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If you enjoy African food and drinks, then you will love visiting the Food and Wine Festival at Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia. This is also true if you’ve even just been curious about trying different African foods and drinks. The Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival is a wonderful chance to sample different dishes you’ve never tried before.
I myself am not that familiar with African dishes. This year, I tried new food at the Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival. And I ended up discovering a favorite food!
See, how it works is that during the Food & Wine Festival, pop-up booths are set throughout the park. Each booth has a different theme, often relating to an area. And today I want to focus on the Africa booth. I want to go through my whole experience, from my first impressions from visiting the booth to what I thought of the dishes I tried!
Food & Wine Festival African Booth
You can find the booth itself in the Ireland section of the park. It is towards the front of the Ireland section, so it’s pretty convenient to the front of the park. It was also convenient for me to visit right after watching the Celtic Fyre show.
One thing I really love where the African marketplace is there are tables and chairs all around. You can sit and eat your food, which I much prefer to standing and eating.
I also really love the decorations. I love the African flags on display.
And I love the African touches throughout the area.
You order your first food and/or drinks first. Then you can walk through a building where you pick up your food.
I like that it is indoors – that is not always the case with other pop-up marketplaces.
Another thing I like about the African booth is that when you pick up your food, they actually have water available with cups. It’s nice to be able to pour yourself cold water for free. Some of the food is spicy, so you’ll need some water!
Menu Review
So the African booth has a pretty intriguing menu.
- Peri Peri Chicken
- Mozambique
- Spiced Chicken Skewer, Cilantro-Lime & Coconut Rice
- $10.00
- Bobotie
- South Africa
- Spiced Ground Beef Egg Custard
- $7.25
- Koshary
- Egypt
- Rice, Pasta, Chickpeas, Lentils, Spicy Tomato & Zesty Tomato Sauce
- $6.50
- Puff Puff
- Nigeria
- Fried Dough & Powdered Sugar
- $8.00
- Wine
- Figuière Méditerranée Rosé
- France, Provence
- Delicate Red Fruit & Citrus Notes Du Rhône
- $11.99
- Figuière Méditerranée Rosé
- Cocktail
- Amarula
- South Africa
- Cream Liqueur
- $11.99
- Amarula
- Refresher (Non-Alcoholic)
- Nigerian Chapman
- Nigeria
- Blend of Fruit Juices, Grenadine, Bitters, & Cucumber.
- $6.00
- Nigerian Chapman
Our Favorite Menu Items
Our favorite menu item by far was the Nigerian Puff-Puffs.
It was not only my favorite thing I had at the African booth. But I would go so far to say it was the best thing I had at the entire Food and Wine Festival!
The Puff-Puffs were really delicious. They were a bit like beignets, and as a big fan of beignets, I am surprised I am saying this. But I actually think they are better than beignets. They are very soft and delicious.
I also enjoyed the Peri Peri Chicken.
Though I did not like it as much as the Puff-Puffs. I don’t know if my view was tainted because a few weeks ago I tried the Peri Peri Shrimp at Animal Kingdom in Disney World, and I liked that so much I may have had too high of expectations for the Peri Peri Chicken. But I did not like the Peri Peri Chicken as much. I do like shrimp more than chicken, so that also may have had something to do with it. But I also do not care for onions and there were green onions on it unexpectedly.
But when I came back to the booth the next to get Nigerian Puff-Puffs again (yes, they were that good!) I heard the person working the booth ask if they wanted green onions on their Peri Peri Chicken. I was not asked that and if I had been, I would have held the onions. So if you are like me and you do not care for onions, I suggest you ask to hold the onions even if they don’t ask you first.
Because really, the bites without the onions I really liked. The rice, especially, was good, and it offset the spice in the chicken.
Conclusion
I definitely recommend visiting the Africa booth during your visit to the Busch Gardens Williamsburg Food and Wine Festival. The atmosphere is great. There are plenty of seats and great decorations. You can even get free cold water. And most importantly, the food is really good – especially the Puff-Puffs!
Additional Information
For more information about the Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival (like what other cuisine you can find there), check out our Food & Wine Festival Guide.
You can also read reviews of other booths we liked:
And if you want to learn more about Busch Gardens – including how to get discounted tickets – check out our Busch Gardens Guide.