REVIEW: We Didn’t Realize How Much We MISSED This Underrated EPCOT Food Booth Until Now

It’s time to sing 🎶Mele Kalikimaka!🎶 Disney’s Hawaiian Christmas-themed festival food booth is back after a brief haitus last year.

Mele Kalikimaka Holiday Kitchen

The 2024 EPCOT Festival of the Holidays has officially begun, and there is a lot to offer. There are plenty of food booths with tasty items, merchandise items to grab (of course), and even concerts to watch. But don’t let it overwhelm you. We’ve got you covered with everything you need to know. And now we’re heading to one spot in particular — the Mele Kalikimaka — to give you the FULL scoop! Is it worth a try? Let’s find out!

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Menu

Over at the Mele Kalikimaka, you’ll find a variety of available items, all with a bit of an island twist. There’s Pork, Salmon, dessert, and plenty of drinks! Prices range from $6-14.

The 2024 Men Kalikimaka Menu

Now that we’ve taken a look at the menu, let’s dive into the food itself!

Eats

First up, we grabbed Kālua Pork for $6.

The booth’s offerings, including Kālua Pork

The Kālua Pork with Okinawa sweet potatoes and mango salad is BACK this year. We’ve historically enjoyed this dish, although, in 2021, we thought a little more mango would be ideal. The mango, sweet potatoes, and pork pair beautifully together, so we’re excited to see this dish return and see if it lives up to our memory. 

Kālua Pork

We found this dish quite interesting. The flavor mix of the creamy sweet potatoes with the sweet pork once again created the perfect blend of starchy and sweet. The dish is somewhat heavy, but we really enjoyed it overall.

YUM!

Next, we grabbed Lomi Lomi Salmon for $6.50. This dish is gluten and wheat-friendly, and it comes with tomatoes, onions, salmon roe, yuzu-mayonnaise, and yuca chips. In the past, the salmon was super tasty but a bit salt-heavy. The chips had a great crispy texture and we particularly loved the combo of the salmon and the chips. Let’s see how it holds up this year!

Lomi Lomi Salmon

We personally enjoyed this year’s version of the Lomi Lomi salmon for the most part. However, there were a few things we noticed that you may want to note before trying. First off, the dish had a heavy fish flavor that led to an overall salty taste and texture. Secondly, there weren’t nearly enough yua chips included to actually finish the dip.

Here’s a closer peek!

And we can’t leave this booth without grabbing the Cookie Stroll item: the Coffee Mocha Cookie for $3.25. 

Coffee Mocha Cookie

The Coffee Mocha Cookie is topped with coffee-infused buttercream, cocoa nibs, and chocolate-covered espresso beans. This sounds like a coffee lover and chocolate lover’s dream come true!

Coffee Mocha Cookie

If you’re a coffee fan, you NEED to try this cookie. The buttercream was light and air-whipped, while the cookie itself was perfectly soft without being too moist.

Drinks

The Melon Breeze with Spiced Rum is back again this year, and it costs $14. This is a super sweet drink with a strong melon flavor, and it’s really good as long as you like sweet drinks.

Mele Kalikimaka 2024

This tropical-style drink is perfect for those who don’t enjoy the taste of alcohol, as the rum is masked by the cavalcade of sweet flavors.

OVERALL

Mele Kalikimaka is one of the most dependable booths at the festival as far as we’re concerned. The food options are delicious (just be wary of the Lomi Lomi Salmon if you’re not a fan of fish), the cookie is decadent, and the Melon Breeze offers a little taste of a tropical vacation! That’s it for this booth, but there’s a LOT more where that came from!

Click here to see FULL reviews of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Festival of the Holidays!

Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the 2024 EPCOT Festival of the Holidays? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know:

And don’t forget to pick up our 2024 Holiday Guide e-book! See more details about the book below.

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What items from this booth would you most want to try? Tell us in the comments!

The post REVIEW: We Didn’t Realize How Much We MISSED This Underrated EPCOT Food Booth Until Now first appeared on the disney food blog.