Food and Wine Festival Review - this is a review that my husband wrote. Just to give you a little background, he is a chef and we go to "trade only" food shows at least once per year in New York City.
October 25-26, 2002
Two days was not enough to experience everything that the Epcot Food and Wine festival has to offer. There were many simultaneous seminars, demonstrations and meet and greet opportunities. Around the World Showcase one could sample a variety of food offerings and libations from many different countries.
Sometimes its just difficult to sugar coat it. Although the grounds are magnificently decorated for the event, as is the Disney norm, I thought the quality of the foods offered as tapas were poor to mediocre at best. I would attribute this to what I perceived to be a lack of adequate training of the staff manning the kiosks. In contrast the humus and pita from Morocco was superb and a good size portion was only $1.00
As a consummate chili head I would have enjoyed seeing a kiosk devoted to a tasting of the fifty or so different varieties of peppers that were growing in all of the gardens throughout Epcot.
Often, less then perfect food preparation can be blamed on the size of the crowd. However, on the days that we were there the crowd crunch was nonexistent. The weather was spectacular and the flow from country to country and kiosk to kiosk was accomplished at a comfortable pace.
In my opinion the exhibit from Andalucia Spain gets the highest marks followed closely by South Africa. The majority of the food kiosks were provided by permanent resident countries of the Epcot World Showcase. I would have expected that the permanent countries would have provided exhibits equal to that of Spain and South Africa. Some might argue that Spain and South Africa were presented in the style that they were simply because they are not permanent resident countries.
Robert Mondavis presentation From Vine to Wine was well presented, informative and ended with a toast and a tasting.
We were disappointed that the seating at the wine dinners is so limited that they are almost impossible to obtain. Hopefully in the future there will be additional events so that more people will be able to attend.
We truly enjoyed the Party of the Senses and that will be our reason to attend next year but thats another story.. that will be posted in the next couple of days.
Did we let our disappointment of the food kiosks ruin our trip? Not at all. We had a great time and we are happy we tried it.
We would definitely visit again at this time of year as the weather was perfect and Epcot looked wonderful. Don't let this review hold you back on trying the Food and Wine festival if you have never been. When we return we will still try some of the food offerings, especially the items that we don't normally eat.
I would be happy to answer any questions.
October 25-26, 2002
Two days was not enough to experience everything that the Epcot Food and Wine festival has to offer. There were many simultaneous seminars, demonstrations and meet and greet opportunities. Around the World Showcase one could sample a variety of food offerings and libations from many different countries.
Sometimes its just difficult to sugar coat it. Although the grounds are magnificently decorated for the event, as is the Disney norm, I thought the quality of the foods offered as tapas were poor to mediocre at best. I would attribute this to what I perceived to be a lack of adequate training of the staff manning the kiosks. In contrast the humus and pita from Morocco was superb and a good size portion was only $1.00
As a consummate chili head I would have enjoyed seeing a kiosk devoted to a tasting of the fifty or so different varieties of peppers that were growing in all of the gardens throughout Epcot.
Often, less then perfect food preparation can be blamed on the size of the crowd. However, on the days that we were there the crowd crunch was nonexistent. The weather was spectacular and the flow from country to country and kiosk to kiosk was accomplished at a comfortable pace.
In my opinion the exhibit from Andalucia Spain gets the highest marks followed closely by South Africa. The majority of the food kiosks were provided by permanent resident countries of the Epcot World Showcase. I would have expected that the permanent countries would have provided exhibits equal to that of Spain and South Africa. Some might argue that Spain and South Africa were presented in the style that they were simply because they are not permanent resident countries.
Robert Mondavis presentation From Vine to Wine was well presented, informative and ended with a toast and a tasting.
We were disappointed that the seating at the wine dinners is so limited that they are almost impossible to obtain. Hopefully in the future there will be additional events so that more people will be able to attend.
We truly enjoyed the Party of the Senses and that will be our reason to attend next year but thats another story.. that will be posted in the next couple of days.
Did we let our disappointment of the food kiosks ruin our trip? Not at all. We had a great time and we are happy we tried it.
We would definitely visit again at this time of year as the weather was perfect and Epcot looked wonderful. Don't let this review hold you back on trying the Food and Wine festival if you have never been. When we return we will still try some of the food offerings, especially the items that we don't normally eat.
I would be happy to answer any questions.
