REVIEW: India – 2017 Epcot Food and Wine Festival

After an 8-year hiatus, the India booth is back at Epcot Food and Wine, and seeing as we love Indian food, we’re super excited to see what it has to offer.  Look for the Madras Red Curry, Warm India Bread, Korma Chicken and Pistachio Cake.  I hope it lives up to our expectations in this India Review: 2017 Epcot Food and Wine Festival….

India Booth:

Loving the style of the India booth, definitely brings those memories back of seeing the Taj Mahal…on Soarin’ Around the World that is..

India Menu:

So I totally forgot to get a pic of the Flavors from Fire Menu, because I was distracted by all the pretty other signs that explain how the food gets those unique flavors from spice:

 

Food:

• Warm Indian Bread with Pickled Garlic, Mango Salsa and Coriander Pesto Dips – $4.75, DDP Snack Credit  
• Madras Red Curry with Roasted Cauliflower, Baby Carrots, Chickpeas and Basmati Rice (Gluten-Free) – $5.00, DDP Snack Credit
  
• Korma Chicken with Cucumber Tomato Salad, Almonds, Cashews and Warm Naan Bread – $5.25, DDP Snack Credit  *Ziggy Recommended
• Pistachio Cardamom Bundt Cake with Chocolate Coconut Mousse – $3.50, DDP Snack Credit

Beverages:

• Sula Chenin Blanc, Nashik – $5.00
• Sula Shiraz, Nashik – $5.00
• Kingfisher Lager – $4.00
• Mango Lassi (Non-Alcoholic) – $4.75

Menu Review:

I love me some Naan Bread.  In fact this brings back sweet memories from my time at Sanaa, which is an absolute must-visit fyi.  So obviously I couldn’t wait to get the Warm Indian Bread with Pickled Garlic, Mango Salsa and Coriander Pesto Dips.  They give you 3 pieces of it here with 3 different dipping sauces.  Stefy liked the mango the best, it was very fresh and sweet.  I like the pesto one myself, which had a very strong coriander flavor, but they were all pretty solid.  The bread itself is chewy and perfect for dipping.  This would be great for sharing if they just added one more piece of bread to the plate as we had left over dips but nothing to dip in there… 🙁

The next option was the Madras Red Curry with Roasted Cauliflower, Baby Carrots, Chickpeas and Basmati Rice, which happens to be gluten-free too!  This is a vegetarian dish which right there should have filled me in (not that there’s anything wrong with that..), and it was a little spicy which was nice, but I just wasn’t digging the whole flavor overall.  Honestly there wasn’t much of it.  If you are looking for a veggie dish, it could work, but there are better imo.

Wait more naan bread?  Yes, it also comes with the Korma Chicken with Cucumber Tomato Salad, Almonds and Cashews.  This imo was the best of the three savory items.  The sauce was really good, had a perfect constancy and there was a good amount of chicken chunks in there.  It was spicy, but not too much, even Ken was able to eat it for a change!  I loved when I was done with the chicken I soaked up what remaining sauce I could with that yummy naan bread.  Again though, NOT enough bread!  This is my theme of the whole festival as I don’t think we tried a single dip/sauce item served with bread that actually gave us enough, no matter how yummy the sauces were.  Come on Disney, get with it please.  Overall good size portion and one I would go back for.

So up to this point we were severely underwhelmed with our savory choices, but hoping that dessert would save the day.  Right when I saw heard about the Pistachio Cardamom Bundt Cake months ago, I knew it had to be mine.  As the Italians say: “ha una bella faccia.”  That means it has a beautiful face!  And this thing does look relish.  The cake part I really loved, and that’s coming from someone who’s not a big cake eater.  I love pistachios though, and the cake had a really natural pistachio flavor, not the imitation kind we are used to here in the states.  I was very pleased…until I tasted what they were calling chocolate coconut mousse.  For real guys?? This is supposed to be chocolate?  It was watered-down tasting and flavorless.  Really ruined it for me because this had so much potential…

 

Booth Summary and Grade:

Big disappointment overall at the India Marketplace.  I thought I would come out of it loving everything, and instead only the Korma Chicken is worth going back for.  Plus I’m a big fan of naan bread, but you couldn’t come up with something else instead of repeating twice?  I would stop for the chicken and naan, and that’s it, the rest you can skip and get much better elsewhere.

If you have to get just one thing: Korma Chicken

Grade:  6

Take a look at all of my 2017 Epcot Food and Wine articles.  I have a 2017 Epcot Food and Wine Info Guide with a complete Index of the Food and Wine Menus, The Top NEW Items for 2017, Top Food and Wine Booths and more…I want you to be able to have the best info on the Festival so you have a great time and don’t waste your time!

Your Thoughts:

I want to know what you think of my India Review 2017 Epcot Food and Wine Festival.  Which was your favorite item?  What did you think of the Pistachio Cake?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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