This review reflects our experience in October of 2015.
Recently there has been a huge change in Walt Disney World. What was once known as Downtown Disney has been reimagined into Disney Springs. Disney Springs features more restaurants and retail locations than in the past. One of the biggest changes is the new section named The Landing. The Landing features many restaurants including the newest from Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, Morimoto Asia.
We were so excited to try Morimoto Asia because of all the great things we had heard within the few days of it being open. Morimoto Asia features pan-Asian cuisine and several vegetable dishes. The restaurant is two stories with a sushi restaurant upstairs and the main restaurant downstairs. Morimoto Asia featured beautifully designed furniture, chandeliers and black and white photos covering one wall. One part we didn’t love was ducks hanging in the open kitchen, luckily our table didn’t face that so we didn’t have to see them all dinner. While we were there Chef Morimoto was walking around the restaurant, we hoped to get a photo with him but he ended up spending the rest of the time working in the sushi bar.
We spoke with our server about being vegan and she didn’t totally understand so she brought over a manager. The manager told us the following were all vegan as is; Edamame, Sesame Balls, Vegetable Dumplings, House Greens, Wok Sautéed Chinese Vegetables, Szechuan Long Beans, Steamed Vegetables, Veggie Tofu Medley. He also said that we could get vegetable sushi made without mayo. I asked if we could get the Pad Thai vegan but was told it had fish sauce in it.
We ordered the Sesame Balls as one of our appetizers. The balls are filled with red bean paste and fried in a separate fryer to keep the sweet taste. The sesame balls were our favorite part of the meal. They were crispy on the outside, warm and sweet from the red bean paste on the inside. We had never had them before, so we were a little nervous that they would be heavy on the sesame flavor. We didn’t even taste the sesame and would definitely get them again.
We ordered the Vegetable Dumplings along with the Sesame Balls. The dumplings were filled with napa cabbage, kale, carrots, tofu and garlic chives. They weren’t very flavorful, I wouldn’t have known any of that was in them if I hadn’t read the menu. They were steamed so they were very floppy and broke in half when we tried to eat them.
For our entree we ordered the Veggie Tofu Medley. The manager had told us all the vegetables on the veg section were steamed except for the Wok Sautéed ones. The dish featured quick fried tofu, carrot, asparagus, snap peas, mushrooms and onions. The menu describes different vegetables in the dish so they may be more of an ‘in season’ selection.
The sauce for the dish was described as a Sweet Soy Sauce. We both had pretty intense flavors of garlic, ginger and citrus. It almost seemed like the sauce wasn’t mixed very well because some bites were stronger with flavors than the others.
The best part of the dish was the tofu. The tofu was pretty firm, relatively crispy and held most of the sauce. The vegetables were just okay in the dish. If you want rice with your dish you have to pay another $2 for brown or white. As a whole we were pretty unimpressed with our meal here. We has pretty high expectations because of reviews and even a recommendation from Chef TJ at Trail’s End. If we came back we would probably just go upstairs to the sushi bar and hopefully get some sesame balls too.
Would we go back?
Probably not. If we needed to dine in Disney Springs I would consider the sushi bar.
Price?
$$$
Corey & Melissa
I went in August 2019 & the offerings were perhaps even more limited than when this review was written. The server’s attitude wasn’t too helpful either “Wow, there really isn’t much for you.”
Ugh that’s not what we want to hear ☹️
Those sesame balls sound incredible. That’s unfortunate they couldn’t make the Pad Thai vegan. I would think they could just leave out the fish sauce.