When Rocky Aoki died earlier this month, we lost a great one. You might not know this Japanese native and New York transplant, but you've seen his work. Every flip of a knife, every flying shrimp tail caught in a chef's hat, every bad joke told over a steaming volcano constructed of onion slices — that's his doing. When he opened Benihana in 1964, Aoki created one of the first modern examples of culinary showmanship, melding chop-socky entertainment and traditional Japanese teppanyaki into an enduring concept.
Aoki also lived his life like his chefs cook steak — with panache, death-defying stunts and a fair amount of glee. He qualified for the Japanese Olympic wrestling team in 1960; raced just about anything with an engine; won national backgammon competitions; was the first man to cross the Pacific in a hot air balloon; founded the classic '80s porno mag Genesis; drove cross-country Cannonball Run-style in a custom Volkswagen Beetle stretch limo; and once had a horrific boating accident near the Golden Gate Bridge that sliced his liver in half and resulted in 12 hours of surgery and multiple internal organs removed. He came to three days later, only to see both his wife and his mistress waiting bedside. Damn, playa!
He died in a New York hospital with all six of his offspring and his current wife on hand. He had sued four of those kids a few years before for trying to wrest control of Benihana from him. By the end, though, they all got along. Sort of.
Like all dining trends, Aoki's creation lost its exciting blush years ago. But the dinner that combines approachable food couched in a vaguely ethnic setting, dazzling knife skills and occasional stunts of humor and agility has never lost its core appeal. There are over 100 Benihanas worldwide and countless imitators working the concept in almost every town in the United States.
Here in the Bay area, teppanyaki has long been repped by the venerable Arigato. Founder Dale Del Bello got in on the ground floor of the new craze in 1971, opening several in upstate New York before transplanting himself and the operation here to the Bay area in '78. It's been a long time since I sat ringside for a Japanese steakhouse show, so I cruised in, filled with nostalgia for the departed Aoki.
The Arigato in St. Pete is in the restaurant's original building, the interior displaying the full 38 years of layered décor and construction. There's always a wait, sometimes because the joint is busy, but most often because the hostess tries to fill an entire table of 10 before seating.
We are shown to one of Arigato's "sunken" tables. There may have once been fancy cushions to plop down on, but now there's just a carpeted platform topped by typical hotel banquet chairs with the legs lopped off. It's tough to squeeze our legs into the well between platform and cooktop, but comfortable enough once we get settled.
Teppanyaki is one of the only mainstream dining options where you're seated with strangers. Hell, it's one of the only times — dining or otherwise — where striking up a conversation with a total stranger is part of the experience. Go with it.
Then the show starts. Allegedly. A colorfully clad chef with towering toque rolls up a cart loaded with ingredients and starts banging and flipping his spatula and two-pronged fork before squirting oil onto the griddle. On go a pile of mushrooms, a stack of mixed veggies and a heap of fried rice. The kids to the left of us are enraptured by the sizzle and steam. I'm still waiting for the main event.
Right on cue, our guy starts stacking thick rings of raw onion into a short cone. He squirts alcohol into the general vicinity that turns to tower of flame and smoke the instant it hits the hot griddle. The kids love it, but it's a lackluster effort, more like lighter fluid on stuttering barbecue coals than the intricate volcanoes I've seen in the past.
He chops the veggies with efficiency, if not flair, and butterflies the shrimp with speedy knifework that never manages to hit the center of the shellfish while he slices. And besides confirming our orders, the guy is largely silent. At the end, when he flips the obligatory shrimp tail into his hat, he misses. I start craning my neck to see if other tables are getting a better show. Nope, doesn't look like it.
That leaves the food, which is never the strong point of the teppanyaki experience. It's all made to accommodate mass-market tastes — the sautéed meat, veggies and rice are seasoned with sweet soy and otherwise left alone. The filet mignon melts in our mouths, absurdly tender. The regular steak — slashed into tiny strips — is just as tasty, and hunks of scallop and chicken are plain but fine. It all smells of slightly burned oil and can only be doctored with mayo-based "yummy-yummy" sauce and more sweet soy. Order any of it at a normal restaurant and I guarantee you'd be disappointed. Get it with a tableside show and you won't be paying enough attention to care.
And that's the problem. My visit to Arigato was supposed to be a wake for Rocky Aoki, a man who created this prototypical brand of dining entertainment and lived his life with the same type of excitement and gasping adventure he tried to create at the table. What I got was the corpse of a dining trend gasping through its final breaths, just going through the motions until the curtain falls.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2008.
