Food & Wine Festival 2015: Japan

Our third stop of our food extravaganza, and our final stop of Saturday night, was Japan.

Photo taken a few days later because the one I got that night wasn't great.

This is where a slight panic over money hit. Ean and I have been saving up all of the cash tips we receive from catering to take to Disney for food and souvenirs. We brought plenty (only ended up spending about 2/5 of what we brought by the end of the trip), but when you see that the price of a small plate of sushi is $5, you realize that you're about to fork out a lot of money on just small samples of food. We nearly skipped Japan all together and just went to the Japanese quick service restaurant we always go to- Katsura Grill.

After much discussion, we finally decided to try the Japan booth because we have Katsura all the time. We know that their sushi is very tasty, and we would have been paying a whole lot more for nearly the same amount of sushi.

Japan is the only place where we tried two of the menu items rather than just one. Ean wanted to get the tempura shrimp roll, and I wanted to try the miso udon. We sampled a taste of each other's, of course!

The tempura shrimp roll was very tasty. Ean is a sushi fan and he loved it. Tempura shrimp is a crispy breaded shrimp. I absolutely love tempura shrimp. The roll had cucumber and was topped with a teriyaki sauce. It also had a little taste of ginger on the side, which we never eat.

The miso udon was amazing, in my opinion. The broth was real spicy. It had several cooked shrimp, vegetables, and noodles in the broth. I always get the tempura shrimp udon at Katsura. I love the udon noodles. I REALLY liked this spicy broth. If we had more time, I would have gotten this again. Japan was a really popular booth, and I can see why. Both these dishes were incredible.

The Japan booth also offered a spicy hand roll (tuna and salmon with Kazan volcano sauce) and a Teriyaki Gyoza bun (steamed bun with chicken, vegetables, and sweet teriyaki). They offered a kirin draft beer, pineapple infused sake, Komatsu Tatewake Samurai sake, and Suigei Drunken Whale sake. I have no idea what sake tastes like, but I love pineapple, so that sake sure sounded interesting! Maybe next time, Japan.

As we ate, we got to enjoy a nice view of the World Showcase Lagoon. Japan was the only place we were able to snag a cocktail table that day, and we shared with another couple towards the end of our eating. Sometimes that's just what you gotta do at these festivals!