Tepanyaki Vs. Benihana

For all you Tepanyaki lovers out there who have never been to Benihana and are wondering if one is better than the other, wonder no more. I have the answer for you right now. There is a Benihana here in Key West and we decided to take the kids there since Tepanyaki is their favorite restaurant. The atmosphere is nice, I liked their plates, and our Chef from "Tokyo, Honduras" was hysterical. (His first joke as he threw around knives and used Spanish words like "ay, ay,ay" was "What, you've never seen a Mexican with a knife before?" Okay, maybe a little inappropriate, but he started it...) So we awaited one of our favorite parts of the meal, the onion soup and yummy salad with ginger dressing. Let me say now, the highlight of our meal was the Mexican knife joke. Not only was the dressing not as good as Tepanyaki's, but I didn't like it at all! It was bitter and chunky and left a weird after taste in my mouth. Then it just went downhill from there. The soup was bland, my shrimp was tough, and the meat was seriously laking in flavor. Even a little salt and pepper would have helped. "Why not just flavor it with the sauces?" you ask. Because even the two sauces were weird tasting and one of them I just didn't like at all. Then at the very end, our entertaining Chef did the tallest volcano you have ever seen (he used two whole onion slices, the boys were impressed) and finished the meal off with butterless, flavorless, sauceless vegetables. We were left cold after this meal, especially because there was never any fire. None! What happened to the huge burst of flames at the beginning, middle and end of the meal? It's the showstopper for my kids! But there was no fire! The only thing greater about this meal was the price, and it was GREATER! So spare yourself the extra cash and disappointed taste buds, and just keep going to Tepanyaki.

On a more personal note, Rockwell turned to us after dinner and said, "Since there isn't a Tepanyaki in Florida can we go back to Springville? I miss Springville. Can we just go home now? I'm ready to go home now." So am I Rockwell, so am I.