pepperandchips
[melinda]
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2014
Tables in Wonderland Food and Wine Festival Preview Event Review - 7/15/17
I have seen only a little coverage on social media of the "media preview" that was held on 7/14/17, so I thought I would share my thoughts as well - we attended the event for Tables in Wonderland members held on 7/15. Overall, I thought that the preview dishes were good. However, I thought that the preview event this year was very disappointing compared to the previous year's event. I will touch on that a bit at the end. All of my images should be linked so that if you click on the image you can view a larger size of the photo. They are iPhone photos, sorry for the quality.
Here is all of the information we were given at the event, very different from the multipage booklet we got last year:
The preview event was held in the World Showplace Pavilion. This year each table was set with five place settings and five chairs. Fortunately @Dis_Yoda found me in the crowd and she was able to join us! We had an empty place at our table and we were able to scoot around to give everyone slightly more elbow room. Here's a shot of our table when it was set for 5:
First up, a trio of cheese presentations:
The Cheese Studio: profiterole topped with Boursin garlic and fine herbs cheese and orange apricot jam; smoked salmon pinwheel with Boursin shallot and chive cheese; strawberry macaron with Boursin pepper cheese
The macaron was one "wafer" of your typical macaron sandwich dessert, topped with a black pepper cream. The macaron wafer itself was very good, and the black pepper cream was unusual but tasty on top. I did get another one of these dishes and scraped the black pepper cream off of it. I can't ever have enough macarons!
In the middle was the smoked salmon pinwheel. I did not eat this as I do not eat salmon, but my dining companions had this and said that it was good with a very mild salmon flavor.
The final item was a boursin cheese cream puff and it was the winner for me. The cream puff shell was light and fresh and a perfect small bite size. How can you go wrong with boursin cheese? Of course this had the signature herb flavor and was so tasty. I can see getting this dish a few times during the course of the festival.
Next up is the chicken sausage sweet pancake:
Sweet pancake with spicy chipotle chicken sausage, onion jam, and maple butter syrup
This was a "meh" for me. The texture of the pancake was off (probably because they had been mass produced prior to letting guests into the event) and so it was dry and mealy. The sausage itself had good flavor but overall this dish was too sweet. I did not finish it and likely won't get it during the festival.
Here are a couple of wine tastes:
Liberated pinot noir and Sula Indian shiraz
I did not know India had a wine market, so I was excited to try this offering. It was a decent shiraz with a nice level of spice. The pinot noir was nice and dry but not as "big" of a flavor as I prefer after having gotten acquainted with a few small wineries from Napa and Sonoma. Overall both of these were good. I have a hard time drinking wine when it's hot outside, but if the weather cools off before my trip to the festival this fall, I would definitely consider getting both of these again.
May I present my new favorite thing, smoked corned beef nachos:
Smoked corned beef with warm crispy potatoes, pickled onions, and blonde ale beer fondue, featuring Romano and Grana cheeses
(Also, isn't smoked corned beef already a thing called pastrami?) Semantics aside, these were amazing. I meant to get a second portion of these but ended up not saving enough room. I will definitely get these again at the festival! The flavors were complex and rich with a nice depth from the cheese sauce and the smoky meat.
This year, they definitely highlighted more vegetarian dishes. Here we have a red lentil stew served wtih quinoa and crema:
Spicy Ethiopian red lentil stew with vegan yogurt and quinoa
Holy moses this was so amazingly delicious. I immediately told R (my fiancee) that we need to figure out how to make this at home. It was perfectly hearty and comforting with a deep, rich level of complex spices. It had a bit of spicy hot flavor as well as just flavorful spicy going on. I will definitely get this again! So so good.
Beer cheese and brown bread from Ireland:
Warm Irish cheddar cheese and stout dip with Irish brown bread
This was good, as you'd expect, because if beer cheese is not good, you've committed a crime. They served this with two pieces of bread but I didn't get a picture before we ate the first one. I hope they have more bread in the serving size at the actual festival unless anyone just loves beer cheese as a very thick soup...
