First, let me start by saying it is my birthday! Yay me! We racked our brains trying to decide where to go for dinner. I wanted to cheat on my diet a bit, although a nice Green Lantern Pizza sounded awesome, I did not want to cheat that much (not yet). We landed on Japanese Steakhouse. It allowed meat & veggies, which is perfect, and my biggest cheat would be a bit of rice, soy, some noodles and 2 shrimp.
We went back and forth with all the Japanese Steakhouses we have visited and blogged about. I believe to date Ichiban in Macomb is probably our favorite, but I wanted to try somewhere new. Kyoto’s in Royal Oak had great reviews, so we decided to go there. We made reservations for an early dinner.
Upon arrival, we were seated around the standard cooking table. The only other guests at the time were dining alone at the table next to us. We thought we may be able to dine alone for a minute. We were seated, but waited quite some time before someone came over to bring water and take our drink orders. That gave us time to really check out the restaurant.
The plates we noticed were unfortunately patterned, as my first glance thought the plates were filthy with splashed soy sauce. We realized it was an intentional pattern, which seemed a bad move. The place is not fancy by any means. Simple wooden chairs, around older hibachi grills.
The waitress finally came over after about 10 minutes or so. I ordered a blood orange Cosmo and Omar ordered some cold sake. The drinks were cold and very very good. It had been about 8 weeks since I had a drink and boy did I enjoy it! I ordered the filet hibachi dinner and Omar ordered the scallop hibachi with fried rice. Meanwhile, the table filled up with other guests, as did the other tables around us. By the time we left, the place was hopping!
The hibachi chef started the “show”. He asked if anyone was celebrating anything, so I said it was my birthday. He had sake in what looked like an oil bottle, and he proceeded to squirt it in everyone’s mouth. That was kind of fun! The fried rice is served first. The fried rice, however, was a bit undercooked. As you may know, undercooked rice is not fun to eat. That was a disappointment. Then they give you the noodles, which essentially are just noodles with hibachi butter and soy sauce. They were pretty good. Next comes the vegetables. We were rather surprised at the small amount of veggies we got. Usually, they fill your plate with veggies, and I spend a long-time picking mushrooms and putting them on Omar’s plate, but this time, they were quite lacking. Then finally, the meat was placed on our plates including the 2 shrimp appetizers but served at the end.
He did the onion tower, to which they sang happy birthday, but otherwise, no other real show antics. No flipping shrimp, although he did throw broccoli into some of the guy’s mouths. The filet was pretty decent, and the few veggies we got were good.
I did not get offered anything “free” for my birthday which is a bummer. They did not even ask if we wanted dessert. If we want hibachi again, would not return to Kyoto’s. We would rather stick with Ichiban or other Japanese Steakhouses we have mentioned in previous blogs.