WIAW #4: Disney's Food and Wine Festival

Time for another What I Ate Wednesday! Or rather, What We Ate Wednesday. Clint and I are sharing a lot of food so that we can try more things.

Because we are at Disney's Food and Wine Festival! Yay hooray! I've been coming to Disney World since I was 4, and since high school, my parents and I come nearly every year. In 2008, Clint and I came down in October for a friend's wedding and we got our first taste (haha) of F&W. This was Clint's first exposure to Disney, so of course he loved it. I convinced my parents to switch their September Disney trip to October to take advantage of F&W, and ever since then, we've come in October. (It's really great being off the academic calendar!)

Now, this is an eating trip. I'm not counting calories, and we'll worry about what the scale says and how tight my pants are when I return. Luckily we walk several miles a day (and Clint's trying to squeeze in a daily run) so in the past, the damage hasn't been too bad.

Today I present to you: What We Ate At Our First Day At The Food Festival, Plus Tea Plus Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. i.e. lots of deliciousness.

We arrived at Epcot around 8:15am- it opened early for resort guests! I love these early opening days (well to be honest, I don't like getting up an hour earlier.... but it's nice to get a lot done before it's very crowded).

 We always eat breakfast at The Land, after we go on Soarin' and before we go on Soarin' a second time. Favorite ride, perhaps? Clint and I shared this: OJ for him, coffee and low fat milk for me, and home fries, bacon and biscuit for him and french toast (with honey, no real maple syrup here! pancake syrup, ew), sausage and eggs for me.

 We eagerly awaited 11:00am, when the World Showcase and the Festival opened. First stop, Craft Beers. Devil's Triangle IPA for Clint, Berry Weiss for mom, dad and me.

 Next stop, Hawaii. Clint got the Kona Porter and the tuna poke, of which I had a sip and a small bite, respectively (I didn't love the tuna). You can see my beautiful pink berry weiss on the right. Who doesn't love a pink beer?!?

 Mom got a pork slider with pineapple chutney from Hawaii.

 Ok, here's the best dish at the F&W: chipotle chicken sausage with sweet corn polenta and onion jam, from Canada. Also apple ice wine. The polenta here is creamy and sweet, and I'm sure this serving is probably like 800 delicious calories. Let's walk more!

 Dad got mead at Ireland, very tasty.

 Clint and I split the coq au vin with mac and cheese and a Pomegranate Kir cocktail at France. Delicious!! This is a very, very close second to the chicken chipotle sausage.

 From Morocco: Amazigh red wine (like a light shiraz, only a little more bitter, very interesting) and beef kefta pocket with a vinegary cabbage slaw. I have a recipe for something similar that we love- I haven't gotten around to blogging it, but it can be found here.

 Jen emailed me a couple days ago to tell me about the new frozen beer in Japan. I was intrigued so we got it! I don't love it, but I'm glad we tried it. It's a regular Kirin Ichiban beer with frozen head. The problem I found with it is that I'm used to frozen/slushy stuff being sweet, so this was a shock to my palette- even though I know beer isn't supposed to be sweet. It was just unexpected. However, the slushy beer on top seemed to keep the liquid beer cool for longer, which is a bonus in Florida.

 Then we got to the Florida Local kiosk, and I left the beer to Clint when I found their lime wine from Florida Orange Groves winer. Lime wine?!? I know! It tastes like a very light key lime juice, although still super limey (i.e. super good, I love lime). I need to check the alcohol content, because as far as I could tell, it wasn't alcoholic at all. But of course it is, since it's wine.

The lime wine is on the right, on the left is their white sangria, which is super sweet- maybe even more so after drinking the lime wine. I liked it, but I took a couple sips and gave the rest to mom, little ms. sweet wine drinker.

 Clint got the beef taco at Mexico, which was very tasty and a little spicy.

 Mom got the flan at Mexico- look how it's caramel colored all the way through! Very unlike what we're used to in flan. It kind of tasted like gjetost, which was awesome because mom and I love gjetost.

 Clint got shrimp on a barbie in Australia, which I actually did not taste at all- I had this last year, and remember it as being good, but VERY salty.

 Then we left Epcot and headed over to the Grand Floridian. After a spot of shopping (new Lilly dress for me!) at the hotel, we sat down for tea.

At the Garden View Lounge's afternoon tea, you can order a la carte items (scones, strawberries and cream, pastries, tea sandwiches, cheese, etc) or order a pre fixe kind of thing. I used to always order the Buckingham Palace (a pot of tea of your choice, plate of tea sandwiches, scone and jam tart, and pastries), and when we went a month after my wedding, we ordered the Grand Tea (same as Buckingham but also a glass of champagne). But a couple years ago, I tried pate for the first time with Gal M and Gal R, and fell in love. So now I order pate almost whenever I find it, including here. I get the Prince Edward tea:

Pate with stilton and bleu cheese, a glass of port, and tea (Shanghai Rose tea)... (and I didn't actually eat any crackers, the pate is so filling)

 ...here's a closer shot of the pate platter...

...and scones with devonshire cream, strawberry preserves and lemon curd (and here is a cup of mom's gingerbread tea).

 Mom and Dad both got the Buckingham Tea, and here is the sandwich plate that comes with that (I don't even know what everything is! But that little tart is a caramelized onion tart, and I kind of wish you could order a plate of just those, so yummy).

 Dad ended with strawberries and cream, as did Clint. Very pretty! We had to wait a bit to get these, the waitress said they had to run down to the bakery and we were like, what, why? There's no pastry with these. But probably for the decoration.

 The scones are my favorite part. I actually had 2 helpings of devonshire cream, Clint doesn't care for it, so ignored it on his scone plate and I put it to good use!

 Check out the lemon curd! Have you ever seen lemon curd like this? It was almost like frosting! I'm used to the more translucent kind.

Then it was time to change into our Halloween costumes and go to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom!

We got lots of candy.

 Lots. I'm not kidding. This is my pile.

 This is Clint's pile.

Clint had 107 pieces of candy (including the peanut M&Ms, tootsie roll and Butterfinger that he ate, and the 2 Almond Joys and 2 Peeps that he gave me). I haven't counted up mine yet, but I was good- I only ate 2 tootsie rolls, 2 caramel apple Werthers (seriously, these things are delicious. I may have to buy a bag), and a twizzler. Mom just told me she got 136 pieces- but she told the guy handing out the Werthers that she loves them so he gave her about 15.

I can feel a sugar high coming on for the rest of the week.