An exciting offering for my Schofferhofer fan friends:
Pomegranate Schofferhofer, blended wheat beer with pomegranate juice, exclusive to the festival. I didn't care much for this as I found it overly sweet, but my mom really liked it and didn't know it was beer. It was definitely light and effervescent and I can see this being refreshing if you like the pomegranate flavor.
I didn't get a photo, but the only other beer offering at the event was a chocolate milk stout. It tasted overly chemical-ly to me, which is a fault I find frequently among "flavored" beers. I won't be getting either of these again. I was also very disappointed as it looks like Disney is offering a few decent beer choices this year and I was looking forward to trying more of them ahead of the festival.
Tomato chickpea curry:
Madras red curry with roasted cauliflower, baby carrots, chickpeas, and basmati rice
This was okay. I'm sure it was actually better than okay, but R and I make this at home about once a week and our version is also good, so this was not very interesting to me. Still glad to see more veggie options!
Seafood salad:
Seafood salad with shrimp, bay scallops, mussels, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, and smoked paprika
Everyone else at my table liked this dish, but that shrimp on top was super rubbery and I couldn't eat any more of this dish after the one rubbery shrimp. It was beautifully presented, with large mussels and shrimp throughout. I was hoping to love this after loving the conch salad at Flower & Garden, but I would definitely give it another shot at the actual festival hoping I got a better serving.
Scallops with succotash:
Seared scallops with roasted corn and butter bean succotash and chili-chipotle butter sauce
This was really really good - so much so that they ran out of this dish! The scallops were perfectly cooked and nicely browned and the flavor of the succotash was delicious. The sauce has a bit of a spice to it that really complemented the vegetables. Everyone liked this dish a lot, even me, who doesn't really eat scallops or corn!
Avocada crema dessert:
Sweet avocado crema, with strawberries, yellow cake, and tortilla streusel
This was good and had a nice berry note with it. The avocado flavor was mild and worked well with the crumble and berry flavors.
Hawaiian spam hash:
Teriyaki-glazed spam hash with potatoes, peppers, onions, and spicy mayonnaise
My serving was extremely salty (duh, it's spam) but I could not finish more than half of this. My potatoes were also undercooked. This would be fine to taste between a group but I am not overly concerned about getting another one of these.
Beef curry:
Red hot spicy Thai curry beef with steamed rice
This was heavenly! I loved this. The flavors were deep and complex, with unusual spice that I don't get from "American" stewed beef dishes. My mom's serving had tougher pieces of beef, so your mileage could vary, but I had two of these. It was so good! Even just the sauce on rice was very very good. Another favorite that I am looking forward to having again.
Olive oil cake with lemon curd:
Sweet olive oil cake with powdered sugar and lemon curd
I did not care for this, but Dis_yoda liked hers. It was too dense and dry for me, and I felt like I needed more lemon curd to make this enjoyable. I did not finish mine, but reactions were mixed within our group.
Flavors from fire chile chocolate dessert:
Chocolate picante: dark chocolate mousse with cayenne pepper, chili powder, and raspberry dust
Oh my gosh, if you like dark chocolate, this is the dessert for you! The chocolate mousse tasted like the inside of a chocolate truffle and the cake element of this dish was rich and moist. I did not pick up on the chile flavor but I loved this dessert and am looking forward to having more.
Not pictured, but eaten: banana almond soft serve sundae with fresh berries and crunchy chocolate oats. I liked this and thought it tasted a bit like a banana split but others in my party disliked the grainy texture of the frozen banana. There are better desserts to be had, for sure.
Overall, this event was a miss for me. I did not take photos of all of the beverage offerings that I enjoyed, but the highlight of beverage for me was the Gruner Veltliner. The other wines were all fine - nothing stood out - except the mango and pineapple wines, which aren't new and I've never cared for as I find them cloyingly sweet. The Leth Steinagrund Gruner Veltliner was a bright, sunny, and fruity White that still managed to be dry and crisp.
