Author: disneyfoodblog.com

To our surprise, we’re coming at you live TODAY from the 2020 EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival! While adventuring around EPCOT today at the Cast Member Preview, we couldn’t help but notice that some of the food booths around World Showcase were OPEN a little early!

One of our stops today was at Funnel Cakes in the American Adventure Pavilion. Funnel Cakes have proven to be a DFB fave over the years, so we were VERY MUCH looking forward to what this stand had in store.

At this year’s “Taste of Food and Wine” Festival, you can scoop up a Street Corn Funnel Cake for $9.00.

We typically fall head over heels for those sweet dessert funnel cakes. Not to mention that last year’s funnel cake with SANGRIA compote made our Best of the Fest list! So, curiosity struck and we HAD to know if this savory funnel cake could measure up!

The Street Corn Funnel Cake is your traditional cake, topped with roasted corn, cotija cheese, cilantro, cumin crema dusted with paprika. That sure SOUNDS delicious.

The funnel cake was, in a word, GREAT. Tens across the board, in our opinion! It was SO great, in fact, that it just may find its way onto this year’s Best of the Fest!

The flavors of the dish worked together like a dream. And the texture from the funnel cake itself gives it a soft crunch. Don’t be surprised if you hear us talk about this dish over and over as the festival continues through the fall!

Want to try this delicious thing for yourself? You can find it at the Funnel Cake Stand in the American Adventure Pavilion in World Showcase! Pick one up for $9.00!

Check out ALL of the menus and booths at this year’s Food and Wine Festival here!

What dish are you looking forward to the most at this year’s Food and Wine Festival? Let us know in the comments!

From our friends at www.disneyfoodblog.com
Filed Under: Epcot, Featured, Food and Wine Festival, Walt Disney World, 2020 epcot food and wine festival, 2020 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival, 2020 food and wine festival, A Taste of Food and Wine, American Adventure, Epcot International Food and Wine Festival, funnel cakes, street corn funnel cake, World Showcase

WHAT A DAY WE’VE HAD!

Who would have thought that when we woke up this morning to head to the Cast Member Preview of EPCOT’s reopening (thanks to a friend!), we’d end up with EARLY access to A Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival!? Well, we’ve been eating our way around the fest as much as we can and we’re stopping into the NEW booth at this year’s festival — it’s time for Mac & Cheese!

This festival marketplace is the ONLY new booth at the festival this year and can be found with three other booths in the World Showplace Pavilion. So, without further ado, let’s chat about Mac and Cheese, Hosted by Boursin Cheese!

Food

The menu at Mac & Cheese is (as is to be expected) FULL of Mac & Cheese options! Mac and cheese is basically our love language, so we were HERE FOR IT. After all, you KNOW how we feel about cheese. Plus, you can nab the Spike the Bee Spork here for $2.50 (bigger vessel for shoveling mac and cheese in our mouths perhaps??).

Guys…just stop for a sec and admire this. This is a thing of beauty:

Since this is a new booth, that means that ALL of the eats are new! Check out this Gourmet Macaroni & Cheese served with Boursin Garlic and Fine Herbs Cheese Sauce and topped with Herbed Panko for $4.50. This one was the BEST on the menu by far. It was crazy flavorful and oh-so-cheesy.

Next up, we tried out the Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese made with Boursin Garlic and Fine Herbs Cheese Sauce topped with Carrots, Celery, and Blue Cheese Crumbles for $5.50. We were super excited about this one because we LOVE buffalo chicken but…it wasn’t our favorite. All in all, there just wasn’t enough buffalo sauce and how can we love a BUFFALO mac without enough buff sauce? (It was still yummy, just not AS yummy as we’d hoped!)

Movin’ on to the Lobster Macaroni & Cheese for $6.50. This dish is made with that Boursin Garlic and Fine Herbs Cheese Sauce, Lobster Cream, and Herbed Panko. This one was our second favorite behind the Gourmet Mac. It had BIG chunks of lobster, so lobster-lovers might find themselves a little obsessed with this dish!

And we’ll wrap up with the Plant-based Macaroni & Cheese option for $5.50. As meat-eaters, this wasn’t our favorite, but it was a tasty option if meatless options are more your thing! It’s made with a House-made Italian Sausage (plant-based) and Peppers.

We hope you’re not full yet because there’s a NEW BEER at this spot too!

Beverages

The new option is the Stiegl Brewery Radler Zitrone. As a note, you can get it as a 6 oz pour for $4.50 or a 12 oz pour for $8.50. We thought this was a pretty darn good sip! It was crisp and almost gave us seltzer vibes.

Overall, we’re pretty big fans of the Mac & Cheese booth. Some of these dishes were im-MAC-ulate! Sorry, sorry, too cheesy? Follow along with DFB and check out the links below for ALL of our coverage at the 2020 A Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival!

Click here to see ALL of the EPCOT Food & Wine MENUS!

Which Mac & Cheese dish looks the best to you? Tell us in the comments! 

From our friends at www.disneyfoodblog.com
Filed Under: disney parks, Epcot, Featured, Food and Wine Festival, Walt Disney World, 2020 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival, A Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine, Buffalo Mac and Cheese, gourmet macaroni and cheese, Lobster Mac and Cheese, mac and cheese, mac and cheese booth, Mac and Cheese Festival Marketplace, macaroni and cheese, plant-based macaroni and cheese, World ShowPlace

Earlier, Disney announced it planned on offering a hybrid festival experience for guests when EPCOT reopened ion July 15th. We’re at the park today attending a Cast Member preview and we actually got to experience a Taste of EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival TODAY!

