Guide to Teppanyaki: Japanese Teppanyaki Grill
Teppanyaki is a modern style of Japanese cuisine. Its foundation is an teppanyaki grill where the food is grilled in front of customers. This experience turned into a performance. Outside of Japan, teppanyaki is often called "hibachi", and a skilled chef cooks various meats, seafood and vegetables on the table. This style of dining is believed to have originated in post-war Japan, when a Japanese restaurant chain that tried to imitate American steak was popular overseas.
It is said that the Misono Steak Restaurant in Kobe created this kind of gourmet entertainment following the model of a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Most teppanyaki table restaurants use expensive, high-quality ingredients, making it an expensive meal for special occasions. Because of this, Japanese TV dramas and movies often show that people with high social status, such as politicians or doctors, treat teppanyaki as a meal and use this as a reason for conversation. In addition, there are many similar grilled foods that require teppanyaki grill plate like teppanyaki. Okonomiyaki or monjayaki can also be called "teppanyaki".
What is Teppanyaki?
The Teppanyaki Table Equipment
The core of teppanyaki is a wide and flat teppanyaki grill called "iron plate", which was invented after the introduction of modern steel manufacturing in Japan. Since the early days, teppanyaki-style dishes have been popular in the western Kansai region, such as okonomiyaki (a delicious pancake) and Yaksoba fried noodles, but it is the Tokyo teppanyaki steakhouses that brought the teppanyaki grill to the restaurant’s best cutting edge.
In the Teppanyaki restaurant, the teppanyaki grill is located at the table, and the chef cooks directly in front of the guests. Teppanyaki cooking methods usually emphasize using very little oil to grill fresh ingredients, although the sauce made with shallow fish is eaten with the dipping sauce. The chef uses a metal spatula and baking fork to manipulate the ingredients, and a sharp knife.
Teppanyaki Drama
A core aspect of the Teppanyaki restaurant is that the chef demonstrates dynamic cooking techniques, which can make the experience similar to a dinner theater. This includes turning the cooked prawns onto the waiting plate of the diners, cutting meat and seafood precisely, and lighting diced onions in the shape of a volcano. Although some of the more dazzling dinner performance techniques are used less frequently in Japan than overseas, Japanese teppanyaki chefs are culinary experts and the ingredients used are of the highest quality, so you will surely enjoy a delicious dinner.
Teppanyaki Food and Courses
Different restaurants may have different menus, but most teppanyaki shops offer Western dishes with Japanese characteristics. The recipe usually starts with an appetizer (called "zensai"), followed by soup and salad, followed by seafood dishes, the main course is meat dishes, rice, and then dessert with coffee and tea.
Appetizers include seaweed salad or fresh fish fillets. The type of soup can be traditional miso soup, or seasonal food, such as Kabocha pumpkin pie in winter, or Chinese cabbage and new onions in spring. Fresh mixed sashimi can also be served before meals.
Seafood
Among seafood dishes, grilled shrimp and scallops are very popular ingredients, giving chefs the opportunity to show off their performance skills at the barbecue restaurant. This is also a good opportunity to taste high-quality Japanese seafood, such as Essed lobster and black abalone from Hokkaido, which are guaranteed to be perfectly grilled.
Beef
Since teppanyaki represents Japan’s acceptance of American steak, it’s no surprise that meat has become the star of this meal. Japanese teppanyaki restaurants provide you with a great opportunity to enjoy domestic top brands of black hair and feather beef, including Matsutake, Oo and Kobe beef. The delicate marble pattern of Japanese beef provides a rich sweetness without being too greasy or fat. Many Japanese restaurants are now drying and aging beef to increase the flavor.
Because the entire meal is cooked at the table, you can be sure that your steak will be cooked exactly as you prepared it. Enjoy with fried garlic chips, various flavors of rock salt, fresh pepper, grated mustard and mustard.
Rice
It also usually includes risotto or fried rice and eggs cooked directly on the top of the iron stove. Especially dexterous chefs may show off their skills, using their spatula to throw the eggs into the air before breaking the eggs and frying them on the grill.
Dessert
Dessert A dessert, such as sorbet, cake, or pastry, added with coffee or tea to make a satisfying, hearty meal richer.
Teppanyaki food is perfectly grilled and stylish
Teppanyaki restaurants are very popular all over the world, but for local high-quality Japanese ingredients like A5 and jade beef and fresh abalone, you must not miss the teppanyaki restaurants in Japan. Browse Gurunavi's list of teppanyaki restaurants in Japan and find a place close to you!
