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Teppan Hibachi Steakhouse
3227 Hamilton Blvd
Dorneyville Shopping Center
Allentown, PA 18106
| Tel: |
610-841-4799
610-841-4733 |
| Fax: |
610-841-4775
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Hours Of Operation
Lunch Hours:
Mon - Sat 11:30am - 3:00pm
Dinner Hours:
Mon - Thurs 4:00pm - 10:00pm
Fri & Sat 4:00pm -11:00pm
Sun 2:30pm - 10:00pm |
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Attention to detail adds to fun and festivity at Teppan Steak House
By Sylvia Lawler
Special to The Morning Call
Teppan oozes sleek Oriental chi-chi in a skyward space of gleaming marbled cavernousness so high, wide and handsome that it could serve as a kitchen stadium for the Iron Chefs. In fact, those Food Network knife-wielders should be so lucky as the red-toqued chefs plying their particular brand of grillside theater at Teppan.
The Korean-owned, Japanese-themed newcomer is sumptuously glamorous, scrupulously clean and design efficient. Chihuly-inspired hanging lamps, coral, charcoal gray and chalk white walls and vertical panels of art work set the landscape. The space is commodious enough for a bar and bar dining area, sushi bar and seating area and numerous 18-seat hibachi tables in various quarters of the restaurant, with enough space left over for ballroom dancing.
There is not an ounce of kitsch, unless you count the over-zealous hibachi chef lobbing eggs into his toque, tossing knives in the air and food at his table patrons to a self-sung rendition of "West Virginia, Mountain Mama."
Teppan is not your everyday encounter. And it has such a cosseting atmosphere.
Background music is quiet, not of Japanese origin. Warm jasmine-scented terry towels for hand-cleansing are presented first. Seats too low? A murmured request brings smilingly applied tie-on cushions.
Afraid of two skinny sticks? A pair of training chopsticks expertly rolled with a rubber band makes a whole unit of two sticks. Scared of sushi? Not only is there a special sushi course for timid beginners, but accommodating choices of sushi rolls and appetizers featuring cooked fish (which is going a little too far outside the pale for this purist).
The list of a la carte sushis, sushi appetizers (as opposed to a good-sized list of ''kitchen appetizers''), sushi rolls and sushi dinners goes on and on. A 16-unit sashimi appetizer was scrupulously fresh. The Allentown sushi roll, which we obviously had to try, was a successful blending of yellowtail, scallions, masago (small fish roe), Japanese sauces and cucumber. The Dorney Park roll, invented of salmon, asparagus and masago made grainy by the addition of cream cheese, didn't do it for me.
Kitchen appetizers, by the way, included traditional Japanese favorites like beef negamaki, edamame, fried dumplings, shiitake teriyaki, Chilean sea bass, coconut shrimp, Calamari and yakitori, to name but a few.
Miso soup was deeply flavored, dark and salty. House salads featured a choice of a very good lemon-orange dressing and a good but less intense creamy ginger. Other side choices include an asparagus or avocado salad, fried rice, hibachi noodles and gyoza soup.
The shrimp tempura dinner was delectable, airy and perfectly textured. Various hibachi dinners — a toss of your choice of almost anything including lobster, shrimp, steak, chicken, scallops, swordfish, salmon — combined at table with zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, onions, bean sprouts and a wide sprinkling of show business, were festive, fun and filling to the extreme. Sticky rice was so good. The two sauces that accompanied the hibachi dinners were out of this world; I wish I could be more explicit but I can't.
Desserts consisted of fried ice cream, a delectable banana tempura as well as a cheesecake tempura, a teppan fruit roll, the special Japanese ice cream called mochi, and the chilled red-bean gelatin confection called yokan, which we tasted for the first time and which was very pleasing.
Dinner for two, including tax, tip and non-alcoholic beverages totaled $72.65.
Sylvia Lawler is a freelance restaurant reviewer for Go Guide. Lawler, who tells it like it is, attempts to remain anonymous during restaurant visits. All meals are paid for by The Morning Call.
Linda O'Connell, Assistant
Managing Editor, Features
linda.oconnell@mcall.com
610-820-6562
Teppan provides the Japanese experience
By Kristine Porter
Of the Chronicle
An idea picked out of New York City, the Teppan Hibachi Steakhouse has transplanted authentic Japanese cuisine into the Lehigh Valley.
Opened three months ago, the new restaurant is tucked in at the end of Dorneyville Shopping Center on the corner of Cedar Crest and Hamilton boulevards and has a decor that feels like New York
Through the large, glass double doors etched with a flower motif, and into the spacious foyer, sit a tub-sized planter with bamboo shoots and fern like plants streaming out of the top. Up the stairs and into the restaurant, the customer can gravitate to the sushi bar on the right, a martini-and-drinks bar on the left or straight to one of 17 hibachi tables.
Those who have never experienced a meal cooked on the hibachi, are in for a treat. In the center of the semi-circle hibachi table is the grill. The waiter brings warm towels for the customer to wipe his hands . Once the order is taken, the chef arrives with a cart of tools, food and a tool belt, slinging a sheathed butcher knife.
After wiping the grill clean, he squirts oil all over it and pours a mixture of squash and onions on top. The show is about to begin.||He pulls the butcher knife from his side and dices the vegetables faster than a hand chopper. The he twirls his index finger like a gun in an old western movie. "Cowboy," he says.
Next, he brings out a plate of shrimp, lifts out four of them with a spatula, and spins them over the sides without dropping them. All of them sit neatly beside each other.
Once customer watching the display asks, ""How did he do that?
Then he stacks sliced onions on top of each other like a pyramid, and pours oil or sake inside. A plume of fire shoots out the top like an exploding volcano. That catches the attenion of everyone at the table and others as well. All around there is laughter and talking among the customers. All around there is laughter and talking among the customers. At one table, a birthday cake with a lit sparkler on top is carried by a troupe of employees singing 'Happy Birthday' and banging on a skillet.
Head hibachi chef Ralvy Suwuh said he chose this work, "because i like the food style, and I like to see the customer in front of me."
He enjoys joking with the customers and suprising the children with the volcano or sprinkling black pepper on the grill to make it pop. He has been a chef in New York for eight years.
Manager Francis Chong and chefs with New York restaurant experience joined owner Justin Suh for the restaurant venture.
Chong and Suh have more than 20 years of experience in the restaurant business.
In the restaurant's sushi bar, the customer can sidle up to the counter and peer into the glass case, or sit in the sushi lounge.
Formerly a sushi chef in Philadelphia, Dong Sim said the restaurant specializs in Italian, French, and Japanese sushi styles. He chose sushi because of the decorative presentation.Currently, he is studying to teach sushi preperation.
"I like to make good presentation for the plate," Sim said. "I love making decorative things and wanted to make very decorative plates."
At the other bar, custom ers can choose a drink from 110 liquors. Bartender Steven Edelman said the martini list is pretty extensive, with drinks like the razzmopolitan, caramel apple martini, double-fudge martini and espresso double-fudge martini.
"[The espresso double-fudge martini] is really special," Edelman said. "It tastes like espresso, but it doesnt have esppresso in it."
Whatever it does haveis a secret, Edelman won't say.
So whether its drinks and dessert, a celebration meal, family dinner or catering needs, customers can enjoy it Japanese style.
kristine.porter@mcall.com
610-740-3144
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