Food & Wine Festival 2010: Round Five

We started Saturday's excursion just after the World Showcase opened for the day with...

DESSERTS & CHAMPAGNE
Strawberry Angel Verrine. Dark Chocolate Sensation. Moet & Chandon Nectar Imperial Rose.

What? You don't believe in starting a meal with dessert or having champagne at 11am? Sometimes you just have to live a little. I kind of expected to like the Dark Chocolate Sensation better (because, hello, CHOCOLATE) but it just seemed heavy to me. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that it followed the extremely light & delicate Strawberry Angel Verrine, which was all airy angel cake with strawberries & cream & a wee bit of custard. Not to mention, I went with the sweetest BUBBLES! they had to offer. Not saying the chocolate wasn't good, though, because it was. I just liked the strawberry dessert more.

Once I had licked my plate, we set sail for...

CHARCUTERIE & CHEESE
Cheese Fondue with Croutons and Roasted Potatoes. Nueske's Charcuterie Plate with Applewood Smoked Beef, Duck and Ham.

First, there is just no way that melty cheese can possibly be bad. As for the smoked meats, I liked the beef the best. The duck was a little too...something for me. The ham was just ham, which I have on my own frequently.

We stayed "local" for our next tasting, hopping just one booth over to...

CANADA
Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup. Chicken Chipotle Sausage with Sweet Corn Polenta.

The soup was creamy cheesy goodness with a bit of potato in it. The sausage & polenta were tasty, but I enjoyed them less than the soup. I really only had a taste of each. We were sharing so we had room to try more things in...

FRANCE
Creme Brulee au Chocolat au Lait

I'm pretty sure very few desserts provide more satisfaction than the tapping of the caramelized sugar on the top of a creme brulee. It was surprisingly light, both in taste & texture, but so very yummy. Just enough sweet, just enough chocolate, just enough weight to it to be enjoyable without leaving me too stuffed to move on to...

POLAND
Golabki.

I had been waiting on this dish forever, it seemed. And it was so worth the wait. That was a little piece of pork-stuffed cabbage heaven.

It took some time to free up some more space. I had a nibble of dishes Nichole & Daniel were sampling but really just enough to get the flavor of it (my rule for photos was it had to be something I ate at least a whole mouthful of, so nibbles didn't count) but it took me nearly a full lap to find the space for...

AUSTRALIA
Lamington.

This was delicious. I wasn't sure what to expect from the description: Chocolate-Covered Butter Cake. Now I know why they left it at that. It couldn't have been put into words. The butter cake was rich-tasting but not at all brick-heavy. The chocolate frosting was lick-the-fork-clean good. And the coconut was just the right addition. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have selected a better way to end this round.

Just one last circuit remaining...