If you thought we were done with new booths at the 2023 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival, we have an awesome surprise for you!

Two MORE booths have just opened! On July 27th, the majority of the Food & Wine Festival booths opened, but two had a delayed opening, so today — August 15th — is their first day. Both of these booths were around last year as well, so they’re not brand-new, but we’re still excited to have them back. Come with us to check out the Hawaii booth!

Menu

Over at the Hawaii booth, you’ll find a variety of available items, though none of them are new in 2023. There are a couple of savory snacks and one sweet dessert.

To drink, there’s an IPA, a sparkling pineapple wine, and a cocktail. Now that we’ve taken a look at the menu, let’s dive into the food itself! We ordered the Kalua Pork Sliders for $5.75, the SPAM Sushi for $6, and the Passion Fruit Cheesecake for $4.75.

Eats

We’ve had versions of all of these items in the past, but we were interested to see how they compared to years prior. Usually, we REALLY like this booth!

It’s time to eat at the Hawaii booth!

⭐️ Kālua Pork Slider with Sweet-and-Sour DOLE® Pineapple Chutney and Spicy Mayonnaise

⭐️ SPAM® Sushi with Sushi Rice, Teriyaki-Glazed SPAM, Spicy Mayonnaise, Eel Sauce and Nori

⭐️ Passion Fruit Cheesecake with Toasted Macadamia Nuts pic.twitter.com/K8eENmkOjM

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) August 15, 2023

Everything looks absolutely delicious this year, so let’s find out how it tastes!

First, we started with the Kalua Pork Slider. This slider features sweet-and-sour DOLE pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise. The most prominent flavor in this dish is of course the pork, but we also got a lot of the sweet pineapple flavor, too. We remember it being pretty sweet in the past, so we were glad to see that this one hasn’t changed — because it’s yummy!

It has a bit of a spicy kick at the end — but not too much. Even picky eaters might be able to handle it. Our only problem with this dish was that our bun was LOADED with pork and sauce to the point that the bottom of the bun was soggy, which did nothing to help the dish. If this was on a bigger bun we would have enjoyed it a LOT more. This is an issue that we also saw last year, so hopefully someday they will give us more CARBS.

Next up, we tried the SPAM Sushi, which features sushi rice, teriyaki-glazed SPAM, spicy mayonnaise, eel sauce, and nori. We were super intrigued by this dish! When we took a bite, the dominating flavor is the spicy mayonnaise. However, by taking smaller bites we found that we were able to taste some of the SPAM.

The rice was perfectly sticky — just how it should be! We really enjoyed this dish! Last year, we were able to taste a bit more of the meat, so we were slightly disappointed that we didn’t get a lot of that flavor this year. We did, however, taste the sweet teriyaki glaze, so that’s a plus! This one is also picky eater-approved.

For our dessert, we grabbed the Passion Fruit Cheesecake, which is served with toasted Macadamia nuts. This one was very thick and creamy. The Passion Fruit curd on top melted a bit, but that’s okay! We noticed that this dish was not as tart as what we’ve had in the past, and it was definitely more on the sweeter side.

Just like last year, this dish was perfectly creamy and had that signature texture of good cheesecake. It’s a light dessert, and combined with the macadamia nuts, there are some great textures going on.

We were glad to see that the food lived up to previous reviews, and we’re happy to announce that the Hawaii booth is still a winner in our book!

Drinks

In terms of drinks on this menu, everything is returning from last year. You can get the Kona Brewing Co. Hanalei Island IPA, from Kailua-Kona, HI, for $5.50 for a 6 oz pour or $9.50 for a 12 oz pour. When we had this last year, this beer made us feel like we were on a beach — it’s fruity and it’s not as heavy as a lot of other IPAs tend to be. The sweeter notes stand out which makes it great in the warm weather.

Next is the Florida Orange Groves Sparkling Pineapple Wine, from St. Petersburg, FL, for $10. We’ve seen this wine at various booths at several different EPCOT festivals over the years. It usually has a strong pineapple flavor and is very sweet, so it should be refreshing on a hot day, but only if you enjoy sweet wines.

Finally, you can grab the Aulani Sunrise cocktail, which is made with Vodka, DOLE Pineapple Juice, and Grenadine for $14. In the past, this has proven to be a VERY sweet drink with a lot of pineapple flavor. We liked it a lot last year and thought that it would appeal to a lot of people with simple, delicious flavors.

 

Overall

If you’re looking for some interesting takes on classic dishes like BBQ and sushi, then this is the booth for you. Everything is sweet yet smoky — loaded with flavor. The Kalua Pork Slider and the SPAM Sushi were both a bit spicy, but not so spicy that we think picky eaters won’t enjoy it. However, if you KNOW you won’t like spice at all — skip this one.

We’d recommend this booth to anyone, really. We think that kiddos will like the Passion Fruit Cheesecake and potentially the slider. They might also enjoy the sushi if they have an adventurous palette and know there’s no fish!

That’s it for this booth, but there’s a LOT more where that came from!

Click here to see FULL reviews of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Food & Wine Festival!

Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the 2023 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know:

• Learn about the Eat to the Beat Concert Series and Dining Packages
• Check out ALL of the 2023 Food & Wine Booth Menus
• See what eats you’ll need to try to get a PRIZE at the Festival!

And don’t forget to pick up our 2023 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival e-book! See more details about the book below.

What items from this booth would you most want to try? Tell us in the comments!