EPCOT Garden Graze Food Stroll 2024

The Garden Graze is back in bloom for the 2024 EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival and this year I was able to frolic among the topiaries, savor delectable delights, and complete another food stroll. What is neat about the dishes participating in the Garden Graze is that they are all plant-based!

For this Festival tradition, you can use your Festival Passport as a guide to hunt down the items participating in the stroll found throughout the park at select Outdoor Kitchens. To complete the Garden Graze, purchase any five (5) tasty bites out of the eight (8) offerings included in this graze and receive a matching stamp on your Festival Passport. After that, take your completed passport to the Pineapple Promenade to redeem an exclusive treat! The Garden Graze runs from February 28th through May 27th, 2024.

Here are the dishes and their locations participating in the 2024 Garden Graze:

• Florida Strawberry Shortcake at Florida Fresh

• Plant-based Buffalo Chicken Tender Poutine at Refreshment Port

• Coconut Tres Leches at La Isla Fresca

• Potato Pancakes with house-made apple sauce at Bauernmarkt: Farmer's Market

• Seasonal Fruit Parfait at Refreshment Outpost

• IMPOSSIBLE Farmhouse Meatball at Trowel & Trellis

• Avocado Toast at BRUNCHCOT

• Grilled Street Corn on the Cob at EPCOT Farmers Feast

A couple of important things to note about the Garden Graze, first, you do not need to buy five different dishes to be eligible for the completer prize. For example, if you have a family of four and everyone wants their own Avocado Toast from BRUNCHCOT for breakfast, then the Cast Member can stamp your passport four times. Likewise, you do not need to complete the Garden Graze and redeem the completer prize all in one day. Just make sure to keep track of your stamped Festival Passport if you plan on taking a pause!

Now let's venture around EPCOT and the World Showcase to sample dishes inspired by the flavors and colors of the garden!

Potato Pancakes

My first stop was the Bauernmarkt: Farmer's Market in the Germany Pavilion to try the Potato Pancakes with house-made applesauce. The portion size was hefty with two large pancakes in one dish. The applesauce gave the potato some much-needed flavor, but overall, I found this dish very bland. As straight potatoes, it was a boring option for the Garden Graze and felt out of place. Especially with the hot temperatures, I struggled to finish the portion while sitting in the humidity. This one is a skip for me, and I recommend trying a different Garden Graze item or doubling up on some to reach the five stamps.

Grilled Street Corn on the Cob

Although this booth has a rotating menu to represent produce and crops in season, the Grilled Street Corn on the Cob is one item available throughout the entire festival. EPCOT Farmers Feast, located on the backside of Creations, serves up this grilled cob with savory garlic spread and plant-based cheese. What I loved about this booth was how fresh the corn was. After ordering, I headed down to the roped-off area in front of the grills where they were grilling the cobs in real time. All cobs are dressed to order so I watched as the chef dipped my cob in the spread and coated it in the plant-based cheese. For $4.75, the Grilled Street Corn was a great value and made the perfect on-the-go snack. As I mentioned, the corn was fresh, and the savory garlic spread paired well with the sweetness of the cob. The Grilled Street Corn easily made my list for best of the festival.

Avocado Toast

Not only is the Avocado Toast from BRUNCHCOT the best of the Garden Graze, but I think it is one of the best items at the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival! This is a festival staple I continue to reach for every time. Sometimes it is hard to find nutritious and fresh options at the parks, so the Avocado Toast is a nice shakeup in the festival offerings. Garnished with marinated tomatoes and plant-based cheese crumbles, the Avocado Toast has a satisfying blend of textures and flavors resting on a piece of toasted ciabatta. Plus, the edible flowers come straight from the greenhouses at Living with the Land! The Avocado Toast with its garden-like appearance perfectly captures the essence of the Flower & Garden Festival. You can grab the Avocado Toast over by the exit to Test Track.

IMPOSSIBLE Farmhouse Meatball

If the Avocado Test was the best of the Garden Graze, then the IMPOSSIBLE Farmhouse Meatball was the worst. Sitting right at the entrance to World Showcase heading towards Mexico, Trowel & Trellis offers up innovative plant-based options, although this year they did include sticky ribs on the menu. Both the marketing image and description looked hopeful, however, what I got fell short of all expectations. The IMPOSSIBLE Farmhouse Meatball was served with lentil bread, spinach, marinated vegetables, and creamy herb aïoli. The major issue of this dish was the lentil bread. The texture was equivalent to leather, and the lack of gluten caused the bread to split at the slightest bend. The IMPOSSIBLE meatball itself was good, and tasted like a meatball, however, was on the dry side. This could have easily been remedied by the herb spread, however, there was only a small drizzle causing the entire dish to be overpowered by the lentil bread.

Florida Strawberry Shortcake

To round out my Garden Graze, I tried the Florida Strawberry Shortcake from Florida Fresh over by the Imagination! Pavilion. The dish came with a decent slice of shortcake topped with a large dollop of whipped topping and a scoop of strawberries. The entire dish was plant-based, but you could hardly notice! The shortcake was dense and moist pairing well with the tartness of the berries. For $5, this was a decent-sized dessert that provided a fresh palate of flavors without being excessively sugary.

After completing the Garden Graze, I headed to the Pineapple Promenade to redeem my prize. This year the completer prize was a DOLE Whip Lime with Minute Maid Lemonade and Mango Smoothie Mix in a souvenir cup as well as a small packet of wildflower seeds to bring home and plant. With the humid temperatures, the DOLE Whip was a refreshing snack to end the stroll with. The lime and lemon flavors were the dominant ones so if you're adverse to citrus this might be a little overwhelming.

Garden Graze Completer Prize

Overall, the Garden Graze is a great way to sample a diverse set of dishes the festival has to offer as well as dabble in plant-based foods. Both the Avocado Toast and the Grilled Street Corn on the Cob are must-dos regardless of whether you are partaking in the Garden Graze. Likewise, the DOLE Whip prize was the perfect snack to beat the heat as summertime approaches. One thing I will say is I would like to see a couple of the options switched out for ones better embodying the Flower and Garden motif. For example, the potato pancakes or poutine, don't scream garden. The best dishes of this graze took basic produce like avocado or corn and elevated it. Happy grazing!