While writing this, we are STILL WAITING to find out about the culinary demonstrations that open TOMORROW MORNING for Tables in Wonderland members… SIGH!
Anyway, this is about one of our favorite events during the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival — Tequila Lunch at La Hacienda! We had preplanned to go to this event twice in 2013, and we were thinking that we were going to have to go by ourselves both times… Not so, now we’re going to have company with us both times <yay!>.
It’s important to note that this isn’t just a tequila tasting (you can do that at La Cava Del Tequila, or at least you’ve been able to in years past – again, not enough information at hand to be definitive), this is also a PAIRING of tequila with authentic Mexican Cuisine. The food is delicious, the tequilas are nice choices for the less experienced tequila drinker, and the service is top notch.
We’ve attended this event for each year that it’s been offered (the team at La Hacienda began this event in 2011). In 2011, we went to the Tequila Lunch with Al, Judy, and Al’s Big Sis – that was a blast. Al enjoyed it even though he doesn’t like tequila AND they were very accommodating of his shrimp allergy (they provided alternate food with NO exposure to shrimp or seafood, it all looked good!). The food was excellent and Al & Judy have said many times that they’d do this event again 🙂
Last year, we went alone – it was clear that the staff had taken notes in 2011 and made some improvements for 2012. This time, there were more empty seats than in 2011 – we think a couple of things caused this… 1) this event gets great reviews on the internet and 2) you should book this event ahead of time because of the popularity (this year, you can book the Tequila Lunch beginning on August 13th), your travel plans may change and you can’t transfer your reservation. Regardless, we had a lovely time again in 2012…
So, we’re looking forward to this year’s events at La Hacienda, 🙂 going to have a wonderful time. The first visit will be shared with Lisa and Andy, they certainly know their wines but are both pretty new to thinking about tequila as a fine spirit – should be a lot of fun!
We haven’t decided which special events, if any, we’re doing for the Festival this year. We let our annual passes lapse, so we have to wait until Tuesday to book with the rest of the peasants anyway. The tequila lunch at La Hacienda seems like a good offering even though the restaurant itself isn’t among my favorites. I feel the same way about the beer lunch at Via Napoli.
Melissa – we did the beer lunch at Via Napoli a couple of years ago, we plan to give it another shot this year. We didn’t have very good table mates the last time (they wouldn’t eat this or that & they weren’t very interested in listening to the presentation). I’ll be on the phone Tuesday morning too…