Jenna's Magical Adventures

Flower and Garden Festival is my favorite festival I have been to at Epcot! I love how colorful the park becomes with all the beautiful gardens and stunning topiaries. This year, the festival is running from February 28, 2024 until May 27, 2024. I went to Epcot two days during the week of March 10th-16th and was able to try almost all the foods and some of the drinks that I wanted. Being able to attend this festival is always so magical and fills my heart with so much joy. Let me know if you love Flower and Garden as much as I do!

Disclaimer: I have been a vegetarian for over 16 years and am used to eating vegetarian/plant based so my opinions may be different from those with a different lifestyle. I attended the festival with my mom, who is not plant based and I will give her opinion on everything she tried.

Plant Based Buffalo Chicken Tender Poutine $10
Found at the Refreshment Port near Canada
This is the very first item I tried at the festival! While I enjoyed it, I don’t think I would get it again. This is one of the more expensive options I tried and I’m not sure if I felt like it was worth the price. It is also a Garden Graze item on the festival passport. Instead of fries, this has tater tots, or Potato Barrels as Disney calls them. The potato barrels were cooked perfectly and I really enjoyed them. The plant based chicken tenders where a nice size and tasted like a standard vegan chicken tender. They were good, but not really anything special. The buffalo sauce was not spicy at all to me but I think that depends on your tolerance. I saw reviews saying they were spicy and the woman behind me said they “had a kick”. My mom also agreed to that and wouldn’t eat pieces with too much sauce on it. The buffalo sauce had a vinegar taste that I was not expecting but was good. I have had plant based ranch at Disney before and I always really enjoy it, so it was a nice addition to this item. Originally, I was going to order this without the blue cheese crumbles because I do not like blue cheese. I decided to keep it on to try this poutine as is because I also didn’t think it would actually taste like blue cheese. I ended up picking off all the crumbles because they tasted too real to me.

Biscuit and Gravy $6.75
Brunchcot
This was probably the item I was most excited to try. While it is vegetarian, it does contain dairy so it is not completely plant based. The sausage gravy and chicken fried steak are both made by Impossible Foods. Based on reviews I saw leading up to my trip, this item seemed pretty hit or miss. I personally lucked out, but I did see other pictures/videos where the dish looked completely different. For me, the biscuit was thin and had a buttery, moist flavor. It was not dry at all and was the perfect size compared to the amount of gravy and plant based chicken fried steak. The sausage gravy was absolutely amazing and is something I am still trying to recreate at home. The chicken fried steak was a pretty standard impossible burger to me, however it was really salty. That was the only flavor I could really taste from it, which was disappointing because I really feel like they could have made this amazing. I loved the green onions on top because they added a nice freshness that took away some of the saltiness. This was surprisingly one of my mom’s favorites from the festival and she ended up finishing mine. I think this also would have been my favorite if it weren’t for how salty it tasted.

Avocado Toast $6.00
Brunchcot
I tried the Avocado Toast at 2023’s Flower and Garden Festival and absolutely loved it. It also caused my mom to realize she liked both avocados and avocado toast. Just like last year, it is still plant based and part of the Garden Graze. The description from the festival describes it as “Avocado Toast with Marinated Tomatoes and Plant-based Cheese Crumbles on Toasted Ciabatta”. While it was good and I enjoyed it, it was no where near as good as last year’s. My mom was looking forward to this so much, but it was ultimately what she traded me for the Biscuit and Gravy. I really can’t place what was different about it this year, but I didn’t like it enough to order again.

Fried Cinnamon Roll Bites $5.00
Brunchcot
This was on my list to try last year, but unfortunately was not able to. The Fried Cinnamon Roll Bites from last year apparently had a filling which was missing from this year’s. Instead of the filling, these just have a cream cheese frosting. For many years, one of my favorite snacks at Disney was cronuts. I have tried different variations of them and loved all of them. The Fried Cinnamon Roll Bites have been the closest thing I have found to a cronut in so long. The bites were the perfect combination of a flaky outside and an airy and moist inside. The cinnamon sugar it was dipped in had so much flavor, and the cream cheese frosting was sweet but didn’t taste too overpowering. My mom loved the candied bacon and thought it complemented everything perfectly. This was definitely one of my favorites from the festival, and I highly recommend trying it!

Steam Bun $8.50
Hanami
It it so hard to find plant based steamed buns so I don’t really have much to compare this to. Overall, I enjoyed this so much but did think it was overpriced. It was one of my favorite items from the festival so I would have ordered it again if I could have, but over $8 for a steam bun just feels really expensive. My only other complaint would be that the steamed bun stuck to the wrapper. Other than that, the steamed bun had a great texture and wasn’t too dry. The filling is soy based and had a wonderful onion and soy sauce flavor.

Impossible Jamaican Beef Patty $6.50
La Isla Fresca
This was my absolute favorite item from the festival. My only complaint would be that this felt more like an empanada than a Jamaican beef patty. I love empanadas though so this definitely worked out for me! The papaya syrup was sweet but still had kick to it. The pastry was crispy and cooked perfectly. The filling had more of a meatball texture than ground beef. It was spicy and seasoned amazingly. I don’t have my mom’s review for this item because I knew it would be too spicy for her. I usually don’t find Disney food spicy, but this definitely had a kick to it. It was the perfect level for me but I would probably skip this item if you are sensitive to spice!

Potato Pancakes $5.25
Bauernmarkt
This is one of my favorite festival snacks but I always forget to list it because there seems to be a variation of it for every festival. The outside of the potato pancakes are so crispy! The inside is so perfect; moist and nicely seasoned. I think what makes these so great is that the potatoes are shredded, so they have an amazing texture and the pancakes don’t come out mushy. I also really enjoy the apple sauce because it is sweet but isn’t too sweet and doesn’t overpower the other flavors.

Impossible Farmhouse Meatball $6.00
Trowel and Trellis
I had a similar dish to this in 2019 and was so excited to have it again! Based on other recent reviews, some people felt that the bread was dry and that the meatballs were spicy and had a curry flavor. Unlike in 2019, the lentil bread did break apart a lot and made it difficult to eat, but I wouldn’t say it was dry. I also thought everything was perfectly balanced and all the flavors tasted amazing together. This was one of my top snacks from the festival and I highly recommend it!

Let me know which items from 2024’s Epcot’s Flower and Garden Fesrival were your favorites and which ones you would love to try!