Incorporating elements from both Food and Wine (which normally doesn’t kick off until the fall) as well as Flower and Garden (since this year’s springtime festival was cut short), we already expected a Taste of Epcot to be a pretty unique offering! We’ve spotted a few Flower and Garden topiaries this afternoon, and you’ll never BEE-lieve who else we just ran into!

That’s right — everybody’s favorite cross-pollinator has crossed over to Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival this year! We first discovered the brand new Spike the Bee Sipper at The Honey Bee-Stro where he was buzzing up a storm at Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival.

But since he barely had his time to shine, EPCOT has brought him BACK! This time, instead of being filled with the Honey-Peach Freeze, he’s being served with your choice of soft drink or lemonade at Refreshment Outpost for $15.

And look at what else is being offered at this year’s Food and Wine Festival — the Spike the Bee Spork has also returned! We spotted him being sold at the Hawai’i food booth for $2.50, and we hope other outdoor kitchens will be stocking him soon.

Carrying your own Spike the Bee Spork around the Food and Wine fest is a great way to cut down on single-use plastic cutlery — plus it makes a really cute keepsake of this unforgettable mash-up event.

Seeing this Flower and Garden merch fluttering around EPCOT today did seem a little strange to us at first, but it’s already such an unusual and historical time at Disney World right now — we’re just going to roll with it!

We’ll let you know what other bits of Flower and Garden we spot at EPCOT, but for now, check out which pieces of festival merchandise we’re hoping will make their way back here!

Click here to see the health and safety modifications Epcot has made to its festival food booths!

Did you have a chance to grab your Spike the Bee Sipper or Spork before the parks closed? Let us know if you’re excited to see these Flower and Garden items return for Food and Wine in the comments below!

From our friends at www.disneyfoodblog.com
Filed Under: Counter-Service, Disney News, Epcot, Featured, Walt Disney World, 2020 food and wine festival, Disney World, ecpot flower and garden festival, festival location, flower and garden merchandise, food booth, Hawaii, Marketplace, Outdoor Kitchen, refreshment port, reopening, Sipper, spike the bee, Spork, World Showcase

We took the time to stop and smell the roses at EPCOT’S Cast Member Previews and noticed something joyous on our way!

Disney has been getting creative with character meet and greets lately. We’ve seen Timon and Rafiki on a riverboat in Animal Kingdom and Gaston riding a real horse in Magic Kingdom. NOTHING beats the cheerful meeting we encountered today!

As we made our way to Mexico to pick up an Avacado Margarita we were stopped in our tracks by the brightest bit of sunshine this side of World Showcase! Joy, the happy little sprite-like character from Inside Out, was skipping heartily through a FIELD.

We were inspired by her childlike abandonment and had to go visit her. She stopped behind a fence to create some space between her and the guests. She was still close enough to look her best for a photo!

The only thing that would have made this better is if Sadness was trailing behind her gloomily picking flowers and complaining about the sun.

Joy is usually located at the Imagination! Pavilion and now she gets to frolic in fields! We have to admit, we’re a little jealous! We will continue to keep our eyes out for new character experiences at Disney World!

Want to see what was happening in Hollywood Studios during Cast Member previews? Check out our first look here!

What do you think of the new character meet and greets? Let us know in the comments!

From our friends at www.disneyfoodblog.com
Filed Under: Disney Entertainment, Disney News, Epcot, Walt Disney World, 2020 epcot food and wine festival, Character meet and greets, characters, Disney World, epcot cast member preview, epcot characters, epcot closure, Epcot Food and Wine Festival, Epcot International Food and Wine Festival, epcot re-opening, festival marketplaces, inside out, Joy, meet n greets, sadness

Disney World’s EPCOT will reopen to guests again starting July 15th, along with Disney’s Hollywood Studios. (Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom reopened over the weekend).

Wednesday is a big day for guests at EPCOT for another reason, too… it is also the day that the 2020 Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival kicks off! And even though the Festival will run well into the fall, guests at the Festival will also experience aspects of the park’s SPRING event, the Flower & Garden Festival!

For instance, Disney has already announced that guests will be able to see the Remy topiary in the France pavilion which made its debut for the Flower & Garden Festival, and guests will be able to purchase merchandise from the spring event, too. It was so nice seeing this little guy with his giant wooden spoon today!

But guess what?? Today, by way of being invited guests to a Cast Member preview, we are in EPCOT today… and we spotted a few other topiary friends still in the park! We saw Bambi, Flower, and Thumper in Future World outside of the temporary Mouse Gear merchandise location.

And we’ll keep updating this post if we spot any other Flower and Garden topiaries throughout the day! That way, if you have plans to be in EPCOT during the park’s initial reopening, be sure to keep your eyes extra peeled for potential Flower & Garden-inspired fun!

And if you’re planning to check out the 2020 Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, we have all of the information you need right here — including this handy printable guide!

See the MENUS for the 2020 Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival Food Booths here!

We hope you’ll stick with us throughout the day, as we explore more of EPCOT. And if you haven’t found out about this helpful new Food and Wine feature on the My Disney Experience app, click here!

Surprise! Food and Wine Festival booths at EPCOT are now open! Click here to learn more!

Which Disney topiary is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!

From our friends at www.disneyfoodblog.com
Filed Under: Disney News, Epcot, Featured, Walt Disney World, 2020 flower and garden festival, 2020 food and wine festival, bambi topiary, Disney World, flower and garden, Food and Wine, Future World, preview, Remy topiary, reopening, Taste of EPCOT, topiary