The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival kicked off on July 15th and is now in full swing! Each year the Festival includes Global Marketplaces where you can taste your way around the world, live entertainment and fun activities the whole family can enjoy. For avid collectors, there's also limited-edition event merchandise available for purchase. If you haven't visited the Festival yet, no worries! The Festival runs until November 20th so there is still time to visit.
We explored the Festival offerings a couple weeks ago and I'm ready to share our review with all of you. It was a short trip so unfortunately we didn't get to try all of the food and beverage options but we were able to try a handful of offerings to whet our appetites. I'm looking forward to revisiting the Festival in October to try even more tasty treats!
Shimmering Sips hosted by CORKCICLE®
Location: Near Port of Entry
If you're coming from Future World, you'll find the Shimmering Sips booth to the right, shortly after entering the World Showcase Plaza. This Global Marketplace offers sweet treats and beverages that are brunch staples. We tried the Mimosa Flight and we were not disappointed. It was actually one of our favorite items that we tried. And at $13 for a flight of 3 Mimosas, I thought the price was fairly reasonable as well and it's something you could split between two people (or not, if you want to keep them all to yourself!) I would give these beverages a score of a 10/10! My favorite of the 3 was the Tropical Mimosa with the Blood Orange in a close second and then the Key Lime coming in third but all were delicious. Definitely worth a try and I will most likely be ordering it again on my next trip.
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| Mimosa Flight From left to right: Tropical Mimosa with Sparkling Wine and Passion Fruit, Orange, and Guava Juices, Key Lime Mimosa with Key Lime Sparkling Wine and Cranberry Juice, and Blood Orange Mimosa with Sparkling Wine and Blood Orange Juice |
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| Shimmering Sips Booth Menu |
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| Redemption window for Emile's Fromage Montage at Shimmering Sips |
France
Location: France pavilion in World Showcase
At the France booth, we tried the Beignet aux Trois Fromage, a warm beignet filled with three cheeses. I thought this item was good but not great. It could have been that it was the last item we tried of the day or that it was an extremely hot and humid August day, but I just didn't love it. I would probably give the Beignet a 6/10. Maybe a 7. One plus is that the Beignet is definitely big enough to split and at $5.75, the price was very reasonable.
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| Beignet aux Trois Fromages Warm Beignet filled with Three Cheeses |
The other item I tried at this booth was the Evian Sparkling Cucumber and Mint Water with Magnesium and Zinc, a non-alcoholic beverage. I have one word to describe this beverage: Undrinkable. It was disgusting. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I ordered this beverage. In my mind, I thought it would be a refreshing drink, on a hot day and maybe come with a nice slice of cucumber in the cup but what I got was a canned beverage that was WAY overpowered by the mint flavor. I should have realized it was a canned beverage so that was my bad but my mistake wasn't as bad as this drink. (Ha!) I give this beverage a 0/10. Save your $4.75 and thank me later.  |
| Beignet aux Trois Fromages and Evian Sparkling Cucumber and Mint Water with Magnesium and Zinc (non-alcoholic) |
China
Location: China pavilion in World Showcase
We tried the Pan-fried Chicken Dumplings at the China Global Marketplace. The price is $5 for two dumplings. The flavors in this dish were really good and my only complaint was that there weren't more of them! We split this item but I could have easily eaten both dumplings on my own. If you're trying a lot of dishes from the Festival then you could probably share one order but if you're really hungry, get one for yourself. I would give the dumplings an 8/10.
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| Pan-fried Chicken Dumplings with House-made Sweet and Spicy Sauce |
Hawai'i
Location: Near Disney Traders
This booth is the first booth to the left once you cross over the bridge from Future World to the World Showcase Plaza. The Hawai'i booth is always one of my favorites. I love the island flavors and anything with pineapple sounds good to me! Here I tried the Kalua Pork Slider and the AULANI Sunrise. The Pork Slider was served with sweet-and-sour DOLE pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise on a Hawaiian roll. I thought this dish was really good but a little small for $5.75. It was definitely too small to share. It could have been a 10/10 but for the small size I'm going to have to give it a 9/10.
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| Hawai'i Booth Menu |
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| AULANI Sunrise and Kalua Pork Slider with Sweet-and-Sour DOLE Pineapple Chutney and Spicy Mayonnaise |
The AULANI Sunrise was the perfect tropical beverage! It's just Vodka, Pineapple Juice and Grenadine but it was so good! It was absolutely delicious but at $14, it was really pricey. It especially seemed like a bad value after our $13 Mimosa Flight from Shimmering Sips. For the price, I'd have to give this drink a 9/10. I'll probably order it again (even though I shouldn't for the price!) but it was just so good.
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| AULANI Sunrise Vodka, DOLE Pineapple Juice and Grenadine |
Brew-Wing at the Epcot Experience
Location: The Epcot Experience (Formerly known as the Odyssey Building)
Brew-Wing is a new Global Marketplace at this year's Festival. As you can guess from the name, this Global Marketplace serves brews and wings. (Get it... brew...wing.) We skipped the brews but opted to try two different flavors of wings. We went with the Barbecue and Mango-Habanero Wings. There's a menu with the wings' spice level so you can choose between Mild, Medium and Hot. We like spicy so we got a Medium option (Barbecue) and Hot option (Mango-Habanero). The Mango-Habanero definitely had a bit of a kick to them but I didn't find them all that hot.
Both of the flavors were really good and the wings were tender. I've heard other reviews that the wings were dry so it may be hit or miss depending on what time you visit and who's cooking but we thoroughly enjoyed our wings. We split the two orders and still had a couple wings left over so they're definitely good for sharing. The price is $7.50 and you get 4 wings. I thought the portion was a pretty good size for the price (in terms of Disney pricing, not real world pricing.) I would give both flavors a 7.5/10 and would order either option again. Although, I'll probably try a different flavor on my next visit.
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| Barbecue Wings |
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| Mango-Habanero Wings |
Have you visited the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival yet this year? Let us know your favorite food and/or beverage offering from this year's Festival in the comments.
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