***2009*** Epcot Food & Wine Festival ENDED NOV. 8

[tony67]

Originally Posted by Rose&Crown

Where is the wine?
Beer from every country? easy enough to do, Austria and Spain are big beer countries, yet no beer?

Basically, I would like to see a wider selection of wine and beer paired with the food, also why is Belgium not a featured country??

Overall, we enjoyed the fest: best foods:
France: short ribs (hate to admit France actually put out some tasty food this year)
Morocco: kefta
South Africa: filet & sweet potato puree, corn soup
Spain: Snapper
Ireland: Lobster & Scallop Pie

I agree with most everything you say here.
The short ribs where great and I really liked the presentation. It looked like dessert.
I'm really bummed I skipped the kefta now. I avoided it since there was never line. Figured it was bad.
My filet was overcooked, but I really enjoyed the potatoes.
the snapper was excellent.
I had the lobster pie three times, although I have NEVER seen this on a menu in Ireland.

I'd like to see some better beers if I'm going to pay $6 for 12 ounces.
I can get a 22oz Sam’s Oktoberfest for $4 at Fridays every day of the week and it will be cold.
Of course Sam spends a lot of money to be here and although a lot of beer snobs hate sams I like it and give them a lot of credit for expanding beer in America.

I’d really like something different when I go to a food and wine festival.
Chimay would be a nice start and the wine folks would probably like it too.

How about some better German beers? Paulaner weissbier or Berliner weisse would be VERY nice on a hot day.
How many Berliner Weisse with Woodruff or Raspberry syrup could they sell on a hot day in Florida? This would sell just for the novelty factor.

How about Currywurst in Germany. The sausage they had was nice buy Currywurst would be better and much more unique.
I can get a brat at Sommerfest already.

I’d also really like to see them change all the foods every year.
For the most part they just repeat what they had last year.

[LilyWDW]

How about Currywurst in Germany. The sausage they had was nice buy Currywurst would be better and much more unique.

If they put Currywurst on the menu then I would be able to get the boyfriend to Disney! Down side would be we would have to go get some every single day... LMAO

[Rose&Crown]

Originally Posted by tony67

My filet was overcooked, but I really enjoyed the potatoes.

I’d also really like to see them change all the foods every year.
For the most part they just repeat what they had last year.

Filet was perfect the first day, overcooked on Saturday, and better on Monday.

Although several foods were the same, I thought they were better this year, the Beef Chimichurri and the Empanada were both better than last year.

For me my big gripe is the lack of wine & beer, a different microbrewery should be featured each year??

[ScottJoseph]

The hit at this year's Epcot International Food & Wine Festival is the Lobster & Scallops Fisherman's Pie. But because it is new, it wasn't included in the cookbook of festival dishes for sale at the park. But thanks to the generosity of executive chef Jens Dahlmann, I have the recipe on my site. It's fairly intricate -- nothing you throw together in an hour or two -- but for those who love a culinary challenge, the rewards should be satisfying. Here's a link to the recipe.

Scott
Scott Joseph's Orlando Restaurant Guide

[tony67]

Originally Posted by Rose&Crown

Filet was perfect the first day, overcooked on Saturday, and better on Monday.

Although several foods were the same, I thought they were better this year, the Beef Chimichurri and the Empanada were both better than last year.

For me my big gripe is the lack of wine & beer, a different microbrewery should be featured each year??

Yeah the food is different each day, probably every few hours.
I tried the escargot three times and it was only really good once.
Overall the food was much better then the last few years.
(Poland, Puerto Rico and Louisiana are the exceptions in my opinion. Awful this year.)

As for a different microbrewery each year I think there is two issues.
Sam's pays a lot to be there and does not want the competition - IMO.
The companies all pay a lot to be thier as I understand it. Many microbrewers probably cannot afford it.

The microbrewers are better off going to a beer festival run by someone like The Beer Advocate that gets them to people who will really appreciate their work and will not cost them an arm and a leg. These are great events if you can ever make it to one. $40 all you can sample.

I think Abita and Kona is as good as we can hope for at Disney.

[PNO4TE]

Originally Posted by ScottJoseph

The hit at this year's Epcot International Food & Wine Festival is the Lobster & Scallops Fisherman's Pie. But because it is new, it wasn't included in the cookbook of festival dishes for sale at the park. But thanks to the generosity of executive chef Jens Dahlmann, I have the recipe on my site. It's fairly intricate -- nothing you throw together in an hour or two -- but for those who love a culinary challenge, the rewards should be satisfying. Here's a link to the recipe.

