The other day I was eating at East restaurant in Puerto Rico, and watched a teppanyaki chef performing all his skills and theatrics there. The word "teppanyaki" comes from teppan
(鉄板), meaning iron plate, and yaki (焼き), which means fried or broiled. I will talk about that in my upcoming articles, but, in order for you to take a glance, check out this video which shows the teppanyaki chef performing live:
(Photo courtesy of ronnieliew@flickr.com/creativecommons)
(Photo courtesy of ronnieliew@flickr.com/creativecommons)
Keep eating!
Adal
5 comments:
Awesome video! Teppan is truly my favorite restaurant experience. I've been to them in five US states and it's interesting to see how they differ -- but also the things they do identically :)
I love when they perform while cooking...especially when the ask ones to catch the food...amazing
Feel so hungry! Love Japanese food too, love to eat sashimi more than anything else.
The one I like is the Japanese Village Restaurant in Victoria, B.C. Here's a video I shot when we went there last in 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEo8MIs8qrk
Hi. Being an Asian, living in Asia, I would really like to comment on the first thing you decided to post regarding 'Japanese cuisine'. I think I really need to find out if you're trying to talk about Japanese food that is found IN Japan, or Japanese food that is found outside of Japan and appropriated for the White Culture. Because I found it ironic that you chose to use the American version of Teppanyaki as your first 'tour of Japanese food' post.
In essense, what you wrote about is as Japanese as fortune cookies are Chinese. It's not. If you went to Japan, and I've lived there for some time, I can assure you that this 'type' of Teppanyaki is not found in Japan very much, and is not eaten by the Japanese local populace. You would find it quite hard to find a 'teppanyaki' restaurant like this IN Japan that does not cater to the American Audience. It isn't recognized as 'Japanese Food', and it isn't part of the Japanese Culture.
It was invented by the Japanese for the Western Audience, and in the early 90's did NOT catch on in Japan. It was then moved to America where it did fare much better, so to be honest, this is the most 'Americanized' Japanese food you could quite possibly find.
I'm afraid I don't see how this type of meal represents Japan at all.
If you want true teppanyaki style food of Japan, I suggest you look into Okonomiyaki or Yakisoba or the like. A lot of these kinds of 'hot-plate' food are not served 'performance style' as it isn't a Japanese thing to do, and it can also be found very frequently at festivals and fairs.
Perhaps you could do a bit more research to truly be able to hit the 'core' of Japanese cuisine.
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