Disney4me Posted August 23, 2024 Report Share Posted August 23, 2024 We’ve had some pricey meals in Disney World — because, hey, Disney food is our JOB! Japan Pavilion in EPCOT We once spent $300 on a sushi boat in EPCOT, and we have ZERO regrets. We’ve also dined at Victoria & Albert’s at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, which is the FANCIEST restaurant in all of Disney World. Again, that was a case of YOLO. We’ve done the tasting menu at Monsieur Paul at EPCOT, and it honestly blew our minds. Well, we recently revisited another EPCOT favorite, Takumi-Tei, and this one set us back about $250, and it was worth every penny. Takumi-Tei recently announced that it would undergo a “significant transformation” with all the restaurant’s courses being redesigned. So of course, we needed to check the restaurant out to make sure it still met all our expectations (it’s been a favorite in the past). Atmosphere Takumi-Tei may be a little hidden inside the Japan Pavilion, but you’ll find it if you look for a banner marking it to the right of Mitsukoshi. Takumi-Tei From the second you step inside, you might just have to pick your jaw up because the interior is simply gorgeous. There is no mistake that you’ve arrived here for a signature dining experience, and that shows in the restaurant’s interior and its immaculate service. Inside Takumi-Tei means “House of the Artisan” in Japanese, so inside, you’ll find five beautiful rooms, each inspired by a natural element: water, wood, earth, stone, or washi paper. We were seated in the wood room, which has some nods to the other elements in it. Each room is a beautiful ode to Japanese craftsmanship. Wood Room There are no windows, but once you’ve stepped inside, it’s like you’ve left EPCOT and were magically transported to Japan. It’s completely stunning Menu As we previously mentioned, the menus here have been overhauled, including the names of the two meals you can order. Omnivorous is now Kiku and costs $250 per adult and $100 per child (ages 8-12). The plant-based menu is now called Hasu and is the same price. Menu The dining here is “Omakase” meaning it’s a special multi-course experience where the entire meal has been curated by the chef. Omokase The Kiku meal includes include Sushimi, Soups, a Wagyu Beef Roll, a selection of desserts, and more. Kiku The Hasu meal includes plant-based plates like flesh yuba and pickled daikon, bamboo shoot tempura, nigiri sushi, plant-based desserts, and more. Hasu Beverages available include a variety of Sake, which can be ordered by the bottle or glass. Sake flights are also available. Sake menu You can also order Wine and Japanese Whisky. Wine and liquor menu A variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails are also available. Eats We decided to dive into the Kiku menu, so let’s take a look at what we ate. After we washed our hands with a hand towel that smelled of refreshing eucalyptus, we dug into the menu and started by getting a drink. We were offered the Shochu Shisho Fashion, which is not yet on the menu. This beautiful drink is a delicious spin on an Old-Fashioned. Shochu Shisho Fashion The Shochu is so delightfully heady and shines in the shrank as the main ingredient. The Shiso acts sort of like bitters and balances the drink’s flavor profile. It has the perfect amount of sweetness that makes it like a traditional Old-Fashioned, but with these elevated flavors. There’s an earthiness to it that reminds us of green tea. Even the crystal clear ice is amazing and melts in a beautiful way. Now, let’s get to the food. Course 1: Ichijyu-Sansai This course is served one-soup-two-dishes style and comes with sea urchin chirashi sushi; deep-fried tofu with white miso soup; and tuna, avocado, and zucchini with ponzu jelly. Our server recommended that we start with the soup and then eat clockwise around the plate, so that’s what we did. Ichijyu-Sansai The soup turned out to be our favorite thing on the plate. Miso soup is typically made with red miso, but this one is made with white miso, which makes it creamier. It still has the savory complex qualities of miso, and the tofu soaks up those flavors nicely. This was one of those things that was good on the first bite. We also liked the paper -thin breading on the deep-ried tofu, plus the added touch of wasabi. This was an amazing way to kick off our meal. Deep-fried tofu with white miso soup The sea urchin in the sea urchin chirashi sushi is a standout ingredient. It has a unique quality with a buttery texture and flavor, but then the flavor also has an aggressive smoky