Fill a passport with new flavors at Epcot International Food & Wine Festival
It’s a menu, super souvenir, and a kid’s geography lesson all rolled into one: the Epcot Food & Wine Festival Marketplace Discovery Passport! (That’s a mouthful, huh? And yes, pun intended.) These handy checklists detail the ethnic offerings – including food and complementing beverages – at more than 30 vendors arranged around World Showcase during the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. Our family goal is to fill one of these passports with as many unique stamps from the vendors as we have room for in our stomachs. Here’s where it will actually help that there are six mouths to feed – one bite each of these sample-sized portions will leave us plenty hungry for more. We likely won’t collect all the stamps, but we’ll have a delicious time trying.
Voted most delicious by our family for the 2016 International Food & Wine Festival:
- Canada: Le Cellier’s wild mushroom beef filet mignon with truffle butter paired with their Canadian cheddar cheese soup and pretzel roll (Moosehead lager to wash it down)
- Scotland: potato pancake with Scottish smoked salmon and herbed sour cream
- France: boeuf bourguignon (cabernet-braised short ribs) with mashed potatoes paired with gruyère and cognac onion soup. Also couldn’t resist one of the premiums from Les Vines de France. Beautiful nighttime picnic on the fountain outside Les Chefs de France!
- Belgium: Belgian waffle with berry compote and whipped cream (Obsessed. It was perfect.) Oh and a brew, of course.
- Hops & Barley (American Adventure): New England lobster roll and the fresh-baked carrot cake with extra cream cheese icing because it was last call! Plus, Sam Adams for one of us and California pinot noir for the other. What made it even sweeter? Scarfing it down in the Chase Visa lounge, then catching a near-private showing of the American Adventure as the park closed.
If you manage to stomach your way around each and every one of these marketplaces, be sure to treat yourself to a passport completion stamp, located in the gold-domed Festival Welcome Center.
Location: The annual Festival runs August 31-November 13, 2016, at Epcot Theme Park, Walt Disney World Resort.
So we rolled with the antics of the servers because we didn’t mind them harping at us to get our elbows off the table. Two tables over, a woman good-naturedly rose to perform “I’m a Little Teapot” as punishment for something (she probably hadn’t called or written her server, “Auntie Somebody-or-Other” in a while). Our own family temporarily expanded when a “smart-mouthed” kid from a neighboring table was banished to ours. The boisterous fun might not be everyone’s cup of tea – say, if you’re looking for a quiet lunch break in the middle of a bustling theme park – but we enjoyed playing along. Also unique is the nifty fifties-style living room you wait to be seated in, complete with old black-and-white sitcoms on the TVs.
As we all made our best effort to join the ranks of the “Clean Plate Club”, we were allowed to choose a dessert from the ViewMaster menu. (If you’re curious about what’s cooking in “Mom’s Kitchen”, it is chiefly comfort food at its best. We tried both the pot roast and Grandma’s chicken pot pie and have heard great things about the juicy fried chicken and the meatloaf.) For dessert? We ordered the much-buzzed about PBJ malt and one of “Dad’s Brownie Sundae”s. No need for the servers to remind us to finish every last bite.
Our affinity for the Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn & Café lies in the extensive fixings bar ready and waiting to top that solidly good cheeseburger we order every time. The burger is a rather standard 1/3-lb. patty, but somehow it tastes just marvelous dressed in unlimited sautéed mushrooms – especially during a break in a busy theme park-touring day. We look forward to a refuel at Pecos Bill’s during most family trips to the Magic Kingdom. 
Where can you meet the Fairest in the Land? (Let me quick consult my Magic Mirror…) Mirror reports back: Perhaps the easiest spot to meet this princess is at her wishing well in the Germany Pavilion of World Showcase at Epcot. Nestled on the outskirts of the pavilion as you enter going clockwise, Snow White (occasionally with the Prince, and/or Dopey) greets guests at the well several times daily between 11:30am and 6pm. Our photo, taken when our son wasn’t quite three, remains one of my favorite Disney snapshots of all time. Check out the way he’s gazing at Snow White!
If you’re prepared to fork over some major moolah (especially when you’re a family of six!), you might try a princess character meal. Snow White makes appearances at Cinderella’s Royal Table in the Magic Kingdom, Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Epcot’s Norway Pavilion and, at the Disneyland Resort, during certain meals at Ariel’s Grotto in Disney California Adventure Park. This is how we met Snow White on the West Coast.
Returning Star Wars Favorites
The honor was not bestowed upon us right away. First, we eased into the beachy, relaxed restaurant. The walls are adorned with fishing knickknacks and framed photos of Disney Vacation Club members who own at Old Key West Resort. The menu is also flavored with Conch Republic influence: conch chowder and fritters, tropical dressings on meat and fish, and an awesome key lime tart for dessert.
Our kids were delighted! Princess balloons and ice cream sundaes (that the kids could decorate themselves with syrup and sprinkles) were brought to the table, and the dinner guests clapped as though we were visiting dignitaries instead of Midwesterners come to crash a friend’s DVC. We even received a small certificate to commemorate our “Magical Moment”; a truly memorable way to wrap up another successful vacation.
We were pleasantly shocked to grab a table for six next to one of those beautiful windows. And surprised further at the speed with which Dad managed to bring a tray to the table loaded down with tacos de carne (smoked beef brisket on handmade corn tortillas topped with fresh pico de gallo and lime) and empanadas de queso with tortilla chips for the kids. Oh, and a couple of tall, cold Dos Equis. Cheers to us, indeed.
We took a few extra minutes to enjoy both the air conditioning and the lovely “hacienda” design of the dining room. I would have loved to see the hanging star sconces lit up for the evening meal.