[Beverly Hills] [Japanese] Benihana

Benihana
38 N La Cienega Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(310) 659-1511
http://www.benihana.com

公園先生有天跟我提到他從來沒吃過鐵板燒，剛好信用卡集滿點數可以換Benihana的$50禮卷，那就帶公園先生來試試看，本以為在比佛利山莊的分店會比較高級，結果也沒有，而且從經理廚師服務生到收盤子的，清一色都是老墨，而且幾乎都是不太會說英文的老墨，最後買單還發生很白癡的雞同鴨講事件，這家餐廳餐點很貴，味道普通，表演也普通，公園先生說嚐過就好，以後應該不會再來了啦！還是台灣的鐵板燒精緻又好吃。對了，這次用餐還發現外國人好像都沒有分食的習慣，都是自己吃自己的，感覺還蠻「自私」的說....

A long time ago, Dr. Park and I watched a teppanyaki competition show on Food Channel.  While watching the show, Dr. Park mentioned he has never had teppanyaki before.  I had teppanyaki quite often when I grew up in Taiwan.  In Taiwan, there are a lot teppanyaki restaurants.  They can be high end expansive ones, or the street vendor cheap ones.  I like teppanyaki, but honestly, haven't had really good ones in the States yet.  But one has to experience teppanyaki at least once, right?  So when I had enough points on my American Express card, I redeemed them for a $50 Benihana gift card to take Dr. Park to his first teppanyaki dinner.


Shochikubai Gingo Sake ($12.00)

We arrived at our reservation time, 7:30pm, and was quickly seated with 6 other people on a table.  The seats were a bit too crowded.  It would be much more comfortable if there were 7 people on a table.

We ordered a bottle of cold Chochikubai Gingo Sake to share.  This sake has a fruity flavor and very smooth.




Japanese Onion Soup

Dr. Park and I ordered one meat dish and one seafood dish to share.  After ordering, each of us was served a bowl of Japanese onion soup.  The fried onion gave the broth a sweet taste.  Mushroom added an earthy flavor.  Very simple and delicious soup.


Benihana Salad

Standard green salad with stardard Japanese ginger dressing came after the soup.  Nothing special but the salad is crisp and fresh.



Our chef and waitress.  Ok.... I have to complain and I hope I don't sound like a racist.  Upon entering Benihana, I was expecting to see Asian host, server and chef.  After all, the restaurant is called Benihana of "Tokyo" right?  But the ENTIRE restaurant was run by Mexican staffs.  Host, servers, chefs, busboys, manager (we had a chance to talk to him.  Will mention the reason later), and the valets were all Mexican.  It's not that I think Mexicans aren't good at what they do, but it just doesn't feel right when the entire staffs are Mexican in a Japanese restaurant.  You guys know what I mean right?  Maybe they should change the name of the restaurant to "Mexihana".



Even though our chef spoke only a few words of English, he was pretty good at what he does.  Our dinner "show" started with juggling utensils.



The chef started cooking the vegetables and the shrimp appetizer first.



The chef did the volcano trick with onion.  I've seen volcano onions in EVERY teppenyaki restaurant.  Well, I guess I see tossing utensils and flipping shrimp tails in every restaurants, too.  At Benihana, they only perform the smoking volcano part.  I've seen "fire" then "smoke" at other restaurants.


Shrimp Appetizer and Hibachi Vegetables

A few pieces of shrimp and vegetables are included with the entree.  The shrimp lacked flavor, but tasted great in Benihana's special dipping sauce.  The vegetable didn't have much taste, either.  But I love the juicy mushroom.



Next the chef moved on to fried rice.  Basic white rice is included with the entree as well.  To upgrade to fried rice is $3.25 per person.  Since Benihana is known for their delicious fried rice, we opted to get it.  Actually, our entire table ordered fried rice.

The chef cooked a piece of chicken breast while cooking the vegetable.  He then cooked the fried rice, dice the chicken, added soy sauce and A LOT A LOT of butter to the rice.



Awww.... heart shaped fried rice.  How cute!  He put the spatula under and moved it up and down to make the fried rice a "beating heart".  Pretty funny!


Hibachi Chicken Rice ($3.25)

The chicken fried rice was delicious.  How can anything with that much butter not taste good? 



After fried rice, it was seafood time.  Just looking at the lobster and scallop made me drool.



I was expecting the flipping the shrimp tails on the hat and in the pocket show, and it did happened.


Seafood Combination ($34.75)

Cold water lobster tail, ocean scallops and more shrimp.  Yum!  Even though Dr. park and I shared an order, the portion was still quite big.  We both got 3 big pieces of tender lobster and I got the shell!  Lots of scallop and shrimp as well.


Filet Mignon ($24.50)

We also shared an order of Filet Mignon.  It was cooked to medium rare.  Dr. Park likes it that way, but I thought it was a little bit too raw.  But if I close my eyes and don't look at the raw part, it was really good.  So tender and juicy.

So I have a question.  When people have teppanyaki, do they usually share orders?  That's how my family and friends eat.  Some order seafood, some order meat, then we all share so everyone can taste everything.  I thought that was the way to do teppanyaki.  But that day at our table, we were surprised to see that non-Asian people do not share their food.  A Korean couple on our table shared their entrees just like me and Dr. Park.  But the other non-Asian couple only ate their own entree.  A husband commented on how great his lobster tasted to his wife, but not offering for her to try at all.  That just seemed so odd and.... "selfish" to me.  Maybe "sharing" is just an Asian thing?  I just don't understand....



After the filet mignon, I thought the dinner show was over and started clapping for the chef.  Then he took out the bean sprout.  Man, how can I forget about the bean sprout?  Every teppanyaki meal has to end properly with some sauteed bean sprout!  I was so busy taking pictures of the dinner show and hardly had time to eat.  So at the end, I had a completely full plate.



One guy at our table was celebrating his birthday.  The wait staffs brought a buddha with a candle sticking on his head and we all sang happy birthday for him.  I think he also got some free green tea ice cream as his birthday treat.



So we got our bill and put down the $50 gift card and $50 cash.  We were expecting to get $15 cash back and intend to leave that as the tip.  Our waitress took the money.  A busboy came back with a receipt for me to sign.  I told him I paid cash, not credit card.  He didn't understand me.  He saw another busboy walked by and grabbed him.  They spoke in Spanish.  Then that other busboy handed me the receipt to sign again.  I told him again that we paid cash and expect to get cash back.  Why did they want me to sign a credit card receipt?  Again, he didn't understand me.  Again, they spoke to each other in Spanish.  So they walked away, and brought back the manager.  The manager asked, "What was the problem?"  I explained to the manager about the situation again.  His explanation was "Yes, we took the $50 cash and put the rest on the gift card.  So you still have $15.84 on the gift card.  Please sign here."  What?  Why do they do that?  Don't most people use the full amount of the gift card, then charge the rest on credit card or cash?  Why would I want to have a $15 gift card back?  That's the most retarded thing to do.  I told him I wanted it the other way around.... nicely.   So we did get our $15 cash back and left that as tip.  Or maybe I should've just took the $15 gift card back and leave that as the tip for them so they can come back to Benihana to use it themselves. 



Don't I look happy in this picture?  And I was.  Even though we thought the food was just alright, the show wasn't too exciting, price was way too expensive, and service could be much better,  we still had a great time.  Dr. Park had fun watching the teppanyaki show, too.  He said know he knows what teppanyaki is like, but he probably won't be back for a long long time.



I saw this giant limo outside of the restaurant.  How many people can fit in that thing?  20 at least?  That's a big car!!

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