Australia Booth at 2018 Epcot Food & Wine Festival
*This gluten free dining experience took place in September 2018. It includes notes about dairy free modifications.
For Food & Wine Festival Gluten Free marketplace booth options, be sure to click over to the marketplace booth page for more info.
One of the staples of the Epcot Food & Wine Festival is Australia marketplace booth. It debuted in 1997 and has been a good go-to booth for gluten friendly options for many years. None of the menu items have really changed in the past few years. So, it's good to have a booth to visit that has gluten friendly dishes that are repeats at the festival.
This year the Australia booth has two gluten friendly dishes. The dessert option contains gluten. The two gluten friendly dishes are repeats at the festival and have been at the Australia booth for many years.Because this booth is NOT 100% gluten free, there is always an increased risk of cross-contamination. Use your own judgement when consuming items that are not in dedicated gluten free booths or booths that contain almost all gluten friendly dishes.
On my first visit to the booth this year, I ordered the Grilled Sweet and Spicy Bush Berry Shrimp with Pineapple, Pepper, Onion and Snap Peas. It is marked as gluten friendly and is also dairy free. It is currently marked as $5.50 per serving and is a Disney Dining Plan Snack Eligible Credit. In years past, I have found this dish to be spicy, but not so spicy that it was hard to eat. But, on this particular visit, I thought the dish was way too spicy. I am a huge fan of spicy food. So, that's saying a lot for me to say it was too much. The spice level was so overpowering that I had to guzzle water after eating it. And, my mouth burned for quite a while after. If spicy food is not your thing, I would avoid this dish.I'm kind of hoping that this was just a fluke and that it's not the normal spice level it should be. I might try to order it again once during the festival. But, if it's still too spicy, it will be a pass from me. That's a shame because the shrimp and combination of sweet and spicy flavors should be a winner. For me, it was just far too spicy to be tasty.If you're gluten free, you may like the other gluten friendly item available at this booth - Grilled Lamb Chop with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies. If you're dairy free, you'll need to avoid the mint pesto on this dish.Overall, I'm not sure we'll be getting anything else from Australia's marketplace booth this year during the festival. With an overly spicy dish, we'd prefer to find options at other booths instead.Have you been to the Australia booth? What did you think about the gluten friendly options there?