The food at Disneyland/DisneySea in Tokyo was shockingly good. I was expecting something along the lines of Disneyland Paris, which was pretty much nothing but boring theme park staples like chicken strips, hot dogs, and hamburgers.
Instead, there was a veritable cornucopia of interesting (and surprisingly delicious) treats. It was so amazing that I felt compelled to write a whole post about it. So buckle up, because here’s a breakdown of everything I ate in both parks (it’s interesting, trust me! No? Everyone stopped reading several sentences ago? Yeah, I get it).
Tokyo DisneySea
Now, this is going to seem like an absurd amount of food (and yeah, it kinda is), but in my defense I arrived at the park at 8:30 in the morning and didn’t leave until around 7:30 that night, so this was breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Also, everything looked good and I wanted to eat it. So there’s that.
Popcorn
They had popcorn stands all over the park, each selling one particular flavour. These flavours ranged from the standard to the bizarre. I sampled three different varieties, and they were all great. It helps, I’m sure, that these stands were all very popular, so the popcorn was always quite fresh.
There was blueberry, which had the perfect amount of sweetness and a surprisingly pronounced blueberry flavour; curry, which wasn’t spicy at all, but absolutely nailed the flavour; and garlic shrimp, which was so good at replicating that particular flavour that it almost seemed like a magic trick.
Chocolate Churro
You can’t go to a Disney park and not have a churro (unless you’re at Disneyland Paris, in which case they don’t sell churros like a bunch of stupid jerks); I had two at DisneySea, and the first one was chocolate. Imagine if a churro and a brownie had a baby, and you kind of know what to expect here (it was delicious, in case that description didn’t tip you off).
Sweet Fried Burrito
This was filled with banana, caramel, and a bottom layer of some kind of chocolate cake. The whole thing was wrapped in a tortilla and deep fried. Do I even need to say that it was delicious? Because of course it was delicious.
Ukiwah Bun
This was an Asian-style bun filled with shrimp and designed to look like a life preserver. Even if this were bad, this is what it looks like when they give it to you:
Delightful. It was otherwise a pretty standard bun; it was tasty, though nothing about it particularly stood out.
Gyoza Sausage Bun
Another bun; this one is shaped to look like a giant gyoza (a Japanese-style dumpling), and filled with gyoza filling. Tasty stuff.
Tiramisu Ice Cream Sandwich
This was probably the most disappointing thing I ate all day, and it was still pretty decent. It’s basically a standard ice cream sandwich with a vague coffee flavour.
Potato Churro
Churro number two. This was actually a churro in name (and shape) only; it was actually a savoury creation, with a lightly crispy exterior, and a creamy, vaguely chewy interior (I think from potato starch?). It was bizarre at first (especially since I was expecting something sweet), but after a few bites it grew on me. It was kind of like a cross between Pringles and mashed potatoes, only a little bit chewy. Odd, but good.
Bourbon at the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge
So DisneySea has a Teddy Roosevelt-themed bar on a full-sized steamship in the old New York area of the park.
I went there and had a bourbon, mostly just for the novelty value of drinking whiskey in an old-timey bar in a Disney Park.
They served it in a shot glass — I don’t know what they thought I had in mind for the evening, but I certainly didn’t drink this in a single shot.
Seafood-Cheese-Curry Fried Pizza
At this point I was actually pretty full, but then I saw a stand selling these things, and obviously I had to try one. I mean, what do I look like, someone who isn’t going to try a fried pizza filled with cheese and seafood curry in a theme park? This could have been disastrously bad, but I think it’s clear at this point that Tokyo Disney isn’t kidding around when it comes to food. It certainly wasn’t great — the crust was a bit soggy, and the seafood was overcooked — but it was way better than you might think, and a tasty way to end the day.
Tokyo Disneyland
The selection of food at this park wasn’t quite as awe-inspiring as what they’ve got going on in DisneySea, but it was still pretty impressive in its own right.
Sweet Potato Tipo Torta
I had absolutely no idea what this was going to be — it’s sort of churro-shaped, so I figured it would be something like that. It’s not that at all. The exterior is crispy, flaky, and buttery, like a really good pie crust, and it’s filled with a creamy, custardy sweet potato filling.
This was shockingly good — it was easily the best thing I ate at either park. It also had one of the longest lines, so clearly, everyone knew what’s up. I wish I could eat these all the time. I wish I could eat one right now.
Soy Sauce and Butter Popcorn
I was a bit popcorned-out from the three boxes at DisneySea, but I felt compelled to try this flavour. This was a rare misstep from Tokyo Disney. Not that there was anything wrong with it — it basically just tasted like standard popcorn. The soy sauce flavour really didn’t stand out at all.
Smoked Turkey Leg
Another Disneyland classic. This was quite tasty, with a nice smoky flavour, though it turns out that eating a turkey leg by hand is actually a bit of a pain thanks to all of the inedible bits you have to navigate around.
Pretzel Filled with Sweet Cream Cheese
This tasted more like a bagel than a pretzel, but it was nice and fresh, with a very generous amount of sweet cream cheese filling. Yeah, it was good.
Stormtrooper Dumplings
These were mochi balls with little Stormtrooper faces printed on them, which is delightful, obviously. They also tasted really good, with three different fillings — custard, strawberry, and caramel.
Here’s a little thing that shows you the surprising amount of care Tokyo Disney puts into their food: the strawberry filling is clearly made with real strawberries, because there were a few little strawberry seeds interspersed throughout. Any other theme park would just use cheap strawberry flavouring and call it a day, but not here. It’s so great.
Pork on a Chinese Bun
Last but certainly not least, there’s this Chinese bun with pork belly and some kind of sauteed greens. The bun was fluffy and perfect, the pork was unctuous and tender with a really tasty sauce, and the bitter greens helped to cut the richness of the pork.
Also, it looked like Mickey’s glove. Come on, man. Food this good at a theme park? Delightful and delicious? What is this madness?
But that’s just the way that Tokyo Disney rolls. And not only was everything really good, but it also wasn’t crazy expensive. Pretty much everything was between three and six bucks Canadian, which certainly isn’t cheap — but it’s still quite reasonable for food at a theme park.
So there you have it. If you go to either Disney park in Tokyo (and you should definitely at least make time for DisneySea — it’s magical), make sure you go with an empty stomach.