See and Sample Some of SeaWorld Orlando's Seven Seas Food Festival Items

Say that three times fast while patting your head and rubbing your stomach. So a little more information coming to light about the food booth items at SeaWorld's new Seven Seas Food Festival which begins in just a few weeks (Saturday, February 11th to be exact).

We should have a complete menu list in a couple of days, all set up in our easy to access and located text page, so please stay tuned for that.



The scope of the festival is a little larger than we first thought. It seems that fans of last year's Brew and BBQ food and beverage items and also fans of the Viva Latina food and beverage items shouldn't be disappointed. The 11 new "Global Marketplaces" (i.e. food and beverage booth/locations) are in addition to the BBQ and Latina food booths.

The 11 new Global Marketplaces will be in-place for the entire festival. The BBQ menu items/booths will be available on festival Saturdays between February 11th through April 15th. Those BBQ items and booths will be replaced with Latin infused cuisine food and booths for the last four weeks of the festival... taking place on festival Saturdays between April 22nd through May 13th, 2017. I know… we're still thinking about an easy to read format to make all those words easier to visualize.



The eight food items I got to sample are all from the new Global Marketplaces. The theme here is spot-on for a theme park food festival… sample street-food from around the world. On any given Saturday, there will be more than 60 food items and over 50 local and international craft beers to sample. We'll try and make all of that easier to read in our "Seven Seas Menu Items" article in the next day or so.

On to the food photos already...

The Brazilian Churrasco (above) had a really nice flavor and featured a proper Chimichurri. While the Garbanzo Frito "side" item was great and a perfect pairing, Garbanzo beans are not everyone's cup of tea.



The Shrimp Cake with Jicama Slaw & Key Lime Mustard (above) was our favorite savory item from samples. The Shrimp Cake itself was full of shrimp, the Key Lime Mustard was unique and offered the perfect contrast to the slightly spiced shrimp cake, and the Jicama Slaw reminded us of a really good Tabbouleh, but with more snap.



A Braised Short Rib dish from the Gulf Coast Marketplace (above) was flavorful, but the short rib itself was a little fatty. Some people do prefer their short ribs with a fair amount of that pillow fat, I am not one of those people. We checked with our dining companions, and they agreed that the quality of the meat was not quite as high as the flavor in the dish.



The Dark Chocolate Guinness Mousse (above) was pretty good, but not really dark or Guinnessy enough for me. Unfortunately, the Bailey's Infused Whipped Cream came off as being a little plasticy and not the genuine dairy-based cream that we were expecting.



A Skewered & Grilled Corn on the Cob with Cheese (above) item should appeal to even the pickiest eaters. I generally don't put anything on corn though, so for me... a really good Esquites item would have seemed to fit in better.



You really can't go wrong with Bacon and Cheddar Hushpuppies topped with Honey Butter (above). Beer, is about the only thing that would make these better! They are sure to be a hit at the festival, and justifiably so. They are great street food.



The Grilled Venison Sausage Slider (above) was another one of my favorites. You may want to ask them to pull back on the mustard a little bit though... if you really want to taste the Venison in the Sausage. Whole grain mustard though, is always fun as the seeds provide a little "pop" as you bite into them.



Hands down, the favorite dessert item at the tasting was the Grilled Cheese Pound Cake with Cheddar Cheese and Raspberry Sauce (above). This one is a must-get at the festival. It's sure to be another huge hit.

All in all, the portion sizes were more than appropriate for the prices that have been set (although that is still word-of-mouth at this point, pricing hasn't officially been released). Items are said to average around $5.50, some higher, some lower...  that's an average across 60+ items.

From a culinary standpoint, I really do feel like the items are as complex as they need to be for a best-of street-food festival. There are a couple of flavors and textures in each dish, and while we all have our preferences naturally, I had a lot of fun working my way through the samples.



For Central Florida theme park annual passholders, the obvious comparison that's going to come up is with the myriad of food festivals at Epcot. This one is different. The best-of street-style food items are, by design, indented to appeal to a very broad audience… and based on what I've sampled so far (except for that pesky Braised Short Rib) have been top-notch executions of that theme.

The price-points here are not just lower, but are a better value... especially if you purchase a "Sampling Lanyard" (I'll cover the specifics on those in my next all menu list article), but with a 10 item lanyard costing $40 that brings per item costs down to $4. There's no hiding the fact that you would be hard pressed to find anything other than a dessert at an Epcot food-based festival for $4. Maybe that means you spend less… or maybe that means you eat more… either way… it didn't diminish the amount of fun I had tasting the eight dishes at the preview event (which I did pay for by the way, so this was no media bribe event).



At the end of the day, I'm looking forward to SeaWorld Orlando's new Seven Seas Food Festival, and give it a solid two thumbs up. We'll be there on opening day to grab a few more items that sound amazing. We should have the "all food and beverage items list" up shortly so please keep checking back!