Benihana: Teppanyaki With A Twist [Review]

Why settle for just dinner when you can get dinner with a little bit of theatrics?

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When you go to a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant, it’s quite common to sit at a counter table and see the chef behind it cooking up your order while you watch.

That itself is already quite a unique experience for many people.

But what if it’s stepped up a notch? Imagine a teppanyaki restaurant where the chef not only cooks for you, but also cracks jokes, pulls (harmless) pranks, and does performative cooking with flair – like juggling their spatulas or pulling off fire tricks!

That’s what happened when we had the opportunity to sit down for a meal and a whole experience at Benihana in Suria KLCC.

What is Benihana?

Benihana is a world-famous teppanyaki restaurant with 79 outlets all over the globe. They’re well-known for their performative chefs who cook all your orders Hibachi-style, which is when food is cooked over a flat grill, while diners watch in awe.

It was founded in New York in 1964 by Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki. In case you’re wondering, yes Rocky Aoki is the father of electro house DJ Steve Aoki and fashion model Devon Aoki.

How wild is that!

Hiraoki “Rocky” Aoki circa 1981. He was also a professional powerboat racer and wrestler. Image: Wikipedia

Back to the restaurant, what sets Benihana apart from other teppanyaki joints is its simple yet effective formula: transforming a simple meal into a captivating performance.

For decades, the restaurant’s talented chefs have been dazzling its guests with memorable food and performances that are different with each visit.

Everything from fire tricks, simple magic tricks, jokes, light pranks, and even challenges where diners get to participate are just a few ways Benihana engages with its customers right at the dinner (or lunch) table.

Our Benihana chef demonstrating his fire trick skills. No eyebrows were singed in the making. Image: Shahril Bahrom | TRP

Kaiseki course with three options to choose from

For our review, we decided to try one of the Kaiseki courses. There are three to choose from, which are “aka” (RM148), “kiiro” (RM198), and “midori” (RM258).

Since it was our first time, we asked for the first on the Kaiseki menu: the “aka” course.

It includes three starters – a cold tofu salad, a hot tofu appetiser, and the special Beni Egg Roll.

Preparing the Beni Egg Roll, and the final result was a delicious, savoury egg roll stuffed with crab stick and seaweed drizzled with a special mayo. Image: Shahril Bahrom | TRP

For the main dish, you have to choose from either a fresh, boneless chicken thigh or Nowegian salmon steak.

Other dishes that accompanied the main course were their Vegetable Volcano – a stir fried mix of onion, royale chives, cabbage, shirataki, and shiitake mushrooms – as well as a bowl of Beni Onion soup and garlic fried rice cooked with eggs and butter shoyu.

The chicken thigh was perfectly seasoned, cooked, and then diced, before getting a drizzle of teriyaki sauce on one batch and garlic butter sauce on the other batch. Its skin was lightly cooked to a perfect crisp, which completed the entire dish. Image: Shahril Bahrom | TRP

With its sweet and savoury flavour profile, the onion flower soup provided comforting warmth in between each course. Image: Shahril Bahrom | TRP

Arguably a favourite at local Japanese restaurants in Malaysia, the garlic fried rice cooked in butter shoyu was very well-balanced in flavour. No overpowering garlic taste or smell here! Image: Shahril Bahrom | TRP

The mouth-watering course was topped off with a sweet treat – pudding with black sugar syrup and a toasted bread wafer dipped in the same syrup. Image: Shahril Bahrom | TRP

If you opt for the more expensive courses, they have pretty much the same starters and sides. But, its mains include A6 wagyu steaks, jumbo tiger prawns, Hokkaido scallops, and wild-caught cod fish depending on which you choose. If you find that the proteins are not enough, there’s the option to add on more (at an extra cost, of course).

Our talented chef, Chef Has, was all smiles and jokes as he prepared the ingredients and cooked our meals.

Benihana chefs are as impressive as they are talented

The most impressive thing about Benihana’s chefs, is that they can engage with customers in conversations, throw puns, juggle kitchen utensils, and pull off fire tricks all while cooking our orders.

Their focus and ability to multitask at the same time is something definitely worthy of praise.

Speaking to TRP, Benihana Malaysia’s managing director Kyran Arusalm said the chefs are all trained in in-house.

“There were many who applied but not all of them made the cut. You have to do a lot of things at the same time when you’re a Benihana chef. Some focused on cooking too much and forget about the customers, and some interacted too much with the customers and left the food burning on the cooking stove,” Kyran said when asked about the chef’s training.

Kyran Arusalm, managing director of Benihana Malaysia. Photo provided to TRP.

When asked about the chef’s routines with customers, Kyran explained that each chef has to follow certain signature routines set by Benihana but they’re also allowed to be creative and include their own skills and talents be it magic tricks or challenges. This means that each visit will always be a different experience.

Kyran also mentioned that there are plans to open more Benihana outlets so more people around Malaysia can share the good food and experience, but it won’t be anytime soon since the the first one in Malaysia has only been open for four months.

Whether you’re looking for a place to have dinner with family, hold business meetings over lunch, or even special occasions like a birthday celebration, Benihana is an ideal place for a unique dining experience right in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

One more important question we had was: what’s the halal situation of benihana?

Benihana KLCC does not have a Jakim Halal certificate. However, we were informed that the ingredients are from halal suppliers, and the food in their outlet in Malaysia does not contain alcohol.

Address: Suria KLCC, Lot LC-401, LC-401A & LC-407, 4th Floor, 50088 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur

To make table reservations, head over to www.benihana.com.my.

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