Jardin de Fiestas – 2013 Epcot Flower & Garden Festival

The Jardin de Fiestas is located directly across from La Cantina de San Angel, it is also the same structure used during the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival in recent years… Like the other booths during the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival, there’s rarely a line out front. Although there isn’t any seating directly associated with this food booth, there is seating up on the patio in front of the Mayan pyramid… this is where we chose to sit, not a bad location excepting for the screaming and whining children this particular afternoon.

The “educational” poster at this booth was about Prickly Pear Cactus (well, that’s unique at least)…

The featured plantings are Corn, Jalapeño, Prickly Pear Cactus, and Agave… but there were other edible plants in evidence too…

The menu…

We both like mexican food (particularly the authentic food coming from La Hacienda de San Angel) and thought that we’d enjoy the items on this menu. I mean, what’s not to like about pork carnitas and crispy fried pork rinds? and, crab is good… Nick has never had flan (I have) and we both tend to like custard… And we know from past experiences that we like the rosita margarita… Should be good to go with this booth!

Let’s start with the Rosita Margarita (well, you know me, I have to start with the tequila containing item)… We’ve had this margarita at least 4 times in the past (especially at the Tequila Luncheons during the Epcot Food & Wine Festival… here and here), we really enjoy this margarita… This was not a real Rosita Margarita. It was premixed and it tasted premixed… pity… not only that! The danged thing was $8.50 and it was TINY.

Finally, found some tequila at the very bottom; not much though. Will we continue to get the Rosita Margarita (available only at La Hacienda as best we know)?… yes, of course. Will we get another one of these from the booth? nope, not a chance.

First up, “Tacos de Carnitas (Pork Carnitas topped with Tamarindo Salsa, served on a flour tortilla with Chicharron)”. We both found this to be very salty, the pork was moist and flavorful, the chicharron was a nice crunchy addition.

Nick thought that the quality of the pork was better than the pulled pork at the Smokehouse :O The three big handicaps of this dish? (1) size, it was pretty tiny (2) saltiness, just too much salt and (3) sauce wasn’t anywhere near evenly distributed. The pork itself was moist, tender, and simply prepared. We asked ourselves if we’ve ever seen this pork anywhere else on the menus at the Mexico Pavilion… so I did some research… nope, this simply prepared and d*mned good pork isn’t on any of the menus. Heads up Disney World – put it on the menu somewhere – with the current craze about pulled pork… put it on the menu.

So, the crab tostada… “Tostadas de Jaiba (Crab Tostada served with Chipotle Mayo and Valentina Sauce)”. General impressions: very fishy and very bland…

We both really like fish, we really like shellfish… this is real honest-to-goodness picked crab meat… the problem, it was also very fishy smelling and tasting – ugh! Not spoiled (dear goodness, I don’t think that food could ever spoil at a Disney World Food Booth barring the end of the world; there’s more danger that the food will be bland, boring, or overcooked because of food safety rules at WDW), just too fishy.

That being said, once we got a good amount of lime juice on the crab & got bites that included the jalapeño and sauces, the flavor greatly improved. The crispy tostada “shell” was good, but had a tendency to shatter when you bit into it. We enjoyed the slightly spicy tingle that the two sauces had, not excessive by any stretch of the imagination. Are we likely to get this again? Not really. Would we like to see a fresh crab meat dish in La Hacienda – sure.

After the “main courses,” nick went back to the booth and returned with the Flan de Guayaba and the Conga Fruit Punch (the fruit punch was a surprise)… Dessert Course…

Not much to look at yet…

Traditionally, flan has a smooth, liquidy caramel at the bottom… this flan had a smooth guava flavored syrup (?). I thought it was a little bland without the syrup and nick thought it was really sweet with and without the syrup. We both liked the texture and the sweet fruitiness – not likely to get it again though… we’re tending away from sweets lately.

What about the Conga Fruit Punch? Well, it’s fruit punch… it’s good fruit punch… it’s refreshing on a hot day… it ain’t as good as Frunch from Animal Kingdom Lodge. BTW: We didn’t finish this – we’d had enough sugar with the flan.

Final Thoughts…

We’d likely get the pork if it was offered in a dish at one of the other food venues at the Mexico Pavilion.

It’s possible that I could convince nick to split a flan based dessert in the future.

There’s a lot of potential at this food booth to introduce people to new foods and to provide old favorites – also, I believe that this is a golden opportunity to educate people that Mexican food isn’t Tex Mex or Taco Bell.