fishiness to it. We might compare it to smoked salmon, but it was way WAY more than that. That being said, not everyone might not like it because you need to love sushi. This piece fell apart in the mouth in a pleasantly gooey texture, and that might be too much for people who know they’re eating fish. Sea urchin chirashi sushi Then it was onto the tuna, avocado, and zucchini with ponzu jelly. We enjoyed this tuna salad. We will say this is a more familiar fish flavor, so if you’ve eaten a spicy tuna roll, you might recognize the taste of this and be more comfortable with it. It has the minerality of tuna. We liked how the textures varied: you’ve got the crunch from the zucchini, the fatty structure of the avocado mixed with the tuna, and the gelatinous ponzu jelly. Tuna, avocado, and zucchini with ponzu jelly Again, our favorite thing on the plate was the miso soup, but the entire course was a delicious start to the meal. Our server shared that the chef wanted a sort of soup, salad, and rice traditional start to the meal to warm the belly up for eating all the delicious food yet to come. Course 2: Sashimi The Sashimi course is four kinds of seasonal sashimi, with assorted garnish. Ours consisted of scallop, Japanese seabream, skipjack, and a fatty tuna. It’s served with soy sauce, albeit a milder version than what we’re used to. Wasabi is also served with the sashimi, and this is the real deal. We’ve found that true wasabi is less like a paste and a little grainier with a flavor that’s less likely to shoot up through your head. Both elevate the flavors of the fish. Sashimi The scallop had a mild flavor that was clean with a bright aftertaste. It’s deliciously light but still has an exciting complexity. Scallop The Japanese seabream is a bit meatier in texture and carries the flavor of the soy sauce with a mild umami flavor. Japanese seabream The skipjack had the thickest texture of the four but was softer away from the skin. It tasted bright and buttery with a savory aftertaste. Skipjack The fatty tuna just MELTS in the mouth. It has a very light tuna flavor but is mostly decadent and buttery. The texture is soft and as we said melts in your mouth the way you dream of food melting in your mouth. It carries the soy sauce and wasabi so well. Fatty tuna We will say that the last time we came here, the Sashimi was our favorite course, and for good reason. This redefines what you think sushi tastes like. The fish is all high quality and the preparation is perfect. Course 3: Hassun The third course is Hassun, which is seven kinds of seasonal small plates tailored by the chef. Our plate had yuba and salmon roe, shitake and spinach with tofu paste, egg cake, eel tail with a fermented paste made with rice vinegar, konnyaku with miso dengako, eel sushi, and salmon with seaweed broth and lime. This is a super interesting course and where you start to get into the more traditional, yet also experimental, elements of the meal. At this point, Americans may find the gelatinous textures a little overwhelming at this point. But you do get a variety of flavors and textures. Hassun The yuba, aka tofu skin, is very creamy and tastes like tofu with that silken meatiness to it. It’s topped with salmon roe, which kind of burst open with a sea salt flavor. We liked this more than we expected as these aren’t two ingredients we usually like on their own. However, together, it’s almost like a creamy meaty pudding. Very hard to describe, but tasty. Yuba and salmon roe We loved the spinach and shiitake with tofu paste. It’s almost like a bite of cold stewed veggies with a peanut sauce on top (although it’s actually a tofu paste, but it still tastes a bit nutty). Spinach and shiitake with tofu paste Egg cake is very common in Japan. It’s super soft and a little sweet. It sort of reminds us of a moist angel food cake. Egg cake The next thing was the eel tail with a fermented paste made with rice vinegar (there was a word for the paste that we couldn’t quite make out). This has a nice and much-needed texture mixup. It’s firm and chewy with a sweet and fruity garnish. There’s a slight fishy taste, so we’d say it’s kinda’ like a less chewy fish jerky. Eel tail with a fermented paste made with rice vinegar The texture of the konnyaku with miso dengako was so unique and we’re struggling to find a word to describe it. Maybe it’s bouncy? It’s like a soft gummy. Flavorwise, we got an explosion of salty savory flavor from the topping. But that texture is…challenging. Konnyaku with miso dengaku We were VERY excited to see eel sushi on the plate because we