Eating Your Way Around (Parts of) the World

Years and years ago my wife and I made a trip to Disney World that was absolutely fantastic. Not because of Magic Kingdom or the other parks that people actually care about. No, it was Epcot that caught our attention, and not the main park of Epcot either. It was the Epcot World Showcase section, a part of the park built around a massive, man-made pond, with stops all along the way at various nations. We hit it during the Epcot Food and Wine Festival and we had an absolute blast eating our way around the lake, hitting every interesting food cart and getting absolutely stuffed. It was so good.

Sadly, the last time we visited (which was about ten years after our first visit) we were far less impressed with everything on offer. The park was much busier, even though we went around the same time of year as before, and the food on offer wasn’t as interesting or as good. What had been really odd, fun choices to highlight various nations and their regional cuisine became expected dishes (tacos from Mexico, potstickers from China) that felt like they’d come out of a frozen meal pack and been reheated. The care and attention had been lost (which also could have been said for Disney as a whole at that point).

When plotting a trip to Busch Gardens, my wife discovered that they, too, had a Food and Wine Festival they did every year. This one occurs in the spring (as opposed to Disney’s fall event, which makes sense since they wouldn’t want to compete directly) and it allows you to, effectively, eat around the world as well because that’s the theme for the park. That seemed like a great thing to do since, just maybe, we could recapture some of the fun of what was available back when Epcot didn’t suck.

So we went, and we toured, and we sampled a few of the booths along the way. Some places were really good. Some were just okay. Certainly many of the options on offer at Busch Gardens were just as expected and basic as what we saw at Epcot a few years ago, and I’d argue the quality was about the same as well. Still, we picked the few options we wanted, avoided a number that didn’t seem interesting, and we have reviews of the dishes that we picked up along the way.

Virginia

The first stop was just inside the main area of the park, just past England and right at the archway of Scotland: Virginia. I don’t know why they set this booth up here, but this is where Virginia landed. And if you’re thinking, “Virginia isn’t a nation,” you’d be right, but it still got featured here because that’s the state where the park is housed and so it gets special attention. It does make me wonder if Tampa’s Busch Gardens also has a Food and Wine Festival and if, at that one, they feature a Florida booth. Presumably it would have a lot of oranges.

Anyway, the Virginia booth was excellent. We sampled three items from the booth: the Chesapeake Style Crab Cake Slider, a trio of Jalapeño & Cheddar Hush Puppies, and the Strawberry Lemonade Refresher. To start, the Hush Puppies were the true highlight of this section. Soft and crunchy all at the same time, with a delicately puffy interior that melted in your mouth. The spice level was moderate, enough that I didn’t really notice it but my wife (who doesn’t like spice as much as I do) did feel it. The cheese added some saltiness, but wasn’t overpowering. And it came with a honey mustard sauce that was nicely sweet and accented the orbs very well. This was probably the best item I had at the park.

The Crab Cake Slider was pretty good as well, although not as good as the Hush Puppies. The crab cake was delicately soft and melty, with a nice crab-forward flavor, and I could have eaten two or three of these on their own. Sadly the crab cake got lost in the flavors when it was put on the sandwich. The bun was very thick, the aioli meaningless except for color, and the remoulade sauce overpowered everything. It wasn’t necessarily bad, as it all tasted good, but the crab felt like an afterthought, all things considered.

The lemonade was nice. Maybe a little too sweet, really, which made it hard to guzzle. But then, I really probably shouldn’t have been guzzling it along the path. For the price I wish the cup had been bigger, but otherwise it was tasty enough.

