After a long, full day at Magic Kingdom and then another long, full day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, it was time for Epcot! Anyone who loves to travel should be at least a bit interested or excited about Epcot. I have always been interested in visiting Epcot, and this was the day I was finally get to go! The giant ball that looks like a shiny golf ball was there to welcome us. Sure, they have interesting rides and experience here at Land and Sea Pavilions, and we did make sure to get on most of all the rides there. But, the coolest part of Epcot (to me) is the pavilions of countries from all over the world, providing fun activities, and most of all, food! You can also check out Eats in Hollywood Studios too.
We first visited Norway Pavilion for Breakfast. I’ve had my eye on Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe for some sweets! This cute little cottage-looking café was cheerful and inviting. Not many people were there early, which was great for us. You pick a tray and move along the line, looking at their offerings and deciding on which ones to get.
And the choices were pretty good, with all sorts of baked goods and desserts! Yes, I did want to try them all. No, I didn’t have enough room in my stomach for them. I know… Actually, we haven’t had any food yet, so we were quite hungry. But then again, we wanted to try so many other food from other countries. So, we had to be careful not to order too much.
They had a nice outdoor seating the back, fully covered to protect you from the Sun or the rain. The first item we got was School Bread ($3.99), which is a Sweet Roll filled with Custard and dipped in Coconut. It was topped with icing cream which was a nice touch. It is based on a food that Norwegian children used to bring to school, hence the name “school” bread. It was fluffy and sweet, but not overly sweet. The coconut was nice and fresh, and it was a pretty good, solid item.
Second item was Berry Cream Puff ($5.59), just because I love cream puff… I know, I should have gotten something more “Norwegian” like Viking Chocolate Mousse or Kringla or Troll Horn… But I was hungry and I was weak… At least this cream puff was amazing!!! It had a nice amount of fresh berries, cuddling a loads of fresh whipped cream with vanilla beans. So good!!!
We didn’t forget to order at least one “real” food that is not a dessert. They didn’t have much to choose from, but had sandwich, salad, club and bagel. We went with Salmon and Egg Bagel (9.49), made with Everything Bagel, Smoked Salmon, Tomato, Hard Boiled Egg, Red Onion and Herb Cream Cheese.
The bagel looked better than I expected, although I wish if it had more smoked salmon… Everything was fresh, with ripe tomato, crisp onion, nicely cooked hard-boiled egg, and yes, salmon. It was quite tasty.
For early lunch snack, we went to Yorkshire County Fish Shop in United Kingdom Pavilion. I heard they have pretty good fish and chips, and I do like fish and chips!
We ordered one Fish and Chips ($11.49) to share. It comes with two strips of fish served with chips. It was a good size, piping hot, and with two strips of fish, perfect for sharing. With some malt vinegar and tartar sauce, we were ready to dig in. It was a bit oily and soggy, but I expected that… The fish was flakey and juicy. Not the best I’ve had, but pretty good, especially considering “theme park food.” The view you get from their outdoor seating was impressive as well, you can see most of all the other countries
across the water. What a treat!
Next stop was France Pavilion. I was most excited about France Pavilion for all kinds of desserts… But what I really wanted, most of all, was something that is offered only at L’Artisan des Glaces.
Inside the tower was a lovely artisanal French shop, offering handcrafted frozen treats.
The amount of flavors of ice cream and sorbet they offer is great, there are 16 delightful sounding flavors to choose from, which makes it very difficult… I gave such difficult task to my husband, and he decided to go with Yogurt & Blueberries (after my approval, of course, LOL).
So, exactly what are we here to get? Well, it is called Croque Glacé ($7.04), and is made with one scoop of ice cream of your choice, and a choice of Sauce in a Homemade Brioche. A freshly baked brioche cut in half, bottom one with ice cream scoop is placed on this special press.
Then add some drizzle of sauce on top of the ice cream… My goodness! We went with classic Chocolate sauce to be drizzled onto our little baby. Then, the top half of brioche is placed, then pressed warm for a few minutes.
Then your baby is born! Very warm on the outside, but when you bite into it, you are met with cold, smooth, silky goodness in the middle. Interesting combination, but in a good way. It is like having a warm pie with a scoop of ice cream…yum! The brioche was soft, airy, light, and the scoop is a pretty big scoop too! Very tasty and delightful!
