Eat This: Thailand Booth at Epcot International Food & Wine Festival

The Thailand booth at the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival is located just before Mexico as you come around from Future World into World Showcase.

The booth offers 3 dishes this year, all savory, and for better or for worse exactly the same as the ones from last year.

• Marinated Chicken with Peanut Sauce and Stir-fried Vegetables (kid friendly) ($5)

If you love Thai food (and I do), you’ll probably love this. I’m not sure where the “kid friendly” rating comes from, as this is outside of my picky kids’ flavor approval profile – but it’s otherwise excellent. Good quality meat with crisp veggies and a strong peanut sauce. Like last year, this was a winner.

• Seared Shrimp and Scallop Cake with Cold Noodle Salad ($5.25)

This is a great example of everyone’s tastes being different, as a couple of the people that I was with enjoyed this but – as least as to the seafood cake itself – it wasn’t one of my favorites. The cake itself is a bit fishy and quite salty and, for me, would have needed a cucumber or similar dipping sauce to cut that taste and balance it out. That said, the cold noodles were one of the best things I’ve tasted at the festival so far. They’re cool and refreshing and lightly flavored with vinegar and spices. They remind me of when I lived in Japan and people would talk about how refreshing cold soba was on a hot day and I couldn’t understand how a noodle could be “refreshing” until I tried it myself. These are wonderful on a hot Florida afternoon in the same way. At a price tag of $5.25, I would eat this again for the noodles alone.

• Red Hot Spicy Thai Curry Beef with Steamed Rice ($5.50)

Again, if you like Thai food, you’ll enjoy this – especially if you can handle a bit of heat. It’s not so spicy that it will set your ears on fire, but it’s not just Disney-spicy either. The sauce – which is full of flavor – has a real kick that takes the taste to the next level. The rice is also perfectly cooked and does well both to cut the heat a bit and as a vehicle to make sure that none of the sauce goes to waste after you’re finished with the meat. Again, like last year, a definite winner.

All in all, it wasn’t broken so it didn’t need fixing. Another great year for Thailand.

Speaking of which? Thailand: Check!