Hanami
Hanami (means “cherry blossom”, very appropriate for a spring flower and garden festival don’t you think?) is located across from the Mituskoshi store in the Japan pavilion. We had stopped earlier in the festival and tried the Chirashi, we liked it quite a bit. There are few standing tables to the left between Hanami and the Taste of Marrakesh booth, thankfully these are at least partially in the shade. I confess that we drug one of the tables a bit more into the shade because of the brilliant sunshine.
Featured Plantings at Hanami
The educational poster here was about yuzu… (I don’t have any fun facts about yuzu)
Learn about Yuzu
The listed featured plantings are Yuzu, Ginger, and Coconut…
Yuzu tree
Lemongrass (not a featured planting)
Common Ginger & we couldn’t tell what the coconut palm was
“Did you know?”
more lemongrass and another yuzu plant
Bell Peppers
No photo of the menu…
Chirashi Hanazushi, Frozen Kirin Ichiban, and Yakisoba Pan
We were pretty dubious of the YakiSoba Pan (it’s a noodle sandwich), we knew that we liked the Chirashi, and we are familiar with the Frozen Kirin Ichiban (but not the lime beer foam, we usually just get plain beer foam)…
The beer is described as “Frozen Kirin Ichiban – innovative draught with a refreshing Frozen Foam topping” – and everytime we’ve had one of these since the Food & Wine Festival last year, someone has stopped to ask us what we’re drinking. This was so wonderful and refreshing on a hot day – the only problem, not getting frozen beer foam all over your nose 🙂 The slight lime flavor to the foam was vaguely reminiscent of a Bud Light Lime or a Corona with lime…
Frozen Kirin Ichiban? Yes, please. We’ll take 4 — one for each hand!
Chirashi Hanazushi (Grilled Salmon, cooked Shrimp, and Crab Stick, over a bed of fragrant Ginger Rice with Volcano and Dynamite Sauce
The rice on the Chirashi was a bit dry… as in dried out. Again, the grilled salmon looked more like salmon salad than an actual piece of grilled salmon. It was good on the second tasting, but it was better the first time that we had it. One change, we think, is that this had little bits of tamago (scrambled egg omelet) on it – see the little yellow “crumbs”?
The salmon is the mushy pink stuff under the shrimp tail
We like all of the elements in this dish, the only drawback was that the rice was dry, we added some soy sauce and that seemed to help, but the saltiness of the soy was almost too much for the other components.
YakiSoba Pan – Fresh grilled carrots, onions, and cabbage with Japanese noodles and teriyaki sauce served on a bun with mayonnaise and Beni Shoga
Yes, a noodle sandwich. If you think it looks messy, you’re right this thing was pretty difficult to eat. Thankfully, the bun was moist and soft (Sarah at EatingWDW received a dry bun when she tried it). There were no discernible vegetables while we were eating it, looking at the photo, I do see some onions. We’re not huge fans of teriyaki sauce (too sweet maybe)… It was interesting to eat, but in a strange way.
YakiSoba Pan
Now, we’re not adverse to carbohydrates, although we do try to limit them, this was just starch on starch on starch with a little bit of mayonnaise and sweet. Nick says there’s no reason to order this again anywhere anytime.
Now, on to round 2 – Frushi and Fruit Sake
Frushi and Fruit Sake
Frushi is described as “fresh strawberries, pineapple, and cantaloupe, rolled with coconut rice, atop a raspberry sauce sprinkled with toasted coconut and whipped cream”… we didn’t think we’d like this.
Frushi – it’s quite pretty to look at
It wasn’t as bad as we expected, but it’s not something we’d eat again.
Pineapple and Canteloupe filling – we weren’t sure what the wrapping was, probably rice paper
It tasted like kiddie food – nothing very strong flavor or texture wise – just sort of there.
the barest sprinkle of toasted coconut
Definitely not one of the standout desserts of the festival.
The fruit sake (Peach infused sake) was $8.50. It was like a cheap wine cooler from 1983 (and I should know what a cheap wine cooler tasted like in 1983 because I drank quite a few of them!). But you know what? It still went down mighty easy on a 90 degree Florida afternoon.
And finally, round 3 (why 3 rounds? because I had to stay and keep our table in the shade!) – Green Tea Flan and Hana Awaka Sake
Hana Awaka Sake and Green Tea Flan
We didn’t like this flan as much as the one that the Mexico booth is offering. It was more bland.
Green tea flan – you can see where it was baked in a water bath (dark area on the container)
This was just “eh”… I couldn’t really taste the green tea…
Green tea flan (caramel sauce in the bottom)
The portion was a good size for a tasting.
The Hana Awaka Sake (every time I type “Hana Awaka Sake” I hear Fozzie Bear from the Muppets going “waka waka”)… This is still a sweet sake, but we both liked this much better. It’s a sparkling sake, which we don’t drink very often. Definitely something I’d drink again.
Final thoughts…
This booth was disappointing. The food that we’ve had at the Food & Wine Festival at the Japan booth usually has at least one item that’s pretty doggoned interesting and tasty. The food that we’ve had a Tokyo Dining is typically good. Maybe they’re targeting a more pedestrian palate? Regardless, it didn’t meet our expectations.
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