After the wonderful dessert, we decided to go get something to quench our thirst. We found just the item in Japan Pavilion. They had a cute little counter service place called Kabuki Café. Staffs with sweet smiles greeted us, and yes, they were Japanese! Seems like each pavilion employs most of their staffs from that particular country to keep the authenticity, which is really cool. They offer some snacks like edamame, sushi, and some Japanese beer & sake!
We wanted one of their kakigori, and while struggling to pick one, one of the female staff told us we can get “rainbow” that comes with three of the most popular flavors. Sold! We got Rainbow Kakigori ($4), which comes with Strawberry, Melon and Tangerine flavored syrup. It was a good size, especially for the cheap price tag. Tall and packed, and I mean, really packed. We didn’t realize how tightly they packed the ice until we started to “try” to eat it… We had to jam our plastic spoon into it a few time to get a piece, but if we were not careful, it will just fly into the air with the force! I wish if they didn’t pack the ice so much… Otherwise, it was refreshing and tasty. After we were already eating them, I realized I could’ve have gotten the “sweet milk topping” which is like a drizzle of condensed milk on top for another $1. Well, it was less sweet and more refreshing without it, so I was fine with that.
Our food journey around the World Showcase continues… Yes, we did go and do other things in between, like meet Alice and Mary Poppins, watch Frozen show, shop in Mitsukoshi, get on a ride here and there… You gotta indulge all the experience offered here!
Germany Pavilion was another fun culinary destination. We first stopped over at Karamell-Küche. It is kind of hard to just walk by without going in there. The aroma of sweet caramel just pulls you in…
And this is where you can get all kinds of caramel goodness, including the popular Carmel Popcorn, all sorts of Caramel Apples, and other baked goods with caramel in or drizzled, such as cookies, cupcakes, and chocolates.
We were looking at all the gooey delicious offerings, but then saw the staffs making Mickey-shaped Crispy Treat with Werther’s Caramel! Watching them make these cute little babies, we had to have one…
Mickey Crispy Treat with Werther’s Caramel ($5.59) was first dipped half way in chocolate, and then god some sweet drizzle from caramel heaven across and over it. And let me tell you, it was so good! Adding the caramel flavor to the mix was brilliant, and even better, made super fresh right there!
Now I have tried two kinds of Mickey Crispy Treats, my new backpack was proud! And my taste buds and tummy was happy. Yes, totally win-win-win situation here.
But, at this point, we needed more substantial, real food. Luckily for us, there were some good options here in Germany Pavilion. They had a Biergarten Restaurant, celebrating Oktoberfest all year long. The restaurant indoor is actually a buffet-style, offering German staple food. Well, we didn’t want to have that much food, and we were not interested in drinking beer just yet…
And they thought of people like us, they had a kiosk outside the restaurant called Sommerfest, where you can purchase a la cate items. Thank you! The entrance to the kiosk to the right, while the entrance to the restaurant is to the left of this building. It was kind of funny to see so many baby strollers lined up outside the biergarten…LOL. I am sure it is very tiring and exhausting to be at a huge theme park with little babies and kids. You deserve some break and a beer (or two or five)!
The food offering at the Snack section is limited, but it had what we wanted, Bratwurst ($10.29)! It is served on a freshly baked roll with sauerkraut and house-made paprika chips. My goodness this thing was GREAT!!! Bratwurst was super plump and juicy underneath the mountain of fresh sauerkraut, packed with flavor and oh-so-satisfying! The chips were really nice too, super crunchy and tasty. It was exactly what we wanted and more!
Now, have you wondered where all these food are coming from? I mean, it must be crazy amount of ingredients that they have to have handy to serve hundreds of thousands of people each and every day. They actually show you and teach you all about it! There is an attraction called Living with the Land, a boat ride past their huge greenhouses and fish farm and see how Disney World horticulturalists are innovating growing technique to help feed this planet. That’s right, they do more than just serve the restaurants within their theme parks! It was cool to see the “integrated Aquaculture” where fishes and plants help each other grow in a healthy way by providing each other nutrients through water.
