Orlando Sentinel Review: Teppan Edo and Tokyo Dining

[Ed]

From OrlandoSentinel.com


Review: Teppan Edo and Tokyo Dining
At Epcot's World Showcase, two restaurants offer Japanese ambience.

Scott Joseph
Sentinel Restaurant Critic
March 30, 2008

It used to be that the restaurants in the pavilions that line Epcot's World Showcase were the only places in Central Florida to offer a glimpse of the host countries' cuisine and traditions.

That's hardly the case anymore. Most of the cuisines can be found outside the theme park these days. And even the cultural exchange of meeting young people from the various nations brought over to work in the pavilions holds less allure as they become more Americanized in their behavior and attitudes toward the guests.

But the restaurants in the Japan pavilion remain the exception. Although the food is no different -- or for that matter any better -- than any you can find at dozens of area sushi bars and Japanese steakhouses, the staff does more to transport the guests to another land. The bowing alone is enough to provide a cultural shock for the uninitiated.

But the two main restaurants at Japan also offer a contrast to the traditional. At Tokyo Dining, an austerely decorated but oddly serene restaurant that specializes in sushi, the sushi chefs both times I visited were all women. Although no longer unheard of, women as sushi chefs are still a rarity.

But next door at Teppan Edo, the teppanyaki steakhouse where guests sit around a griddle as the chef performs a sort of cooking floor show, there are women cooking alongside the men. This is the first time I've encountered this, and I was struck by the unique perspective a woman brings to the performance.

The women I observed, including the one who cooked for me and my companion, as well as the six other guests seated at our table/grill, brought an extra unabashed silliness to an already silly situation.

I have to admit that teppanyaki grills are one of my least favorite forms of dining. The food is rarely extraordinary and always more expensive than it needs to be. And then, of course, there is all the unnecessary banging and clanging of metal on metal as the chef attempts to make the process look more difficult than it is and the food more exotic than it could ever be.

But I found myself perfectly charmed by the young woman who served as our teppanyaki chef, even as one of the spatulas she was juggling in her precooking warm-up routine flew across the grill into my place setting. Or as she scooted a shrimp along the grill and, using her knife, waved the tail and cooed "hello" at all the people sitting before her. The male chefs just don't do that.

(The woman at the cooking station behind ours scooted her shrimp along the grill and sang a tune from The Little Mermaid, which made me laugh and caused her to apologize to the children at the table when she cut off the animated shrimp's tail.)

And the reconstruction of sliced onion rings into a volcano complete with steam spewing from the top was entertaining, more so than the two rings added to the top to simulate mouse ears, or the zucchini spears placed next to the volcano, now a snout, to represent Goofy.

The chef eventually chops all the vegetables and mixes them with soba noodles, which are doled out among the guests as the side dish to whatever entrees they selected.

My companion chose the scallops ($20) and I selected the combination steak and shrimp ($29). It's a good thing I did because everyone else at the table ordered chicken and we would have been deprived the joy of the singing shrimp and the ceremonial flipping of the severed tails into the chef's hat. (When she flipped one too hard and it flew over her head, the chef said, "It's windy," which made me laugh again.

The shrimp were good, as was the steak, which was grilled to order and sliced into chopstickable cubes. My guest's scallops were plentiful, but neither entree was worth the cost.

Still, I counted 20 teppan grills, and all were fired up on a weekday lunch hour, so apparently lots of people are willing to pay the price for the entertainment.

Next door at Tokyo Dining, the atmosphere is a bit quieter. The sushi chefs work at a station framed by a proscenium that gradually changes color. Most of the specialty rolls seem to be based on California rolls with other fish and toppings added. That probably helps move things along quickly.

My rainbow roll ($12) with salmon and avocado was delivered promptly but did not have a pre-made quality at all. It tasted fresh and delicious. Even more impressive was the pieces of nigirizushi ($4.50-$18.50) I sampled. The slices of fish were expertly pressed on the pads of vinegared rice and stayed put even when flipped over to dip in the soy sauce. That's the sign of a good sushi chef.

