Today's post is a bit more visual. Here are some sights and foods from Epcot's Food & Wine Festival. Please note we did not get a picture of everything we ate. Totally forgot sometimes (like the greek cheese) or the food was water-logged from a downpour (like the coq au vin we ate on a trash can inside Impressions of France building). We're using the
Disneyfoodblog to help jog our memory and give you a link-back on specific booths for more details and see other offerings. There will be more to come in future posts (linking them through the epcotfw tag on the right sidebar).
The
"craft" beer pavilion was at the start of World Showcase coming from Future World. This was not so much a craft beer stand as it was a "kinda good" regional big brewery booth. Leinie's and Blue Moon are made by Miller. They could have done better here. Next year they should consider the beers of Colorado.
Australia had a few decent items. Shrimp on the barbie and lamb chop. We're not big fans of lamb, but it was pretty good.
Had to stop and say hi to Duffy. Thank goodness he changed his outfit (see this June
post for that comment's backstory).
From
Brazil: Seared Mahi Mahi with steamed Rice, Hearts of Palm, and Coconut-Lime Sauce. It was good, but looks prettier on Disneyfoodblog. Our piece got kinda chopped up.
Argentina had the best empanada we've ever eaten. Moist, beefy, cheesy, crispy. They got this one right. The beef with chimichurri was good as usual. This trip Holly discovered she liked malbecs.
Mexico: rib-eye taco one of our favorites this year. We had a few of them, as well as the shrimp. Since Dave has adversities to mayo and mayo-like liquids we got the shrimp one dry first time, then as-suggested later trips.
So all that was before noon. Now to one of our favorite places in WDW:
La Cava Del Tequila. Small little place to relax and have great margaritas. Dave had the hibiscus margarita (red) and Holly had the jalapeño margarita.
During the festival they had a special for twitter followers. You got a $7 shot for $5. Dave likes good-quality sipping tequila so we got this. It was El Mayor Blanco served with sangrita, fresh lime and salt. Fun!
Scandinavia was new this year and we tried two things. We tried the Swedish meatballs (they were good).
Also tried the Xante Sunshine cocktail.
Xante is described as a pear liqueur and was mixed with juice. we describe it as ick. Not a repeat.
China was our next stop. We had some items here in prior years and found it hit-or-miss. This year we had the Black Pepper Shrimp with Sichuan Noodles. Good, but not great.
Off to
South Korea. Here we tried the beef dish and "new" raspberry wine. The beef itself was good, but the cabbage side was nasty. Pickled cabbage. Really? The raspberry wine was the consistency of port with an off-flavor. Made us want the old raspberry wine.
We had the tenderloin with braai sauce and smashed sweet potatoes from
South Africa. They've had the dish the past few years and it's one of our favorites. We got a pinotage to go with it.
Germany was our next stop. We were a bit upset the spaetzel was gone this year. We heard the strudel was good so we tried that and the sausage on a pretzel roll. Didn't like either. Sausage was salty and strudel just too much fruit. Too "strudely"
Ran into this guy. He's a party.
The final food of today's post is from
Hops and Barley. They had two lobster offerings: a lobster roll and lobster claw. Couple these items with Sam Adam's beer, including a festival exclusive, you have a winner. Last year's lobster roll was full of minced meat, celery, etc bound with a pint of mayo. This year it was all meat and a touch of spread.
The claw was delicious. On one occasion Dave spilt the cup of butter all over his shorts. Oops!
All this was just one afternoon's worth of fun. Later that night we met with friends for dinner at Citricos then went to the Magic Kingdom for the Magic, Memories, and You show plus Wishes! Afterwards we had an encounter with a Disney VIP. Stay tuned....
Dave's Artsy Photo of the Day
First, we visited with Pooh. He was the feature character at this time due to his movie.
Some of the characters were dressed in their Hollywood Glamour outfits. No idea what look these two were going for.....
Got to check something else off the list: a visit with Sorcerer Mickey.
Lunch today was at Sci-Fi Drive-in. You sit in cars and watch a loop of B-movies from the 50's. Bad films but entertaining. The food was lackluster today - we both had burgers. Very salty. The glowing margarita was very good.
Hawaii was a new booth this year. We tried the pork slider with pineapple chutney. We skipped the spicy mayo since Dave does not do mayo. This was very good even without the mayo. The Pipeline Porter (also featured over at the Poly) was very good on draft. We'd like to find that one around us in Illinois. 
Canada was our next stop for our favorite item, the chicken chipotle sausage with sweet corn polenta. Everything works here with the spicy sausage, creamy polenta, sweet onions and peppers. We ate a few of these during the week.
Ireland is where you can get the popular Fisherman's Pie. We have to say it was better in other years, but still good. We also sampled their cheese platter and chocolate cake on another trip into the fest but didn't take a picture. Both were very good.
We must have eaten something else because tonight was supposed to be dinner around the festival. We have no photgraphic proof though. Oh well..... We caught Illuminations from the front of World Showcase Plaza. This is where the show was designed to be viewed. It was just sooooo close. We left the park and headed to Jellyrolls. It was just an off-night there. The songs, crowds, performers just weren't that entertaining. We headed over to Atlantic Dance Hall and enjoyed a nightcap from the outdoor seating area.
After dinner we headed off to the Magic Kingdom for Wishes! Our friends returned home. We arrived about 10 minutes before the Magic, Memories, and You light show. We were able to work our way pretty close to the hub. While this isn't the best night time show we've seen, it's a good way to occupy time while waiting for Wishes! (the fireworks show).
Bob Gurr is "the man". He gave the parks a lot of their unique character from the design of the monorails to the cars that run up and down Main Street. We noticed Bob's drink was empty and he was getting up. We decided to pounce! We went back into the lounge and sat at a table that would be in his direct escape route. He approached and we sprung up. We talked for a few seconds then asked for a picture. He was so nice and agreeable. He took us back to his table and had Steven take our picture. We talked to Steven (whom offered us a drink but we graciously declined) and danced around why we didn't go the Sip and Stroll Event. In truth: It was a 2 day commitment that would have cost us around $400.
A few days later we went to Jamie Deen's seminar on chicken. He's Paula's son. He was very entertaining and actually walked through the line to say hi to folks before the demo. Nice guy. 
Dave describes the event as a "chance to watch older folks get looped after having a glass of champagne, 3 shots, and a cocktail in 20 minutes". The host, a French lady, was entertaining, but at times we felt truly regarded the group as ugly Americans and told us to leave our country more often. Dave liked everything, Holly did not enjoy the traditional "cheaper product". We loved the Moët Ice Imperial and had a friend bring us a bottle last week since we couldn't fit one in our luggage. 