Ranks:

• Jalapeño & Cheddar Hush Puppies: S
• Chesapeake Style Crab Cake Slider: A
• Strawberry Lemonade Refresher: B

Mexico

Further along the path, somewhere in Ireland (for some reason) was the Mexico booth. This booth offered a number of options, from three different tacos to some chips and cheese as well, but you could get them all in a Taco Trio, so I did. Of the three tacos, the standout was the Shredded Beef Taco. This one was moist and delicious, flavored with citrus and soy and accompanied by queso fresco and mango salsa. To be honest, I didn’t really notice the cheese or the salsa, but the beef was so flavorful, and so moist, that I just didn’t care. A really solid, if honestly kind of basic, taco.

By comparison, the BBQ Pork Taco was the worst of the three. Barbecue pork carnitas served with queso fresco and pickled onions, the taco fell flat all because of the carnitas. They were a dry, awful wad of meat shreds that ruined everything else about the taco. I barely tasted the barbeque flavor, I just tasted dry meat. The onions were decent, with a light, pickled pop, but they got lost in the full bite of the taco. I’d rather have had them on the beef taco and skipped the pork entirely.

The Crispy Shrimp Taco was better, but it also didn’t feel very Mexican. Crispy fried shrimp topped with sweet chili sauce, pico de gallo, and cilantro lime slaw, what I got from this taco was very crunchy shrimp. It was good, and was well flavored on its own and by the sweet chili sauce. If they had been served at an asian fusion booth, I wouldn’t have questioned it at all. There was a Hawaiian booth nearby, and this almost felt like something that should have been served there as well. I skipped past Hawaii, sadly, because I was very full after these tacos, but if I could have gotten the Spam slider that was there along with this shrimp taco, I think that would have made for another S-tier pairing. As it was, this shrimp taco was a nice change of pace, and certainly better than the pork taco, but it didn’t really belong in this trio.

Oh, and the chips and Tidewater White Cheese Sauce & Chips were awful. The chips were almost stale, and the cheese sauce was served cold. The white cheese sauce also tasted strongly of vinegar. I ate two chips then threw the rest of it out.

Ranks:

• BBQ Pork Taco: C
• Crispy Shrimp Taco: B
• Shredded Beef Taco: A
• Tidewater White Cheese Sauce & Chips: F

Walking Around

We went past Hawaii, which we said we’d hit again when we made a second loop through the park (spoilers, we didn’t make it to that second loop), and then also skipped past Poland as well. I was interested in trying Hawaii (since not on this trip, maybe the next time I visit the park) since they had interesting options, like a Spam Slider as well as a Kalua Pork Slider. Of the two, I was more inclined to the Spam Slider because the pork one came with a coconut slaw and I really hate coconut. Had I not been full, I would have tried it. I had similar thoughts on the Africa booth, which was also nearby (in Ireland, which still doesn’t make sense), and they had a weird Beef Curry Custard that intrigued me. A second loop and I would have tried it.

Poland was an utter disappointment, so we didn’t stop there. Just outside Ireland and on into France (and French Canada), Poland was positioned with various basic items. One was a kielbasa, which literally looked like a sausage I could have bought from the store and cooked up in a pan. They didn’t even grill it to give it some smoky flavor. Then they also had pierogis, which, from the picture, looked exactly like frozen pierogies bought at the store and microwaved up. If I had been desperate, or was on a third pass through the park, I’d review them just for the sake of. But when most items coast eight bucks a pop, at a minimum, I wasn’t spending that much for reheated grocery store basics. Poland was a bust.

Brazil and Jamaica were also ones I walked past, but this got back to the fact that the items they had were covered in stuff (like coconut and cilantro) I wasn’t super interested in. While I absolutely hate coconut, I don’t really care one way or the other about cilantro. It just tastes green to me (not like soap), and it’s an afterthought that I would prefer to just ignore. These meals used these ingredients front and center and neither my wife, nor I, were really in the mood to sample them on this first pass.

Oh, and there were also a bunch of booths just serving alcohol. I don’t drink, and my wife was choosing to be sparing that day, so while you could get your lush on throughout the park (seriously, not just at these overpriced booths but all over, at basically every shop, there wine sampling stations as well), we didn’t. There’s one wine she tried, which we’ll get to soon, but otherwise, we didn’t focus much on the “Wine” part of the Food and Wine Festival.