I was otherwise fairly disappointed in the beverage offerings - as I said, there were only two beers offered (both of them with an artificial flavor to me) and only a handful of wines. There were no cocktails offered aside from a frozen wine slush that was the "welcome drink". This year, the paid TIW event was offered separately from the media preview, and the overall vibe just felt different. There was less offered from what I recall, and there were not any plated "samples" to photograph like last year. I understand that most guests probably aren't overly concerned with this, but I wanted to take photos for the boards and for myself.
The Tables in Wonderland program has a bit of a reputation as disorganized, and we experienced an issue with this when we arrived at Epcot. One member of our party did not have park admission (which is not required for this event) so my registration email provided instructions on where to meet a convention guide to gain admission to Epcot. We waited for quite some time before park manager-types discovered that the convention guide was set up at the exact opposite end of the Epcot entrance from where the email instructions said to meet. Fortunately we were able to get in and we were not late to the event, but this was a frustrating hiccup.
A few positive impressions as well: last year's event featured a few "returning favorite" dishes where this year the event focused entirely on new offerings. I also felt like the event did a better job of offering vegetarian dishes beyond just desserts. Some of the offerings featuring meat were able to be made without the meat to accomodate vegetarians at the event. This year there seemed to be much more seating available this year than last, with the addition of an extra chair at each table. We got a sneak peek at the merchandise to be offered at the Festival (hello adorable Figment stuff!) but as Dis_Yoda pointed out, it's a little strange that while Remy features prominently in this year's festival logo, the merchandise still centers around Figment. Still, the Figment items have me counting my pennies ahead of the festival!
I am excited for the Festival and looking forward to trying the other new offerings, but at this point I am not planning to attend next year's preview event, if it's offered again.
I have seen only a little coverage on social media of the "media preview" that was held on 7/14/17, so I thought I would share my thoughts as well - we attended the event for Tables in Wonderland members held on 7/15. Overall, I thought that the preview dishes were good. However, I thought that the preview event this year was very disappointing compared to the previous year's event. I will touch on that a bit at the end. All of my images should be linked so that if you click on the image you can view a larger size of the photo. They are iPhone photos, sorry for the quality.
Here is all of the information we were given at the event, very different from the multipage booklet we got last year:
The preview event was held in the World Showplace Pavilion. This year each table was set with five place settings and five chairs. Fortunately @Dis_Yoda found me in the crowd and she was able to join us! We had an empty place at our table and we were able to scoot around to give everyone slightly more elbow room. Here's a shot of our table when it was set for 5:
First up, a trio of cheese presentations:
The Cheese Studio: profiterole topped with Boursin garlic and fine herbs cheese and orange apricot jam; smoked salmon pinwheel with Boursin shallot and chive cheese; strawberry macaron with Boursin pepper cheese
The macaron was one "wafer" of your typical macaron sandwich dessert, topped with a black pepper cream. The macaron wafer itself was very good, and the black pepper cream was unusual but tasty on top. I did get another one of these dishes and scraped the black pepper cream off of it. I can't ever have enough macarons!
In the middle was the smoked salmon pinwheel. I did not eat this as I do not eat salmon, but my dining companions had this and said that it was good with a very mild salmon flavor.
The final item was a boursin cheese cream puff and it was the winner for me. The cream puff shell was light and fresh and a perfect small bite size. How can you go wrong with boursin cheese? Of course this had the signature herb flavor and was so tasty. I can see getting this dish a few times during the course of the festival.
Next up is the chicken sausage sweet pancake:
Sweet pancake with spicy chipotle chicken sausage, onion jam, and maple butter syrup
This was a "meh" for me. The texture of the pancake was off (probably because they had been mass produced prior to letting guests into the event) and so it was dry and mealy. The sausage itself had good flavor but overall this dish was too sweet. I did not finish it and likely won't get it during the festival.
