As we speak, they are preparing for a festival of foodie theater that will happen seven nights a week in Creve Coeur. It is the theater of teppanyaki, Japanese hibachi cooking for an audience of diners. Zheng “Amy” Hui and Yan “Jason” Lin already own two successful Shogun Japanese Steakhouse restaurants (in Fairview Heights, Ill., and South County), and they hope to open their third in Creve Coeur’s Heritage Plaza shopping center by the end of this month.
Manager Chad Drmacich was kind enough to provide this play-by-play of the typical teppanyaki experience: “First the chef likes to shoot fire in the air to get everybody’s attention. Then he takes some spatulas and a two-pronged fork and does some flipping. Then, he usually makes a volcano that shoots fire and smoke out of a pile of sliced onion. Soy sauce shoots out of it like lava, too. Then he starts cooking. The chef talks to you, and he flips little pieces of vegetables to everyone, and you catch them in the air with your mouth. He talks some more, he cooks, he cracks jokes here and there, and then he’s done, and it’s time to eat.”
The new Shogun Japanese Steakhouse will also feature a sushi bar and an indoor pond.
– Byron Kerman
This article appears in Jan 1-31, 2010.