If you get a hankering for takeout from your neighborhood hibachi,
be wary. What seemingly healthy appetizer packs 43 grams of fat? What "salad" comes with a
big dose of high fructose corn syrup? Keep watching to find out.
Tempura can be delicious. But unless your favorite hibachi restaurant is known for its non-greasy
batter and reputable tempura chef, you're better off steering clear of this deep-fried dish.
That's because tempura is notoriously hard to get right.
Two of the biggest potential problems when cooking tempura are temperature and oil quality. It will
often be fried in old oil, which can make for soggier and greasier food if not done correctly,
and older oils can also have strange odors. The right temperature for frying tempura should be
between 340 and 360 degrees Fahrenheit, and you also have to consider how many pieces you're
frying at any given time, as that can affect the temperature. One order of the vegetable
tempura appetizer at Benihana clocks in with 43 grams of fat, so that's yet another reason
to stick to the grilled specialties that Japanese grill restaurants are known for.
If you want sushi, go to a sushi restaurant.
Like tempura, sushi is hard to make well, probably even harder!
And a place specializing in hibachi-grilled foods is probably not going to hire the top sushi chefs.
You also have to consider that fish used for sushi should be of the highest quality,
and sushi restaurants are usually more reliable with that.
It's considerate of a hibachi restaurant to have more on the menu than just
grilled items. But if they're not going through a high volume of sushi, it's best to steer clear.
Restaurants that don't specialize in sushi might also be more likely
to provide specialty rolls with lots of mayo, salt, sauces, and preservatives,
which isn't exactly traditional fare or that good for you. For example,
the Chili Shrimp Roll from Benihana has 31 grams of fat and almost as much sugar as a can of Coke!
There's nothing wrong with miso soup. In fact, a great miso soup can be the sign of a quality
Japanese restaurant. But there are a lot of ways to make a subpar version that ends up being as
lackluster as a salty bowl of hot water. And most hibachi grills are probably not going to
be creating a dashi broth from scratch with bonito flakes infused for just the right amount of time.
They're also probably not incorporating just enough of an ideal kind of miso paste either,
nor are they likely to carefully shred just enough strips of green onion for that pungent aroma and
umami-rich broth. But the most important reason to avoid miso soup at a hibachi restaurant is simply
that it probably just isn't as tasty as the onion soup that a lot of hibachi restaurants serve.
"Seaweed. 50% Sea. 50% Weed."
It's easy enough to buy dried wakame, reconstitute it with water, and then season it yourself.
But it's even easier to just buy seaweed salad frozen and defrost as needed, and that's exactly
what a lot of Japanese restaurants do to save time and effort. But that means that there can
be a lot of preservatives included that you might want to avoid. And while there are plenty of more
natural brands of seaweed, those are probably not what your favorite restaurant is using.
In an article for Naturally Savvy, Registered Holistic Nutritionist Andrea Donsky writes
that when she asked her Japanese friend to read the ingredients on the premade seaweed salad at
a sushi restaurant one night, it didn't look too promising. They included high-fructose corn syrup,
two types of glucose, vegetable fat and oil, hydrolyzed protein, acidulant and yellow,
and blue food coloring. That sure doesn't sound like the healthiest salad!
And if it's bright neon green, that's an indication that your appetizer might've
come from a pre-seasoned tub, so you're clearly better off sticking with the grill.
Poké really has no place on a hibachi menu. That's true even if you don't feel like yakitori or
don't care for grilled shrimp, and you really just want the creaminess of avocado and some
salmon in a mayo-heavy sauce. Poké emphasizes fresh and free-range fish and high-quality rice,
but it still doesn't belong on a hibachi menu.
This dish of cubed raw fish on rice with a bunch of toppings and sauces that has a
loose association with Asian food is best left to the experts that specialize in raw fish.
Would you also put tiradito on your hibachi menu? Maybe in Peru. But at Benihana? A great restaurant
doesn't need to offer absolutely everything for everyone. So if you really want poké,
just go to a poké restaurant instead.
Don't you just love that slimy, barbecued eel that comes in a thick, sweet teriyaki sauce? Unagi is a
sushi staple, and at a grill restaurant it can be even better with the promise of extra smokiness.
But alas, the eel on the menu is probably not sustainable
and is also probably served frozen, precooked, and pre-marinated. Ninety
percent of the freshwater eel population in Japan has disappeared over the last three generations,
and the Japanese eel is now an endangered species. And it's not just in Japan,
as the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program lists eel as a species to be avoided.
There are some American companies trying to harvest eels sustainably,
but your neighborhood hibachi place probably isn't buying those versions,
breaking them down themselves, and grilling them to order. Instead,
they're more likely using unagi that arrives vacuum-sealed from China, Korea, or Japan.
Now that we've told you what to avoid,
let's get into the good stuff that you actually should order.