Here are a couple of wine tastes:
Liberated pinot noir and Sula Indian shiraz
I did not know India had a wine market, so I was excited to try this offering. It was a decent shiraz with a nice level of spice. The pinot noir was nice and dry but not as "big" of a flavor as I prefer after having gotten acquainted with a few small wineries from Napa and Sonoma. Overall both of these were good. I have a hard time drinking wine when it's hot outside, but if the weather cools off before my trip to the festival this fall, I would definitely consider getting both of these again.
May I present my new favorite thing, smoked corned beef nachos:
Smoked corned beef with warm crispy potatoes, pickled onions, and blonde ale beer fondue, featuring Romano and Grana cheeses
(Also, isn't smoked corned beef already a thing called pastrami?) Semantics aside, these were amazing. I meant to get a second portion of these but ended up not saving enough room. I will definitely get these again at the festival! The flavors were complex and rich with a nice depth from the cheese sauce and the smoky meat.
This year, they definitely highlighted more vegetarian dishes. Here we have a red lentil stew served wtih quinoa and crema:
Spicy Ethiopian red lentil stew with vegan yogurt and quinoa
Holy moses this was so amazingly delicious. I immediately told R (my fiancee) that we need to figure out how to make this at home. It was perfectly hearty and comforting with a deep, rich level of complex spices. It had a bit of spicy hot flavor as well as just flavorful spicy going on. I will definitely get this again! So so good.
Beer cheese and brown bread from Ireland:
Warm Irish cheddar cheese and stout dip with Irish brown bread
This was good, as you'd expect, because if beer cheese is not good, you've committed a crime. They served this with two pieces of bread but I didn't get a picture before we ate the first one. I hope they have more bread in the serving size at the actual festival unless anyone just loves beer cheese as a very thick soup...
An exciting offering for my Schofferhofer fan friends:
Pomegranate Schofferhofer, blended wheat beer with pomegranate juice, exclusive to the festival. I didn't care much for this as I found it overly sweet, but my mom really liked it and didn't know it was beer. It was definitely light and effervescent and I can see this being refreshing if you like the pomegranate flavor.
I didn't get a photo, but the only other beer offering at the event was a chocolate milk stout. It tasted overly chemical-ly to me, which is a fault I find frequently among "flavored" beers. I won't be getting either of these again. I was also very disappointed as it looks like Disney is offering a few decent beer choices this year and I was looking forward to trying more of them ahead of the festival.
Tomato chickpea curry:
Madras red curry with roasted cauliflower, baby carrots, chickpeas, and basmati rice
This was okay. I'm sure it was actually better than okay, but R and I make this at home about once a week and our version is also good, so this was not very interesting to me. Still glad to see more veggie options!
Seafood salad:
Seafood salad with shrimp, bay scallops, mussels, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, and smoked paprika
Everyone else at my table liked this dish, but that shrimp on top was super rubbery and I couldn't eat any more of this dish after the one rubbery shrimp. It was beautifully presented, with large mussels and shrimp throughout. I was hoping to love this after loving the conch salad at Flower & Garden, but I would definitely give it another shot at the actual festival hoping I got a better serving.
Scallops with succotash:
Seared scallops with roasted corn and butter bean succotash and chili-chipotle butter sauce
This was really really good - so much so that they ran out of this dish! The scallops were perfectly cooked and nicely browned and the flavor of the succotash was delicious. The sauce has a bit of a spice to it that really complemented the vegetables. Everyone liked this dish a lot, even me, who doesn't really eat scallops or corn!
Avocada crema dessert:
Sweet avocado crema, with strawberries, yellow cake, and tortilla streusel
This was good and had a nice berry note with it. The avocado flavor was mild and worked well with the crumble and berry flavors.
