Benihana

Glasgow

THE Beatles ate at Benihana, Sean Connery too, Muhammad Ali apparently loved all this food-tossing, flame-throwing, relentless hibachi-grill-clanking Japanese-American showmanship with er, eggs and rice. But that was maybe 50 years ago.

It’s taken that long for Benihana to stretch its empire and penetrate downtown Glasgow at a spot freshly vacated by the demise of another chain restaurant giant – farewell Carluccio’s.

Now, as we walked in the door tonight two staff members momentarily pause their conversation to turn and bawl something loud and incomprehensible right at us, scaring the bejaysus out of me. I assume it’s an over-enthusiastic rendering of a traditional Japanese American chain restaurant greeting, but as it sounds a lot like an overenthusiastic rendering of a traditional Friday night downtown Glasgow greeting – I predict a riot.

From then on in let’s just say Benihana likes to get in your face. "Have you been to Benihana before!"

There will be points in the evening when I’ll wonder if the staff have been to Benihana before, so flat and awkward does it at times feel, but to be fair this branch is pretty much brand new. The training manual anyway must dictate that every single customer is to be asked this question by every single member of staff at least three times. Groan, is the answer by the end of it.

At this point hands up: I declare long held teppanyaki fatigue, cynically believing the true essence of any teppanyaki restaurant is simply for the chef to distract you by tossing eggs into his hat while setting his pants on fire – so you don’t notice you’ve just paid £20 for cabbage and potatoes.

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Benihana is not like that. For a start it’s much more expensive. The Shogun’s feast of steak and prawns, by no means the priciest dish on the menu, is £32 and that’s before they hit you an extra £3.50 for the garlic chicken rice. Or £2.90 for hibachi rice; sold with an exhortation of "go on, it gives the chef something fun to do." Incomprehensibly (as it will turn out later) I’ve actually paid £37 for something called miso black cod. This hibachi grilled (for too long I’d say) fish turns out to be blandly, unpleasantly gooey in texture and smothered in an indiscriminate sickly sweet, possibly miso, sauce. Absolutely, utterly dreadful. And did I mention £37?

Being an awkward cantankerous git when faced with relentlessly corporate cheeriness I turn down the teppanyaki rice options and am therefore left with a sticky ball of the plain stuff. A serious mistake. In fact Debs' chicken fried rice with garlic is delicious and Luca’s hibachi rice pretty good too.

It’s so new here that from all over the room, which has a faint 1950s Madison Avenue decor, there’s the clanking of dropped forks and the tumbling of falling spatulae as chefs do their schtick. But few of the tricks that made its founder the 1960s playboy Rocky Aoki famous are on display; there’s no spatula pulled from a customer’s ear and not a single person has a prawn flipped into their mouth, but there is the beating heart of rice and the flaming mountain of onion.

And, yes, you don’t get to spread a global empire of expensive chain restaurants without doing something right. The flavours are big, bold and sometimes excellent. The hamachi or yellowtail sashimi (£6.50); the king crab cucumber roll (£7.80); come with enough marinaded onions, dripping gingery tones, salty side notes to make them juicy and delicious.

The edamame (£4.50) are virtually on fire with chilli heat but sucking them from their infernally spiced pods becomes one of those painful things it's hard to stop doing.

Both Debs and Luca enjoy their steaks and prawns, admittedly generic, but reasonably well seasoned and flavoured from the hibachi. Even the included-in-the-price onion soup and the likewise bowl of salad are full of punch. So it’s by no means a dud experience. Just a pricey and cliched one.

Benihana

7 West Nile Street

Glasgow

0141 442 0141

Menu: Fifty years after Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoiki’s Teppanyaki restaurant wowed New York the chain hits Glasgow with its hibachi steaks, seafood and sushi. 4/5

Service: Vaudeville meets cheffery around a clanking, flaming, fork tossing hot grill, all a little awkward but as the place is new possibly to be expected. Staff pleasant if a little too cheery. 4/5

Price: We paid £145, tip included, for three starter side sushi and beans, three hibachi dishes, four cokes and one wine. 3/5

Atmosphere: This is the upmarket end of the chain restaurant world and no worse for that if you are happy to pay for the chefs' show. 4/5

Food: Corporate or not they know what they’re doing when it comes to flavours and from the sushi to the excellent chicken fried rice the tastes are big, bold, and in your face. 7/10

22/30