Ahh, do you feel that sense of culinary wonder in the air?! If you do, well, that’s because it’s festival time (yet again!) at EPCOT. Today, the 2021 Taste of Epcot International Festival of the Arts officially kicked off! And we’re here to taste (and photograph!) all of the beautiful food!

Our journeys have brought us to Festival Favorites, which is located in World Showplace, the building between the United Kingdom and Canada Pavilions. We’ve enjoyed this trip down EPCOT Festival memory lane at Taste of Food and Wine and Taste of Festival of the Holidays, so we were definitely looking forward to checking it out today.

The name of this booth certainly promises a lot: Festival Favorites! And we a spotted few items from the 2020 festival, including the Artist Palette Jumbo Chocolate-Chip Cookie and Lemon and Blood Orange Tart from the 2020 Decadent Delights booth, both of which we have LOVED in the past for their cuteness and deliciousness, respectively. 

Other menu items include a NEW Plant-Based Remy’s Ratatouille with Eggplant, Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Tomatoes as well as Red Pepper Piperade and Charcuterie with Meats and Cheeses. Check out a pic of the entire menu below!

Drinks include: a non-alcoholic Blue Sky Black Cherry Boba Freeze, Cold Fashioned Coffee Cocktail, and the Neapolitan Beer Flight returning from previous years, featuring beers from 3 Daughters Brewing, Breckenridge Brewery, and M.I.A. Beer Company.

Eats

First, let’s talk about the NEW kid on the block: Remy’s Ratatouille. This plant-based dish comes with eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes and red pepper Piperade.

This is also the “Red” dish you need to find if you’re participating in the Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine! While we anxiously await the opening of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in the France Pavilion, we have Remy’s signature dish to hold us over. But does this dish deserve to be located at Festival FAVORITES?

In short…not really. Our dish was very light in flavor and not as spiced as we would like. Another note we will point out is that our dish was served cold, which might raise some eyebrows if you prefer your ratatouille to be served hot.

Here’s a video of our dish!

It’s Remy’s Ratatouille 🐀 from the Festival Favorites booth! #artfulepcot pic.twitter.com/hh4rXC8XgR

— AJ Wolfe (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 8, 2021

 

You can try this new dish out for yourself for $5.00! Returning this year is the Charcuterie with Meats and Cheeses featuring Nueske’s applewood smoked beef. This dish used to be located at The Masterpiece Kitchen in the Canada Pavailion, but it has found a new home at Festival Favorites! Just LOOK at the assortment of items available with this dish.

This dish certainly IS a festival favorite of ours; in fact, it made our Best of the Fest list in 2019! We just can’t say no to a great charcuterie board, and you really can’t beat the presentation here! Charcuterie boards could become a little tricky to eat, but frankly dishes like these are all about savoring each bite while you sip on some wine and watch the world go by.

This year’s edition was a GREAT spread! The applewood smoked beef had pickled jalapeños and celery making it nice and spicy! The other meats and cheeses on this charcuterie board offer a wide variety of flavors and textures.

Here’s a video of the full spread!

Charcuterie with Meats and Cheeses featuring Nueske’s® Applewood Smoked Beef from the Festival Favorites booth! 🤤 #artfulepcot pic.twitter.com/WairatuGIi

— AJ Wolfe (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 8, 2021

 

 

 

If you fancy yourself a Charcuterie with Meats and Cheeses, it’s available for $14.00. Let’s move on to our old friend, the Lemon and Blood Orange Tart, which was named a Best of the Fest in 2019. This dish has amassed some steep competition in the last couple of years, however.

Out of all the food items at this booth, the tart was by far the most “okay.” It’s very cute and checks the box for “Instagram-worthy,” but it didn’t WOW us like some other dishes we’re eating today. The middle of the tart was the best part with a citrusy flavor topped with fresh blueberries, garnished with white chocolate leaves and blood orange dollops that almost had a bit of a glittery sugar (again, totally Instagram-worthy).

The donut shaped tart itself, however, is a little bland for our taste, and we didn’t get a big blood orange flavor when we tried it. If you’re a blood orange fan, you may be disappointed (although the flavor was much more prominent in the glittery dollops around the plate).

If you’re looking for a dessert that’s less chocolate-y and more fruity, you can find this tart at Festival Favorites for $6.50. For a more traditional dessert, who can hate the Artist Palette Jumbo Chocolate-Chip Cookie?!

This cookie a long-standing Festival of the Arts sweet treat that you definitely need to try at least once.

Amongst all the fancy dishes we see at EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts, sometimes all you need is a solid, larger-than-life chocolate chip cookie. This one is available at Festival Favorites for $5.50.

Drinks

Festival Favorites also reunites us with some beloved beverages from previous years! Returning for 2021 is the Blue Sky Black Cherry Boba Freeze. This refreshing beverage appeared last year at the Pop Eats booth, giving the phrase “POP Eats” a literal run for its money. Those Boba pearls really do pop in your mouth! This non-alcoholic drink option is available for $4.50.

For those 21 and older, you can try the Cold Fashioned Coffee Cocktail! This fun play on an “Old Fashion” is definitely a unique find at the festival this year and could wind up being a bit polarizing, depending on how you feel about whiskey and coffee. The coffee flavor was very strong with a bit of an aftertaste, and whiskey fans may find themselves a bit lukewarm about this drink. Try it for yourself for $9.50!

Last up was the Neapolitan Beer Flight! This flight includes the three beers on tap at this booth: the 3 Daughters Brewing Strawberry Blonde Nitro (St. Petersburg, FL), the Breckenridge Brewery Nitro Vanilla Porter (Breckenridge, CO), and the M.I.A. Beer Company Milk Stout Nitro (Doral, FL).

The Strawberry Blonde Nitro was nice and light. To us, it had just the right hint of strawberry and was not super fruity or overly sweet. Another refreshing drink for us was the Nitro Vanilla Porter. If you’re a fan of porters, consider getting the full size of this one! The only beer of the three that missed the mark for us was the Milk Stout Nitro, but in fairness you probably need to be a stout drinker to truly appreciate this one.

The flight is available for $9.50, or you can order the beers individually at $4.50 for a 6oz pour or $8.50 for a 12oz pour! All in all, there’s tons of variety at Festival Favorites!

We’re eating at the Festival Favorites booth at the Festival of the Arts! #artfulepcot pic.twitter.com/IVZJr9qcRM

— AJ Wolfe (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 8, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

We’re still on our artistic culinary journey at EPCOT today, so be sure to keep following along as we eat and drink our way around the world!

See ALL of the booth menus from EPCOT’s 2021 Festival of the Arts here!

Are these menu items your festival favorites?! Let us know in the comments!