Chocolates at Epcot Center

The Garden Grill Breakfast, Epcot
Epcot requires more than one day we discovered and I feel like we realized that the last time we visited back in 1994. Oh, well, we made the most of our day and had some delicious and interesting chocolates in the World Showcase and in Future World. Our first stop was a character breakfast at 8:05am at the Land Pavilion to eat at The Garden Grill. I'm going to be doing a feature on them because they gave us a free piece of cake but since it was part of this day, I just wanted to mention it and say that as part of the regular breakfast I had a chocolate hazelnut sauce (little black bowl by my fork to the right of my plate) that I used on my Mickey waffles and my tater tots -- delicious. Here in this photo you can see the entire spread for the breakfast pre-cake.

Zeppole di Caterina, Via Napoli Ristorante, Epcot
For lunch, we went to Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria, in the Italy showcase where our Disney Deluxe Meal plan got us each non-alcoholic beverages, one appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. For my dessert I had Zeppole di Caterina which is "Ricotta cheese fritters, served with whipped cream and chocolate sauce" and dusted with powdered sugar. I tried the fritters solo, with the whipped cream only, with the chocolate sauce only, and with both chocolate sauce and whipped cream. It was delicious every of these ways but, of course, my favorite involved the chocolate sauce.

The World Showcase is big. We spent a couple of hours after seeing everything on our touringplans.com list except dinner reservations, focused on finding chocolates and this is what we found. I will confess we got distracted a few times by the awesome topiaries in March that are everywhere in Epcot and we did do a ride and a show here and there. I didn't have time to look deeply through every area but of those I did, this is what I found.

Chocolate Mousse, Les Halles, Epcot
We went to the France showcase where it was more difficult to find chocolate than it really should be. I mean, come on, France should have some high quality chocolates. Finally way in the back I discovered Les Halles Boulangerie-Patisserie which is a quick-service eatery that has more than just baked goods. You can basically get a full meal there but we didn't need a full meal, just some chocolate. What is more French than chocolate mousse? The server behind the counter was a bit confused as to why I wanted only one item but she happily got it for me. I shared it with my hubby because we were on the hunt for chocolate and I didn't know how much we'd fine or if it would be treats we'd need to eat right away or could take with us. This was everything that chocolate mousse should be and the edible chocolate beads on the top was just a bonus delight.

Butlers Irish Whiskey Truffle Bar, Epcot
In the UK showcase there was a lot of packaged candies but if I could I really wanted to use our Snack points on the meal plan to buy these treats to tell you all about. In this case I had to spent about five dollars at The Tea Caddy for this Butler's Irish Whiskey Truffle Bar. This was one of the finer chocolate products they had in the shop, most of the items I found around the UK showcase was mass made candies that I can actually find in my huge Kroger grocery store in Indiana. I wanted something I couldn't just walk in and find easily where I live and regularly shop. By the way, you can taste the whiskey in these but I don't think the alcohol is a real issue to worry about.

Jelina Chocolatier Box, Epcot
We took a break and saw the "O Canada" film in the Canada showcase but we also found the Northwest Mercantile Trade Post shop that had some Canadian chocolates, for tourists but still, made in Canada. They had a couple of items to choose from but I went simple with Jelina Chocolatier's Milk and Dark maple leaf chocolate made crunch bits of maple syrup. Each piece is individually wrapped but I unwrapped two to show you their real size compared to what is on the box. The box had 12 pieces in total, six milk and six dark. The maple syrup pieces were crunchy but their flavor wasn't as strong as I thought it would be and that was a bit disappointing to me.

As the sun was going down we found a small shop called Taste of Marrakesh booth in the Morocco showcase. They had baklava with chocolate and almonds so my hubby couldn't eat this with me. It was delicious!

Chocolate Baklava, Taste of Marrakesh
Meiji Milk and Black Chocolate Bars, Epcot
In the Japan Showcase my hubby wanted to see the Kawaii exhibit which was right next to Mitsukoshi shop. The Mitsukoshi shop was packed with people but they did have a lot of candies and candy bars that I do not see regularly anywhere else. Luckily they all had English labels and I got two bars from Meiji which is a food company that has been around for more than a century. These were okay tasting but not really great by the expectations of my years with The Chocolate Cult blog has created in me. But at least I can say that I've tried mass produced candy bars from Japan!



In the German showcase we found Karamell-Kuche and we used two Snack points from our meal plan because there were so many chocolatety options to choose from. My hubby got the chocolate caramel cookie and I got the dark chocolate caramel with sea salt. So good! We split each and shared them because all things in Moderation even if it is super delicious and you walked 8 miles that day.

Karamell-Kuche Treats, Epcot

Desserts, Akershus Royal, Epcot
For our dinner reservation we did another character meal called Princess Storybook Dining Dinner at Akershus Royal in the Norway showcase. One of my brother-in-laws is Norwegian-American but I can't say I've really had much food from any Scandinavian countries before this dinner. Surprisingly one of the three desserts brought out to us was this creamy chocolate cake that you can see first in the photograph. I think this was called "Sweet Chocolate Mousse" (it tasted like that) then there was the mini loaf of a sweet bread (no tree nuts), and a sweet rice pudding with strawberry drizzle. It was all very delicious. Which we were there we got to meet several Disney princesses as well as witness the parade of kids dressed as princesses and princes. This was the only place we went that included boys; very cool!

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