REVIEW: We Ate the Whole NEW Menu at this EPCOT Food and Wine Festival Booth!

The Fourth of July may have already come and gone this year, but we’re still celebrating America through some delicious food.

Flavors of America Booth 2023

That’s right, The 2023 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival has officially begun and it has a LOT to offer. There are plenty of food booths with tasty items, merchandise items to grab (of course), and even concerts to watch. It might sound overwhelming, and you might be wondering how you could possibly have time to take it all in during your next EPCOT visit. Well, that’s where we come in! We’re reviewing all the eats and sips of the festival so that you know ahead of time what’s worth the try and what’s worth the skip. Speaking of which, we’re heading to one spot in particular — the Flavors of America Booth. Is it worth a try? Let’s find out!

Menu

Over at Flavors of America, you’ll find a variety of available items — both returning menu items from other various booths and ones that are totally new! Of course, all of the available dishes are inspired by traditional American cuisine from both New England and the Southwest. Check out a list of the available items here:

Food:

  • Italian Hot Beef Sandwich with Shaved Beef, Spicy Giardiniera, and Au Jus on a French Roll (NEW)
  • Cioppino: Seafood Stew with Saffron-infused Tomato-Fennel Broth and Sourdough Crostini (NEW)
  • Chilaquiles: Corn Tortilla Chips tossed in Salsa Verde with Ranchero Chicken, Queso Fresco, Cilantro-Lime Crema, and a Soft-Poached Egg* (NEW)
  • Freshly Baked Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Menu

Beverages:

  • Rogue Dreamland American Lager, Ashland, OR (NEW)
  • Goose Island Beer Co. Neon Beer Hug, Chicago, IL (NEW)
  • Left Hand Brewing Sawtooth Amber Ale, Longmont, CO (NEW)
  • Beer Flight (Featuring all three new beers)

Since this booth has an almost entirely NEW menu, we’ll be trying everything, so get ready for the whole shabang, y’all. Yep, we’re even grabbing the yummy Freshly Baked Carrot Cake (which is NOT new, but we just couldn’t resist). When we’ve gotten it in the past, it’s been the perfect balance of sweet and spicy cake — topped with creamy and delicious cream cheese frosting.

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

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Eats

We don’t know about you, but we are ready to EAT!

First up, we grabbed the Italian Hot Beef Sandwich with Shaved Beef, Spicy Giardiniera, and Au Jus on a French Roll for $6.25. This is a brand new item, so we’ve never had it before. We’re very excited to see if it tastes as good as it looks!

Italian Hot Beef Sandwich with Shaved Beef, Spicy Giardiniera and Au Jus on a French Roll

We’ll admit that we almost dreaded eating this because it seemed like a heavy meal for a hot summer day in Florida. BUT, y’all, it was lighter than we expected, but also juicy, hearty, and a little herbaceous.

Italian Hot Beef Sandwich with Shaved Beef, Spicy Giardiniera and Au Jus on a French Roll

There was a nice spicy kick from the giardiniera, but it wasn’t SUPER intense and it won’t make you feel like you need to drink water right after you eat it. The beef was very savory and almost briny — we LOVED it. However, the bread gets soggy with the au jus, but we don’t regret dipping it in there EVER.

Next, we grabbed the Cioppino, which is a Seafood Stew with Saffron-infused Tomato-Fennel Broth and Sourdough Crostini for $7.50. This is another new item. The overall flavor here leans on the rich robust tomatoeness (yes, we just made that word up). We expected it to taste more floral, so don’t let that turn you off if you’re worried about it.

Cioppino: Seafood Stew with Saffron-infused Tomato-Fennel Broth and Sourdough Crostini

The seafood “fishy” taste was very light, and the mussel was chewy and slimy (and we mean that in the best way possible), but satisfying. The crunchy crostini soaks up the stew well — the stew IS thin, but we wouldn’t say it was watery.

The crostini

If anything disappointed about this, it was the shrimp — it didn’t seem to have any kind of seasoning and lacked flavor. But it was chewy, too.

Last but not least for the new items, we grabbed the Chilaquiles, which are Corn Tortilla Chips tossed in Salsa Verde with Ranchero Chicken, Queso Fresco, Cilantro-Lime Crema and a Soft-Poached Egg. We grabbed these for $6.75. Okay, so this surprised us here, too, because the flavors were way milder than we expected. The most flavor you get is from that poached egg. Also, the chips tasted just like the kind you buy at the grocery store in a bag and not like the fresh fried chips we were expecting.

Chilaquiles: Corn Tortilla Chips tossed in Salsa Verde with Ranchero Chicken, Queso Fresco, Cilantro-Lime Crema and a Soft-Poached Egg

We found the ranchero chicken more sweet than spicy and it had a very thin sauce, which combined with the gooey egg. We wish the flavors had come through more here. Like, this is more like Chilaquiles from a chain Americanized Tex-Mex restaurant, so it was lacking that Mexican authenticity for us. Also, why did the chips have to get so soggy? It’s weird because they’re crispy on the edges, but they get weighed down in the middle.

Chilaquiles: Corn Tortilla Chips tossed in Salsa Verde with Ranchero Chicken, Queso Fresco, Cilantro-Lime Crema and a Soft-Poached Egg

The egg is the tastiest part of this, along with the chicken. The cilantro-lime flavor is zesty when you get a bite of it, but it’s thin. We’ll say that this IS a nice savory and light dish, but if we had a choice when it comes to Mexican food, we’d head to the Mexico Pavilion first before ordering this again.

The Freshly Baked Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing for $4.50. This tasted more like a nutty spice cake than a carrot cake, but we’re not complaining. It’s very dense, but not dry, but the icing does harden and breaks up when you stick a fork into it — but don’t worry, it still melts on your tongue.

Carrot Cake

The icing is also not too overwhelmingly sweet and it even has a hint of tang to it.

Carrot Cake

This is a very autumnal treat, and if you’re a pumpkin spice latte lover, this one is for you!

So that’s it for the eats, but what about the drinks here?

Drinks

In terms of drinks on this menu, we got the Beer Flight for $10. This includes the Rogue Dreamland American Lager, the Goose Island Beer Co. Neon Beer Hug, and the Left Hand Brewing Sawtooth Amber Ale.

Beer Flight

These are all new for us, so we’ve got quite the spread of drinks to try!

Well, as far as the Rogue Dreamland American Lager goes, we thought it was VERY dry and mostly bitter. You know that bitter beer face you make sometimes? This one will give you that face.

Rogue Dreamland American Lager

The Left Hand Brewing Sawtooth Amber Ale is a bit lighter on the first sip but then comes in heavier after it sits for a while. It’s also more sour.

Left Hand Brewing Sawtooth Amber Ale

As for the Goose Island Beer Co. Neon Beer Hug, well, this one was our favorite of the three. It’s sweet and really is like a beer hug, so well, played whoever named this beer.

Goose Island Beer Co. Neon Beer Hug

OVERALL

We absolutely loved the Italian Hot Beef sandwich and would order it again, and we can’t wait to try it when the weather isn’t so miserably hot. The Seafood Cioppino was also mostly a hit for us, as was the Carrot Cake. This is a booth you’ll want to hit up on those cooler days, maybe when fall begins to roll around. However, the Chilaquiles were a huge disappointment, especially as we expected something with more authentic Mexican flavors.

Full Spread 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 Food & Wine Festival!

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

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