like eel sushi. It’s got a nice meaty texture and an amazing umami that kind of just sits in your nose. Honestly, this was a perfect piece of sushi. Eel sushi The salmon with seaweed broth and lime was a super weird mix of flavors for us. The lime almost created a bitter flavor profile, which did round out the plate well, but it cut through the buttery salmon and made us miss the flavor from the fish. Salmon with seaweed broth and lime It’s still a good bite, but the flavors just mixed strangely. Course 4: Shiizakana The Shiizakana course features Deep-Fried Japanese Wagyu Beef Shiso leaf Roll, Original Yellow Vinegar, Shiso flowers, Yuzu salt, key lime, Baked Flounder with Saikyo Miso, and Pickled celery. Yep, this is basically a surf and turf platter. Shiizakana The flounder is made in a white miso paste and we were STOKED because we love miso, but you couldn’t taste much of it. The skin of the fish had a lot of the flavor, but once the skin was gone, this was a regular white fish. It was still delicious and cooked well. We’ll also say this was a nice break from the raw textures we had in previous courses. Baked Flounder with Saikyo Miso The wagyu was amazing and we loved the yuzu salt that’s on the plate. It’s housemade, and it’s a lot like a citrus salt. The lime and that yuzu salt change the flavor of the wagyu, too, so you’re encouraged to try it with and without the salt. Deep-Fried Japanese Wagyu Beef Shiso leaf Roll Overall, this course is the heaviest and richest we’ve had so far and the first we couldn’t finish. We also think this is the course that would please pickier eaters. Course 5: Onmono This course offers you a choice of Japanese wagyu beef and bamboo shoots with tortoiseshell sauce, maitake mushrooms, chopped myoga and chives, dew ginger or Spiny Lobster and bamboo shoots with tortoiseshell starchy sauce, maitake mushroom, chopped myoga, chives and dew ginger. We chose the wagyu. Onmono: Japanese wagyu beef and bamboo shoots with tortoiseshell sauce, maitake mushrooms, chopped myoga and chives This was the standout element of the entire meal. Again, the wagyu is amazing. Here, it’s cut super thin and perfectly cooked and served in a luxurious decadent sauce. The sauce is sticky and is a combo of soy and corn syrup. You would think it would be too sweet, but it’s more savory. The meat is incredible and goes perfectly with the ginger on top. This is like beef stew, but way more bougie. That wagyu is incredible The mushroom and bamboo shoots are also perfectly cooked and oddly enough, those bamboo shoots almost tasted like potatoes more than bamboo shoots. DELISH, y’all. This dish is a real winner. Course 6: Gohanmono The next course is getting us ready to wind down the savory part of the meal with cooked conger eel nigirizushi with simmered sauce, wasabi, gari, and red miso soup. This course surprised us because it took us back into seafood territory. This eel is a lot like what we had earlier with a nice meaty texture but a light flavor. So it’s a transition from the heavier food we had transitioning into the next course, which is dessert. Gohanmono Even if you’re on the fence about sushi, we will recommend eel, especially cooked eel because it has this nice texture between tuna and chicken, making it more approachable than some other fish. This is good with the soy and pickled ginger. The Japanese black pepper on the eel also adds an incredible flavor. It’s not as overwhelming as an American black pepper. Cooked conger eel nigirizushi The soup is aggressively flavorful — it’s miso, but it’s AGGRESSIVELY miso. It’s delicious and we even think it helped with our digestion, which we NEEDED at this point in the meal. Whew. Course 7: Macha and Kanmi We did it! We made it to the dessert course. Here, you’re given a choice of homemade green tea cake, vanilla ice cream, whipped, blackstrap molasses, mint or Japanese pumpkin blancmange with blackstrap molasses, whipped, mint or Florida orange jelly with strawberry sorbet, whipped mint. We went with the pumpkin blancmange. Japanese pumpkin blancmange with blackstrap molasses, whipped, mint or Florida orange jelly with strawberry sorbet, whipped mint Okay, this was INCREDIBLE. It was a lot like a creme brulee but without the caramelized top. It’s very close to a custard. Imagine a less sweet pumpkin pie: loads of pumpkin flavor. It even had that bit of graininess of a pumpkin pie. The caramel sauce and whipped cream added the right amount of sweetness. Our server recommended this, and we are FOREVER grateful. This is the perfect light end for a very happy