Funnel Cake

Now this isn’t technically part of the Food and Wine Festival, but how can you go to a theme park and not get a funnel cake? We stopped at a booth in Canada land and grabbed a basic funnel cake. They actually had options, three different kinds where you took the basic cake with sugar and added on fruit, ice cream, and syrup, but that was way too much sugar for the two of us. Plus, all those toppings get in the way of the tasty, crispy goodness of the funnel cake. We just got the basic cake with sugar and sat for a bit eating it while taking a slow train ride around the park.

The funnel cake was fantastic, of course, since it’s really hard to screw up a funnel cake. The train ride was also nice. We got to see a lot of the gardens and tended areas, get behind the scenes views of the rides, and we could lazily eat our funnel cake while enjoying the chill ride. I would absolutely recommend this combo – get a funnel cake and ride the train – as it made for a great break before walking around the rest of the park.

Ranks:

• Funnel Cake: A
• Train Ride: A

Italy

There were three booths in the Italy station, although we only sampled Italy itself and then got full again. Italy featured two food items we wanted, the Giant Meatball and the Bruschetta, as well as a wine my wife wanted to try, the Eleanor Estate Centorri Moscato. We did skip the Maltagliati because it has pesto on it, and neither of us are big fans of pesto. With so many meals along the way we didn’t feel like we had to push and be too adventurous this time around.

Honestly, the food at Italy wasn’t the best. I think this was primarily due to it sitting under heat lamps for too long instead of being made fresh. The Giant Meatball tasted great, but its texture wasn’t the best. The meat was a little dry, a touch chewy, and the ball was just cool enough that the wadd of cheese in the middle had coagulated into a nub. There was no cheese pull to it, meaning it got way too cold after originally getting made.

The Bruschetta was also cold, in part because of the fresh tomatoes and basil on top, but also because it sat for a while as well. It was supposed to be toasted, but the bread was actually a little soggy. The whole experience with it was sad, not good, and tasted pretty bad all things considered.

The wine, however, was excellent. I don’t like wine at all, or alcohol in general, but even I had to admit the wine was tasty. Sweet, without too much alcoholic burn, and it had a gentle fizz to it I really liked. My wife, who likes sweet wines, was all over it, getting happily buzzed off a tiny shot glass (which is why neither of us drink much). She’s already interested in finding a bottle to buy online for herself (since she didn’t want to pay the outrageous price the park wanted to charge for it). As such, when in Italy (the booth), skip the food and get the moscato.

Ranks:

• Giant Meatball: C
• Bruschetta: D
• Eleanor Estate Centorri Moscato: S

Walking Around, Part II

Finally, we wandered past two more booths that we thought about sampling… but didn’t. Turkey was up first, still in Italy, and they had a couple of Doner Kebabs I was really interested in sampling. I really should have come here instead of Italy and tried at least one of the kebabs, either the chicken or the beef and lamb, and had I not been so full I would have. I haven’t had Doner Kebab, which sounds (from the ingredients) like a Turkish version of a gyro, but now I really want to. Next time I’m at the park I will.

China, meanwhile (again, also in Italy), should be high on the list for things I want to eat because I love Asian food. But CHina had the same issue as Poland: all their items seemed like stuff grabbed from a grocer’s frozen food section and then warmed up. Potstickers, bao buns, and dumplings. It was an appetizer platter masquerading as a meal, and whether I had been full or not I found it utterly disappointing. I could have likely eaten one or two things here (after riding the Turkish Delight, aka the Teacups) but I skipped it because I found it so underwhelming.

And at this point my wife and I were tired after walking the park and riding rides for six hours, so we decided to bounce. Maybe I should have gone back for Africa and Hawaii at a minimum, but it does give me something to sample the next time I decide to visit the park. We shall see…