DapperSailor3
There's no outfit a good bow can't solve.
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2017
Day 5: Flower & Garden Booths - Part 1
Having never been to the Food & Wine Festival, I was thrilled my trip overlapped with Flower & Garden since I view this as a mini version of the Food & Wine booths.
I had plenty of snack credits and counter service credits. I skipped breakfast this morning so that I was absolutely starved by the time World Showcase opened at 11:00.
I headed right upon entering World Showcase, with my first food booth stop at Northern Bloom - just outside the Canada Pavilion.
The kitchen was ready to go with several dishes already made and ready to go...I was a little weary of this - I didn't necessarily want food that had been sitting out under a heat lamp for a long period of time.
I ordered one of everything on their menu - and exchanged 1 Counter Service/Quick Service Credit in exchange for the three "snacks" I received.
First up was the beef tenderloin tips...
Beef tenderloin tips, mushroom bordelaise sauce and whipped potatoes with garden vegetables.
This was a super hearty, super fancy and elegant version of beef stew. It was extremely tasty. The beef was tender (a little on the cold side, however it was cold and windy this day). The carrots and pearl onions were also tender, but not mushy. The mushroom sauce was a little salty, but it was needed to balance out the veggies and potatoes. All in all, I really liked this dish and finished it all. It was also a pretty generous size.
Next up were scallops...
Seared scallops with French green beans, butter potatoes, brown butter vinaigrette and Applewood smoked bacon.
This dish was another winner for me! The scallops had a nice sear to them and the vinaigrette added a nice acid flavor to the buttery scallop. The bacon + vinaigrette combo was delicious! The green beans were well-seasoned and even though I generally don't like potatoes of any kind - these were served piping hot with the right amount of salt. This was another good size portion as a snack credit!
Last up was dessert...
Nanaimo Bar Trifle
I had absolutely no idea what a Nanaimo bar actually was - and the cast member was sadly no help in describing it to me. A google search returns many recipe variations, but they are a homemade treat as best I can tell - not something you can go to the store and by like a candy bar and are comprised of three layers - the bottom or crust layer is graham crackers, coconut and almonds. The middle layer is a cream cheese/sugar mixture and the top is a melted chocolate layer. Perhaps our Canadian friends can chime in and provide a better/more accurate description.
Onto Disney's variation - the bottom layer tasted like mushroom cream/fluff to me. It had a similar consistency and was very sweet.
The second layer tasted (at least to me) exactly like Hershey's syrup. Not necessarily a bad thing. Had this been dark chocolate, I think it would have been far too sweet for anyone to manage.
Lastly, the crumbs on top were some combination of graham cracker, chocolate and a touch of salt.
While this variation wasn't very sophisticated in terms of flavors, I did enjoy it, although I did find it to be quite rich/sweet. I was glad this was a very small portion because I couldn't have managed eating any more.
While it wasn't my favorite dessert - I would certainly get it again.
The Nanaimo Bars are a real thing, but it may be specific to British Columbia. My mom became obsessed with them after visiting British Columbia, she pretty much ate them in every single town she found them in and even got a box of the mix to take home so she could bake them herself.