After the delicious Bratwurst, we had to stop eating so that we will be able to eat dinner at a restaurant that we have reserved. We went back to the France Pavilion in the evening for dinner at Chefs de France. It came with a pretty good review, and we heard we could see the fireworks if we could get a seat by the window.
We did request to be seated by the window, but we didn’t get it… It is a popular request I’m sure… With its size, they had plenty of seats near or away from the window. It was still decorated with Holiday wreaths, very festive. Certainly grand and beautiful atmosphere.
Even though we didn’t get to sit by the window, we were pretty nearby the window, so we could see the outside. The interior had nice high ceiling, creating even more spacious feel to it. The lighting was very…orange. I heard somewhere that warm-tone light supposed to make the food looks more appetizing. Maybe that is the reason behind their lighting?
After we put in an order, they brought a whole baguette in a paper bag. It was quite exciting to get it for some reason… It was nice and hot, freshly baked and it was really good!
With our expectation high, we decided to order Prix fixe 3 course menu ($39.99). For the first course, we both chose Soupe à Poignon Gratinée (French Onion Soup), topped with Gruyère Cheese. Unfortunately, it was way too salty, I couldn’t even finish it. I liked the French Onion Soup from Be Our Guest much better than this one. The cheese wasn’t really melt-y, didn’t stretch as I scooped it up… Overall, very disappointing…
For the second course, I chose Filet de saumon mariné auvin blanc et citron. It is made with white wine and lemon marinated salmon, broiled, served with steamed vegetables, champagne sauce. It sounded super fancy! Well, first of all, the entrée was bought out on scorching hot plate, without warning! Almost burned my finger… Salmon was nice and flakey, not over cooked. The champagne sauce was nice, but not great. Pilaf was a bit tough. Broccoli was fresh but a bit too firm, I prefer it cooked a bit more. Overall, the flavor of this dish was just a-ok.
My hubby chose Boeuf Bourguignon, linguine (Braised Beef). Beef braised in Cabernet with baby onions and carrots, served with linguine pasta. Even thought it might not look delicious, but it was actually pretty good. It was nice and sweet, and the pasta was nice, although it was cooked more than al dente. Veggie was tasty, I wish if it had just a bit more sauce for the pasta. Overall, I liked this dish better than the salmon dish.
And then the dessert. I chose Cygne profiterole au chocolat. It was a swan cream puff filled with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. I’ve always liked profiteroles, so I thought it might be fun to get one in a shape of swan. For some reason, I was expecting more than one swan… and it was kind of small. Chocolate sauce was not drizzled on top, which was ok, but it was not warm which was a bit sad. The quality of chocolate itself was nice, it was dark chocolate so it was a bit bitter with real cacao flavor which was nice. Overall, just a-ok, nothing special.
My hubby went with Tarte aux pommes, which was an apple tart with almond cream, caramel sauce, and vanilla ice cream. It had an interesting look to it, nothing I expected. It was nice and crisp, fresh and tasty. Again, my hubby chose something that I though was better than mine… I liked this one better than the profiteroles. The side of ice cream was really nice too, it was well done.
During our dinner, the fireworks went up (which we timed our reservation just so that we get to see the fireworks with our dinner). However, thanks to the HUGE wreath on the window, it really cut off our view!!! Super sad…
Service was polite and yes, real French staffs! Atmosphere was elegant and relaxing. The food was not as good as I wanted them to be. Especially coming here with high expectation made me feel very disappointed. There were so many other places within the Walt Disney Resort, I wish if we had gone elsewhere. But, I am glad to have the dining experience here.
And since we didn’t really get to see the fireworks, we came back to Epcot another night just to see it! The IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth was mainly just fireworks, fire, and laser show. They didn’t have any kind of projector to show Disney classic movies or characters. After seeing magnificent night show at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, we were a bit disappointed. Also, the globe that they use was way too small to be seen clearly across the water… But, it was still cool show to see.
I wish if we could’ve tried all the food offerings here at World Showcase… But we only have one stomach… Well, we will be back in about five years or so, and will try other delicious food from all the world once again!
Epcot – 200 Epcot Center Dr, Orlando, FL 32821