Are you hungry? So are WE! And it’s a good thing, because we’re about to stuff our faces with a plethora of holiday eats from Disney World.

The 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Holidays has officially begun and it has a LOT to offer. There are plenty of food booths with tasty items, shows and storytellers to watch, souvenirs to grab (of course), and even a cookie stroll to complete. But don’t let it overwhelm you — we’ve got you covered with everything you need to know. And now we’re heading to one spot in particular — Nochebuena Cocina — to give you the FULL scoop! Is it worth a try? Let’s find out!

Menu

Over at Nochebuena Cocina, you’ll find a variety of available items.

This year, we have a lot of items returning from last year as well as a brand new beverage offering! There is a total of 2 dishes, 2 beverages, and 1 NEW cookie stroll item! There is even a plant-based option returning to the menu this year!

Now that we’ve taken a look at the menu, let’s dive into the food itself!

Eats

First up, we grabbed the tamale with plant-based chorizo, plant-based cotija cheese, and spicy red chile sauce for $5.50! This item is returning this year, and it’s one of the few plant-based options.

This was fairly good, but the big thing about this is that the spicy red chile sauce kind of overpowers the whole dish. There’s also a LOT of tamale and not a lot of plant-based chorizo — we wanted more of the “meat” overall. It ranks somewhere in the middle for us, as we weren’t overly impressed with this tamale since the portions weren’t balanced.

Next, we tried another item that is returning this year! We got the Pernil, which is Mojo pork with tostones and ketchup-mayonnaise for $5.50. We actually quite liked this one, as the mojo pork was tender and moist. However, the tostones were REALLY salty, so beware of that going in. Despite the salt, the flavors were well-balanced.

This was our favorite thing at Nochebuena, so we recommend stopping by if just to try this Pernil!

Finally, we have our cookies stroll item to enjoy for dessert! This cookie is BRAND NEW this year. It is the Spiced Chocolate Cookie and we got it for $3. This was somewhat bitter, almost like a very dark chocolate. There weren’t a lot of Christmas spices in the flavor, so the “spiced” part of the name was a little bit of a letdown.

So we’re striking out on 2/3 of the food items…what about the drinks?

Drinks

In terms of drinks at this booth, we got Ponche Navideño, which is BRAND NEW to the festival this year. It is a  Mexican Christmas punch with apples, pears, guava, oranges, dried hibiscus, brown sugar, tamarind, cinnamon sticks, and clove. This is a non-alcoholic beverage, so anyone in the family can order it! This item costs $4.

This reminded us of a Christmas fruitcake in a cup, but warmed up. And if that’s your vibe, you’ll probably love it! It tastes like the kind of drink you’d enjoy after a heavy Thanksgiving or Christmas meal with all the fruit and spices throughout. 

The other beverage available at this booth is the 81Bay Brewing Co. Horchata Beer. This is returning to the festival this year, and we’re pretty excited about it. You can get this beer for $5.75 for 6oz or $9.75 for 12oz.

This had the simple flavor of a light beer, and we didn’t get any kind of flavor of cinnamon like we’d expect from a horchata. It’s not really anything particularly special, and you might be disappointed if you’re hoping for a strong horchata-ness. 

So how does this booth fare for 2023?

OVERALL

Nochebuena Cocina was a favorite of ours when it premiered in 2022, but this year it sadly missed the mark. Way to rip out our heart and stomp on it! (We’ll be singing “Last Christmas” all day long now!) The main thing we loved here was the Pernil, and everything else came up a little short of our expectations.

Keep in mind that it’s possible we just ended up with a rough batch of eats since it’s the first day of the festival, so we don’t usually encourage writing off festival booths entirely. If you’re interested in the menu here, we suggest stopping by to see if you enjoy it!

Nochebuena Cocina’s lineup is here!

⭐️ Tamale with chorizo, plant-based cotija cheese and spicy red chile sauce
⭐️ Pernil: Mojo pork with tostones and ketchup-mayonnaise
⭐️ Spiced Chocolate Cookie 🍪
⭐️ Ponche Navideño: Mexican Christmas punch pic.twitter.com/rSqiMsPod9

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) November 24, 2023

That’s it for this booth, but there’s a LOT more where that came from!

Click here to see FULL reviews of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Festival of the Holidays!

Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Holidays? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know:

• Learn about the Candlelight Processional and Dining Packages
• Check out ALL of the 2023 Festival of the Holidays booth Menus
• See what eats you’ll need to try to get a PRIZE at the Festival!

And don’t forget to pick up our 2023 DFB Guide to the Holidays at Disney World! See more details about the book below.

Click here to check out what the other food booths have to offer!

What items from this booth would you most want to try? Tell us in the comments!