Scott
Scott Joseph's Orlando Restaurant Guide

Thank you!

[Rose&Crown]

Originally Posted by tony67

(Poland, Puerto Rico and Louisiana are the exceptions in my opinion. Awful this year.)

As for a different microbrewery each year I think there is two issues.
Sam's pays a lot to be there and does not want the competition - IMO.
The companies all pay a lot to be thier as I understand it. Many microbrewers probably cannot afford it.

The microbrewers are better off going to a beer festival run by someone like The Beer Advocate that gets them to people who will really appreciate their work and will not cost them an arm and a leg. These are great events if you can ever make it to one. $40 all you can sample.

I think Abita and Kona is as good as we can hope for at Disney.

Agreed on those countires not being up to par, probably the worst three.

I was more wishing the microbrewery thing, and realize it would have to be one of the larger ones: SN, Anchor, Harpoon, etc. Really surpirsd AB Inbev doesn't have Redhook or the like. Another problem with the microbreweries is capacity to supply the festival for over a month. this isn't a one weekend festival. We hit some of the beer festivals around here, but most do not allow kids, the demonizing of alcohol in America. Also, no BA festivals in my neck of the woods, but that's not a big issue, there are plenty of festivals to choose from.

One last point, craft festivals are one of two things usually (not that I don't like them):
1. preaching to the choir
2. frat party

At F&W, you could potentially expose good beer to a new market.

Cheers

[Tatania]

Originally Posted by ScottJoseph

The hit at this year's Epcot International Food & Wine Festival is the Lobster & Scallops Fisherman's Pie. But because it is new, it wasn't included in the cookbook of festival dishes for sale at the park. But thanks to the generosity of executive chef Jens Dahlmann, I have the recipe on my site. It's fairly intricate -- nothing you throw together in an hour or two -- but for those who love a culinary challenge, the rewards should be satisfying. Here's a link to the recipe.

Scott
Scott Joseph's Orlando Restaurant Guide

So cool to see you posting here Scott As one of the resident Disney foodies, I read your blog all the time and recall that you have promised us a recipe from Kouzinna after you reviewd it.

We were also served side dishes of gigante beans, which were impressively large but mildly flavored, and Brussels sprouts, which were fantastic. They were sauteed with salty capers and sprinkled with lemon juice. Cora promised me the recipe and I’ll share it with as soon as I get it. - Scott Joseph

We posted the Lobster and Scallop pie a week or so ago on the Dis Boards recipe exchange and invite you to drop by there and check out the largest online collection of Disney recipes. We get requests all the time for new recipes (and actually have a rather lengthy request list posted here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1777635 post#5), so if you ever have any good connections you can use a Disney to help get the recipes we would all be more than grateful.

A recipe I wish I had gotten is for the Blood Orange Margarita (which everyone was raving about) at the Tequila Cave in Mexico. If anyone can get a hold of and post that recipe I really want to try and make it. I've been trying out the recipes in my new 2010 Food and Wine Festival cookbook and have to say the cookbook is a huge improvement over previous year's efforts. The editing is much better, instructions are more accurate and actually have some new items.

[TDC Nala]

I am not a fan of the lobster and scallop pie although I do like cheesy mashed potatoes. But it came off as cheesy mashed potatoes with some flavorless bits in it.

I'll probably be over at the Ditch today so maybe I can ask them about that recipe.

[onelilspark]

Originally Posted by TDC Nala

I am not a fan of the lobster and scallop pie although I do like cheesy mashed potatoes. But it came off as cheesy mashed potatoes with some flavorless bits in it.

I'll probably be over at the Ditch today so maybe I can ask them about that recipe.

I'm with you, we weren't fans of the pie.

But yes! on the margarita! If anyone gets that recipe...YUM!