Hawaiian spam hash:
Teriyaki-glazed spam hash with potatoes, peppers, onions, and spicy mayonnaise
My serving was extremely salty (duh, it's spam) but I could not finish more than half of this. My potatoes were also undercooked. This would be fine to taste between a group but I am not overly concerned about getting another one of these.
Beef curry:
Red hot spicy Thai curry beef with steamed rice
This was heavenly! I loved this. The flavors were deep and complex, with unusual spice that I don't get from "American" stewed beef dishes. My mom's serving had tougher pieces of beef, so your mileage could vary, but I had two of these. It was so good! Even just the sauce on rice was very very good. Another favorite that I am looking forward to having again.
Olive oil cake with lemon curd:
Sweet olive oil cake with powdered sugar and lemon curd
I did not care for this, but Dis_yoda liked hers. It was too dense and dry for me, and I felt like I needed more lemon curd to make this enjoyable. I did not finish mine, but reactions were mixed within our group.
Flavors from fire chile chocolate dessert:
Chocolate picante: dark chocolate mousse with cayenne pepper, chili powder, and raspberry dust
Oh my gosh, if you like dark chocolate, this is the dessert for you! The chocolate mousse tasted like the inside of a chocolate truffle and the cake element of this dish was rich and moist. I did not pick up on the chile flavor but I loved this dessert and am looking forward to having more.
Not pictured, but eaten: banana almond soft serve sundae with fresh berries and crunchy chocolate oats. I liked this and thought it tasted a bit like a banana split but others in my party disliked the grainy texture of the frozen banana. There are better desserts to be had, for sure.
Overall, this event was a miss for me. I did not take photos of all of the beverage offerings that I enjoyed, but the highlight of beverage for me was the Gruner Veltliner. The other wines were all fine - nothing stood out - except the mango and pineapple wines, which aren't new and I've never cared for as I find them cloyingly sweet. The Leth Steinagrund Gruner Veltliner was a bright, sunny, and fruity White that still managed to be dry and crisp.
I was otherwise fairly disappointed in the beverage offerings - as I said, there were only two beers offered (both of them with an artificial flavor to me) and only a handful of wines. There were no cocktails offered aside from a frozen wine slush that was the "welcome drink". This year, the paid TIW event was offered separately from the media preview, and the overall vibe just felt different. There was less offered from what I recall, and there were not any plated "samples" to photograph like last year. I understand that most guests probably aren't overly concerned with this, but I wanted to take photos for the boards and for myself.
The Tables in Wonderland program has a bit of a reputation as disorganized, and we experienced an issue with this when we arrived at Epcot. One member of our party did not have park admission (which is not required for this event) so my registration email provided instructions on where to meet a convention guide to gain admission to Epcot. We waited for quite some time before park manager-types discovered that the convention guide was set up at the exact opposite end of the Epcot entrance from where the email instructions said to meet. Fortunately we were able to get in and we were not late to the event, but this was a frustrating hiccup.
A few positive impressions as well: last year's event featured a few "returning favorite" dishes where this year the event focused entirely on new offerings. I also felt like the event did a better job of offering vegetarian dishes beyond just desserts. Some of the offerings featuring meat were able to be made without the meat to accomodate vegetarians at the event. This year there seemed to be much more seating available this year than last, with the addition of an extra chair at each table. We got a sneak peek at the merchandise to be offered at the Festival (hello adorable Figment stuff!) but as Dis_Yoda pointed out, it's a little strange that while Remy features prominently in this year's festival logo, the merchandise still centers around Figment. Still, the Figment items have me counting my pennies ahead of the festival!
I am excited for the Festival and looking forward to trying the other new offerings, but at this point I am not planning to attend next year's preview event, if it's offered again.
are you on fb? If so I will message you my last name so we can be social media buddies and you don't find out life announcements in random dining reviews! Haha
OK no I won't, but I'm definitely jealous!!! Even though you weren't overly impressed it's still cool you got to go to this 
