i feel i owe you an explanation.
i haven't been writing. but i have been hibachiing.
i've traveled far and wide, and seen a sample of the diverse hibachi this country has to offer. i had a fantastic and inexpensive lunch at east-coast gem Bambu in Danbury, CT; a hibachi meal served on a "boat" at Sushi Cruse in Claremont, CA; and even went through training with master Taro-san at Benihana in Beverly Hills, 90211 -- all experiences certainly worth writing about.
but i've been delinquent.
at the time, these and other experiences just felt too personal and beautiful to post about. broadcasting these stories stories to the entire world for my benefit is like taking advantage of god for profit.
doves really do cry, you know.
but you're not the entire world. you're the hibachi faithful. and as beautiful a soul a meal can have, even the best have nothing on your souls -- the souls of my loyal readership. the souls of the true hibachinistas. souls forged in a volcano made of specially selected onions.
i apologize i lost sight of that. i apologize i left you all out there, naked, clueless, and cold. i apologize i lost faith.
hopefully your love of hibachi was enough to see you through.
in the coming months, posts will pick up again. we'll have our normal restaurant write-ups from me of course (no pun intended), but some special stuff, too, including guest posts, training school reviews, and maybe even the occasional video.
so sit back, tilt those heads, and get ready for the shrimp toss. because the fun's just beginning.
we now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
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Yamato
17200 Ventura Blvd, Ste 221
Encino, CA 91316
(818) 905 9920
Chef: Alex
Score: 82
nestled in one of encino's many strip malls, yamato is easy to miss. it's not so much unassuming as...expected -- neon signs don't stand out when they travel in packs.
it's rare i'm part of a hibachi birthday celebration, but there's a fiftieth time for everything [that you do fifty or more times]. and your oldest brother only turns 31 once.
so 31 years to the day after he was born, we strapped his infant son into the car seat, pumped up the korean baby tunes (did you know "ice cream" has four syllables in korean?), and ventured into the depths of the valley.
of course, we didn't tell the restaurant it was his birthday. nor that it was only his 10-month-old's third time at hibachi.
it's hibachireview.com, not hibachispecialtreatmentreview.com
soup - 8/10
first thing out of the kitchen was a very bland-looking miso soup. miso may seem like a safe bet -- forgoing the traditional-yet-often-over-salted onion in favor of something much simpler -- but in reality, it's nothing of the sort. sure, it's harder to mess up, but a hibachi meal is an epic culinary journey, and the soup is traditionally one of the first two stops. the opening image should reflect what's to come, and miso soup is by no means "epic."
unless it's done like this.
great temperature, perfect flavor, and just enough sediment to keep you interested. yes, it was unassuming, but as it turns out, that only helped it serve its foreshadowing function more fantastically.
still, a hibachi meal isn't quite complete without those fried onions. so 8/10 is the best i can do for a miso.
salad - 10/10
have you ever slow-clapped for a salad before?
it's rare to find a hibachi salad with top-notch lettuce. it's even more rare to find truly fresh plum tomatoes atop. but rarest of all is a hibachi salad where they don't skimp on the ginger dressing.
mayo dressing? piling it on is par for the course. but ginger dressing gets treated like truffle oil, even though its flavor profile is much more subtle.
not at yamato.
a true 10/10. it only got better with each bite.
sauces - 9/10
a yum-yum i didn't try, but looked a little less orange than most (could be the lighting, which wasn't ideal, as you can see from the pictures below).
but the ginger was fantastic. a deep magenta with just the right amount of body to it.
truly robust.
fried rice - 7/10
the show-stealer of the day was a rare, child-friendly fried rice trick i've never seen before. but we'll get to that later.
the rice itself was great. veggies were just what you'd want and really well distributed, temperature was hot enough for the AHHHHH feeling but not hot enough to burn, the texture was spot on, and there was just the right amount of egg. alex collected every kernel from the grill, too -- nothing going to waste.
i could have used one less shake of salt and one more shake of soy sauce. that would have bumped this to an 8/10.
if it had chicken? perfect score.
but it didn't.
vegetables - 10/10
really great veggies, plus a separate and substantial mushroom course.
the kicker though was the carrots. i'm not a carrot eater usually, but to put it lightly, hibachi grill flavor is a good look for them.
appetizer shrimp - 9/10
no toss. otherwise, exactly what appetizer shrimp should be.
main course (shrimp, but tried lobster) - 10/10
the shrimp was unbelievably tender, and a very nice portion, especially for a lunch deal.
i tried the birthday boy's lobster, and unlike normal hibachi-lobster, it had noticeably more personality than the already-fantastic shrimp. to top it off, alex custom whipped up some melted lemon butter at his own suggestion. if you blindfolded me, i would have guessed i was in maine-land, japan.
succulent.
dessert noodles - 0/10
ABSENT. inexcusable.
show - 10/10
alex.
wow.
alex.
the meal started with some impressive egg tricks -- yolk drawing, slides, etc. all normal stuff, but rarely all done together, and never so seamlessly.
it only got better from there.
for the first time in my hibachi reviewing career, i scratched out a note. "shallow rice bowls," i wrote. alex had pushed all the rice into a pile, grabbed a shallow bowl, and started scooping.
but he didn't serve it. instead, he plopped its contents back into the center of the pile.
odd, i thought.
then he did a similar thing with a soy sauce bowl from their sushi bar. he filled both sides, and set them above the pile, close to him.
then came the lemons.
and that's when we saw what was right in front of us: he'd constructed a friendly bear face.
was it for the amusement of my 10 month old nephew? his parents? everyone at the table? or perhaps alex himself?
no matter the reason, it was fantastic. it's been at least a decade since i've been truly surprised by a hibachi trick.
it's now time to reset that counter.
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the show only got better from there. his volcano was huge, yet i never felt like he lost control of the flames. he lit it with his fingers -- like bananas foster on a fancy cruise ship -- and brought the fire onto our plates. literally.
and then, like a wizard with complete mastery of his creation, he put it out with a quick flick of his fingers.
a supposedly fun thing i plan on doing again.
if there's one knock, it's that he wasn't fully committed to the fake-squirt gag. but as a trained chef myself, i get that. it's obligatory, and a trick i've never been comfortable with, as it violates the sacred bond of trust between knife-and-fire-wielding-chef and patron.
if anything, the lack of commitment to that "trick" only made me like him more.
potpourri - 9/10
i'm being a little lenient here, as that 0/10 for noodles isn't truly "inexcusable" seeing as we went for lunch.
large water glasses are a plus; inconsistent refilling (even with a not-busy restaurant) is a big minus.
but the entire staff was friendly and accommodating, going out of their way to make sure the toddler was taken care of. and i always appreciate when someone laughs at my jokes, even if it is obligatory.
82/100
a wonderful experience, and a great way to celebrate my brother's 31st. factor in the lunch prices, and you'd be hard pressed to find a better deal in southern california.
a true gem.
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