Elliot Tritto
Staff Writer
What’s your ideal way to celebrate the great season of fall? Do you fill your home with decorations of orange leaves and pumpkins? Perhaps, you install air fresheners to give off that pleasing, nutmeg aroma of pumpkin. Conceivably, do you watch horror movies to hype up the terrifying yet beautiful holiday of Halloween?
Perchance, you want to keep the Autumn Hype Train to a down low by occasionally picking up a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks? For yours truly, one of my favorite traditions I celebrate annually is The Food and Wine Festival at Disney’s Epcot Center in Orlando.
To begin with, every year, my parents and I pack up our suitcases, get on the road at the crack of dawn, and make our way towards Disney World. With anticipation as our tool to forget boredom, we fantasize about what great cuisine and drinks will be entered in our ravenous stomachs.
We soon arrive at Epcot and are greeted to two iconic landmarks known to the Disney World community. With the massive golf ball and beautiful, artistic statues displaying relevance to Ratatouille, we make our way to the epicenter of World Showcase.
We seek vast lines of different booths that represent various nations across the globe. Before we fill our mouths with international cuisine, we wait in line for a new feature at the Food and Wine Festival. Since the massive success of Pixar’s Ratatouille in 2007, a new, enjoyable scavenger hunt was added to the festivities that involves everyone’s favorite little chef, Remy.
To continue, the object of the hunt is to venture through the 11 different world showcase pavilions and find Remy with 11 different ingredients to make his signature dish, Ratatouille. After the longevity of the Florida sun beating down on us, we accomplish the hunt and receive a reward of a commemorative travel cup with art designs of Ratatouille. After a long search, we needed unnecessary cholesterol and sugar in our system to make up for lost time.
Moving onward, over 50 booths included delectable snacks and refreshing drinks.
One of the most prominent reasons the Food and Wine festival succeeds is that every booth provides a vastly, diverse tasty endeavor from the other.
Altogether, from www.disneyfoodblog.com, we can venture the highs and lows that the Food and Wine Festival has to offer. To give you the highlights, I’ve displayed a Top 3 Best and Top 3 Worst list for those who are interested to going.
Top 3 Worst Booths
Australia offered a grilled, sweet and spicy bush berry shrimp, grilled lamb chop, and a Lamington treat. Alongside, the beverages included a pale ale, wine flight, Yangarra Shiraz, Franklin Tate Estates Chardonnay and Hope Estate “Wollambi Brook” Semillon.
Brazil offers the public to eat Moqueca, Crispy Pork Belly, Pao de Queijo and to drink M.I.A black beer, casa valduga, quinta da Crasto Duoro Red and Frozen Caipirinha. To end, Ireland gives roasted Irish sausage, warm Irish cheddar cheese and stout dip, warm chocolate pudding and Guinness and Bunratty Meade honey wine to drink.
The food and the beverages did blend well together yet felt more preparation time was needed to perfect the experience. Instead of the product, being centered on quantity than quality, the experience could be better. Props out to Disney for creating an organized system of ordering food to ease the tension of everyday fast food issues.
Top 3 Best
France offered a croissant aux escargots, Carbondonde de Boeuf, Puree de Pommes de Terre, Crème bru le, and a variety of mixed cocktails to drink. Flavors from fire introduces piggy wings, smoked corn beef, charred chimichurri skirt steak, and Chocolate Picante to eat and Orlando Brewery Porter, Winery of 7 Deadly Zins of Zinfandel, and a swine brine to drink. Coastal eats run lump crab cakes, baked shrimp scampi dip, and seared scallops to eat and A to Z Wine works and ROCO Gravel Road Pinot Noir to drink.
Throughout the booths, these three provided consistent quantity and quality control over the product. It’s simply good mood food.
To wrap up, end your fall right by visiting the Food and Wine Festival to receive the ultimate food experience for everyone. You have until Nov. 12 to fulfill your taste bud’s needs.
trite1@mail.broward.edu