The highlight of Tokyo Dining's room is the row of windows that offer an expansive view of the lagoon, even to those seated farther inside the room. It just may be the best view in the park. In the other direction, a large-screen television displays serene and colorful scenes of Japan.

Women were the only servers in either restaurant -- gender barriers don't fall in both directions, apparently -- and they were all charming and proper, thanking guests for waiting for too long even for food brought too quickly, and bowing when approaching the table and when leaving. It causes one to wonder how to respond. A nod would be the appropriate response if you were in Japan, and for the time you're dining in either restaurant there's no reason to believe you're not.

Scott Joseph can be reached at [email protected] or 407-420-5514. Read his past reviews at OrlandoSentinel.com/dining



Copyright © 2008, Orlando Sentinel

[PetefromRI]

Great article,
I have to agree with everything he said.We ate at TD and thought that it was some of the best sushi we've ever had(everything always tastes better at Disney).The room was beautiful and the service outstanding.Will Go Again!!!

[BluewaterBrad]

Thanks Ed. Good article!!

[Crow]

Have to agree w TD. i ate there about a month ago, arriving on my first day just before they started serving lunch. mass bow greeting from the whole staff as they opened. the $3 mill rehab turned out great. the servers were among the most pleasant of my stay, amid bows & apologies for the wait....when there wasnt one even. I ended up eating here again later in the week. & the price of sushi isnt bad. the view always was a fav of mine.
Cant wait to go back in Sept

[garymacd]

Can't wait! We're eating there in May.

[JerseyDad]

.....all of our visits to WDW have included dinner at Teppan Edo ...which is of course used to be Teppanyaki. The hibachi steak-house food is (I think) a step above other similar type restauraunts, and is definitely on-par with probably the most established Japanese restauraunt of this type...Benihana. (and I KNOW that the average prices are below those of Benihana). The service has never been anything less than A+....and we've been lucky enough to have the SAME hibachi chef...the past two years in a row!

.....and the courtesy extended by the general staff and hostesses is incredible. On our last visit this past fall, we were seated...and when the chef arrived...the cooking surface was not heating properly for his liking. He had us all moved to another table (10 feet away...no big deal)....appologized profusely....and then had a round of drinks brought to the table....on the house.

.....Teppan Edo will always be one of our dinner reservations when we are at WDW.

[SurferStitch]

.....all of our visits to WDW have included dinner at Teppan Edo ...which is of course used to be Teppanyaki. The hibachi steak-house food is (I think) a step above other similar type restauraunts, and is definitely on-par with probably the most established Japanese restauraunt of this type...Benihana. (and I KNOW that the average prices are below those of Benihana). The service has never been anything less than A+....and we've been lucky enough to have the SAME hibachi chef...the past two years in a row!
.....Teppan Edo will always be one of our dinner reservations when we are at WDW.

I will totally agree with you on this. We've eaten at several hibachi restaurants in our area, and none are as good as Teppan Edo. We dined at a Benihana once, and it was VERY expensive. Our meal there was easily 25-30% higher than at Teppan Edo, for the same amount of food. The other places we've dined at seem to use way too much sauce, making the food very salty. Also, Teppan Edo uses the best (and largest) scallops I've ever had at a hibachi restaurant!

The service at Teppan Edo is definitely the best we've ever had at a hibachi restaurant, as were the chefs.

I can't say that any hibachi restaurant outside WDW that we've been to has been of the same high standard and value as Teppan Edo. The bar is certainly set high at Teppan Edo.

[mdricks]

TD is a never miss for me. The wait staff truly makes you feel like you have flown across the world for lunch. Ambience is everything.

[Floridian Yeti]

We've got a late dinner seating at TD next month, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the 'austere' decor and experiencing the service, which from all accounts is quite impressive. My DW loves Asian food (and shopping in the Japan pavilion), and does not even know this restaurant has opened, so this is my little surprise for her

Hopefully we'll be able to catch some of IllumiNations from the restaurant...do any of you know if that is possible?

[Crow]

You can see Illuminations thru the window at Tokyo Dining, or go outside on the balcony area.
enjoy

[MickeyChick]

Our male chef at Teppan Edo was kind of a dud. Maybe it's because he is, as he told us, HAwaiian and not Japanese.