First, thanks for all of the lovely comments/compliments! I've enjoyed everyone else's dining reviews so much, and they helped me to select our ADRs for this trip, so it's nice to hear that mine are helpful too.
Our final ADR on 8/10 was for Tokyo Dining. I knew that everyone would want to go to one of the Japanese TS restaurants, but deciding which one was more difficult. We had never been to Tokyo Dining and we had dined at Teppan Edo on previous trips, but none of us remembered raving about it or absolutely loving it. I know that a lot of people here recommend Teppan Edo, but I didn't think DH would be into the whole sitting with other families thing, and after looking at pictures of the food from the lovely reviews on this board
, I went with Tokyo Dining. Now, no one but me likes sushi, but I knew that DH, Mom, and Grandma love tempura and would all enjoy it. I wasn't pregnant when I made our ADRs, so I had planned on having sushi. By the time we arrived at WDW, however, my plans had obviously changed! When we arrived, I was a bit worried about the ADR and not sure I'd made the right decision--so many people recommend Teppan Edo, and having your food cooked in front of you is kind of fun.
We walked around the Japan pavilion a bit before checking in at the restaurant. We got to see the Taiko drummers, which was neat.
Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the inside of the restaurant, but it was very nice. I hadn't remembered that Tokyo Dining and Teppan Edo share a waiting area, and you actually have to walk through Tokyo to get to Teppan. Both restaurants were extremely busy, and we had to wait about 20 minutes for our ADR (the first time we'd really had to wait at all for anything!). When we were seated, though, everything was great. Our server was very attentive even though she obviously had a lot of tables assigned to her. She brought us warm, wet towels to clean our hands prior to the meal, which was a nice touch. I also didn't get pictures of the menu, but the non-sushi menu was the same as the
allears menu.
For their appetizers, Grandma and Mom ordered the garden salad with sesame dressing. It didn't look like anything special, but they both rated it a 4 and said that the dressing was amazing.
DH ordered the karaage, which was basically fried chicken with a sweet dipping sauce. I tried a piece and thought the breading was very nice, if a bit mild. But DH likes mild, so he rated this a 4. He ate all of it, so he must have liked it...
Finally, since I knew I wouldn't be ordering a tempura entree, I got the tempura appetizer. I don't eat shrimp, so I donated mine to DH, and he seemed to enjoy them. I also forgot to take a picture until after I had started eating (I was so hungry!), so apologies for the half-eaten food pictures. The shrimp is not pictured, but you'll get to see it in all of the entrees anyway. The rest of the appetizer consisted of a chicken strip, zucchini, and something that I think was a yam (it was orange and a bit crunchy). I rated this a 4. The tempura was very good and the veggies were crisp-tender--just how I like them!
For their entrees, Grandma, Mom, and DH all ordered tempura. Grandma and DH got the roppongi, which is tempura shrimp and scallops. It also came with a cucumber salad (sunomono), a noodle dish (somen salad), and miso soup.
I was a bit slow with all of my pictures that night--DH had already donated his miso soup to me by the time I snapped this picture. He didn't like the soup; I thought it was pretty good, but definitely not the best miso I've had. I think I'd rate it a 3. DH gave his meal a 4 overall, but he didn't like any of the accompaniments, so basically all he ate was tempura and rice. I guess he really liked the tempura. I tried a bit of his cucumber salad and the noodles and thought they were both delicious, especially the cucumber salad. It had a very nice flavor and the cucumbers were still crunchy. Grandma, who had the same meal, rated it a 5. She loved the noodles, which had some kind of vinegar sauce or flavoring on them, and she devoured her cucumber salad. Both DH and Grandma thought that the scallops were the best part of the meal and Grandma noted that they were perfectly cooked. DH ate every last bite of his scallops, so again, I'm going to assume that they were really good.
For her entree, Mom chose the Ebi (tempura shrimp). I can't find it on the menu anywhere, but it came with different sides and tempura veggies. She thought the veggies, especially the green beens, were very good. Mom rated this a 5. She loved the tempura, and she surprised herself by falling in love with the seaweed salad. She had tried sushi before and hated the seaweed wrapper, but she loved this salad.
For my entree, I decided to be healthy and went with the Japanese-style grilled breast of chicken with teriyaki sauce. I donated my rice to DH (the man can eat a LOT of rice in one sitting!) and enjoyed the chicken and vegetables. Again, the vegetables were perfectly cooked to a nice crisp-tender, and the chicken was moist and flavorful. I was very satisfied with this entree even though it wasn't tempura or sushi, and gave it a 4.
The highlight of the night for me was, of course, sushi! Fortunately, Tokyo Dining has a little vegetarian icon next to their vegetarian sushi items, and they also tell you which meat/fish is cooked and which ones are raw. I decided that I couldn't possibly eat a meal at Tokyo Dining without sushi, so I ordered the cucumber roll, after double checking with the server to make sure that it had no raw fish in it and asking her to make sure it was sliced with a clean knife. Individual sushi orders are not included on DxDP, so I had to pay out of pocket for this one, but it was definitely worth the $4! This sushi was so simple, and yet so amazing. As you can see, it was just the wrapper, rice, cucumber, and sesame seeds. I drizzled a bit of teriyaki sauce over it and ended up eating every bite. Did I mention that it was amazing? I'm getting hungry again for sushi just by looking at the picture! Maybe it's just because I love sushi and have been so deprived for the past few months, but I thought it was the best part of the meal. I rated this a 5. It is also very pretty...
For dessert, DH and Mom decided to be sticks in the mud and ordered vanilla soft-serve ice cream. In all fairness, this was very good. DH gave it a 4 and Mom gave it a 5. It was light and fluffy and had a nice vanilla flavor. But...it was just soft-serve ice cream!
Grandma got the green tea pudding. She gave this a 4. I tried a bite and thought it was very tasty. The green tea flavor was very mild, and the pudding was not too sweet. It was more like flan/custard than what Americans think of as pudding, but it was very good.
Finally, I ordered the chocolate ginger cake. This was phenomenal--I gave it a 5. The ginger flavor was very light and was only present in the bottom cake layers. There was also a layer of chocolate mousse and chocolate fudge frosting on top. The flavors combined perfectly. I need to find a recipe for this, stat.
Overall, we all really enjoyed Tokyo Dining. It was my favorite non-signature TS, and Mom and Grandma both preferred it over Teppan Edo, which they remembered from our last visit to Disney in the early 2000s. This is a must-visit on all future trips to WDW--especially since next time, I will actually get to order a full sushi meal!
Our son graduated a few years back and he couldn't believe the difference between snow removal (lack of) in Muncie and up here in the NW corner. Looking forward to the rest of your reviews and yes, we do miss our parent visits to BSU!!!! It was a lot of fun.
). Both of the non-soft serve dessert options look great - I think I would try the green tea pudding, since I like both green tea and flan.
), so I volunteered to carry the backpack of supplies for the rest of the trip. This meant that I couldn't carry my camera bag, which contained my dSLR camera and all of the various lenses that I was using to take pictures. I had brought my point and shoot camera with, so I used that for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, this means that all of the subsequent pictures are of much lower quality, and many of them are blurry. I couldn't get the flash on the P&S to function correctly, so I had a lot of trouble taking indoor pictures. Apologies in advance for the blurry food pictures--I tried my best! 