meal, but it’s also a super satisfying dessert. So pumpkiny But we aren’t COMPLETELY done because a traditional Japanese tea service is also served with dessert. This is the kind of tea service where they whisk the matcha into the cup right on your table from their tea cart. Now, our reporter is not a big fan of matcha, mostly because it has a powdery texture, but the way they whisked it here was so fast (like superhuman fast!) and that powdered texture goes completely away. Traditional Japanese tea service So you just get a nice smooth cup of matcha tea. What a great way to end the meal! Tea One of the things we also loved about our meal was the level of service. You do not get this kind of attentive service anywhere else in Disney World. The servers here go above and BEYOND to make your meal perfect. For example, we just ordered the one drink, but our server brought out some samples of her favorite sakes just because she wanted us to try them. It’s almost like having dinner with a super polite friend. At the end of the meal, the servers also make handmade origami parting gifts, and ours had a personalized note. Y’all — we can’t even. Nosh or Not Visit Takumi-Tei if: You love Japanese food. What you get here is a truly authentic Japanese food experience that you can’t find just anywhere. You want an elevated and spectacular dining experience. Many DFB reporters have said that the meals they’ve had here are some of their favorites of all time. If you’ve not been here before, it will surprise you. Is it pricey? Yes, but we’d argue it’s worth every penny for the experience and stellar service. You’re an adventurous eater. Now, you’ll need an adventurous palate to really appreciate the food here, and if you’re looking to try new things and don’t mind eating something you might not regularly eat, this is the place to do it. Skip Takumi-Tei if: You’re on a budget. This isn’t where you’ll get an inexpensive meal in Disney World, particularly if you’re feeding a family of four. This is a place where you go to splurge without worrying about how much it’s going to set you back. You’re a picky eater or have picky eaters in your party. Takumi-Tei is for those with an adventurous palate. The food served here is probably unlike anything you’ve had before and you have to go in with the idea that you’ll be eating adventurous foods prepared in unique ways. You don’t want to spend a lot of time on a meal. This is a seven-course meal, so you can expect to spend at least a few hours throughout the course of the experience. If you’re tight on time or just don’t want to commit your EPCOT park time to this experience, you should probably eat somewhere else. Overall We’ll say it again: this is almost ALWAYS one of the best meals we’ve ever had in Disney World, and even with the changed menu, it did not disappoint. The service is impeccable, some of the best you’ll get in Disney World, and every course feels like it was put together with a lot of special thought. Is it expensive? Well, again, the answer is yes. You not only get food with quality ingredients that have been carefully curated, but you also get incredible service. If you love Japanese food and want an experience that’s as authentic as you can get without going to Japan, Takumi-Tei is a must. With DOZENS of places to eat at Disney World, we know it can be tough to plan your meals. That’s why we wrote the DFB Guide to Dining at Walt Disney World. We have reviews, pictures, and details about every restaurant all in one digital download – along with ALL of our best tips and strategies from decades of Disney World trips. I Go to Disney World Every Week and I REFUSE to Eat at These Restaurants (But Not for the Reason You Think) Join the DFB Newsletter to get all the breaking news right in your inbox! Click here to Subscribe! WE KNOW DISNEY. YOU CAN, TOO. Oh boy, planning a Disney trip can be quite the adventure, and we totally get it! But fear not, dear friends, we compiled EVERYTHING you need (and the things to avoid!) to plan the ULTIMATE Disney vacation. Whether you're a rookie or a seasoned pro, our insider tips and tricks will have you exploring the parks like never before. So come along with us, and get planning your most magical vacation ever! GET YOUR GUIDE NOW Have you ever dined at Takumi-Tei? What was your experience like? Share with us in the comments!The post REVIEW: We Ate a 0 Meal in EPCOT and We'd Do It Again first appeared on the disney food blog.View the full article Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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