Welcome to a food studio review for the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, taking place in the park Friday-Monday from January 13th through February 20th, 2017. This review will cover the “E=AT^2” kiosk, which is located at the front of World Showcase, just off to the left side towards the Mexico pavilion.

E=AT^2

Food:

• BLT with Crispy Pork Belly, Tomato Jam and Soft Poached Egg – $6.50
• Classic Reuben with Shredded Corned Beef, Thousand Island Dressing, Pickled Red Cabbage and a Rye Curl – $6.00
• Cobb Salad with Smoked Duck Breast, Avocado Mousse, Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Bacon and Blue Cheese (GF) – $7.50
• Figment White Chocolate Art Painting with Chocolate Easel (GF) (V) – $7.00
• White Chocolate Mickey Puzzle with Artist Palette (GF) (V) – $6.50

Beverages:

• Deconstructed Breakfast: Twinings® Spiced Apple Chai Tea Shake with Maple Bourbon Cream, a Waffle Crisp and Candied Bacon – $10.50
• Deconstructed Breakfast: Twinings® Spiced Apple Chai Tea Shake with Maple Syrup, a Waffle Crisp and Candied Bacon (non-alcoholic) – $4.50
• Pop-Artsicle: Red, White and Blue Frozen Slushy (non-alcoholic) – $3.75
• Dasani Bottled Water – $3.00

Since we had eaten the very similar Mary Blair white chocolate art, there was no really good reason to order the Figment, but it is pretty cute.

BLT with Crispy Pork Belly, Tomato Jam and Soft Poached Egg – $6.50

This was my absolute favorite dish at entire Epcot International Festival of the Arts! Crack open the poached egg, dip the tender and juicy pork belly in it, and then nearly fall over from how good this is. There is very little bacon and lettuce here, and neither of them really add to the dish. I suggest you just push them aside and enjoy the pork and the egg together without any of the fluff of the dish.

I think I will be ordering this on every subsequent trip to Epcot over the next 5 weekends…

Cobb Salad with Smoked Duck Breast, Avocado Mousse, Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Bacon and Blue Cheese (GF) – $7.50

I am not a big Cobb Salad fan, but this was really good. The duck was flavorful and it went really nicely with the egg, blue cheese, and avocado mousse. I would order this again as well.

Classic Reuben with Shredded Corned Beef, Thousand Island Dressing, Pickled Red Cabbage and a Rye Curl – $6.00

If you haven’t gotten it already, this is the best booth at the festival. I hate reuben sandwiches. Hell, I even hate Reuben Stoddard (kids, look it up). Regardless, this was fantastic. Everything in the plate was delicious, which shocked me. I couldn’t believe that I was having quality corned beef at Disney World, but I was and I did.

If I had to rank the three dishes here, I would put the “BLT’ as my number one, followed by the reuben, and then the cobb salad, but they are all good.

Deconstructed Breakfast: Twinings® Spiced Apple Chai Tea Shake with Maple Bourbon Cream, a Waffle Crisp and Candied Bacon – $10.50

As much as we loved the food, we wanted so much more out of this drink. It sounded amazing. It wasn’t bad, the flavoring was just far more subdued that we had hoped for (and they went a little light on the bourbon).

Deconstructed Breakfast: Twinings® Spiced Apple Chai Tea Shake with Maple Syrup, a Waffle Crisp and Candied Bacon (non-alcoholic) – $4.50

Honestly, if you want just the breakfast flavors, save yourself some money and order this non-alcoholic version of the drink. It’s larger and cheaper, albeit without bourbon, but there wasn’t much alcohol in the other one anyway.

Pop-Artsicle: Red, White and Blue Frozen Slushy (non-alcoholic) – $3.75

This is realistically just a slushy, but the kids should enjoy it. Personally, I would go get The American Dream at the Fife & Drum in the American Adventure (which mixes slushy with ice cream), but that’s me.

Tom Corless