The Fairest Trip Report Of All: Food & Wine Festival Food Reviews

WDW Trip Report - Epcot Food & Wine Festival Spam musubi

It’s time for my all-time favorite type of post: the trip report! See all the posts in my 2022 Wine & Dine Half Marathon trip report. Onward!

Ready to talk about all the snacks and beverages I got my paws on during this year’s Epcot Food & Wine Festival? Admittedly the 2022 festival has ended, and so you might wonder: why bother to post a review of the foods I tried at all? Well, I’ll tell you:

1. Many of these items come back from year to year, and even cross over to other Epcot food festivals, and

2. I want to.

The criteria having been established, let’s dive in! Starting with some things I drank…

SHIMMERING SIPS | Berry sour ale mimosa (left) | Too much sweet, not enough sour. That’s probably a personal preference, though.

FRANCE | Strawberry Rose Mimosa: Pol Remy Sparkling Wine, orange juice, and Monin Strawberry Rose Syrup (right) | All sweet, no sour. I swear the CM poured Rosa Regale, though, not Pol Remy, which could be why. Rosa Regale is glorified sparkling juice. Buy a bottle for the college freshman in your life today!

WDW Trip Report - Epcot Food & Wine Festival beer flight

BREW-WING | Beer Flight | The surprise winner in this particular trifecta? Pineapple! I usually find pineapple beers a bit too sweet OR too hoppy, but this one was just right. By contrast, I wish the watermelon flavor were a bit more forward in that beer. The blood orange was fine, but not good enough to overcome my natural aversion to IPAs.

THE FRY BASKET | Salty Dog Cocktail: Boyd & Blair Vodka with grapefruit juice, ginger, simple syrup, and lime with a salted rim | Oh my gosh, such a disappointment. Not nearly enough grapefruit. Kinda watery, actually? The mix was off.

HOPS & BARLEY | 81Bay Brewing Co. Strawberry and Lime Wheat Ale (right) | This was… fine. It was a beer. Faintly strawberry-and-lime-ish in the way that seltzer water is flavored, but a pleasant enough drinking experience.

This next thing is also a drink but it is pictured with a food, so we transition with…

INDIA | Mango Lassi with Sōmrus Chai Cream Liqueur | Holy smokes, this was AMAZING. I love lassi anyway, but with the chai cream liqueur? Exquisite. Would get again. Heck, would get twice in the same festival year if I had the opportunity. If you like a good chai latte, this will render you speechless.

Festival trash can photos FTW!

Now some stuff I ate:

INDIA | Chicken Tikka Masala with fennel-spiced yogurt and naan bread | I could’ve gone with some more aggressive spices, but I realize Disney likes to treat us all like we have the palates of three year olds. Still good! I liked the naan especially.

BRAZIL I Pão de Queijo: Brazilian cheese bread (left) | Brazilian comfort food at its finest. Not complex but I love the doughy texture.

MOROCCO | Stone-baked Moroccan Bread with hummus, chermoula, and Zhoug dips | Gorgeous. Love it. The bread is soft and warm, with a beautiful chewy texture. The hummus is just hummus. I must confess I don’t really remember the Zhoug dip but I recall it was only okay. The chermoula was earthy and rocked my socks.

WDW Trip Report - Epcot Food & Wine Festival cider flight

MOROCCO | Cider Flight | The fig hard cider was a little too, well, figgy for me, and the hibiscus too sweet, but the ginger turmeric – oh yeah. Amazing! The ginger’s a given, but the turmeric gave it an extra little aromatic spice thing I was really into. Next time I’d get a bigger size of just that.

EARTH EATS | IMPOSSIBLE Burger Slider with wasabi cream and spicy slaw on a sesame seed bun (left) | Not enough wasabi, but I’m probably more into it than the average person. The IMPOSSIBLE flavor was good if you like that sort of thing, which I do, but I don’t think it would fool an avowed carnivore.

HAWAII | SPAM Musubi Nigiri with sushi rice, teriyaki-glazed SPAM, spicy mayonnaise, eel sauce, and nori | I think I know what was wrong with this dish: they didn’t cook the spam correctly. You’ve gotta really crisp it up, give it a good sear, or else it just tastes like bland ham fat and salt. Also, as Erika rightly pointed out, that’s not nigiri, that’s sushi!

MEXICO | Capirotada de Chocolate: Abuelita chocolate bread pudding served with a chocolate crème anglaise | Magnificent. The chocolate in the bread pudding, the texture of the pudding itself, the all-over pour of ganache – unparalleled. It’s not complex but I love it. Could probably do without the powdered sugar, though.

Let’s finish it out with a bunch of steamed stuff, ’cause I love stuff that’s steamed!

In all three cases, as I often complain, the buns were just a teeeeeensy bit stale. That’s the risk you take with these festival foods, the way they sit out. A long line helps with that, I guess?

FLAVORS FROM FIRE | Banh Mi Bao with char-grilled Asian skirt steak, chicken liver aïoli, pickled vegetables, and cilantro | I wasn’t entirely in love with the chewiness of the beef, but it was overall acceptable if you like bao buns as much as I do (which is a LOT).

JAPAN | Teriyaki Chicken Bun: Steamed bun filled with chicken, vegetables, and teriyaki sauce | The sweetness of the teriyaki dominates, so if you’re not into that sauce you won’t like it. I think it’s worth it for the dough part, but then I would say that.

CHINA | Mongolian Beef Bao Bun | My favorite of the three! The steak had really good flavor and wasn’t chewy at all. I was surprised by how rare it was, but I prefer my steak rare anyway.

And that’s that on that! I definitely could’ve used an extra day or two of festival time to explore more dishes, but I’m pretty pleased with what I accomplished given the time constraints. I can’t wait to see (and eat) what next year brings!

Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Twitter @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.comSee ya real soon!

2 Comments

  1. You tried a lot! We did Fry flight w/ lime beer, Greece Cheese thing and gyros for the boys….eh, kind of dry. Lots of different beers in between. Made the rookie mistake of getting the Mickey shaped pretzel w/ plastic cheese in America instead of the gloriously doughy beauty over in Germany. Huge mistake, as you know. One is much better than the other. We had dinner at Via Napoli that evening. I know there was popcorn too….wish it would have been the Caramel Popcorn.

    1. Oh my gosh, I remember being SO EXCITED about the griddled cheese my first festival, and it was such a letdown. I know people rave about it, so maybe it depends on how fresh yours is? And I haven’t been to Via Napoli since 2013! I should go back; pizza is good race fuel…

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