EPCOT 2018 Flower & Garden Festival Food Review. Plenty Of Yum To Go Around!

Our family makes a habit out of visiting Disney World frequently (just in case you haven’t noticed).  As the kids have gotten older, they enjoy spending a bit more time in EPCOT than they used to.  That’s good for Michelle and I, especially during the Flower & Garden Festival.  While the Food & Wine Festival in the fall has more options, Flower & Garden does just fine tempting your palate.

We’ve been there for Flower & Garden in the past but never really stopped to take in the food.  We were on a bit more of a leisurely pace this trip.  So, we made a point to seek out the menu beforehand to make sure we didn’t miss the best looking items.

Side note: here’s a peek at the full menu for this year’s festival.

Just in case you don’t know the background, Disney brings in folks who know how to prepare authentic cuisine from various countries.  I won’t claim that everyone is a native of the country they represent at EPCOT.  But, we did see a restaurant we visited in Greece a few years ago during Food & Wine.

We didn’t get to try everything on our food crusade.  However, we held our own, hitting about half of the stalls.

Our Favorites

Sugar Cane Shrimp Skewer (La Isla Fresca).  This booth is located right at the end of the International Pavilion where it intersects the World Showcase (just hang a left).

Cat was the one who wanted to sample this.  The shrimp was very flavorful, the sauce wasn’t overly sweet.  The one thing we didn’t figure out until later?  It’s a sugar cane skewer (duh).  Would have been great to munch on.

Germany turned up two favorites for us.  One was the simplest of the day.  I’m a sucker for a good German pretzel.  These were yum!

German pretzel bread with ham and gruyere (Bauernmarkt, Germany).  It might not look pretty, but it was sure tasty.  I was worried it might be too heavy.  It ended up being one of our favorites.

Have I mentioned that our family loves macarons?  Our daughter, especially.  We had to stop for a Large Chocolate Macaron Lollipop (Fleur de Lys, Paris).  I was barely able to get a picture before a bite was taken.  She really enjoyed this one!

Lotus House in China had fried chicken dumplings with peanut sauce.  I do like peanut sauce and this one didn’t let me down.  I don’t remember what I paid for this one, but it felt a bit on the pricey side.

Canada yielded three items we liked, if not loved.  I was a bit skeptical to try the Seared Scallops with French Green Beans, Butter Potatoes, Brown Butter Vinaigrette and Apple-wood Smoked Bacon.  Scallops are easy to mess up.  A few seconds too long in the cooking process and they have the consistency of rubber.  The texture was awesome.  They nailed that part.  I can’t say the vinaigrette was my favorite accompaniment for the scallops.  The tenderness and other flavors won me over, though.

We also sampled the Beef Tenderloin Tips, Mushroom Bordelaise Sauce, Whipped Potatoes with Garden Vegetables.  Our daughter and I loved it.  Michelle doesn’t eat beef.

Finally, we hit the Griddled Maple Pound Cake with Warm Peach Compote and Sweet Corn Gelato.  We liked the pound cake.  It had a bit too much going on to fall into the “love” category on a hot day.  If I was sitting inside a cool restaurant I’d order it again to give it a second try.

The Honey Bee-stro in Showcase Plaza may have been our favorite stop.  This one is on the path from Figment to Canada.  We had two favorites here.  Well, I use the term “we” loosely.  I’m not a big cauliflower or asparagus fan, but Michelle and Cat really loved the Roasted Cauliflower with Buckwheat Honey Carrot Purée, Wild Rice Pilaf, Asparagus, Honey Blistered Grapes and Sunflower Brittle.  As a show of solidarity, I tried the sunflower brittle and enjoyed it.

The Honey-Mascarpone Cheesecake with Orange Blossom Honey Ice Cream garnished with Fennel Pollen Meringue Kisses was probably my favorite of everything we tried.  It was a pretty hot day and we had to eat it quickly.  Turns out that wouldn’t be a problem.

The Final Two Pennies

Grazing at EPCOT was one of my favorite parts of our spring break trip this year.  It’s interesting watching how our children have evolved.  In years past, they wanted to run to the next ride.  This time, we interspersed the Easter Egg hunt (a story for another day) along with the food stops.  I’m thrilled to see my kids sharing my love of food, and happy they like their vegetables more than me!

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