Last week we went to the first day of the 2018 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival! It was our very first time at this festival and it was a big success! We had tasty eats and treats and couldn’t wait to go back! Check out the video here!
Well, we didn’t wait long before going back! Last night, I had the day off and Adam got off work in time for dinner….So to Epcot we ventured!
We didn’t do a video but I did take pictures and careful notes of our dishes so I could bring you a blog post with juicy details about the delicious things we tried. Between our 2 trips, we have tried 9 dishes and every one of them was soooo good. #noregrets Let’s dive right in…
First up are the Piggy Wings from Flavors From Fire. On the menu it says these are “roasted pork wings with Korean BBQ sauce and sesame seeds.” Adam and I like to share our dishes. There was a good amount of meat on each of these 3 piggy wings. Sometimes you get wings or lamb chops this small that just don’t have meat on them. And the meat was pretty tender too. I did use a knife and fork to cut up the wings (they’re definitely finger foods, but I don’t like getting saucy fingers) and the meat came off the bone cleanly. The sauce had good flavor, though I wish it had been just a little sweeter. We both agreed that we wanted more sauce. Of course, that would have made it messier for the finger foods eaters, but that’s what napkins are for!
Next, we headed back to Belgium. I’ve been eying this booth since the menus were announced! A beef dish and 2 waffle dishes?! Um, Hello dream come true! Anyway, we ordered the Beer-braised Beef with smoked gouda mashed potatoes and the Belgian Waffle with warm chocolate ganache and whipped cream. The beef was good. It wasn’t as tender as some of the other beef we’ve had at the festival. But the gravy was tasty and the potatoes were creamy and the gouda taste came through nicely. Honestly, I’m not a huge gouda fan, so I didn’t eat as much of this dish as Adam did, but he enjoyed it. He said that the more he ate, the more he liked it.
On to the waffle. The waffle itself was great; crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. They put a significant amount of whipped cream on it, which makes me (and Leslie Knope) happy! The chocolate ganache was rich. But I still think there should have been more of it. (that might be a theme for the trip…MORE SAUCE!) Overall, it was a pleasant dish, but I think next time I’ll try the Belgian Waffle with Berry Compote.
We knew we wanted another chocolate dessert, but first I wanted a fruity palate cleanser. Enter the Quesito from Islands of the Caribbean. It’s a “puff pastry with sweetened cream cheese and Guava Sauce.” The Guava Sauce might have been my favorite part, and so of course, I wish there had been more. Overall, this is a very light and tasty dessert. It’s not too filling and not too sweet. And while I wanted more guava sauce, that wasn’t the biggest let down. There wasn’t much cream cheese in my pastry. Truthfully, that probably won’t stop me from trying it a second time. But if the next is as empty as this was, then I’ll know that they chefs are just being stingy with the cream cheese! BOO!
And finally, the crown jewel of this trip… the Liquid Nitro Chocolate-Almond Truffle from The Chocolate Studio. I’m not even sure how to describe this. The chocolate is flash frozen with Liquid Nitrogen (think of the science that brings you sub-zero ice cream or Dippin’ Dots). The outside is solid while the inside is so creamy. SO CREAMY. It’s kind of like an ice cream truffle. It was light and delicious and while we shared it, I felt like I could eat 4 of these all on my own. (Full Disclosure: I hadn’t eaten much all day…so I could have had a slightly skewed experiences based on my dramatic feeling of starvation)
I would definitely recommend all of these dishes (and the ones we ate on day one)! So far there isn’t a dud in the batch! It’s unlikely that we’ll try ALL of the dishes, but we’ve still got plenty more we want to try… and several we’ll be re-visiting.
Stay tuned for more Epcot Food and Wine Festival 2018 updates!