Sticky ribs at Morimoto Asia were the best thing we ate last weekend

Here’s a tip: If you want to try the newest, buzziest restaurant in town on one of their busiest nights of the year, but failed to make a reservation (hey, sometimes the urge just hits!), don’t bother with the dining room. Some of the best seats in the house (and the most available ones) are elsewhere. Morimoto Asia has a couple of those areas, including the bar downstairs, the lounge upstairs and the hidden sushi bar where we were seated immediately on Saturday night while the rest of those poor souls downstairs in the rain waited for tables that were booked through 10 p.m. 

Morimoto Asia at the Landing at Disney Springs also happened to be the site of the best thing we ate all weekend — those sticky ribs you see up above. Crispy, tender, messy, salty, sticky, sweet, they were pretty much everything we wanted them to be and then some. The ribs are first braised for more than three hours, then dunked in cornstarch and flash-fried for that crispy crust, then doused in the proprietary hoisin sweet-and-sour sauce. Holy moly.

Three of them will set you back $14 (don’t worry, they’re pretty substantial and make a perfectly appropriate appetizer for two to share, or an entree for one); a half-rack is $36. 

If you’re feeling frisky and want to try making them on your own at home, here’s the recipe from the Disney Food Blog.

Skip dessert at Morimoto like we did, and head to the Ganachery instead, just a couple of doors down. The newly opened truffle shop from Disney pastry god Stefan Riemer features 20 different rotating flavors, and the matcha yuzu chocolates are a fitting yin to the yang at Morimoto Asia.

This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2016.