EPCOT’s 2022 Food & Wine Festival

It’s the last two weeks of EPCOT food and wine festivalEarlier this year, we art festival, ran into shortages, but there was a lot of great food. Can EPCOT’s fall festivities surpass what we sampled in January?

On the non-food side, we had issues with our tickets. I bought it online and had it shipped. On the Walt Disney World app, my reservation looked fine, but when I tried to enter the park, I was told my ticket was not valid for that day. I showed the cast members a cell phone that clearly showed the November 4th ticket, but that wasn’t enough. I was told the ticket was not for the 4th day. It’s funny because I’m watching it on my phone. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this issue with tickets purchased from Disney Online. Previously, Magic Bands linked to tickets did not appear in Disney’s ticket system. Odd.

But after that, everything was smooth sailing.I ran into the same thing as I passed by Spaceship Earth construction wall maze I saw it during my visit to the art festival. The renovation of this area is progressing very slowly. We got to see some of the newer buildings that weren’t there in January, but at first we thought they were part of the old Communicore West structure. It starts looking normal again.

Our first stop was a port of entry in Australia. Decided to try the roasted lamp chops topped with mint pesto and covered in potato crisps. For afters, I chose the Lamington, a raspberry-filled chocolate-and-coconut-covered yellow cake. The mint pesto was very bland, but the chops were nice, but the crunchiness made up for it. Certainly not my favorite dessert of the day.

Unlike art festival, Some of the food at this event was not appetizing.In nearly 20 years covering this event, this is the first time I’ve felt this way. Usually 95% of stalls have something you want to try. Here it has decreased by about 50%. Thankfully, we didn’t experience a shortage like the January event.

However, I didn’t choose a single item that I wasn’t satisfied with. After Australia, I moved to Canada.knowing it’s not time for dinner Le Cellier Tonight we decided to have the wild mushroom beef fillet with truffle butter sauce. Dining at Le Cellier can be expensive, but the Food and Wine Festival lets you sample just how much food is made at this steakhouse.

The filet was very tender, if not as warm as I had hoped. If you enjoy rich dishes, the truffle butter sauce adds a lot of weight to this plate of two small filets of hers. The steak should be medium chilled with very little pinkness remaining. However, it is not difficult at all. I would have gone back for just the mushrooms.

After visiting friends in the Great White North, I walked over to England at World Showcase and stumbled upon an Irish stall. Fisherman’s Seafood Pie and Warm Chocolate Pudding His cake was a must for Missus. In the meantime, I tasted the annual Bunratty Mead Honey Wine and Roasted Irish Sausage. I’m allergic to fish, so I couldn’t try the pie, but according to my wife, this was the best deal of all Food & Wine. You’ll get a moderately sized “pie” filled with

Irish sausage sits on a bed of colcannon mashed potatoes with onion gravy. The links are rather small, but perfectly roasted. The onion gravy (with a hint of caramelized onion) went well with the potatoes and sausage. But the real star of this course was the pudding. Chocolate pudding that is not too rich and not too light is surprisingly light pudding. Over the years I have had many puddings that turned out to be chocolate cake, but this was an honest pudding. I won’t deny that it was delicious.

Belgian waffles with berry compote and whipped cream that I have been looking forward to since this year’s menu was announced. Sadly, the whipped cream is from a can, not freshly whipped, but that waffle is… oh man! Light, fluffy, and crispy! Berry compote is quite sour, so I’m wondering which one to go with chocolate ganache.

Braised beef in beer with smoked gouda mashed potatoes is OK. But the potatoes were tastier than the beef. This may have been due to too much beer or pepper being used, but Smoked Gouda is something I would get myself again.

The Belgian stall was just outside our next destination, Morocco. Here we picked up a pistachio cake and a fig cocktail. The pistachio-colored cake and cream are beautifully accented with printed chocolate tiles, making it a work of art. You have to be a fan of this particular nut to enjoy Moroccan desserts. Mrs. Fallin thoroughly enjoys it with her cocktail. This drink is made with white cranberry juice and fig her vodka. Vodka is almost undetectable thanks to a mixture of figs and white cranberries. It’s probably the best alcoholic drink of the year.

Photo credit: Mike Fallin

Japan was my biggest disappointment. During the art festival, the country served up great sake and chicken skewers. This fall was manju and Kanan Fuji apple wine. The bread was prepared in advance and sat under a lamp. Even though it was big, the teriyaki chicken inside was sweeter than I expected. The taste is similar to BBQ. The sake isn’t quite as good as Niseko’s Fleury, but it tastes more like a cider, and if I’d seen it elsewhere, I’d have had another sip.

Spain offered an exciting concoction called Seafood Salad. It wasn’t served in the traditional way you would normally expect from a salad, but it was a healthy dose of scallops, shrimp and mussels in a glass.

After carefully considering the rest of the countries, we made a final stop in Germany and the Alps. At two stalls next to each other he ordered Schinken Noedern, roast bratwurst, apple strudel and warm raclette swiss his cheese.

A schinkennudeln is like putting an entire breakfast plate into a casserole. A heavy dish of ham, onions, and cheese sandwiched between pasta gratin. If you arrive at the park before noon and haven’t eaten anything, I recommend hitting this one.

Bratwurst looks leaner and more frank than you might think. However, the taste was shaky, and the pretzel roll was excellent with mustard. However, if you want dessert, you may not want to finish the whole roll.

The apple strudel was huge. Look at that thing! It’s almost off the plate. This requires cutting, so pick up a plastic knife. But the apples aren’t mushy, and the pastry is thick enough to hold the filling together without making a messy dough.

Alpine Swiss cheese is served with Riesling-poached pears, red wine-braised figs, candied pecans, and cranberry toast, all served with honey. The smell mixed with Swiss cheese may be a little tight. But the taste is worth the instant assault on the nostrils. This was another example of Disney giving us more money than we expected, and it was a great way to end our trip to this year’s Food and Wine Festival.

This year’s event puzzled me. Never before have I had to curate a trip so much, and almost half of what was offered didn’t look or taste as good. But of course, it’s fair to say that every event has its off years, and in 2022 it was food and wine compared to art festivals. Isn’t it? We will see!