Are you ready to check out a completely NEW booth at this year’s Festival of the Arts?!
2023 Booth
EPCOT’s 2023 Festival of the Arts is officially underway and we’ve been making our way through the entire park to show you everything this Festival has to offer. From full menus for ALL of the Festival booths to a complete list of the concerts you’ll be able to catch, we’ve got you covered! Now, we’re taking you on a food adventure through the Moderne booth. Should you risk trying out this all-new booth or stick to the classics you already know and love? Let’s find out together!
Menu
Over at the Moderne booth, you’ll find a variety of available items. There’s Compressed Watermelon Tataki, Angry Crab, Pan-seared Scallops, and a tropical cake on the food menu, and you’ll find a Watermelon Mary and J. Lohr Riesling on the drinks menu.
Moderne Menu
Now that we’ve taken a look at the menu, let’s dive into the food itself!
Eats
First up, we grabbed the Compressed Watermelon Tataki, which is made with pickled watermelon rind, yuzu pearls, watermelon foam, and wasabi. It’s plant-based, and you can get it for $4.75.
Watermelon Tataki
The pickled watermelon rind and Yuzu pearls were our favorite parts of this one! With our first bite, we got a little too much wasabi, which was overwhelming, but we liked it more as we got to taste the other flavors with subsequent bites.
Compressed Watermelon Tataki with pickled watermelon rind, yuzu pearls, watermelon foam, and wasabi
The Yuzu pearls aren’t as much like boba as they are solid balls of Yuzu juice, which was rather surprising. They’re about the consistency of gelatin in raindrop form — a fun surprise!
We also tried the Compressed Watermelon Tataki with pickled watermelon rind, yuzu pearls, watermelon foam, and wasabi for $4.25. #Moderne pic.twitter.com/0SSpvRXKFM
— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 13, 2023
The next item on the menu is the Angry Crab, which is whole crispy soft-shell crab with green papaya salad, mango-sriracha fluid gel, and coconut-lime foam with pomegranate and mango crush pearls. You can get this dish for $7.25.
Angry Crab
The crab is very crunchy, which was a great texture for this dish. It was pretty heavy on the “fishy” flavor which we didn’t actually mind, and the mousse was a good sweet touch to mix it up. All in all, it balanced things out.
Angry Crab
The slaw is crunchy and slightly acidic but there weren’t any strong flavors from it. We thought this was DELICIOUS overall and we would definitely get it again.
The first item up is the Angry Crab! 🦀 It’s a whole crispy soft-shell crab with green papaya salad, mango-sriracha fluid gel, and coconut-lime foam with pomegranate and mango crush pearls for $7.25! pic.twitter.com/V1A3O7p39M
— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 13, 2023
Up next is the Pan-seared Scallops with vanilla-butternut squash purée, brown butter cauliflower purée, and lime foam. This is part of the Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine, and you can buy it for $7.50.
Pan-seared Scallops with vanilla-butternut squash purée, brown butter cauliflower purée, and lime foam
This was SO good. A very nice texture and cooked with a little bit of chewiness left, but just the right amount. You mostly get scallop flavor here, but the purees blend well with it if you scoop them up — they’re veggie-heavy.
Pan-Seared Scallops
For seafood, this was surprisingly light and delicious. Another thing we’d order over again!
Wrapping up here at Moderne, we tried the Pan-seared Scallops with vanilla-butternut squash purée, brown butter cauliflower purée, and lime foam for $7.50! This is also a Colorful Cuisine item (🎨)! pic.twitter.com/RAi5Fvzcuw
— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 13, 2023
Finally, there’s The Tropics, which is made with Lilikoi mousse, guava cake, coconut crémeux, compressed pineapple, and mango gel for $5.
The Tropica
We found this dessert to be deliciously creamy, and VERY tart. The fruit was incredibly fresh! The guava cake was the tartest part, and it was nice and moist, which we really loved. Even if someone doesn’t like guava, we might still recommend that you try it!
The Tropica
Overall, it was tart (how many times can we say that word without it getting old? 😂) and fruity! “The Tropics” was a truly accurate name.
Still at Moderne, we grabbed The Tropics: A Lilikoi mousse, guava cake, coconut crémeux, compressed pineapple, and mango gel for $5.00! pic.twitter.com/QSNKbIRXrw
— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 13, 2023
Ready to try some drinks?
Drinks
First up, you can get the Watermelon Mary, which features Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka. This drink is $11.50. It had a VERY strong vodka flavor, but the watermelon was sweet and almost tasted like a juice.
Watermelon Mary featuring Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka
The mini boba in this was almost annoying, as if you drank it too fast, you could almost choke on them? (That’s concerning!) It was a fine drink, but not our favorite thing we’ve had at an EPCOT festival.
This is the Watermelon Mary featuring Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka! 🍉 it runs for $11.50 #Moderne pic.twitter.com/GZmxl4Z920
— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) January 13, 2023
The other option is the J. Lohr Riesling, which is available for $6.50.
OVERALL
Y’all, this booth was scoring aces all over the place! The only thing we had that we didn’t love was the Watermelon Mary, but the food was SPECTACULAR. There were multiple things that we would come back and get again, including the crab and the scallops.
Moderne
We’re totally on team Moderne — make sure to check it out during your visit!
Planning your trip to the 2023 Festival of the Arts and not sure where to start? You’ve come to the right place! Click here to see the FULL menus for all of the food booths this year, click here to see a list of all of the NEW items at the Festival, and click here to see the items you can get to complete the Festival of the Arts Food CHALLENGE.
Want to know how to handle the Festival like a PRO? Grab our BRAND NEW DFB Guide to the Festival of the Arts for 150+ pages of tips, tricks, and advice.
Festival of the Arts Guide
We’ve got ALL of the information you’ll need in there to make sure you enjoy every single minute of the Festival and don’t miss the very best it has to offer!
Click here to get the guide!
We’ll be sharing FULL reviews of all of the booths at the Festival and all of the other information you need to know, so check back with us for all the latest Festival of the Arts news!
Click here to see our reviews for EVERY single EPCOT Festival of the Arts food booth!
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What items from this booth would you most want to try? Tell us in the comments!
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I was very pleasantly surprised by the Watermelon Tataki. It’s sweet and juicy because of the watermelon, and if you take just a teeny bit of the wasabi and the other elements all together, it’s a fantastic bite. This would be even more perfect on a warm day because it’s so refreshing. The serving size isn’t too filling, but I was definitely satisfied.
BTW, being a vegetarian, I was really happy to see all the plant-based options. (Sorry, meat lovers!) Now if EPCOT could just have more wine in the Food and Wine Festival…
Angry crab and seared scallops were amazing. The watermelon mary was delicious and complex! Loved the vessel, straw, and what seemed to be vinegar bubbles. We want a do-over of all of it!