The Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse is a restaurant located in downtown Bellevue, near Lunchbox Laboratory. I went there recently and I can say it was truly unique. The customer service was great and everyone was delighted to help.
When first walking in it is like any other place, wait in line and get seated. However, once seated one will notice that there is a huge flat grill surface on the table. The most interesting part of the whole restaurant was the creativity in the way they prepare food. The grill is used to cook a diner’s food, but it wasn’t any ordinary cooking; the chefs were trained to do cool tricks and stunts with the ingredients. The flames itself were a show. The chef tossed and spun eggs in the air, throwing flames around. I was worried about the risk of injury since knives and other dangerous things were constantly being juggled and swung around. Moreover, it was still really creative and made dining there more entertaining. The lighting is dim, so I could barely see my food but there were cool lights that made the place have a nice effect and also caused the flames to seem even more magnificent. The art around the restaurant had Japanese cherry blossoms all over it.
However, the menu options are quite few for vegetarians, so it was hard for me to find something. I ended up having just plain fried rice, which was still good. There was also a special sushi bar diners could order from. The sushi bar is definitely fancier than the typical conveyer belt sushi places, and the portions are much bigger and tastier. Sadly, there were not many dessert options to pick from, from what I saw. Soup comes before the main meal, though. I could not have any of the soups from the menu since they all contained some type of meat. When we told that to the staff, they were really understanding about it and made us a special tofu soup that did not contain any meat, which I was very impressed by. The food itself was good just like any restaurant, but the main attraction was the exceptional cooking method. On the other hand, it is quite a pricy place, so I would not recommend this place for just an everyday meal. Apparently, one of the chefs mentioned that Bill Gates comes to the restaurant a lot.
While I was there, I noticed that there were many birthday events happening. When there happens to be such an occurrence, some of the staff come around the table with a traditional drum and start singing in Japanese. Since the drum was so loud, everyone in the restaurant would applause at the end. I thought it was really cool how much Japanese culture the Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse seemed to bring into the place without losing the feel of modern dining.