Epcot’s International Food & Wine Festival officially kicks off today, but yesterday started off with the kiosks serving up most of the dishes that will be available this year. For our first post, I wanted to share the Griddled Greek Cheese with Pistachios and Honey from the Greece kiosk. This was one of the dishes I really enjoyed last year and was looking forward to ordering it again.
Spanakopita was not yet available.
You’ll notice this year that Food & Wine Festival branded dishes are gone. Plain brown paper trays, white paper plates, and plain brown napkins have taken their place. Chase is now the festival sponsor, while last year it was Vanity Fair.
It appeared that the cast member working the griddle was struggling a bit with the cheese, but that’s what these test runs are for. Greek Salads and the Chicken Souvlaki were being dished out relatively quickly in comparison. When my Greek Cheese arrived, the crispy outer layer was barely lukewarm, but was crisp. There was only a small drizzle of honey topping the cheese, and a heavy dose of crumbled pistachios. The cheese below was “room temp” and didn’t have the melted creaminess that I recalled from last year. Some of the edges had a bit of melt to them, but the area toward the middle was more like string cheese in consistency.
Here’s a look at last year’s presentation for comparison. The white plates make a much nicer impression over the brown trays, even without the Food & Wine branding.
Since I’m sure bugs are still being worked out, I hope the dish will improve as the festival goes on. I will probably try it again later in the festival to see how the dish shapes up. If you give it a try at this year’s festival, let us know how it was for you!
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I liked the griddled cheese and all its salty sweetness ladt year, but lukewarm, non-melty cheese wouldn’t be very appetizing. I hope it’s just a soft opening glitch. Have fun at the festival and the anniversary events this weekend!
Wow! What a difference comparing this year’s to last year’s pics… Do you think the sponsorship is the only reason why they would go “cheap”?
Thanks Melissa! I’m definitely making the most of the next few days!
Ricardo – I think the generic dishes are a combination of the lack of paper brand sponsorship as well as general cost-cutting.
The 2012 version looks pretty disgusting.
When I first received it, knowing what it looked like last year, I was pretty bummed to say the least.
I hope the 2012 version gets better. 2011 was pretty good although when we got it, it was a little cool so the cheese had kind of resolidified (is that a word? lol) and it didn’t really impress although the taste contrast wasn’t too bad.
I hope so too. Mine in 2011 was nicely cooked with a contrast in flavors and textures. Hopefully they can streamline how they’re prepared a bit better!
I spoke with one of the Executive Chefs for the festival and he has been trying to get these brown paper plates into the festival to be more eco-friendly. It’s not about being cheap, but he’s looking to be more environmentally friendly in the festival.
There are dollar savings in not having custom-branded paper goods though (I have a friend that does Finance for the festival). This is being seen elsewhere on property and even at Disneyland Resort. I’m not saying that the paper goods aren’t more environmentally friendly (whether through materials, not using dyes and ink, etc.) than the previous version, but saying to a guest that one is “trying to be more eco-friendly” sounds a lot more enlightened than “we’re scaling back on the cost of a plate that lasts in a person’s hand for 30 seconds.” No matter what the reason(s) is/are behind the new plates, I do miss the crispness of the white when compared to the natural color. It washes out the food, especially when you see them next to dishes that are still being served on white and black plates at other kiosks!
We haven’t had the cheese yet but we did the souvlaki and my friend did the salad. She was ok with the salad but we were very disappointed in the souvlaki this year. The pita was hard (almost stale like), the tzatziki didn’t taste like it had any cucumber in it, just dill (and my friend isn’t fond of dill) and it seemed like the dish was missing some flavor or something. It’s usually our go to dish so we were pretty sad with what we got.
I basically skip the salad and souvlaki, but I’m really disappointed that your pita seemed stale and the tzaziki was heavy on the dill. Maybe I’ll give it a try next time I head to Epcot to see if I have any better luck.