Welcome to an Outdoor Kitchen review for the 2018 International Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot. This review will focus on Cider House outdoor kitchen. Cider House is located outside of the United Kingdom pavilion.
Cider House
Food
- Pear Cider-brined Shredded Corned Beef with Braised Cabbage and Branston Dressing with Pears $5.50
- House-made Potato and Cheddar Cheese Biscuit with Smoked Salmon Tartare $5.25
- Freshly Baked Lemon Scone with Crème Fraîche and Mixed Berries (V) (GF) $4.25
Beverages
- McKenzie’s Black Cherry Hard Cider, West Seneca, NY $4.50
- Florida Beer Company Caribé Pineapple Tropical Hard Cider, Cape Canaveral, FL $4.50
- Ciderboys Grand Mimosa Apple Orange Hard Cider, Stevens Point, WI $4.50
- Cider Flight $10.00
- Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider, California (Non-alcoholic) $4.75
Pear Cider-brined Shredded Corned Beef with Braised Cabbage and Branston Dressing with Pears $5.50
Typically when you say ‘the meat was juicy’ it’s a good thing. Unfortunately this meat was juicy and dry. You can see the pool of grease sitting in the back of the container. The cabbage and Branston Dressing didn’t do anything to help save this dish, nothing worked in harmony. In 2017 we said it was one of the worst Epcot festival food items we’ve ever had. This year our feelings haven’t changed too much. Our friends at easywdw had good success with the corned beef this year, so the batch you get has the possibility to be really good. However, with what we received, we can’t recommend this dish.
House-made Potato and Cheddar Cheese Biscuit with Smoked Salmon Tartare $5.25
The smoke salmon tartare didn’t have too much of a smokey flavor. Any flavor from the fish was from the insane amounts of dill packed into it. The biscuit was was very good: airy and flaky with a semi-hard crust. Making a sandwich by topping off the biscuit is the best bet here, getting all the flavors from the salmon and the biscuit at once made for a perfect bite.
Freshly Baked Lemon Scone with Crème Fraîche and Mixed Berries (V) (GF) $4.25
“That’s not a scone” we overheard from a British family nearby after we sat down with our food. Regardless of the definition expect a very dense pastry with a hard outside layer. Once you bite in, the rest of it flakes apart. The scone has a prominent lemon flavor that works in harmony with the berries and creme. While maybe not the most photogenic dish at the festival, it’s a unique offering folks looking for gluten-free options.
Cider Flight – McKenzie’s Black Cherry Hard Cider, Florida Beer Company Caribé Pineapple Tropical Hard Cider, Ciderboys Grand Mimosa Apple Orange Hard Cider – $10.00
While each cider alone tastes extremely different, on a flight they just don’t work together. All of the flavors blur after sipping each and everything ends up tasting like rotten apple. We recommend trying the 6oz single of a cider that my interest you, but the flight is just a bit too much. The Ciderboys was our favorite of the three, a light crisp apple flavor that was almost champagne-like.
My only complaint about the cider house is the cider’s. With it being right outside the UK pavilion you would think they would at least have one English cider, unfortunately they are all from America.