Vegan at Busch Garden Williamsburg's Food & Wine Festival 2022

So now that we've covered the basics with "hamburgers and hotdogs" to start. Let's move on to something completely different.

And let's jump to a different theme park and state too.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg just finished up their Food & Wine Festival that they extended through June 19th! I'm so sad that it's already over because as a member we got a free food/drink item each time and I was LOVING that!

For their menu this year there are only two vegan food options and then several drink options. 

I made a checklist in my phone of all the items I wanted to try and I was able to get in four visits during the festival. I did try both food options, and had one of them twice, and then tried two different drinks.

It only ran Thursday-Sunday each weekend which usually tend to be our busier times with work so I didn't get to go as often as I would have liked but I'm so glad we attended.

For my first item from the festival I chose the most unique sounding food option.

Introducing the Impossi-Bao. What a punny name. 

Located at the Japan food booth you can find an Impossible plant-based meat alternative with Asian-slaw in a steamed bun. 

As we all know, nothing ever quite looks like the beautiful pictures they use for promotional purposes so to be honest this one gave me a laugh when it was first handed to me. The proportions were definitely a little off.

With their system you buy or redeem your pass at a cash register nearby the booth, and then walk over to the booth and hand a receipt off to the workers that tells them what you ordered, then you watch them prepare it in front of you or they hand off a premade dish. 

In this case, they built the bao in front of me I would imagine to keep the bun from getting soggy but it still didn't quite work unfortunately the first time. And I am super weird about mushy bread BUT the flavors of this little dish are so amazing I could look past it. I will say the second time I went back there were 3 people ahead of me that also ordered the dish so I believe they were going through more and had fresher ones made so that time the bun was PERFECT.

The patty alone was killing it. And then the texture layer with the bun and crunchy slaw gave this an awesome fresh balance that I really wasn't expecting with just a food festival dish.

So while I would love to give this 10 out of 10, because of that bun inconsistency I can't. Would I pay $6.25 for it? No, probably not. But I would absolutely redeem another voucher for it! And I did!

Next up I went to the Mexico booth for Horchata. 

This is something I was familiar with from having it a few times at Mexican restaurants. If you've never had Horchata it is sweet rice milk with cinnamon and vanilla.

What I wasn't expecting was the size of the drink. Due to the size of food portions I expected the drinks to be "sample" sizes as well but was pleasantly surprised!

It was a warm afternoon when I tried this drink so it was the perfect thing to cool off with before hopping on some rides! Most all of the drinks were around $4.50 or $4.99 which for the portion sizes weren't a bad price.

I thoroughly enjoyed this drink being that it feels like a drink and dessert in one! And the section that the Mexico booth was in is absolutely beautiful. So great flavor, great portion, and great price if you had to buy. Definite win in my book. I know they've had this in the past as well and I do hope they continue to bring this drink back again year after year.

Our next visit we attended the Greece booth to try the last food option. If I'm honest, I wasn't that excited to try this one.

Here we found the Gigantes Plaki dish. Giant butter beans baked in tomato sauce. That's it. Doesn't that sound appetizing? Well good thing I was wrong. This was actually a pretty large portion and had some great flavor to it. 

Obviously there are seasonings in there to elevate the flavors and make it not taste as bland as it sounds. It was a warm cozy dish that was actually much more filing than the Impossi-Bao.

Seeing as how Busch Gardens Williamsburg doesn't have a lot of year round vegan options. I wish they would add this to a menu somewhere full time. It is a good little meal and I would pay that price for it.

The last weekend had been a set date for a while so I knew that was our last visit to the festival but then they added one more weekend so we had to go back one last time!

For my last sample I went to the Jamaica booth for one more drink option or a "Refresher" as they called it.

Here I got the Ginger Limeade. This consisted of fresh ginger, brown sugar, and lime juice. Another rather large drink size for $4.50 I actually paid for this one and was able to sip on it for a quite a while during our time at the park.

This was a super yummy drink! The only thing was after a while I felt like I needed a water due to the kick from the ginger and lime it leans towards the spicy side. The lime wedge included definitely added to it and made it aesthetically pleasing as well.

After trying out the drink I decided to use my last voucher for the festival to go back to the beginning and get another Impossi-Bao. Like I said earlier it was so much better the second time so I don't regret my decision at all to try it again.

So overall while I am grateful for the couple of vegan options they had this year, I definitely hope to see more next year!

If you tried anything this year what did you think? Are there any you would like to see return next year?

My vote is for the Impossi-Bao and Horchata for sure!

Until next time friends, see ya real soon!