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Review of 2021 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival

The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival kicked off on July 15th and is now in full swing! Each year the Festival includes Global Marketplaces where you can taste your way around the world, live entertainment and fun activities the whole family can enjoy. For avid collectors, there's also limited-edition event merchandise available for purchase. If you haven't visited the Festival yet, no worries! The Festival runs until November 20th so there is still time to visit.

We explored the Festival offerings a couple weeks ago and I'm ready to share our review with all of you. It was a short trip so unfortunately we didn't get to try all of the food and beverage options but we were able to try a handful of offerings to whet our appetites. I'm looking forward to revisiting the Festival in October to try even more tasty treats!

Shimmering Sips hosted by CORKCICLE®

Location: Near Port of Entry

If you're coming from Future World, you'll find the Shimmering Sips booth to the right, shortly after entering the World Showcase Plaza. This Global Marketplace offers sweet treats and beverages that are brunch staples. We tried the Mimosa Flight and we were not disappointed. It was actually one of our favorite items that we tried. And at $13 for a flight of 3 Mimosas, I thought the price was fairly reasonable as well and it's something you could split between two people (or not, if you want to keep them all to yourself!) I would give these beverages a score of a 10/10! My favorite of the 3 was the Tropical Mimosa with the Blood Orange in a close second and then the Key Lime coming in third but all were delicious. Definitely worth a try and I will most likely be ordering it again on my next trip. 

Mimosa Flight
From left to right: Tropical Mimosa with Sparkling Wine and Passion Fruit, Orange, and Guava Juices, Key Lime Mimosa with Key Lime Sparkling Wine and Cranberry Juice, and Blood Orange Mimosa with Sparkling Wine and Blood Orange Juice
Shimmering Sips Booth Menu
The Shimmering Sips booth is also where you can claim your prize for completing Emile's Fromage Montage. What's Emile's Fromage Montage, you ask? It's a cheese lovers dream come true, that's what it is! Here's how it works: Purchase any 5 menu item's from Emile's Fromage Montage (identified in the Festival Passport with a cheese icon next to the item) and then collect the matching stamp for each item you purchase. Once you've collected all 5 stamps, bring your Festival Passport to Shimmering Sips for a prize unique to the Festival. 

We didn't purchase any of the Emile's Fromage Montage items this trip but it sounds delicious! If you do want to complete the challenge, you can actually do so at your leisure. That means you don't have to eat all 5 items in one trip. Just bring your stamped Festival Passport back to Epcot anytime between now and November 20, 2021 to claim your prize. 

Redemption window for Emile's Fromage Montage at Shimmering Sips

France

Location: France pavilion in World Showcase

At the France booth, we tried the Beignet aux Trois Fromage, a warm beignet filled with three cheeses. I thought this item was good but not great. It could have been that it was the last item we tried of the day or that it was an extremely hot and humid August day, but I just didn't love it. I would probably give the Beignet a 6/10. Maybe a 7. One plus is that the Beignet is definitely big enough to split and at $5.75, the price was very reasonable. 

Beignet aux Trois Fromages
Warm Beignet filled with Three Cheeses
The other item I tried at this booth was the Evian Sparkling Cucumber and Mint Water with Magnesium and Zinc, a non-alcoholic beverage. I have one word to describe this beverage: Undrinkable. It was disgusting. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I ordered this beverage. In my mind, I thought it would be a refreshing drink, on a hot day and maybe come with a nice slice of cucumber in the cup but what I got was a canned beverage that was WAY overpowered by the mint flavor. I should have realized it was a canned beverage so that was my bad but my mistake wasn't as bad as this drink. (Ha!) I give this beverage a 0/10. Save your $4.75 and thank me later. 
Beignet aux Trois Fromages and Evian Sparkling Cucumber and Mint Water with Magnesium and Zinc (non-alcoholic)

China

Location: China pavilion in World Showcase

We tried the Pan-fried Chicken Dumplings at the China Global Marketplace. The price is $5 for two dumplings. The flavors in this dish were really good and my only complaint was that there weren't more of them! We split this item but I could have easily eaten both dumplings on my own. If you're trying a lot of dishes from the Festival then you could probably share one order but if you're really hungry, get one for yourself. I would give the dumplings an 8/10. 

Pan-fried Chicken Dumplings
with House-made Sweet and Spicy Sauce

Hawai'i

Location: Near Disney Traders

This booth is the first booth to the left once you cross over the bridge from Future World to the World Showcase Plaza. The Hawai'i booth is always one of my favorites. I love the island flavors and anything with pineapple sounds good to me! Here I tried the Kalua Pork Slider and the AULANI Sunrise. The Pork Slider was served with sweet-and-sour DOLE pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise on a Hawaiian roll. I thought this dish was really good but a little small for $5.75. It was definitely too small to share. It could have been a 10/10 but for the small size I'm going to have to give it a 9/10. 

Hawai'i Booth Menu
AULANI Sunrise and Kalua Pork Slider
with Sweet-and-Sour DOLE Pineapple Chutney and Spicy Mayonnaise

The AULANI Sunrise was the perfect tropical beverage! It's just Vodka, Pineapple Juice and Grenadine but it was so good! It was absolutely delicious but at $14, it was really pricey. It especially seemed like a bad value after our $13 Mimosa Flight from Shimmering Sips. For the price, I'd have to give this drink a 9/10. I'll probably order it again (even though I shouldn't for the price!) but it was just so good. 

AULANI Sunrise
Vodka, DOLE Pineapple Juice and Grenadine

Brew-Wing at the Epcot Experience

Location: The Epcot Experience (Formerly known as the Odyssey Building)

Brew-Wing is a new Global Marketplace at this year's Festival. As you can guess from the name, this Global Marketplace serves brews and wings. (Get it... brew...wing.) We skipped the brews but opted to try two different flavors of wings. We went with the Barbecue and Mango-Habanero Wings. There's a menu with the wings' spice level so you can choose between Mild, Medium and Hot. We like spicy so we got a Medium option (Barbecue) and Hot option (Mango-Habanero). The Mango-Habanero definitely had a bit of a kick to them but I didn't find them all that hot. 

Both of the flavors were really good and the wings were tender. I've heard other reviews that the wings were dry so it may be hit or miss depending on what time you visit and who's cooking but we thoroughly enjoyed our wings. We split the two orders and still had a couple wings left over so they're definitely good for sharing. The price is $7.50 and you get 4 wings. I thought the portion was a pretty good size for the price (in terms of Disney pricing, not real world pricing.) I would give both flavors a 7.5/10 and would order either option again. Although, I'll probably try a different flavor on my next visit. 

Barbecue Wings
Mango-Habanero Wings
We also found a couple cute photo opps at this location. (See pictures below) If you're looking for a quick break from the heat, I'd recommend stopping in the Epcot Experience and grab some wings or a beer from Brew-Wing while you're at it. 

And that's it! Those were all the items I tried in one day at the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival! I wish I had tried more but there just wasn't enough time or room in my stomach. Next time I'll be sure to try some different Festival offerings and report back to you on my experience. 

The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival is open until November 20, 2021 from park open to park close so make sure to plan a visit to the Festival on your next trip. 

Have you visited the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival yet this year? Let us know your favorite food and/or beverage offering from this year's Festival in the comments. 

Ashley has been a Disney Parks fan from an early age and loves anything vintage Disney. You can email Ashley at ashley@kingdomkonsultant.com.



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