Primeravera Kitchen – 2013 Epcot Flower & Garden Festival

The Primavera Kitchen is located directly across from the Doges Palace at the Italy Pavilion, this is the same location used during the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. While there aren’t any tables in the immediate vicinity (nor shade), there are loads of tables with umbrellas located further into the pavilion, we made use of one of those (it was HOT and shade was a necessity).

Rather than have the beer served from inside the cooking area, the beer taps were on their own off to one side. We had tried the beers earlier in the festival when Harry & Sandy and Al & Judy were visiting. We weren’t impressed with any of them enough too try again today – and note, the beers here were tiny and expensive. I’m guessing that importing Italian beer must be quite pricey because ALL of the beers ANYWHERE in this pavilion seem to be quite costly.

The learning part of Primavera Kitchen focused on the Tomato. Associated very strongly with Italian food, it’s not a native to Italy. They don’t mention it here, but did you know that tomatoes were thought to be poisonous when the first European settlers came to America?

The featured plantings are listed as Lemon, Basil, and Tomato.

The menu…

See, I told you the beer was pricey… $10. It was very hot and we weren’t in the mood for wine, so we stuck with water for drinking. We started the noshing with the Asparagus Salad and the Spring Lasagna.

We were a bit dubious about this. First of all, nick isn’t a fan of lobster, he doesn’t get what all the fuss is about and would probably rather have shrimp. Since nearly everything with shellfish is overcooked at the food booths, we expected this lobster to be pretty tasteless and tough as rubber bands. It wasn’t, the lobster was not overcooked and it was tender… Yay! Nick even enjoyed the flavor (this meant that he ate all of his portion of lobster and I didn’t get to gobble it all up).

The garden cocktail sauce reminded us of a thousand island dressing or a remoulade – although the flavors weren’t as strong as either of these (there wasn’t the vinegary note of chopped pickles for one thing). The asparagus was plentiful and slightly crisp. This is a perfectly fine dish, actually quite refreshing in the heat (hats off to whoever made the decision to have a dish that is suited for the Florida weather). We’d both eat this again if it was an option, but it isn’t something so “wow” that we’d go out of our way to find it.

Now the lasagna, I expected that we’d like it. We’re big fans of vegetables and there weren’t any in here that we don’t like (i.e. bell peppers). Unfortunately, this dish disappointed us overall. It isn’t something that we’d order at a restaurant as is. The lasagna noodles were mushy and pasty. The only vegetable that we detected in the dish was the tomatoes on top (and they were quite good, they reminded me of my granny’s tomatoes and macaroni dish). No sign of green peas or zucchini or brocolini… there may have been some mushrooms in the filling…

Mostly this dish was spinach lasagna noodles, béchamel and fresh tomatoes. It wasn’t bad, just not what we expected and not enough texture difference. A little boring to be honest.

Let me start by saying I’m not a fan of Panna Cotta, to me it’s like milk jello (shudder). I also wondered how they could make a Limoncello flavored anything and it not contain alcohol; if it isn’t flavored with limoncello but actually with lemon (to avoid the alcohol)… why not just call it lemon panna cotta? And, if those are WILD raspberries, I’m a monkey’s uncle… Okay, rant off.

Another surprise, this was pretty good but pretty boring at the same time. The texture was very smooth and creamy. It was light and refreshing on a hot day. The berries added a note of tartness that the panna cotta didn’t really have. Oh yes, the red stuff on the bottom was two more raspberries. So, it was okay for panna cotta but not something we’re likely to order.

Final Thoughts…

The lobster and asparagus salad was nicer than expected and it was very nice to have a light cool dish on a bright hot day. Also appreciated that there were actual vegetables in there.

The other two dishes were okay, but neither was very interesting or tasteful.