REVIEW: If You Hear Shouting From the Rooftops in EPCOT, It's Just Me Singing the Praises of This Food Booth

Welcome to EPCOT’s Japan Pavilion, where we’re paying a visit to the Shi Wasu Holiday Kitchen!

2024 Shi Wasu Holiday Kitchen

Shi Wasu Holiday Kitchen is one of the Holiday Kitchens (also known as Food Booths) at the 2024 EPCOT Festival of the Holidays. It’s probably best known as being home to the popular Sushi Tree Roll during the Festival, but with new and returning dishes and drinks, that’s not the only trick Shi Wasu has up its sleeve this year. We’re checking it out and bringing you our review!

Shi Wasu Holiday Kitchen was a serious contender for our FAVORITE food booth at the Festival of the Holidays last year, so we’re especially excited to check out the offerings which include the returning Sushi Tree Roll and Toshikoshi Soba. But we’re likewise intrigued to try the new Mochi Donut Wrap!

2024 Shi Wasu Holiday Kitchen Menu

Featured on the drinks menu is the Ichigo Boba, Japanese Punch, and the new Chocolate Nigori. Sapporo Premium Black Beer makes a return, too.

We hope you’re as excited as we are to try it all!

Eats

TA-DA!!! It just doesn’t feel like the holidays at EPCOT without grabbing a Sushi Tree Roll!

Sushi Tree!

This Insta-worthy Christmas tree-shaped sushi roll is made with krab meat and cream cheese and topped with ikura salmon roe and spicy mayo. It costs $7.50, and just so happened to make our Best of the Fest list last year. Once again, this is a pretty solid treat, but this year, we’re not really considering it a must-have. It’s a really fun shape and it’s a festival icon, but the sushi quality is just fine. It’s not very spicy overall and there’s not as much salmon roe as we’d like. Still, it’s a great option for sushi lovers!

Sushi Tree Roll

Not to be outdone, the Toshikoshi Soba also ranked on our Best Of list in 2023. It comes in at $8.50.

Toshikoshi Soba

Buckwheat soba noodles are served in a hot dashi (fish-based) soup and topped with shrimp tempura and chopped green onion. We absolutely loved this one! The dashi is incredibly flavorful thanks to the fish, and it has a little bit of saltiness. The noodles are super soft and mix perfectly with the broth. Our one warning here is to not let the tempura sit in the soup too long — otherwise it gets soggy. If you eat it right away, it’s nice and crisp!

Look at those noods

Making its debut this year is the Mochi Donut Wrap for $6.50! Disney describes this treat as “a soft, chewy fusion pastry.” It’s served with strawberry, whipped cream, strawberry sauce, and sweet red beans all wrapped with a ‘gyuhi’ rice cake sheet.

Mochi Donut Wrap

We really enjoyed this as well! It was light and fluffy, and the rice sheet on top wasn’t too powdery. The strawberry sauce had a great balance of sweetness to bring the treat together.

Inside the Mochi Donut

But what about the drinks?

Drinks

The Ichigo Boba is a cranberry and yuzu cream drink with calpico and popping strawberry boba pearls. This non-alcoholic drink costs $7. Once again, we’ve got an item that we LOVED! It’s mostly sweet, so that cranberry comes through in a lovely way. The cream can separate a little bit, but once we gave it a stir, it all blended back together. Delicious!

Ichigo Boba

Also up for grabs is the Japanese Punch with Shōchū, plum wine, cranberry, and lemon juice for $8.25.

Japanese Punch

This light and fruity beverage is a lot like drinking… well, juice, with the plum, cranberry, and lemon flavors coming together nicely. Shōchū is a distilled liquor, and its strength does make its presence known a bit. That said, it’s not overpowering in the drink.

The menu describes the new Chocolate Nigori as having the “Creamy texture of Nigori Sake and rich sweetness and gentle bitterness from chocolate,” and it costs $10. Finally, Sapporo Premium Black Beer is available for $5.50 or $9.50, depending on your portion size.

OVERALL

How does Shi Wasu stack up? Well, this was one of our best booths of the day! Three items absolutely knocked it out of the park, and the fourth was still pretty delicious, so we can’t complain one bit. We keep coming back year after year for that Soba, and the Mochi Donut Wrap is a new favorite that we hope to see again in the future!

Shi Wasu Spread

On top of that, the Boba is SO refreshing, and it’s exactly what we needed to pair with our eats. Five stars to Shi Wasu this year!

Shi Wasu is the next booth on our list!

🎄 Sushi Tree Roll
🍜 Toshikoshi Soba
🍩 Mochi Donut Wrap
🧋 Ichigo Boba (Non-alcoholic beverage) pic.twitter.com/2wbV6HOgFw

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) November 29, 2024

Thanks for joining us at Shi Wasu Holiday Kitchen! And don’t forget that we’ve got LOTS more to check out at this most festive of all the EPCOT Festivals!

Click here to see FULL reviews of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Festival of the Holidays!

Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the 2024 EPCOT Festival of the Holidays? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know:

And don’t forget to pick up our 2024 DFB Guide to the Holidays at Disney World! See more details about the book below.

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