "only if you say please 100 times." So I started!! It amused them, I'm glad I could help!!)

One more dessert and then we were done for the night! We were off to the New Orleans booth for some Bread Pudding!

Easily my favorite dish at F&W. Because of this dish, I've discovered my absolute love of bread pudding!! I had no idea!!

We had a very full day, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to the room!

 

[donaldtutter]

That margarita looks awesome!!!

 

[Vickis3js]

awesome reviews. Margarita looks yummy sucks that even the smell of tequila turns my stomach college frat/sorority parties ruined it for me LOL

 

[norybell]

I 100% agree with everything you had to say about the Strawberry Shortcake! I still liked it, though. I wish I had it now, actually...

 

[that's nice]

WOW you guys weren't stuffed yet? Everything looks great! I'm sure my DW would love that margarita!!!!!

The strawberry shortcake looks really good too!

 

[beroh2253]

Just back Yesterday.
Favorite snack - Crab cake with Sam Adams Boston Ale
Favorite Mixed Drink- Mojito
3 cheese plate was real good
Beef skewer great