[poocher]

A stepwise, logical (to Disney) process for ruining the wine seminars, especially for the future.
1) Decide that the culinary seminars are popular enough that $ could be charged for them.
2) Decide to charge for wine seminars too, and the same amount as culinary demos. Remember only the ice wine and champagne seminars and seminars hosted by top sommeliers that were full in the past. Ignore the fact that late in the day and at odd times, the wine seminars last year could not be filled even without charging.
3) Since Disney is now charging, it's not fair to ask winemakers to donate wine. Arrange to pay for it.
4) Since Disney is now buying wine, standardize to 3 smallest ever servings.
Cheapen the wine mat so it doesn't list the wine selections.
5) Whereas once winemakers wanted to show off their premium wines to entice the public to fork out more $$ for better wine, Disney has no such motive. Just pick any 3 wines.
6) Whereas once winemakers wanted to show off a range of products (we remember seminars with as many as 8 wines, and 4-5 was not unusual), Disney has no need to demo more wines.
7) Whereas once winemakers and sommeliers wished to show off their knowledge and teach the public, Disney feels only a need to provide a dumbed down, ordinary 3 wine tasting (remember from previous years when we got pippettes and carefully measured and mixed 3-4 wines trying to match the winemaker's results?)
8) Winemakers, seeing what Disney proposed to buy for their demo, seeing how that doesn't match their reasons to pay to come to Epcot, drop out in droves (compare the winemaker list of top wineries from past years to this year's winemakers. Note the absences.)
9) Pushed by the recession, change the 5 day package for winemakers and their families to come to Epcot into a 4 day package with more work over fewer hours and little time to be with the family. (This was verified with two winemakers we have known for a number of years.)
10) Drop the master sommelier's as presenters in wine seminars.

That's how individual decisions, each one logical on it's own, are adding up to "killing the golden goose" especially for next year. A number of wineries didn't know how bad it would be and came one more time. They didn't realize that the hardcore wine lovers who had filled their seminars week after week would be replaced by folks who are on vacation and who, as a lark, sign up for a wine seminar here and there, but aren't the folks who plan their own vacations around winery tours. Disney saw these folks as freeloaders who came back again and again, just for free wine. The wineries saw these folks as serious wine lovers who came back again and again and whom they could upsell better wines to.
No one is right or wrong. The hardcore serious wine lovers figured out in previous years how to more reliably get seats than the random folks on vacation. If you spent weeks at Epcot F&W, anyone could figure it out.
Disney saw a way to make some bucks and get rid of the criticism of the random vacationers that couldn't get seats. But Disney didn't count on so many empty seats and didn't see that these "dumbed down" wine seminars would turn away nearly 100% of the regulars....the folks the winemakers wanted to attract. Or, if Disney did foresee that, it didn't matter. They just wanted to fill seats at $5 or $8.
2011 will see nearly the end of the wine seminars. The best wineries will be gone (Disney may try to twist the arms of the companies that supply their restaurants. However, the wineries will cheap-out and send their local distributor to talk instead of the winemaker, the owner, or other person who can give a more interesting seminar).
The PFTS will continue to suffer as well because the good wineries will be participating less. Have you seen how the attendance has dropped off a cliff at PFTS compared to last year, even tho the price stayed the same? Were there 500 people at the last one? Have you also noticed how impossible it has been for a serious wine lover to get "value" at the PFTS with the wines now being served? Do you see a correlation?

So, there you have the individual steps that have all contributed to the change from enlightened, fascinating wine seminars to run-of-the-mill seminars, designed to fit the new audience of tourists. Could it be reversed? Certainly. Will it be reversed? Unlikely. Will it crash and burn? We'll have to see.
The poocher

[Sandy321]

Very GOOD Analysis!

and its becoming clear Disney is making those same type of cuts across the board...

and the more I read (and relate to dh) we are comfortable in our choice not to go to F&W this year... and we went to 3 PFTS and every year it declined!!

[TDC Nala]

Disney's new business model in all cases is now geared toward random vacationers and not locals or repeat visitors.

I go to PFTS tomorrow night. If the food continues to be good (I hear the food has been very good this year) I'm not really that concerned about the wine for that particular event.

I will, however, not be doing another paid wine seminar, and will pay for food seminars only for presenters that interest me.

[PNO4TE]

Originally Posted by TDC Nala

Disney's new business model in all cases is now geared toward random vacationers and not locals or repeat visitors.

I go to PFTS tomorrow night. If the food continues to be good (I hear the food has been very good this year) I'm not really that concerned about the wine for that particular event.

Have fun!

[tony67]

poocher

I agree with much of what you say.
This is the problem with everything at Disney though.
At the end of the day it is a theme park for the masses and the masses are ....

