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This past week, my family had the pleasure of visiting the Food and Wine Festival at Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia. It is such a wonderful festival that my family likes to go to Williamsburg every year to visit. You can find out more about the festival in our Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival Guide.
What I love about the festival is that it is such a great way to try new foods and drinks. They have different booths across the park set up for different cuisines. It is a wonderful way to try new dishes or beverages. For example, you could try Italian dishes at the Italy booth, Brazilian drinks at the Brazil booth, South Korean BBQ at the South Korea booth, and so on. This can be great if you already have a dish you love (such as trying the beignets at the French Quarter booth).
But it can also be great if you want to try something new. For example, yesterday I talked about the Turkish food and drinks I tried at the Turkey booth. So today I want to do the same for the Jamaica booth!
I do not eat Jamaican food very often, so this was a great opportunity to try new dishes. So I want to tell you about what they have to offer. Then I’ll give you a recommendation of the one menu item you must have – and one I would skip.
Foods
There’s a lot to like food-wise on this menu. For the meat lovers, there is a Jamaican Patty with spicy beef and a pastry crust that is great for meat lovers. You can dip it in a coconut jerk dip. For the seafood lovers, you can try the Gamba Fritters. You can dip these shrimp dumplings in a pickapeppa sauce. There’s also a Jerk Chicken Slider that comes with a cilantro lime slaw and mango salsa. And for dessert, you can try the Toto Rum Cake which consist of a coconut cake along with a sweet rum sauce.
Drinks
There are lots of drinks available at this stand.
There are multiple beer options. There’s Loose Cannon IPA from Heavy Seas Beer, Mango Wheat Ale from Three Notch’d Brewing, and Blood Orange PHunk Sour from Cape Charles Brewing Company.
As for wines, there’s Rioja Reserva from Bodegas Muriel and Blanc de Blanc Brut Cava from Anna de Codorniu.
A cocktail you can try, called Dark & Stormy, consists of Myers dark rum, lime, and ginger.
If you’d like a frozen cocktail, then try the Frozen Jamaican Punch. It consists of Malibu coconut rum, Sailor Jerry spiced rum, orange, lime, and pineapple juice
If you are looking for a non-alcoholic option, you can try the Ginger Limeade, which has lime juice, ginger, and brown sugar.
Must-Have Menu Item
The menu item we don’t think you should leave the park without trying is the Toto Rum Cake.
Rum cake is a dessert we have been wanting to try for awhile. And now we are so glad we tried it. It was so delicious! Everyone in my family loved it, even a family member who doesn’t particularly like sweets. It was just really delicious. A wonderful mix of flavors.
Probably Skip Menu Item
Now, obviously, a lot of this comes down to personal taste. But I can’t say anyone in my family particularly liked the Ginger Limeade.
I’m not sure why, but this drink didn’t really work for me. I don’t know if the ingredients could have been mixed better, if it was perhaps a bit too sweet, or if this was just a combination of tastes I wasn’t used to. But I didn’t really like it and it had a strong aftertaste.
Though having said this, it was also kind of weirdly addictive and I kept drinking it. But, it was definitely not the best drink you can get at the festival.
Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival Discount Tickets
Regardless of which menu items you want and don’t want to try, you will want to try attending the festival. And to do so, you will need a ticket to Busch Gardens.
Luckily, there are great ways to save money on Busch Gardens Williamsburg tickets. You can find out how to get discount tickets to Busch Gardens & learn more about the theme park here.