Yum yum sauce has become an iconic part of any hibachi dinner, but the truth is it's
not particularly Japanese. The original version, bottled by Terry Ho, includes soybean oil, sugar,
corn syrup, egg yolks, vinegar, salt, mustard, dehydrated garlic, hot sauce, tomato paste, red
pepper, paprika, natural and artificial flavor, and some other hard-to-pronounce ingredients. But
a lot of restaurants make their own, but without all the preservatives, unless those are already
in the commercial mayo they use. And they also add a ton of butter, which is clearly more delicious.
This sauce might not exactly be healthy for you, but it's like the garlic sauce with your
shawarma or the Big Mac sauce on your burger: it's absolutely essential, despite how you might feel
later. Yum yum sauce generally comes with your meal, but if it doesn't, it's your responsibility
to order it. The other now-traditional sauce often served with hibachi is what people call
"brown sauce" or "ginger sauce," which is usually made with ginger, soy, vinegar, and sugar.
As a former hibachi restaurant employee spilled in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" thread, grilled chicken
is one of the only items that needs to be cooked on a lower heat on the hibachi grill,
and it's often the most popular menu item. On grills where the charcoal
flames are coming up between the grill grates, you're going to get a clean,
smoky flavor without any lingering smell of gas, which lets natural flavor shine through.
You can't control where the flames kiss the meat as easily, but that's all part of the art.
If you're at a hibachi restaurant that uses a flat top grill, you should still order the chicken.
That would technically be a teppanyaki restaurant in that case, but let's not
get too technical. The breast will be more dry than thigh, though, so definitely opt for the
thigh if you're at a place with grated grills, since much of the fat will drip off and you'll
still end up with a tastier piece of meat. With a flat top grill, you could probably go either way.
"I don't do 'or.' 'Or' makes you choose."
The Japanese word for meat grilled over an open flame is yakiniku,
and ordering any kind of steak is going to be a good decision at a hibachi restaurant.
The biggest upside of charcoal hibachi grills over gas-powered is that the charcoal gets
so hot that it's generally easier to end up giving meat a crispy crust and tender
interior. And if you're into specialty meats, a Japanese grill restaurant might just be the
place to go, though you should know what exactly you're ordering first.
Only certain grades of cattle from a particular Japanese prefecture produce authentic Kobe beef,
which is what makes it so valuable. Kobe is also a regional style of Japanese Wagyu,
with "Wagyu" referring to the breed of cattle. So you can have Wagyu beef from the United States,
but you can't have American Kobe beef.
That being said, according to Bon Appetit, even if your neighborhood hibachi place advertises Kobe
beef, it might not actually be Kobe beef, even if it's expensive. But if it's advertised as Wagyu,
you can be pretty confident that it's authentic. Either way, it should be wonderfully fatty and
hopefully some of the best beef of your life at whatever high price your restaurant charges.
"Hey, what is this, some kind of beef house?"
To make a volcano onion, cut thick, circular slices from the outside of a large onion.
Stack the slices on top of each other on a hot flat top grill so that they look like a volcano,
pour oil and high-proof alcohol into the hole you left on top,
and light it on fire. Actually, don't: this isn't something you should try at home.
It's not really a volcano, as the onions are stacked so tightly that the oil and alcohol don't
seep out. What you get instead is fire shooting up the top, but on the other hand, the size of
the flame can range from tame to as thrilling as fireworks. After the flames subside, you'll see a
trail of thick smoke to close the show, amidst a round of applause from your fellow diners.
"And the crowd goes wild."
"Yay."
You've got to hand it to the well-trained chefs who can properly stack these onion slices,
like a juggler who doesn't drop that third, fourth, or fifth ball. But the
volcano onion is just a fun stage trick and not some sort of culinary specialty. Sure,
people like anything flambéed, because that charred, smoky taste can be delicious,
but at a hibachi restaurant, that's not exactly the point. The volcano onion
is part of what hibachis were created for: providing a show to go along with your meal.
You should order pretty much every kind of skewer on the menu if you're
at a hibachi with grill grates. The fat drips out and the pieces of chicken, beef, shrimp,
and pork will be delicious. A little dipping sauce on the side is handy for variety,
but your tender skewer meat will most likely also be nicely seasoned.
You should also know that yakitori can be made with a wide variety of meats. Chicken liver is
one option that's very popular in Japan. When fresh, it's likely to be richly meaty and soft
like foie gras. As noted by Epicure Asia, Japanese chefs have a trick of soaking the
liver in milk first, which can soften the smell and flavor for anyone who finds it too strong.
You'll probably want some starch to go with all your grilled meat and vegetables during
your hibachi trip. For a lot of Japanese people, that usually means a big scoop of steamed rice,
though fried rice is a more flavorful alternative. If you're at a restaurant with a flat top grill,
where half the fun is watching the chefs play, fried rice is definitely the way to go.
Diced vegetables get thrown in the air, and an obscene amount of butter makes sure it all gets
crispy and oily on the bottom and just juicy enough between all the grains. Soy sauce and
white pepper add puffs of vapor as the liquid explodes onto the hot grill and seasons the dish
to perfection. Simply put, it's art. And as long as you're not worried about your sodium intake,
you should appreciate this art by eating it and by tipping the artist accordingly.
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