Just back from our annual Food & Wine Fest trip. This is probably our 14th or 15th year attending and we are big foodies. We no longer do many of the special events (been there, done that) unless there is something really new and intriguing. Instead, we concentrate on the booths and wine tastings. We arrived Monday morning and spent the first three days almost entirely at Epcot, eating from the booths. We did two wine tastings on Wednesday and one each on Thursday and Friday, so we were at the festival every day of our trip. Here's our take:
The good:
* Crowd levels were nice and low for our entire trip, which is why we come mid-week. We didn't wait in many lines. The weather after Monday night's storm was perfect, too!
* The mini gift cards are still the best way to go, even better than in years past. With the wrist gift cards, the CMs could just scan the back to charge us. No pins, no signatures, no sliding or waiting to process! We skipped ahead in so many lines because we used the card and others were paying with other methods.
* Loved the continued practice of spreading out the booths through the park and having more in future world. The little area in Future World West with a collection all together was really nice.
* Management of the wine tastings. Check-in was quick and easy, the festival center was never very crowded, and we never waited very long to be seated.
* Loaded Mac & Cheese and the M.I.A. cucumber and lime hard water at Active Eats
* Braised Beef "Stroganoff" at The Cheese Studio
* Cauliflower Risotto at Almond Orchard
* Beijing Roasted Duck Bao Bun at China (always a favorite and didn't mind this being bigger!)
* Warm Goat Cheese Pudding with Spinach in France
* Roasted Irish Sausage in Ireland
The bad:
* Larger portion sizes. Normally we do about a third of the booths each of the first three days, then revisit favorites the rest of the trip. However, even sharing between the two of us, we found the portion sizes were filling us up and we began tossing a LOT of food that we really didn't want to waste. Not to mention, they're charging more because of the larger portions. Isn't it meant to be a "taste"?
* Less focus on wine. Many of the booths had mixed drinks or beer instead of (or with a smaller selection of) wines. We've discovered many wines at the festival in previous years and felt like there wasn't much interesting or new this year among the limited offerings. We did buy wine from the tastings, but not because of our experience at the booths as we usually do.
* Merchandise - I love Figment but did not like the animation style drawing they chose for all the merchandise with him on it. The white shirt was somewhat cute, but they were sold out of small sizes. The grey one was okay, but too subtle in the design (you couldn't even read the words on it). For the first year in probably 10, I did not purchase a festival shirt.
* Madras Red Curry from India - overwhelmed by the taste of overcooked carrots
* Smoked Beef Brisket and Pimento Cheese at Hops & Barley - Salty, dry, AWFUL brisket (I'm from KC, so yes a snob, but it was SO bad), not nearly enough pimento cheese
* Wasabi Shumai Steamed Pork Dumplings - more disappointing than bad... if you begin the name of the dish with "wasabi", you might actually want to put some in it
* ALL the drinks at Light Lab - not only did they taste bad, they did NOT glow! I was more impressed by the glass of sprite with the fruit boba balls in the light-up glass at the Odyssey