Osaka Teppanyaki: Good, But Pricey for What You Get

Vancouver is known for being quite the tourism-driven town. We have great beaches for volleyball and frolicking, fantastic mountains for skiing, incredible parks for nature walking, and yes, a plethora of restaurants offering just about every kind of cuisine under the sun.

While it’s not the first time that I’ve experienced Japanese teppanyaki — I tried Kobe Steakhouse on Alberni a few years back — I felt like doing something a little different for dinner a while ago. We went over to Osaka Teppanyaki Steak & Seafood House, located near the corner of Burrard and Broadway in Vancouver.

If you’re in the mood for some overpriced teriyaki, then a Japanese teppanyaki house just might be the place for you. While the food is distinctly better than the “lunch special” you can get at a shopping mall’s food court, it’s also far from being fine dining. (At least it’s not greasy.) You’re seated at a communal table of ten, regardless of the size of your party, and the bar-like setting surrounds a central grill where the chef does his thing, cooking for all ten of you at once. Every meal comes with “complimentary” soup, salad, rice, and vegetables. The only part that is any different is the meat.

Well, enough talking. Let’s get on with the pictures.

The soup was served lukewarm with some raw mushrooms. It was near flavour-less and wholly uninspiring.

Nothing special here. Just conventional green salad served with a generic dressing.

Every main course is served with a “free” teppan shrimp appetizer. You get three shrimp, peeled and de-tailed. They tasted crisp and fresh.

Here’s our chef, cooking the vegetables. We got onions, zucchini, mushrooms, and green peppers. Pretty typical teriyaki/teppanyaki fare.

And here is the meat getting cooked. Some typical Japanese teriyaki sauce was used, along with sesame seeds and a couple other things. Nothing out of the ordinary, but there was certainly a lot of smoke. Thankfully, the fan overhead helped to take care of that, so it never felt overly hot sitting next to the grill.

Susanne ordered the chicken and shrimp combination. She got a whole chicken breast, chopped up, along with ten teppan shrimp. The shrimp appeared to be the same as the appetizer. The chicken was flavorful, but definitely on the dry side.

I had the filet mignon. It was a fairly large cut of meat, considering that it was filet mignon. For only a couple dollars more than the sirloin, you get some super tender beef that is precut into bite-sized strips. This meat was certainly better than the stuff you’d get for $4.99 at the food court.

All said, the total bill for two dinners, including tax, tip, and an extra large Kirin beer was $46. This included the 2-for-1 discount I got with the Entertainment Book card. Without that discount, the total damage would have been about $70.

The portions were plentiful, so we both left very satisfied and very full, but I couldn’t possibly justify spending $70 on a meal like this. You’re paying for the novelty factor. The filet mignon, for example, was $28. For the same price, you can go to a proper steakhouse. Osaka Teppanyaki: it’s like food court teriyaki, only marginally better and incredibly more expensive.