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" It was 1986ish, and my friend Sheri was having her 10th or 11th birthday party at Mt. Fuji, the hibachi-style restaurant near my New Jersey suburban town. (I&amp;#039;m fairly confident Mt. Fuji is the default name for hibachi-style restaurants. I&amp;#039;m willing to bet you know one yourself.) It was my first hibachi experience \u2014 for the record, it&amp;#039;s technically called &amp;quot;teppanyaki,&amp;quot; which is derived from the Japanese words for griddle and broiling \u2014 and I remember it clearly: The yelling, the fire, the banging knives, the insanity. At the time, it was the best meal I&amp;#039;d ever had. Today, I know what good food actually tastes like. But there&amp;#039;s something to be said for this 80s restaurant trend, especially as it&amp;#039;s in the middle of a comeback. I&amp;#039;m still a sucker for the campy, over-the-top theatrics of this completely outdated, borderline ridiculous restaurant art form \u2014 and here&amp;#039;s why. Because everything kind of tastes the same. Who wants to be bothered with &amp;quot;flavors?&amp;quot; Here, it&amp;#039;s a no-brainer ordering situation: Pick your meat, then prepare yourself for a soy sauce bomb. Because there are no actual courses. Everything you hate about restaurants\u2014that whole awkward &amp;quot;Are YOU getting an appetizer? Maybe we should split one?&amp;quot; conversation, the waiting for your food after someone else has already been served \u2014 is gone. You sit down, chaos ensues, and you just eat. And yes, it&amp;#039;s annoying that you get your rice first, and then your meat, like, third, and then vegetables whenever the chef feels like it. But you don&amp;#039;t care because you haven&amp;#039;t stopped eating. Because you get food thrown into your mouth. I&amp;#039;m guessing it&amp;#039;s the age-old trick that North American teppanyaki chefs learn at teppanyaki school: Chop up a zucchini or a shrimp, and, with the flick of a spatula, hurl a piece into the diner&amp;#039;s mouth. I&amp;#039;m choosing to ignore any food safety issues here, and pretend that said food was being kept in a clean environment, and everyone who touched it washed his or her hands a million times. It&amp;#039;s an amazing feat, and the whole silly process is cool as hell.      Because it&amp;#039;s the world&amp;#039;s first open kitchen. These days, restaurants think it&amp;#039;s chic to break down the walls and show off their kitchens to their patrons \u2014 all in the name of allowing diners to see what&amp;#039;s going on behind the scenes. Hibachi restaurants did it before it was trendy.  Because those chefs&amp;#039; knife skills are on point.  Pun intended.      Because said chefs are totally pandering to you. And it&amp;#039;s a refreshing change from all those chefs who think they&amp;#039;re too cool, too fancy, too knowledgeable about the culinary arts to be bothered by your presence.  Because there&amp;#039;s fire. And it&amp;#039;s dangerously close. Long before Iron Chef and Hell&amp;#039;s Kitchen were bringing their firey drama to television, hibachi-style restaurants were giving you a front row seat to all the pyrotechnics. So you might lose your eyebrows in the process \u2014 totally worth it.      Because it&amp;#039;s like dinner and a show in one sitting. Only it&amp;#039;s the most expensive, poorly-produced show you&amp;#039;ve ever seen\u2014and also the most expensive, poorly-produced dinner you&amp;#039;ve ever had. But you&amp;#039;re totally coming back again.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/food/a42400/hibachi-restaurants/>