Today marks a monumental day for Edamamaster, because today I am reviewing Samurai Sushi. What makes this particular restaurant of interest is the fact that it is located in Orlando, Florida. For the first time, Edamamaster is breaking out of the Chicago edamame scene and into the exotic lands of Florida.

       Samurai Sushi is a Japanese themed sushi restaurant in Orlando.  It is a very relaxed environment with some themed artwork hanging on the walls and a bar located immediately at the front of the restaurant. Several booths line the outside of the restaurant with oriental paper lanterns sitting on a mantle above each booth.  The tables are set with chopsticks and individual trays for personal soy sauce. My favorite touch was that each table was set with a basket of hot towels.

      The menu is very standard for a sushi restaurant, but I’m very excited to see how the sushi compares to that of Chicago.  Seeing as Florida is much closer to the ocean, I’m expecting it to be extremely fresh.

       For alcohol there are 10-15 wines and about 10 beers to choose from, including domestics and a few Japanese imports  I selected the Sapporo, one of the more popular Japanese import beers and one of my personal favorites.

       Me and my party ordered about 7 rolls of various styles including yellow tail, salmon, crab and a few others to go along with our edamame.

        After a rather lengthy wait, The edamame came served in a steep plastic bowl, and a second bowl to discard empty shells into.  Despite the long wait the edamame came a little under cooked. Some pieces were too firm while others were already broken open. The salt distribution was extremely light for my taste.  In fact, most pieces had no salt at all on them. The portion size was moderate and quickly consumed. Between the lengthy wait, the uneven cooking and the barely existent salt I was left wondering if maybe we had just caught the restaurant at a bad time.

      The sushi came served with all 7 rolls on a giant party platter, the display was very nice and the waitress pointed out and explained all the different rolls we had ordered so we would know what we were getting into. All 7 rolls were delicious and tasted as well as they were presented. For such a large party we had expected the rolls to go fast but the portions were very generous and left us all fulfilled. While the portion of the sushi was great, the wasabi and ginger servings were brought out with only enough for a single person. We informed the waitress of this and were given a much larger chunk of Wasabi at no additional price.

     Overall Samurai Sushi was a great place to go for sushi.  There were tons of options and each of them was delicious. The price was also extremely nice for the amount of food we got, so if you are in a large party this place is great. However, the edamame left me a little disappointed. Between being unevenly cooked and lacking in salt, it makes me wonder if Florida just might not be ready for edamame yet. I’m leaving Samurai Sushi with a double pod rating.