Look at the quality of food over the last 5 years in the restaurants.
The DDP was been the death of food in Disney IMO.
Five years ago the food was priced fairly for what you got.
Now it is priced to make the DDP look like a better value and subsidize it.
The menus have been dumbed down IMO.

Five years ago every restaurant had a daily special.
I still talk about the Fire Roasted Whole Piranha that I had at the Coral Reef as a daily special. We will never see that on a menu in Disney again.

Now they seem to share a centralized ingredient list.
Salmon is the fish on every menu (last time I ate in a Disney TS).
Now that is getting expensive and they are switching to Tilapia (Yuck)

What about Foie gras on the menu in a "high end" French restaurant?

How many of the top chefs left because they had to work within constraints of the DDP.
What about the sommelier's?

What about the overpriced samples in the countries?
With the DDP they can charge what every they want since people have snack credits.
If you’re not on the DDP you are screwed in my opinion.
The lobster roll was not worth 7.50.
$5 for one Pierogi and some low quality kielbasa.
Most items were at least $1 more than they should be.

$6 for a 12 ounce Sam Adams, I do not know why the locals even bother.

Although I did not do any of the wine seminars I did do several of the spirit seminars as well as champagne.

I'm quite happy to pay the $8 and not have to wait in line.
In the past I never bothered with the seminars, so maybe they were better.

Overall I felt they were well done. The presenters did care about their product and wanted to give us more. Disney was the problem here.

One example from the presenters mouth.
Although they were not paying for the Vodka (I assume), they did not want to give the attendees two shots of vodka and a Martini and then set them loose on the parks. So we got two half shots of vodka and a strawberry balsamic martini with very little vodka.
She really wanted us to try the vodka as it should be in a CEO Martini. (ice cold with olives)

The Rum seminar gave us a very nice amount of Rum and even a fourth bonus Drangonberry rum. The 8yr old full shot of Bacardi was well worth $8.

The Cognac seminar was a very good deal. The XO was worth the $8 price of admission.

Yes there were people at the Champagne Seminar drinking beer, but who are we to judge them.
Yes there were people there just for the drink who were clueless.
But is a small amount of them are reached then it is worthwhile.


As for the Culinary Demonstrations I did, I also felt they were well done.
I do think that they were very stingy with the wine, no doubt.
And serving it in the lame plastic cup to make it look larger was very cheesy.
Yes I did have to sit across from a guy who devoured his stacked breakfast and his girlfriends in about 2.5 seconds and then took the time to say, "That was good."
He then knocked his and most of his girls Strawberry Balsamic martini. Said "Wow you can taste the Balsamic" and then left with his beer.

I do think that it was beneficial to the wineries that participated. Even if 10% of the attendees search out their wine it is most likely worthwhile for most of these small ones.
I'd rather see the small mom and pops anyway. It may not be the best, but they do care more about the product then some VP of sales for a large corporation who is just looking for the next job at a larger winery.

I agree about the PFTS, that’s why I skipped it.

I was very disappointed with the tequila tasting.
They gave you less then we got at any of the $8 tasting and charged us $35.
They did not close the bar, so it was very rowdy and noisy to say the least.
They gave us a nice taste of their food, but still not worth the $35.
I will not do one of these things next year.
I heard the same of the tastings in Morocco and Japan as well as the cheese tastings.

I was also somewhat disappointed with the "Signature" dinners.
It seems that they may have had the same list of ingredients to choose from.
It seems odd to me that they would have sweetbreads at two dinners two nights in a row.
I felt we were paying for Todd English’s time more than the meal.
For $180 I can have a much nicer meal at Blue Zoo on my own.
I also think we got more interaction with Todd at the seminar then the meal.
I'll be skipping that next year too.


And then there is the "marketplace".
Most items where 20-50% more than they should be.

The presenters would quote a price for a product and it was always WAY more than they quoted. The xo cognac should be around 135, it was 210.

Don Julio Anejo should be around $45, it was $62.
I expect a small mark up but that is ridiculous.

At some point the presenters stopped quoting prices when asked. For example Chopin Vodka would not be more specific than a few dollars more than others.


Regardless of all this I will be back again next year and make the most of it, like I do every year. Will I complain a lot, yes. Does Disney care? Not really.

In the end I think that Disney gives you the best of both worlds. Food, Wine and amusement parks.

If I want something better there are real Food And Wine festivals to attend in New York, Miami and Boston.
They would problem be far cheaper than two weeks in Disney by the time you add it all up.