2013 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival – Scotland Marketplace – Salmon, Vegetarian Haggis, & Innis & Gunn

The main offerings from this booth were a pleasant surprise!

We knew about Innis & Gunn beer (thanks to the adult candy store… Total Wine & More); we’ve eaten salmon on a regular basis for YEARS, and we had haggis for breakfast every single morning when we went to Scotland this past summer… So… We were expecting to be a bit disappointed – especially by VEGETARIAN Haggis (does that even make sense?)

Let’s start with the vegetarian haggis… It was good! We both liked the texture and the seasonings (very true to the haggis we had in Edinburgh). Some bloggers have been raving about the tat ties (potatoes) & neeps (not turnips, but swedes) served with the veg haggis – we were raving to each other about the haggis. This stuff would be great with eggs over easy, just like offal haggis 🙂 The half patty had a great texture of grains and nutty things. We really liked this and I’m even wondering if I can buy it somewhere locally.

Vegetarian Haggis with Neeps & Tatties (Griddled Vegetable Cake with Rutabaga & Mashed Potatoes)

Okay, so even though this was a surprise (well, we thought we’d like it, we just didn’t think we’d LIKE it!), the salmon dish was a bigger surprise. You know by now that we EXPECT anything that swims or lives in water will be overcooked during the Epcot Food & Wine Festival – well, our salmon WASN’T overcooked. In fact, to our tastes, it was cooked perfectly, the seared “crust” was crunchy and slightly salty. If anything, this reminded us of the salmon I used to make for dinner 3 or 4 times a week (back when I used to cook all the time). Nick’s comment was “this is way better than that maple syrup salmon crap usually served in Canada” (we DON’T like salmon with maple syrup on it, or bacon with maple syrup, or pretty much anything over-sugared… excepting Saturday morning pancakes!).

Seared Scottish Salmon with Cauliflower Puree, Watercress & Malt Vinaigrette – featured pairing with Innis & Gunn Original Draft Beer

Again, the pureed cauliflower has been getting a lot of press – we weren’t that impressed. When we “did Atkins” years ago, I stopped cooking starches… we ate A LOT of pureed cauliflower, and it can be darned good. This was good, but I didn’t care for the malt vinaigrette on it… too sweet.

The Innis & Gunn paired very well with the salty, meaty salmon.

While we haven’t tried everything that we want to yet, this may end up being our best night of tastings and Scotland Marketplace may have hit it out of the ballpark with multiple items!