Fuji Grill

Hibachi is defined by Webster's Dictionary as a traditional Japanese heating device. Made of a round, cylindrical or box-shaped open-topped container made from or lined with a heatproof material and designed to hold burning charcoal.

Bastardized by Americans and most of the western world it has come to replace the term Tepanyaki. Tepanyaki is thought by most Americans to be a Japanese delicacy; however it is just something that dumb, dirty, stinking Gaijins like me seem to love. It is the perfect mix of food and entertainment. Skill and showmanship. Style and taste.

I mean for the love of God, anyone who can juggle an uncracked raw egg, cook a medium rare steak and shoot warm sake into my mouth while telling jokes is more than ok in my book.

I can cook. This is not a mealy mouthed statement. I can take a pile of ingredients and make something tasty while drinking wine or beer with friends and bullshitting my way through polite conversation. But let's face it. I am lucky if I can get my fried potatoes to finish at the same time as my steak to send it all out on a plate hot. So for anyone to cook 10 different things while juggling a chef’s knife and a spatula and lighting a grill on fire is probably my new favorite person.

But I digress. Back to the food.

This evening I had the distinct opportunity to try a new restaurant in the area. Fuji Grill. A Hibachi (Tepanyaki! Remember we're culture and word bastardizing Gaijins!) and Sushi Bar. We started with our drinks.

I blindly decided on a nice light citrusy Japanese Lager called Sapporo. Light bodied and refreshing. This beer paired quite well with my appetizer of Octopus Sashimi and pretty much my entire meal.

The Octopus Sashimi, seasoned with a small squeeze of lemon. Served with a side of fresh grated ginger and fresh grated wasabi. Forgoing the mouth burning Wasabi and overpoweringly strong ginger, I decided to keep it simple.

Octopus has a delicate flavor, covering that up with much more than a complimentary citrus seemed presumptuous. Plainly put, it was fantastic. Chewy, tart, sweet and tied together nicely with a piece of black seaweed. I ate it like one should with fresh, quality sushi, in one bite, immediately and with no more dressing than necessary.

Next up was the soup portion of our meal. A simple Miso soup with scallions and mushrooms and a basic chicken stock. Simple fresh ingredients combined to make something fantastic. The soup was so elegantly understated it was seemingly difficult not to love. Next...

A salad of greens consisting of iceberg lettuce, cucumber and a sliced tomato. I may as well be Italian, because I am very picky about my tomato. If it is too soft and not fresh enough it can kill a dish for me. I knew seeing the tomato on the salad that it would be spoiled. The dressing was a little off as well. It was almost like an orange French dressing overloaded with onion salt and garlic powder. What can I say? You can't please someone every time.

Finally the main event, the whole reason we went to a Hibachi Restaurant. The main course. The choreography, the skill, the entertainment and the amazing food.

Our Chef started out by lighting the grill up with Sake and oil making the fire dance like a gorgeous cirque du soleil dancer. Swaying, jumping, twisting and turning. The fire jumped with every choreographed twirl of the spatula. Clanging and smacking on the Grill in a cleverly designed way of keeping us entranced and ignorant to the fact that we hadn’t eaten much today...

With the Grill seasoned the Chef moved on to our vegetables. A mix of carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli and onion. Chopping our vegetables and beginning to sauté them in butter and sake. allowing them to cook (as they will take the longest...)

Building the famed Tepanyaki Volcano out of Onion and filling it with oil, the grill exploded with the beautiful dancing fire once again. Next went on our rice, seasoned in soy sauce and sake (I love the way these people cook, trans fats and liquor!)

Before the rice can even start to brown I see an egg spinning through the air being juggled off of a spatula, tossed upsides, downsides and everywhere in between. Back flipping and spinning and rolling like a circus tumbler, finally tossed high into the air and dropped down on the sideways turned spatula. The egg, split clean in half, was then scrambled then added to our frying rice.

Steaks cooked with soy sauce and teriyaki to a beautiful, blood red, medium rare along with tantalizing pink and opaquely white shrimp. Everything then arranged lovingly on our plates by our brilliant Chef. Mind you this was all in between our quick handed host shooting sake out of a squeeze bottle into our mouths (like I said, I love these people!)

The shrimp, the steak, the vegetables and the rice were all cooked immaculately.

The food and show were definitely both well worth the hunger pangs I felt from saving my voracious appetite all day at work and the dent it created in our wallet. You see I'm the kind of guy who walks away from situations like this with his swirling head cleared.

Enjoying a little chilled sake with a hot meal and a cold beer. What could be a much more gratifying experience? I mean seriously let’s break my afternoon down for you. I have spent my day dealing with some intensely negative people.

There's my staff who doesn't want to be there, my Director who doesn’t want to deal with me and my Manager who wants to be at home dealing with his 5 week old daughter, my customers who don't want to deal with facing their downfalls or addictions and a facility full of coworkers who don't want to deal with a company who can't afford to give them raises this year because; well let's face it, we're pretty much in the biggest economic crisis our country has seen in the last 80 years, if not ever.

And then there is me who doesn't want to go home because he doesn't want to deal with the fact that his home is shrinking... quickly... All of that massive negativity around me, inside me and in my future.

All of this unbridled disappointment and something as simple as dinner and a show were able to calm me, make me smile and at least get my mind off all of the garbage that runs marathons through my head every day. Food has proven to be something that can evoke strong memories in one's subconscious.

Food can call to mind the thoughts of a first kiss, the feelings of the first time you camped out, the time you finally summed up the courage to eat a raw oyster. It can recall the best and or worst days of your existence. Food is something that can create lasting bonds of friendship and stories to tell your grandchildren (although these stories usually involve you imbibing in something a little more than food.)

Food has also proven to be the one thing that can mellow me out and cause enough excitement to continue on with my bleak day. How many times have you had a miserable exacerbating day at work, hated being everywhere you had to; only to have a meal at your favorite restaurant or a favored dish your mother or loved on makes as the one thing that can get you through until you arrive at home?

I think it would be safe to say that it's a lot.

That's all I have for now friends. Just remember that it isn't what you cook or eat, it's the feeling you get when you do.

Until next time, don't drink anything I don't know how to make...

Mac The Bartender