Now on to our first day of noshing at the Food & Wine Festival and our second lunch of the day. DS and I left Animal Kingdom and returned to our room to wait for DH’s arrival from the airport. By the time he finally arrived, unpacked, and made a few business calls, DS and I were starving. (Yes, we were starving even though we had already eaten at Flame Tree). We got to Epcot by mid-afternoon and were happy to find that it was not very crowded at the Food & Wine booths. I had already bought my wristband the day before so I was armed and ready to eat and drink my way from the World Showcase entrance to the park all the way to Future World.
But before I start the reviews, here is our rating system:
Where is the closest trash can?
Well, that was a disappointment
Pretty good, worth a try
Very good, just missed getting top marks
OMG so very good, one of our
TOP FIVE FAVORITES of the festival!
So our first stop after entering the park was at the very first booth that we came upon…
IRELAND
Where we sampled two out of their three food offerings.
Lobster and Scallop Fisherman’s Pie
Warm Chocolate Lava Cake with Bailey’s Irish Cream Ganache
These would have both made our favorites list, except that the Lava Cake was way too small…definitely not big enough for three hungry people to sample. I’m pretty sure I ended up with the short stick on this one because I only got one tiny bite of the cake before I turned it over to the guys and it was gone in the blink of an eye. So anyway, due to the size of the serving, the lava cake’s rating was downgraded.
Moving on clockwise, our next booth was…
CANADA
Where we had five out of the six things on their menu.
• Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup
• Maple and Moosehead Beer Glazed Salmon with Barley Salad
• Chicken Chipotle Sausage with Sweet Corn Polenta
• Moosehead Beer
• Neige Premiere
All three of the foods were very good, but our favorite was the salmon. In fact, it was very close to being one of our top five favorites. Moosehead is one of DH’s favorite beers, so it was a no brainer that he would have this and enjoy it. As for the Neige Premiere, this was the first time I had ever tried apple wine and I really liked it. It was like apple cider, only better. Recently, I thought about ordering a bottle online until I saw the $40 price tag. Although, come to think of it, this actually isn’t that bad considering I paid $5.75 for a tiny glass.
Next booth on our trip around the world was…
GREECE
Where we tried three of the four foods offered.
• Greek Salad with Pita Bread
• Griddled Greek Cheese with Pistacios and Honey
• Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatziki
I was quite surprised to discover that the only one of these three that I liked was the Greek Salad. I had read good reviews of their new (this year) offering, Greek Cheese, but I was not impressed with it. In fact, if my opinion mattered, they would drop this next year and bring back the tried and true Spanakopita. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be too upset if they dropped the Chicken Souvlaki, as it was not as good as I had remembered it being last year. But that’s probably never going to happen.
Our next stop was at…
DESSERTS & CHAMPAGNE
We were beginning to get full, so we got only one of the three desserts on the menu here.
White Chocolate Macadamia Mousse with Dark Chocolate Pearls
This was so good that it made our
Top 5 list!
Our last food of the afternoon came from…
HAWAII
• Kalua Pork Slider with Sweet and Sour Dole Pineapple Chutney and Spicy Mayonnaise
• Seven Tiki Mai Tai
We were looking forward to trying the Pork Slider as we all really like the combination of pork/ham and pineapple, but we were a little disappointed with this. It was good, just not as good as we were expecting. On the other hand, the Mai Tai was better than we were expecting and even made my top 5 favorite alcoholic beverages of the festival.
Our final drink of the afternoon came from…
CRAFT BEERS
From this booth, DH tried the Full Sail IPA (sorry, no picture), which he said was just okay.
Six Food & Wine Festival booths, ten food items, four alcoholic beverages. That is the answer to the question, “How much does it take to fill the hungry stomachs of two adults and one teenage boy?” Shoot, I was hoping to get to at least 10 booths and have at least 15 foods on this first visit of the three I had planned! I told my guys that on our next visit to the Festival we would have to step up our game. Their simultaneous response was something like this…
Since it was nearly 5:00 by the time we’d completed our feeding frenzy the next question was, “Would we be hungry enough to eat again at our 8:30 dinner at Via Napoli?” Stay tuned to find out.
OUR TRIP TOTALS - STEAKS 2, CAKES 1
NEXT UP: Dinner at Via Napoli???
Love those chicken tostadas! I might just take your idea and order them as my entree next time...so I don't have to share. 
Plenty more steaks yet to come...some of them good juicy ones and others, well not so much. 
), DS got his usual…Chocolate Chip muffin and chocolate milk. So I decided to be equally boring and got a Blueberry muffin and coffee. 
), we finally arrived at the park not long after opening. Then it was off to the races, as I tried my best to keep up with my long-legged and fast-moving son (when he wants to, that is 
We went on a few other rides (with little or no wait time) and arrived about 10 minutes before the start of the Finding Nemo show and still got seats, in fact we were practically in the front row…the best seats we’ve ever had! 
